Design Thinking Digest

Pardon my dust

Over the next few weeks you might notice some odd behavior or performance issues with Design Thinking Digest as I do some behind the scenes work on the site. Posts should continue and any oddness you see will be temporary. Promise!

Why Orson Welles would love Twitter: The Fog of Social Media

A short mediation on current affairs. The events in Iran and with the recent passing of Michael Jackson have shown us that no matter how much the word changes it still stays the same.

With infinite complacency, men went to and fro about the globe, confident of our empire over this world. Yet across the gulf of space, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded our planet with envious eyes and slowly, and surely, drew their plans against us.

One of Orson Wells early, among numerous, moments of genius was his serialized rendition of War of the Worlds, presented documentary style on October 30, 1938 on the CBS radio network. Because many did not hear the beginning of the broadcast it had the unintended (maybe?) impact of inciting a panic among millions.To whit.

Richard J. Hand cites studies by unnamed historians who "calculate[d] that some six million heard the CBS broadcast; 1.7 million believed it to be true, and 1.2 million were 'genuinely frightened'".^[1] While Welles and company were heard by a comparatively small audience (in the same period, NBC's audience was an estimated 30 million), the uproar was anything but minute: within a month, there were 12,500 newspaper articles about the broadcast or its impact, while Adolf Hitler cited the panic, as Hand writes, as "evidence of the decadence and corrupt condition of democracy."^[1]

A disturbing but inevitable trend with social media phenomena like Twitter is that the information we get from those mediums is no more reliable than we can get anywhere else (Such as Mr. Goldblum’s apparent demise) and is perhaps, currently, more susceptible to manipulation than we believe.

Imagine the utility and value of Twitter in a national disaster along the lines of Katrina or 9/11. Now image ‘envious’ parties that wanted to use tools like Twitter to sow confusion and paranoia through that channel.

When we look at Iran we see that tools like Twitter and internet can sow the seeds of the revolution while at the same enable the lockdown, manipulation and preservation of the status quo. See The Revolution Will Not Be Digitized: How the Internet Helps Iran Silence Activists for a more nuanced exploration by Farhad Manjoo and see Deep Packet Inspection to understand some of the implications of what we do online contain.

This is not to say that tools like Twitter or Facebook should not be trusted, they are merely technology that can be used for a ‘variety’ of ends and we should perhaps be thinking about the far broader implications that they bring to our world—at a pace that we don’t seem to be prepared to deal with.

We forget that things like fire and electricity are technologies and tools that we use that required literally centuries to integrate into our societies. We had the benefit of a more casual momentum of adoption with them that we don’t possess with many of the social media technologies that we’re already starting to take for granted. Do we need a ‘fire-department’ for Twitter? Do governments and citizens need plans and policies around social media? Are some of these issues even things we should think about from a National Security perspective? I’m going to place my bets now and say yes.

As the social media infrastructure becomes the medium for communication in our world we need to ensure that checks and balances are in place that allow it to be an open, creditable and verifiable mechanism for communication.

I would say in the realms of technology journalism that this is already a losing battle as a majority of content is simply an eco-chamber of unsubstantiated leaks, emails and punditry that has replaced the critical thinking and commentary that used to dominate the field.

Perhaps in the realms of technology or celebrity journalism these are not deal breakers, but when it comes to world events and the real time reporting of disasters or global crises it certainly is.

^[1] Hand, Richard J. (2006). Terror on the Air!: Horror Radio in America, 1931-1952. Jefferson, North Carolina: Macfarland & Company. p. 7. ISBN 0-786-42367-6.

Productivity: Business value in software development

My last post looked to the past to explain how productivity was a key to Microsoft’s initial success but that new business models and the ascent of the internet has changed that equation.

One simple way to illustrate this is to look at software development. Historically software development has had it’s roots in what is good for the IT organization. Is it cheaper, easier, manageable for technologists to do what they need to accomplish? This was pretty evident in the systems design and command and control structure of technology as it evolved in the 50s through the 80s.

The advent of the PC opened up a new opportunity. It made technology more accessible to folks outside the traditional groups that controlled technology. In effect, non-technology oriented folks in consumer and enterprise markets had a new say in how things could be done and if they didn’t like what the IT organization was saying or doing they could often take things into their own hands. This basically let to the birth of modern operating systems and productivity software as we know it.

But this phase held on to some of the patterns from the command and control days, de-facto standards were held by a few an interoperability was something people thought about begrudgingly or not at all. In fact the business models of all the competitors of the day were based on this thinking, in short the models worked—for a time.

But the internet caused a disruption to this way of thinking. In the enterprise folks had grown frustrated with established hegemony and the Web opened up a new way of thinking. One, it made it easier to write applications that anyone could use. Two, it simplified distribution. But compromises were made around ease of use and productivity often took a back seat to the utility that the internet provided.

In addition, as the utility of the internet spread to consumer focused applications created by a whole new general of developers abandoned the traditional practices of application development—in fact many were never exposed to classic development projects in the first place.

There were benefits to this for all of us. As consumers we could things online or get access to data that previously might have been very difficult, it might be difficult to use these new tools but difficult was better than impossible

This new models made life easier for developers too, they were a step down the path of ‘write-once, run everywhere.’

In the late 90’s however cracks began to appear in this revolution. The concept of being easier for developers did not necessarily mean cheaper. It wasn’t uncommon for early commerce sites for large scale efforts to cost anywhere from 15 million to 100 million US dollars—amounts that almost defy description today. Much of this was because IT in the late 90s was similar to automotive industry in the early parts of the 20th century where there were hundreds of car manufactures competing for consumer’s business, there was no standardization and no interoperability, this made things really hard.

Worse still is what happened when these cobbled together systems actually started generating revenue. It became increasingly difficult to modify or make changes to applications that were mission critical but that were so complex that every feature rollout was the IT equivalent to performing brain surgery where a single mistake could cost millions in lost revenue.

Two things happened that pulled this revolution back from the brink and both of them really boil down to productivity.

One is that developers and software makers started focusing on standards—regardless if the solutions they created were ‘free’ or ‘open’. Web developers demanded it and used technology that was exclusively standards-based and enterprises that required more than standards could provide at least wanted the flexibility to interoperate with these standards and other technology. It’s hard to find any standards-based or proprietary technology today that doesn’t think about interoperability.

The second is that the level of frustration with the usability of technology came to the forefront. It wasn’t just about did an application actually work but could a person actually figure out how to use it.

Both of these drivers have been a key part of the Web 2.0 phenomena with the popularity of AJAX and rich media experiences enabled with things like Flash, Silverlight, etc. It even extends to the power of client software, such as iTunes, WPF applications, AIR applications and other solutions that take advantage of client hardware versus a browser.

I think the next wave of productivity is starting now and it’s focused on productivity in application development and life cycle management and in total cost of investment and return on investment.

When we think about productivity in application development and life cycle management we are really talking about the concept of the ‘Inverted-T’. Which can be defined at the repeatable best practices that we can apply to every project versus re-inventing the wheel. For example why build a content management system when you can buy one or save money implementing an open source option? Why spend money designing a architectural work pattern for a manufacturing facility if you can license one? Why build an authentication system if you can leverage one as a service? This type of thinking represents the horizontal part of the ‘T’. This way of thinking allows us to go deep and focus the majority of our attentions on the parts of our business that allow for differentiation and innovation.

We can also think about life-cycle management. For example does our workflow allow asynchronous round tripping through of projects and assets from designers to developers. Very few workflows do this today, one does (I’ll be polite and not mention them by name). I suspect this type of workflow will become standard in many environments and that in some agile Web processes traditional design tools will be eclipsed by tools that work in the target delivery medium (Vectors versus bitmaps for example or HTML and CSS that don’t need to be factored from static visual designs).

The final dimension in the next wave of productivity is probably services. We already have a myriad of services available to us around commerce, community, identity, location, search but the next wave of services, commonly called ‘cloud’ services are going to go far beyond that. In the future Knowledge Management or email systems might make more sense for many companies if they exist outside of an enterprise’s data center and in a cloud—much like we host many of our Web sites today if we’re a small to mid-size business. These type of moves will start letting developers in the enterprise and smaller entities focus on the core strategies that allow their business to innovate.

We’re starting to see signs of this already in the market. For example look at the ability of a service-based site like Mint.com. Their ability to innovate and role out new features is far more capable that some of their more traditional peers.

Lesser known examples might be click-ones applications that can silently and quickly introduce new features without proactive user activity.

The next post in this topic will dive into services and show how once we’ve taken advantage of the productivity gains that can come in software development and services that we’re ready to set the table for real breakthrough innovation.

Productivity: Business value through efficiency

This post is adapted from a paper that appears in the Journal of Business Strategy entitled Cultural Innovation in Software Design: The New Impact of Innovation Planning Methods

Microsoft is a company that historically was guided by a simple premise, “A PC on every desk and in every home.” Microsoft’s role in that premise was simple, to be the creator of the software that would run on those computing platforms, creating every piece of software a consumer would need. As the Economist noted in a July 26^th, 2008 Microsoft’s success in this endeavor hinged on two important insights.

The first was that computing could be a high-volume, low-margin business. Until Microsoft came along, the big money was in maintaining a select family of very grand mainframes. Mr. Gates realised that falling hardware costs, combined with the negligible expense of making extra copies of standard software, would turn the computer business on its head…Profit would come from selling a lot of them cheaply, not servicing a few at a great price.”

“Mr. Gates also realised that making hardware and writing software could be stronger as separate businesses. Even as firms like Apple clung on to both the computer operating system and the hardware—just as mainframe companies had—Microsoft and Intel, which designed the PC’s microprocessors, blew computing’s business model apart.

Although it’s difficult to recognize how inspired and innovative this thinking was over 33 years ago it was augmented by another important and unique characteristic of Microsoft in its early days as the Economist continues to elaborate.

The technology industry likes to sneer at Microsoft as a follower. And it is true that the company has time and again bought in or imitated the technology of others…His (Bill Gate’s) genius was to understand what he needed and work out how to obtain it, however long it took. In an industry in which visionaries are often sniffy about anyone else’s ideas, the readiness to go elsewhere proved a devastating advantage.

In effect, Microsoft in its early days was a company that was focused on incremental technology innovation and product optimization. The combination of this one-two punch of innovation in business model and technology enhancement has enabled Microsoft to become one of the most successful and profitable companies in the world.

But as Microsoft prepares to enter the twilight of its fourth decade in existence it faces new challenges that require a fundamental reshaping of its core value offerings and how it will develop and innovate in the realms of software in the future. These challenges include emerging business models focused on advertising supported software, search, open source software, and services. The emergence of new computing form factors in the mobile space and among consumer devices focused on media and entertainment space also are having a dramatic impact on how businesses and consumers perceive and embrace computing in both established and emerging markets.

So…how does Microsoft consider to grow and thrive in this new market where open source and new business models are the disruptive innovation? My next post will look at some of the changes in Microsoft over the past few years that serve as ‘ingredients’ for innovation, and set the table in Microsoft for how to address these challenges.

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Quotes from The Economist. (2008, June 26). The Meaning of Bill Gates. Retrieved July 17, 2008, from Economist.

Resetting Design Thinking Digest

It’s been some time since I’ve used Design Thinking Digest as much of a forum, for commentary or curation. Some of this is because I’ve found tools such as Linked In, Facebook and Twitter have replaced much of what I used Design Thinking Digest for—but some of it is probably also due to what I’d characterize as ‘social media fatigue’. After SxSW and MIX I wasn’t certain I was contributing much that was unique or that warranted a blog post.

Over the past three months a big part of my daily activities I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about how the economic slowdown is impacting the digital marketing and digital agency ecosystem that I frequently work with.

Like any other segment of our economy it’s been hit hard by current events. But, perhaps not surprisingly to many readers, parts of these eco-system are also thriving as they never have before.

As I put a toe back in the blogosphere I see three trends that will impact designers greatly over the next 12 to 24 months.

Welcome to the new normal

Our new economic environment is not a downturn as much a  reset. The realities that we deal with today are marketing dynamics that we’re gong to have to deal with going forward. In fact this is a theme that Steve Ballmer has been touching on for some time in many public speeches. In Chicago recently he framed it this way at a luncheon at the Chicago Executive Club.

I want to talk a little bit about the economy, but really only to set up the thing that to me is probably more important to talk about, which is productivity and innovation. We are going through an unprecedented kind of economic (crisis) – I like to call it reset. I don't think we're in a recession; I think we are resetting. I think this is the new normal, and yesterday was the exception. And I think we got ourselves there in a lot of ways, but economic growth in general is fueled, GDP growth is fueled by productivity and innovation and debt, and over the last 10, 15, 20 years we've seen debt for businesses and consumers rise to almost 300 percent of GDP. It was 150 percent, by the way, before the Great Depression. And we were kind of borrowing our way to prosperity, and I'm afraid post-reset we're going to have to innovate and improve productivity to drive GDP growth.

It's clear debt will not be the economic growth driver of the next 10 years. After every major deleveraging of the world's economy in the last 200 years, people were slow to bring back debt.

Social media is the driver of innovation in marketing and mass media

Although I may have ‘fatigue’ from social media it’s perhaps more important now than it ever was. Social media is the glue of just about every advertising, marketing, communications or public relations scenario that you can think of. But most CTOs or CMOs misunderstand or are flat out terrified of the implications. There has never been a better opportunity for professionals and services that can enable the architecture of social media scenarios. But it’s still a nascent space requiring a hybrid of skills that is not the exclusive domain of social media pioneers that build great individual brands nor digital marketers focused more on digital, but traditional, push or destination marketing in the digital realm.

Productivity and innovation will drive economic growth

We we talk about an economic reset one pillar that companies use to fuel growth, debt, is effectively off the table for many folks. For fueling growth we need to turn to the other two pillars of innovation and productivity.

If you compare the capital costs of starting a business in 1999 to 2009 it’s a different world. The infrastructure to get phone service, office space, internet and office productivity tools is a fraction of what it was 10 years ago. A committed entrepreneur can have a digital shingle on a door in a matter of a few hours today because of the advent of services that we just not available and competitive in the world of Web 1.0.

But if you look at the way we build and implement business-both physically and digitally you might find that little has changed in many economic segments.

If you look at how companies measure or ‘sense’ what their actual business performance is many companies are lousy at it.

The successful companies of tomorrow will use technology and new business processes and workflows to increase productivity in areas they’ve yet been able to, or had incentive to address.

Productivity alone is now enough however, it’s a tide that raises all boats if we continue with metaphors. What does provide a competitive advantage is innovation. Innovation isn’t borne completely of technology, but is also a result of the application business strategy and the innovation planning process that a company can bring to bear. This where concepts like a thorough understanding of customer experience and platforms can allow a company to shine. It’s why the iPhone and the Application Store are such a success, it’s why Windows, with a global platform of one billion users and vast developer ecosystem is still incredibly powerful and valuable despite recent predictions about it’s demise.

Over the summer I’ll be focusing a bit on the things we can control as designers in our own profession practice and with our customers—namely how can we be more productive and how can we, as designers, be a key driver of innovation.

A curated list of things to do at SxSW, Sunday, March 15th

Sunday is when the EXPO floor of SxSW finds its rhythm. You’ll find a variety of folks exhibiting there (from startups to the US Army and all the outliers in between). Some of the best conversations I have at SxSW occur on the Expo floor. Microsoft will there too, if you wonder what we could be possibly doing that would matter to you, check us out. Or…if you’ve got feedback for Microsoft, stop by and give it to a real person.

Here’s what I’ll be checking out on Sunday.

Sunday, March 15th

Tips and Tricks for Making the Most of Creative Suite 4
Room Hilton A
Sunday, March 15th
10:00 am - 11:00 am

Add this to your SXSW Calendar

Join Greg Rewis, author and industry-renowned Adobe evangelist, to learn how to get the most out of Creative Suite 4. Greg will show you hidden features in Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, and more. During his performance, and it will be a performance I'm sure, he'll also show you his favorite time-saving tips and tricks, and who knows what else you'll walk away with hint. hint. You certainly won't want to miss this fun and informative session.

I’m not certain I’ll learn anything new here but I always like to give Greg the opportunity to give a few potshots in my direction when we’re at the same events. It’s just this thing we do. :)

Greg Rewis Creative Solutions Evangelism,   Adobe
Ryan Stewart Evangelist,   Adobe

Violating the Warranty on Your Touch Computing Device
Room 10
Sunday, March 15th
11:30 am - 12:30 pm
Add this to your SXSW Calendar

Simple touch computing is taking the world by storm in desktop, mobile, and environmental computing. The best and brightest are taking their gloves off, drawing inspiration from Star Wars to James Bond, and going beyond the conventional bounds of touch computing. See what design and technology leaders are doing next with technology like Microsoft Surface and other touch computer platforms.

This is a panel that I’m moderating. Touch is a hot topic and here we’ll focus on why Surface is far more than a ‘big ass’ table and we’ll talk to folks that are actually building and deploying touch apps TODAY versus just talking about what will happen in the future.

Chris Bernard User Experience Evangelist,   Silverlight/Microsoft
Joe Engalan Dir of Dev,   Vectorform
Erik Klimczak Creative Dir,   Clarity Consulting
Joe Olsen CEO,   Phenomblue
Dan Thompson, Developer, Manifest Digital

CSS3: What's Now, What's New and What's Not?
Room 8
Sunday, March 15th
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Add this to your SXSW Calendar

This panel explores how major browsers implement CSS3. The focus is on finding effective and efficient methods for developers to unleash their creativity while maintaining cross-browser compatibility. The panel covers current implementations, future plans from the major browser vendors and some discussion of the current progress on the standard itself.

A great, annual panel at SxSW with a great lineup. If you care about the standards based Web this is one you don’t what to miss.

Molly Holzschlag Pres,   Molly.com Inc
David Baron dbaron.org
Chris Wilson Web Platform Architect,   Microsoft
Hakon Wium Lie Opera Software
Sylvain Galineau Program Mgr,   Microsoft

Three great events this night.

Adobe 12th Annual SXSW Web Awards Ceremony - Presented by Adobe 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Downtown Hilton Hotel, 6th Floor (500 E 4th St)

The Web Awards Ceremony is the centerpiece of evening activities at the SXSW Interactive Festival. This year's emcee is "conscious comic and vigilante pundit" Baratunde Thurston. The SXSW Web Awards are presented by Adobe, Web Awards Supporting Sponsors are Convio and All Web Leads.

FG SQUARED Party
9:00 pm - 11:00 pm
Lucky Lounge (209 W 5th St)

Hightail it over to the FG SQUARED shindig. It's gonna be aces--grab a highball on the house and knock back some buckshot with Austin's interactive marketing big leaguers. We'll have a cool cat spinning all of Frank's favorites, plus we're playing BINGO (you heard me, Daddy-O.) Swing, baby!

Facebook friends.get Party 2009
9:30 pm - 1:30 am
Pangaea (409 Colorado St)

Do you develop, design or dance like a superstar? Facebook is hosting a party with live entertainment for our developers and partners. Stay up-to-date on all the SXSW activities at http://www.facebook.com/sxsw.

What is LEED: FlashPoint Academy and the City of Chicago

Our PhizzPop Design Challenge Finale in Austin is rooted in a real world scenario. Namely, how Howard Tullman made FlashPoint Academy the first LEED certified educational institution in Chicago.

Video courtesy of FlashPoint. Yes, you’ll need Silverlight to see it.

See more about FlashPoint Academy at their site or on YouTube.

The PhizzPop Design Challenge Finale, Austin, TX POSTED

Sustainable Living in Austin

Overview
Your agency has been selected by the partnership of Glen and Howard Tullman, with assistance from Microsoft, to deliver a digital experience or experiences that will engage the Austin, TX community to adopt a sustainable lifestyle.

Brothers, Glen and Howard Tullman, are Chicago based entrepreneurs that share a passion for environmental stewardship. Howard, President and CEO of FlashPoint Academy, ensured the institution was the first LEED certified school built in Chicago. Glen, recently founded a company called SoCore, committed to making solar energy affordable to small businesses. The Tullman’s are firm believers in the power of innovation and commerce to effect powerful cultural change. To test their ideas, they’ve recently set their eyes on Austin, TX as a community ripe with potential and opportunity.

Specifically, they’ve recently been inspired by the following:

1. 1. New economic development in Austin such as Mueller housing complex.
2. 2. Grass roots and local government initiatives such at the Green Technology Alliance and the Sustainable Communities Initiative.
3. 3. The advanced infrastructure of Austin Energy and its progressive operations strategy.

The Tullman brothers will fund a city-wide sustainability program that impacts commuters, consumers, students and business in Austin. Its focuses helping Austin citizens understand how their daily activities and choices impact the environment and provide guidance on how to lessen their impact. The catch? The program isn’t about the future or what could be, but about what’s doable now. Using off the shelf technology and services that people already have and are available today.

The Tullmans have partnered with Microsoft to make a US $500,000 investment in this program to show how small individual changes, coupled with grass roots and community organized efforts can substantially improve the environment where we live and work.

More on Glen and Howard Tullman, recently featured in BusinessWeek…

Two of Chicago's leading entrepreneurs happen to be brothers. But it's a good thing they didn't actually grow up together. Howard Tullman, 14 years older, already had left the nest when Glen, the baby of the family, persuaded their mother to let him cut a hole in the roof of the family's New Providence (N.J.) home to test his ideas on solar energy. Mom never said no. But Howard, born bossy, wouldn't have let Glen experiment on his own. "He would have wanted a bigger hole," says Glen. Admits Howard: "I was an overpowering presence."

Assignment
Your firm has been selected to create the platform that helps the citizens of Austin live more sustainably using current technology and social media principles. To enable this program, your team is tasked with the following:

1. Develop the public space presence for this program. Our goals are to inform, recruit, excite and motivate the citizens of Austin. The city of Austin is installing digital signage throughout the community to support this effort. It’s expected that viral marketing and traditional media campaigns will drive most of the awareness of these efforts and that those awareness efforts are not in the scope of your proposal.

Focus on the following three areas with your solution

a. Travel and transportation and shared miles

i. Such as how to help Austin inhabitants take advanced of mass transit where possible or share.

ii. How to take advantage of the concepts of ride sharing and car pooling

iii. How to travel and commute using efficient miles

iv. How to take advantage of information services for current traffic conditions and road information.

b. Commerce

i. Help business and consumers let each other know about their commitment or interest in sustainability.

ii. Businesses that use or create alternative energy

iii. Identify consumers that are interested in patronizing sustainable businesses

iv. Help businesses and consumers be more aware of energy usage and power management tools.

v. Show how using existing data services and new automation techniques, energy efficiency can be increased without impact to comfort or usage patterns.

c. Innovation in LEED with technology in the Innovation and Design Process Category

i. Demonstrate innovative thinking and design process around LEED using technology in a community, many to many, or installation fashion—such as making feedback about the environment and our impact in it a part of the community via sculpture, digital billboard, large format device other means.

Reputation

a. We believe that publically visible reputation will be a critical component to foster adoption and change of behavior. Our goal is to foster a “keeping up with the Jones” aspect to lessening environmental impact

b. Your proposed solution should weave reputation and reputation impact into the choices each individual makes

Channels & Touch Points
To increase effectiveness and efficacy of this program, it is imperative that the citizens of Austin can engage with this program across multiple channels & touch points. Your solution is expected to deliver an interactive experience across the following devices and environments:

· Web

· Desktop

· Mobile

· Public Space or Kiosk

Inspiration

· Windows Drive

· GreeNet

· EcoDrive

· IU EcoVis

· Sparx

· Edelweiss

· Edison PC Power Management Software

· Carbon & Water Calculator

· Smart Environments

· Google PowerMeter

· Solutions created at a student design event last year conducted by Microsoft called Imagine Cup and the 2008 Challenge that was focused on technology and sustainability.

Considerations
The following are considerations, not guidelines that should be evaluated when designing a solution:

• The use of data visualization techniques across mediums (Surface, WPF, Sliverlight, IE8 features such as Web Slices or Accelerators)
• Integration of third-party social media APIs such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Live.
• Integration of existing or new hardware monitoring and control services such as HVAC, presence, temperature, light.
• Integration of Microsoft Live Services such as http://maps.live.com/ and http://dev.live.com/ and http://www.windowslive.com/explore.
• Usage of QR codes or online promotion and coupons and other next generation tagging and geo location services. See www.microsoft.com/tag.

Audience Personas

Persona 1: The New Urbanist
Name: Dr. Thomas Reece
Age: 44

Dr. Thomas Reece is a professor of international human rights law and a self-proclaimed new urbanist. He and his wife have 3 kids and live in a modest 1500ft home in central Austin. Thomas brags about his ‘small footprint’ to friends and encourages everyone to do more with less. The one and only family car is a 2001 Volvo (By his calculations it was better for the environment for him to keep the car versus buy a new one—even an energy efficient one, based on his cradle to grave calculations). Thomas prides himself on riding his bike to work. However, when weather doesn’t permit, he is forced to commute the 3 miles to work by car. Thomas and his wife both have laptops and there is one desktop computer for the children which they share. The Reece’s have traveled to India, South Africa, Switzerland and Thailand in the past few years and have made choices to live as simple and local as possible, deeply impacted by the trips. Taking advantage of his summers off, Thomas plans several home improvement projects to add ‘green equity’ to his home and reduce the family’s use of vital resources, energy and water. He also uses each project as a lesson for his kids, taking them though the costs savings and environmental cause and effect. Thomas wife, Naomi, owns a franchise of Fruitful Yield, a local vitamin store that has its roots in Chicago. The business is profitable, but the recent economic crisis has resulted in a year over year decline in sales of 7%. The Reece’s also attend every educational course or class in town on solar panels and installations, in hopes of someday going ‘off the grid’, doing the work themselves for their business first, and eventually, their home. Both of the Reeces are active cellphone users and Thomas recently traded his aging Nokia phone in for an HTC Touch, while his wife uses a Motorola Q.

Persona 2: Government Idealist
Name: Regina Wilkinson
Age: 25

Regina Wilkinson is a recent Berkley graduate with big ideas and stars in her eyes. She is tireless, earning a menial salary as the city council’s senior assistant. She would like to make major policy decisions someday that help the city expand and grow in a way that benefits everyone. She lives a bit north of town where apartments are larger and much more affordable. In order to take her dog ‘Major’ to an open field or dog park she has to drive at least 4 miles. Regina has one laptop that serves for personal and work. She must carry it everywhere, never knowing when an eleventh hour emergency proposal edit will come through. Her car is a 12 year old Ford Focus, which has good gas mileage for a small car, but with the wear and tear of her 15 mile commute, it’s not going to last much longer. Since she lives in the suburbs, she doesn’t have a viable public transportation option. Taking the bus involves 3 route changes and 2.5 hours. Regina often wonders why the commuter rail prop doesn’t get approved. Regina is concerned for the future, she would like to do more but with her monthly take-home, ‘buying green’ always seems just out of grasp. Recently, Regina started a graduate program at The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture. She suspects she’ll be paying the loans off for years but is excited about the program. Addicted to email, Regina can’t leave the house without her Blackberry.

Persona 3: The Business Owner
Name: Michael McCormick
Age: 65

Michael McCormick has owned his own moving company for 37 years. He has seen the ups and downs of business and gas prices. The company has 13 diesel moving trucks of varying sizes. Most of the fleet is aging and are not as efficient as the new models on the market. He knows his employees don’t always plan their routes resulting in wasted time and money. Last summers’ hike in gas prices really hurt Michael’s bottom line. He is 65 and doesn’t ever plan on retiring. He loves his Chevy pickup and his old Mercedes. Michael has never really concerned himself with technology or computers but uses his work laptop—a Dell that his account recommended he purchase to write emails and conduct business and his wife has a computer they both use at their home—another Dell. Mr. McCormick drives 23 miles to work 7 days a week. If something goes wrong he has to be there, he doesn’t trust his drivers to handle customers. So he often finds himself making his commute twice a day. In the past few years he has watched his gas costs soar but is too stubborn to purchase an economical car. However, he and his wife talk often about downsizing to a smaller home now that the kids have left the nest. They would like to buy a condominium to pare down the cost of maintaining a large home. Michael uses his mobile phone extensively during these drives, an aging Motorola Razor with a piece of duct tape that keeps the battery from falling out.

Persona 4: Social Activist
Name: Dusty California
Age: 37

Dusty California has done it all, protested logging by living in the redwood trees of southern Oregon, ran for mayor of Austin (unsuccessfully) by climbing the city buildings to speak about the ineffectiveness of the government and subsequently getting arrested countless times, he has gotten by on 18,000 dollars or less a year for his entire adult life. Even though he has a Phd. from Columbia (Or at least would have, had he bothered to present his thesis), he happily lives as simply as possible. Dusty only wears organic hemp clothing and walks or rides his bike. If he is forced to ride public transportation he goes online and donates money to ensure that his carbon footprint remains at zero. He owns a Macbook (bought used) laptop so he can interact with his activist friends online and run several environmental message boards. He also writes and submits a constant stream of ‘green’ literature and research to state and government sympathizers. He lives just across the river from downtown, renting a bedroom from one of the other activists. Dusty speaks with his dollar; everything he purchases is researched beforehand, to ensure that he is buying from companies that have the same or similar philosophies as his own. Nothing crosses his lips that isn’t local and organic. He wishes more people understood how important sustainability is for the future of our planet but doesn’t see much that solves the big environmental issues. He works for Naiomi at the Fruitful Yield as an assistant manager. Dusty has fought owning a phone but Naomi insisted that he get one once he started working at Fruitful Yield—which she even offered to pay for. Dusty opted for a refurbished 8GB iPhone 3G.

Presentation
Your team will have 7 minutes to present your Microsoft Silverlight and/or WPF prototype to a panel of 5 judges and an audience at the PhizzPop Finale at SXSW 2009 in Austin, TX. Presentation of your team’s design prototype will be at the following date and venue:

Monday, March 16, 2009
7:00 - 11:00 PM EST

PhizzPop Design Challenge Finale at SXSW 2009
Pangaea
Austin, TX 12345

Support
Dedicated support will be provided to all teams upon the delivery of this Design Challenge brief. All conversations between individual agency teams and Microsoft support contacts will be confidential and all communications will not be disclosed to other competing agency teams.

Register at www.phizzpop.com

A curated list of things to at SxSW, Saturday, March 14th

Start your morning off but checking out Barcamp again.

Some panels I like and will be trying to check out are listed below.

Saturday, March 14

The 7 Rules for Great Web Application Design
Room Hilton A
Saturday, March 14th
10:00 am - 11:00 am
Add this to your SXSW Calendar

In this lively and interactive session, Robert Hoekman, Jr., the author of 'Designing the Obvious' and 'Designing the Moment', uses the audience to reveal the 7 essential design principles for achieving great application design and the psychology behind them. And he does it all without a single bullet point (gasp!).

Robert Hoekman Jr User Experience Designer,   Miskeeto LLC

Microformats: A Quiet Revolution
Room 10
Saturday, March 14th
11:30 am - 12:30 pm
Add this to your SXSW Calendar

Microformats are quietly changing the landscape of the web, achieving some of the original ideals of the 'semantic web.' In the past year, we've seen increased adoption from web designers and popular web sites, improved browser support for microformats in both Firefox and IE, and search engines beginning to support microformats. Come hear from the leaders who are driving these changes in the industry, and find out what the future holds for microformats.

Tantek Çelik tantek.com
Leah Culver Software Engineer,   Six Apart Ltd
Karsten Januszewski Developer,   Microsoft
Glenn Jones Creative Dir,   Madgex
Jeremy Keith Technical Dir,   Clearleft Ltd

Connecting Interrelated Design and Development Workflows
Room 10
Saturday, March 14th
3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
Add this to your SXSW Calendar

Design and development are like siblings in the creative process constantly trying to express their individuality but a lot closer than they're willing to admit. This session will explore the interrelated disciplines of design and development by looking at three specific project types: designer/developer collaboration for the Flash Platform; designer/developer collaboration for Ajax; and cross-media design and publication. You'll see how designers and developers can achieve peace through more efficient integration and collaboration across media types and disciplines.

Doug Winnie Group Prod Mgr Workflow,   Adobe
Ryan Stewart Evangelist,   Adobe

Should I Build My Startup on Ruby on Rails?
Room Hilton D
Saturday, March 14th
5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Add this to your SXSW Calendar

You've heard Ruby on Rails is the hottest new technology for developing web applications. You've also heard of concerns about scalability and hiring talent. How do you separate the facts from the hype? Hear the business perspective on why to consider Ruby on Rails now and why you might want to wait and see. Get ready for a head-to-head comparison with PHP, Java and .NET!

Joshua Baer Founder,   OtherInbox

Of course the night wouldn’t be complete without a few official parties. Two great ways to kick off the party circuit at SxSW are on Saturday night.

SXSW Interactive Opening Happy Hour hosted by Razorfish
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
The Madison (307 W 5th St)

Start mixing it up on day one with Razorfish at The Madison. For more information, visit our Razorfish SXSW Facebook page:

SXSW Interactive Opening Party Hosted by frog design
8:00 pm - 11:00 pm
Mexican American Cultural Center (600 River St)

This is the legendary frog design party you've always been hearing about. Officially kick off the 16th year of SXSW Interactive at this unforgettable party

A curated list of things to do at SxSW; Friday, March 13th

SxSW Interactive has over 200 sessions this year. If you’ve never been there it can be a bit overwhelming. There’s also a bunch of ancillary, off the grid events, that occur around SxSW. It’s always great to know what’s going on at those events too.

Here’s a few things I’ll be checking out this year.

Barcamp Austin 4

This event is a staple of my SxSW experience, it will occur over three days this year and details on the event can be found here.

SxSW Panels and Parties

SCHED*SXSW is a great resource to plan your own SxSW schedule or you can use mySXSW. Here are some things I’m looking at.

Friday, March 13

Everything You Know About Web Design Is Wrong
Room A
Friday, March 13th
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Add this to your SXSW Calendar

Just as early filmmakers struggled to break free from the conventions of live theater, after 10+ years Web designers are still trapped in the structures of the past. Forget pages, linear text and other archaic vestiges of design's print ancestry; the separation of content from presentation has already changed everything.

Dan Willis Consultant, Sapient

The Essential Guide to Open Source Flash Development
Room Day Stage
Friday, March 13th
3:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Add this to your SXSW Calendar

What do the Adobe Flex and ActionScript compilers; the award-winning 3D Flash library, Papervision3D; the native data format for Flash, SWX; and the excellent Flash streaming and interactive server, Red5 have in common? They're all open source. And they're all introduced in this book by the project leads themselves.Contrary to its popular perception as a closed platform, the Flash Platform has an active and thriving grassroots open source community and a plethora of open source projects. In this session, Aral Balkan, founder of OSFlash.org and creator of SWX, will give you an overview of what's possible with open source Flash with examples from the book.

Aral Balkan CEO,   Naklab

TechSet Blogger Lounge, Sponsored by Windows Mobile - Austin Suite
Friday, 3:00pm to 5:00pm

This year we have something very special lined up for the 2009 SXSWi, and your presence is formally requested. Join us at The TechSet blogger lounge sponsored by Windows Mobile to collaborate and celebrate everyday during the conference. We're assembling an agenda rich with activities, entertainment, and resources to make this year unforgettable, fun, and also productive. Drinks, snacks, and all you can eat broadband provided. Follow @techset and @wmdev on Twitter for all the latest news.

The TechSet Meets The Rat Pack at SXSWi
8:00 pm - 10:00 pm
The Belmont Lounge (305 W 6th St)

Come enjoy the unique and stylish period-specific décor that conjures scenes from Las Vegas and Palm Springs during the Sinatra era. You'll be surrounded by incredible and pioneering entrepreneurs and influencers as we create our own Rat Pack rich with relationships that will propel us long after the curtain closes on SXSWi 09. Hosted by TechSet and Windows Mobile.