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Teams moving to agile often struggle to integrate agile with best practices in user-centered design (UCD) and user experience (UX) in general. Fortunately, using a UX Integration Matrix helps integrate UX and agile by including UX information and requirements right in the product backlog. MORE
Experience design comrades, I speak to you today because I have a vision. A vision where one day the person who really matters is back at the heart of our design processes. Rightfully claiming pride of place at the centre of all decisions regarding our websites, interfaces and systems. I am talking, of course, of the Designer, or more specifically, the Designer’s Portfolio. MORE
As business people, we need to manage our risks. We sound very intelligent when we do this, but it occasionally leads to incredibly stupid behavior. Lean Startups build measure learn MORE
The Build Measure Learn loops is backwards. There is a presumption that if you build something and slap some analytics on it then you will inevitably learn. Lean Startups and Customer Development build measure learn Minimum Viable Product startup MORE
Design patterns are generally considered a good thing, but do they actually help run a user experience group? As a user experience group manager and an observer (and sponsor) of design pattern exercises, I’ve come to have serious questions about their actual utility. MORE
_This is an excerpt from “UX Storytellers”:[link] If you enjoy it, consider getting the kindle edition of UX Storytellers – Connecting the Dots with all the stories!_. Here’s something I believe in: stories are what make us human. Opposable thumbs? Other animals have those. Ability to use tools? Ditto. Even language is not exclusive to human beings. MORE
In order to implement sustainable Innovation in 2012, you need to define innovation in a manner that makes strategic sense for your organization, and have the know-how to properly construct and use a process, plus the will to keep the process on course. MORE
For centuries, the well-heeled Christian faithful in Europe made pilgrimages to Jerusalem, but most couldn’t afford these expensive and dangerous trips. In the fifteenth century, monks met the demand by setting up shrines along the roads. MORE
Podcast Summary In this episode, I had the pleasure of sitting down in New Orleans at the 2012 Information Architecture Summit with Christina Wodtke ( @cwodtke ), the founder of Boxes and Arrows.com. Also, the community will come together at the Boxes and Arrows Fall 2012 Retreat. Show Time: 21 minutes 06 seconds. Download mp3 (audio only) Download m4a (with visuals, requires iTunes, Quicktime, or similar). iTunes. MORE
Ten years ago, when I wrote The Making of a Discipline: The Making of a Title, 2002, there was a big debate on: Is experience design about online and mobile interfaces or is it something more? MORE
Show Time: 35 minutes 20 seconds. Download mp3 (audio only) Download m4a (with visuals, requires iTunes, Quicktime, or similar). iTunes. Podcast Summary On today’s show I had the pleasure to talking with the first Global Director for World Information Architecture Day , Jessica DuVerneay. MORE
79 
In this video, I share some basics of visual thinking that should get you up in running in about 20 minutes. This video is a bit long, so I added a table of contents so you can quickly navigate to the points you are interested in. The table of contents is available by clicking the icon to the right of the volume control. Let me know about your sketching challenges and I will try to help you through them in future videos. Blog posts Videos MORE
86 Show Time: 29 minutes 29 seconds. Download mp3 (audio only) Download m4a (with visuals, requires iTunes, Quicktime, or similar). iTunes. Podcast Summary Today on Boxes and Arrows, Chris Baum talks with Patrick Quattlebaum, Design Director at Adaptive Path. Patrick has some interesting insights and tools that designers can use to develop experiences across channels. MORE
Many thanks to Thomas Vanderwal for the many conversations that inspired this post. The average life expectancy of a human being in the 21st century is about 67 years. Do you know what the average life expectancy for a company is? Surprisingly short, it turns out. MORE
Is anyone else out there sick of signing up for on-line products that don't do what they promised? It's only an MVP" is a poor excuse for bad user experience. Customer Development Customer Support Entrepreneurship User Experience customer support Minimum Viable Product MVP user experience ux MORE
As an investor, can you ever know for certain if that newfangled gizmo come to market is the real deal or a fad? Let’s try it a different way—perhaps everything is a fad, until it’s proven otherwise. Bread, most likely not a fad. MORE
If you went to elementary school circa the 1960s, you remember that one of the few times TV was brought into the classroom—likely a dusty, early model, enormous 21-inch Zenith B&W CRT with bent rabbit ears, strapped to a prison issue, grey steel rolling wheel cart—was for the Apollo lift offs, splash downs, and moon walks. During those turbulent years of hard-won civil rights and compounding economic expansion, you might have dreamed about growing up to be the next Mick Jagger, but it is equally possible you aspired to have The Right Stuff and be the next Neil Armstrong. The Space Race captured our imaginations. We watched in awe as the first boot imprint and an American flag were planted in the Sea of Tranquility. We lost sleep with the good people at Houston who had “a problem” bringing home Apollo 13. It was all so captivating, the science in our textbooks was made real, technology was cool, and the Warp Factors of Star Trek seemed someday plausible. I’m glad I got to experience that as a child—it made childhood more childlike and less childish. The Little Prince would have been proud. Much has been written about the fall off in public enthusiasm for the space program after the tapering Apollo missions and the less grandiose but still near miraculous Space Shuttle missions. As we left The Cold War behind with the collapse of the Soviet Union, we came to worry less about controlling our Solar System. Satellites became our path to better television and radio entertainment, not so much a magic portal to the future as a manufactured bridge to enhanced convenience. It all became ordinary, and then expensive, a difficult pair to keep at the high-end of federal funding without public enthusiasm. We moved on, to the information age, to the PC revolution, to the wildly lucrative internet. NASA was scaled back year after year, and although we knew that wasn’t optimal, we were largely okay with it. Too often we forget all the ancillary learning that occurred as part of space exploration—not just the nifty consumer products like cordless power tools and vastly improved athletic shoes, but the processes of working together in high function teams. Getting tonnage into and out of space safely has never been a job for individual heroes as much as it sets the tone for working together in groups, combining scientific work methods that emphasize cooperation, breaking down gigantic projects into manageable tasks. Engineering is a profession of shared ideas, where the accuracy of each single contribution matters immensely, but the compiled knowledge of all participants matters even more. We take so much of that kind of process for granted now when we bite off big chunks. I wonder if we take appropriate time to digest just what the process of doing the incredible really means. As we took a brief intermission from the Games of the 30th Olympiad these past few weeks to observe the otherworldly, never before tried jet-softened hard landing on Mars, I was left pondering if perhaps we were being a bit too casual about the successful parachuting of the Curiosity Rover. No, there were no astronauts on board, and yes, we had landed on Mars before—but not this way, and not with a nuclear powered craft of such immense size and scale. I think everything that involves operating with precision at distances of this magnitude is astonishing, and no matter how clear the physics, we should celebrate with the geniuses at JPL and NASA anytime they pull off the near impossible. Getting to Mars and sending back data to Earth is not a little thing no matter how many times we do it. This one left me thinking even further. In the midst of a floundering economy and awful recession, precisely the opposite of the Apollo climate, our national tech teams did more with less and made us proud. What were the business lessons, I wondered—more ancillary byproducts of this adventure in science—from which we can additionally benefit in learning by example? I am sure there are many, but three leap out for me: Difficult is Good. Paraphrasing President Kennedy’s challenge to set an arbitrary deadline without a known roadmap, the Curiosity team chose their path not because it was easy, but because it was hard. This was wide-eyed enthusiasm for a mission about something other than personal gain. Want people to rally around a task? Give them something where they need each other, where failure is acceptable in concept, but not in approach. Big problems are always worth solving. Resilience is Rebound. Here was a team that had just put the Shuttle in mothballs, experienced colossal layoffs, and had no choice but to accept for the immediate future that our astronauts would have to hitchhike across the galaxy in the form of renting seats from former competitors. They put this behind them by committing to the project at hand. Sharing Triumph is Personal. How do you get a team fired up and motivated? Bypassing cynicism is a decent route. This mission was about proving what was possible, about intrinsic meaning as much as the survival of equipment. The Curiosity team built pride because they did something together they will forever share, advancing progress, continuing exploration. Often you forget the details of a project, but you don’t forget people who matter. This is where emotion has a clear role in that which is otherwise objective. I hope enough people at home were paying attention, partly because the landing was worthy of our attention, but more because when you think about it in the abstract, there is more application than meets the eye. Getting out of this recession is no small task, and it won’t be our government who gets the job done. It will be teamwork, commitment, creativity, motivation, and entrepreneurial spirit. Our move forward will be economic, but satisfaction has come from more than that. It will be of the human spirit, with celebration in the process of innovation as well as getting some problems solved. I like that they named the rover Curiosity. It’s a good, real world metaphor. It sings aspiration. It’s worthy of our attention, a form of pedagogy that really does come from another planet. Business Government Innovation Technology Television Apollo Cold War Curiosity JPL Mars Mick Jagger NASA Neil Armstrong Rover Sea of Tranquility Solar System Space Shuttle The Little Prince The Right Stuff Zenith MORE
Did you like this? If so, please consider buying me a coffee! Videos Ways of working MORE
I was at Lean Startup Machine in New York last weekend and I was so impressed by a post by Cindy Alvarez that Trevor distributed, 10 Things I’ve Learned, that I decided to blatantly copy her and create my own top ten list. Unfortunately I’m a terrible editor. So here are 21 things: …and the [.]. Lean Startups and Customer Development MORE
” by Ken Goldstein (ACM Computers in Entertainment: May 1, 2012). About a year ago I wrote the following article at the request of ACM Computers in Entertainment for the debut of their redesigned site, which launched last week. MORE
“It’s easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.” ” Leonardo Da Vinci Some of Leonardo’s projects failed because of their execution. MORE
It's not just about Customer Development. I'm a massive fan or Customer Development but that cannot be the only tool in your toolbox. Customer Development User Experience lean user experience leanux user experience ux MORE
Recently the web design community has been eating up the secrets of game design. The Gamification trend merely borrowed simple game mechanics, from badges to progress bars. MORE
All week I have been trying to devise a clean getaway post for the year 2012 and it has been a struggle. I referred to a recent hiring notice from the Obama 2012 campaign. And it won the 2012 campaign. MORE
I have taught a lot of people how to draw their ideas. One of the questions that comes up over and over is “now that I can draw my ideas, how do I know what to draw to get my ideas across?” ” In other words, “I have a communication goal, how can I figure out the best way to draw that?” ” It’s not just how to draw, but what to draw. MORE
Interesting presentation from the BetaCodex Network: The 3 Structures of an Organization (BetaCodex11) from Niels Pflaeging. Blog posts MORE
Here is the text that appeared in the Wall Street Journal, October 25, 2012 , reprinted for convenience: “Policy makers should acknowledge that our growing debt is a serious threat to the economic well-being and security of the United States. MORE
I try hard in this blog to leave out my personal politics, which isn’t all that hard to do since I consider the topic of business innovation and its various threads to be about as nonpartisan a subject as there should be. MORE
Frequent readers of this blog know that I am obsessed with the concept of creative destruction , the intangible but daunting market force where an invention that is vital takes out that which has become defunct, and the nascent replaces the established. MORE
It has been over a week now since our Presidential Election, a good time to reflect. A broad consensus would seem to exist that it is good the election is over — on this we can all agree, and hey, that’s a start. MORE
I have taught a lot of people how to draw their ideas. One of the questions that comes up over and over is “now that I can draw my ideas, how do I know what to draw to get my ideas across?” ” In other words, “I have a communication goal, how can I figure out the best way to draw that?” ” It’s not just how to draw, but what to draw. MORE
Imagine you’re on one side of a grass lawn and you want to reach the bus stop on the opposite side. Do you walk on the sidewalk around the edges or cross in the middle? MORE
My friend Marcia Conner , an admitted “word person” has been honing her visual thinking skills. She asked me “How can I recognize when I should be drawing an idea, versus communicating it some other way?” ” Watch my conversation (and sketching) with Marcia here. Blog posts Videos MORE
Customer development is hard. It takes work to get it right and you'll always be improving your technique. Here are a few tips I like to keep in my head while I'm getting out of the building. Customer Development Lean Startups MORE
haven't been updating my blog recently. Big news, I joined LUXr and I'm on tour in Europe! Business Model agile UX business model canvas for user experience Lean Startups lean user experience MORE
Podcast Summary In this episode Chris Baum speaks with Donna Spencer , Lynne Polischuik , Justin Davis and Erin Jo Richey at the 2012 IA Summit about their interactive panel discussion Taking the Plunge: Diving Into Indie UX. Show Time: 33 minutes 40 seconds. Download mp3 (audio only) Download m4a (with visuals, requires iTunes, Quicktime, or similar). iTunes. MORE
2012 Related Topics CorporateIntel
DECEMBER 18, 2012
Frequent readers of this blog know that I am obsessed with the concept of creative destruction , the intangible but daunting market force where an invention that is vital takes out that which has become defunct, and the nascent replaces the established.
Boxes and Arrows
AUGUST 20, 2012
Imagine you’re on one side of a grass lawn and you want to reach the bus stop on the opposite side. Do you walk on the sidewalk around the edges or cross in the middle?
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Robert Brands
JANUARY 9, 2012
In order to implement sustainable Innovation in 2012, you need to define innovation in a manner that makes strategic sense for your organization, and have the know-how to properly construct and use a process, plus the will to keep the process on course.
Boxes and Arrows
FEBRUARY 3, 2012
Teams moving to agile often struggle to integrate agile with best practices in user-centered design (UCD) and user experience (UX) in general. Fortunately, using a UX Integration Matrix helps integrate UX and agile by including UX information and requirements right in the product backlog.
Boxes and Arrows
JUNE 7, 2012
Recently the web design community has been eating up the secrets of game design. The Gamification trend merely borrowed simple game mechanics, from badges to progress bars.
Boxes and Arrows
JUNE 18, 2012
Ten years ago, when I wrote The Making of a Discipline: The Making of a Title, 2002, there was a big debate on: Is experience design about online and mobile interfaces or is it something more?
Boxes and Arrows
FEBRUARY 15, 2012
“It’s easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.” ” Leonardo Da Vinci Some of Leonardo’s projects failed because of their execution.
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Boxes and Arrows
JANUARY 26, 2012
Design patterns are generally considered a good thing, but do they actually help run a user experience group? As a user experience group manager and an observer (and sponsor) of design pattern exercises, I’ve come to have serious questions about their actual utility.
Grasshopper Herder
JUNE 19, 2012
The Business Model Canvas is the tool of choice for a business dashboard. It very much appeals to the business guy in me. It irks the UX part of my brain. Business Model User Experience business model business model canvas business plans user experience
Grasshopper Herder
JULY 3, 2012
TaskRabbit launched a new business: Puppies-as-a-Service I think it's a fabulous idea and it'll make a great example to use with our new Business Model Canvas. Business Model business model business model canvas business plans puppies user experience
Grasshopper Herder
JULY 17, 2012
Customer development is hard. It takes work to get it right and you'll always be improving your technique. Here are a few tips I like to keep in my head while I'm getting out of the building. Customer Development Lean Startups
Grasshopper Herder
JUNE 5, 2012
Your job is to make the user happy. The user doesn't care about your features or how you make their problems disappear, they care about being happy. User Experience lean user experience leanux user experience ux
Xplaner
AUGUST 26, 2012
Many thanks to Thomas Vanderwal for the many conversations that inspired this post. The average life expectancy of a human being in the 21st century is about 67 years. Do you know what the average life expectancy for a company is? Surprisingly short, it turns out.
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Grasshopper Herder
MARCH 6, 2012
I was at Lean Startup Machine in New York last weekend and I was so impressed by a post by Cindy Alvarez that Trevor distributed, 10 Things I’ve Learned, that I decided to blatantly copy her and create my own top ten list. Unfortunately I’m a terrible editor. So here are 21 things: …and the [.]. Lean Startups and Customer Development
Boxes and Arrows
MAY 30, 2012
Show Time: 35 minutes 20 seconds. Download mp3 (audio only) Download m4a (with visuals, requires iTunes, Quicktime, or similar). iTunes. Podcast Summary On today’s show I had the pleasure to talking with the first Global Director for World Information Architecture Day , Jessica DuVerneay.
Grasshopper Herder
FEBRUARY 23, 2012
The Build Measure Learn loops is backwards. There is a presumption that if you build something and slap some analytics on it then you will inevitably learn. Lean Startups and Customer Development build measure learn Minimum Viable Product startup
Grasshopper Herder
SEPTEMBER 25, 2012
haven't been updating my blog recently. Big news, I joined LUXr and I'm on tour in Europe! Business Model agile UX business model canvas for user experience Lean Startups lean user experience
Boxes and Arrows
MARCH 19, 2012
Experience design comrades, I speak to you today because I have a vision. A vision where one day the person who really matters is back at the heart of our design processes. Rightfully claiming pride of place at the centre of all decisions regarding our websites, interfaces and systems. I am talking, of course, of the Designer, or more specifically, the Designer’s Portfolio.
Boxes and Arrows
MARCH 8, 2012
_This is an excerpt from “UX Storytellers”:[link] If you enjoy it, consider getting the kindle edition of UX Storytellers – Connecting the Dots with all the stories!_. Here’s something I believe in: stories are what make us human. Opposable thumbs? Other animals have those. Ability to use tools? Ditto. Even language is not exclusive to human beings.
Xplaner
DECEMBER 17, 2012
I have taught a lot of people how to draw their ideas. One of the questions that comes up over and over is “now that I can draw my ideas, how do I know what to draw to get my ideas across?” ” In other words, “I have a communication goal, how can I figure out the best way to draw that?” ” It’s not just how to draw, but what to draw.
Grasshopper Herder
AUGUST 7, 2012
When we last left off, our intrepid Puppies-as-a-Service Business Model Canvas was looking pretty good. We'd finished off the product/market fit side of the canvas. Business Model business model business model canvas business plans puppies user experience
Boxes and Arrows
APRIL 9, 2012
Podcast Summary In this episode, I had the pleasure of sitting down in New Orleans at the 2012 Information Architecture Summit with Christina Wodtke ( @cwodtke ), the founder of Boxes and Arrows.com. Also, the community will come together at the Boxes and Arrows Fall 2012 Retreat. Show Time: 21 minutes 06 seconds. Download mp3 (audio only) Download m4a (with visuals, requires iTunes, Quicktime, or similar). iTunes.
Xplaner
DECEMBER 7, 2012
In this video, I share some basics of visual thinking that should get you up in running in about 20 minutes. This video is a bit long, so I added a table of contents so you can quickly navigate to the points you are interested in. The table of contents is available by clicking the icon to the right of the volume control. Let me know about your sketching challenges and I will try to help you through them in future videos. Blog posts Videos
Grasshopper Herder
MARCH 20, 2012
Entrepreneurs should stop talking about abstract solutions and frame their pitches in terms of solving real problems, but I was wrong. Problems don't exist. Lean Startups and Customer Development early adopters problems
Grasshopper Herder
JUNE 26, 2012
As business people, we need to manage our risks. We sound very intelligent when we do this, but it occasionally leads to incredibly stupid behavior. Lean Startups build measure learn
Boxes and Arrows
APRIL 18, 2012
Show Time: 29 minutes 29 seconds. Download mp3 (audio only) Download m4a (with visuals, requires iTunes, Quicktime, or similar). iTunes. Podcast Summary Today on Boxes and Arrows, Chris Baum talks with Patrick Quattlebaum, Design Director at Adaptive Path. Patrick has some interesting insights and tools that designers can use to develop experiences across channels.
CorporateIntel
DECEMBER 30, 2012
All week I have been trying to devise a clean getaway post for the year 2012 and it has been a struggle. I referred to a recent hiring notice from the Obama 2012 campaign. And it won the 2012 campaign.
Xplaner
DECEMBER 28, 2012
My friend Marcia Conner , an admitted “word person” has been honing her visual thinking skills. She asked me “How can I recognize when I should be drawing an idea, versus communicating it some other way?” ” Watch my conversation (and sketching) with Marcia here. Blog posts Videos
Boxes and Arrows
MAY 22, 2012
Podcast Summary In this episode Chris Baum speaks with Donna Spencer , Lynne Polischuik , Justin Davis and Erin Jo Richey at the 2012 IA Summit about their interactive panel discussion Taking the Plunge: Diving Into Indie UX. Show Time: 33 minutes 40 seconds. Download mp3 (audio only) Download m4a (with visuals, requires iTunes, Quicktime, or similar). iTunes.
Grasshopper Herder
FEBRUARY 7, 2012
Is anyone else out there sick of signing up for on-line products that don't do what they promised? It's only an MVP" is a poor excuse for bad user experience. Customer Development Customer Support Entrepreneurship User Experience customer support Minimum Viable Product MVP user experience ux
Grasshopper Herder
JUNE 12, 2012
I have a love hate relationship with the Business Model Canvas. Steve Blank uses it brilliantly in his Lean Launchpad class, I've had less success. Business Model business model business model canvas business plans
Grasshopper Herder
JULY 10, 2012
It's not just about Customer Development. I'm a massive fan or Customer Development but that cannot be the only tool in your toolbox. Customer Development User Experience lean user experience leanux user experience ux
CorporateIntel
OCTOBER 30, 2012
Here is the text that appeared in the Wall Street Journal, October 25, 2012 , reprinted for convenience: “Policy makers should acknowledge that our growing debt is a serious threat to the economic well-being and security of the United States.
CorporateIntel
NOVEMBER 14, 2012
It has been over a week now since our Presidential Election, a good time to reflect. A broad consensus would seem to exist that it is good the election is over — on this we can all agree, and hey, that’s a start.
CorporateIntel
OCTOBER 5, 2012
I try hard in this blog to leave out my personal politics, which isn’t all that hard to do since I consider the topic of business innovation and its various threads to be about as nonpartisan a subject as there should be.
CorporateIntel
AUGUST 27, 2012
As an investor, can you ever know for certain if that newfangled gizmo come to market is the real deal or a fad? Let’s try it a different way—perhaps everything is a fad, until it’s proven otherwise. Bread, most likely not a fad.
CorporateIntel
JUNE 13, 2012
” by Ken Goldstein (ACM Computers in Entertainment: May 1, 2012). About a year ago I wrote the following article at the request of ACM Computers in Entertainment for the debut of their redesigned site, which launched last week.
CorporateIntel
AUGUST 14, 2012
If you went to elementary school circa the 1960s, you remember that one of the few times TV was brought into the classroom—likely a dusty, early model, enormous 21-inch Zenith B&W CRT with bent rabbit ears, strapped to a prison issue, grey steel rolling wheel cart—was for the Apollo lift offs, splash downs, and moon walks. During those turbulent years of hard-won civil rights and compounding economic expansion, you might have dreamed about growing up to be the next Mick Jagger, but it is equally possible you aspired to have The Right Stuff and be the next Neil Armstrong. The Space Race captured our imaginations. We watched in awe as the first boot imprint and an American flag were planted in the Sea of Tranquility. We lost sleep with the good people at Houston who had “a problem” bringing home Apollo 13. It was all so captivating, the science in our textbooks was made real, technology was cool, and the Warp Factors of Star Trek seemed someday plausible. I’m glad I got to experience that as a child—it made childhood more childlike and less childish. The Little Prince would have been proud. Much has been written about the fall off in public enthusiasm for the space program after the tapering Apollo missions and the less grandiose but still near miraculous Space Shuttle missions. As we left The Cold War behind with the collapse of the Soviet Union, we came to worry less about controlling our Solar System. Satellites became our path to better television and radio entertainment, not so much a magic portal to the future as a manufactured bridge to enhanced convenience. It all became ordinary, and then expensive, a difficult pair to keep at the high-end of federal funding without public enthusiasm. We moved on, to the information age, to the PC revolution, to the wildly lucrative internet. NASA was scaled back year after year, and although we knew that wasn’t optimal, we were largely okay with it. Too often we forget all the ancillary learning that occurred as part of space exploration—not just the nifty consumer products like cordless power tools and vastly improved athletic shoes, but the processes of working together in high function teams. Getting tonnage into and out of space safely has never been a job for individual heroes as much as it sets the tone for working together in groups, combining scientific work methods that emphasize cooperation, breaking down gigantic projects into manageable tasks. Engineering is a profession of shared ideas, where the accuracy of each single contribution matters immensely, but the compiled knowledge of all participants matters even more. We take so much of that kind of process for granted now when we bite off big chunks. I wonder if we take appropriate time to digest just what the process of doing the incredible really means. As we took a brief intermission from the Games of the 30th Olympiad these past few weeks to observe the otherworldly, never before tried jet-softened hard landing on Mars, I was left pondering if perhaps we were being a bit too casual about the successful parachuting of the Curiosity Rover. No, there were no astronauts on board, and yes, we had landed on Mars before—but not this way, and not with a nuclear powered craft of such immense size and scale. I think everything that involves operating with precision at distances of this magnitude is astonishing, and no matter how clear the physics, we should celebrate with the geniuses at JPL and NASA anytime they pull off the near impossible. Getting to Mars and sending back data to Earth is not a little thing no matter how many times we do it. This one left me thinking even further. In the midst of a floundering economy and awful recession, precisely the opposite of the Apollo climate, our national tech teams did more with less and made us proud. What were the business lessons, I wondered—more ancillary byproducts of this adventure in science—from which we can additionally benefit in learning by example? I am sure there are many, but three leap out for me: Difficult is Good. Paraphrasing President Kennedy’s challenge to set an arbitrary deadline without a known roadmap, the Curiosity team chose their path not because it was easy, but because it was hard. This was wide-eyed enthusiasm for a mission about something other than personal gain. Want people to rally around a task? Give them something where they need each other, where failure is acceptable in concept, but not in approach. Big problems are always worth solving. Resilience is Rebound. Here was a team that had just put the Shuttle in mothballs, experienced colossal layoffs, and had no choice but to accept for the immediate future that our astronauts would have to hitchhike across the galaxy in the form of renting seats from former competitors. They put this behind them by committing to the project at hand. Sharing Triumph is Personal. How do you get a team fired up and motivated? Bypassing cynicism is a decent route. This mission was about proving what was possible, about intrinsic meaning as much as the survival of equipment. The Curiosity team built pride because they did something together they will forever share, advancing progress, continuing exploration. Often you forget the details of a project, but you don’t forget people who matter. This is where emotion has a clear role in that which is otherwise objective. I hope enough people at home were paying attention, partly because the landing was worthy of our attention, but more because when you think about it in the abstract, there is more application than meets the eye. Getting out of this recession is no small task, and it won’t be our government who gets the job done. It will be teamwork, commitment, creativity, motivation, and entrepreneurial spirit. Our move forward will be economic, but satisfaction has come from more than that. It will be of the human spirit, with celebration in the process of innovation as well as getting some problems solved. I like that they named the rover Curiosity. It’s a good, real world metaphor. It sings aspiration. It’s worthy of our attention, a form of pedagogy that really does come from another planet. Business Government Innovation Technology Television Apollo Cold War Curiosity JPL Mars Mick Jagger NASA Neil Armstrong Rover Sea of Tranquility Solar System Space Shuttle The Little Prince The Right Stuff Zenith
Xplaner
DECEMBER 10, 2012
Very nice video on the art of rich pictures — icons and signs. Videos
Xplaner
DECEMBER 9, 2012
Interesting presentation from the BetaCodex Network: The 3 Structures of an Organization (BetaCodex11) from Niels Pflaeging. Blog posts
Xplaner
DECEMBER 17, 2012
I have taught a lot of people how to draw their ideas. One of the questions that comes up over and over is “now that I can draw my ideas, how do I know what to draw to get my ideas across?” ” In other words, “I have a communication goal, how can I figure out the best way to draw that?” ” It’s not just how to draw, but what to draw.
Xplaner
FEBRUARY 21, 2012
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