Technology is an artificial means to extend the human reach beyond its natural grasp. where I am today Home in Boston trips & visits 5/1-6/7/2009 Boston 6/7-6/13/2009 Toledo 6/13-6/19/2009 Silicon Valley 6/20-7/20 Boston 7/20-7/24 Silicon Valley 7/27-7/29 Washington DC 7/29-7/30 Orlando 7/30-8/1 Richmond 8/1-9/2 Boston 9/2-9/7/2009 Stratford Theatre Festival/Stratford, Ontario, Canada 9/7-? Boston what i'm doing - Working hard at Involution	Insights, ideas, musings, observations, publications, and thoughts on the world and design   Stupidity 101 Friday June 26, 2009, 11:20 AM EST Why is it that doctor's request you get a blood test after you visit them and not before? I mean, when you get the test after you get a random postcard in the mail with numbers that are meaningless to you, or a phone call from someone other than the doctor giving you the information. Why isn't the test BEFORE the visit so you can, y'know, actually ask the doctor about the results? I'm guessing its an insurance issue, but whatever it is, it is completely idiotic. Why bother seeing the doctor at all?!   The quantification of work and technology Thursday June 4, 2009, 1:41 AM EST This is a bit of a long and detailed post. If you are turned on by any or all of economics, math, science or philosophy, I think it will be worth your time and encourage you to hang in until the end. If not, feel free to ignore. We're working on a disruptive technology that has the potential to radically downsize a multi-trillion dollar industry in the U.S. While actually being a catalyst to such an outcome requires a great deal of wishful thinking, the problem space has nonetheless got me thinking about the relationship between human work effort, technology, and the corporate good. After all, if we're going to make the walls come a' tumbling down, there's going to be deeply vested people fighting it. There's going to be countless workers paralyzed with uncertainty. Anything we can do to better understand and communicate the benefits while mitigated the fear and self-interest is to our great benefit. So it is that I've come up with a conceptual approach to quantifying the labour, and particularly the juxtaposition, of human effort and technology. Here's the example: It takes a certain amount of effort for a person to dig a small hole in a grassy yard, lets say 12 inches deep and 12 inches in diameter. It would be dirty work, it would be uncomfortable work, but could be completed pretty quickly. If you only need to do it once, it is a perfectly acceptable thing to just dig the hole out as opposed to buy or find a tool to help. At some point, if the size requirements for the hole get too large, digging it with your hands becomes arduous and, at some point, impossible to do within what would remotely resemble a reasonable timeframe. For that you need a tool; lets say its a shovel. Suddenly, it gets relatively easy again. The shovel accomplishes the work in a small percentage of the time and effort your bare hands would require. If the requirements for the size of the hole get bigger still, at some point a shovel is as impractical as using bare hands was at a smaller size. At that point you need to upgrade, lets say to a backhoe. Suddenly it gets relatively easy again. The backhoe accomplishes the work in a small percentage of the time and effort your bare hands would require. If the requirements for the size of the hole get bigger still, at that point, you just get another backhoe. And then another. And then another. And then... Here's the "a-ha!": all of this is quantifiable. It is absolutely possible to figure out the point at which digging a hole should evolve beyond bare hands to a simple tool, then from a simple tool to a more complex tool, until you finally reach the most advanced tool technology has to offer, in which case you either change your requirements or simply get more of the same tool working on the same problem. How would one go about determining this? Sticking with my original example, there are objective criteria and subjective criteria. Objectively, it is a question of how much energy it would take to dig the hole with your hands. My business partner Juhan thinks that a calorie might be the atomic unit to measure that. This instinctively seems as good a measure as any. So, it takes a certain amount of calories to dig a hole of a specific size in a specific terroir. How one person gets the hole completed as compared to another has no bearing on this, there is a specific and explicit amount of energy expenditure necessary to dig that hole. Subjectively, it really depends on the individual person. In digging the hole with your hands, you are going to get dirty to one level or another. Some people are repulsed by this; some don't like it but deal with it; others enjoy it. Similarly, some people enjoy physical labour and would find putting a lot of effort into digging a hole with their hands a pleasant or even enjoyable act; others would be highly perturbed; most of us would be somewhere in the middle. Acknowledging that this ultimately matters and needs to be considered in a more thoughtful way, for the purpose of this example we will assume that all subjective measures related to individual people come out as perfectly average. The point in doing this is to focus on the clearly objective part of this, the calorie. Another variable that can be quantified in the context of an atomic unit is the technology. In order to create a shovel, there is an expenditure of both human and natural resources. These would include but not be limited to: the wood of the handle, the metal of the shovel itself, the tools that cut down the tree that provided the wood of the handle, the tools that prepared the wood to function as the handle, the tools that extracted the metal or alloys from the earth, the tools that led to forming the shovel head shape, the tools that went into assembling the shovel as a complete unit, and all of the human work required to bend the natural world into a shovel. This is, ultimately, quantifiable. I don't know what the correct atomic unit for this is yet; maybe it can even be bent to be calories for a true apples-to-apples. But, regardless, we now have two fixed and quantifiable data points: A. Energy required for a person to complete a physical task (calories) B. Resources (Energy?) required to create an artificial object Now, using a shovel also requires a person working - which requires calories. So if x = the amount of calories it takes for an average person to dig a hole of a certain size using their bare hands, and y = the amount of calories it takes for an average person to dig a hole of the same size using a shovel, then x-y = the amount of calories saved by using a shovel. It is quantifiable. And since we additionally have a quantifiable metric for what is taken to create a shovel, we can begin to do analysis on the relationship between the amount of human calories saved by using a shovel to help dig the hole, versus the costs of making the shovel in the first place. With most technology, there is also either or both degradation in the object over time and with use, as well as the possibility of a fail which would require repair. There is also the possibility that someone could injure themselves using the shovel. All of these things need to be accounted for. Importantly, all of these things CAN be accounted for! These give us additional, fixed data points to use toward analysis. Adding them to the previous list, we now have: A. Energy required for a person to complete a physical task (calories) B. Resources (Energy?) required to create a tool C. Human energy saved through the use of tools in addition to or instead of expending calories D. Decay of - and related devaluation of - the tool over time And again - and importantly - all of this is quantifiable! Then you have the backhoe. That adds another layer of consideration beyond just the shovel. While a shovel will do modest collateral damage with its use by potentially damaging the ground or what is on/under/around it (which also needs to be accounted for!), a backhoe substantively damages the world around it: the gas and oil it burns, the pressure and stress it puts over the roads it lumbers over, the damage to grass, flowers, plants, trees, animals and whatever combined flora and fauna that get in its way. So lets add THAT to the end of the list: A. Energy required for a person to complete a physical task (calories) B. Resources (Energy?) required to create a tool C. Human energy saved through the use of tools in addition to or instead of expending calories D. Decay of - and related devaluation of - the tool over time E. Damage caused by use - or even just ongoing existence - of the tool There might be other things I've missed. But this idea is just hours old, and for the purpose of making the point I think I'm being superficially thorough (how's that for a happy paradox?!) But what we now have is quantification of all the variables necessary to measure the footprint of technology: we can analyze the data and actually identify the precise point it makes sense to use a shovel as opposed to bare hands, then the moment when to move from a shovel to a backhoe. Using the list letters above as variables, and then treating variable x as equaling the number of times the tool is actually used, we get: Cx - (B+Dx+Ex) = Absolute "value" of a shovel Yes, the amount of data necessary to get from this framework to actually HAVING the numbers in real life is staggering. But I imagine we could get a clumsy WAG figured out taking a day or two of time just culling existing data on a lot of these different subfactors. The beauty of it is that it is all solvable. I can hear you now..."OK, why does it matter at all if we can figure out when to use a shovel instead of digging a hole with our bare hands. Who digs holes with their bare hands anyway?" This is not about the example; this is about the methodology. The thinking can be used to evaluate ANYTHING! Historically, we know by instinct and education that an assembly line is dramatically more efficient than the higher touch methods that preceded it. But, what is the real difference? It is determinable. We can identify the precise moment using that assembly line was superior to more manual means. Or, using a steamboat as opposed to a raft to get down the Mississippi. Or, using a train as opposed to a horse to carry a load. We already have horsepower to roughly measure the power and speed, but what about the costs? The decay? What is, in some holistic way, the totality of difference between the two? We can answer that! This thinking can be used for anything and everything. I would even posit it should be used for anything and everything. We shouldn't use technology and tools just because we can; we should use them because they make sense. I think we can figure out what makes sense and what doesn't, and why. Now, lets take this up to an entirely different and even more hypothetical level. Let pretend that various technologies become so powerful that people, for the most part, don't need to work. There are machines, robots, computers and whirlygigs (my word for technology we can't even imagine) so that we can all sit on pillows and eat bon-bons all day. I think any medical doctor, psychologist, geriatrician or other professional schooled in healthy human functioning will tell you this is not a good thing. Even if we didn't have to work, it is good for us to spend some minimum amount of our lives working. That is, there is a point where machines replacing humans becomes a point of diminishing returns for us. It is no longer a welcome convenience but a recipe for rigor mortis in the prime of life (to quote the wonderful John Cleese). Given that, there is a point - a measurable, quantifiable point - after which it is BAD for our species if technology replaces our manual efforts. To be clear, we're not there yet; not even close. There is plenty of work out there to be done. But it is important to consider that there is a FLOOR to how little work we want people to be responsible for, after which point it is diminishing returns. I propose that our ability to quantifiably understand the actual "value" of every man-made object is absolutely essential information to our successful navigation of the future. This is a deeper way to analyze existing (and minimize future) environmental damage. It is an objective means of comparing one product against another and pretty precisely identifying which is more valuable. And, to the point of the original thought experiment that led me down this little wormhole, it can help us not be afraid of emerging technology while better managing its planning and use. Technology is inevitable. Since at least the industrial revolution, technology has prominently and even routinely taken jobs previously performed by humans and replaced them with machines. Jethro Tull - who was an agriculturalist before a rock band - invented the seed drill almost 300 years ago. His workers were furious: they thought they would all lose their jobs. Agricultural technology has evolved many times over since then, and the seed drill certainly did not prove to be the end of western civilization as we know it. Most people in the United States, for example, even during this dreadful economic period, remain employed. Technology might change the jobs we work, but it largely does not ultimately make it impossible for us TO work. As such, the important questions and answers around technology have not to do with job loss in the abstract, but the relationship between human effort, technology benefit, and the start-up and ongoing costs of using that technology over time. We can measure carbon footprint. We can codify the value to the planet of a 100 year old tree. It only requires we connect a few more dots to get to the point I'm advocating. My only question is: if it hasn't already been explored or accomplished, why on Earth not?   Group behaviour Thursday March 12, 2009, 16:02 PM EST My buddy Lou tweeted into the ether a few minutes ago, trying to get an impromptu little meet-up of people who happen to be on the same flight as he, heading down to the South by Southwest conference. Assuming there is modest response, I can envision half a dozen or so design industry-related souls happily seeing and greeting each other at the gate before the flight. How strange that will seem! Having flown literally hundreds of time in my life, the idea of a group of people meeting in a pre-arranged way, chatting enthusiastically, possibly trying to convince others to change seats with them so they continue to kibbitz - while those same others are tortoise-shelled and stressed, waiting to hear their group number called out and hoping their carry-on bags will have enough overhead space - is a bit surreal. Social network technology is going to create these weird moments of juxtaposition, where people are suddenly friendly and familiar in public spaces that were previously - and almost universally - uncomfortable, anonymous and inhuman. What is the impact going to be? Annoyance? Appreciation? What will the other people at the JetBlue gate think and feel? How will they react? In five years, will MOST of the people getting onto an airplane have "pre-arranged" to socialize in more comfortable and familiar ways? What will that mean? If its really "open" and too many people get involved for it to be comfortable, will it create a new form of isolation? Could it lead to further class warfare and stratification? Yes, I've pretty much just put my imagination on autopilot at this point. Those are spewings, not predictions. But what I do predict is that, if these things accelerate and increase over time, it is going to create new and unexpected strangeness, awkwardness and social isolation of a very unpredictable nature. Of course, in the shorter term it will also turn some inhuman group social situations into more microcosmic happy, familiar and comfortable situations for those who productively connect. This is certainly not a condemnation of happy gatherings, it is more a counter-balance, an identification that in the longer now the group dynamics will be changed in ways we can't predict until we get there. We'll see what that means. In the meantime, hopefully I too can participate in some warm-fuzzy happy familiarity with people I know and perhaps even care about, in what would otherwise be a cold and unpleasant group public context.   Credit and reputation Thursday March 12, 2009, 15:14 PM EST While my wading into Twitter has largely amounted to just keeping a single toe in the water - opening the client once or twice a day, glancing at it for a few seconds, and closing it again - just a moment ago I saw something that made me think of a bigger issue. I saw a Tweet to a video by one Jesse Newhart, showing how to set up TweetDeck to be more useful. I turned the video on in the background and semi-passively listened while writing emails. At one point on the video, he commented on a feature that allows the user to "re-tweet" what someone else has written, and that you can "re-tweet" a "re-tweet", in essence creating a "chain" where an original person creates content, a second person promotes it, and then a third person promotes it again. In describing this process, Jesse cheerily noted, "And here I'm giving props to two people, instead of just one person." As a big picture, systems thinker, this immediately made me think of how this mindset could quickly break down, as re-tweet after re-tweet means that "props" are being given to five or six people. At some point, ALL of them become irrelevant and glazed over because there are TOO MANY of them. Suddenly, NONE of them are recognized because ALL of them are recognized. It reminded me of academic papers, where the list of contributors are so voluminous that, ultimately, you barely pay attention to the first person's name only and then skip ahead to the content.  More ...   Not safe yet Friday February 27, 2009, 12:39 PM EST The scythe that is the recession/depression of 2008-? could still cut me down to equine feed yet. Blame a catastrophically incorrect estimate for my personal 2008 tax burden. GIANT hits to cash flow when your stocks and home are underwater Atlantis-style is decidedly negative EV (Expected Value, for all you non-poker ballers out there).   Twitter: early returns Friday February 27, 2009, 12:36 PM EST I'm not a big fan, at least yet. There's certainly potential: some of the people I'm following post interesting, thoughtful things. Some post the right amount of relevance and interest about their daily lives that I like it and don't think its Spammy. Other people use it as this weird business/marketing megaphone - in a nice way, certainly, but in a way that ultimately is inauthentic and makes me think less of them. Others post FAR too many mundane and trivial details about their daily routine and life that simply clutters up the entire feed.  More ...   Being moved Wednesday February 25, 2009, 22:24 PM EST Tonight, I cried twice. Today is my son's birthday. As I talked to him tonight, thinking back on the day of his birth, appreciating him, missing him, loving him, in the course of that conversation I was moved to tears. My love for him is so deep, and makes the distance that much more heartbreaking. But my tears were not sad tears, they were happy - with twinges of sadness and remorse. Above it all, though, was my love for my son. Later I spoke with my mom. Our conversation was winding, but eventually made it around to my father. As we talked about his death and trying to coordinate a posthumous service as requested by his sister, I found myself crying again. This time out of sorrow and longing and loss. And, certainly, love. So tonight I cried twice. And it really felt good in a deep and meaningful way. It had to do with celebrating my beautiful son, and feeling love for the people who matter most in my life. Ultimately, those relationships are the things that matter. Palpably feeling that is ostensibly a wonderful thing.   To Tweet or not to Tweet? Wednesday February 18, 2009, 19:12 PM EST I've been aware of Twitter pretty much since it began. I signed up for an account (being in software, it is my Sworn Duty to sign up and check out Hot New Services to stay current), and watched it become a geek mainstay with some level of bemusement. At its most ridiculous level, I did not appreciate the benefit of knowing every time the people I care about are choosing to get a cup of coffee. I let the party rage on without me. Today, I sit in a studio next to someone who has TweetDeck open in the background pretty much 24/7. Its a pretty interesting little app, and I've seen the social power that his sharing some of the things we are up to has had in a very practical sense. A friend has termed it as "Facebook is where you connect with old friends again; Twitter is where you get closer to the people you want to have as friends in the future." That's a pretty provocative statement, and one that is certainly near to my heart.  More ...   Logic 101 Wednesday February 18, 2009, 12:49 PM EST IF the U.S. Government bails out industries, companies and people who - either through ignorance, bad judgement, incompetence or corruption - have gotten themselves in an intractable fiscal position, then they must also create socialistic safeguards and paternalism that govern the so-called "free market system". Otherwise, people like me - those who educate themselves, pay all their bills on time, gainfully employ a variety of people, wait to buy a home until the mortgage is reasonable, safe and fiscally intelligent - are just going to leave or quit. I live my life sensibly, often to my own discomfort, as others live irresponsibly or beyond their means. In total, the tax dollars collected by the government is ALL OF OUR money. If my contributions are being given to others who "live in the moment" more than me, or otherwise sacrifice the future for the present, that is directly and specifically to my detriment. While I will tolerate the current round of bailouts as a valid attempt to "save" our economy on some macro level, my tolerance for watching those who made bad decisions benefit on MY back is, indeed, quite thin. The people who are doing things RIGHT should be benefitted, not penalized. When the economy started coming tumbling down, I committed a tremendous amount of MY money to protect our employees, at great personal financial risk. Where's MY bailout? Where's MY reward? Why is ignorance rewarded and responsibility, implicitly in the shake-out of all of this money moving, penalized? At the very least, I want a promise this isn't going to happen again. Get the system stabilized. Save us. Then CHANGE THE BLOODY SYSTEM. Make sure ignorance, bad judgement, incompetence or corruption from companies and individuals can't drag down those of us who work hard and intentionally behave in a way that is intended to not just improve our own comfort and happiness, but benefit others and the collective well-being as well. Law requires Justice, and Justice requires Fairness. Absent that, why bother trying to do the right thing? It makes infinitely more sense to go somewhere else and operate within a system that supports and rewards your efforts. That is, truly, Logic 101.   Sympathy: A Redemption Story Monday February 16, 2009, 22:35 PM EST Once Upon a Time in modern popular culture, there were clear Heroes and Villains. My earliest memories of such things were seen in the old U.S. propaganda movies of World War 2 (Hitler, Hirohito and Mussolini = Evil; The Allies = Pure as the White-Driven Snow), re-runs of the 1960's era Batman TV show (Batman and Robin = Heroes; Virtually Everyone Else in a Goofy Costume = Villains). Then, moving forward, from The A-Team to Miami Vice to Hulk Hogan saying his prayers and eating his vitamins in juxtaposition to evil vermin like Nikolai Volkoff and The Iron Sheik, there was no doubt about who we should cheer for, identify with and hope would prove victorious. (Full disclosure: I personally rooted for Rowdy Roddy Piper to groin shot Hulk Hogan when Piper was still a Despicable Bad Guy, but that doesn't change the general cultural positioning) It was literally as clear as black-and-white and consistent across most every mainstream cultural artifact being produced.  More ...   "Who is Johnny Carson" Saturday February 14, 2009, 2:42 AM EST Today, someone who works for me didn't know who Johnny Carson is, because she is too young to have any cultural awareness of him. (ahem) Today, someone who IS A FULLY GROWN ADULT and works for me is so young that she was JUST BEGINNING GRADE SCHOOL when Johnny Carson went off the air, AND HAS ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO HE IS (!!!) This little morsel of shocking self-realization came about when I hummed the first notes from his old Tonight Show theme song and my partner Juhan queried, "Is that the Johnny Carson song?!" So, at least I'm not yet the ONLY person in the room so old that no one gets my dated cultural references. Oy vey. It only gets worse from here, doesn't it?!   My goals for 2009 Wednesday December 31, 2008, 21:08 PM EST (using the pseudo-democratic Alpha ordering system) Be a better person. I'm already a good person, but I want to be a better person and citizen. More patient, empathetic and considerate. Less judgmental, morose and disdainful of public inconveniences like long lines and slow drivers. Build Invo Boston into an important regional player. We're already rocking out Silicon Valley. Now I need to do my part to make Boston a shining success. Establish a regular exercise routine. I was SO good about this in California, but have completely lost my pace thanks to a much different logistical situation here in Boston. Must. Be. Healthy. Grow and deepen my relationships with the people I love. Family and friends alike; pay attention to those I love and do more than my fair share to make these relationships blossom. Improve my leadership and management skills. I've got excellent natural skills and good learned wisdom, but often allow the diversity and complexity of my global responsibilities to derail my practical application. Accepting this state of affairs is not acceptable. Live a more ordered life. With the big move this year, and exacerbated by being physically separated from my spectacular assistant, I have become completely disorganized, discombobulated and just feeling out-of-control of the minutiae of my life. I need to get this untangled. Read and write more. "Reading" in any real sense has been largely out of my life since I started spending 12+ hour days on the internet some 12 or so years ago. Now, I'm reading again and I love it. Writing - what I once spent most of my time doing - has ebbed with the flow of my entrepreneurial responsibilities. I need to find it again. Stabilize and strengthen my companies. Lots of transition in 2008, punctuated by the economic debacle of the last three months. We did such a great job creating a strong base and stable foundation before this mess, I need to make sure we get it back. Its a long list, but one that is eminently "do-able". Give me 12 months and I'll tell you how I did.   Farewell to 2008 Wednesday December 31, 2008, 20:33 PM EST This year was the most tumultuous in my life for some time, with a lot of change and turbulence throughout: For the Good, I... * Started a new relationship that is very loving, nurturing and fulfilling * Gained an outstanding new business partner who is going to be a key component to my next level of professional success * Helped my company achieve record revenues and added Apple, Microsoft and McAfee to our client portfolio * Spearheaded the creation of new companies that will provide a platform outside of our existing software services to grow, diversify and explore * Bought a house, the first home I've owned since moving out of the modestly priced Toledo real estate market  More ...   A new day Wednesday November 5, 2008, 13:55 PM EST During this phase of my life I have largely treated my personal politics a private thing. I try not to talk about my preferences or get into the religious-like discussions about one issue or another, or one candidate or another. In part, this is because my beliefs are not mainstream: in my life I've voted for more third party Presidential candidates than mainstream party candidates. And I have even voted for a Republican! So, despite being generally liberal, I am far from a "straight-ticket Democrat". In general, I think both mainstream political parties in the U.S. are ideologically off track. I think capitalism is inherently and definitionally self-destructive, that our manifestation of democracy runs counter to the intention or raison d'etre of the founding fathers, and the only way humanity will start to evolve as opposed to continually DEvolve is through fairly substantial changes to our shared worldview that go well beyond any ideology of the powers-that-be in our country and world. Needless to say, I'm not exactly a mainstream political thinker.  More ...   "I'm Great!" Friday August 1, 2008, 15:23 PM EST For this first time that I can recently remember - and we could be talking weeks, or months, or perhaps even years - my response today to the casual query of "How are you doing today?" was an enthusiastic and honest "I'm great!" Typically, it is some variant of "I'm OK" or "I'm busy" or some other slice of mediocrity that has become de rigueur in my daily routine and rhythm. Don't get me wrong: I've had plenty of moments of happiness or joy or feeling good in between. But now, hopefully in a consistent and lasting way, I'm feeling as though my day-to-day rhythm is becoming overwhelmingly positive. What a happy thing!   Being seen Wednesday July 2, 2008, 20:17 PM EST I indulge in the conceit of writing on this website for absolute public consumption; that is, there is no password protection or attempt to hide what I write. It is out there for anyone to be pointed to or find. In addition, what I write is largely unedited and reflects a raw and transparent view of what I am thinking or feeling. Granted, there are things that are particularly personal or things that I might think would not be professionally prudent to share given the likelihood of people I engage with professionally eventually encountering the site. Still, those topical omissions notwithstanding, I certainly use this channel to share a variety of traditionally private parts of myself in a complete and public way. Recently, I had my first concern about this approach. After writing the posts about Brandon's football camp experience, someone - very well-meaningly - encouraged both of my children to read these posts, given their very powerful nature and content. While I know my children have previously seen and are aware of my website, I take it for granted that they don't regularly read it. Or, that if at times they did read it, it was not in a real-time way, but in a way where it more represents an artifact of the past as opposed to the present. This might have been naive or foolish, but was how I thought of it.  More ...   Coming home from football camp Thursday June 19, 2008, 18:06 PM EST This morning I went to Brandon's football camp to watch his final scrimmage and then bring him home. He again played well, and it was again a tremendous thrill to watch him out there on the field. On defense, even though he recorded seven tackles over the 35 snaps he player (which is an outstanding number for any position, let alone a defensive end; and yes I am a geek for counting!) I noticed that the other team ran almost all of their running plays to the other side of the field, away from Brandon. I assumed this was just coincidence. Well, during the awards ceremony afterwards Brandon won both the best defensive lineman award and the award for being the best defensive player overall. And the head coach again called out how he played every single snap of every practice and scrimmage - all week, no less! - but also commented that Brandon was such a force that the opposing offense ran their plays the opposite way from him as much as they could. I thought something was going on during the scrimmage today! Brandon was very proud of and focused on the fact that he won two trophies ("One more than Justin!" he beamed, referring to his friend who won the award for best offensive lineman) but what made me the most happy was how hard he worked and hustled. His level of effort and intensity was truly exceptional, and again I was struck by a variant on the "son surpassing the father" theme. I had so much fun watching him that's its almost enough to get me to move back to Toledo so I don't miss out on more of the same for the next five years. If only I could manipulate the space-time continuum. Gosh, do I ever love my children!   A moment of perfect clarity Wednesday June 18, 2008, 21:07 PM EST As a divorced parent who lives across the country from his sons, I typically spend 6-8 weeks with them each year. While "not bad" given the geographic distance, it remains a relatively disconnected way to "watch" your children grow and live their lives. So it was that today I took part of my afternoon to visit my eldest son at a football camp he is at this week here in California, while visiting me. He is a very athletic and physical 13 year old, and I expected he would be a solid contributor among the participants. Little did I anticipate that watching him on this sweltering June afternoon would turn out to be 90 minutes that I will never forget.  More ...   "That's a good point." Thursday May 29, 2008, 20:09 PM EST Recently, I was on a conference call where one of my colleagues spoke up with a contradiction to the direction being suggested by the client. The client listened, thought for a moment, and then responded by saying, "That's a good point." Earlier in my career, I worked to be told I had made a good point. I mean, I worked hard for a lot of reasons, but when it came time to interact with or present to my colleagues and clients, I very much looked for positive validation of that sort. I didn't go into meetings literally trying to evoke such a response, but I was energetic, ambitious, and eager-to-please. That sort of an approach to work and ethic ostensibly results in positive reinforcement. So, when I would get a comment like that it would light me up inside. As the recent client told my colleague, "That's a good point," I remembered the rush I used to get when receiving such comments, and wondered if he had felt a similar happy spike when the client said this to him, and in front of his boss (me) no less! Even more, it made me realize that such things no longer - or, at least, very very rarely - have any impact for me. I'm sure people still tell me I make good points from time to time. But I already know this. My quality and effectiveness are proven, and I am comfortable with them. I know I make good points. I also know I make bad points! But on balance, I understand and believe in myself, and someone else telling me I make a good point or am correct or insightful or whatever, now has become something that does not elicit any noticeable reaction in me, and certainly nothing like in the days when I was a young man and hearing such things could literally make my day. I suppose I'm a little wistful that these sort of little reinforcements are no longer the source of a small piece of joy to me, but I appreciate the fact I can still identify such things, and remember the time not so long ago that this sort of a compliment would give me a smile, a tingle, and an extra bit of pep in my step.   "It is what it is": the "stuff" of a new generation Friday May 16, 2008, 14:22 PM EST When I was a boy, the word "stuff" really bothered me. It was used frequently, and it didn't really "say" anything. A typical exchange would be something like: A: "Hi B, what have you been doing today?" B: "Oh, you know, work and stuff." Or... A: "So B, what sort of things are you interested in?" B: "I like Transformers and G.I. Joe and stuff." Or... A: "Hey B, what did you guys do at the carnival?" B: "All sorts of stuff!" A: "Such as...???" "Stuff" was a catch-all. As an overly precise little guy it drove me nuts that so many people said "stuff" in so many different contexts, in the process seeming to say nothing at all. Fast-forward to the early 21st century. On the "reunion show" episode for last season's Top Chef (a guilty pleasure) they did a short spot making fun of how everyone on the show would say "It is what it is" and that it was a total cliche. And as they showed many, many clips of the various judges and participants saying "It is what it is" it did seem quite ridiculous. Either on that show or in some other context, I "learned" that the expression started in New York City. It may or may not have, but that is not the point. Soon I realized that I was using "It is what it is". Perhaps not a lot, but certainly more than I would like to. And if you are familiar with this phrase or you have heard it yourself, you likely know that it operates very similarly to "stuff". It rarely adds anything to an interpersonal communication. It is, superficially at least, a passive acknowledgement that whatever is being referred to is existential; that is, quite literally, what can be seen and perceived from whatever is being referred to is exactly what it is, without subtext. Unless it is used ironically, in which case the subtext is understood. Clear as mud, right? Stick with me, I'm getting somewhere that is potentially interesting, if not important. Recently I used "It is what it is" again and, frustrated for my linguistic laziness, spent a few minutes really trying to figure out why I use it. And, like a thunderbolt, it hit me: there is an enormous gap between what I intuitively see and understand about things, and what I am able to competently communicate to someone else in a socially convenient way. In the example that started me off on this whole process of deconstruction, I was witness to a low-level conflict that was ultimately not very important but which was dripping with context just below the surface. I had a lot of insights on very interwoven and even independently complex things such as: * The motivators of one of the people involved * The ego conflict of another of the people involved * Divergent understandings of what was at stake * Incompatible conflict resolution styles that made it harder to work toward an optimal-for-all resolution * Past history (read: baggage) that further complicated the entire process And the situation resolved itself in a very ugly and illogical way. I knew the reasons why, very clearly, but they dealt with psychological and sociological things that people typically don't understand unless far too much time is taken to provide excess context. Later I was asked about the conflict and I very succinctly shared the irrational final outcome, shrugged, and said "It is what it is." I just didn't want to take the time to throw out on the table all of the deeper inter-personal things I knew were going on with it. Bingo! Now I understand! At least for me, "It is what it is" is my way of not trying to unpack all of the layers that I can see and understand but which can be difficult to explain, and even which many people are skeptical toward. It is walling off a certain block of content from being shared, either for reasons of time or ease or just sanity. It enables me to give a condensed report of things and tie off that which is not always easy to explain, or that I simply don't want to explain. Now, go back 25+ years to "stuff". I believe the word and common use of "stuff" was a reaction to a consumer culture. In a world where the consideration set of things you can do or think about is increased exponentially from just a generation or two before, it is not necessarily easy to remember everything you did, or to take the time to examine and talk about everything. By saying "stuff", you are walling off the conversation, including just what is important to you, or easy to remember, or what you are comfortable saying. Rather than being the default generic response from a disinterested child to a trying-to-connect adult, it is a mechanism to enable people not to have to deconstruct the physical particulars around them in an increasingly complex and new world. Rather than the tool of a flabby mind that little eight year-old Dirk saw it as, "stuff" was the "It is what it is" of an earlier generation: a shorthand way to say, "I'm either unwilling or unable to go into any more detail than this." And it is almost certainly the product of a late-capitalist, consumer culture that was rapidly accumulating far, far, far more "stuff" than ever needed to be considered or dealt with in the year before it. Doesn't make sense to you? Hey, I'm not making this stuff up. You want me to explain it in more detail? It is what it is!   Hypocrisy and hyperbole Tuesday May 13, 2008, 19:25 PM EST I'm subscribed to the Wall Street Journal's News Alerts. I woke up this morning to one sent at 4:18 AM PT with the following lead-in: "A monstrous scale of devastation is emerging from the Chinese region worst hit by yesterday's earthquake, and the government's ability to respond to the disaster may help define the kind of superpower China is in 2008." The Wall Street Journal is published in the United States, these same United States that treated New Orleans and the myriad victims of Katrina as something less than what I would hope the lowest common denominator for "taking care of our own" would require. Yet, somehow, still amidst the rubble and ruin of that tragedy, the Journal dares to suggest that China should be judged or framed by their response to this event? How, precisely, would the Journal "define the kind of superpower" the U.S. is in that light? At least, if Katrina is the benchmark, China does not have a very high standard to meet to define itself as an elite and appropriate superpower.   Found time Tuesday May 13, 2008, 19:19 PM EST My favourite thing in the world just might be found time. What is found time, you ask? It is when you unexpectedly have a block of time that you thought you would be spending in a way you didn't particularly want but, surprisingly, suddenly becomes free for you to do what you may. An example would be when, earlier in my career, I went to a client's located about an hour-and-a-half away for a scheduled six hour meeting that turned out to be just two hours. While technically I should have gone back to the office, instead I (shhh - don't tell!) went home and worked on a personal project. And that represented some of the sweetest, most enjoyable hours I put into the entire project. So it was that, last Friday, I was planning to go and see Iron Man with the rest of my company as a birthday celebration for those with April-ish birthdays. I'm not an action/special effects movie kind of guy, so I was only planning to go out of respect for the birthdays, the proverbial "taking one for the team". As it turned out, one of my clients needed some work that had to be done quickly that afternoon. It was enough to do so that there was just no way I would be able to make the movie, even though I was done with the work about two hours before everyone would return from the theatre. Instead, I took that opportunity to go to the gym, where I did my "usual" semi-daily run on the elliptical machine. I have to say, a sweeter workout I never have had. I was relaxed, smiling, not a care in the world. The only difference that I can cite compared to my usual workout is that, instead of rushing to squeeze it in before my workday starts, or trying to carve out an hour sometime in the day to make it happen, or doing it on my way home and cutting into my cherished "home time" (and in all three of those examples rushing and watching the clock), it was found time. It was footloose, fancy-free, not-beholden-to-anyone time that was completely mine, without guilt, stress or constraint around it. Even better, it was in stark contrast to what I expected to be doing that afternoon, sitting in a dark movie theatre watching something I wasn't interested in. I categorically, absolutely adore found time. I wish there were easy ways to "find" more of it!   Why I don't use Google to "Google" anymore Thursday April 10, 2008, 16:55 PM EST Today it hit me that I rarely use search engines to find information anymore. The specific example is a little embarrassing: I was looking over the days' headlines and read, "No 'Secret': CBS cans show after one episode" next to a picture of former Star Trek actor George Takei. This jogged my memory about a commercial I had seen for a painful-looking and forgettable new TV show about low-level celebrities "showcasing" their hidden, unexpected skills in an American Idol-type setting. I had zero interest in watching the show but the fact it was canceled immediately pulled my "morbid curiosity" string and caused me to click in and read the article. There wasn't much to it, just spelling out the planned format with some granularity, reiterate that it was canceled, and briefly lamenting that Danny Bonaduce would not get to display his secret skills since he was scheduled to be on the second episode. Immediately I asked myself, "I wonder who won the only episode of this train wreck?" The article didn't tell me. Once upon a time, I would have then Googled the name of the show. But as time goes by I've learned that going to Google for such things will not necessarily answer my very explicit question. So, I went to Wikipedia and searched the name of the show instead. Why Wikipedia? I've learned from past researching of TV-related things that they have pages for every show I've tried to research and tremendously granular information about them. They additionally are assiduous in listing the weekly and overall winners in reality shows, and generally provide a nice overview of what is going on. I knew that their page for this show would answer my question, and I was right. Indeed, not only did it outline why there wasn't a winner and why (it is a multi-week competition and voting had not concluded) but it had a lot of other information and was even updated with the show's cancellation status, updated approximately as quickly as the news site that started my journey in the first place. And as I thought about it, that I went to Wikipedia as opposed to Google, it struck me that Google is quickly being displaced in my life. Here are some other examples from just the last few days, but which speak to a trend that reflects usage behaviours that cannot, long-term, be good for Google:  More ...   Forgotten by history Friday April 4, 2008, 18:09 PM EST When I was younger, I wanted to be famous. Not so much famous-for-famous-sake, but more because I intuitively understood that through fame I could stretch my essence beyond the bounds of my physical life, in some clumsy way thus living beyond my actual lifespan. This greatly eased my fear of death and gave me something to strive for. At some point during my grad school experience of taking philosophy classes, the futility of this goal settled in. Even if the most famous among us extend themselves in some way beyond the time of their actual life, at some point in the future they will completely cease to exist. Even if there remains a sign of that person the signifier will be no more. Over the long now, memory dies away. This was an initially difficult pill to swallow, but ultimately a liberating one. After all, if even Julius Caesar will someday cease to exist or have meaning, what is the point in chasing this sort of hollow "immortality"? Fast-forward to today. As computers and the Internet begin capturing and codifying so many artifacts/moments/facts/etc. of humanity, the collective memory of what was and is here on Earth is getting longer. It is still ultimately terminal, but the infants of today can expect an almost shocking amount of "institutional memory" about them, ranging from written words to pictures to videos. What is interesting to me is, by contrast, the way and degree to which older things are being left behind and have missed this particular boat. Here are some examples that I've been thinking about recently: 1. My grandfathers. They were both, during their time, world-famous men. My maternal grandfather, Morton Neipp, ran the democratic party in the state of Ohio, helped prosecute the mob out of my hometown of Toledo, and was personal friends with the top politicos of his day, including LBJ, RFK and Hubert Humphrey. In Toledo he was particularly well-known, and I became accustomed to multiple people coming up and shaking his hand when he would take me out to lunch. To this day I own an eclectic collection of trinkets from those relationships of his, such as whiskey glasses bearing the U.S. presidential seal, cuff links bearing the U.S. vice presidential seal, and countless newspaper clippings and stories about his exploits. Yet, according to Google, a search for "Morton Neipp" returns a scant 28 records. 28! By contrast is my paternal grandfather, Siegfried Knemeyer. Even more internationally famous in his day, Siegfried invented the first-ever handheld flight computer and was known as the "Stargazer" in the German Luftwaffe due to his visionary and creative solutions to aeronautical challenges. By the end of World War 2 he ran the entire RLM (Reich Air Ministry) and was overseeing the work of Wernher Von Braun, who went on to architect the U.S. space program. After the war he was brought over to the United States where he helped pioneer next-generation airplane cockpit design, following his philosophy of designing for the ease and usability of the pilot. He was legitimately the finest mind in his field, a field that was arguably the most technologically and advanced transportation industry of the 20th century. He knew Charles Lindbergh and many of the other aviation luminaries of his day. Today, there exist 85 records for "Siegfried Knemeyer" on Google. 85! These are only two examples, the examples that I am most personally familiar with and cognizant of. They made their names between the 1930s and 1960s. And today they are almost forgotten. Unless I or someone else who cares enough (read: family member) gets around to memorialize either of these men on Wikipedia or some other digital source(s) that would extend their essence, they are already close to being forgotten. If they had lived just one generation later, they would be remembered in many thousands of instances. They simply missed the digital cliff. 2. I'm something of an information junkie, and a bit of a historian. So with the things I'm inteterested in, I tend to poke around and look under the hood and try to get as much information as I can. Two examples of this are with movies and music. For example, when I'm watching a movie, I will simultaneously research the actors, director, and all of the various leads that spring from them on resources like imdb.com and Wikipedia. And the juxtaposition between the contemporary versus the past is significant. Jon-Erik Hexum, an actor who died in an on-set accident in 1984, does not even have a picture on IMDB despite being one of the hottest actors around at the time of his premature death. Meanwhile, a perfectly fine but ultimately unimportant actress like Ileana Douglas has 64 pictures in the system. Hexum simply missed the digital age, and the relative decay of his being and memory are greatly accelerated because of it. Every day, things are being forgotten. At greatest risk now from a movie or music perspective would be pre-World War 2 artifacts, those that clearly pre-dated digital technology and which are not necessarily historically important enough to be remembered beyond those who actually experienced them. As each older person dies or ceases to remember, that serves as the end of those artifacts. Other than the synthesis of new things that were built on their being, they have completely ceased to exist. Digital technology might be slowing this process, particularly in years ahead when normally it would be only within memories or long-lost books that these things still exist. But now, today, there is this bizarre chasm between the reams of information being collected on the mundane and un-notable of today, even as things of (relative recent) past value and importance vanish. 3. I continue to get amazing, insightful emails from people who used to know my father many years ago and learned recently that he passed away, in many cases discovering this only through my website. For those past generations, those who haven't en masse signed up for Facebook/LinkedIn/MySpace and other types of online services, they are unlikely to find or connect with one another in life. There is not institutionalized behaviour, pattern, expectation and method from which to find and communicate with each other. Whereas it would be impossible for me to imagine not being a couple of clicks away from contacting anyone from my past, for older generations those same, seamless channels don't exist. They are left to the traditional and seemingly quaint "method" of maybe or maybe not reconnecting with old friends, maybe or maybe not learning that old friends have passed away. In observing this happen with my father's peer group in the wake of his death, I'm struck by the poignancy and sadness of this. If only I could help turn back time and give my father one last chance to meet those people again, to reminisce one last time, to share what they mutually meant to one another. But time marches on. IUt will never happen. If nothning else, please learn from my lack of opportunity and encourage your own parents to seek out and re-connect with those that matter to them! As I learned some 12 years ago now in graduate school, decay and disappearance is the eventual destiny of everyone and everything. But especially in these examples, in things that are still nearly removed, and intensely personal, and directly relevant to not just our memories but our lives today, the disappearance and obsolescence certainly matters. Again in the wake of my father's death, and as I am now a middle-aged adult who is trying to understand their cosmic place in the long now, I find myself railing against the boundaries of time. What I wouldn't give to get one evening with Morton, or one evening with Siegfried. The questions I have for them as an adult, as a fully formed person who wants to better understand the seeds from which I spawned, really matter and would provide me with insight and tools completely incommensurate with the relatively brief time being spent with those people would require. To see their facial expressions! Hear their voice inflection! To understand what motivated them, and who and what they became! Similarly, I wonder who was my great great great grandfather was? What could I learn from him? How could I bend time to have that conversation? Sadly, for me, these channels and paths will likely never exist. But perhaps through these newfangled digital technologies I can leave some record or capturing of myself that enlightens my far future offspring. Rather than chasing immortality for its own sake, I now appreciate the importance of communication and continuity through generations, and fully understand the power and significance that a detailed record of previous generations can shine onto and into those that follow. How and if I am able to eventually capitalize on that remains to be seen, and I can only hope that my making the time and taking the action precedes my death and the immediate and eventual decay that will necessarily follow, until I am also, finally, forgotten by history.   A simple take on global warming Thursday April 3, 2008, 16:29 PM EST Disclaimer and background: I'm no expert. I pay attention, I listen, I think. I'm pretty well convinced that we're headed toward a crash course with global warming in a highly deliterious way to our and other species, but I don't know if that is 5 or 50 or 500 years away. I understand the idea of "carbon footprint" and have a clumsy idea of how the relationship between carbon and global warming works. However, I also think the whole thing is more complicated than it needs to be. And - importantly - I also do not see how even the most aggressive reductions and behaviour changes coming from mainstream sources can even begin to be adequate to turn around what seems to be a runaway train (good bye, size of Connecticut ice shelf in Antarctica this week!). So, lets forget carbon for a second. Lets try and think about and understand global warming at the most basic level.  More ...   American Airlines: a customer service black hole Thursday April 3, 2008, 15:48 PM EST I'm in the midst of a nasty flu, the worst illness that I can remember having as an adult. I began feeling ill last Tuesday, tried to fight thru it because of some things that I needed to take care of, before finally becoming incapacitated on Thursday. I felt like warm death through Sunday, and since Monday have felt sick but no longer in bad pain and constant discomfort. All of this happened while I was on a blended business and personal trip back home to Ohio. On that Saturday, while still firmly in the worst of it, I was scheduled to fly back to California. Realizing my unfitness to fly I called American Airlines to see what my options were to fly on a later day. They did have some openings on other flights Sunday or Monday but would require a whopping $980 to change my ticket, $880 for the fare difference and $100 for the change fee. This was a fee I could not afford, so I asked if they had a policy to let people who were sick change flights at an affordable price point. After all, it was certainly not in American's best interest for me to be flying, coughing loudly, and potentially getting people seated around me sick. He checked with his supervisor, told me no, and told me to have a nice day. If only!  More ...   Rosenfeld Media's first publications Tuesday March 25, 2008, 12:13 PM EST One of the things I'm currently involved with is the Advisory Board for Rosenfeld Media, Lou Rosenfeld's user experience publishing company. Besides giving me another opportunity to work on something with Lou, which is always a good thing, I'm working on the AB with a group of really smart people. So it goes that, after a couple years of preparation and internal growth, the first books are being published and are now available: Indi Young's "Mental Models" was released about six weeks ago, and Luke Wroblewski's "Web Form Design" is set to hit the streets in about four weeks. Wow, these books are really living up to the promise of Lou's vision, back when this thing got started! One of the things I like best about RM books is the book design. The size, length and presentation feature a lot of good design decisions that make the books easy and enjoyable to read. Also, being focused on specific and practically applicable topics, the books not only teach readers high-level concepts and principles but inculcate useful best practices. The design extends beyond the print version to the PDFs as well which are designed differently and optimized for use on the screen.  More ...   The virtue of this website Tuesday January 8, 2008, 18:31 PM EST Despite the fact that I do not regularly post here anymore, this website continues to be an amazingly effective mechanism for creating new relationships, and for forging closer relationships with people new and old. Over the past few years I've met multiple "long lost" first cousins, people who are interested in archival information about my grandfather, new friends, new clients, and more. Additionally, a surprisingly large percentage of new people I meet now have visited this site and have kind/thoughtful/empathetic things to say about my father's death and my eulogizing of him. This site - which was originally on another domain and has content that precedes the archives of what you read here - was toward the front end of the personal blogging trend and preceded the rise of MySpace and later Friendster. While I don't think I would have chosen those outlets for my thoughts and sharing instead of this one if they had been available, I do wonder if those formats would have enabled me to share in the same way as I have here. I tend not to think so. The structure and intentional "social network" nature of those applications and the communities that have sprung up around them do not really lend themselves to deep, introspective sharing. The kind of long, written communication that I do here on the very top level is buried beneath layers of menu options and chrome, hard-to-access at best and largely ignored at worst. As time has passed and I have changed, neither the design or structure of this site suits who I am or what I'd really like to accomplish here. And I suppose that contributes to my malaise with regard to writing. However, it remains an outlet where I can write and publish with both ease and impunity, and serves as an archive of things that still seem meaningful or important - at least to some people. I feel really blessed for the new relationships this site has facilitated, and serves as a living reminder of why it is important to continue. I suspect the best of what I have to do here is still to come, but it remains unclear what and when exactly that might be.   An answer to the fella who emailed me about starting a new company Friday November 30, 2007, 18:15 PM EST Thanks to my upwards of 20,000 piece of Spam email each day, there are ostensibly failures in my personal email process. So it goes that an email from a gainfully employed person recently asking me questions about starting his own company vanished from my email sometime after I read it but before I responded to it. And I can't find it in my Trash, my Junk, my server-side Spam filters...it just appears to be vapor. So, to the best of my memory of the questions asked, here is my answer. I hope you get it. Feel free to email me again at the same email address if I can help you further. When you are currently employed but thinking about or even working on a new product of your own, ownership of that product can be sticky. First off, most major corporations make new employees sign contracts upon their hire which would most likely, in a court of law, give that employer rights or ownership over products, companies or other creations that the employee created while still under employment. While this is likely meaningless or not even applicable if, for instance, you are working as an engineer at a software company and are opening up a Starbucks franchise on the side, in cases where there is overlap, adjacency or even similarity between the original employer and the new venture is a legal minefield waiting to happen. So, if you have or even may have signed anything around intellectual property, non-compete, or anything else that is even remotely similar, be very careful. The other much more common and squishy space is when you have not signed anything around IP or competition but you develop a company or product that overlaps, is adjacent or similar to what your employer does. Especially if you are successful or the idea is really sound, there is the possibility that they might come knocking on your door. Now, I am not an attorney or an expert on these matters by any means, but I have some experience just outside of these situations happening with other people and they can be really ugly. Even if your previous employer does not "win", the very challenge and the legal gymnastics that go with it can be enough to potentially derail what you are trying to do. That is all a long way of saying: if you want to do your own thing, leave your current employer before developing the ideas. Its just safer. In the event that you can't (or won't, for some reason) make a clean transition, just keep asking yourself questions like: "If my boss found out about this, would they see it as a conflict of interest? If someone else in the corporation found out about my idea, would they see it as a conflict of interest?" If you find yourself answering yes to any of these questions, you are taking a chance that might not be worth taking. Is this perspective a little conservative? Sure, I guess. But its safe in a context where the downside is disastrous. And, its ethical. Which can never hurt.   Introducing: Involution Master Academy Wednesday September 26, 2007, 13:59 PM EST I'm pleased to announce my most recent project: Involution Master Academy, an educational program for mid-career software professionals who take their career seriously. For Fall 2007 we are offering a pilot group of three courses, taught by some of the best-known people in their areas of expertise. My business partner, Andrei Herasimchuk, is teaching a one-day Product Architecture Symposium; Steve Portigal is teaching a one-night-a-week-for-six-weeks course on Design Research Methods; Luke Wroblewski and Tom Chi are teaching a one-day course on Influencing Strategy by Design. Needless to say, we are very excited about this teaching line-up. The best thing about these classes? Each class is capped out at a maximum nine students for every one instructor. That is literally unprecedented in our industry: courses that engage the students so deeply with a top thought leader. The focus is on acquiring real, practical skills, not just learning principles and hearing aspirational speeches. Whereas people who attend the myriad conferences out there might come away with insight, awareness, and enthusiasm, our approach lets participants roll up their sleeves over a relatively long period of time in a tiny class and working side-by-side with their very senior instructors. It is a unique approach to post-secondary education, and one that firmly values quality of education and training over maximizing profits. This is only the beginning for Involution Master Academy. Additional courses will be offered next year, eventually building to a full curriculum of expert knowledge and skills for software professionals. But this is an outstanding start, and these are courses that people who need to develop skills in any of these areas will seriously benefit from. Check it out, get signed up and, as always, let me know if you have any questions!   A Broken Experience: when progressive thinking runs amok Wednesday September 12, 2007, 16:05 PM EST Product by product, Yahoo! is slowly losing my business. Ever since the so-called "Ajax" phenomenon, Yahoo! has been a leader in the software industry of trying to weave JavaScript magic. Leveraging their legions of talented software professionals, the company redesigns one product after another, in most cases heavily using JavaScript and various fancy tools and design decisions in order to provide a superior experience. While well-intentioned, in reality it is a case of letting theory and big thinking grind the practical user experience into oblivion. The latest example is what was formerly one of my most-used products on the Internet, Yahoo! Local. On at least a weekly basis I would call up Local and use it to find some sort of business in the San Jose area. Being relatively new to the SF Bay area, I do not know where the best restaurants are, or where to get particular supplies or tools that I might need from time-to-time. So, I hit Yahoo! Local and quickly and easily found what I was looking for. It wasn't a perfect product, and I certainly had suggestions to make it better, but it worked well. And, more importantly to Yahoo!, I kept coming back to use it. Please note the past tense; Yahoo! has lost my business. Superficially, the redesign of Local looks a lot better. It is more visually appealing and has corrected some information problems with the old version. But where Yahoo! jumped the tracks is in their attempt to improve usability by making the map with plotted results in the right column "move" as you scroll up and down the page. While a good idea IN THEORY, in practice it is completely broken. When I use web pages, I hold down my left mouse button while scrolling the screen up and down. Now, thanks to the fancy-dancy JavaScript, my browser does not scroll normally when I do this. It alternately does not move up-and-down at all or "jerks" up-and-down in a very unappealing way. For the way I use my web browser, this is entirely unusable. This is becoming de rigeur at Yahoo!. When they updated their mail client a year or two ago - again going with a theoretically better, JavaScript-as-steroids heavyweight redesign - the performance was even worse. I simply stopped using Y! Mail until I eventually learned there was an option to go back to Classic and did so post haste. They're just lucky I didn't catch the gmail bug in between. And don't rationalize this as my being a Luddite or not comfortable with rich interfaces: my company designs software products, and we frequently use very rich interfaces. But we only do so if the performance of the final product measures up to the theoretical benefit of the idea. It is sad that a company as large as Yahoo!, which values the user experience and invest sosososososo much money in myriad UX professionals across the organization - continues to make these fundamental mistakes and release products that are clunkers. The applied technology in the context of my browser (Firefox for Mac, latest version) simply does not provide a good user experience. And the customers are left to suffer for it. But not me. I'll bet that Google has a comparable product that will eliminate my need for Y! Local. I'm gonna go check it out right now...   Facebook Follies Thursday August 23, 2007, 17:11 PM EST I'm a passive user of Facebook, which is to say that I have an account, have spent 10 minutes or so filling out profile info, but otherwise only use it to accept Friend requests that other people make of me. So it was today that, for whatever reason, I ended up on my main Facebook page and gave it a quick scan. It was the typical stuff that I'm not terribly interested in: Twitter-level short blurbs about what people are doing on Facebook. Only this time, I did a double take. Here is the content within my News Feed, with names changed to protect the innocent: *** Jane Doe added the Define Me application. John Smith joined the group Plazes. Jane Doe added the Group Recipes application. John Smith joined the group NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network John Smith and Bob Jones are now friends. John Smith updated his profile. He is now looking for random play and whatever I can get. John Smith is now married. Jane Doe added the Hangouts application. John Smith and Alex Adams are now friends. *** So, which of these things is not like the other?! Of course, it is the fact that John Smith got married. Yet, using the exact same fonts and emphasis, differing only in the specific, tiny 16x16 icon similar to all of the other "News" items, John Smith being married is buried amidst a pile of crap. This is Big Real-Life News! John Smith is only a very casual acquaintance but - my goodness - the fact that he is now married is perhaps - and this is my literal estimate of relative importance - 5,000,000 times more important than any other item on this interminable list of who had made new friends on Facebook or what Facebook application my various friends are using. Please, Facebook, give me some information hierarchy! Give me a fighting chance to realize that someone got married, amidst the endless droning of completely irrelevant announcements and (non-)events. In the meantime, I'm going to congratulate my friend. He's married! How exciting!   Withdrawal Sunday July 1, 2007, 16:25 PM EST My sons visited recently, spending three straight weeks here in California with Fran and I. It was an amazing experience: this was the longest consecutively that we've been together since I moved out of their house back in 1999. I only had them for weekends when I lived on my own in Ohio, and the longest trip they've previously taken to visit me since I moved away was less than two weeks. So this was a very special - and new - experience. Of course, we did many of the requisite California things. Both boys absolutely love the beach so we spent a good chunk of two of our weekends together hitting the sand and surf. On one of the trips, Brandon and Fran took a surfing lesson which they both really enjoyed. Another one of their favourite things to do out here is eat ethnic food: at home, they get a steady diet of standard American cuisine, punctuated by such unusual extravagances as hamburger or chicken. Yet, they have a great affinity for various ethnic cuisines and we take the opportunity to feed them as many different things as we are able, since they get little-to-none of this back home. Their favourite is Indian. We also spent a lot of time playing different games together, ranging from Ticket to Ride (my favourite that we play together) to Risk to a cool Pirates game using constructible ships to Alibi and beyond. This was perhaps what I enjoyed most as it set a very family-oriented rhythm to our activities: I would come home, prepare dinner (which we would all eat together) and then move into playing games. Or taking a walk, or watching movies. But, regardless of what we were doing, we were operating as a unit. This is a dramatic departure from my typical solitary evenings at home and was really quite fulfilling, even moreso because it was centered around my beautiful sons. So it was a lovely three weeks, but now it is over. Although my being sososo busy at work is keeping me somewhat distracted, I'm nonetheless feeling withdrawal pangs due to their absence. I'm a family kind of guy, and returning to the status quo sans my sons is really tough. Still, our time together was excellent and rather than dwell on the lack I'm going to cherish what we had, while ostensibly anticipating the next time.   Time and change Tuesday May 8, 2007, 1:39 AM EST In recent weeks I've had neither the interest nor energy to do any writing beyond what is absolutely necessary in a professional context. And its a shame, for I'm in a really lovely little professional place: working with clients and co-workers that I enjoy, designing or directing some really interesting products, and immersed in the exciting process of building out and furnishing our sweet new digs. Tonight, finishing up a very full and somewhat intense day that included: interviewing a design candidate, meeting with a client, doing some design, teleconferencing with a prospect, dozens of emails going in both directions and many various business-management-ish activities, I put in a solid 11 hour day and feel absolutely energized by the fun of it all. And still, I'm not compelled to write about any of it. On the other hand, what writing I have done recently has been largely personal in nature. And such is the impetus for dusting off the keyboard and doing a little writing right now.  More ...   Patterns and dreams Sunday April 1, 2007, 14:08 PM EST Lately my dreams have been unusually sharp and - at least the ones I can remember - consistently involve the same two elements: 1. Poker. As my friends know, poker has been one of my preferred leisure activities over the last four or five years. Recently, I haven't been playing much as I ran through a rough patch and burnt through my assigned bankroll. But, in my dreams, I always seem to be playing in poker tournaments (which is unusual, because I am almost exclusively a cash game player). The dreams are less about the mechanics of playing hands and more about situations; for example, in one dream I was one of the big leaders in a tournament when it ended for the day. The next day, before the action started, I met a new friend and was hanging out with them. When I finally got to the table, almost all of my chips had been "blinded off" and I panickedly tried to make something happen and fight my way back - unsuccessfully. This is just one example, with no particular thread or theme between them. But in each case they are dealing with situations that are unusual or not even possible in the ways and context that I typically play poker. 2. The house I grew up in. My dreaming self spends a lot of time in our old home, lately. And again, the contexts are very different from reality. Last night my dream involved bathing in the walk-in closet in the guest bedroom (?), and the dream also featured actress Mary McDonnell. I must also be channeling Battlestar Galactica for some reason! I'm not coalescing any particular deeper meaning or significance from these things but wanted to write them down, for my own institutional memory as much as for sharing.   Musing on inevitabilities and unanswerable questions Sunday April 1, 2007, 5:35 AM EST I go through most of my life in what I can only term a sleepwalking emotional state. This is a coping mechanism. My emotional receptors are naturally hyperactive: I both take in too much of what is happening around me, and I internally contextualize the many inputs around Big and Difficult Questions that are central to my emotional core. After struggling to function this way I learned at a fairly young age how to shut these receptors off, and now I adopt a variety of routines to keep them dormant. One consequence of this compensatory behaviour is that my typically active emotional receptors are greatly subdued, to such a degree that - in the uncommon times they are turned back on - it makes me feel like a completely different person and can be rather overwhelming. This is not a complaint so much as a statement of fact: turning them off enables me to function and succeed in society and the constraints of day-to-day reality, while perhaps at the expense of the parts inside that I consider most special. I share this context so that my questions and lamentations from tonight will make more sense, as it simultaneously reflects both the way I naturally process and behave emotionally, and something that - over the past 20 years or so - I've conditioned out of my life to the point that they only get turned back on once every couple or few years. So it was that we were watching Donnie Darko tonight. I'm not sure what perfect storm of the life-and-death complexities/time traveling/1980s setting and culture of the story created this moment, but the experience of watching much of the movie ripped open my many dormant emotional receptors and took me on a haunting roller coaster of introspection worthy of my own personal wailing wall.  More ...   Big News #3: Involution buys a building Tuesday March 27, 2007, 19:28 PM EST Today the closing papers were finalized and we received the keys on a new building now owned by my company, Involution Studios: a 3,600 square foot space in Sunnyvale, California. Located at 1294 Kifer Road, we're right in the heart of Silicon Valley and easily accessible by highway or CalTrain. Buying a building is an enormous step in the evolution of a small business, and the fact that we're in the position to do so after less than three years in business is a testament to the exceptional work done by our entire team. Our next step is to build out the space, a process that looks like it is going to take about six weeks to complete. But once it's finished we're going to have one of the most pimped-out spaces for digital product design around. The most important part of this move for us was a determination to provide an outstanding work environment that our team looks forward to coming into every day, maximizing not only our collective productivity but also our individual happiness and lifestyle. Once it's all complete I will share pictures (likely via Flickr) and there might even be a party. Go, Invo, Go!!!   Lessons from Spivot #2: Quality over Quantity Thursday March 15, 2007, 13:22 PM EST This is another topic that looks MUCH different from the ownership side than the service provider side. As a service provider, I am very well disciplined in helping clients control scope: start with a smaller product that works well, then systematically expand features once you have a tight and stable working version out in the market. It just makes sense, and we've had some excellent successes with our services company Involution Studios, counseling and guiding clients in this way. And yet, now that I'm serving as an owner as opposed to a consultant, this little bit of logic did not seem so cut-and-dried.  More ...   Lessons From Spivot #1: The Power of Users Wednesday March 14, 2007, 1:25 AM EST I've long been an advocate of designing for users. I encourage investment in research and employ design processes that include regular and ongoing feedback from the actual people who will be using the ultimate product. Superficially, realizing how powerful and important users are would not seem to be a lesson that I need to learn. But, wow, I only knew part of the story.  More ...   Rosenfeld Media: a burgeoning user experience powerhouse Wednesday March 14, 2007, 1:16 AM EST One of the many things I'm involved with is Rosenfeld Media, the user experience publishing company founded by Lou Rosenfeld in 2005. For those of you who don't know Lou, he's as good as it gets. Passionate, dedicated, smart and humble, he's a close professional colleague who I wish lived in my neck of the woods so we could hang out more and be closer friends. He is also a pioneer in the field of information architecture - the co-author of the seminal book on the subject - and a key influencer in the field of user experience. We serve together on the Board of UXnet and he has contributed meaningfully to a number of other industry non-profit organizations. It was an honor to be invited to serve on the Advisory Board of his company. I'm writing about Lou and Rosenfeld Media now because the company is flirting with a tipping point (sorry, I know that's not a trendy term anymore) of exerting really important influence in the field of user experience. Consider the assets RM has already accumulated:  More ...   Big News #2: Involution adds a third partner Saturday March 10, 2007, 16:33 PM EST Of my three major professional announcements, this is the one I'm most excited about: Benjamin G. Listwon has joined Andrei and myself as a principal and co-owner in Involution Studios. Ben joined our company on a contract basis in November of 2005, serving as the lead product designer for one of our start-up clients. He quickly took leadership over all of our corporate IT and engineering while working on client projects. He engaged with Andrei and I through a brainstorming process about possible new software products we could build and develop, eventually resulting in Spivot (which Ben engineered). Like Andrei and myself, Ben is passionate about design. However, whereas I bring a business focus to design, and Andrei brings a pure design focus to design, Ben brings an engineering focus to design. It makes for a powerful triumvirate, each of us valuing and expert in complementary aspects of design.  More ...   Big News #1: Introducing Spivot Monday March 5, 2007, 14:00 PM EST I'm thrilled to share with you that my company, Involution Studios, has just released our first 100% internally built product: Spivot. Spivot is an all-purpose media reader, providing a unique