My Curious Life

If you’ve never paid attention to Tara Hunt’s blog, HorsePigCow, then you’ve really missed out. She’s absolutely brilliant and some of the gems to come from her blog have been inspirational to me.

A few weeks back she wrote an excellent bit about forgiving her Inner Gollum that made me think about something a wise teacher once told me:

Give yourself permission to be great … to succeed.

It was one of those things that settled in the back of my mind and has come back to remind me from time to time that I shouldn’t hold myself back, as I so often do. Not just in self-doubt, but out of a desire not to steal the limelight from someone else. I tend to do my best work in a small team where I can inject valuable insights and critical ideas, then let someone else run with them. Too often I later reflect on things and regret not taking it all the way and owning up to greatness.

So, inspired by Tara’s post, I’m going to try to give myself permission to succeed and come to terms with my own inner Gollum.

Day two of WebVisions pretty much brought my brain to overload … mostly because of the chance to step away from the projects at work that have been consuming all my cycles (or more likely, killing brain cells and deadening my senses).

It’s been an opportunity to regroup and rethink a bunch of design concepts that I’ve been kicking around for months, and after all the mental stimulation and inspiration (it’s so nice to be with other people who actually practice good design and have lessons to share), I basically hit the wall by midday.

Still, the morning sessions continued the quality from yesterday …

• Lane Becker and Thor Muller (Thor, I can only imagine what you went through in school with that name) of Satisfaction Unlimited gave a fantastic presentation called Let Go! 8 Steps to Succeeding in a Post-2.0 World that is definitely worth reviewing, though the slides won’t have the full depth without Lane and Thor’s playful banter. Regardless, I came away with a full page of scribbles, ideas and thoughts that will work their way into my future design plans. The thing I took most to heart was something the dynamic duo said about control:
  

  Get accustomed to that uncomfortable feeling that things are just slightly beyond your comprehension and control. It’s a sign that you’re in the right place.

  It goes nicely with the concept of continual growth, which in my mind means that you’re only growing if you’re constantly pushing the boundaries of your current comfort zone and knowledge. Note to self: you’re getting too comfortable in your current capacity, find ways to stretch yourself.

• Chris Baum of Jaman.com and Boxes and Arrows fame gave his presentation on The Rise of Collaborative Innovation. I have to admit, I felt a bit awkward in Chris’ session, because, despite his obvious knowledge and experience, it felt quite loose and disconnected. He made some good points about T-shaped people and how a good team is built by overlapping T’s, but there was one quote (can’t recall if it was his or someone else’s) that really resonated with me:
  

  Innovation dies not by one big blow, but by little cuts (constraints) over time.

  Chris is obviously a busy guy and he had a lot of stuff to share. I’ll be tracking his blog for a bit to see what other gems he might have to share in the future.

By lunch time, my brain was full and I spent a bit of time reviewing notes from both days of the conference, then decided it was time to let things percolate … which meant shuttling things to the back of my brain and finding something to distract the loose cycles in the forefront of my brain. That distraction ended up being Spider Man 3 …

It’s been a couple of years since I attended WebVisions, but I’m glad I went this year. The event seems to get better and better over time, and just the talks from the first day were worth the price of the conference … I can’t wait to find out what tomorrow brings.

Here are the highlights of the workshop and two sessions that I attended …

• Garrett Dimon’s workshop on Improving Interface Design (PDF here) was a nice review of interaction design concepts, and he mentioned a number of fantastic books that I either own or plan to buy. The thing I loved the most were the many quotes he used in his presentation, such as this one from Khoi Van:
  

  Design groups really need a strong, diplomatic leader who can help engender a climate for good design.

  Anyone who knows me knows that I love to collect quotes, especially those that deal with design, imagination/inspiration or human behavior. Garrett’s presentation was like an all-you-can-eat buffet in that department.

• Todd Wilkens of Adaptive Path gave one of the most engaging presentations of the day on User Experience Design. He was entertaining and informative, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the four views of “users” that he posited:
  1. Homo Economicus
     More features for less money and effort
  2. Type A’s
     Completely task and goal driven – all about efficiency
  3. Sheep
     Docile, gullible and all about group think
  4. The Gullet
     Gulp up products just because they can and crap cash

  That last one was the best. Having worked for a company that saw its customers this way, I could barely contain my glee at how Todd phrased this. A+ for accuracy and the use of “crap cash” in a conference presentation.

• Sean Madden’s Social Architecture session was the most thought-provoking of the day and I spent the rest of the afternoon pondering self-organizing systems and how various technologies might play a key role in such systems, like RFID tags, mobile phones w/GPS, OpenID, metro WiFi and intelligent devices.

  I especially liked Sean’s descriptive use of calm technology (hiding complexity through intuitive systems) and beautiful seams (glimpses of what’s under the hood that are powerful, yet approachable). As a member of one of my favorite design shops, frog design, I’m not surprised at the depth and intriguing concepts that came out of his presentation.

All in all, not bad for one day … I have pages of notes, ideas and musings that will have to percolate for a bit.