Noise Between Stations

At the most expensive and sophisticated restaurants, the service tends to be the same as in a diner, just more refined and thorough. But it could be quantitatively different. Elite restaurants feature exotic ingredients and preparation that require an experienced fork and palette to appreciate, expertise many of us don’t possess and for which the [...]

Comments Cool! But the background looks all messed up. Is it done yet? — The model looks a little schizo — happy and menacing at the same time. Can you fix the smile? — yo leo, what’s with the green thing jutting out of her head?!?! — Cheap baby furniture. Cheap meepit furniture for neopets. [...]

37Signals and Don Norman had a tiff recently, with the lads from Chicago saying they design for themselves first and the Don saying, essentially, That’s not design, Martelli. That’s masturbation. (Whitney has the links). This strikes me as an argument for gentlemen farmers. What most of us experience most of the time, I was thinking [...]

Smoke alarms have saved thousands of lives in the United States since their introduction and widespread use during the past 2 decades. The good news is that more than 90% of homes in the United States now have at least 1 smoke alarm.1 The bad news is that a substantial proportion of those smoke alarms [...]

Most designers really think they’re dentists. If the designers are sitting there and they’ve got the stakeholders in the room – the CFO, the CIO and the CTO and the CEO – and one of the clients says: “Boy, my jaw is killing me”, the designers will immediately say: “I can have a look at [...]

I’m storyboarding away and working on a section about design concepts: examples and processes for making them. This write-up of the Chamr concept process is a good overview, and I’m looking for more in case you know of any. In a nutshell, the Adaptive Path team started with research, then expressed important principles and major [...]

Some facts about his new start up: No research No focus groups No creative conflict No eating at your desk No PowerPoint presentations to clients No walls No freebies No user generated content Photo, link courtesy John Maeda

This here blog turns 9 years old tomorrow. Quantitatively speaking, she’s got 2,041 posts, 590 comments, and 130 categories. Checking the PageRank, it’s a 6, the same as generalmills.com, whatever that means.

The Harvard Business Review continues to support Gary Hamel’s ideas on management innovation, most recently with a summary inviting readers to contribute their thoughts on the subject. I’m eager to see the response. I think Hamel has a strong argument, yet the topic doesn’t have a handle that’s easy to grasp. “Alright, it’s clear we [...]

Way back when, I was a journalism major in college. So I was pleased to meet the folks from Daylife last year and bat around some ideas about how they’re aggregating, understanding, and syndicating news applications. I just found part of the conversation lying around my hard drive and thought you might be interested in [...]

The Zollverein School in Essen, Germany was a great hope for the business design field, starting the first MBA of its kind in Europe. But this newspaper story lays out a tale of caution for anyone starting a venture like this. In short, it seems the gorgeous new building they constructed to house the school [...]