One of the domains I pay particular attention to is person-to-person and mobile payments (I’ve also done some design work in this space). Right now, there is a lot of discussion/debate/chatter around near field communication (NFC) technology and how it can be intergrated with mobile devices to support payments “on the go.” Several mobile hardware manufacturers have already integrated NFC chips in their shartphones, and Google has an active strategy around integrating NFC and mobile with their Google Wallet product.

This is all well and good, except the 800-lb gorilla in mobile, Apple, has not presented their mobile payments solution yet. I think that they will reveal it soon, though… in September, with the release of the iPhone 5. I suspect that Apple will present a complete integrated solution at that time, and if they leverage assets they aready have effectively they could very quickly dominate the space.

Here’s what I think Apple is going to do, based on years on following the company as well as some other research.

Apple will zig, instead of zag: It won’t be NFC

Apple tends to define their own path, so they can “own” it. NFC is what everyone is talking about… so I think Apple will go in a different direction, and adopt the low-energy bluetooth protocol. Not just because it’s different, but because of some of the benefits that the protocol provides that NFC doesn’t… primarily compatibility and security. More on “compatibility” in a moment…

They’ll provide an complete end-to-end solution

Apple will not put out half a solution, they will roll out a complete infrastructure to send, recieve and process payments. How? Through all their products: the iPad, the iPhone, and the MacBook. Apple can quickly push software updates and apps through their app stores to allow all these programs to securely send payment information to each other, using bluetooth. They can also provide simple accounting and reporting apps for small businesses, allowing for analysis and easy transfer of payments recieved into business accounts. An iPad is a lot cheaper than a dedicated point of sale system. Personal payments can be transferred to customer’s checking accounts… or converted to credits that can be used on the app store.

They can leverage a huge user base

There is no need for Apple to ask customers to setup an account to make these mobile payments from… They already have customer’s credit cards on file, through their iTunes accounts. Millions of customers. That “default payment method” will be all that most customers need to use the service, and the setup process will be as simple as installing a new payment app and logging in to authorize the app (and probably agree to some new terms and conditions).

They’ll purchase Square

Square provides a great payment system with integration with iOS and Android devices. I expect Apple to buy it, for its talent and technology… and to remove a competitive solution from the marketplace.

Apple will emphasize security and guarantee transactions

Apple already has the “find your iPhone” service, and offers remote wiping, and I’m sure that they will emphasize this when they roll out their mobile payment process. One of the main fears customers have of mobile payments is losing their phone and someone using it to buy things with it. Apple can easily “force” a PIN login is required if you have activated mobile payments, as well as additional gurantees that can alieviate customer concerns.

The End Game

Why does Apple want to get into mobile payments? Primarily to prevent the competitors from dominating the domain… and also to sell more devices. Easy mobile payments would be a huge value-add to motivate many users to buy Apple hardware. They can structure the “rules” to get a chunk of every payment made with such a service. And if Apple wanted to they could “lose money” on such a service for years in order to dominate the channel (they only have $100 billion on hand, after all). It’s the razor-razor blade scenario – lose money on the razor, make money on the blades. They can lose money on each payment made through such a system because it locks customers into the Apple hardware ecosystem… an ecosystem with very high-margin devices.

Apple has already started testing a mobile payment system… in their Apple stores. If you download their Apple Store app, you can buy items in the store right now… scan a barcode with the iPhone camera and the app will charge your iTunes account for whatever you want (again, using the credit or debit card you already have on file). Expect their mobile payment to leverage the camera in a similar way.

Finally, customers love Apple and hate banks. Apple has incredibly high customer satisfaction numbers, much higher than most financial institutions have. Therefore consumers will be a lot more open to a payment system that comes from Apple than from a bank. This will help Apple get to a “critical mass” with users… and change how people do things. Again.

I used to code. And when I say “code,” I mean write HTML, JavaScript and active server pages – not full desktop applications. This was close to a decade ago, and while I have taken some software development classes since, I haven’t used any coding skills in any meaningful way since then. It’s not that I don’t want to code, I just I don’t need to do so in my job. Additionally, and to be frank… I think software development is much harder than it should be, and the varying levels of quality in the software development tools out there doesn’t help.

That may soon change, dramatically, and this change may come from an unexpected place: Apple.

Last month a patent application from Apple for “content configuration for device platforms” detailed specifications for a basic WYSIWYG tool to build apps. Now, Apple patents a LOT of stuff, and many of their patents have historically ended up going nowhere… but I think this one isn’t such a case. I suspect that Apple is working to change how software for their platforms are created, to open up their platform to… well, everyone. It’s a huge shift in the traditional approach of working with software developers that aligns with both Apple’s history, it’s aesthetic, and it’s growth strategy.

Apple has a long history of taking complicated tasks and making them easy and obvious for customers. It started with desktop publishing, with Apple making the first consumer computers and printers that provided accurate typography and page layout tools (Apple didn’t create Pagemaker, the first successful desktop publishing app, but produced the first Macintosh that made such an app possible). Though it wasn’t there first, Apple produced software that made video editing accessible and easy, with Final Cut Pro and then iMovie. It created software to make producing DVDs as simple as dragging and dropping content (not used much now, but at the time iDVD was a very popular app for creating content). It made music production accessible to the masses through Garageband, multi-media presentations dead simple with Keynote… And so on and so forth, with the most recent effort, the iBook Author tool, focused on supporting the creation of multimedia eBooks.

Software development requires specialized knowledge that most people don’t have… just like like video editing and desktop publishing used to be. The eccentricities of a particular language, the processes of doing software builds, the specific functionality that exists in the development environment being used… all of this requires a learning curve, and for many people it’s a steep one that is discouraging and frustrating. Apple can remove a lot of this complexity by releasing a program exactly like the one they detail in their patent – an app that allows for simple object-oriented programming that lets users compile and run apps without having to know how to call APIs, create preference files and deal with stuff like memory managment and database calls.

Would this be a solution for the professional developer to use? Probably not. It would be like iMovie for apps… the pros can still use XCode or their preferred development environment to custom build their own apps. But just as iMovie has allowed people who have never heard of SMTPE timecodes to quickly edit a short movie together, an “iMovie for apps” would open up programming to the masses, allowing people who are intimidated by the prospect of coding the ability to creating simple apps they want and need with a minimal effort.

Such an app would also support Apple’s growth strategy. The more apps that are created and available, the more desirable it makes the devices that run them… devices that are all sold by Apple. Since Apple gets a cut of every app sold, the more apps in the marketplace the more money they make. And the “App maker” or whatever Apple calls it will only work on… yup, you guessed it, Apple hardware. Will many of the apps created by such a tool be… well, crap? Yup. But many of the apps available in the app store today aren’t very good as well… the quality apps will usually rise to the top.

Will Apple reject a huge number of apps submitted? Yes, but consider this: Apple can develop this new “App maker” program in a way that lets users distribut their own apps on an ad hoc basis… imagine if a small business could roll their own integrated inventory app for their staff? Apple might not make money off every app sold in such a scenario, but such a feature could motivate many companies to buy iPhones for all their employees… Which is a perfectly satisfactory result for Apple and thier growth strategy.

I may be reading too much into a patent application, but to me it makes sense that this is something Apple would do, for the reasons cited above and for one more thing: It would be a bold move, something that would differentiate Apple’s OS from Android and Windows in a huge way… especially if such an “App maker” allows users to create apps that work on ANY Apple device – Mac, iPad or iPhone. Apple has a history of making similar bold moves, and making them work. I can see no reason for that stopping now.

LinkedIn, like Google and Facebook, benefits from the more it "knows" about you. As I and others have frequently mentioned, you are not the user of such services… You are the product that the service "sells." In LinkedIn's case, the more information they have about their users makes the paid services they sell more desirable to those who choose to use them (especially recruiters). How they weigh the information in profiles to get to 100% is (if they are smart, and I know they are) based on getting the most valuable information entered by their users.

The LinkedIn UI design that urges users to get to 100% complete in their profile, by the way, is a very good example of "gamification." We all want to "win" and when we see something is incomplete we are motivated to do what it takes to get to 100%… and so we fill out the missing information.

See question on Quora

I recently watched the video of Apple’s announcement of the new iPad. It was, like all Apple product announcements, a familiar affair. It started with statistics, it teased features, it detailed specs, and demonstrated new programs designed to take full advantage of the new hardware. It was polished, professional… and kinda boring.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, who oversaw the presentation, is a good public speaker, but… he’s not Steve Jobs. In fact, the whole thing suffered from everyone on stage not being Steve Jobs. For years, Jobs famously presented new products with an enthusiasm and a passion that showed how proud he was of what Apple was delivering to the buying public… and when you combine such passion with his charisma and pitch-perfect presentation style, well, it was not just a product roll-out. It was an event. It was special… and you didn’t even have to be an Apple acolyte to be impressed by it.

The management at Apple has done quite well in the post-Steve Jobs era. The Apple stock is up 60%, the company has more cash-on-hand than ever before (enough to buy some countries), and products such as this new iPad are selling exceedingly well. But here, in their product presentations, we see the ghost of Steve Jobs at every moment of the agenda. The Apple braintrust are slavishly following the same script that Jobs perfected, and… it’s not the same.

Apple needs a clean break from the past. Even if these media events do exactly what Apple hope for, they need to change how they do them, because Steve is gone and nobody can ever do these things better than he did. Trying to follow the same approach comes off as being stuck in the past, dated and not forward-thinking… something that Apple clearly does not want people to think they are. So for that, and to move on… Apple should say goodbye to Steve’s way of doing these things, and try something new.

Like, maybe, just releasing a product and letting it’s qualities speak for itself.

I had a very emotional day this week when I found out an old friend of mine had passed away over a year ago. I was upset, and angry at mutual friends who already knew and hadn’t reach out to tell me. But more than that… I was sad that my friend was gone, and that feeling still lingers.

I noticed something as I frantically searched through search results to try and piece together what happened (I’m on the other side of the world so I didn’t want to call people in the middle of the night). My friend was still on the Internet. She was still updating her Facebook page.

Well, SHE wasn’t… but because friends had taken over her Farmville account, everytime they did something to her virtual garden her wall showed an update. “Marilyn planted flowers.” “Marilyn bought seeds.” Also, her profile hadn’t changed. You’d have to look very close and read between the lines of her Facebook page to “get” that she had died. And many were just like me – they didn’t know. Old friends were still posting “Hey, call me!” messages on her wall.

This is wrong.

I understand the reasons why they want to keep her “presence” alive on the Internet. I totally appreciate the gesture. I just think it’s profoundly wrong, and it does a disservice to her and the people who loved her. It’s wrong because it’s misleading… and she would never mislead anybody. She wasn’t that type of person. Now, obviously, I’m not a member of her family and wasn’t even in her immediate circle of friends when she passed away, so it’s not my call. But I still can react to it, and as you can read my reaction is not at all a positove one.

The thing is, besides her Facebook page… she didn’t leave much of a presence behind. She wasn’t tech savvy, and didn’t blog or write. If you wanted to know who she was, you could entered the walled garden of Facebook and get a lot of detail about her life… but only if you were a friend or family member. Other than that, she had a LinkedIn page. And an obituary. That’s it. And in two years, or three? Maybe not even that.

I searched the Internet for my Dad’s name after he died in November of 2010… and it was even worse. I could find the name of his company, and his obituary… and that was it. He never even set up a website for his business. It wasn’t that Google or Bing or Yahoo couldn’t find anything… it was that there was nothing to be found.

The main reason I wrote up my post on my dad, and spent the time writing up some words about my friend Marilyn this past weekend, is because I needed to express my thoughts and feelings about them… but I also knew that someone needed to be “on the record” about them. Someone needed to write it up. I guess it’s a side-effect from my days as a journalist, but I had to do it. Mark Evanier, a television and comics writer, has a similar compulsion… if he doesn’t write about the passing of some obsure actor or comic book writer or artist, no one else would.

I look at myself and my own “presence” on the web, and I don’t have the same problem. Search for “Joseph Dickerson” and you’ll be hard pressed to find a result that ISN’T related to me. I am a “power user” of the web, and have been for years… not to mention a prolific blogger/writer/content creator. I feel sorry for a writer I just read about, also named Joseph Dickerson, who just published his first book. He’s older, with a new website and twitter feed, and has an uphill climb to get “noticed” by the search engine algorithms compared to where I am with the same moniker.

But that’s now… what happens when I’m gone too? What will I leave behind? I’ve talked about “web presence” and other buzz-words here, but I now know that in the end, what we leave behind is… random. Fragments of a life.

On the web, we are ephemera. A comment on a message board, a set of photos on flickr… captured moments and random thoughts. It’s a great reflection of ourselves… but it isn’t us.

I can’t hug a web page, or a scanned photo. But I could hug Marilyn. And my dad.

And I can’t do that anymore.

When I went back to the US during Christmas (on a break from the project I’m working on overseas) I was greeted with a score of problems. My mail was piled high and deep on my desk. My computer needed multiple upgrades, as did the iPad I left. Music I bought needed to be transferred to the music library drive I kept in the states. Neglected backups needed to be done. Photo libraries needed to be synced. And so on.

I rolled up my sleeves to get started, and as I was working I realized the ludicrousness of the “problems” I had to solve. Oh no! I thought to myself, all of my files weren’t synced across my many computing devices! How could I work under such conditions?!

That I had closely followed the many stories of disaster and strife that had happened over the past year gave me much-needed context and perspective. What I was dealing with was the very definition of “first world problems”… problems that were in no way comparable to those that happened around the world. These problems were ongoing and, even as I type this now, these second- and third-world problems are causing misery and suffering to hundreds of thousands of people. Compared to the lives those people live, our “baseline” is extremely high. In fact, a great website has been created that catalog some of out first world problems, and you can visit it here.

I, and many of us, are extremely lucky to have the lives we enjoy. We have advantages, like running water and plumbing, that a significant percentage of the world don’t. I’ve often read conservative pundits talking about how the poor should not be called the “less fortunate” because with a strong work ethic anyone can succeed. To that I reply… umm, Horatio Alger is dead. And, yes, while the poorest of us in America have better lives than the poorest in scores of other countries do, it’s not all “choice” or a lack of a work ethic. Luck, location, timing, education, parents… all are factors that play a part. To think otherwise is to be dogmatic and wrong.

As I look at my job, and where I am at in my career, I have very little to complain about. I am well-regarding in my domain, am making a very good wage, and get to do what I love – design solutions that help people accomplish tasks and solve problems. Since solving problems is what I do, it definitely helps to have perspective about the severity of these problems. In most instances, they are problems we have created for ourselves, problems that our technological tools have made for us. Problems that should most often be answered simply with the pragmatic response: don’t worry about it.

Originally published by Credit Union Times on December 9, 2011.

When it comes to providing mobile banking to your members, the first question is: Should you do it? Looking at the increasing adoption rate of smartphones, and the number of competing banks and credit unions who provide their members with a mobile offering … well, the answer is obvious.

Mobile banking is a value-added feature that helps members bank from anywhere, and it’s becoming more of a baseline expectation with members.

A more interesting and complicating question is, which mobile banking access modes should you support? The three primary mobile access modes are text (SMS), mobile Web browser (WAP) and applications. Each of these access modes has different merits and drawbacks.

Text Banking: Text banking is a baseline offering that can enable you to reach all members, regardless of the type of device they use. Text banking can be used by members with older style handsets, but can also be used by smartphone owners who just want to perform a quick balance check without logging into an application or pulling up a website.

In addition to facilitating straightforward information exchanges, such as balance requests, text banking can be used to send alerts to members, helping them stay on top of their finances and even spot suspicious transactions.

Because text banking does not require a login, it is not appropriate for the transmission of more sensitive information, such as account numbers or payment information, which can limit the functionality of this access mode.

Additionally many members may prefer the additional security of logging in before accessing their information, and will gladly accept that “extra step” to ensure privacy.

Applications: Native mobile banking applications for Android, iPhone and other platforms are specifically designed to maximize the interactive features and functionalities of specific mobile devices.

Animations, page transitions, “drag and drop”, access to phone services such as maps or native e-mail applications – all are available in a compiled app.

One drawback to the application mode is that building native applications requires design and development effort. And, if you want to target all members across multiple platforms you will need to create multiple versions, one for each platform.

This drawback can be mitigated by buying a mobile banking app from a service provider and then rebranding the app for your credit union. This provides your organization with the benefits of a rich interactive app without all of the production and maintenance costs.

Mobile Web Browser: This access mode provides access to mobile banking via screens and functions formatted specifically for mobile Web browsers.

Visitors to your website will see a specialized version when they access it from a mobile device. There have been great strides in development recently that allow credit unions to deliver a compelling and engaging mobile browser experience.

As with text banking, you will be able to reach a broader range of members via mobile browser than with applications, as anyone with the ability to access the Internet from their mobile device can potentially use the service.

The drawback is that this access mode is not as robust as a mobile app. There are certain interactive aspects that you will not be able to offer, and you will not have a presence in the app stores, such as Google Marketplace or iTunes.

So what is right for your credit union and its members? Here’s a suggestion: ask your members. Survey them to see what they would like, and then use that data to inform your decision.

Above all, remember that mobile banking isn’t necessarily an either/or proposition; consider offering some combination of access modes, or, better yet, “all of the above.” Whatever works best for your particular member base.

There are some practical reasons, and some pragmatic ones.

A "thinking" device is a device that is consuming power to think (to run the processor), and hardware and software designers have to keep a core user need in mind: battery life. The more the device "thinks" the lower the battery life. So devices are designed to be instant awake "on demand" computers that respond to user input. Siri, for example, probably uses a significant amount of processing power, and I'd wager if it was on all the time it would cut the "uptime" considerably.

Additionally you look at how people work with computers and computing devices, and the key idea of user control and freedom comes to play. Do you want to be "told" what to do by your phone, or to "tell" your phone what to do? Most users want to be/stay in control… And the idea of a "thing" telling them what to do just won't be appealing. This type of interaction has to be very carefully and well designed to work.

An area where this does "work" is with GPS, where the device "tells" the user what to do… But even then, there are limits. The user is still "in control" and the GPS is supporting the user's travel, not commanding. If a GPS comes off as "nagging" when informing the user of a traffic problem then the user will be… Well, I've tested of a similar solution, and it didn't work very well. Basically, the "tone of voice" is important in this and many other contexts. Get it wrong and you'll quickly get an angry user.

Some pragmatic reasons why devices are dumb… Well, we are still limited by old models and paradigms. We have desktop computers that are capable of millions of calculations per minute and we aren't doing anything innovative or new with that capacity. No one has come forward and invented an intelligent "butler" that used the innate information we all host on our own computing devices to, well, make suggestions. To help.

"I know you like Mythbusters, so I taped the new episode for you."

"There's a new Peter Gabriel album coming out. I downloaded the details and some samples and sent it to your iPad."

"You're electricity bill was due last week, would you like me to pay it for you?"

A smart assistant, who suggests but never takes control away from the user. All of these things are possible NOW, but no one has taken the next step to leverage the different systems and computing power together.

It's coming, though. Someday.

And if anyone wants to hire me to help design such a system you know where to find me…

See question on Quora

I grew up in a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. We would visit my dad’s parents every month, a 45-minute drive away, and I looked forward to every visit. It wasn’t because I liked my grandparents… Like my father, they were cold distant people who had no idea how to deal with a hyperactive boy like me, a kid who loved to read, explore and dream. No, the reason the visits excited me was because of what they had.

They would have the latest issues of Grit Magazine.

Grit was a weekly newspaper/magazine that was a compendium of various news and special interest stories that farmers and rural dwellers read. It was the New York Times of middle America. It was a window into a wider world, a Wikipedia in print.

And it had the Star Wars comic strip.

I loved it.

I’d take each issue and read it in the voracious way that all young boys do… Speed reading, without any grace or focus. And then I’d read it again. I’d cut out the articles that interested me, ones I wanted to keep for posterity. Because, if I didn’t save it, how would I ever be able to see/read it again?

Times change. No need to clip and save and paste into a scrapbook articles. We bookmark, and even hen we shouldn’t bother… It’s always just one search away.

Everything. At least, that’s what it seems like. And I think that’s both good and bad.

The good is obvious: instant ubiquitous access to the worlds knowledge. The bad… Well, I remember the excitement of discovery that I had, that adrenalin knowing that I was going to get that latest issue of Grit.

I think we have lost something…. that urgency and focus, because everything is available to us now. In real-time, we can see what people are thinking and saying, what is going on. We don’t need to wait for a weekly newspaper. We know everything NOW, and anything that happened before, our history, it is just a click away.

Yesterday is forever, now.

But… The moment, those transient moment that we have everyday… It’s not available on the Internet. It’s gone, in a flash… In an instant. We can take photos or videos but all those are are reflections of the thing. Ghosts. Because of this I’m scared that we are becoming a culture that doesn’t embrace the now, that doesn’t pay enough attention…

Because we could always Google it later.

The same rationale that drives all tech companies to change their products: featureitis. If you are maintaining the status quo then you are not evolving and that lack of new features could cost you customers/eyeballs. The problem with featureitis is when it changes what works and adds stuff that doesn’t…. And based on the reaction that Facebook has gotten in the social network that they themselves helped pioneer… Well, much of what they added doesn’t appear to be well received.

Finally, I’d say the real-time ticker is absolutely a direct reaction to Twitter… Whether it is a well-done and successful reaction remains to be seen.

See question on Quora

When I use Twitter, and post a 140-character message there, I pay attention. I focus. I usually sweat the details to make sure I make my point.

Why?

It’s just a tweet, a quick thought that most people dash off. It’s inconsequential, it’s random. It’s nothing, unimportant.

No. It’s not unimportant.

It is like every moment, every gesture, every time we work or talk with each other. It matters. Life is made up of these little moments, and if you don’t pay attention you will see all of this moments disappear before your eyes.

We are here. We have the opportunity to maximize the moments or we can squander them. We only have so many moments available to us.

Use them well. Make them count. Even on Twitter.

One of the ways that software development has changed over the years is the way that developers are considered “good” at what they do. In the early days a good developer was a productive one – if you produced over 2000 lines of code in a day, you were good – quantity was more important than quality.

Things – and times – changed. As the personal and business computer world exploded, the lack of quality became a concern to organizations and consumers. If the code was malformed, or had lots of bugs, it didn’t matter how prolific you were – you produced inferior work. Additionallt, efficiency became a factor. If you could produce functionality with less lines of code, then you were a “better” programmer than those who wrote a hundred lines to execute a simple validation function. Tight, efficient “well formed” code was better…. and developers who did that were deemed superior… most of the time, at least.

Which brings me to a parallel I see in the writing profession, as well as Twitter.

For professional writers, there’s two types of opportunities – the “paid by words” type of job and the “contractual obligation” job. In the former, the more you write the more you are paid… and the temptation to “pad” is one that many fall prey to. I’ve found this is usually a short term gain, long term loss – you may be prolific, but the weighty bloated tomes you produce block opportunities that exist in the “contractual obligation” space… where you are contracted to write a book, of a certain length, but one that is expected to be appealing to readers and sell in significant numbers. You still have a “threshold” to meet, but you have some wiggle room – though if you produce too many purposeless words you end up winning the battle and losing the war… you may sell one book, but never another.

Thus, I believe a focused prose should be the goal… Writing as tight as efficient as the aforementioned well-formed code that separates the good developer from the great one (I consider both creative endeavors, by the way).

Which brings us to Twitter. In Twitter, you have a fixed constraint. 140 characters. It’s democratic, it’s simple, and it’s in-the-moment. It focuses the mind, in the same way that a hangman’s noose focuses that of a condemned man. Of course, most people don’t look at Twitter as a “writer’s medium.” Understandable, when most tweets are about inane observations and statements of the egocentric moment.

I obviously disagree. I love Twitter, and I think it is a great communication medium, giving us the opportunity to exchange ideas and share at a visceral and pure level. It’s real and honest and true, and lets us capture our reactions and lives in the Now.

So, I tweet. It’s my ongoing diary of what’s going on. I’ve done it for a long while and I think I’ll keep doing it for the foreseeable future. I’m also capturing my tweets with automated tools and saving them to my blog, in my hopes that I can keep them as an archive of where I was and what I was doing in my life, to look back on and reflect. Like pictures… frozen moments.

Tweets from an earlier time.

So, tweet. Share. Communicate. And let Twitter be a tool to help you focus your prose and your mind.

My pal Anthony Pascale from Trekmovie.com asked me to do a quick video review of the new Star Trek PADD app for the iPad and, since I’m on holiday, I was able to put together one. Here it is:

Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, published a blog posting a while back that claimed that technology was making us more self-involved and narcissistic, that the end result of this self-centeredness would be a culture of sociopaths who are more attached to their devices and their gear than to people.

Poppycock. Balderdash. He’s completely wrong.

(That last sentence was included for those of you who don’t know what “poppycock” and “balderdash means. Kids these days…)

Technology that services our interests, and is personal and easy to use (such as the car that Adams cites in his article)? Well, that’s fantastic. It’s what my job as a User Experience Architect is: To make complicated technology approachable, usable and helpful. If, as a result of that, technology becomes desirable as well – so much the better. It certainly doesn’t make me a “sociopath creator”, which Scott Adams claims that technology is doing.

Technology, especially in the social networking space, allows us to engage communicate and connect with people we would have never met, old friends no longer physically close, and kindred spirits with like interests. Yes, there is an ego-centric aspect to a lot of technology (which I wrote about here) but it’s about sharing as much as self-promotion. “The cloud” has connected us all in ways unimagined before. It provides us with “little moments”, small touchpoints to people throughout the day. Moments that make our lives richer and happier.

The social networks and the “cloud” has broken down barriers and opened up opportunities that we would not have had otherwise. One example: I adore the classic TV show Twin Peaks. It’s right up my alley: quirky, dark, well-written, and often very funny (basically, it’s me if I was a television program). A few weeks ago I noticed that the show’s co-creator, writer extrordonaire Mark Frost, had started using Twitter (look him up under the twitter handle @mfrost11). I responded to one of his tweets, we started a conversation, and now we are “talking” almost every day. We found out we had a lot of common interests, including the show “The Prisoner,” another favorite of mine (my obsession with Patrick McGoohan’s masterpiece is reflected here). We exchanged many bon mots, and the esteemed Mr Frost even responded favorably to my writing, which.. well, there’s not a cooler thing in the world to me. Except maybe taking Mark out for drinks (which we hope to do at some point). Without technology this connection would have never happened, and I appreciate it even more because of it.

So, in closing, I like Dilbert, but Scott Adams needs to stop being so curmudgeonly. In this and several of his recent opinion pieces, he’s come off as Grandpa Simpson, yelling at clouds. The cloud doesn’t care, Scott. And it’s making the world a better, more connected place.

I found out about Empire Avenue yesterday, and after just a few hours of casual use I’m hooked. Why? First, let me explain how it works.

Empire Avenue lets its users buy “shares” in other users with it’s currency, called “Eaves”. You get more “Eaves” based on your social activity, and the more social users are, the more their stock grows. Everyone has their own stock market “ticker” so while you can invest in other users, they can also invest in you (which also increases their stock’s value). It takes the core idea around social ranking services like Klout and creates a “social economy.”

It has all the tropes of social: achievements, activity “wall”, notifications, and “friends” – but because it takes these conventions and wraps them in a “stock market” model, it appeals to the competitive nature of all of us. It very much appeals to “ego-driven design” (as I wrote about here) and is also a very addicting (I wrote about addicting experiences here).

It is an incredibly well-rounded experience that is well integrated with Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, etc., so any activity you do increases your value (you can also add your personal blog and other social sites that are not yet integrated). It’s not 100% there yet (it just launched early this year) but has already been adopted by many of the technorati as the “next big thing.” I don’t know about that, but I do know it’s engaging, fun, and a distinctly different way of looking at social engagement on the Internet.

And by the way, my ticker is JCDUX. Buy early, and buy often!

Here’s video, shot of the iPhone 4, and edited on an iPad 2, from the Sydney Aquarium.

I am quite frankly amazed at how easy it is to edit video on the iPad 2 with iMovie. It was cool to be able to do it on the iPhone, but the size of the screen was a major limitation. The iPad 2 has no such limitation, and it’s fantastic.

In my role as a User Experience Architect I have design for and support what users do today, and understand their mental models of how things work. That is challenging enough, and if that was all my job was I’d be pretty darn busy.

Of course, it’s not.

I also have to plan for the future, to look forward… to think about what technological and social changes will do to change future mental models and usage patterns. I have to “future proof” my designs.

So, as part of my process I have defined some key factors that I have to keep in mind, “influencers” that will change things (and in some cases very, very quickly). My soothsaying skills are slightly above average, so here’s my list of things that will CHANGE EVERYTHING!

Ubiquitous Internet Access

This is already happening, though it has not gotten through to “Joe Six-Pack” – the idea that you can be connected to the ‘Net wherever you are, all the time. This is already changing behaviors and the idea that we can keep important information (work files, content, etc.) “in the cloud” is becoming much more comfortable to people. We may yet have that “Internet Computer” yet – with local copies on the device, in case the access drops. And, speaking of local copies…

Cheap, cheap storage

The idea that mobile devices can hold 64 GB of data is astonishing to an old foggie like me. I remember when I was impressed at the Iomega Zip Drive (“It can hold a 100 megs! And it’s only a little thicker than a floppy disk!”). We need to start thinking of smart applications that can fill that storage for the user … I have some ideas in this space, but I’d rather not share them publically ifyaknowwhatimean…

Appliances, not computers

Devices like the iPad is a “computer” but when people talk about it it’s not about how many “GBs” it has or the amount of RAM it contains… they talk about what it allows them to do – how many books, how much music, how many games it can hold, etc. The technology is getting out of the way, and that’s a great thing for people in our profession. And speaking of the iPad…

Touch computing

It’s here, folks, and it isn’t going away. We need to design for these interaction patterns even if we are not designing a UI for a touch-enabled device (because people are going to bring that learnt behavior to your – and every other – design). The iPhone and the Ipad has changed the way people interact with technology, and not in a blue-sky “Minority Report” way, but in a tangible shift in interaction models. With predictions that 25 million iPads will be sold by the end of the year, we need to be ready to support a lot of users who touch AND click…

Increased (and reduced) user freedom

Users will, at the same time, have more freedom around the services they can use to support their lifestyle and at the same time they will be “locked in” to services because they are not alternatives that they can easily migrate to. Facebook is pretty “sticky” for users, because all their friends are there… and Facebook knows it too. When a user’s social circle is all on Facebook, it’s awfully hard to change services. Look for this to become more and more of an issue in the future. And, speaking of Facebook…

Addicting Experiences

I’ve written about this before, and I’ll repeat myself somewhat here: There is a large number of companies making a lot of money by providing addictive experiences to users (they made money from me, too – my son bought $40 of seeds in Zombie Farm without thinking about it… or asking his dad). Right or wrong, we need to pay attention to how these companies are influencing user behavior to potentially “leverage” some best practices in our own designs.

Opportunities Galore

With technology becoming more and more part of everyone’s life, the opportunities for user experience designers to influence and improve user’s lives are increasing. It’s a great field to be in and I can’t wait to see what the future holds.

Let’s go back in time a bit – back in time to those carefree days of yore, when tech companies piled new feature after new feature into each consecutive release of their flagship products… When each new release promoted a new shopping list of goodies to entice eager buyers to upgrade.

Remember all that? Because those days are long gone. Dead, and buried. The new rules of engagement? Not more features, but better features. Improvements, enhancements, and usability. Now the experience the technology provides – how it does something, not what it can do – has come into fast focus. Why? Because companies who focus on user needs and providing the most affective experience are thriving, and companies that are stuck with “featuritis” are barely keeping up.

My job is in the domain and discipline of user experience design – which consists of creating meaningful and useful solutions that make sense for our users. It is a focus that is becoming more and more important in our new user-centered reality. Here’s some recommendations on how to leverage technology to support your customer, in this new “features as commodity” age.

Focus on how users use technology, not the technology itself.

We recently did a mobile research study, to understand how people use their mobile devices – and a key indicator we focused on was the engagement and involvement people had with the mobile technology. Learning how they think of the devices, and the usage patterns and mental models we defined, allowed us to better understand what users need to define the right offerings.

Understand how people leverage technology to make their lives better, and you will find key opportunities to engage with your customers in places and spaces you may have never considered before.

Features are important, but how they are implemented is even more important.
As mentioned earlier, now the programs are designed for users, and not by engineers or project managers trying to one-up the competition. Now, the software is appropriate, appealing and most importantly USEFUL.

Two examples, both from Microsoft. Recently, Microsoft released the beta of their Microsoft Office 2010 suite, and the design enhancements are plentiful and incredible. They have designed a new File “menu” that groups like functions in a way that brings a gasp to users who are accustomed to the old awkward UI that was available – it provides context-driven options that are based on the specific Office program you are using, integrated and consistent across programs.

The second example? Microsoft’s recently announce the newest Windows mobile operating system (named “Windows Phone 7”). The new UI is a dramatic departure from the standard phone interface, in that the UI is driven by data and not applications – contextual options display about your calendar mail and contacts, instead of having applications be the center of the interaction model. It’s unique, it’s user-centered and, frankly… it’s bold. It’s impressive.

So, when even the king of “featuritis” Microsoft starts to focus on experience design… well, the tide has turned. It’s the how, not the what, that now matters.

What do your customer think about technology? Or do they think about it at all?

Your customers are not, for the most part, techies. They are surrounded by technology almost every minute of the day, but they don’t think about it. They know what they like, and like what they know. If new technology enters their life it does so organically, and they only adopt the new if it is obvious, unthreatening and kind. Yes, I said KIND. We need to bring a tone and an approach to our service offerings that are humanistic in nature, not just technically impressive.
Understand that technology is a tool, not an end to itself. if you are focused on technology in your job, keep this in mind… And that you may be in a tech “bubble” and that the way you think of this space is not the way most people do.

Empower users with technology, don’t hobble them.

Every touchpoint with your customers is either supported or enabled by technology. Whether it’s a customer calling your support line or a user of your online site, technology is the mechanism that allows the communication to happen. Make sure that the experience is one that supports your customers and doesn’t frustrate them. In the days of immediate customer feedback loops, through social media, the more you empower your customers the more they will like your company and it’s offerings… And the more they will recommend them to their friends and family.

If you pay any attention to tech news over the past month, you have no doubt noticed that Facebook and its byzantine privacy policies have gotten a lot of coverage – mostly bad. And deservedly so.

I actually covered the Facebook privacy settings (where if users had not customized their privacy settings before, the defaults for the new privacy screens set everything to public) on my now-defunct This Week in UX podcast. They have been practicing “usability for evil” for a while. They have changed their policy on privacy multiple times, and each time has done it to increase public visibility of what you put on the service.

One of the many obscure ways that Facebook works is that any app you use on the service gets information about not only you but also all your friends. And now they want to sell an “open graph” service to corporations so that they can sell your information to companies because they know everything you have ever posted or liked.

Facebook isn’t a social media network anymore – it’s a computer virus.

I’m not discussing or judging the content or usage patterns of Facebook – this is not about the merits of chat or Farmville. It’s about trust, and I don’t trust them with my information any more. Many tech pundits, such as Cory Doctorow and Leo Laporte, have formally deleted their accounts and I disabled my account two weeks ago. That was not enough though, because the data is still available to Facebook.

So I’ve deleted the account. Yes, Facebook has given me some wonderful opportunities to reconnect with old friends, and I appreciate it. But I just can’t support Facebook with my time and my eyeballs anymore. Facebook has publicly stating they are going to shift their privacy policy in response to their criticism, but for me it’s too little too late.

Privacy is important to me, and Facebook’s policy may not have an immediate affect on my life now, but I have zero confidence that it would not have a major impact in the future. So I’m out. And I suggest, if you are reading this, you do the same.

Or at the very least think long and hard about what you put there, because it may not be as private as you may think.

The Internet has been a huge boon for the world, allowing people from different cultures and countries to communicate and share ideas, providing tools for businesses and users to increase their efficiencies and effectiveness… and it has also given us the perfect medium for us to embarrass ourselves and ruin our careers.

I am referring, of course, to those many instances where people “drunk-blog”, or when they – or, in many instances, their friends – post indiscrete information or photos that aren’t terribly flattering. Many of this comes from someone saying things like “Hey, watch this!” but more often than not it just resulted in someone not thinking ahead and living (and posting) “in the moment”. We all live for the moment to some extent or another, and we often forget that the Internet is public – even Facebook can be exposed to the entire world if your security settings aren’t configured to prevent it.

Here’s some helpful hints that I have identified that will provide what I call “Online Reputation Protection” insurance. Of course, all coverage is subject to change, depending on any pre-existing conditions you may have.

(Many of these hints are obvious, at least to me, and you may read some of the following and go “Duh!” Well, that’s fine – this post is not for you, it’s for those poor unfortunate souls who don’t think before they act. So if I can help one person by posting this, then I’ve done them – and the Internet – a service.)

The Internet isn’t forever – but it’s close

Yes, Twitter is not infinitely searchable, and Facebook and Myspace doesn’t store everything you post on it… but don’t underestimate the power of search engines. Sites like Google cache, well, EVERYTHING… and they have millions of dollars to throw at servers to store those caches for a long long time. And those social sites you publish on can change their terms and conditions at any time, making what you wrote “just between friends” public to the world at large.

So, when it comes to posting stuff on your favorite social networking site… don’t post something you could regret later.

Potential employers user Google

One of the first things that employers and recruiters do (in addition to the traditional background checks, such as references and credit history) is google your name. If you have no real online activity, you’re good to go (though if you’ve applied for a tech job the employer may wonder why you don’t have any online “presence”). If you do have a blog, a twitter account, etc. then they will potentially see everything you have ever posted online, ever. So, like the old saying, don’t post something online that you wouldn’t want your mother to see (or know) – it may cost you a potential job.

Politics and religion are touchy, touchy things

Yes, you may be passionate about what you believe in. Absolutely, you can use your website or Twitter account or Facebook to promote your views and causes. However, remember that in the heat of the moment you may say or do something that might come back and bite you where the sun don’t shine. Take this example, for… example. You see a passionate person that posted his political opinion online in the heat of the moment… and he’s now, well, screwed. Don’t let this happen to you. Moderate your online opinions – even if you’re passionate, don’t go nuts. And if you go “all out,” don’t be surprised if there are repercussions in the real world… cause there often is.

Cursing is allowed… to a point

We all use “salty language” from time to time – we aren’t perfect. But there are still certain words that our culture finds… well, verboten. One starts with the letter “n” and the other starts with the letter “c.” Now, in the proper editorial context, one can use both words with very little consequences – in a quote, for example, or an etymological study of a word’s origin. Any other situation, though… be careful. Especially if you are using either word online to refer to an ex-girl friend or boyfriend.

A picture is worth a thousand firings

Don’t have to worry about getting a job, cause you already have one? Well, this article is a good overview of several cases when users posted photos – or did something online – which resulted in them losing their jobs. And in this economy, that’s not a good thing – especially when you have to explain to potential employers why you lost your previous position. “

On several instances a photo that someone has posted has resulted in someone being fired – especially if the photo showed that the person who “called in sick” was actually at a Halloween party – like in this instance.

A quick sidebar – Halloween is an especially dangerous time of year when it comes to potential impacts to your online reputation. Copious alcohol plus skimpy costumes, add in a dash of camera phones and ubiquitous internet access… well, you can see what can happen.

You also have to worry about old photos of you that other people post online, from years back. Photos that can make you look like a real dweeb. Like, umm… this one.

We don’t have editors – and we all need them

What I find so interesting about the Internet is it give users the opportunity to throw out a thought or a video almost instantly. And because the number of steps between the thought and the publication of the thought is so low, we just throw our thoughts out there… without thinking. And sometimes, there is no “undo.”

In the heat of the moment so many people forget that expression and information is available to anyone who uses a browser and has an Internet connection. We don’t have editors, so dedicate a part of your mind to help you focus on “self-editing.”

The life… and career… that you save, may be your own.