I’ve only recently come into some time to do this and I have a meagre 20 … probably missed some too!
skype|
linkedin|
Flickr|
googleanalytics|
terapad1|
terapad2|
youtube|
squidoo|
blogorama|
ttlb|
findory|
feedblitz|
feedburnber|
doggdotus|
sitemeter|
technorati|
digg|
delicious|
netvibes|
myspace|
gmail1|
gmail2|
itunes|
So who’s got the most out there??
And what realy really good ones have I missed. PLEEASE!
Leisa Reichelt asks a pertinent question. "Give me one good reason you can’t use User Centred Design in your project…" Of course there’s many! Post your ideas! Mine were way to cynical…
IT Psychology as most people might describe it!
Two million teenagers are addicted to the internet in China. It is suggested that this is partly as a consequence of the strict one-couple, one-child rule that has created a generation of lonely, spoilt children with nothing better to do.
From: CNN.com
This article should be the first mandatory reading in usabillity 101!
Paul Sherman wrote a fantastic discussion highlighting the importance for usabilty practitioners taking a long term cultural view of the organisations and projects they work on.
By empathising with the IT department’s culture and understanding why they do things the way they do, you can become a ‘change agent’ within the business. If you understand how to clearly and accurately communicate with IT in a way that the business also understands then you will be able to be the natural liaison and hopefully become invovled at the beginning of every project instead of at the end when it’s too late.
Practically, this means that by working toward a ‘better outcome’, rather than the ‘perfect solution’, you will win incremental battles. Over time I’ve noticed that, with some patience, this approach results in successful long term relationships and dramatic return on technology investment for my clients.
I coined the term ‘IT Psychology’ in my last job.
When I tell people that I am a psychologist in IT, I always get a shocked reaction. Even my psychologist friends had no idea about this essential and growing area!
Most technology exists only because it augments what would generally be done by people. If we don’t understand how people would normally do things and then make the IT conform to those requirements, then IT is destined to fail.
Organizational psychologists are expert at observing and documenting peoples’ work activities, identifying what creates high and low performance and understanding causes of variance between people. Most importantly, psychologists can manage change by researching and diagnosing why people do what they do. Not to mention helping businesses understand why people don’t do what they’re supposed to!
In the user experience community Paul Sherman suggests that UX professionals ‘most valuable contributions are not our design or user research efforts. Rather, our most valuable contributions occur when we function as change agents.” I‘d say psychologists are very good at that too!
So, if Psychologists working in IT can:
It is only sensible to label them an ‘IT Psychologist’.
So next time someone tells you that their project all about IT, take a moment to think about what IT is actually for. It’s for us — people — to get things done better than before. IT is a means to an end, and its design and development starts and ends with people. Psychologists know a thing or two about people, how to manage change and improve peoples’ satisfaction with technology, so get them involved as early as possible in your next project.
Come along!
The first BarCamp is being held in Australia this year! BarCamps, those crazy unconferences, will be held in states across Australia at the same time on the 3rd and 4th of March. BarCampSydney is calling you!
NO SPECTATORS, ONLY PARTICIPANTS
When you come, be prepared to share with BarCampers.
When you leave, be prepared to share it with the world.
BarCamp is an ad-hoc unconference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment.
It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees.
Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to participate.
What’s Next?
Sign up on the wiki, check out the blog, tell all your friends, prepare your presentation, ask your company if they’re interested in sponsoring…
Go!: http://barcamp.org/BarCampSydney
Technology Helping People #2 – What you don’t want
When I talk about technology I usually mean software. If software doesn’t address your needs exactly, it is irrelevant, it’s not affordable or it overloads you then why bother! It has simply wasted everyone’s’ time and money!
Stuff that’s not usable drives me crazy! You have to spend time working it out? Maybe you use something irregularly and have re-learn it every time you go back? I’m sure you have used something online today that is like that?
What about tech that’s there for the sake of it! It adds no real value to your life; it’s just there because it can be. I haven’t used the Excel spread sheet on my I-mate phone yet? Not to mention the fact that I’m given every option under then sun to to move the cursor around the screen… check it out!
Enter the new ‘Brick’
You also want stuff that is cheap and prices keep coming down, heck this blog/website service at Terapad that you are reading now is completely free, I do get Google ads, but at least they are interesting and targeted!
When there is information out there that you don’t need or it is badly organized it creates so much overload. It also creates apathy, particularly in the older generations, it’s unlikely that some will ever realize the potential of the net. There’s simply so much interesting (and not so) information around, where do you start?
Setting up a blog certainly created overload for me! I want to help people make use of this information to promote their ideas, learn, interact and have fun with. There are so many people out there that either don’t know about stuff because they don’t care, have no time or are scared.
I searched ‘Technology Helping People’ on Google, Technorati, Del.icio.us and Yahoo. Apart from a couple of sites that I mention later, the content was about accessibility and helping people with disabilities. A topic I am very passionate about. However, what about helping the rest of the world have better lives with technology? I’d have to say it seems most technologists spend much of their time making things harder for us. Sometimes they are lucky and get it right, others have enough traffic, time and $$ to fix things up.
Some people say that you have to try things out to move ahead. Sometimes you get things wrong, and you progress, I agree. However, it seems that IT can’t even learn from its mistakes, let alone try something new and get it right. You just need to look at Australian technologies like Foxtel’s EPG or Telstra’s poor attempt at 3G with i-mode. What about the Nokia N series phones? Why don’t they have the same interaction patterns as the old ones? These were not mistakes that needed to be made to progress, they were just shortsighted attempts at existing technology!
But then, look at the i-pod! A totally new interaction method and unusual interface, and people instantly ‘get it’. Simple, eh? Now I’m sure Apple spent plenty of time and $ thinking about how it would work before it was put into production.
In this series you’ll read about how technology that can improve your life. Why it pisses you off, and how you can help yourself - in fact, how technology can help everyone else all over the world too.
You want your life to be simple? If stuff is not usable then you get pissed off, it wastes your time and I’m sure you have better things to be doing. When it works how you expect it to, and is fast enough, you leverage the technology to do all sorts of things, including:
And hopefully you can do it from any device, anywhere, anytime and keep it all synchronized somewhere.
Of course the best type of technology is the stuff that the Putting People First Blog mentions, ubiquitous technology that is hidden and people don’t even know its there, like Google’s search engine I suppose. Although, most people don’t know that there is a limit to what it finds online.
So why can (or don’t) you do all of that already, all of the time?
In the next post I’ll talk about why things are irritating. Later we’ll work out together how you can help educate yourself and your community - whether that be at work, with friends or over the net, globally.
I saw this one on James Robertson’s blog, Thanks James!
Fred Cavazza writes a long useful explanation of what Enterprise 2.0 is all about. He manages to use every buzz word under the sun!
I like the bit at the end that gives some pointers on how to leverage new technologies in your business. Starting with… Find out what people are already doing in your organisation!
Here’s a summary of his points: