• LA Times runs front-page ad that resembles a news item – [Nice unpacking of a concern I explored in my recent interactions column, Interacting With Advertising (ask us for a copy)]
  There was no intent to fool readers, Mr. Stotsky said. He said the ad used fonts that differed from the standard Los Angeles Times fonts, and it included the NBC logo. NBC staff wrote the ad, and The Times’s business staff approved it; the editorial side was not involved, he said. “I think most consumers will recognize that this is an ad,” Mr. Stotsky said.

  Whether readers knew this was advertising or not was beside the point, said Geneva Overholser, director of the school of journalism at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication.

  “Some people say readers are smart and they can tell the difference, but the fundamental concept here is deeply offensive,” she said. “Readers don’t want to be fooled, they don’t like the notion that someone is attempting to deceive them.”

• Another Los Angeles Times Promotion Draws Fire – (again, an issue I explored in my recent interactions column, Interacting with Advertising)

  “You dress an ad up to look like editorial content precisely because you think it will make it more valuable,” said Geneva Overholser, director of the school of journalism at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication. “Fundamentally, that’s an act of deception.”

  The supplement is clearly marked as an advertising supplement, said Nancy Sullivan, a Los Angeles Times spokeswoman. The bylines have “special advertising section writer,” and the font is different from the one the newspaper uses, she said.

I was recently in the UK to give the opening keynote at the Design Research Society’s Undisciplined conference. I detail some of my academic and professional history and talk about the concerns of a practitioner, perhaps an alternate take on what many in the audience (designers from academic settings) are thinking about themselves.

Here are slides and audio in separate widgets. You can start the audio and advance the slides manually to follow along. The talk goes for about 45 minutes and the discussion for another 25 or so.

< Audio [audio src="StevePortigal_DRS2008.mp3"] Also, see my London and Sheffield pictures here.

Less than a year after my last trip to London, I’m headed back to the UK – to Sheffield – to give the opening keynote at DRS2008 (Design Research Society conference), offering my perspectives on disciplinarity and rigour. If you’re attending the conference, drop me a note so I’ll know to look for you.

I’m also bookending the time in Sheffield with a few days in London before and after. It’d be great to meet up with firms and folks interested in culture, design, and innovation (etc.). I could probably throw together a little presentation or discussion starter for your team. Get in touch if you’d like me to stop by.

Steve in Trafalgar Square, 1990, photo by Richard Wintle

Steve in Trafalgar Square, 2007, photo by Avi Soudack

See more pictures from my London trip in 2007 here.

Here’s the presentation from last week’s IDSA/ICSID conference.

Audio

We spent about 1/3 of the time doing improv games (which may be “you had to be there”) and about 1/3 in discussion (in which the audio favors me over the audience), but maybe you can skip past some of those parts.

If you are coming to ICSID/IDSA Connecting 07 in San Francisco later this month, I’ll be giving a presentation entitled Connecting the Play of Improv with the Work of Ethnographic Research on Friday, October 19, from 5:45pm – 6:30pm in the Fairmont Hotel, Crystal Room.

In the meantime, you can read more about an earlier version of this presentation

To the rest of us in the audience, both exercises were quite funny. Most of the participants couldn’t figure out at the time what we were laughing at.

All of which suggests that Improv is a powerful means of engaging with other human beings that is both immersive and “flow-like.”

Portigal then went on to define activities associated with ethnography, focusing on the guided interview process in particular.

He concluded his talk by identifying the key “overlaps” between the two disciplines:

* Balancing a “plan” with being in the moment
* “Yes and…” (Using positive reinforcement of the other’s statements to keep the conversation going.)

Dan Soltzberg and I will be attending the entire conference and we’d love to meet with folks to talk about how our work in uncovering user insights can help drive design and business decisions in your organization. Do let us know!

It’s won’t be until October, but I’ll be giving another talk about the overlaps and intersections between ethnography and improv at the CONNECTING’07: Icsid/IDSA World Design Congress. It’s here in San Francisco, from October 17-20. More info as it it’s available.

(Yes, my face and voice both are part of the website. Connecting!)

I spoke recently at Shift, the IDSA conference held at RISD. I outlined seventeen ways to not suck at research:

1. Quit worrying about jargon
2. Think more broadly about which people you want to learn about
3. Garbage in, garbage out
4. Give other people the space to tell their stories
5. Follow up, and then follow up, and then follow up
6. Do you really want to use a survey? Probably not.
7. Collect and use natural language
8. Don’t forget that any research process with real live humans is hard
9. Breathe their air
10. Learning anything new requires rapport, and building rapport takes time
11. Finding insights requires pattern matching, creativity, synthesis
12. Personas are user-centered bullshit
13. Phil McKinney says “You’re probably not listening.”
14. Practice noticing stuff and telling stories (updated: read more here)
15. Do some improv
16. Embrace pop culture
17. Don’t forget about culture and social norms

The presentation was very well received, and I hope to share this material with another group before too long.

I will be speaking (topic: Seventeen Ways To Not Suck At Research)) at the IDSA Northeast District Conference, held at the Rhode Island School of Design on April 20-22. My presentation will be on Sunday, April 22. I’m hoping to swing through Boston on my way out to Providence.

Last night was San Francisco’s Pecha Kucha night. I showed 20 slides, at 20 seconds per slide, on Unconsumption.

The slides are below.

And this widget will play the audio.

There were some problems with the projection at the beginning so it’s not immediately obvious where we go from slide 1 to slide 2, but hopefully by slide 3 you’ll have figured it and can follow along.

And for better visual quality, I’ve put the slides up on flickr..

Update: the slides are also on the Pecha Kucha site

Molly Steenson recently gave an excellent presentation at Giant Ant, describing her work in Bangalore with Microsoft Research. My notes are at Core77.

Last weekend we had a baby naming ceremony for my brand-new niece, Talia. As part of the ceremony, there were readings and speeches from family and friends. Here’s what I read, using a tiny bib and hat on one hand to represent the other party in the dialogue. Apologies for some of the in-jokes that won’t read here.

—-

In preparation for today’s event, which is of course all about Talia, I thought it would be great to get the perspective of the person we’re all here to welcome and honor, Talia herself. I got in touch with her earlier in the week and did an informal interview. It ran a little long, so I’ve cut it down and will be reading an edited version.

SP: Talia, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me.

TPT: Poo.

SP: I’m sorry?

TPT: Oh, sorry about that. I just thought I’d start there.

SP: Um, good. Great. Listen, I wanted to ask you —-

TPT: (interrupts) Poo.

SP: Yes, I think we’ve covered that. So to move along, what do you make of things so far?

TPT: Totally freakin’ awesome. I’m pleased as punch to be here. I’ve booked myself a pretty sweet gig, as far as I can tell.

SP: In what way?

TPT: Well, non-stop hamburgers and pizza.

SP: What?

TPT: Yeah, hamburgers and pizza. I love ’em.

SP: I’m pretty surprised. I didn’t think you’d be eating solid food by now.

TPT: Hamburgers are solid?

SP: Yep. And pizza too.

TPT: -..hmmm-.well someone told me those were hamburgers I was eating, and I just figured pizza as well.

SP: I think someone was messing with you-

TPT: I guess so. Huh. Well, when it comes to messing with an infant, let’s just say that two can play at that game.

SP: Before we go back to the whole poo thing again, let’s move along. What’s going on at home right now?

TPT: It’s a lot of fun. I am totally hitting it off with Lenny.

SP: Really? I’m a little surprised to hear that!

TPT: Oh, no, he’s totally cool. He plays guitar, and he has a wicked sense of humor. Loves to sweep and clean.

SP: I don’t think that’s Lenny you’re talking about.

TPT: Really? Who’s Lenny, then?

SP: About your size. Dark fur. Pokey claws.

TPT: Next question.

SP: Sorry.

TPT: Well, who was it I was talking about? Is that Brucey?

SP: He probably wants you to call him “Dad.”

TPT: Dad, eh? Whatever it takes.

SP: I think they’d also accept Daddy or Da-da.

TPT: Get outa here? That’s better than Brucey? Whatever it takes.

SP: What about you? What do you think about Talia?

TPT: What do I think about who?

SP: What do you think about your name, Talia.

TPT: Oh, right. I’m still not used to it. I always think people are talking about Talia Shire.

SP: Talia Shire?

TPT: Yeah, you know “Aaaaa-drian” and all that.

SP: I wouldn’t even mention that if I were you.

TPT: Ah. Word to the wise. Will do.

SP: What else is going on at home?

TPT: Did I mention my Mommy?

SP: No, you didn’t.

TPT: Oh, sorry. I’m still filling out my short-term memory. I mean, it’s pretty much ALL short-term memory at this point, so it’s a little full, if you know what I’m saying.

SP: I think I do.

TPT: Okay, then.

SP: You were saying?

TPT: What?

SP: Your mommy?

TPT: Oh, right, right. Well, the woman is a marvel. Blankets whenever I want them. She and the other one are always cooking. Mostly for their friends, but still, I’m hoping for the odd scrap now and again. And let me tell you, she can SHOP like nobody’s business. I mean, I haven’t seen a lot of shopping so far, but my impressions of her are very solid.

SP: Actually, she helped me pick out the shirt I’m wearing right now.

TPT: Does it have bunnies on it?

SP: No, it doesn’t.

TPT: Trust me, go for the bunnies. You can’t go wrong.

SP: Okay, good advice. So what else is on your mind?

TPT: Have you read this thing in the news about the head of the CBC?

SP: I don’t get a ton of Canadian news where I live, but I did hear a little bit about it.

TPT: Totally cracks me up. He got fired for saying how great it was to poo. I want that job!

SP: It looks like we’re running out of time here, so thanks so much.

TPT: Did I say poo?

SP: I think you did.

Bruce Sterling gave a talk at CCA last Tuesday. Part of the talk came from Shaping Things (although he didn’t mention SPIMES directly), but much of it was fresh, presumably influenced by his visit that same afternoon to the scenario planners and futurists at the Global Business Network.

I’ve since finished reading Shaping Things and hope to write up something about it before too long, but meanwhile my notes from the talk are posted at Core77.

The day of the talk I was at MarCamp and had to rush to get to CCA in time to hopefully eat and get a seat (after getting lost on Stanford campus and ending up in the back of a crowded and hot room for the Antonelli talk the day before, I was trying to plan). I walked into the school’s cafe thinking I’d grab something and wolf it down and then go to the auditorium. And there’s Bruce Sterling sitting quietly at a table working on his laptop. He looks up and sees me and as I walk over to re-introduce myself (we met once at an IDSA West event where I had recommended him as the keynote) he seems to know who I am and invites me to sit down. And then another man joins us, and Sterling introduces me to Rudy Rucker, telling him how great my blog is. Rucker gets out a pen and paper to write the details down, Sterling tells him to Google me, and I just hand him a business card.

I then start saying really stupid things to Rudy Rucker; remembering that I read one of his books many years ago but I can’t remember what it is (since figuring out that it was probably Wetware). I don’t know why I did that; it’s not like anyone ever wants to hear that sort of thing even when it’s expressed non-moronically. It’s funny now, I guess. They showed me pictures from some crazy vault in the basement of the building that the Global Business Network is in, discussed Web 2.0, asked me to save seats and so on. I see someone else had a slightly similar experience.

Eventually I went in to get seats (though being early meant I had plenty of choice) and looked up Rudy Rucker online, only to realize that I had purchased a few of his books recently! I gave up on one; and am currently about 10% through another, on my bedside table at home. Moron-forehead slap number 2. When Rucker showed up he asked if I could drive him to the train station afterwards, and mentioned he was going to write a story about giant ants with Bruce Sterling (who was sitting and writing away on his laptop, wordsmithing, I presume, the talk he was about to give). Sitting behind us was Brenda Laurel, newly at CCA, but of course I didn’t realize that until afterwards. What a big evening of famous people that I can act like a clueless goofball in front of…it’s all blog fodder, I guess.

Sterling’s talk was entertaining and provocative. His ability to craft phrases for a verbal presentation is unique, and he manages this semi-sarcastic riffing drawl that brings his written prose back into the realm of the spoken. This lets him rant about some techno-groovy possibility and use geeky phrases about “bluetooth-enabled devices crawling through our skin” (not an actual phrase he used) that don’t thunder demandingly but almost mock the idea while still wildly considering the possibility real and even necessary. It’s engaging as hell, sneaking ideas past your defenses with a dry cloaking device.

And maybe that’s why he’s been a Visionary-in-Residence at Art Center – it’s not that his ideas are entirely clear or convincing or that his logic follows simply and persuasively, but he takes on you and a ride and you may notice that you are off the road sometimes, but you’re still along for the ride. [I hope someone is counting the fallen metaphors here].

Rucker ended up sticking around and not riding in the new RX8, and I finally got to eat my dinner sandwhich when I got home later that evening!

Core77 has put up podcasts ofJune’s Design 2.0 event, including my presentation (21M mp3 link here) below

User Experience Week 2006 is coming up in just 2 weeks. I’m looking forward to the event; I’ve never been to D.C. before, looking forward to seeing Michael Bierut and some of the other presenters. My talk and Jared Spool’s take place simultaneously, so I can expect an (ahem) intimate audience, I guess.

I know some of the folks who will be there (especially other presenters), but I’d love to hear from other folks who will be at UX Week?

The Core77/BusinessWeek Design 2.0 event was almost 2 weeks ago. It was a fantastic experience, good networking, different presentations, good conversation.

Some links
the set crashing during my talk (and Niti’s take on it)
PeterMe’s writeup
LukeW’s writeup here and here
Nick Baum’s detailed notes here

steve brings down the house, originally uploaded by selfconstruct
The view from the stage

A ton of pictures at the Core77 Gallery

Podcasts are supposedly coming soon? (Update: here)

And what is up with the lame fact-checking at the SF Chronicle? “Core77, a New York design think tank, will bring its Design 2.0 conference, also centered on green design, to San Francisco on June 6.”