June 13th, 2008
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!
Posted in friends & family, fave ideas | No Comments »
June 6th, 2008
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.
Posted in wordlings, fave ideas | No Comments »
June 4th, 2008
We’re social and tribal, we humans. And making assessments, judgments and forming opinions is part of the supple cloth that we weave in our relationships, in how we perceive things, and our perspectives on the world.
So, how do you figure out if you wanna hang with someone? If you want to do business with a company? How do you assess what they stand for, what they are aiming for, what lens they view the world through?
In talking with Rachel, this 2×2 emerged…
- Is it about the self? or the quest?
It’s amazing how quickly this comes out in conversation with others, in ads, in brand messages, in the random comments people make. It’s one of our best human traits: we can usually get the flavor of a thing quickly.
- Is it going towards the light? or wallowing in the dark? How positive is someone? Optimistic? Or gloomy? Expecting a bright future, or happy when things fail?
Companies are somewhere on this grid. Your friends are somewhere on this grid. Steve Jobs is somewhere on this grid.
And you’re somewhere on this grid. Where are you?
Posted in random thoughts | No Comments »
May 30th, 2008
A couple of collegues and I were discussing the process of doing competitive/comparitive analyses, and
Alexa asked “
if you pretty much know something is true, what’s the role of a competitive analysis to prove it?” Which is an excellent question.
And Sarah had an excellent answer: “Well, it depends. It’s important to know when you have a hypothesis, and when you have an agenda. With a hypothesis, you are open to learning that it’s true, that it’s partially true, or that it’s wrong. With an agenda, you have an investment with proving that you are right.”
What a wonderful distinction…have a hypothesis; not an agenda.
Posted in creative projects, fave ideas | No Comments »
May 23rd, 2008
Walt Disney coined this wonderful word, and Peter introduced me to it. The art of plussing is pushing a solution a little bit more, a little bit further, to get it to really sing…to truly shine.
The edge is a fragile thing, and one to play with, get to know and use as an inspiration. The risk is that you end up with jazz hands when you don’t need them.
Posted in neat things, fave ideas | No Comments »
May 19th, 2008
There are times in a project or in a relationship when things seem to go awry. I’ve learned that
going dark isn’t the answer, although sometimes that’s really what I want to do…retreat! Rest! Make it stop!
If, however, you do find yourself going dark, be careful…things go feral quickly. I was once sick for a week and moping around home and a friend visited, took a look at my ratsnest hair, my slumpy sweats, the Advil and tissues laying about and the mess of unwashed dishes and asked “what the hell is going on? Have you gone feral?!”
So when Rachel advised us to watch guard against projects doing this, it had particular resonance.
Posted in fave ideas | No Comments »
May 16th, 2008
When Nathan Moody did his brown bag for us, he mentioned delivering a magpie piece…the shineyshiney stuff that catches the eye. I’m a total crow/magpie/squirrel…something shiney generally rules my life. So go ahead. Find the shiney.
Posted in random thoughts, fave ideas | No Comments »
May 9th, 2008
I was setting up a time to meet with Trisha, and noticed that every day at 5pm, she had a meeting. Adaptive Path is rigorous about promoting work+life balance, and everyone is encouraged to leave the office at a reasonable time and go out and spend time with family, friends, life, what have you. So I was bummed she had something booked every day at 5pm.
Then I noticed what it was…it said simply “go home.” Perfect.
Posted in neat things, fave ideas, work | No Comments »
May 2nd, 2008
Adaptive Path holds frequent brown bag lunches where we invite folks to talk about interesting ideas. Andrew Blau joined us from Global Business Network to talk about scenario planning (read Peter’s blog post and Roland’s post for details.) One of Andrew’s comments was about creative misreading. Creative misreading was an approach forwarded by literary theorist Harold Bloom.
I’m not a literary theorist, but the idea of looking in the nooks and crannies of ideas via intentional misreading is compelling…
Posted in sketchbook, fave ideas | No Comments »
April 25th, 2008
There’s something interesting about disconnecting natural and intuitive. They really aren’t the same thing, yet I have often assumed they are. If you look up intuitive, you’ll find synonyms: natural, innate. And if you look up natural, you’ll find synonyms of spontaneous, unaffected, genuine, unmannered. So far so good.
But if you delve a little deeper and explore “intuition” it gets murkier.
Intuition is:
- direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process; immediate apprehension.
- a fact, truth, etc., perceived in this way.
- a keen and quick insight.
- the quality or ability of having such direct perception or quick insight.
Natural is a whole bunch of things, including (selections of definitions not in order):
- Existing in or formed by nature
- Growing spontaneously
- free from affectation or constraint
- arising easily or spontaneously
- based on what is learned from nature rather than on revelation
- any person or thing that is or is likely or certain to be very suitable to and successful in an endeavor without much training or difficulty.
- and (my favorite…) In craps, a winning combination of seven or eleven made on the first cast.
Nathan Moody of Stimulant was speaking to a bunch of us at Adaptive Path, and he was clear in his thinking: “Natural does not equal intuitive.” He was talking about large-scale interactive displays, and how the physical movements of gesture and body motion were natural…yet when faced with a taller-than-God interactive display, people had no clue how to interact with it.
Good to remember.
Posted in fave ideas, creative projects, sketchbook, User experience | No Comments »
