Grant McCracken has posted his fantastic foreword to Interviewing Users.

This is a wonderful book. Steve can teach us how to improve our ability to penetrate other worlds and examine our assumptions. Ethnography has suffered terribly in the last few years. Lots of people claim to know it, but in fact the art and science of the method have been badly damaged by charlatans and snake oil salesmen. Let’s seize this book as an opportunity to start again. Let Steve Portigal be our inspired guide.

Core77 has posted an excerpt from Interviewing Users.

From my introduction to the excerpt:

I’ve talked to a lot of practitioners about their own experiences in doing fieldwork and often they try to address challenges when they experience the symptoms, but that’s usually not the right time. Consider this analogy: if you have insomnia, the best solutions are not those that you roll out at 3am when you can’t sleep. To effectively counteract insomnia you have to make specific choices during the day, before you go to bed. Doing research with people is the same thing and ideally you approach this sort of work with a well-defined perspective that will inform all of the inevitable detailed, specific, tactical problem solving.

Voila les deets:

• Interviewing Users is out! Huzzah! There’s been lots of enthusiasm and already some good feedback!
• Core77 has posted an excerpt here.
• I’m doing a few interviews for the book. Look for them to start showing up online in the next couple of weeks.
• You’re invited to the Interviewing Users launch party, June 3 in San Francisco. And stay tuned for info on the New York party, too!
• Don’t forget about the free webcast next week.
• Some good networking on hand for this week, catching up with people and talk about their businesses, careers, goals and of course mine.
• Ten years gone: From May 2003 – Why Calvin Pees, Bugs and Daffy for Landmine Awareness.
• What we’re consuming: Little Yangon, Black Blizzard, Teddy Bear.

Interviewing Users is now available. Get your copy here!

Here’s a really interesting project about How People Talk to Themselves in Their Heads.

He would ask them to wear a microphone headset attached to a digital recorder and speak aloud their thoughts as he followed closely behind with a camera. He would not be able to hear what they were saying…[The] videos are simultaneously naturalistic and as objective as possible. In the lab, in front of a researcher, people are often reluctant to reveal exactly what they are thinking. Writing a diary of inner speech is somewhat more private, but many people find it annoying to regularly drop everything and make an entry; sometimes it’s difficult to remember what one was thinking about even minutes earlier. In Irving’s videos people are living their lives more or less as usual, walking and talking to themselves as though they were unaccompanied. Of course, people who are not completely comfortable with the scenario sometimes speak into the microphone as though trying to entertain someone else. And getting people’s inner speech on tape captures only linguistic forms of thought, neglecting the kind of thinking that happens in images and scenes, for example.

The notion that unfettered, deeper self-exploration and self-expression can come when not interacting with the interrogator – to the point here of nearly eliminating the interrogation entirely – evokes the (I presume mostly obsolete) approach to therapy where the patient does not face the therapist.

I find the videos compelling (and voyeuristic to the extreme). Check out the other videos at the link – the ones that take place without the strolling seem more like a diary and less like a peek into the stream of consciousness. But for each of them, see if they pass the sniff-test for you: is the person talking the way they are because of the experiment (they know they are being recorded; they feel they need to come up with something to say, they are aware of their own “voice”, etc.) or is it really getting as deep as the researcher claims? I was mostly convinced but a sliver of doubt remains.

In the research we do, we make no claim of naturalism; we certainly want to direct and influence what is being shared, and we build rapport to facilitate openness and honesty. This approach isn’t likely to be appropriate for us, but it’s certainly provocative to look at the output of an opposite approach – where the interviewer is effectively absented and rapport is not a consideration.

Today Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights is finally released! I’m so excited; last night was like the night before my birthday (or at least the way that felt when I was a kid).

I’m grateful for all the enthusiasm and am looking forward to people’s thoughts when they’ve had a chance to read and digest and reflect.

Great stuff about bad ideas in this post from Jon Bell. First, an everyday application

…when we’re trying to decide where to eat for lunch and no one has any ideas. I recommend McDonald’s.

An interesting thing happens. Everyone unanimously agrees that we can’t possibly go to McDonald’s, and better lunch suggestions emerge.

It’s as if we’ve broken the ice with the worst possible idea, and now that the discussion has started, people suddenly get very creative.

Then he applies this principle to creative work.

I call it the McDonald’s Theory: people are inspired to come up with good ideas to ward off bad ones.
…
The next time a project is being discussed in its early stages, grab a marker, go to the board, and throw something up there. The idea will probably be stupid, but that’s good! McDonald’s Theory teaches us that it will trigger the group into action…Say, “This is probably crazy, but what if we.-“

The article is short and direct and makes the point so well. This is an area I’ve been exploring over the past year or so (see article on Core77 here and slide deck from SXSW here) and it’s great to see others doing so as well.

The ultimate cause bracelet, advocating for itself and indeed all cause bracelets (or “wristbands” if you prefer the more vulgar term).

If the singularity will eventually bring us self-replicating machines then maybe this advocacy movement is the initial landing party establishing a cultural beachhead.

Also see Rob Walker’s classic Consumed piece about the Live Strong bracelet here.

Greetings at the head of the week!

• This is the week! Interviewing Users will be available on Thursday!
• On May 15th I’ll be doing a free webcast entitled Interviewing Users: Uncovering Compelling Insights. Hope to “see” you there!
• I’m putting together a pitch presentation for a long-time favorite client, where we haven’t worked together for about a decade! It’s fun to learn how things have changed in their organization and think about what we can do for them now.
• Ten years gone: From April 2003 – In Their Hummers, Right Beside Uncle Sam, Rolling Stones lingerie.
• What we’re consuming: Shanghai Dumpling King, capybaras, The Death of the Author, Party Down.

During last week’s trip to Baltimore, I had just a little bit of time to explore. Here’s what I saw:

I had a really delicious meal at The Food Market in the hip neighborhood of Hampden, but I did snort with laughter when they brought over what I thought was going to be a beet salad.

Have we hit Peak Experience (and not in the Maslovian sense) when donuts are reframed as experiences? Closing the loop on my last visit to the area, this was a total disappointment. Disappointing donuts and a weird experience. Fractured Prune was located in an Italian restaurant but I could not figure out where the donut counter was. It turned out to be shared with the restaurant. I had to ask two people once I was actually in this little restaurant where the donuts were. There’s no familiar visual cue of shelves of donuts, since all are made-to-order. I did have nice chat with a fellow patron who told me they were great donuts. I didn’t let him see me leave the half-eaten ones sitting in the bag on the picnic table outside. Not good.

Street art in Hampden.

Hello Monday!

• I’m just about recovered from a ridiculous travel delay that got me back home at 4:30 in the morning on Friday. Baltimore was great and the McCormick meeting was really inspiring, but that trip home was a disaster.
• I don’t expect any War Stories this week but last week we had three: Tom, Elaine and Ilona. If you’ve got one you’d like to share, let me know!
• I’m focused heavily on Interviewing Users this week. Check out the testimonials and my Amazon author page!
• Ten years gone: From April 2003 – a shark farewell, Shiksa branding, industrial spy photography.
• What we’re consuming: Woodberry Kitchen, Elevator to the Gallows, The Food Market, Visionary Art, “The Simpsons” writer’s reunion.