Category: Information Architecture

I’m happy the concept design research and development I’ve been doing has received some attention, even though I haven’t had much time to share my work. That will start to change next month when I present some tools for generating concepts at the 2008 European Information Architecture Summit in Amsterdam, where I’ve been honored with the closing plenary position.

Last year’s German IA Conference had a great vibe and a wonderful group of people, I’m looking forward to more of the same in Amsterdam.

If I was in San Francisco, I’d go hear Paul Saffo…

“Effective forecasting is not merely possible, but remarkably easy,” he says. “All it takes is a simple shift in perspective and a few common-sense heuristics.”

Saffo draws on his study of the history of technology to give unusual perspective on the accelerating wavefront of current technology and what it means and will mean. As a Long Now board member, he slots forecasting neatly into long-term thinking.

“Embracing Uncertainty: the Secret to Effective Forecasting,” Paul Saffo, Cowell Theater, Fort Mason, San Francisco, 7pm, Friday, January 11. The lecture starts promptly at 7:30pm. Admission is free (a $10 donation is always welcome, not required).

But I’m in New York, so I’ll wait for the podcast.

Update: Here’s Stewart Brand’s summary:

Reflecting on his 25 years as a forecaster, Paul Saffo pointed out that a forecaster’s job is not to predict outcomes, but to map the “cone of uncertainty” on a subject. Where are the edges of what might happen? (Uncertainty is cone-shaped because it expands as you project further into the future— next decade has more surprises in store than next week.)

Rule: Wild cards sensitize us to surprise, and they push the edges of the cone out further. You can call weird imaginings a wild card and not be ridiculed. Science fiction is brilliant at this, and often predictive, because it plants idea bombs in teenagers which they make real 15 years later.

Rule: Change is never linear. Our expectations are linear, but new technologies come in “S” curves, so we routinely overestimate short-term change and underestimate long-term change. “Never mistake a clear view for a short distance.”

“Inflection points are tiptoeing past us all the time.” He saw one at the DARPA Grand Challenge race for robot cars in the Mojave Desert in 2004 and 2005. In 2004 no cars finished the race, and only four got off the starting line. In 2005, all 23 cars started and five finished.

Rule: Look for indicators- things that don’t fit. At the same time the robot cars were triumphing in the desert, 108 human-driven cars piled into one another in the fog on a nearby freeway. A survey of owners of Roomba robot vacuum cleaners showed that 2/3 of owners give the machine a personal name, and 1/3 take it with them on vacations.

Rule: Look back twice as far. Every decade lately there’s a new technology that sets the landscape. In the 1980s, microprocessors made a processing decade that culminated in personal computers. In the 1990s it was the laser that made for communication bandwidth and an access decade culminating in the World Wide Web. In the 2000s cheap sensors are making an interaction decade culminating in a robot takeoff. The Web will soon be made largely of machines communicating with each other.

Rule: Cherish failure. Preferably other people’s. We fail our way into the future. Silicon Valley is brilliant at this. Since new technologies take 20 years to have an overnight success, for an easy win look for a field that has been failing for 20 years and build on that.

Rule: Be indifferent. Don’t confuse the desired with the likely. Christian end-time enthusiasts have been wrong for 2,000 years.

Rule: Assume you are wrong. And forecast often.

Rule: Embrace uncertainty.

Saffo ended with a photo he took of a jar by the cash register in a coffee shop in San Francisco. The handwritten note on the jar read, “If you fear change, leave it in here.”

–Stewart Brand

Our lovely borough of Brooklyn now has its own web meetup…

Some of the best networking I’ve ever done is while walking my dog, Henry, in Prospect Park.

This morning, after I had just met yet one more person who works on web projects, I thought, we all take the train to Manhattan to attend Web meetups.

Why not have a Web oriented Meetup in Brooklyn?

Most of my Internet-design-etc. friends live in Brooklyn, most within walking distance of me, so I’m starting to think we’re developing a technie ghetto out here.

I’ve spent the Winter and a better part of the Spring planning and scheming, and I’m ready to get back into the fray in a public way. Here’s where you can catch me in the next few weeks:

• Getting Good Designs Built is a new session I’ve created, hosted by the New York chapter of the Interaction Design Association. Tuesday, June 26.
• Using Internet Business Strategy is the second iteration of my workshop and the very first class at Smart Experience. Tuesdays, July 10 & 17.
• What happens next? Career progression for UX professionals is a panel on which I’ll participate, hosted by the NYC Computer-Human Interaction group. July 11.
• Information Architecture Summit Redux is a sampling of presentations from NYC presenters. Lou Rosenfeld will reprise our case studies on starting our own businesses. July 19, 6:30-9:30 at Razorfish’s offices, NYC. More info to come.