Had a fun time presenting ZIM (http://zimjs.com) last night at the Software Hamilton Demo Camp to an audience of 100 developers, designers, entrepreneurs, etc. in the Art Gallery of Hamilton’s Tanenbaum Pavilion.
It was one of the sweetest (in the old-fashioned sense) welcomes I’ve had where a few shouts of Dan Zen led to a growing round of applause as I was taking the stage. It is nice to have a history of talks, the last being Droner http://droner.mobi where the audience controlled me with the multiuser app from their phones. I still had people coming up to me thinking that my essence of being is Kitty Tartan – http://kittytartan.com – I would much prefer they take note of Tilty http://tilty.mobi and Touchy http://touchy.mobi both of which I presented at different times with the audience playing with business cards and coins with their neighbors. So from the first Demo Camp where I presented Optartic Tunnel http://opartica.com – the app that I made my spinning pleasure card with to the Keynote on Creativity and New Forms of Mobile Games http://wp.me/p9ja-8Z, Demo Camp has been a very rewarding experience.
So on taking the stage, I explained that I did not wear my turquoise fun-fur cape (or was it a bib) as I wanted the audience to take me seriously. I was presenting ZIM which lets us build more easily on the Canvas side of HTML where we are free to dynamically draw for artistic purposes, drag, drop and hit test to make puzzles, e-learning apps and games – the traditional realm of Interactive Media. I presented the live examples and finished with the fact that since ZIM Frame has launched… ZIM is now officially a framework.
Questions and comments were fast a fun as always! One asked about avoiding the pitfalls of Flash interface – I claimed that I did not believe in one interface fits all of the ultra efficient consistency principle and we need room to explore as variety is the spice of life. Other answers had me saying if security ever became an issue, we could blame HTML and another answer had me poking fun at the HTML components which are in dire need of some design love and extension.
My favourite part was the last question where an eccentric character in the back shouted, “How is ZIM better than WHAT?” I asked what was what? The audience and I puzzled and then realized we were looking for a comparison with the competition. I hesitated a little – then said that the reason I made ZIM is that I needed what it provided and there were no other solutions that I knew of – so… I guess… ZIM is better than… nothing. I did not realize what I was saying… just came to that conclusion from my logic. So – ZIM is better than nothing!
http://zimjs.com/ try it out and then see the HELP section for community help and discussion.
Dan Zen 