palojono

US National Parks and some thoughts on photography

2015-05-31T13:50:00.000-07:00

An abridged, Dutch version, of these responses was featured in the Dutch travel photography site Stop and Stare.nl. Read the published version by Naline Red Bone. I prepared the responses below for the article which include a little more about our thoughts of some of the best of US travel and my thoughts on photography.

Possibly my favourite photo: Angel's Landing, Zion National Park

Can you give me a introduction of yourself, both personal and as a photographer?

I was born in England and was lucky enough that my parents took us to some interesting places growing up. I got the travel bug age 17 when my sister and I went to Peru and Bolivia for 2 months. It’s still kind of amazing to me that our parents were OK with that. After graduating as an engineer in the UK, my wife and I spent 7 years in California living in the San Francisco Bay Area while I studied for a PhD at Berkeley. We made the most of exploring while we were there, over both the wider US and the local area which is beautiful. We’re now back in London and I work as a web designer at Nutmeg.

Looking at your Flickr profile, you have seen lots of different places all across the world; what is, according to you, the essence of travel photography?

Maybe I’d say it’s to make whoever’s looking at the photo think, “I want to be there. I want to see that.” For scenery and landscapes I just try to go to the most beautiful places at the most beautiful times. There’s been natural beauty in all the places we've visited, though in many places it’s the people that make it interesting and wonderful. And then, I guess, it’s about capturing the most typical, normal scene in a natural way, because usually that’s also what makes it so unique and wonderful. When the locals think it’s completely normal and you think it’s strange and fascinating, that’s worth trying to capture - for example, morning exercises on the street corners in Vietnam, or a market in Central America.

How would you describe your style of photography?

Ultimately I'm drawn by the traveling and the experiencing above all. My photography is a by-product of trying to go, see and do amazing things. I will sometimes go somewhere with a photo in mind (though I've only done it occasionally, see here or here), but mostly it’s about getting out there and seeing the most amazing places. If you’re willing to take a camera higher, further, colder, hotter, and earlier than the average traveler then you’re in for a chance of capturing something special.

On your website you mention that big landscapes really is your thing. What attracts you in this and what do you aim for in your pictures?

Some of my happiest moments are sitting in front of a big landscape just taking it all in. I only rarely manage it, but I guess I try to share a little of that sense of awe and happiness that I feel when standing in front of it. Sometimes I've gotten close (maybe here or here) but mostly I fall short. Photographing the giant sequoia is a perennial disappointment because the trees are just so huge that it’s so hard to adequately capture the awe and respect these trees impart when you’re standing next to them. It’s part of why I've taken an interest in whatever helps get me closer to recreating and sharing the feeling of being there. High Dynamic Range photography, panoramas, and, over the years, improving my camera gear, all help because they get closer to capturing the full range of what my eye sees when standing in front of the scene. Sunsets and sunrises, which I like to see a lot, often fall victim to the limitations of cameras - you can see the difference with a little careful technique and post-processing with this before and after shot from Emigrant Wilderness in California. The after shot is closer to how it felt when sitting there (minus the mosquitoes), so I'm happier with it.

About your photos of the USA

You mentioned that you lived in California for a while, can you tell me a little more about that? What was it like for you to live there?

The US is a hugely diverse place and that’s true of California perhaps more than anywhere. It has the best and the worst in large doses, but the natural geography is far more than most give it credit for. Many think of California as beaches and Hollywood, but it actually has some of the most spectacular scenery in the US on all fronts. It has the tallest trees, the oldest trees and the largest trees in the world. The Sierra Nevada mountains - one of the grandest mountain ranges with the nicest weather, making it one of the most accessible. The lowest point, in Death Valley and the highest in the lower 48 states, Mt Whitney, just 400m shorter than Mont Blanc. Plus, volcanic Lassen National Park, huge volcanoes like Mt Shasta, great forests, hills-a-plenty, the Mojave desert, Yosemite with its smooth granite domes and incredible waterfalls, Lake Tahoe, Joshua Tree, the Pacific coast, it goes on and on. So living there, if you’re into any of these things, is pretty fantastic. Plus, the San Francisco Bay Area is one of the largest congregations of smart and friendly people you’ll find anywhere.

While you were in California you made lots of trips to national parks, and you share some amazing shots from various places on your Flickr profile. Which of those places are your personal favourites and why?

It’s tough to choose, but a few I’d pick out are:

Yosemite - it’s hugely popular for good reason. There’s really no place like it we've come across that has the vast open expanses of granite, fabulous views and incredible experiences like climbing the half dome cables, stunning waterfalls, gorgeous swimming lakes, and just perfect, endless hiking and scrambling country with great weather. I've met plenty that just thought it was busy, but in my opinion they are missing out. If you’re willing to get on the trail and put on a backpack, Yosemite will reward you.

Bryce Canyon - Another place that is like no other. You might think the Grand Canyon would eclipse it, but everything about Bryce Canyon has been amazing on our visits, from the ever changing views and colours of walking the rim of the canyon, to walking among the giant, kaleidoscopic, otherworldly spires.

Joshua Tree - It’s only a few hours drive from LA, so it can get busy, but camping among the rocks and the crazy trees, scrambling to some remarkable formations, and looking out over the desert on sunrise, sunset, or to the Milky Way in balmy air is pretty special.

Which of the places that you have visited would you recommend to our readers during a trip to the USA?

If you’re into a road trip, then Southwest USA, in particular the area of Southern Utah and Northern Arizona makes for a spectacular trip. The distances are huge but the density of spectacular landscapes is, so far for me, unsurpassed. Highlights (with photos where I could do them some justice) include Arches National Park, Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Capital Reef National Park, the Grand Canyon, the goosenecks of the San Juan river, Horseshoe bend and Lake Powell, Antelope Canyon, Coyote Buttes and The Wave, and in case you needed more, going a little wider, Monument valley, Canyon de Chelly, Death Valley, and the deserts of the far South (Saguaro National Park, Organpipe National Monument…). And of course if you want to stay in California or head up to the Pacific Northwest I have more recommendations…

One of my personal favourites is the bison photo you made in Yellowstone. Can you tell me what your favourite shot from the USA is and why?

I think my favourite shot is from the top of the Angel’s Landing trail in Zion National Park. Every time I look at it I find myself drawn in by the scale, the vast space the river has carved out, the road and the tour bus, and how the colours take me back to the warmth and heat of a place like that. It makes me happy.

Of which natural place in the USA do you have the best or the most special memories?

I have wonderful memories of Pothole Dome a small classic granite dome along the Tioga road by Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite. Most people drive straight by it as, at least compared to the surrounding scenery, it’s pretty unspectacular, but to me it’s perfect. Every time I've stopped there (which was pretty much every time we passed through) we were either on the way to, or the way back from a wonderful outdoor adventure. The granite is smooth, warm and safe - though you can find a steep spot to practise your granite scrambling if you want. The sky is huge, the air clear and clean, the views and colours fabulous and huge with Tuolumne meadows, the central and high Yosemite peaks and down tens of miles to the Central Valley. You can sit and take it all in, or you can walk as far as you choose along trail-less granite without another soul for miles. Ahhh...

For want of a favicon

2014-03-13T13:37:00.002-07:00

An ode to the importance of little things.

For want of a favicon, a good impression was lost,
For want of a good impression, trust was lost,
For want of trust, a customer was lost,
For want of a customer, revenue was lost,
For want of revenue, Nutmeg was lost,
For want of Nutmeg, people saving for their futures were lost,
For want of people saving for their futures, a generation was lost
For want of a generation, a country was lost.
And all for want of a favicon.

- Nutmeg UX, 2014

More info: favicons, Nutmeg.

Sketchplanations and one-a-days

2013-06-30T07:18:00.001-07:00

As you may have noticed, there have been some tumbleweeds around this blog of late. I'm pleased to say however, that it's primarily because my efforts have been applied elsewhere. Apart from playing with one-year old sons I've been applying myself to creating one sketchplanation a day. Find them at sketchplanations.com

Each sketchplanation is a challenge to explain one thing in a sketch. You see, in 2012 I was bought a beautiful journal for one sketch a day by Chronicle Books. I highly recommend it. To my surprise I completed it. For my next trick I wanted to change it up, and also work on something that might have more practical impact for my personal development. Sketchplanations are a nice combination of art with thinking. Who doesn't benefit from explaining something well? Well, working on sketchplanations force me to consider how best to portray something and work to communicate it clearly. Rather handy for a UX designer.

Working on one small thing a day has a surprising power to it:

It's easy to get started
So many projects fail because they never start. "It's the jobs that never get started as take longest to finish as my old gaffer used to say," to quote Samwise Gamgee. If it's small enough to do one a day, starting each new one is easier.
It's the only way to get started
As Lao Tzu presciently pointed out, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
It creates a clear focus
No need to decide what to do. Only need to do.
Progress is clearly visible
Funny how this is starting to look like the list for Flow.
Practice makes perfect
Rather than tackling a few big projects, lots of small actions gives ample room for improvement. And it really shows.
Enough molehills make a mountain
Seth Godin's sage advice on the simple power of one a day. By the end, you have accumulated, just through one small action a day, a significant body of work. Chip, chip chip...

Intrigued? Find your one thing a day. Give it a go and let me know.

The Hailo halo

2012-11-13T05:24:00.000-08:00

The last five London black cab rides have taken have all been hailed with the Hailo app. It's a lovely piece of design that connects individual black cabs with customers directly through the app.

For me it's one of the very best examples of a new business I've seen in the last ten years. I can tell that because each of the rides I have taken with Hailo, have started with the driver saying,

'So how about that Hailo app then? Brilliant job isn't it.'

While they were saying that I was sitting in the back thinking,

'What a great app - that was really easy.'

In other words it's just about the perfect example of finding a match between a solution and its customers - marrying perfectly the needs of providers (to find a reliable next passenger) and their customers (to quickly, safely and easily get to where they want to go).

The app has a few nice features that really make it work:

the customer can see taxis nearby on a map, and when one has accepted to pick up, they can see the taxi coming their way and when they'll arrice.
the customer can see a photo of the taxi driver and give them a call anytime directly on their mobile
the drivers can see where the next pickup is and choose if they want to take it
you can set an autotip so there's no awkward exchanging of bits of change to add stress to the ride
paying automatically by card through the app means no money has to change hands in the cab, and, perhaps most importantly, the cab driver no longer has 50% of his rides needing to drive by a cash point.
both the drivers and the passengers can rate each other after the ride. So good passengers are more likely to get picked up. And more importantly, both passenger and driver have an incentive, other than common decency, to be nice to each other. In my experience this has borne out. The reputation system means that drivers and passengers make each other's lives better
it's discreet: as one driver told me, he picked up a lady who, on a date that wasn't going well, took her leave to the toilets, hailed a taxi on Hailo and stepped outside at exactly the moment it pulled up

It's also a perfect example of both the power of an app, and the power of the Internet. Cab drivers and passengers have existed for hundreds of years, but they have been uncoordinated save by chance. The problem of getting a ride was not so much one of providing the means but, as for the example in Clay Shirky's Cognitive Surplus of pickuppal.com, it is one of coordination. When there is sufficient volume the app makes that coordination effortless and everyone benefits - except of course for established taxi brands like Addison Lee who probably need a response. Quick.

__
Screenshot thanks to here.

Some Homepage Inspiration

2012-09-29T13:28:00.001-07:00

We have been working on a redesign of the Nutmeg site recently. As part of the exercise we gathered some inspiration from the excellently functional, and the beautifully informative to the just plain brilliant. Thought it would be rude not to share the examples we pooled.

Click around and admire how the Internet has changed.

7 inspiring online talks

2012-08-03T23:02:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't heard of TED, the best thing to do is stop reading this and go to the TED site and be inspired. Some time ago, the TED conference started putting online its collection of talks of up to 20 mins in length, from inspiring people doing great things. It has since grown and grown*.

For a long time my wife and I used to spend at least one dinner a week watching a talk online about any topic that seemed interesting. It's a really great way to learn and enjoy yourself in less than 20 minutes a week. We also expanded to include other great sources like fora.tv and RSA Animates. We kept track of those we watched and those we liked and here's eight that stood out to us over nearly five years of watching. Ordered only from shortest to longest, they are all time well spent.

(OK, my personal favourite is Benjamin Zander's)

Links and embeds are correct at the time of writing, but a quick search will no doubt find any should they be broken.

The happy secret to better work - Shawn Achor
12mins | TED

We believe that we should work to be happy, but could that be backwards? In this fast-moving and entertaining talk, psychologist Shawn Achor argues that actually happiness inspires productivity.

Changing Education Paradigms - Sir Ken Robinson
12mins | RSA Animates

This animate was adapted from a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA's Benjamin Franklin award.

For more information on Sir Ken's work visit: http://www.sirkenrobinson.com

If I had a daughter - Sarah Kay
18 minutes | TED

"If I should have a daughter, instead of Mom, she's gonna call me Point B ... " began spoken word poet Sarah Kay, in a talk that inspired two standing ovations at TED2011. She tells the story of her metamorphosis -- from a wide-eyed teenager soaking in verse at New York's Bowery Poetry Club to a teacher connecting kids with the power of self-expression through Project V.O.I.C.E. -- and gives two breathtaking performances of "B" and "Hiroshima."

A performing poet since she was 14 years old, Sarah Kay is the founder of Project V.O.I.C.E., teaching poetry and self-expression at schools across the United States.

5 Ways to listen better - Julian Treasure
8 minutes | TED

In our louder and louder world, says sound expert Julian Treasure, "We are losing our listening." In this short, fascinating talk, Treasure shares five ways to re-tune your ears for conscious listening -- to other people and the world around you.

Julian Treasure studies sound and advises businesses on how best to use it.

The transformative power of classical music - Benjamin Zander
20 minutes | TED

Benjamin Zander has two infectious passions: classical music, and helping us all realize our untapped love for it -- and by extension, our untapped love for all new possibilities, new experiences, new connections.

A leading interpreter of Mahler and Beethoven, Benjamin Zander is known for his charisma and unyielding energy -- and for his brilliant pre-concert talks.

How to make work-life balance work - Nigel Marsh
10 minutes | TED

Work-life balance, says Nigel Marsh, is too important to be left in the hands of your employer. Marsh lays out an ideal day balanced between family time, personal time and productivity -- and offers some stirring encouragement to make it happen.

Nigel Marsh is the author of "Fat, Forty and Fired" and "Overworked and Underlaid."

Vietnam's Infinite Cave - Carsten Peter
25 minutes | Fora.tv

From National Geographic Live and National Geographic Live on FORA.tv

Veteran photographer and National Geographic grantee Carsten Peter is also an accomplished climber, diver and caver who has photographed some of the world’s most extreme environments. Here he shares stories and images from a mammoth cave system in Vietnam that may be the world’s largest.

I hope you watch and enjoy at least one. For a little reflection on the potential transformative power of web video you could do worse than watch Chris Anderson's TED talk.

* Part of the consequence of TED growing and growing is that the signal to noise ratio has lowered. There's so much good stuff there, but guaranteeing a great video to watch has become a little more hit and miss. That's part of the reason I hope a little starter list like this might help out. You can also check out our fuller list of talks to watch in case you're interested in more.

A thousand people, and society begins to tremble

2012-07-13T14:39:00.001-07:00

On the tremendous power of a shared vision I came across this wonderful quote by William Morris.

One man with an idea in his head is in danger of being considered a madman, two men with the same idea in common may be foolish, but can hardly be mad; ten men sharing an idea begin to act, a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is war abroad, and the cause has victories tangible and real; and why only a hundred thousand? Why not a hundred million and peace upon earth? You and I who agree together, it is we who have to answer that question.

William Morris
14 November 1983

Which reminded me of perhaps a simpler telling in the remarkable Alice's Restaurant by Woodie Guthrie (worth 16 mins of listening):

You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him.

And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them.

And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization.

And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.

And that's what it is, the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar...with feeling.

Woodie Guthrie

And if you haven't seen it yet, you can see the incredible power of a movement - and the progression from madman to foolish, to fanatics, to peace on earth in an amazing three minutes: First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy, narrated by Derek Sivers.

Friends, let's make a movement.

Two great productivity tools: Pivotal Tracker and Asana

2012-07-07T01:30:00.000-07:00

While working at Nutmeg I have been introduced, and had the chance to use in earnest, two tools which have really improved the way our team collaborates. I'll share a little about each one, but really you could just give both a try - both have useful free versions.

Pivotal Tracker

PT, as you quickly start to call it, has been used to manage and provide visibility over our software development process. In truth it works pretty well as a to-do list, but it works even better if coding is your game. It's all based around stories - essentially something that a user might want to do on your site eg A user wants to view their transactions. Within each story you can list out what the description of the task should be, add files, add subtasks, add comments, tags, assign as bugs, chores, features and estimate development length.

But rather than read a description, PT is free if you make your project public, so you can go see how people are using it like this Inside Government gov.uk project.

At it's core, PT is a software version of what was probably happening before, using index cards to note features that need building and to sort and prioritise what the team was working on. PT is a little like doing this on steroids.

PT has proved brilliant for:

keeping track of everything that needs doing and everything that is happening on the product
providing visibility to others about what is happening
improving our ability to estimate development time
streamlining the testing and accepting process
providing a record you can refer to about exactly what was done when

Making software? Give it a shot. www.pivotaltracker.com

Asana

"The first post-email application" - so they say. And it might just do it. Asana is a task management tool for teams. It's similar to PT in the way that it organises what's going on and provides visibility for everyone about what activities are in progress. For example, we currently use it to organise sprints - everyone can plan a sprint and put their tasks to accomplish in that project. Very quickly you can see what needs to be done by everyone, and what you need to do to make it happen.

I collaborate every day with Ben who lives and works in Miami. We tried several tools before Asana to organise our work. Most of it centered around shared Google spreadsheets with tasks we were working on, multiple sheets to archive and columns to assign tasks to each other. If this sounds familiar, stop what you're doing there and give Asana a try. Imagine a spreadsheet that's actually ready made for that. And then better on top.

In a very similar way to Pivotal Tracker, Asana lets you create tasks, add followers, assign a task to someone, attach files, tags, and add comments. And it's in the comments that things start to get interesting for a post-email application. Because most email communication at work relates to tasks that need to happen, instead of noting a task somewhere, then emailing around chains of discussion and then finishing the task, adding comments to an Asana task keeps the comments with the task. It's a little like the next jump from when Gmail and Outlook started organising your conversations into threads.Suddenly everything that needed to be together was together - and everything else got clearer as a result. And when you make decisions about a topic you have all the information you need right there.

But why is this post-email? Because when I start to write an email to someone about a task, I think - well, this would be much better attached actually with the task - then everyone else can see the details of what we're talking about (in the notes, previous comments and attached files) - and anyone who is interested in that task and following it will automatically be notified of it. Kind of like reversing the cc - instead of me choosing that you need to hear what's in my email, if you want to know what's happening with a task you can choose to add or remove yourself as a follower to a task. Like an email chain but better.

We haven't quite gotten everyone in the office into the post-email world yet, but Asana has certainly improved our team collaboration leaps and bounds.

Give it a try www.asana.com

People Centred: How Human can be Inhuman

2012-06-23T02:30:00.002-07:00

Recently you may have seen Samsung's ad campaign for their nifty Galaxy smartphone (disclosure: I haven't tried it). What strikes me more than the device however whenever I see it is their tagline: 'Designed for Humans'.

On the one hand I can see the intention - contrasting 'inspired by nature', but designed for humans to use. Nature and humans are a logical pairing. And I can also see a benefit in underlining that it is not solely technology driving this product, but a consideration of the human aspects. And indeed that was the drive for the major discipline of human-centred design. It's the deliberate contrast between the inanimate technology being the driving force - more like a case of engineering design - vs an intentional consideration of how a product will be used by people as driving the design. Great design though requires both of these things. Facetime is great because it's designed simply and practically enough to make 'videoconferencing' commonplace. But the technology behind it, though carefully hidden, does a wonderful job. One is not a success without the other.

But I can't help thinking that using humans in the Galaxy campaign sounds more biological than real and personal. Human makes me compare against dogs, planets or machines. To me it's almost like saying 'Designed for Homo Sapiens', as if picking out a species. Which is essentially the same issue I have with the term human-centred design. Ironically I find that using the term human actually succeeds in making it less human.

Which is why, as with many others, I have come to prefer the term people-centred design to human-centred design. We relate to people better than we do to humans.

So would 'Designed for people' fix it? A little better, but probably not. And I'd guess that's partly because human-centred design, or people-centred design, has been enough of a success in the last 20 years or so that we now take it for granted that, of course, we're designing for people. We're technology'ed out. A new technology may be great, but it also better be easy to use and make sense or it's just not ready for most of us. Fortunately, designing for people has become the baseline. Sounds like progress to me.

11 simple rules from Dave Packard

2012-06-17T02:50:00.000-07:00

HP did not turn into a huge company by chance. While the HP way has had it's press over the years, less well known are these little gems from Dave Packard that share a little of his philosophy on life and working with others. I think my favourite is number 11.

11 Simple Rules

Think first of the other fellow.
This is THE foundation — the first requisite — for getting along with others. And it is the one truly difficult accomplishment you must make. Gaining this, the rest will be "a breeze."

Build up the other person's sense of importance.
When we make the other person seem less important, we frustrate one of his deepest urges. Allow him to feel equality or superiority, and we can easily get along with him.

Respect the other man's personality rights.
Respect as something sacred the other fellow's right to be different from you. No two personalities are ever molded by precisely the same forces.

Give sincere appreciation.
If we think someone has done a thing well, we should never hesitate to let him know it. WARNING: This does not mean promiscuous use of obvious flattery. Flattery with most intelligent people gets exactly the reaction it deserves — contempt for the egotistical "phony" who stoops to it.

Eliminate the negative.
Criticism seldom does what its user intends, for it invariably causes resentment. The tiniest bit of disapproval can sometimes cause a resentment which will rankle — to your disadvantage — for years.

Avoid openly trying to reform people.
Every man knows he is imperfect, but he doesn't want someone else trying to correct his faults. If you want to improve a person, help him to embrace a higher working goal — a standard, an ideal — and he will do his own "making over" far more effectively than you can do it for him.

Try to understand the other person.
How would you react to similar circumstances? When you begin to see the "whys" of him you can't help but get along better with him.

Check first impressions.
We are especially prone to dislike some people on first sight because of some vague resemblance (of which we are usually unaware) to someone else whom we have had reason to dislike. Follow Abraham Lincoln's famous self-instruction: "I do not like that man; therefore I shall get to know him better."

Take care with the little details.
Watch your smile, your tone of voice, how you use your eyes, the way you greet people, the use of nicknames and remembering faces, names and dates. Little things add polish to your skill in dealing with people. Constantly, deliberately think of them until they become a natural part of your personality.

Develop genuine interest in people.
You cannot successfully apply the foregoing suggestions unless you have a sincere desire to like, respect and be helpful to others. Conversely, you cannot build genuine interest in people until you have experienced the pleasure of working with them in an atmosphere characterized by mutual liking and respect.

Keep it up.
That's all — just keep it up!

"first presented by Dave Packard at HP's second annual management conference in 1958 in Sonoma, California."
http://www.hp.com/retiree/history/founders/packard/11rules.html

Found thanks to the excellent metacool

Key moments in tech history

2012-01-27T04:19:00.000-08:00

I can still, and perhaps will always, remember:

The first day we connected our NES to our TV and Mario appeared
The first day I instant messaged a friend using MSN Messenger from France to England
The first day I was doing a presentation and said I could get online without a cable
The first day I was carrying my laptop between rooms and an email popped up on my computer - in the air O_o
The first day I tentatively spoke into my computer and my friend's voice came back
The first day the map on my phone automatically figured out where I was

Each of these moments separately blew my mind on the day. It was like magic when they happened. The closest I have had recently was probably the first successful call using Facetime, and waving my hand at a Kinect sensor. (Another, that most people probably haven't experienced was watching a glass door instantly turn opaque at the touch of a button. Unbelievable)

Each of these moments blew me away because things happened that weren't even part of my expectations. I expect our expectations these days have now risen sufficiently high these days that it'll probably take teleportation to get a similar effect from a teenager. Maybe life would be more fun if we kept our expectations low?

Wow! What a Ride!

2011-11-25T07:06:00.001-08:00

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!”

― Hunter S. Thompson

How to peel a Post-It so it doesn't fall down

2011-11-05T11:00:00.000-07:00

Back in 2005 I submitted a suggestion to the BBC for World Usability day (you're forgiven if you didn't get the memo about the day). They were looking for the easiest-to-use product and I submitted the Post-It which promptly cleaned up.*

How can anyone not use a Post-It correctly?', I argued, the first time you pick one up it's hard to use wrong. But, like my expectation for the end of desktops I was wrong again. While working at Jump we were surely among the highest users of Post-It's per employee in the world and, as a result using Post-Its well was clearly worth learning. Other than basic Post-It hygiene (like using a bold pen, writing large, writing straight, one-thought per Post-It etc.) a common issue with Post-Its is not staying the distance. But we can do better.

The standard way to peel a Post-It is to twist your hand as you peel, removing the Post-It from one corner to the opposite. What you'll find is that the Post-It, though it removes easily, is left with a raised corner. This is fine for recording a phone number for a few days. But if it contains useful information that might stick around for the life of your project, like a quote, concept or insight, you will likely find that after a week or so you'll be picking up once precious Post-Its that have rained to the floor, and writing another.

To have Post-It's that stick around (excuse the pun) for as long as you need them to, you need to eliminate the raised corner, which is where the weakness seeps in eventually unsticking your beautiful board of insights.

Here's how in full blurry colour glory:

(In case you don't see the video here's the link: How to peel a Post-It so it doesn't fall down)

With your thumb under the Post-It, place your fingers flat over the stack covering the Post-It evenly. Hold the stack from underneath with your other hand. Instead of pulling up, pull back in one movement staying at the height of the Post-It and essentially shearing it from the stack. With a few Post-Its practice you'll be able to remove the Post-It leaving it perfectly flat. It will then stick cleanly to any service without a raised corner and hang around neatly for months. A subtle benefit you'll find is that your Post-It boards look smarter too.

Petty though this may seem, I hope you find it useful.

Ironically, I am told that Jump was taught this during a project many years back by employees from 3M themselves.

*it was arguably an unfair competition given that it's fellow competitors included such multitasking devices as smart phones, mp3 players and credit card machines. One might hope that a piece of paper would prevail.

Keep testing those patterns

2011-10-26T01:29:00.000-07:00

A few words of wisdom from Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's ex-chief software architect in conversation with Steven Johnson.

You are the sum in many ways of your experiences and you get these success patterns, failure patterns, sometimes those patterns help—like what you just described. But sometimes those patterns hurt, because they constrain your outlook. Something that might not have worked before might work now, because the environment has changed. But the innovators that I know that are successful keep testing those patterns over and over and over because people around them change and the technology environment changes. And so you might look at somebody and say: “You’re a one-trick pony. You keep building the same thing over and over.” But it’s a good thing! That means you’re taking those patterns and just recasting them continuously against changes in the environment. And if you believe passionately in a pattern, it’s great. Go for it!

via my brother-in-law (who could get a job as an information DJ)

The curious reverse following of following

2011-10-22T05:22:00.000-07:00

If you've been on Twitter a while, tweeting now and then, you'll probably have experienced what I have come to think of as reverse following.

These are the times when I get followed by someone, or more likely, some company, who pretty transparently are more interested in spreading awareness of their services than actually hearing what I want to say. The curiousness about reverse following is that the language of becoming a 'follower' provides a semi-legitimate alibi for reaching out directly to someone with marketing - 'Hey, I'm just following you'.

I guess I have come to think of much of what passes for following on Twitter is really a hint for 'Follow me'. Find someone who you think will be interested in your feed, follow them, and they get the not so subtle hint that they may want to follow you.

There's nothing terribly wrong with this, except that I'm sure it provides dramatic inflation on the number of legitimate Twitter followers who actually want to hear what each other has to say. But it's perhaps also a small lesson in the power of a well chosen word - follow, in this case - to enable and legitimize behaviours you might not have predicted at the start. I would venture that more than part of Twitter's success is predicated on this handy, novel metaphor for online interactions.

Not the end of desktops

2011-10-17T14:44:00.000-07:00

There was a time, a few years ago, when I thought it was the end of desktops. Looking for a replacement to my laptop that had recently run it's course I barely glanced at the desktops. Why would I want one when I could do more or less everything I needed from a laptop that was twice as powerful and half the weight of my previous one?

I was really wrong.

It's not that I shouldn't have a laptop, it helps. It's just that we have it in addition to a desktop, and now an iPad and smart phone. More and more I've found myself wanting to get stuff done on the desktop over the laptop. I crave the faster processor, the bigger memory, the larger brighter screen, no faffing with power cords and batteries, no set up, better ergonomics and the ability to run more serious, powerful programs.

Part of this need stems from wanting to use processor hungry software for more advanced music and graphics processing. The Adobe Suite and music recording and sequencing software are guaranteed to chew up my memory, benefit from a larger screen (or better, two), a mouse and connections to midi devices, cameras and printers. Same with bookmaking, or photo sorting. Using Photoshop and Ableton are really only viable on a large desktop or, like some MacBooks, the screen needs to be so big you may as well put it on a stand or not bother to try lugging it around.

It seems that we're going through a period of specialization of devices where we'll use a kindle for reading, a tablet for web browsing, a phone for short emails, Twitter and shorter interactions. And a desktop is still great for specialized powerful programs, and a large monitor still hard to challenge for watching videos and working.

As a result I find myself eyeing up larger monitors, powerful processors and bigger hard drives and I'm forced to conclude that, for some people, the desktop will be alive and kicking for a long time yet.

How much does an Ironman really cost?

2011-09-17T06:02:00.000-07:00

Because I hadn't seen it anywhere, and because I thought it might be interesting to share, I've collated here the cost for me of participating in the 2011 Ironman France in Nice.

By activity:

	Cost
Cycling	£1,236
Event	£757
Swimming	£210
Food	£158
Running	£57
Total	£2,418

Spreadsheet of full Ironman costs

What might we learn?

An Ironman is more expensive than you might expect. If you are serious about doing it, it is worth reflecting, if briefly, on the full likely outlay. But don't let it stop you if you really want to do it.
Cycling is the most expensive sport, followed a long way behind, by swimming and then running. If you want to be thrifty just buy some shoes and run. Brilliant.
The costs of Ironman number 2 are likely to be significantly less than number 1, although the event costs themselves are a substantial portion of the total outlay.

A couple of things to bear in mind:

First, this is not meant to put you off from doing an Ironman. Finding out what you are capable of is a worthy activity and I have lost count of how many times during training - say, when out at 6am on a Saturday morning when cycling from London to Paris - when I said that this was totally worth it.

Second, if you're contemplating an Ironman it's very likely that you already have most of the necessary gear. For me, cycling was really relatively new for me. This was my first road bike, and this was in fact my first Triathlon. This said, the cost of almost any of the other bikes alone from participants at the event probably exceeded the total costs I paid. I did however, already own a wetsuit which otherwise rapidly pushes the cost of swimming up by a few hundred pounds.

Third, event costs will significantly vary. I think mine are on the cheap side, as, although we did have to fly to Nice we didn't pay for a hotel. I also intended to sign up for many more events before the actual thing which would have pushed costs up significantly.

Fourth, I was lucky enough to have parents who are supportive of such foolish ideas and significantly helped with bike cost and event registration.

Finally, sadly, I didn't finish as I came off my bike half way through the mountains of the cycle leg requiring stitches in my knee. I have rarely, if ever, been more disappointed in my life to have to stop doing something even if it was terrifically hard. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't worth it.

While still looking good

Ironman Nice swim mayhem

Tomorrow's Child

2011-08-22T12:52:00.000-07:00

We just watched Ray Anderson's 2009 TED talk about his mission for his company, Interface Carpets, to climb Mt Sustainability towards mission zero - zero environmental impact by 2020. Ray sadly died just recently, but he shared in his quietly inspiring talk a poem by Interface employee Glenn Thomas about the person who will suffer unless we are responsible with our actions today.

Tomorrow's Child

Without a name, an unseen face,
and knowing not your time or place,
Tomorrow's child, though yet unborn,
I met you first last Tuesday morn.

A wise friend introduced us two.
And through his sobering point of view
I saw a day that you would see,
a day for you but not for me.

Knowing you has changed my thinking.
For I never had an inkling
that perhaps the things I do
might someday, somehow threaten you.

Tomorrow's child, my daughter, son,
I'm afraid I've just begun
to think of you and of your good,
though always having known I should.

Begin, I will, to weigh the cost
of what I squander, what is lost,
if ever I forget that you
will someday come and live here too.
- Glenn Thomas

I also stumbled upon a recent tribute to Ray Anderson, also by Glenn Thomas, as a view back from the future from Tomorrow's Child.

When Love and Common Sense Combined
A Poem From Tomorrow’s Child

Because you cared so long ago
although you know you’d never know
If anything you’d do or say
would make a difference here today.

Though you saw you’d never see,
yet you cared so much for me;
An unknown name, a hidden face,
a future time and secret place.

And when you threw away your fear
like a tired souvenir,
And learned that being strong
meant admitting you were wrong

I marked that day with humankind
when love and common sense combined,
And to my benefit unfurled
a rich endowment for the world.
- Glenn Thomas

Thanks to Glenn Thomas for sharing the beautiful poems.

Custom notebooks from Blurb

2011-08-15T10:45:00.000-07:00

Just learned about Blurb's custom note-book making service. Pretty excited.

Of course it's always been possible to create your own notebooks with some binding instructions and a Sunday afternoon, but it's pretty exciting to me to be able to order some really custom ones with my own templates and illustrations adorning or inspiring in them. And maybe even order 20 at a time (saving myself many Sunday afternoons). There's nothing like a notebook that makes you want to write in it (and a nice pen) to encourage productivity, and hence creativity.

Image from blurb

I just wish they'd release a 'dotted' version, like these lovely dot grid notebooks from Behance - I reckon dots are the best subtle notebook watermarking - all the benefits of a grid without the grid. I would even say that according to trends of technology evolution it's like a natural evolution for the grid. It's kind of fun to speculate on what's next (subtly adjusting the size of the dots according to patterns, coloured dots, uneven spacing according to actual notebook usage...). I guess, being able to lay my own images down in the notebook, perhaps I can create my own dotted pages.

Go create.

Disclosure: I'm a pretty massive Blurb fan

The Power of Templates: Replicate then Innovate

2011-07-24T09:02:00.000-07:00

While creating a new template for the startup I'm working at I was reminded of the immense power of good templates. Not least because I have been reminded a lot in the past months of the drawbacks of not having good templates to hand. I'm thinking of templates for all the regular things - presentations, emails, letters, feedback, photo editing, note-taking, you name it.

The power comes from a principle I learned at Jump Associates which is, when you're still getting going, replicate then innovate. It's fine to innovate once you're a master of your craft, but until you can master the fundamentals it's usually best to stick with replicating from those who have trodden the ground before you, figuring it out as they went along. Before Picasso went cubist, he was first an extremely accomplished traditional artist.

I think templates are worth the time and energy to create well. Here's why it might be worth spending a little time to set up a template you hadn't considered:

It saves time in the future (for yourself or others)
It creates a consistent brand image
You can worry about great information design once and have the joy of reusing good designs again and again
It helps get everybody on the same page
Templates are a kind of institutional memory - connecting people with, and allowing people to build on, good work from the past
Templates are easily shared
The template does the replication, freeing people to innovate

Because you can always choose to ignore a template, or build and modify from them, it's hard for me to find too many drawbacks to them. Worth carving out a little time to make or, perhaps better, go find one someone's already made. More templates please!

Metaphors are heating up

2011-07-16T11:18:00.000-07:00

Metaphors matter more than you think they do. They subtly shape how we think about important, complex, big issues like healthcare, war, love and crime. Two articles that came my way not so long ago keep bringing to mind just how important they are, even if it's easy to forget out about it in the day-to-day grind.

The first is an article that reports on an experiment by my favourite metaphor researcher, Lera Boroditsky, and her colleague Paul Thobodeau. You can read the full article - Is crime a virus or a beast? on Discover Magazine but I'll try to give the gist of it briefly.

Crime is neither a virus or a beast, but the overall concept of crime as a whole is suitably abstract that we naturally use metaphors to get to grips with it. The experimenters found that by playing subtly with the initial framing of an article about crime they could affect how students thought about it, and, more significantly, what students thought was the best approach to deal with it. The researchers used instances of two different metaphors: Crime Is A Beast; and Crime Is A Virus.

For Crime Is A Beast, the framing referenced crime as a “wild beast preying on the city” “lurking in neighbourhoods”

For Crime Is A Virus, the framing referenced crime as a “virus infecting the city” “plaguing” neighbourhoods.

The headline for me is that students who were given the Beast framing for crime were more likely to recommend enforcement and punishment as solutions, while others given the Virus framing were comparatively more likely to recommend social reforms. The effect is somewhat subtle but significant. When asked why the recommended what they did most students tended to point to the stats - the metaphors subconsciously affect our thinking.

I am particularly reminded of the significance of metaphors whenever I hear newscasters talking about the war on terror - with attendant war practices - or the war on cancer.

The second article continues with the war on terror theme reporting on a new initiative by the US government. The initiative is a call for proposals for a metaphor program by the Office of Incisive Analysis. Essentially it's a call for researchers to develop methods for the automatic identification and analysis of metaphor by software.

A metaphor can be harder to defeat than an army. You can beat people down, but you can't easily change the way they think. I've no doubt, for example, that the metaphors people use to talk about the US and its policies have some major variations in pro vs anti US (or UK) nations. I'm not sure that software is necessarily required above smart people doing careful analysis but if they make some headway I'd be interested in the results. It might make an interesting app...

Perhaps the major point though is that metaphor seems significant enough to launch a research program worthy of National Intelligence.

Thibodeau & Boroditsky. 2011. Metaphors We Think With: The Role of Metaphor in Reasoning. PLoS ONE http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0016782

The smart people in the FrameNet and NTL groups at ICSI Berkeley have been working on software analysis for some time

Sketchnotes on Core 77

2011-07-02T05:49:00.000-07:00

As you may know if you've skimmed through some of the note-taking on this blog, I love visual note-taking. The Moleskinerie blog does a good job of dishing out plenty of fun note-taking resources. Beyond that though Core 77 not too long ago launched a blog devoted to Sketchnotes - visual note-taking of talks and events. Plenty of nice looking examples and some handy tips too if you want to be doing it yourself (or just some nice styles to copy).

I think the magic lies really in the combination of visual - to be interesting and accessible - non-linear - to allow browsing - and mindmapping - simple linking that facilitates both the note-taking and the reading.

Of course they can end up as a big mismatch of crazy looking content. But in many cases people would prefer it to a dense transcript or a powerpoint deck any day.

Example pic below (I hope you'll agree that mine would fit in nicely).

Illustration by Craighton Berman

29 Ways to Stay Creative Video

2011-06-12T14:24:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd share this beautifully crafted 1m 50s video on one of my favourite topics. A great combination of fun content, imaginative presentation and captivating music. Love it. I'm off to do some of way 19.

[update]

A good friend added:

30. Have a glue gun, pair of scissors, ruler, knife, spray mount and a variety of card/off cuts close at hand.

31. Buy an adjustable height desk

30 is right on. A good printer, card, scissors and a glue gun can take you a long way.

Via a friend and the moleskine blog. To-Fu take the credit.

Instant landlines using your mobile phone

2011-06-07T15:20:00.001-07:00

Let's face it, most people don't seem to have a landline these days. But most cable and phone services in the UK tend to try and add you a landline deal to whatever you want to sign up for. We went for it recently and still haven't got ourselves a fixed phone to actually make use of the line that now works. Which got me thinking...It would be kind of neat if there was a little dongle or attachment to allow me to use my mobile phone as our landline without us having to go buy another phone. We already have two after all. Kickstarter project anyone? Just a thought...

Improv is Extreme Design

2011-05-06T07:15:00.000-07:00

During a washing-up session with my wife not so long ago (exciting I know), when dealing with the food waste and packaging from dinners we realised that we'd learned a lot about being efficient with waste around the house. Simple things like using a yoghurt pot to collect scraps in, or using a plastic wrapper as a scraper. These little techniques came from the many months in total that we've spent camping, backpacking or generally being in the wilderness without a whole lot of stuff. Backpacking in the mountains is an extreme situation when it comes to waste where you have to be super-efficient with what you've got - pack in, pack out - and whatever it is, you've got to carry it. Even if things will biodegrade California is very strict about what you can leave in wilderness areas: nothing. So we have found that some of the little tricks we learned during those experiences have carried over and make us slightly more efficient in regular life too with less extreme situations such as a small kitchen.

You might recognize this as a more general design approach - learning from the extremes. The OXO good grip is the prototypical example where kitchen implements became better for everyone from an original insight drawn from watching an elderly lady with arthritis struggle to use a peeler (a search will provide you with all you need to know about this story).

Learning from extremes also takes the form of learning from extreme users (see Prof Hippel). In one of my favourite examples Professor Hippel himself related in a talk once, I believe the Camelbak was invented by a curious mix of an endurance athlete living in Texas who also happened to be a doctor. One day, while out sweating on his bike, he had the smart idea of strapping on a drip bag with a tube to give better access to his water. Of course, most of us are not experiencing as extreme environments as cycling through Texas for hours in the heat of the sun, but what works there can sometimes transfer benefits to more regular situations.

All of this brings me to the thought that you have probably connected already. Improvization is a form of extreme design. And this is why design can learn from it.

Lots of people (notably Liz Gerber*, but including me) have made useful connections betwen improvization and the practice of design. Improv rules like 'Accept offers,' and games like 'Yes, and,' are great for teams working for generative outcomes and for creating a productive team dynamic. Here are the reasons that I see design as being able to learn from improv's extreme design environment.

1. You are trying to create something
- now!

2. You need to collaborate
- to make the improv show a success

3. You have an audience
- like a customer through the whole process

4. You need to be consistently productive
- there's nowhere to hide

5. You need to communicate clearly
- because you have nothing to work with

6. You need to build on others' ideas
- because they're coming like it or not

For each of these aspects, the improv community have developed useful guides and techniques to deal with these constraints and make the best of them. Because each of them also apply to a lesser degree to design, we can port much of those learnings across. Maybe it's time to take that improv class after all?

* see for example, her short paper on design and improv from CHI 2007 (pdf)