The talk I did at Lunch 2.0 a few weeks ago at the F5 office in downtown Seattle is now online. You can watch the video, or download an mp3/podcast. It’s an interactive Q&A about innovation and invention, ~45 minutes.
Fun stuff, no slides, and some good questions. One factual error: I claim Swift had the patent for the light bulb, but it’s Swan.
#4 on the free review list is SimplyGoogle a utility page, exploding out many of the google options onto a single page. Since there aren’t that many user tasks here, there wasn’t much to work with. The core problem with the page is layout – it’s an endless series of command buttons running down the middle of the page.
The easy remedy is the ever handy radio button: as a rule of thumb, if you can get away with one command button instead of ten, you’re making an improvement. You get tons of real estate back, and it’s easier to scan the list of options.
Before:
After:
#3 on the free review list is a site for the writer Gina Black. It’s a simple site and does many of the basics well, but the home page makes some fundamental mistakes.
Issue Summary:
Before, with issues flagged:
After
What else I’d do:
#5 on the free review list is a site that has a purpose that’s hard to top: Freeing slaves.
This site was tricky to work with. The visuals are strong, but way too strong. And the site is trying way too hard to grab attention that it defeats it’s own purpose. With a cause this good the site doesn’t need to do very much: just explain the situation and then tell the viewer what they should do.
It’s hard to work with finished pages, so I made a reverse-wireframe. It helps visualize the elmements and see how they match up with a grid. A clean design respects some kind of visual grid, meaning there are a minimal number of left edges: every left edge should line up with another left edge.
A proper wireframe for the same website, should look something like this. The exercise for the reader, or the designer, is to eliminate elements and make stronger decisions to fit this kind of design. This will force more decisions to be made (e.g. we only have room for 3 things, but had 5. Which 2 should go?) but that’s good.
The other major issue is unnecessary visual flares. These elements make the layout a battlefield, where they’re fighting for attention. By simplifying the design and respecting the wireframe, the layout is cleaner, easier to read, and simpler to understand.
Here’s one before and after example, showing how to clean the visuals.
By sliding the freedom awards into the right column, the element no longer screams “Look at me!”. Instead it’s in its respectful place in the right column. If the freedom awards are really so important, than fit them elsewhere in the grid, but don’t violate your own design by breaking the grid.
Is this more boring? Perhaps, but the goal of this site isn’t visual excitement is it? It’s (I assume) to present a serious problem and compel people to donate time or money to the cause. The design has to get out of the way. The above cleanup can be repeated in dozens of places on the homepage alone and will make a big difference.
If any folks at freetheslaves.net are reading and find this useful, I’m happy to do more work for you. Just let me know.
CMP Media runs the annual Jolt awards, the closest thing the tech sector has to the Oscars. They just announced this year’s finalists, and Myths of Innovation made the cut for books. O’Reilly’s Beautiful Code is in as well – Congrads!
You can see the full list of nominations here. Winners are announced at the SD West conference, March 2008. Anybody out there going? If I’m lucky enough to win, you can pretend to be me 🙂
Linkfest for Friday:
The work on Making things happen (the book formerly known as the art of project management) is well underway. Months ago, I asked you to vote on what you wanted. There were many excellent suggestions, which I’ve read and am reviewing, but top votes went to a new chapter:
One remaining decision is what the new chapter will be. I’ve heard three good candidates so far.
Possible new chapters:
They’re all good fits, and I have my opinions, but I want yours. For reference, here is the full outline from the existing book (I’ll give you a dirty look if you ask for a chapter that’s already in there 🙂
So leave a comment and let me know: does one of the above rock for you? Or is there something else you want to see as Chapter 17?
Thanks!
I’m nuts about books. I finish a book a week, and abandon many more. Looking back on the year, picking a favorite, #1 book to recommend is easy – that’s how much I enjoyed this book. It’s Over the edge of the world, by Laurence Bergreen.
The book tells the wild, nearly unbelievably difficult tale of Magellan’s expedition to circumnavigate the world. In short, everything goes wrong. Mutiny, starvation, politics, bad project management, and on it goes. There’s also what has to be one of the greatest idea pitches ever (“Yes, I will go all the way around the world, requiring several routes no one has discovered yet, and you will pay for it”). And it’s all told with the perfect balance of tight, thrilling storytelling and historic detail.
I love books like this for their power to humble: they put all of the challenges and complaints people have today in relief. Nothing any entrepreneur or middle manager faces today even approximates the risks, suffering, and significance of what these historic figures did. Finishing this book I felt inspired by the realities of what Magellan and his crew did, rather than the false, simple tale I’d learned as a kid.
It’s a great gift choice for anyone interested in innovation, how progress happens, how myths compare to realities, project management, people management of all kinds, and well told true adventure tales.
Over the edge of the world: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe, by Laurence Bergreen.
Thanks to everyone who sent in articles on geniuses in response to my how to be a genius essay. A few folks mentioned this great two part essay by Joel Achenbach of the Washington post, all about how geniuses have failed.
Here’s one of many choice quotes:
“For centuries, Shakespearean scholars have been stumped by the play. It’s so . . . awful. Mention “Titus Andronicus” to Harold Bloom, English professor at Yale and policeman of the Western canon, and he immediately says, ‘Boy, is that bad. It’s just a bloodbath. There’s not a memorable line in it.’
The Bard, bad? How’s that possible? Isn’t Shakespeare the greatest writer in the history of the English language, pulling away from the pack like Secretariat at the Belmont? How could the same guy write “King Lear” and this crappy thing?
Here’s the best explanation: Geniuses mess up too. This is a phenomenon that permeates the creative world. “
Read the rest of When genius bombs at Achenblog.
I get lots of questions and suggestions for things to write about during the week. And while the forums are locked, I’ll answer here instead:
Kishore asks: when too many ideas are created in a company, have you seen a efficient (and web 2.0) way for colleagues (every knowledge worker) to rank each other’s ideas ? and select the top and implement? (See collatodo)
This is never the big problem. There are a zillion ways to track ideas and they’ve been around for a long time (A whiteboard, a spreadsheet, a wiki, any database, etc.). The lack of a tool for this is not the reason why a team isn’t creative, or isn’t making good products. It’s that the people with power are not putting them into action.
Sure, some tools are better than others, but it’s like having grocery lists: having a tool for families to vote on things to buy is one thing, but someone actually going to the store and laying down cash to buy them is another.
The problem in most organizations isn’t a shortage of ideas, it’s that few ideas are given a chance to grow before they’re killed. If you want an organization to be more creative, the people in power need to decide to fund, develop, and ship those ideas out to people. And if people don’t know how that happens currently, then the first step is for leaders to make the existing process visible to everyone.
Here’s another good one:
JR asks: I’m working in a tech company as a Project Manager and would like to change my career slowly in the direction of an innovation enabler. Where shall I start? (It can be an URL you give me 😉
First step: stop using the word innovation. It’s a buzzword, it’s jargon, and most creative people’s eyes will glaze over when you use it. Instead, use words like: positive change, better decisions, and making co-workers more effective and creative. Those 3 things are tangible and co-workers will have a clue as to what you’re talking about.
As far as enabling, here’s 3 quick tips:
As the PM, you’re a great person to be leading the process of identifying problems, generating ideas, and prototyping solutions. If you do this once for a small thing, and it ships, you’ll have earned the trust from your team to repeat it, possibly on larger ideas.
Have a question you want me to answer? Leave a comment below or contact me.
Continuing my trend of linking to good stuff I’m reading once a week, here’s this week’s linkfest. Love it? Say so and I’ll do it more often. Hate it? Same deal, and I’ll cut it out.
Wednesday linkfest:
I’ve been attending or contributing to GEL (Good experience live) for several years now , but I have to say, it’s my favorite conference. The early registration deadline is tomorrow, so if you have the budget to attend a conference next year, I want to make my pitch to you to make it GEL.
Why GEL rocks:
Until Dec. 12th, It’s $1000 to attend. Hey, why pay less for forgettable generic conferences, when you can pay a little more for a true experience you’ll remember? More info and registration here.
Spending some time this week cleaning up the website, and read through lots of old comments.
You folks out there who take a couple of minutes to comment help me in tons of ways. Most important, you let me know which posts anyone actually cares about. But you also attract more people to the site, encourage others to respond, and provoke me to keep thinking.
So by way of (an experimental) forms of thanks, I’m doing a comment lottery.
Will lurkers suddenly be inspired to leave amazing thoughts in hopes of winning? Or will no one care and nothing will happen? There’s only one way to find out 🙂
The new IAC building in Chelsea (NYC) has one of the world’s largest video screens, and this media professor used it to project the film Run Lola Run, as a sequence of hundreds of stills. The effect is like a real time, moving time-line of the movie.
I hope this professor teaches better than he runs the camera, as his frequent movements annoy, but it’s still worth watching.
Run Lola Run Lola Run Lola Run Lola Run from shiffman on Vimeo.
(Hat tip, kottke.org)
Genius is one of those tricky words that gets used often, without anyone knowing quite what it means. Well, I’m taking the word, and advice on how to be a genius, head on in this fun and entirely wild run through genius history.
The folks at strategy+business have their ’07 picks, and Myths of Innovation is listed as a best innovation book for 2007.
You can see their categories for all winners, but to read the actual reviews by Michael Schrage, Howard Rheingold, Tom Ehrenfeld and others, you need to register.
If you write about innovation or creativity there are certain books people will continually tell you to read. I’ve kept track, and the top # of mentions have gone to: Malcolm Gladwell, Connections by James Burke, and A Whole new mind, by Daniel Pink. I’d already read Gladwell and much of Burke, and this week I finally read A Whole New Mind.
Short review:
It’s a light, upbeat read, but with some heavily flawed arguments. It makes strong claims about the value of right-brain, or creative, thinking, and how current economic conditions have created big opportunities for creative people. However these arguments are often one-sided or poorly supported, even in cases where I agree with the spirit of his conclusions.
If you or people you work with are logic centric thinkers, this book will help you understand the value of a holistic view of what our minds do, as well as pointers for how to rediscover the intuitive nature of your mind. However, the claims are arguments are often weak and many do not hold up well in reasonable debate. I struggled mightily with some of his central arguments, which I’ll describe below.
[Update 2/24/2014: the left vs right brain notion of the brain has been shown to be largely overstated]
Long review:
I had major criticisms of both the assumptions he makes, and how he makes them, and there are three piles: 1) ignorance of history, 2) unnecessary polarization, and 3) lack of devil’s advocacy. Since what follows is long, I have to say the book was thought provoking, though not necessarily in the way the author intended.
If you haven’t read it, and don’t want spoilers, go read it before continuing. Ok, you’ve been warned.
Ignorance of history: Right brains have been dominant at other times: namely, the European Renaissance. What happened? Why didn’t the world change in the ways he describes ours will if we can get better at Right brain thinking? He doesn’t say. The rise of Impressionism, Cubism, Rock music, Surrealism, Punk rock, Free Love, Video Games, Movies, Music videos, the birth of Greek philosophy and drama, and other huge cultural/political contributions driven by R-dominant (his term) behavior aren’t mentioned either. R-dominant thinking is old: it may be so old it’s new again, but to frame the argument as a “Whole New Mind“, without any hat tip to things pre-1950 is glaring, or as Tom Standage might say, overly chronocentric. The shifts between L to R dominance at the culture level, across time, has been discussed by other authors, from Leonard Shlain’s excellent Art & Physics and to some extent, Daniel Boorstin, but no reference from this line of thought is mentioned.
Polarization: Isn’t the best possible world one where we use all of our talents, as appropriate, to the problems at hand? Wouldn’t it be just as dangerous to have an R-dominant world as it is to have a logic, or L-dominant one? The tag line for the book is Why right-brainers will rule the future. Rule? Is that for the best? I bet he’d agree our rulers should be people who recognize the value of both kinds of thought, and that he’s fighting for a return to some kind of balance, but the book doesn’t say so (If I does, I missed it, despite a careful read). Perhaps I should have read the book as a manifesto, a provocation, but I found that hard given the attempts at logical arguments and statistics he uses in his arguments.
Devil’s Advocacy (DA) : Every book makes a bet on a core theme and then tries to live up to it. But what should a writer do when writing chapter 6, when they discover a good counterargument to the title of the book? Or several major points? Ideally at least one of them is discussed ( however briefly), hopefully they’re mentioned, and minimally they’re referenced. I didn’t find any kind of refutation or questioning of the core thesis in the text or in the notes. If I’m guilty of this in my books, fine, I’m a hypocrite and I’ll do better next time. But that said, my DA questions included:
It’s rare to find a short, well written paper than nails a subject popular books get wrong. If you agree, and care about breakthroughs and managing innovation, especially on software projects, this is the paper for you.
It’s called Managing for breakthroughs in productivity, by Allan L. Scherr (PDF).
The article comes from his experience as a manager of various projects at IBM and focuses on the patterns that make breakthroughs possible. What was most striking for me is how little jargon and theory he requires to make his points.
He identifies:
It might be the best 15 pages I’ve read on managing breakthrough projects in a year, much better than most of the books and other commonly referenced sources. The first 3 pages are dry but I promise it gets better.
Managing for breakthroughs in productivity, by Allan L. Scherr (PDF). (Hat tip to Gregg Gordon @ SSRN).
I’m volunteering to go to the front lines in Todd Wilken’s war against blackberries in meetings. Lifehacker and the NYTimes have taken on similar issues before, and I’m all for it. Here’s why.
Any real meeting, where decisions are being made (e.g. not a status meeting) should require people’s full attention. If people are voluntarily comfortable half reading e-mail and half-listening, it’s an indicator to me that:
If I allow this to go on, I encourage passive attention in meetings, further allowing stupid people to prattle on about low priority things, which further encourages more people to tune out. As as Steven M. Smith points out, the blackberry use is a symptom of bad meetings, not the cause. The person running the meeting is the place to point the finger (who is responsible for answering the question is this type of meeting right for the agenda we have?).
Instead, I believe in making attendance at meetings binary. Either you are in, or you are out. If the meeting is too boring to keep your attention, then it’s a good sign to both of us that you do not need to be in the room – so get up and leave. Most meetings should be optional anyway: you don’t have to come, but don’t cry if we decide something you wanted to have input on.
Moreso, 95% of the time what people claim to be urgent status is stuff that can wait. Call bullshit on people. Unless they’re heart surgeons, or front line web people, the world can wait 20 or 30 minutes for the meeting to end for them to get to whatever it is. The web will wait. IM will wait. It can all wait for you if you have your shit together. This is doubly true for leads and managers: if they’re managing their teams well, they should have subordinates who can be effective for a few hours without their hands being held. Most managers should be embarrassed, not proud, to be in hyper-crackberry panic mode all the time.
However, if we’re talking status meetings, where 15 or 20 people are all crammed into a room, that’s another story. These are often a waste of time, but if you must have them, the arguments for passive attention have more weight.
I like Todd’s list of recommendations – worth a look.
As I mentioned last week I’m speaking today at the free, public event called Lunch 2.0.
You show up, you eat for free, and get to hear me answer questions about innovation, creative thinking and whatever else folks are brave enough to ask.
The lunch starts at 11:30am, is at F5 headquarters on Elliot Ave downtown – signup sheet is here.
I’ll also have free books to giveaway.
This is my last scheduled speaking gig of the year – hope to see ya.