In sports, you either win or lose or tie. And when it comes to final championships there are no ties. If you win in Basketball 110-109, you get the win and they get the lose. In football, if you are within 1 inch of the end-zone, that means you are NOT…
make-work [meyk-wurk] –noun work, usually of little importance, created to keep a person from being idle or unemployed. Origin: 1935–40, Americanism ; n. use of v. phrase make work Sadly, I see this every day. The building I am in just had the outside repainted. It wasn’t in disrepair or dirty. I looked at it before and looked at it after. Looks the same to me. Oh wait…the pinstripe used to be…
I had several interesting experiences yesterday. In all of the cases, the subject of my work was much more or much less complicated than what I initially thought. Some examples: Case #1: I was working with an engineer who had a problem with CSS. He is only loosely familiar with…
As we are getting close to finishing election season, I am noticing a very specific common experience. The media is the number one victim of this. They are “following the narrative”. By this I mean that they have a hypothesis about the world and will do anything to support that idea. Any…
There are two types of people in this world, browsers and searchers. Searchers You see the search box and type in what you want and then look at the results. The results are based purely on your input. The thinking involved is primarily about what to search for. Different search…
From Urban Dictionary A term used by many people all over the world, to make the next few words coming out of their mouth, sound less offensive. Example: With all due respect, your mom looks like a permanently aroused gorilla. As a species, we often get angry at other people. This…
I received a bunch of business cards at the conference and was thinking about them. Some of the cards had clever things on them that pointed you online. Others were plain white, classic and boring. Others were black, which made writing on them impossible. Some were oddly shaped and difficult…
Of course, I have a vested interest. I am the first hired employee and the head of UX for Marketo, but I feel I can be objective. Well, just take it with a grain of salt anyway. It was awesome. Last year, we had about a hundred and fifty people.…
Imagine that Toyota (or some big car manufacturer) came out with a standard interface to the stereo system. It looked like a tray above the center dash that could hold your cell phone or ipod or small device. At the bottom of the tray was a removable interface. You could plugin a…
Aikido is a Japanese martial art developed by Morihei Ueshiba as a synthesis of his martial studies, philosophy, and religious beliefs. Aikido is often translated as “the Way of unifying (with) life energy” or as “the Way of harmonious spirit.” Ueshiba’s goal was to create an art that practitioners could use to defend themselves while…
Part of this post is just a test. However, the setup process of Twitter Tools is insane now. It’s not their fault. Twitter has a ridiculous serious of complex hoops to jump through to get this stuff to work. You have to put in all kinds of technical info. The basic premise…
How do you get people to stop, turn around and look at what you have? One way is to turn something on its head. Case in point: Cee Lo Gren’s Fuck You song. He took an Al Green-like melody and Motown sensibility and sings beautifully, smiling the whole time, telling…
I have a wide variety of risk profiles. In a restaurant, I like to try odd combinations of foods that I don’t know if they will taste good together. On the other hand, I have a much lower tolerance for risk when it comes to driving. In my professional career,…
One thing I hate is being called a bottleneck. I work pretty quickly and usually stay ahead of engineers needs. I think I produce designs pretty quickly with a good degree of fidelity and creativity (if I do say so myself). However, there are times when I feel behind. Usually, this is…