Noise Between Stations

Author: Victor

  • Falseonomies

    The Clay Shirky spin on the ethnoclassification discussion is amusing. How such a large percentage of the community manages to discuss a classification technique without explicitly illustrating how it aids in retrieval misses the whole point of classification. But I’ve already covered that ground, so let’s move along to the more interesting, subtle developments.

    At one point along that spectrum of control (’cause it ain’t just a dichotomy of ethnoclassification vs. controlled vocabulary) is Peterme suggesting a Flickr tag for a specific purpose. We might say he’s playing librarian and exerting control over this tag and bending others to his preferred method of classification. Or, we might say he’s a user heroically and socially distributing this tag in a cheap, scalable way. But really, in 2005, what’s the difference? We have authority control exerted on Flickr, and distributed contributions to traditional thesauri. Once again, we see balance is a good thing, and to each context its own balance.

  • The new global currency?

    The Economist says, tongue-in-cheek:

    …the dollar has been dethroned even sooner than we expected. It has been superseded not by the euro, nor by the yen or yuan, but by another increasingly popular global currency: frequent-flyer miles.

    Turns out there’s about $14 trillion in frequent flier miles in circulation.

  • Malcolm Gladwell blinks



    Malcolm Gladwell

    I just saw Malcolm Gladwell do a book tour talk. With “The Tipping Point” and now “Blink” it’s clear he’s a student of change. In his new book he looks at the ability of the adaptive unconscious to make good decisions because it’s been trained through experience. The implications for practice and iteration are directly relevant for designers.

    He says, “Decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately” — especially by those with expertise — but this requires “changing the environment in which the snap judgment is made.” Often this means less information is better. A mass of information is alright when planning, but when action is needed too much information brings with it dangers of bias and drowning in data.

    Later… I suddenly realize Gladwell is applying neural network theory in reverse. We’ve built articificial networks modeled on the brain and train them, fine tuning the weight of each node. Then we expect the computerized versions to make decisions instantaneously, not mull it over. Gladwell seems to be saying once we’ve trained our neural networks similarly, we too can make effective instantaneous decisions.

  • We are all in this together

    Just returned from San Francisco where one of the best things I saw was a billboard of Mark Mumford’s WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER.

  • NYC Lectures, Jan 2005

    Malcolm Gladwell talks about his new book, Blink, at Barnes and Noble Union Square at 7pm on January 13th. Free.

    Jared Diamond lectures on his new book at the 92nd St Y, 7:30pm on Jan 16. $25.

    The editors and writers of a new magazine called Plenty discuss the mag’s view on the intersection of business, products and environmentalism, at my local The Half King, 23rd St west of 10th Ave, at 7pm on January 17th. Free.

  • The Daimler-Chrysler merger at work

    James Cobb of the New York Times generates the latest praise for the Chrysler 300 and adds,

    It also melds Stuttgart engineering with Detroit style, providing a rebuttal to those who were skeptical – we know who we are – of Daimler’s takeover of Chrysler. Beneath its audacious design, the 300 is packed with well-engineered parts shared with the pricier Mercedes E-Class. The old Chrysler Corporation could not have produced such a well-rounded, well-engineered, well-made car on its own. Nor could Mercedes have designed such an audaciously American car or sold it such an accessible price.

    Black Chrysler 300

    That’s good news for them when you see how competitors like Renault and Scion aren’t afraid to take chances.

  • A fish called Victor

    There is now a species of Razorfish called Victor, or Xyrichtys victori to be precise. I know this because the man who discovered it off the coast of the Galapagos, Benjamin Victor, just wrote to say Hi. He sent a picture too, of the male and female:

    Two pictures of the male and female Victor Razorfish

    Cute little bugger, yes? Benjamin compares it to the company of the same name: “why they chose that name I cannot understand, since razorfishes dive into the sand when disturbed, not a good image!” But hey, these are the survival techniques that evolution teaches.

  • Where creative thinking meets critical thinking

    In all the bruhaha on business innovation and creative thinking, the focus is often on new ideas, and by extension how different the ideas are. I very rarely see an important dichotomy represented, that of developing ideas that work both inside and outside the organization. In companies, this translates into making money while also serving customers well.

    Cheskin’s page on design and innovation touches on the dichotomy:

    “Design can also be more effective than traditional consultation, again because consultation works from the inside out. Though they’re very good with internal processes, they don’t know how to connect with real customers through real products.”

    In the realm of product design, I’ve written about this before in terms of balance in the user interface [ 1 – 2 ]. But how this gets done is still an unknown. Jeanne Lietdtke describes a sequential approach in Strategy as Design:

    Strategic thinking accommodates both creative and analytical thinking sequentially in its use of iterative cycles of hypothesis generating and testing. Hypothesis generation asks the question what if…?, while hypothesis testing follows with the critical question if…, then…? and brings relevant data to bear on the analysis. Taken together, and repeated over time, this sequence allows us to generate ever improving hypotheses, without forfeiting the ability to explore new ideas.

    But the ideas themselves must express both constraints: service to the customer and service to the company, all while being novel. I’ve worked with people highly skilled in generating balanced ideas and from what I’ve seen they don’t alternate between the two, they conceive of both simultaneously. Such people are directed by a moral compass and a pragmatic embrace of amoral economics, blended seamlessly. I’m reminded of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who said, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time.”

  • America’s funniest home nomenclature

    I sympathize with the folks that rail against the word user to mean the visitor, reader, etc. of a computer system, but it’s so widespread and useful a term it seems a lost battle at this point. Still, I had to laugh this morning when my wife — who had been using a system called something like the personal career profile — received an email that began: “Dear PCP User,“

  • UX: please stop talking to yourselves

    I’m so glad Christina wrote what I was thinking: “dudes, can we collectively move on now? …read businessweek instead of alertbox for a change.“

  • Maeda’s simplicity blog

    Mike Lee just told me about John Maeda’s new Simplicity blog (where John is coincidentally blogging about Mike.)

    While simplicity is a noble pursuit, we live in a complicated world and I was curious to know how Maeda could suddenly pounce on us with such a manifesto while surrounded by the complexity of work at MIT. The blog refreshingly shows his work-in-progress as he figures it out himself, such as by distinguishing simplicity from simplistic.

    Also, Jess has revived interactionary.

  • Nooch for noodles

    Nooch restaurant in New York

    Nooch is a new Japanese and Thai restaurant in my hood of New York, a chain originating in Singapore. I was skeptical, but I must admit Karim Rashid’s interior works well, balancing modern with comfortable through comfy seats and colorful but subdued lighting. The food is yummy and surprisingly inexpensive. The drink menu focus on martinis evades the tired martini rut with an emphasis on fresh fruit juices. Recommended.

  • Creative problem solving techniques

    FC Now lists a few creative problem solving techniques.

  • The best lectures in NYC

    …are at the 92nd Street Y, along with an impressive roster of classes and events. Start with the list of lectures.

  • Foster and the French build highest bridge

    A private French firm spends somewhere in excess of 300 million Euro to build the highest bridge in the world. It’s located in Millau and designed by British architect Norman Foster. Slideshow