links for 2008-05-28
May 28, 2008
links for 2008-05-27
May 27, 2008
links for 2008-05-22
May 22, 2008
-
(tags: operations management)
links for 2008-05-20
May 20, 2008
Strategy Conference 2008, IIT Institute of Design
May 17, 2008
On May 22-23 (Thursday and Friday), the Institute of Design is hosting a Strategy Conference at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
As usual, I’m pretty excited about the speakers: notably, Bill Buxton, AG Lafley, Roger Martin, John Seely Brown, and Paul Polak! How amazing is it that we get so many great minds in one spot every year talking about design as it relates to strategy, both for the public and private sectors?
Kevin and I were requested to host a lunchtime discussion on our work this past summer in China. If anyone is interested, feel free to sign up. Although, you probably could just come and talk to me in the hallway about it if you really wanted to!
Here’s a short description of our topic area:
As companies increase their product and service offerings in China, effective structuring of user research has become a key to success. This discussion will cover the advantages of doing activity-focused user research versus culture-specific/product-specific research to create concepts for emerging markets and how to train non-experts in conducting ethnographic research for faster, cheaper, deeper user research.
Field trip to the mkSolaire exhibit at the MSI
May 17, 2008
Today, Swapnil, Matt and I visited the Museum of Science and Industry in Hyde Park.
I’ve already seen the museum before (I’m not a huge fan to tell you the truth), but we went specifically this week with the intent to see the Green + Wired home exhibit.
Michelle Kaufmann, a well known prefab/modular architect designed the mkSolaire for an urban infill environment.
I thought some parts of the home were particularly awesome:
The waste-water catchment system, the folding accordion doors that allow you to open almost the entire wall to the outdoor deck, and the faux wood on the outside that’s made of sawdust and recyclable plastic bags.
It had a subfloor-heating system using aluminum pipes (no central heating system with vents). This seemed good in theory, but I was curious as to if it really worked on a cold Chicago morning.
The house would work particularly well in a warmer climate, not so much here in Chicago. Out of the 2500 sq ft, we estimated that 800 sq ft was essentially outdoors (deck space). There were only two tiny bedrooms, so the house wasn’t very conducive to a family beyond 3 people.
In general, I thought the house was very thoughtful in how “green” it was constructed but I wasn’t amazed by the level of home automation. Of course, maybe it just wasn’t demonstrated on the tour.
The trip was a good event to cap of a semester of working on the “Reconstructing Prefab” project in design analysis and synthesis. If you’re in Chicago, you should definitely make the trip out.
Blog-lite Summer
May 16, 2008
Hi everyone…. This summer is going to be blog-lite, okay? I am taking too many classes for my own good as well as working on two pretty interesting projects that could turn into a venture soon; there’s probably little chance that I will get out of this summer unscathed from the wrath of Operations Management.
If all goes well, I will be updating you all on the world of Digitally Empowered Learning and Presentation Aids.
links for 2008-05-14
May 14, 2008
-
“It selects for general intelligence and conscientiousness, not for lateral or divergent thinking, moral development, or epistemological sophistication, as we do yet know how to measure these.”
“The high-value decision-maker of the future—the one that
Hyper personal tracking: Where’s it all headed?
May 12, 2008
I feel like you’re going to see a lot more personal tracking applications in the near future– Imagine GTD on steroids, where you’ll know everything you spend time on.
When there’s stuff like MeeTimer and Microsoft Research doing some serious inquiry into personal time tracking, you have to wonder where this is all going to end up?
Will this information be useful, or will we be in analysis paralysis of our own incompetence and inability to multitask efficiently (I say that as I Apple+tab over from my regularly scheduled project due next week…)
Check out this new one:
Skydeck unlocks the valuable information hidden in your cell phone bill. Turn that boring list of numbers into a rich history of your conversations with friends, colleagues, customers, and other contacts. And since we also track your minutes and text messages, you’ll avoid overage fees and never get a surprise bill again.