Innovation is Fast and Furious

October 13, 2010
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Let’s face it – slow and steady only won the race because the guy in the lead was such a dips#&t that he got caught snoozing.  Innovation doesn’t happen at a tortoise’s pace; it happens because someone, somewhere takes an operatic leap of faith.  Someone, somewhere finds a new application for an old tool or [...]

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The Age of the Nano-Demographic: P2P Marketing

October 7, 2010
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In college, I learned about new music from my friends.  Like it or not, I picked up tips about personal style from them, too.  You can blame them for some of the looks I’ve sported through time.  The important point here is that my market-facing tendencies are not defined by my age, race, or socio-economic [...]

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Taxonomy of Rap Names

September 30, 2010
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I’m a sucker for data visualizations; especially ones that have a sense of humor.  I found a pointer to a chart that presents a taxonomy of rap names.  I find it funny that you need a nom de microphone to be a rapper, but I guess James Todd Smith or Calvin Broadus don’t sound all [...]

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Google Instant Search: Backing into semantics

September 30, 2010
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What It Is
Google recently released its Google Instant search product. It is basically a recommendation engine on steroids. The way it works is that, as you type, search terms are recommended; starting with the first letter.  For instance, typing “W” will present you with the weather forecast based on your geographic location.  That’s [...]

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I Had a Dream (Update)

September 16, 2010
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Back in June of 2008, I wrote a post detailing a vision I had for Apple tech working with television for enhanced viewing.  Well, ABC Television just released the My Generation Sync app for iPad which behaves pretty much how I imagined it.  The video does a better job of explaining it than I can:

Of [...]

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Prioritizing Preferece: The Challenge of Managing Design

September 9, 2010
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Managing any initiative is a complex affair – juggling timelines, milestones, and dependencies; managing risks and mitigating factors.  The management of design processes gets geometrically more complex when you add the wildcard of personal preference to decision points.  Many non-designers are incapable of articulating their reasons for preference-based choices in a way that makes sense [...]

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Toward a More Usable City

August 6, 2010
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A B-Cycle kiosk was just installed in front of the John Hancock Center in Chicago.  It’s good to see bike sharing make its way to this side of the Atlantic.  I’ve already seen bikes being rented from the kiosk.  I think the fact that the bike can be grabbed from a kiosk is critical to [...]

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When You Assume…

August 5, 2010
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Recently, there was a post over at DiscoBlog on the Discover Magazine site that mentioned a study that claims that women who wax have better sex.  It reminded me how quickly we can be led astray by settling on the first assumption.  At first blush, one would assume that if you are a woman and [...]

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Objects Could Help Design Themselves

July 1, 2010
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Expanding on the previous posts, it’s clear that the objects and gadgets (and spimes) we interact with understand a great deal about their current context and record a great deal about the way we use them. These facts present specific design challenges.
Designing for Context
First: As objects become increasingly aware of the context in which [...]

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Our Objects Are Listening

June 29, 2010
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In the last post, I mentioned that our objects are listening to us.  Much of this is done in the name of providing a better experience – if an object can adjust to the way in which you interact with it, it should be able to anticipate some of your future requirements or actions.  In [...]

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