Just got this bit of sp@m with the subject line: Make Money with Google Bailout Plan

I love how they evoke the government bailouts as something now available to you, potential customer mark, and tie it to Google, a recent blue-chippy money brand. Of course, the image is something they can keep reusing and change the subject line as the cultural story around the economy keeps evolving.

One could track the zeitgeist by following the thrust of our sp@m.

Inspired by my interactions column Hold Your Horses

, I was interviewed for a Lunar Design podcast.

How do speed, creativity and innovation intertwine in the design process? In this Connections episode, Gretchen Anderson and Lisa Leckie talk with Steve Portigal of Portigal Consulting about getting results through design research.

Listen to podcast:

• Ben Allen on the failure of attention to detail
  A chocolate company designs the outside of their package but not the rubber-meets-the-road inside.
• Diego Rodriguez on the power of details
  Even the screw heads line up in a hotel light switch, suggesting just that extra bit of perfection and detail.
• User Research Friday review by Janna Kimel
  “There was something great and very tangible about this short and fairly small gathering. 150 people gathered for 5 hours to learn and network – then it was gone.”

• From 2007, what would I do if appointed “Innovation Czar” (as they were calling it at the time)
  … I would introduce empathy processes into government, especially departments that interact with the public or with businesses. Everyone – EVERYONE – will go through the process that their “clients” go through, on a regular basis (say, once per year). DMV clerks who stand in line (as the obvious example) will have an opportunity to see what the “other half” experiences. …
• Nussbaum’s Letter to President-Elect Obama: Here’s How To Build Your Innovation Dream Team
  Please drop the Chief Information Officer title you are planning to create. That title is so 20th Century. You need a serious Department of Innovation led by a heavy-weight giant in the field who sits in on Cabinet meetings…All understand that innovation is not solely about technology but about behavior, empathy, collaboration and designing new options where none existed before.
• Challenged ballots
  (via Kottke). Some great examples of different ways people can interpret instructions. In the case of ballot design and usage, how to interpret their actions becomes a legal matter sitting on top of a usability matter.

The impulse to touch and its long-term effects as remnants of previous touchers touching serve as an invitation

Japanese Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, November 2008

Kyoto, Japan, January 2008

Also see previously: Friction Never Sleeps

Bar, San Leandro, California

In-N-Out Burger, San Leandro, California

• videos from User Research Friday 2008
  My presentation was recorded!
• videos from 2008 Design Research Conference
  My workshop was not recorded

There’s an advertising aesthetic I’ve long been fond of, showing a diverse range of customers tiled to demonstrate, often in a faux-anthropological fashion, that the product appeals to everyone, but that as different as people are, they have this one thing in common. The other message conveyed is that you, or “we” are the brand, collectively, evoking every cheesy movie scene where one by one the people in the crowd step forward and identify themselves as the oppressed protagonist, showing solidarity and often confounding the square villains who don’t understand true friendship (think “I am Spartacus!” from Spartacus, “I am Malcolm X!” from Malcolm X, “I am a drag queen!” from To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar

).
Some examples:

Rolling Stones, No Security, 1998

Tokyo subway, 2002

Verizon ad, 2002

This notion, if not exactly the same visual treatment, is being evoked effectively in the I’m a PC ads and the associated website

(Thanks to Tom Williams and Phoebe for their help with this post)

This review of Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers (an exploration of what causes people to be successful; get a taste from this recent New Yorker piece) reminded me of a long-ago correspondence I had with Mr. Gladwell.

Date: 6/16/01
From: Steve Portigal (steve.portigal@—–)
To: Malcolm Gladwell (malcolm@—-)

I just thought I’d get the “I’m a fan!” thing out of the way up front…

[rambling enthusiastic feedback, introduction, etc. snipped]

Date: 6/18/01
From: Malcolm Gladwell (malcolm@—-)
To: Steve Portigal (steve.portigal@—–)

hi there. thanks for the sweet email. i’m delighted you find my stories interesting. and i love the auto seat anectode (which i have already shared with my editor). your job sounds very cool. if you ever run across what seems to be a cool case study, do let me know. cheers, mtg

Date: 8/28/01
From: Steve Portigal (steve.portigal@—–)
To: Malcolm Gladwell (malcolm@—-)

I don’t know I’ve got a case study, but a couple of ideas that seem (to me) deserving of your insight.

Dynasties – how the hell in the US can the son of a president grow up to be president? And his brother is the governor of a state? I mean, there’s something very obvious about parents passing opportunities and values onto their children but is it more than that? What about the social structures we’ve erected that suggest that anyone can be anything they want? Is there something about biology here?

Prodigies – the sports issue of the New Yorker had a thing about Tiger Woods (this was months ago) that kind of had me scratching my head – by some random set of circumstances he picked up a club at a young age, and was good at it. His parents noticed this (another perhaps rare condition) and encouraged it (yet another one), and voila.

How many prodigies are there that never encounter a violin or whatever? Are they born, or made?

Date: 8/30/01
From: Malcolm Gladwell (malcolm@—-)
To: Steve Portigal (steve.portigal@—–)

hi there. thanks for the story ideas.

A recent ad for Blackberry, showing every bit of the otherwise neutral device covered in imagery that references the richness of the life of someone who uses it. Evoking the strongly the aftermarket skins that enable a similar sort of customization. The ad is using the visual as a metaphor but it’s actually quite close to a product that other firms make to address the relative monotony of consumer electronics products.