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Here is Part Two of the interview I did with Indi Young of Adaptive Path. For a discount on her new book go to the Rosenfeld Media web  site, drop Indi's book in the shopping cart (which can be done here: ), and enter the discount code (FOINFL10) for a 10% discount while completing the order.

5. How do you discover new unmet needs/behaviors and imagine new uses that consumers don't yet display?

The mental model is not about changing consumer behavior so much as supporting it better, and supporting it in new ways that haven't been thought of before.  The easiest thing to do is look for gaps between a tower in the mental model (representing a set of behaviors around a particular concept) and the ways an organization supports it. There could be no existing support for a tower, or it could be weakly supported, in which case you could use the concepts in the tower to brainstorm ideas. You could already support a tower, but perhaps extend your support to better support some of the concepts in the tower that aren't covered.  You could look across the mental model for similarities and bring some behaviors together by supporting them with one idea, thus making it more efficient for the user. You could look for emotion in the tower and see if there was a way to address it.  You could look for surprising towers and see why these concepts just aren't acknowledged by the organization. You could look at whole areas that you kind of crossed out in your mind as areas your organization just couldn't possibly address, and see if there isn't a few ways to help out. And you can rethink services and features that don't match a behavior--perhaps they are not necessary, or perhaps they are a great opportunity.  The best thing is to be as explicit as possible about why your organization is spending time and money on a particular service or product, and prioritize where to put your resources.  (For examples, see here.

6. What about thinking about the totality of the experience- do you use mental models beyond the web?

Absolutely.  Task analysis, the root of mental models, was used before the web existed.  I've done several mental models about workflow processes, one  about media buyers, one about training runs (like for a marathon), one about going to the movies, one about dating, and one about cat behavior.  The output of the workflow process models was, of course, a new process flow. The media buyer mental model informed a software application.  The training run mental model resulted in a few additions to a running watch.  The one about the movies resulted in a mobile app, among the other things we imagined.  The one about dating resulted in changes to an online dating social application.  And the one about cats, well, it resulted in a few laughs. 

A mental model has the single purpose of deepening your understanding of the
motivations and behavior of a group of people who are trying to accomplish
something.  It allows you to see with great clarity how you already support
these activities and philosophies and emotions, and urges you to do extend
what you are doing to a much richer selection.

Posted by Ed Cotton Indi Young is one of the founders of Adaptive Path and the author of the recently published book-Mental Models: "Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior".

We exchanged a few emails and ended up with a fantastic interview.

Here's Part One.

1. Can you briefly describe your background?

I've been a "software designer" for 21 years.  My undergrad degree was in Computer Science.  In those days, there were none of these fun study programs like interaction design.  This was before the Mac and before the desktop metaphor became prevalent.  I have been consulting for 17 years, often helping startups craft their initial offerings and assisting Fortune 500 companies redesign existing architectures.  I teach workshops, act as a team guide for projects, and present at a few conferences.  My book about mental models and alignment with products and services was published in Feb 2008.

2. Explain how the Mental Models process came about?

It has roots in a project I was doing with Visa in the early 90's.  I was doing task analysis for customer service reps and normalizing their actions when I realized I had a state machine on my hands.  The state machine was helpful to the other software and database developers, but not to the business stakeholders who were guiding the project.  So, over the years, I morphed "task analysis" to the "motivation chart" that you see now, mapped to the ways an organization supports each of the activities.  Now the diagram, essentially an affinity diagram at its heart, is a good visual summary of customer behavior, philosophies, and feelings. Executives and other stakeholders find it understandable and useful.  (For more of the story, see the Appendix B online )

3. What do you think the big differences between thinking about advertising and thinking about the web are?

I'm going to use my imagination here, since the closest I got to understanding advertising is from a mental model I made of media buyers. Advertising is about making a certain segment of people aware of and interested in a product or service. The web is a communications medium.  In general, when you try to communicate, it works best if you know the segment of people you are trying to communicate with so that you can connect with them about what you are saying. Web communication is two-way.  The segment of people can talk back. Most advertising (I *think*) assumes a one-way message. There are lots of things I could say about advertising on the web. You could harness the two-way communication format. (Seewww.getsatisfaction.com)

You could apply the richness of film and radio, if someone acts like they want to spend the time watching something.  You could lessen the amount of time a person spends thinking about your service or product and give them more time to do what they intend to do.  This freedom will make them respect you later because you respected them.  In traditional advertising there seems to be a desperate pitch to the message, begging the listener/reader/watcher to spend some brain time with you.  On the web, that doesn't have to happen.  (See Seth Godin's "Permission Marketing" for other ideas)

I've found in several mental models for companies selling large software suites that potential customers "distrust salesmen."  Salesmen have one goal: to sell you the product and increase their commission.  Some sales people tell you they don't really need to sell you the product, but their happiest end-scenario is still the same: sell the product.  Potential customers have a different goal.  In their mental model, they want to find out the capabilities of the software and at the same time find out what their organization really needs in terms of software, or if some of the needs are really just wishful.  It's something that each potential customer seems to have to explore in isolation, whereas a lot of the considerations and capabilities and needs are probably very common. No one has leveraged that yet.

4. When you explore Mental Models- it's clearly a piece of  expansive thinking- you are stretching to really understand the breadth and depth of the totality of experiences- when and how do you decide what the limits are? What role does brand play in this?

Yes, the mental model explores the environment of the user, agnostic to all the tools she uses to do something.  A lot of folks have learned a very limited definition of "mental model" meaning "how a person understands how something works."  These mental models stretch that definition to "how a person gets something done, no matter which tools she uses."  Plus, it extends the definition to include matching the services and products an organization offers to discrete parts of what the person is doing to accomplish something.  This is really a step back from the details of the picture to look at the overriding motivations. This level of granularity limits what you put in the mental model.  You ask "why" a lot, but you don't go into detail about "how" as much. The limits are also defined by the scope of the research.  You might scope your research as, "What does a person do to remodel their kitchen or bathroom?" Or you might choose, "What does a person do to upkeep their home?"  These are two different scopes of the same space, the first one narrower than the second one.  The second one might have a mental space about remodeling, which if you want, you could blow out into its own mental model with the narrowly scoped research.

Brand plays a role this way: customers choose what source to get their service or product from based on a lot of reasons, and brand is one of the reasons. Proximity, price, convenience, habit--those are some of the other reasons.  I've often been asked if a mental model could be syndicated. Could a mental model for a bank customer, say, be sold to all banks in an industry?  I don't know, but my educated guess is, "No," because customers choose a bank based partially on the perceived "persona" of that bank, or its brand.  I think the motivations for choosing a certain bank will show up as different towers in different banks' customer mental models.  But I haven't had the opportunity to test this theory out yet.  It could be true only in a slight way, in which case most of the bank customer mental model would be re-usable from bank to bank.

But to look at the brand question with a different example, let's look at drivers. The mental model of a driver who really enjoys the art and feel of driving and of performance is probably different than the mental model of the person who needs to transport many kids to various different engagements.  There are different concepts that each of these groups will talk about.  The concept of enjoying the g-force in a turn and appreciating how the tires are in contact with the road would be outside the realm of the person who is thinking about protecting her precious cargo of kids.  The mental models would be different, and the ways you, as a car designer, would support the concepts would differ, too.
 

Posted by Ed Cotton Behance is a company that serves the needs of the growing network of independent creative professionals. It does everything from helping them find jobs, foster collaboration, generate new ways to think and delivers an engaging environment to view portfolios and creative samples.

I spent some time with Scott Belsky, the founder of Behance, to learn a little more.

1. What inspired you to make the leap from Wall Street to the creative world?

My work on Wall Street involved organizational and leadership development. I specialized in helping new, rapidly growing teams deal with the challenges that come along with growth. At night, I would try to leverage some of these skills for my friends in more creative and entrepreneurial roles. I found that, more than anyone else, creative leaders and teams struggle to push ideas forward. I became very interested in the leadership and organizational struggles of the creative world. I also believe that life is interesting because of the creative achievements around us. The music, art, design, and new businesses that start as ideas and ACTUALLY happen are the source of society's advancement.

2. Briefly describe what Behance is all about?

Behance is relentlessly focused on developing knowledge, products, and services that help creative professionals make ideas happen. We believe that creative leaders and team are never short of ideas, but often lack the organizational skills, leadership capability, networks, and platform to push ideas forward.

Our model is very simple: Over the past two years, we have interviewed hundreds of especially productive creative teams. In each interview, we ask "how do you make ideas happen?" We zoom in on methods and tips for productivity, networking, leadership, and strategy.

Behance is NOT about idea generation or stimulating innovation. Rather, we are focused on boosting productivity and access to opportunity in the creative world.

Here are a few examples of how our products and services accomplish our mission:

Behance Network

The Behance Network was developed as a platform for efficient dissemination of creative work. If a member posts a new project that is "appreciated" by the community, then it is likely that tens of thousands of people will see the work. We've had nearly a million visitors in the past month or so, and many of the visitors come from top agencies, galleries, and other companies seeking creative talent. Members use the network as a tool for self-marketing, exchanging feedback with peers, staying accountable to goals, and building professional networks.

Action Method

There is a great, self-proclaimed shortage of productivity in the creative world. We have noticed that "office-centric" or lingo-intensive systems for productivity, including GTD, are not easily adopted among creatives. Rather, we discovered that creatives need a simple, design-centric system method for creative project management. We developed the Action Method in response to the best practices we observed. The Action Method has spawned an entire product line that is sold around the US and the Museum of Modern Art stores, including the critically acclaimed "Action Book."

Behance Magazine

As we conduct interviews, we write up articles and also generate new "tips" for creative professionals. We have gathered them together in an online magazine.

Advisory Services

Our team is starting to do a lot of consulting work for creative teams within large companies. Surprisingly, creative teams suffer from many of the same inefficiencies as a designer or artist. We think that every creative company, agency, and project needs to consider a path to what we call "productive creativity."

3. How do you see the Behance growing and developing in the future?

Our team hopes to continue developing products and services that address the needs of creative professionals. We are starting to develop some interesting web-based applications in response to suggestions we have received. We are also developing a whole pipeline of knowledge, mostly "tips," that will help boost productivity in the creative workspace. The Behance Network is also an ongoing project that we believe is only in the "first inning." Ultimately, we will feel successful if more ideas actually happen as a result of our work.

4. What are some of the biggest trends you see out there in the world of creative professionals?

There are two trends we talk about quite often:

(1) More than ever before, we are seeing "creative" as a trait actively sought by recruiters across industries. We're also seeing the more self-described "creative" folks on teams getting promoted on the basis of their creative contributions. Of course, once creative people are empowered within a company/team, there is a great need for increased leadership capability and productivity.

(2) Creative professionals are feeling more empowered to represent themselves professionally, rather than depend on being found by a headhunter or working full-time for an agency. The "freelancer" is starting to act more like a business than an individual. We see the amount of work and opportunities that Behance Network members are getting.

5. What will it take for America to compete in the battle for creative talent?

It is really interesting to consider America's "competitive advantages" over the past decades. Remember that big American companies like GE and Hewlett Packard used to compete on "efficiency." GE's development of Six Sigma and HP's advances in plant efficiency were big selling points.

However, now GE has changed their tag line to "imagination at work" and HP is all about innovation. The change in brand is evidence of the fact that efficiency is now accomplished through off-shoring and is no longer a competitive advantage.

Our team believes that innovation is the grounds for competition going forward. We also believe that innovation is the result of PRODUCTIVE creativity. As companies hire more creative professionals to fuel innovation, they will recognize the need to design teams and workflow to achieve Productive Creativity.

To stay competitive, we think American business needs to bridge the gap between creative and other departments. There must be an emphasis on the components of "Productive Creativity," and we're hoping that Behance plays a critical role in this trend.

6. Where do you find your inspiration?

Most or our team's inspirations come from our own frustrations as creative professionals. We're in a unique business where the greatest "breakthroughs" are a response to the greatest frustrations we observe in our work and when we consult for others.

Posted by Ed Cotton influx interview-designer series-verena dauerer-editor-pingmag japan (37.82849729680379 , -122.52159118652344) Verena Dauerer is the only foreign journalist working at PingMag, the inspirational and influential Japanese art/culture/design website.

Here's an interview I did with her recently where we talked about PingMag, it's unique ownership, design and Japanese design.

1. Can you briefly describe your background and explain how you ended up at PingMag?

I've been working as a journalist for ten years now, the recent years I was freelancing in Berlin. Apart from that I have been doing production for short films for a while, briefly Lingo programming in the 90s, and eventually started giving lectures about VJ culture at design schools and festivals and organized a VJ festival with two friends there in 2006.

At one point, I got bored a bit of myself being in the city and decided to work abroad for a couple of months. I liked Ping, sent these lovely people an e-mail - and came to Japan to work as editor of PingMag in November 2006. Originally I wanted to stay for three months only, but they provided me with a contract and a working visa. Tempting! And I stayed...

2. Tell us a little about PingMag (its ownership, editorial policy, etc)?

In terms of our structure, we are 3 editors in total: My 2 lovely Japanese colleagues
care about the Japanese homepage, and I run the English site alone.

Each of us contributes with our own topics, and I handle most of the freelancers and possible pieces.

Regarding these: Anything can be interesting depending on the approach. I'd say our trait is being hysterically fond of anything that is special to us. There really are no limits, be it from the field of art, design, technology, architecture, fashion, crafts, etc. It doesn't even have to be Japan related, but it has to be done with a great love for detail.

Of course, each piece is decorated in the cheerful PingMag style since translation usually requires adaptation.

In terms of ownership, PingMag is part of Yes Communications!, our parent and run by our producer Tom Vincent. Financially we are in this very lucky and even rarer position that at the moment we are sponsored by a Japanese investment bank called RISA Partners. I know that this makes us kind of unique, as content wise we
are totally independent and far from being a corporate blog.

Also, we just got a little sister one month ago: PingMag MAKE is done by another colleague, a Japanese editor that reports once a week from regional Japan about traditional craftsmen, and small businesses.

3. What do you think is happening with the world of design? Are developed nations over-designed?

Over-designed? If the natural development of a civilization is its aesthetic refinement,
cutting back would be a step backwards or a possible indication of decay. There is no end to this refinement, as you can surely see in Japan... Provided that environmental factors are included.

4. How would you describe the current state of Japanese design and where do you believe it is heading?

Huh, I can maybe enlighten you with some aspects of its structure that might help you
understand its output: On one side, there are the star designers that design practically
everything from mobiles to furniture to any other gadget you can imagine with utmost
perfectionism.

Think of Naoto Fukasawa or Iwai Toshio (who just developed the Tenori-on.) As Sensei, they have an army of designers working for them - and this system is strictly hierarchical and as solid as the tough structure within the mainstream design establishment.

On the other side, design events like the annual DesignTide  try since a couple of years to promote the young upcoming ones.

Then I have the feeling that some designers aren't interested at all in a wider exposure outside of Japan, others would like to but they don't speak any English.

Where it might all be heading could also depend on how far people keep perceiving the country as an isolated island and themselves as a closed community in the future.

5. What developments are important and interesting to look at in Japan- is tradition and history now more important that the thrill of the future?

I'm interested in Japanese society and its rapid (or not) changes.

So in this very special case, tradition is the overall tie that firmly grips everything quite rigidly.

Compared to Western countries this is a by far stronger driving force that keeps
preventing changes - of the attitude, of the approach to design, or work methods. And
since this applies to any nation with a long tradition, of course, everything is
connected with the past and will surely affect the future.

Every part of Japanese society is based on the collective and this hasn't changed a bit.

Combined with the way the corporations still work, their internal octopus-like structure that provides everything for their workers, this seems to be a kind of capitalism done the communist way.

And it works because of the concept of the collective. It's interesting to see what will happen in the next years, like how far will this be softened, and on the other side how far tradition could loosen its tight grip a bit.

6. Where do you find your inspiration?

I'm an info junkie thanks to rss feeds. The rest is journalistic handcraft:observing.
 

Posted by Ed Cotton Steve Portigal runs Portigal Consulting, a company that helps clients develop smarter thinking by bringing together user research, design and business strategy. I spent some time talking to Steve about his overlapping world of strategy and design.

Steve's client list includes the likes of Nestle, eBay, Palm, Berringer, General Electric and many others.

His other claim to fame is his creation of one of the first online communities (Undercover, a Rolling Stones fan group) in 1992, nurturing it from a time when the Internet was an underground academic technology through to today, as part of a global info-infrastructure.

1. Can you tell us briefly about your background and what you are up to these days?

I studied Computer Science because I liked the idea of making something- software- that had new functionality. But I soon realized that academically, Computer Science was extremely abstract and theoretical. Then I discovered Human-Computer Interaction, the part of Computer Science that dealt with people. After graduate school, I felt that the professional work of designing interfaces was too concerned with the details for my temperament. But that pointed the way to where my passion lies: starting with people, organizational behavior and culture, and asking the big-picture questions. For the past six years I've run Portigal Consulting, a boutique firm that's just outside of San Francisco. We like to say that we help organizations to discover and act on new insights about their customers and themselves.
 
2. What do you believe are the greatest challenges involved in inspiring great design?
 
Well, what makes something a great design? If I think about design as a total package- “an experience that addresses some functional and emotional need that also meets the business goals of the organization that created it (i.e., it's profitable, it's right for their brand, it helps them grow a category, etc.)- then to inspire the creators means we need to help them tell a new story. That takes facts, but it also takes emotion. The creators who we want to inspire are designers, but also marketers, managers, technologists, engineers, and every other part of the organization. Our challenge is often getting access to all those people and, once we have access, figuring out the best way to communicate to them so that they are engaged, and ultimately inspired.
 
3. What is it that makes a great design strategist?
 
A great design strategist may not see themselves as a design strategist. They're  probably someone who has had a few different professional identities and gets excited by the spaces where disciplines, schools of thought, and methods overlap. They are curious and easily intrigued: they like to observe what's going on around them and they're good at listening to people. And they know how to use all this data to synthesize new patterns and communicate them clearly to a range of audiences. Charlie Stross, in the sci-fi book Accelerando, describes the profession of a "meme broker" and the intense amount of content they have to assimilate every day in order to do this. Bruce Sterling calls this activity "scanning“ looking at all the sources one can and constantly asking what does this mean for my clients. Being able to work through all those data sources and pull out the implications is crucial for design strategy.
 
4. As we become more cultural attuned to good design, does designing become easier?
 
I have an interaction designer friend who worked for Apple in the between-Jobs era (long before iMacs and iPods), and he used to tell me how challenging it was to be in his role at a company that had such a strong design culture, because everyone thought they were naturally a UI designer. It was a lot more challenging for him to get buy-in. If we generalize from that, more awareness of design may not make it easier.
 
Taking it one step further, the stuff designers are being asked to design is sometimes deep in uncharted waters. What kind of information designer figures out the dozen layers of text and graphics that get layered on top of Taiwanese television? Where do user interface designers pull from to create virtual world e-commerce? How does an 80-year old check their email on a mobile device? The shifts in what technology affords and what behaviors people are seeking that are definitely not making design any easier.
           
5. Do you believe research can play a role in helping designers, if so, what does the best research look like?
 
Absolutely. How else are you going to design for real people?
 
The best research brings to life the imperfect and messy stories of real people and presents generative frameworks that lead the way forward for new designs, products, services, features, communications, or whatever is needed.
 
6. Who are today's "thinkers"  who are challenging designers to push boundaries?
 
I suspect that many designers are more influenced by the doers than the thinkers. That said, you've got some visionary people out there who do come up often in design circles: Bruce Sterling, John Thackara, Sir Ken Robinson, Roger Martin, Malcolm Gladwell, Edward Burtynsky, and John Maeda. 


Posted by Ed Cotton In the last few days, just ahead of Macworld , a series of fantastic visuals were sent around the web at lightening speed.

People wondered if they were real, that's how good they were.

The visual concept was for an iPhone Starbucks quick ordering system, using Wi-Fi.


It made sense because the technology basically exists and some people are already aware that Apple recently applied for a patent to do something similar.

I tracked down the designer of these images, Phil Lu, (to see a fully animated version of the Starbucks application, please look here) for a very short interview.

This is one in a series of interviews Influx is going to be conducting with designers over the coming months.

1. Briefly describe your background and what you do?

I'm a multimedia designer currently living/working in San Diego, CA. My backgrounds is in media art and graphic design. I did a little bit of graphic design before moving on to multimedia design.

2. How do you come up with the idea for the Starbucks iPhone application?

The "what if?" thought came to my mind when I was waiting in line at Starbucks. I spend more time waiting to order than waiting for the drink. It got me thinking, since iPhone supports iTunes download over wi-fi using iTunes account; why not order my coffee over wi-fi with the same account?

3. How did you work out the conceptual design?

I looked through various interface design and studied the Starbucks' brands. I wanted an interface that feel like the iPhone interface with the touch of Starbucks' branding, The reason behind the design is that I don't want QuickOrder to feel like a 3rd party application. Instead, I want the application blend in seamlessly with the current iPhone interface.

4. How long did it take to make?

Once I have the concept worked out, the design phase goes rather quickly.

5. What's next?

I'm currently working on different online-social networking site that will bring like-minded people together.



Posted by Ed Cotton