Picture My World

It’s nice to see usability mentioned in the mainstream press. CNN’s article Making Cell Phones Simple is Hard is pretty good and I’m glad carriers are putting effort into making the phones easier to use.

One paragraph at the end doesn’t ring true (pardon the pun):

Charles Golvin of Forrester Research said a recent survey indicated few cellular customers choose a phone based on its usability, typically because they either don’t think there’s anything better or, like Bales in Kansas City, don’t think they need those services [voice recognition].

Even if some carriers or cell phone manufacturers start to offer more usable phones, how will this change? Consumers don’t get a chance to try before they buy. Demo phones aren’t live and the best you can do is determine if the phone is too small for your hand or not. I’m not even aware of cell phone reviews unless it’s a PDA-type device like a Blackberry or Treo. If there are reviews, I doubt the average Joe, who needs usability, is reading them.

The other complicating factor is the divide between carriers and cell phone makers. Usability is really only in the carrier’s interest as they must field the support calls and accept returned phones. The article seems to imply that they are working on making their network services better, but it’s unclear how they can directly improve the phone’s design.  Perhaps their influence is growing as usability goes main stream.
In related news, some small cell phone manufacturer is trying to improve phone usability by, get this, stripping away all the fluff.  Imagine that, a phone that’s just a phone.  (Hat tip to Mark Hurst at Good Experience for that link.)

It’s been a tough week. I don’t think it’s appropriate to go into detail here, but suffice it to say that some tough medical decisions were made and I hope Kim’s grandfather is on a path to recovery. I will have to write more about him later as he’s had quite a distinguished career. He’s a metallurgical engineer and has worked on projects ranging from aircraft design for Douglas to the [Apollo program](http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/history/apollo/apollo.htm) to [cold fusion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion).

As a reward to myself, I bought an [Apple MacBook](http://www.apple.com/macbook/). So far, so good. It’s great. The screen is vibrant and the reflective coating is more than tolerable. Since this is just a toy, I went for the white 1.83 GHz model with the base configuration. We are now officially a dual-OS household. Once I download [Bootcamp](http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/), we’ll be a dual-boot household, too!

It feels a little silly to take pleasure in such a material thing, but after thinking hard about the meaning of life it’s a welcome change.

I’m in southern California to visit with Kim’s grandfather and try to bring some focus to a very confused situation. My short glimpse into hospital care (and I don’t think this is specific to US health care) is pretty scary. The synopsis: If you are an elderly patient who’s a little confused due to pain medication and infection, pray to God that you have a family member at your bedside to help you through that difficult time.

For those of you with kids, this is when you want to cash in on all your “honor thy father and mother” points and hope your kids are up to the task.

Happy Honda is a car dealer in Vancouver. Here’s their logo:

I saw it on the back of a car and, because it was just chromed plastic, it looked more like this:

I’ll make it a little more obvious:

I’m not a conspiracy theorist by nature, but that’s just creepy.

I’m very excited about the new Apple MacBooks. They look great and the price is good, too. However, I must admit the first look at its keyboard dredged up memories of IBM’s chicklet keyboard that shipped with the PCjr. I can still remember trying to type on the stupid thing. I think it was the first (and last) keyboard specifically designed for hunt-and-peck typists. Scott should remember this well as he actually had one of these things as a kid.

The good news is that the early reviews of the keyboard are mostly positive and it doesn’t appear to be the ergonomic disaster IBM unleashed on the market.

Kim’s grandfather, Joe (Yosef Eliezar ben Rachel), is in the hospital and things aren’t looking good. Please take a minute to say a prayer or think good thoughts (whatever your way is).

(With all due apologies to Darren Rowse, but his post inspired me.)

Yesterday was hot. Really hot. Ice cream hot. Being the guy that I am, I decided to do a little research into the buying of ice cream and quickly spun around looking for possible vendors. However, there was nothing in view from the little residential park my daughter and I were in.

After a few minutes, though, I heard some obnoxiously loud music coming down the street. There it was — a truck painted in bright, gaudy colors slowly rolling this way. I watched, fascinated, as the truck stopped and was mobbed by children and their parents. The parents started digging around for loose change from pockets, wallets, and purses. The ice cream truck driver could hardly keep up. (more…)

I had no idea Firefox Flicks existed until I stumbled on it today.  You can find almost 300 fan-created ads for Firefox (a web browser for those of you who haven’t heard of it).  Most of them appear to be dreadful.
Isn’t it amazing how communities will spring up around the oddest things?

What’s the strangest community you’ve ever joined?

Merlin at 43 Folders points out the space pen myth. It turns out NASA didn’t spend a ton of money to develop the space pen while the Soviets saved the money and used a simple pencil instead (while slapping their heads and crying, “Ha, ha! You foolish capitalistic pigs!”).

A certain engineer who shall remain nameless told this story to our engineering class. It’s a little disappointing that the example is fabricated. It’s not even that funny (in the ha-ha-stupid-engineer way) if there really are hazards from broken lead in space, which is one of the benefits of using the pen.

Get Guy Kawasaki to link to you. Holy smokes - almost 1000 unique visitors in 11 hours. On a Sunday. Thanks, Guy.

Welcome everyone.

For those of you venturing outside of the linked-to post, this is mostly a personal blog but there are some posts on technology, usability, and my photography.

Guy points out this video of Steve Jobs speaking to the Cupertino City Council. Guy comments that this is a great informal presentation, but it seemed very awkward to me (especially the conversation at the end). However, in spite of that or maybe because of it, I do think it was a brilliant example of how to influence people.

If you’ve read Cialdini’s book titled Influence: Science and Practice, you’ll be able to pick out what he did. Jobs didn’t ask for anything, but the council gave him a lot.

Cialdini outlines several influence strategies but I’ll just mention two. “Reciprocity” is the you-rub-my-back-I’ll-rub-yours give and take principle that we often react automatically to. When someone gives us something, we feel compelled to return the favor. “Consistency” is the drive for us to stay self-consistent. For example, if someone can get you to state that you’re charitable, you’ll most likely give more charity in the future. The book goes into much more detail, of course.

I think Jobs does a great job exploiting these two influence principles and it really wouldn’t have mattered how poorly he spoke. First, he doesn’t ask for anything — he just wanted the council to hear the good news. I think the council was actually taken aback a bit. Here’s a busy, important, famous CEO just popping by to give them an update. Wow! The council members seemed surprised and went out of their way to tell Jobs how happy they were that Apple was staying in Cupertino. At the very end, the Vice Mayor told him that an Apple employee should visit with one of their planning committees. There’s reciprocity at work.

The more subtle win, I think, was the fact many of the councilors said how happy they were that Apple was staying in Cupertino (and they all applauded at the end). These comments were driven by the reciprocity principle, too, but they feed into the consistency principle. Now that it’s on public record that they value Apple, their future decisions will be based on that. They will be driven to stay consistent with that outlook. For example, they may vote to give Apple tax breaks because of these simple statements.

Brilliant.

Good news today as the follow-up testing showed the cancer did not spread.  Thanks for your thoughts and prayers!