On September 12, Roundarch proudly sponsored the American Cancer Society’s Second Annual Corporate Softball Invitational, held at Manhattan’s East River Park. The softball tournament raises funds for the American Cancer Society’s outreach and lifesaving programs and services, invaluable resources for individuals and families battling cancer. As a sponsor and participating team for the second consecutive year, Roundarch recognizes the importance of a healthy lifestyle, and we took the field with a group of new and returning players aiming to build upon last year’s achievements. Playing under rainy skies for much of the afternoon, the Roundarch Rounders competed against other New York companies, with each of the corporate teams united in the fight against cancer.

Top row (left-to-right): Dave Vanslette, Rick Tilghman, Marcel Walden, Jim Butler, Rick Marshall, Rob Bischoff. Bottom row (left-to-right): Todd Healy, Dan Shaw, Karen Donofrio, Sarah Plowright, Matthew Halpin

Between games, the teams gathered in the East River Park amphitheater to reflect on personal experiences of dealing with cancer, while Jason Carpenter, a softball player and cancer survivor, shared his own story of battling the disease. During the intermission, we were thrilled to learn that, thanks to the generous fundraising efforts of all players and teams, the Second Annual Corporate Softball Invitational raised nearly $24,000 for the American Cancer Society. Inspired by the tournament’s overwhelming success, Roundarch returned to the diamond and held a two-run lead in the second game before falling just short of our goal of reaching the championship round. Roundarch looks for even more success on and off the field next season, as we proudly continue to support the American Cancer Society’s mission of research, education, advocacy and service.

The American Cancer Society accepts donations throughout the year. For information on additional ways to support the fight against cancer, please visit the American Cancer Society.

A little over a month ago I came across an interesting thread on Brenden Dawes’ Twitter stream on the lifespan of iconography that I thought warranted a longer post:

Brenden asks:

And:

These are very valid questions.

I think answer to the first question is that we’re not so much wed to familiar, analogue objects - they’re part of our iconographic DNA. We don’t have a say in the matter, we’re stuck with our analogue icons until our technology progresses far enough to render them obsolete, killing them off and forcing us to reference these extinct symbols through fossilized JPGs, GIFs and PNGs.

Every generation is inherently transitional. What’s different with each successive generation are the specific things that are mutating, evolving, dying and spawning.

Horses to automobiles. Radio to television. Gas lighting to light bulbs. Even now, those previous three examples are could still be used be used as icons (the horse might come across a bit obscure and humorous, but I bet it would still work to convey ‘transportation’).

When we transition from one technology to another, this doesn’t mean the technology being replaced has run it’s course. Radio technology was invented in the late 1800’s but we still have it to this day (Hell, the Microsoft Zune still come equipped with FM tuners, god knows why). It is the reason the NPR iPhone app can use an old-fashioned radio to indicate their ‘radio’ programs and a radio tower to indicate their stations. We still understand what these things symbolize.

bottom row of icons on the NPR iPhone app

The bottom line is, for the time being, our icons of televisions, radios, cars, envelopes, paper pages and hardcover books are more than sufficient to represent their digital counterparts.

Beyond the Digital

Fine. As long as we have our living analogue ancestors around, our iconography can stay in place and mutate when some of them become extinct. We get it.

Let’s stretch this out to it’s logical conclusion - there is no interface. We become the interface. The interface becomes us.

We’ll reach a point in the future where what Mr. Dawes is saying does come to be. People will no longer understand that bell telephone means ‘call someone’. Phones will become implants and we’ll simply say a person’s name to our interfaceless voice recognition system. We have HUDs in jets and cars, is it really a stretch to image an HUD eye implant?

Picture an iPhone without the iPhone.

Ironman without (or with) the special suit.

Given enough time, I could easily expand this post into a full thesis, but alas, I have to get back to work.

*in addition to Brenden Dawes tweets, I also found great thoughts by Samuel Cotterall here, here and here.