Spaces shape creativity: Ziba project rooms
I visited Ziba on a sunny, crisp fall day. (Yes, we do have them at least once a decade here in Portland.) One of their talented creative directors, Kai Halsinger, was generous enough to show me around the studio and talk about what makes it all work. Specifically on my mind was how their physical...
Being “right” is not enough
Do your team meetings to discuss what/how/when to build XYZ new hot thing feel a little too much like a session of the United Nations Security Council? Wouldn’t it be nice if you had those headsets that translated designspeak to devspeak and vice versa? I’ll be speaking at WordCampSF this Saturday, Aug 13th about communication...
Small Talk: a communication guide for geeks
This post is a response to Tantek Çelic’s article on communication protocols. I agree with most all of it, except the bit about IM protocol. Depending on the mindset of whomever you ask, small talk is either the foundation of a good conversation or annoying prattle to be minimized as much as possible. I find...
Tools and techniques for collaboration
Now that I’m working remotely at my fake job at Cheezburger Network, I’ve been thinking a lot about tools for collaboration. What works? The tools so radically shape the interaction that I’m taking a studied approach to who/when/why to use each. Here’s a little graph of some common tools. It’s no surprise, the lower the...
