Quote:

Po: "There is no charge for awesomeness... or attractiveness."

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Cool playground toys

Inspiration comes from many different places. We are on vacation in
Park City, Utah. At the playground near the hotel, there are these
neat toys. They work a lot like a 'scoop' as my 3 year old calls
them. He is not quite bog enough, but he was absolutely capivated by
them. Long live mechanical engineers.

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validation

Like all designer, it was interesting to watch the latest Apple product release (even if the design was leaked a few months ago). To me the most interesting part is its construction; basically a metal frame (which also acts as an antenna) which is then capped off with two pieces of glass. As I watched the ‘design’ video on Apple’s site and they explained the construction, the first thing that came to mind was Kaleidoscope’s Greener Grass concept phone the LINC. The LINC phone, designed with carbon foot print and recyclability in mind, has a metal frame captured by glass. I am NOT suggesting that Apple stole the idea from Kaleidoscope’s design team, as I believe that all good designers push for new and interesting forms which in most cases require innovative manufacturing techniques. The difference is that some designers work in an organization that enables disruptive thinking. Most designers work for companies (or with clients) that are content with incremental change.

As a designer with a soft spot for killer execution and finish I am glad to see that Apple continues to push the envelope of what is possible. It is also nice to see that Kaleidoscope’s designers are ahead of the curve.

Bad design

Subject: Bad design

We had a couple of people's last day today. Panera provided the
breakfast. Their drink dispensers are horrible. They are filled on
end) vertically, but when are used in the office (horizontally) the
coffee or orange juice pours all over the rug or floor or table.
This definately falls into the "who on earth designed this!?"

happy chinese new year: year of the dragon

i have worked with asia enough to know when chinese new year is... as everything shuts down. On our designers is from taiwan and wished me a 'happy chinese new year!'

i don't know how my son knew it was chinese new year, nor did i know how he know that it is the year of the dragon. but he does and this is what he made for me. not bad for a seven year old. it inspires me!

More cool graphics

Here are some lifestyle graphics from the mini booth at the autoshow.
It seems like mini and scion are the only brands that really support
lifestyle.

Clean diesel

Here is a detail of the graphic for Volkswagen's clean diesel cars at
the autoshow. I like the flame that are really leaves.

Form follows function

A cool detail from a fiesta headlight at the Detroit auto show.

On Sunday, there was an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer that caught my eye. I have read about Bob McDonald before and I am intrigued with the new CEO and chairman of P&G.

Somewhat by design and somewhat by chance, I have had opportunities to lead others both professionally and in other areas. I have always felt that there is a difference between 'leadership' and 'management.' Although the two are often intertwined, if I had to choose one over the other I would choose leadership.

It is nice to see some of my thoughts and ideas validated by someone of McDonald's stature. There are a couple of points from the article that think are better quoted verbatim as I don't think I could do them justice.

First,

In fact, McDonald rejects what he calls "charismatic leadership," symbolized in the movie "Patton" by George C. Scott standing in front of the American flag delivering a macho, profanity-laced pep talk to the troops.

"That's not leadership," McDonald said.

Instead, he practices "servant leadership," the management practice espoused by author Stephen Covey and others that calls for leaders to put the needs of their colleagues and organizations first.

"Humility is a key leadership trait we need to have," McDonald told a recent gathering of P&G general managers in Cincinnati. "How can we be empathetic to consumers if we're not humble?"

It is nice to see some of my thoughts and ideas validated by someone of McDonald's stature. There are a couple of points from the article that think are better quoted verbatim as I don't think I could do them justice.

Second, this was a side bar in the article and these 10 tenants are printed on cards and are frequently handed out to senior leadership in P&G.

''What I Believe In''

Bob McDonald keeps a one-page, double-sided handout titled "What I Believe In" that he gives to P&G managers and others. It contains these principles that he says influence him:

Living a life driven by purpose is more meaningful than meandering through life without direction.

Character is the most important trait of a leader.

Everyone wants to succeed, and success is contagious.

Putting people in the right jobs is one of the most important jobs of a leader.

Diverse groups of people are more innovative than homogenous groups.

Ineffective systems and cultures are bigger barriers to achievement than the talents of people.

Recruiting is top priority.

There will be some people in the organization who will not make it on the journey.

Organizations renew themselves.

The true test of the leader is the performance of the organization when they are absent or after they depart.

Below is a link for the whole article. A nice read for a Sunday afternoon.

http://communitypress.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20100115/BIZ01/1170310/0/NEWS0103/P-G-chief-Humble-leadership

beauty in suburban cincinnati?

i said that my family is the most important thing in my life. well my cool wife snapped this shot (with her first gen iphone) this evening a sent it to me. for all those naysayers, i say the mid-west is beautiful!

inspiration

i started this blog when i made the jump to a smartphone. there were all kinds of things i discovered i could do while mobile. while the world of smartphone is still fascinating to me, it seems so yesterday. maybe that is because my iphone is six months old and the (usable) internet in my pocket is just a given. i love my iphone even though it drops calls way too often.

i recently relocated to ohio when my company, kaleidoscope (www.kascope.com) calls home. i am the director of design as such i see lots of things that i find interesting or inspiring. you will notice the name of the blog is no longer chris_mobile, but chris_is_mobile. when ever i see something cool, it will hopefully show up here. (and most likely from my iphone) i am not sure what they did but the iphone 3gs camera is almost good enough to not ever use a point and shoot camera ever again so i assume most of the posts will be generated on the go via my iphone.

the coolest thing in my life is my family and they take priority over everything else, so post frequency may vary. likewise, my company is in the midst of a format change on our website and i hope to be posting cool stuff there too.

long time no post

It has been a long time since the last post... maybe that is because windows mobile is not that deep and within a few weeks you have discovered everything there is. As I have mentioned in past posts, to me winmo is all about active sync, which works great. Apple is now 3 versions into the iPhone and i have finally made the jump... first some background.

About a year ago, i bought a the 3rd generation ipod nano... it was a refurb and it was cheap. Even though there was no music on it, i was amazed with the 'surprise and delight' factor. The overall polish of the UI, the games that were included... it was cool, even the screen when it was charging was nice. In contrast to what my windows mobile device was like which in some instance was very windows circa 1995. For something that came in a crappy brown box with old ipod headphones and a white, but non-apple usb cable, it was a very pleasing 'out of box' experience. Now on to the iphone.

Apple has done a good job of reducing the packaging... (you need to realize that I have not bought a new apple product since my Ti powerbook... the last iteration of the Ti ID).
When I unboxed it and powered it up, i got the apple logo and the spinning circle that shows it is booting up... then while still black, it said that it needs to be initialized first by plugging it in to iTunes. Ughh... granted most pick up the iphone at the att store or the apple store and that would not be the case. Plus my house has really spotty (if non-existant) att signal which of course is part of the initialization. In true Apple style it said something like you need to take it to the Apple store for help. My assumption was it couldn't get the signal. I let it be for a half hour or so and it was all better... fired up and running. The out of box was a little rocky... the interesting thing to me, was Apple has been doing such high level ID for so long, the artifact was somewhat anti-climatic. The excitement was all about the UI.

the other side of the fence: the blackberry curve

I have been using the Curve for about three or four weeks. So far so good. I feel like I have used it long enough to talk through what I like and what I don't.
Kaleidoscope, the company I work for, does not have a blackberry server, so I realize in advance that my experience is less than advertised. In fact let me start there. I am going to sound like a microsoft fan boy, but I miss the activesync. Yes, I do get my e-mails in a timely fashion, but I noticed that if I review an e-mail on my computer, the e-mail may or may not be delivered to the blackberry. I absolutely hate having to plug in the phone to my laptop and sync the updates to the calendar, contacts and tasks. It will be interesting to see how the new iphone software handles this... it does claim activesync compatibility. The other day, my battery died and I was not in a position to charge it, so I used a windows mobile device for the weekend. I have switched devices enough that I have the outlook settings memorized. Plugged them in and all my contacts, appointments and e-mails show up. Pure magic :)
Speaking of battery, the battery life on the curve is good. Maybe that is because it an EDGE device and doesn't support the 3G. But on eastern long island where I live, there is 3G is pretty rare unless you are deep in Nassau County or in the Hamptons. So based on that, it seems like RIM has done a good job of optimizing the battery life.
I like the form factor. It is a tad too thick, at least it seems to be so. I realize the Blackjack plays thickness games, with the top being thicker than most of the back. If the curve was 1.5 mm thinner it would be perfect. The slightly shorter length than a blackjack is nice.
I think I prefer the non-touch screen, but I will admit that first week, I kept trying to push the buttons on the screen. The overall UI seems dated. Maybe not quite as bad as my old SLVR, but there is a lot of text, icons, and overall graphic feel is a little too windows 3.11. I guess that keeps the GUI snappy and there is never delay because the processor can't keep up with the 'shiny GUI.' But for me, as a designer, I don't think I would choose this over other options.
I set the UI back to the blackberry default. The ATT version wasn't doing anything for me. I did like that I can move the home screen icons around, even remove them. This allowed me to delete all the silly ATT apps, music, radio, tv, etc.
There is some subtle rubber on the rear housing. It is a nice touch... it seems as if the whole housing is IMD parts... Looks nice from a distance, but seems almost cheap up close.
I really would like use the device with the blackberry server. Then I would have the missing 'activesync' connectivity.
The qwerty is good, same width as a blackjack. I think I like the keys of the blackjack better, but the curve definitely look better. I hate the fact that all the punctuation is on a shifted state. It is interesting to me that Samsung, Motorola, RIM spend lots of resources testing and validating keypads, but they all arrive at different solutions.

changes...

February 15 was too long ago. To a certain degree that is because I have become accustomed to the blackjack and windows mobile. As I have mentioned in previous posts, when it comes to outlook integration I am really impressed with windows mobile. Just plug in the settings on the device and never hard wire sync again. Once I started traveling with a new ipod nano, I gave up on multi-media on the blackjack.
About three weeks ago, I ordered a Samsung sgh-780. It is sort of a Blackjack big brother. The form factor is virtually identical to the Blackjack II. But it has a larger display, a touch screen, camera on the front, wifi and it runs the full version of windows mobile, not smart phone. Like the Blackjack II it is quadband gsm, but it seems to me that the radios are tuned when a phone is certified by a carrier. The 780 seems to drop calls too frequently, even shut the phone feature off when there is no signal... which is pretty often on Long Island.
I am surprised how different windows mobile and windows smart phone are... because my primary apps are making calls and sending and receiving e-mails, I think I prefer the smart phone version. It just seems a little cleaner.
The 780 has a really cool optical navigation button on the front. It is sort of a super mini track pad. It takes up less space than a traditional 4 or 5 way key. I assume it is much more reliable than a joystick. The rubberize finish on the rear and battery cover is nice. It reminds me of the original Blackjack. I personally prefer the satin finish to the super high gloss of the Blackjack II.
The wifi is great too. Pretty speedy web browsing, and it is nice to still be able to connect to e-mail in the house where there is no cell signal.
We had some pretty bad rain the last several days, and the non-reliable phone is N.G. (no good). So I am moving on...

blue screen

ok, it wasn't blue, it was an at&t globe, but yesterday morning when i went to start my phone, it would begin to start up but got hung up somewhere before the end of the boot. it sucked!
I finally figured out how to get it unstuck. (hold the up of the nav & press the power button while it is starting.) but it wipes out all the data on the phone... i removed the sd card so i did not loose that.
once or twice in the last 7-8 years I have had a phone get stuck, but i was always able to remove the battery and it would come back up... and I did not loose all the data.
i suppose if i had the outlook settings memorized i could have survived without my laptop. activesync is awesome... once i plugged my settings in, all the contacts were back as were the unread e-mails... but shame on windows for needing to flush everything.

mobile phone infrastructure

It seems like the only time I have to catch up on my reading in on airplanes. While reading last months Metropolis magazine, I stumbled across Ericsson's new cell towers. As a designer I think they are cool, much nicer than anything I have seen out there today. So at least it is no longer an aesthetic blight on the landscape. As far as I can tell it doesn't do much to reduce RF emission, which would make it the ultimate infrastructure solution. Here is the link to the Ericsson web page that discusses the new towers.

calendar

The last week has revealed some frustration with the calendar. There have been a number of instances where I would like to have been able forward a meeting appointment to someone else. There may be a way, but I have not been able to figure it out. It is an action that I use frequently on my outlook on my laptop.

phone geeks

Today at lunch, I am not sure how we ended up on the topics, but we were discussing how long it takes for mobile to boot up (for example my blackjack takes over a minute)... just to show how how bad it is, here is a picture of the design team racing to see whose phone is fastest and the slowest... yes designers are a sad lot :)

wm media player update...

In an earlier posting, i said that it was frustrating that i could not listen to music while doing something else... it turns out that if you did deep enough, there is a setting to play audio in the background. i suppose that a blackjack is primarily a business device, so having that is the default is understandable.
It is frustrating that the outlook integration is so good and the media is so amature. the blackjack plays aac files, which windows media on the pc doesn't recognize, so therefore i can not add them to the sync list or create any kind of playlist. i can add them as files via the file manager, but i can only listen to one song at a time. songs not on a playlist are viewed via a file manager and there is no way to play an entire directory or shuffle the entire library.
Another gripe, i was watching some movies on the airplane today... they have been compressed below dvd compression. the longer i watched, the further the audio lagged behind the video.
I still maintain that the ff / rw search is bad, even once you figure out how it works.

killer app

I find myself always wanting to check e-mail while I am driving... obviously not safe. (given the fact I have three kids, I am very good about resisting the temptation) I think it would be cool to have a text to speak app that would read my e-mails to me while I am driving. I realize that this is not really that revolutionary, as I know there are applications that will do this on a desktop. I am not sure if smartphones have the horsepower to to run something with good enough sound. it would definately be a nice addition to windows mobile...