The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
Albert Einstein
If you haven’t read my thread on excellence, then please do so. Everyone had to start somewhere right. I have often marvelled at geniuses like Johnathan Ive, VP – Industrial Design at Apple, and how they seem to find these bouts of inspiration to create something as iconic as the ipod and casings of the Mac that we have come to love.
Turns out, thanks to Kevin Rose pointing it out, even he has an inspiration that looks wildly familiar.
That man pictured above is Dieter Rams, who was the head of Braun Design.
Does this send you raging? If anything it should open up your eyes to wonder and think we all borrow from each other. No mans an island. Most important. Perhaps that thing called Genius is really observing closely and working hard and not a divine gift bestowed on a few?
Here are Ram’s fundamental principles of design.
Rams’ ten principales to “good design”.
is innovative
makes a product useful
is aesthetic
makes a product understandable
is unobtrusive
is honest
is long-lasting
is thorough down to the last detail
is environmentally friendly
is as little design as possible
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I always thought taking notes were important. I’m a overdrive note taker. I believe it reinforces your thought and drills down the basics when you read it. It also helps that you can often reflect back on the single most important point. Over the years I have gotten better at taking notes and I’m currently compiling a post to give you my best practices. Here Caterina Fake, the co founder of Flickr, gives some wisdom into her productivity and thinking.
On the importance of notes.
I think it’s a sickness in business to always try to do more things in less time. I try to spend more time. People read all this information and think they’ve accomplished something, but what have they really taken in? What can you take in that’s important in 140 characters? I read books and articles, and I take a lot of notes. I put stickies in passages I find interesting, and later I write them into my notes, because that reinforces them in my memory. And I’ll make a point of going back and rereading them. Otherwise it’s like cramming for a test in high school where you don’t retain any of the material.
On prioritizing tasks
I have a to-do list so I don’t forget things. But I don’t prioritize tasks. I just know what needs to be done, and I check tasks off in the order I do them. Sometimes I feel like checking off all the little things. Mail this letter. Respond to this e-mail. Sometimes I want to figure out the entire strategy for 2010. As long as everything gets done, it doesn’t matter in what order.
On innovative meetings.
Interaction should be constant, not crammed into meetings once a week. You just turn around in your chair and bounce an idea off one of the other 10 people in your office. Keep the floor plan open so people can talk to each other. As the company gets bigger, keep dividing it into smaller and smaller groups. Follow Jeff Bezos’ two-pizza rule: Project teams should be small enough to feed with two pizzas. At Hunch, we don’t have meetings unless absolutely necessary. When I used to have meetings, though, this is how I would do it: There would be an agenda distributed before the meeting. Everybody would stand. At the beginning of the meeting, everyone would drink 16 ounces of water. We would discuss everything on the agenda, make all the decisions that needed to be made, and the meeting would be over when the first person had to go to the bathroom.
“Don’t let your parents or school system try to force you into a future that you have no interest in… Find your passion and you will be on the road to being just as relevant to society as any other ‘professional’. Sure, we need doctors, engineers and scientists. But we also need movies, games, clothes, fine-art, music and cool looking buildings, websites and cars,” he writes. “Simple but true.”
How many times have we thought about the futility of the education we have received? I don’t know how many times the information I learnt in School or in college turned out to be useless. Because the industry I got into (and the one I’m currently in) didn’t have set rules in stones. They didn’t have the factory mindset that most people have been preparing for since the started of the 19th century. More insights are in this talk by Sir Ken Robinson.
For now, Ars Technica has an article about the Gnomon School of Visual Arts. I’m thinking I should apply.
I saw this sometime back and I was impressed with the consistency and timelessness of a logo. I believe when you stand for something, you define your character. I have had the moral debate of flexibility vs rigidity. Flexibility in direction, rigidity in morals end up building character.
Here’s the original picture.
Now apparently that picture doesn’t represent the full story. Coca cola has changed their logo but not the font. That has stayed consistent through out. Check out the change in 1985 on the introduction of Coke.
Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works. The design of the Mac wasn’t what it looked like, although that was part of it. Primarily, it was how it worked. To design something really well, you have to get it. You have to really grok what it’s all about. It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. Most people don’t take the time to do that.
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.
Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.
Design is not limited to fancy new gadgets. Our family just bought a new washing machine and dryer. We didn’t have a very good one so we spent a little time looking at them. It turns out that the Americans make washers and dryers all wrong. The Europeans make them much better – but they take twice as long to do clothes! It turns out that they wash them with about a quarter as much water and your clothes end up with a lot less detergent on them. Most important, they don’t trash your clothes. They use a lot less soap, a lot less water, but they come out much cleaner, much softer, and they last a lot longer.
We spent some time in our family talking about what’s the trade-off we want to make. We ended up talking a lot about design, but also about the values of our family. Did we care most about getting our wash done in an hour versus an hour and a half? Or did we care most about our clothes feeling really soft and lasting longer? Did we care about using a quarter of the water? We spent about two weeks talking about this every night at the dinner table. We’d get around to that old washer-dryer discussion. And the talk was about design.
We ended up opting for these Miele appliances, made in Germany. They’re too expensive, but that’s just because nobody buys them in this country. They are really wonderfully made and one of the few products we’ve bought over the last few years that we’re all really happy about. These guys really thought the process through. They did such a great job designing these washers and dryers. I got more thrill out of them than I have out of any piece of high tech in years.
The Chinese called it Yin and Yang. The central balance of white and dark, of emotions and logic. Of the contrasts of life and achieving that center fold between the 2.
Dark is after all the absence of light. Yet darkness is needed to appreciate the light.
This is basically the problem most managers of a product face. How do you balance the design of a product at both it’s front and back? Design of the eye vs Design of the system.
I have often had discussions around the meaning of the word Design. Most people are happy getting things to work but looking like a garbage truck. They think Design lies in laying out the system with the focus being on functional. That often, in their opinion, overrules out the importance of the UI of the product. The way it looks, feels and smells (sometimes..). This in my opinion is one side of the coin and downplaying the importance of a visual appeal.
The Creative Nomad.
Released in the year 2000, this was the most popular mp3 player that many people used. It was called the The Creative JukeBox. This was one of the most popular Mp3 players that was in the market along with the Sony Walkman at it’s time. The purpose of the product was to play mp3 songs. Simple enough. The operating system was actually developed in India for this and it had a fair share of success.
These products were developed solely to achieve one purpose.
In 2001. Apple Computers released a product and entered a market. History has shown us that they not only revolutionized the way we listen to songs, but also the industry has tried hard to play catch up to them ever since.
What changed?
The difference in thinking of Design. To Apple, Design is not just the functionality of the product. To them it’s the experience. This is primarily the focus I have on Design where the first appeal to the consumer is not the functionality of the product alone but the first touch experience. If the iPod looked like any of the others with a better sexier software, do you think it would have sold as many units?
Most definitely not. But the greatness lies in achieving the balance between the experience (and the visual design) while making it super functional. Apple revolutionized Design with this product by not only making the iPod a fashion accessory but achieving and overshadowing the purpose the products prior to it had achieved. Playing Music AND enjoying it.
So the next time you think the visual appeal is not good or not something you are interested in, remember the website that is super functional – www.irctc.org and compare it to the one that does both far better – www.cleartrip.com and tell me what would you rather prefer using?
Steve Jobs’ has always fascinated people with the clarity of his thought. But more important if there’s one thing that most people have to notice about Steve it’s his ability to weave a story into whatever he’s saying and elucidate his points across very clearly.
That was clearly seen today when he decided to blog his thoughts on Flash. A great read if only for the clarity of his thinking. I took some notes on what I observed about his blogging and am sharing it here.
1. Every story starts with a “once upon a time”.
Writers call this laying the premise down. Joggers call it warming up. Essentially you start with what it was back then and then bring someone up to speed. You do this because you don’t want to throw in the facts right away because most people don’t get the “context” of what you say.
He begins with, ” Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years.”
That immediately softens the tone. Apple and Adobe were friends. Apple supported Adobe. But then…
2. Lay down the intent clearly.
Quickly after the intro he talks about what people are thinking and what the real thought is. “Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true. Let me explain.”
3. Clearly list out the items.
Lists are usually killers. This is how Steve does it. By laying them out in a new line so it’s clearly remembered.
To most people who don’t get the context of what he’s saying and why it’s important after you lay out 6 solid paragraphs. You might have lost the audience OR you might want to remind them on what exactly you started with. So you add in a conclusion paragraph.
5. Clearly state your point across.
If you read any paragraph of Steve’s posts, they aren’t cluttered with jargon, they use simple language and they come straight to the point. Here’s an example
“Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.”
A 6th Grader would understand the logic but perhaps not the context. That’s the real power in Steve’s talk. Mass appeal. Dosed with impeccable charima and clarity of thought.
Did you notice the cute way they put this up on “hotnews”?
[update] – Some interesting links you can read on this.
I’m really excited that I got myself the Kindle. I was this excited when I got the iPhone I believe. Sadly I had to sell the latter. I know the Kindle’s staying with me for a long long time.
So one of the first things I did, obviously, was to get myself a book. I got Seth Godin’s Linchpin, which is hailed as his best book yet. But being in India where the net is slow and the only way to connect to the amazon store is via GPRS/Edge, you know you are in for a lot of frustration. But I spoke to the Amazon customer service people (very nice people!) and they quickly brought me up to speed.
So to get a book to you in India you can run the Wireless and connect, but that didn’t work for me. So the next option is to go online to the amazon store and register your Kindle. You’ll have a 16 digit serial key at the back and that basically registers you to whatever your device is. Once you have that then the you can do a “1 click buy” option which usually comes on your right. Once you choose to do that (enter your credit card details etc) you’ll basically have it linked to your store. Now there are a couple of ways you can get the content on to your Kindle.
a) Go to Manage Kindle.
b) Scroll all the way down to the screen and you’ll see the books you purchased. The standard Kindle guide comes prepackaged so you don’t have to do anything there.
c) On the right where you bought your book you can choose couple of options. Download to your PC. Download to your Amazon for Kindle or Deliver to your Kindle.
d) I chose download to pc which downloads the book in an .azw format. You can alternatively download their Amazon for Kindle PC option and get the book thereto your store (or you can do both).
e) Once you have the book you then plug your kindle via USB and it opens up a folder which has three options, audible, documents and music. Just put the file (in this case linchpin.azw) into your folder, eject the Kindle and voila you have the Book with you!
What about PDFS and other files you want to read on the Kindle?
Well Amazon makes your life really easy here. When you register the kindle you get an accountname@kindle.com as a free email address, for all purposes this is your account name. You send an email to amazon by typing accountname@free.kindle.com with the PDF as an attachment and they’ll reply back with the file converted to the .azw format. Then you do the same steps mentioned above and you should have it in your Kindle. I think that’s pretty sweet!
Before I leave though, being a semi self fashioned geek, I wanted to know what all I could do with the Kindle. And boy there are many many things here’s a round up.
Keyboard shortcuts
Global keys
Alt-Shift-R reboot Kindle
Alt-Shift-. restart GUI
Alt-Shift-G make screenshot
due to an implementation bug, screenshots can only be stored on SD card, not the main storage. A gif file is saved in the card root.
Alt-Shift-M Minesweeper
Alt-Z rescan picture directories
Alt-T show time
Reader
Alt-B toggle bookmark
Alt-T spell out time
Alt-0 enable/disable slideshow
Alt-1 start slideshow (if enabled)
Alt-2 stop slidehow
Alt-PageForward/PageBackward go to next/prev annotation or one “chunk” (1/20th of a book) forward or backward
Settings
411 show diagnostics data
511 run loopback call test
611 diagnostic data service call
c/e/s
126 Lab126 team members
Font List
J show/hide justification options
Picture viewer (To view pictures you have to make a folder in the Kindle)
Alt-Shift-0 set current picture as screensaver
F toggle fullscreen mode.
One of the beautiful things about Technology, to me, is that it boosts your productivity and promotes the “on the move and connected” lifestyle.
Right now, I am mostly wired at home (not THAT wired..), at work and on my mobile. Though I blame Vodafone’s shitty prepaid Mobile connect for not being able to access the net frequently it is generally only those 2 hours in transit that I’m not without the net. For everything else I’m wired.
And I know I have talked excitedly about gadgets before and what was enthusiasm to me turned out to be a showcase of tech gadgets to a friend who recently chided me saying, ” What are all these non liquid assets that you keep getting on all the time?”.
Well meaning, but perhaps uninformed. What is the value in drinking a concortion that ends up in your piss the next day and gives you a splitting headache? I try to think that what I invest in (after much consideration) are things of value and things that run their course of time in technology.
Right now the main reason I have the Kindle is because I have over a 100 books to read. I had a weird dream before ordering the Kindle. What If I were to be placed in Russia tomorrow where would I carry all these books to? Sell them? With great disappointment yes. Or give them away perhaps. Either way they wouldn’t travel with me so I decided that I should get the Kindle. I see it as a valuable investment to a kid who hid under the blankets with a light to escape mom and finishing that secret 7 or Hardy Boys novel. He has now graduated to darker grimmer stuff ofcourse, but the thrill of a new book has never left me.
But why not the iPad?
Let me indulge you with my reasons.
The first is that it’s a new product, it has to mature. The store on the iPad is far limited and this is also one of the reasons I didn’t go for the Nook. The nook was a fail with color menu and black and white reading, thats another matter.
The second is that it ties into the apple ecosystem. Which almost CERTAINLY means that I’ll have to use iTunes or some thing to install stuff on to it. I’m a huge fan of Apple and it’s design but I’m most definitely not going to be installing iTunes on a netbook that can run Firefox just barely. The size of the iPad as opposed to the Kindle and the cost made me reconsider it as well.
The third reason is I don’t need another email checking device. I play games on a desktop or console the way it’s meant to be played (outside of Facebook which is again on one of these devices). I have also no need to install 100 apps on my phone so that makes paying an extra $ 200 seem not worthy when you can invest into books which come out really cheap + a great reader.
The downfall ?
Well I have not even had it for a day but almost quickly I can tell you I notice a couple of things.
One is the black and white readership. Certain books have powerful moving images (think Alan Fletcher’s design) and that are forced to be desaturated to black and white.
I can’t take notes! To one of the biggest noteaholics in the world that is a huge huge thing. I don’t mark books because if I want to give it to someone else to read they shouldn’t have my scribblings all over the place. Plus I’m a sanctityrespect junkie.
Have you used a Kindle? What are your thoughts? What was your first book? I’m hoping to get Seth Godin’s Linchpin (I’m sad that ebooks can’t be autographed either ) as my first buy.
This just in folks. Starcraft 2 beta is coming out this month. As a gamer I am super excited (I would write other words symbolising extreme pleasure but there are readers under 18 here).
Starcraft is the best RTS game on the planet. It has been 10 years. Starcraft 2 is being released 12 years after the original game and WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Here’s the intro to the game. Listen to it like I did (5 times).
) as my first buy.