A Rapid Prototype for an Important Customer

At work, my colleagues at the SAP Design Services Team, follow and evangelize a design methodology called "Make to Think" and "Think To Make". When I was called in by my most important customer (my wife) to provide my design ideas for a mission critical project, the design of tiles in our bathroom, I decided to apply my training by the Design Services Team of SAP and the expertise I acquired by working with them to the job.

Instead of developing a design strategy and making a presentation to her (which normally does not go very well), I invited her to join me in creating a prototype. We created a full size prototype with news paper and tape to visualize our bathroom tile design. By participating in the design process, we created something that both of us were invested in.  Instead of suggesting a design, I invited her to create a design by placing the 'accent tiles' on the wall and quickly experiment with multiple placements and layouts.

The prototype was done within two hours on a Sunday evening. It was rough and yet helped us make very important emotional, personal and spending decisions. This has been most important pay back so far from my Wall Street Journal subscription.

By the way, this approach might work well for less important things like multi-million dollar, multi year software projects.

Update two weeks later
The end product resulted remarkably close to the original design

The paper prototype was even more remarkable than I thought it would be. Our tile contractor used it as the "design document" and always referred back to the "document". Even though I did not articulate many things to him, he understood my intentions and we used the paper prototype as an object of discussion. We kept the conversation about the prototype and not about each others skills. (My design skills and his craftsmanship.)

Some work-in-progress pictures and finished product pictures to compare the "design document" with the final result. This is the picture at the end of week 1. We referred back to the paper prototype to make some decisions

If you are in the San Francisco Bay area and want to use the services of this tile contractor who did this job, here are the details. He works for himself and is a good craftsman.

JLM Custom Tile‎2138 Quito Road, San Jose, CA 95130-1929(408) 866-1937‎

Insert a calendar invitation - Official Gmail Blog

Insert a calendar invitation - Official Gmail Blog

Evolution of the Worker

We were not designed to sit at a desk. I spoke recently to several young working professionals, mostly from the Net Generation and they all had one thing to say. I don't want to be tied to my desk. Let me work from wherever I want. Leap Factors presentation has some good research and a good image on slide 4.

Leap Factor Executive Presentation

View more presentations from Leapfactor.

The Content Economy by Oscar Berg: Explaining Enterprise 2.0 in one minute

A good post that gets to the core of Enterprise 2.0. The message may not be new. But a good short summary. The Content Economy by Oscar Berg: Explaining Enterprise 2.0 in one minute

10 Cool Things You Can Use Your BlackBerry Camera For

1. Take a picture of your white board brain storming sessions, right after the session and post them in a wiki and share them with colleagues. This takes very little effort and will earn you kudos.

2. If you see a flower in a garden, take a picture and email it to your significant other. It will make his or her day.

3. If you are in another town or in another place and are enjoying the scenery, take a picture and send it to your significant other to let them know that you wanted to share the moment. If the scenery is really good, watch our for a reaction such as "How come you are having all the fun and did not take me there".

4. If you are at a customer location, and customer draws something on a piece of paper,or a napkin, take a picture of it (with their permission) and use that picture in your next PowerPoint presentation.

5. If you are at a restaurant and want to send the address of the place to a friend, don't bother remembering the address. Pick a card or menu from the front desk, take a picture and email it while you are walking to your car or taxi, train or bus.

6. When you are at a customer site, take a picture of their actual office and use them in your next presentation. If graphic artists are available, they can use them as source material.

7. If you are doing user research, take a picture of the users desk, artifacts and documents (with their permission) so that you can look at them later. Your team will get a better sense of this customer if they were not part of the visit.

8. Take a picture of your receipts. You can print them later for expense reporting purposes. You will also remember the order in which you incurred the expenses.

9. Take a picture of  visiting cards your receive. Don't have to worry about losing the card. You can also take a picture of books to remember their names and authors.

10. If you are asked for a copy of your drivers license or any other small document, (and do not have ready access to a flatbed copier) take a picture of the document and print it or email it.