John Maeda has just been named the new president of the Rhode Island School of Design.

I’ve only met Mr. Maeda once — unless you count childhood visits to his family’s tofu bakery in Seattle. If you are what you eat, some protein in my bones is the product of Maeda creativity.

Anyway, I’m a tremendous fan of his approach to design and life. He continues to be a role model for embracing new challenges.

Posted: December 21st, 2007 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 1

Jean-Paul S. Boodhoo has a great post on creativity:

Here is the great thing about top tier developers. They don’t care about dropping all of their secrets, techniques and practices in front of you because these things are all a result of one thing, Creativity… (more)

Some close off for fear their gifts will be stolen. Others engage — confident their best ideas and greatest contributions lie ahead.

Posted: November 12th, 2007 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none

Yesterday, I got to sit in while members of Microsoft’s Surface™ team showed my CEO, Gerry Laybourne, a working demo.

I’m a convert. The interface relies on organic human gesture and, more importantly, encourages eye contact and collaboration. Truly beautiful. And the simpler they make it the more emotional and purposeful it will be.

I realize there are similar systems out there but Microsoft’s hardware implementation is novel and potentially more powerful than other multi-touch displays.

Watching Gerry interact with the surface team, I was reminded why she is such a force for invention and creativity. She has an expert’s blink response to new ideas. Her feedback was immediate and unexpected in the best sense. As a Surface™ team member said, “it feels like we’re learning more from you than you are from us.”

Posted: October 26th, 2007 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 3

Today was a slow. I upgraded our build bunny to a WPA-capable Nabaztag/tag. Good builds make the bunny very happy. Broken builds make the bunny so sad.

Thanks for the idea to The Pragmatic Programmers and their ridiculous lava lamps. My co-worker Kris wrote a custom publisher to integrate CruiseControl with the nabaztag api.

“A little nonsense, now and then, is relished by the wisest men” — Willy Wonka

Posted: July 7th, 2007 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 2

Dave Pollard has an interesting post, From Simplistic Thinking to Embracing Complexity.

On attempts at knowledge creation that don’t engage employees and customers…

such systems presume ‘learned helplessness’ of customers and employees: The customer, the citizen, is often viewed as a mere, passive consumer of your organization’s products and so-called wisdom. The employee, likewise, is assumed to be ignorant, stupid and disinterested in the success of the organization beyond his/her own job. Most people don’t take kindly to having their intelligence insulted. And failure to engage customers and employees in co-producing the product is a tragic waste of great opportunity.

Learned helplessness. Yup, that about sums up what it’s like to work for a product owner who refuses to let the team invest in the vision of a product. Complexity and invention don’t lend themselves to command and control.

There are individuals like Dean Kamen with a singular genius for invention. Still he emphasizes the value of collaboration - of sensitivity to others and society. His F.I.R.S.T. foundation celebrates the whole individual engaged with others in a technical challenge and the ethic of Gracious Professionalism.

It’s a way of doing things that encourages high-quality work, emphasizes the value of others, and respects individuals and the community.

Agile software development values collective ownership. However, there is shared code and there is shared risk and shared reward. When a FIRST LEGO League Team wins, I’m sure it’s not a single 14 year old product owner who accepts the prize.

For a development team to contribute beyond the bounds of technical execution, i.e. “his/her own job”, product owners need to approach them

…through conversations, stories, and presenting the ‘problem’ to them so they can help you appreciate it better and then address it. - Dave Pollard

Embracing complexity is about engaging the whole person not just the coder. With the person comes life experience, passion, and imagination. As product owner, use your authority to break through indecision but avoid the desire to tell the team how to solve your problems. Describe what you are trying to accomplish and why it is important. Get the team in touch with the customer and let them help you.

The result will be more than the formulation of a single mind. It will be more what the customer needs and, perhaps, it will be unlike anything else out there.

Posted: March 10th, 2007 under scrum.
Comments: none