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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 […]
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And this is what I get…
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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 […]
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2nd try at the LCP Challenge
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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How to write better personal work goals
As managers, we require our employees to set goals, and then we measure them against those goals during annual performance reviews. While this is common and sounds reasonable, the goals often end up disconnected from real performance. This is a waste. (Managers: it’s okay to nod your head in grim agreement.) Why does goal-setting fail, […]