31 August 2006
An expat interview
A little while back I got an email from the lovely Lizza asking me if I wanted to let them interview me for their expatinterviews.com site, which is all about people who live in a country foreign to them. I am myself a Norwegian trapped in Australia, so of course I couldn't refuse to, er, whinge.
30 August 2006
25 August 2006
IA Cocktail Hour in Canberra, 7 September 2006
I've already mentioned that I'm doing "Sexier, smarter and faster IA through Topic Maps" at the IA Retreat 2006 in Sydney at the end of September. I've been asked to entertain (read: present something) at the next Canberra cocktail hour, and I'll do a different version of the one I intend for the IA Retreat. So, they won't be the same, only similar. Heh, I even use the same sales pitch for both of them ;
Time/date: 17:00-18:30, Thursday 07 September
Venue: The Boardroom, SMS Management and Technology, Ground Floor, 8 Brindabella Circuit, Canberra Airport
Parking: Please be aware that there is free parking available for the first hour only at the front of 8 Brindabella Circuit. After that (until well after we are finished) you must pay for parking in one of the nearby lots or risk a ticket.
Hope to see you there.
Topic Maps - part tool, part state of mind; it could simply change the way you work with information architecture. This session will be both highly philosophical and down-right practical at the same time; how to grab our ideas and put them down in a practical format we can use and reuse, both as a mental exercise and as a technical delivery.
Topic Maps offer a framework (it is an ISO standard for data modelling and has an XML-based exchange format to boot) in which we can express ideas, concepts, structures, items and navigation; we'll find data and metadata in a sexy symbiosis to present and reuse our ideas smarter through all stages of development, adapt to complex changes faster, and making the whole process a lot more enjoyable. It is especially well suited to highly complex challenges where your domain can't all fit in your head and your Excel spreadsheets are having trouble keeping up. Don't deliver an assortment of documents and graphs ready to be mislead, misunderstood or misrepresented; give them a topic map they can pop right into their solution.
Time/date: 17:00-18:30, Thursday 07 September
Venue: The Boardroom, SMS Management and Technology, Ground Floor, 8 Brindabella Circuit, Canberra Airport
Parking: Please be aware that there is free parking available for the first hour only at the front of 8 Brindabella Circuit. After that (until well after we are finished) you must pay for parking in one of the nearby lots or risk a ticket.
Hope to see you there.
21 August 2006
Schedule and happenings
Lots of stuff going on lately, but two more official and important things right now is ;
For a while I've been part of a mailing-list called PM clinic which is a great gathering of a lot of smart people who are all passionate about project management, big and small. So, I was especially happy to hear that Scott Berkun, the guy that runs PM Clinic and who's an alround great guy, is giving master-classes in Australia this spring. To quote ;
Take note of the following dates ; Sydney: 1 September 2006, Canberra: 6 September 2006 and Melbourne: 8 September 2006 I'm already signed up for the Canberra session, so I just might see you there. (Look for the guy with stripey arms...)
For a while I've been part of a mailing-list called PM clinic which is a great gathering of a lot of smart people who are all passionate about project management, big and small. So, I was especially happy to hear that Scott Berkun, the guy that runs PM Clinic and who's an alround great guy, is giving master-classes in Australia this spring. To quote ;
Why do so many design intensive projects go so wrong? This one day masterclass presented by Scott Berkun will teach you the best practices and leadership tactics for starting, managing and shipping web and software projects that rely on design skills.
Take note of the following dates ; Sydney: 1 September 2006, Canberra: 6 September 2006 and Melbourne: 8 September 2006 I'm already signed up for the Canberra session, so I just might see you there. (Look for the guy with stripey arms...)
IA Retreat 2006
The Information Architecture Retreat 2006 happens in Sydney on the 30th and 31st of September. I'll be presenting "Sexier, smarter and faster IA through Topic Maps" in which I take my two favourite things and make them one! Quite a number of people have already signed up for this one, so I'm quite excited about it; it's going to be a blast. There's tons of other great stuff too which I'm seriously looking forward to. See you there. (P.S. I'm going to be at Web Directions 2006 as well which is a web design conference in Sydney that runs four days in front of the IA retreat. Coincidence? I think not.)4 August 2006
Scott Berkun is coming to town ,,,
Canberra is about to get an American celebrity visiting. No, not pop music, not politics, not sports, but something far more important ; project management. And Scott Berkun is one of the top dogs of project management, with a book under his belt and several years at Microsoft. What will you get?
He'll be in Canberra on the 6th of September. (He's also doing Sydney and Melbourne) To get a spot I think you need to hurry; this is one of those "hotcakes" things. Everybody will want to be there, so if you've ever dealt with or will deal with design intensive project management, this one is not to be missed. See you there.
"Tons of interactive learning, fun exercises, comical war stories, answers to your toughest questions (including post-class e-mails), the meaning of life, two kitchen sinks, plus a copy of the bestselling artofpm book (Which I’ll sign, spill beer on, or do other activities of your choice with) with every registration."
He'll be in Canberra on the 6th of September. (He's also doing Sydney and Melbourne) To get a spot I think you need to hurry; this is one of those "hotcakes" things. Everybody will want to be there, so if you've ever dealt with or will deal with design intensive project management, this one is not to be missed. See you there.
14 July 2006
Accountability, intelligence and moral obligation in design processes
[A rable on Big and Small Design and ethics]
Whenever we design something we work against a number of constraints, such as esthetics, functionality, market, usability, innovation and so forth; we try our hardest to make the best whatchamacallit within those constraints.
Often, though, some of these constraints goes against our more human notions, such as the designers accountability linked with her intelligence, and her moral obligations towards herself, humankind and the universe at large. Basically, I'm addressing the designer's - the individual human that does design - responsibilities both through the design process and for the end result.
Have you ever designed something good, only to be told that you had to design it slightly worse for some reason or another? What do you do? Does it matter? Are you asked to make something pretty only to be told that it must be blue on green in slightly off-putting gradient? A lot of people would say that they're paid by X to design Y, so what's the big deal? The big deal is that you're human. And even worse, you're a human individual.
As human individuals we have our own individual version of morals and ethics that guides us in our everyday life, and we're all fine with this, and quite often embraced and hailed as the very thing which makes us, well, human. On the other hand people are expected to do what they're paid to do.
Accountability, intelligence and moral obligation in design processes
There's the consultants notion of "paid to do" which given them the oppertunity to say no to that money and no to do that job. It's still hard to say no in this business-driven world, but at least they can.
Then there's the employed persons notion of "paid to do" which is somewhat tricker; does the person have enough disapproval for a job to actually oppose doing it? What happens when she doesn't do it? Will her job be in danger?
Businesses have very few ethical guidelines that takes the individual into consideration.
It seems to "get over it" or "get over yourself" and "just do it and forget about it" are some popular ways to "solve" this issue. I personally detest these; why does someones values have to be comprimised due to a system that holds no ethical values? I think it's a fair question; why are we building systems in which people live that undermine the very thing that makes us "people"?
Are we trying to take the clinical road of natural rule? Or the opressive dictator path of cold business? Or are we willingly undermining human qualities whenever money is on the line? A lot of systems are fed through greed, be it in power, money or other commodities, through promotion, gifts, saleries, bonuses, positions and so on, all in the name of making more profits.
Most people go along with these systems because we're ultimatly greedy beings ourselves, and because profits lead to progress. Right? We're getting paid, what's the problem? The paycheck is ultimately all that matters! Screw the world; I want to get paid!
There's good and bad design, even in the way you design a business, corporation, departement, branch, country or world. Any bad business is designed that way. Any bad country is designed that way. Any bad person is, when it comes down to it, designed that way. It may be design by commitee or design by firm or design by fiery young angry men or design by the individual himself. But never think that these things just happen due to some crazy natural laws or human notions or magic or pixie dust or God or whatever; these things are designed through human interactions.
We can only blame ourselves. Enron was designed to be bad. The designers probably didn't try to design it so that it would blow up and take so much with it, but that's probably because - surprise! - the designers were bad.
A manager of a branch can design the interaction between the people to a large degree. Just like we design products, we can design attitudes, environments, platforms, spaces, interactions, workflows ... endless streams of design.
A lot of us call themselves designers by trade, be it graphical design, interaction design, visual, product or information design, but the truth is that we're all designers, and surely need to treat our various jobs as we approach design in general;
Whenever we design something we work against a number of constraints, such as esthetics, functionality, market, usability, innovation and so forth; we try our hardest to make the best whatchamacallit within those constraints. We need to make intelligent descisions about our designs, fold moral and ethics into it, make them usable and innovative. We need to design life better.
Better design is when you design something, the positives for all (and remember; we're talking about a model of design in which ethics and morals are an important factor) far outweigh the negatives for a few.
If we're to design a new combustion engine the ethical constraints should also include things such as pollution and its effects, availability of the fuel and the effects of creating this fuel. In fact, the ethical model here extends quite a number of steps away from the capitalistic model which cares about profit now instead of ethical profit over time.
I personally have respect for every living thing as part of my ethical model, and that includes those living things that supercede me as well. The future is full of living things that I shall never meet, but I do recognise that they have the right to be born into a world where I haven't soiled their drinking-water. In fact, I value their right to untaintedness more than I value any short-term profits.
If we keep on designing stuff based on short-term profits, where will we end up? This is a principle that works within any design concept, from making a paperclip to shaping the world we live in; short-term design won't last bar few exceptions. So when our design is supposed to be short-term, how can we expect anything else? If we specifically design a bad interface to our OPAC, then that's what we're stuck with. If our road-system was short-term designed, then we must face the problem of that in the long run.
None of this is new. I've said nothing here that people can't nod to and recognise. So why bother?
I'm worried. In the next 30 years a number of things will have changed dramatically ; no or little oil, with amazing prices for anything based on that, from plastics to petrol. Less vegetation ; a warmer world, less uptake of carbon-dioxide, meaning poorer air quality, more health issues. Less diversity ; plants and animals everywhere are in decline (either in quantity or quality), from fish and whale down to trees and food. More humans ; more demand on our resources, more socially unsound interactions, more war, more famine, more stubborn humans who design for the short-term.
I'm worried about the lack of design processes when we are designing our lives. We've established they are a crucial part of business and organisations, but somehow not life? It seems we prioritise short-term profits over life. It sounds crazy, but I've stopped and looked around lately; where do I see evidence of a better designed life?
I must have take a wrong turn somewhere; I must have come to a different world than I thought ; This is not the one I wanted to live in.
Whenever we design something we work against a number of constraints, such as esthetics, functionality, market, usability, innovation and so forth; we try our hardest to make the best whatchamacallit within those constraints.
Often, though, some of these constraints goes against our more human notions, such as the designers accountability linked with her intelligence, and her moral obligations towards herself, humankind and the universe at large. Basically, I'm addressing the designer's - the individual human that does design - responsibilities both through the design process and for the end result.
Have you ever designed something good, only to be told that you had to design it slightly worse for some reason or another? What do you do? Does it matter? Are you asked to make something pretty only to be told that it must be blue on green in slightly off-putting gradient? A lot of people would say that they're paid by X to design Y, so what's the big deal? The big deal is that you're human. And even worse, you're a human individual.
As human individuals we have our own individual version of morals and ethics that guides us in our everyday life, and we're all fine with this, and quite often embraced and hailed as the very thing which makes us, well, human. On the other hand people are expected to do what they're paid to do.
Notions
Accountability, intelligence and moral obligation in design processes
There's the consultants notion of "paid to do" which given them the oppertunity to say no to that money and no to do that job. It's still hard to say no in this business-driven world, but at least they can.
Then there's the employed persons notion of "paid to do" which is somewhat tricker; does the person have enough disapproval for a job to actually oppose doing it? What happens when she doesn't do it? Will her job be in danger?
Businesses have very few ethical guidelines that takes the individual into consideration.
Just do it, and get on with it
It seems to "get over it" or "get over yourself" and "just do it and forget about it" are some popular ways to "solve" this issue. I personally detest these; why does someones values have to be comprimised due to a system that holds no ethical values? I think it's a fair question; why are we building systems in which people live that undermine the very thing that makes us "people"?
Are we trying to take the clinical road of natural rule? Or the opressive dictator path of cold business? Or are we willingly undermining human qualities whenever money is on the line? A lot of systems are fed through greed, be it in power, money or other commodities, through promotion, gifts, saleries, bonuses, positions and so on, all in the name of making more profits.
Most people go along with these systems because we're ultimatly greedy beings ourselves, and because profits lead to progress. Right? We're getting paid, what's the problem? The paycheck is ultimately all that matters! Screw the world; I want to get paid!
There's good and bad design
There's good and bad design, even in the way you design a business, corporation, departement, branch, country or world. Any bad business is designed that way. Any bad country is designed that way. Any bad person is, when it comes down to it, designed that way. It may be design by commitee or design by firm or design by fiery young angry men or design by the individual himself. But never think that these things just happen due to some crazy natural laws or human notions or magic or pixie dust or God or whatever; these things are designed through human interactions.
We can only blame ourselves. Enron was designed to be bad. The designers probably didn't try to design it so that it would blow up and take so much with it, but that's probably because - surprise! - the designers were bad.
A manager of a branch can design the interaction between the people to a large degree. Just like we design products, we can design attitudes, environments, platforms, spaces, interactions, workflows ... endless streams of design.
A lot of us call themselves designers by trade, be it graphical design, interaction design, visual, product or information design, but the truth is that we're all designers, and surely need to treat our various jobs as we approach design in general;
Whenever we design something we work against a number of constraints, such as esthetics, functionality, market, usability, innovation and so forth; we try our hardest to make the best whatchamacallit within those constraints. We need to make intelligent descisions about our designs, fold moral and ethics into it, make them usable and innovative. We need to design life better.
What is better design?
Better design is when you design something, the positives for all (and remember; we're talking about a model of design in which ethics and morals are an important factor) far outweigh the negatives for a few.
If we're to design a new combustion engine the ethical constraints should also include things such as pollution and its effects, availability of the fuel and the effects of creating this fuel. In fact, the ethical model here extends quite a number of steps away from the capitalistic model which cares about profit now instead of ethical profit over time.
I personally have respect for every living thing as part of my ethical model, and that includes those living things that supercede me as well. The future is full of living things that I shall never meet, but I do recognise that they have the right to be born into a world where I haven't soiled their drinking-water. In fact, I value their right to untaintedness more than I value any short-term profits.
If we keep on designing stuff based on short-term profits, where will we end up? This is a principle that works within any design concept, from making a paperclip to shaping the world we live in; short-term design won't last bar few exceptions. So when our design is supposed to be short-term, how can we expect anything else? If we specifically design a bad interface to our OPAC, then that's what we're stuck with. If our road-system was short-term designed, then we must face the problem of that in the long run.
None of this is new
None of this is new. I've said nothing here that people can't nod to and recognise. So why bother?
I'm worried. In the next 30 years a number of things will have changed dramatically ; no or little oil, with amazing prices for anything based on that, from plastics to petrol. Less vegetation ; a warmer world, less uptake of carbon-dioxide, meaning poorer air quality, more health issues. Less diversity ; plants and animals everywhere are in decline (either in quantity or quality), from fish and whale down to trees and food. More humans ; more demand on our resources, more socially unsound interactions, more war, more famine, more stubborn humans who design for the short-term.
I'm worried about the lack of design processes when we are designing our lives. We've established they are a crucial part of business and organisations, but somehow not life? It seems we prioritise short-term profits over life. It sounds crazy, but I've stopped and looked around lately; where do I see evidence of a better designed life?
I must have take a wrong turn somewhere; I must have come to a different world than I thought ; This is not the one I wanted to live in.
3 July 2006
OzIA 2006 : the coolest little IA gathering
I've been quite busy lately with all sorts of different things, but of all the different busy stuff I've been doing the thing I'm most excited about is the OzIA 2006 Retreat, a small conference on information architecture, held in Sydney (Australia) at the end of September.
I did the design and templates, while Eric handled coordination, content and nitpicking. I'm actually really pleased with the whiteboard look; it is exactly how most IA's I know work and how it usually looks. :)
I may hold a presentation there too about Topic Maps, data modelling and implications of information design, which links into things like category- and field theory, cognition and natural philosophy of complex systems. I'll let you know, but I'm definitly going to be there, so all I can say is, see you there!
I did the design and templates, while Eric handled coordination, content and nitpicking. I'm actually really pleased with the whiteboard look; it is exactly how most IA's I know work and how it usually looks. :)
I may hold a presentation there too about Topic Maps, data modelling and implications of information design, which links into things like category- and field theory, cognition and natural philosophy of complex systems. I'll let you know, but I'm definitly going to be there, so all I can say is, see you there!
28 June 2006
Full of anger and disapointment
The ACT government is closing my childrens primary school - Cook Primary School - amongst 38 others on terribly dodgy terms. I've started "Backwards 2020", a blog about the "Forwards 2020" proposal by the ACT government, a disaster not only for our local school but for government education in our state. Please spread the word.
I'm too angry to write well about this now, but you know, we came to Canberra and specifically moved to Cook based on the reputation of the education at this school. The proposals are not about quality of education, but about knee-jerk reactions to political budgets. What a way to ruin what so many has worked hard to achieve. More later.
I'm too angry to write well about this now, but you know, we came to Canberra and specifically moved to Cook based on the reputation of the education at this school. The proposals are not about quality of education, but about knee-jerk reactions to political budgets. What a way to ruin what so many has worked hard to achieve. More later.
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