Empiezo a estar algo harto de lo largas que son unas elecciones en los Estados Unidos, y lo cerca que están gracias a internet. Bueno, a internet y a mi adicción informativa.

Que prefiero que gane Barack Obama no es ningún secreto y juraria que la mayoria de los europeos compartimos esa preferencia. Ha vendido un mensaje de esperanza con su acentazo modelo Martin Luther King y sus discursos a lo JFK que a cualquier se le cae la baba. Menos a los americanos claro, que son cerriles y parece que en el lado demócrata prefieren a Margaret, digo, Hillary Clinton. Aunque por poquito.

Del lado Republicano solo me llama la atención por ultraliberal Ron Paul, pero ese no sale elegido ni aunque mueran el resto de los candidatos en un debate electrocutados por un rayo.

Ya veremos que pasa.

Pero, y es la razón por la que escribo esto, me gustaria centrar la atención en el centro de información sobre las elecciones 2008 que han montando en cnn.com.

De un vistazo y en una url la mar de amigable tengo toda la información estadística sobre el estado actual de la carrera presidencial. O al menos, consiguen engañarme para hacerme sentir como el tipo más informado del mundo (si visitais otros sitios los datos numéricos cambian, asi que no me voy a pronunciar sobre su fidelidad). Como ya he dicho el sistema electivo es algo complejo pero los diseñadores de CNN han conseguido resumirlo todo con la información contextual justa para aprender los detalles que se me escapa. Detalles visuales y de color justos y necesarios. El foco en la información, y en la navegación de las elecciones (la navegación del site principal pasa a un segundo plano de forma muy efectiva).

Me encanta. Punto pelota.

Oh, la página de Barack esta diseñada con muy buen gusto. El detalle de “Powered by Hope” encandila a cualquiera. Abusan un poco de Gotham pero que se le va a hacer. Y el video de “Yes, We can” se ha convertido en favorito instantaneo.

Cada año la gente del canal TCM hace un repaso por las películas más oscarizadas de la historia del cine. Este año, han encargado a Fresh Paint, una empresa de efectos visuales y edición de video una pequeña promo que se llama 31 días de Oscars (31.20 MB, fichero Quicktime).

Es precioso.

No sé si os acordareis pero en verano de 2006 nos juntamos un grupo de unas veinte personas para hablar de todo aquello que nos pareciese medianamente interesante. El concepto era hacer una conferencia desde abajo, dónde los mismos asistentes eran los que definian los temas, y el interés del público limitaba las discusiones posteriores. Creiamos que podiamos autoformarmos los unos a los otros, una creencia que tenia su origen en cierto descontento hacia las conferencias más tradicionales a las que habiamos ido.

En la desconferencia cada ponente tenia 10 minutos de exposición y 5 minutos para debate. Los temas eran variopintos: desde como desembalar un mac hasta la charla que origino todo un movimiento, pasando por prototipado rápido, herreros digitales, dinámicas de trabajo o el innato exhibicionismo de nuestra existencia en red. Empezamos por la mañana, acabamos a media tarde y la cosa continuo hasta bien avanzada la noche e incluso la mañana siguiente para algunos.

Fue un exitazo.

El caso es que, y sirva esto como anuncio oficial, va a haber desconferencia 2008 en Madrid. O al menos lo vamos a intentar, que diablos.

El formato va a ser similar, pero para refrescar la memoria e introducir algún cambio aqui teneis un repaso de como va a ser la versión 2008:

• 25 asistentes = 20 ponentes + 5 voluntarios
• 20 ponentes, 7 minutos por ponencia y 5 minutos para discutir
• 5 “voluntarios”: si quieres venir pero no quieres hablar en público puedes pedir atender como voluntario. Estos cinco valientes se encargarán de tareas como grabar las sesiones, hacer fotos, asegurarse de que la cerveza esta bien fria, es decir, hacer que la desconferencia funcione
• Se celebrará un Sábado de Abril o Mayo en las instalaciones de dnx en la calle princesa 29 de Madrid (fecha definitiva a anunciar antes del 29 de Febrero de 2008)
• Tema libre, pero preferiblemente relacionado con los siguientes tópicos: diseño de interacción, usabilidad, experiencia de uso, etc…

Para apuntarte: manda un correo a nosotros@desconferencia.com especificando si quieres atender como voluntario o como ponente. Si quieres venir como ponente tienes que proporcionar un título (aunque sea algo temporal) de tu charla. Si quieres venir como voluntario especifica en que crees que podrias ayudar (grabación de video, de audio, sirviendo cañas, masajeando espaldas, lo creas que puede ser útil).

Con todos los emails recibidos antes del 17 de Marzo se hará una selección de los 25 afortunados. 

Para esponsorizar: si quieres esponsorizar el evento, se puede. Ponte en contacto con nosotros@desconferencia.com y te daremos más detalles pero vete haciendo a la idea de que no se permite ninguna esponsorización que imponga cualquier modificación al formato o la asistencia del evento. Aprovechamos para agradecer públicamente a dnx, nuestro primer espónsor, la cesión de las instalaciones para el evento.

Y, por supuesto, si tienes alguna duda no tienes más que escribir un mail o dejar un comentario en este post.

Nos vemos en la desconferencia 2008.

“Usable is not what feels like common sense, but what it is used more frequently and with a higher rate of success.”

I’ve been hearing this mantra a lot when I am around fellow designers. I have even said it myself a few times, in front of customers as well. But, is it a good mantra?

After some reflection I’ve come to think it is not. Actually, it is evil. It comes from being scared to fail. It breeds in our love for safety and warm places.

Photo by Luis Villa

The über-omnipresent iphone proposes interaction with a high degree of predictability and it carries a lot of changes on how we usually work with mobile devices. It is the first tactile screen that I am happy dealing with. Is it because it brings notebook mousepads actions to a place where we are more used to button pressing madness along amazing response time? or are we more likely to have higher tolerance levels towards cool stuff?

Predictability is supposedly a good thing when a user confronts a new interface, but does it have anything to do with him being more used to it?

Change wouldn’t happen if this last thought was true. And by nature we are afraid of change in a society addicted to the tradition of the new.

John Ford said something brilliant about this matter, from a different perspective, double punching those who trust marketing research blindly, years before Steve Jobs and his cult of the mac.

Success comes to those who dare to change. Change at the right time, with the right set of tools, and the precise amount of bravery. I guess that is what innovation is.

Oh, and change for the sake of change, well, it sucks.

note: I am going to be talking about an article from El Pais. It is written in spanish, so bear with me. And I don’t commune with the term Web 3.0 myself, but since that is the terminology used in the article you are stuck with it.

Everynow and then some established media outfit needs to fill up some whitespace in their society pages with a couple thousands words on how a revolution wasn’t really a revolution or a fundamental change on our social structure, well, it wasn’t such a fundamental change but more like a readjusment.

This very morning we were graced with an article that is the perfect example: “Internet pone los pies en el suelo“. Oh, so much joy, knowledge, data, comments, ideas crammed in well casted fonts, black on white, electronic or paper, you choose your poison.

The article is a rundown on what is hot with kids these days: flickr, linkedin, myspace, facebook, twitter, youtube, etc etc. But let’s focus on Second Life, since the article does focus on it too, and is a good example on “how the media go all nuts about a bloody detail while they keep missing the big picture”.

Obviously Second Life is a flawed idea, more like a pyramidal scheme than an alternate reality. But, for a while, it was cheaper to get noticed through actions in Second Life than to actually spend money on self-promotion in the meat world. Mostly because the media schmucks thought it was extremely interesting. And that is what drove companies to Second Life, not actual business oportunity. Just like in the late 90s they were driven to Internet.

And, exactly like in the late 90s, who is making money in Second Life is small business, usually one-person sized, who are in it mostly for fun. But I digress since Second Life, right now, is mostly irrelevant (and I am not a big fan, heh).

Oh, and how could they not talk about Web 2.0? They do, they even talk about Web 3.0 and how it is all about “the intelligence of the machines”. Aha! they must be talking about Skynet, right? Well. I think they might be talking about the semantic web. Yes. The intelligence of machines.

PFfffff.

An article full of descriptions of websites, people, businesses, and they sum up what Web 3.0 is in just FIVE words. Great. That is modern journalism to you.

It wasn’t us who said Internet was going to create an alternative reality. It was you, the propaganda masters who decided it would be a good idea to promote it in a such a way. Even William Gibson, of Neuromancer fame, balked at such idea. We always said “hey, hold it: internet is just a bunch of computers that talk to each other, you have never seen anything like this so stop trying to put a label on top of it”.

See, humanity inherently hates concepts that are difficult to understand. Or new. Or a Big Change. That is where this “let’s define internet” crusade comes from. But internet is just internet. And for a lot of us, that is what makes it so darn pretty.

I came by this report at Ewan McIntosh’s blog. He is this funny scot who gave a very interesting chat on how education should be different for the tech-enabled noobs (sorry, I meant youngsters) at last year’s reboot. I didn’t attend the chat, unfortunately, but Humberto was kind enough to give us a summary about it. I suck, I know.

In the report they review most of the high school systems in the developed world. Apparently the surpirse comes from South Korea and Singapore that are currently rated in the top ten.

Why this? well, they weren’t that ahead a few years back, and have improved greatly, most than a lot of well balanced European countries such as Spain.

Education is a big issue, specially in the interaction design business, since it is nearly impossible to get hold of a decent influx of grad students with good enough preparation. Seems like we end up providing most of the training either onsite or through specialized courses that don’t come cheap. The inherent problem of either of these two methods is that you end up with jaded juniors more often than we wish. Specially in consultancy were the meat grinder is still working at a good pace, oh yes.

One of the things that the McKinsey guys try to communicate in their study is that you can’t just look at one system, copy it in your own country and think it will succeed right away. But they are pretty sure they have isolated three things that will determine wether your educational system will either succeed or fail like I failed my Cooper test back in high school. I blame my faulty genes, obviously.

According to them the three ‘ideas’ that should drive any educational system are:

• “The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers”. So the buffalo herd runs as fast as its slowest member.
• “The only wat to improve outcomes is to improve instruction”. No need to spend money on high tech plasma screens if your powerpoint still sucks.
• “Delivering for every child”. It is not about getting every child to the next level at the same pace, is about reaching each kid in its own specific way.

Regarding quality of teachers: it is not the money what gets you the best professional. Remember, Spain is among the top three spenders in salaries relative to GDP. And the dirty truth is that we end up getting a fair share of unmotivated professionals who are in for the cash and über-long paid vacations.

Important to remember: if you make an adjusment in your educational system you won’t see what kind of ripples it makes at the same speed you accelerate your new beemer. Nope. Think more like 10 years later. So asking for changes on how your kid’s high school should work is not like adjusting your vcr. Next time think about it. Twice.

I am not going to delve on wether grad students asks for too much money of businessmen are filthy rats. That is another story that I am too tired of talking about already.

And, to close this lengthy post in a high note, let’s remember the words of someone who was smarter, prettier and probably better endowed than yours truly, Richard Feynman:

“First figure out why you want the students to learn the subject and what you want them to know, and the method will result more or less by common sense.”

It is a shameless vanity machine allright. And that is yesterday’s news.

Now, you might have noticed I wrote “SXSW” in the title. That means that a few lucky ones will be attending this year’s SXSW interactive festival in the capital of the lone star state.

Five days of geektastic speeches and discussions.

Now, honestly, in paper this event packs the largest amount of interactive related talent for the cheapest price (254€). Zeldman, Powazek, Coudal, Vinh, Santa Maria, Spool, Fried. 131 events so far. It HAS to be good, right?

But, if you are afraid of traveling to the land that gave us Dubya, you can stick to good ol’ Europe and attend reboot 10.0 in Copenhagen, Denmark. A few of us went there for the 9.0 edition and we are coming back this year. 200€ makes it the cheapest event I can think of with two days full of 45 minutes conferences (two or three at a time). Add all the calsberg anyone could ever dream of and you get one hell of a homely event.

Oh, and why do I go to these kind of events? three reasons:

• inspiration
• perspective
• networking

It refreshes my brain, provides me with new insights for my daily work, puts me in perspective of where are we going in this world and it is always a good time to see that even though you live in Cambodia we are actually more alike that we thought.

And its your fault I am mean like this; after all, you made me.

Oh, and the second day of Fundamentos Web was kind of boring. And the workshop next day with Molly and Andy was pointless. And yes, not much has happened in the last year apart from that funny bit were I had the car accident and I split my left ear in two. But you heard that one already, haven’t you…

Most of this events can fall into several categories: great, overpriced, well-balanced, horrible, perfectly organized, time-waster, etc… From this side of the things it was certainly well worth the admission price and the time spent, even with all the rain that fell upon our heads. Oviedo is a lovely city, big enough to get lost, but, at the same time, you can get almost anywhere walking and people are as friendly as you get in Spain. And don’t forget the great food and drinks.. The organization chose a great spot, the Teatro Filármonica, a bigger venue than last year, but with a homely feeling to it. There were more people in it, but it didn’t feel crammed at any point.

Now, about the speakers:

• Richard Ishida – He had the tough job to open the conference, and he did it splendidly. It was obvious that this was like bicycle riding to him and that he could have had delivered his conference on Internationalization blindfolded. In the other hand, the topic was a bit uninteresting since Localization is not among the top ranking priorities among Spain’s web developers.
  Grade: B+.
• Bob Regan – The only specific talk about accesibility ended up being a bit of an Adobe Ad on How-Fucking-Accesible-Flash-Is-And-How-Cool-We-Are. Bob is a very nice guy and we know for a fact that he is better than what we saw on stage at the conference, but it was not his day. Let’s forget it happened.
  Grade: F.
• Ben Hammersley – if anyone was inspiring at this conference, then he was Ben Hammersley. He didn’t deliver a great performance during his talk, though the content was brilliant and the concept that what is good is beautiful has more value than any other idea we saw through the week. As passionate as it gets though could have crammed what he said in 10 minutes, instead of 45. His contribution to the discussion later that day during the chat with Vinton Cerf was amazing. The perfect poster boy for the Web 2.Love, someone should convince him to come to Madrid for a couple of pints so we can all make out with him. NOW.
  Grade: A.
• Dave Shea – Perfect presentation technique, but lacked passion. His theme was “CSS Project Management” and showcased the best tricks on how to work with CSS files, browser quirks and useful tricks to make a developer’s life easier.. Some of us expected to hear the pitfalls of managing a project that involved CSS development. The most controversial topics that involved W3C’s CSS workgroup were bypassed silently due to his traumatic experience with them.
  Grade: B-.
• Daniel Appelquist – W3C representative within Vodafone for the Mobile Web came to the stage to advocate for the mobility of content. From his speech one can think that the Mobile Web is still at its infancy and, at the same time, that niches in that side of the net are still easy to fill up. Extremely positive fella that, unluckily managed to be unmoving.
  Grade: C-.

After Dan’s talk, and to end the day in sort of a high note, we watched how five lucky guys sort of interviewed Vinton Cerf, the grandaddy of Internet, the Architect of the Matrix, and he is an act of pure class. He talked on what he would change on how the Net works had he known better back in the sixties, how governments should behave towards Net Neutrality and where things are heading. For a sixty three year old guy he certainly is well-informed and all his answers were delivered without any hesitation and a fantastic hand-gesturing technique.

He is fucking brilliant and we don’t deserve his existence or, for that matter, any of his precious brain cycles.

BTW, let’s everybody thank Firefox’s restore session function that managed to recover this post from a crash.

Endless possibilities.

What it is more important though is how easy was to actually add an address to any post with just a simple plugin. And it is microformated to boot too.

I know. I am so late with this topic.