Speaking of Pixelblocks and LEGOs, I had two facilitators from the local authorized practice of LEGO Serious Play come for a day of introductory sessions.

LEGO Serious Play is a consulting service offered in 28 countries around the world that uses specially-designed sets of LEGO bricks and accessories to facilitate group sessions in developing visions, mission statements, strategies, brand identities, competitive landscapes, processes and much more.

Here are a few scenes from the day: (2, 3) our group's managers attended a custom session in the morning along with our coach from Organizational Learning & Performance (4) Geoff Davis (and his brother Steve not pictured) expertly leads the session (5) My second LEGO model built in the alloted time of 10 minutes to illustrate ... well I shouldn't say (6, 7, 8) In the afternoon, we had a larger, more general session for staff. In both sessions, all participants got to keep the trial kit of LEGO bricks and parts, which is sure to result in wacky sculptures appearing on people's desks.

- mike lee - washington, dc

I realized after my last post I should have shown a Pixelblock in relation to a common object. Here is a yellow Pixelblock resting comfortably on a dime. The Pixelblock site says their blocks are still larger than the smallest LEGO brick.

- mike lee - langley park, md

Here's a series of photos to document the out-of-box experience of the boxed set of 800 Pixelblocks I bought for $24 today at the art store.

(1, 2) Opening the box (3) Individually-bagged sets of color blocks and 24-page idea booklet (4) I re-bagged the sets of blocks in small Ziploc-type bags (5) 15x loupe close-up of two blocks slide joined flush (6) Blocks slide joined offset (7) Blocks stacked (8) At the back end of every block's open core is a microscopic patent number and color code--handy! (9) Reviewed the assembly schematic for the baby chick figure (10) Partially assembled figure layers (11) Finished figure ... assembly time: 30 minutes (12) Small parts warning symbol on the box ... not for children under 3!

Pixelblocks have a play experience much like LEGO bricks, but there is the added focus on designing with deliberate thought to color palettes. Because these blocks are uniform in size and much smaller than a typical LEGO brick, they are easier to store and transport in large numbers. I think the true innovation here is that the creators brought toy to market that is more versatile than LEGOs but are different enough in every way to avoid being sued.

This week, I'm going to play with the web interface to create plans for a Digital Stained Glass.

- mike lee - langley park, md

Heidi, it's great to see you're back on Hiptop Nation. I enjoyed all the on-the-ground scenes of Kansas City in your original posts. Looking forward to more!

Now where's that other person who just got a Sidekick II?

- mike lee - baltimore

...with the Aunties at City Cafe again. Mimosas spiked the conversation while I played with a Polaroid i-zone camera.

- mike lee - baltimore

...on a 30" Apple Cinema HD Display at CompUSA. I can take this experience home for a cool $3299.99.

At the end of a week that saw Baby Cianna go from her tentative steps a few weeks ago to walking unassisted as far as seven feet, she started to feed herself at lunch today at Rocky Run. This is an achievement that once again validates millions of years of evolution that have allowed Cianna to close the gap between bipedalism and tool usage in less than a month. I know if Louis Leakey were with us today he'd give Cianna a wink and a thumbs up.

- mike lee - baltimore

Carma's Cafe is a coffee shop that opened last month just off the main drag of Charles Village just a couple blocks from the JHU Homewood Campus. It occupies what was once a hardware store and makes the basement space a cozy winter hangout. Now all they need is free WiFi.

- mike lee - baltimore

I picked up another Radio Shack Digital Photo Viewer (#63-1078) last night. I described this thing in a previous post. Though MWS said earlier that he wasn't able to find one, I still think there are plenty around. You can quickly search on Radio Shack's web site for stores that still have this device in stock. Go to the product page for the Digital Photo Viewer. Enter in your local zip code and start a stock search. A list of the 10 nearest stores will be returned with green icons marking which stores have the viewer in stock. You can give these places a call to have a clerk verify. If the first 10 stores don't turn up a viewer, note the zip code of the last store in the search results and enter that as a new search to shift to stores located further away. Depending on where you live, you should be able to find at least one of these, especially since there are over 6,800 Radio Shacks in the U.S.

I'm still hot on this gadget because anything that functions even remotely like a digital photo viewer or picture frame costs $200-500. At $49, though the screen quality is average, it's a steal. Since you can mount the CF card in the viewer on your PC desktop via USB, think of this gadget as a CF/SD card reader that also happens to display photo slideshows.

This same product is sold in different case designs as the GigaExpo P350 or Smartparts Digital Photo Viewer. The Smartparts version is all over at places like Amazon, Wolf Camera and CostCo at prices from $108 - $195. What this means to me is that there will be a lot more of these over-priced viewers on deep discount closeout after the new year. Then let the hacking begin.

If you find one of the viewers, read these detailed blog instructions on how to set up your CF card photo files.

- mike lee - baltimore

I was studying the opening sequence of Moulin Rouge tonight on DVD for the project I'm working on with Keri, when I, um, started to get distracted by the close-ups of Nicole Kidman.

- mike lee - langley park, md