Simon Roberts shuts down Ideas Bazaar, his small UK user research consultancy. He’s off to a job with Intel, no doubt to do amazing things. Interesting to read the above-linked entry (for me, at least) because it describes life in a situation not unlike my own, a very small consulting business. Lots of detail in the long post, including lessons learned (headlines only here):

• That a good accountant is great asset.
  
• Working with other small business usually works really well.
  
• That in this type of business you have to give some stuff away.
  
• That there is a lots of totally crap market, strategic, creative or whatever sort of research out there and loads of companies seem content to put up with it.
  
• That you don’t have to have to have a anthropology degree (or even a social science background) to be an ‘ethnographer’ or even an ‘anthropologist’ anymore.
  
• That you can say “no” to companies that you don’t want to work with if you don’t like what they stand for or what they do.
  
• That these sort of businesses don’t scale very easily
  
• That if you run a blog you should be more outspoken, more often and put more “editorial” or opinion on it.

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This ad from Sonos features Mieko Kusano, director of product management, and Wai-Loong Lim, of Y Studios, their designer. Certainly, as we understand design as a differentiator, it gets talked about in corporate marketing, but the appearance of the actual designer is often limited to someone like Jerry Hirschberg in a Nissan ad. Here we’ve got the consultant with their own brand being interviewed about the product and about design. This is a designer who’s demonstrated value to his clients and who is appreciated for it! (Disclosure: Wai is a former colleague)

WSJ.com has a story [via Techdirt] about all the different services where people can exchange or “flip” their products, in essence you buy something and then resell it, so you’re only owning it for a short time for a small cost. This it the Netflix model (packaged differently). I guess that’s the gold standard now, Netflix-for-X.

But one model they mention is eBay – where the exchange is between individuals, rather than a controlled top-down facilitated exchange via a Netflix. As Dirk pointed out in email, there’s a too-much-stuff semi-conservation thing at root here as well, we can’t deal with any more stuff. That led me to consider a few other services that are out there as part of the “access-not-ownership” trend.

Freecycle is a grassroots organization that sets up local email groups (I run the Coastside group where I live) for people to get rid of stuff they’d otherwise throw out by offering it free (and only free) to somebody nearby. We got rid of an old shed yesterday – someone came and disassembled it and hauled it away. For free. I got service for free; they got a shed for free.

BookCrossing is all about sharing free books.

I think these peer-to-peer models for exchange of extra stuff (whether free, or commercial, like eBay) are equally valid and hold great potential. Instead of trying to be the next Netflix, maybe more companies should try to be the next Napster?!

Wonderfully passionate blog entry about making that all-important connection with another person in a user-research setting. This would be great fodder for the workshop I’m leading at EPIC

next month.

Last week, after a long long time I had a chance to conduct user interviews again. I loved any minute of it. There is nothing more rewarding (for me) than spending two hours with people I never met before (and probably I will never meet again) trying to understand the world from their point of view.

In those two hours and from the first few seconds, my attention is totally focused on the other person. I observe how they enter the room, how they look at me, and how they shake my hand; I need to understand anything I can about their personality, their level of comfort, and their communication style to be able to be in synch with them. The entire session is a dance, where I ask and listen, probe and observe, with the only purpose of gaining insight in somebody else perceptions, thoughts, and expectations. It’s always a fascinating journey.

….

But I believe that the magic of understanding another person is not just a technical issue. It requires to suspend for a moment our ego-centered way to interpret the world and open up to a different interpretation. In a way, it’s about love.

…

There is something wonderful in experiencing somebody else’s world. You understanding expands, you suddenly see something you could not see before. And there is no going back.

Kraft Food Ingredients has designed Pan Drippings Flavors, a “new line of home-style flavorings that embodies the aromatic, mouthwatering flavor of meat pan drippings.”

There are some amazingly arcane companies out there, like Sethness Caramel Color

In 1880, a 25 year old self-educated immigrant named Charles O. Sethness started a flavor and syrup business in Chicago, Illinois. And from this humble beginning grew the world’s largest and most respected manufacturer of caramel color.

[via Pasta and Vinegar]. Technology is clearly the mother of invention here. What else can we customize? How’s about mouthgards!

Would you buy face goo from this man? Dr. Weil for Origins is a new line of skin care products.

This proactive approach addresses you as a whole person – inside and out and introduces three provocative new products. Each propriety formula features some of the most effective natural substances Dr. Weil has found to address skin problems.

The line includes Plantidote Mega-Mushroom Face Serum, Plantidote Mega-Mushroom Supplement, and Nite-trition Restful Sleep Supplement.

But this is not stricly for profit, no!

Dr. Andrew Weil donates all his after-tax profits from the sale of Dr. Andrew Weil for Origins products to the Weil Foundation, an organization dedicated to sustaining the vision of integrative medicine.

Of course, Origins will be keeping their booty. The Weil Foundation sounds cool, but I guess I’m cynical about what that all really means. And please forgive the overal cynicism of this story; we want companies to do good work, but sometimes it seems too much, too silly, too unbelievable. For me, this is one of those times.

Bitchy review of Rosie in Fiddler

Here are instructions for transforming yourself into a Jewish matriarch in provincial Russia in 1905, inspired by Rosie O’Donnell’s performance in “Fiddler on the Roof” at the Minskoff Theater. Feel free to try this at home.

1. Plant yourself on the floor as if you were an oak.
2. Puff out your chest.
3. Place the palm of your left hand on the back of your left hip.

And, voilÔø?!, you have instant Golde, the wife of Tevye, the philosopher-milkman in the musical adaptation of Sholom Aleichem’s stories of shtetl life in the twilight of imperial Russia. Just strike that commanding maternal pose and all other essential elements of character will soon arrive naturally. It might help if you prayed a little, too.

That would seem to be Ms. O’Donnell’s approach to a role previously played by Randy Graff and Andrea Martin in David Leveaux’s elegant but empty revival of this much-loved show by Joseph Stein, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick. Alas, a pose and a prayer prove to be not quite enough to allow Ms. O’Donnell – the comedian, television personality, theatrical producer, sometime actress and confessional blogger – to make us believe that she is someone other than who she so famously is.

Her accent trots the globe, through countries real and imagined. It is variously Irish, Yiddish, Long Island-ish and, for big dramatic moments, crisp and round in the style of introduction-to-theater students. Her relationship with the notes and keys of a song is similarly fluid.

In the scene where Tevye (Harvey Fierstein) frightens his wife by describing an ominous dream, Ms. O’Donnell puts her hands to her pinchable cheeks and emanates a series of high-pitched o’s, bringing to mind a distressed dolphin. Whether center stage or on the sidelines, she can be relied upon to react with italicized gestures and facial expressions to what everyone else is saying.

Ms. O’Donnell, who has previously appeared on Broadway as a tough teenager in “Grease” and the Cat in the Hat in “Seussical,” executes all this with a cheerful confidence that is unfortunately not infectious. A stalwart promoter of Broadway when she was a television talk show host, Ms. O’Donnell does seem to be enjoying herself.

But as is usual with her stage performances, she suggests a jill-of-all-trades who thought she might as well try her hand at acting, too. The overall impression brings to mind what might happen if the lead in a high school production fell ill and the director turned to the most popular and reliable girl in the senior class (who is already the captain of the field hockey team, the debating society and the pep club) to fill in.