Author: Davin Granroth

  • On delegating work better

    When delegating work, it isn’t enough to pick a good person and give them

  • Will St Charles MI flood in Spring 2014?

    I’ve lived in St Charles, MI since 2008. It’s a nice little town, I think. One of the features is the confluence of the North and South branches of the Bad River, pretty much right in the middle of town. So, it has been a pretty cold winter with what seems like a higher than…

  • And this is what I get…

  • Five Whys, Socratic Method, and Dependent Arising

    Root cause analysis—jargon for managers in lean startups and Agile dev shops. In plain language, isn’t it “Well, I hear what you’re saying, but what’s really going on?” I feel a rambling, messy first draft coming on. Why in the world do we need jargon for such a common line of reasoning? This is every…

  • 2nd try at the LCP Challenge

  • UX STRAT conference, day 2

    UX STRAT conference, day 2

    I just wrapped up the day by having dinner with Simon of Bristol (okay, Simon Norris of Nomensa) and Bob Royce and Dan Klyn of The Understanding Group. A relaxed conversation with three brilliant gentlemen—an excellent end to the day. So, the conference. First, I was glad to have met Josh Seiden in person so…

  • UX STRAT conference, day 1

    The first day of the UX STRAT firehose of talks is over. At the Barrelhouse, a nearby bar, there no doubt are still a few gathered after happy hour. I think Paul Bryan, the organizer, can count this first UX STRAT a success already. I’m not a huge fan of crowds, so instead of happy…

  • UX STRAT conference, workshops

    I’m at the UX STRAT conference in Atlanta, Georgia, having just finished a couple of half-day workshops. Here are a few observations. From what I overheard, attendees mostly have job titles including “manager,” “director,” “lead,” and “senior.” Oh, and owners of agencies/consulting firms. In spite of that (cough), like most UX people, they are interesting…

  • Assange, Snowden, and Stallman as, um, heros?

    (Photo of Richard Stallman and Julian Assange holding a propaganda photo of Edward Snowden) Bruce Sterling wrote up a long-winded editorial “The Ecuadorian Library” that covers a lot of ground and ends up posing Richard Stallman, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden as moral heroes against the State Department and NSA as antithetical to democracy. Here’s…

  • UX described by Socrates

    UX described by Socrates

    Lately I’ve been reading from Philosophies of Art & Beauty: Selected Readings in Aesthetics from Plato to Heidegger, edited by Albert Hofstadter and Richard Kuhns, and read a passage that sure sounded a lot like a premise of user experience work. This is from Plato’s The Republic. Socrates is dialoguing with Glaucon about art. Of…