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Gerry McGovern gets fired up in his latest post on Giraffe Forum titled Obsessed with Technology. Most of the time I agree with Gerry and this is no exception. The web is a technology enabled medium and you can’t get away from that – why would you want to, it’s half the fun!. But I’d say though that many people working in the web space whose skill-set is not technology based has been aware of and had to work around this bias for a long time. A lot of people (and not just IT people) seem believe that technology is the answer to all your problems, and if you just implement xyz system or application, that’s all there is to it – everything else is peripheral.
I liked this post about some of the different approaches to identity management – it explains it simply for those that don’t want to get mired in detailed techno-babble.
As described in this article:
Crowdsourcing could improve ‘broken’ patent system
This is about an experimental program launched in June 2007 with the US Patent and Trademark Office which is intended to give the public – including inventors – more of a voice in the US Patent system. Apparently this system is “broken”. Here’s more:
The concept behind the program, called Peer-to-Patent, is straightforward: Publish patent applications on the web for all to see and let anyone with relevant expertise – academics, colleagues, even potential rivals - offer input to be passed along to the Patent Office.
By using the power of the internet to tap the wisdom of the masses, Peer-to-Patent aims to dig up hard-to-find “prior art” – evidence that an invention already exists or is obvious and therefore doesn’t deserve a patent.
The goal is to locate prior art that Patent Office examiners might not find on their own – and to produce better patents by reducing ones granted on applications that aren’t novel. The hope is that this will drive innovation by improving the patent process and reducing the patent infringement lawsuits clogging the courts.
Poor patent quality is as big a concern as delays in awarding patents:.
There are plenty of examples of controversial patents in different industries, such as the one awarded to Amazon.com Inc. for its “1-click” online shopping feature or the one granted to J.M. Smucker Co. for a crustless peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.
But some of the most contentious patents have come out of the tech sector since software and other-cutting edge technologies are relatively new to the Patent Office and evolving quickly, explained Mark Webbink, director of New York Law School’s Center for Patent Innovations, home to Peer-to-Patent, and former general counsel for Red Hat. That means that patent examiners don’t have long-established databases of existing inventions to consult in reviewing these applications.
“With technology, the prior art often can’t be found in existing patents or academic journal articles,” Noveck said. “It could exist in a string of computer code posted online somewhere that isn’t indexed.”
Technology companies are particularly vulnerable to infringement litigation since their products can contain hundreds, if not thousands, of linked patented components critical to their basic operation. In one closely watched case, a protracted legal battle nearly forced the shutdown of the popular BlackBerry wireless email service.
Not everyone is convinced of the wisdom of putting sensitive patent material online for everyone to see, and there are question about how effective it will be in improving the quality of patent applications and preventing misuse of the system by those with the know-how and money to do so.
What is interesting to me around this is how they might determine if feedback on a particular patent is from a credible source – ie figure out that someone is in fact someone with “ relevant expertise” . It would be cool (if they haven’t thought about it already) if contributors could provide industry or professional ‘credentials’, such as proof of qualifications or membership of a body, to prove that their input should be given higher weighting than someone else.
It was with a sense of anticipation that I clicked on the link to read an article titled “Extreme User Research” on the Boxs and Arrows site. The article and the comments added to it make for an interesting if not challenging read. It’s based on the idea that, if you can’t get access to ‘real’ users, get data from people who deal with the users – eg call centre staff. This is a good idea, but one that in my experience tends to be the default research method. Many organisations who don’t really want to invest in the design process (and that is the case more often than not).
So, as one commenter points out – doing research with ‘real’ users is probably the extreme!
But even ‘real’ users have their biases and many won’t be able to articulate what they really want to any level of sophistication. So multiple sources of data would be my recommendation. Talk to users, talk to people who have to help users, look at your traffic stats, conduct user testing, look at your competition etc. And, accept that your final design will need to evolve anyway and include that as an ongoing activity (hah – this is even more difficult than getting funds for proper user research!)
Interesting blog by Kim Cameron on providing date of birth information on Facebook.
So…I’m not the only one who thinks this way!
Up until the beginning of February this year I was safely nestled in the bossom of a corporate culture and had been for the best part of 17 years (no, not the same one!). In that time I saw the emergence of the web and email as everyday tools for work and play. And part of the corporate culture, as those who are part of it will know and mostly complain about, is the daily deluge of emails. You can sit at your desk reading and replying to email all day if you want. Especially if you take any notice of the ones you are only cc’d into and the ones asking if you want to buy a $2 chocolate bar to support someones kid’s soccer team. Add in the email newsletters, corporate memos and before you know it – you’re supporting the IT departments suggestion of disabling the email server for set parts of the day and discussing email impact on time management techniques with your collegues.
So – now I’m ’self employed’ or as some people would say I don’t have a ‘proper job’. Working from home, if you’re lucky enough to be able to do it has it’s challenges – the commute from the cafe (ie the lounge) to the office (ie the spare room) is a killer. And the decision about whether I get into clean tracky pants today or recycle yesterdays just one more time can really tax the brain.
But one thing I find the most challenging is the sudden and distressing feeling that no-one loves me anymore. This is because I get probably 1% of the email I used to. I’ve even stooped so low as to send myself ‘test’ emails to make sure my email is working. If someone didn’t reply to my email in the past and I wanted an answer I’d go find them or trip them up on their way back from the coffee machine. But that’s hard to do when they’re not physically in the same place. Harrassment by phone just doesn’t feel the same.
This doesn’t mean I want to be deluged by spam, but it takes some getting used to. Clearly I’ll have to send more email out to get more in. Or perhaps sign up to more email newsletters, although I’d prefer meaningful conversation rather than easy distractions.
Ok, end of pathetic rant…I’ve got to go check my email……
Thanks to a reference by Vikram on his Identity and Privacy blog, I checked out (what I gather is a famous) presentation on Identity 2.0. It’s a fantastic explanation of a topic that can be a bit of a mind bender. But it’s also just a great presentation in terms of style.
I’ll be pinching a few ideas from this one, thanks very much.
Even if you’re not interested in online identities per se, if you are into webbie things in general I’d recommend checking this out.
Whilst doing some work-related research, came across this post of what I hope was intended as a lighthearted jib at an industry competitor (Ping) by a Sun Microsystems employee. But Ping got the better of them with their response.
Which then resulted in this (somewhat sheepish?) response to the response.
It’s all good fun till someone loses an eye…..
So the final bell tolls for poor old Netscape (although we’ve been hearing the death knell for a while). Many comment that AOL are giving up, and oh-my-god what are they going to do now?. To be honest I didn’t follow the browser wars that closely but it did seem to be a case of evolve or die combined with some decidedly nasty tactics by you-know-who. There will be a segment of web developers who will breath a sigh of relief that they don’t have to worry about the 0.5% of users that still use Netscape – particularly those in the public sector that can’t choose their customers. I have to confess I’m in the ‘upgrade for goodness sake!’ camp, and which would have meant jumping from Netscape long ago (I’m using Firefox now). I glad we’ve still got a decent alternative to IE.
This post from Gerry McGovern expresses very nicely something Ive always believed, and although I can usually find something I don’t quite 100% agree with in schpeals like this, this time there isnt really anything. Basically he is saying that web teams should be focused on what the customers want to do – not the technology, the brand, the design etc.
