Chris Baum - eXperience Blog

All Hail the Enchantress of Numbers

2009-03-24T17:53:00.000-07:00

An Ode to Women in Technology

This post is part of Ada Lovelace Day, in honor of women excelling in technology.

Quick. Who was the first computer programmer?

Pause...

The answer: Ada Lovelace

She wrote the first "program" for Charles Babbage's analytical engine. Babbage conceived the idea only to perform calculations, but Lovelace saw beyond that purpose to the possibility that that first "computer" could calculate Bernoulli numbers.*

My decade-plus in the technology world has showered me with blessings. One of these is the women that have guided and inspired me. Here are a few that I want to thank profusely for their guidance, support, and inspiration:

Michelle opened the door.

Lisa illuminates just how big the world can be.

Liz inspires with her burning intelligence and amazing poise.

Cyd shows how art, spiritual, and professional life coexist.

Christina creates new worlds with her ability to reinvent herself.

Kit helps me see the practical path and how to plot my own.

Stephanie embodies true wisdom, creativity, and focus.

And, last, but not least, thanks to Mom for being completely open. Without her example, no doubt that it would be far more difficult to recognize the amazing women that surround me.

At the IA Summit this past week in Memphis, it was brought to our attention that the UX community is blessed to have so many women that actively lead our practice. I thank my lucky stars every day.

*The analytical engine was never built, but let's not blame Lovelace for the failure of the men around her.

Photo credit: Thanks to kpwerker for her great Flickr photo.

Down On The Farm

2008-05-01T18:10:00.000-07:00

In his 2007 TED talk, Michael Pollan discusses the arc that has taken him from his garden to his truly illuminatory set of books (from Botany of Desire to In Defense of Food) and what he has learned about our relationship with nature and our food.

Why is this here?

It reflects where we go wrong in designing our organizations. We attempt set up a system where we take people and insert them into a machine that is designed to bend their will to a strategy. There are capital inputs, information, and time. The people and technology output goods and/or services, receive the revenue, pay the bills, and take care of the customers.

This sounds great, until in practice you realize that the strategy decided on by the executive leadership loses it's effectiveness at the front lines, except for rare cases. (Southwest Airlines comes to mind here.)

Check out this key point from Pollan:

[Another TED talk on ethanol] helped me understand industrial agriculture, which of course is a Cartesian system. It's based on this idea of that we bend other species to our will, and that we are in charge, and that we create these factories, and we have these technological inputs and we get the food out of it or the fuel or whatever we want.

[tells an amazing story about the Salatin PolyFace permaculture farm] This is a different way to think about nature. And a way to get away from zero sum notion, from the Cartesian idea that nature's winning, or we're winning.
Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Next Dilemma, TED, March 2007

What Salatin does is create a situation where his animals and the grass that they graze on maximize their "desires" and, in turn, produce a truly incredible bounty of food with respect to the amount of land and the investment put into it.

The cows are not slammed into a barn, given a bunch of corn (which is not good for them), shot up with antibiotics, and fattened until they are "market-ready." Rather, they are moved from small plot to small plot, grazing on brand new delicious grass that they is there desired delicacy.

Chickens then follow them into that same plot a few days later, feed on their delicacy (fat maggots), and they defecate as they scatter the cow manure across the lot - which acts as fertilizer for the grass.

Amazingly, the grass itself contributes to this cycle. It was tall, just before the cows enter the plot. After they leave, it sheds much of it's root system (due to the root-shoot ratio). Fungi, worms, and the like digest the dead roots into new soil.

Just a few weeks later, the grass is again luxurious and tall, ready for the next cycle.

Businessfolk would do well to take a close look at these methods. We can continue to scale our organizations based on executive strategy, adding more capital and more people to execute the decisions of the central structure.

The problem with that approach is that the changing relationship of the organization to its capital and the importance of engaging your employees and customers at a more basic level (similar to meeting the desires of the cows, grass, and chickens) are changing.

My gut tells me that the answer lies in creating organizations that satisfy all the parts like Salatin's farm does. You might think of the executives as the farmer, the cows and chickens as the employees, and the grass (and animal feed) as the capital inputs. The customers are the same ones who want a Polyface chicken so badly that they drive out to the farm to pick it up. (To read more about the farm, check out the excerpt from The Omnivore's Dilemma on Mother Jones.)

Why should we care about this?

Well, as a designer, I've run into too many situations where organization were ill-suited to ingesting and assimilating what the customers and employees really need to be fully engaged. This is not a knock on any executive, manager, or employee. Rather, it's just the truth of how the information flows and responsibility distributed in most organizations today.

Through methods like mental models, we can get into the thought processes of all involved and figure out where disconnects or misunderstandings lie. I am building a practice around these models and how they can align an organization's resources and people in way most effective for both the company and the customers.

I hope you'll come back at some point as I explore these and similar issues in ways that show why such a practice is necessary and how it can be carried out.

Possible, But Terrifying

2008-02-27T18:00:00.000-08:00

Jeremiah Owyang, indomitable social media analyst, absolutely nails why large organizations will find it very, very difficult to allow the level of transparency and real interaction necessary to evolve their businesses (both strategy and operations) as the face of market and internal communications continues to evolve. He distinguishes three "impossible" conversations: asking for feedback, saying positive things about [their] competitors, and admitting [they] were wrong.

Asking for feedback is fine, but most organizations are not at all set up to actually listen, ingest the feedback, and decide whether or how to address the issue. Employees are at the breaking point already. "Productivity" in most organizations means employees are left with precious little time to adjust to new ideas unless they come from management or from within carefully managed feedback channels. Some employees may be able to get ahead or ignore some of their work and find ways to try new things. These mavericks should be rewarded.

Social technologies (wikis, blogs, social networks) can help, but unless they are used in concert, it's difficult to use them effectively. Imagine a symphony without a conductor where the musicians are all playing different music at the same time or, in well-run organizations, the same music to different rhythms.

Experience allows me to understand why saying positive things about [their] competitors is so difficult, but I wish there was a way to show the larger organizational consciousness why this fear is more destructive than anything. Companies use ideas from their competitors all the time, so not giving deserved kudos is paramount to denigrating many of that company's own ideas. Market results display an organization's effectiveness, so stop being afraid to show some appreciation of those with whom you share industry space.

Jeremiah makes this excellent point:

Customers aren’t stupid. In fact, they know who your competition is, and they talk amongst each other.

Most companies are not actually part of the conversation, but mostly adjacent to it. In that position, they will miss some critical piece of intelligence.

Right now, the status quo might be holding, but the effort required to use the same channels for marketing, customer service, and institutional knowledge is growing. Sooner or later, this self-imposed ignorance will come back to haunt them.

Admitting [they] were wrong is difficult for everyone at turns, yet most individuals let their guards down at some point. Yes, organizations have to worry about legal culpability, but in the end they MUST learn to understand that, if they are up front and act quickly when mistakes occur, the likelihood that customers will be furious enough to sue is greatly reduced. And, if they do, then the problem hasn't been resolved.

None of these conversations are easy, nor are large organizations the only holdouts. Even individuals and small companies screw them up all the time. However, the pressures to really listen and speak honestly are becoming ever more critical to connect people both inside and outside of the organization.

I Think, Therefore What?

2007-12-20T08:25:00.000-08:00

Here are two sentences that capture where I am at the moment:

[O]rganizations have simply lost a sense of what it actually means to be creative. For some reason, thinking and speaking are accepted as more important work than thinking and making.
Chris Conley of Gravity Tank, in discussion with Adaptive Path's Henning Fischer

Does this apply only to organizations? Looking at the amazing people that surround us, I'm struck by how much effort the design community expends in talking, blogging, and documenting every little thought and experience we have. I'm just as guilty as anyone else,* maybe more so as the things going on around us tend to set me thinking and thinking and thinking...

In the end, we are going to see some great transformations of work and life experience in the next several years. Gravity Tank is only one example of smart people having an impact far beyond the website.

Right now, I'm dedicating myself to the making part for a while and looking forward to sharing what happens to my thinking and speaking as a result. That dedication has taken the form of joining CloudRaker, an amazing design and development agency in Montreal.

Creative potential exists everywhere -- in every person, and as such in every organization -- but the current environment inhibits our ability to tease it into action. I will come out of this new experience not only re-grounded in making that happen, but also hope to do so in French. Here goes nothing!

Happy holidays to everyone.

* Yes, I know, not talking here, mostly in person. Maybe I should at least be typing. Stay tuned...

Not Getting Ahead Of Ourselves

2007-10-08T11:19:00.000-07:00

Recently on the excellent bplusd blog, Jess interviews Brandon Schauer of Adaptive Path about designers' desire to contribute to the strategic discussion with business folks.

I really like this statement, as it reflects a trend that I'm seeing (and may be guilty of myself):

I think it gets reinforced by some people in the design community who make the leap from the fact that "I identify as a designer, and therefore I am a design thinker, and I can make these great strategic contributions if they’d only let me."
There’s this note of almost entitlement that has crept into the design community. That’s something I’m particularly cautious about because I think that most designers aren’t design thinkers yet because they don’t have the concrete fluency with business, and many visual designers don’t face the same constraints on actual usage that an interaction designer or industrial designer face.

As designers, we get used to exploring possibilities and finding creative solutions, but we don't necessarily ever pay the price or see the real impact of what we create.

I'm troubled by that note of entitlement, particularly from people who have added business vocabulary to their repertoire, expecting that to be enough. It's not enough. We must also take the time to truly understand what it means to make business decisions and deal every single day with the repercussions.*

There is a reason that most business conversations include a healthy dose of reality checking, namely that in business, you make a decision, see how it worked, and make another. Designers can help widen the considered field of these decisions, but we must also be willing to see the constraints and know where to push the envelope.

In some ways, the relationship between design and business is the same as that between design and technology. Design creates something; technology builds it.

These relationships work far better when there is some involvement of the builders during design (and vice versa) along with feedback once the building is complete and the result out in the ether.

This conversation is why you often hear about "accountability" in post-mortems on software projects. (In fact, I should probably label that arrow as such. Let's imagine it for a moment.)

So back to business and design. How do they relate to the design/build discussion? Well, instead of just being told what to design:

Designers want input into the possible solutions to a problem.

We need to learn to talk to each other better to make this work.

At the IIT Strategy Conference (link from bplusd), Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management in Toronto, gave a great talk about the approaches based on validity (design) versus reliability (business). He covers both what both designers and businesspeople can do to smooth communication and, therefore, benefit from a better working relationship.

Schauer illustrates just how that might work with this anecdote from a recent project:

We helped identify key metrics that people actually cared about that the web and the interactive marketing group could actually impact, and how can we calculate the impact that a potential project could have on those numbers. Suddenly, they are having this financial dialog, when before they were just talking about personas or user flows and things like that. So that really changed their relationship with the rest of the organization by being able to think through and articulate things in a way that was valued.

Don't you want to have that same relationship with your colleagues, regardless of your perspective? We would all benefit from it.

Check out the full interview, which includes many ways designers can get smarter about business.

No Dearth of Words

2007-06-20T00:33:00.000-07:00

Hello, all!

Though quiet the blog front be for me, the words flow ever more. Trust that, when I've something to say, it will appear in this exact space. If you catch me in person, I'll talk your ear off, to be sure.

Portland was lovely, thank you very much. WebVisions plays mellower than the IA Summit, which I appreciated with my need to keep my mind on my presentation and enjoy my Portland friends.

Jeremiah Owyang of Web-strategist.com and Podtech caught me in the hallway at the Portland Convention Center to ask me a few questions about how corporate managers can understand and leverage IAs in their work.

Dissecting Big and Little IA on the fly was not an easy feat, but I enjoyed the conversation and the challenge. Thanks, Jeremiah!

Also, Jaman continues to sprout happily. Over the last couple releases, we've made huge upgrades to the software, website, and the movie catalog. For those foreign film fans out there, look for many familiar classic and provocative movies coming online shortly. For more about Jaman and what we're attempting, see me blab further about Jaman on Lunchmeet.

Also, Boxes & Arrows hums along quite well. I generally act behind the curtain there, but plan on occasion to emerge with an article or two over the next few months.

So, that's my story for now. Feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you're up to.

Tour '07 Continues In Portland Next Month

2007-04-15T23:34:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

Back in minor self-promotion mode, I'll be speaking at WebVisions in Portland, May 3-4 on the how technology allows (or makes!) us step out of our comfort zone to follow our ideas into new places, connect with people with whom we can make them happen, and find real innovation in spite of the cynicism and inertia of entrenched institutions.

I got the idea for this talk after seeing many friends going into business for themselves, hearing folks speak of such paths at the IA Summit, including Joshua Prince-Ramus amazing architecture projects. At WebVisions, I'll zoom out to explore what this might mean not only for Web professionals, but for the petri dishes of change (buzzword: innovation) in many facets of our lives.

This is a conference that I've heard good things about previously, but this will be my first time attending. The lineup is an incredible mix of designers, coders, entrepreneurs, and strategists (too many to detail here). One talk I'll be watching closely is David Pescovitz' (of BoingBoing fame) thought about how info overload will be conquered. That intrigues me to no end.

If you're going to be in Portland for WV, let me know!

Housecleaning

2007-04-03T23:55:00.000-07:00

So as I noted a couple of posts ago, this year has gotten off to a very interesting start. First the articles on Boxes & Arrows and the IA Summit precon took things in a new direction, now film festival season rejuvenates the batteries.

Along the way, another huge opportunity came a-knockin'. Liz Danzico the Great has handed over the B&A Editor-in-Chief reigns to me, with Christina making the official announcement during 3-minute Madness at the Summit. Thanks, Christina, for trusting me with your baby.

Finally, a bit more attention will be paid to how this blog communicates what I'm thinking. Those of you who know me well probably laugh at my posting frequency, as it's basically a minute fraction of my brain cycles. However, even those folks know that I'm quite considerate in my attempts to keep from creating noise. When I have something to say, I'll continue to show up.

Taking a look at the postings I've been making and in recognition of these new currents, I'm making a small change to the blog title - from User eXperience to eXperience. Minutiae to be sure, but I feel better about that electronic visage. I still love the users, but I'm more interested in these days about the whole enchilada of relationships we need in our lives.

My experience tells me that by facing just that one way (towards customers), user experience professionals do a disservice to the environments we want to help create -- where we discern how the web of relationships affects everyone involved, whether direct or indirect.

This little change nods to where I'm going. Shall we?

All Talk?

2007-03-17T00:08:00.000-07:00

Hello, design world.

What will you do with the influence that you have collected over the last couple of years? Some people are doing great things, obviously.

Dan's lament is right on the mark, however. Have we stopped teaching designers to do? How can we design great products when we don't have the people to do the work with us?

And my concern not only applies to designers. I worry that in our ever-expanding information and opportunity space, we have misplaced the ability to discern and focus on real problems. As a cynical optimist, I remain hopeful, but cautious.

A Slight Bit of Horn Tooting

2007-02-27T22:58:00.000-08:00

Hi All,

I have been somewhat remiss in not mentioning a couple of things that I've been working on with my friend and colleague, Jeff Lash.

Jeff and I, both UXers now in product management roles, have been busy over the last several weeks on two projects for others considering whether the move is right for them:

Boxes & Arrows articles on Transitioning from User Experience to Product Management (Part 1, Part 2), already published. There's been a good bit of discussion around Part 1, and it's getting started on Part 2 (just published yesterday).
IA Summit 2007 Pre-conference session, So You Wanna Be a Product Manager..., scheduled for the afternoon of Thursday, March 22. The session will be much more than a boring rehash of the article with Q&A. If you're going to be at the Summit, come join us!

'07 is revving up nicely!

Organizations & The Conceptual Age

2007-02-01T17:54:00.000-08:00

In A Whole New Mind, Dan Pink discusses the transformation of the worker from left-brain focus to a more balanced approach. He also discusses at length the transition from the "Information Age" to the "Conceptual Age." His arguments are interesting, but what about organizations? Won't they have to change as they become populated by people with different skills and approaches?

As I read the transcript of a discussion between Jesse James Garrett and Lou Carbone, I see where an answer to these questions might be forming:

When you look at the organizations of the past, [they were like] bus drivers driving buses along the prescribed route, [with a] certain number of stops to make and doing the same routine over and over again. And the customer really came along for the ride. Today, [when it comes to] doing business, the model is considerably more like taxis. We're not even sure what the customer needs until the customer communicates [it to us] and we can anticipate what they want. Then what we end up doing is snapping together a set of capabilities to deliver the experience that they want. And that's very, very different.

Excellent analogy, Lou. I really hope that at some point this transformation that can happen. The interim might be very painful.

Ear-to-Ear

2006-12-07T23:37:00.000-08:00

For all those folks toiling in the depths of Corporate Life, may you find hope at a Big Box Retailer extraordinare.

Smashing the Clock
No schedules. No mandatory meetings. Inside Best Buy's radical reshaping of the workplace

Now THAT makes me smile. The fact that my sister sent it out is even better. Ah, hope springs eternal.

Means to an End

2006-09-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

So Gizmodo might want to think a bit about why Apple would enrich network executives by paying them well for licensing their TV series for download through iTunes.

The movie studios resist, and Jobs can't be on the board everywhere.

Breathless

2006-09-12T08:44:00.000-07:00

Some of you know that my quiet has not been for lack of happenings. The main thrust of which is that I'm now in the online video industry, rather than the financial services.

And lo, the hype!

Will Work for Free

2006-07-28T10:57:00.000-07:00

Rojo points this morning to Yay Hooray, where people are redoing famous logos in "Web 2.0" style.*

I want to know when someone at the top of the branding groups in one of these companies is going to get wind of this free brainstorming and take a lesson.

The question isn't really who will adopt these explorations, though the NFL logo above "illustrates" that a little creativity can go a long way. With a little work, that already screen-friendly logo could be print-ready and on NFL stationery in no time.

Companies are constantly "rethinking their brands" to remain relevant. As Yay Hooray demonstrates this morning, lots of folks out there play around with this stuff over their breakfast. Young, tech-savvy folks. Right smack dab in the middle of your company's key demographic.

Yes, marketers. Your target markets can provide input, too. Get in a conversation with them, gain their loyalty, and they will help you succeed. Mostly for free!!

Stop hamstringing your creatives with design-by-committee and let them work with your customers to create a "living" brand. Giving up a little control will help you stay relevant in the quickly-changing marketplace.

* No problem resisting the temptation to say that they are "Web 2.o-ing" the logos. I have my pride.

1. NFL and the NFL shield design are registered trademarks of the National Football League.

2. Tenkai designed NFL 2.0, but gets his/her satisfaction from the imaginative exercise. S/he leaves no identifying information. Well done.

Did You Hear That Tree Falling?

2006-03-30T21:30:00.000-08:00

SXSW and the IA Summit must have given everyone a hangover. On Technorati, there are barely 3 pages of blog entries about Flickrites Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake appearing on the cover of Newsweek!

Now, your reaction may be that this is just a confirmation of the bubble. Be such a cynic at your own risk. My mom reads this magazine back in St. Louis, and now she might finally understand what I do!

Now, I won't say, "This is the best story ever!" It's ok, but gives too much space to myspace and the hangers-on that are trying to capitalize on exactly the same idea. BORING!

However, the story is a good intro for neophytes and indicates that there is a growing acceptance past the technorati that the Web isn't just for breakfast anymore. The highlight of the story is this nugget about 3/4ths of the way through:

Flickr was a good business, too, as many users chose to pay the $25-a-year fee for unlimited photo storage and relief from advertising on the site. But that's not why Yahoo bought it for an estimated $35 million. "With less than 10 people on the payroll, they had millions of users generating content, millions of users organizing that content for them, tens of thousands of users distributing that across the Internet, and thousands of people not on the payroll actually building the thing," says Yahoo exec Bradley Horowitz. "That's a neat trick. If we could do that same thing with Yahoo, and take our half-billion user base and achieve the same kind of effect, we knew we were on to something."
The New Wisdom of the Web, Newsweek, April 3, 2006

What a great paragraph! Look at the business realities that this highlights:

Little capital, lots of revenue: a small number of users paying for a service can generate outsized revenues (especially per employee).
Goodbye command center and call center: A small number of people (10 in Flickr's case) can run and provide service for a site that supports millions of people.
Participation is good business: get users to help you build the community.

These scale issues highlight the challenges for businesses today. The vaunted barriers to entry are crumbling. I'm interested to see if some of the small companies take some of their capital and try to take on larger players in the market. I'm thinking something like Flickr buying a camera manufacturer or myspace buying a mall complex to create. That's a stretch, but it's fun to consider.

On the flip side, imagine a large company whose financial ratios start looking more like Flickr's than GM's!

Thus far, Amazon, Yahoo, and Google look like they have realistic shots at making something magical happen. IBM looks like it wants a piece, too. I'm skeptical about the latter.

Plenty of companies talk a good game, but how many of the business leaders you know or see on the news truly understand how deeply these upstarts are connecting with their customers? Or even have the time to really observer their customers?

The big question is: how can we show the teeming masses of Ford Excursion-sized companies that they too can create great products and actually get real participation from their customers?

Aside: It's fun to think of an economy built of companies like Flickr, 37signals, myspace, etc. The idea borders on ridiculous, true, and I seriously doubt that anyone really wants to go through the macroeconomic devastation that would come with the collapse of the large enterprise economy.

New Plane(s) of Existence

2006-03-29T00:07:00.000-08:00

Hello, World!

Thanks for coming tonight. Just back from Vegas. Oops, I mean Vancouver. IA Summit, baby! I've got a bit of a snippet to share from Kathy Sierra's SXSW-inspired post about lightning releases.

So I asked what made myspace so compelling... why didn't she fall in love with LiveJournal? Her answer is a lesson for software developers (especially Web 2.0-ers), and was a theme of SXSW:
"myspace keeps doing what everybody really wants, and it happens instantly."

She said they respond to feedback, "As soon as you think of something, it's in there."
--------
Then she said the weirdest thing of all: "myspace is like a whole new plane of existence." She wasn't kidding.
Kathy Sierra, speaking with her daughter Skyler
from Ultra-fast release cycles and the new plane, Creating Passionate Users, March 16, 2006

Going on to explain that Threadless and 37Signals are proponents of the approach, Sierra seems to get a little carried away with her post SXSW brainwave hangover.* Herein lies an assumption that adding instantaneously to the functionality equals rabid user loyalty.

Au contraire. Reality is slightly more mundane, but no less powerful. By starting small and building piece-by-piece, these sites actually know their users well enough to observe activity and add in small additions that follow naturally what their users seek.

There's even a danger inherent in following the crowd so closely, especially in social software. The engaged masses can help you spark their fickle bomb and derail your quickly growing organism.

You might say that myspace and 37Signals have gotten lucky so far by not tripping too badly. Or, you're seeing excellent "generalists" showing both their user research, product manager, and design skills on their small, dedicated user base.

Hourly/daily releases are not prerequisites to creating the kind of passion. Do your homework (user research, activity monitoring), then pick the things that will have the most impact and focus like a laser on those things. I'd argue that inability to prioritize is the bane of most organizations and projects, both on the web and off.

That's the real motivator here - if you ask for feedback and generate interesting solutions to problems and new ideas, your users trust you more to deliver what they need and have less time to become disillusioned. The cycle feeds upon itself. More trust, less opportunity for problems, more help to keep on the track, MORE trust, LESS problems, MORE help, and so on.

Make progress, and the users will even cut you some slack if there is a missed step.

One thing: most situations call for release frequency based on best effort. Most websites can reasonably release new functionality or fixes a few times a month or more. A sports team usually has to wait until the season is over to make significant changes in your gameday experiences. Large public works projects can take several years.

Should you follow the wrong path, you will go the way of Friendster. Get buzz, have the attention of a rabid set of users, then off the rails you go!

* I can relate. I'm still drawing flux capacitors all over the place after returning from Vancouver. More on that in several upcoming posts.

Testing the Dam

2006-03-16T16:13:00.000-08:00

Hello there, stalwarts! I haven't disappeared. Just letting some new ideas percolate.

As a humorous aside, take Khoi Vihn's excellent description of travel to SXSW Interactive last week:

My outbound flight, from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Austin, TX, was practically a Gen-X school bus, loaded with twenty-five to thirty-five year old media professionals wearing hipster glasses and expensive jeans. The woman seated next to me swore we had been seated in order of the model of iPod we carried.

I'm off to the IA Summit next week. While it may not have quite the cachet of SXSW, it was one of my 2005 highlights. I fully expect it to light the fuse in my head to spark the deluge. Watch out.

Yin Yank

2006-01-30T23:53:00.000-08:00

On a flight from New York to San Francisco, I had the lately-rare opportunity to actually sit and read a magazine. The February 2006 issue of Wired tagged along for the ride, and inside crouched an opinion column about the Sony DRM debacle (by Bruce Sterling) and the cover story revealing Lego’s embrace of an ubercustomer group that helped jumpstart their product development.

Until recently, companies were skittish about customer innovation, fearing that outsiders might leak technical secrest or that they simply lacked the necessary technical skills. But Lego warmed to the open source ethos. It’s clear to the Lego execs that Mindstorms NXT would be a lesser product without the MUPers’ (spell out) input.

Inviting customers to innovate isn’t just about building better products. Opening the process engenders goodwill and creates buzz among the zealots, a critical asset for products that rely on word-of-mouth evangelism.
Geeks in Toyland, Wired 14.02

Great point, to be sure, but what product doesn’t rely on WOM these days? With falling effectiveness of traditional media marketing and ever-increasing competition for customer’s attention (online and off), the best chance at (continuing) success is to engage customers in R&D efforts.

In contrast, Sony responded to their fear of piracy by black-boxing their offering and adding what amounts to spyware on their users machines. Great idea, Sony, wreck our computers. That’s the way to inspire trust in your dedication to the customer.

Why not come up with ways to see where your music is popping up and use the info to sign and distribute new and more artists?

Lego’s approach represents the antithesis of this attitude. Responding to the reverse engineering of their proprietary Mindstorms robot control code, they opened up their software licensing agreement to include a “right to hack."

Much like Firefox, this turns some of your best, most technically adept customers from potential competitors into partners-in-crime. Do you think Firefox would have ever been built if MSFT built the original IE code, let it loose on the world, then continued to cherry pick the best ideas and write them into the software? No way, instead, people would be writing extensions and plugins for IE.

In the end, this approach embraces your customers. If you can be trusted, they will protect your products at the same time they drive you mercilessly to keep up with their ideas. In the end, letting go of this control focuses your development efforts and helps you invest in the right opportunities.

Adapt or Die

2005-12-28T18:53:00.000-08:00

Peter has another spot-on post about how upstarts like Moveable Type and Salesforce.com erode the foundations upon which enterprise software companies base their business.

Even if these challengers seem like gnats to the SAPs and OracleSofts of the world, they should mind that buzz. Just like Basecamp and Writely versus to the MicroSoft dynasty, the threat looms small right now.

Still, these threats grow over time. Remember that one year ago, Firefox was barely a blip on the IE radar, now it's at least a fearsome wasp. The OS market has proven somewhat harder to crack, though Linux and Mac both have made inroads lately, though for different reasons.

These markets share the same trend - lowering barriers to entry. For a long while, the only choice for an enterprise would be suites of enterprise software and personal machines running the MicroSoft suite. Especially in the enterprise world, the products have not been built to enable users to actually get their work done, rather features and capabilities are created to satisfy the corporate purchasing managers.

To those who have to use and support this software, the situation looks like this:

Too many features
Hard to use
Harder to support
Difficult and resource-intensive to alter/add features*

The new players are attacking the problems of users with a "low-hanging fruit" approach. They make certain tasks, such a simple collaboration (Basecamp, Writely), CRM (Salesforce.com), and enterprise services administration (Rearden Commerce) easy for end users, business owners, and IT support.

Give user just what they need
Easy to use
Easy to support - right now mostly hosted, but there is no reason that they can't be installed (Google Search Appliance, anyone?).
Simple to customize/add features*

When I read Peter's post, it reminded me of an incredibly interesting Supernova 2005 podcast of a presentation by US Navy Commander Greg Glaros from the Office of Force Transformation, formed:

Because our business model was broken, our methods of waging war were inadequate, and the enemy was out-adapting us.

He goes on to discuss that the Armed Forces are trying new ways to solve some of the same challenges that many organizations face: new operational tactics, managing information and communication, navigating organizational hierarchies, and dealing with an entrenched and sometimes rigid organizational structures.

In this case, it looks like government is recognizing its vulnerability before the private sector.

Organizations of all sizes are going to have to learn how to adapt and change more quickly. As the infoglut continues, new packaging and splashier marketing campaigns will have less and less effect on the success of products and services.

Senior managers must put decision-making power and information into the hands of the line-level employees and encourage two-way communication at all levels, or a more nimble, savvy competitor will take advantage of their vulnerability. Maybe the carnage won't be as gruesome as Commander Glaros' new approaches are designed to avoid, but it will be ugly.

The thing that bugs me is that all the drama is unnecessary. The tussles would be more interesting if all the players were nimble and clever.

* Salesforce.com provides a special development platform, and I believe that Rearden is planning on offering the same at some point in the near future. Peter also talks about how Adaptive Path and Seed Magazine have modified Moveable Type as an alternative to traditional CMS platforms. Pretty powerful stuff.

User Experience As Sustainable Advantage

2005-12-07T23:37:00.000-08:00

If you want to see people finally starting to quantify and analyze why businesses need UX practitioners, read the excellent McKinsey Quarterly article on "tacit interactions" as a sustainable competitive advantage. (registration req'd) The article presents many charts and numbers on how hiring of knowledge workers is exploding. Please check them out, but I want to discuss their conclusions here.

Raising the labor performance of professionals won't be easy, and it is uncertain whether any of the innovations and experiments that some pioneering companies are now undertaking will prove to be winning formulas. As in the early days of the Internet revolution, the direction is clear but the path isn't. That's the bad news or, rather, the challenge (and opportunity) for innovators.

The good news concerns competitive advantage. As companies figure out how to raise the performance of their most valuable employees in a range of business activities, they will build distinctive capabilities based on a mix of talent and technology. [snip] Best practice thus won't become everyday practice quite as quickly as it has in recent years. Building sustainable advantages will again be possible and, of course, worthwhile.
The next revolution in interactions (registration req'd)

UX practitioners by nature constantly handle the complex interactions. By continuing to produce effective interactions with customers, both internal and external, our argument about how to demonstrate our value as purveyors will seem quaint and unnecessary. Plus, we were in the thick of the Web's emergence, and we will be in the thick of these new trends.

Jobs involving the most complex type of interactions those requiring employees to analyze information, grapple with ambiguity, and solve problems make up the fastest-growing segment.
The next revolution in interactions (registration req'd)

Sound familiar? Along with our ability to set context and capture information within a multi-dimensional space, we provide key connections between the various parties. As the transactional nature of business practice relaxes, our abilities to generate multiple approaches and solve problems become increasingly important - and less about technology.

We are developing our skillsets by adding people management, negotiation, budgeting, and political wiles. Add into this mix new software tools and networks (Web "2.0") that enhance our brainpower, we seem to be creating personal competitive advantage.

Technology and organizational strategies are inextricably conjoined in this new world of performance improvement.
The 21st-century organization (abstract)

This statement demonstrates why the Information Architect stands at the crux of these issues. We improve the performance of the customer (Internet) and employee (intranet) interactions with technology (interfaces).

Why not try lessening our focus on the technology interface and put it more on the organization and its interactions? Our understanding of the customer interaction has led us directly into the teeth of the need for organizational redesign in most companies. We should follow these possibilities.

Companies like MIG, Adaptive Path, and Ideo are turning towards the less technology-heavy issues to those of process, people, and strategic interactions. This is a very exciting development.

How many times have we dealt with bureaucratic policies of a corporation or a governmental organization - and experienced frustration similar to that of a usability participant? Too many times to count, I'm sure.

Our skills can help organizations do something about it, and the organizations are starting to wake up to that fact. We are ready for the challenge.

Filling the Media Vacuum

2005-11-26T11:49:00.000-08:00

We in UXland like to think that the effects of technology are liberating and benevolent. Sometimes, though, we see unintended effects on our intellectual resources.

The pressure on the newspaper industry is growing far more quickly than these institutions can adjust. In the NYT this week, David Carr notes that "Google Base reverses the polarity" on the newspaper business model.

Instead of simply sending automated crawlers out across the Web in search of relevant answers to search queries, Google has invited its huge constituency of users to send and tag information that will be organized and displayed in relevant categories, all of which sounds like a large toe into the water of the classified advertising business, estimated to be worth about $100 billion a year.

This could be a fine thing for consumers, but for newspapers, which owe about a third of their revenues to classified advertising, it could be more a spike to the heart than just another nail in the coffin.
New York Times, November 21, 2005

One could ask "Why that is a big deal?" or merely conclude that the media is a bad business model. Still, we need to be aware that there will be unfortunate consequences when whole fundamental industries are uprooted.

Journalism has been long considered the "Fourth Estate" of government, a profession meant to keep watch on the public good. What will happen if writers can no longer find organizations willing to pay them for the work they do?

But if you consider newspapers to be a social and civic good, then some things are at risk. Google gives consumers e-mail, maps and, in some locations, wireless service for free. But for Google's news aggregator to function, somebody has to do the reporting, to make the calls, to ensure that what we call news is more than a press release hung on the Web.

News robots can't meet with a secret source in an underground garage or pull back the blankets on a third-rate burglary to reveal a conspiracy at the highest reaches of government. Tactical and ethical blunders aside, actual journalists come in handy on occasion.
New York Times, November 21, 2005

Carr's concern is very valid here, though he really should be saying that "professional journalism" rather than "newspapers." How will we find relevant, quality information? How will we trust that information? Who will doggedly pursue truth while we are doing our day jobs? Yes, newspaper reliance on classified ads as their main source of revenue is flawed and fast crumbling. But let's help the journalists find a business model that works. Maybe we need journalists, just not the media companies.

In Good Night and Good Luck, a major plot line revolved around the news and it's lack of contribution to the media company's bottom line. Edward R. Murrow had to do entertainment interviews in addition to his serious news pieces. To fund his attack on McCarthy, Murrow and his producer even personally bought advertising space.

Murrow's contribution helped hasten McCarthy's downfall. Who else besides the professional media were in the position to put a spotlight on the Senator and do the legwork to counteract the Senator's own investigative resources? Daily Kos even goes so far as to say that the media companies are even more cautious than they were back in the 50s.

If the UX community is serious about helping lead us bravely into a new world of citizen involvement by technology, we need to also be there to help business and government be inventive on the organizational side as well. Isn't organizing what we do?

Sometimes when we give up control, we might not like what fills the vacuum. Let's help fill it.

Thanks to Gawker for the reference.

Reality, Gorgeous Reality!

2005-11-22T16:08:00.000-08:00

Thanks, John Battelle.

None other than that bastion of media gravity, the New York Times, is helping us get out the word (registration req'd) that there is not reason to fear the new Web buzz. We're not going back to the bad, old bubble days. My co-worker handed me a printout (egad!) of the article and said, "hey, this basically lays out all that you've been talking about for months."

Legitimacy in the larger context is nice, but I'm happy to keep pushing the envelope of how people can use technology in an empowering way. Discovering new opportunities to simplify our day-to-day tasks while giving us more insight into our lives (both inside work and out) entertains me to no end.

Don't get me wrong, I'd not complain if our innovations were less of a struggle and people at my company were flocking to talk with me about how we could do great things together.

I find that over time many co-workers learn to trust my "way of thinking" and approach me to help them work through problems. Though not always right, I'm not afraid to try something new and see if it works. This mindset draws some people to me and pushes others away.

Oh, the "selling" still goes on for the latter group. Stay "on message." Morph the terms over time. Tease their context out of them and redefine the terms. Learn more about their problems and figure out what issue is really behind the decisions.

All-in-all, IA serves us right whether you apply it to the Web, to a document, or to a conversation. It's all about setting the context, kid.

More Than Philanthropy

2005-11-16T17:51:00.000-08:00

Alex Steffen has a great quote from his talk with Bruce Sterling at SXSW '05 on what he calls "attention philanthropy."

"Not all of us have money to give to good causes, but all of us have attention to give to good ideas." SXSW, Mar 15, 2005, from Odeo

Amen!! He was discussing this in the context of being more responsible in our consumption by rethinking the things we buy (clothes, furniture, etc.) that contain toxic chemicals or have grave impacts on environment and natural resources.

When he said that, however, my brain immediately took off in it's own direction and tried to apply this idea to user experience and technology. I'm not even convinced that this is really "philanthropy."

Many of the darlings of the tech world right now were not the first movers in their industry. For example, both Google and Flickr both arose within industries that were considered crowded and (somewhat) mature. Little did they know that by rethinking the approach of the user experience and coming at the problems from a different direction a whole new opportunity would open up.

Now that I'm thinking more about these concepts, Peter Morville's concept of ambient findability applies directly here.

How do we make decisions in the information age? How do we know enough to ask the right questions? How do we find the best product, the right person, the data that makes a difference? Business Week, Nov. 9, 2005

The companies we find most exciting right now, whether they be upstarts like Flickr and 37Signals or innovative behemoths like the BBC, are gaining a competitive advantage by loosening their controls on the interface, find new opportunities and success by:

creating simple functionality
examining how their customers use it
finding ways to extend/evolve it
updating the business strategy around those opportunities

In some ways, this is ambient product development. With this approach to building technology, we're talking about the how to enable iterative business strategy to create a competitive advantage. This indicates a co-existence of business strategy and design that all of us really want to see across the board as user experience practitioners and technologists.

Further than that, imagine if every interaction we have as consumers whatever the channel were as useful as doing a Google search. Maybe, just maybe, it's possible.

Talk About Time-shifting

2005-11-16T15:26:00.000-08:00

During a special presentation of the SD Forum in August, John Markoff discussed his book about the 60's counterculture and it's effects on technology today. As I reveled in my morning commute, made much more interesting with this kind of content, I came to realize that the counterculture just needed to go silent to gain some experience.

Having lost much of it's utopian trappings, the counterculture matured through the 70's and resurfaced slowly with the PC and the Internet. As Markoff discusses and "Web 2.0" embodies, technology is infused with attitudes less about command and control, more about connection, context, and sharing.

Letting go of some control actually provides benefits - less "whacking a mole" or putting out fires, and more putting something out there and finding opportunity. The concept of the next "boom" as the rise of co-creation makes a lot of sense and reconciles well with open source development, user-generated content, and better information-finding tools.

The current attitudes towards control and innovation seem to represent the intersection of the counterculture and Generation X. Many representations of this younger generation paint a picture of disaffection and laziness. However, I believe we just wanted interesting problems to solve and the opportunity to do work that has some meaning.

Subsequent generations will be even more demanding in this regard. They will have never known a time without PC's, and soon, without the Web.

Good times.

Reasonable Return on Effort

2005-10-27T16:24:00.000-07:00

Anil's post about the reward for building and "flipping" companies these days really resonates with some of my ideas about how simple, useful tools are now being built rather than the flashes-in-the-pan from the Go-Go Bubble.

People are reasonably getting rewarded for building something, but rather than making VC's rich, they are allowing themselves to be absorbed by larger companies (somewhat similar to Kodacell in Themepunks).

My favorite part comes in the comment by David Nemesis:

As far as I'm aware nobody who's hit it big because of Web 2.0 has quit their day job, but a number of their day jobs are now being acquired or subsidized by BigCos, and the end result will be a healthier, more innovative Web regardless of whether it's tagged or Google Mapped or built with agile development practices. That's pretty exciting.

This indicates that big companies are providing the infrastructure and support for interesting tools, rather than building up a new team to do the same thing as that tiny, new organization. Seems to me like everybody wins in this situation - at least for a time.

The Purpose-driven Life

2005-10-27T15:47:00.000-07:00

Dan Pink is happy to report that people are slowly realizing that wealth and more possessions are not making them happy.

This desire for fulfillment is a great thing, certainly, but what he does not address is that the constant forces of more information and more technology also threaten people's ability to judge what would make them happy - let alone whether they are fulfilled or not.

Things like email and RSS feeds and podcasts and broadband are really wonderful additions to our connectedness.

As an IA, however, I'm starting to wonder how people can actually process all of this information effectively, to find a place where the information flows through them rather than at them - they can retain what they need and let go of the rest.

This is one reason I personally like del.icio.us, Furl, and Google Reader so much - they allow me to view information in my stream and come back later to delve into detail or see the bigger picture.

Those of us that work on technology have an opportunity to help our customers build this type of simplicity into everything that they use. At some point, I hope that organizations will start to see that both employees and customers deserve this care and feeding - it will benefit everyone involved.

I wonder if we even realize this yet.

Thanks to Mark Hurst for posting the Wharton article link.

Web 2.0: Getting the Mix Right

2005-10-19T16:52:00.000-07:00

Yes, the Web is about people. It always has been. And, technology is involved, certainly.

When we began to work on the platform we lost sight of this fact, blinded by cold, hard cash and over-reliance on technology without any thought to it's usefulness to people. Fortunately, the cash wasn't endless, so we've been asked to be somewhat more practical.

With Web "2.0," we're just getting the mix right. At first we struggled with this new medium. Now, we're better at balancing on the tipping point. Taking the complex and making it as simple as possible.

Less big bang launches vs. More test-and-learn
Less solve all of your problems vs. More satisfy a single task
Less marketing flash vs. More word-of-mouth
Less words vs. More action
Less refreshing vs. More interacting

Peter's great new (and old) post alludes to the problem that I discussed here. I'm now refining my idea about what Jensen said.

"The universal problem seems to be how hard people have to work just to figure out what to do."
from Simplicity: The New Competitive Advantage in a World of More, Better, Faster by Bill Jensen

People actually know more of what they want to accomplish than might be apparent from watching them use the tools provided them. However, technology has filled our lives with tasks that have no impact on our goals and given us the "power" to generate tasks and information for each other.

Many technologies (e.g. Microsoft Office, CRM suites, etc.) generally have been built to levels higher than a task (a set of tasks for a person or organization). In order to do so, they had to standardize a persona or put in all features that all their various customers could use.

Still, that does not address the goals that engage people in the technology. Consider it at the level of inanity akin to hearing a mobile phone conversation absolutely void of any content.

1: "Hey."
2: "How you doin?"
1: "Cool. Where are you?"
2: "Home."
1: "Already? Nice!"
2: "Ok, talk to you tomorrow."
1. "Later."
2: "Bye."

The intent of this conversations is to be connected, to remind people that we are thinking about them. We're better served by solving simple tasks with technology - collecting data/information, creating new content, getting a picture of our overall progress on various goals.

As often discussed in usability or design conversations, we need to remember what people are actually trying to do and enable them to do so most effectively. With Web 2.0, we are actually showing how this might work.

I see the necessity of renaming the Web to Web 2.0 so we can distance people from history, and happy about the hope that this new outlook engenders. We're here to show other people that this is about listening and observing, not talking and controlling.

Go Web 2.0!

Podcasts

2005-10-06T22:41:00.000-07:00

The Podcast is not merely a "broad"cast medium. It can also a connect us and provide context otherwise unavailable.

One interesting way this plays out is in Slate.com's "Unauthorized" Audio Tours. The first is for the MOMA. Yes, it's 11 mp3s. But, it's a big museum. I like the idea that at the least this is another perspective on the MOMAs collection. Makes the museum new to me even if I've been before.

I wonder what other similar applications this might have. Tours of San Francisco from the F Market? Weekly podcasts of the goings on in Chicago from people in-the-know? Freshman "initiation" at Colorado State?

Arc of the Organization

2005-10-03T22:44:00.000-07:00

Cory Doctorow has been posting the first few chapters of his new novella, Themepunks, on Salon.com. The premise of the novella presents some very interesting thoughts on what could happen as large, "legacy" organizations start to find new ways to survive. In the book, Kodak and Duracell merge into Kodacell.

Capitalism is eating itself. The market works, and when it works, it commodifies or obsoletes everything. That's not to say that there's no money out there to be had, but the money won't come from a single, monolithic product line. The days of companies with names like 'General Electric' and 'General Mills' and 'General Motors' are over. The money on the table is like krill: a billion little entrepreneurial opportunities that can be discovered and exploited by smart, creative people.

Instead of selling off the pieces and going home, the new owners end the production of the companies products and become an incubator of sorts. Using the physical plant, infrastructure, and relationships of the larger organization, they enable small entrepreneurial ideas to come to market. Think of it as a mix of microlending, small-time venture capital, and contract manufacturing.

We will explore and exhaust the realm of commercial opportunities, and seek constantly to refine our tactics to mine those opportunities, and the krill will strain through our mighty maw and fill our hungry belly. This company isn't a company anymore: this company is a network, an approach, a sensibility.
from Themepunks, Chapter 1 by Cory Doctorow
Salon.com, September 12, 2005

After several years swimming in the pool of corporate life, I'm amazed at how much of our lives are spent trying to control things. Peter has rightly extolled us to let go, and we are trying to. Think of how difficult it is to do this for yourself, then extrapolate that out to an organization of 10,000 people. Maybe we can then see how crazy it must feel to the vast majority of organizations and institutions.

"I'll tell you, there's a downside to living in this age of wonders: we are moving too fast and outstripping the ability of our institutions to keep pace with the changes in the world."
from Themepunks, Chapter 1 by Cory Doctorow
Salon.com, September 12, 2005

I shudder to think what will happen if we don't find a way to remake large organizations before more limber and hungry ones siphoned away demand for their goods and services. Utilizing the infrastructure as throughput for others seems as good an idea as any I've heard.

Looking for some idea of changing organizations a few years ago, I stumbled on the Newfield Network and CIIS. Both teach "transformational learning" to address people's lack of meaning in work and encourage leadership in the community. The New Age bent and impressive expense waved me off during that lean time.

The cluetrain manifesto echoed some of these principles with a more practical, less mystical overlay.

Diving back to the corporate world rekindled my examination of the strange methods, hierarchies, and communications. Seeing cluetrain's promise of conversation playing out now with the new developments in technology, I'm hopeful to see that we see some movement in the larger organizations.

GE's Ecomagination and BP have both been touting their refocusing in the mass media. It's easy to dismiss their messages as corporate PR bunk, but I prefer to accept them, albeit skeptically, for the time being. At some level (subconscious, perhaps?), corporate executives must have some clue that the hierarchical organization is fast becoming a relic.

The new organization will be that conversation from cluetrain - at some level, in some way we can't yet visualize. As Doctorow reflects these ideas back in Themepunks, he's trying to tell corporate citizens not to be afraid, but to help your company embrace what's happening before obsolescence claims it.

Focal Points

2005-10-03T21:30:00.000-07:00

I like these two quotes, as they remind me that we're seeing a convergence of opportunity with wisdom. Information is no longer in control of the few. The transmission is not perfect, but it's there, and the work we're doing is focusing the picture... every so slightly... every day a bit clearer.

To rip off what rock critic Jon Landau once said about Bruce Springsteen: I’ve seen the future of business, and it’s The Cluetrain Manifesto. At first you may be tempted to hide this book inside the dust jacket for Customers.com or something equally conventional. But in time you’ll see the book spreading. It will become acceptable, if never entirely accepted. It will certainly become essential. Why am I so sure? Because like nothing else out there, it shows us how to grasp the human side of business and technology, and being human, try as we might, is the only fate from which we can never escape.

Thomas Petzinger, Jr. from the foreward of the cluetrain manifesto, 1999

Invention inspires invention. Ideas are collapsing into each other, recombining, and having powerful effects. The Internet has always been a medium for democratization, and by reconnecting with our idealism we’re once again uncovering its poetry, nobility, and transformative power.
If you’re not yet amazed, inspired, and a little anxious, you might want to consider it. Then get a good night’s sleep and perhaps take a rejuvenating vacation. We’re going to look back at Spring 2005 as a milestone. Watch closely, ladies and gentlemen. Things are about to change in a very big way.

Janice Fraser of Adaptive Path, from her essay, "It's a Whole New Internet", April 2005

What To Do?

2005-09-29T18:22:00.000-07:00

The universal problem seems to be how hard people have to work just to figure out what to do. Task work has become streamlined, but knowledge work has become more cluttered and confusing. Making the right choices - fast, while everything's changing - is now the toughest part of getting our work done.
from Simplicity: The New Competitive Advantage in a World of More, Better, Faster by Bill Jensen

Let's add "learning new things" and "making new connections" to that last sentence.

I like to think that "Web 2.0" is about trying allow a more graceful pivot - one with meaning rather than random pivots whenever we feel like it. Seems like mashups, Backpack, and Yahoo! 360 all help us take steps from data to information or relate tasks to a goal. I can't wait to see how things evolve to help find knowledge in that information.

Tim O'Reilly posted this Meme Map from Foo Camp, which sets some context for the activities, but doesn't say what all of these inputs lead to. For example, harnessing collective intelligence is great, but it necessitates a way to filter that new information in a way that allows you to gain knowledge from it.

Like Bruce Sterling said at SXSW, the reward for solving societies greatest problems is a better set of problems.

Business Cycle Contraction

2005-09-29T17:03:00.000-07:00

As you can imagine, with the fragmented attention span of the consumer, business cycles are contracting. This effect reveals itself spectacularly in the movie/DVD business, as the studios get to experience the same cycle twice.

DreamWorks' Shrek 2 experience details just that.

The DVD business is going the way of the movie business—the sales window is getting squeezed so that every bit of time after a movie opens or a DVD is released is more important then ever. We’ve seen this trend become more exaggerated over the past five years in the movie industry. People rush to see a movie in the first weekend after it’s released, then attendance drops off dramatically (unless it’s a sleeper, word-of-mouth hit). That drop-off makes it all the more important for movie studios to lure viewers that first weekend, which leads them to load up on advertising.
from Fortune Streetlife, July 12, 2005

Wait a minute. This trend points to two major things - those so-called "sleeper" movies are actually good. Most movies these days are not very good, unfortunately. When people see a movie that is truly inventive, interesting, funny, or just plain good, they tell other people. Memento and the 40-year-old Virgin were both movies that fit this mold. Quality generates word-of-mouth. Nothing else.

In the case of DreamWorks, they have to distribute the movies and DVDs ahead of time and advertise the hell out of them, so they have huge sunk costs.

But as DreamWorks found when it overestimated Shrek 2 DVD sales, DVD buyers have a super short attention span. The dilemma: If you flood the market with DVDs as soon as you release a movie (as DreamWorks does), and count that as revenue, then you’re stuck with lots of returns. That's why studios like DreamWorks are looking for other distribution channels.
from Fortune Streetlife, July 12, 2005

In this instance, now DreamWorks must take a big charge for returns. Thus, these cycles changes will demand different company planning and encourages them to explore things like on-demand distribution and whatnot.

As Seth Godin keeps repeating (and hopefully will until we get it), companies that focus on making truly remarkable products will be the ones that survive in our current over-saturated consumer culture.

I would add to that less reliance on mass marketing and big bang attempts to create a market for a product that people in which people may not be terribly interested. In the DreamWorks case, much of the problem is that they have to appeal to the parents, especially in the theater phase of distribution. The kids are the real consumers, but if parents aren't spreading the word-of-mouth, it's likely that the kids won't see the movies.

Part of me feels for companies like DreamWorks. I know people that do that kind of work - they are brilliant and creative people who do amazing work and don't want to see their companies lack of insight into their customers affect it.

Mass Marketing Is Broken

2005-09-29T16:30:00.000-07:00

In his Chaos Scenario, Bob Garfield notes that "the cost of reaching 1,000 households in prime time has jumped from $7.64 in 1994 to $19.85 in 2004."

Plus, not only do you have to reach the people who are watching, you have to actually have their attention. Linda Stone's "continuous partial attention" theory suggest that your ad will compete with any number of other things - cellphone, email, etc, that will have a stronger personal connection to the viewer.

Think about how television watching has changed. In the 1950s and 60s, the entire family sitting around the television in the evenings, watching the advertisement on one of 3 or 4 channels. None of the main instant-on devices were available. They didn't turn on the radio or make a quick phonecall during the break.

Over time, that has devolved into the situation we have today - hundreds of TV channels along with the multitude of other opportunities for diversion.

Add in the proliferation of marketing channels - product placement, ever smaller billboards (see the coffee sleeve for a key example) - and you have a complete saturation of marketing messages for the consumer. This translates into a crisis for the Marketing Team. Still the majority of the marketing spend goes to the standard channels of TV, print, radio, and (now) online banners.

The old companies have the hardest time changing. Still, there are good examples. Toyota nailed it with Scion. They built these things from the ground up based on guerilla research with the younger set. The marketing approach has also shown this kind of ingenuity.

You almost never see a Yahoo! or Google advertisement. They don't need to. They launch a new product or feature, and key bloggers are all over it almost immediately. The user base grows organically (which, incidentally lets them gradually test the scalability of the web app). It stays in Beta mode until they're ready to launch it, then some online ads appear just in the right place, and there you go. New product.

At some point, every Marketing Team will need to deal with this issue. Right now, there's some experimentation, but online banner ads and popup ads are lame, print ad-like applications of online advertising. Should be interesting to see how it develops as the fire turns up.

Stop Wasting Our Time!

2005-09-10T10:53:00.000-07:00

Blake's post on downloading MS Money is hilarious, if exasperating, but also stands as a monument to how big companies still don't get it.

The post culminates in a comment by BenJ:

Budgeting doesn't need to be so complicated anyway.

Amen! I think that's why we're all here.

Both Microsoft and Quicken employ some of the most intelligent software people on the planet, but getting a simple, easy-to-use software package out the door in such large companies will continue to be a problem until two issues are solved.

Issue 1 - Put together a small team and leave them alone.

Updating people and justifying decisions to a vast array of senior managers can suck up a huge, and I mean HUGE, part of a team's time. Once the project is determined to be worthy of funding and you have your crack team in place, put a trusted senior manager/executive in charge of monitoring them and leave them alone.

Encourage the team to be in contact with their colleagues on other teams so that they have insight into what other projects are doing, but it's hard enough to do this stuff right. Let them focus.

Issue 2 - Let users buy/build extensions to add functionality they need.

First, develop a simple, easy-to-use basic framework for the software and then create extentions to let users integrate functionality specific to their desired uses. This works well in basically any software (personal, business, or enterprise). For you business strategizers out there, this can be turned into an income stream quite easily.

In fact, go one better and let other people develop extensions. The oft-mentioned APIs (Google Maps and craigslist) that created housingmaps.com are very powerful in generating ideas for future development. If you find one you really like, license it. In this case, your customer works with you and gets something back. Heaven forbid.

As I work in a large organization, I feel the pain of the MS Money and Quicken teams. These tactics do not need to be unique to 37Signals and Adaptive Path. It seems like people are now frustrated enough, the tools are available, and the audience is starting to look elsewhere.

Life is complicated. Software shouldn't make it worse.

Balance

2005-08-09T17:58:00.000-07:00

There has been much of chatter lately about whether design thinking or business thinking is better. I think it's time for some cognitive balance, no?

LukeW does a nice job of showing how the various aspects of each mindset fall out and stays away from saying that either is better (even if his leanings are somewhat implied).

We carp on the dichotomy between these in order to effect some major shifts in the way that businesses value the way we think as designers. Our endgame, I believe, is to find the place where the clarity of the bottom line meets the vision of design.

I work for a firm where the business folks run the shop. Luckily, my leaders are brilliant business thinkers, so we do very well bottom-line wise. Still, I believe we could multiply those numbers by applying some serious design acumen. That is what I work to affect every day.

Do I get carried away by the business tasks put in front of me? Sure, and that's a source of frustration. However, I constantly seed my coworkers with a different perspective and show them how we can use both sides of our "brain" to find the most effective product offering for both us and our customers.

So far, so good.

Thanks for pointing out the post, Victor.

Mini Epiphany*

2005-07-31T22:24:00.000-07:00

Watching My Architect, I'm realizing why Richard Saul Wurman's voice has such resonance with me.

It's not about projects, or deliverables, or usability, or information architecture, or any of the designs (visual, information, etc.), the current practice of working on software helps us fit technology to our lives rather than the inverse. We're seeing the end of "more," the idea that more complexity and more tools and more information is better. "More" is how technology currently affects us.

Look for ways to give people tools that help them live their lives, rather than give them a reason to use a particular application. Google Search, Flickr, and Backpack are some of the best examples thus far.

Someday the masses of people will rebel against the flood of information and take a step back. Though it may be initially a rejection of technology, the dust will settle and, maybe, they will recognize that there are simple tools out there that help them find knowledge.

Our practice(s) encourage us to use the various art forms as mediums to create the foundations for that time, even if the current climate fights tooth-and-nail to maintain the short-term focus of the status quo.

*Ok, "epiphany" may be a strong word. Maybe "reminder" or "reset" make more sense. Sometimes it's easy to forget this in the interest of making a project real - you know, "Get it done." Anyway, I am hell bent on reducing information anxiety (glut, etc.) and am happy to remember my mission at the highest level on occasion.

Innovation/Information Overload Tipping Point?

2005-07-06T16:34:00.000-07:00

New Scientist is having a bit of fun with people, "teasing" them to read on by leading with:

Human inventiveness is so finely honed, and the globalised technology industries so productive, that there appears to be an invention to cater for every modern whim.

But according to a new analysis, this view couldn't be more wrong: far from being in technological nirvana, we are fast approaching a new dark age.

[link from Tomalak's Realm]

Then, they go on and lay out theories about accelerating, exponential technology growth and a long, slow decline, a la cosmology.

What if these theories are really emblematic of a different question?

We may be seeing the extension of the "chasm" made so famous by Geoffrey Moore, as it becomes less obvious to those not immersed in technology what really works, or what is best for them. There may be somewhat more early adopters because of the various ways you can satisfy your tasks with technology, but it becomes harder to really know who to trust. Word of mouth becomes somewhat less effective because around

Or possibly people will reach a level of information overload that keeps them from acting on anything. If the level of technology can expand exponentially, then think of how information can explode even more. Our own Infinite Information Theorem. Think I'll pick up Wurman's Information Anxiety 2, unless someone out there "recommends" that I not do so.

One can easily see how the promise of the Internet capture some harmonic resonance, but we'll see more fractures before this manifests itself in a way that we can all use. Then, these dueling innovation theories will be long forgotten.

Work away...

Not the Only Answer

2005-06-15T16:11:00.000-07:00

I'm glad there are some true believers when it comes to tagsonomies and the demise(?) of controlled vocabularies. They are collectively making very good points, though I personally find problematic the assumption that no cultivation of these herds of keywords will be necessary going forward.

Thanks to PeterMe for pointing out this great Business Week story on collective power of "Us." At first glance, this story seems like a pie-in-the-sky, go-go Internet bubble anecdote. But it's not. This is the Web actually fulfilling the promise that the bubble hinted at. We weren't ready for it then, now we are growing into it - and nicely, thank you.

Still, there are dangers.

Quite often, the best solution to a problem comes from the sudden flash of insight from a solitary genius such as Charles Darwin or Albert Einstein. It would be a tragedy if these folks, sometimes unpopular in their times, got lost in the cooperative crowds. Clearly, peer production has its limits. Almost certainly, it will never build railroads, grow wheat, run nuclear power plants, or write great novels.

Interesting that some of our Darwins and Einsteins would encourage their own demise. I suspect that they are thinking of their own trajectory as well. I'm interest to hear what they have to say about their next iteration.

Kudos & Questions

2005-06-13T23:23:00.000-07:00

On the vocational cross-over front:

Victor shows how the design community is "trying" to open up about what it means to be a designer. Of course, the controversy is just as juicy; a skill the design community strives to perfect.

Then, there is this story on CNN.com:

Web usability expert Jakob Nielsen predicts that more people will live in rural settings, with technology enabling them to do almost anything they like, be it work or play, without leaving their homes.

Does it scare anyone else to the core of their being that Jakob is talking about anything other than web page real estate? Furthermore, why can I find almost NO protest on the web? Is no one else listening to Mr. Nielsen at this point? That's too bad.

Conversations

2005-05-26T13:06:00.000-07:00

Listening to a Forum this morning about "Green" MBAs, I was struck by the fact that they were not really talking about environmental questions so much as starting to look seriously at teaching business people that think holistically about the non-marketing effects of their business.

Individually, businesspeople are starting to realize that work/life is not a balance, but rather all "life." One panelist, an MBA student, professed a desire to stop compartmentalizing her life - seems to me that she's not alone.

A caller made a wonderful point about how capitalism is about extraction and processing of resources for profit. This force has accelerated through the Industrial Revolution, and now we must turn our attention to cultivation and management of resources with the understanding that these activities affect more than the bottom line. In turn, the bottom line must change to better measure these things.

"Sustainable business" includes being responsible about resources, but also indicates a growing awareness of as a change in attitude about how the corporation is involved in it's community. Things like GE's Ecomagination and BP's focus on environment and society are easy to view cynically, but maybe we should take a step back and see them as people within business trying to change their organizations from within. To be sure, there are external forces guiding the efforts, but the employees are also global community members.

The tenor was strikingly similar tenor to our discussions of "design thinking" and our attempts to use design practice to influence business decisions. Nod to Peter for pointing out that we do not hold a monopoly on this type of thought; the discussion this morning on Forum shows that we, gladly, have plenty of company.

Another panelist mentioned that business is a "conversation" with customers. Design practice can help business deeply understand the discussion with it's clients (Internet projects) and internal ones about processes (intranet projects). These conversations are growing in their influence on the business strategy and, maybe, just maybe, on how the "bottom line" is calculated.

We may not be back in the go-go days, but it seems that some of the prophecy mentioned throughout the Cluetrain Manifesto is finding some light of day - the web is breaking down the control of these conversations. Companies are starting to figure out how they can change to better understand these different aspects of the discussion. I, for one, am happy to contribute.

Noise Baton

2005-05-20T00:25:00.000-07:00

With Paradox of Choice, I'm nervous there is no answer. Noise just gets louder, as we buy Real Simple magazine and retreat to Pottery Barn for mock rustic reminders of simpler decades.

Christina, What we are learning now is that the 50's was the WRONG answer to the scariness that was WWII and the crumbling of our fantasy of isolationism. The Marshall Plan was a gruff admission that we needed to expand our idea of "neighbor." Now, we know that someone halfway across the world should be considered a member of our community based on shared knowledge or experience or need for some piece of information we have.

The term "intelligencia" is evolving from "one with knowledge*" to "one who extracts knowledge from the whole of available information." We can no longer go to one mentor to relieve our worry of noise. We have to rely on a patchwork of our own intuition, the exponentially expanding body of information, and a cadre of sages and interesting thinkers to help us craft our own knowledge base.

Jonathan J. Harris is one of those people. You are one of those people. I have hope (and humility) that my talents are conspiring to take me there. Press on!

*As defined by a learnedness based on the generally accepted classical theorists, mostly from Western cultures.

Certainly Not Perfect, But I Can Live With This

2005-05-20T00:03:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Bloglines. Over the last few weeks, I've increased my blogreach 500% with no effort. None. If anything, I've come to truly understand how much interesting* thought is out there and how blogging might not feel contrived.

Through metacool, comes Good Enough is the New Perfect, which I am usurping to generate momentum for this blog. Half-baked ideas? Help me finish them up. Sneaking suspicions? Call me a rumormonger. Brilliance? Only if we're really lucky (odds akin to winning the lottery).

I have a tendency to let ideas simmer within for a good long while before trotting them out for public consumption. Lately, I've started to realize that my "blinks" are ready for observation and will help me iterate them more quickly.

So watch out UXers and geek voyeurs, here we go. Feel free to poke and prod. We'll all learn something.

*Aside from the fact that the picture is certainly not from Wisconsin.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

2005-05-12T23:27:00.000-07:00

Thomas Vanderwal's post on The Art of the Pivot is right on. Our current media environment allows us new kinds of serendipity that even Al Gore couldn't have envisioned. I, too, would like more opportunities for this kind of interaction - especially on the iPod.

Man, I love that Kings of Convenience song. Wish I could rate it right now, because I'll certainly forget later.*

However, there is a flip side to this benefit, one that is disturbing and portends an epidemic of ADD/ADHD-type syndromes/disorders. The fact that when you can forever pivot, you may never get anywhere; the Internet assumes a bit role as interactive TV.

Susan Szenasy, editor of Metropolis Magazine, covers some of the dangers here in a plea for more attention and analysis from current design students. She's been flexible in teaching her design students, but they are losing the ability to focus on anything long enough to make simple connections.

And so I ask, Are my students condemned to put forth half-baked design ideas in a world that desperately needs their help? Are they--and we--losing analytical skills? Those questions hang heavily in the back of my brain like over-ripe apples about to fall from a tree.

I would like to suggest that some things cannot be learned without devoting one's full and undivided attention to them--no matter how much we celebrate multi-tasking. I suggest that it may be impossible to grasp difficult ideas and remember useful facts by surfing from one Web site to another. Without our personal storehouse of well-reasoned ideas and reliable facts, we cannot hope to be analytical, at those many times when life and work require us to use all the gray mater we can fire up.

Amen, Susan! I think all of us have felt the pressure to read everything and know everything and do everything. Not only to we have to be aware of the pivot opportunities, we also should be aware that every time that pivot appears, we're going to lose some of those that are trusting us to lead them down a path.

Let's remember that we need to open up the pivot opportunities to allow for wonderful, new connections, but also enable those who are looking for us to lead them to knowledge, not just data, information, or recommendations. We can do so much more.

*Ok, the fact that writing this post reminded me to rate that song heard in the car on the way home today proves Thomas' point. So be it. Please excuse me while I take care of that small detail...

A Tiny Bit Farther

2005-05-04T23:56:00.000-07:00

Livia has been asking how is IA practices can assist with innovation in business. As time goes by, I think we're seeing more reference about how this can work.

Victor notes that Chris Conley from IIT is selling a New Kind of Professional. I like how Victor pictures different disciplines vying for the "prize," but won't make it until they realize that a great way to make progress more quickly is to cooperate and share knowledge. Some of you, I'm sure have been part of project teams that actually worked together.

At this same time, Roger Martin from Toronto's Rotman School of Management tells Fast Company:

"Business people don't just need to understand designers better -- they need to become designers."

Well, the opposite is true as well. Designers need to become more business savvy in their practice. Who better to learn from than the business people? Why not teach each other on-the-fly? And, of course, we could share knowledge with engineers as well.

The Fast Co. article also mentions that designers (and, by extension IA practice) examine a "mystery" and propose a "rough solution" with our imaginations. We can also help make sure that solution is validated and refined. This approach balances out the business tendency to boil down new problems into familiar analogies and apply old solutions in new ways.

In practice, both approaches will balance each other out as we come to appreciate the other's expertise and ways of thinking. We've all over-thought design solutions, esp. within groups of designers. It would be nice if, occasionally, someone said, "why don't we just... like we did over there?"

Then, throw in Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind, which, from what Christina and Dan Brown say, is an amalgamation of analytical and creative thinking on a level that we only toy with at the moment. Certainly there are some of these people out there right now, we all know a few. I'm happy to follow in their footsteps and find how my talents and experience lead me to a set of skills portable no matter the economic environment.

These issues are what have encouraged me to join the "other side" as a product manager. From the business perspective, however, I'm learning that my situation is asking me to use my IA chops more than pure business ones and try to find ways to illuminate UX principles in the business context. Progress seems to come in fits and starts, but it is happening. Stay tuned...

Watch Out, Big Boys

2005-05-04T23:16:00.000-07:00

I hope others with passion for UX find it heartening to see companies like 37signals (Basecamp) & the iRise suite getting some notoriety these days. For me, they exemplify the idea that solving a difficult problem simply and well can often trump over-engineered, feature-laden applications.

These two solve distinctly different problems but do so in a space that's very analogous - a (seemingly) simple, yet very functional approach to tasks/needs that most individuals or organizations deal with on a regular basis. Until now, the choice has mainly been to institute ever larger and more complex software, MS Project or RequisitePro, respectively.

Whether or not these two applications actually do/do not knock MicroSoft or IBM off of their pedestals is beside the point. Rather, I believe that this is the start of where simple, flexible tools and processes start to trump the bloated, micro-managed practices put in place in large organizations and allow small groups of people to make big leaps very quickly.

In fact, 37signals just launched Backpack for your personal information. Hey, they knocked that silly project management thing; why not tackle something a bit more difficult.

In the end, it's about people sharing their contexts, listening to each other, capturing the results, and doing something with the collective intelligence. Most of us need less time haggling about requirements or "managing" the project. Instead, let's build things that solve real problems.

Partial Answer to a Good Question

2005-04-25T16:49:00.000-07:00

A wise friend of mine asked me a couple weeks ago what I'm attempting to accomplish with this blog. My answer at the time was something to the affect of, "I'm trying to connect the various thoughts that pop into my head as I go about my day and ricochet around the Web."

Last week, I happened on Scott Berkun's truly amazing essay, Why smart people defend dumb ideas.

My preference when discussing an idea or determining an action almost always results at some point with a desire for me to let it ferment in my head for a bit. Then, at some strange moment, usually when I'm driving home upon my iPod's aural surf or enjoying how well my favorite baseball team is starting the season, the "answer" will hit me.

Now, I have few more thoughts about her question.

For 7 years now, I've been talking with and watching people use technology. For 12 years, I've been talking directly with customers or watching them interact with companies. The entire time, I've felt that the businesses have very strange ways of making decisions.

Back in 1999, I was asking around about why websites had interesting functionality or looked "cool," but you could basically forget being able to actually use it or find anything. Another swami pointed me in the direction of usability.

I found that interesting, and watching over 2 years of weekly user testing certainly helped my education along. I quickly discovered a major dissonance. The focus of usability tests (we were doing) was "does/doesn't the ui work," while the participants were revealing more interesting and far-reaching subtexts such as "Why would I want to do this?" or "I'd prefer to do this another way."

The funny thing was that, though they were generally on the same side, designers and usability folk were, at that point (and only slightly less so now) talking almost the same language, but with different accents or foci. At first, I tried to bridge that gap by working with the designers (through product managers) to set the stage for the context of a project and what ui issues might pop up in the project.

Shortly, the PMs started to come to me when the project started to discuss how their business problem might best be solved. This cemented my interest in the path which we've started down - finding a way to answer some of those issues to which the aforementioned users were alluding.

Now back to some of those "very strange ways of making decisions." Usually businesses are driven to action by:

some particular business driver (cut service costs, increase a particular transaction)
a desire to offer a new service
some competitor offered a feature, and we have to copy
some executive whim (said dumb idea) cascades down the org, most of which have little or no mechanism to diffuse or redirect the idea.
desperation

Lately, I'm struck that the design community might just be ready to help business rethink how they make decisions. That is an intensely interesting problem to me, and one that I'm convinced could entertain the lot of us for a very long time. Still, as with any new ideas (or new uses of old ideas, if you must), there's a lot of noise out there diverting the application of said solution and different possible threads.

Thus, I'd like to use this blog for:

Capturing interesting ideas that help connect what users need to the strategic directions of organizations
Connecting seemingly unrelated ideas to the above affect
Making a contribution to the larger context of our discussions about UX (or whatever we end up calling it), technologies, and the greater interaction environment.

Certainly, these items will continue to evolve. Just wanted to capture them now.

Are We Satisfied With Our Self-satisfaction?

2005-04-20T23:47:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Alex and Gene, sanity has a voice in the universe.

However fun it is to make pronouncements about user experience being dead* or ontologies being overrated, we should know better.

Isn't our entire purpose of being to bring context to different constituencies within relationships - not only to each other but to the data that is manipulated? Whether usability practice, interaction design approach, UCD methods, etc, we vie for a spot at the adult's table, and our pontification propensity subverts that desire.

I, and certainly not just me, have higher aspirations. If we play our cards right, we may just be part of the next leaders of our still-fledgling web channel. Take a lot of empathetic practice, use it not only in our outputs but as part of our "sales" processes, and watch the pure business types scramble to find their third dimension.

I'm going to have a blast and hope you will join me.

*Grrr. PMe just had to post now with a much more interesting perspective that I certainly agree with. Thanks, Peter.

The Long Tail Wagging the Dog

2005-04-15T14:58:00.000-07:00

So much to say, but other professional insanity restrains me. Take that as you will. To whet your whistle, an illustrative snippet of the long tail attempting to unleash it's authority.

Lost chanteuse Fiona Apple has a finished album, shelved since 2003, that Sony executives do not consider "commercial enough for release." The rumors around the recording and status of that album motivated long-time Apple fan Dave Muscato to start the Free Fiona campaign, including a website and a protest at Sony's offices in NYC.
(see the MTv News story, Jan 2005)

Now, by itself, you would think that this is a nice story of a fan trying to generate noise for a favorite artist no longer thought of by the fickle music-consuming public. However, some of the album is circulating on the Internet, and a Seattle station has played a few songs.

Support seems to be growing from the ground up, exemplifying a niche market trying to flex it's newfound power in mass media. Once these consumers realize that they have some sway, the (soon to be formerly-) dictatorial music executives will find their power slowly(?) usurped.*

Sony might go ahead and release this album online, say, and let her fans carry the torch for a while. Then they get to see how it does before doing a more expensive, marketing-driven release. Think of it as a Beta is the New Black for the media markets. When will consumer-facing businesses wake up and try to ride the wave rather than continue building dikes in rising seas?

*And there is the possibility that the change will not be so gentle. More on that later.

Wise Crowds

2005-04-05T22:54:00.000-07:00

Victor mentions the 4 characteristics of "wise" crowds from James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds.

It strikes me that, "wise" crowds, even if they are hierarchical, have effective information circulation amongst team members of all authority levels. Maybe "wise" refers to an enlightened ability to limit the amount of personal spin put on the information, or, instead, "filtering" information effectively no matter what direction it's headed.

This filtering sounds much like what IAs do.

I propose that information flow, in most organizations, acts much like an clogged artery - some of the passages are working just fine. As blocks forms and grows, the other parts of the system must work harder to pump the same amount of blood. Couple this with the crush of information that the modern workplace must synthesize with this interference, and the effectiveness of the entire system suffers, possibly with terrible consequences.

IA can help avoid both of these situations by providing some insight into where the blocks are forming, how to circumvent them, and lead the exercises that increase the vessels ability to pump the blood.

Better, Stronger, Faster.

Karl Fast suggests the book Complexity by Mitchell Waldrop. Can't wait to dig into complexity theory.

The iPod Therapist

2005-03-28T23:59:00.000-08:00

"Music therapy is the systematic use of music, within a developing relationship between patient and therapist to restore, maintain, and improve physical, emotional, psychosocial and neurologic function."
Institute for Music and Neurologic Function

I'm finding an interesting effect of iPoding. Much like smells, I'm finding that songs are triggering certain memories.

"We Are Each Other" from the Beautiful South's 0898 or, really, anything from the Housemartin's The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death conjure up images of my Junior year of college, looking over the campus from the 13th floor of Tower 2. Good times.

Or, Poe's "Angry Johnny" or "Trigger Happy Jack (Drive by a Go-Go)" putting me in my awesome apartment in the Central West End right after college.

One must also be careful about what ends up in your iPod "session." OMD was cool for a suburban St. Louis high school stud like me, but after Tesla Girls comes on, say, the third time, you're begrudging iTunes for finding it in the "archives" folder. Or, send you running to take out the Propellerhead's "History Repeating." (The shuffle function's shortcomings are well-documented, but come on!)

God forbid that heavy rotation ruins the soothing nature of Bill Wither's Use Me Up or the emotional impact of Jeff Buckley's Morning Theft.

Still, with the effects of these rememberances, I'm starting to wonder if these constant, system-driven reminders of times past will start to connect us to thoughts, ideas, or moments long (or lately) forgotten - allowing us to spend a tiny bit of extra time adding to our language studies, or finding that one additional piece of information that proves your hypothesis.

Will the iPod help us continue to slowly expand our capacity for knowledge, reducing slightly how much time we're caught up in "managing" our current library?

Maybe, instead, we'll just get to sleep before midnight for once.

Moment of Inspiration

2005-03-22T19:15:00.000-08:00

(Or Connecting to the Web Way Out)

During Brett's presentation Why Amazon Is Not Enough from the IA Summit, I made a connection between a fantasy of mine* and what the web can do.

Long have I harbored a pet peeve with our education here in the US. In my experience and hearing other people talk about it, our system is geared towards certain types of learning methods (mostly memorization). Generally, certain people do very well in these environments; I certainly did. However, over time, I am understanding that I don't really learn that way; I just adapted to the system.

Hearing the discussions on NPR about No Child Left Behind and the new SATs, I find more about different ways that people learn and that education in our country (at least) has not yet widely embraced these alternative methods. You do see more magnet and alternative schools, but they are certainly not the norm.

With this in mind, Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age hit me like a brick when I read it a few years back. The premise of the story is that a young girl is given a book that "binds" to her and teaches her "everything" based exactly on her personal mindset and intellectual ability. As you can imagine, that resonated with me.

Now, back to the IA Summit. Brett was talknig about how the web can be more than recommendations, extrapolating to consumers controlling their information (CMI). Then it hit me: when you look for recommendations, you're trying to learn something. As you build your knowledge on the subject, it would be good to have a "learning guide" that you've built yourself out of various sources and media.

Well, what about a way that your Personal IA (see Thomas Vander Wal's Personal Info Cloud) were to help you:

build the guides - directing you to sources that you have returned to repeatedly for other reasons
remind you of things you've learned before that relate to this
suggest people you already know that may know more about this
point you to people/groups to whom you aren't yet connected
sent out inquiries on the web (anonymously?) and aggregated the responses (Google Answers? Ask Jeeves?)
present this body in a way that you, particularly, can understand

Not much farther on from this would be the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer from Diamond Age. That's the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night. I love my job.

*not that kind.

Hypotheses

2005-03-14T14:53:00.000-08:00

Livia wants some hypotheses on IA as change management.

Here's one:

Most organizations vacillate between two extremes. Either they institute too much structure and control with bureaucracy (see the Rational Unified Process) and inflexibility, or they allow too little control or structure (take your pick - Pets.com or WebVan, anyone? Suggestions welcome).

Information Architecture can create a "loose" structure(s) that:

Frames the problems, opportunities, and constraints
Allow for varied perspectives (of both project stakeholders and the end-users)
Removes much of the politics from the decisions made in the project
Maximizes the benefit for everyone

Thus, IA can allow change to happen without strangling creativity or allowing too much flexibility.

Come on, let's prove that one!

Emergence of the IA Furies

2005-03-11T20:02:00.000-08:00

So, Jesse, issued a clarion call this week at the IA Summit. Beware those the incur the wrath! To dispell my own displeasure at the wanton waste of hard work and contribute to society (finally), I start... now.