• Steve Portigal presenting "We've Done All This Research: Now What?" at Web 2.0 Expo New York on 11/17 – As designers increasingly are themselves conducting contextual research to inform their design work, they may find they are holding onto a trove of raw data but with little awareness of how to turn it into design. How can designers and researchers work with this type of data to have the most impact on design and business?

  Participants in this workshop, collaborating in teams, will learn an effective framework for synthesizing raw data (to be gathered before and/or during the workshop) into insights, and then creatively using those insights to develop a range of business concepts that respond to those insights.

• On the Trail of an Annoying Announcement – Travel writer Joe Sharkey on the irritation and ineffectiveness of repeated airport announcements
• Advertising in context – HBO is putting audio-enabled billboards in NY and LA to promote the season premier of "Big Love." I liked this localization detail: "HBO representatives at the sites will answer questions and, in Los Angeles, offer disposable headphones. The company assumed that New York commuters would bring their own."
• Curious study on persuasion in cautioning teens about their online profies – "Many teenagers cleaned up their MySpace profiles, deleting mentions of sex and booze and boosting privacy settings, if they got a single cautionary e-mail from a busybody named "Dr. Meg." The e-mail was sent by Dr. Megan Moreno, lead researcher of a study of lower-income kids that she says shows how parents and other adults can encourage safer Internet use."

I’ll be headed to NYC and environs next week for a couple of days. Not a lot of downtime, but I am hoping to check out the Apple store. Any other suggestions? It’s been six months or so since I’ve been there.