Design Science

April 8, 2010
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My grandfather told me a story (perhaps apocryphal) of a final exam he took in a college Philosophy class. As he told it, the professor walked in, grabbed the chalk, and wrote “WHY?” in big letters on the board. He then sat down without saying a word and began waiting for the students [...]

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Following Function

March 24, 2010
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Smashing Magazine has a good article written by Steven Bradley examining web design through the Bauhaus lens of “form follows function.” He first gives a pretty good summary of the history of Bauhaus and the evolution of its principles, then turns his attention to interpreting the validity of form following function. Unfortunately, [...]

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Zeitgeist from the Cloud – Tapping your audience

March 17, 2010

Jeffrey Veen has an interesting post over at his blog discussing a stream of Twitter data coming in while he was speaking at a conference. He says he felt as though he was cheating on an exam by “listening” to what the audience was saying as he was speaking. By addressing audience concerns [...]

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A Salesman in Thespian’s Clothing

March 14, 2010

This may just be me, but it seems like there’s a… I can’t tell if it’s insidious or clever… trend to make commercials appear similar to the shows during which they air. I noticed it first during an episode of “Lost.” I noticed it because my wife and I almost always [...]

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Making People the Molecule is Key (Even for the Enterprise)

March 4, 2010
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Bill Ives wrote an interesting initial look at Booz Allen’s Social Knowledge Management software.  Booz was wrestling with the task of getting 18K employees worldwide to collaborate more effectively and intimately.  They are solving it with a solution they call Hello.
My day job is working for a professional services firm.  Although we are much smaller [...]

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A Word on the Tagline

March 1, 2010

You may notice the tripartite slogan that’s part of the logo of this site:  Useful, Usable, Compelling.  Those three concepts are the pillars of the framework I use to design or analyze a system.  In short, what I mean by these terms is:
Useful
Does the thing do what it’s supposed to do and only what it’s [...]

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Why Apple Rulez!

February 1, 2010
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So, “Welcome to Macintosh” was just playing on CNBC.  I was cleaning up from the dual birthday party for both of my kids, so I left it on.  All in all, it’s maybe a bit too simplistic and a bit too reverent of the fruit company from Cupertino, but it made some valid points.
The most [...]

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Catching a Wave

November 15, 2009

While some of the initial fervor over Google Wave has died down, desire to obtain one of the elusive invites remains just this side of Charlie Bucket’s desire for one of Wonka’s Golden Tickets. For those who have been lucky enough to receive an invite (like myself), an initial period of confusion is soon [...]

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Dear Google,

October 29, 2009

Did I do something to offend you? I don’t understand why you have rebuffed my Google Wave advances… I’ve been nothing but nice to you. I even had a friend try to hook me up with his invite and still you deny me.
Tell me… What did I do? Come here, baby. Let me hold you. [...]

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The Daughtry Effect

October 4, 2009

Much has been made of the USA finishing “last” in the vote for hosting the 2016 olympics. Partisan pundits are pontificating ad nauseam that the last place finish is a failure of the current administration. The truth is, that the USA suffered the same fate as Chris Daughtry. For those of you who don’t remember [...]

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