Powerful structures for product-driven organisations
UPDATE: two days after writing this (and after the event itself) I came up with a much better headline. Seems a shame not to mention it: An hour, at a time I don’t know about you but the things I love about London is the rare few occasions that we do something together, even if… Continue reading Switch off, tune in and chill out
I imagine I was not the only person struck by the media collision around the coverage of the death of Jade Goody. The last few weeks of her life were marked by a quite depressing co-dependency with a media at once uncomfortable with their proximity to the unfolding real-life anguish, and delighted by it. For… Continue reading Status anxiety
Perhaps it’s a coincidence, perhaps a conspiracy. Perhaps there’s something in the west-coast water supply but the last week or so has seen a pretty sophisticated debate break out on the use of facts and intuition in design. Douglas Bowman is leaving Google, having been heralded as one of the best things to happen to… Continue reading The numbers’ game
Here I am in New Media Age. Always a pleasure. And this article makes a good exposition of the vast range of agencies competing in this area. It would have been nice if they could have included the 'However....' after the bit where I talk about how good non-digital agencies sometimes aren't at digital design. Also… Continue reading Agencies and echos
In the last post, I talked a bit about the new Skittles site. This post really comes by way of an apology for a small experiment I ran following that post, and a couple of unexpected observations that came out of it. The experiment was to try and take over the twitter search feed which… Continue reading A funny thing happened on the way to the forum
Listen, I'm not going to start believing my predictions. I promise. After all, one correct hit in all these years is not good odds. However, I do find it a bit spooky that I wrote this post last week talking about just how pointless FMCG-brand websites are, and how useless FMCG brands are therefore likely… Continue reading Chasing rainbows
Whatever you think of the Microsoft Surface device, it’s been fascinating to watch the first steps of development of apps for the new style of interface. It’s a radically different world now from when we started out web development in the last decade, but it will be just as hard to develop the new ways… Continue reading Beneath the surface of things
Robin sparks some interesting rants over on Advertising 2.0, in response to a frankly bizarre set of comments published in Campaign about how twitter can be used by brands. The debate appears to be over whether brands should tweet and how - should they pretend to be real people or inanimate objects, funny characters or… Continue reading Another day, another dollar
One of the most compelling, and commented on, phrases that has emerged from the new Obama administration is that 'no crisis should be allowed to go to waste'. There's some not very subtle code in here, regarding redistribution, and of course some powerful rhetoric (as we heard in inaugaration) about a new era of responsibility.… Continue reading No crisis wasted
Happy new year from Usable Interfaces! And to celebrate, it's quiz time. What do the following pictures have in common? The answer: toughness. And if one thing really is tough. It’s 2009. Like a smouldering James Cagney or an overly aggressive and motivated sportman. I’m not saying this from some sort of expert economics point… Continue reading It’s a toughie
Leading product 