Happy happy Monday!

• The week has begun well, with news that a client has accepted our proposal to help them with planning a research program to support a wide-ranging strategic initiative. Looks like a trip to Cambridge, MA is coming up soon to kick this off.
• We posted two great War Stories last week, from Steve Sato and Gerry Gaffney. I’m working away on the plan for my upcoming War Stories talk at CHIFOO next month.
• It’s a ways away but I am excited about teaching a workshop on synthesizing user research at EuroIA and on developing an understanding of presence at UX Australia. I’d love for people to sign up earlier, rather than later, for these workshops because it really helps with planning logistics (and finances).
• Given that I’m going to be in Sydney in August and Brussels in September, it’d be great to line up a training or consulting gig vaguely in and around there. If your European or Australian firm might benefit from working with me, please get in touch to talk further.
• I’m attending the Core77 Conference next month in Brooklyn. Will I see you there?
• Ten years gone: From May 2004 – A website about someone famous is not the way to reach someone famous, John Maeda’s Simplicity Design Workshop, Green Tea Caramel Corn
• What we’re consuming: Benedict Cumbercats, Neil Young’s String Theory, Louie.

Happy May! Hope you had a lovely May Day, Star Wars Day, Cinco de Cuatro and Cinco de Mayo!

• Last week was the first anniversary of Interviewing Users. I posted a summary of links, resources, podcasts and more.
• While I’m waiting to hear about a number of interesting proposals out there, I’m doing a big push with blogging. It’s a gift to always have more to write about than time, but it’ll be fun to clear out the top layer of the backlog at least.
• We had a new War Story last week. I’ve seen a good first draft of another new one that hope to be able to post soon. If you’ve got a story it would be great to share it so get in touch!
• On the subject of War Stories, I’m digging into the preparations for a new talk about the War Stories, coming up at CHIFOO next month (and at UX Australia later this year.
• On the town: I’ll be at the Designing Innovation panel on Wednesday night. Maybe I’ll see you there?
• Ten years gone: From May 2004 – Classic concert companion, Starsky and Hutch art installation, Fun Facts!
• What we’re consuming: dogs and shag, mezcal, Zepparella, Rolling Pin Donuts.

Hope things are as sunny where you are as they are here…

• I spent the first half of today helping our client with a synthesis session. We made it through two transcripts and they’ve got another 11 to do on their own, so they have some work ahead. But it was really fun, really interesting and quite valuable in pulling out some themes and opportunities. I’ll meet with them next to help with a presentation and run a design workshop afterwards, probably in a few weeks.
• If you missed last week’s well-received 32 Awesomely Practical UX Tips virtual seminar, you can still get the recordings. Use the code 32UXTIPS for 32% off!
• I’ve got a great slate of catch-up calls and lunches this week. It’s something I find so helpful and enjoyable and I’m glad to have the chance to do it right now as projects wind down and others are still winding up.
• Ten years gone: From April 2004 – Academics examine Wal-Mart for clues to our culture, Reuters consent.
• What we’re consuming: Ferrell’s Donuts, Fargo, a rant about design, Fastball’s The Way, improv as life advice.

Greetings to all!

• We’re onto the final tiny steps to wrap up this long project. Last week’s sessions highlighted some real challenges in moving innovation through the organization and I know that my direct clients have some more work to do. I’ve put together an iteration of our final presentation that hopefully will help everyone understand the path we’ve gone down – the questions we were tasked with and the ways our research addressed those. For now, I’m waiting to hear that this is satisfactory for concluding this phase of work.
• I’ve got my single transcript in hand will be combing through it this week in preparation for facilitating for a new client next week.
• We’ve got another new War Story! Check out Seeing Ourselves As Others May See Us. I hope to have more soon (hint hint hint).
• On Friday I recorded a conversation with Gerard Dolan for his UX Discovery Session podcast and before the weekend was up he had posted it! Check out our 30-minute chat.
• More to listen to: the recording from last week’s Wise Talk about Interviewing Users is here.
• This week I’ll be one of several speakers at Rosenfeld Media’s day-long virtual event, 32 Awesomely Practical UX Tips. Use the code STEVE for 20% off!
• I’m taking time this week to drive down to meet with a design team we worked a lot with about 4 years ago and see if there are opportunities to collaborate again. I’m also having lunch with a few different colleagues around the area to catch up and share ideas and stories.
• Ten years gone: From April 2004 – Astro Boy currency, Wacky warning labels.
• What we’re consuming: Philz Coffee (suburban version), Aaron Sorkin’s QSR drama, renovacation, Chinatown Sartorialist, Silicon Valley, focus group horror, dog treats (inadverently!).

The weeketh beginneth, all!

• I’m in Boston with my client today and tomorrow, with one day to talk through the findings and implications of the research and another to workshop ideas for new products and features. It’s been a long haul with this project and I’m pretty excited about the culmination.
• Later this week I will be getting transcripts from fieldwork that I was not involved in, as I continue to coach this new (to me) team on uncovering the strategic opportunities that their research is pointing to.
• We’ve got a new War Story! Check out Lindsay’s story: Sexism In The City. More to come (and please get in touch with your story! We want more more more!)
• Proposals are in for a couple of exciting collaborations, and seeds are being sown on my behalf for some other coaching and advising gigs. I can’t wait!
• Don’t forget, this Thursday, I will be the guest on Mariposa’s Wise Talk, speaking about Interviewing Users. Sign up here and join us!
• Also on Thursday, I will be presenting Building the muscles of innovators (via Skype or similar) at uxWaterloo.
• Next week, I’ll be one of several speakers at a day-long virtual event, 32 Awesomely Practical UX Tips. You can use the discount code STEVE for 20% off!
• Ten years gone: From April 2004 – No, I’m not French, Wild West Theme Parks – in Europe, Justin Hall and our IDSA panel, FreshMeat #21: The More The Merrier.
• What we’re consuming: A Brief History of John Baldessari, James Rebhorn, Like A Rolling Sex Machine, How to Do a Research Interview, Klosterman on Kiss.

Howdy April. Hopefully it’s spring for you if you live in a spring-in-April part of the world.

• The key objective for this week is to wrap up the deliverable document for this project. That means I’m working in PowerPoint, trying to actually craft an articulate statement that succinctly expresses the details of what we saw – and why that’s relevant to our client. I took some time this week to make sure that I left paper (and Microsoft Word) and got into PowerPoint – it’s always gratifying to be in the deck, even though the ideas are still sharpening. I’ve got a bunch of diagrams to draw, oh and the details of a workshop to plan. I know that by the time I get on an airplane Sunday morning we’ll be all set, but it really requires focus.
• I think it’s on hold this week while my main contact is on holiday, but last week I started consulting with a team who have already conducted their own fieldwork to help inform a pretty significant strategic directive to open up new lines of business.
• I’m so grateful for Cati’s review of Interviewing Users on Amazon.
• There’s some tantalizing possibilities for great collaborations for our next project. Conversations this week will tell us more about what is happening next.
• Coming up on April 17, I will be the guest on Mariposa Leadership’s Wise Talk, where the topic will be The Art of Interviewing Users. You can register here. I hope to hear from you!
• I helped judge two categories (Effective In-House Team and Work Environment for Digital Practitioners: In-House) for the Design for Experience awards.
• I enjoyed listening to this podcast with Kerry Bodine, not the least for the amazing shout-out she gives to Interviewing Users at 15:45.
• I’m still waiting for confirmation but possibly I’ll be leading a session on interviewing at SF Civic Design Camp this Saturday.
• I’ve posted all of my photos from my trip to Australia and New Zealand.
• On the town this week: On Tuesday, I’ll hope to make it to BayCHI to hear Michael Kronthal talk about building empathy at Yahoo.
• Ten years gone: From April 2004 – Mourners honor chickens killed in wake of bird-flu outbreak, Faith Popcorn overrated, Parade of 1000 Samurai, So that’s who likes those robot dogs.
• What we’re consuming: Frances Ha, Google Night Walk, Inside Llewyn Davis, Walking backwards through Tokyo.

It’s the last day of March…

• I’m in the office on a Monday morning for the first time in forever. I’m not planning any travel for about two weeks, which is quite nice
• I’m looking at a huge stack of transcripts from the last few weeks of fieldwork, reading through them and marking up bits and pieces that will accrue into key takeaways for my client. We’re planning both a presentation and a follow-on workshop and although there’s a ton to do to get ready for it, I’m really looking forward to it.
• Assuming the paperwork goes through, I will be starting a small project coaching a team through the synthesis and ideation process for some research they’ve already done.
• I’m also talking with a few different organizations about work in the US and overseas. That means some time to spend in conversations, planning projects, writing proposals, reaching out to my network of contractors, and so on.
• I spend a lot of time last week (as frequently happens) coaching people through various stages of their own practices. So it’s nice that this week that a colleague and friend will be kicking off a project helping me look at Portigal Consulting at this stage of its existence (since 2001!) and consider how to evolve and grow.
• I’m hoping to hear today or tomorrow about a near-term conference workshop slot overseas. I will certainly announce here if we decide to go forward.
• On the town this week: On Friday, I’ll be hearing Kristian Simsarian talk about Meaning First: Let’s Humanize Technology.
• Ten years gone: From March 2004 – Cameron Crowe archive, Wrecked Exotics, Goodbye Googie, Family Circus Decon.
• What we’re consuming: Kathleen Hanna, Men Oh ramen, Malia and Me, Lee Moses.

Well, howdy hi!

• I’m headed back later today from a fun long weekend in wine country. Ah, back to reality after some good socializing and eating and drinking!
• Fieldwork is done! Logistical hell aside, it proved to be very interesting and provocative. The next order of business is to put together the topline summary of the themes and patterns that we had just with the experience of the fieldwork. The deeper dive will come later on, but for this week, we’re all meeting to talk about what we think we heard and what we think it meant. This interaction will really be helpful for guiding the synthesis that comes immediately after.
• Since I’m actually around for most of this week, it’s networking time, with a lot of calls and other meetings with people I’ve been trying to connect with for a while.
• I’ve been chatting with several people about different talks and presentations near and far-flung between now and the end of the year. I’ll announce each of them when they go live.
• Ten years gone: From March 2004 – Swoops, there it is?, Pleix films, Crossing buttons don’t really work, I am Asian, The magnetic-hook bra is here.
• What we’re consuming: Snacklemouth, Pinot Grigio, bad service, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, Dr. Katz.

Greetings friends!

• Later today I’m flying home from Up To All Of Us in North Carolina. And that’s my only flight this week. It’s been a crazy few weeks with a number of trips separated by 12 hours or so. Looking forward to at least a few days at home (before taking a long weekend with some friends up in wine country).
• Along with some other local design-type folks, I’m giving a short talk this week at a fundraiser. If you can come out and support the event on Thursday, that’d be great. I’m donating a copy of Interviewing Users as well.
• With the big project, this week there’s at least one site visit in San Francisco and maybe another one elsewhere. It’s hard to book these, but it does keep a lot of people’s schedules up in the air waiting to finalize them. At that point, it’ll be a wrap for the fieldwork and we can start diving into what we’ve heard more intensively.
• Two recent reviews of Interviewing Users: from Tammy and Lan. If you’ve read the book please write your own short review as it makes a huge difference for the book’s sales and general awareness. Thanks!
• Ten years gone: From March 2004 – Foreclosure fear selling, George Foreman’s inspirational musical offering, Gadgets from history.
• What we’re consuming: Chuck’s, chocolate-chip rice pudding, Meat Raffles, North Carolina Museum of Art.

Well, hello!

• I’m getting on a plane to Minneapolis in a very short time. Last week’s fieldwork was very interesting but the whole experience was really hampered by poor communication, a challenging recruit, oh and poor communication. Day by day, I didn’t know what – if anything – was happening the next day and so I wrapped up each day by booking another hotel room for that night. Certainly a draining experience. And while I was pretty clear I couldn’t do this two weeks in a row, I really only found out Thursday afternoon what’s happening Monday. Indeed, it’s still in flux, but it’s not possible – within the scope of the project we negotiated – to make a bunch of last-minute trips around the country. This aspect of things feels tense, but that may just be the exhaustion.
• I’m a good chunk of the way through posting my pictures of Australia and New Zealand to Flickr. There’s about 275 pictures up there now, and definitely a whole bunch still to come.
• Later this week, I’m off to Up To All Of Us, a retreat type of event that I was invited to go to. I like the people and the energy but I’m honestly unsure what it’s going to be like and what I’m doing. I took a deliberate leap of faith when signing up, feeling the need to broaden my connections into less familiar places – but now I’m having to deal with that leap.
• Ten years gone: From March 2004 – Blood dichotomy, the worst salesman in the world, The bento – a scrumptious expression of love.
• What we’re consuming: House of Cards (Season 1), Douzo Sushi, Global Entry.

Happy March!

• I’m on a plane to Boston right now. To my great surprise (to put it politely) I got an email after close-of-business on Friday – after little-to-no communication for a couple of weeks – saying that we’re doing fieldwork this week. Details are still scant (say, the where and when?) but it’s been a scramble over the past few days to get the travel logistics sorted out (hint: it’s not economical to buy a cross-country airfare two days before you need to fly), and an initial draft of a fieldwork plan in place. There’s no longer a window for the team to align on the details of the fieldwork or even the mechanics of doing interviews together. For all my knowledge (and speaking on) best practices it’s a frustrating reality check on the challenges we all face in this work.
• Some recommended reading: Design-driven businesses have outperformed the S&P by 228%; The Empathy Vacuum by Greg Knauss examines our culture of desperate-mob-pile-on-criticism; a profile of Red Associates emphasizes the intellectual/academic trappings of their founders although I was more interested in other aspects of the firm; You Are Being Crushed by Data and Losing the Consumer; a good riff on the problems that designers face in their work, trying to do right; dana boyd’s new book It’s Complicated.
• Ten years gone: From March 2004 – People pick purebred dogs that resemble them, Going through Stanley Kubrick’s stuff, Debunking the myth of prisoner’s final meals.
• What we’re consuming: Girls, Blue Apron, Make Your Maker, Dull Rock ‘n Roll Anecdotes

Here comes the end of February – 2014 is racing along.

• Our project schedule may be in jeopardy which is the kind of thing that makes me worry. We already lost a week to getting our hospitals scheduled and I haven’t heard much since then (except that they expect it to be difficult). The team is pretty busy with a number of other efforts (specifics unknown to me) so even getting a response to my request for a quick check-in is a challenge. I’m eager for us to start learning but there’s a huge logistics hurdle that needs to be overcome.
• Really looking forward to an internal corporate summit I’m going to be part of, probably in April. From what I’ve heard so far it should be a pretty exciting event.
• On the town this week, I’ll be at Arrogance in International Research this Wednesday in San Francisco.
• Ten years gone: From February 2004 – Franchise Zeitgeist, Pickle Paraphernalia, Li’l G n’R.
• What we’re consuming: Enough Said, EQ3, Hangman Jury, Tara’s Organic Ice Cream.

I’m back to 90% of normal health today, after a long week of general confusion and extended napping. I was fortunate that we cancelled last week’s Boston trip in the face of a tremendous snowstorm.

• We did last week’s kickoff over WebEx. It was a disappointing not to be in the same room as everyone and put faces to names, but they closed their office due to the storm and most people called in from home anyway. I’ll finish up meeting with the final project stakeholder today. The next big step is to line up the hospitals we’ll be visiting and despite having weeks of lead time, the team is feeling pretty nervous about being able to pull it off. We’re supporting them with some best practices about how to ask for a site’s involvement.
• Networking this week includes offering some coaching on writing a book, and strengthening my own connections with folks I can pull in for projects.
• I’m involved in some early planning conversations for speaking at a really interesting internal corporate event.
• On the town this week, I’m looking forward to seeing a presentation on Design Thinking from Julie Baher this Thursday in San Francisco.
• Ten years gone: From February 2004 – Chagall at Costco, AOLiza, Found Typography.
• What we’re consuming: True Detective, Allman Brothers Band, ramen.

I’m recovering from flu which appeared in the last day of my trip, leading to an excruciatingly fevered/chilled day of overseas travel and a weekend of confusion and general self-pitying. Even without that, having some culture shock returning to the familiar.

• I’m off to Boston later this week to kick off a new project. Really looking forward to getting to know the organization as it seems we’re all excited to be working together. Eventually, we’ll be looking at IT and administrative processes in hospitals and doctor’s offices, but this week is all about the planning.
• Among the myriad messages that show up when you’re away from the office is one from our newish, supposedly user-friendly service-dedicated webhost, with some arcane request to make some technical adjustment I have no idea how to do that. So I’ll suppose I’ll be sorting that out!
• Ten years gone: From February 2004 – The remarkable photography of Brian Ulrich, Supersize your movie collection, Top 10 earworms.
• What we’re consuming: Monteith’s, Mac’s Beer, Bintang, Bircher muesli.

It’s a short week here as we’re off on vacation by the last half of the week. I’ll update here upon our return, but it’ll be quiet for a couple of Mondays.

• In the few days for the week we’re running through contracts and statements-of-work to try to get a new project officially launched and on the books. So excited about collaborating with this team and digging into some pretty interesting fieldwork.
• We just announced a new service: pro bono Management/UX Consulting for Small Businesses.
• Interviewing Users was included in Designers & Books’ 99 Must-Reads From 2013.
• I’m one of a long list of “Design and UX Leaders” who shared a bit about what we’re reading.
• In case you missed it, here’s my 5-minute talk about The Power of Silence, newly posted from last year’s Fluxible conference.
• Ten years gone: From January 2004 – Hummer line extension: shoes, CES and products for women.
• What we’re consuming: Koo, Ice Cream Bar, cheese, Psycho Donuts, Short Term 12