I was in the Berkshires for the last three days and all the rain meant I had lots of reading time. In addition to finally finishing Wisdom of Crowds, I printed out a small book of articles, etc. that I had been meaning to catch up on. Lucky for you, I’m caught up and now it’s your turn:
- Why Religion Must End: Sam Harris is an atheist who says things like, “On the subject of religious belief, we relax standards of reasonableness and evidence that we rely on in every other area of our lives. We relax so totally that people believe the most ludicrous propositions, and are willing to organize their lives around them.”
- Communicating Complex Ideas: A big part of Wisdom of Crowds is some discussion of prediction markets. This article is an examination of the IA behind good online versions.
- What Goes Down Drain Eventually Bobs Up Here: For everyone that has ever wondered what happens when you flush a New York City toilet.
- The New Bazooka Joe: Apparently Bazooka Joe comics aren’t doing so hot. They’re trying to revive them because the “comics that come wrapped around the gum weren’t funny to anyone born after 1962.” Example: “Jane says to Joe: ‘I made this cake myself, Joe!’ — Joe: ‘Jane, this cake tastes awful!’ — Jane: ‘Oh, yeah! Smarty! The cookbook says it’s delicious!’ . . . Definitely not funny.
- Top Designer Says World Cup Design “Just Embarrassing”: Erik Spiekermann, famous German designer, kills on the logo and the rest of the design for the World Cup.
- Long Tail’s Tribe: Time Magazine jumps on the long tail bandwagon. (On a separate note, the book comes out soon.)
- Unconscious Interface Design: “Basically, unconscious design is design where there is no ‘conversation with the situation’. Sometimes we make design decisions based out of habit; we are simply following the norm; or we just never asked ourselves ‘Why?’. Every design decision we make should involve us having a “conversation with the situation ‘if we wish to break free of unconscious design.’”
- Google Launches ValueClick Killer: Apparently Google is launching a CPA (cost-per-action) network. World domination is soon to follow.
- The Top 10 Questions Investors Asked Us: The people at Particletree were kind enough to share their insight into VC interviews.
- The N.B.A. Draft: Now for Grown-Ups Only!: Chuck Klosterman is really happy high school kids won’t be drafted anymore because it means he can watch the draft again.
- Cybergreen: An interview with the ever-interesting Bruce Sterling.
- Design. Architecture. Football.: Yet another fantastic cityofsound article. Choice quote: “It’s the call-and-response tension between these forces that makes the game at the highest level so thrilling. And it’s this tension which is reminiscent of adaptive design ideas discussed here previously; that design isn’t the end of the process, but the beginning; that interpretation and improvisation will define the end-product, not the original design – in architecture, in music, in football.”
- The Attention Economy: Not sure how I missed this, but its Umair Haque’s fantastic writeup on attention.
Well, that’s it. There should be plenty to read for the next day or so. As always, I highly recommend subscribing to the sidenotes.
June 27, 2006
Over at Bokardo, Joshua Porter asks, “Why do you think that usability and visual design aren’t often associated with each other?” The answer he includes from Luke Wroblewski is this: “Well Curt Cloninger once wrote that usability experts are from Mars and graphic designers are from Venus, so it could be that. But truthfully, I think it stems from the fact that many people aren’t versed in what determines how we make sense of what we see.”
My take on this problem is that the worlds are not intertwined. Too many designers are not versed in coding and usability and vice versa. In too many cases the process is incredibly fragmented. Information architects go away and work on architecture which a designer receives and then passes on final design to coders. I’m not saying that everyone needs to be able to do each other’s job, but they should at least be versed in all facets of the process. I’ve met web designers with no coding experience. That’s all well and good, but if a web designer doesn’t understand some of the basic limitations of the web its going to create serious issues.
On a deeper level, though, I think this is a problem with people’s definition of design. Everything that goes into the final user experience should fall under a ‘design’ umbrella. If you want to call it something else, that’s fine, but the point is that it’s a unified process. Usability/visuals/architecture/code all should act together to create something that a user walks away from feeling satisfied. Luke explains it like this: “the two disciplines of visual design and usability don’t have an opportunity to develop a shared language about the way they are communicating concepts to end users. Were more of those conversations to happen, I think you’d see more of a convergence between the two.”
June 23, 2006
Two nights ago the Miami Heat won the NBA championship. Being an avid sports fan (though not necessarily basketball), I was fairly in tune with what was going on and watched game six where the Heat clinched it. Once again they won behind an inspired performance from their young star Dwayne Wade. This is Wade’s third season and he’s turned into a serious superstar, even getting the dreaded Jordan comparison.
I’m not going to talk about Wade’s basketball prowess, however, instead I want to talk about the way he’s handled this situation. For those that don’t know, even though Wade is the best player on the heat, the real star of the team is Shaq (a fact which some might argue). Shaq’s a veteran and a big presence both physically and in terms of celebrity status. After leaving the Lakers two years ago he vowed to bring a title to the Heat. In the end, though, it wasn’t he who did it.
Wade didn’t care, though. It seems like his attitude is to go out and play hard and let Shaq be Shaq. Wade seems comfortable enough with himself to let Shaq play the star and I have a lot of respect for that. Part of being a leader is understanding how to manage a team. Wade understands Shaq’s need to be seen and lets him do that, in turn Shaq goes around telling the world that Wade is the best he’s ever seen, it’s a win-win situation.
I guess I wanted to talk about this because it’s something I’ve been facing a lot in my own life. It’s important to understand the dynamics of a group and know how to play to other’s points of pride. If it’s public recognition they want, give it to them. Not that you shouldn’t take credit for your work, but if the final product is better because you let someone else have a little more glory than they may deserve, you’ll still be recognized for doing great work. Maybe I’m just lucky to work in an environment where I don’t have to worry about recognition, but I think this is something most people have trouble grasping. Instead so many spend every day worrying about who’s getting the most attention. (It’s one of those things that rears its ugly head in CC ettiquette.)
Look at Wade, everyone in the world knows the Heat wouldn’t have won without him, including Shaq. Maybe he’d have won even if he’d played the prima donna, but I bet he wouldn’t have been as happy.
June 22, 2006
You know those things you read and think are interesting, but kind of throw on the back burner? Then like two months later you find yourself yourself quoting it constantly and have to pull it out again and read it? I’ve had one of those moments with an article from Smart Mobs called “It’s about spime”. The essence of it is that with the way Google works communities can develop around words. Because of that, it can be very helpful to use a completely new term to describe new ideas, allowing you to use Google as your social networking tool. Bruce Sterling describes the process as it relates to ‘spimes’:
A neologism, a completely made-up word like ‘spime,’ is a verbal framing device. It’s an attention pointer. I call them “spimes,” not because I necessarily expect that coinage to stick, but because I need a single-syllable noun to call attention to the shocking prospect of things that are plannable, trackable, findable, recyclable, uniquely identified and that generate histories.
I also wanted the word to be Google-able. If you Google the word ‘spime,’ you find a small company called Spime, and a song by a rock star, but most of the online commentary about spimes necessarily centers around this new idea, because it’s a new word and also a new tag. It’s turning into what Julian Bleecker calls a ‘Theory Object,’ which is an idea which is not just a mental idea or a word, but a cloud of associated commentary and data, that can be passed around from mouse to mouse, and linked-to. Every time I go to an event like this, the word “spime” grows as a Theory Object. A Theory Object is a concept that’s accreting attention, and generating visible, searchable, rankable, trackable trails of attention.
I’m not really sure what else I have to say about this, just wanted to share the quote . . . you can continue on with your regularly scheduled activities.
June 21, 2006
I’m not sure when I started noticing this, but have you seen the Puma and the Jordan logos? I’m sure you have, but just in case, here they are for your viewing pleasure.
Now I’ve seen both these logos for quite sometime, but something recently sparked me to look at them a little differently. All of a sudden I started to imagine what would happen if you reflected the Puma logo horizontally and then rotated it about 90 degrees. All of a sudden Puma’s cat would look like he was about to dunk from the foul line too. Check it out:
Kind of crazy, huh? Two very different logos, yet strangely similar. Here’s one more closer look:
Coincidence?
June 17, 2006
Information architecture is a fascinating thing. Thinking through a user experience and trying to understand exactly how they interact with a site requires a special kind of thinking. It requires a certain critical detachment: An information architect needs to understand the user in an unbiased way in order to best plan their experience.
It’s exciting to be in a room listening to the questions an information architect asks. They force people to step back from what their doing, start at the beginning and examine their own work in an honest way. Are you doing this for you/client or are you doing it for the user? What are the goals? Why is the user coming to the site? What do they want to get out of their experience? How do you define success? How do they define success? Those are just a few of the many questions that an IA might ask.
Because of the functionality of the internet we’ve accepted the role of the information architect as disrupter. They’re allowed to ask the tough questions without pissing anyone off. It’s a bit harder to do that in other types of projects.
The questioner is the role I like to take. I try not to play ‘devil’s advocate’ and inject my own opinion cloaked as a question. Instead, I try to ask the things that seem most basic. Who? What? When? Where? Why? (How comes later.) Understanding as much of the background as possible before moving to the foreground is very important. That’s what lays the base for a successful project.
June 15, 2006
In the last few weeks I’ve added a few notable blogs to the old roll. I figured since I don’t really have anything else to say at the moment, I’d send you all their way for a quick fix.
Here they are (in no particular order):
- The Wages of Wins Journal: I know I’ve pointed to this in the past, but it needs to be mentioned again. It’s a blog all about comparing athletes using statistical analysis. It uses the formula first come up with in the book by the same name.
- This is Broken: What a great idea for a blog: Document all the bad customer experiences people encounter.
- AttentionTrust Blog: I feel like I’ve been writing about attention and AttentionTrust in every entry and part of the reason is that Ed Batista keeps the info flowing on the AT blog. I’m not quite sure how he manages the 15 or so posts a day he gets sometimes, but it’s one of the few heavy post blogs I actually read. (An interesting point that I’ll elaborate on below.)
- Three Minds: Jury’s still out on this one since I only found it yesterday, but so far I’m impressed. It’s a blog about customer experience from Organic.
And now onto my other, non-link, point. I’m sure other people have this same thing going on, but I’ve found that I don’t really read the heavy-post blogs. When I see that there are 40 new entries since last time I looked I tend to just skip over them. I much prefer when people write really interesting things occasionally. That’s what I try to do. If I want more from a blog, I’ll just subscribe to the link feed (you can find my sidenotes feed here). This seems like a pretty good system. What do you think? How are you reading blogs? Are you reading blogs? (On a sidenote, I’ve been visiting < ahref="http://www.popurls.com">Pop URLS a lot more lately.)
June 14, 2006
[Editor's Note: Originally I was writing a regular old post that had lots of links to things that I thought everyone should read. Instead, this turned into a manifesto of sorts. Here is a summary (with links) of what I write about at NoahBrier.com: Where we came from, where we are and where we're going.]
Since the advent of digital technology, both business and culture have been rapidly changing shape. Digital technology let us lose the shackles of material goods, opening whole new economic doors. Lack of physical presence made both outsourcing and now ‘crowdsourcing’, a reality. The ones and zeroes meant most anything that had a data form was malleable. For the first time, mass customization and personalization could be realized.
Once the broadband internet became a widespread phenomena (at least in the United States), this ‘ones and zeroes’ mentality spread throughout culture. All of a sudden nothing was safe at the hands of ‘everyday Joe,’ a fact only heightened by an online community committed to the recording all their thoughts and experiences. It seems like a scientific law should exist that states: At any point anyone can search the web for anything and find it. In the process of all the creating and remixing, ‘everyday Joe’ exposes the inadequacies of the current copyright system.
Today we live in a world where open source can take on the big boys and consumers are part of the brand. It’s a place where the broadcast model no longer applies, in part due to video games showing us a better way. We want our content, we want it our way and we demand it now. Our way is not bundled in a 30 minute segment with four two-minute chunks, instead its in ever-shrinking pieces.
Increasingly people will demand that the companies they engage with provide real value, forcing them to build edge competencies and keep their data accessible. “Help me help myself and I’ll help you,” will be the cry of the empowered consumer.
One way companies can assist is by helping us spend our attention more effectively. After all, as computing becomes further integrated into our lifestyle, its our attention that will be the most scarce. Intelligent filters will become a huge growth industry as they focus on ROA (Return on Attention).
In the end, though, the most focus will again shift to product/service as businesses/marketers/designers and everyone else realizes that nothing can make up for a lousy experience.
I plan to add more links to this in the near future (it’s getting late tonight). I invite everyone to give me feedback/links/thoughts/criticism in the comments.
Update (6/12/06): I added three things that I left out from the original: outsourcing/crowdsourcing, AttentionTrust principles and new copyright schemes. I also highly highly highly recommend reading Geoffrey Moore’s Top Ten Truths of the Digital Ecosystem, which is a nice companion piece to this. If I think of anything else there may be more additions.
June 12, 2006
Thanks to a great recommendation, I’ve been spending a fair amount of time lately reading City Secrets: New York City. It’s a great guidebook filled with recommendations of things to do that may be a bit off the beaten path. It’s written by artists, architects, writers, actors, etc. and each entry includes a bit of the person’s style and personal reasons for including the location.
I thought it might be fun to do something similar with friends (and blog readers) of mine. Think of it as a small guidebook with a personal touch. I’ll collect everyone’s entry and then compile them all into a free PDF which I’ll give away. Write as much as you’d like for as many places as you’d like.
If you’re interested, just leave your entry in the comments or drop it in an email.
Here’s my first entry:
Chelsea Market: This former Nabisco factory now houses some of the best eats in New York City. As soon as you walk in you’re hit with the intoxicating aroma of fresh baked cookies and brownies. It’s hard to resist stopping, especially with all the free samples.
Personally I like to start my day with a cup of coffee and a piece of whole wheat Irish sodabread from Amy’s Bread. As good as both are, part of my reason for stopping there is the friendly staff (not a strong suit of some of the Market’s other vendors). For lunch, try a lunch box from the Cleaver Company. $10 gets you a meat and two sides of fresh, organic food, it’s different every day so it’s always worth checking to see what they’ve got (I’m a big fan of the calamari, black bean salad and cole slaw). If you’re looking for something a little more hearty, try a sandwich from Bowery, they’re huge and cheap. I recommend the Chicken Pesto or the Jalapeno Chicken (which includes Guacamole). If nothing else just come, hang out and grab some free wi-fi while the sounds of the industrial waterfall plays in the background.
That’s just mine. Write yours in whatever style you’d like. Have fun with it.
If you know anyone else who might be interested, please send this link along. The more the merrier. I’m going to shoot to have everything in in two weeks, which, if my calculations are correct, is June 21.
June 7, 2006
I got this really good question from Michael Fergusson in response to a February, 2006 entry of mine titled Capturing Attention. Michael asked, “What do you think it will mean, when/if the volume of content being produced nears, or even outpaces the volume of content being consumed?”
I guess the first question I have in return is how do you define consumed? Is a personal diary written and hidden away ever consumed? In a way isn’t the production process in that case also the consumption process? If you are creating something for yourself than you are the consumer. While that answer at first seems like a cop-out, I think it gets at an important point. Mainly that in most circumstances the size of an audience is irrelevant to the producer.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d write differently if I didn’t think there was anyone out there reading this, but I’m not sure how much differently. A movie director creates the same movie for an audience of one as he does for an audience of one million. The size of an audience doesn’t really matter all that much until economics enters the equation. When that director has to pay for his film all of a sudden the number of people that showed up at the theatre becomes a whole lot more important.
With the internet, however, those economics have changed drastically. I have taken a no advertising stance on this website. That’s because I can afford the upkeep on my own. Because of that, the size of the audience of this site (which is quite small), really only matters to my ego. If no one reads an entry I write I will probably never know. That’s alright with me. Occasionally I get really great comments/questions that affirm my work here and fuel my intellectual fire. More often, though, that fuel is from within: I write this site because it’s good for me as a writer, as a thinker and as a marketer.
None of this is to discount the question, just to put a different spin on it. I think the real question your asking is about information overload. How do we deal with an increasing onslaught of information coming at us from every direction?
In the future, I think this is going to be helped along by the filters. Tools will develop, like some of those around AttentionTrust that will help us spend our attention more wisely. They will look at what we like and what we don’t like, compare it to the likes/dislikes of those with similar interests and make recommendations.
Check out my post What’s Next? where I specially address this issue as it relates to the newly created glut of consumer generated advertising. I compare it to blogging, where we’re discovering the it’s tougher and tougher to separate the signal from the noise. (As a side-note, it’s important to remember that one man’s noise is another man’s signal.)
In that article I conclude that, “The branding opportunities of the future lie in the filtering and repackaging of content. Companies that figure out how to actually help people spend their attention more effectively will be richly rewarded. Think about it, less and less onus is being placed on who created the content, while more and more is placed on where you found it. Just ask YouTube: It’s a destination, a repackager of content. Part of their magic is that they allow anyone to put a YouTube video on their own site. As a result their branding seed is spread far and wide.”
Hopefully my answer didn’t sidestep the question to much. Thanks for the interesting comment. Also, as a request, everyone out there, please comment. It’s nice to hear (or read) someone else’s voice here on occasion.
June 5, 2006
It’s now almost 3am. I’m working. Well, not at the moment. But I’m still at work.
Anyway, in celebration of the new month. Here are some links for you to read while I’m not blogging for the next few days.
- New York Times covers the magic of unpaid college internships: “Newspapers and business magazines are full of articles expressing exasperation about how the Millennial-generation employee supposedly expects work to be exciting immediately, wears flip-flops to the office and has no taste for dues-paying. However true this stereotype may be, the spread of the artificially fun internship might very well be adding fuel to it.”
- AIGA writes about the awful atrocities of the Bush administration against typography: “Karl Rove may be a brilliant strategist, but he knows absolutely nothing about good typography.”
- Another great McSweeney’s list: Mobile-Phone Models That Improve Upon the RAZR, SLVR, and PEBL.
- Awesome Shaq quote comparing the three guards he’s played with (Anfernee Hardaway, Kobe Bryant and Dwayne Wade): “The difference between those three is the Godfather trilogy,” O’Neal said in classic Shaq-speak. “One is Fredo, who was never ready for me to hand it over to him. One is Sonny, who will do whatever it takes to be the man, and one is Michael, who if you watch the trilogy, the Godfather hands it over to Michael. So I have no problem handing it over to Dwyane.”
- Russel Davies talks about the top 10 lies of planners.
- Jeff doesn’t like skunks.
- Momus is working on a new article about couples and surfing and looking for input. He’s got some thoughts: “I know that I don’t really watch TV any more. I’m online all the time. But whereas a couple watching TV, curled up on a sofa together, may have felt “together”, a couple surfing on two wifi laptops are visiting different sites, having different experiences. They seem more apart than together. The internet age feels less communal than the TV age did.”
- What would it look like if men were as objectified as women in comic books? Now we know.
- I’ve been trying to get up early and go to the gym every morning. I learned some tips from this article.
- Last, The Wages of Wins is a new book about analyzing sports through statistics. Luckily for all us sports fans, the book also has a blog. They recently wrote a great article about just how good Kevin Garnett is and more recently about the wonder that was Jordan.
That’s it. Got another few hours. Good night.
Update (6/1/06): It’s 4:30am and my day is now officially over.
June 1, 2006
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