I love being a generalist, but I hate it too. Sometimes it’s absolute torture. One of the most frustrating parts is getting interested something new and then falling behind on everything else. I’ve fallen behind on a lot of things lately. Some are necessary things that I really shouldn’t be falling behind on - such as bills, expense reports, timesheets, and replying to important emails. Others are for-fun things like reading, blogging, writing, photography, and working on old projects. Because there’s always something shiny to obsess about just around the corner, what happens is that I think of myself as almost a writer, almost a designer, or almost a programmer. I just can’t seem to hang around one thing long enough to truly master it at the level I’d like.
The almost-a-film-person inside of me has taken over these past few days (partly because we’ve been sifting through dozens and dozens of directors’ reels at work) and I finally signed up for Netflix. I’m trying to catch up on my list of movies-to-watch, and the first two to arrive in my mailbox are City of God and Human Nature. If you’ve got an account, add me as a friend and tell me what I’ve missed out on.
On a side note, I’m completely fascinated with Netflix’s crowdsourced contest to improve their recommendation algorithm. It’s part of a bigger recent obsession with heuristics and decision-making processes. Did I mention I was almost a psych major in college?
Undoubtedly you’ve heard about the iPhone by now. You’ve probably seen the keynote too. Or downloaded all 1.21 gigs of it from the iTunes Store. I could watch Steve Jobs introduce the iPhone over and over again:
Now that a week has passed and reality has had a chance to set in, I have to say that I’m even more impressed. In his keynote, Steve Jobs said the iPhone was a “revolution of the first order”. The phrase absolutely applies not just to the device itself, but Apple’s approach to creating the iPhone.
I recently read that on average we spend about twelve percent of our daily thoughts on the future. That’s almost an eighth of our waking moments pondering things that have yet to occur. I think what makes this time of the year so special isn’t necessarily that it lets us spend even more time thinking about the future, but rather that it affords us a moment to reflect on the year that has passed, and use this as guidance for our lives from this point forward.
I guess that’s a more eloquent way of saying that instead of listing a bunch of new year’s resolutions that I probably won’t keep, I based my goals for 2007 on some lessons I’ve learned through personal experience in 2006.
It appears that Johanna has gone and tagged me with the 5-things-you-probably-don’t-know-about me meme. Good thing you caught me on a break Johanna, cuz otherwise I would’ve never gotten around to this :)
So here goes, five things you probably don’t know about me:
When I was a young lad, I looked remarkably like a Roswell alien. I was ridiculously skinny, kinda short, had a head that was way too big for my body, and glasses that were way too big for my face. Luckily, now I’m much taller, my head is only moderately too big for my body, and I look slightly less like an alien.
In my apartment bedroom, there are three boxes stuffed with clothes I’ve been meaning to donate to the Salvation Army. Said boxes have been sitting in my bedroom for four months.
My clever title for this blog entry is actually stolen from Merlin Mann’s far more clever website of the same name, 5ives. I am insanely jealous of Merlin’s name, cleverness, ability to be productive, and articulate podcasting voice.
Speaking of names, my Chinese name is Yuan. When my family moved to the states, we decided that I needed an American name. One of my favorite things to do during that period of my life (ages 2 through 7) was to play card games. And even though we didn’t know that the english term for the ‘J’ card was “jack”, we recognized the letters ‘J’, ‘A’ and ‘K’ on the face cards… and that’s how we chose my name. So, I really should be “Jak” but I’m glad I’m “Jack”.
I spent my first official Christmas after moving to the U.S. in Washington D.C. At that time, we were living in a smallish-DC apartment with two other Chinese families. I woke up Christmas morning to discover a shiny new deck of playing cards in the sock next to my bed. To this day, it’s still the best Christmas gift I’ve ever gotten.
Whoa, it’s been over a month since my last update! I’ve been extremely busy lately - in that limbo stage of wrapping up one job and preparing to start another. All while trying to get in some work on my side projects and some play on the new Wii. But more on all that later.
I wish there was an I’m-busy-switch on the backend of my blog that I could quickly flip on if I was going to be busy and unable to post for an extended amount of time. Maybe I could even put up a little note telling readers to check the ‘Fresh Links’ on the sidebar since I’ll still be posting quick links there. Then again, that might not be much different from just writing a whole new blog entry like I’m doing now…
LoveItMore is a site for product reviews. What makes it different is that it focuses on the follow-up review; after all, those second impressions are the ones that really matter.
Why we need it:
The problem with product reviews is that most of the time, they’re all about first impressions. They’re all about “features”. They’re all about the superficial stuff - how something looks, rather than how it works. But we all know that the initial excitement from buying something new can wear off quickly. Sometimes it even turns into remorse if we realize that the product isn’t really as great as we originally thought it was. Often we find little quirks with the product too - little details that surprise us in ways both good and bad. Right now there’s no reviews site built with the follow-up review in mind.
Hey, I’m back. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks (been busy with just your usual save-the-world-type things ;)). So much for an idea a week, huh? Anyway, before I post the next idea, I wanted to get this post out of the way. I’ve been working on it on and off, but it just keeps ballooning because I want to add more. I’m just going to stop now and put it up because otherwise I’ll never get done. Feel free to add thoughts or ideas in the comments!
…
If you work in the web/interface development business, you probably hear the word usability thrown around a lot. In this sense, it generally means how easy something is to figure out. According to usability expert Jacob Nielsen, usability is composed of the following:
Learnability (e.g. intuitive navigation)
Efficiency of use
Memorability
Few and noncatastrophic errors
Subjective satisfaction
However, usability extends far beyond the web and computer interaction. In my mind it is the cornerstone of great design. Understanding it will not only help us become better designers and producers, but also better consumers as well.
We have podcasting and vodcasting. So why not ideacasting? Ideacasting is just the act publishing your business/product/design/anything ideas on a regular schedule.
Why we need it:
Everyone gets ideas, and we all have ideas that we keep locked away, usually in the backs of our minds. We hold onto them tightly just in case someday we ever get around to making them happen. But what usually happens is… nothing. They just sit there, taking up space. And that’s space that could be used for other ideas!
I saw the future, but I forgot to charge my camera batteries.
Even though I actually remembered to bring my camera to Wired Nextfest, somehow I still ended up not being able to snap any pictures. I’ll tell you about some of the interesting things I saw anyway (and use everyone else’s pictures to show you). Thank goodness for flickr.
This year’s Advertising Week is rolling around and the big topic is engagement. We hear a lot about what brands are doing to engage audiences online, whether it’s a “viral” clip for a deodorant that gets released on youtube, or a custom myspace profile for a car. On occasion, it’s interesting and entertaining, but for the most part, it’s a joke. This so-called “consumer-participation” is fake. It’s shallow. It’s getting consumers to participate for the sake of reinforcing an advertising message.
Like this:
Seriously? “Who would you give a Volvo to?” …give me a break.
These companies and agencies are creating brand ephemera. It’s not meant to last. It’s an “online component” that’s meant to extend a traditional ad campaign. When the time rolls around, it’s yet another campaign and a new “interactive” website. “Interactive” is a word that’s been slapped onto any flash site with no real value.
Why is this happening? For the most part, big brands and agencies are still trying to apply old-school formulas to the Web. Even though brand and agencies claim to understand the social power of the Web, at the end of the day they’re still only creating one thing: entertainment.
But the Web is about more than just entertainment. We rely on it for knowledge; we rely on it for tools that improve our daily lives; we rely on it to interact and connect with others.
I’m not saying that brands and agencies should stop creating entertainment online. There will always be a place for that, just like there’s a place for great commercials on TV. What I’m saying is that entertainment is only a piece of the whole pie. Given the nature of the Web and how we use it, brands could be doing so much more! Brands could be creating things that are actually useful.
