Ideas as the Basis for Social Networks
Brian Solis, leading thinker in the integration of social media and PR, recently spoke on an intriguing concept: ideas connect us more than relationships. The premise of his argument is that ideas are what elicit passion in people. They animate us, and if we find someone with a similar interest in a given idea, we [...]
Look Who’s Talking: ASUS, the Designer Brand
Brand vs. Quality. Which Would You Pay For? – I asked recently, making the case that “trusted old brands” like HP are producing inferior quality, while formerly “no-name cheapo” component maker ASUS is becoming a household name. They are basically doing what Honda, Toyota (and now the Koreans) did to the car business. Sure, ASUS [...]
Your Retweet Verified
We all are aware of the Retweet button that is supposed to show up on Twitter soon. Doug Bowman, ex-Google lead designer and now working at Twitter, gave some insight into Twitter’s plans on this. He was answering questions at the GigaOm Bunker Series and one of the questioner asked about the delay in putting [...]
Why a Business Process Modeling (BPM) Approach to SOA Usually Fails
I was having a Twitter conversation with Brenda Michelson (@bmichelson) and Todd Biske (@toddbiske) about the tight coupling in peoples minds between BPM and SOA, and why I find that when people take a BPM centric approach to SOA, it usually ends up not delivering the goods. So today’s post is about how to properly [...]
Is There a Sweet-Spot For Features?
I found this graph on the discontinued Creating Passionate Users blog; It’s a somewhat tongue in cheek diagram but completely relevant for my specific area of interest, SaaS accounting applications. At the recent Web 2.0 Expo I spent a really enjoyable hour or so discussing usability design and specifically how it relates to an increase [...]
I’ve Seen The Future and It’s Flex
Warning – Some expletives follow – NSFW The inimitable Stephan Fry wrote on the subject of music in his autobiography. He says it so much better than me so I’ll quote his words here; Music is everything and nothing. It is useless and no limit can be set on its use. Music takes me to [...]
Don’t Bury Desktops Just Yet
As laptops dominate, desktop PCs face obsolescence – reports Reuters: The age of the desktop PC appears to be over as its more portable cousin, the laptop, surges ahead with consumers clamoring for light-weight computers in funky designs for use at home, in cafes and on the train to work. Not a single desktop model [...]
What Nokia? Kim Basinger's Lifeline would be an iPhone Today.
The 2004 thriller Cellular features three stars: Kim Basinger, Chris Evans, and a Nokia 6660 video-phone. The kidnapped school-teacher played by Kim Basinger pieces together a broken phone and reaches a random dude, Ryan (Chris Evans) on cell-phone – this call literally becomes her lifeline. Ryan effortlessly uses his Nokia miracle-phone in the middle of [...]
SaaS Vendors – Know Thy Customer
In a past life I consulted as a design strategist. For those of you who are unaware of what a design strategist actually does, they help businesses remove themselves from their day-to-day world and encourage them to take a future view of their business – using Design (capitalization intentional – design in the wider sense [...]
