We’ve been having conversations around the office recently regarding making the client happy. It sounds like such a good idea, but unless clients agree, at least on some level other than lip-service, with the objectives and philosophy of what we’re trying to do for them, it often fails.

The other symptom I’m seeing is that it’s becoming more important to impress the client than to create a great product. I believe we’re still creating a great product, but there is a very real danger of losing that capability.

We spend a great deal of time talking about “audience.” We say things like “end user” and “typical” and “primary demographic.” (I’d slap anyone who actually said that last one out loud).

And yet what we often actually do is to make sure the client feels good. This of course makes good business sense. Or does it?

The client is not the customer.

The customer is the person using the client’s product, web site or whatever. That’s who we should be concerned with. The energy spent (wasted?) making the client feel good about our product could be better spent educating and informing them on the value of… [buzzword alert]… “User-centered Design”

Usability professionals have been talking about this for years, and I thought people were listening. We can point out nearly every successful web site and find usability at its core: Amazon, Google, even Yahoo still has it. Why does everyone seem to know this, yet not follow their lead?

I’ve seen projects where 80% of the time was spent on over-designing every square inch of screen space and writing ultra-tweaky code. That leaves 10-20% for the rest, which includes a number of things - only one of which is the user-centered piece that we so often miss. That’s not enough.

It’s time to teach again. And for some, it’s time to listen. Between the two lies a great thing.

It’s good to see some of the other folks at Fusionary are keeping

active, diverse and interesting blogs. Here are links to Steve, Bryan,

T.M., and Kevin.

The Onion: Community Rallies Behind Struggling Corporation

” Though the two-day bake sale raised only $258, well short of the needed $630 million, the event helped spread word of MidCorp’s troubles. Throughout the next few days, Summitville residents came up with ways big and small to help the beleaguered corporation. While many residents dug deep into their savings to give whatever they could, others came up with goods and services to help see CEC MidCorp through the rough times.”

I don’t consider myself especially creative, but I enjoy those who are. One of the things we struggle with around the office is how to be creative - as a team. I tend to believe that creativity is not a team event. A group of people can work together to help bring creative things to life, but I believe that creative genius is typically the work of single - sometimes two - individuals. I very much enjoy this quote by David Ogilvy…

“Search the parks in all your cities, you’ll find no statues of committees.”

Boy, I hope this works… Tall You:

“This is from USA and it contains latest ingredient, look taller and

improve your personality in 3 to 6 months time and will be permanant”

Or if that doesn’t work, there’s always, Long you

Chrissy has her own [walk

of fame star](//www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/TV/01/25/somers.star.ap/index.html)

Wow. I don’t mean to be cruel, but it sort of takes the value of all

other stars down a notch doesn’t it?

Am I not supposed to feel great? All goofy and optimistic? Spring is here, love is in the air, tulips are blooming and all that. These things are supposed to make a fella feel pretty good, even if he refuses to admit it.

I’ll just be here then. Waiting my turn. Thinking about what’s next.

D’ya ever feel like doing something that would make everyone you’ve ever met say “What the fuck!?” I don’t mean some chicken-shit terrorist nonsense, but something no one would have expected…

…something excruciatingly fun.

Any suggestions?

Thomas Erickson’s paper, entitled “Socially Translucent Systems: Social Proxies, Persistent Conversation, and the Design of ‘Babble’” is interesting.

I’d like to somehow tie these concepts to our collaboration, workflow tools.

Another science I suspected must exist, but never recognized - Social Network Analysis

Peter Morville - who sometimes says really smart things, and other times just pisses me off, has done a bit of research here. It’s an interesting piece.

Looks like I’m not the only one who’s skeptical of Segway’s feasibility in real life. Slashdot links to Wired’s article describing Segway’s problems.