Entries by Chris Brogan

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I've decided to move back to a blogger-based website. The folks here running supersized.org have been excellent, MORE than excellent. My decision has nothing to do with how amazingly great the service was here. Instead, it's just because Blogger has lots of software companies writing add-ons and things to make the site more useful, and I can't get 1:1 parity for the Serendipity software used here at supersized.  (For the average blog user, this wouldn't matter a lick. If you're considering getting a blog, use supersized.org. They're great folks!)

My URL will still be: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/  as this is redirected wherever I want it to go. However, my RSS will change.

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This site will stay active as long as Jannis permits. Please grab whatever you like for your archives (in case we take it down).

I'll see you at the new place.

Harold Brogan joined the world early on January 22, 2006. You can see a photo shoot by CLICKING HERE. 

For any relatives or friends who have trouble, either call or email or click COMMENTS and fill out the form.

Dave Gray is productive. This man puts out more graphics in more media than a graffiti tagger with a hardware store full of paint. Besides inventing his own visual language (you do that in your spare time, right?), Dave has written a book, taught class in the physical world, started a visual thinking school, and landed a spot in the Top 10 popular lenses at Seth Godin's Squidoo project. Dave was kind enough to give me an interview recently, and there's lots to cover. So, without delay, here's Dave Gray:

Tell me about founding XPlane. What came before, and how'd you make your move?

Before founding XPLANE I had a career as a graphic journalist. It was my job to quickly understand any complex situation and create a visual infographic that explained it to the general public. These "visual stories" typically explained something that was difficult to convey with words alone.

Here are some real-life examples:

• "So-and-so just won a Nobel prize in physics -- figure out what he discovered and why he's so brilliant and explain it for tomorrow's paper"

• "Explain the various methods for soundproofing freeways, along with the pros and cons of each"
• "Explain why that bridge sank to the bottom of the ocean" etc. There was also a lot of visualization of complex data in the form of weather maps, stock charts, timelines, etc.

This was great training because I learned questioning/listening skills, fact-finding/fact-checking, and storytelling, all through the lens of visual thinking.

A newspaper job was also good training because of the timelines involved. Usually I had a day to put an infographic together. When I had a week it was a luxury. You learn not to overthink things.

I made the move because in my newspaper job I usually reported on things "after the fact" -- an often I was reporting on disasters (The plane crashed, the bridge sank, etc.) and by then, while people could learn from the event, it was too late to fix the situation.

Most often the problem boiled down to "lack of information" or "lack of communication." It occurred to me that many disasters could be avoided if various scenarios could be thought through and visualized in advance.

What does a typical Xplane engagement look like?

We work with our customers to solve their most difficult communication problems. For example:

• "How do we get people's attention in a world that's already oversaturated with information?"
• "How can we change people's deeply embedded behaviors, when it's a fundamental necessity to business success?"
• "How can we communicate consistently to a global, multicultural audience?"
• "How do we explain complex ideas consistently to thousands or even millions of people?"

Engagements vary, but most follow a similar pattern:

1. Define: contextual inquiry to gain a deep and rich understanding of the business context and human factors involved, rapid visualization of complex information or stories that are rich in meaning.

2. Distill: boil the information down to it's essence: "What's the 20% that really matters?"

3. Depict: Visualize or otherwise capture this "mission-critical" information for the page or screen.

4. Deploy: Find innovative ways to get the message inside the heads of the people who need to understand it. We use traditional media but also employed a variety of devices such as cards, board games, placemats and other means to get our customers' voices heard.

What's your work and skills background?

I went to art school and then went into visual journalism as my first career. I have also taught at the university level, washed dishes, stocked retail shelves, waited tables,bartended and cut fish. Since starting XPLANE I have been a bookkeeper, artist, designer, consultant, general manager and CEO. I have learned valuable things in every job I ever had.

You recently started up the Visual Thinking School. What was on your mind?

Well, this is completely unrelated to my fish-cutting background, but there's the old adage that says "Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime."

I felt that in order to really support our customers they needed to go beyond hiring a services company and begin to develop visual thinking competencies inside their organization. In 2006 XPLANE will be rolling out workshops to teach our customers how to improve their communications. Our goal is to make our customers master communicators.

What has most surprised you about the Visual Thinking School Project?

I have really enjoyed the enthusiasm and energy of the participants. The popularity of it perhaps is the most surprising. It's in the top ten of more than 12,000 sites on Seth Godin's Squidoo. More people join the visual thinking Flickr group every day.

How much of your networking, your connecting to new people, are you accomplishing through these online venues like Flickr, Squidoo, and the other places you're hanging your work?

Well, I'll start with tangible, measurable results: I started blogging seriously in August and so far the blog has resulted in - an invitation to an international conference - two great new hires - an article in a German business magazine featuring XPLANE

I also noticed the other day that Communication Nation is the number one result on msn.com when you search for the term "Communication."

I think these things are a great start.

As far as I can tell the online activities have not directly driven any new customers our way yet (at least not that I have been able to measure). However I do believe there are many less concrete benefits that are difficult to measure.

XPLANE was not founded simply for the purpose of making money. My purpose in starting the company was to enrich people's lives by improving the flow of communication throughout the world.

This is a big vision and we are still only at the very beginning. The online activities provide a hub where like-minded people can share ideas, and where their skills, enthusiasms and passions can coalesce.

We know that life can emerge from a primordial soup. I see these online activities as the primordial soup of ideas, from which new forms of "business life," like XPLANE, can emerge.

What's up for Dave Gray in 2006?

Well I told you that as a company we will be working to find ways to "teach our customers how to fish." I will be doing a lot of the thinking and support work on that. We'll also be working on new ways to measure and improve customer satisfaction.

I will continue to work with XPLANE customers on selected engagements, as I always have. We have a goal to launch one new breakaway product this year, so that's another area of focus. I will also be continuing to challenge our XPLANE team to continually improve and grow, and do my best to support them in their efforts to do that.

If someone were interested in getting involved in Visual Thinking or Visual Communication, what are some tips and advice you'd give them?

Follow your passion, believe in yourself, and take any expert advice with a grain of salt. The best learning is self-directed. Also, get out there and join the conversation, either in the real world or on the web. That's the short answer anyway.

Anything else you'd like to add?

Oh, reams I'm sure, but I don't want to jump the shark!

And for a set of links:

Dave's Blog - Communication Nation
Dave's Company - Xplane
Dave's Visual Thinking School Blog - Visual Thinking Art
Dave's Flickr Stuff - Dave at Flickr
Dave's Visual Thinking School Lens - Visual Thinking School

Technorati Tags: graphics , visual , xplane , business , presentation , communication , davegray , interview

So, this weekend we'll be having our second child. Or rather, we'll be flushing the kid out from his hiding place (He's a little overdue). As such, I imagine there will be a slight lull in posting (I'd get PUNCHED if I decided to run home and blog something instead of saying, "Breath, honey!").

Coming up this evening: an interview with Dave Gray, CEO and Founder of XPLANE, and headmaster of the Visual Thinking School, a top 10 lens at Squidoo. This will be great!

People looking for kid updates: this site is not the place. However, you can go HERE and get those kinds of updates, links to the new kid pictures, etc. (When he shows up).

Stay tuned, but please be patient if I get a little quiet over the next several days.

Funny timing. I blog about my idea for a portable context device, and then I find this link to a site talking about future PCs. What do you think? Take a look.

A week or two ago, I drew a picture in my sketchbook of my dream workspace. It had a big draftsman's table with an in-table display as well as a wall-mounted display. Up in the right hand corner of the table, I threw what looks kind of like an iPod with the words "portable context device." Here's the original picture:

Here's a little more on the idea:

I think that a portable context device will be a small, biometrically-protected (uses your fingerprint to prove it's you) device that lets you take your "digital identity" with you between technologies. This means you could sit at your workstation in the office and the device would've already set the box up to match your preferences and your needs, while enabling you the permissions granted by that network to you as a user. It means getting into your car and having the seats and steering wheel automatically get in the right positions, the car audio device automatically configured for your preferred method of operation. It means virtual networking, either with trusted friends and groups, or with people out in public when you're in a public space. I think this is very do-able.

The information the device passes would be context: your name, your telephone number, your IP address at present, all the floaty information that connects temporarily to make up your current proximity (GPS information, etc). There would be all kinds of contact and profile information (mostly provided by you, but I could see you permitting the context device to be some kind of aggregation of lots of data from lots of sources). And a layer or two down in the security would be context about your financial records, your health records, etc. (All protected via encryption layered by biometrics,etc.)

None of this is un-do-able today. The hardest part of the effort would be agreeing on standards, and though I admit that isn't trivial, it's certainly a lot easier than coming up with the technology would've been a few years back.

Look at the "content stack" part of the drawing. I show the different layers of both systems and trust in a "stack" format (which is how people talk about TCP/IP, telecommunications, and other multi-system technologies). So, if you've got this thing in your pocket (it's about the size of a cell phone or a remote control), and you sit down at the local coffee shop, the device will negotiate with the shop's free-floating Wi-Fi service, will register you as present, and will give you the option of being "seen" or "unseen." This is at the public level of context. Those choosing to be unseen will have access to ONLY their own information. Those who opt to be "seen" make themselves available for "pings" by people around them. Thus, if you want to ask someone at another table, "Hey, that looks interesting. What are you reading?" there's a way to do so.

Further down the stack are trusted connections. If you're sitting in the office and a colleague from your work team wants to locate you, they could "ping" you and get your location, open a dialogue with you (voice or text or whatever), share information or files or links, and generally do things with you that you'd allow. Friends and groups you belong to would fall into the Trusted category of operation. Your home network would be trusted.

When you pay a power bill online via your device, this is a secure transaction. Any time you swipe money to purchase something, you'd be entering the secure mode. This would involve heavy encryption, all the bells and whistles of private e-commerce. So, no longer are you trusting the bare internet or your ISP. You're using your device to be the only reliable way to transact that information.

The private region is actually where you store all your own private data. This could be your bill payment records, your dental records, your insurance options, your health care needs. This would be yours and yours alone. Instead of trusting online organizations to keep your data, YOU keep the data and just beam it to their applications through the highly encrypted secure zone to their systems. Private is private.

The File System and Operating System level aren't much to talk about. They control the moving of files, and the operation of software against that device. I think these play the very least in the design, except that we'd require a whole new class of applications to run for these context devices. Skype could become the application of the day, or it might be the app that properly navigates the land-line telecommunications and wireless telecommunications space, and delivers your communication to you wherever you are. (Yes, I realize this sounds a lot like the various one-call solutions, but this is more automatic).

One last thing of note: I like the "radar" idea as I have it. Imagine walking through a mall (do people go to malls any more?) and passing someone in your friends network. They're someone from a group you joined on sustainable living, and you've only met once before. Your radar would blip a little color that signifies a friend is near. You can click this blip to check their credentials, and if you wanted, you could stop and chat. If not, you could at least drop a friendly "ping" to tell them you're nearby. The same would work at the office. When physically close, the radar could ping you that other people in your work team are near. You could set the pings to be more contextual: if you're working in a specific document and other people are working somewhere in the friends network on documents or files that are similar to what you're doing, radar could blip you and tell you this, in case there's an opportunity to collaboriate.

I can't think of any part of this design that isn't really do-able today. I think it lies mostly in the "interface" between all the different systems, and getting the systems to all talk together, but isn't that really what Web 2.0 is all about? Isn't that what XML is supposed to do for us? Or web services?

What are your thoughts on this? I'd love to hear from you.

Technorati Tags: identity , web2.0 , opensource , context , gps , bluetooth , social , xml , annotated

Twenty-two years ago, I heard Guy Kawasaki speak at the first ever Boston-area Apple Macintosh user group meeting. He was a great communicator then, and he's obviously had lots of practice since. This post over at his blog focuses on what the audience is looking for when they come to see you present. I took away a lot of interesting things, but the one that stuck out in my head was this: They're not there for a sales pitch. The audience is there to be informed and entertained. He was speaking to Keynote Address type presentations, but I think the reminder about "inform," information, delivery of content really struck a chord.

Here's the post.

Technorati Tags: presentation , speaking , powerpoint , keynote

3M came out with a book full of ideas on how to use their Post-It(r) Notes. Lego is turning to their fans to create the next great kits (which is absolutely brilliant). Software companies are opening up their APIs shortly after people validate that it's worthwhile software (Amazon's A9, Google Maps, eBay, etc.). More and more businesses are realizing that it's consumers in the design chair, and that the way people are using their products isn't always something the company even imagined. I think that businesses who miss this wave will be doing so at their peril. Here are some ideas and thoughts along those lines regarding distribution and platforms.

Sony PSP - Sony, STOP trying to patch this platform. It's captured the hearts and minds of lots of people. That's why there are hacks abound, and all to the tune of "hey neato!" and not, "Sony, I will crush you!" Open it up. Let go this notion that you have to control the vertical and the horizontal. Who are you protecting?

Movie Theaters - Enough with the $8 nachos. You could be media centers bar none. You could push kiosks full of DVDs and CDs and sweatshirts and all kinds of great stuff to people leaving the theater, when they're so jazzed and ready to buy it. I think the movie theater could be the killer platform for content, if only they caught on.

Book Stores - Here I am writing this at the big green bookstore. I found two books I think I'd like to buy, but I'm going to look online and see if I can get them in electronic format. Why? Because I want to be able to search them, rework them, cut to the parts I want, and paper isn't very reworky (without a razor blade). Stick a kiosk here and let people dock their USB drives and their iPods in here. Talk about a content spot: if I could buy albums digitally (iTunes-like) at the bookstore for similar prices, I could see loading up my iPod when I'm feeling a bit bored or vulnerable.

Mozilla and the Greasemonkey Folks - If you're not using Firefox, do. And if you haven't tried out Greasemonkey, it's pretty darned cool. Greasemonkey lets you apply Javascript to websites and rework them to your interest. But let me show you uses: through MY browser, when I search Amazon, I also have a button beside the [buy now] and [add to Wishlist] that says, [check library]. Some books you want to own; some you can borrow. Best part? Lots of folks are developing these scripts. I haven't written any yet. I just get to tweak the ones that are out there. I think Mozilla should work with Greasemonkey to get the word out to more than the average geeks. There are useful cases for this technology that the average consumer could use.

Telcos and Cable Providers - Throw out the fighting and open this platform up. Charge providers for the services. Charge consumers like one would a power consumption bill. Get away from landline phones and concede that business to VoIP. And enable things such that VoIP can swing between the landline and the wireless device a little more smoothly. (Note: lots of activity is happening in this area. I can't gripe *too* much about them).

Fabrication Stores - MIT has already proved you can cheaply perform fabrication tasks that used to be relegated to factory owners. (How's $20,000 sound? Instead of a Mini Cooper, buy your own fabrication factory in a box). This means we could be doing all kinds of one-off design work that would cost little more than the particle-board wonders one acquires at IKEA (I love this store). Imagine designing your new kitchen counter in the material of your choice, in the shape (curvy!) of your choice, and for less money than the pros will charge you today. I think fabrication is the next thing after internet technologies, as it comes up with real-world applications for all the things we think are neato in the virtual world. Talk about the ultimate platform.

Cars - So, why are we sitting around hoping for Ford or Honda or BMW to serve our needs in an automobile? Why are we passive about this technology, when we're so demanding of other technologies? Why not open up the design process of automobiles beyond the average focus group? In fact, why not "open up" the design, such that all kinds of designers can bid on the various parts. We do it with car audio. But, why not a dashboard by Apple? (Imagine the clickwheel for the heating/AC system?). Why not displays by Sony? Why not interiors by the fabric vendor of our choice? And while I'm there, why can't we buy bizarre patterns of our own making?

These are ideas to spur conversation. I'm interested in knowing what platforms YOU wish were opened up? What distribution methods are waiting to be discovered? What can YOU do about it?

Technorati Tags: business , mit , lego , cars , firefox , greasemonkey