August 25th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink
Here’s a very nice looking, informative and simple poster explaining the state of UX. It includes titles and what they mean, cities for work, salaries and more. It’s from a Venture Beat article titled A guide to user experience job salaries, skills and hot hiring locations. Fucking mouthful, that one.
Turns out the writer, Brian Wallace is working out of Louisville, KY! Kick-ass Kentuckian. Click the image to see a fullsize version.
August 25th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink
I don’t often have business conversations with people, but I end of catching enough spray and foam from that roiling ocean of internet punditry that I occasionally end up with a few interesting things. The ones that tend to really interest me are ones that speak to the larger picture of what is happening in the world of innovation and technology. I’m not terribly interested when somebody leaves a post, or stocks trade up or down. I’m interested when technologies come into the world that seem to really have a good chance of creating political change, economic change or changes in our identities as global citizens.
A few weeks ago I discovered something called the Gartner Hype Cycle. Here’s a bit from Gartner’s explanation of what their Hype Cycle is, “Gartner Hype Cycles provide a graphic representation of the maturity and adoption of technologies and applications, and how they are potentially relevant to solving real business problems and exploiting new opportunities.”
I recognize some of these. I’ve even worked with some of them in the last year.
What do you think these technologies mean for the world we’ll be living in as these things come online? It seems like we should expect “Virtual Worlds” which sounds about twenty years old, to have new meaning or new relevance in the next few years if not months. How do you think these technologies will affect the recession we’re in? New jobs?
It looks like we’re definitely seeking new sources of information, new types of communication and new refinements to how we perceive the world around us. We’re working pretyy hard to augment the brain. Ubiquitous computing seems to be a big theme here. Look at a few of the topics on those earliest inches of the graph, and pair those up with Speech Recognition, “Idea Management” and tell me what you think
January 21st, 2011 § 2 comments § permalink
I definitely didn’t come to your website for ads. Don’t make me wait for the content because you’re having trouble connecting to your ad-server.
It’s about 5% likely that I came to your website to study the chrome. So don’t make me wait for your fancy Flash, or JQuery chrome to load.
I came for the content. You’ve got 10 seconds to get me that content, or I’m out.
Content is king.
You better hope you deliver a damn good service because my reptile brain takes a vote in the first 10-20 seconds. Site good? Site bad? And I have to use my long-term memory to overcome that emotional record each time I think about going back to your site.
So. Give me my damn content, and then, once you’ve earned my favor: “Site good!” then you can spend the capital you’ve just earned, by serving me ads, and chrome, and links and social and all the other crap that helps you and not me.
September 25th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink
I took this test sometime in 2007. I got the results the day I was laid off. I haven’t cracked that envelope until now. It’s pretty much what you think it is. Here’s your personality traits, here’s your co-worker’s. He’s not an asshole, you guys just differ. Interesting for a moment, but ultimately sorta…blech. They don’t really give you STRATEGIES for utilizing what you know. Here’s what it says about me:
“This profile is triple dominant, with three preferred quadrants. These primaries occur in Upper Left A, Lower Right C and Upper Right D quadrants. This is a multi-dominant profile that would be characterized by the well-balanced processing modes of Upper Left A – analytical, logical and rational processing: Lower Right C – interpersonal, emotional and intuitive thinking modes combined with the artistic, creative and holistic processing modes of the Upper Right D quadrant. The Lower Left B secondary quadrant would be functional, yet clearly of less preference in terms of organizing, control, structure and conservative thinking styles. This profile is also double dominant in the cerebral modes, both left and right. This individual would be more experimental than safe-keeping and more emotional than controlled. Occupations would involve those with less administrative detail and more attention to broad concepts, strategic planning as compared to operational planning and those occupations tending towards a more ‘generalized’ nature. Positions involving technical innovation and future planning fit this profile along with human resource and development professions. Work that is considered a “Turn On” would include: solving tough problems, explaining things, taking risks, designing, seeing the big picture, being part of a team and helping people.”
Most comfortable communication approaches may include:
- A good debate
- Technical accuracy
- Providing an overview
- Idea chunks
- Involving others
- Personal touch/sensitive to others
But may overlook:
- Written schedule and plan
- Punctuality
The most natural problem solving strategies would include:
- Visualization
- Free-flow brainstorming
- Intuition
- Analysis
- Building on ideas of other team members
- Defining the problem
But may not consider:
- Strict procedure
- Time lines
To make a decision, a person with this profile may ask:
- Have I seen all the hidden possibilities?
- Do I have all the facts?
- How will others be affected?
But may overlook
- The details
- An appropriate sequence
July 17th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink
Design processes simply documented:
July 11th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink
Today is Saturday. I’ve given blood, eaten a salad, had my first iced Americano, and am slogging through Jonah Lehrer’s pop-neuroscience-for-high-schoolers-essay-turned-hardback How We Decide.
Here are a few terms dropped in the last few pages that I need to learn a lot more about: asymmetric paternalism (a new political philosophy), loss aversion ( a psychological force), and the framing effect (closely related to loss aversion). If you know anything about these things, let me know.
June 26th, 2009 § 1 comment § permalink
I made the largest site map I’ve ever seen. Now I need to make a legend for it. 
May 25th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink
Eric Bergman was my super at my last job, and super he was. I leaned on him a great deal, and learned a great deal from that exerience. His blog is pretty exclusively about his exploding family. He cares a lot about his family, and I’m pretty sure he brought that to the way he took care of his group. Did I say that I learned A LOT from this guy? He gave me an opportunity that was transformative for me. Painful sometimes, but transformative none-the-less. My experience there may yet be the “angle” I bring to the rest of my career. It’s certainly plays a huge part in what I’m doing right now. I owe him much more than the this year and last year. That debt will be long in paying off.
April 12th, 2009 § 0 comments § permalink
“The interactive ability to consume stories across the scales of time and generalization about human behavior. The idea is for a technology that represents reality on scales of time and level of intimacy with the self. The lowest point might be something like “what am I(or another individual) experiencing at this moment, and the highest point might be something like what can you say about all people of across the whole of history. Inbetween groupings being: the story of my family, my lineage, my friends, the story of Americans, the story of caucasians, what happened this week to people I know, what is the history of human communication, etc.
My next question is how do you build the scale?
February 27th, 2009 § 1 comment § permalink
Today was my last day at Daptiv. I will not see a years worth of my work released to production. If you know me, that’s pretty much 85% of what I lived for 2008.
Based on that it’s clear that some things need to change. For you my company, you my work, and me myself.
You guys made the first move. That means either I really am now free to change, or I am grieving, or more likely both.
As you might say, “ship it.” As Walter Sobchak might put it, “Fuck it dude. Let’s go bowling.”