Beaten to the Punch

It is extremely likely that someone else has written a post about this, and I'm going to do this anyway.

A common argument I find myself using for not doing something is this: someone else has already done it. I often think of it in the context of a written piece or a tweet. For me, it starts with my critic chiming in. "Surely everyone I know has already read this and knows it, right?" "What can you possibly say that will be new for anyone?"

Then another part of me comes in and tag teams. ​"Yeah, you don't really need to talk about that." "She said it already and she said it so well. No reason to do it." "Don't bother." "A waste of time."

And then, another part piles on: "You know what else you could be doing? Folding laundry. And that to do list isn't organized yet. And what about putting some coffee on for tomorrow morning?"

You can see how quickly this could spiral from, "Hey, it'd be cool to talk about not doing something because I have something to say!" to, "You know, so-and-so had a great talk about that and there's no reason to rehash it."

However!

Each of those parts of me are making assumptions and they're probably not correct. They want to be correct, but they're not.

Maybe no one else has heard or read that one post or watched that one video. Writing and thinking and sharing feelings - with myself, with others - is hardly ever a waste of time. And yeah, there's a to do list and it will never end.

But this is my experience, and it's unique. Sure sure, it may be very similar to someone else's… or maybe not at all. But a very judgy part of me wants to make that call on your behalf. Instead, I'm going to let this one go and see what happens.


Letters to the future

Many moons ago I found Futureme.org, and it's become one of my favorite things on the web. It still exists, it still works.

The premise is simple: write yourself (or anyone really) an email, set a date in the future for it to be delivered, and then... wait. It's like making yourself a tiny time capsule. I initially found it useful for little bets and predictions, but once my son came into my life I began to write lengthier emails about the way I was feeling at the time. So, it has become a nice alternative and supplement to my regular journaling.

The best part of the experience for me is that I've mostly forgotten about all of my letters, so when they arrive, it's unexpected. The farthest one out for me will arrive in August, 2031.

I just hope I still have my email address then.

Not So Big

I love talking about big and small changes we can make in our lives and in ourselves. I highly recommend small changes, because they can make a difference.

Those little things can be easy and juuust enough to change a routine, even a tiny bit. Parking in a different spot. Sitting in a different seat on the train than you usually do. Wearing that top at the back of your closet that isn't your favorite.

Then, there are bigger things. The way you start your day. The way you think about your body when you look in a mirror. How you treat that one co-worker. Your bedtime.

But how do we call some of these things "bigger" and some "smaller"? Let's try this: what if all of these things are equally small? What if the big things are really small things? What if the only thing separating the big and the small things is the way you're letting yourself approach them?

For me, that helps me understand what's holding me back from doing the big things - me! Observe your reaction and classification to these parts of your life and yourself, and then you'll gain the opportunity to understand, change, and grow.

Without People

As I look back through my life, work inclusive, I see a very clear pattern. From early on, I became a rather independent person who preferred to be alone. It came out through things I did, and the ways I acted, and I didn't realize it.

I touched on this briefly last year:

Some of my choices [in life and work] gave me this opportunity to be invisible. Photography, as I discussed with my friend Paul this weekend, let me hide behind a camera. Doing work in computers let me hide behind a screen. Hiding. Not showing myself. 

That's not a coincidence; it's how I operated. I did things on my own so that I could get all of the credit, all of the attention, all of the joy - and I ignored the "all of the blame" part.

The other day I had the good fortune to participate in a friend's design class; she invited me to critique her students' final presentations. We got to talking over lunch and learned we both love photography. She asked what kind of photography I liked - I answered architectural. When it came to explaining why, though, a light bulb went off in my head: there are no people in those pictures. None.

Buildings aren't people. They don't move spontaneously (usually). They don't show emotion as people do. They are not alive. They are objects ultimately. Those facets coupled with my overwhelming comfort to do things solo, preferably behind a screen, was showing up in my art.

And the attempts to include people were very slow and cautious... experiments. I recall an assignment from my high school photo class in which we needed to photograph strangers. And wow, for an introvert like me? That was terrifying. But I did it, and some of the photos were quite nice. Years and years later, I dabbled in anonymous street photography (still hidden). And I did end up doing portraits of friends, some with constructed scenarios and some for more formal holiday cards.

UX Without People

There's a direct comparison to my day job and my work. I started programming, solo. I slowly reached out to BBSes, GEnie, and user groups and later thrived in a US mail-based user group.  Eventually I became fascinated by the ways software and hardware interacted with people, and so I moved over to UI - still not working directly with users, but closer. My first gigs in UX didn't involve research nor talking with users, so I had to be a magical idea person. Finally, now I'm in UX and life work where I must work with people in order to help them.

(As an aside, this also shows up here: you're reading this, but it's not a conversation and I'm not getting any feedback in the moment. That's actually easier for me to handle, otherwise we might be talking about it. At one point I conflated blogs and journals and even Twitter with directness. But there's a layer between us, a technology and societal messiness that is in our way. I love that we can still connect about this topic, or something else, even though this is not a conversation.)

So I understand that whole "magical UX/Creative genius" thing because I really loved being that person, and early in my career I really couldn't see myself as not being that person. It is an amazing feeling to be the one who comes up with all of these ideas out of thin air and all of them are loved. (Or most of them.) That's exciting. That's fun. But it's not enough. It doesn't work without people because life doesn't work without people.

Observation, understanding, action

In and of itself, noticing this pattern isn't action. It doesn't change anything in and of itself. But being highly observant of my behaviors and my patterns, both in the present and in the past, helps me be far more mindful and present now.

Lower Prices, Crappier Experience

Last year I spoke about the risk of JCPenney when then-CEO Ron Johnson changed everything without any input from customers. As a result, the guy was canned and as I predicted, the clearance sales are indeed epic. (Their clothing from the Johnson/Wooster days was not amazing, but was certainly good enough and definitely fit well.)

So then, I'm enjoying said clearance sales. A month or so ago I wanted a new blazer, and I found one in store that I liked. I checked online and found it to be the same price on their site, but of course, they participate in the "everything is on sale always, every day, with coupons" phenomenon now; I played along and got a deal.

But here's the thing. The blazer exists at my local store (I tried it on!) but it was substantially cheaper for me to order it online... and have it shipped to my local store. Now, you'd think, "Oh, they'll just pull the one from the floor and offer it to you later that day like Target does, right?" Nope. My order went to a distribution center, and they sent a new one to the store. The same store where they already have one.

That's incredibly inefficient and bad for several reasons.

  1. First, and most importantly, JCPenney had me ready to buy in store and lost me. They could have had my money right away. Instead they made me wait a week or so. Thankfully, this isn't something I wanted immediately. Their loss.
  2. Second, JCPenney does not price match their own website. They're competing against themselves. Stupid.
  3. Third, they took on the cost for picking, shipping, and storing the item to the store. I don't know how much that is. I know they have built up this distribution system, and it now may cost them almost nothing... but this was unnecessary as they had the damn thing in the store!

In this case, JCPenney penalizes customers buying in store versus online price-wise, all for the sake of immediate gratification. And what did Ron Johnson do to combat this zaniness? He set all prices the same in-store and online (and with rounded numbers too, like $40 instead of $39.99). Simple. Clear.

Note that it didn't address any of the technological problems here - the poor e-commerce experience, the poor mobile site, the worthless app - but it was an attempt to address the problem. It failed. And while I know I got a better deal, I got poorer service and a worse experience as a result of it.

Face the Music

A few days ago I read that Sprint was partnering with Spotify to promote a few deals. Here they are.  If you're a new Sprint customer and get an HTC One phone, you get 6 months of Spotify free and then a discounted rate after that. If you're an existing customer you can get 3 months of Spotify free and then pay the usual 10 bucks a month.

AT&T has partnered with Beats on a similar offer. It includes a free trial and a discounted rate too.

I opined on Twitter the other day that these actions are the carriers dipping their toes into the so-called "fast lane" of the internet. These partnerships favor one store over another: if you use Google Play, rdio, Slacker, iTunes, or any other music service, the carriers will not give you any discount. Thus, both AT&T and Sprint are establishing these partners as their preferred music services.

If you're wondering where this could go, I could direct you to this corporate dystopian piece by T.C. Sottek, but instead I'll just point you to something that's already happening at Cricket.

Muve Music

Cricket, a regional carrier, offers Muve Music. This is not a new program, and Cricket's customer is a very different one (today) than AT&T or Sprint's. But there it is: unlimited talk, text, data, and music. Wait. Music? Yep. And while Cricket will happily cap your full-speed data each month, Muve Music is exempt:

...you can enjoy Muve Music, picture/video/audio messaging, and use of My Account without having to be concerned about your Full-Speed Data allowance.

While Cricket's Muve Music is nowhere near in the same league as Spotify or even Beats - though they want to be - you can see the pattern here. There's a carrier with a preferred service that just happens to be blessed with full-speed data outside of the "slow lane" internet. It's all perfectly legal, of course. And this is not a new offering; it's been available for a few years.

Choice

These combinations hurt people and they hurt competition. They hurt people in different ways. For instance, I can stick with rdio, which I really do love, and pay $10/month. Or I can switch to Spotify for three months and pay $0. The music libraries are likely similar enough for me so the cost to me is that my collection isn't portable (lock-in) and Spotify's UI isn't as pleasant as rdio's. Is that worth $30 to me? Not currently, but it might be to you.

On the Cricket side of the fence my scenario would be way worse. I could stream rdio all I want each month but my full-speed data - that is, everything I do online except Muve Music and account management - would be shot dead right away. I'd have to consciously plan out my data usage and load things up on wi-fi. That's a lot to ask for and, frankly, shifts network management from the carrier to the user.

Don't worry. Instead of that rigamarole, I can choose to pay nothing extra and so long as I have a Muve-compatible phone, not worry about any of it. (I'd worry about Muve's music collection, self-reported at 10 million tracks, instead.)

Competition-wise, Spotify, Beats, and Muve are all in favorable and dangerous positions. Favorable because they instantly have a competitive advantage over other streaming music services on their platforms. Dangerous (arguably) because it's only a hop, skip, and a jump to imagine Sprint granting preferred-speed status to Spotify ("rdio is slow? Too bad. Try Spotify, it's free with your plan!") and AT&T doing the same with Beats. Acquisitions then feel like foregone conclusions.

And then...

It makes business sense that AT&T wants to do its own video streaming service. It means an increasing amount of lock-in and loss of choice. It's something I expressed concern about at the scale of fitness trackers, but it goes all the way up to phones.

The carriers already have us locked to their networks. The carriers already have us locked to their phones (although this is starting to loosen). Add in the most popular services that people would want to use phones or tablets for and... well, we're back to this.

The Podcasts I Listen to, 2014

At IA Summit, I was chatting with the great Jessica Ivins when she asked me, "What podcasts do you listen to?" Awesome question, and since I have a long commute, I listen to quite a few shows.

But here's the funny thing: only one of them is directly about design. I can guess why that is: not thinking directly about UX or design gives me a break to actually think about this stuff. Got it? Good.

Without further ado, the podcasts I listen to, 2014 edition.

  • 99% Invisible: Okay, so here's the design-y show I listen to. There's so much to like about Roman Mars's short show on the invisible aspects of design. The stories are very rich and terribly interesting, and I feel like I'm learning things with each episode. (There are companies whose sole purpose is to name things! The Citigroup Building in New York could have been blown over!)
  • The Alton Browncast: I've had my love and hate streaks with Alton Brown but he shows how great an interviewer he is on his podcast. I haven't been interested in all of his guests for sure, but then there are keepers like the interviews with John Hodgman and Alex Guarnaschelli (highly recommended).
  • Back to Work: I've listened to every episode. When you have nearly 200 episodes, you don't bat 1.000. And the banter between Merlin and Dan is really, really off-putting for new listeners. But, there are great streaks of solid, insightful work and life stuff here. To wit: the episodes on sleep and really working with GTD. The show is never dry, but if you don't like either of the two hosts, you probably won't get with the show.
  • Designing Yourself: I listen to my own podcast. It's great.
  • Judge John Hodgman: Oh yeah, a long-time favorite - I've listened to every one. My wife and I can agree on one podcast, and this is it. Funny, smart, great pacing. Judge John Hodgman rules - that is all.
  • Radiolab: Just got into this and I'm not sure why I didn't listen sooner. Whereas I was growing fatigued by This American Life, Radiolab feels a lot fresher and interesting to me. Excellent pacing and diversity of topics.
  • The Spark & The Art: Tucker's new show on creativity and art. Great point of view, solid interviews.
  • The Talk Show: Probably the nerdiest one I listen to. Some shows are a miss, but many are genuinely interesting if you're curious about the mobile industry, Apple, and its competitors. The episode with Glenn Fleishman was revelatory, as it explained Bitcoin in terms I could fully understand.

I also have a few shows that I dip into now and then, but are not quite on the regular rotation. They include BLNCE, Bullseye with Jesse Thorn, Ladies in Tech, and Throwing Shade.

That's what I've got. If you listen to something good, let me know.

Give yourself five minutes

Before I started yoga and meditation, one of the notions I carried around was that these things were big time commitments. Many parts of me are big on schedules and efficiency, so those parts were able to readily dismiss those practices as "too time-consuming". Over time I realized was that this was also something other parts of me classified as selfless: if I chose to do something else (under the guise of helping others), then I could never be called selfish, which had been a big bad label for me.

But self-care is quite important and, really, vital to our daily lives. Sure, when someone says, "Hey, can you do a yoga class with me for 90 minutes every 3 days over lunch?" that might not be something that you can do. But I'm here to say: don't let this be an all or nothing event in your life. Find time to do self-care.

Let's start today. Let's try for five minutes. Just five! And that's all. When you're done reading this entry, five minutes or so will have passed. That's not much time. I know: I have a family and a job and a commute and never-ending laundry too. It's not going to be perfect. But it's going to be.

Here are a few ideas where and how this could happen:

  • During your commute: If you drive to work, give yourself five before or after you start the day. Radio off, eyes closed, and just listen and breathe. Easier on a train or bus.
  • At your desk: Work work work work work... pause. Stop. Take a deep, deep breath - you know, one of those super deep breaths. Go for it. And then let it all out, and chill.
  • Outside: If you have a desk job, take a brief walk around the block or in the parking lot. Get fresh air into your lungs - breathe all of it in.
  • In the shower: Awesome place to think, awesome place to take a quick moment for yourself and just be. There's a reason lots of people like the sound of running water: it's very relaxing.

And what do you do during these five minutes? Obviously I'm big on breathing: it helps with awareness, and forces me to slow down and be in the moment instead of elsewhere. But I have also found that doing one or two yoga poses is a great change of pace too. You may want to do a power pose (Amy Cuddy recommends two minutes. Just two!) Meditation is a great thing to do too. Or, listen to a song.

Don't let it go

Here's what I know is true: after even doing one of these small things, I feel much more centered and relaxed. I come back into the rest of my life feeling more refreshed, aware, and ready. Find something that sounds good for you - try things out! - and give yourself five minutes today.

You're buying so much more

Over a decade ago I was fascinated by PDAs. I thought they were pretty cool gadgets and as a young geek with extra cash burning a hole in his pocket, I considered buying one. I remember favoring the Handspring Visor. But then I realized, "Oh, hey, I don't really need one." Part of it was due to a lack of need, and part of it was because the PDA didn't really do anything I needed it to do.

I am feeling this once again with fitness trackers. I am relatively close to buying one - leaning towards the Jawbone Up at the moment, although I love me some Nike+ - but there has been something holding me back. After reflecting on it, there are two main thoughts in my head:

1. I don't really need one. It's a pure want.
2. I'm not just buying a fitness tracker - I'm buying a whole ecosystem.

The latter point is what I find immensely frustrating about technology in 2014. It seems like every tech company is building an ecosystem; they want to be your one stop shop for everything, and also make it hard to leave later. Facebook. Apple. Amazon. Samsung. Microsoft. Sony. So when you choose, you best choose wisely; when you leave, it's going to hurt (most likely in the wallet).

Thus, I'm not just buying a Jawbone Up24 or a Nike+ FuelBand SE. I'm buying into the entire system and company that goes along with those devices. And the quant self market is immature - there are no standards yet (and I wonder if there ever will be). This gives me serious pause.

 A decision on something that should be as small as a fitness tracker, or a music player, or a TV streaming box ends up being a very, very large decision with ramifications that could affect you and your data for years. That's a very different place than we were with technology 10 years ago, and I worry for where it's going to be in 2024.

IA Summit changed my life, again

Note: this article reflected my feelings on IA Summit at the time of attendance. As of 2018, I've learned of serious safety violations at the conference over many years. Please consider that when reading this, as my experience may not be typical. Until further notice, you should not attend the IA Conference (which is what IA Summit is now known as) or support the IA Foundation. – Ed.

I didn't expect it. How could anyone? A conference changed me in 2013. Yes, a conference. So while I've been an enormous booster of IA Summit, I wasn't expecting to have a similar experience in San Diego this year.

But I was wrong. IA Summit did change my life again. Truly.

Over the past day or so since my time at the conference ended, I've been reflecting on why this is. I've talked about it at length with my friends. And I think it boils down to this.

The talks are tremendous and diverse (the keynotes, in particular, are just stellar). The program is well-crafted and thoughtful. The venue and experience of the event is just about flawless. But in the end the people and the community are second to none.

I think about how attendees can go on stage at Five Minute Madness and feel comfortable and safe (!) enough to share their deepest feelings. I see how conversations run the gamut from taxonomy and emotion to design patterns and pie (yes, we talked pie). The energy of the entire conference is overwhelmingly positive, encouraging, and supportive. Flex track exists. Karaoke and game night exist. Yoga, 5K & 10Ks, and social events are plentiful. The keynote had yoga. THE KEYNOTE HAD YOGA.

Due in part to all of this, IA Summit offers that fertile ground. I can have life changing conversations with people. (LIFE CHANGING! FOR REAL!) I can approach parts of work in entirely new ways. I can get in front of a room full of strangers and sing "It's the End of the World As We Know It" without a lyric sheet. I can both see people for who they are and be seen for the person I am.

IA Summit gives people in this very special industry the chance to be themselves, fully. It is refreshing. It is true. I have not experienced this anywhere else. I do not expect to. Instead, I expect to attend this conference every year until I can no longer do so. It is my home, it is my tribe, it is my people.

I will miss all of you, stay in touch throughout the year, and see you again in Minneapolis... if not sooner.