Apple’s new iPad seems to have been pretty heavily bagged since the announcement earlier this week. The commentary I’ve read primarily focuses on the lack of support for having multiple applications open, the name, the relatively high cost of the 3G-enabled version.
Over the jump I outline a few of the reasons why I think the iPad will do just fine in a commercial sense.
Via cheiftech:
Enterprise 2.0 for Breakfast – January 2010Thursday January 21, 2010 at 8:00amThis is our second Enterprise 2.0 for Breakfast in Sydney.
James Dellow aka Chieftech (from Headshift) and Alex Manchester (from Step Two Designs) invite you to join them for breakfast to chat informally about Enterprise 2.0 and related topics like Knowledge Management, Intranet 2.0 and Collaboration.
Come along to ask questions and share your experiences of introducing social computing to the enterprise!
I’ll be attending – hope to see you there…
This is unexpected, positive news from Google (via Web Directions South):
have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.
The full article hints at the reasons for the change in perspective.
As someone who is committed to a free and open internet, and also was worked with Amnesty International Australia on their “Uncensor” campaign in the lead-up to the 2007 Olympics, I am very heartened and inspired by Google’s decision.
It is also good to know that Google is actively campaigning in Australia to stop the censoring of internet access here.
Just a quick note to say that Zumio will be “closed” between 24 Dec 2009 and 4 Jan 2010. While I’ll be checking emails during this time, I may not be as responsive as usual, and blogging is likely to be even lighter than it has been of late.
Hopefully y’all will be having an enjoyable break yourselves :) See you in the new year.
I’ve just finished reading Convergence: How Five Trends Will Reshape the Social Sector (PDF direct link – 856KB), a report released earlier this year by La Piana Consulting that looks at emerging trends in the nonprofit sector.
The report examines a number of key trends, including:
It suggests that current funding models need to be revisited, that a strong sense of core values and differentiation is important (I call this values-based branding), that organisational and partnering models may need to be considered, and that technology will play a key role in the nonprofits of the future.
These are the types of organisational challenges that social business design seeks to address. And the all, perhaps to different degrees, require a certain approach that relies heavily on an open and trusting culture. A difficult task for organisations that don’t already have these things in place.
I get a sense throughout the report that La Piana seem to be suggesting an approach not dissimilar to the “integrated flow” approach I advocate in the increasing surface area post from the other day.
It recognises and clearly places social media and network engagement in context and does a good job of expressing some of the challenges associated with it, as well as recognising the benefits including the low-cost nature of the tools themselves.
It also does a great job of presenting mini-case studies of nonprofits and social sector organisations that have successfully embraced some or all of these trends.
I would highly recommend the report to anyone working in nonprofits and NGOs, especially those in leadership/management positions, as I think it highlights many of the challenges nonprofits currently face, trends that are likely to increase in influence into the future.
I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to participate in a number of events over the past few weeks that I thought I should reflect on here – presented below in chronological order. (My attendance at these events partially explains my radio silence around here…)
I wasn’t able to stay for the whole day, but managed to see a number of sessions at the Sydney Startup BarCamp presenting some really great insights and tips to aspiring entrepreneurs.
Kate Carruthers made me realise that I, too, am addicted to startups ;) And of course some great discussions between sessions too as one would expect from a BarCamp.
If another one is organised, I might put something together to present on things like managing cashflow etc. – a bit more around the specifics of starting a business. While not as sexy as the big conceptual stuff, these things can make or break a new business…
Behavioural psychologist Tim Cotter put on an interesting day-long workshop for sustainability advocates.
While there wasn’t a huge amount of material I hadn’t already come across, it was a great refresher and was very useful to see a lot of concepts that I’ve come across before wrapped up in something akin to a methodology.
A few key themes threaded throughout the day including tying sustainability behaviours to a person’s values, and that people that are more values aligned and empowered are more likely to participate in sustainable behaviour.
And, again, great to meet folks who are passionate about sustainability and behaviour change.
I’ve attended a couple of events run by A&NZ Sustain over the past few months, so was delighted to be invited to contribute to a 2010 planning workshop late November.
It was great to meet a bunch of folks from a variety of backgrounds all working towards a sustainable future, but also to contribute some ideas for next year’s programme. From what I’ve seen so far it will be a very interesting year for the Circle members…
ASIX first popped up on my radar when a friend invited me to a ideas generation workshop for the Social Innovation Camp happening in Sydney, March 2010. I was delighted to be invited to a 2010 planning workshop for ASIX.
It was a great opportunity to find out more about ASIX and its origins, but more importantly where it’s heading. While the emphasis early in the year will be on the Camp, there was a lot of discussion about the core approach of ASIX and how it relates to other NGOs working in the social ventures space.
The dialogue at the workshop was refreshingly open and honest across the tables and kudos to the organisers for being so open to constructive feedback. I think that’s a very good sign for the future of the organisation, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how they respond with a programme for next year.
Last week I attended a Sydney Alliance “rally” in Sydney. The best online reference to the Alliance I can find is this one – I’m not sure it’s “official”, but reflects what I heard at the meetup.
The Alliance is a “citizens’ coalition whose vision is to provide our community with a voice to express common values and aspirations for a fair and just Sydney. The Alliance is broadly based across religious organisations, community organisations and unions”.
In contrast to the format of the ASIX event, this was much more a series of presentations with a minimal amount of group interaction within tables. That said, the Alliance vision is quite interesting and I’m looking forward to engaging more over the coming months…
Over the past few weeks I’ve been using the phrase “increase the surface area of an organisation to it’s constituents and stakeholders”. In doing so, the idea is, the two-way flows and interactions between the organisation and the community in which they participate provide two-way benefits and, ultimately, positive returns for the organisation.
One method to achieve this is to create a larger “front-line”:
This is the model that some larger organisations (for example, Telstra) seem to be taking – essentially adding headcount to their customer service team with a specific focus on interaction within social networking spaces. This may include hiring someone into a community manager or similar role, or in some cases outsourcing this to a PR or marketing/design agency.
An alternative is to institute a more open policy that encourages interaction at all levels of the organisation. People within the organisation determine the most appropriate ways to open communications with those outside the organisation in ways that are aligned with the organisation’s priorities and objectives.
This may also mean opening up channels of engagement within the organisation – classic “silo busting” – by using social technologies and more nimble forms of organisation.
Broadly speaking, this is the model that Zappos have adopted (esp. for Twitter) but is also demonstrated by Microsoft’s and Sun’s blogging efforts. The aim is to empower all your people (if they choose) to participate to the degree and with the communities that make sense to them.
While social technologies act in some ways as “facilitating tools” in this process, the change is as much (if not more) about cultural shift as it is about technology. In fact, simply using existing tools like email in more effective ways may be an appropriate option.
It is not just about opening channels, it’s also about putting the right structures in place managerially to act on the learnings, in line with strategic goals. What that means will differ from organisation to organisation, but is essential to actually harness the energy of constituent and stakeholder engagement, rather than get battered by it.
There seems to be a bit of a furor over Jon Kolko’s piece in Johnny Holland: Our misguided focus on brand and user experience.
Personally, I didn’t take offense to the apparent slight against UX practitioners’ “focus on a prescriptive customer experience” – his description didn’t match my experience of the subject, so I assumed he wasn’t talking about me ;)
While the piece does take some twist and turns, what I heard was more of a sustainability message than anything else. Jon says:
We are, quite literally, building the culture around us; arguably, our effect is larger and more immediate than even policy decisions of our government. We are responsible for both the positive and negative repercussions of our design decisions, and these decisions have monumental repercussions.
Thinking about the cultural impacts of what we create immediately widens the frame and presents questions and dilemmas that perhaps aren’t getting enough attention – certainly not in the designs that I see in daily life, be they products, services or systems.
He extends this thought further:
For most designers, this responsibility is hidden by the celebratory claims of designing experiences. This claim almost abdicates the long-term responsibility, as “an experience” has an end, at which time the designers’ role seemingly ends. The work is meaningful only on an immediate level of craft and creation, and while designers often take pride in a product once it has launched, they do not frequently make the connection between their creations and the culture that surrounds them.
Perhaps it’s a stretch, but I don’t think it’s too much to extend this statement to encompass the environmental impact of our work – not only as a longer-term/bigger impact but also as a shaper of culture (climate change and the shift towards a sustainable economy will play a significant role in shaping culture in the coming years, as it has already begun to show).
Behavioural change is also critical to a sustainable future, as are more sustainably produced, used and re-used products and services – all aspects of design that seem to still be sadly lacking.
To me this connects to the themes in the Usability in a sustainable future talk I did at World Usability Day last month – so perhaps I’m reading into things?
In any case, I do hope that this core message of cultural impact and behaviour change is not lost in the concerns about Jon’s specific framing of UX…
Update 07 Dec 2009: Steve Baty pointed to a great response by Brian Phipps to Jon’s article:
… a brand must make the customer “better off” than if the customer purchased a mere commodity. Otherwise, what good is the brand? What value does it deliver? “Better off” means that the customer is further empowered, able to be more proactive, and further advanced along his/her desired path via the brand.
Untangling brand and customer experience, in 10 minutes or less from Brandon Schauer on Vimeo. A bit of background over at the Adaptive Path blog.
I dig this infographic+voiceover explanation of two different approaches to brand. I think it highlights the need to focus on people as opposed to message, which of course gels with my line of thinking…
The only thing that I’d add is that perhaps there’s more to the “designed brand” than just “look & feel” – organisations still need to understand what they are aiming for in order to engage their people around those ideals.
In this sense I think the design of a brand is still a little bit “inside out”, although I think this should be informed by the people outside the organisation to ensure that it’s aligned with their expectations and motivations.
I don’t think Josh or Brandon are suggesting otherwise, just pointing this out as it’s not made clear in the video itself.
Just a note to say “thanks!” to Lisa and the organisers of World Usability Day Sydney – it was a pleasure to speak and I hope that it added constructively to the day’s dialogue.
The slidedecks from the two presentations are provided below both as a Slideshare presentation and as a PDF download which contains my notes, links to further information and image credits.
In this presentation my aim was to provide an overview of how usability and user experience design practice can play a positive role in achieving sustainability outcomes. It proposes we extend our concept of usability to include pre-use-ability and end-of-use-ability, considering design, packaging, materials, re-use, recycling and disposal, demonstrating the concepts with recent examples.
Usability in a sustainable future slides with notes (PDF 1.65MB)
This presentation focuses on the research process behind the redevelopment of the Future is Man Made (FiMM) site that I managed while working at WWF-Australia. The site as outlined in the presentation was launched just prior to Earth Hour 2007, and the research informed the approach to social media engagement for Earth Hour as well as the FiMM site itself.
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