Here’s what’s going on with us!

• It’s fieldwork week once again. Between Bay Area and Sacramento, we’ll be meeting with people to talk about the tools they use to plan and manage their investments. Surprises await.
• Conference planning for CPSI and WebVisions Barcelona, both coming right up.
• Portigal is hiring!
• Tell us your fieldwork War Stories!
• 10 Years Gone: On ChittahChattah, ten years ago this month, Kiss Kondoms, truisms in online discourse.
• What we’re consuming: Paris is Burning, San Francisco Rock Project, Six Sigma Ranch, The Catalyst

Here’s what’s going on for the team this week

• Wanna work with us? We’re hiring!
• New project! As soon as we wrap one project, we’re off to the races with another one. This is a super quick effort, and so today we’re on site with our client team, trying to get a handle on what they know, what they’re trying to do, and what they’ll need to know to do that. Throw in a mess of logistics and you’ve got a kickoff meeting!
• We’re collaborating with a new prospective client, doing longer-term project planning for a larger endeavor we’re all hoping to launch soon.
• Tamara is digging into the planning of her CPSI workshop and Steve is working with Kelly Goto to plan their WebVisions workshop.
• 10 Years Gone: On ChittahChattah, ten years ago this month, a cookie recipe and an improv milestone.
• What we’re consuming: The Cult, manchego, painting, Draw Something.

It’s one of those weeks where everyone comes back together after being away. Digging out of email, setting up meetings that have been on pause, and following up all those things that you pushed off several weeks ago, knowing there was impending travel.

• What happened at UX Lx? What happened at the Phoenix Design Summit? We’ll be scrambling to find an opportunity to catch each other up on our travels, eatings, networkings, and work. Look for some blog posts as we share some bits and pieces.
• It’s deliverable time. We’re putting the final touches on the findings from our gamer research and meeting with the team later this week to discuss the implications for their products.
• What’s up next? As one project wraps, another kajillion are in various states of emergence. We’re writing proposals, revisiting year-old proposals, meeting with new prospects, going through corporate vendor approval processes.
• We’ll be at the IXDA-SF event (“Designers with drinks”) later this week. Will you?

What we’re consuming: Game of Thrones, Phoenix Mountain Preserve, Ribadouro, Man or Muppet.

It’s sunburn weather this week (well, today at least), perfect for zipping from place to place, which is indeed what we are doing

• It’s a busy fieldwork week, as we are going into the homes of (mostly young, mostly male) gamers to see what they’re doing and get their reactions to a prototype.
• No sooner do we finish fieldwork than our clients come to our office at the end of this week to help untangle the data and identify the key takeaways
• I’m putting the final details together my sold-out workshop (as well as a short talk) for User Experience Lisbon next week.
• We’ve launched a new series devoted to fieldwork War Stories.
• What we’re consuming: Frittle, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, scopa (the game), Scopa (the restaurant).

It’s a gorgeous sunny Monday here in Pacifica (stay away fog, stay away!) and we’re on our way into another interesting week.

• Later this week we’re taking our clients and their prototype out into the field to meet users. We’re also exploring how people are using a brand new product, something no one on our client team has any idea about, so we’re expecting a very cool experience. Meanwhile, Tamara is printing out materials, putting incentives in envelopes, charging batteries, picking meetup and debrief locations and other organizing the hell out of the whole process.
• We’ll be launching a new feature here devoted to war stories from field work.
• Steve gets his revising on, hopefully wrapping up the next iteration of the book manuscript.
• We’ve put away all the leftover snacks from our event last week and Tamara will be posting some of the highlights (of the discussion, not necessarily the snacks).
• Out and about: Look for us at the inauguration of the new Orange Silicon Valley office, at SF Service Design Drinks, or the Tangible UX Happy Hour.
• Steve will be heading over to Mozilla to speak with UX researchers and designers about how to synthesize user research data.
• We’ll be making at least one announcement about an upcoming conference presentation, and in a wonderful location!
• While it’s not quite American Idol level of tension and suspense, we’ll be chatting with more people this week about collaborating with and even joining our team.
• What we’re consuming: Roadie, head rubs, margaritas.

Monday is well underway and the week is filling up with meetings and work sessions! Away we go!

• Last week we kicked off a super-rapid project. We didn’t know we were doing the project at the beginning of the week and by the end of the week we had started recruiting research participants. This week we’re lining up our participants and figuring out what we’ll do in the field.
• I’m calling it “collaborative listening” – thanks to our officemate Olly, we’re experimenting with some networked speakers that lets us all listen to music together instead of individually over headphones. This will mean sorting out some social norms around volume, phone calls, and musical tastes. But so far, so good (oh yeah, because we’re listening to my music right now!)…
• We’re hosting our first event later this week. We’ve invited a small number of folks for a discussion and will be sharing more once it’s all over. But we’re actively discussing our catering options right now!
• More conference submissions to prepare, more conference acceptances to announce, and more conference presentations to start getting together!
• This week we’ve begun reaching out to potential new teammates, partners, and collaborators. We don’t know where we’ll end up but the journey is sure to be an informative one.
• What we’re consuming: A Visit From The Goon Squad, The Firestarter Sessions, Pizzeria Delfina

It’s another busy week here at Portigal as we are aflurry with a webinar, a kickoff, and a retreat:

• Steve will be giving his virtual seminar Championing Contextual Research in Your Organization tomorrow!
• We are kicking off a new project with a compressed timeline so we are ready to hit the ground running.
• Tamara will be cultivating her creative spirit at The Journey retreat in Oregon and offering two workshops.
• What we’re consuming: Gherkin’s Sandwich Shop, Morimoto and inGenius: A Crash Course on Creativity.

We were here last week, working hard on exactly the same things we were working hard on the week before, so while we could have simply done a copy-paste-post, we took a week off from This-Week-@ing. But it’s Monday again and we’re back, baby!

• We’re editing (and more to the point – rendering) video, getting our decks in a row, all to wrap up an in-depth and exciting study. We’ll be following up this week’s presentation with a creative workshop as well
• I’m getting the final slides together for my upcoming webinar, Championing Contextual Research in Your Organization. This is some new material that I’m very excited about. Have you signed up yet?
• Party time! Excellent! I’ll be checking out the book launch party for Mike Monteiro’s Design Is a Job
• I’m sitting on a pile of helpful, challenging, provocative, and encouraging notes from reviewers who are helping me with my book; it’s time to start editing and rewriting!
• Conference proposals to go out, acceptance (or not) for other conference proposals to come back, article outline to be shopped around, article copy to be crafted
• What we’re consuming: Imagine: How Creativity Works, The Taste of Others

We are traveling this week and finding time for…

• Storytelling – We are headed to sunny San Diego this week to deliver the results of a recent project. Though the prototypes were super sci-fi, the results are pretty down to earth.
• Storymaking – We have converged upon the key insights and narrative for another project and are now weaving that story into a presentation and video.
• Ideating – We are talking with friends at two different organizations (one hyper local and one far-flung) about innovation collaborations.
• Retreating – Taking time to huddle at a hip SF coffeehouse to review, revision and recommit to our 2012 goals.
• Consuming – Cow Palace, Christo, and Duarte’s Ollalieberry Pie

You can tell just how busy things are by the dearth of non-This Week postings here.

• We’ve synthesized, organized, and otherwise pummeled our data into a story. Now comes telling that story!
• For one client, we’re creating the final presentation, honing ideas, getting feedback, finessing the wording.
• With another client, we’re nailing down the core of the story and thinking ahead to editing video.
• I’ll be sharing some stories and pictures from a wonderful trip to Austin.
• What we’re consuming: Waco Brothers, Cosentino Winery Cigarzin.