tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-339644282024-03-12T19:14:28.718-07:00Briggzay BlogChristian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-6132031205428996752008-02-01T04:43:00.000-08:002008-02-01T08:06:34.488-08:00Designing for ParodyPeople have struggled for years to find ways of explaining the product or "brand experience" and how it can be created. It's been explained by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_economy" target="blank">Pine and Gilmore as a theater with props</a> (drawing with no doubt from Erving Goffman), as a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindshare" target="blank">mindshare</a>, and in many other ways.<br /><br />My personal constructionist view of brand is that the best brands are a combination of design and emergence in real communities, but i won't take the time right now to explain (perhaps a later post).<br /><br />Perhaps the best way to analyze one's brand, though, is to gauge its ability to be parodied. For those of you who have a product or a business, unless it can be parodied in a video like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgQMTLKmwrA" target="blank">this one</a> (apologies in advance for the questionable content), your product probably doesn't have a strong enough brand. Where does your business or design fall on the 0-10 "parody-able index"?<br /><br />As an example, the current version of <a href="http://www.bigtreetop.com/" target="blank">BigTreeTop.com </a>(a company i co-founded) achieves around a 1 or 2 on the index (low) - a problem we're working to solve by making much stronger, fearless statements about who we are.Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-76095276084521321162008-01-28T15:37:00.001-08:002008-01-28T15:45:43.137-08:00Bloomington Startup WeekendFor those of you anywhere in the Bloomington area, and who are interested in new ideas, do yourself a favor and consider joining in, or at least following along with the Bloomington Startup Weekend - an event taking place the weekend of February 8-10th here in Bloomington, IN. I will be joining the fun, looking forward to meeting lots of other folks, and perhaps kicking off a new venture (though i of course will be offering my help in getting it off the ground, bidding the startuppers adieu, then promptly jumping back into my PhD work and BigTreeTop.com). <br /><br />If you are interested, <a href="http://bloomingtonsw.eventbrite.com/">get click here and register </a>quickly, since as of the time of the writing of this post, there are only 22 spots (out of 70) left!<br /><br />More information can be found <a href="http://www.bloomingtonstartup.com/">here</a>!Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-63463254513810990842008-01-18T15:05:00.000-08:002008-01-18T15:19:47.775-08:00Interdisciplinarity<span style="font-family:Arial;"><p>From the introduction to Norber Wiener's <span style="font-style: italic;">Cybernetics</span> - written in 1947:<br /></p><p></p></span><blockquote><span style="font-family:Arial;"><p>Since Leibniz there has perhaps been no man who has had a full command of all the intellectual activity of his day. Since that time, science has been increasingly the task of specialists, in fields which show a tendency to grow progressively narrower. A century ago, there may have been no Leibniz, but there was a Gauss, a Faraday, and a Darwin. Today there are few scholars who can call themselves mathematicians or physicists or biologists without restriction. A man may be a topologist or a coleopterist. He will be filled with the jargon of his field, and will know all its literature and al its ramifications, but, more frequently than not, he will regard the next subject as something belonging to his colleague three doors down the corridor, and will consider any interest in it on his own part as an unwarrantable breach of privacy….</p> <p>…There are fields of scientific work, as we shall see in the body of this book, which have been explored from the different sides of pure mathematics, statistics, electrical engineering, and neurophysiology; in which every single notion receives a separate name from each group, and in which important work has been triplicated or quadruplicated, while still other important work is delayed by the unavailability in one field of results that may have already become classical in the next field.</p> </span> <span style="font-family:Arial;"><p>It is these boundary regions which offer the richest opportunities to the qualified investigator. They are at the same time the most refractory to the accepted techniques of mass attack and the division of labor. If the difficulty of a physiological problem is mathematical in essence, then physiologists ignorant of mathematics will get precisely as far as one physiologists ignorant of mathematics, and no further. If a physiologist who knows no mathematics works together with a mathematician who knows no physiology, the one will be unable to state his problem in terms that the other can manipulate, and the second will be unable to put the answers in any form that the first can understand. Dr. Rosenblueth has always insisted that a proper exploration of these blank spaces on the map of science could only be made by a team of scientists, each a specialist in his own field but each possessing a thoroughly sound and trained acquaintance with the fields of his neighbors; all in the habit of working together, of knowing one another's intellectual customs, and of recognizing the significance e of a colleague's new suggestion before it has taken on a full formal expression. The mathematician need not have the skill to conduct a physiological experiment, but he must have the skill to understand one, to criticize one, and to suggest one. The physiologist need not be able to prove a certain mathematical theorem, but he mus5t be able to grasp its physiological significance and to tell the mathematician for what he should look.</p><p>We have dreamed for years of an institution of independent scientists, working together in one of these backwoods of science, not as subordinates of some great executive officer, but joined by the desire, indeed by the spiritual necessity, to understand the region as a whole, and to lend one another the strength of that understanding.</p></span></blockquote><span style="font-family:Arial;"><p>For those of us who strive to uphold this standard, it is our constant and necessary challenge to be "qualified investigators", and to be keenly aware of other qualified investigators, whatever their pedigree.<br /></p> </span>Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-63301471931628170992008-01-09T08:37:00.000-08:002008-01-09T08:39:00.557-08:00Deloitte: Nearly Half of U.S. Consumers Frequently Create, Post Content Online<div><p> In an upcoming report (posted in the Online Media Daily website), Deloitte & Touche, a well-respected global consulting firm, reports this compelling result. The implications of this number - and particularly of the 12-point annual jump - are staggering for small businesses. Consumer generated online content (videos, articles, photos, magazines, etc.) is on a trajectory to surpass professional media at some point. </p> <p>With the increasing ease/low cost of online customer engagement tools, SMB's have a huge opportunity to ride this wave of participation to growth and profit - and HCI Designers are quickly going to have to become master tool makers, rather than the ones building the house.</p><p>Here's a link to the article: </p> <p> <a href="http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=73771&Nid=37950&p=393517" mce_href="http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=73771&Nid=37950&p=393517" target="_blank">http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=73771&Nid=37950&p=393517</a> </p> </div>Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-79287894013841342322007-11-17T07:13:00.000-08:002007-11-17T08:15:25.971-08:00Beating the Wal-Mart EffectMy wife and i spent a romantic Friday night watching <a href="http://www.freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=102">The Corporation</a>,<br /><br /><object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xa3wyaEe9vE&rel=1&border=0"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/xa3wyaEe9vE&rel=1&border=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br />and <a href="http://www.freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=105">Wal-Mart: The Hight Cost of Low Price,</a><br /><br /><object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hiSmlmXp-aU&rel=1&border=0"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hiSmlmXp-aU&rel=1&border=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br />and though we known it before, it became even more clear what the mission of BigTreeTop.com is, and that is to do our part to prevent two things:<br /><ol><li>The "Wal-Mart Effect" on small business (small businesses dying off as a result of large businesses moving into a community and exerting their pricing influence past where smaller businesses can compete), and<br /></li><li>Corporatization of America (consumers and employees becoming less aware and less involved in the organizations that shape our lives)<br /></li></ol>These two things have exerted a heavy influence on SMB's in America for quite a while, and many have gone out of business by trying to beat big businesses at their own game. It's our idea that the game needs to change altogether - especially where SMB's are concerned. Here is a little graphic of the two forces i seem to see exerting influence on the SMB today. On the right is the still-dominant paradigm for business. On the left is the new paradigm we're proposing:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhesdFX6_4UvHEaAwhDG0K_ctHfK8zddnKz5H6t8LHxsQwrzHwS7CCqrMGApwj57aPg0-msbIgGL8fdOolmz4iSLihFiZ6geJpXGWBYydWbzR0OfiZDHLHYGHhxxDIBwk4Oanb6/s1600-h/20071117_coCreation_vs_walmart.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhesdFX6_4UvHEaAwhDG0K_ctHfK8zddnKz5H6t8LHxsQwrzHwS7CCqrMGApwj57aPg0-msbIgGL8fdOolmz4iSLihFiZ6geJpXGWBYydWbzR0OfiZDHLHYGHhxxDIBwk4Oanb6/s400/20071117_coCreation_vs_walmart.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5133840225306610210" border="0" /></a><br /><br />BigTreeTop's contribution to the solution is by starting with small and mid-sized businesses and organizations, to provide a platform that will help them to more easily adopt co-creative practices with their employees, customers, and business partners, by involving them in some decision making, story-telling, community and partnership-building and creation of value itself. We are sure it will have at least the following two effects on <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">small business in local economies</span>:<br /><ol><li>It will help to stave off the Wal-Mart effect on SMB's and their local economies by improving the advantages they already have over large businesses trying to exert their influence: real community, adaptability and customer loyalty beyond just product and service value</li><li>It will provide consumers with increased ownership of the success of their local businesses and economy</li></ol>..and we are reasonably sure that it will have the following two effects on the <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">big businesses in the national economy</span>:<br /><ol><li>Large organizations will be forced to involve employees and customers in deeper co-creation as a source of <span style="font-style: italic;">real</span> competitive advantage.<br /></li><li>Deeper co-creative involvement of customers and employees in large organizations will lessen their ability to take part in unsustainable business practices.<br /></li></ol>What we're proposing is a pretty radical new way of thinking about organizations and their boundaries which suggests that, with the right platform and process in place, an organization which blurs its boundaries and emphasizes the deep involvement of its community of employees, customers and business partners will be more successful than an organization which does not. We think that SMB's and smaller non-profits can benefit more naturally from co-creation, since it merely magnifies what they do already - which is to be a part of a real-live community of people who are concerned not only about the cost value of a business's products and services, but about the business itself, its people and its existence within a local and national economy.Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-56039746292096718802007-11-16T06:04:00.001-08:002007-11-16T07:22:10.294-08:00Reifying HCI (Part 2) - Personal ConnectionsPersonal connections are a key in any field - design, the academy, business. Everyone admits this publicly, but i've noticed a slight negative subtext in conversations where it became clear that folks still don't like the idea that "it's not what you know but who you know." This subtext betrays a feeling that, while folks know that personal connections are important, they still want to land the job or the deal or the publication <span style="font-style: italic;">completely on their own merit</span> without having leveraged a connection to get it done.<br /><br />This notion is complete hog-wash. The myth (except in a few edge cases) of the iconic, seminal designer or author is just that - a myth - that we hold dear because we want to think that we are important, special and unique. Except for a few edge cases, this is not the case. If i really were the iconic, seminal designer or author, i would have no need to feel negatively toward the notion of personal connections at all. In fact, those connections would be <span style="font-style: italic;">coming to me</span>.<br /><br />There is a rising need for personal connections, in my opinion, and it is due to 2 increasingly necessary things:<br /><br /><ol><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Trust</span> (Digitization makes it increasingly easy to fake resumes, plagiarize work and purchase degrees. Trust is at a premium)</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Character</span> (Character is what ensures that a person will thrive in <span style="font-style: italic;">any</span> environment - regardless of the changes around them - much more than will a skillset. See my <a href="http://briggzay.blogspot.com/2007/11/reifiyinghci-part-1-investment-in-team.html">previous post</a></li></ol> about what VC's look for in a team)<br />The importance of these things - and the resulting importance of personal connections - occurred to me again yesterday as i sat in a meeting with the Managing Partner of a VC firm to discuss BigTreeTop. Her fund is in the Life Sciences, and therefore not a potential investor. She graciously offered, nonetheless, to take the time to give me her advice and perspective - which was the end result of a <span style="font-style: italic;">long</span> line of personal connections that served, for her, as a guarantee of my reputation (whatever that is), and as a signification of my character. The string of connections goes back over 10 years, and includes former employers, family friends and colleagues. Without those connections, no amount of genius would have gotten me into her office, since her time is extremely valuable, and she wouldn't have known me from a hole in the wall.<br /><br />For those of us in any profession (academic, business, interpretive dance), there are therefore a few imperatives that will serve to grow and keep connections that can later serve as a guarantee for those wondering if they should take the time to meet with us.<br /><br /><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Be Genuinely Interested</span> - Never, ever use people for their "connection value." The human brain can detect all but the most clever forms of sycophantry in an instant. Be genuinely interested in the people you meet. Find common ground and explore it - both as a connection opportunity and a chance to learn.<br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Keep Bridges</span> - Never, ever burn a bridge from your end. When leaving an organization, don't leave them until you can leave on good terms. One of my former employers is now an investor in BigTreeTop, and another is funding work in the School of Informatics.<br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Connect with Fish of all Sizes </span>- There is no such thing as "little fish who grow up to be big fish." People are connected along many different dimensions. I have seen many instances where the administrative assistant of a corporation is among the most influential in hiring decisions, by virtue of his or her direct, conversational access to the CEO.<br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Character is Key</span> - With forward-thinking folks, character trumps skill every time. If your network knows that you have character (adaptability, integrity, etc), they will want to connect with you. If they aren't sure, they won't. Anyone can gain skills - and pretty quickly. Character is harder to come by - and therefore more imperative.<br /></li></ul>Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-75625761453721450542007-11-06T18:02:00.001-08:002007-11-07T06:52:35.080-08:00Erik Pukinskis, Skip the PhD<a href="http://youtube.com/user/cuttherug">Erik</a>, if you're out there reading this, drop the silly PhD dream and fulfill your destiny at MC Hammer's "Dance Jam"!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.dancejam.com/">http://www.dancejam.com/</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/06/mc-hammers-dancejam-opens-its-doors-to-a-select-few/">http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/06/mc-hammers-dancejam-opens-its-doors-to-a-select-few/<br /></a><br /><a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/09/25/tv-coverage-for-dancejam-realius-and-gizmoz-at-techcrunch40/">http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/09/25/tv-coverage-for-dancejam-realius-and-gizmoz-at-techcrunch40/</a>Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-24969588246036451042007-11-06T04:35:00.000-08:002007-11-06T05:12:42.239-08:00ReifiyingHCI (part 1) - Investment in TeamThis series of posts will be a sort of ecclectic collection of thoughts and observations from my dual-life as an entrepreneur and academic. They will be posted in fairly random order, and in fairly random order of importance. Some of these observations and personal discoveries may be common knowledge to those of you reading this, but others may find them surprising. Here goes:<br /><br />Having lived (on cans of tuna - no bread - for lunch) through the dot com crash of the early 2000's and watched first-hand the startup investment game, one of the things i always wondered about was how <span style="font-style: italic;">any </span>investor - angel, venture, institutional - made such a large decision to invest millions of dollars in an unproven concept. There are of course a number of factors that go into the decision (investment horizons for their fund, the way a prospective investee fits into their existing portfolio of companies, acceptable rates of failure, etc), but perhaps the most interesting fact that i learned is that <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">investment folks invest less in the </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">concept</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> than they do in the </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">team</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> that came up with it</span>. In HCI/d education, we speak very little about the character, the personality and the charisma of the design team, but in fact the people with the most money to lose actually place the highest value on these things.<br /><br />..and when considered for more than a second, this makes sense. Markets change. Economies change. Societies change. When an investor puts money into a venture, they are betting against a 3-5 year future which, in a society that is, according to Marshall McLuhan, moving at <span style="font-style: italic;">electric speed </span>(very fast), is likely to be completely and unpredictably different in 3-5 years than it is today. Therefore the <span style="font-style: italic;">concept </span>that an investor sees in front of them today is likely to be obsolete tomorrow. They expect this. Therefore <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">the thing that is the most likely to provide a good return on their investment is the </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">team </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">that came up with the concept - and especially their energy, process and smarts to be able to </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">keep coming up with more </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">concepts to adapt to the rapidly changing environment</span>.<br /><br />In a fairly recent <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/imootee/web-20-startup-field-guide-idris-mootee">presentation,</a> Idris Mootee, CEO of Idea Couture - a strategy/design firm, showed the following slide with the characteristics of highest importance to Angel and Venture Capital investors. From my talks so far with investors and entrepreneurs, it appears to be pretty accurate:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR5gf2Su-MoEnCdgTmxwST9w7oFtipKM-0tT_cIDUMqnDJZlbZz2V1J833RVSIyElNwEr_vWzYD54_GTFy5fB_dLJs9a2AIlSHg_-GNreSmM5gEpdgZPMJGGnbUEREDLAXlmM_/s1600-h/vc_wishlist.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR5gf2Su-MoEnCdgTmxwST9w7oFtipKM-0tT_cIDUMqnDJZlbZz2V1J833RVSIyElNwEr_vWzYD54_GTFy5fB_dLJs9a2AIlSHg_-GNreSmM5gEpdgZPMJGGnbUEREDLAXlmM_/s400/vc_wishlist.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5129710866433446386" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Some potential implications of this:<br /><ul><li>A hyper-efficient iterative design process that can communicate well to all stakeholders (including investors) is clearly more important the one or two good epiphanic designs.</li><li>Investors may want to understand your process. If they can see how you got to today, they can plot a trajectory to where you might be tomorrow, which is what they really care about.<br /></li><li>Investors are more design-oriented than is obvious at first glance. They just speak a different language.</li><li>Trustworthiness is more important to investors than either sales potential or the entrepreneur's experience. People who don't have their ethical house in order probably will have a hard time surviving. <br /></li><li>Choosing and managing a team is of primary importance when starting any organization<br /></li></ul>Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-83992857982044935382007-11-06T03:58:00.000-08:002007-11-06T04:34:39.712-08:00ReifiyingHCI (part 1)The process of starting a business has been extremely intense and interesting. It has forced me to learn about design and the reification of design (a.k.a. business) by drinking from the firehose of practice as well as from the water fountain of books. I would highly recommend the process to anyone who wants to learn at a rapid rate. Over the next few months, i will be blogging more about the process of starting BigTreeTop.com from an HCI/d perspective. I have been relatively quiet about our business until now because a) just about every spare moment is taken up with other academic and business activities, and b) i wanted to first, before writing, ensure that i had a good handle on what is smart - from an intellectual property perspective - to write about publicly (if i had my way, all IP would be out on the table for the world to kick around, but people better-versed than am i in the ways of current legal/business practice convinced me that this would have been a bad idea).<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">To my colleagues at IU Informatics: </span>If i've been a bit distracted in classes and meetings over the course of the past 6 months, i hope that you won't take it personally. The thousands of tasks around getting an idea like BigTreeTop off the ground are pretty good at pushing themselves consistently to the forefront of one's consciousness, especially when paired with simultaneous PhD work. This will probably continue for a while longer, but my hope is that, in time, the effort will produce a living, breathing organization that that we can all use as a test bed for HCI/d research, as well as an experiment the result of which we can analyze and from which we can all learn.<br /><br />I hope that the upcoming series of musings is interesting information for those of you currently studying HCI/d, for those of you now practicing it, and for those of you who have an idea that you would like to some day make a reality in the form of a real live organization.Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-12036373302833049192007-10-23T03:31:00.000-07:002007-10-23T03:34:29.566-07:00Identity as Advertising<div class="snap_preview"><p><span style="font-style: italic;">This is also posted at (http://interactionculture.wordpress.com/2007/10/23/identity-as-advertising/)</span><br /></p><p>Without getting into the deeper philosophical concept of identity as performance or sign, i find the recent news of MySpace founder Tom Andersen’s alleged age-shifting mildly amusing.</p> <p>“<em>Tom Anderson, the co-founder of MySpace and the first friend to anyone who creates a MySpace profile, isn’t really 32 like it says on his <a href="http://www.myspace.com/tom">MySpace profile<img src="http://i.ixnp.com/images/v2.27.1/t.gif" class="snap_preview_icon" style="border: 0pt none ; margin: 0pt ! important; padding: 1px 0pt 0pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',arial,helvetica,sans-serif; float: none; position: static; left: auto; top: auto; line-height: normal; background-image: url(http://i.ixnp.com/images/v2.27.1/theme/silver/palette.gif); background-color: transparent; width: 14px; height: 12px; background-position: -889px 0pt; background-repeat: no-repeat; text-decoration: none; visibility: visible; vertical-align: top; display: inline;" /></a>. His <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Anderson_%28MySpace%29">Wikipedia entry<img src="http://i.ixnp.com/images/v2.27.1/t.gif" class="snap_preview_icon" style="border: 0pt none ; margin: 0pt ! important; padding: 1px 0pt 0pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',arial,helvetica,sans-serif; float: none; position: static; left: auto; top: auto; line-height: normal; background-image: url(http://i.ixnp.com/images/v2.27.1/theme/silver/palette.gif); background-color: transparent; width: 14px; height: 12px; background-position: -889px 0pt; background-repeat: no-repeat; text-decoration: none; visibility: visible; vertical-align: top; display: inline;" /></a>, which says he was born in 1975, is also incorrect. How old is he really? We first heard 40. We dug a little online and came up with nothing. But then we got a senior person at MySpace to talk to us about it off record at the Web 2.0 Summit last week: this person confirmed that he’s really “36 or 37″ and that MySpace has been trying to keep this quiet for some time.</em>“<br />(Source: <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/23/has-americas-first-friend-been-lying-about-his-age/" target="_blank">TechCrunch</a>)</p> <p>In considering identity, and its perhaps often fractured online nature, i had never given much thought to the idea that the identities of higher-profile folks would be knowingly and grossly manipulated as a branding move. As the first mega social networking success story, MySpace has been a lightning-rod in the past for the criticisms that people in social networks lie about their identity. It is usually treated as though dishonesty on MySpace is a violation of its intended use. The funny fact here is that <em>every</em> MySpace/user relationship begins at the outset with false identity when a 40-year old Tom Andersen, claiming to be 32, becomes everyone’s first friend, so perhaps it is the people who are <em>truthful </em>about their identity in MySpace who are transgressing its intended use.</p> </div>Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-38549651989154977472007-09-04T19:50:00.000-07:002007-09-04T20:00:00.010-07:00Emerging Challenges for BrandI just posted this in <a href="http://mootee.typepad.com/innovation_playground/2007/09/what-are-the-ma.html" target="_blank">another location</a> as part of a discussion on the major challenges today for "Business Strategy and Brand." I thought it might be interesting for folks here to read it as well:<br /><br />One way that brand is changing (has changed already, i think) is that the relationship between brand and the transitive property is changing as a result of increased connectivity and the rise of popularity systems like Google's pagerank.<br /><br />Okay, now that was quite a loaded sentence, but i think it's pretty straightforward once we get past the overblown vocabulary and into the practical concepts.<br /><br />Before the social web came along and before traditional advertising started its freefall, the 'transitive property' was used by companies in the form of celebrity endorsements of brand, because hey, if Bill Cosby likes Jello and I like Bill Cosby, then surely i will like and buy Jello (this is the transitive property).<br /><br />So formerly the relationship was:<br />[brand] to [endorser] to [consumer]<br /><br />or more concretely:<br /><br />[Jello] to [Bill Cosby and one or two friends] to [me]<br /><br />Now, with the advent of the social web (now people can massively connect with each other) and the rise of the core idea of Google pagerank (something is good if lots of people like it, and those people are in turn liked by a lot of other people who are in turn liked by a lot of other people, etc..), the new relationship is:<br /><br />[brand] to [hundreds of connected authorities on the brand] to [me]<br /><br />or more concretely:<br /><br />[Jello] to [the Jello customer community] to [me]<br /><br />..So, i'm predicting that a major part of the new concept of brand is the community <span style="font-style: italic;">itself</span>, which both explicitly (by promoting the brand through word of mouth) and implicitly (by acting as a sort of 'brand pagerank' that give the brand authority just by virtue of their involvement with it) constitute a major part of the brand.<br /><br />So-called "marketers" in this new world will therefore need to be community builders - not by inclusion only, but also by empowerment. Customer involvement (a noble idea in its day) will have to evolve into customer empowerment, which will allow the community to do its work in building a large part of a trusted, vibrant brand.Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-72985240791833451702007-09-04T04:45:00.001-07:002007-09-04T06:07:28.680-07:00Tip for Job Seekers - Anticipate and PersistI was talking with a friend earlier in the week about his job search, and it occurred to me that there are two incredibly helpful things that he could do to set himself apart from %90 of the other applicants. Hopefully these help you too. Both of these ideas make the most sense when viewed from the perspective of the hiring manager or the company. You'll see what i mean in a minute:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Anticipate!<br /></span>When seeking a job with a company, don't talk to them about ways that you can fit into their existing initiatives. Anticipate where the company is <span style="font-style: italic;">going </span>and talk to them - even better: <span style="font-style: italic;">show </span>them ways that you will be able to help them to get there. Key things to remember:<br /><ul><li>every <span style="font-style: italic;">healthy</span> organization is trying to go somewhere better than where they are today</li><li>if the organization is not moving in a direction - or if your hiring manager isn't aware of that direction, you might want to think twice about working there<br /></li><li>in healthy organizations, the most desirable and interesting hires are those who can help the organization to get to tomorrow's destination</li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Persist!</span><br />If you are reasonably sure that you are well-suited for a position, don't immediately take "no" for an answer. Healthy organizations that are moving in new directions need people who won't take immediate "no"s for answers in their daily work. Your interactions with a hiring manager may be a great first chance to show this ability.<br /><br />I'll end this post with a story that shows the power of using these two principles:<br /><br />In 1997 i interviewed with Ron, a Senior Technical writer at <a href="http://corporate.disney.go.com/careers/who_imagineering.html" target="_blank">Walt Disney Imagineering</a> for a contract position as an Assistant Technical writer with the Show Ride Engineering group. After what i thought was a very positive interview, i was later informed by the contract agency that Ron had passed on hiring me, stating that he thought i was not the right guy for the job. My immediate (and not much thought-out reaction, i must confess) was to ask the contract agency representative to call Ron back and let him know that i was sure that i <span style="font-style: italic;">was </span>the right guy for the job. After a short negotiation she did so grudgingly, and called back, surprised that Ron had scheduled a second interview with me the next day.<br /><br />From the first interview, i remembered that Ron had mentioned a new push to put all of Imagineering's technical documentation in web format for wireless access by the engineers. Though the job description was for a pure technical writer, when i went back to meet with Ron the second time, i mentioned that i had an interest in the digitization effort, and reminded him of my previous experience that might be of use.<br /><br />Ron hired me on the spot, i ended up working there for a full year, and Ron and I became friends. He even offered at the end of my contract to write up a letter of personal recommendation. Toward the end of my tenure there Ron told me that the fact that i had the gumption to (respectfully) disagree with his opinion showed drive, personal self-knowledge, and that i had the gumption necessary to stand up to the political pressures in Imagineering.<br /><br />I would say that these traits are desirable to any organization, and your first meeting/negotiation is a great place to display them.Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-24171848810985714262007-09-01T06:31:00.000-07:002007-09-01T06:45:40.773-07:00Even if you Can Beat Facebook.. Maybe You Shouldn'tThere's been a <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=YFAM5VCC01QO5QFIQMFCFF4AVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2007/07/27/nface127.xml" target="_blank">bit of a flap recently in Britain</a>, where it is reported that %70 of employers are banning or restricting access to social networking sites like Facebook.<br /><br />It strikes me as odd that this occurs simultaneous to the new <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/" target="_blank">big focus in business on finding new sources of innovation.</a><br /><br />Call me naive, but i can't help but think that if these companies made work more stimulating by proving a way for their employees to innovate at work through (digitally augmented) social means, that Facebook would not be a problem anymore. Heck, they might even do it via a plugin.Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-19065167725384744042007-08-30T22:22:00.000-07:002007-08-30T23:02:16.650-07:00First Two BigTreeTop Idea Games Go Live!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqO4PWXA61wvFtyy3BIfEuFp0C-w52JtwvtDeHazSWD2JqD1uMMTRILdbLSx4AMh_rtOLUUhm9iQmLBjC0ihjguezN5SNvmhfNZi57KJnnUzoUk-a3x1mP5kXb0PX0115qL78y/s1600-h/ideaGames.gif"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqO4PWXA61wvFtyy3BIfEuFp0C-w52JtwvtDeHazSWD2JqD1uMMTRILdbLSx4AMh_rtOLUUhm9iQmLBjC0ihjguezN5SNvmhfNZi57KJnnUzoUk-a3x1mP5kXb0PX0115qL78y/s400/ideaGames.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5104740923740832258" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The <a href="http://btt.bigtreetop.com/game/details?id=3" target="_blank">first game</a> was launched by one of our original testers <a href="http://www.goodsforcooks.com/" target="_blank">Goods for Cooks</a> - a great Bloomington cooking goods store. The game, brainchild of Andrew, one of the owners, provides GFC's customers with a chance to help determine the next proprietary coffee blend that they will be offering in the store. If you're a customer of GFC and want to give them some ideas or just vote on the ones that other people have posted, <a href="http://btt.bigtreetop.com/game/details?id=3" target="_blank">head over to the game</a> before September 7th.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.motherbearspizza.com/" mce_href="http://www.motherbearspizza.com/" target="_blank">Mother Bear's Pizza</a> - a famous Bloomington Pizza Parlor - has recently joined the BigTreeTop Alpha testing program, and jumped right in today with both feet, launching a "Best NEW Pizza Idea" game to better understand what types of pizzas their customers might really love. The top vote-getter will receive a free pizza. If you fancy yourself an expert on pizza (what red-blooded american doesn't?), <a href="http://btt.bigtreetop.com/game/details?id=4" target="_blank">post your idea<span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span> and vote on the ideas you like</a> before September 13th!<br /><br />Both of these efforts represent exciting, small first steps by these two businesses who a) think that their customers are smart and b) want to involve them more intimately in shaping their business.<br /><br />The idea game is part of an overall new methodology we're working on for businesses called <span style="font-style: italic;">CLIC</span> (Community, Listen, Implement, Communicate). Different from the more traditional methodology that i might call <span style="font-style: italic;">RIB</span> (Research, Implement, Broadcast - which chunks together a lot of things like design, development, etc - but you get the point), it claims that customers and businesses (as well as their local economies, in the long run) <span style="font-style: italic;">both </span>create value by co-creating the business itself. This can help to solve a few problems simultaneously:<br /><ul><li>Advertising is less about broadcasting to people who may not want to listen</li><li>Advertising is more about communicating to people who actually care about the business<br /></li><li>Figuring out what customers want is much easier if one is talking to them regularly</li></ul>As you might imagine, there is <span style="font-style: italic;">much more</span> to the CLIC methodology, as well as some unadvertised potential outcomes of the Goods for Cooks and Mother Bear's idea games (you'll have to participate to find out), but i will end this post here, with a pretty illustration, because illustrations are cool.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR3U1LJWQBFWj5_fjIpFldHAarpSkLt0ScZ5SqbBV4b2pLD3STbbXWOSSRqj3sHF7WxXTa2Kt2OlRuKXApdoEfd2_MJ0YhdU1Zf4FGhVe4ZN599w2v4UU98mPWEqUCtuI-ZLiM/s1600-h/CLIC.gif"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR3U1LJWQBFWj5_fjIpFldHAarpSkLt0ScZ5SqbBV4b2pLD3STbbXWOSSRqj3sHF7WxXTa2Kt2OlRuKXApdoEfd2_MJ0YhdU1Zf4FGhVe4ZN599w2v4UU98mPWEqUCtuI-ZLiM/s400/CLIC.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5104738587278623218" border="0" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-30686339013052619012007-07-27T11:35:00.000-07:002007-07-27T12:38:24.842-07:00Supper Solutions - Great Grad Student DealOne of the BigTreeTop.com Alpha Testers is <a href="http://www.suppersolutionsinc.com/" target="_blank">Supper Solutions</a> - a local "meal assembly kitchen." For those of you not familiar with the concept (i wasn't), I think it is a <span style="font-style: italic;">fantastic</span> idea for grad students (among other people), so i decided to try out two of their meals for myself and write about it here.<br /><br />One of the biggest benefits is cost. For about <span style="font-weight: bold;">$3.40 per meal</span>, folks can drop by their kitchen and self-prepare 12 good healthy meals in about 1.5 - 2 hours that they can then bring home and freeze until it's time to eat. Each meal serves 2-3 people, so that's 36 meal servings. They also have an option where they will pre-prepare the meals for you ahead of time for pickup. This would bring the price up to about <span style="font-weight: bold;">$4.16 per meal</span>. If there is sufficient interest, Kirsten, the owner is considering offering delivery drop-off at INFO or Eigenmann for folks who don't have transportation.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtAcG-1QdnXPGyVS5-GtHF5OW9MelregmVYCZhiAHJ1WsHAEmtT-39Y7IV4Nlu1Qqs6F43BvPctEFVmllIkrmyltIVMwOu-BiumR9-LXPQRsOS8T32laxq4pI86habjQBsy0GJ/s1600-h/IMAGE_018.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtAcG-1QdnXPGyVS5-GtHF5OW9MelregmVYCZhiAHJ1WsHAEmtT-39Y7IV4Nlu1Qqs6F43BvPctEFVmllIkrmyltIVMwOu-BiumR9-LXPQRsOS8T32laxq4pI86habjQBsy0GJ/s400/IMAGE_018.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5091954013063257938" border="0" /></a><br />To try this out fully, Esther and i recently visited Supper Solutions and prepared 2 meals for ourselves. We decided to try the Mexican Calzones and the Spicy Patong Pork. (this month's menu is online <a href="http://www.suppersolutionsinc.com/menus.php?franchise_id=28" target="_blank">here</a>)<br /><br /><br />Once at the Supper Solutions kitchen, the entire process of making the 2 meals, putting them in bags and affixing cooking instruction labels took<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9jgXSMIP6AzA13KpM467A5_F4NRLUwwJ7iUmRQRc0ODNMgC-rc_kN1F7QZUx9iiZpzqQEU8THN5eJYsWqwLIMXhLEeEsFurOfSrmZcnbXSmaZ4DjWhWrGJuk3DN4SlNKPfG0V/s1600-h/IMAGE_019.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9jgXSMIP6AzA13KpM467A5_F4NRLUwwJ7iUmRQRc0ODNMgC-rc_kN1F7QZUx9iiZpzqQEU8THN5eJYsWqwLIMXhLEeEsFurOfSrmZcnbXSmaZ4DjWhWrGJuk3DN4SlNKPfG0V/s400/IMAGE_019.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5091954017358225266" border="0" /></a> about 10 minutes. The meal preparation stations were spotless and extremely well-organized, so it was extremely easy to do - even for those of us who are culinarily disadvantaged. While at Supper Solutions, we ran into our next door neighbor and one of Esther's co-workers who both raved about Supper Solutions. One, a local advertising professional, was visiting for the 3rd time, while the other, a doctor, is a long-time customer.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivNH68MZ-jf4xWEOwV48s63so-b1tgKZeFhzq7bdhI4Vo1FNr1WWV-GaxlU_7OQAseMli_ddJefdZsDWml461x-BVk3e3yROgsZwIZtk8fqsv1-KfDy9434iPd6RWPkAzjbmsc/s1600-h/IMAGE_021.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivNH68MZ-jf4xWEOwV48s63so-b1tgKZeFhzq7bdhI4Vo1FNr1WWV-GaxlU_7OQAseMli_ddJefdZsDWml461x-BVk3e3yROgsZwIZtk8fqsv1-KfDy9434iPd6RWPkAzjbmsc/s400/IMAGE_021.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5091954017358225282" border="0" /></a><br />Once home, we decided to first try the Mexican Calzones for dinner. The directions are included right on the packaging (see first photo to the right). We popped it on a pan and into the toaster oven for 20 minutes, and they came out perfectly good. They were quite large and filling. Each one was pretty much a complete meal.<br /><br />Two evenings later, we made the Spicy Patong Pork. Again the<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyqp6F7oeRwKB-7JnOE-yAPl8jX5eVzZ3sByQA95TsTd4Uu-AyMr6hKPfvd33QdYkRai6fbv0NMmT6AvAAC_TZrWMmSuKskJc61qPrA0WFb11oTdqito24PR5ZocrRI_jrkfvu/s1600-h/IMAGE_017.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyqp6F7oeRwKB-7JnOE-yAPl8jX5eVzZ3sByQA95TsTd4Uu-AyMr6hKPfvd33QdYkRai6fbv0NMmT6AvAAC_TZrWMmSuKskJc61qPrA0WFb11oTdqito24PR5ZocrRI_jrkfvu/s400/IMAGE_017.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5091954013063257954" border="0" /></a> instructions were on the bag, and it was quite easy to make. After about 10 minutes preparation (briefly sauteeing the pork, adding the sauce and microwaving the pre-cooked rice), we had a complete meal of pork and brown rice. It was very very good (see last photo to the right).<br /><br />If you are a busy grad student, do yourself a favor and look into this. It's great food, very economical, healthy, and will help to keep food expenses predictable each month. Besides, by buying from Supper<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgshiuYY0hPWCCttkO8rvPWa_8kk7-LdOnh6XsuFtP_gZxrueJAh329w3AAakoXXc0Kdyf8y8w-GZiw48KpASpiyi5mBSTzPFGx-GHq3TlR62ikv4C09mXfVuwRCn-Eu1Nfovms/s1600-h/IMAGE_022.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgshiuYY0hPWCCttkO8rvPWa_8kk7-LdOnh6XsuFtP_gZxrueJAh329w3AAakoXXc0Kdyf8y8w-GZiw48KpASpiyi5mBSTzPFGx-GHq3TlR62ikv4C09mXfVuwRCn-Eu1Nfovms/s400/IMAGE_022.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5091955958683443090" border="0" /></a> Solutions, you'll be supporting a small local business who, as an early and enthusiastic support of BigTreeTop, is serious about co-creating value with their customers, not just padding their bottom line :)<br /><br />Full disclosure: As an Alpha Tester of BigTreeTop.com, i have an emotional bias toward Supper Solutions, but not a financial one (they are not paying customers). Additionally, i should reveal that i am now chemically dependent on the Mexican Calzones, which are really good..<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBeNzFGZu3RGfsHWbjI7k2d4_nhBO_2Aa1UHIMKkEpLhjdJuK0977fXfKSRR9ZYo4EHRTzr-rTnxZfNDukg-UAC5jhRp5lR99xf8yXhDugG30OKZcJMxZthIkyVrdx4UpMsMOz/s1600-h/IMAGE_023.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBeNzFGZu3RGfsHWbjI7k2d4_nhBO_2Aa1UHIMKkEpLhjdJuK0977fXfKSRR9ZYo4EHRTzr-rTnxZfNDukg-UAC5jhRp5lR99xf8yXhDugG30OKZcJMxZthIkyVrdx4UpMsMOz/s400/IMAGE_023.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5091955958683443106" border="0" /></a><br />Here's their contact info:<br /><b>Supper Solutions</b><br />2616 Walnut<br />Bloomington, IN 47401<br />812-333-8009<br /><br />Email:<br /><a href="mailto:bloomington@suppersolutionsinc.com">bloomington@suppersolutionsinc.com</a><br /><br />Intersection:<br />In Walnut Station, Corner of S.Walnut and Country Club Road Next to Dominos PizzaChristian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-39849846225626305942007-07-25T05:05:00.000-07:002007-07-25T05:33:43.024-07:00"Want" vs. "Should" Decisions - When People Choose the Broccoli over the Baby RuthThis is a replica of another blog post at <a href="http://btt.bigtreetop.com/blog/view?id=3&post=21">http://btt.bigtreetop.com/blog/view?id=3&post=21</a>, which is more business-oriented, but i think the concept has rather large HCI/d implications, so i'm posting it here as well.<br /><br />Most people, when making decisions, have to choose between "want" and "should" decisions. But what makes a person choose one over the other?<br /><br />A recent Harvard Business School Article <a href="http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5693.html" target="_blank">Understanding the 'Want' vs. 'Should' Decision</a> (link to Harvard Business School's website) helps to answer this. Based on a number of studies of purchasing and voting behavior, as well as some older work in Construal Level Theory, explained nicely in the paper <a href="http://www.psych.nyu.edu/trope/Trope%20&%20Liberman%20%282003%29%20Temporal%20Construal.pdf" target="_blank">Temporal Construal</a> (link to pdf paper by Trope and Liberman). The studies show that the further away the implementation of a decision is (future or past), the more people will favor a ‘should’ decision over a ‘want’ one.<br /><br />As a simple example, if someone asks me to decide on and eat immediately either Broccoli or a Baby Ruth candy bar, i am more likely to choose the candy bar, since it's what i want right now. If, on the other hand, a person asks me to decide right now what i will eat at a later time (or if they ask me later what i should have eaten previously), i am more likely to choose the broccoli. What this suggests is that the further away from the present the consequences of my decision are, the more likely i am to choose what i should do.<br /><br />In the article, the authors state this this "should/want" factor is the reason that most grocery stores place their produce section directly at the front entrance, while the candy bars and trashy magazines appear at the cash registers - to ensure that when walking through the "should" section (healthy produce) shoppers are furthest from the point of consumption (which will probably happen at home, long after they leave the store), and simultaneously to ensure that when entering the "want" section (candy bars), shoppers are the closest to the point of consumption (which most likely will occur in the store or soon after leaving it).<br /><br />This is an important consideration for HCI/d folks<br /><br />1) If you are designing a "should" application (something that is more good for the user but less instantly-gratifying), or one that provides the user with "should" features, the further in advance a person makes the decision, the more likely they may be to choose your "should" service over a "want".<br /><br />2) If you are providing a "want" service, you will need to ensure that your users make the decision as close as possible to the time of consumption - by offering quick setup of their account, express checkout, immediate delivery, etc.<br /><br />3) It seems to me that offering both "wants" and "shoulds" as a complimentary mix might be a good idea for any design.<br /><br />4) Since, according to the Trope/Liberman paper, Construal is also related not just to temporal distance, but also spatial, i wonder what this means for distributed communities (i.e., if i am chatting online with a person and can see that they are on the other side of the world, is my experience different than if i know that they are in the same town)<br /><br />I'll be exploring this further, both in my academic research, and as part of BigTreeTop.com, where we present our users simultaneous "want" and "should" options - that we may want to present differently to maximize their use.<br /><br />Here is a quote from Trope and Liberman's paper:<br /><br /><br /><em>"CLT (Construal Level Theory) suggests that temporal distance affects preferences and judgments by changing the way individuals mentally represent future events. The greater the temporal distance from future events, the more likely are the events to be represented in terms of a few abstract and core features (highlevel construals) rather than in terms of more concrete and superficial features (low-level construals). Therefore, temporal distance changes judgments and decisions because in the distant future, compared with the near future, judgments and decisions are more likely to reflect the evaluative and informational implications of high-level construals than those of low-level construals."</em><br /><em></em><br /><em></em>Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-1775082641614332962007-07-24T04:15:00.000-07:002007-07-24T04:24:52.626-07:00American Revolution Decided by Rock-Paper-ScissorsOn July 4th my wife and I were watching a documentary on the American Revolution when i began to laugh out loud. Now there aren't many funny things about the revolution, but now there is one. It seems that the name of the French general who really turned the tide of the war was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Donatien_de_Vimeur%2C_Comte_de_Rochambeau" target="_blank">Comte de Rochambeau</a>. Rochambeau is another name (Reaux, Sham, Beaux) for the game <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock%2C_Paper%2C_Scissors" target="_blank">Rock Paper Scissors</a>, which, for those of you who are uninitiated, is perhaps the most common way in America for settling simple disputes between two people.<br /><br />I now have a permanent and vivid image in my mind of a flamboyant French general approaching the British lines, banging his right fist in his left open palm, deciding the fate of America.Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-82629021722086728122007-07-18T04:54:00.000-07:002007-07-18T05:11:58.030-07:00New Blog for a WhileFor the next few months, i'll be blogging primarily through another blog at <a href="http://btt.bigtreetop.com/blog/view?id=3">http://btt.bigtreetop.com/blog/view?id=3</a>. The content will orbit loosely around a few of my current areas of inquiry and endeavor:<br /><br />1) How organizations (and even <em>more </em>specifically small businesses - since that is the current focus of BigTreeTop.com) can deeply involve the constituents of those organizations in substantive participation as a part of more sustainable strategic, operational and marketing practices.<br /><br />2) The ways that computers can augment and/or enable these practices<br /><br />3) The ways that consumers (for current lack of a better term) can contribute to local and national economic sustainability by deeper involvement in small businesses<br /><br />4) How the academy and business can and need to form alliances that benefit the world<br /><br />5) How strategy is sexyChristian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-60836177652821530602007-05-21T09:28:00.000-07:002007-05-21T11:43:33.281-07:00Of Farmers and EnvironmentalistsChristopher Bunn, a friend of mine from former grad school days is continuing to fight a long battle in central coastal California for the autonomy of the local farmers there. His family owns a lettuce farm, and though i must confess i still am under-informed about the plight of farmers in environmentally-charged areas, it sounds like a pretty tough battle.<br /><br />Christopher's written/recorded a slew of great protest and political songs about this and other topics. Whether or not you agree with his conclusions, the process is darn entertaining to listen to.<br /><br />My favorites include<br /><ul><li><a href="http://tunescribble.squarespace.com/political-tunes/2007/3/21/southern-drawl-doll.html">Southern Drawl Doll</a> - about Hillary Clinton's (and most any politician's) propensity to change their accent to fit their constituency<br /></li><li><a href="http://tunescribble.squarespace.com/political-tunes/2006/11/5/frogs-on-the-edge-of-the-ocean.html">Frogs on the Edge of the Ocean</a> - about frog protection on the coast of California</li><li><a href="http://tunescribble.squarespace.com/home/2007/1/12/new-tune-landwatch-referendum-what-i-learned-as-a-kid.html">Landwatch (what i learned as a kid)</a> - about eminent domain land grabs<br /></li></ul>Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-84788810109719034002007-05-21T05:38:00.000-07:002007-05-21T05:45:26.485-07:00Bringing the Love BackThanks to <a href="http://darmano.typepad.com" target="_blank">David Armano</a> at Logic+Emotion for catching this video that aptly personifies the problems consumers are having with traditional advertising. As many of you know, a new company i'm currently starting is all about using some deep-rooted organizational, marketing and HCI (and even a little bit of economic) theory to create real conversations and relationships between local businesses and their customers, so that they can finally stop treating their customers like numbers. Enjoy:<br /><br /><br /><object height="166" width="200"><param name="movie" value="http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/5DU7DqJkp2fyVe4gE"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/5DU7DqJkp2fyVe4gE" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="335" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object><br /><br />I'm very much looking forward to launching <a href="http://www.bigtreetop.com" target="_blank">www.bigtreetop.com</a> to helping bring the love back. Soon.<br /><br />..And if all goes well, i'll likely be presenting our idea, the theory behind it, preliminary research results and lessons learned in a colloqium in the Fall.Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-37693878695099838872007-05-07T04:51:00.000-07:002007-05-24T07:47:22.295-07:0017 out of 20 (a.k.a. 'calling any psychologists)Here's a very very interesting informal experiment in aptitude, concentration and execution.<br /><br />For about 5 years now, i've been playing basketball at least once a week with other players. Often, though, when thinking through a particularly difficult business or academic problem, i can think best alone on a basketball court with just a ball, a basket, and my thoughts. I am quite sure that this is due to the slight distraction that it provides, clearing the way for new perspectives to emerge on the problem at hand - similar to the way that focusing on an ocean vista can help in thinking about a weightly personal decision.<br /><br />Over the last 5 years, i've played a game with myself during these thinking sessions to see how many foul shots in a row i can shoot. Since i've played a lot of sports in my life, this is more a mental exercise than a physical one. This is to say that, for the sake of analyzing yesterday's results of this experiment, the physical part of it can be almost completely removed where foul shots are concerned. They are not <em>physically </em>difficult, but instead require mental attentiveness.<br /><br />Here is the part which is extremely interesting:<br /><br />Over the last 5 years, i can recount anecdotally that hitting 5 foul shots in a row has occurred probably in the neighborhood of %25 of the time. This is to say that 1/4 of the times that i've played this game with myself, i've been able to hit 5 out of 5. Probably another %10 of the time i've been able to hit 10 out of 10. About once a year, i'm able to hit 20 out of 20. These statistics are probably pretty consistent with anyone who did not play organized basketball (and therefore did not do freethrow drills every day at practice) - who would have a higher percentage than i do.<br /><br />Yesterday, to increase the challenge, i took the first foul shot with my eyes closed, expecting decreased results. This is to say that i stood at the line, prepared for the shot looking at the hoop, closed my eyes and took the shot. I hit the first 3 in a row. Then the next 4 (7 in a row). Then the next 2 (9 in a row). Then i missed a shot (9 out of 10). Deciding that this was worth testing, i kept shooting. When all was said and done, i had hit 17 out of 20 of the shots, with my eyes closed - something i'd rarely been able to do in 5 years with my eyes open. Due to time constraints, i then left, baffled. This was one of the best shooting percentages in 5 years - with my eyes closed. Hitting one of these shots could have been a fluke. But it is difficult to think that hitting this many in a row is a chance event.<br /><br />My observations of the event:<br /><br /><ul><li>i found myself preparing more thoroughly for the shot because i knew i <em>had </em>to if i wanted to have a prayer of putting each one through the hoop</li><li>on the shots i missed, i could actually tell <em>how </em>the shot was going to miss (left, right, short), even before opening my eyes, by feeling how the ball left my hand, and visualizing its flight</li><li>i was forced to completely visualize the shot before taking it</li><li>shooting the ball <em>felt </em>completely different with my eyes closed</li></ul><p>Other observations:</p><ul><li>anecdotally, i remember playing some of my best volleyball games in college and while trying to make the AVP tour (Association of Volleyball Professionals) when sick or slightly injured</li></ul><p>My preliminary hypotheses:</p><ul><li>for a person who has done a task frequently over a long period of time (but who knows the task pretty well), shutting down their primary skill can force them to shift to a secondary - but perhaps more powerful skill in accomplishing a task - occasionally with better results. In this case i had to rely on visualization much more heavily than in the past. In the past, a sickness or slight injury forced me to rely more on knowledge than strength to try and win a game.</li><li>latent, underutilized skills can lie dormant and unused in people until radical change forces their use</li><li>people don't <em>automatically</em> use their best skill or set of skills when accomplishing a task</li></ul><p>What do you all think? Assuming yesterday's events were not a fluke, what are some possible causes? What does it mean for us as HCI Designers, business people, teachers, etc. as we design tools and environments that should enable employees, students and users to achieve the highest results?</p><p>Should we intentionally shake up people's routines in order to test/develop other skills?</p><p></p><p>* Note: i will be trying the experiment again later this week and posting the results.</p><p></p>Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-16399655362390896732007-04-10T06:21:00.000-07:002007-04-10T06:22:53.452-07:00Innovation in Business<p>For those of you who are missing it, the business world is starting to embrace and even develop their own design stance, as a result of their awareness of the need to true innovation. One of the guys who has gotten lots of eyeballs of late is <a href="http://darmano.typepad.com/" target="_blank">David Armano,</a> a Creative VP at Digitas, who recently wrote an article for Business Week on "It's The Conversation Economy, Stupid." </p><p>I posted a similar concept back in November about the designer as novelist. <a href="http://briggzay.blogspot.com/2006/11/designer-linguist-not-novelist.html" rel="nofollow">http://briggzay.blogspot.com/2006/11/designer-linguist-not-novelist.html</a> </p><p>David and the whole creative business culture are pushing hard to understand design as it plays out in the business world, and are coming along nicely, i think, given the immense challenge of marrying our modernistic industrial revolution ethos with more post-modern societal tendencies. In my experience, this is an exciting, challenging space.</p>Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-3239520431993300562006-12-11T14:20:00.000-08:002006-12-11T14:21:32.917-08:00The Rise of the ConsumerGreat video on YouTube about the rise of the powerful consumer <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xAA71Ssids&eurl=" target="_blank">here</a>.Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-19623192236421969582006-12-04T20:25:00.000-08:002006-12-04T20:41:43.112-08:00Civilicon Disobedience.I had a funny experience recently that just popped back into mind tonight, so i thought i'd share it with all of you. On a recent trip to Boston, i was picked up and treated to the best "taxi" ride ever in <a href="http://www.jeremikarnell.com/" target="_blank">Jeremi Karnell's</a> moxified new <a href="http://www.bmwusa.com/vehicles/X5/48i/" target="_blank">BMW SUV</a> on our way to a MITX panel discussion. Immediately upon exiting the hotel garage, the automated voice navigation lady informed us in a sultry synthesized voice that "if possible, please make an illegal left-hand turn onto Huntington Avenue." <br /><br />Hunh. <span style="font-style: italic;">Sivilicon Disobedience</span>. I half expected her to suggest next: "if possible, please turn right and head toward Walden Pond. Live deliberately. It's only a few miles from here."Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33964428.post-5356942715188777382006-11-06T16:12:00.000-08:002006-11-06T16:35:55.973-08:00Designer - Linguist not NovelistAt a presentation tonight by visiting professor Josh Tennenberg, a discussion arose about the "problematizing" of the role of designers in a world where design research seems to be finding more and more that the outsourcing of design to the end user (participatory design, experience co-creation, innovation democratization, etc) produces a better design.<br /><br />My thoughts on this? <br /><br />Glad you asked - or at least kept reading so far. As designers find themselves outsourcing design and innovation to the users themselves, they become no less "designerly." Instead, it is merely that the locus of the value that they add to the process shifts. This process of locus-shifting is not without historical precedent. Education itself has seen this shift occur, for example. Where once the educator was seen as the disseminator of knowledge and the students as the receivers, now a good educator is often a facilitator that creates the space in which students learn. Where in a monarchy, the ruler was seen as the maker of laws and the determiner of ethics, democracy attempts to create the space in which the people govern themselves. So i see that designers are no longer the designers of designs that consumers consume. Instead they are becoming the designers of the <span style="font-style: italic;">spaces</span> in which consumers (though this name will need to change) can configure and create their own designs. <br /><br />But there is something more. For the last few months, i have been working on understanding this "space-creating activity", continually conceiving of it as "creating a space" into which user/consumer creativity could pour. But this would merely make the designer a demolition man, blasting holes in the earth in hopes that people would then spontaneously construct mansions. This is as ludicrous as the theories of extreme anarchism, which seek to destroy government in hopes that a civilized society will spontaneously form. <br /><br />No, the new designer is not a demolition man, but a linguist. Where once the designer acted as a novelist, striving to put together for an unskilled public just the perfect work of literature that would educate, entertain, embolden them, now the designer is a linguist, who creates for her skilled public the grammar, the language, that the user/consumer can easily learn, use and re-use to create their own works of art.Christian Briggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223245158646171336noreply@blogger.com0