Author: Scott Berkun

IDEA 2006 Conference, Seattle, Oct 23/24

Posted on in designby Scott Berkun

I’m not a ra-ra kind of guy, but I’m super excited about this conference.

Information overload is real: we all have too much e-mail, too many websites, and too much information to handle. And the one group of people best suited to help us deal with information overload are designers: the talented people who can make complex things simple, but still powerful.

On Oct 23/24 at the amazing Seattle public library, is a conference about designers succeed at working with complex information spaces, from the web, to software, to museums, to libraries.

Speakers include Bruce Sterling, David Cronin (Cooper), Paul Gould (MAYA), Dan Hill (BBC), Peter Merholz (Adaptive Path), as well as artists, researchers, park rangers (YES!), and more talking about how they do what they do.

It’s a small one track, two day conference at one of most amazing design venues in the world: All for $600. Full Program, Registration, and blog with speaker interviews.

Disclaimer: I’ll be covering the event on my blog and attending as a member of the “press”, as I’ll be interviewing as many people as I can at the conference for the innovation book. Hope to see you there.

(Library photo from Douglas Pearce).

Interactionary at SXSW? You decide

Posted on in designby Scott Berkun

SXSW ranks as the coolest conference I’ve never been to: a wild combination of film, music, digital media and design. To add to their coolness they’re experimenting with an open model for picking panels.

It’s been too long since I’ve run the Interactionary design competition, so I submitted it for SXSW.

If live design competitions or SXSW float your boat, please drop by and make your vote. (Interactionary shows up in the web-design category, third from the bottom).

Innovation survey: results summary

Posted on in Innovationby Scott Berkun

Last month I ran an open survey on innovation to help with my book in progress. Nearly 100 people from scientists, to programers, to writers to researchers, volunteered their time and answered my questions. The results were amazing and I’m still filtering through the stories and data.

Here are three samples from the survey:

Defining innovation. Right off the bat, there was contention around the word itself. 60% of respondents chose to add their own defintions, some paragraphs long.

survey1.jpg

Techniques for finding ideas. I made a list of popular creativity and idea generation techniques and allowed people to choose as many as they used. Surprisingly, looking at other domains scored higher than the all stallwart brainstorming.

survey2.jpg

Greatest innovator in history. This was mostly for fun and to provke opinions, which it did. Largely this suffers from popularity vs. credibility: most people don’t know who Tesla was, and as a result he scored worse than Steve Jobs. Best write in votes included “me”, “My mom”, and “God”.

survey4.jpg

There’s plenty more but that’s enough for now – much of the survey asked for stories and opinions which are difficult to summarize, but I’m reading them all and will report on any trends.

Thanks to everyone that contributed!

If you didn’t contribute, it’s not too late: if you see yourself as an innovator or have opinions on how it’s done, the survey is still open for submissions – I’d love to hear from you.

The real life of books

Posted on in The Art of PM bookby Scott Berkun

I’m fascinated by what happens to books after they’re bought. Are they put on shelves, never even cracked open? Or are dog-earned, coffee-stained and highlighted until the cover falls off? Do they live on as doorstops or part of a makeshift shelf, or lie on the floor collecting dust.

I used to think books should be treated with care and kept in perfect condition, but as I’ve gotten older I find more appeal in signs of use. Nothing honors a thing more than using it well and it should show (Roughly the Japanese idea of wabi-sabi).

Over the last year a few folks have sent me photos of what they’ve really done with the artofpm book. Some are funny, some are sad, but it’s all honest and I love it.

Here are some, but I’d love to see yours: where is the book now? what funny things have you done with it? Post a photo or comment.

113930105_c44be1b6b2.jpg

This week in ux-clinic: in-house vs. outsource UX

Posted on in UX-Clinicby Scott Berkun

This week in the ux-clinic discussion group:

My UX group consists of 7 designers and a manager. In the last year our company has found new work with more front-end design. So we need new talent but they’re hard to find.

Currently we use freelance designers significantly – they are willing to do extra work (they’re usually not booked 100% and work on weekends), seldom complain about planning, don’t ask for any educational budget, time for internal meetings or complain about company design process.

Now, among our project managers the question has risen why we don’t continue hiring external designers instead of finding additional internal staff.

Who has faced this situation before and can tell me how they dealt with this?

– Signed, An “innie” in an “outie” org

This week in pm-clinic: thick vs. thin specs

Posted on in PM-Clinicby Scott Berkun

This week in the pm-clinic discussion forum:

One ongoing debate in my world is thick vs. thin specs.  The thick camp believes that specs need to be detailed (thick) and that specifications should be comprehensive to the point that most issues are well covered and that the spec can answer most questions programmers and testers have. The thin camp believes no one reads big specs and at best a spec should cover points of contention and basic principles, leaving the rest for the programmer/tester/etc. to interpret or ask for clarification.

Where do people stand on the thin vs. thick spec issue? Do specs in your org typically go for more than 10 pages (thick)? or less (thin)?

– Signed, Thick vs. thin

Speaking at American Society for Interior Designers

Posted on in On Tour, Travelby Scott Berkun

Hotel Viking, ASID retreat, RIOne thing I strive for is universal themes: finding points that connect different fields and backgrounds. So I’m psyched to be a speaker at the ASID (American Society for Interior Design) retreat this weekend (agenda / speakers PDF). Things like this force me to learn and find new themes, which I love.

I’ll be doing a 90 minute session on:

Cathedrals, papers clips and software: What do ordinary objects, like paper clips and Post-it® notes, have in common with grand design? What can be learned by comparing designed things from different fields? This talk uses examples from great designs in architecture, interior design, software, film, daily life and special places to explore the power of design, teaching us how we can make connections between disparate designs and designers, and learn from them.

I’ll report on what happens, and if I can, share the slides from the session.

Back from Australia: quick report

Posted on in Travelby Scott Berkun

australia-167.jpgI’m bad at blogging while on vacation – the swich in my head for blogging goes off, which explains two weeks of zero posts.

However it’d be nice if I got the hang of explaining before I disapear – a note to self for next time.

Quick report:

  • Australia rocks. We had a great time in Sydney, Melbourne & Carins. People were friendly, happy and clever and it was great fun talking, touring and eating great food (which was everywhere). The culture struck me as a mix of European attitudes and American culture: people get style, the arts, and respect the good life (values I associate with Europe) but Australians have less pretension and happier dispositions than most Western countries I’ve been to. At least that’s what I observed in my two weeks there.
  • Averaged 20+ people per class. It wasn’t all vacation: taught a class on project management for a day in 3 different cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra) hosted by the good folks at Step two designs. Had good, interactive groups and I learned a few things myself. James, Kim, Cairo and Patrick from Step two were excellent hosts and took care of everything.
  • Picked up some great lingo: breakky is breakfast, a dag is a funny person, “dogs balls” means obvious, and Woolys is Woolworths. (Why does American slang seem suddenly so dull?)

I have a few more speaking gigs this year, but my primary focus is wrapping up the book. More on the survey results, prize winners, and the book itself soon. Glad to be back!

Report from FOO Camp ’06 [foocamp06]

Posted on in Innovation, Teaching/Training, Travelby Scott Berkun

looking up - FOO campFoo camp is an annual O’Reilly unconference event and I was fortunate enough to be there again for foocamp06. It’s an invite event, but all the details, notes and summaries are public at the event wiki.

Disclaimer: If ra-ra reports annoy you, skip this post – I’m positive about the whole thing. Yes I’m an O’Reilly author, yes I think the FOO gripes are mostly noise, and Yes I realize how convenient these opinions might appear to be.

Highlights:

  • My best unconference experience. I had conversations with so many good people outside my circles it’s beyond comparison. It was an intensely fun, intellectually challenging, and an entirely social weekend – I finished off a Moleskine with all the notes, contacts and ideas I found.
  • There were often a dozen simultaneous sessions (plus various interactive machines, projects, and, well, people) and I gave into chaos and jumped in: there was no right way, a metaphor for many things. I missed lots, but didn’t mind.
  • Random cool memories (skip if this annoys): Learned brain memory tricks from IMDB’s s HB Segel, had red wine spilled on me by Brian McLaughlin, sat across from Ray Ozzie as he showed me the history of shorthand, had an awesome audience including Kevin Kelly and Hal Varian listen to my innovation talk (can you say role reversal?), learned a new world of termenology for novel sex acts (innovation comes in all kinds), waxed philosophic by the fire till 4am with the folks from Poly9, and got to talk about Hyper-G to someone other than my dog.
  • Most people let me pick their brains for the innovation book – some even tracked me down after my session (it’s not too late), including Backyard Ballistic’s author William Gustelle, a work I’m a huge fan of – I had no idea its author was in the building. I highly recommend his work.
  • Joshua Schachter‘s “That sucked” session, where the floor was open for people to tell tales of things gone wrong. Every conference in the world needs a session like this: we learn more from failure than success. Paul Graham‘s tale of the bug that caused a plotter pen to fly across the room will stay in my mind forever.
  • The fact that i was so caught up with cool shit that, despite my best intentions, I missed Jane McConigal‘s Zen Scavenger hunt for the second year in a row.
  • Jogging Saturday at 8am on the awesome trail behind the apple grove. Awesome because I was 1) actually up at 8am 2) actually running and 3) had it mostly to myself.

Innovation session:

Lowlights / Observations:

  • The variance in session quality is astronomical: which is amazing as this had little impact on my total FOO experience. However a “how to run a good unconference session” tip sheet with light touch advice and examples would close the gap (draft in progress – here it is).
  • It’s my own fault, but I realized towards the end there were no writing focused sessions. With dozens of other authors/writers running around, something literary would have been fun.
  • I’m guessing fewer sessions were recorded or taped this year. I don’t know why, but the vibe was much less about blogging, posting and publishing in real-time than last year. Maybe this is not a lowlight – not sure.
  • Missed FooBarCrawl. Hadn’t even heard of this until I got home. Would have planned for it and went even though I live in Seattle. Awesome idea. If I’m invited back next year, I’d definitely do this.
  • Need to ask people who run sessions to do a better job capturing whatever was there: the post session notes are sparse, despite the wiki living on forever. Its sad to look up an amazing session I missed, or could have post hoc contributed to, only to hear the crickets of a blank wiki page.
  • (Fantasy) Wished for an audio/video wall between FOO and BAR camp, by the fire. Plus there should be a planet wide primal scream done simultaneously by all campers world wide.

I’m still jazzed about the whole thing: I haven’t stopped writing since I got home Sunday night.

Thanks to Tim, Sara, all the people who brought cool things to share and everyone who makes this thing happen.


			

	
	
	



			
				


			
				


	

		
This week in ux-clinic: harvesting the idea farm

				

			Posted on  in design, Innovation, UX-Clinicby Scott Berkun		

			


	
	

		
This week in the ux-clinic discussion group:


We’re early on a project and doing lots of prototypes and crazy UI exploration. But as the design manager, I know its almost time to turn the corner and focus. My problem is my team is in love with how they’re working, and I don’t know how to harvest the idea farm, without killing the morale of all the farmers.


How do I turn down the velocity on idea generation without turning it off? We need to get at least one level deeper in focus and stop thinking broadly, but I don’t know how to safely make that happen.


– Harvesting the idea farm

			

	
	
	



			
				


	

		
This week in pm-clinic: The need for two faced managers

				

			Posted on  in Innovation, Management, PM-Clinicby Scott Berkun		

			


	
	

		
This week in the pm-clinic discussion forum:


I manage a rapid prototyping team in for a major consumer software product. We partner with real dev teams from around the org, and explore out ideas they don’t have time for. The group is new and I’m under continual pressure from above to justify the group’s existence (a task of many middle managers) –  I’ve asked my team to think about ways to measure value, but I get the risks: people may game the measurements, or the measuring may kill the creative work – – but I’m asking anyway as I can use the ammunition.


So my challenge is how to satisfy the view of big management, which is measurement centric and the language of VPs, but also satisfy the needs for innovation, protecting the environment from passion killing rules and structure.


How can I be the bridge between these two views without being two-faced or deceptive about what’s going on? Or is this exactly what managers of innovative teams in more production centric organizations always have to do?


– Looking for the benevolent Janus

			

	
	
	



			
				


			
				


	

		
This week in ux-clinic: Can UI be funny?

				

			Posted on  in design, UX-Clinicby Scott Berkun		

			


	
	

		
This week in the ux-clinic discussion group:


We’re supposed to be designing a short tutorial for an on-line banking  web-app. One of our designers made a kick-ass prototype that centers on humor  (excellent cartoons of dropped ATM cards, customers crying after early  withdrawls, etc.) – but the rest of the team is afraid to use it. Everyone from  marketing to management has no experience using humor in design, and I need some  help.


I think it’s totally appropriate, but I can’t for the life of me think of  other examples where humor has been used in mainstream designs.


Can humor be appropriate in design? How do you decide when? Do you know of  any examples of mainstream designs that use humor, even in documentation or  support? Or are there good reasons why 99% of all design work everywhere is  humorless?



			

	
	
	



			
				


	

		
This week in pm-clinic: Dealing with the powerful but annoying

				

			Posted on  in Management, PM-Clinicby Scott Berkun		

			


	
	

		
This week in the pm-clinic discussion forum:


The manager for my team is one of the company founders. He’s smart, but oh man, is he annoying. He has a litany of habits that make my life, as a team leader, frustrating: from disrupting my authority in front of others, to changing his mind and then changing it back, to just being downright egotistical, snide and resistant to ideas from others. He is smart and does contribute, and listens about 1/3rd of the time, just enough to prevent the other founders from doing anything about him.


So I have to work with this man: he’s not going anywhere, and he has significant power over me, my team, and the company. So how can I protect myself and my team from his many less than delightful habits?


– Stuck in Annoyanceville

			

	
	
	



			
				


	

		
Last chance! Interview deadline EOD today (more prizes)

				

			Posted on  in Innovation, Uncategorizedby Scott Berkun		

			


	
	

		
We’re almost there – thanks to many of you the interview count for the innovation book is now nearly 85. But being the lunatic that I am, instead of cashing out on my bets, I’ve doubled down. I now have most of life savings on the line, betting, with your help, I can break 100.


Up for grabs are:


    

  • a $150 gift certificate
    • 

  • A subscription to O’Reilly’s Make Magazine
    • 

  • A selection of O’Reilly books
    • 

  • A $50 gift certificate
    • 

  • The good mojo that comes with helping a writer write a book
    • 



If you miss the deadline, I’d still love your interview. I just can’t give you any prizes (other than the mojo of course).

So please, if you have opinions on innovation, take a moment and help me out.

			

	
	
	



			
				


	

		
What do you miss from the past?

				

			Posted on  in Innovationby Scott Berkun		

			


	
	

		
One question that’s coming up in in writing the innovation book is this: when has an innovation taken away something from your life that you valued?


For example: I used to love making funny answering machine messages. But now my wife and I have cell-phones. Few people call our home number anymore. The joy of having a shared message, a shared way to greet people, and the fun of making silly messages together, is gone.


Cell-phones are good – but just because they’ve progressed us in some ways doesn’t mean they haven’t left some good things behind.


I’m looking for examples of how innovations have eliminated things you miss, for any reason (I mean, I still miss rotary phones for some strange reason, so nostalgia counts).


Reasons you might miss something:


    

  • It was actually better than “the innovation”
    • 

  • It had some good qualities the innovation doesnt have
    • 

  • The older style appeals to you
    • 

  • The older thing is more reliable or durable
    • 

  • It reminds you of good things (memories, times, people) the innovation doesn’t
    • 



Have any examples? I’d love to hear ’em. Please name the new thing, the old thing, and why you miss it. thx.

			

	
	
	



			
				


	

		
Reminder: interview deadline this friday

				

			Posted on  in Innovationby Scott Berkun		

			


	
	

		
So far more than 40 of you have taken a few minutes to add your thoughts to mine for the innovation book I’m working on. You guys rock!  But… but I need more of you.


You see, in a writerly stupor, I placed a rather large bet with some dangerous people that I could get at least 50 people to fill out my crazy interview form by Friday – and I’m getting nervous. And there is nothing less useful to the universe than a nervous writer.


So please, if you have opinions on innovation, take a moment and help me out.


If you’ve already taken some time, thanks! But do consider who else might enjoy adding their thoughts, and spread the word.