Logic+Emotion

Thought of the Day

"Design is rapidly moving from posters and toasters to include processes, systems, and organizations. Design is the accelerator for the company car, the power train for sustainable profits. Design drives innovation, innovation powers brand, brand builds loyalty, and loyalty sustains profits. If you want long-term profits, don't start with technology—start with design."
~Marty Neumeier

Thought of the Day

~From Logic + Emotion, One Year Later.

Thought of the Day

"Design is also traditionally about collaboration and integration. Working with other people across what we call silos these days and integrating information to solve problems has always been a strong suit of design. Now, with the growth of social networks and collaborative innovation, design is ever more powerful. I would argue that the rise of social networks, which combine both user-generated content and user-focussed organization, is a major force today for the new centrality of design in business culture."
~Bruce Nussbaum

Thought of the Day

"I went from working in an Ad agency in Sydney where I was not considered one of the "creatives" and was therefore not allowed to exercise creativity, to my current role where a large part of every day is spent generating creative ideas and bringing them out of others.  I didn't change, I just evolved into a role that valued the overlap."
~Rohit Bhargava

Thought of the Day

"Design is the curator of conversations. To solve problems, design begins with people and cultures in communities, from rural villages at the bottom of the pyramid to social networks at the top of the pyramid. It observes, integrates, imagines and proposes."
~Bruce Nussbaum

Thought of the Day

"as human centered design practitioners we talk about, well, putting humans at the center of the design process. Which is all fine and dandy except that in the context of designing our ubiquitously connected and oh-so-smart future this roughly equates to understanding the sum of all human experiences, which is clearly impossible. The joy of aiming high and failing. Or not?

...the path to a good project can start with the simplest of questions. Who are you? How can you prove it? What do you carry? Why did you do that thing you did?"
Jan Chipchase, Nokia

Thought of the Day

Be Someone’s Hero.
Everybody needs a hero.  We just don’t want to admit it.  Find someone who needs a hero.  Not your boss—but the person looking for guidance—a word of encouragement or inspiration.  Be that hero even if your own heroes don’t exist for you.
~Incomplete Manifesto

Thoughts of the Day

"I want to work in a small creative operation.  I am staying here in the states.  I love it over here".
~Rodd Chant, former executive creative director, Draft FCB.

"Why oh why do people in this day age still hold up “usability” as something laudable in product and service design? Praising usability is like giving me a gold star for remembering that I have to put each leg in a *different* place in my pants to put them on."
~Todd Wilkens, Adaptive Path

"'Ive been spending much time with ad agencies and focus groups lately and can only conclude that--with some exceptions--they are mostly clueless."
~Bruce Nussbaum, BusinessWeek

"1. I exist.
2. I'm ok.
3. You exist.
4. You're ok.
5. The channel is open. 
6. The network is exists.
7. The network is active.
8. The network is flowing."
~Grant McCracken

Thought of the Day

"In order to be able to connect to "uploaders", we need to recognise (or test the hypothesis), that most of them are narcissistic creatures searching online for fame. Therefore, any brand activity should appeal to this trait, vigorously massaging their egos and making them look good or famous in return for brand advocacy. Why do you think Mac users are such ardent advocates? Because they think that owning a Mac puts them somewhat above the rest, making life very easy for marketers..."
~Ozoda Muminova

Thought of the Day

"What is that vision? A Yahoo! that executes with speed, clarity and discipline. A Yahoo! that increases its focus on differentiating its products and investing in creativity and innovation. A Yahoo! that better monetizes its audience. A Yahoo! whose great talent is galvanized to address its challenges. And a Yahoo! that is better focused on what’s important to its users, customers, and employees."
~Jerry Yang

Thought of the Day

"My openness makes it easy to find exactly what I want, when I want, without the need for the one-way messaging that is the status quo for our business.  Sure, I watch plenty of TV, but I haven't seen a television commercial in weeks. That is, besides on YouTube, but that's reserved only for the incredibly good and the hopelessly bad. I spend copious amounts of time on the web, but with robust ad blocking software, I hardly ever see a banner ad, pop-up or the like. I still listen to the radio, but the play button on the IPod is pressed at the mere hint of a break. I don't read magazines. I don't read newspapers."
~Paul McEnany

Thought of the Day

"I speak with marketing professionals every day (both client and agency side) who are defining social media strategies but are not themselves active users of social media services, much less students of them.  They market on blogs, but aren't themselves bloggers (or even regular blog readers.)  They define strategies for social networking but don't themselves use social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook.

Of course they are burning to "do something" in Second Life but often haven't even gone through the registration process (if they have, many more don't make it past Orientation Island.)  And never mind newer social services like Twitter and Tumblr -- they've never even heard of them (but as soon as they do, they'll want to find ways to tap those tools for marketing purposes too.)

Yet, when all is said and done, they don't understand why their social media campaigns didn't work..."

~Greg Verdino

Thought of the Day

Purist

A purist is one who desires that a particular item remain true to its essence and free from adulterating or diluting influences. The term may be used in almost any field, and can be applied either to the self or to others. Use of the term may be either pejorative or complimentary, depending on context.

Because the appellation depends on subjective notions of what is "pure" as opposed to "adulterating" as applied to any particular item, conflict can arise both as to whether a person so labeled is actually a purist and as to whether that is desirable.

~Wikipedia

Thought of the Day

Why do we use what we use?  Why do we love some applications and hate others?

Human: Experiences which fulfill us are the ones we engage with at both emotional AND rational levels.  The definition of fulfillment is different for all of us—that's what makes us human.

Technical: Technology should never drive—it should enable.  But don't you ever underestimate it.  That shiny new iPhone you are waiting for won't do you any good if it can't make a simple phone call.

Aesthetic: We're attracted to beauty.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder—as is ugly.  But we know both the moment we see it.

Inspiration

"Inspiration. Where do ideas come from? Insights are the fuel of inspiration. You don’t get ideas from sitting at your desk. Use the world as a source of inspiration (not as a source of validation). It starts with empathy and seeing things from other people’s viewpoints, not yours. Aim to understand people on multiple levels: physically, cognitively, emotionally, socially, and culturally."
~IDEO's Tim Brown from MXSF 2007

Thoughts for the Day

"innovation and talent is coming from the edges. The means to try, the means to invent, the means to fail and try again is available to anyone with an internet connection and increasingly they are ones willing to try new things."
~Karl Long

" Brands that surf culture have to choose their moment with exquisite timing.  If they are a moment too soon, they look like reckless "kooks" way out ahead of the trend. "
~Grant McCracken

"It’s fun to learn about (or visit) other galaxies on occasion though. This is ideally what conferences are for: bringing ambassadors from different galaxies together. But like any good tourist, you need a strong stomach and an open mind. People you’ve heard rumors of turn out to be different than you expected and the customs are, well, just weird."
~Dan Saffer

Thoughts of the Day

"I used to worry about people "stealing" my ideas. Now I know that turning them into something is hard. Ideas are the easy part. And sharing is good for the spirit."
~Gavin Heaton 

"If websites were houses, IA would be the plumbing. It's there, everyone understands conceptually it's there, but it's hidden, out of the way, taken for granted, and to be honest, no one wants to think too deeply about where it all goes after they flush, anyway. The only time it's really noticed is if it doesn't work. And then everyone gets upset."
~Cam Beck

"Is this how some alternative marketing firms interpret "new marketing"? Blinking lights and wired boxes on bridge overpasses? Isn't this worse than traditional advertising? I hope we put laws in place like they did in Brazil (I think it was there) legislating against urban spam."
~Dino Demopoulus

Thought of the Day

"We can no longer get by on being the wacky creatives who can't be held to any kind of standard. The sooner we get over this notion of having to 'speak the language of business' and just get on with it, the better off we'll all be."
~Chuck Jones, Whirlpool's design chief

Thought of the Day

"People in SL are expressing what they would LIKE to do in reality. For example, it's easy to pimp your car in second life and clearly lots of people want to customize their transport there. All the major auto companies are piling into SL to learn about this--and build their big after-market customizing business in the real world."
~Bruce Nussbaum

Thought of the Day

"You have to design your experiences to be flexible—and that's one of the biggest impediments to the traditional advertising world—that's the way they think," he continues. "For 50 years, creatives went into advertising so they could tell 30-second stories. As far as they were concerned, that was the next best thing to working in Hollywood.

"As a result, they're culturally impaired when it comes to creating experiences online, because a narrative like that won't work. It might work as a component of a larger whole, but it can't be the whole experience. So they have to adapt from owning the brand voice to being a little slice of it, and that's very difficult for them."
~Nick Law, Chief Creative Officer, R/GA

Thought of the Day

"Forty years ago, Thomas Watson Jr., chairman and chief executive of IBM during its most explosive period of growth, famously proclaimed, "Good design is good business." Corporate America, however, barely looked up from its work. Except for a few mavericks such as IBM, Kodak, and Xerox it would take years for design to move in from the fringes of business. But today, companies are creating products and services that delight customers with the grace of their fit and finish, and their exacting performance. Design, in short, is becoming an ever more important engine of corporate profit"

~Roger Martin

Thought of the Day

Via Gapingvoid

Thought of the Day

    ~Andy Rutledge

Thought of the Day

"The very nerdiness of the name "AJAX" gives me hope that it will be used for causes more worthwhile than those now characteristic of Flash. Doomed by its own name, Flash had similar potential but was so grossly abused for "flashy" design that it never succeeded in adding much useful functionality to the Web."
~Jacob Nielsen

Thought of the Day

"it’s one thing to write about, or read about, a successful company after-the-fact and analyze how it achieved success. It’s another to build that successful company from scratch. Everyone knows that the innovator’s dilemma is to find a tipping point in order to cross the chasm. The question is not “why?” but “how?”.
~Guy Kawasaki

Thought of the Day

“The alternative is to compete not on left-brain attributes like price and functionality, but on right-brain qualities such as emotion, meaning, and look and feel. Case in point: Target sells toilet brushes and vegetable scrubbers designed by superstar architect Michael Graves. Even the most mundane, utilitarian objects in our lives have been turned into objects of desire.”
~Dan Pink

Thought of the Day

“Trusted gatekeeper" doesn't necessarily translate to professional anything. Trusted gatekeeper translates to whom I trust. Period. It's not about the medium or format, but it is all about the person, the source and the reputation.”
~Max Kalehoff  via The Boston Globe's Business Filter

Picture of the Day

Took this on the way into the ‘ol office.  Notice anything strange about it?  The car has no driver.  No wonder why it’s crashing into a fire hydrant.  So here are three possible scenarios.

A. A pair of twin toddlers snuck out of the house and got behind the wheel—you just can’t see them because one is working the gas while the other steers.

B. It’s the life-size remote controlled car of some reckless rich kid who thought it would be fun to destroy a little public property.

C. The driver was abducted by an Alien and the car immediately lost control, thus crashing into the nearest convenient fire hydrant.

Any other thoughts?

Thought of the Day

“In a time of ever more talented technology enthusiasts, hobbyists and do-it-yourselfers, all connected by Internet-enabled communication—the most intensely engaged users of a product often find new ways to enhance it long before its manufacturer does.”

~Eric von Hippel, head of innovation and entrepreneurship group at the Sloan School of Management: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
From NYT article:

Thought of the Day

“For all its appeal to the young and the wired, Web 2.0 may end up making its greatest impact in business. And that could usher in more changes in corporations, already in the throes of such tech-driven transformations as globalization and outsourcing.

Indeed, what some are calling Enterprise 2.0 could flatten a raft of organizational boundaries -- between managers and employees and between the company and its partners and customers.”

Robert Hof, Web 2.0 has corporate America spinning

 

Thought of the Day

Note: This quote/graphic was written and produced by me—David Armano.  Shout out to Steve for keeping me honest about myself. ;)

Thought of the Day

“online advertising still remains a fraction of the overall advertising budget in the United States. Young adults in particular are spending a far larger percentage of their time on the Web. Which means there's still lots of opportunity in this 21st century online gold rush. "The shift is on, from television, newspapers and radio to the Internet,” ~ Oversee.net. Founder Lawrence Ng from Newsweek

Quote of the Day

"We try to amass everything—men looking for women, men looking for men, spiritual people looking for spiritual people—and apply powerful search algorithms. There are hundreds of people across Yahoo! working on this."

~Anna Zornosa, Y! Personals GM, 

Read the interview in Forbes

Thought of the Day

“We have a ‘strategic’ plan. It’s called doing things.”

~Herb Kelleher, founder Southwest Airlines

Thought of the Day

“The value of a product is no longer created in the factories, but at the point of interaction with the consumer. So we need to have a clear understanding of consumer values. ” ~ Stefan Marzanoo,  Philips design chief  

Thought of the Day

“Let's be honest here. We're creating a Web site.  A really, really cool one.  But the “White Album” concept seems a bit off strategy”~Anonymous 

Thought of the Day

“The perfect work assignment for someone who needs to be innovative is one that balances clear, achievable goals with just enough task challenge to ignite the fires of creativity that lie within us all. These are the conditions for flow, and they enable a state of serious play.”~Diego Rodriguez

Thought of the Day

“Today, a product is no longer just a product—it is a set of often personalized and interconnected interactions that define a total brand experience.

By understanding how people interact with their world, we can create products and services that reflect this experience and better meet the needs and demands of your customers.”~Harry West, Design Continuum

Thought of the Day

“Collaborate. The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative”~Bruce Mau