Spacedeck Blog

How We Got Here and Where We're Going

therealmntmn — Thu, 30 May 2013 19:05:06 +0200

TLDR: Creative and knowledge work is transformed again by shifts in technology, but applications don’t keep up yet. Spacedeck is our contribution to a more social and connected way of working digitally. We want to work with the community and request your feedback. Also, looking for iOS, Android and API beta testers.

The Desktop Environment

Xerox Star ViewPoint. Source: DigiBarn computer museum

The desktop environment transformed the computer into a machine that augmented creativity. It became the central starting place for anyone who wanted to get some work done that involved more than crunching numbers on a fast calculator. Apple and later NeXT brought the ideas of the Xerox Star into the mainstream and on everyone’s desk. The desktop metaphor was immensely popular. It was copied and iterated upon by countless companies like Microsoft, Commodore, Atari, IBM, Sun and the Open Source movement. It made Linus Torvalds very angry when the GNOME 3 team wanted to take the Desktop away from him.

People started to replace some of the tedious physical labor that they did before with desktop applications. Vendors like Quark, Adobe or Autodesk came along and wrote large, expensive suites of work environments that demonstrated that it was really a much better idea to do typesetting on a computer instead of physically stacking blocks of movable type for every line of text you wanted to print in a newspaper. Similar shifts happened to graphics design, photo manipulation, film editing, music creation or architecture.

The Networked Office of the 90s

Windows for Workgroups. Source: Wikipedia

So everyone churned away happily in their offices, using desktop computers connected by network equipment and maybe an office file server or two that enabled to have something called a shared disk drive.

The shared drive and the shared printer made it possible (in theory) for one person to see the changes that a coworker made to a document and continue from there without physically walking up to them and getting a new copy on a floppy disk. People in the company could create hierarchical structures of folders on the shared network drive that would serve as a kind of representation of how they saw the structure of what the company was doing. They sent each other feedback or new tasks using E-Mail and put their appointments and deadlines in an Outlook calendar.

The Social Web

Google staff starting to set up for the U.S. President’s first Google+ Hangout. Source: Wikipedia

Then, a few things happened really fast. The web became big. Thanks to rivalry and collaboration between Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and Apple, browsers became incredibly capable pieces of technology. Today, Chrome and Firefox are literally miniature graphical operating systems (this has manifested recently in Chrome OS and Firefox OS) that are highly optimized to exchange data with the web and render it quickly.

Highly entangled with the success of the web was the rise of social networks (in the end, mostly Facebook, Twitter and Google+, but there are a myriad niche and specialized networks out there) in the late 2000s. Digital social networks are incredibly important because they demonstrate, again, the necessity and importance of personal relations between people beyond their offline lives. They also fundamentally changed the perception of the world into that of a larger communication and opportunity space than it was before, something that users of early IRC chat rooms and Email already knew.

Post-PC

The third thing that happened is what some people (especially Apple) called the Post-PC revolution. It’s something that someone at Microsoft misunderstood a little with Windows 8 when they messed with everyone’s Desktop experience because they thought: “Desktop = PC and PCs are dead”. What Post-PC really means is that there was never really a lot of need for personal computation because most people simply care about other things than computation in their daily lives. What the PC has instead evolved into is a number of connected devices that let people communicate and express themselves, consume and share media and explore their surroundings independently of the physical situation they are in.

Still, depending on what you want to do, you might need a keyboard, maybe a mouse or trackpad, a pen or a hierarchical file management system. You just don’t necessarily need a PC anymore. And you don’t necessarily need a traditional office, a networked drive or a boxed suite of business applications anymore. The nature of working with information changes as does technology.

New Tools for a New Environment

Launchlabs staff working digitally in a physical space.

Just like in the decades before, the dramatic technological and social changes that occurred in the last few years will again impact the ways in which we get our work done. We want our work to be seamlessly integrated with the web. We don’t want to make technical distinctions between photos, vector graphics or a video on Youtube just because the software was written in a pre-web era or built around the idea of having to print something.

Through the web, we have discovered that there are talented people and opportunities all over the planet, and we might want to work with them. So our digital tools should be social: we want to invite others to take a look or contribute an idea directly inside our documents. Google Docs (now Drive) has pioneered this for traditional text documents and spreadsheets with great success.

But we also want to explore new forms of highly visual documents, representing information in a way that is more fitting to the dynamic nature of the web and our work. When we’re on the go and something comes to our mind, we want to capture this thought or sight on our mobile device and be sure that it’s there in our digital work environment later, automatically, without effort.

Our Contribution

A brainstorming session in Spacedeck

Spacedeck is our contribution to the coming age of seamlessly connected work environments, and in the 2 years that we spent developing it, we think that we have come a long way. But we need to do a lot more, and want to develop it more closely together with you. We want to discuss what works, what can be done and what should be avoided in the open. So please feel free to respond in your own blogs, in our Tumblr comments, on Twitter, or on our Facebook page. Talk to us and about us. Or meet us in Berlin for a beer.

Oh, and two more things:

Who wants to beta-test our iOS and Android Applications?
Who wants to beta-test a REST API integration?

Drop us a line at info@spacedeck.net.

Cheers,

Lukas, Co-Founder of Spacedeck

A Bunch of Videos Showing off the New Spacedeck

therealmntmn — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:55:40 +0200

Global Service Jam 2013 in Full Effect

therealmntmn — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 15:39:52 +0100

The Spacedeck crew says hello to the Global Service Jam teams, who are busy churning out new service concepts over the 48 hours of this weekend. At the same time in countless cities all over the world. We wish you all lots of energy and good ideas!

We thank for the opportunity to sponsor the Berlin event this time.

Check out the jamming at http://www.globalservicejam.org or on twitter: https://twitter.com/gsjam.

New Things to Try: Embedding

therealmntmn — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 15:25:30 +0100

We recently discovered a great service called infogr.am that allows you to create interactive data visualizations in the browser. At Spacedeck, we love stuff like that, of course.

With our new embedding feature, you can combine useful services like infogr.am and Spacedeck, with the added value of being able to share, comment, and combine them in your realtime Space.

Create a new note (by double clicking anywhere)
Enter embed: followed by the link you want to embed.
Press return or click somewhere else to finish.
The website should now be loaded inside your note.

Have fun!

From Dropbox to InDesign: How leading creative agencies integrate Spacedeck to pitch in style

therealmntmn — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 18:46:00 +0100

From the beginning, we wanted Spacedeck to support creative collaboration in a multitude of ways. Last month we launched our public Beta, and already prominent agencies like Sehsucht Berlin embraced its speed and simplicity to enhance their workflow.

If you happen to be an art director and need to pitch style frames, mood boards or similar visual concepts to your clients, Spacedeck can give you an edge:

Share a Deck with your team members and create a Space for your pitch.
Collect visual material (images, videos, vector graphics) from the web or your local network by directly dragging and dropping it into the Space. Or select “Choose file(s) from Dropbox” to use content you already have in Dropbox.
The contents you see are synched in realtime with what your coworkers see. Say goodbye to manual saving and re-loading InDesign or Keynote files.
As a bonus we implemented direct Copy & Paste support of image data from apps like Photoshop or Preview into the browser. Try it, it’s a bit like magic.
Discuss using comments, the chat, the Deck Feed or Skype until you’re happy with your content.
Select “Export to PDF” from your Space’s drop down menu.
Open the PDF with Adobe Illustrator and polish it to your brand’s needs. Or copy & paste content over to your Adobe InDesign templates. All the image, vector and text elements that you collected in Spacedeck will be editable in full resolution.
Send completed pitch to your client.
Profit.

We are currently working on many more ways to integrate Spacedeck into all kinds of visual and conceptual workflows. Where is the pain in your process today? Where do you require more seamless collaboration? How do you already use Spacedeck?

We always love to hear your stories!

Welcome to 2013, everyone! The year started very well for us,...

therealmntmn — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 17:55:39 +0100

Welcome to 2013, everyone!

The year started very well for us, with a lot of new people trying out Spacedeck Beta. So let’s kick it off with an inside look on how Martin, Tom and I “dogfood” or own product, narrated by yours truly. The video also gives some of the many answers to the question: “What is Spacedeck useful for?”

We’re very curious about how Spacedeck could help you or your team. Feel free to chat us up on twitter or in the comments.

Open Beta

therealmntmn — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 18:44:08 +0100

Hello again.

As of now, Spacedeck Beta is open for everybody. You can sign up and test it at https://spacedeck.net/users/new.

In the coming days, we’ll post some explanatory material and how-to instructions here. Right now, feel free to play around and explore. Spacedeck has a many powerful features that might not be obvious at first glance.

Please don’t hesitate to enter an open discourse with Martin and me. Spacedeck will evolve in 2013, and we want it to evolve together with you.

Cheers,

Martin (@magegu) and Lukas (@mntmn)

Weave Article featuring Launchlabs

magegu — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 19:56:54 +0200

Hi there!

Spacedeck shares a wonderful (real-life) space with Launchlabs founded by Simon Blake. A few weeks ago Weave Magazine visited him and wrote an article about his work. Spacedeck got some coverage, too, which we attached (sorry, in German).

Thanks Simon, Thanks Weave!

Global Service Jam Berlin

magegu — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 20:34:00 +0200

[Update on July 8th, 2012: we migrated the original post written on Feb 25th, 2012 from our previous blog and renamed Spaceship to Spacedeck, see separate post]

Hi There, We are honored to talk about Spacedeck and its bigger context at the Service Jam Berlin 2012 . The Service Jam Berlin is part of the global Global Service Jam event and will be open for around 40 service design enthusiasts who are eager to learn new methods and tools and share their experience.

Our talk Beyond the app – building a service ecosystem for creatives will be held only with Spacedeck as a presentation tool and explain how we got here and what we are up to. We are really excited about this experiment and hope to share a recording publicly later. Thank you GSJ Berlin 2012 Team & Participants and happy jamming! Cheers, Martin

GESTERN MORGEN with Lukas

magegu — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 20:33:00 +0200

[Update on July 8th, 2012: we migrated the original post written on Feb 2nd, 2012 from our previous blog and renamed Spaceship to Spacedeck, see separate post]

Lukas will join the next “GESTERN MORGEN” event of his former faculty at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK Berlin) to talk about his experiences as a GWK alumnus and – even more importantly – founder of Spacedeck! It’s an open event so stop by as you like! You will find more details about the event in the official flyer below.

Introducing Spacedeck

magegu — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 20:32:00 +0200

[Update on July 8th, 2012: we migrated to tumblr and renamed the Spaceship to Spacedeck, see separate post]
[Update on Feb 12th, 2012: a sneak peak into Spaces at the end of the post.]

Hello.

We’re Martin and Lukas. And we’d like to introduce you to Spacedeck: a new web application that we’ve been secretly building for a few months now. Generally speaking: with Spacedeck, we ultimately aim to lift your creative process to a new level of productivity and fun. Spacedeck is for you if you need to:

Crack conceptual nuts
Discover new insights in haystacks of input
Refine, present and document complex ideas, drafts and prototypes
Make decisions and get feedback
Keep your team (or yourself) focused along the ride of a multi-stage project

Stuck in the past

We, as software engineers (and in some other odd roles: Martin is also a Design Thinker and Lukas has a Communications degree) have personally worked with many different teams and in companies of all sizes. And while most of them produced useful or dazzling things, we felt that nobody had a contemporary solution for developing and communicating about concepts. While we enjoy pens, pieces of paper and whiteboards, we’re also frustrated by their limits: they’re not connected, searchable or filterable and they collect dust on your walls and rot in your drawers and wastebins. We found and tried a lot of products that try to simulate analog tools like note-taking apps or virtual whiteboards. Web afficionados work together in Google Docs. A forward-thinking filmmaker might manually copy character mugshots into a Dropbox folder. We heard of people who like the experience of Evernote. Most corporate sparks of change are buried in boring tables in Exchange, Notes or Sharepoint. If you shop around for “innovation management” products, you’ll probably blink and look twice before you discover — no offense — that most of their user experience is stuck in the 90s. We know because we actually integrated solutions for these environments in our freelance pasts.

Tabula Rasa

At Spacedeck, we believe that it’s time to build a new digital tool for the people who make a difference. One that ties together the good ideas we’ve seen strewn all over the landscape into one streamlined experience. We think this tool needs to provide at least the following to be fun and allow you to stay in the flow:

A direct and visual style of working with most types of media
Realtime collaboration for distributed teams
High speed
Apps to contribute thoughts, photos and video from mobile
The ability to search everything
Customizability of your unique process
We’re also including an API for developers right from the start.

This list describes what we currently aim for; but as we try to iterate quickly and work with you, it might change a lot down the road.

Closed Beta

Because we’re building a technically complex product, we’re launching in multiple stages, revealing one major component at a time, until we’re confident that all parts have been sufficiently critiqued by our Closed Beta users. We’ll begin with the first central piece, the Space, on February 1st. If we managed to whet your appetite: please consider taking part in our Closed Beta by filling out a request at https://spacedeck.net/users/beta_request. We’ll then send you an invitation. Looking forward to your enlightening feedback, Martin and Lukas.