re-chargeable battery that doesn't need a charging thingy

3D Chess - interesting !!

See more on http://www.inewidea.com/

Which means designers should create things that look more like people.  That was my intent in creating a youtube video many years back..

The real question is how do I use this knowledge. -

1. as a hobby, reading and writing blog posts like this.

2. get trained to be hired as a user experience designer.

3. Build and own something with these principles.

I want to find opportunities of the 3rd kind. I don’t want to be an expert in this. I want to create stuff and own while learning and using these principles. My attempt to look at job search is  http://www.plumdots.com.

Let us look at few popular examples :

Walmart  retail shop

+ve – Low cost,  Availability everything you want, 

-ve –  Quality, finding, help, ambience, returns service, 

GOOGLE search engine

+ve – find anything one wants, fast, accurate / reliable, easy to use, clean look, simple behavior

-ve – bland, doesn’t know me

Craiglist classifieds

+ve – free listing, find anything, no frills

-ve – reliability / trust, clutter, 

Blackberry Mobile phone

+ve – office email on phone, easy to type email, mobile web, speakerphone,

-ve – battery (much better now), small screen, memory space 

iPhone - smart phone

+ve – great looks, fun to use, lots of apps, music ( hard-disk)

-ve – slow to type on screen, costly, 

Nytimes – news paper

+ve – opinion (left wing – paul, dowd, brooks), clean look, great graphics, report unique things first, more than just news (but not great in sports)

-ve – bland /boring, doesn’t know me, 

How can user experience designer better these icons or help build a competitor. There are many dimensions for how one feels about these services /businesses. There are core values – like low cost walmart, fun apple, searchability of google – the reason these are unbeatable.  While they are difficult to beat however someone will come and change the game, making them less relavant.  Eventhough there are -ve aspects of user experience, these will continue to dominate. 

The question is whether better user experience can 

a) improve existing leaders profitability / revenues

b) change the game to create a new leader

One can also check if any of these used user experience as the USP / key differentiators to become the leaders.

But how do I participate in this new part of the world.

I thought :  all new stuff happens due to new ideas. So if I generate lots of ideas, I will become part of the this evolution.

But I realized that ideas are mostly fiction within my own head. They have little validity beyond my imaginations.

So I went from “ideas are king” to real projects with investment and continuous  innovation are essential part of the change. Don’t talk just do it !!

Notice how ‘life’ gets ‘new’ stuff. Mutations that happen during reproduction are the sources of change.  Similarly innovations happen in regular business (which is created to earn money not worry about innovation).  In fact innovation becomes a necessity for a profitable business.

There are two trends impacting return on investments (large scale).

1. Commoditization – increased supply with lower costs. Sharing the same pie.

2. Premium (New) – higher price due to increasing demand. Creating a new pie /extension.

Eventually every premium thing succumbs to commoditization. The idea is to ride the front end of the evolution tide.

So look for the evolution tide and get to the front part of it.  Create valid business (which makes economic sense) with high returns and innovations. Build something realistic while pushing the boundaries.

I am not talking about “green movement” kind of new. That kind require a revolution.

I am talking of smaller [ ]  “ipod”, “google search” kind of new.

How about living most of the day with that philosophy ?

Doing things the way ones heart desires. 

So there are two kinds of things one does - 

1. What I want to do (IM Internal motivation)

2. What I am have to do (EM External Motivation)

Living the day by heart means, IM activities are in line with my positive emotions. Don’t do for any logical reasons, do it because it feels right.

Even for EM activities, one can control “how” and “when” to suit the heart. I do things when and how I want to do.

IM activities come to you when you are excited about possibilities. You imagine a better new world.

Don’t let your logical brain screw you happiness

Don’t be driven by logic. Because it will drive you to lifeless life.  

Feel the world. Feel the excitement of new. Do it, because you feel right about it. Use logic to checkpoint as a tool – will this cost me something substantial ?

Do more if it feels good.

Opportunities :

• are more real than ideas.
• are external while ideas are internal
• require ideas to accomplish them.
• are self fulfilling unlike ideas which most of times just give mental satisfaction

There can be many ways to achieve the opportunities.  Though many opportunities are uninspiring, it is better to pursue them than internal ideas.

So don’t start with ideas and then look for opportunities to apply them. Rather look for opportunities and achieve them whether through new ideas or copied experiences.

Opportunities could be in all aspects of life. Whatever I like to have in my life – relationships, money, fame, knowledge, experience, fun, … I need to look for opportunities to enhance them.

Don’t make TODOs of the opportunities. Get inspired and imagine through opportunities.

So the new way is :

• observe
• imagine
• look for opportunities
• brainstorm and generate ideas to accomplish those

1. You have been doing it or planned earlier to do it.

2. Someone tells you to do it.

3. You see opportunities in future and you decide do this for achieving that goal.

Zombies live with first 2 drivers for all their lives.

Active life needs 3rd kind of attitude.

It might not be just ‘what’ but ‘when’ as well. Purposeful life needs core activities done because one wants/plans to do. Eventhough there would be still be many things that need to be done for external / past reasons.

In those cases atleast one should have control over ‘when’ and/or ‘how’ to do, if not ‘what’.

- stories are best medium of communication.
- interuption advertising is one way ( most broadly used)
- Ad-entertainment is another.

In any case a existing market is essential where prospects gather. Group permissions are easier than individual ones. For instance, I prefer an Ad on train compartment, than one in my mailbox.

So steps for marketing are :
Find markets where prospects gather/participate.
Find ways to tell your story – funny, entertaining, teaching, giving hope or thrillingly.
Create business plan – how much do you think you can earn in next 2 years.
Then figure out how much you can afford to spend on story telling.
Story should be :
Interesting / compelling
Related to the idea / product

Then,

Product that came out of the above should be marketed, made to reach the audience.

The ‘user’ doesn’t know that you have a gift for him. He doesn’t trust you even he comes to know.
He also is not interested in trying new stuff, nor he has time to do trials.

We choose things that excite us emotionally – sensuous, tasty, intelligent, safe… feel. Some are basic emotions, while others are secondary – like feeling emotionally correct (as organic movement or giving gifts makes you feel).

This is very important for any creator. If others have to try / accept your creation, it needs to appeal to them viscerally. ipod cannot be sold as bigger hard disk, or smallest music player – it had to be marketed as wanted thing. Same with fashion, you don’t buy fashion stuff because of left brain.

Is it true that right brain is the master of decision making (especially to adopt new stuff) ?

Same also applies to presidential candidates, they have to win by that feeling rather than comparative points.

Is there anything that we humans choose based on left brain ? probably not. We use our analytical ability as a tool / like calculator. Real world is often so complex that it is very difficult to create a logical model that matches reality.

So we choose our food, cars, partners, business, investments, jobs,charity, luxury…even soaps, everything through our hearts. Therefore it is very important to keep this in mind as a creator.

Find a positive emotion that can be connected naturally to your creation – more specifically the core value of the creation.  Figure out what will enhance that feel. Market through that feel. (PS: all good advertisements are appealing to the heart not mind). Appealing to heart doesn’t mean just romantic, sensuous only. It means it ‘feels’ – exciting, safe, satisfying, fulfilling, happy, intelligent or anything positive. Here is list of emotions, I think that are involved in our daily decisions (taken from Wikipedia):

While they are excellent guides for complex reality. Emotions are very mis-leading as well. How we feel might not always be accurately reflecting what is the reality. That’s one of the reasons to loose money in stock market or become obese (sugar tastes desirable).

There is no tolerance for fake. If the underlying value is not in-sync with the emotion attached to it, the whole thing can turn sour (negative).

So which emotion does www.plumdots.com represent or can represent – hope, envy, inspiration, pride, curiosity… enthusiasm ? I think ‘Hope’ – hope to find a better / satisfying job. or Smart /intelligent – that I can find what others cannot.

But the “Desires to fulfill” are done first among all others.

Need to : are mostly forced from outside

Goals : are logically arrived at

Desires:  have emotional drive behind them.

How does one convert all activities in life into “desirable” ones ?

When I imagine the output and fall in love with that, I desire it.  While everything in life has little grey in it, it is the ability to see the bright spots that would generate passion.  

Take a task – cleaning the bathroom (boring!!). Look for interesting / pleasurable outcomes. Imagine and embellish the output further. “I wish we had spic and span bathroom”.

This is not easy, especially for repeat jobs (like cleaning of bathroom). But habit(which is other way to get things done) might not always help in getting things done. That’s where I need creativity to imagine a interesting outcome time and again.

Can every activity be desirable ?

I am not sure. But most of the stuff we do as habits. Like brushing teeth. There is no meaning in using desire as the driver. Though many times such things are also driven by desires (white teeth, attractive self).

Life driven by desires (to achieve something) is passionate one. Life without desires makes us machines.

Seth has a point that world only requires specialists. But then why does anyone choose to be a generalist.

My answer is :

1. Because some specialist roles die with time – what happened to master watch maker – not the luxury kind, but the town /street’s best.

2. Many times your specialization depends on what pays you at that time. Not on what is required in future and therefore you tend to generalize.

3. One cannot predict the future specialization need. 

Or simply put… because one couldn’t figure out which specialization would make money and survive in future, one choose to be a generalist.

Everyone wants a specialist, but there could be very few who can survive being one.

Returns (Rewards) ~ fn ( effort, risk taken, luck) 

Returns are a function of efforts, level of risk taken, right timing. Missing in this equation is the effect of catalysts/dampeners such as money, relationships etc. Catalysts act like multipliers in the function. Therefore one can rewrite the above as :

Returns = fn( effort, risk, luck) * (Catalyst power / Dampener power)

If the above is true, the recipe for success is 

1. Work hard 
2. Take calculated risks
3. Hope to be lucky (or pray if you believe it helps)
4. Identify possible catalysts – ensure their presence and effect
5. Identify dampeners – ensure their absence and reduced impact

Which are the catalysts for success?

In business and career, 

• Money 
• Relationships
• Prior success
• Relative Position / Power

• Security - many are better than one
• Efficiency – Cheaper, cost effective to be part of a group

But inherently groups bring problems like :

• Lack of Control – some one else seems to control my destiny and impact on me.
• Increased Friction – people are the biggest friction creators (chaos generators).

In life most of us are mix of an individual and a group member. It is degree of the mix that matters.

A individualistic lifestyle requires :

• Lots of resources – if you are rich (money or talent), you can ignore groups. Because rich can buy security and be in-efficient.

Whereas group lifestyle would need :

• Lead the pack – so that you can be in control and be above the lower level frictions.

Either way, riches and ownership seems to be the only way to have better life.

I am not born with lots of resources (neither got from my parents). Therefore my goal in life should be :

1. To acquire as much resources as possible. Talent wise as well as $$ wise.
2. Become owner /leader of something. (Even if it is a small piece of a big group) As autonomous as possible.
3. Deploy the earned resources to achieve the above two.

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jan2008/id2008012_297369.htm

Interesting article by Bill Buxton in Businessweek.

I like the metaphor of long nose (in line with long tail). The main take aways for me :

1. If you are an inventor, you would be long dead before your invention makes money.

2. Dramatic changes in the world comes takes long time after the initial idea.

3. Ecosystem has to be ready, to create the big impact.

4. Big changes are based on many small ideas.

5. Think of it as a building. Each idea is just a small brick. Many types of materials and techniques have to evolve to create a unique building.

6. It is similar to “Life”. Life evolves through reproduction and mutations. It takes generations (ages..) to create a human from a single cell. Same thing applies to ideas. I read somewhere that darwin’s theories can be used to describe evolution of ideas / memes as well.

7. Unlike religious beliefs – god created (invented) humans and other species – Darwinism says that everything is result of evolution.  

1. Shareholder – who provided money

2. Employee / resources – who convert money into something

3. Customer – who converts that somethinginto money, which is distributed to first two.

Most businesses are driven to maximize benefits for shareholders.

• Take care of employee, so that he/she can generate more $$ for the shareholder
• Make customer happy, if he pays higher $$ which goes to shareholders.

All three players are inter-related. You cannot isolate any one. In general terms, it is better to have all three happy. But then that is just a optimum solution.

All businesses are driven to maximize shareholder value. This comes from capitalist thinking,

• people are freely available, money(capital) is scarce
• bigger is better for efficiencies (factories, mass products, walmart…)
• Money is the best catalyst

Other 2 models

Artists Solo business person can have a different model. They can maximize for the resource – themselves – and money be a secondary goal.

Social service have the third model. They maximize for the customer.

If you are working for an organization(job), your objective is to maximize for your boss (not just your immediate boss, but all the bosses till the shareholder).

What if there are no bosses – employees own the company equally, employee and shareholders are same. One such model only exists in cottage industry, say a tailor, a barber – one person or few people business. Western world got prosperity by moving into factory model, which killed one person businesses.

1. Spiritual : based on faith. Better not analyze or know the truth.

2. Past stories : I have been through such times and got out. Even though it takes time, ultimately success finds me.

3. Future stories : create fictional stories of future.
4. Momentum : extrapolate few good things happening now.

5. Others’ stories: When I see someone becoming successful, it creates hope that same could happen to me.

While busines, software etc are also mediums of creation and ideas, they are logic based rather than feel based.

Logic based – deduce what is correct / optimum thing to do.

Feel based – If it feels good to you, it must be appealing to others.

Painting, Music etc are feel based mediums.

Important to note that, while logic leads to universally agreed truth, feel is more personal and might not be same for others. But at the same time, feel connects deeper human levels than logic. Therefor emphasis in logic based mediums is on truth and wider acceptability, whereas feel based depends on emotional depth to individual.

Leaders are feel based, while managers are logic based.

I am not saying that one is better than the other, but recognizing that feel based creative mediums are different. I have ability for both type (so I think), and therefor I should choose to have both kinds of mediums.

Design is in many ways a feel medium.

Cartoonists use their cartoons to convey their ideas. So Cartoons are their medium – everyone knows that right ??

Similarly,

entrepreneur’s medium is business

Web designer’s medium is web sites

Software maker / widget maker’s medium is the widget or software

One need to be clear, whether it is the cartoons / software or business. You can’t be perfecting cartoons and hope that you have a great business.

That doesn’ t mean that each one of us can use only one medium. It means that being clear what all mediums is one creating in. Maybe a cartoonist is very creative in cartoons but not so creative in the business of cartoons. Then there are Edisons of the world who apparently are experts in many mediums at the same time.

Success in real world often requires creative thinking in all mediums of the  product. Atleast till one can establish a successful brand, after that there will be many more who will push the product further.

Selecting someone for a office / job, can be done based on :

1. Experience and knowledge

2. Attitude and intelligence

It is often said ( in selection process)

“hire for the attitude and train for the skill”

Because while both are essential – especially for such big posts as president of USA, experience / knowledge can come from people around, but attitude and intelligence are not easy to be induced.

But then attitude and intelligence are much more fuzzier than experience and knowledge.

Resumes are formats for experience and knowledge, while interviews are tests of attitude and intelligence.

You can guess who I would support !!

• Demand – Supply =  Scarcity
• Price – Cost = profit

Evolution in business :

1. Pick current Scarcity (and which has price $$) fill it with abundant supply
2. Which creates / props-up new scarcity.
3. Become leader in servicing the new scarcity.
4. And the next generation will strive to make the new scarcity abundant and repeat the cycle.

Mass production

Reduce common costs thus increasing profits

Luxury business

High price for extreme unessential (for living) scarcity.

Broadcast model

Zero price subsidized with Ads revenue on a high volume

Google search

Zero price, low cost subsidized with Ads on very high volume

Amazon

Minimum inventory costs for large volume resulting in discount price

Music business

Zero price for music, high price for related experience

My stories – place me in the world.

Stories need drama.

‘No story’ is still a story – a boring / sad one.

Being aware of stories developing everyday, is living consciously.

Ask ‘How would I remember this moment as ?’ in other words ‘How I want to remember this moment as ?’

It is not to change the moment, just to connect it to other moments and create a story.

Larger the story (you are involved in) more satisfied it feels.

My stories are told – mostly to myself.

Without stories, I am like a rock or a tree – ‘inanimate’ or just a ‘living thing’

Best user experience design is one that generates big exciting internal stories. 

iPod is successful for many reasons, but one of the main one being its social visibility. What if it was a tool used inside ones privacy – say a bathroom ? Would it command such premium $$ ?

Social objects are marketing tools. This is best way to decrease marketing costs and enhance message effectiveness. But at the same time, social object help humans project a larger (or better) than life image of oneself. So individuals participate in socializing any object for his /her own selfish interest to ‘show off’ – in good way. While producer / business gets to expand their marketing message through free viral distribution.

Social objects command premium pricing – non-social objects become commodities

What makes any object socially visible ?

1. when it is used / consumed in public – not private.
2. Share usage preference /pattern in public.
3. when expertise or knowledge about it is shared
4. when it is consumed collectively in a group

Tags: socialobjects

interaction design

presentation layer

    lots of samples… but not complex / confused
    fast refresh of new set
    trail – fast in and out
    remember path taken – progressively know more prefernces
   
time from Intent – let me find something interesting – to usage should be minimal

logic

    dynamic grouping
    intuitive grouping
    multiple membership

data structure

    Tag based ?
    richer as it app ages

Maps are good explore model – especially with Gmaps like

There are few ways to get a horse to run :

1. Stick - push or hit it, use ‘pain’ as the key driver
2. Habit - make a machine of the horse, use ‘inertia’ as the driver
3. Carrot - Motivate , pull, use ‘pleasure’ as the key driver

While all three produce results in short term, in long run stick is inhuman and habit is insensitive ways. You are also a horse in someone else’s race.

Carrot is the most desire-able way. But ‘Carrot way’ works on the following principle:

1. Horse is hungry
2. Horse likes carrots when it is hungry
3. Horse hunger is not one time thing (if not perennial)
4. Carrot is reachable after doing effort (no use if the carrot is on another mountain)

While 1 and 3 in above list can be achieved by training and selection ( select for attitude), finding which kind of carrot will motivate and how it should be presented are important challenges of leadership (and life as well)

Tags: motivation

Very interesting ! I face the same thing. I know it takes effort to make a happy point of view of the world, and making effort seems to a bad / sad thing.

I mean static pictures, either drawn or photos. The amount visuals used changes the language of story telling.

A Painting – Visual Story without words

A Graphic novel – Pictures and dialogs (text)

or Visually augmented (like this post) – Regular text stories with few images to augment the storyline.

Just text – all the images are in imagination

Each one of these have different languages and effect. A picture is equivalent to 1000 words, however a well written story can generate much better imagination than a visual.

Liketo do (LTD)

NTD  – Goal : efficiency

LTD – Goal : Enjoyable life experience

Develop top 5 LTD lists. A blog post of top 5 LTD things everyday. which is later updated on the status of the same.

Solution : Automation / script  or community guide.

My experience is that  search technology (including Google) is reaching its  utility in ever changing / expanding content domain. Search provides global top 10 list, which is becoming increasingly useless. Consider the following questions :

1. Which is the best car for me ? or TV or house …?

2.  Who can guide me best … ?

3.  Best entertainment content … to spend my evening today?

Google or any other search fail miserably in answering such real life questions. Not because Search robot is not smart, but because these questions cannot be answered without knowing me and my life preferences / status. Google doesn’t know who I am.  That’s why the next battle of web is personalization.

On the other hand, Communities can act like human agents helping in answering such questions. Not generic MySpace community, but  a community of people like me. In fact many communities with people with similar interests as mine.

Maybe Google should start to know my communities (online and offline) and build me guides based on opinion of those communities. Maybe someone is already working on this in their garage / bedroom right this moment (I wonder why not me …!!).

Check the above…if you are a netvibes user and use wordpress blog. I have created a widget for viewing statistics and posting blog posts.

Hope you like it !

• Harmonious
• Bored
• Confused

Aim is to maximize the Harmonious state and minimize Confused and Bored states.

The Battle Between Usability and User-Experience – Baekdal.com* Usable happiness: is a product that is simple to use, and makes you smile every time you use it.
Focus on making it easy to be happy, and usability, user-experience and greatness will come all by itself.

Lost Garden: Building fun into your software designs
# Stage 1 – Functional Software: How do we make something?
# Stage 2 – Utilitarian Software: ‘How do we make something useful and easy to use?
# Stage 3 – Pleasurable Software: ‘How do we make enjoyable to learn and powerful for experts?’

All Stage 1 and 2 software are commodities. Apple is knows and builds Stage 3 apps.  When will financial and other serious businesses start moving into Stage 3 apps for their users ?

Lost Garden: Software Developments Evolution towards Product Design

Fantastic article

Software development in general has lot to learn from Game design /development methods.

Most of the software – for banks, companies etc – are very bland /dry. They are designed for a machine like user, rather than a human user. Emotional appeal is least aspect considered in software development.

This Is Your Life and How You Tell It – New York Times

I am the story in my head – about myself.

The story evolves throughout my life, based on the life events that touch me emotionally.

Listen to other’s stories, you will know who they are.

If you want to connect with others, tell your stories and listen to theirs.

“If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good I am satisfied.” =Alfred Nobel

Thanks Luke.

Slides from Paul’s presentation  View Paul’s Slides

I agree completely. See my post Ideas life cycle

If you have ideas..

• Write them down… else they will vanish
• Prototype them… else they will remain just dreams
• Productionize them … else they will remain just a hobby
• Spread the story around them… or else ideas will remain unrealized

Stories are the best way of communication. Stories give wings to ideas. They allow pollination to newer fields.

Not just stories told by the ideator, stories told by the users.

The Long Tail of Consumer Demand

Src: Keith Hopper

Since Henry ford invented economy of scale (mass production), business is designed to address common minimum requirements. Any additional requirement is seen as premium variation to the mass produced commodity.

Internet is promising to unleash large niche players. Unlike earlier times, boutique need not be a cottage/small business.

I like the trend towards big players being more of aggregators / integrators (like eBay and Amazon) rather than monolithic producers like oil and steel companies. This will increase “atomization” of business with profitable economic models.

If boutique can get volume, we will see reduction of big business power (I hope). And increase in power of the community (In the way nature has designed ‘life’).

However the exponential increase of options (variety) is becoming counter productive to the users. It would be interesting to see, who comes out with a magic solution to make it easier to choose for the users.

Note: Most business books cost $20 with more than 200 pages. 150 or more pages in these books contain repeat of the same idea.

• All Business books give historical examples to support “the theory”. None recommend of who (specific company) can do what to use this theory. or… maybe books are marketing tools for high cost consulting.

Seth – a prolific business writer – raises a question:

Do business books work?

Every year, more than a thousand new ‘business’ books get published in the US. Not textbooks or manuals, but general interest books about how to do business better.

Some sell a few hundred copies. Some sell a few hundred thousand. One or two might sell a million. Out of a potential audience of 30 or 40 million white collar workers in the US.

Do they work or are they an utter waste of time?

Rich become more rich….

 Popular become more popular..

Collective opinion is often read like polls – very quantitative. Like this nytimes article -
Is Justin Timberlake a Product of Cumulative Advantage?- suggests, others’ opinion guide ones own (popularity).

Reputation ( popularity) is the key that seperates an expert from ‘janatha’ (general public). So if you want to be heard, build a good reputation.

Social networks are not new. We like many other life forms love to be social. Social groups extend our identity beyond oneself into a larger entity.

Groups form around a common theme or love, which has an emotional connection with the individuals.

Toastmasters, lionsclub, fan club are all social groups formed around a common theme in rel world. So social groups are nothing new. Just that technology is enabling to build faster, larger and more infectious communities.

Myspace – young
Flickr – photography
Digg – tech news
Wiki – general knowledge

Most of the current social networks are closed systems. You get to interact with who have similarly joined the same network. One cannot participate without being a permanant ( sort of) member of the network.

Size of the group, emotional connectedness, dynamic/ aliveness are few intersting parameters for measuring these groups. Advertisers for instance would love larger, emotionally deeper, dynamic groups.

Broader the common theme, lesser is the emotional connectedness. Narrower the theme, however, smaller the size of group. Each group might gravitate towards its optimum size, connectedness and dynamism.

If product manfucturers or service providers identify one such common theme for their target market, they could reap huge benefits by building a community around that theme. CAUTION:this like a the goose which lays golden eggs. Don’t kill the goose by selling your stuff, as if it is another channel.

Is there an opportunity in developing technology tools to enable this. Can a tool – like ning – help business make more money, deeper impact?

I am sure non-profits already know this trick. Question is whether this is a feasible thing for commercial orgs. Or this will go the CRM way. And mainly is this a fad or real thing evolving.

My circle should include ‘open world friends’ not just those friends who joined this service. For instance, people whose blogs I subscribe are also important. Even if they don’t join this particular service.

In whospoke.com I want to do the same on open scale. Something that will plug into address book 2.0 kind of service. Watch this space on my execution of this idea.

What happens when a singular talent like Joshua Bell plays Chaconne on his $3.5 million Stradivarius for rush-hour commuters in Washington D.C.?

Interesting take by Metacool on the result of a experiment of a famous musician playing in a rush hour in a commuter train station. I heard about this experiment on NPR radio yesterday. Joshua was speaking about this experience.

I have different point of view :

• Context / environment plays a key part in how we react /interact. I would think that this experiment should have been tried in a relaxed place (a small town … during evening) in a remote village in Africa or Asia. That would be an interesting experiment to measure universality of musical taste.
• One needs to training /tuning to appreciate finer arts. It is obvious that Picasso would be really appreciated by (artistically) trained mind more than an untrained one. Note how some songs /tunes take some time to grow on.

Though a good designer needs to always keep his /her ears open, this excersize might not be effective in measuring sensitivity of general public to fine art music.

• Other’s opinions are value-able when one doesn’t have enough information to process and form an opinion, and yet one needs to decide or act.
• And when collective opinion is required or is better than opinion based on self experiences.

There are

a) experts’ opinion – which are value-able because of special skill and knowledge of the expert.

b) public opinion – Value-able as collective wisdom.

There are many ways to get opinions :

1) Polling – basic tool of democracy. Ask specific yes or no multiple choice questions. Then perform quantitative analysis to know the opinion of majority.

2) In-direct observations – crowd in a restaurant suggests its popularity.

3) Stories – They are the best communication modes and inform the teller’s opinions / thoughts.

People express their opinions through blogs. That was my primary thought behind setting this service called – : public opinion from their blogs.

However unlike polls, people don’t write quantitative opinions and therefore very little analysis can be done to them. One metric that Whospoke.com uses is the number of people writing about the topic, as an indication of the popularity. Mostly it is qualitative opinion. On the other hand, polls can become biased based on questions, the choices and the analysis done.

There are many challenges in the implementation :

a) providing a summary of the opinions (whospoke provides a word cloud of the opinions). While one can go and read the detail behind, it is important to give gist of the opinions.

b) noise filtering – many people seem to hmm and huhh.. instead of stating their opinions. (Whospoke prioritizes the opinions based on the reputation of the opinionator – assumption being that if someone is popular, he must be genuinely stating his opinion)

c) contextual – unasked opinions are useless. How to provide opinions when needed – at the time of buying, deciding…

d) trusted sources – We value opinions from our friends and family more than strangers. How to filter/prioritize based on list of friends (dynamically identified, based on those I comment about, those that I read often, those that I refer to).

If one could overcome these challenges, there are many uses of this:

1) User opinions are very value-able for any organization / company.

2) Governance of countries and such … require technology transformation of public opinion capture and analysis.

3) At personal level, we all crave to know what others think. That is key reason for fashion and such things.

4) This helps in evolution of things- bad products get thrown out and good ones grow.

5) Marketing becomes less relevant. Good products would be talked about and bought.

If you find this interesting, check out whospoke.com and use this button on your web page /blog.