What’s going on this week:

• Fieldwork! This morning I’m in Salem, OR with the client talking to users about their businesses. I’m flying home tonight, hopefully with a stop in Portland for something delicious. More interviews in Phoenix the rest of this week.
• Sadly, a project I was bidding on, with a really great group, didn’t come through because that team’s timeline didn’t line up with our availability. But as always, doors close and others open. We’re talking with another organization about a fascinating project with a talented team and I’m keep fingers crossed that timing won’t be a deal breaker for them as well.
• I leave on Wednesday for Sydney. There will be a meetup next Monday at The Beresford. Get in touch for details. Then it’s UX Australia in Brisbane and Service Design Melbourne after that.
• Coming very soon – details for the IxD13 Student Design Challenge.
• Check out my SXSW proposal for The Power of Bad Ideas. Please vote yes and add your comments.
• Ten years gone: From August 2002 – Fresh Meat #15, Rashomon: 1, 2, 3, 4
• What we’re consuming: NTSF:SD:SUV:, Voodoo Doughnut, Paul Calf, Salt & Straw.

Here’s the story for this week:

• Our largest client has been working pretty hard to line up some fieldwork sites and finally we hit the road for the first few next week, which means this week is about finalizing stimuli, prepping everyone for their roles, working out travel logistics and so on.
• I’m having some meetings about the next set of projects, one in an area I’ve long been fascinated in but haven’t worked in, another with a team that I’m really growing to like in a really innovative category. Fingers crossed!
• I’m thinking about of my talks, after UX Australia and Service Design Melbourne, including UXCamp Ottawa University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• Along those lines, my proposed talk for SXSW is here. I’d really appreciate it if you’d give it a thumbs up, tweet it, pass it along to friends, and add some comments!
• Last week we had four new War Stories. Submit your story here!
• If all goes well, we’ll be ready to send out the details of the IxD13 Student Design Challenge this week.
• Ten years gone: From August 2002 – dream dialogue, Clippy takes the stage.
• What we’re consuming: Off the Grid, Cindy Sherman, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia.

Here’s the deal for this week:

• We’ve developed a fieldwork plan for our latest study, and are thinking about how that will vary for all the different user types we’ll me meeting with. We’re waiting for news from our client about setting up the customer site visits. In the meantime, we’re diving into the software tools that these customers are using so we can get a glimmer of understanding about how they are currently working, and we’re co-developing some sketches of future designs to help provoke conversation once we’re in the field.
• UX Australia is coming up soon, so it’s time for me to get my materials in order, figure out the agenda, line up the handouts, and start sending out the homework assignments for my workshop. Plus, some logistics for my travel to Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne.
• Latest War Stories are from Susan and Gavin. I’ve got one more in hand to post tomorrow, and promises for quite a few more in the next few weeks. If you’ve got a great story to share, you should do so here.
• What we’re consuming: 99 River Street, Jablow’s Meats, Marvin Gardens.

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Here’s what we’ve got going on this week:

• After last week’s intensive immersion with our team in Dallas, we’re now beginning to plan fieldwork. We’ll be reviewing our first pass at a fieldwork plan (though how we’re going to cover all the stuff we all want to know in the time we have is something we’ll need to figure out) and are looking to hear how our clients are faring in rounding up their customers.
• Share your War Stories with us!
• All my pictures from Barcelona are now up on Flickr.
• Locally, look for Steve in attendance at the John Meada/Don Norman session at PARC (circularly titled Innovation: Design — Is ‘design’ innovation??)
• Ten years gone: From July 2002 – sesame existentialism, odd upsells.
• What we’re consuming: The Ben Stiller show, How To Work A Locker Room, Broken Record, Sultans of Swing, ad ininitum

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And the scoopage for this week is as follows:

• We’re off to Dallas for a couple of days for an in-depth immersion with our new client and their extended, distributed team. What is their business? What are their products? Who are the users? What changes to the product do they plan to make? What do we need to learn? Etc. Plus, there will be barbecue!
• I’ll be finishing my final column for interactions; due to the editors imminently but not coming out in print until November!
• I hope we’ll get some more War Stories this week. Do you have one for us?
• I’m planning out speaking gigs – and potential speaking gigs – through the end of the year and into next year, even. Some fun ones coming up!
• Ten years gone: In July 2002, we blogged about classic logos, an early Core77 article being published, a nice place to stay in Monterey.
• What we’re consuming: pizza and ice cream, People Like Us, Diary of a Fire Lookout.

Here we go with this week’s update

• I’m writing this in Newark Airport, halfway or so on my journey back to San Francisco from Barcelona. Great city, great conference, great time with friends and colleagues, old and new. I’ll post photos in the next few days (and some are already up on Flickr)
• For the past several weeks, when I’ve put together this anticipatory summary, I’ve referred to the large project we’re just about to start. And so once again, it’s Monday and I’m almost embarrassed to say it again. The sales cycle for this project will exceed the duration of the project itself, at this point.And we’re good to go! Hooray!
• I’ll be playing catch-up with a dozen or so phone or face-to-face networking meetings that were pushed out until after my return, which is essentially tomorrow.
• I just posted Diane’s War Story, and will have another one later this week, perhaps as early as tomorrow. Meanwhile, submit yours here!
• While the ink is barely dry on the Barcelona experience, I’m thinking ahead this week to UX Australia and even next year’s SXSW.
• Ten Years Gone: in July 2002, I blogged about IDSA 2002, Hippo Hardware, and discarding digital media.
• What we’re consuming: pintxos, Gaudi, VINCON.

Not a ton to report this week

• Today I’m flying to Barcelona for WebVisions. Looking forward to the workshop, the presentation, seeing great people, and exploring, photographing, and eating!
• While I’m overseas, I’m waiting for news on a number of projects, tiny and giant, that have been imminent for a while now. Fingers crossed!
• Ten Years Gone: screamy neighbor, safety not guaranteed, unfortunate resemblances.
• What we’re consuming: Borgen, Pig & Pie, Hello Lonesome, Gorilla Glue.
  

The happenings this week:

• We deliver the goods tomorrow; wrapping up a crazily-quick project (with an availability-caused interregnum) with a session tomorrow. Excited to share our analysis and resulting implications with the team and see where they take them.
• At the end of last week a purchase order magically emerged from a corporate sourcing machine and today we start kicking off a large project. There’s so many known unknowns, I totally expect this to be a meeting about a meeting more than anything, but that’s where we have to start in order to bring clarity to the murk. Many projects start this way, but this seems even more so (our clients didn’t know we were getting the purchase order any more than we did, for example).
• We had three new War Stories last week and I hope to be getting more this week!
• Ten Years Gone: On All This ChittahChattah in June, 2002 a minor rock legend dies, a still-unanswered set of questions about what the heck a belt-buckle actually is.
• What we’re consuming: Surf Spot, John Scalzi, Spalding Gray.

Here’s what’s going on for us this week

• We made rapid progress through our data last week to produce a final deliverable for our client. Due to some scheduling challenges, we won’t actually talk through what this means for them in terms of new opportunities until next week. So this week, the project is in a holding pattern. We lose a bit of momentum this way, but there’s nothing we can do about it.
• Up next? For the past 6 weeks we’ve been making slow but steady progress on a new project that should take us to some interesting business and industrial environments across the US. The client team is super engaged and understandably taking a lot of time to align on the details, having never done this sort of work before. Meanwhile, we’re crawling our way through the corporate processes, finding ourselves assigned vendor numbers, and other trappings of the way that sourcing works. I hope for this week to be the one that officially moves us towards the next steps, but it’s entirely out of my hands.
• We’ll be publishing some fieldwork War Stories this week. I’ve got one in hand as of this writing and another promised to me. As this archive continues to grow, we welcome your contribution!
• We’re gathering applications for our open positions. Interested in working with us? Let us know!
• Tamara is in Hot’lanta to speak at CPSI, connecting the insights from research to ideation.
• I’m speaking in Cupertino this Wednesday for the San Francisco ACM, talking about improv, creativity, and design. This event is free, open to the public, and I’m told there is going to be food. Come on out!
• I’m working with Kelly and Alison at gotomedia to finalize our Barcelona WebVisions workshop (use reg code PORTIGAL to save 40%). It promises to be an interesting synthesis of our complementary approaches and best practices.
• Early this week, I’ll turn over the next revision of my book manuscript, now with all the figures detailed. It’s been a flurry of activity tracking down original files (in some cases, original paper documents) and numbering and cataloging them.
• I’m excited about meeting some new people this week, possible colleagues and collaborators that I’ll be having lunches and introductory phone calls with.
• Check out my pictures from Lisbon and UXLX!
• Ten Years Gone: On All This ChittahChattah in June, 2002: umbrage over MCI (remember them?) sales scumbaggery, appreciation for an early archive of Internet humor.
• What we’re consuming: the LEO at Wise Sons Jewish Delicatessen, Chum-chum the bored bear, The Other F Word, and Big Train

Here’s the latest on our end

• Infrastructure? Who needs it! After last week’s challenges (resolution still pending) on the water for our kitchen, today PG&E finally made good on their repeated promise to only offer intermittent power throughout the day. So we’re in and out, in cafes, and waiting hopefully for full service to return.
• We’re taking last week’s flurry of Bay Area and Sacramento interviews and very rapidly turning that into a deliverable. We’re committed to finishing up this week (which is about as rapid as we’ve ever done something like this, admittedly with a bit of trepidation) but it looks like our client has some scheduling gremlins emerging at the last minute.
• It’s San Francisco Design Week, a time to hang out at other firms, talking to our friends, and eating-and-drinking from their free and sumptuous spreads. Maybe we’ll see you around (we’ll be the ones with our mouths full).
• We’re hiring!
• I’m in some near-final stages with the book, focusing on the images, a lot of which I’m crowdsourcing from other research folks. Hooray, community!
• Do you have a fieldwork War Story? Please share it with us!
• We’re moving ahead on upcoming talks at CPSI, San Francisco/Bay Area ACM, and WebVisions Barcelona.
• What we’re consuming: Stanley Park Noble Pilsner, Crunchie Bar, Hyperbole TV.