Quick Notes for June 7, 2010

Quick Notes for June 7, 2010

I’ve been busy, and also playing too much Star Trek Online, and I’m behind on writing my Groundhog Day Resolutions update for June 6. I’ll have to get to them after I’m done with the solid day of meetings I have, but for now here’s a few interesting tidbits:

  • Sid Ceaser and I recorded a long-overdue podcast last Friday. It’s up now on the podcast website. You can also subscribe on iTunes, if that’s the way you like to roll.

  • I’ve come to acknowledge that I love complexity more than I like simple solutions. Or more accurately: to get to a simple solution, I like working intensively in a complex design process that results in simplicity, elegance, and so forth. You can’t get one without the other, at least as far as my process is concerned. So I need to redesign my design website to emphasize that, which means emphasizing that this takes time and money. The way to really meet the desire for simplicity is to make simple products, not promise simple solutions. That way, the simplicity is fixed into a product that is self-evident in its simplicity. To promise simplicity in the design process up front is hobbles someone like me, who thrives on sorting complexity and nuance.

  • After talking to my friend Gary this morning about how hard it is to find really good people to work with because I hate not picking everyone. He pointed out that this was a limiting belief, and that if I actually asked for “franchise players”, which I take to mean people who are highly-skilled, that already wanted to work with me, that would would be a huge game changer. There’s a few things I’m very good at (absorbing complexity and distilling actionable principles from it, designing system architectures), and I’m very discerning in other areas like programming, project management, graphic design, and illustration. The major thing I’m bad at: working without an inspiring partner. If you’re someone who is good at what they do, and can imagine working on something with someone like me for any reason, shoot me an example of your work and I’ll shoot you an example of mine.

  • Here’s a recent interview, conducted via email, on the productivity blog Half-a-Dozen Monkeys.

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