inputs/outputs

Radiohead has really started something with their “pay whatever you want” system. It was astounding to watch other musicians follow in their path (Jamiroquai, Oasis, etc) but it’s starting to spread into other industries. Paste Magazine is now offering a “pay whatever you want” subscription fee (with a minimum of $1).

Granted, a magazine based on music isn’t a leap away from CDs, but what if this was the new way of doing business? What if we could decide how much we wanted to spend on everything?

My guess: it would separate the good marketers from the bad ones. The bad marketers would become beggars, while the good marketers would become friends. The success of a business would rely on the relationship with the customer, and if the relationship was good and natural, the business would prosper.

The bad marketers would be creating powerpoints to train their employees on how to be effective customer service agents. The good marketers wouldn’t need powerpoints - they would already have the inherent skills necessary to establish good communication with consumers. The bad marketer would find any way to contact you, the good marketers would create value to draw you in.

Not everyone can do what Radiohead did, not immediately anyway. This is because you can’t really teach employees how to be good at establishing relationships and telling stories. Your company or product has to have inherent value before you even make a penny.

This is why an album that no one had heard yet generated so much revenue. The relationship with the fans, and the inherent value that the band had established drew everyone in. I want that same experience again and again with all of the products that I buy.

The following is a sketch of an idea for a social/technological revolution.  I’ve been trying to write this post for a while, but it’s never sounded articulate.  It still doesn’t, but it’s important to get this out.  Feel free to contribute.

Something finally dawned on me today.  In general, users don’t like systems.  This is why we try to work our way around most of the time, and why we come up with “hacks.”  But I suppose another way to look at it is that it’s not really the systems that we don’t like, it’s the amount of systems we’re required to deal with on a daily basis.

I use Gmail because I like Gmail, but in the office, I’m required to use Outlook, or something worse.  Sure, we could set our emails to be forwarded, but we wouldn’t be able to use the address book.  We have a user/pass for the app we use for our work, a user/pass for the app we use to manage our work, a user/pass for the time-keeping software we use… and it goes on.

It seems as if we’re yearning to break our data down into bits and pieces so that the bits can be read by anything.  You could use Outlook if you want, or Gmail.  The address book data would be compatible with both.  My manager tracking my time in Excel is fine if I can input my time in Gmail.  You should be able to see what available time I have in your Outlook interface, even if my calendar is in Gmail.  Almost like RSS, applied to everything.  The content remains the same, but it’s the medium that’s up to the user.

The bottom line:  we follow our career paths because we want to help people and we want to be creative in doing so.  We don’t like being bogged down by admin tools, but we know that it’s a necessary concession, even if we have a personal assistant.  Better communication means we’re more productive when we have time to be productive.  The more spread out those admin tools become, the worse it gets.  The less we want to do, the less we remember to do, and the less we care.  Less brainpower goes to the work that actually matters.

And this doesn’t mean that we need to get rid of certain technologies.  We just need to make sure that users can pick one to get everything done with.

More to come on this topic.

I’ve recently started traveling to Indiana for my job, and I’ve discovered a couple of qualities that make Indianapolis more user-friendly than DC. The interface is designed in a way that tries to appeal to all users. This quality is important for a successful and efficient system, if you ask me. It’s also one of the hardest things to accomplish.

In DC, I spend a lot of my time getting lost on side streets, not being able to make a u-turn or left turn when I need to make that turn, quick exits/turns with no warning, unmarked streets, or streets with terrible design. Now, I admit that I have a poor sense of direction, and that someone with a good sense of direction can learn to navigate DC. But someone with Firefox will also have a better browsing experience than someone with IE. Since there are still many IE users, designers try to design websites with all users in mind, and the same should go for streets. Indianapolis is the same way. The signs are large and they give sufficient warning when a turn needs to be made, and after a while I can figure out how to get to places without needing to consult Google maps. This is huge for me. I have a poor sense of direction, but I don’t notice it here.

It’s the same with OS X. Computer savvy people love it because it’s efficient, and non-techies love it because it’s idiot-proof. It’s the reason why so many are switching - it appeals to a diverse crowd.

The people in my office go to lunch every day, and so far all of the restaurants require us to pay at the register, after we’re done eating. This means we don’t have to divide the bill and end up short, or give 5 different credit cards. Every meal is charged separately. And we tip more that way, too. Paying takes about 3 minutes and then we’re back to the office. This system is appealing to the father of four who is paying for the entire meal, and it’s appealing to the group of 10 who are splitting the bill. Boom.

So why is this so hard for designers to do? For the same reason that scope creep happens - we start out with goals in mind, and then we run low on resources, the requirements begin to slowly mutate, and we end up with a completely inefficient system. There are places in DC where you can literally see where the scope crept - new roads were created and the designers attempted to link the old roads in a completely convoluted way, road signs weren’t replaced/added, and there are a bunch of spots where you can’t turn around if you miss an exit.

It happens more than frequently Lowest possible costs trumps good project management.  The little things become acceptable because they cost less.  And soon, the little things add up to a pile of tangled wires.  DC can’t really fix its problem now, since all the money has been spent, and a “fix” would involve an entire re-creation. But cities are around for decades, and new changes are done all the time. The hard part is thinking about what might happen in advance, and then optimizing the solution so that we don’t get a completely useless system.

Lessons: scope creep happens. It happens fast and quietly. If your budget is even remotely tight, you won’t recover from it when it becomes a monster.

Gadget makers used to have one goal with the devices they produced.  A cell phone made calls, a PDA helped you organize, a Discman played discs.

The current trend is to create devices that do it all, but specialize in a certain area at the same time.  For instance, the Blackberry is a PDA that also makes calls/takes photos, a cellphone makes calls but will also act as a clock/watch.  The iPod is an MP3 device but it will play your movies and you can also do some gaming.  These devices do well at their main function, but tend to skimp over the other stuff.  Cell phones make calls but suffer from a poor interface.  iPods play MP3s but I’ve never seen anyone use them to play games.  Instead of focusing on adding a bunch of pointless accessories, why not make hidden features?

High end watches can be sold for an absurd amount of money.  The watch performs one function, and so the rest of what it “does” is up to the owner.  The connection to the brand, the prestige, the story that the consumer tells themself, etc.  These are the hidden features.

Hidden features aren’t spelled out in the manual.  Not every user is affected by them.  The iPhone has a bunch of hidden features, all the way from the way it looks sitting on your hip, to the way it makes you feel like a futuristic businessman when you’re touching icons and watching the cool animations.  The rush you get from pushing the accelerator on a BMW, that’s a hidden feature.

For devices that do one thing really well, and do a mediocre job on the other stuff, hidden features might be a good thing to look into.

In my post about Radiohead, I had hoped that other bands would follow suit and start releasing music for free. Nine Inch Nails, Jamiroquai, and Oasis are all bands that have decided to give away their upcoming albums, or at least have considered it. It makes sense. This is a tipping point.

Most new bands sign record labels because it seems makes sense, even in the world of digital music. But it only seems to make sense. Most artists probably know that signing with a record label in order to finance the production of physical CDs is a risky investment, especially with the way the industry is currently going. At the same time, any artist or band that is interested in turning a profit doesn’t want the responsibility of being the first to explore the outrageous option of releasing an album for free online, especially when the success of such a project is so fragile.

But that fragility is only due to the fact that no popular band, before Radiohead, had taken the great leap. Because even though the arists know that they could get just as much PR riding on the energy of their live shows, the fans, viral/grassroots marketing, they can’t bring themselves to give up the CD. It’s unexplored terrain.

Now that the wall has been broken, and other bands are going to follow, the terrain will almost definitely change. Here are some possible scenarios.

1. Perhaps the big boys who have established careers won’t mind giving up the CD sales to get past the bureaucracy, but what about the newer artists? Maybe giving away the music for free will provide more exposure, and will get more people to come to the shows. And if it doesn’t, will we be forced to pay more for tickets (which are already pretty expensive)?

2. A&R execs don’t get to decide who’s popular anymore, the internet does. The internet decided that Tay Zonday was popular, and they decided that Britney Spears was fat. Does this mean that, in order to be successful, you should be a little sensational or remarkable? It sure would filter out a lot of the garbage, but it might leave out some of the gems that are handpicked.

3. And there’s the issue of noise. Right now, two or three bands are giving away music for free, and it’s remarkable because the terrain is unexplored. I’m sure that people have downloaded the music just based on the fact that it’s freely available and completely legal, but try to imagine a world where all music was free. On one hand, if a lot of people like a certain band, their music will spread to a very large audience. But I may never hear about a band that fills a niche genre for a smaller market unless I’m involved with a community of listeners in that market. And the typical user doesn’t necessarily have time to commit to that sort of thing.

4 . Along the same lines, what happens to radio, the so-called “mainstream” and Top 40? I’m thinking that not much will change here. Ideally, Pandora would become a major player and your radios would tailor the music it plays to your tastes. That’s right - no more AM, no more FM, just total internet radio. Realistically, money will probably play a role in the exposure of bands through a push marketing strategy (the way that radio currently is). This means that music PR firms aren’t dead. It also might turn into something that’s socially based - for instance, Radiohead is asking its listeners to decide how much their album is worth. Could radio turn into a collection of the songs for which people paid the most?

The fact is that sooner or later, recordings will end up being free. The combination of Radiohead releasing an album for free (technically), Amazon moving towards non-DRM music, and the way that the internet works, it will be a slow but steady move to the day that all recordings of music will be worth as much as you want them to be.

The interesting part will be seeing how the artists create enough value in their artistry to make sure that they can make a living. This may be a case of strongest-survive, but it’s needed. Capital is what make talentless bands popular and rich. I can’t wait to see what happens when it all comes down to the tunes.

I’ve been using a Hipster PDA for the past year now, and it’s really helped me implement GTD. Hopefully, this new GTD idea will help other people be a little more productive. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but then again, when are GTD ideas groundbreaking? Advanced common sense, they say.

I brainstormed, and came up with the two most appealing things about GTD/hPDA. If these apply to you, Pockets GTD might just be for you.

• The fact that the entire system fits inside of my pocket. Pen and all. I only have to use the web when I need to text myself a reminder as a designated time, or when I’m using Gcal as a hard landscape. Otherwise, I’m all analog.
• Contexts. I love that I can be in front of a computer and pull out a computer card, go running errands and have an errand card, be at work and have a work card, etc. I don’t want to think about any other context than “work” when I’m at work.

So, out of these two elements, I’ve devised a new system. I call it GTD Pockets. The entire system works like a conveyor belt. Now, it takes a little bit of setting up, but once it’s in place, it doens’t take any real thinking/effort. Here’s how you set it up and how you implement it.

(more…)

A lot of manuals are completely useless. Here are a few pitfalls:

1. the manual is a scrapbook of interesting stick figures and parts that must have been left out from your package
2. the manual is actually 5 or 6 manuals that all contain different information and distinguishing them isn’t possible at a quick glance
3. the manual contains completely useless information about the product
4. the most common: shoved into a drawer for “later” use
5. a combo of two or more of the above

I’ve explained before that I am everybody’s favorite technology guy when it comes to my friends and family. My dad had asked me for help with setting up his car to receive the bluetooth signal from his Razr. We sat there for a while, flipping through the manual, trying to find any shred of evidence about the bluetooth settings. We tried almost every menu in the car’s interface. We found buttons that would search for bluetooth devices, but none that would actually find the devices, or try to pair them at least.

I finally asked if there were extra manuals included with the car, and my dad pulled out a stack of them, one of them displaying a picture of a London phone booth. The instructions in the pamphlet led us through the process perfectly.

So I started thinking. Is it more important to have a solid UI or a helpful manual? Should we not hold it against the UI if we have to peek inside the manual? I came to a conclusion.

It’s not up to the designer to decide whether or not the UI is any good. The UI should have been at least somewhat easy to use and in the event that it hadn’t been, the purpose of the additional pamphlet should have been crystal clear. For instance, “Bluetooth Set Up” should have been written on the cover in very large letters instead of the very ambiguous phone booth photo ( a photo which could imply many different things). Easy as that. BMW still could have maintained a sense of style if they wanted to use a stock photo of a phone booth, as long as the purpose of the document was easy to identify.

Food for thought: the iPhone has been praised for its stellar UI, but its manual is the first hit when you google the word “manual.”

Bang Spa/Salon in DC cuts hair really well. They’re hip and trendy there, but my parents aren’t afraid of them (in fact, my first haircut there was based on my mom’s recommendation). They’re not terribly pricey, but not on the cheap side either.  The premium is worth it though.  When you get a haircut at Bang, people talk about it.

The hardest thing about being a new salon is probably the potential clients who are attached to the salons they’ve been going to for years. The last time I got a haircut there, I told my hair stylist that the last haircut I’d received from him generated the most compliments I’d ever received on a haircut in my entire life. He got excited and handed me a few business cards, but it didn’t matter. “Ryan at Bang,” three simple words, were worth more than the cost of the glossy/trendy business cards that Ryan gave me.

It’s not a fluke, either. My parents won’t trust anyone except “Patrick at Bang” with their hair.

When you hire employees that give a consistent level of service (collectively and individiually), you will find that your customers will return consistently as well.

I recently bought a Ukulele (which has been a great purchase) and I’ve been watching lessons on how to play it through YouTube (as well as some other books). I thought it was funny in a lot of these videos that the teachers try to cram an entire lesson of musical theory and method into a 10 minute clip.

Then I started thinking: what if there are 7 year old ukalele/guitar/piano players learning technique from these YouTube videos, and what if they become really famous musicians one day? The web is changing the way we learn, and who we learn it from. For instance, anyone who buys a Mac can become an instant teacher of any skill.  Anyone who has a high speed internet connection now has the ability to learn any skill.

This is a good thing and a bad thing at the same time. On one hand, it allows talented people to become teachers, and it also allows the people who don’t know much about a skill to be a fake teacher, and possibly misguide users.

When you allow your users to pick their own roles, you create an interesting, and sometimes slanted, dynamic. There are probably parents who turn their guitar-playing children onto YouTube so they can save money on an actual teacher. It’s not the same, but then again, you get what you pay for. It’s the variance in the quality of these instructional YouTube videos which makes the web experience much different than something like outsourcing your customer service calls.

I have a friend who has a friend who entered the treehouse industry this summer, and got a really great contract for a client in California. This person put a lot of energy into planning for these treehouses, working out the costs and the time needed to build a really sweet treehouse (complete with plumbing!) for the client.

The hard lesson came when he returned to college, only to find that a rare storm had hit LA, flooding the treehouses, which were made of material which couldn’t keep the water out.

The way I see it, this person had two options. In one scenario, he could have done extensive testing on the tree, throwing things at it to break it, and then fixing it until it didn’t break anymore. The other option would have been to spend time doing technical support and being on-call for the client, fixing it as it issues appeared. The problem lies in deciding how to split up your energy/time.

One on hand, extensive testing will probably make the system strong, but it will inevitably break anyway, and you’ll have to provide support either way. Do you spend more time testing before releasing an Alpha? Or do you release a Beta and hope that you can provide the support that the client demands when the nails start to fall out?

The obvious answer is to do the best job you can testing within your budget until you’re ready for a release, keeping in mind that you’ll probably have to provide support anyway. Especially if it’s your first system.

The moral of this story: it’s not as easy as mass production. There’s no factory, no conveyor belts, no variables that are easily controlled. If you’re selling a highly customized product, and you’re dedicated to the client, you can never build something and expect to walk away. The thing that brings it down may be something completely unexpected (freak storms like this one are apparently rare for LA), or it may just be an environmental change (Krispy Kreme tanks when health fad takes off). The fact is, post-implementation support for a highly customized system is never ending. It’s the very nature of the beast.

To his credit, the entrepreneur did fly back to LA to correct the problem. And I bet that the next treehouse he builds will have materials that are water/snow/wind/sleet/bullet proof. And chances are, there will still be unforeseen problems. But if you can manage to be there for your client even after the implementation, then it’s still a job well done.