Finishers Wanted

When I was a little boy my Mom had me memorize this little poem:

Stick to your task ’til it sticks to you;
Beginners are many, but enders are few.
Honor, power, place and praise
Will always come to the one who stays.

Stick to your task ’til it sticks to you;
Bend at it, sweat at it, smile at it, too;
For out of the bend and the sweat and the smile
Will come life’s victories after a while.
—Author Unknown

I think my Mom had me memorize this poem because she knew I would need it. She understood better than I the old adage that "Life does not reward us for effort expended." Finishing is required.

For me, it is exciting to find a problem and imagine a way to solve it. The creative exhilaration in coming up with a solution that will work within all the constraints involved is almost intoxicating. I have a remarkable tolerance for ambiguity and when the major "problems" as I see them, have been solved, filling in all the details seems so much less important. The hard design work has been done. There's perhaps little glory in all the simple, small and detailed work needed to connect the dots and make the grand vision a reality. However, software is ultimately just simple 1s and 0s and if you don't fill in all the details, then all you are left with is a dream. You've got to have both the vision and the finishing of all those tiny details.

"This is all your app is: a collection of tiny details." - Wil Shipley

Missing a few details can drastically reduce the value of the whole idea. I guess that's why I love Mac software so much: There's the constant demand from both the users and my peers for my concerted effort across the entire spectrum of "pie in the sky" ideal to actual, practical details in implementation. To make it work in software, you need to consistently execute well across the whole spectrum of work. Let me underscore the words consistently execute again, they are very important.

Matt Ball recently wrote a nice post about some up and coming Mac developers that worked so hard on their first release, but since then have produced relatively little. They haven't created new apps, updated their 1.0 apps, even posted to their blogs. Some still have ideas in picture form posted in all their high fidelity glory, but with no application to show or sell to the customers that have been waiting to see the finished product. These developers seem to be struggling with consistently executing against their plans.

Matt goes on to explain that he thinks this is related to their young age. Most of these developers are young (19 years old) and he thinks suffer from some kind of "shiny ball syndrome" where they are easily distracted from one project to the next. I don't know the developers, and they could be easily distracted or they could have absolutely justifiable reasons for their delays, but the result is the same: Doubt builds as to their ability to consistently finish their ideas. Their credibility and reputation weakens.

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. - Thomas Edison

I don't think it's age. I think that's far too simple an answer. I know developers in their 50s who struggle from this exact same problem. It's not size or lack of resources either. Look at Microsoft. Here's a company where a large part of their problems revolve around consistently producing, not a lack of money or great people or innovative ideas.

The idea is not the thing!

One part of the problem comes from patent law. There is a remarkable and universally held assumption that ideas are worth a great deal. I will not say ideas are worthless, but they are worth far less than most of us realize. Even the most simple idea takes remarkable effort, and follow through to get designed, built, packaged, and ultimately used by others. This is why I felt My Dream App was destined for difficulty. They had enthroned ideas as the product, when in reality it's all the grunt work after the idea that make the product. It's all those pesky little details and the consistent effort required to follow up and deal with each of them that matters.

Finishing is the thing!

When the iPhone was released, there was a collective groan world wide from designers who had years before envisioned the ideas that Apple had now so beautifully produced in a finished product. Kim Lenox, Senior Interaction Designer of Adaptive Path explains:

With the launch of the iPhone, I’ve been hearing many grumblings from interaction designers who’ve worked for various, well known consumer electronics companies. We can all see in the iPhone aspects of our concepts from years past that were brushed aside or died prematurely. Our concepts are suffocating under the pile of NDA verbiage, never to see the light of day. What sets our mere concepts apart from this final product however, is a company with leadership who has the fortitude to take the risk, find the budget, and push the technology for the single cause of designing compelling user experiences. Apple got it right.

Amazing isn't it? Once again, it's all about execution and finishing, not just the ideas. Leadership is important for sure, but finishing the job in a company is so much more than Steve Jobs simply saying, "We're going to build an iPhone and it will have a compelling user experience." It's thousands of decisions made by hundreds of employees at Apple and elsewhere. It's dealing with setback after setback and still pushing forward. It's taking the right calculated risk (EDGE and AT&T) and saying no to other things (10.5 on time, a Dev SDK) in order to finish. That is the task of finishing and at Apple, it seems to be part of their DNA.

Tranquil and Steady Dedication of a Lifetime

One of the most important attributes of a software company I would like to work for, comes from an idea the late Adlai Stevenson a U.S. Democratic politician explained when referring to patriotism:

What do we mean by patriotism in the context of our times? I venture to suggest that what we mean is a sense of national responsibility ... a patriotism which is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.

In a great software company, there wouldn't be "short, frenzied outbursts of emotion" but a consistent focus on finishing in a steady and sustainable manner. My guess is that those prone to "putting on a big, glitzy show" and those that don't effectively resist the "constant bombardment of new and exciting things to try out" will have set themselves up as an unsustainable business, and ultimately end up disappointed.

Saying No: a feeling of strength in reserve.

One of the biggest challenges is just saying no to things. What's hard about this is often you need to judge between what is "good", what is "better" and what is "best". In order to do that which is "best", you will, you must say no to many, many things that are "good" and "better". This is heart wrenching work, but choosing what you do now to remain focused and finishing, this is your competitive advantage. When asked what work he was most proud of from among his work at Apple, Steve Jobs famously said, "All the products we didn't ship." Many people and businesses talk about focus and priorities, but very, very few actually finish the idea and follow through with the well executed decision making and focus required.

“You must always work not just within but below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, then handle five. In that way the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery and you create a feeling of strength in reserve.” - Pablo Picasso

Keep Moving Forward!

There is a scene in Disney's animated movie Meet the Robinsons that I love. The story is of a young boy inventor who is learning. During this particular scene he is trying hard to fix a peanut butter and jelly gun, used to automate sandwich building. Everyone is watching him and it looks like he's going to succeed, finally the time comes to try his fix. The whole thing explodes sending peanut butter and jelly everywhere and onto everyone in the room. He is devastated, but immediately he hears cheers and people start to comment on what a great failure that was! "You Failed!" "And it was awesome!" "Exceptional!" "Outstanding!" "Uh, I've seen better." "From failing you learn, from success, not so much." They congratulate him like he succeeded. They ultimately propose a toast to his brilliant failure. He is stunned. The motto of this family is: Keep moving forward!

This is a good motto for anyone working with software. The challenges are so great and the problems so complicated and frequent, you simply must have the determination to keep moving forward, to and through the finish. Start small and build momentum and keep finishing small things, just to keep in the habit of it.

This is not always easy. Sometimes I would come home from work so frustrated with how slow things were going and how little progress was being made, I'd tell my wife I just needed some time alone to cool down. I'd go into my room, open my laptop and write a blog post. I'd post it and point to it while saying to my wife, "There, I did it. I produced something today! It may not be much, but at least I produced something tangible!" You've got to keep in the habit of producing or finishing. You can't let those muscles atrophy.

One of the best development techniques I've seen over the years is test driven development. The pattern is to build a small test that represents an improvement you want to make to your program. Once the test is built, run it and watch it fail. Then write just enough code to make the failing test pass, then run the code and watch the test pass. Repeat. This tends to lead to low coupling and good cohesion and a reasonable test bed. The real hidden value is regular focus on tangible completion in a consistent way, over time. Just keep moving forward step by step and then after some time you'll be impressed as you look back on the mountain of work you've accomplished by such simple means with constant effort.

There are bugs to be fixed, old code to re-examine and refactor, performance problems to analyze and improve, build automation, test automation and website improvements, help docs to write, blogs to read, posts to write, ideas to explore, customers to contact, emails to read and write. Your job is to choose which of all of these you will do now, and then keep moving forward. Those who master the art of consistently and sustainably producing value, are setup for success. Be one of them. Don't quit. Don't stop. Focus on consistently finishing something of value, no matter how small. That's what the world will pay you for, and since so few seem to stick to it, there's plenty money in play for those who pay the price to consistently finish the job.

The Perfect Laptop

Business Week's recent cover story on Lenovo's new ThinkPad X300 laptop caught my attention. Can you imagine spending 2 years working on a super thin, super light laptop for release in February 2008 and then have Apple announce the MacBook Air on January 15th? What a commotion must have been had at Lenovo after Jobs' keynote!

It turns out that the X300 is actually lighter than the MacBook Air when configured without the DVD drive. It apparently also snugly fits into a mailing envelope! It has 3 USB ports and an Ethernet port and includes a solid state drive as the only drive option. What's really striking about the X300 is Lenovo's whole approach to the project. When they think of the "perfect laptop" they don't see the svelte curves or shiny metal jewel that Apple sees, they see 90 degree angles, boxy, matte-black, computer that looks all business. David Hill, Lenovo's chief designer and "keeper of the ThinkPad tradition" said it best: "I'm a bit tired of looking at silver computers, I'd never wear a silver business suit."

Despite the fashions of the day, Lenovo is not only trying to remain true to, but underscore the original ThinkPad design by Richard Sapper. I'm impressed by this. They are trying to build an equally, if not more impressive laptop than the MacBook Air, and retain their own identity in the process. It's both courageous and unique these days. In some ways it says something about the times that "simple, elegant, matte-black machines with precise, 90-degree corners" would be thinking differently, while so many are trying to "be like Apple." My applause goes to Lenovo for being themselves! Well done!

The Mix Tape and iTunes

I know I'm dating myself a bit here, but there was a time when friends my age would exchange songs via cassette tape. It was illegal I'm sure, but such a wonderful labor of love. The carefully selected list would exchange hands and then the recipient would spend typically 60 minutes straight listening to each song trying to deduce the "real meaning" for this song being included in the mix. Meanwhile, the giver would also listen to the same songs wondering how the recipient might be enjoying it. As you can imagine this made for some great follow-up discussions. I was reminded of this recently when I found this product from the UK:

Note: the authentic bent label. There are even other styles shown here.

With 64 MB of storage you can get at least 60 minutes of songs for your gift. Very retro. Fun, not terribly sustainable and probably illegal as well, but still pretty cool.

When I saw this I wondered, and not for the first time, "Why doesn't Apple do this kind of thing on iTunes?" They've allowed gifting for a long time, but that's one song or album at a time, not a collection of specially chosen songs. They could send a custom "iCard" or well designed announcement. Going to iTunes would allow you to download the gift list with a special custom cover for the playlist along with custom messages for the whole list and each individual song. What you're selling here is the experience of the music and the gift of listening to each song specially selected for you. There would be a one click "Add to my iPod" once the songs downloaded so you could get going right away. While you listened you could continue to refer to the sender supplied comments for each song on your iPod. As an added bonus, if the person receiving the list, already purchased this song on iTunes, it wouldn't copy down a duplicate song, but just link it into gift playlist with custom text. In this case the cost of the collection would go down by the cost of the duplicate song.

This isn't just about love birds or anniversary collections either. I can see "get well collections" sent, "congratulations you did it!" collections, and even "inspiring songs from a friend that cares" lists being given. I can even see adding a movie or movie rental to the list with the connection of "this movie makes me think of you" or "let's watch this together..." etc.

I suppose every regular Mac user who blogs has to post from time to time, with wishes for Apple to fulfill. I haven't done my fair share of them, so here's my penny in the fountain. I think it would work wonderfully. Come on Apple, give us Mix Tape gifts on iTunes!

Passing of President Gordon B. Hinckley

Beloved Church President Gordon B. Hinckley, who led The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through 12 years of global expansion, has died at the age of 97. President Hinckley was the 15th President in the 177-year history of the Church and had served as its President since March 12, 1995.

I suppose he said it best:

Death is a part of life. It is a fundamental, basic part of our eternal lives. We can't go on with the great work that lies ahead without stepping over the threshold of death, sorrowful as it is for those who remain. I am satisfied that it is a beautiful experience for those who make that step, who have lived lives of righteousness and faithfulness. - Gordon B. Hinckley, Ensign, Aug 1997, 3

For my part, this man was an example to me of someone who finished the course, kept the faith. (2 Timothy 4:7) I will miss him.

Change is Hard

I just rediscovered this great quote:

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. - Max Planck

I believe this doesn't just relate to scientific truth, but truth in general. My Dad would say, "Experience is always in the first person," meaning that it's a good idea to learn from others, but most of the time we don't. There are great new truths to be had, but everyone is at a different point in the journey, with all the baggage that entails. Many of the most important and needful changes can't happen until there is a personal experience with the need for change. Mostly that happens one person at a time. There are those who think people would act differently if they only knew some bit of relevant knowledge, but more often than not, the reality is much more complicated than a simple lack of knowledge.

Change requires love, patience, help and encouragement, a willingness to learn from above, from below and from all those around you. It requires an absolute and deep conviction that you could really be wrong about something in a fundamental way. It requires a desire to improve and a motivation to exercise more effort than normal. It requires the courage to be wrong and fail again and again in the pursuit of new understanding. In the end, it often requires the willingness to forgo the due respect and esteem of others. Almost always it requires some kind of sacrifice. It is for all these reasons and many more, that change is hard. Thanks be to those who, despite all of this, do change. They make space for others to do the same.

Leaving Microsoft

Starting today I no longer work at Microsoft. As many of you know, I started working at Microsoft after an illustrious post high school career as landscape architect. ;-) I loved the landscape work, but Microsoft paid better. I was just barely 18 and Microsoft was just realizing that the internet (lower case then) was amazingly NOT going to be replaced by the Windows 95 Microsoft Network. Much has changed since then. While I started my 4 year degree and continued working on it part time, it’s now time for me to go back to school full time and finish. After that, I hope to get an MBA.

I’ve had a remarkable time at Microsoft and in MacBU in particular. I’ve learned so much. I’ve been so thankful to interact with such a high concentration of good individuals. I feel very blessed. My last day was December 31st, 2007.

So that’s the news. I realize that many of you subscribe to this blog because of my connection with Microsoft and especially MacBU. Since I'm no longer working there, feel free to unsubscribe. During the Holiday's I've been mentally processing my MacBU experience and I'll be posting much of what I have learned and observed. If that interests you, hang on, there might still be some content here for you! As you may have noticed I've not really posted anything since September when I returned to work after paternity leave! These last 3 months finishing up Office 2008 were quite the grind, not a death march, but certainly not pretty. I'm glad for it to end. With a bit more time, I think you'll see some more frequent posts here.

If you'd like to contact me informally, as always, feel free to email me at my Gmail account referenced on my Blogger profile page. If you'd like to contact/track me more professionally, feel free to follow my LinkedIn profile.

Happy New Year to all and wish me luck!

Google Maps My Location beta

In Google's recent Google Friends Newsletter we have this tidbit:

Google Maps for mobile, now with My Location (beta)

GPS-enabled mobile phones continue to rise in popularity - but most of us do not have that capability. Now, with the latest version of Google Maps for mobile, you can use the new My Location (beta) technology that uses normal cell phone towers to provide you with approximate location information. It's not GPS, but it comes pretty close. http://www.google.com/gmm

Cool stuff. The really interesting thing about this is the ability Google could eventually have to track location and correlate that to better target ads on the iPhone.

More iPhone Features

If the folks over at Gear Live have the scoop on the newest iPhone firmware update, it looks like it will add some very cool features. My favorite will absolutely be the "Locate Me" feature added to the Google Maps application. Gear Live servers are slammed right now, but here are some of the small resolution images that look very authentic to me. With every iPhone software update, phone manufacturers everywhere are wishing they had a reliable way to distribute fixes and add features. Apple really has a competitive advantage with their ability to update the iPhone in the field.

Workspace Traditions

Every company, every team has their different traditions and specific culture and Microsoft is no exception. Christian Buckley of BlueBadgeMojo.com pokes some fun at what I think is a Microsoft specific tradition of "decorating" offices of people gone for an extended period of time. I remember carting in sand for a "beach house" office decoration way back. Where did it all start? I guess I'll never know.

What funny workspace traditions do you have? Have you seen the office decoration thing outside of Microsoft?

Numbers

One of the great benefits of working at Microsoft is that when you add a new little one to your family, you get 1 month of paid paternity leave. Recently, we've had the opportunity to take advantage of this benefit. Since our little baby was born, I've been home working as Mr. Mom. I've been mostly offline, except for early mornings and late nights when the kids are sleeping. My boss isn't going to like it, but since I've been gone for paternity leave, I've logged on to my work email only once, and that was just to make sure my out of office emails were working. Needless to say, I've been happily busy with family.

I haven't been so busy that I didn't catch Apple's announcement regarding their new iWork application, Numbers. I haven't bought a copy, or logged into work to see what others are saying about this announcement, but I'm guessing it's much like when Apple announced Keynote for the first time. A combination of deep respect for Apple's software and design capabilities, coupled with sense of, "Let's get back to work and make something great!" kind of attitude.

What follows are some of my personal feelings that I've considered amidst making meals and playing at the park with my kids. I don't in any way attempt to speak for MacBU or Microsoft, these are just one person's opinions, specifically mine. And yes, I do work in MacBU, and yes I can't share everything I'd like to say for obvious reasons. So, here goes:

Once upon a time, it was decided that we needed to move to a more open file format. XML was the obvious choice. There were and are a lot of good reasons for opening up your file format. I'm not going to discuss these at length, but one of these in particular is that folks are not forced to use your application to both read and write files that others can use. This is a good thing.

Allowing anyone to read and write your file format is a bold move because it says in essence, "We don't need a locked down file format to compete. The format can be available for everyone, and we'll compete on the ease of use and efficiency of our applications. We have what we think is the best interface for reading, creating and managing Office documents, but if someone has what they think is a better way to build Office documents, wonderful, we welcome it!"

What Apple has done with Keynote, Pages and Numbers is exactly this. With each one of their applications, they've created a user interface that reflects how they think people want or should want to act when building a presentation, document or spreadsheet. I've been in this market for a long time, and obviously have opinions about how things should be done. If someone else has what they think is a good solution for building Office documents, I think that's great.

From another perspective, I think Apple's work on Numbers underscores that despite the large advances being made in web interfaces, there is still a place for rich client applications. Both iLife, iWork and even the Google Maps application on the iPhone reinforce that there's lots of opportunity left for innovation in the "rich client" arena. Numbers specifically proves there's opportunity left for innovation in the productivity applications space. I certainly think there is, and folks who think that the problem space that Office lives in is "essentially solved", should think again. There's plenty left to improve. Plenty. That's what makes it exciting.

Some have said, "I bet MacBU is envious of Apple being able to start from scratch." Now that's a loaded comment. Let me try to address the different parts. First the envious thing. Apple is a great software company and at Microsoft, software is pretty important too! ;-) At the very core of MacBU is the desire to produce great software for the Mac platform. When the business unit was created, the whole goal was to focus our energies on producing seamless and compatible, but very Mac, applications. There are a certain set of problems one must focus on when working on Mac Office. There's another set of problems one must focus on when working on iWork. You trade problems sets, but they are just different problems sets! The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence. Most people with significant software experience will know that "starting from scratch" is one of the most risky and difficult things to do. I don't think anyone is excited about scrapping years worth of effort just to have a clean start at things. From a programming perspective, that just makes no sense.

Also, Apple isn't starting from scratch. They are building methodically on the several foundations they've laid over the years in Keynote, then Pages and now they've added Numbers. One might even say that, Numbers is Keynote and Pages with better table and function support, and not be too far from the mark. This kind of progressive building together is what Microsoft did with Office originally. There's a pattern here. The bigger questions in my mind are really these: "Will Apple's software foundation allow them to add to and improve their software for the next 20 years? What will be the rate of their improvement?"

Lastly, in a very real way, we do "start from scratch" every product cycle. I wish you could all experience the high energy and exhilarating discussions we have when we are planning for the next version of Office. We "wipe the slate clean" and do our best to remove all inhibitions and constraints when we think about what we can do next with Mac software at Microsoft. And this doesn't just happen in MacBU. My favorite example of this, right now, has to be the new UI in Win Office. Maybe someday I'll write about that more in-depth, but the way that Ribbon interface elevates access to the many features of Office and makes Office easy to use is just wonderful. Anyone who's serious about interaction design in software should take a serious look at what this interface does and how it does it. There's a great deal to be learned, not the least of which is that sometimes you need to dramatically re-think the user interface of your application and not be afraid to do exactly that.

Finally, as in the past, the question will undoubtedly be asked, "What is the core value of Office on the Mac?" I'll answer that with one word: compatibility. Mac users are the kind of people that want things to "just work" and Microsoft Office for the Mac offers that exact value proposition. Mac users want to enjoy all the great things that make the Mac experience wonderful, but still be able to share documents and communicate in a Mac way in a Windows dominated world. MacBU is categorically in the best position to deliver on this promise of compatibility.

A Clear Vision

One of the most important responsibilities of a great leader is to clearly define the goal, the vision, the what and why stuff, so that everyone can understand and really "buy-in" to the deal. Steve Jobs just did this masterfully in the Q&A session following an Apple press event:

Is Apple’s goal to overtake the PC in market share? Jobs said, “Our goal is to make the best personal computers in the world and make products we are proud to sell and recommend to our family and friends. We want to do that at the lowest prices we can.

“But there’s some stuff in our industry that we wouldn’t be proud to ship. And we just can’t do it. We can’t ship junk,” said Jobs. “There are thresholds we can’t cross because of who we are. And we think that there’s a very significant slice of the [market] that wants that too. You’ll find that our products are not premium priced. You price out our competitors’ products, and add features that actually make them useful, and they’re the same or actually more expensive. We don’t offer stripped-down, lousy products.”

Independant of the PR value of these statements, these words "make meaning" for Apple's employees who, in the end, are their most important customers.

Update: MacWorld has posted the audio of the question and Job's fantastic response here

Be Microsoft

I love working on the Mac. I enjoy working in MacBU. These days, however, I'm not so thrilled about the vibe hanging around here at Microsoft as a whole.

We seem to have lost our self-confidence. There is a general and constant focus on "the other guys" these days. It's like everyone is continually contemplating competitive response, rather than acting for our customers. First it's open source software, then it's Linux, then it's Google, now it's Apple. Tomorrow it will be something or someone else. Least someone misunderstand, I'm all for looking out for the competition, but if all your focus is on how to respond to some perceived or real competitive threat, how will you ever be able to innovate, come up with something original or surprise and delight your customers? It's just paralyzing.

I wish folks would just realize that we are not going to be all things to all people. That's okay. We've got a job to do, and we have a very reasonable opportunity to do some very wonderful things. Let's stop worrying about the competition, or about what we can't do just yet. Can't we just focus on making our customers amazingly happy? Perhaps I'm too simplistic, but if we do just that, I really think everything else will work out.

I feel like we've lost our identity looking at and comparing ourselves with others. The insecurity and lack of confidence seems to be everywhere. You can see it in the way employees "defend their Microsoft position" rather than "just tell the story" because it's a good one.

It wasn't always like this.

What's totally ironic about this present situation is that this is exactly where Apple was, only a few years ago. In an interview at the "All Things Digital" Conference this year, Steve Jobs said this about that time at Apple:

[There was this belief that] for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose, and it was clear that you didn’t have to play that game because Apple wasn’t going to beat Microsoft. Apple didn’t have to beat Microsoft. Apple had to remember who Apple was because it had forgotten who Apple was. So for me it was pretty essential to break that paradigm.

There is space in this big old world for everyone, Apple, Google, free software and yes, even Microsoft. We don't have to be Apple to be successful. We don't have to be Google either. We just need to be Microsoft.

Thoughts from Dad

I have a great friend in my Dad. He takes time to listen to me. He tries to help me. Our conversations are not so much about some grand conclusion as they are about exploration and discovery. Recently he sent me an email follow up to a conversation we were having. Here's what he wrote:

1. I am different. So I need to figure out how others think, because they don't think like I do.

2. Learning about change is not changing.

3. Most people agree that improvement and change is needed, until it means they have to change.

4. Getting someone to want to change is hard.

5. The power of the group, has something in it that facilitates change. (Carl Rogers)

6. Most leaders say, "You need to do this... You need to change... Good luck! See you later." Instead of, "You can change. I can help."

7. It's important to setup an environment that balances building the person and getting the job done.

Man, I love my Dad.

Can it be? Yes it is...

zPhone!

Note: Many thanks to Andy Klepack for the Hi-Def image. Food and beverages not included. :-)

Sharing Music with the iPhone

There's a cool little feature I just discovered thanks to a friend at work. If you are on a phone call, and turn on your iPod music, everyone on the call can hear your music! Also, the volume controls for the phone call and the music are separate so you can have some nice background music to your call while still being able to hear soft voices loud and clear. I can't decide if this is a designed in feature or a happy side-effect of something else, but I think it's cool.

iKnow iDeas

A fun parody of Apple. The product? Paper napkins.

The GM of MacBU wants to talk to You!

The general manager of the Macintosh Business Unit at Microsoft is Craig Eisler. He's been here now for just over 4 weeks. It's been fun to watch him step into his new role and if nothing else watch as everyone adjusts to a new dynamic leader. Craig seems to be just that, a high energy, leader. His transparent nature and naturally positive perspective on things has just instantiated itself on our official MacMojo blog. He's asking for suggestions on what you'd like to see different, feature requests, even topics that you'd like to see him personally address on the blog. Right now there are only 39 comments. Please, if you've ever wanted MacBU to do "X" differently, now is your chance. Get in there and leave a comment.

Designing the Dreamliner

Today at 3:30 p.m. PDT, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner will rollout for the world to see. You can view the live webcast at www.boeing.com or watch it on Satellite TV. (576 DirectTV or 9601 DishNetwork).

Boeing hired a design firm Teague, to help them from the very beginning to build the Dreamliner. John Barratt, the CEO of Teague, gave some perspective on what it was like to work on designing the Boeing 787. You can watch the 10 minute interview here.

First, notice the importance placed on empathy and ethnography in the beginning of the design. They had their team travel around the world 5 times in economy class before they started! Wow. I think it's this kind of experiential learning that's needed to really understand your customers. They went to this trouble to improve their empathy so they could understand what can't be observed and also did the ethnographic research to understand what can be observed. I think it was also this kind of experiential foundation that allowed them to deliver things like larger windows, better air purification, more humidity in the cabin, and more open space.

Second, notice how important the transition from the walk way to the airplane cabin is to him. The whole feeling that "You've made it! Sit down and relax! We'll take care of you." is really communicated subtly in the curved lines, high ceilings, the lighting and open areas. I love how they increased the size of the windows! Also, the windows don't have plastic shades, but look to be touch activated and have some kind of "fade shade" effect like glasses that automatically become darker when exposed to the sunlight. Nice.

Third, notice how they had some amazing breakthrough concepts at first, but then when 9/11 hit, they had to give up their prized designs and adjust to the market. Making a really fast plane gave way to making a very efficient one. I often think about design as the skill of choosing what not to do. I guess we'll see if they made the right choice. I think they did. But, it must have been just dreadfully difficult for the designers to give up their 1st design. My hat's off to them for this alone.

Lastly, notice what a big part prototyping was given in the process. You really don't know how it's going to feel until you can experience it, and they did that by putting the designers close to the engineers and mocking up the whole cabin where they could physically iterate on the experience. Very, very cool. As he said, "You've got to prototype it and validate it."

The 787 is a big bet for Boeing. I hope they do well, and not just because I'm cheering for the home team, but because we could all use a big old object lesson in the importance of designing experiences in the aviation industry. Hopefully the airline companies will someday pay this much attention to the whole flying experience.

The Courage to Help

Let me begin by stating that I unabashedly love the United States of America. It is just wonderful to live in the United States of America. There are problems to be sure, but these are had everywhere. On the other hand, the blessings experienced here are only found elsewhere in relatively small pockets. When you go to live someplace else, you learn that not only do you trade old for new in food, scenery and culture, you also trade major problem sets. The old proverb about the grass being greener on the other side of the fence, elucidates the ease with which human judgment can be prone to error.

I don't think I can be called a world traveler, but I have had some experience outside of the US. I lived for two years in the jungles and deserts of the northeastern Brazil. I've visited Ireland, Egypt, Jordan and Israel. There are real families, real life and all that that entails everywhere. I feel confident in saying that the privileges I often took for granted, no longer seem to me the normal and the natural affair of mankind. They are not. In so many ways we live today at the tip top of human existence.

Yesterday was July 4th, Independence Day, commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from Great Britain. It was on this day that a group of brave men and women signed and fought for words like these:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Remembering on the Fourth of July that the extraordinary blessings I experience were not always so normal, is always very humbling for me. This year however I learned a bit more about that tempestuous and tenuous time of early America and I thought I'd share an insight I had.

Choosing to revolt against the King of Great Britain was with out a doubt insane. These 13 colonies had little money, a comparatively minuscule army, few weapons, little training and not much of a plan. What they did have was a belief that what they were doing was right. In their effort to show their faith, others were inspired by their cause and came to their aid. These others were Spain, the Netherlands and France. Men like General Lafayette, a French military officer, were moved to action. Said he of America:

The moment I heard of America I loved her; the moment I knew she was fighting for freedom I burnt with a desire of bleeding for her; and the moment I shall be able to serve her, at any time, or in any part of the world, will be the happiest of my life. - Marquis de Lafayette, Letter to Henry Laurens (then President of Congress), April 1777

With the help of the French, men like Lafayette and others, independence was ultimately achieved.

When a new nation forms, things are ever so fragile, chaos and fear so, so close at hand. I am thankful that a country far away, saw a distant tyranny so many years ago, and didn't choose to ignore it. I'm thankful that they had men, like Lafayette, who would be willing to sacrifice their lives for others to whom they had no reason to give anything. More specifically, this year, I'd like to thank the French who's sacrifice in large measure sustained a young and vulnerable nation. Their choice, so long ago, has made a way for my life, my liberty and my pursuit of happiness and I will be forever grateful.

Without the help of others, there likely would be no USA. Without those who were in a place to help actually choosing to help, the cause of freedom would have been snuffed out once again. For me, the lesson is this: even for causes with great ideals and great men like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams leading the way, the US still needed help from others, or it would have all been some small footnote in some history book today. Back then we needed those with the courage to help, and we still need each other today. Really, it was a miracle that it all worked out.

iPhone User Guide: The Anthropomorphic iPhone

Apple has posted their iPhone User's Guide for all those of you who can't get a hold of one, and all throughout are references to 'iPhone', not 'the iPhone.' One example follows:

To activate iPhone:

1 Download and install iTunes 7.3 (or later) from www.itunes.com.

2 Connect iPhone to a USB 2.0 port on your Mac or PC using the dock and cable that came with iPhone. (Don’t connect iPhone to the USB port on your keyboard—it does not have enough power.) iTunes opens automatically.

3 Follow the onscreen instructions in iTunes to activate iPhone and sync iPhone with your contacts, calendars, email accounts, and bookmarks on your computer.

Why would Apple do this? No one talks this way. What are they getting out of this grammatical detail? At lunch a few of us discussed it and the only thing we could come up with is that it anthropomorphizes the iPhone, and that some how makes it more, uh, human or something. I admit, it's kind of weak. Any other ideas?