Innovation by Design

Here I share my musings about how our Cool Concepts and design principles show up in products. Let's talk about what makes products transformative – to customers. Karen is the thought leader behind The Cool Project and the Contextual Design user centered design process.

[karenholtzblatt]

The Wonderful Amazing Relationship Machine: Skype

When I was a girl my grandmother lived a few blocks from my house. She dropped in about 4 after her work and helped my mother with the kids and chatted. I’d walk home from grammar school and stop at her house which was on the way back, to visit and chat and of course get some candy. When I was 15 I went to work for her summers and we commuted together. My grandmother was my great role model and close confidant until she died at 93.

Now I am a grandmother. But we have created a culture where remote work, family, and friends are the “way things are.” Children move away from parents and parents also move away to warmer weather from adult children. Businesses choose to work with people who are remote for a variety of reasons and workers choose to move for their family and then work remote. We are, as a culture, committed to living our lives our way in our locations. But we are also committed to keeping our real relationships alive. 

The Cool Project revealed the profound joy people get from interacting with and sharing their lives with the people who really matter to them. They love their cool technologies because technology allows them to “drop in” by phone or Skype or IM on the people that matter in their lives frequently—without having to stop life to travel.  Technology allows them to share pictures and movies and all kinds of content which help keep up a back-and-forth conversation with the people they care about. And technology allows them to do things together—really do things as though they were actually together.

A few weeks ago I was Skyping with my almost 5-year-old granddaughter, Noa. I hadn’t used Skype much before, in part because we had to find a mutually available time. But also because up until now it didn’t  feel real. Looking at the kids squirming in their Dad’s lap and then running off wasn’t particularly fun—it felt like peering into a picture frame.  “Attending” a Chanukah gathering with the computer propped at the end of the living room to “see” everyone open gifts was a little like being there—but the demands on the kids' attention in the room were of course greater than the attention I could draw.  It was like peering into someone else’s movie. 

But last week was a sea change and Skype started to be a way to maintain a real relationship with my granddaughter. What happened?  My son called and said, “Do you want to Skype with Noa?” I hadn’t seen them in about 4 weeks so I stopped what I was doing. “Sure.” We got on the line and again I saw my granddaughter and my grandson squirming around waving. “Noa is really drawing a lot now,” my son said. “Really?” I said. “Noa, should we draw together?” So she got her paper and I got mine and she got her colors and I got mine and side-by-side we had “drawing time with Grandma.” “What should we make?” I asked. “Let’s draw you and me as princesses!” she said—and we started the back and forth commentary typical of real side-by-side drawing.

N: Give me long hair.

G: Ok, look at this—holding up the picture—Now I’m giving me curly hair.

N: Let me see!

G: Should I give us a crown?

N: Yes—I’m making a crown too!

G: Now I’m making a magic wand.

N: I need a fancy dress.

G: Ok I’m giving you ruffles—look at this!

Back and forth we went, drawing in parallel, showing each other the drawings and commenting on them, discussing the colors and the pictures to draw. Over a 2-hour period we drew Noa and Grandma as princesses, Noa and Grandma sledding (it was snowing out), Noa and Grandma in the summer eating ice-cream, and Noa and Grandma ice-skating.

  Sometimes my video would cut out:

N: Can you see me Grandma? I can’t see you.

G: Yes (I could see her even if she couldn’t see me)

N: That’s ok Grandma, we’ll just talk while we draw.

Then my network would kick back in and the picture came back and we’d go back to showing each other our pictures. No question having the video was better than only talk—but we drew through the glitches.

Two hours later, I was ready for a break. She was not. Two hours on Skype, two hours drawing, two real hours of talking with and doing something with my granddaughter. This was a real visit—like I had with my own Grandma. Spending that much time together was amazing to me and to her dad.

The next week Dad wanted to do it again when Mom left him with the kids and went for a run. Grandma the entertainer and “babysitter”—this time we showed each other things—my grandson (1.5) showed me his trucks and I showed him my trucks and he cried because I wouldn’t give it to him!

Last weekend I want for an in-person visit and again Noa and I drew, and again we drew side-by-side and we drew princesses. But this time we could co-create—we drew on each other’s pictures.

Technology is not exactly the same as real interaction. And technology alone is not going to be enough to create new relationships. But technology is helping people maintain a real relationship. The data supporting the Cool Concept of Connection reveals that at the very center of maintaining real relationships is frequent contact.

Skype is “so cool” because grandparents, like me, use Skype to read and sing to their grandchildren in Ireland. Sales people use it to read the non-verbals of their clients in Geneva—on the iPad while sitting in the car (parked!) for a meeting. An Italian niece watched her great-aunt in Italy make a traditional bread so she could learn.

Dropping in through Skype to talk and do is not the same as being together—but it can be close. It is not enough all by itself to grow a relationship but it can bridge the distance between real times together.  Two hours drawing because of technology? I still wish they were closer, but two hours drawing together remotely—that  is simply amazing!

[karenholtzblatt]

Reflections on the next Cool platform: CHI 2012

“What will be the next sweeping cool experience?” I was asked.

 We had a great time at CHI meeting so many energetic, enthusiastic, and creative people. Together we will all invent the next generation of game-changing and life-changing products. We loved sharing our Cool Concepts defining the cool user experience, and look forward to seeing all of you and your teams at our upcoming workshop in California. We loved talking about your challenges with Agile and how to use field data for innovation in our other courses. The panel with Aaron and Eric was also a first – and we all wore hats – to commemorate three consultant/advisors sharing the stage! Thanks Joe!

But now to my musings during the conference.

Over twenty years ago when I first came to CHI the early Interactivity Sessions displayed researchers’  “what if’s” and prototypes of what could become our ways of interacting in the world with technology in the future. These displays are good examples of foundational innovation, innovation that is not really ready for prime time or practical enough to bring into everyday lives – but that suggest worlds to come.

Over twenty years ago I saw a screen with some sort of sensors and if I moved, an image on the screen moved. There were also gloves and glasses and other clumsy ways of “seeing” or “being” in an alternative world which had no attraction for me. But this physical way of interacting with what was effectively a “wall” to create music or movement caught and held me --- and I’m still watching it grow up.

This year’s Interactivity session took me back. I saw the BodiPod which kinda sorta worked to let you see the human anatomy and strip off layers of it visually to get down to the bones – if you wore a particular hat and motioned in a particular way. It is the “wall based” body book with transparent overlays of my youth alive and big.

I saw Disney’s idea of Surround Haptics where you play a “wall based” game by operating a controller – but every time your little bot goes over a grid you feel it in the back of the chair (hidden lower left) – a massage chair??? well not quite.

I saw the Hanging Off the Bar game. Now the floor is the environment surface that is changing. Jump to get out of the way – exercise by gaming!

Probably my favorite of the “wall” based interactions is the Zero Touch display. I think of it as an artist’s palate. By using a phone as a color source and the hand as a pen you can produce art on a very large flat screen display if you “draw” inside of a hanging picture frame. But imagine the world if you could just draw directly on your whole wall!

These envisionments portray us interacting in new ways inside of our living spaces. Other exhibits, like Lovely Rita, see us moving through our living spaces with special digital props. Rita brings the self into the world by giving us a suit of lights that we can change to alter our presence.

hipDisc lets you move to create sound all around you – is it the reinvention of the Hula Hoop or a new kind of instrument?

And I loved the Joggobot, the flying saucer robot who can follow you jogging like a dog – if you wear the right T-shirt.

So what might be the next transformative platform? What might change our lives in the same kind of profound way as touch phones and tablets?

Starting with WYSIWYG and drag and drop interface, and continuing through the Web we’ve been able to transform our everyday tasks, activities, and information desires. But as The Cool Project findings reveal, the impact of touch phones and tablets have gone far beyond that. They focus us on design for life. Yes, task still matters. But now we face a demand and an ability to support the whole of life: getting everything done while on the move; using every piece of time to help us move all of our activities and relationships along every day; keeping us from being bored when faced with dead time. The availability of content and small focused apps, the speed of access, and the magic of touch and voice interactions helps us live our lives in ways we have never imagined possible – and with a freedom we have never had before. What could be next?

Part of being human is living in and moving through space. People have created their worlds since we first found a cave to live in, since we built houses, parks, and cities. We have bodies we like to decorate and energy to run and dance. We are creative and we create in the world: on walls and surfaces and through sculpture. When I look at this year’s and past Interactivity displays I see space-based design; design for the human in space; the unfettered living in our world in new and marvelous ways.

In our prototypes we are imagining digital walls or wallpaper. Turn on your music/color system so movement and song is reflected in colored moving streaks on the walls, or images, and complimentary sound all around you here in your relaxing space. Create your art directly on your walls and in 3D rotating digital displays. Attend your yoga class for exercise – at home. Design your physical space – the real physical space in which you can work, and rest, and play and create. And imagine it with no heavy set up and simple controls. 

Go to the grocery store on the walls of your kitchen – or shop on the walls of buildings you pass. Design for the person in space. I’m not talking about the holodeck – we aren’t anywhere near that yet. And I’m not a fan of glasses or other reality enhancers that become an appendage – I like to feel like I’m in the real world. So I believe that the next real transformation will be in our relationship to the spaces in our world.

And, more than 20 years later, we are on our way.  Microsoft’s Dance Central using Kinect caught everyone up dancing at CHI. It’s not on the wall yet but it is coming into the home. It’s not independent of the Xbox – but it could be. It’s still about games – but it could be about other experiences as well. Seeing Machines teamed up with Toshiba to create a 3D movie/game experience with no glasses by tracking your eyes. It can only track one person at a time now, but wait for the future. And then there is real virtual shopping on the subway walls in Korea today. It uses paper display and the phone to select items. All of these products and more like them are recreating our world within our living spaces.

Design for life spaces is coming. We are creating the building blocks. We are prototyping new ideas. We are getting these environments out of the museums, and the iMAX, and billboards and  into our daily lives. We don’t know what will catch on. And we don’t know what will really work well enough for people to use it. Will it be just the walls? Will we like wearing things to enhance our world? Will we be able to touch and dance and sing and do art? Will we enhance our relationships by creating settings to interact with each other more? Or create such compelling experiences that it will pull us away from others? Will we bring our vacation scenes and sounds into our homes?

The transformative foundational technology and platforms needed for this future isn’t there yet. But I see it coming and it will transform us as human beings again.

[karenholtzblatt]

Challenge Creates the Joy of Accomplishment - if it is our own goal!

Companies are starting to use competition to try to encourage employees to be healthier by employing gaming techniques http://on.wsj.com/IqmH98 to encourage walking, weight loss, etc. This is all in service of reduced health costs and increased productivity. Winning and competition can be a great motivator such as when we set our goal on the marathon as a personal challenge. The Cool Concept http://bit.ly/msT82r of Accomplishment has an element of challenge - but those challenges are always self-defined. And nothing is more fun than getting our peers through cool tools to watch us, champion us, and do it with us. Consider the cool tools in Jim's story: It's Saturday morning, and Jim gets ready to go out for his morning run. After lacing up his running shoes, he starts Runmeter on his iPhone as he heads out the door. "I love this app!" He starts out on one of his favorite routes, listening to music on his iPhone as he runs. At mile one, Runmeter interrupts the music and a voice tells him how far he's gone, how much further he has to go, and how his time on today's run compares with past runs on the same course. "Just getting the feedback in the moment keeps me running-and lets me know I accomplished something!" Meanwhile, Runmeter has also posted a map of his route to his Facebook page. He runs around a beautiful lake in his neighborhood, and a few of his friends comment on the route later. " I love that in a long race my friends can track my progress through Facebook and leave encouraging comments." During the run, Runmeter reads the comments to him, using text-to-speech recognition. Jim has set his own goal. His friends support him - and he supports their runs in the same way. Runmeter helps Jim track and see his progress and share with friends who champion him. Challenges that give joy are chosen by the people that want to reach that bar of accomplishment - in exercise, in a new skill for a hobby or work, in reaching a sales goal. Today the world thinks it can set health challenges for others and twist them into long term health through rewards and social expectations. But addiction research, 12step programs, and health clubs have known for a very long time these truths: * If a person walks in the door and embraces the program - the joy of accomplishment and community support help people make very hard personal change. * No one can get anyone to change anything unless the person wants to. Healthy change starts with embracing a challenge from within. * Weight loss, increasing exercise within the demands of daily life, giving up cigarettes - is just hard. And shame never helps - but a clear set of new habits and real support when a person picks up the challenge does. Society can encourage, create apps to help, create programs to join, and most importantly create cultural expectations that can encourage - as happened with smoking cessation. But we have to watch out that we don't demonize people along the way. Cool technology helps us achieve our personal goals and manage our lives. So by all means lets encourage health - let's do it together - lets create apps that help. And let's focus on fitting this support into the real minutes and days of life - so important to the joy of Accomplishment http://bit.ly/qksibM. K

[karenholtzblatt]

Guitar tuning made cool - Cool comes in all industries Cool tools appear big and small in every industry - and they transform the practice. For the holidays, I got my guitar restrung and tuned. I have not played in years and years. But my daughter-in-law wanted to accompany my granddaughter in song so I set off to the music store. In my youth tuning was a skill of the ear. If you had to, you used a tuning fork to set one string and then tuned the rest in relationship to that string. When I opened my dusty guitar case I found my tuning fork and also a pitch pipe. But when the musician started to tune my guitar he used this electronic tuning clip that was just so cool! [cid:[email protected]]The Odyssey Clip-on Tuner http://bit.ly/HZkYYR clips to the end of the guitar and senses the string vibrations - play one string and you can see it getting closer to the true note. Now the musician can march down the strings and get perfect tuning for under $25. Cool! I'm often asked, how do the Cool Concepts http://bit.ly/qHQ0TA work for a simple product. Let's examine this tiny tool concept by concept. The Wheel of Joy: Joy in Life Accomplishment: The joy of getting your tuning perfect is clearly a great satisfaction. But in the real life of music you are always on the go and playing in noisy environments. The tuning clip still fits in your guitar case - but most importantly it tunes by sensing the note through the guitar body itself. You can be in a noisy room and get perfect strings! Before this tuner, other electronic tuners could be placed on the guitar and would pick up the sound of the note. These devices also give good pitch but still didn't work in a noisy room. With the Odyssey no more shushing people to tune up the instrument. The product fits into the real structure of musician's lives - a good example of what design for life looks like. This is the coolest thing of all! Connection: How could this apparently small device increase your sense of connection to others? If your guitar is in tune you can have a more successful serenade, party, or show. And the tuner itself is conversational content-it will draw others who care about music to you. Not a big thing. But a tiny contributor to the ease of connecting to that audience or special person. We can focus on the relationship and not the sound quality of the instrument. Identity: What about self-expression? If you are an old timer you might snoot this new device because it reduces your skill. But a well tuned guitar lets anyone produce better music and eliminates fumbling around to tune the instrument. Now you can feel more professional as a musician. For amateurs this adds to their sense of stature. Sensation: What needs to be said here! Clearly if you can produce better music the beauty of your sound, your ability to sink into the music instead of worry about the strings, and the music itself is the whole point! Music done well is a celebration in sensation. The Triangle of Design - Joy in Use Direct into Action: OMG this is where the value is at - just clip it on and go. What could be simpler! In an instant the whole guitar it tuned. I never saw anything like it before. It was a wonder. Hassle Factor: What a relief not to have to shush the room, fiddle with each string endlessly to get it right, and listen, listen, listen, so closely to be sure to transfer the right pitch to the string. Hassle is just gone. The Delta: What's to learn? Nothing - the center of adoption is invisible learning For this tiny device we can see that some elements of what makes things cool matter more and some less. But if we pay attention to each one when we are defining our products we can design cooler products. How cool is that! And now, I'm thinking that I might pick up the guitar again - the clip inspired me - and that's a piece of the impact on Identity as well! Enjoy K

[karenholtzblatt]

Where will all the authors go? Humanity tells stories - of histories to regale others in the glory of man and war and accomplishment; of fairy tales and myths addressing our innermost anxieties and beliefs; and of lives, excitement, horror, romance, mystery for the sheer fun of the story. And then there is information for professions: law, medical, engineering... and so much more. Story began with word-of-mouth tales until the printing press. And then came the middle-men, distributers, editors and others to create the vehicle of our stories. The book publishers have kept books pumping out to the public for years. But what will happen next? [cid:[email protected]] The Justice Department has sued Apple and a set of publishers for collusion to fix e-book prices. http://on.wsj.com/HuQsCI Today the NYT had a good piece discussing the impact on publishers http://nyti.ms/HI24kp As an author, reader, product designer, technologist, and business person I am watching publishing transform. I'm wondering what the future of publishing will be reborn into. The publishing business is changing from under the feet of our clients whose businesses are focused on getting the right information out fast to their professional customers. The findings from the Cool Project celebrate how much people love having this information available on their tablets and phones instead of in many heavy books or hard to access websites. More importantly, they love having access to the information in the minutes they have available while waiting, in a meeting, between surgeries, or while watching their kids at a soccer game. The value of electronic information is profound - it will not be stopped. That's why we are busy helping our clients design great mobile apps for getting to journals, articles, and findings of law. These professional distributors must change with the change in the lives of professionals - and they are. As a reader I'm consuming my book entertainment continuously every week electronically. So I watch the challenge of books for entertainment. These are the publishers being sued. If they go out of business what will happen? After all everyone is in the business of making money, If no money can be made by laying out, editing, creating marketing campaigns, designing compelling covers, and making the best e-books in the business will I have something compelling to read? There is more to getting out a book than writing the words! A client recently told me that I should self-publish my new book on What Makes Things Cool? Is this the future? No more editors to catch those poor sentences, no more people who know about layout because layout is gone in an e-book? Or will layout in tablets now have to be even more compelling with connections to interesting media, interviews, and other articles - even more work than just writing! Will there grow up a whole new industry to help us think about interactive professional and entertainment books? Is this the future of the publisher? Will professions stop peer review? Will we then wonder if the medicine or science is trustworthy? I for one don't really want to see a number of thumbs up on new medical procedures! The wisdom of the cloud is kind of scary - but then there is Wikipedia - and all our findings on professional research shows people start with Google and Wikipedia to get an overview. Will they evolve into the organizers of peer reviews? Maybe authors of entertainment books will self-publish on their own sites. Will it evolve like the airlines? Aggregators will start looking for and gathering all the books on a genre and bringing them together for a fee. Is that the future of Barnes & Noble and Amazon? Or will publishers start having their own sites that aggregators will collect-until like some airlines they get tired of paying those fees and withdraw so it is harder and harder to get it all in one place? Now it is no longer as easy to find the best possible flights. Price is only one factor that goes into really good books and information. Finding the information, laying it out, hooking it into other knowledge and media, knowing it is accurate - and that it is worth reading - all matter. Then there is writing quality - or is the future video presentation of books or story enactment like Pixar movies? What is the future of the written work? Will we return to verbal storytelling in our ear as we walk down the street? The creation of story is ever evolving. Dipping into the stream of information for business will always be a value - and someone has to help us get there. And for entertainment I'm not sure authors really want to go it alone - but we will find out. People will likely need helpers to transform stories and information into the most compelling communication given the technologies of the age. Our first helpers were probably the stone carvers who told our stories on steles and tombs. Publishing is evolving. I, for one, still need some helpers - I sure don't want to be carving the stone of technology alone! K

[karenholtzblatt]

Where will we go when the real stores disappear?

Best Buy is closing 50 stores. http://nyti.ms/I75YGk Borders is closed. Barnes and Noble and Sears are struggling. Amazon has no footprint and is threatening all of these companies along with almost any home improvement store and more. My sister-in-law has been on a rant about her small local shops closing in Washington DC. As a single adult she walks her downtown neighborhood having a drink at her favorite little coffee shop. She shops at her favorite clothing store who will do a special order for the black pants that fit her so well but got torn. She passes her shoe store - admittedly high end - looking for the sales. Sometimes she drops in just to chat and look because after years of shopping on these blocks she knows the owners. Service, community, convivial conversation, rest from a high powered job - shopping is built into the moments of the days of her life and enriches it.

When her local bookstore closed she wanted to fight back - but what is she to do? Is the future in these mobile unmanned Best Buy vending machine "shops"? [cid:[email protected]] What is a big box store to do?

Many years ago we watched our local bookstores evaporate because of Borders and Barns and Noble. Eventually we adapted and B&N with its great selection of my light weight fiction won out. Today these are the local store that Amazon threatens. Here is my paltry stand: I read 2-3 books a week on the Android NOOK on my phone. I started with skepticism but now I can't imagine reading any other way - and I LOVE love the curling page turn in that app. Why? My phone fits in my hand and my purse. I have my book any time I'm waiting in my Starbuck's line, or at the airport, or on a mini break at work. It has a backlight so I don't keep my husband up when he is asleep. And I can look up any word or bit of history or airplane type in one of my war stories and see the pictures. I even found my current favorite musician, Jim Brickman, because of a reference in my novel that way. (Pop it into Pandora, listen, and hear the music in the scene of the book-cool!) No matter how I look at it - I'm just not going back to the weight, the lugging, the hassle of keeping the page open, and the batteries of the bitty light! It's E-books for me.

But what about bookstores? If I want to find a new author, and look at the latest books I go into the real B&N store. Why? No matter what is said about on-line finding, browsing, and recommendations - it is not the same as flipping through the pages, looking at the book structure and tone. Samples are simply too short to support this. And structure matters because I don't like mysteries that think revealing the bad guy's mind is fun! So I skim the book looking to see if chapters alternate between the good guys and bad guys. When I find a book I want to try I order it in the NOOK and send my money to B&N in hope that I won't lose that store experience. And I don't buy from Amazon.

Similarly, when we were buying our 3D TV we went to Best Buy three times to try out the experience, ask questions, and figure out what components we needed. But at the moment of purchase Amazon's price was better. We were caught in a dilemma. We used the services of Best Buy - shouldn't we pay for that? Thank goodness Best Buy suddenly had a sale and we could buy there. But what will happen next time when price meets service?

All the research we do on shopping tells us that real stores are simply necessary for decision making. Even Amazon has Best Buy displaying the Fire! So what is the future of physical stores? Do we start charging a cover fee for people entering stores to touch and feel and choose - but not buy? Do we reinvent Service Merchandise which was catalog shopping with a display store? Does every manufacturer and furniture maker create their version of the Apple Store?

The future shopping experience is being invented now in all the product and business decisions big box stores are making to try to offer a compelling shopping experience integrating on-line and in-store shopping. But it is our own shopping behavior that will determine the future of shopping. It's not a battle between the on-line and in-person experience. For the designers of the stores of the future it's a matter of finding something new that's complimentary, fun, and gets the job done within our unstoppable momentum of life. http://bit.ly/qksibM

I'm looking forward to being a part of it all - both as a designer and a consumer.

K

[karenholtzblatt]

The obsolescence of raising your hand

When sororities elect officers, reports Jan Hoffman of the NY Times http://nyti.ms/HkGpSB they used to write on slips of paper, collect, unfold, count, report and repeat this for runoffs 13 time. But today long and tedious hours are being replaced by clickers: Instant results, instant gratification, and instant community rallying. This change is a good example of technology creating the cool of connection. http://bit.ly/msT82r Clickers, they say, are popping up in schools and corporations for multiple choice questions and polling. They are even on cruise ships where vacationers can vote for their favorite performers. "Finding out how everyone is thinking is so much fun-you're part of the show." says the VP of entertainment. Teachers too can capture kids' attention because they are participating. Every voice is heard. It creates a group experience and something shared to talk about later. What was once a person sitting alone, perhaps even mildly alienated from class mates or fellow vacationers, has been transformed by a simple technology. With clicker in hand we break the boundaries between self and other and connect to the group simply by voting and seeing the result instantly. We watch the numbers pile up, we see our personal impact, we look around, we talk about it, we laugh - we transcend our own singularity. And it's easier to have fun while learning. It's the sense of community and connection that contributes to the cool of clickers! K

[karenholtzblatt]

It's still hard to be an informed citizen

Cool tools aren't helping us fit political decisions into the daily moments of our life. Yesterday was voting day in a local town election. One week ago we didn't know there even was an election. We found out on our walk when we saw a sign to Vote Yes for the rail trail bike path. "Must be an election" I said. "What's this about the bike path along the old train line?" my husband said, " I don't want it messing up our walking path in the marsh." The Cool Concept of Accomplishment http://bit.ly/qksibM reveals that people are motivated to get their whole life done on a daily basis, anything that makes that easier is experienced as "Cool!". Town politics isn't central enough to us to take up big chunks of the time of our life. So any investigation is stuffed into the minutes of walking and relaxing. For us, we expended extraordinary effort to be informed. Here is what we did: * We got email, as usual, from our friend active in local politics telling us why to vote for his candidate. "I'm not just voting because Carl said so! We have to find out what the referendum is about and who the candidates are!" * My husband, the newsaholic and web searcher, search with his iPad while lounging around the house. "I can't find much" * He told me about the issues while we were walking - "There is always a summary in the Town Crier" I said. We sat on the bench in the marsh with our iPhone to find the Town Crier (Google missed it). There was a PDF download of Q&A with candidates. But we had to go to the website to get it-and we couldn't on that device. * We finished our walk concluding we didn't want any bike trail through our marsh - but we weren't yet properly informed * At home, we used the iPad over lunch to look at the PDF-which was better than other info but didn't talk about the referendum * We continued searching and talking all weekend trying to figure out what the 40B issue was and where the bike trail was located. We found a pro-biking site talking about it - one sided. We concluded it didn't go through our marsh. * We didn't like the angry face of one candidate in the PDF and thought the other long standing selectman was in office too long. And we found that we were supposed to vote for the Planning Board members also-lord another bunch of information needed! * We deleted the phone message automatically sent from one candidate stating his position - without listening. We don't like that medium. * On Sunday, the day before the election, we drove the planned rail trail, noting that the signs against were all in front of the houses that boarded the trail. "What is the balance of the privacy of the few with the recreation opportunity of the many? Does it devalue house prices? What is the overall impact on the town budget?" We couldn't find out anything about house prices and only a little about the overall cost. We counted the signs for and against each selectman. * Monday, another friend sent an email for the same candidate-and an email from the candidate explaining the "charges" against him which seemed reasonable actions to us. Monday we voted - still not really well informed, realizing that town management decisions are much more interconnected and complex than we could understand in the time we had available. We voted for the bike path and our friends' candidate. And we found that there was no Town Crier app - but there was one for Metro West news - and wondered if we should start getting the local paper again. We did go to the town website-but it is more like an events list. You could say we, who primarily follow national news, are simply not good citizens. But with an intention to be informed, cool tools did not really making it easier. The government has an initiative Gov 2.0 http://red.ht/GTUlRA to make government services and information more accessible http://1.usa.gov/7TMUNW. Today websites are simply no longer enough-they are not availible anytime anywhere in the unstoppable momentum of daily life. Citizens have to get their information and take their actions while they are on the go. If we are going to be informed-it just has to take less work-or we will defaut to trusting our friends, favorite commentators, and others who we are letting, whether we like to admit it or not, do the thinking for us. .0 K

[karenholtzblatt]

Does social media really affect loneliness?

Susan Matt says no. http://nyti.ms/GGSoKh "Technology seduces us into thinking that migration is painless. Ads from Skype suggest that "free video calling makes it easy to be together, even when you're not." The comforting illusion of connection offered by technology makes moving seem less consequential, since one is always just a mouse click or a phone call away." An expert on homesickness among immigrants, Susan Matt's research points to the challenge of distributed lives. Today, people are on the move: Immigration from a country, moving to a new city, distributed and multi-cultural teams and customers. The sense of belonging, the feeling of connection, the psychological sense of community, are all base human needs - in our home and work lives. Countries have cultures and businesses have cultures - we have to feel part of the place we are in. We need to share values, behaviors, ways of living and working, interests, and more to feel that we belong. We have our roots in our loved ones - family and friends form our stable base out of which we risk and act with confidence in our world. If we don't have that kind of support both at home and at work we feel adrift. So do cool tools help? Connection is one of the key factors creating the cool user experience. The data from the Cool Project http://bit.ly/t7z3P4 suggests that mobile phone, text, Skype, video and shared picture become the way that people maintain continuous contact with their important relationships - including those in other countries. Being able to share the moments of life while walking down the street, through a picture, or in a video session learning to bake bread from your aunt in Italy bring loved ones into daily life even when they are distant. If contact is frequent enough, people really feel that they are part of each other's lives: As one 28 year old worker said to her Mom "Why do I need to know where you are going on vacation? I can still call every day right?" The first principle of Connection is frequency of contact. But if people worry about the minutes and money spent, distance will be more real because that frequent "drop in" connection won't happen. Sales people and team member feel the same way - if they can IM distant team members they are "there", if they can Skype and use web meetings to show things they can hang over artifacts, If they can video Skype and see non-verbals they feel like the interaction is more real. And FaceBook allows that peak into the lives of our whole circle - and the pool we can dip into for support if we need it. All these things remind us that we are grounded in real relationships. Is it perfect - no - but I've given up on the idea that teams should be co-located and that family should live near each other, because it is not going to happen. Our individual lives beckon and then it is up to us to stay connected. In the end, moving away from home, cultural traditions, and familiar settings will always be hard - even if it is from New York to DC or San Francisco. We are challenged to put down new roots, create new relationships, find communities, connect to new people, embrace the cultures we are now immersed in. Cool tools help us do all these things in new places - and so new relationships are established which form our new anchors in life - and that is what really matters for happiness. K

[karenholtzblatt]

Twitter is short and articles are long. Tumblr is something in-between. As I wander the world, work with clients, and read, I find myself reflecting on what I see. I carry around all the background of the Cool Concepts http://bit.ly/msT82r and my years of understanding people for the purpose of product design. So I find myself musing and developing perspectives. I’m not here to quote all the data we collect – although it informs my thoughts. Try our websites for that! I’m here to share what I think as it pops up in daily life. Please join me – ask questions—challenge what seems like assertions – offer your musings.   Together we can explore where human life meets product innovation.