About Tim Healey

Tim is a DJ, music producer and digital advertiser.

Little Grey Cells #6… People don't realise Facebook is all about monetising social graphs

One-time keyboard player for industrial band Psychic TV, Douglas Rushkoff’s 10 best-selling books on new media and popular culture have been translated into more than 30 languages.

He is technology and media commentator for CNN, and has taught and lectured around the world about media, technology and economics. His latest book: Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age dissects our relationship with computer code and is a call to arms in our digital age. Continue reading

Little Grey Cells #5… the mad world of visuals genius Vello Verkhaus

If you need state-of-the-art computer graphics and 3D projections, then you need Vello Verkhaus, the man behind the insane on-stage visuals for shows such as American Idol and musicians as varied as Coldplay, Kanye West and Skrillex. We persuade him to to take five minutes to allow us a peek at his little grey cells.

Did you get into these visual installations from a background in computers and code, fine art, film/video perceptive?

I got into these visual installations and experiential projects from a background in Art & Technology studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Continue reading

Little Grey Cells #4… No jargon, people who want to code come from all walks of life

* Blazing a trail based on empowerment through knowledge of code, Kathryn Parsons is co-founder of Decoded, teaching anyone to code in a
day. Little Grey Cells peers inside the mind of a 2012 digital mover and shaker.

Contrary to popular belief people who want to understand how to code come from all walks of life…  

We have had students, teachers, politicians, entrepreneurs, brands, CEOs of FTSE 100 companies…we even had a very well-known Hollywood director get in contact recently (his latest film is going to be about hackers!). Code is not the preserve of a select few, it is a creative and strategic skill too. Continue reading

Little Grey Cells #3… It’s time for an end of the TV-versus-internet argument

* Tess Alps is the CEO of Thinkbox, the marketing body for commercial TV, and avid campaigner for the end of the TV-versus-Internet argument. She spares a few moments to engage with her Little Grey Cells

I like lots of media other than TV
Yes, both as a consumer and as a marketing professional. But I do this job because I have a strong sense of injustice; no medium is more undervalued or misrepresented than TV. It’s a mission.

TV, not the TV
That’s what I represent and care about. The cultural importance of that professionally produced content can’t be overstated and it needs serious money to maintain the quality and range we currently enjoy. I couldn’t care less what technology delivers it or what screen you watch it on. Continue reading

Little Grey Cells #2… any implied ‘how you should do it’ – you should throw away

* Anthony Rose has been inventing since his teens. Having been hired by the BBC to execute the iPlayer and now having launched the Zeebox, Monty’s Outlook catches up with him for a look at his Little Grey Cells:

Good digital design is all about:

Creating propositions that fulfil their audience’s need, are easy for the man in the street to understand and use, and that never make you feel foolish or frustrated.

I got into technology when I was about 12 years old:

I made a hot belt surface mount reflow machine and a robot pick-and-place machine. It was a robot system to assemble circuit boards with miniaturised technology – probably not something the average school kid had in his bedroom.

I designed circuit-boards for Panasonic and Apple. I made ones that were explosion-proof and that could go down coal mines, and I made consumer electronics. I formed my own one-man company – and then at some point, I figured I needed to grow the company or figure out something else to do.

Maybe I was tired of getting my hair burnt with the soldering iron, but a friend said there was an opportunity to get into real-time 3D graphics, and put together a software team making interactive movies, for the SEGA platform.

In the 1990s I decided to switch from hardware to software. I have been in consumer media propositions since then. First with real-time 3D graphics, then with a digital music store, then Kazaa, then with BBC iPlayer and now on Zeebox. Continue reading

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