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Archives / May 2009
Maps drawn from a Manhattanite's perspective, including a nicely designed 3D-ish view of local and remote areas.
See also: More information visualization from Chris Jordan, via gelvideos.com.
The baseball fan experience - and hamburgers
New York City has two new baseball stadiums, but only one hired Gel speaker Danny Meyer for concessions. In this review, New York Times food critic Frank Bruni compares hamburgers at the stadia:
The Yankees turned to the Johnny Rockets chain -- and have been rewarded with foil-wrapped, overheated, clumpy cheeseburgers ($9) that didn't seem remotely fresh.The Mets turned to Mr. Meyer's Shake Shack, with a payoff of hot-off-the-griddle cheeseburgers ($5.75) as juicy, beefy and irresistible as at Shack locations in Manhattan.
Watch Danny Meyer's Gel video, where he divulges the key to his success: hospitality.
Broken: promotional mailing
Image is everything: so says the slogan printed on ripped card stock, with scotch tape holding everything together.
The brochure inside was nice enough... so maybe this was just an eye-catching ploy. I certainly paid this more attention than most spam mailings I get.
Who's more productive, people who stay up late or early risers? Answer may be in research on night owls vs. early birds:
While early birds experience a drop in daytime alertness by mid to late afternoon, night owls seem to handle sleep pressure better and can remain productive for a much longer period of time. This information is based on a new study recently published in the journal Science.
However...
"It may represent a problem for evening types obliged to wake up early while having difficulties going to bed in the evening, eventually leading to a sleep debt." In addition, early risers experience a faster dissipation of sleep pressure when they do sleep and they feel restored more quickly than late night people.
Two paths to take in the digital world
Texting may be taking a toll on teenagers, says the NYT: it "is beginning to worry physicians and psychologists, who say it is leading to anxiety, distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation."
Meanwhile, writes Simon Critchley in this post on happiness...
The rhythm of modern life is punctuated by beeps, bleeps and a generalized attention deficit disorder. But is the idea of happiness as an experience of contemplation really so ridiculous?
...and then Critchley quotes Rousseau, writing about "the simple feeling of existence, a feeling that fills our soul entirely."
One path represents the pursuit of more bitstreams, more time spent in the digital world. The other path pursues emptiness and the real world.
My own take is that the digital world needs some engagement - most of us can't afford to cast it off entirely - but whatever engagement we give it should be as efficient as possible. (See more in Bit Literacy.)
See also other posts on happiness:
Authentic donuts, anyone?
Spotted on the street in Manhattan: a fast-food donut chain promising "Authenticity meets affordability."
Time to stop eating all those inauthentic donuts and switch to pure authentic fast food!
(What??)
20 copies of Bit Literacy left...
Only 20 copies of Bit Literacy left at my office (where, if you order here, we offer lower prices than Amazon, and free shipping to North America).
Once these are gone, they'll only be available via Amazon, which will point to our print-on-demand service.
iPhone as musical accompaniment
A few weeks ago at Gel, Rod Kimball played a musical round with himself, using his iPhone. This video (not from Gel, but the same basic idea) shows his trick:
Along the same lines, Rhett & Link, Gel '08 presenters, accompany themselves on iPhone for "The Jeffersons" theme song. This really rocks.
Now, if we could just see some more live musical self-accompaniment onstage next year!
Why to have a NOT-todo list
And one more management tip, while we're at it.
To survive the crushing overload of information and choices out there, you definitely need a good todo list. (I'd suggest Gootodo, but I'm biased.) And you also need something else:
you absolutely must have a "stop-doing" list to accompany your to-do list. As a practical matter, he advises developing a strong discipline around first giving careful thought to prioritizing goals and objectives, and then eliminating the bottom 20 percent of the list. If as CEO you do that, and demand that everyone do that, including designers and engineers with respect to the stuff they're building, your ugly crap quotient goes way down.
This from 12 tips for pursuing elegance.
What makes a good CEO
In praise of dullness, David Brooks writes, which gives an idea of what the research found:
What mattered, it turned out, were execution and organizational skills. The traits that correlated most powerfully with success were attention to detail, persistence, efficiency, analytic thoroughness and the ability to work long hours.In other words, warm, flexible, team-oriented and empathetic people are less likely to thrive as C.E.O.'s. Organized, dogged, anal-retentive and slightly boring people are more likely to thrive.
Good experiences from Gel speakers
I've had two weeks to decompress and reflect after Gel 2009 , our seventh annual community gathering in New York City - and I have to say, there's a LOT of positive energy around Gel.
Despite the challenges - economic and otherwise - of this moment, the community has stepped up to say: good experience is important, and we want to keep exploring it and creating it. Thanks to everyone who was a part of it. (I'll be in touch soon about new Gel Videos, the Gel Challenge, a probable Gel Medical event. Drop me a note if you're interested in sponsoring or attending Gel Medical!)
We've posted a recap, as well as photos from our photographer Gene Driskell.
Beyond that, I wanted to share what some Gel speakers, past and present, have been doing and writing, in their own exploration of good experience recently. The range of these little tidbits should give a taste of the diversity and richness of this ongoing project:
• Noah Scalin (Gel '09) summarizes Gel 2009 speaker talks
• Barry Scheck (Gel '09) in NYT on DNA evidence legality
NYT on blocks to DNA evidence
Barry Scheck, cofounder of The Innocence Project (whose mission is to free innocent people from prison with DNA evidence), spoke at Gel 2009 a few weeks back, alongside Jerry Miller, the 200th exoneree of the organization. The effort has always seemed like a no-brainer to me: by funding these efforts, society pays less for incarceration, and has a better chance of catching the people who really did commit the crimes, not to mention the ethical gain (I'd call it an obligation) of freeing the wrongfully convicted.
Unfortunately, the NYT reports today, Prosecutors Block Access to DNA Testing for Inmates. To take one example from the story:
Mr. Reed has been seeking a DNA test for three years, saying it will prove his innocence. But prosecutors have refused, saying he was identified by witnesses, making his identification by DNA unnecessary.
More info at TIP's website or Twitter feed.
Thought for the day: If ignorance is bliss, and if knowledge is power, does that mean that powerful people are all depressed?
A thought on simplicity and complexity
Working for over a decade as a customer experience consultant, I've had plenty of opportunity to talk about simplicity and complexity.
Often it's a good-vs-bad setup. Especially in technology, the interface should be simple - too many tools are complex and hard to use!
But complexity can be good, too... an authentic good experience is often rich and multilayered and hard to describe: complexity is good.
The problem is that it can be difficult to pin down what, exactly, we mean by "simple" and "complex." Thus The arc of complexity, a long piece written recently by Kevin Kelly, is especially welcome - taking a scientific look at complexity - in the universe, in biological evolution - to see if there's a way to describe it accurately. (Turns out it's harder than it looks.)
George Vaillant on what makes us happy
George Vaillant, Gel 2008 speaker, is featured in The Atlantic article on the question, "what makes us happy?" His answer comes from studying 268 lives for 42 years and compiling the rich patterns and conclusions from that experience.
Here's George speaking at Gel 2008 (about his then newly published book Spiritual Evolution: A Scientific Defense of Faith)...
...and here's a video accompanying the piece in The Atlantic:
P.S. Fun fact, Vaillant is pronounced "valiant."
A miracle in Harlem
Geoff Canada has created a miracle in Harlem, says NYT's David Brooks:
"The results changed my life as a researcher because I am no longer interested in marginal changes," Fryer wrote in a subsequent e-mail. What Geoffrey Canada, Harlem Children's Zone's founder and president, has done is "the equivalent of curing cancer for these kids. It's amazing. It should be celebrated. But it almost doesn't matter if we stop there. We don't have a way to replicate his cure, and we need one since so many of our kids are dying -- literally and figuratively."
Read that again: "I am no longer interested in marginal changes." That's the transformative power of seeing someone follow their vision and deliver results. Much to the point of the Gel conference last week, we may individually come up with different answers, but it always helps to learn from people who are doing good work and creating authentic, good experience.
BTW, here's the video of Geoff Canada speaking at Gel in 2006.
