For those of you following any of our tweets or updates, I mentioned that we were recently inspired by the Johnny Chung Lee Wiimote Whiteboard project. If you’re not familiar with Johhny’s work, you can check out his videos on YouTube. The Wiimote Whiteboard turns a video projector and a Nintendo Wii Remote into an interactive, digital whiteboard. Our first thoughts when we saw the video were, “Whoa! That would be an amazing way for us to collaborate with some of our remote partners!”. Then we realized that the concept had much further reaching implications, including eliminating the need for some forms of business travel. The downstream effects of this are the best part: bundles of money saved on travel expenses (useful in today’s economy) and reduction of greenhouse gases (useful on today's planet). Bonus!

So, within a week, we’d assembled the kit of parts, consisting of a Wiimote, an overhead projector with a luxurious custom tripod mount, a few Tinder-made infrared pens and some gesture-based graphics packages to experiment with. We fired up the system on Wednesday, and have been exploring applications, behavioral changes, and product opportunities ever since. We’ll be providing updates on learnings as we can, so watch this space. To simplify your life, you can now subscribe via RSS to this page using your browser.

I can't think of a more inspiring place to live and work than Portland, Oregon. It's full of dreamers on 'tall bikes', adventurers, artists, musicians, artisanal coffee roasters, micro-distillers, foodies, designers, I could go on for a while. Anyway all of these interesting folks, living at the edge of the country, all grooving on the natural beauty of the place, trying to find some sort of rainy paradise. You want creative? It's all over the place here. You want inspiring. It's all around us.

So, what's with the title of this post, then? Well, I guess it's because my neighbors recently assembled a true to life commune (yeah, I'm writing this in 2008 AD) right across the street.  It's quite a crowd over there. Talk about culture! 

If we walk past "the commune" on a nice evening, we might see ten exotically attired folks, admiring the sunset, from the peak of their roof, playing flutes. I see saffron-robed monks occassionally arriving in an old Toyota Tercel. I've met dudes with flowers in their hair, carrying jugs of a home-brewed kombacha-cousin called Jun, and learned about it's mystic mother. And finally, I've seen an accidental tree-maiming, which, in the right hands, could really create a funny bit of irony. (The punch line of the story is the title of this post.)

So, anyway, Portland's a great place to keep your mind open to the possibilities. That's why Tinder is based here. If you've never been, come on out. We'll make sure you leave with a new perspective on things.

We've got a few principles regarding our work that I feel is worth socializing with all of you. Here it goes. If we go off track, point it out. Because this is where we want to be.

Experiential: The sum of our work needs to be seen, felt, heard, or whatever it takes to get the point across in a way let's clients live the idea.

Simple: We pride ourselves on finding clear patterns in a world of complexity. This process can be painful. It can lead to long days and nights. But ultimately it's worth it, because simplicity is beautiful. 

Actionable: If you can't make something out of what we've given you, then it's a waste of time. Whatever we do, it needs to either be an explicit action, or clearly driving action. 

Beneficial: We want to make the world a better place. We want people to be healthier. Environments to be cleaner. Worries to be smaller. Our projects have to eliminate worldly pinch points, or we've missed the point.