At the VizThink conference in San Francisco I had the opportunity to sit down with three members from Adaptive Path. In the photo below, from left to right are, Henning Fischer, (me), Sarah Nelson, and Brandon Schauer.

The session was highly interactive and very creative. Each person at the table was asked to individually create a process of improving the moving experience; a painful time for anyone who has had to move more than once or twice.

We then took the best idea at the table and illustrated the concept on flip chart paper. Each team was given one minute to present their ideas to everyone in the workshop. The focus of the exercise was to show how much more effective images can be when trying to communicate new ideas.

Some of the illustrations are shown below.

In this Podcast we discuss five elements which “illustrate” why pictures are a powerful way to communicate with multi-disciplinary teams, including:

1. Disambiguation
2. Efficiency
3. Emotion
4. Telling a Story
5. Leadership

Many thanks to Henning, Sarah, and Brandon for joining me at the conference to do this show. As well thank-you to their co-President Peter Merholz for putting me in touch with these brilliant individuals; it was a real treat!

My apologies to TechSmith for saying I met Techads (I did the introduction very early in the morning at the conference.) It was a pleasure meeting Betsy Weber and Tony Dunckel and I look forward to using Camtasia and SnagIt. Be sure and check out their new application, Jing – amazing!

Waiting in my hotel this morning for friends to join me for breakfast, I was reading Mike Moran’s Biznology Blog. His latest article, “Doing Well by Doing Good” is an excellent example of Community. There has been a dramatic shift in the way companies have chosen to operate in the last twenty years.

If you’re old like me, you remember the 1980s as a decade where people said that “greed is good.” The U.S. president talked about how wealth would “trickle down” from rich to poor. Making money by any means necessary almost seemed patriotic—you were doing good by doing well. Today, I think we are seeing the exact opposite—you’re doing well by doing good.

As I’ve talked about in the past, the Internet has created an era where individuals and organizations can acquire knowledge of literally anything. However, the “knowing” and the “understanding” of any subject are not one in the same. I can know of chaos theory by typing “chaos theory” into Google. But unless I study the topic; speak with other subject matter experts; and experience working in the field; I fail to truly understand the concept.

In marketing we are bombarded with messages every day. In some cases just knowing about what a company is doing or has done can be enough to promote their work or destroy their efforts. As Mike points out…

Customers are increasingly distrustful of all marketing messages. And they don’t trust corporations to be good public citizens. Years of watching corporate bad behavior have made the public cynical about what companies say and what they do.

Faith in Government and multi-billion dollar corporations to live up to a higher set of ethics is a challenge for many. Corruption and greed has created a sense of mistrust amongst clients, buyers, and citizens around the world. I think we can all point to examples in our personal and professional lives where this has had some impact on our trust in public and private sector organizations.

Mike believes, and I completely agree, that the Internet has been, and will continue to “level the playing field” for smaller companies to compete. It will also force companies of every size to “raise the bar” when it comes to ethical behavior…

So how does a company break through the clutter and rise above the mediocrity of the average ethically-challenged company? I believe that it is through good behavior that modern companies will attract a following. Yes, there will always be ethical bottom dwellers that skirt the rules. But the Internet is making cutting corners a far more dangerous practice, because the benefit of fine print disappears when exposed to the light. Violating brand trust is a story that spreads like wildfire, damaging the company far more than any edge that the unethical practice provided.

I look forward to speaking with Mike about his new book, “Doing it Wrong Quickly” on a future I.A. Podcast. You can listen to my last discussion with Mike on his other book, “Search Engine Marketing Inc. – Driving Search Traffic to Your Company’s Web Site”.

I’m on my way to San Francisco for the VizThink conference. I’ve been looking forward to this event for weeks ever since Rebecca Hope of Motive8 Infographics and I discussed the conference back when we produced the latest I.A. Podcast.

A big thank you to co-President of Adaptive Path Peter Merholz for putting me in touch with his colleagues about being a guest on my next show. I hope to be speaking with Design Director Henning Fischer, Experience Design Director Brandon Schauer, and Design Strategist Sara Nelson about their talk Screw Requirements: Shaping Customer Experience Strategies.

Looking forward to meeting with the team from Motive8 from Wellington New Zealand and learning from some of the world’s leaders in Design and User Experience.

Christina Wodtke at Boxes and Arrows sent me this link to the IxDA group via Skype the other day.

The IxDA is a non-profit community formed by a group of Interaction Designers after a plea from Bruce “Tog” Tognazzini to come together in a forum to share ideas and concepts within the field of Interaction Design.

This is yet another brilliant example of the power of communities in today’s world.

If you’d like to learn more, I’d encourage you to become a member of IxDA. It’s a simple process of adding your name and email and you’re in!

I recently did a Podcast with David Malouf on his article Foundations of Interaction Design.

The IxDA is a member-supported organization committed to serving the needs of the international interaction design community. With the help of more than 1,500 members worldwide, we provide a forum for the discussion of interaction design issues.

I recently blogged about a TED presentation with Sir Ken Robinson who argued that schools around the world are killing creativity. Related to the theme of “creativity” is this brilliant presentaiton by Larry Lessig on the reality of how content is being used and re-purposed today like never before; with the sole intent of creating for creations’ sake.

…user generated content…celebrating amateur culture, by which I don’t mean amateurish culture, I mean people who produce for the love of what they’re doing and not for the money. I mean the culture that your kids are producing all the time.

In particular, Larry talks about the Read/Write generation. How today’s kids and tomorrow’s leaders are creating by using and re-using content from millions of sources. In essence that there is a need for a common-sense approach to copyright laws that won’t punish others who wish to share their ideas and art with the world.

Larry Lessig gets TEDsters to their feet, whooping and whistling, following this elegant presentation of three stories and an argument. The Net’s most adored lawyer brings together John Philip Sousa, celestial copyrights, and the “ASCAP cartel” to build a case for creative freedom. He pins down the key shortcomings of our dusty, pre-digital intellectual property laws, and reveals how bad laws beget bad code. Then, in an homage to cutting-edge artistry, he throws in some of the most hilarious remixes you’ve ever seen.

I recently subscribed to the WebbAlert video Podcast. I really enjoy this show. It’s a daily news segment on some of the top stories in the IT industry. Morgan does a great job in delivering the news and shares her own insights and predictions based on current events.

You can subscribe to her show from the WebbAlert home page. You can also get the daily feed via iTunes. A little more on Morgan and the other program she hosts, G4’s X-play.

WebbAlert is Morgan Webb’s website and daily videocast, covering the day’s developments in tech news, video gaming, gadgetry, and digital culture. It’s engineered to keep tech-interested people current on the news and trends that move the industry with a small investment of just a few minutes per day.

Morgan Webb also hosts the popular TV program X-Play. Available in over 62 million homes and well past its 500th episode, X-Play is TV’s longest-running and most-watched series focused on videogames. A website developer before stumbling into a career in television, Morgan has been building and modifying her own computers for years, and is a lifelong hardcore gamer.

On a trip home for the holidays in Toronto I was stuck at Pearson Airport for nearly nine hours waiting for the weather to clear so I could get back to Ottawa. Thankfully I brought some reading along with me for the trip in the event of such a delay. The book, Why Business People Speak Like Idiots was a gift sent to me from Rebecca Hope at Motive8 Infographics for the Podcast we did together, recently.

Finally, a book that speaks the truth about writing for the web and communicating in plain language. I’ve read many books that talk about plain language but then don’t model this in their own writing. I find it similar to websites of companies that claim to be all about User Experience, Findability, etc. but then fail to demonstrate this on their own site.

The book itself is a light hearted read using real world examples of why business people can’t seem to communicate anything clearly. Know who your audience is and speak their language.

Below is a video from my favorite chicken, W.R. who talks briefly about this book. W.R. illustrates how design can be brilliant, but will fail to help those coming to the site understand products or services if the labeling of the information is confusing or inconsistent.

You can check out this post and all of W.R.’s content at The Chicken Test.

My good friend Chris Pierre from Glencastle Security, was kind enough to send me this article he came across on the networkedgovernment.ca website.

Anthony D. Williams, co-author of the best selling book, Wikinomics, discusses many of the issues I’ve blogged about in the past including the impact of the Baby Boomers retiring and how the next generation, the iGeneration, will play a key role in shaping our future. As well as how the old school of leadership needs to be replaced by a bottom-up approach for all projects.

Already, millions of people have joined forces in self-organized collaborations that have produced dynamic innovations in goods and services rivaling the world’s largest and best-financed enterprise networks. If masses of ordinary people can peer-produce an operating system (Linux), an encyclopedia (Wikipedia), the media (YouTube/Current TV), a mutual fund, and even a physical thing such as a motorcycle, one should carefully consider what might come next.

Many in the Government are concerned about security. This includes the risk of creating a community of open collaboration on projects; sharing content across the country with other departments; and the concern of receiving feedback that is less than excellent about ideas posted or policies in place.

I appreciate this concern. Though I don’t believe it has merit; and here’s why…

Regardless of corporate policy, many of the iGeneration are using Blogs and Wikis to communicate ideas and share information on projects within the Federal Government. No one is doing this to be malicious. This is simply the way they know how to communicate best and project manage efficiently.

In other words, it’s what and how Canadians are expecting their Government to communicate with them.

Drawing on their experience on sites such as Facebook and YouTube, young government professionals have organized their own ad hoc communities that transcend departmental and organizational boundaries using blogs, wikis, and social networking tools. More often than not, their enterprising, under-the-radar efforts have been stamped out by senior managers who cite as justification concerns about data security, legal constraints, or fears that sensitive information could leak out to the public.

The seemingly paranoid state of the world today has created silos between departments, and what’s worse, barriers between people on teams that are supposed to be working together. Mix in a healthy dose of politics and you’ve created a corporate culture whereby people are afraid to share ideas and collaborate both on line and off line.

In spite of this, what I see in our Government is unlimited potential. We live in the greatest country on earth – bar none. We have access to the world’s most beautiful natural resources; as well as unlimited potential with our people both in terms of innovation and creativity.

What frustrates me the most is when I see this potential in people quashed by something as trivial as politics. (This applies to all sectors, including private and non-profit.) We have the ability, knowledge, and capacity to act. The only question remains is will we?

Aaron Wildavsky was quoted as saying “No Risk is the Highest Risk.” I concur.

I believe this discussion merits further debate at every level of Government and it would be my pleasure to engage anyone in the public sector who would like to discuss ideas and challenges being brought forward in this age of community and collaboration.

It is truly a time when either government plays an active and positive role in its own transformation, or change will happen to it. The transformation process is at the same time exhilarating and painful, but the price of inaction is a lost opportunity for government to redefine its role in a new golden age of democracy.

I’m attending the VizThink conference in San Francisco at the end of the month. In reviewing the speakers and other details of the conference I came across this absolutely brilliant explanation about how to use a Wiki.

This illustrates the concept of Plain Language. Can you imagine if all IT books were written or demonstrated in such a way? I think what we, as IT professionals lose sight of, is that most of our users lack the experience or knowledge about how to use such tools.

The process of removing all of the “noise” or data that overwhelms people and getting to the point quickly, is what most are searching for when evaluating web services, tools, and the like.

I’ll be trying to set up a round table discussion at the VizThink conference for a Podcast to talk about ideas and concepts reviewed during the two day event.

I’ve also sent a note to the good folks at Adaptive Path to talk about their presentation at the conference and other topics around IA and UX.