Thursday, December 20, 2007
I Think, Therefore What?
Here are two sentences that capture where I am at the moment:
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...
[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...
Monday, October 08, 2007
Not Getting Ahead Of Ourselves
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'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.
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:
Check out the full interview, which includes many ways designers can get smarter about business.
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."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.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.
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.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
No Dearth of Words
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.
[埋込みオブジェクト:http://www.podtech.net/player/podtech-player.swf?bc=8435beb6be5d495e80b950023471fcd7]
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.
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.
[埋込みオブジェクト:http://www.podtech.net/player/podtech-player.swf?bc=8435beb6be5d495e80b950023471fcd7]
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.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Tour '07 Continues In Portland Next Month
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!
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!
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Housecleaning
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?
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?
Saturday, March 17, 2007
All Talk?
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
A Slight Bit of Horn Tooting
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:
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!
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Organizations & The Conceptual Age
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:
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.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Ear-to-Ear
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Means to an End
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.
The movie studios resist, and Jobs can't be on the board everywhere.
Breathless
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!
And lo, the hype!
Friday, July 28, 2006
Will Work for Free
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.
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.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Did You Hear That Tree Falling?
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:
What a great paragraph! Look at the business realities that this highlights:
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.
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ドル-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ドル 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.
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.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
New Plane(s) of Existence
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.
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.
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.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Testing the Dam
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:
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.
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.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Yin Yank
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Adapt or Die
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:
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.
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*
- 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*
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.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
User Experience As Sustainable Advantage
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Filling the Media Vacuum
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.
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?
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.
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ドル 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.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Reality, Gorgeous Reality!
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.
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.
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