Extreme Makeovers: People & Organizations

There’s some truth in the statement that a good consultant shouldn’t be afraid to tell a client when their “baby is ugly”. If you’ve got evidence to back it up, it does nobody any good to keep quiet in the interest of not making waves.

Some folks take pride in their blunt approach to delivering this kind of news, seeing themselves as uncompromising Howard Roarks and idealistic warriors for their discipline. And yes, there are some clients who are enamored of this kind of audacity (at least at first), but personally I’ve found that far more appreciate your taking the time to understand the political and emotional landscape and be more tactful about how the message is delivered. This measured approach need not be any less confident; contrary to being rendered mediocre by not reflexively shooting from the hip, it’s simply more collaborative and thoughtful.

Plume Publishing's Iconic Cover For "The Fountainhead"

We’ve been talking with a few organizations lately that have a rich history of success but just haven’t kept up with the times. I’ve been trying to put myself in the shoes of a company that, like the nerdy kid in the teen flick, is told that they need to lose the glasses, stop staying in to paint pewter figurines on Friday nights, and learn to dance. It’s an easy and perhaps obvious thing for a consultant to identify, but what must it feel like when you’re on the receiving end? Particularly when your vision and sweat equity created that identity in the first place? It’s PERSONAL.

I’ve come up with a metaphor from my own life, and think there might be a few lessons in it. Music has been on the back burner for me lately, but for a long time it was my main outlet outside of work and a big part of my identity.

Lesson #1: Determine The True Self-Perception

It may not have actually been a big part of how others saw me, but music was a big part of how I saw myself. Even if he/she were correct, and even if deep down I could see the truth in it (I could), someone telling me that music wasn’t as fundamental to my external identity as I thought it was would have at a minimum prompted some major self-examination and redefinition. I wouldn’t have advised anyone to make that statement to me without carefully thinking about how to frame it and having a plan for where to productively take the conversation afterward. Consultants would do well to plan for the same – statements like “we really should think about a new name and logo” are like throwing verbal grenades into the middle of the room…not understanding the emotional bedrock you might be upsetting could be a critical mistake.

Lesson #2: Appreciate The Unique Trigger Points

For years I identified myself as a “Fender Guy”, and in almost all pictures snapped during my years of moderate musical success, I’m wearing a Strat or a P-Bass – that’ll do a lot to influence self-perception. Other musicians will also identify with the fact that the unique feel and weight of those instruments, the way that they looked when staring down at them onstage, the way that they responded to playing them…these things became essential and core to my relationship with the music I made. However, at one point my live setup was becoming cumbersome for a number of technical reasons I won’t go into here, and another instrument and amplification/effects combo become much more logical for what I was personally trying to achieve. Considering a move to a new instrument was agonizing for me. If I wasn’t playing a Fender on stage, who was I? Was I the same musician? Was I even the same guy? Obviously, these were questions that at best baffled and at worst bored my family and friends. “Music is music, who gives a crap? Get the guitar that makes the most sense and get on with it. Does it even matter?” Yes. It does. And every unique person in every unique organization will have his or her own little variant on this theme that it is worth clearly understanding should you travel down this rocky road with them. As an outsider, what you may deem trivial – and may even know to be trivial – may be absolutely crucial to your client, even if only temporarily until their vantage point is altered.

Back In The Day...With A Strat In Hand, Of Course

Lesson #3: Focus On The Constants, Not The Variants

In the end, those who suggested that the instrument didn’t matter were partially right. Like those of us who love the warmth (real or perceived) of listening to music on vinyl, you can’t deny the aesthetic of a favorite instrument…for me, it’s even how the thing smells when I open the case. But for me to achieve what I was trying to make happen on stage – the number of different sounds, ones un-colored by the “Fender sound”, etc., I needed to make a switch. On stage for a while it was a bit like wearing new shoes you’re not completely sure of yet, but eventually I grew into my new “persona” and felt it was for the better. I’m not kidding myself that anyone else out there cared, but it most certainly mattered to me. And I moved through it by staying focused on the core of what I was trying to do, the core of the music, and the things that would always be constant no matter what instrument I was wearing – similar to the core values conversations that are had around branding and rebranding, because on a small scale, that’s what I was doing to myself.

In that way it’s probably similar to a change of wardrobe or hairstyle…it’s a good friend indeed that will pull you aside and suggest an update, and a better one that does it with the required tact, an action plan, and a true understanding of who you are at the core and what’s important to you. A good consultant does that too.

Facebook: What Does “Most Recent” Mean To You?

Does Facebook’s “Most Recent” news feed deliver results based on user behavior? If so, this is probably one of the best kept secrets by the Facebook team. Although I can’t find specific research on the topic, I can lend you my insight from some haphazard research as a user. Through consistent analysis of my personal feed I’ve come to the conclusion that, yes, the “Most Recent” feed includes behavioral modifications in its algorithm.

I’ll walk you through a recent example. “Janice” is a friend of mine that I haven’t contacted, whose profile I haven’t viewed, and whom I haven’t seen tagged in any photos. She happens to send me a message through Facebook: “Hey, Nick. Long time, we should catch up, I just finished my latest photography portfolio and think you’d really dig it.”

It’s nice to hear from Janice – we haven’t spoken since high school. After responding, I visit her profile, check out her current status, and casually peruse her Facebook life. From there, I see that another old friend, “Steven”, recently posted a status update that he’s sick of the weather. Janice rebutted, noting that the rain is a great break from the heat. Her interaction with Steven is the reason I’m able to view his update on Janice’s wall.

I click into Steven’s profile and similarly do some scrolling and reminiscing. Whilst traveling down memory lane and satisfying an internal dialogue (what’s he been up to? where’s she living these days? etc.) my digital actions of clicking, responding, and viewing have created a new and unique trail of information from Janice to Me to Janice to Steven.

QUESTION: Will this update from a friend appear in my "Most Recent"? Scroll down to find out!

This is where I believe Facebook’s algorithm begins to track behavior based on actions to populate a different set of results in my ‘Most Recent’ news feed. You see, the next day I get to work and the first thing I do is check Facebook (who doesn’t?) – and sitting there in my ‘Most Recent’ news feed are various updates and comments from Facebook friends including Janice and Steven.

It struck me as relevant, but piqued my curiosity as I hadn’t recalled ever seeing Steven’s prior update on the weather in my feed. I clicked into Steven’s profile and saw he had a few recent updates in the past couple of days. Going back through my ‘Most Recent’ history (which only goes back about 3 or 4 days FYI) proved that Steven’s earlier updates had never appeared in my feed.

It took these digital actions between my account and Steven’s for him to appear in my news feed – and I’m assuming I also appeared in his ‘Most Recent’ feed. But did I, if I only viewed his information but didn’t interact with him directly?

Either way…there’s obviously more going on there than simply “Most Recent”. Is this good? Is this bad? I can’t answer that question for you…but I’ve always assumed it’d simply be the most recent activity from everyone in my Friends list, and that might once in a while spark interactions with folks I very rarely see or talk to. But if Janice hadn’t sent me that message, it’s unlikely I would have connected with Steve otherwise (or seen his grippingly important update on the weather, natch). What I would like to know is how exactly the Facebook team is determining who is appears in my ‘Most Recent’ news feed?

ANSWER: Nope!

The two pictures I posted are an example from my account. In this example, It proves that not all updates are posted to your ‘Most Recent’ feed. As in this case, a friend posted a comment in reference to Battlestar Galactica on Monday at 9:48, but in my ‘Most Recent’ feed, that comment never appeared.

Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Papa

Inspired by Russ’ post a few months ago about his dad, I’ve been thinking about the things I learned from my father.  This Father’s Day, I woke up early to run to the bakery and pick up some goodies for brunch, and this blog post started to form. I would never have time to document everything Papa has taught me through life or how I value them today, but two important lessons are below. The first is one of the secrets to a happy life and the second lives at the core of the design process.

Lesson #1: Leave No Baguette Untorn

Between 1974 and the early 80′s, we had a common Saturday morning routine. Around 7AM, Papa would stick his head in the bedroom my brother and I shared and whisper very loudly, “Paul, Philip, are you awake yet?” Although this sounded like a question, it actually meant, “Get up, get dressed, half the day has gone and there are things to do.” By 7:30, we were standing at the counter of the only French bakery in suburban Philadelphia, buying the weekend’s supply of baguettes and croissants. As a treat, we’d order 3 pain-au-chocolats. You may know them better as chocolate croissants.

Leave No Baguette Untorn

Back in the car, the pain-au-chocolats would disappear in a shower of pastry flakes. Once they were done, we would wait for my father to reach into the bag and tear off the end of one of the warm baguettes before we followed suit. Baguette + Car = Snack is a rule I follow to this day. My mother, my loving wife, and my brothers- and sisters-in-law have all learned to live with the fact that a Charron is incapable of delivering a stick of bread unharmed.

It is important to understand that Papa emigrated from France to the US in his late teens. Here, he went to college, joined the army, became a citizen, married Mom and they raised a family. His patriotism, like that of many who choose to be an American, runs deeper than many natural born Americans. I am grateful, however, that he never shed the culinary side of his upbringing. A true Frenchman knows that good bread is one of the secrets to happiness. After all, you never know when you’ll get hit by a bus…you may as well be eating good bread when it happens.

Lesson #2: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

After the bakery, we would often head to the appliance repair shop. Here we’d pick up a belt, motor, thermostat, or switch for Papa’s nemesis: the 1973 GE electric dryer.

It still lives: the bain of Papa's existence. Photo: courtesy Papa and his new Blackberry

Papa is an electrical engineer. More specifically, he worked as an aerospace engineer. Due to the top-secret nature of most of his work, I’ll never know the specifics of his job. I do know that he knew astronauts and he designed things that orbit the earth. Despite these accomplishments, he could never permanently repair that damn dryer.

So, over the course of a decade, I spent many weekends in the laundry room absorbing Papa’s critical thinking and problem solving skills. The repetition made it stick. Mr. Miagi had “Wax on, wax off.” Papa had, “Hold the flashlight.” Here’s how it worked:

Step 1 – Identification and Initial Diagnosis

Mom would say, “The dryer doesn’t work.” Papa would begin to diagnose the problem with a few questions: What isn’t happening? Does it still get hot? Is it spinning? Does it make a sound? As frustrating as this must have been for Mom, he started from the beginning. No question was too stupid. Once he had a general idea of the condition, we’d head to the laundry room to work on Step 2.

Step 2 – Analysis and Verification

We would pull the dryer away from the wall, disconnect the vent, unplug the beast, remove the service panel, test the suspect component with a voltmeter, remove the faulty part, and get a good night’s sleep. Even though you had a good idea for what the problem was – you had a bevy of tools to make sure you were fixing the right thing. At 8 years old, Papa was walking me through circuit diagrams. By 10, they kind of made sense. From 23 to 40, I have been drawing flowcharts on whiteboards to help clients improve their own processes.

Step 3 – Repair

After picking up the much-needed weekend necessities of bread and cheese, we’d buy the replacement parts and head home to make the repair. Installation is often the quickest part of the process.

Step 4 – Testing

After installation, we’d pull out the voltmeter to see if the circuit was behaving correctly. Then we’d partially reassemble the drier. Before closing up and reconnecting the vent  - we would plug it in to make sure it worked. If something still isn’t working – head back to Step 1. Testing is an incremental process. If you test at the very end and discover the problem persists or that you caused a new problem, it’s a lot more work to re-dis-assemble the thing. Test in stages and you waste less time, energy and frustration.

Design Is Problem Solving

This process and the rules around it are no different than what I do every day at work. Design is problem solving. Regardless of whether you’re fixing a dryer or helping a client solve a business challenge, the core of the process is universal. I know that the steps that put satellites in space and kept a dryer alive for almost forty years are going to help our clients.

My folks are moving soon and Papa promised that the dryer isn’t going with them. That’s OK. The dryer has paid its dues and the ol’ man deserves to sleep in on Saturdays.

The PROTECT IP Act: What You Need to Know

If you’re a regular reader, you know that the Think Blog is generally where we expound on ideas that are impacting our lives as Experience Designers. For this post, though, I’d like to take a step back and talk about something that is going to impact your life. End of sentence. No qualifier. This will impact your life.

Unless you’re an über geek of the political or technical variety, you probably haven’t heard of the PROTECT IP Act currently making it’s way through Congress (or its prior, defeated, incarnation COICA). The intent of this bill is to give the US government (and private parties) new powers to halt online infringements of intellectual property, especially in regards to domains registered outside the US. No problems so far, right?

The issue is how these new powers are described, enacted, and enforced.

"Just what do you think you're doing, Brad?"

Quickly, let’s talk about why this applies only to domains registered outside the US. Simply, there is ample legislation protecting IP from infringements from within our borders. Between the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 and the Department of Homeland Security’s recent seizure of “offending” domains (an act of questionable legality, some would say), there are plenty of tools for IP holders to prosecute alleged violations of their rights within the US. That same action becomes difficult when there is no US registrant of the domain in question.

The solution posed by PROTECT IP (and previously COICA) is to wipe those allegedly offending domain names from the collective indexes of any “domain name system server” (we don’t need to get into it here, but the vague nature of this definition is troubling by itself), thus rendering the site effectively non-existent…unless you happen to know its IP address…or they change domain names…or use non-filtered DNS servers…etc. As many have shown, this would encourage a huge fracturing of the DNS system which essentially ensures that when I type “www.thinkbrownstone.com”, my browser knows at what 10-digit IP address TBI’s website lives. Needless to say, this approach has some faults.

To better illustrate, here’s an example:

I’m a law-abiding Swede with a fantastic idea for a new website that will allow people to post images, videos, and other kinds of media celebrating the culinary masterpiece that is the pancake (also accepted: crêpes, pfannkuchen, pannenkoeken, palacinka, and others). We’ll call it Pancakr. Let’s assume that my site begins to take off and I manage to get VC funding, despite the lawyers’ newfound trepidation of running afoul of PROTECT IP. Pancakr goes viral and everyone is posting pics of their latest quick-bread conquest. Unfortunately, many of the pics from the US feature PancakePuss, a trademarked character of the ISLOP restaurant chain. I should also mention that because Pancakr has gone so insanely viral, sites are popping up all over the Web with Pancakr related (and unlicensed) merch. PancakePuss is particularly popular, especially on t-shirts.

ISLOP is unhappy to be missing out on the royalties, but because all this activity is being done by non-US actors, the PROTECT IP Act is their only viable option. The Justice Department orders all domain name servers, ISPs, search engines, and social networks to stop redirecting to a host of sites accused of violating ISLOP’s IP. Pancakr is on that list, despite the fact that its biggest “crime” was providing the ability for people to link to their favorite pancake photos. Two years pass as we litigate our way through the judicial system, finally winning reinstatement in the DNS catalogue. Not that it matters at this point. Honestly, the investors would have been smart to drop the case and just move on to the next big thing. Two months, two years, two hundred years…they’re all the same when you’re vying for a sliver of the 21st Century attention-span. Oh, and those PancakePuss t-shirts? They’re still selling like hotcakes all over the web.

OK…a bit silly…greatly over-simplified…but you get the point. Wide nets, presumption of guilt, half-baked solutions built on tenuous technical knowledge, and a blatant disregard for free speech make for sloppy, ineffective, and downright dangerous law.

To clarify even further, here’s why this is going to impact you (assuming you use the Internet or participate in 21st Century Society).

• This is a Ready, Fire, Aim approach. Domains would be guilty until proven innocent.
• It makes linking to material that may be copyrighted (see point #1 above) cause enough for shuttering. Do you like YouTube? eBay? Flickr? Imagine them getting funding in their nascent years under this Act. Goodbye innovation.
• The Internet, to date, has been revolutionary in that it is truly world-wide and without borders. PROTECT IP would end this by creating a “US-approved” subset of the Internet. One can easily see how this Balkanization would quickly spread and the damage it would cause.
• As a society, we value creativity and try to protect it. However misdirected PROTECT IP is, that is the right and good intent that I believe Senator Leahy is trying to uphold with his bill. There are other societies who value conformity and obedience. Where is our moral credibility to denounce their Internet restrictions when we do the same?

You could (and perhaps should, given it’s potential impact) spend hours reading up on PROTECT IP. I similarly could spend many more hours writing about it. Let’s make a deal instead. If you still have questions, read the links I’ve included in this post. If you  want more, just search “PROTECT IP”. Once you’re satisfied, contact your Representative and Senator and tell them what you think (pro or con). Ideally, write them a real paper letter or give them a call (email is still kind of a second-class citizen in terms of impact). If the Internet has taught us anything, it’s that a lot of people taking very small actions can have a huge impact. Let’s get all Groupon up on this thing!

I’m sending letters to my Congressmen today. Won’t you?
(seriously…do it…they will hear you)

Find your Representative: http://www.house.gov/representatives/

Find your Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

P.S. Big thanks to Leo Laporte and his TWiT podcast for turning me onto this issue!

CDC’s Zombie Apocalypse Goes Viral

It’s been a busy week at Think Brownstone and I’ve been trying to post something on the Think Blog. Although I have a backlog of topics to get to, every time I put hands to keyboard I had a bout of writer’s block…  until Brad mentioned the odd juxtaposition of the upcoming Rapture and the CDC’s blog post on preparing for a Zombie Apocalypse May 16th.

Since the original publication on the 16th, the CDC’s article has been going viral at a slow, lurching pace. It finally landed on the front page of CNN at 2:09 May 19th. Coincidentally, most scientists agree that’s about the same amount of time it would take the Solanum Virus to overtake the US Eastern Seaboard.

Braaaaaiiiinnnnsssstorming

I’m confident that the CDC’s blog post and the Rapture events are purely coincidental, but I wanted to take a moment to commend the CDC’s courage in publishing this story. The article is actually a well thought-out piece that uses the zombie apocalypse as a metaphor for emergency preparedness. As it turns out, most of what you need to do to prepare for a zombie attack is similar to what you would be doing if there were a hurricane or tornado warning.

If I had to guess how this article was approved for publication, I’d imagine some government stuffed shirt raised concern that this serious topic deserves a serious treatment. Turns out, the government has tried that approach before with mixed results. One or two wise folks in the room pointed out that the goal of the article was to raise awareness. What better way to raise awareness than to get attention with a tongue-in-cheek title and introduction?

Perhaps this mini-campaign came out of a technique we use at Think Brownstone when a team is having trouble generating new ideas: Reverse Brainstorming. In a reverse braaaiiinnnnssss storming session, the participants come up with ideas that would prevent them from achieving a goal or that would cause their problem state. Once you have a good list, brainstorm ways to prevent those things from happening. Poof – you now have a list of things to help achieve your original goal. It’s the reverse-reverse psychology of brainstorming methods and, among other things, it can help get you out of a rut.

The CDC only gets one chance to do something like this before it starts to look schlocky, and I think they aced it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to buy some duct tape, canned beans, a baseball bat, and some extra shotgun shells (’cause you know, rule #2 and all).

Design Thinking: Don’t Call It A Comeback

Like so many other things in the blogosphere, Design Thinking is apparently dead. That is, if you agree with Bruce Nussbaum, the once eloquent champion of Design Thinking who recently declared that it was a failed experiment and that it’s time to move on. Apparently, he’s not alone. A growing number of critics are joining the chorus – some have gone so far as to say that extolling the virtues of design thinking is at best misguided and at worst, likely to inflict dangerous harm.

As the argument goes, Design Thinking was envisioned to inject creativity into the hyper-analytical, profit-driven processes that hamper organizational change and innovation. As it evolved over the last decade, it was commoditized to appeal to business culture and eventually transformed into a linear, methodical, risk-averse Process (with a capital P). It’s suggested that this Process stifles, not cultivates, the experimental, precarious, and often disorderly activities that fuel innovation.

Available at your local tattoo shop. You might want to get it only as a stick-on.

Others think that business never bought into the message. Helen Walters notes that there was never really a consensus on the definition of Design Thinking or agreement as to how it should be implemented. Purported successes were either elevated as the unrivaled accomplishments of the elite few who “got it” or degraded as merely incremental changes that would never amount to widespread organizational transformation.

Still others argue that Design Thinking was doomed from the start. It will never produce the results we were hoping for because design considerations will always be an afterthought, long after strategic decisions about a product or service have been established. Business is driven by numbers and expediency, not creative chaos. Therefore, designers should just be resigned to their fate as “aesthetic window dressers.”

Ironically, Nussbuam’s post included a video in which he asked Tim Brown from IDEO if, within this period of great turmoil, design should be considered a social movement. Brown replied that the concept of design as a social movement is not new but what may make it so is the combination of Design Thinking plus social networking sites, collaborative environments and all of the other things that are allowing so many more people to create and/or influence design outcomes. It’s through what he calls “the democratization of design,” that design has the potential to solve major social issues.

On the one hand, Design Thinking has no sustainable value but on the other hand it has the potential to transform our world? I don’t get it. It’s not time to move on. It’s time to refocus. The best place to start is to establish a consensus on the guiding principles of Design Thinking… a credo of sorts. Here are some initial thoughts to jumpstart the conversation:

Design Thinking Thrives On Passion For Purpose

Design Thinking is inspired by an unwavering commitment to improve the human experience. We believe that meeting this challenge improves quality of life for all of us, and we’re committed to doing it one company, one process, and one outcome at a time. We help our clients envision and enact solutions within the context of what’s important to both the users and business. Organizational politics, unrealistic deadlines and arbitrary constraints may deter our progress but we’re committed to fighting the good fight to rid the world of frustrating experiences from the most endemic and systemic to the most mundane and minute. We’re okay with incremental change as long as it’s constant.

Design Thinkers Work With Their Clients, Not For Them

We share a deep appreciation for, and commitment to, a holistic view of design – infused with experiential wisdom and a process (yes, a process, but with a small “p” because it’s open and flexible) that enables us to tackle complex business problems, with our clients. We don’t say to our clients, “okay…now we’re going to go off for a few weeks, do some design thinking, and come back with an idea that’ll make you more innovative.” We simply guide them to think in a different way – to understand the benefits of an iterative and interactive process. We work collectively to achieve a common understanding of the problem and opportunities before us, to observe and learn from those who will be experiencing our outcomes, and ride the ebb and flow of the creative process recognizing that the true innovation is never constrained by the status quo.

Design Thinking is Contextual

Design Thinking is an inclusive process that leverages the collective knowledge and experiences of those who are most impacted by its outcomes, but it must also address the overarching needs of the business. We have to come to terms with the fact that our clients are not going to pursue novel solutions without the promise that they will contribute to the bottom line. If we want to ensure that design considerations are at the forefront of strategic discussions, we have to be diligent about framing design outcomes within the context of market opportunity. In a sense we have to be “a creative group with business minds.” To this end, we must commit to an ongoing dialogue by sharing our stories of success and failure and learning from each other’s experiences rather than simply espousing the idea that only a select few can actually get it right.

What do you think? If you believe that it’s way too early to declare that Design Thinking is a failed experiment, what inspires you to stay focused?

Taking The Design Conversation Beyond Designers

My dad was a teacher (industrial arts, performing arts, special education), a general contractor, a motorcycle enthusiast, a trumpet player, a furniture maker, a lethal racquetball player, a cigar aficionado, and a whole host of other things. On paper that seems like the resume of a pretty well rounded individual – and he certainly was. But what is very interesting in retrospect is how he wasn’t any of these things in isolation. His knowledge of all of these little aspects of life informed decisions he made elsewhere, resulting in novel approaches to challenges that often suffered from a tradition of “having always been done that way.”

This broad and general interest in, well…everything…and his ability to distill concepts and apply them elsewhere, was one of the reasons why he was very often successful when diving deeper for projects within his “professions.” I believe that one of the best things you can be as a designer is open-minded, wide-eyed, and eager to learn how and why people do things they do – whether it’s why carpenters use those seemingly antiquated flat pencils (1), why the sommelier hands you the cork after opening a bottle of wine (2), or why a semicolon, dash, and closed parenthesis has become widely recognized a winking smiley face (3).

ANSWER KEY!

1. Because they don’t roll away – not to mention that they’re more durable for throwing them in with a bunch of other tools, have better grip, can draw thin or thick lines depending on how they’re rotated, and are tough enough to mark up concrete and stone.
2. Because feeling a cork to determine how cool, wet, dry, hard or soft it is can tell you a lot about whether the wine has been properly stored – it’s not to smell it.
3. Because of the “Law of Prägnanz” – the tendency of humans to interpret ambiguous images as simple and complete versus complex and incomplete.

Sometimes the various design circles we travel in can feel pretty insular. We tend to see the same folks showing up repeatedly as speakers and attendees at conferences, tend to all react to and discuss the next big idea (or internet meme) as a community, and tend to put our thoughts and ideas out there knowing that the people swimming in the lanes closest to us are those most likely to read and comment on them.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, and it’s great to have a community of colleagues to kick things around with…but perhaps obviously, the best designs often come from being inspired by and interacting with folks who don’t populate our beaten paths (like the inspiration sparked by the whole TED model, for instance).

As designers at Think Brownstone, it’s a measure of success for us to have our ideas and conversations ripple out beyond our peers. We’re starting to see evidence of that as we’ve recently had comments on the Think Blog from academics, musicians, consumers, and others – as a design community, this kind of interaction will only make us stronger and more creative.

I’ll close with one of those pearls of wisdom from my dad that was delivered in a typically off-handed and matter-of-fact way, but that I’ve never forgotten. One hot summer day when I was a kid, as the garbage truck came lumbering down the street, my dad dropped what he was doing and said “hey, come help me grab some beers out of the fridge” (yes, you read that right – beers). When the truck pulled up, my dad handed a generous amount of cans to the genuinely surprised and grateful men. As it rolled away I asked him why he did that…

“Everyone you meet in life, whether it’s the guy picking up your garbage, the guy signing your paycheck, or the guy begging you for change, knows how to do a thousand things you don’t know how to do. Aside from just being nice to people because it’s a good way to be, you can learn a shitload from them.” – Bill Starke

The Slide That Haunts & Inspires Me

I recently attended the IA Summit in Denver, where I attended many thought-provoking sessions, led by great speakers with interesting perspectives on all things Information Architecture. (A collection of links to decks and info about most of the sessions can be found here.)

While I took many ideas, lessons, and inspiration away from the experience, there was one slide that has really stuck with me since the Summit.

The slide appeared in Jared Spool’s talk about “The Most Valuable UX Person in the World”. He described the skills and areas of expertise that this person would possess, and showed a slide listing those skills that looked like this:

Copyright Jared Spool - From "The Best Is The Enemy Of The Good"

Several things really struck me about this slide.

First, I never paused to think about all of the qualities that make for a great Experience Designer, but wow – that slide illustrates the impressive breadth of skills that we as UX Professionals practice and refine on a regular basis. Of course, most of us specialize in one or two areas, but we should all strive to hone our skills across the board, supplementing and complementing the expertise of our team. (By the way, if you feel that you possess many of these skills and knowledge areas, contact us – we’re always on the lookout for more of those Most Valuable UX Persons to join our team).

The second thing that struck me about this slide is that we are in such an exciting field: one that incorporates many different disciplines, one where we can learn from our peers who have different specialties than we do, and one with so much possibility for fun and interesting work.

The final and most poignant take-away from this slide was how closely the items on the slide parallel my area of focus: add the word “Learning” above “Experience Design” and you can see almost exactly what is required to create great learning experiences (I’d add Adult Learning Theory and Cognitive Science to the slide, not just for LXD, but for XD as well). This is what many Instructional Design practitioners are missing: the perspective of all these skills and knowledge areas that can inform learning strategy, process, and deliverables.

Jared went on to mention three “specialty collections” in our field: Mobile Design, Service Design, and Content Strategy in his talk. At Think Brownstone, we’re adding Learning Experience Design to the list.

Thanks for the inspiration, IA Summit!

Twitter’s API Change: Stifling Innovation for Consistency?

Back on March 11, Twitter announced that they would be modifying their API Terms of Service in such a way so as to discourage 3rd party Twitter clients in favor of their official client (if you’re interested in specifically how they changed it, check this out).

If I may be so bold as to assume your Legalese is as bad as mine, let’s boil this down to the key point: people are upset that Twitter is placing a previously non-existent restriction on third parties from creating a viable business replicating (or improving upon) the “original” method of displaying and creating Tweets.

Now let’s be clear, Twitter is perfectly within their rights to do this. There’s nothing that says they have to open up their API to anyone for anything, so on one hand any access they grant is icing on the 140-character cake. However, we also can’t forget the standard that Twitter set for itself by being so open from the get-go and the benefit they derived from that openness. It’s users who proposed the hashtag and original (not the new-ish) retweet conventions. It’s the near-universal availability of Twitter clients for all shapes and sizes that have allowed them to grow by almost a 100 million Tweets DAILY since last year.

Why is this so interesting to us at Think Brownstone? Twitter’s main argument for this more restrictive model is user experience. Read their official explanation for more detail, but the gist is that not everyone is implementing things consistently and that’s creating confusion for Twitter users. (As an aside, if you’re in the User Experience field, this is fantastic news…companies with multi-billion-dollar valuations are willing to risk ostracizing whole swaths of their most loyal users and supporters just to ensure a consistent user experience). This makes sense until you read later on (in the same official post) that “90% of active Twitter users use official Twitter apps” and that “the top five ways that people access Twitter are official Twitter apps….”

So we’re brought back to the classic walled-garden vs. open-source argument so readily apparent in the ongoing iOS vs. Android debate. Sure, Apple seems overly restrictive in forbidding people from changing button functionality (well, sometimes), but I would argue that it’s this level of control that allows them to create the most consistent and pleasurable modern operating system experience (be it mobile or desktop). On the other hand, I consistently find myself saying “my app doesn’t do that” whenever I compare different versions of the same app with my Android-owning friends (like Mike here at TBI).

The difference between Twitter and Apple is that Biz et al are now taking away some level of control that they’d previously ceded to the masses (whereas Apple has NEVER given us control)…and they’re doing so in a manner that pretty blatantly screams monetization. And hey, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that. Businesses need to make money to stay afloat. But if their official client is so successful and widespread, why stifle the possibility of innovation in third party clients? Let’s hope this isn’t a sign of things to come from what’s been an organization to admire in recent years.

Designing Penitence

When asked to list the tenets of good experience design, XDers count out things like “informative, intuitive, engaging, attractive” and they’ll almost always save their pinky point – the grand finale – for “fun.”  Whatever the objectives, an experience is generally made richer and more effective if your users have a good time. But what about when fun is the antithesis of what you want to achieve?

Let’s take the prison system for example. Correctional Facilities, Reform Schools and Detention Centers are all pretty up front about their objectives (and not typically too concerned with the “fun factor”):

We’re going to correct you.

We’re going to reform you.

And perhaps the most honest…

We’re just going to detain you.

But let’s go even more old-school: what sort of experience design challenges might a “penitentiary” face? What does that name suggest about the objective of the facility? No matter how hard you try, you simply can’t penitent someone.  Penitence has to come from within the user as a result of the prison experience. It’s the classic learning theory challenge – along the continuum of things you can teach someone designed to elicit behavioral change (declarative knowledge, concepts, psychomotor skills, and attitudes), the most difficult outcome to achieve is a genuine change in attitude.

So how would you engineer an experience such that it engenders remorse?

Eastern State Penitentiary, Courtesy of Jocker/CREAKTIF

Eastern State Penitentiary (ESP) offers a fantastic glimpse at one attempt to tackle this design problem.  First off, if you haven’t visited ESP yet, you should definitely check it out.  It’s a fascinating place.  Architecture, environmental design, psychology, sociology and a host of other disciplines that now live under the XD umbrella were combined way back in 1829 to form a total user experience designed with the single objective of inspiring penitence.  Prisoners were sentenced to solitary confinement, never seeing the face of another human, and subjected to complete silence.  But they had natural light in their cells, they were allowed outside regularly, and they were given work to develop valuable trade skills.  Think a monastic lifestyle absent the choice.

Ultimately the system failed, succumbing over time to the pressures of increased and improved functionality over the quality of the prisoner experience (sigh).  Turns out penitence XD is an expensive business.

But what would you do if you were facing this design challenge today? What role would technology, human factors, cognitive science, theatre, interactive design and all of the other available XD disciplines play in your overall strategy?

We’d love to hear your thoughts, and if it’s a topic that really interests you – some great additional reading is Jim Lewis’s article about rethinking prison design published in the NY Times.