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« Sunday « March 29, 2009
1. datetime
  1. {03292009}
  2. {08:24:23 AM}
  content
  1. Google calls it 'minimalist aesthetic' but it's a euphemism for ugly
    
    (caught |n between blog)
  2. Google, Apple iPhone, Nintendo Wii
    
    Earlier this month, Google's lead visual designer left the company, and shared some of the reasons for his departure: "When a company is filled with engineers, it turns to engineering to solve problems. Reduce each decision to a simple logic problem. Remove all subjectivity and just look at the data...that data eventually becomes a crutch for every decision, paralyzing the company and preventing it from making any daring design decisions."
    
    Earlier this month, FaceBook changed the visual look and feel of its site layout, leading to ongoing and vociferous outrage from more than 600,000 of its engaged and loyal users, and counting: "[J]ust one newly voiced opinion from the company's 'Vote on the new Facebook layout' app, which seems in keeping with consensus among the 624,665 comments there so far: 'this one is really confusing.'"
    
    Earlier this month, Twitter, perhaps the hottest of the hot social networks, revealed that it paid a mere $6 to acquire the "tweety bird" logo that introduces their service: "The bird on Twitter's home page, familiar to millions, is small, cute and fun, and implies communication and anticipation. One might say it's the perfect graphic for Twitter. Yet the company paid its designer at most $6, without attribution."
    
    Besides being anecdotes from three of the trendiest and (arguably) increasingly influential technology companies of our day, they are stories of engineering cultures which pay scant heed to visual design and creativity. Instead of integrating visual design into their core product development strategies, it becomes something that gets tacked on after the process of turning out products has already begun. So goes it with engineers. Ultimately, I think that end-users and consumers pay the price, in that they receive less-than-optimal experiences and things that are not very pleasing aesthetically, perhaps even just plain ugly. At the end of the day, this will affect customer loyalty and hurt bottomline growth, because no one really wants to buy ugly, unless they have to because there's no other choice.
    
    I'll give Google a little credit, in their self-published "Google User Experience" document, they call their visual style a "minimalist aesthetic," but when I read one of their own employees (now former), someone originally hired to raise Google's visual design to breakthrough levels, say: "Without a person at (or near) the helm who thoroughly understands the principles and elements of Design, a company eventually runs out of reasons for design decisions," all I can say of their minimalist aesthetic is: lip service. Their definition of minimal aesthetic is really shorthand for "no visual design at all." It's just not that important to them, it doesn't matter what label you slap on it, it's an afterthought, not a strategic initiative
    
    Some will argue that in high technology companies, visual design really isn't that important, because what separates the winners from the losers in this game is superior engineering. To that, I also say: lip service. Technological excellence will get you a lead, but it won't sustain it, because everyone's technology is always improving; that competitor in your rear-view mirror is closer than you think. Innovation never sleeps. Still, the recent history of consumer technology is a nothing but a graveyard of superior know-how that's been beaten by lesser know-how. If you're old enough to remember videotape, recall the battle between Beta vs. VHS - the superior technology lost. Or what about a more contemporary example: the Nintendo Wii vs. XBox360 and PlayStation3? The latter two, with all of their CPUs and GPUs, raw computing-horsepower and ability to draw millions of polygons and render photorealistic vistas were supposed to crush the under-powered, toy-like Wii: but look what happened - the little videogame engine that could, did. Superior engineering doesn't always guarantee a winner. So if tech companies are to get an edge that goes beyond luring the best engineers away from the competition, why don't they take a closer look at visual design?
    
    What happens in technology companies when visual design - and the deeply creative thinking it embodies - gets a seat at the big table with engineering? What happens when visual design is integrated into the product development process from Day One? I don't know for sure, but I think you end up with something like Apple's iPhone.
    
    Since so many technology companies covet and would love to emulate the kind of phenomenal success Apple has had with the iPhone, maybe the time has come to begin taking visual design seriously. Perhaps now is the time to focus on transforming visual design into a competitive advantage, a way to build relevant differentiation into products. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that makes beauty relevant. Without a focus on visual design, all a technology company can do is churn out products that have minimalist aesthetics, and that's just a euphemism for "ugly."
    
    Customers know ugly when they see it. And it's not really a trigger for driving purchases, or a recipe for premium pricing. Did you notice, by the way, that Google, Facebook, and Twitter also have something else in common? They're all (currently) free.
    
    Like I said before, people don't buy ugly. But they'll certainly scoop it up when it's free.
    
    Want a business model? Sell beautiful.
  metadata
  2. 08:24:23 AM
  3. Google, App..."
  categories
  1. keywords:
  2. cyberculture
  3. technology
  4. tags:
  5. design
  6. aesthetics
  7. social+media
  type
2. datetime
  1. {03292009}
  2. {07:26:31 PM}
  content
  1. A Boy Scout's Good Deed, Thwarted By Racism
    
    (NPR.org)
  2. "We got about halfway across the street - and she's so happy and laughing and talking - she said, 'Are you white or black?' And I told her I was colored, and she said, 'Get your filthy hands off of me,' and I got my hands off of her," [John Hope] Franklin said.
    
    A great historian, John Hope Franklin, will be missed. If for anything, he serves to remind us that what happened in the past colors the presents, and continues to shape the future, no matter how much some would deny it.
  metadata
  2. 07:26:31 PM
  3. "We got about halfway across the street - and she's so happy and laughing and talking - she said, 'Are you white or black?' And I told her I was colored, and she said, 'Get your filthy hands off of me,' and I got my hands off of her," [John Hope] Franklin..."
  categories
  1. keywords:
  2. history
  3. black people
  type
« Wednesday « March 25, 2009
1. datetime
  1. {03252009}
  2. {02:58:02 PM}
  content
  1. Historian John Hope Franklin (1915-2009) (ajc.com) John Hope Franklin winced when people called him America's greatest black historian, as many did. It would be more fitting to call him the greatest historian of black America.
    02:58:02 PM
  type
2. datetime
  1. {03252009}
  2. {02:57:21 PM}
  content
  1. Guy Kawasaki Discloses Ghost Writers, Defuses Issue
    
    (davefleet blog)
  2. Guy Kawasaki, creator of Alltop and Truemors, has three other people writing through his Twitter account on his behalf.
    
    I have no problem with someone, especially with a large following on Twitter, having people occasionally tweet on their behalf, as long as two conditions are met: 1) disclose who the tweeter is, when it's not you, every time; and 2) tweet the majority of the time (i.e. more than 50%) on your own behalf. Or don't tweet at all. What's the point?
  metadata
  2. 02:57:21 PM
  3. Guy Kawasaki, creator of Alltop and Truemors, has three other people writing through his Twitter account on his behalf...."
  categories
  1. keywords:
  2. cyberculture
  3. internet
  4. tags:
  5. socialmedia
  6. twitter
  type
« Sunday « March 22, 2009
1. datetime
  1. {03222009}
  2. {04:14:45 PM}
  content
  1. The Big Takeover (RollingStone.com) The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution—MUST READ!
    04:14:45 PM
  type
2. datetime
  1. {03222009}
  2. {11:47:09 AM}
  content
  1. Goodbye Google
    
    (stopdesign)
  2. Yes, it's true that a team at Google couldn't decide between two blues, so they're testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can't operate in an environment like that. I've grown tired of debating such minuscule design decisions. There are more exciting design problems in this world to tackle.
    
    I work in a company where we have just the opposite issue. It's a company mostly populated by designers, and almost everything is driven by subjective and often, to me at least, quirky tastes. In an increasingly digital age, we need data-driven solutions, but it seems to me the best of both worlds is where the designers and the engineers contribute on equal terms. Judging from this story, apparently, Google isn't that place.
  metadata
  2. 11:47:09 AM
  3. Yes, it's true that a team at Google couldn't decide between two blues, so they're testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my..."
  categories
  1. keywords:
  2. design arts
  3. technology
  4. tags:
  5. cyberculture
  6. google
  7. design
  8. engineering
  type
« Wednesday « March 18, 2009
1. datetime
  1. {03182009}
  2. {11:23:03 AM}
  content
  1. On Bailouts (HarvardBusiness.org) QOTD: "We don't need to bail out banks: we need to bail society out of a broken 'banking' system in which the incentives to mega-loot dominate the incentives to bank."
    11:23:03 AM
  type
« Sunday « March 15, 2009
1. datetime
  1. {03152009}
  2. {08:45:39 AM}
  content
  1. How to stop the drug wars (The Economist) Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution.
    08:45:39 AM
  type
« Saturday « March 14, 2009
1. datetime
  1. {03142009}
  2. {07:28:28 PM}
  content
  1. Zappos CEO's shoes need a little more kick
    
    (CNET News)
  2. Hsieh has the enormous respect of an industry. But if he's going to live up to the visionary hype, he's going to have to do more than just talk about what his company's done right and recommending a few business books.
    
    Yeah, well of course CNET is going to trash the Zappo's CEO for not giving a "visionary" speech at SXSW. CNET is jaded. The technorati at SXSW are jaded. But the truth is: most companies and their leaders don't know where to begin, and don't know which way is up in this new social media/always-connected/user generated content world. If they get advice from a company that's clearly doing it right, along with a reading list, then they've accomplished something. Step out of the tech bubble you live in CNET writer, and realize that even in 2009, there are business people just discovering that blogs exist. To them, something like a business running on Twitter isn't just visionary, it's incomprehensible!
  metadata
  2. 07:28:28 PM
  3. Hsieh has the enormous respect of an industry. But if he's going to live up to the visionary hype, he's going to have to do more than just talk about what his company's done right and recommending a few business books...."
  categories
  1. keywords:
  2. cyberculture
  3. business
  4. tags:
  5. zappos.com
  6. twitter
  7. social
  8. media
  type
2. datetime
  1. {03142009}
  2. {09:10:10 AM}
  content
  1. How P. Diddy is the Center of the CS Universe
    
    (Scatter/Gather blog)
  2. There was infinite technical and intellectual strategy work around how to deal with P. Diddy (who seems to be going by only Diddy now). As he continuously changed names, we had to create the ability for the content management system to understand aliases and synonyms (so the editors/taggers could search on the back-end for any of the names), and yet only display his current name to the user on the site.
    
    Reading this, I'm flashing back to contentious meetings I had just earlier this week about our client list. Should we list it by the company name, the parent company name, the parent brand names, the sub-brand names, on and on. It's nice to see other folks have the same problem. How knew that Diddy would be an instuctional case in categorization and classification.
  metadata
  2. 09:10:10 AM
  3. There was infinite technical and intellectual strategy work around how to deal with P. Diddy (who seems to be going by only Diddy now). As he continuously changed names, we had to create the ability for the content management system to understand aliases..."
  categories
  1. keywords:
  2. information technology
  3. technology
  4. tags:
  5. databases
  6. taxonomy
  type
3. datetime
  1. {03142009}
  2. {07:57:12 AM}
  content
  1. Why China's Stimulus Plan Will Change the World
    
    (Motley Fool)
  2. China's huge currency reserves are about to be put to use, and although there will be some real and perhaps severe bumps along the way, the China that comes out on the other side will be a heck of a lot stronger, more independent, and more decoupled than the one we've seen up to now.
    
    The writing's been on the wall for a long, long time. Get ready for a surprise.
  metadata
  2. 07:57:12 AM
  3. China's huge currency reserves are about to be put to use, and although there will be some real and perhaps severe bumps along the way, the China that comes out on the other side will be a heck of a lot stronger, more independent, and more decoupled than..."
  categories
  1. keywords:
  2. global economy
  3. business
  type
« Sunday « March 8, 2009
1. datetime
  1. {03082009}
  2. {12:20:16 AM}
  content
  1. Branson: Don't be gloomy; the time is just right to be like me
    
    (Times UK Online)
  2. Sir Richard Branson believes that the next generation of self-made billionaires will emerge from the corporate wreckage of this recession. In an exclusive interview with The Times, Sir Richard said: "There are a lot of Richard Bransons that will come out of the next three or four years."
    
    Of course, it's easy for a billionaire to say something like this. But on the other hand, so much of what used to count as stability in the Western world is unraveling right before our eyes, probably never to be put back together, at least not in the way it used to be. Things are going to be really shaky, for a long time. It's increasingly hard to believe that doing things the old way will ever succeed again, at least not in the ways they always have. But this world needs to be re-made. The Matrix needs to be re-loaded. Hunger and lack of opportunity in the old system must be the mother of invention for the future.
  metadata
  2. 12:20:16 AM
  3. Sir Richard Branson believes that the next generation of self-made billionaires will emerge from the corporate wreckage of this recession. In an exclusive interview with The Times, Sir Richard said: "There are a lot of Richard Bransons that will come out..."
  categories
  1. keywords:
  2. economics
  3. business
  type
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[caught |n between] noteblog

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« Sunday « March 29, 2009

(caught |n between blog)

(NPR.org)

« Wednesday « March 25, 2009

(davefleet blog)

« Sunday « March 22, 2009

(stopdesign)

« Wednesday « March 18, 2009

« Sunday « March 15, 2009

« Saturday « March 14, 2009

(CNET News)

(Scatter/Gather blog)

(Motley Fool)

« Sunday « March 8, 2009

(Times UK Online)

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