Yves Behar gives a brilliant presentation at TED earlier this year on creating objects that tell stories. What struck me as funny, mostly because it’s true from my experience, was this quote:

…marketing is the price companies pay for being un-original.

Then again I think this is true of any profession that clings to old ideas simply because that is the way it has always been done.

Living in an era of constant change, being certain will destabilize the foundation of any business, it’s people, by preventing them from innovating.

This is why I can’t understand why companies continue to hire consultants who push the same “six-sigma” type of frameworks on organizations without a desire for greater clarity of their fundamental problems through conversation.

Yves describes design as the glue that brings different values together for business. I think it’s this level of creative thinking that will drive business process in the future; exciting times ahead!

Designer Yves Behar digs up his creative roots to discuss some of the iconic objects he’s created (the Leaf lamp, the Jawbone headset). Then he turns to the witty, surprising, elegant objects he’s working on now — including the “$100 laptop.”

This year I have attended many conferences incluiding VizThink in San Francisco, the IA Summit in Miami, MX San Francisco, and most recently UPA Boston.

I’ve actually heard designers, IA’s, and UX professionals state that there is little need to look to other disciplines in order to advance their own thinking.

Seriously!?

At UPA there was even debate about the importance or need for creativity when looking at User Experience – implying all you need is numbers and data sets to “prove” what users want or how they need to access information.

I’d agree with that if we were all on the set of Star Trek getting ready to take on the Klingons in another epic battle!

We’re creating solutions, regardless of your title or approach for other people, aren’t we? I know it’s comfortable to hide behind numbers and the web, but at some point there needs to be a balance between the data and the human side of developing a great user experience.

As I noted on the introduction to the Podcast with Adaptive Path at VizThink if you throw a CEO, junior staff, secretary, and other members of your team in a room and draw a picture of a product or widget, they could all work together to design it. The differences would be in the approach or process to building the object.

And wouldn’t that approach allow everyone on the team to learn from one another and in a reciprocal manner grow in their own role? Of course it would!

In an era of absolute uncertainty, how can any group or discipline be so closed off in their approach to solving problems?

A great story I love telling to others is from the West Wing episode below:

A doctor and a priest – representative of the UX and IA fields doing the same things, not looking outside of their own disciplines to help.

The friend – representative of the person willing to throw themselves into the hole, offers to guide the friend out of the problem based on empathy and a genuine desire to help without bias.

We’d be wise to find such friends in other professions and learn, rather than lecture or worse complain about being in the hole without offering solutions.

Before heading off to UPA Boston on Wednesday I thought I’d share a few of the pictures from the Mesh conference in Toronto this year…see below.

Like with any conference there were some presentations that were excellent and others that were worth missing.

I can’t believe I missed my opportunity to hear Bill Buxton talk! I had it in my head that he was presenting on the second day of the conference. I’ll have to get in touch with Bill about being on a future Podcast. I’ve read his book, Sketching User Experience and I would recommend to those in design to pick up a copy.

There is a question that continues to be raised at every conference I have attended around social media for the past few years; and I can’t believe it keeps getting asked. “How do you monetize social media?”

While at Mesh I blogged about David Weinbergers’ insight regarding the information age and how the organizing and structuring of content has become a social act. Businesses and Governments need to realize they are no longer in control. (Not that they ever have been, but that’s for another blog post.)

Employees, customers, and potential customers are the new bosses when it comes to controlling and managing content in all forms. By giving content away, opportunities arise.

I started Podcasting about two years ago with no other intention than to share my experiences with the global community. This has lead to opportunities to speak with other professionals within and outside of my discipline. This includes the signing of multiple contracts and invitations to conferences to interview other professionals; most recently at Adaptive Path’s MX conference.

Shift your focus away from how you can make money by someone clicking a button, and start building relationships through the sharing of ideas with the whole world!

I don’t know whether to call it arrogance or blissful ignorance, but I can’t believe that public and private sector organizations still think they can control the message in the information age.

Just a few pictures from Mesh:

From left to right we have Shawn Simister, me, Stephanie Davidson from Canada’s Public Works and Services, Podcaster and organizer of the upcoming Podcasters Across Borders event, Mark Blevis, and designer, Jay West.

On the left, 76Design’s Brett Tackaberry chats with my designer Bohne Forsberg who is also the leader of the jazz band Sonic Blue who may be performing at next year’s conference. Stay tuned!

Here I’m sitting with 76Design’s Web Developer Julie Hache. A brilliant young developer who has the rare capacity of explaining complex technical concepts, simply.

My mind keeps coming back to presentations around the concept of user experience (UX) from recent conferences I’ve had the pleasure of attending.

Lately, I’ve been drawing on sources of inspiration and ideas from music and art; trying to focus more on the creative, and less on the strictly logical.

The left side of your brain (“the whole wheat side”) tells you that everything can be essentially boiled down to numbers. Computers communicate through a series of 1s and 0s, for example.

But the right side of your brain (“the frosted side”) allows us to step outside of our own reality to see things differently. In my mind it is this “half” of our selves that makes us human and why I believe there needs to be more of a balance between qualitative and quantitative analysis when trying to design for a “good user experience”.

Music is a lot like information and communication. There are highs and lows, bright spots and dark spots, rythm, rhyme, and pattern. But there is also passion, expression of self, innovation, and creativity.

Check out Jake Shimabukuro play his rendition of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” on the Ukulele. A great example of the “logic” and the “creative” working in harmony.

The Podcasts from the Adaptive Path conference, MX San Francisco are now published on Boxes and Arrows.

I was invited by Adaptive Path to interview some of the presenters at this extraordinary conference. Everything from the introduction given by Brandon Schauer and Henning Fischer to the range of presentations and conversations that took place during the event culminated in a wonderful learning experience.

A little over a year ago I was asked to talk about Podcasting at Demo Camp in Ottawa. The only question I got about Podcasting was “How do you make money Podcasting?” At the time I didn’t have an answer; I was simply doing the IA Podcast to share my ideas and those of other professionals in the fields of IA, UX, Human Factors, and IxDA with the rest of the world.

What I have came to realize over the past couple of years in the medium is that you don’t make money from producing the shows. The opportunities, such as attending MX, and the business opportunities that follow are derived from conversations and sharing wisdom and ideas of self and others.

Many thanks to the entire team at Adaptive Path again for the opportunity and I hope everyone enjoys the Podcasts. Cheers!

I’ve arrived at Mesh ‘08. There is a focus on music and other social media this year. From the MX Conference and others I’ve attended this year, I’m glad to see a shift not only towards the softer side of development and innovation; but also the other side of the brain.

Stephanie Davidson from Public Works and Government Services with the Canadian Federal Government is attending the conference as well. It’s refreshing to see members of the Public Service at conferences such as Mesh.

For too long my Government, like many around the world, have been reluctant to give up control of information and messaging in particular.

However as David Weinberger points out in his book, “Everything is Miscellaneous – The Power of the New Digital Disorder

“If they [businesses around the world] don’t allow their users to structure information for themselves, they’ll lose their patrons. If they do allow patrons to structure information for themselves, the organization will lose much of their authority, power, and control.

This paradox is already resolving itself. Customers, patrons, users, and citizens are not waiting for permission to take control of finding and organization information. And we’re doing it not just as individuals. Knowledge – its content and its organization is becoming a social act.”

Control has always been an illusion; the information age is simply forcing leaders out of this denial.

I’ve learned so much over the past few months attending conferences in San Francisco, Miami, and tomorrow I’ll be heading to Toronto for the Mesh conference.

What has come out of the conferences I’ve attended are the concepts of emotion, empathy, and more of the “softer” sides of experience. An important element that many data driven / quantitative focused organizations still fail to acknowledge.

And yet we are building web and other IT solutions for people, not machines. So why shouldn’t there be a stronger focus on the human side of design, as we’ve seen companies like Apple, Adaptive Path, and Motive8 incorporate into their corporate culture.

What not many in the professional world know about me is that I used to paint and draw quite a bit. The painting below is one I completed back in Grade 12.

I studied the Impressionists and Fauvism in University and fell in love with Van Gogh. The broad brush strokes, bright colors, and passion that flows through every one of his works inspired me in many ways.

Daniel Rose from Bell Canada talked about why it’s really not possible to think outside the box at the Viz Think conference. In fact the only way to gain a different perspective on similar problems is to surround yourself with others not in your field.

Engrossing oneself in other creative disciplines like art is another way to expand your perspective on common problems, in my experience.

My neighbors may not appreciate my playing the drums again, but I’ll admit I’ve been looking into a Pearl set at a local music store here in Ottawa. Speaking of drums, music is another example of a medium through which emotion has a huge impact on perception and design.

This video is by a remarkable young man, Sungha Jung, playing his version of U2’s “With or Without You”. Put on some ear buds, close your eyes, and just listen to this beautiful rendition. What emotions or experiences do you think of?

Music, like scent, is a powerful trigger of memories and resulting emotions. Imagine being able to “feel” and subsequently “harness” such emotion into your designs! What could you and your team create?

All those who attened Adaptive Path’s conference Managing Experience Through Creative Leadership received a copy of their first publication, “Subject to Change”.

This is a must-have publication for every professional in the field of UX, IA, and IxDA. Finally a book that talks in plain language, sharing experiences from working with other companies focusing on the human side of developing great products and services.

“The first step to understanding people is to view them realistically. Accepting our inherent messiness means addressing three elements that the “sheep,” “homo economicus,” and “tasks and goals” models lack: emtion, culture, and context.”

Another aspect of the book that I really enjoyed, having adopted such practices with other teams myself, is the “Idea Lab” where everyone at Adaptive Path leaves their titles at the door and brain storms around design issues.

As the “pod-father” Adam Curry notes, we live in an age where “there are no secrets, only information you don’t yet have”; ideas and insight can come from anyone, anywhere, at any time.

In a recent exercise with Environment Canada, I brought together senior staff, executive assistants, programmers, junior staff, and facilitators to talk about all programs they should or could be offering…

…and taking the best solutions that came from these discussions, created a plan to deliver services to staff from coast to coast.

I can recall, back in the day, I talked with the head custodian at my high school Ken Coleman about how to improve the experience of coming to school.

We talked at length about the kind of experience we would need to create for students to take pride in their school. The result? We painted the cafeteria school colors, had the art class paint beautiful murals, replaced the lockers, and made other small changes to the environment to improve the experience of coming to school every day.

(I tried to get them to drop math class, but that wasn’t within our power to change!)

“The key message here is not to approach a design problem assuming you’ll create a product, a service, and a system. Begin with the experience you want to design for; and then – and only then – identify the components that will deliver it.”

The book also contains a section on The Long Wow! which was presented by co-author Brandon Schauer at the IA Summit.

Kudos to O’Reilly for publishing more books that are less technical and more human.

Choices. We make them every day in our personal and professional lives.

Dr. Barry Schwartz argues, in this IT Conversations podcast, that we actually need fewer choices in life to be happier.

We now live in an era of “drinking from the fire hose” with respect to information and choices:

Dr. Schwartz illustrates that in many ways the proliferation of choices has created a generation that is almost paralyzed about what to do next.

In the modern world, anything that constrains choices, is itself a benefit…it limits your possibilities.

In my experience this analysis of reducing choice to increase satisfaction can be seen in the most successful web services and products. Getting to simple is hard. It takes a lot of work, testing, and failing, to get to a great product.

The failing of individuals and teams should be looked at as the next step towards a great product. Through failure we reduce choices for the team and ultimately our customers, allowing teams to get closer to the best possible user experience.

Now if we can just create a corporate culture in all businesses and governments where failure wasn’t looked at as something that should be cause for ridicule, but rather as the advancement of its’ people; just imagine what could be created!

Network World’s Director of Information Architecture and User Experience, Valeska O’Leary Twittered about the site Flowing Data the other day.

One article in particular jumped out at me from my recent studies on illustration and learning from designers and UX professionals at VizThink, the IA Summit, and MX San Francisco.

Why Should Engineers and Scientists Care About Color (and Design)? discusses the main points in an article written by IBM’s Bernice Rogowitz and Lloyd Treinish who discuss

…how standard uses of color can distort the meaning of the underlying data, and can lead the analyst to incorrect evaluations, conclusions or decisions.

As Nathan Yau argues, engineers typically try to make a “prettier” picture of data through color or get locked into standards that aren’t transferable to their work.

Since “knowledge is power”, Nathan shares three essential elements of color when working to display data sets to clients effectively:

Luminescence is the how bright something appears; saturation is the intensity of color; and hue is the actual color. To represent continuous metrics, it was found that use of hue is poor while it’s easier for us to interpret continuous changes (i.e. magnitude information) with saturation and luminescence. For interval data with a threshold, you can use multiple colors.

The merging of art and science has become a vital skill set in the information age.

At a time when we are at a cross-roads between the incredible wisdom of senior leaders, and the innovative “try anyhing” generation moving into the workforce, being able to work from logical sets of data and interpret said data into easily understood images, has never been more critical.

As Henning Fischer, Brandon Schauer, and Sara Nelson noted at the VizThink conference, pictures are a powerful way to communicate with multi-disciplinary teams.

The variable of “emotion” is not one that is commonly thought of from the “logical” persona of an engineer. Yet when conveying data in a way that everyone can interpret accurately, color is the single most important variable when looking to interpret data through design.