I've been thinking about getting a Masters that will challenge and enable me to do more of what I love: help people feel smart, have positive experiences, and learn to do anything with a sense of fascination, ease and joy. One place that I'm looking into is the dschool at Stanford. I'm also inspired by 2 close friends who recently decided to get their MBA and MFA. Thank you for making me feel like I can do it too.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
2010 Razorfish Outlook Report
Always enlightening and valuable. You can also check out more documents from Razorfish here.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Your intelligence is in your hands
Last night I grew many neurons listening to Carol Dweck's presentation on Creating a Mindset for Achievement at BayCHI. Carol is a social psychologist, professor at Stanford and a leading researcher in the field of motivation. Her extensive research in young students' ability to learn and improve in the face of struggle is the heart of the fixed vs growth learning concept:
"I don't divide the word into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures. I divide them into the learners and the non-learners." - Benjamin Barber
"I don't divide the word into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures. I divide them into the learners and the non-learners." - Benjamin BarberAccording to Carol Dweck, people with the fixed learning mindset:
In my own experience, I think back to elementary school art class, where students were though of as natural talents or not. The ability to draw was not presented as a learnable skill (most likely because the teachers didn't posses it themselves), so teachers had to give "A's for effort". However, the perception remained that either you have it...or you don't. I've often encountered this attitude around "being creative" as well, as if it's some kind of magical power. Though some people do seem to be more effortlessly able to draw and think "creatively", I certainly believe both are skills can be acquired and sharpened with practice. Turns out one of the biggest obstacles to leaning is simply believing you're not capable.
People with the growth learning mindset:
- Believe intelligence is a fixed trait.
- Feel they must look intelligent at all times. They don't publicly question anything for fear of revealing what they don't know. They hide their mistakes and deficiencies.
- Avoid struggle and challenge because they believe learning must be effortless. They think struggle is proof that they lack the ability to learn that subject or skill.
- Compare themselves to people who achieve less as proof that they are intelligent.
In my own experience, I think back to elementary school art class, where students were though of as natural talents or not. The ability to draw was not presented as a learnable skill (most likely because the teachers didn't posses it themselves), so teachers had to give "A's for effort". However, the perception remained that either you have it...or you don't. I've often encountered this attitude around "being creative" as well, as if it's some kind of magical power. Though some people do seem to be more effortlessly able to draw and think "creatively", I certainly believe both are skills can be acquired and sharpened with practice. Turns out one of the biggest obstacles to leaning is simply believing you're not capable.
People with the growth learning mindset:
- Believe intelligence is a malleable quality, a potential that can be developed.
- Are always trying to learn, ask questions, and don't feel unintelligent for not knowing the answers. They capitalize on mistakes and view them as part of the learning process.
- Enjoy the hard work of learning as well as the outcome. They're not singularly focused on grades or whether or not their answers are right. They care about understanding the answers.
- Compare themselves to people who achieve more, aspire to their level, and believe with hard work, they can get there.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
How F8 made me feel
I just got home from the F8 Facebook Conference, and of course there's already thousands of recaps, predictions, warnings, praises and opinions flying on twitter, Mashable, TechCrunch, and blogs like this one by Jeremiah Owyang. What I'd like to share is my personal experience at F8.
Elated. Inspired. Energized. These are just a few things I felt at F8. I witnessed a major shift in the way we'll all be experiencing the world in the near future. And I'm not even taking about the actual sessions. Upon registering, I received a beautifully designed passport with a small rectangular token attached to it. I logged on to facebook.com/presence and typed in the number on the token, connecting my facebook identity to it. Whenever I entered a session, I tapped the token on a glowing scanner and it instantly created a post that says where I am. This worked for tagging photos too. My coworkers and I stood in front of a photo kiosk, a photo was snapped, and we tagged ourselves on the spot by tapping our tokens to the kiosk and touching our faces on the screen. And of course, the photo was auto posted to facebook. My first thought - when will we have permanent tokens subdermally inserted into out palms? With a swipe of your seemingly naked hand, you could potentially complete a credit card transaction, add shopping items to a list, bookmark an actual object or physical place. No more barriers between device and human. (For differing opinions on Facebook's RFID tokens, check out this post on Techcrunch.)
Here's some photos of the Facebook token, scanner and the larger than life screen that visualized patterns of everyone moving from scanner to scanner:
Here's the facebook presence token in my passport
Here's the glowing scanner - changes color when you've successfully connected
Here's the visualization showing people's movement patterns throughout the venue. Check out that "War Games" reference in the upper right :-)
Elated. Inspired. Energized. These are just a few things I felt at F8. I witnessed a major shift in the way we'll all be experiencing the world in the near future. And I'm not even taking about the actual sessions. Upon registering, I received a beautifully designed passport with a small rectangular token attached to it. I logged on to facebook.com/presence and typed in the number on the token, connecting my facebook identity to it. Whenever I entered a session, I tapped the token on a glowing scanner and it instantly created a post that says where I am. This worked for tagging photos too. My coworkers and I stood in front of a photo kiosk, a photo was snapped, and we tagged ourselves on the spot by tapping our tokens to the kiosk and touching our faces on the screen. And of course, the photo was auto posted to facebook. My first thought - when will we have permanent tokens subdermally inserted into out palms? With a swipe of your seemingly naked hand, you could potentially complete a credit card transaction, add shopping items to a list, bookmark an actual object or physical place. No more barriers between device and human. (For differing opinions on Facebook's RFID tokens, check out this post on Techcrunch.)
Here's some photos of the Facebook token, scanner and the larger than life screen that visualized patterns of everyone moving from scanner to scanner:
Here's the facebook presence token in my passport
Here's the glowing scanner - changes color when you've successfully connected
Here's the visualization showing people's movement patterns throughout the venue. Check out that "War Games" reference in the upper right :-)One of the central themes of F8 was simplicity. Ahhh, simplicity. Everyone strives for it in their product. Many claim to have it, as if telling users something is simple on their home page makes it so. But facebook, they know how to do simplicity. Every session I attended used consistent language and visuals. At first it seemed a little repetitive, but then I realized - their united front made it simple and memorable. All the sessions spoke the same message, like a well conceived Presidential election.
There were 2 points in particular that to me, summarize their dedication to simplicity:
Simplicity by listening to users
Chris Cox, VP of Product, commented in his inspiring closing remarks that "the products were hacks". The team watched people "misuse" the product, then designed featured that enabled users to do what they wanted to do. He told the story of the early days before facebook had photo albums. The only place a user could upload a photo was their user profile, and they noticed some people were changing this photo multiple times a day. They looked at all the photo sites at the time - flickr, ophoto, kodak (to name just a few). There were so many things people could do with their photos on these sites. Sticking to their concept of being people-centric, they added just one main feature - the ability to tag people.
Simplicity by not listening to the users
In the "Designing for Social Web" session, Julie Zhou talked about some featured that users have asked for, such as the ability to see what friends have recently visited your profile. While this seems like a good idea on the surface, there's also a possibility that you could be seen as nosy, creepy, or just inappropriate if you keep visiting someone's profile. Another is the dislike button. Sure, there are things you really want to dislike sometimes, but instead you say nothing at all. What do these 2 things have in common? Facebook doesn't implement features that would potentially discourage people from sharing. The most important thing is that people feel comfortable sharing, and that action is as easy as possible. With the new soon to be ubiquitous like button, sharing what you love will become as commonplace as clicking a link.
One of the most important factors that has made facebook successful is their consistent adherence to a vision that works - making it people centric and keeping it simple. Their success also shows that these 2 things are the some of the hardest objectives to achieve, but when you do, you can change the world.
There were 2 points in particular that to me, summarize their dedication to simplicity:
Simplicity by listening to users
Chris Cox, VP of Product, commented in his inspiring closing remarks that "the products were hacks". The team watched people "misuse" the product, then designed featured that enabled users to do what they wanted to do. He told the story of the early days before facebook had photo albums. The only place a user could upload a photo was their user profile, and they noticed some people were changing this photo multiple times a day. They looked at all the photo sites at the time - flickr, ophoto, kodak (to name just a few). There were so many things people could do with their photos on these sites. Sticking to their concept of being people-centric, they added just one main feature - the ability to tag people.
Simplicity by not listening to the users
In the "Designing for Social Web" session, Julie Zhou talked about some featured that users have asked for, such as the ability to see what friends have recently visited your profile. While this seems like a good idea on the surface, there's also a possibility that you could be seen as nosy, creepy, or just inappropriate if you keep visiting someone's profile. Another is the dislike button. Sure, there are things you really want to dislike sometimes, but instead you say nothing at all. What do these 2 things have in common? Facebook doesn't implement features that would potentially discourage people from sharing. The most important thing is that people feel comfortable sharing, and that action is as easy as possible. With the new soon to be ubiquitous like button, sharing what you love will become as commonplace as clicking a link.
One of the most important factors that has made facebook successful is their consistent adherence to a vision that works - making it people centric and keeping it simple. Their success also shows that these 2 things are the some of the hardest objectives to achieve, but when you do, you can change the world.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Four Keys To Fun
On Saturday I attended a fascinating talk by Nicole Lazarro of XEODesign about emotions and user experience. Here's the slides:
Four Keys To Fun BayCHI Slides
Some of the most standout ideas:
1. Good games create fun though the choices the user makes. Fun shouldn't be limited to gaming. Why not make boring and stressful tasks like banking, health care, and learning a technical skill more fun? Fun doesn't mean lack of seriousness. It can be surprisingly delightful and easy. One of the best examples of fun learning is the Head First books from O'Reilly. I read the HTML/CSS book and completed the crossword puzzles at the end of each chapter - and enjoyed it! The more fun a task is, the easier it is to complete, the more you learn, the more motivated you are to keep learning. Emotions improve memory recall and performance. Feeling smart is fun.
2. Some of the most popular games are not gender specific. Farmville and Rock Band tap into social emotions - chumminess, admiration, competition and bonding through reciprocity. I love the Rock Band experience because it's an exciting way to create fun memories with friends. We gather at my place to enjoy the music, work together to unlock new cities, save each other when we fail out, laugh when someone can't sing, and compliment each other on our song scores, "96 percent complete with most energy? Rock on!"
Nicole pointed out that games that are targeted at exclusively "male" emotions (schadenfreude, aggression, rewards) and "female" emotions (helping, complimenting) are leaving all the other shared emotions on the table. The most successful games tap into all the social emotions throughout game play and inspire people to come back for more.
3. Making a game (or any experience) viral means having a simple goal, ways to connect with friends, and social tokens that increase in emotional value with use. Of all 3, I believe maintaining a simple goal is the most difficult. What starts out as a singular idea often gets clouded by positioning new features as equal to the core activity. What's the one thing that people enjoy most about your game (or product)? Do that better than anyone, then propel engagement by making it easy for people to share that and reward each other.
Social tokens are virtual gifts, compliments, private jokes, or anything that makes you feel like you're making real connections with other people. From a Facebook "poke" or "like it" to the prop icons like "You rock" on Kaboodle, these one click social acknowledgements are frictionless ways to create repeat engagement. And they're fun too.
1. Good games create fun though the choices the user makes. Fun shouldn't be limited to gaming. Why not make boring and stressful tasks like banking, health care, and learning a technical skill more fun? Fun doesn't mean lack of seriousness. It can be surprisingly delightful and easy. One of the best examples of fun learning is the Head First books from O'Reilly. I read the HTML/CSS book and completed the crossword puzzles at the end of each chapter - and enjoyed it! The more fun a task is, the easier it is to complete, the more you learn, the more motivated you are to keep learning. Emotions improve memory recall and performance. Feeling smart is fun.
2. Some of the most popular games are not gender specific. Farmville and Rock Band tap into social emotions - chumminess, admiration, competition and bonding through reciprocity. I love the Rock Band experience because it's an exciting way to create fun memories with friends. We gather at my place to enjoy the music, work together to unlock new cities, save each other when we fail out, laugh when someone can't sing, and compliment each other on our song scores, "96 percent complete with most energy? Rock on!"
Nicole pointed out that games that are targeted at exclusively "male" emotions (schadenfreude, aggression, rewards) and "female" emotions (helping, complimenting) are leaving all the other shared emotions on the table. The most successful games tap into all the social emotions throughout game play and inspire people to come back for more.
3. Making a game (or any experience) viral means having a simple goal, ways to connect with friends, and social tokens that increase in emotional value with use. Of all 3, I believe maintaining a simple goal is the most difficult. What starts out as a singular idea often gets clouded by positioning new features as equal to the core activity. What's the one thing that people enjoy most about your game (or product)? Do that better than anyone, then propel engagement by making it easy for people to share that and reward each other.
Social tokens are virtual gifts, compliments, private jokes, or anything that makes you feel like you're making real connections with other people. From a Facebook "poke" or "like it" to the prop icons like "You rock" on Kaboodle, these one click social acknowledgements are frictionless ways to create repeat engagement. And they're fun too.
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