Intelleto

  

All last week, folks at Adaptive Path were prepping to speak at either Agile 2008, or UX Week 2008, or both. Leah, Dan and I all were heads-down on presentations for both.

When Leah and Dan did a brown-bag run-through of their talk, there still some holes in their slide deck that needed to be filled in. That’s pretty par for the course…it’s best to get feedback from a brown bag before you’re totally done with the whole shebang.

Then when I saw the label in the placeholder for this slide, I giggled. Who doesn’t need a Diagram of Awesomeness in their talk?

You know how sometimes you want to do something and it sounds kinda fun but maybe not really, like it wouldn’t be the best use of your time or skills or effort, but you kinda sorta want to do it anyways despite something in your gut saying maybe it’s not a good idea but you think you’ll probably say yes anyway?

When you hear yourself doing that, call Laura. Slicing through indecisive bullshit is her specialty. One example of which was the source of this week’s fave idea.

Do you want to spend your time and expertise working on something that’s one step away from a failwhale?

What do you do near the end of a design project? I often find myself digging into the crevices and finding last-minute ways to make the design really sing. I try to clarify the communications (wireframe annotations, consistency, make sure everything is updated) and take a step back to make sure that the designs I’m finishing really do fit the goals of the work.

Sometimes the edge cases are the hardest to focus on, because they aren’t central to the core ideas. So when I overheard Dan S. say that he was at the point in a project where they were polishing the edge cases, I smiled.

Edge cases are an abstract thing, but when described in this way, they remind me of furniture…cases that hold things that you don’t use very often. You don’t want rough edges on your furniture, and you don’t want rough edges on your designs. So take Dan’s advice…give yourself time to polish them. Do they make Pledge for edge cases?

I was in a meeting with a bunch of folks, talking about consulting projects. Dan H. was giving an update, and he mentioned that he had a meeting where they just spitballed ideas around. The phrase caught my fancy for a few reasons:

Turns out that rough, fast, early ideas have a lot in common with spitballs. Spitball ideas FTW!

  

Happy birthday, America. No better way to truly celebrate success then by firing off a big burst of fire and light!

 

This quote comes from Brandon. He presented at an IxDA-SF meeting, speaking on a panel about What is Design Worth? He came out with this zinger when talking about metrics, management and the balance of design as inspiration and design as business.

I’ve worked in passion-driven environments, and they can be wonderful. But sometimes the higher ideals and the passion becomes a proxy for good decision-making. Just because you’re aiming at a higher goal doesn’t mean that an idea will work. It’s a careful balance, and one that is important to maintain. I hereby vow to try to be as right as I am passionate, heh.

 

I don’t read Oprah magazine, and I’m not a big fan of Suzy Welch. That said, when my sister Casady told me about the 10:10:10:10 question, it struck a chord. Shifting scope and asking these questions is a great way to frame your priorities. Where to spend your time? Just ask yourself “what’s the impact and when?” and it helps. Thanks, Casady.

  

I went home recently for a flying visit, and part of it was driving 1.5 hours in Southern Arizona to visit my sister and her family. I was with my Mom, and the conversation never stopped. That woman always has great insights, common sense and heart. Getting my dose was a good thing.

We were talking about how people take criticism, and she came out with this zinger…to take it seriously, but not personally. So simple. So true. Not as easy as it sounds. But constantly worth working for!

There’s a trend going around to use as many words as possible to say simple things. Peter referred t this as Silicon Valley Patois, which is not only apt, but really funny.

In a similar vein, I found this article telling and yet sad.