I came across a great post a while back by Toby Ng Kwong To, a Graphic design graduate from Central St. Martins in London, entitled The World of 100

This is a self-initiated project based on the scenario – If the world were a village of 100 people. There are a few different versions of this text in circulation about the world’s statistics. I found the data very striking and neatly summarises the world that we live in. So I used information graphics to re-tell the story in another creative way. I designed a set of 20 posters, which contain most of the information. I used simple vector graphics that related to a statistic in order to present the information in the simplest and most accessible way.

I’ve included some of the pictures from this post, below. What I love about this work by Toby is how it pulls global issues into a context that everyone can understand.

I’ve always looked to children for sources of inspiration and ideas. Working for years with pre-kindergarten kids with learning disabilities taught me many lessons. The most important of which is that children let us see our own world with new eyes.

University of Marylands’ Allison Druin believes that:

Google needs to transform its mission. It needs to transform from Google to Giigle

Allison gives a phenomenal presentation about how children focus on laughter, creativity, and cool. Children help us to view the world in a unique context; changing the way we see things; which in turn can lead to innovation.

Many thanks to Kristina Mausser for sharing this video with me.

I came across this book a couple of months ago, In The Bubble – Designing in a Complex World by John Thackara.

There are a wealth of brilliant ideas found in this book that have been reinforced in nearly every conference I’ve attended this year; as well as discussions I’ve had with other professionals off line in the fields of IA, IxDA, and UX.

For example, in Jesse James Garrett’s presentation of Aurora this year at IDEA 2008, I found the concept of Fluid Time matched up perfectly with the new browser concept:

Fluid time works with the unpredictable nature of events, constantly updating users with the most recent, most accurate time information on the availability of services such as transportation, delivery, or health. Relevant, personalized information is an important characteristic of the service. Users should not have to search through dozens of train schedules if they are only interested in a single line. Similarly, they should receive truly personalized information about their doctor’s appointments, dry cleaning, and other services. As companies compete for the attention of their customers, they are discovering that more information is not necessarily better. People need information this is relevant to their unique situation.

John also discusses why relationships with other people, and not widgets, will always be at the heart of every valuable solution:

I have spent thousands of hours of my life in transport hubs and airports. I have visited countless high-tech offices and studios. I have had a beginner’s hands-on experience in the design of the building for knowledge-based institute. I have worked with the world’s most powerful cultural institution on an exhibition about workspace design. My conclusion? Gadgets and tools are of modest importance, at best. Creating community is only marginally about technology. What matters is the copresence through time of bodies and the emergence of shared meaning as we interact with each other in meaningful activities.

And a final favorite quote focuses on the importance of context:

The constantly changing flows of people and ideas that characterize a dynamic learning organization, and the quality of interactions with other people and communities and customers, are more important than the boxes we meet in, the chairs we sit in, or the keyboards we punch to communicate with. If innovation is a social process that involves complex interactions among individuals, communities of practice, and customers, then fostering these complex interactions – designing the context of innovation and learning – brings so-called soft aspects of workplace design to the fore. The word here is minds in the plural – and in particular the innovative capabilities of groups. Learning happens best when people participate in different communities of practice. The best collaboration environments provide the opportunity to meet, share ideas, discuss, and learn from another’s experiences. We need to interact in them, not pose in them.

We’ve lost sight of the fact that technologies are only a set of tools to help us connect with other people. When that connection starts to become blurred, or worse breaks, it’s time to step away from your lap top and make a concerted effort to re-establish that connection with other people.

Valeska O’Leary from Network World was kind enough to share this video with me about a plain language explanation about the Semantic Web.

…much like a parrot that can mimic human sounds without understanding them; computers merely mimic human information to one another. So while the internet enables computers to talk to one another it was not designed to teach them what the information actually means.

Storytron’s Chris Crawford talked about the Semantical Web at IDEA 2008 in trying to create a Linguistic User Interface.

I had the pleasure of hearing Derek Featherstone from Further Ahead present at CapCHI the other evening about Accessibility. One of the tools he showed were the different applications that have been created by Digg Labs.

I’ve been wanting to use TechSmith’s open source application Jing for quite some time. Jing allows you to create your own video (.swf) file and embed code from Screen Cast.

Simply click anywhere on any part of the screen below to start playing the video of my explanation of Digg Labs. My apologies for the audio quality; I’ll look into improving this process in the future.

I love books and ideas that get to the heart of issues around concepts central to my work as an Information Architect like search, and user experience. The Paradox of Choice – Why More is Less by Dr. Barry Schwartz has been a favorite of mine for years.

I’ve blogged about Dr. Schwartz’s work in the past, but based on recent lessons learned at conferences and educating clients in the field of Information Architecture and Information Management, I feel it’s worth mentioning again.

In this talk at TED, Dr. Schwartz gives an educational and entertaining talk about his research and how the infinite amount of choice in Western society has created a culture that prevents us from making intelligent choices.

All this choice has two negative effects on people. One effect, paradoxically, is that it produces paralysis rather than liberation. With so many options to choose from people find it very difficult to choose from at all!…The second effect is even if we manage to overcome the paralyis and make a choice, we end up less satisfied with the result of the choice then if we would be if we had fewer options to choose from.

Providing less choice, as the paradox goes, will actually increase satisfaction when we do make our selection. This can be seen in the creation of excellent web services, for example.

In creating designs that don’t overwhelm people with information, people are provided fewer choices, allowing them to quickly and easily find everything they need.

A while back I had blogged about an article I read on the Harvard Business website about the necessity of being ten times better than what is currently on the web, or not to bother trying to build the “next big widget, site, or thing”. (This idea was reinforced in recent interviews I’ve had in an upcoming four part I.A. Podcast series on how / why different generations use technology to communicate and learn.)

While scrolling through the various people I follow on Twitter, I came across this article that Creative Designer Gerard Dolan, @gerarddolan, shared with his followers. The interview is with Warren Buffet who was talking about the recent global economic crisis and the extreme “risk adverse” culture that such an event causes.

…there’s a “natural progression” to how good new ideas go wrong. He called this progression the “three Is.” First come the innovators, who see opportunities that others don’t. Then come the imitators, who copy what the innovators have done. And then come the idiots, whose avarice undoes the very innovations they are trying to use to get rich.

This is what I’ve called “The Lemming Process”. One person comes up with a great idea and then without looking, everyone else decides to jump off the metaphorical cliff, cause that’s what everyone else is doing:

The problem, in other words, isn’t with innovation–it’s with the idiocy that follows. So how do we as individuals (not to mention as companies and societies) continue to embrace the value-creating upside of creativity while guarding against the value-destroying downsides of imitation? The answer, it seems to me, is about values–about always being able to distinguish between that which is smart and that which is expedient. And that takes discipline. Can you distinguish between a genuine innovation and a mindless imitation? Are you prepared to walk away from ideas that promise to make money, even if they make no sense?

I see this all the time in those who are trying to be the next version of Facebook, the next Twitter, the next…whatever. The Information Age has presented unlimited opportunity for those who want to do the work and who truly want to innovate. Paradoxically, it has also created a community of incredibly lazy people, organizations, and communities.

Innovation is critical to improving our economy and for advancing the conversation beyond trying to “define the damn thing” as is a popular, and mind numbing conversation that continues to go on and on and on within the Information Architecture Institute and related communities of practice.

If we don’t want to be the idiots that Mr. Buffet describes then we need to come together and advance the conversation so the “lurkers” and newbies can feel safe in contributing their ideas.

I first heard about Common Craft at the VizThink confernece in January this year when founders Sachi LeFever and Lee LeFever shared their work on stage.

I had blogged about a couple of their other videos on RSS in Plain English and Wikis in Plain English when working with clients who needed to better understand these tools.

At this year’s Information Architecture Summit, Peter Morville noted in his introduction:

I do believe that it is not a solved problem, in fact, search is one of the biggest problems and opportunities within the user experience space.

I think the problem in the realm of search, like so many other technical aspects of the web, is that many in the field cannot describe how search works in plain language.

In other words, if you’re talking to someone who knows nothing about search, how would you explain it so anyone could find anything they need, whenever they needed it?

Keep the videos coming Sachi and Lee; you’re providing a brilliant service to all within and outside of the tech industry.

37Signals founder, Jason Fried gives a brilliant presentation about how his company works differently than most in the fields of Information Architecture, and related industries. The essence of this talk revolves around the idea that traditional business methods no longer work; from deliverables to where people work; to the keywords to avoid when working on projects.

What makes Jason such a great presenter is that he speaks the truth, in plain language, with respect to the new corporate culture and how working independently, not interrupting others during the work day, actually creates a better product or service.

From a personal perspective, I’ve never understood why the old school mentality of working 9am-5pm is so important. This implies that people’s best ideas come between the hours of 9-5pm! Thank God genius’ like Edison and Einstein didn’t feel the need to work on such an arbitrary schedule.

Jason also gave a great talk at the IDEA conference following up on similar ideas from the talk, below.

Chris Baum, editor-in-chief for Boxes and Arrows published the Podcasts I produced for IDEA 2008.

I had mentioned in the latest IA Podcast introduction that I’d be interviewing presenters at IDEA as well as publishing all of their presentations.

I managed to round up Dave Gray, Andrew Hinton, David Armano, and Jesse James Garrett for a round table discussion about their thoughts of the conference. Unfortunately we simply didn’t have the time after the morning session to get all four presenters together; and understandably so. Attendees at IDEA all wanted some time with these gentlemen and by the time I managed to get them out of the common room, it was just about time for Jason Fried from 37signals to present, and no one wanted to miss that presentation.

I’m hopeful that I’ll have the opportunity to talk with each of these gentlemen for future shows for Boxes and Arrows. A huge thank you to Russ Unger, Jorge Arango, Melissa Weaver and all of the sponsors and volunteers for putting on a great event. Looking forward to next year already!