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Even the best of us can be taken by our technology.
Enjoy!
A few months ago I taped a segment with Leo Laporte for his show Lab with Leo. The show airs on various techy TV outlets in Canada, the US and Australia. Because of the delay from taping to airing and then encoding for the web, I hadn’t seen the segment until I found it last night on Google Video.
I’ve included it below, if you’re at all interested. The experience of doing the segment was excellent fun, and I’d recommend it to anyone. I even had makeup applied.
Lab with Leo Laporte Episode 135 — James Sherrett talks about the Personal Technologist:
Special thanks to Ryan Yewell, a Chase Producer for Lab with Leo, for stickhandling the whole process and my anxious questions. Thanks, Ryan!
Lorna, of Lornamatic, has posted some fantastic sketches she drew at the recent TED Conference she attended. I chose the one above because it’s of Michael Pollen who wrote one of my current favourite books, The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
Why did Lorna draw the sketches?
It’s another very strange time now, while our society transitions to the role of technology in our lives and homes. Every moment is duly recorded and digitally collected in a fraction of a second, and I’m not sure what shape that leaves us in for making good decisions and actually experiencing the here and now. Sometimes (usually when I find myself mindlessly reaching for my blackberry) I start to worry that we’re all in danger of disconnecting from ourselves and our own thoughts. Putting down the technology for a few days was really refreshing and restorative.
I mention it here because I find the same thing—putting down the technology is refreshing and restorative. As much as I love what my tools let me do and know I also relish being away from them and living only through my body.
Whenever I’m at a tech conference I’m always amazed at how many people are working on their laptops, disconnected from the world around them. I wonder, why did they come?
This year I made all kinds of notes from my conference experience at Northern Voice (with Kate Trgovac, published on One Degree: Day 1, Day 2) and I found that just having my laptop open to make notes isolated me from the people around me. I tried to open it only to make a note and then to close it right away, but I’ll admit that I may have checked an email or two at the same time.
To manage all the different Work Industries projects I use a web-based project management tool called Basecamp from design firm 37 Signals. 37 Signals are widely known as proponents of simple, clean software. In fact, they say as much on their front page:
We believe software is too complex. Too many features, too many buttons, too much to learn. We build web-based products that do less, work smarter, feel better, and are easier to use. We pay enormous attention to the details, interface, and overall customer experience of our products.
I’ve appreciated their simple approach to software with Basecamp, but one thing kept coming up for me. There is no way to see in one view all of the contributions of a person on a project. I found I remembered who had done something but not exactly when they had done it or how they had titled it. I wanted to be able to trace back their contributions.
Here’s my note to 37 Signals requesting they consider creating a way to see contibutions to a project by person.
Hi 37 Signalers,
I’m really enjoying using Basecamp and I have one thing that I’d love to be able to do - see the contents of a project by the contributor.
So the files, comments, messages - everything, really - viewed by who did it. I find I’m often (a couple of times a day) looking through messages or files for a particular contributed item that I know who contributed it but don’t know it’s title or when it was contributed. And I can’t always rely on others or myself to categorize things properly. So I’d love to be able to see the project by person.
That’s all. Keep up the excellent work!
~James
I’ll be interested to see what happens. I saw Jason Fried, 37 Signals’ founder, speak at the Web 2.0 conference back in 2004 and his plea for simpler, clearer software really struck a chord with me.
I tried to implement a similar philosophy in my web product management position at the time, but over time realized that the throughput of features was the core way a product manager was evaluated, as if we were in a manufacturing industry shipping widgets to stores instead of designing an interaction environment where each new feature had to be measured against the existing ones. I won’t go into detail about the type of innovations invented to keep the assembly line humming.
Has anyone else found they wanted to see their Basecamp project by person? Or, has anyone found a better way to do this already that I haven’t discovered?
More from the TED blog, a video of NYTimes tech columnist David Pogue on the inanity of software complexity that does a good job of ridiculing some of the accepted practices of software.
Highlights include an impression of Steve Jobs singing ‘Don’t Cry for me Cupertino’ at the 17 minute mark, and a demonstration of voice-recognition software with macros for spoken shortcuts to frequent responses (think about that one for second - say a short word or two and whole sentences can appear).
I’m particularly receptive to Pogue’s message because it points well to a need for a personal technologist / personal technology advisor, a service I offer through Work Industries. Here’s the pitch:
Who Needs a Personal Technologist?
If any of these symptoms sound familiar, we recommend considering a session with a personal technologist.
- Overwhelmed by the flood of information?
- Anxious about what you don’t know?
- Frustrated by gadgets that don’t work?
- Keep meaning to figure how to get that thing to work properly, if only you had the time?
- Caught yourself saying, ‘It can’t be this hard to…’?
- Not even bothered to call a customer service line?
These are the reasons that drove us to start a service to deal with technical overload, the personal technologist.
Modeled on the personal financial advisor, the personal technologist navigates the muddied waters of technology to take the pain out of technology and make the gadgets work for you.
Take the first step to technological freedom and learn more about Work Industries’ personal technologist service.
For almost a year now I’ve been a Flickr Pro member. I paid my annual tariff and upload at will with a happy Pro tag next to my name.
A few weeks ago Flickr released a new version, with a revised interface and layout, and cheekily moved from Beta to Gamma. I suppose someone had to do it.
This past week I’ve been poking around in Flickr much more than I usually do. I uploaded some new photos and checked out some photos of friends’ trips, kids, adventures, etc. The new layout, where you can see more photos on the same page, rocks. The new dropdown menus once you’re logged in, they rocks too. The new feature that lets you track all your comments on others’ photos to see when they respond, that’s genius.
But the way I found all these fancy new features typifies my experience with Flickr: I am frustrated and and delighted at once.
Some Flickr functions I just can’t figure out right away and struggle around with for awhile (frustrated). Or I don’t notice them at all. I use the site oblivious to their goodness lurking right there. Then, one day, I discover them. Huzzah! (delighted) A new way of doing something or working with the site that brings more pleasure to the whole experience. By just poking around I find new ways to like the site more.
And therein lies the paradox in designing good web experiences. How to provide access to all the goodness without overwhelming? How to highlight the new without getting in the way of the cleanliness? How to add to the experience or modify the experience without upsetting the order and habits of your customers?
I don’t know if I have the answer. I have an answer that would work for me - show me it all! I can take it and figure out what to do with it. Let me have it! But I’m note necessarily typical and I’m a data point of one. What I want and what will work for me isn’t what many others will want or what will work for them.
Is there a solution for the paradox of new versions? I suppose the best way yet to address it is to embrace the iterate-early, iterate-often, iterate-in-the-wild philosophy popularized by firms like 37 Signals and representative of the lightweight, socially focused development of Web 2.0. That way the feedback loop is shorter, more immediate and more focused on the small changes, and the builders can be more responsive. So far, that’s the best we’ve come up with.
CBC is running a great 3-part series right now on the shifting landscape of media entitled, The End:
I watched the first segment, The End of Radio, on the web and really enjoyed it. (Sidenote: Finally (!) the CBC has moved away from the awful Real Player.) The topic is presented in a snappy flow, with enough detail and first-hand interviews to satisfy my geek tendencies while at the same time remaining accessible to a general, non-geek audience. I recommend it to get a great snapshot of what’s happening in audio production and distribution: radio, satellite radio, iPods and podcasting.
I learned the following items:
All that and a great closing from host Jian Ghomeshi. I’ll be watching the next two episodes later today.
What we’re talking about 
Lab with Leo episode 132 — Monique Trottier explains her top 5 email marketing tips.
Vancouver League of Drupalers — Monique Trottier warns of 6 email marketing mistakes.
Project Highlights
""Boxcar has been a joy to work with. The redesign came in on time and on budget and the difference has been immeasurable. The site looks great, but more importantly all the behind-the-scenes wizardry is simple to use and it saves us so much time and anguish - it's made all of our lives easier! "
—Dan Wagstaff, Online Sales and Marketing Manager
Did you know?The internet is truly a mass medium. According to comScore Media Metrix Canada, Canadian digital users topped 23 million in June 2007, up from 22 million the previous year.
Vancouver internet marketing strategists James Sherrett and Monique Trottier are experts in online marketing strategy. Talk to us about internet marketing, web design, search marketing
and online business strategy.
Looking for the bee? Work Industries is now Boxcar Marketing. We don't have a bee, but we're still hardworking.
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