Gift giving was never a strength in my family. Sure, we gave gifts, we just didn’t do it well, as in “Hey, here’s your annual CD/book/cake that’s mostly indistinguishable from what I got you last year.” Later, through friends and girlfriends, I learned what a good gift was: something personal and thoughtful that they’d enjoy or need, but probably wouldn’t think to buy for themselves.
But with the web, and the same 15 chain stores in every mall in every city, it’s harder to buy truly good gifts. There is an abundance of easily available impersonal goods people don’t want or need (and the idea of gift cards is just one step away from giving someone cash). I’m loathe to buy people more stuff anyway – I know few folks who complain about empty storage rooms, closets or kitchen cabinets, in need of more things they used once and never again.
So this year I made three four rules:
To buy only experiences. Tickets to plays, events, massages, meals, things that they’ll experience and own as a memory instead of as a thing. Perhaps I can baby or pet sit for friends, gifts that could make a difference. This also has the benefit of low environmental impact if you’re into that sort of thing.
To make things for people. If I make it with my own hands then it’s impossible to get at the GAP, or amazon, and as ugly or fragile as it might be, it will be personal. Writing a letter is more personal and requires more of my precious time (and therefore in a way is more likely to be a more meaningful gift) than any clever purchase ever could. It will will represent more of the the most precious thing I have, my time, than anything I could buy.
Art, film, books, plays, performances or even board games are special kinds of buying. Anything made by an artist or creator needs the support of buyers to continue to do their profession. Although these are still purchases, the effect they can have on the person you buy them for can be profound, personal and long lasting.
If my best or only choice is to buy, do it thoughtfully. Is this something this person will truly appreciate? Is it something they wouldn’t get themselves, even though they desire it? Is it something I want them to want, or something they will truly appreciate? Perhaps purchase from a local, independent artist or maker, or from a store that has sustainable practices for makers.
One problem for some people is they don’t know how to many anything. But there are always ways to offer gifts of your time, like coupons to babysit for a friend, to take them out for a fun night out or even to help them with housework, or a free lesson in a skill you have that you know they want to learn.
[Updated November 2017 – Thanks to Heather Bussing for suggesting #3]
I started my career in what is now called UX, but switched within a year for a management role on the same project. Why? I realized that usability is not a verb. For all the data and advice I gave my smart team, I was dependent on them to make decisions. I realized my effectiveness would improve dramatically by taking a leadership role on the development team, rather than an advisory one.
Around 1995 the UX/usability field shifted and usability specialists became usability engineers. The idea was to both get a verb in the name, and to express that usability could be engineered if you followed the right method. It was successful and the field grew fast.
But the problem is this: usability is still not a verb – it’s an attribute of a well made thing. Sticking the word engineer in my job title did not change my training nor give me new skills. It might have helped get me hired, but at best usability engineers are expert advisers. They’re not executives, directors of product development, or even engineers in any practical sense of the word. It’s true that researching, report writing, and analyzing are verbs, but they’re not as potent as designing, programming or building. And more to my point, if that’s the core activity of their job, why isn’t that the primary verb in their title?
The real question
Who has the most control over how well a thing is made? That’s really what all of us want: well made things. The answer to the question is always either:
A) People who do the making, or B) People in charge of the makers.
For all their progress, most usability/design folks are still neither A nor B. Instead most are
C) people who try to convince A or B to make things in a certain way.
No matter how talented you are, if you are a C, your talents will often be watered down by A and B. If you want more power, there’s only a limited amount A and B will be able to grant, no matter how much they need and respect you.
For years there’s been more toying with names and acronyms instead of actions. We now have User experience, Usability engineering, Information Architects, Interaction Designers, and on it goes. The name changes have meaning to insiders, but most of the people in the tech world care only about the actions we take, not what our business cards say.
How to get what you want
If you have a specialized skill and want more good things to be made using it, one of two things has to happen:
Persuasion, political acumen and advocacy must be core, not secondary, skills. I’ve yet to see a usability/design group at any major corporation make these primary hiring criteria. Can you win an argument with an engineer? With the director of marketing? Can you spot the decision maker in a meeting and earn their trust? In most of the world, a kick-ass advocate with mediocre research skills would do twice as much good over someone with the opposite skill set. Stop going to usability conferences or reading design blogs for a year: instead of learning a new HCI method, study advocacy, persuasion and team politics. The power you get from your existing skills will double.
Move from expert/adviser roles to general management. Many former engineers and testers went to night school, got an MBA, and moved into management roles – I bet some of you work for them. They transcended their specialty to take on a larger role in the making of things. It’s the general managers that make progress, by enabling budget, headcount and political capital for UX folks. If you don’t see anyone doing this for you, then stop waiting around – go pave the way yourself. If you have true love for making great things it’s the only way it’s likely to happen in your world. With someone like you in a general management role, the usability/design person you work with will be empowered to do great things.
I advise people who want change to stay with the good verbs. Find the people who are doing and moving, or are able to persuade others to do so. The talkers, the report writers, the complainers, the finger pointers, those are the people to avoid: they’ll be doing those things forever. It’s people comfortable with the positive verbs, doing, asking, learning, risking, reaching, who make change, if it’s going to happen at all, possible.
Anyone who understands design or usability understands problem solving, and should be able to apply those methods to their own situations. The above attitude, or something like it, should be a natural path of thought for anyone who wants more influence and power. As Don Norman once advised (applicable to any kind of expert):
“Designers uniformly complain that they are ignored, that they are called in too late, that people complain that when they make suggestions because it costs too much money or slows down the product. It seems that designers are not applying their own methods to their own problems – that when you find a problem, you need to step back to see what the root causes are. If for years, designers are complaining that they are ignored, well, maybe there’s a reason why. “
And of course there’s also Seattle local The name inspector, who focuses on phonetic breakdown of names, explaining why some work and some don’t.
With the end of year coming around, my highlights and lowlights for 2007 are coming to mind. One clear failure was my Scoliday project. In 2004 I set about creating my own holidays, to honor what I thought was important. I did them that year, fell off in 2005, and the started again in 2006 with a new list of days, some of which I celebrated.
Somehow in 2007 I didn’t even try.
I know a few folks did their own flavor of this idea, including antigeek, Konrad West, and more, and I hope they’ve faired better than I have.
I’m reading through my journals for 2007 and trying to see if I can figure it out.
Thoughts so far:
I didn’t have any partners in crime. As an author/speaker dude, I work solo most of the time and suffer from solo project fatigue. Having a holiday buddy or something would probably up my odds.
Perhaps I need a holiday every few months called called Celebrate all the holiday’s you’ve missed so far day. Build in a way to recover part way through the year.
Use this blog as a forcing function – post a note on the day, and if I didn’t celebrate it, hang my head in shame online or donate money to charity for each day I let fly by.
I’m still in love with the idea – but trying to learn from my mistakes, and improve my commitment level for 2008.
After more than 300 votes, here’s what won: Making things happen
After many discussions with the fine folks at O’Reilly, the final name is Making things happen: mastering project management. I’m excited about the name! My favorite chapter in the book is #12, the one called how to make things happen, and now it gets top billing.
For those interested in the behind the scenes drama: this was not a fun process. Like naming a child, naming a book is something one only expects to do once. If you don’t like the outcome, or the fact that there is a name change, I understand, but do consider this was 20 times less fun for me to deal with, than it was for you.
What’s most interesting is this – behold the power of the web! You guys say it and it happens! I must thank all of you who took the time to vote: the ability to point to data from actual customers played a key role in my discussions with the editors at O’Reilly Media on the new title.
The revision is well underway, and I’ll post more about it, and its timeline for release, soon. In related news, the existing book will be out of print soon, so pick it up if you want a collectors item.
For fun, here were some of the best, and funniest, write in votes:
TBFKATAOPM2 (The book formerly known as…)
What the #$!#!@$% is Project Management and How Did it Get inside this book?
Projects. Managed. Berkun’s Way.
Kill the messenger
Who stole my project manager?
Real world project management
How to make enemies and derail projects in 5 minutes a day
OH MY GOD, HOW DID I BECOME THE PM?
The bible of mastering the zen and art of agile project management for dummies
From bad to worse: how bad managers become horrible
If you’ve been waiting to buy a copy of the book, you should do so soon. Amazon and other retailers already have limited inventory (noted by 5-10 day ship times). The used inventory on amazon and e-bay look good, but I don’t know how out of print status will effect that.
Once the book is out of stock, you’ll have to wait for the new edition, which will be out next year.
In chapter 3 of The Myths of Innovation, I explore why innovation methodologies are prone to fail. It’s not their fault – there are many factors involved that are out of the control of any individual. You can do many things right and still fail.
There are dozens of challenges that must be overcome, but to be handy I distilled them down into 8 basics. This provides a handy checklist for evaluating why ideas die, why a start-up failed, or where the real tough spots are in making innovations happen.
Find an idea. Historically this is easy. Ideas are everywhere and anyone who can consider a problem for an hour can come up with possible ideas for solving it. Creativity is rarely the hardest challenge.
Develop a solution. The gap between an idea and a working prototype is HUGE. So what if you think something can be done, go and do it. Until you can show the manifestation of the idea, it’s still just an idea. Thousands of brilliant minds have conceived brilliant ideas, but failed, despite years of dedicated effort, to successfully prototype them.
Find a sponsor and funding. Even with a kick-ass prototype in hand you need resources to develop the prototype into a product. Whether an entrepreneur or a middle-manager, odds are good that to finish a prototype, or make a product out of it, you’ll need someone else’s approval. (Even if it’s your wife’s permission to spend nights working, a friend who will let you live in their basement, or a bartender willing to run you a tab).
Reproduction. Making one of something is not the same as making a thousand. I happen to have an amazing mousetrap: his name is Vincent and he’s my 15lb cat. But I can only sell one, as cloning him would cost $50,000 and that’s more than anyone would pay for a good mousetrap. Having an innovation and having an innovation than can be reproduced economically are not the same thing. Software is generally easy to reproduce, but many innovations are not. When it comes to the web, reproduction often means scale: can your server handle 50000 people using your innovation at the same time? This is a different technical skill set than creating the prototype.
Reach a customer. This is where the skill set required to make a successful innovation changes dramatically. OK. So you’ve overcome the first four challenges – but now the challenge has nothing to do with domain expertise, prototype brilliance, or even funding. Now someone has to inform potential customers that your innovation exists, persuade them to be interested, and convince them to pay money for it. Wow. What does this have to do with breakthrough thinking or a brilliant prototype? Very little. Those things help, but the challenge is now about persuasion, not creation. Up until this challenge, most innovators are deliberately hiding from the world in fear of idea theft, but now they have run in the opposite direction.
Beat competitors. Every idea has competitors. Even if you successfully reach customers, you won’t be the only one trying to reach them, and in the pursuit of customers things get ugly. Thomas Edison, in the war over electricity, tortured animals to convince the world his DC current was safer than Westinghouse’s AC (they were equally dangerous). How to position, advertise, make partnerships, sign deals and distribute a product is complex, unpredictable, and has little to do with the quality of the idea being sold.
Timing. This is the challenge that crushes innovators souls. A huge number of things can happen on any of your important days that a) decides your fate and b) you have no control over. Imagine what happened to all the start-up companies that announced their new product to the world on Sept 11, 2001. No one knows their names, and many of those companies did not have the resources to stage another launch. WWII had a huge impact on innovation: many ideas that weren’t war related were mothballed for years, including broadcast television in the USA. Timing impacts product launches, business deals, cost of goods, and dozens of other decisions innovations depend on.
Keep lights on. And of course, while you’re doing all of the above, someone has to pay the bills and keep whatever daily business there is running.
The book digs deeper into these challenges, and how succesful innovators overcame them, so if you dig this view take a look at the book, The Myths of Innovation.
I’ll be speaking next week at Lunch 2.0, a local tech networking event. It’s a good deal: Free! You show up, meet some people, eat some food, and listen to me talk about innovation, and answer your questions, for a half hour or more.
#2 on the free review list comes from Geneva Switzerland, at parking-friend.com, a site for valet parking at the airport and other places.
Summary:
Designed like a poster. The visual elements are strong and dominate the page. This would great for a poster where you need to draw attention, but if someone is on the web page you already have their attention. The large P element on the left and the price star on the right overpower the rest of the design. The P alone consumes 100+ pixels of width, purely for cosmetics. If the site were high style (shoes, clothes, etc.) maybe you could argue for the style value, but this is a parking site – a utility experience.
Choices are hidden and links unclear. The page works by showing/hiding one of three choices: airport, event or other. Airport is chosen by default, but to see the option options you have to click on the right question. With only 3 choices there’s no reason to hide UI: radio buttons work very well for handling this kind of decision making.
Colors and sizes are too strong . Trebuchet is known to be a good web design font, but if you split sentences into two colors and default to 20pt text, it gets hard to read (See the Terms page). Whitespace is increasingly important with difficult fonts or large sizes, but the text heavy pages on this site have few paragraph or line breaks. The purple/orange theme is good and works well, but it doesn’t need to be followed through within sentences – two color phrases are hard to read.
The squint test: One visual design trick is to squint your eyes and see how the page balances. The two dominant elements stand out like this (see below). The problem is that neither one earns it’s prominence, and they demand this first order attention on every single page.
Simplified redesign:
Taking into account the above, this design simplifies the grid. The visual elements now fit the page, instead of demanding an unwarranted amount of pixels and attention. All text is one color, the hide/show UI is replaced by a simple radio button scheme. I also cleaned up the navbar, moving the language choices and log-in into a tighter layout.
Before and After:
A few things I missed:
The price should be restated in the text, or before the book now button. Messages in graphics are often missed, as they’re offered parsed as secondary information, and the star on the right is the only place the fee is currently mentioned.
Credibility should be emphasized. Why should people trust their cars to this company? The pitch for credibility should be stronger. There should be photos of the lot, of the service crew, statistics on how many satisfied customers there have been or how many years it’s been in operation, etc. on the front page (even if put behind a prominent “Why trust us” link).
Radio button layout is dull. With more time I’d play with the text and radio button layout. Leading with a form is never sexy, but it gets straight to the primary task of this website: make a reservation. Looking at other parking websites shows similar form centric designs.
I got hit with a case of the lazies, and didn’t get to my promised free usability reviews until now. These will be high speed reviews: 10 minutes of analysis, and the rest of my time (30-45 minutes per site) spent explaining the issues and offering alternatives.
Drew Kime submitted this homemade forum software, used by iwethey.org, which is cool since my own forums are still locked in search of a forums package that doesn’t suck.
Summary:
The core design is *ok*. The basic threaded forum UI is familiar to many, and most of the problems this site has are ignorable, not fatal. However there is a general lack of basic UI knowledge here, as layout and prioritization are mostly ignored, wasting everyone’s time.
Basic layout issues. The top 10% of the screen is what people will see first, and on every page. But this design is a scramble: there are no easy columns for eyes to follow, important links wrap around lines, and the logo itself forces people’s eyes to do much too much work (never cover part of a letter with an image). Basic layout should always follow a grid: all left edges align, and any new columns align (See Before and After below).
Lack of prioritization. There are nearly 25 links in the top area of the screen, and no attempt is made to prioritize them. What percentage of users will need the source code for the forum? I’d say less than 2%. How about a list of changes to the source? I’d say less than 1%. Then why have these two links as the first ones on *every* page? The most frequently used links should be the easiest and fastest to find. Move info about the software to the footer.
We walked. We walked. And then we walked some more.
A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I sad anything that is avoidably ugly?
But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you – even think your thoughts for you… and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself.
With the big U.S. Holiday of Thanksgiving coming, here’s some fodder for fun dinner conversation, as when pleasant myths collide with the real history surprises are sure to happen:
The success of the Mayflower settlement depended more on smallpox than the Pilgrims. Years before the Mayflower landed, Europeans had already brought smallpox to America, killing most of the indigenous population (An event the Pilgrims called “an act of god”). This made the early settlements far easier to construct (reusing areas already developed), and forced the remaining natives (most notably Squanto) to consider cooperation with settlers, teaching them many survival skills. The Pilgrims stole corn and other supplies from natives during their first year. They were desperate and struggling.
From the Native American perspective, Pilgrims were invaders. They say history is written by the victors, but no matter who writes it, it’s always a matter of perspective and often important ones are ignored when it’s convenient. The heart of the Thanksgiving Myth imagines an existing civilization kindly inviting a new nation of white people to come and “settle lands” they already occupied. And the story is detached from the century long genocide that would follow as America continually broke treaties and willfully took land.
Half of the Pilgrims died in the first 5 months. They were untrained, unprepared, did not know how to farm or hunt in America, and chose a difficult location for their first settlement (they wandered off course crossing the Atlantic). By the time of the first thanksgiving those still alive were happy not to be dead – the fact that they had food to eat was more than worthy of celebration.
The Pilgrims did not eat turkey, mashed potatoes or pecan pie. Thanksgiving was not an official U.S. holiday until the 1860s, and we are celebrating the eating habits of people from the 1860s, not the 1600s. It’d be more accurate to eat venison than turkey. It’s not documented what was eaten on the first Thanksgiving, though it’s pretty certain they ate their meal with their hands. It’s likely only cranberries that were native food at the time.
Thanksgiving is an ancient native concept, not Pilgrim or American. As you’d imagine, the folks who actually knew how to work with the land, the natives, had their own set of customs for giving thanks back to nature: some tribes had 6 festivals every year dedicated to giving thanks, only one of which we know as Thanksgiving. The spirit of today’s holiday is wonderful: be thankful. But we forget how much of holiday, and the fate of the Pilgrims, depends on previous cultures and customs.
The Pilgrims were not Puritans. Both groups were radicals who wanted to escape persecution in England. But the Pilgrims were more egalitarian and tolerant – they had non-believers on the Mayflower, and even more in their settlement (they came over later). The Puritans wanted reform, but wanted the Church to change to reflect their views (whereas the Pilgrims abandoned the Church entirely). The Pilgrims were on the Mayflower, but the Puritans didn’t arrive in America until several decades later.
The Indians and Pilgrims did not get along very well. Around the time of the first thanksgiving, The Plymouth settlement was converted into a fort, hardly an act of thanks, nor giving. As you’d imagine, the relationship between these two groups was complex, with different skirmishes and crimes by factions on both sides. While there were times of peace, tension grew over the years and led to King Phillip’s war, the end of any pretense of peace, a few decades later.
There certainly are some things to celebrate in the true story: the leadership and struggles of the settlement, some of the motivations of the Pilgrims themselves, and the acts of peace by parties on both sides, but these aren’t in the mythologized version most American’s know.
Innovation shminovation – some folks out there have trouble feeding their kids and staying warm. There are real problems out there that I often forget about.
This Sunday my wife, myself and our two goofy dogs are doing a 5k walk for the non-profit Hopelink.org. Unless you’ve recently done something cool for folks who need help, I’m inviting you to chip in and sponsor us on the walk.
Update: Donations accepted until December 2nd 2007.
When lecturing about creativity I often ask the crowd how they know what they know – How do we really know Edison invented the lightbulb, or that Newton got hit by an apple? A common answer from audiences of my generation is the popular cartoon Schoolhouse Rock. It’s curious how we dismiss things by saying “it’s just for kids”, but what happens when those kids grow up?
I loved Schoolhouse rock as a child, and it’s probably the only reason I know what a conjunction is. But in watching a local performance of the musical based on the TV show, I found some problems with the stories that I learned, stories I researched for The Myths of Innovation.
Newton did not get hit by an apple – at best he watched one fall in his grove decades before he completed his treatise on gravity (From the song Victim of Gravity). See The Myth of Epiphany for more about Newton.
They don’t explain exactly how they chose their books, which editors were involved, or how they voted, but I’m not complaining. There is a separate list of 100 customer favorites for 2007 that I assume is purely based on sales.
Thanks to all you blog readers for your support – this kind of stuff doesn’t happen for me without your help spreading the word. Cheers.
Wired magazine recently held a contest to see who had the most pathetic looking cubicle workspace. The winner, photo at right, works in the IT department and the University of Alabama, behind a rack of file cabinets.
This is it. This is the big one. It’s the best, simplest advice I’ve ever heard about public speaking: Videotape yourself speaking and watch it.
That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
This is not new (title says best tip, not the most original), but most people are terrified of this and never do it. Well guess what – if you’re afraid to do it, how should your audience feel? Would you hire an accountant that doesn’t do their own taxes? Well, if you’re a speaker, you should, once in awhile, be your own audience.
We’ve all seen thousands of professional speakers, actors and presenters on tv and in the workplace making us all excellent critics of presentations. But what most of us lack is the most basic feedback on how we perform ourselves.
If you watch even 5 minutes of yourself presenting, you can catch:
Lazy speaking habits, like ummms and aaaaws.
Lack of eye contact (reading isn’t presenting) and presence.
Body language issues and distractions.
Moments when you’re confused by your own material.
Energy level (do you seem to care about what you’re saying?).
Personality – are you indistinguishable from a presentation robot?
Watch yourself and take notes. After you’ve caught things like above that distract you as a viewer, videotape yourself again – on the same material – with the goal of doing less of the above, and more or the things you did well. As you repeat the material with these things in mind, more and more of your material will come through. Still think you suck? Do it again and again and I promise you will get better nearly every time.
With the video, you can ask friends to review and give feedback – but pick your presentation minded, critical friends, not the ones who, like your Mom, will just tell you how great you were.
This requires no training, no special Powerpoint voodoo, just your willingness to swallow your pride for an hour or more. Believe me – your audience will appreciate it.
Most of the time, at most conferences, most speakers won’t be very good. Public speaking is hard, but the low quality of speakers is strange given how most conferences focus on their agenda of speakers. It’s not like they market their event primarily on free beer or tasty food – they pitch the potential for learning from experts as the primary reason to buy tickets. The speakers are the fundamental premise for attending and often it’s a broken one.
Here’s why:
Organizers have 3 tough criteria: 1) find experts on a topic 2) who are good public speakers 3) and who are available and affordable. It’s hard enough to nail 2 of the criteria, but 3 can be impossible – organizing is a tough job. That said, organizers are typically rewarded for #1 and #3, and only hear about #2 when the conference is over. If attendance is good, concerns on #2 are easy to ignore. (See An open letter to conference organizers)
Speakers are chosen based on expertise, not performance. Most speakers are invited based on books, blogs or experience, rather than their ability to communicate or teach an audience. Public speaking is a kind of performance, yet it’s rare for organizers to have seen their speakers speak before the event. The biggest gamblers are academic conferences, like CHI, where people are invited to speak solely because they had a paper accepted. What does writing a paper have to do with being a good public speaker? Almost nothing.
Confusion between entertainment and value. Some speakers gain reputations for being funny or charismatic, but that’s not the same thing as teaching. Even speakers who are known as “good speakers” earn that reputation for charisma, not for the value of the lessons they teach or the quality of their ideas themselves.
Evaluate video samples of them speaking. It’s rare I’m asked for this, despite how easy it is to provide in the youtube era. Conference organizers should sample what they’re hiring for, instead of reviewing slides, proposals or other trivia. And why not put the samples on the conference website? Then attendees can sample the speakers, instead of guessing blindly from the descriptions at who will be good.
Give speakers their real feedback . Most conferences do some kind of audience survey for the event, but rarely does the feedback make it back to the speaker. And sometimes when it does, it’s filtered – all the rants and complaints are filtered out. Who but the conference organizers can point out to speakers that there is a problem or room for improvement? Human nature dictates that most of the informal feedback speakers will get will be polite and positive, not balanced or constructively critical. Someone has to fill in the feedback gap and only organizers can play that role.
Performance based pay. Speakers should earn part of their fees (if they are paid at all) based on feedback from the audience. This forces them to pay more attention to the value they’re providing and places greater power in the audience to recommend future speakers. UIE 12 is the only conference I’ve ever been paid performance based pay as a speaker and I wish more would follow their lead. If I suck, I want to be paid less. And if I do a great job, I want to be paid more. Even an audience favorite prize, where the winner by vote gets a $1k bonus is easy to do and in the right spirit. This audience shouldn’t be the singular arbiter of evaluation, but certainly should be a primary one.
Buy nothing Christmas is an alternative approach to the holidays. There are various flavors, from the official Adbusters Buy Nothing project, to a Facebook group, to a documentary, and simple tips for inexpensive and creative gifts, to ideas for parents and kits for simplifying the holiday season.
When 
