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“I don’t like all this wasted space..”

That’s the comment I heard from a gallery visitor, walking along the second floor of the contemporary wing of the Chicago Art Institute. Comments like that make my skin crawl. Seriously. I froze for a moment, and here’s what I should have said.

It’s not wasted space at all. The architect has gone to great lengths to design a room with proportions of floor to wall to ceiling, that make the space seem very light, open and airy, with white walls and wood floors. Within these walls my friend you can see what open space looks like. That’s the whole point. Without clutter of objects — every line, detail and shape becomes more important, because the form of the room defines it’s function. I know I’ve heard that before.

It’s really an intriguing space. The stairs from the first to the second floor look suspended. Sleek horizontal lines hover over each other one by one. My kids noticed the “floating” stairs right away. If the space were filled, or less “wasted” you would have never seen the proportion of the stairs. The stairs are not just a mode for access — they are a piece of art themselves. Don’t we want more kids to pick up on that…and return again?

Looking North, over Millenium Park and the Chicago Skyline the windows feel very quiet with shades, that not only protect the art, but tone down the city to a muted scene. It’s probably the most serene view of Chicago and the park that you’ll ever see, since it’s all unobstructed views.

What a setting for the Magritte painting Time Transfixed. Here you have a painting of a locomotive, coming out of a warm fireplace, sitting in front of a window shade of cityscape shapes. Is it interesting? Yes, very much so. Is this wasted space? No.

All galleries try to present artwork in the best possible light. Art will challenge you to think — it even captured my son’s attention when I told him that both paintings were done by the same guy. Yes, that’s Picasso, and so is that one.

The contemporary wing of the Chicago Art Institute is a stunning building all on its own. One that will be shared by gallery patrons, newcomers, kids and the curious for years to come.

By the way, I did not follow my “wasted space” friend into the Jackson Pollock Modern Art exhibit.

All I wanted to do was watch competitive tablet videos. After watching Apple’s presentation on the iPad 2, I looked for videos by the other tablets, trying to get a sense of their brand personality, messaging and understand why I should buy those tablets vs the iPad 2. Remember, Apple has a “14 million sold” head start on these brands, so I expected their best marketing effort. In no particular order this is what I saw…

Starting with Apple. You can’t miss the product on the site, it’s the latest promotion. Clean and simple presentation, the product is the hero against a white background, no clutter, easy to understand. As is Apple’s style, they balance designer interviews with product shots and user examples. There’s four videos to choose from.
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The Xoom is featured on the homepage and you can get to the video in one click, and the video is actually the commercial they’ve been running. Dark product with a dark background doesn’t show up well until you see the screen. They’re obviously going for the anti-Apple look by presenting the tablet against grey walls.
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The TouchPad is easy to find and heavily promoted on Palm.com, but not easily found on the HP site. The video is professionally produced, but there is no narration, demo, or user interaction with the product. It’s a very short high level overview.
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I’m not sure what to call this. The Galaxy or the Tab? The product is promoted on the homepage, and takes you to a product level page that has 4 columns for text, and three of them come up blank for me. There are 4 videos at the bottom of the page that are mostly user interactions with the tablet.
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Good name. Easy recall. The tablet is promoted on the website, and here we go again with the dark side presentation. Four different videos are available, ranging from girls jumping rope (an analogy for multi-tasking), to a video that features more product and how-to interact with the tablet.
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I don’t remember how I found this product or how to pronounce it, but it’s not being promoted on the homepage. When you do find the product, you’ll get an explanation from Kara Wilson in the video data sheet. However, for the first of it’s kind collaboration tool, I’d probably start by turning the device on.
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Quite a name. The video is heavy on bass music and light on explanation. There are some interesting things going on dragging images from one screen to another, but I don’t know why I need to do that. The tablet is in constant motion against lots of streaks of light. In the end, I don’t know if this is a laptop or a tablet.
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A simple name I can pronounce and a video worth watching. Multiple user scenarios show how someone would interact with this device. I understand what you can do with the ViewPad, I don’t understand why I’d need one since it seems just slightly larger than my iPhone.
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It’s called an Eee Slate and there’s and Eee Pad, get it? I’m not making this stuff up. The product looks good on the site, however it looks to be just one page of images and specs with locations at the bottom of the page. There is no video.
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I like the name, however I could not find a video. It looks like a laptop but the screen unhinges to become an IdeaPad. The first picture I saw on the site made me think laptop.

So what did I learn? Many brands assumed everyone knows how to use a tablet, and they didn’t offer a compelling reason to not go with the iPad. This is suddenly a very crowded field, and the herd will thin quickly. One or two of these will get some some traction, but I don’t see Apple looking over their shoulder anytime soon.