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PhotoSketch is an online tool created by five students from Tsinghua University in China and the National University of Singapore. It creates storyboards from sketches by finding & stitching background images & item layers.

We present a system that composes a realistic picture from a simple freehand sketch annotated with text labels. The composed picture is generated by seamlessly stitching several photographs in agreement
with the sketch and text labels; these are found by searching the Internet. Although online image search generates many inappropriate results, our system is able to automatically select suitable photographs to generate a high quality composition, using a filtering scheme to exclude undesirable images. We also provide a novel image blending algorithm to allow seamless image composition. Each blending result is given a numeric score, allowing us to find an optimal combination of discovered images. Experimental results
show the method is very successful; we also evaluate our system using the results from two user studies.

Via Creative Review

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2009/october/photosketch

Viget's Peyton Crump has collected screenshots from his research on data-driven timelines of news.

http://www.viget.com/inspire/timeline-views-of-the-news/

Peter Bregman writes about how finding the simplest solution provides the most effective path to change. In his story he talks about how changing one thing, one habit or pattern of behavior, permitted him to be effective at losing weight. This simple strategy contrasts with the multitude of diet books that suggest entire regimine of change in order to lose weight.

It's a great tale that Bregman uses to illustrate how simplifying a process or dealing with a challenge can sometimes be most effectively handled by reducing it to its essence, and devoting 100% of energy on a singular action. I think there's no doubt that this practice, whether it's in finding a touch point for a strategy or determining a singular idea behind a project's goal is pretty powerful.

I can see this kind of focus working well for me if I remember to keep the one thing in mind. I'm finding the idea compelling enough that I tacked it on my wall to remind me of the focus of my current project.

Link via @jc

http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/bregman/2009/10/i-lost-18-pounds-in.html