Big Ideas

Vacation..

So, I'm in Vail and have been since Tuesday evening, on vacation, which explains why I've been silent for about a week. I've got to admit that I have a very hard time being disconnected. Not being able to check email, read up on recent news or IM friends leaves me feeling out of touch. But, at the same time, I recognize that it's not entirely healthy to ALWAYS  be connected and available. Every once in a while I need to shut things off and just veg out with my brain only working on 2 or 3 things at once instead of 10.

What I find most interesting about my inability to disconnect is the increased amount of time it's taking me to transition into "vacation" mode these days. It used to be just a one day period, I think, where I could leave connectivity behind.  Now, having been out for about 3 days, I still find the need to get online and check email etc (and yes, post blog ramblings..). With mobile capabilities continuing to grow, I imagine there's a day soon where I'll just have to leave my cell phone at home when I'm trying to really disconnect. Fortunately though, when you're barrelling down the mountain, it's pretty hard to check email on your phone, no matter how good the apps available are :)

Good point.. back to the slopes.

Is there such a thing as Work/Life balance?

I'm not terribly good at separating myself from work. I never have been. For me, time is fairly fluid and I can be out having fun with friends and also thinking about work. Over the years I've found that I often have a hard time even recognizing this trait and identifying when I'm bringing stress with me. So, recently, I've focused on more cleanly separating work and any related work stress from when I'm enjoying "my own" time, as it were. As a result, I find myself thinking more about what it means to "have a life" and how any of us can, in an increasingly connected and fluid world, separate work from the rest of our life.

Which brings me to a story:

A few weeks ago, I locked myself out of my apartment. I've managed to do this a couple of times but have fortunately been able to creatively get back into my place (read: break-in) without much hassle. This time, however, I was completely out of options and had to go ahead and call a locksmith.

It turns out, for those of you haven't had to do this, that within San Francisco there's a 24 hour service you can call that dispatches locksmiths, almost like cabs. Within a few minutes of calling I was informed that someone would be over in 30 minutes to an hour. After hanging up, my three friends who were patiently waiting with me asked me how much it was going to cost. My answer? "Does it matter? Because I'm going to pay it anyway." I was hoping it'd be cheap, but didn't expect it, since they had me between a rock and a hard place.

45 minutes later, just before the locksmith picked my lock, I found out the cost: $130. $55 for the visit and $75 for the "service", which took approximately 20 seconds. Shaking my head as I give the guy my credit card, I ask him if he's very busy. "I can't even get laundry done," the guy says to me. At which point I realize that the way this works is that the guy's just on call and gets dispatched from wherever he is to go open locks for idiots like me. Given that it's 11 p.m. on a Saturday night, and his efforts to do laundry have been stymied by me it dawns on me that this guy and I struggle with similar issues. I follow up with another question, "Does it pay well at least?"

He nods, "Money's good, but you have no life."

Better than I could have said it myself.

I suppose I should take solace in the fact that I've left the job (I-banking) that made me feel the same way and am working towards figuring out how to better balance my life. But what it really makes me wonder is, who actually manages to have "a life" these days?

I look around and see a lot of people struggling with their increasing connectedness. Work and free time aren't separated by the boundaries of location anymore. You can check your voicemail/email/text messages anywhere, you can get contacted whenever necessary. "Working" for myself and those who I know isn't as much defined by a physical act. It's more mental these days, which means that I could be snowboarding in Vail and have an insight into something pertaining to work. That's how my life is these days, "working" at home, or on the slopes, socializing with friends while at work.

As we lose the simple boundaries, do we need to establish new ones that are more complex in this connected world? Should I be setting a timer that keeps track of how many hours a week I've devoted to thinking about work? Or, is it something else? Do we work to find jobs that are so enjoyable and aligned with our interests that the fact that we're working all the time doesn't matter?

I think I'd pay a lot of money for that answer. Definitely more than I'd pay to get into my apartment when I've been an idiot :)

Tags: work/life balance, connected life, service economy

Seriously, this has to happen...

Ok, if you haven't seen this video of the "Leprachaun" sighting, you have got to check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nda_OSWeyn8&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fgorillamask%2Enet%2Flep%2Eshtml

And if you've never seen Bubb Rubb, here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBrp2MyEf3w&search=bubb%20rubb

Ok..calm down, yes, very very funny. Hell, watch them again, they're that good.

Now, does anyone have any video editing skills? This seriously calls for a mashup.. help me out here. Shoot me a comment if you want to play around with this. Let's create something funny.

Tags: bubb rubb and lil sis, leprechaun, video mashups

Verdict: Tom Cruise is kind of impressive

There, I said it, he's impressive. Actually, more than that, he actually seems... human.

I'm exaggerating my shock a bit, of course. Did I really expect him to come act crazily, jump around the building and preach Scientology? Nope, not at all. I think I was clear on that yesterday.

To speak for myself and a few of the Yahoo's I talked to, I think that what we saw at noon on Tuesday was something a little bit shocking (and sort of US Weeklyish..): Tom Cruise is more than a little bit like us. He came across as an endearing, passionate, driven and pretty funny guy. Someone who professes to love working, is willing to hop on a plane to CES for an old friend (Terry) and who seems to genuinely understand the importance of other people to his success. Sure, it could all be an act, but you know what? Sometimes you find yourself really wanting to believe the movie and its message and today I wanted to believe.

You're not going to find a transcript or book report of the session here. But, here are a few things stuck out in my mind about the event:

• People really, really love Tom Cruise. People lined up very early for this event and there were more than enough cameras on hand. See for yourself on the ytomcruise Flickr tag.  (Other tags include: terrysemel, katieholmes and tomcruise)
• This was WAY better than the Guhvanator's visit, a previous Influential Speaker series event. Whereas that felt like it was just a stump speech aimed AT Yahoo's, this felt much more like a conversation. In fact, it seemed a bit like Tom (ok, so I'm not on a first name basis, but I'm getting tired of typing Tom Cruise out) wanted it to be less formal than it was. He managed to make the inevitable catcalls (someone really should have sold "I love you Tom!" t-shirts) part of the event, rather than interruptions.
• The event started about 90 minutes late. Why? Because he flew his plane up from L.A. and it got stuck in gnarly weather, apparently. What I appreciated though, was the fact that Terry came out on stage, apologized and explained the delay and acknowledged that this wasn't, "the greatest way to spend Yahoo resources". But he did it in such a way as to make it clear that we should see this, it just sucked that it ate up a bunch of our time, instead of hinting that everyone should get back to work. Subtle difference, but an important one to me.
• Tom's got a sense of humor, making fun of himself a few times, in particular his recent habit of jumping up on couches and chairs. And then he got up on a chair... (I told you to look at the pictures..)
• While the questions certainly weren't controversial in any way, there were some good ones. Questions about his views of how media and the Internet will play together, mobile devices, what drives him etc. Personally, I found the best one to be the question about how to interact with people on a personal level, but within a business context.
  • To paraphrase his response: There are basically 2 or 3 types of people that I've come into contact with: 1) The open and giving person who's willing to share and explain everything to me. If I'm curious about something, they'll take the time to help me learn about it and if I'm dumb about something, they'll be patient with me. 2) The person who tries to hide information, in order to maintain control. 3) The person who tries to hide information, because they ultimately don't really know much of anything.  

On the last point, obviously he prefers working with person #1. What I find interesting is that the line seems to basically be drawn between being open and being closed. Regardless of intent, being closed and trying to hoard information is a negative. I wholeheartedly agree with that, but I'm left wondering how many people really think that way. It's obviously not that simple, is it? Why, though, is it most people's default reaction to be closed when they're unsure? Wouldn't being more open in edge cases imply to others that you're trustworthy and giving? Maybe, from now on, when I have this debate with people, I can pull out the Tom Cruise card :)

On that note, I'll work in some openness here... Both during and after the event I felt a little nervous about my previous blog post. Not because I'd said anything that I thought was truly mean, but because I feared that my sense of humor might be confused with a lack of understanding about the man's basic humanity. Yes, it was just intended as something lighthearted and joking, directed more at the controlled nature of events like this than any specific person. But, my fear was/is that people might take it out of context and without actually asking me what I really meant, get upset about it.

When it comes down to it, this is what worries me about blogging. It's not a fear of being open and of being myself. The problem is that it's very hard to "be yourself" in just one post, or in one sentence. As I look across the "blogosphere" there are far too many instances where one statement was blown up into something totally unintended, just because someone chose to rant right away, without digging a little bit further. The answer, however, is not to run away and hide. My best option is to be open and let those willing to dig get to know me and trust that those intent upon ranting will look silly in the face of the sum total of my reputation (digital and otherwise). As Mr. Cruise said in Risky Business, "Sometimes you just have to say, 'What the fuck?!?'"

Tags: tom cruise, yahoo infuential speakers program, transparency, openness

You had me at hello..

Newsflash: Tom Cruise is speaking at Yahoo! tomorrow! That's right, Mr. Scientology is going to be hanging out in URL's, live and in-person.

Let's all hope that he shares a Yodel with us and that it looks a bit like this:

So, some people are expecting it to be a train wreck. Others are annoyed that Yahoo!'s paying someone [inviting someone] who seems kind of wacky/preachy/crazy to speak. Me? I expect that it'll be rather tame, rather scripted and perhaps surprisingly fun. The guy's an actor right? He gets paid the big bucks to entertain and although recently, he's been entertaining us with antics that aren't on the big screen, I'm pretty sure that a corporate speaking gig is a pretty routine event for him.

Especially since all of our questions have to be pre-submitted... Yup, that's right, us employees get to ask questions. BUT, we have to submit them ahead of time. It makes total sense, if I was organizing this, I'd set it up this way as well, in order to avoid people like me :)

But, just once, I'd love it if an event like this occurred and it was totally unscripted and off-the-cuff. Since I can't have that, I've decided that I'd at least like to put together some questions that I wish we could ask Maverick tomorrow.
(Of course, remember, these are just jokes and just my opinions, affiliated in no way with Yahoo! I do, however, blame/thank a few of my friends for inspiration..)

1. “Mr. Cruise, will you please stop being glib?”    
2. “Wow, you’re short in person. That’s all I had to say."
3. “Seriously dude, spill the beans. What’s it like to nail Katie Holmes?”
4. “Umm yeah, same question, except for Nicole Kidman..”    
5. “You're everyone's problem. That's because everytime you go [on] the air, you're unsafe. I don't like you because you're dangerous.”
6. “You still owe me a new couch Tom. You KNOW how I hate shoes on my couch!”  - e-mail from O. Winfrey
7. “Can you show us your e-meter?”
8. “So, who makes more money, you or the head of your church?”
9. “Were you upset that you didn’t get to star in Battlefield Earth?”
10. “Let’s be honest here. You’re nuts. Certifiable. What I’m trying to say really is, in your own words, ‘Help me help you!’”   
    

What would you ask if you had the chance?

Unedited, funny or serious, comment and I'll throw some of the good ones up into the list.

**Quick Update** As was mentioned in a comment, there was no payment for Tom Cruise's appearance - Terry mentioned it in his introductions. I'll update later with an actual post about the event, which was very interesting and fun.

Tags: tom cruise, yahoo! influential speakers program, scientology

Well-designed, user friendly media devices - someone to lead the charge

Having previously spent part of my shuttle ride home mulling over the pain of using the mouse on my laptop and the broader question of interface design, I found myself thinking about user interface some more. I was wondering about what kind of talent you'd need to hire in order to ensure successful UI design. In thinking about how you might go about putting in place a team that was very smart about designing consumer interfaces, particularly dumbed down interfaces for media devices, I realized that there's already a company that is REALLY good at this stuff, at least in my mind. In fact, I think they're so good at it that they've basically designed the interface equivalent of crack - once a user comes in contact with it, they're hooked.

No, no, not Apple. Anyone played with a Newton lately? Besides, their laptops all have those stupid touchpad mouses too, so they're not that smart.

I  was thinking more along the lines of...

TIVO

If you've ever used a Tivo before, you're probably nodding your head right now, thinking about its addictive properties. Once you've used Tivo to watch tv, you become hooked. Not only is the simple capability to pause and record live tv amazingly useful, but the overall Tivo interface (by that I mean the remote plus the on-screen navigation) is simply amazing. It's intuitive, not overly complicated , leads users down a path of feature discovery and it is rewarding. It literally makes me want to go back to that experience more and more often. I choose not to watch tv in "real-time" anymore, because watching it with Tivo is just that much better. Now that, THAT is a pretty unique design capability.

*Disclosure time* I own Tivo stock. But, I've been disappointed with it. I bought in because of the incredibly vocal user base. People who love the product so much that they actively evangelize it to anyone whenever the subject of television comes up in conversation. I bought in because I believe in the long term value of the subscription model. I bought in because I believe in their ability to deliver targeted, user-driven television advertising. To date, Tivo hasn't done a terrific job of executing against these opportunities. This is maddening. Fundamentally, the company has a distribution problem and I don't see it going away any time soon. So I've been thinking about exiting my position; to take my losses, learn and move on.

HOWEVER, I do see an avenue for potential game-changing success. If you accept for a moment that Tivo's interface design is phenomenal and really helped spur the entire DVR market on with its usefulness, then you might think to yourself, "Hmm, that Tivo sure has a good understanding of user interface needs." In a world that is becoming increasingly populated by devices, particularly media devices, it seems to me that what we're desperately in need of are some device user interface experts. Furthermore, those interface experts that we have are facing the dual challenges of designing the best interface and balancing it with the associated hardware and manufacturing costs. It's not as simple as just building software that applies to any device. If it is, well, we know who's going to win that game. But, I think that there's more to it, because of the ongoing pace of innovation in the device space. Given that Tivo's faced both hardware and software challenges, it seems to me that maybe they're best positioned to capitalize on the need for design expertise.

So:

• What if Tivo was to experiment with this side of the business, spending time dreaming up a few devices that they think others should make?
• What if they were to create a service organization focused on designing the interfaces for consumer focused media devices?
• What if they were bought by a large company that cared a ton about how design in the media device future was going to impact their business (Sony, Nokia, Motorola, Intel etc)?

Yes, this idea is totally off the wall and highly unlikely, but I often like to ask those "What if?" questions that people don't spend enough time thinking about. I think that in the case of Tivo, the tea leaves point to a declining growth rate, a lack of significant distribution and a pricing/margin problem that paints them into an operational corner. If I was them, I'd be scrambling around, trying to think about what other options they could pursue while still relying upon the same talents and core competencies. So, if I was them, I'd be focusing on design and I'd be telling every other company that was somehow dependent upon the design of media devices that they needed my expertise going forward. I'm pretty sure that'd resonate with more than a few people.

Does it resonate with you?

Tags: tivo, user interface, media device design

It's the interface, stupid..

So, I was thinking the other day, as I was working on my laptop on the shuttle home (ok, yeah, we have it pretty good at Y! - shuttle with wifi, laptop, etc) that working on a laptop just isn't the same.

"Duh that's an obvious statement Robi," you might be thinking right now...

Sometimes, I think, obvious statements are made and then we move on, instead of examining what that obvious statement might hold upon deeper review. So, yes, it's quite obvious that working on a laptop is not the same as a desktop. But, what does that mean? What's interesting about that?

Well, my thought the other day was focused on the laptop interface. Primarily the lack of a mouse. I generally hate working on my laptop if I need to use my mouse significantly at all. Am I weird in this? I don't think so. Touchpads suck. They're overly sensitive, they don't offer much range of motion and they're too small. That little button thing in the middle of your keyboard? That's not any better. Sure, you might get more range out of it, but it's so inexact.. I hate it. You might have gotten used to one or both of these devices, but the fact remains, neither one of them lives up to an actual mouse.

So, here's the thing: you can buy a mini mouse to use with a laptop, but not many people do. As a result, those of us who spend time working on laptops experience a certain amount of interface pain, as a result of this develop. So, it stands to reason, then, that interfaces that are designed to minimize use of the mouse will be preferrable. Hmmm well, who has an interface that is really well optimized for minimizing mouse pain?

Damn it!!! Google!!! Bastards/Geniuses!!

Take a look at their homepage. When you go there, where's your cursor start?? Ahh, yup, right there, in the search box, where you need to act. WITHOUT having to use a mouse. So, I'm working on a laptop, I open a browser (easily done via keyboard shortcuts) and there I am, ready to go, if Google's my home page. But my homepage is My!Yahoo, so, what happens when I open my browser? Ok, honestly, I don't know where my cursor starts. I have to tab all over the place.. or pull out my laptop mouse skills. Argh!

How about Yahoo.com? Oh look, that's smart, it starts off in the search box. That works. But, say that I don't really want everyone going to Yahoo.com searching right away. I want them to look at other stuff on the page. The challenge, it seems, is to make it easier for people to navigate this page without a mouse. How can I do that? Honestly, I have no clue. But it stands to reason that doing a better job of it would be a good thing..

Ok, so what am I saying here? When I think about how user behavior is changing, there are several areas that seem to matter, particularly on the web. A few key ones that I tend to look to:

• Speed, in every sense (site/app loading, getting where I want to go, figuring out the interface, incorporating it into my regular behavior..)
• Personalization
• Device agnosticism
• Connections/communication

There are more, of course, and we can debate terms and re-categorize ad nauseum. That's not the point of this post though.

The point is that to some extent, the adoption of laptops have probably favored Google and other similarly designed sites. Sites that are focused in their goal, minimize the reliance upon the mouse and account for the differences in speed between laptops and desktops are probably going to present a more favorable experience to a laptop user. As this shift continues to occur and we migrate to the next device form factor, mobile, I think this trend is obviously going to occur again. When Russ Beattie talks about making more sites and services mobile, I think in one sense he's talking about just thinking about mobile tie-ins. But, there's the "design for the interface" aspect of it too, which is maybe getting lost in the shuffle. As we design more services for more devices, I think we should all be cognizant of how maddening it can be to working on a laptop, without a mouse, and take that to heart.

Technorati: interface laptops

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The world IS Flat

So, Friday evening, I'm hanging out at home, finishing up some work. My phone rings.

I look at the clock.. 6:00, on a Friday. Hmm, that's a little early for telemarketers, but let's see which one is calling, I think to myself.

"Hello?" I answer..

"Hello, Mr. Ganguly? Yes hi this is.... from NRI Business Solutions," the man on the other end says, in a very heavy Indian accent.

So, I think to myself that this is a call worth listening to for a bit. A thick Indian accent, some strange Business Solutions business. I'm curious as to what they are and why they're contacting me...

After a few more moments of chatting, it quickly becomes clear that this company (www.nribusinesssolutions.com) is headquartered in India and is trying to provide services to those who wish to do business in India. In general, when you're not in the country, it can be difficult to get things done in India. From shopping to making travel plans, it sometimes can be easier to do it over there and they're calling me, offering me services that they can provide in India. I'm intrigued, but the guy eventually loses me when he starts mentioning marriages and such. But he's polite, makes multiple efforts to name the website, to spell it out and to give me their toll free number. He's calling from New Delhi, as well, I find out, which is interesting too.

I wonder how much it costs them to call me. I wonder how they get my number.. is there someone out there who has a list of Indians that I ended up on and then they called me? Or did they just cull the phone books looking for my name? Small questions, maybe not that important really, but I'm curious.

What's really interesting though, is the eagerness and the marketing prowess of some small firm in India. That they're calling on me, just a 28 year old half-Indian kid, to see if they can sell me some business, says that the world really HAS changed. Now, isn't it about time that some of our small businesses started calling on them :)?

Technorati: globalization

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