ChittahChattah Quickies
February 23rd, 2011
- [from steve_portigal] User-Led Innovation Can’t Create Breakthroughs; Just Ask Apple and Ikea [Co.Design] – [This old saw again! As if user insights and strong vision are incompatible? Shame on FastCo for this hyperbolic crap.] We asked friends on the Apple design team about user-centric design. “It’s all bullshit and hot air created to sell consulting projects and give insecure managers a false sense of security. We don't waste our time asking users, we build our brand through creating great products we believe people will love." IKEA designers don’t use user studies or user insights to create their products. “We tried and it didn’t work..”Of course, neither will say this publicly since both are extremely closed companies and would risk offending users (and the design community) by speaking out against user-centeredness. Since no one will speak up, the false value of the user-as-leader has spread. The best brands are guided by a clear vision for the world, a unique set of values, and a culture that makes them truly unique and that no user insights could ever change.
Tags:
apple, design, dichotomy, false, fastco, IKEA, innovation, insights, leadership, mythology, quickies, user experience, vision
ChittahChattah Quickies
February 21st, 2011
- [from steve_portigal] Book Lovers Fear Dim Future for Notes in the Margins [NYTimes.com] – [While there's a bit of 'Death of Print! Oh noes!' at work here, the impact of digital technology on archiving is, in general, a mounting challenge (and frequent blog fodder)] Twain was engaging in marginalia, writing comments alongside passages and sometimes giving an author a piece of his mind. It is a rich literary pastime, sometimes regarded as a tool of literary archaeology, but it has an uncertain fate in a digitalized world. “People will always find a way to annotate electronically,” said G. Thomas Tanselle, a former vice president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and an adjunct professor of English at Columbia University. “But there is the question of how it is going to be preserved. And that is a problem now facing collections libraries.” [Thanks, Stacey G.]
- [from steve_portigal] Bidder wins `lucky’ car registration number 16 for cool $8.5m [The Standard] – [Arbitrary extrinsic value for meaningful symbols, albeit for charity] Suen was willing to shell out such a large sum because 16 is his lucky number. More than HK$18.5 million was raised at the auction, where the proceeds go to charity. Suen also tried to get 668 as a gift for his wife but was outbid by number plate collector Ngan Man-hon, who paid HK$3 million for it. Ngan said that he liked 668 as it sounds auspicious in Cantonese. In recent years lucky car plates have become popular among mainland collectors so the prices for the better ones remain high….The sale trumped Saturday's auction under the Personalized Vehicle Registration Marks Scheme. Then, car plate B0NUS was sold for HK$220,000 while 201314, which sounds similar to "Love you forever" in Putonghua, went for HK$22,000…Suen's lucky number trails 18 and 9, which were sold for HK$16.5 million in 2008 and HK$13 million in 1994, respectively. The third most expensive number was 2, which went for HK$9.5 million in 1993.
Tags:
annotations, archiving, auction, books, charity, digital, license, marginalia, meaning, number, preservation, quickies, reading, reading ahead, registration
ChittahChattah Quickies
February 18th, 2011
- [from julienorvaisas] Your Life Torn Open, Sharing is a trap [Wired UK] – [Academic and a little shrill at times, but provocative. In this essay, Keen shares his harsh, apocalyptic perspective on the nefarious implications of the increasingly social and open lives we live online, complete with case studies.] Today's digital social network is a trap. Today's cult of the social, peddled by an unholy alliance of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and communitarian idealists, is rooted in a misunderstanding of the human condition. The truth is that we aren't naturally social beings. Instead, as Vermeer reminds us in The Woman in Blue, human happiness is really about being left alone. On Liberty, the 1859 essay by Bentham's godson and former acolyte, John Stuart Mill, remains a classic defence of individual rights in the age of the industrial network and its tyranny of the majority. Today, as we struggle to make sense of the impact of the internet revolution, we need an equivalent On Digital Liberty to protect the right to privacy in the social-media age.
ChittahChattah Quickies
February 15th, 2011
- [from julienorvaisas] Apple Says Chinese Supplier Made Changes After Suicides [NYTimes.com] – [The awkward truths revealed by increased transparency around our fancy gadgets is a topic we've discussed before. Here, Apple's investigation is admirable, but hotlines and nets to catch suicidal employees do not seem to be adequate solutions reaching towards the core of the problem.] Apple said that Mr. Cook and a team of independent suicide prevention experts conducted a review of Foxconn’s factory in Shenzhen in June and made a series of recommendations. Mr. Cook and the team also reviewed changes that Foxconn had put in place, which included “hiring a large number of psychological counselors, establishing a 24-hour care center and even attaching large nets to the factory buildings to prevent impulsive suicides,” Apple said in the report. “The investigation found that Foxconn’s response had definitely saved lives.” Apple said it recommended areas for improvement, including “better training of hotline staff and care center counselors and better monitoring to ensure effectiveness.”
- [from steve_portigal] Create with people, really! [InternetActu.net] – [Google Translate excerpt from a French review of our innovation session at Lift11] But this is not the most important, says Steve Portigal, because all these methods can be acquired by whoever wishes. No, the most important thing is to change the culture, the process by which we do things. "Companies often think they know the problem and are confident they know to solve it, better than anyone." It is their products, services, customers, suppliers, engineers … But a little humility does not hurt, the consultant recognizes the height of his experience "It is actually rather sit back and see that the problem is not what we thought. We must confront the ambiguity and be tolerant to other approaches, to reach the measure of data (and methods). "
- [from steve_portigal] Shorter E-Books Show Promise for Mobile Devices [NYTimes.com] – [In ReadingAhead we called for the creation of *digital* reading experiences] The Atavist is (publishing) stories that are longer than a typical article but shorter than a novel in the hope that they will find a home on the glassy screens of mobile devices. The dimensions of mobile devices are quite limited. So it’s important to exploit the advantages that the devices do have. Success depends on thinking beyond a “one-to-one transition from book to e-book,” and on doing more than replacing paper with pixels. The Atavist integrates clever tools into the text, like interactive timelines and character biographies to help a reader quickly find her place without spoiling the plots…But it’s much too early to know whether the Atavist and its brethren will become permanently rooted in our reading culture or become a “fossil, embedded in the archaeology of the medium of reading…We are seeing a new category take shape that reflects a new paradigm of what it means to read on a new device.”
- [from steve_portigal] Geneva and Lyon, 2011 [a set on Flickr] – [Photos from my trip to Geneva (with a side trip to Lyon) for Lift11]
Tags:
apple, atavist, books, cocreation, content, digital, ebeeks, flickr, Foxconn, france, geneva, lift11, lyon, noticing, observation, photographs, quickies, reading, reading ahead, shenzhen, suicide, switzerland, technology, transparency
ChittahChattah Quickies
February 12th, 2011
- [from steve_portigal] Non-Jews Begin to Embrace Ketubah Wedding Tradition [NYTimes.com] – [Cultural appropriation of religious traditions as we continue to seek meaning through symbols] The decade of non-Jews discovering the ketubah coincides with three relevant social trends: the rise of Christian Zionism, the growth of interfaith marriage, and the mainstreaming of the New Age movement with its search for spirituality in multiple faith traditions. As a result, an increasing number of gentiles have taken up Judaic practices: holding a Passover Seder, eating kosher food and studying kabbalah, the Jewish mystical movement. “A lot of these things are grass-rootsy,” said Prof. Jenna Weissman Joselit, a historian at George Washington University, who has written extensively on Jewish popular culture. “They have to do with the growing popularity of intermarriage — openness, pluralism, cultural improvisation. And for those who are more religiously literate, they add another level of authenticity or legitimacy.”
- [from steve_portigal] More Focus Groups for ‘Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark’ [NYTimes.com] – [What is the meaning of using consumer research? Do we admire producers for being user-centered or do we decry them for being desperate?] The producers of the Broadway musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” are offering $60 goodie bags to people who serve in focus groups that will respond to several performances. Two focus groups attended Thursday night’s performance, and four more are scheduled to be at Friday night’s show and the Saturday matinee. It’s not unheard of for Broadway producers to use focus groups, and the musical has used them before since preview performances began on Nov. 28. But these are the first since largely negative reviews of the show by theater critics across the country were published on Tuesday. OnTrack Research, a marketing and consulting firm, is coordinating the focus groups, and here’s the rub: participants only get to see Act I or Act II, not both. They are then asked to fill out surveys and join in discussions in a “V.I.P. room.”
Tags:
appropriation, audience, ceremony, christian, consumer, culture, document, evangelical, faith, insights, jewish, ketubah, marriage, meaning, methodology, quickies, research, spiderman, symbol, wedding
ChittahChattah Quickies
February 11th, 2011
- [from steve_portigal] New record label hands decision-making over to fans [Springwise] – [This is exactly what Devo did in 2010 with their Devo 2.0 initiative which we blogged about extensively. Love how rapidly an experiment/social commentary becomes a "straight" idea in someone else's hands] Crowdbands is offering users the chance to become record label executives from their homes. Established by Tom Sarig and Peter Sorgenfrei, the Crowdbands label has already signed LA-based band The Donnas. By signing up as a Crowdband member for USD 25 a year, users are entitled to vote on major decisions in The Donnas’ career, from which songs are included on their albums, which artists they should collaborate with, where and where they tour, and even ideas for album cover art. In exchange, not only do members get to see their decisions implemented, they also receive the band’s releases before the general public.
ChittahChattah Quickies
February 10th, 2011
- [from steve_portigal] A History of the Future in 100 Objects by Adrian Hon [Kickstarter] – [I'm in! Who else will throw some cash at this kickstarter project, crowdsourced funding for some exciting research and writing?] Let's imagine it's 2100…What are the 100 objects that future historians will use to sum up our century? 'Smart drugs' that change the way we think? A fragment from suitcase nuke detonated in Shanghai? A wedding ring between a human and an AI? The world's most expensive glass of water, returned from a private mission to an asteroid? I want to write a weblog that will explore all of these ideas, with 100 posts for 100 objects. Along the way I'll produce a newspaper and a podcast, and when it's finished, I'll publish it as a book. But it's not just going to be about technology – I'm going to focus on the deeply human effects of our fascinating future, from religion to advertising to wars. I want to tell the story of individuals, families, countries, and the human race, as we venture from 2011 to 2100.
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ChittahChattah Quickies
February 9th, 2011
- [from steve_portigal] Toepener — Hands Free Solution – [While this smacks slightly of "gadget" I like the idea of simple improvements to everyday activities based on a) shifting social norms and b) observed behaviors. Text from related news article] The Toepener is a pedal designed to open a public washroom’s door with one’s foot rather than having to touch the door handle. It is the brainchild of Max Arndt, a student at the Carson School of Management. Arndt and his classmates were asked in the Entrepreneurship in Action class to come up with ideas for a new business product or service. Arndt, 22, came up with the Toepener. He hated the idea of opening a public restroom door after he’d washed his hands. It was such a simple idea but he figured it would have tremendous draw. He was right. His class was equally enthusiastic and it was chosen as the product the entrepreneurship class would attempt to market. The product was launched in mid-January. Arndt said the company has sold close to 100 toepeners, which go for $50 each.
ChittahChattah Quickies
February 8th, 2011
- [from julienorvaisas] The Super Bowl of Social Media? Maybe Next Year [Advertising Age – DigitalNext] – [It is a bit shocking that innovative thinking in marketing has not yet leveraged – or even experimented with – the promise of social media on the big stage.] There was not one spot that actually asked us to do anything. Or suggested that we do something. These ads could have all run before the internet was even invented. Nothing acknowledged that we had any other connections at our disposal other than the one between us and our televisions. We were expected to visit the brands' websites because we found those brands and their commercials interesting. The irony is that those brands will look to social media to gauge their audiences' reaction. They'll count views on YouTube. They'll ask their interns about what Twitter had to say. Their PR firms will be watching the Google Alerts roll in. But none of them will reap the benefit of actually building a meaningful connection… Coca-Cola could have actually helped some real people make some real people happy.
ChittahChattah Quickies
February 7th, 2011
- [from julienorvaisas] Need More Calm? [Do Nothing for 2 Minutes] – [If you do give up PowerPoint this week, you may find yourself with a little time on your hands. In that case, consider spending two minutes at donothingfor2minutes.com. It seems to be as much about taunting you for your inability to leave your mouse and keyboard alone for two minutes as it is about encouraging relaxation and meditation. If you achieve the modest goal they set forth you are met with some marketing. If you don't you are told that you FAIL.] Need more calm? We're thinking about additional tools we could create to aid relaxation. If you'd like to know if we launch something, pop in your email below.
- [from julienorvaisas] Say No to PowerPoint Week [Fast Company] – [Though PowerPoint certainly can be a powerful communication tool, are we turning to it too often out of collective habit? It is the expected medium; we deliver it. But do we really need the same tool for every objective? Storytelling, sales, reporting… it's rare that PowerPoint is questioned as the go-to move for any of the above on projects, for business meetings or at conferences. Edward Tufte has been on this for years of course: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/powerpoint] Suffering from PowerPoint fatigue? You're not alone. Tech conferences, including Demo and Finovate, have banned boring slide shows in favor of short, fast-paced product demos.