Bret Victor on Inventing on Principle
Bret Victor is a fascinating man. Much of his career was spent developing UI for Apple’s iOS products – not bad. But his passions are much broader. He writes, “I’m passionate about enabling people to understand, and visual explanations are crucial for understanding many concepts. But because our tools are so weak, we usually resort to describing when we should be depicting.”
In this talk he calls for creating new developer tools that enable the developer/creator to have more immediate visual connection with the product as opposed to the arbitrary representation of the product (the code). Moreover, he lays out an admonition to “invent on principle” – recognize a wrong, commit to right it, and deploy technology solutions to solve it.
Objectified: why design matters
As part of my renewed interest in design, I’ve now watched all three of Gary Hustwit’s documentaries about the subject. My favorite remains Objectified–a film about human interaction with created objects and the people make them. This film changed my perspective about design; I used to think design was about creating beautiful things for fancy people. Through it I learned that design is actually about fabricating things for the massess. In fact, the historical roots of design trace back to the Chinese military’s discovery that when a soldier died, fellow soldiers were unable to pickup and use his arrows, as they were handmade and custom. By deploying a consistent arrow design, the military was able to better utilize is weaponry. Thus design is not really about fancy things for fancy people – it’s really about creating a physical world for everyone so that they flourish.
Objectified – Documentary from Rohan on Vimeo.
Designing Thinking: Six ways to get started
I first learned about design thinking during a Harvard-sponsored trip to Silicon Valley where we spent an afternoon at IDEO, the iconic design firm involved in many of the most famous designs in the last 25 years, including the mouse, the PalmPilot, and many of Apple’s flagship products. There was something refreshing about the attitude of the designers, the culture of the firm, and even the design of their workspace. The firm is filled with “t-shaped people”– experts in one trade but generalists in all. A team of anthropologists, structural engineers, and graphic artists can sit down, be given an outrageously difficult problem, and hours and hundreds of Post-it notes later, they often have a remarkably elegant solution. This was something I wanted to learn more about.
Cofounding a new venture nine months ago has provided an opportunity to infuse design thinking into a technology company from the beginning. Below are a few things we’ve tried along the way. If you are curious about design thinking, just pick one and get started!
1. Learn what it’s all about: the best place to learn about design thinking is Stanford’s bootcamp bootleg found here. This 100 page bootleg document is the best summary I have found and was created by probably the institutional leader in the field: the Stanford d.school. Empathize. Define. Ideate. Prototype. Test. That’s it!
The Best Technology Ventures Pursue Vision First and Monetization Later–They are in effect Social Enterprises that are For Profit by Necessity not Design
“[My aspiration is] to change the world,” said Dennis Crowley, cofounder of Foursquare. ”If this turns out to be an amazingly big business at the same time, well, that’s an added bonus.” This is hardly what you would expect to hear from a founder who raised $20 million in a Series A from all stars including Andreessen Horowitz. Aren’t these guys supposed to be razor focused on monetization? In a quixotic way, many founders of revolutionary internet companies begin with visions that have no component on monetization. How can we explain this irony: some of the “best” and “most innovative” internet companies–and therefore those with the highest valuations–are often founded by visionaries who are supposedly indifferent to–you might even say disinterested in–monetization.
Consider Crowley, a dreamer who was fascinated by the idea of bringing a gaming layer to the physical world. Indeed he even wrote his NYU thesis on the subject. And it was this nearly-academic curiosity that shaped his vision for the company. ”We just want to get all these things built… and to put as many pieces in place as possible. After we do that, then we’ll try to monetize,” he explained. ”And if we can’t monetize, at least we will have pushed the world forward a little. We taught people about check-ins. We taught them about location services and about life as a game,” he offered. For Crowley, monetization is literally an afterthought. It is secondary in sequence and importance to product and impact. To understand Crowley and founders like him, it is critical to understand his personal motivations. He values teaching society about a concept. He values helping people build better relationships. And he values pioneering sociological concepts that enable future companies to realize his vision. His passion reminds me of Ronald Reagan’s line: “It is amazing how much you can get done if you don’t care who gets the credit.”
Who is better at product development: The Visionary or the Statistician?
Consider two very different approaches to product development:
- Apple’s Ron Johnson describes that Apple is about building a beautiful product or experience and then persuading users that they actually want it.
- At Zynga, their math-driven product development cycle essentially says: if we can make one penny more by making the tractor have 6 pixel wheels instead of 5 pixel wheels, let’s do it.
The former is about having a vision of adding value and meaning to the user… of contributing to their human flourishing… of capturing a valuable insight into what makes them happy and building something that fulfills a desire they may not have even known they had. These product developers have vision, insight, and a deep understanding of people. Think Ideo: hundreds of man hours spent on observation, questioning, sketching, prototyping… and eventually out comes a beautiful shopping cart.
The latter is about a huge array of A/B testing that constantly iterates based on the user feedback. These product developers begin with a basic idea and turn it over to the user, allowing thousands or millions of them to lead the product in any direction the users desire. (From the offline world), think Harrah’s casino: eye-grabbing blinking, beeping, waitresses, booze, dealers… all “A/B tested” to extract every last penny from casino goers.
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Hipster Jeans versus Pin Stripes: Why Creative Work Must Be Outsourced
As you walk down the alley between two rusty warehouses, you get a glimpse of waves crashing under the Bay Bridge. When you enter the facility, bright sunlight pours through curved skylight windows, bringing to life the dark tones of the original wood flooring, the shine of beautiful metallic chairs, and the bright white of meticulously organized shelves. The employees move around quickly, though not hurried, often carrying a recently brewed cup of exotic tea. The people themselves are works of art–their distinctive hair, stylish yet hipster clothing, and rare footwear. Small moments over a catered lunch or taking in views of the bay provide opportunities to talk about their passions, their vision, and how they can make the world a more beautiful place.
This is Ideo – a revolutionary design firm whose patriarch, David Kelley, invented “design thinking” (see this for a great introduction) and founded Stanford’s d.school. These institutions and this school of thought is exerting tremendous influence on corporations and their attempts to innovate. However, when Ideo hipsters meet corporate pinstripes, some things get lost in translation. This clash of cultures–you might even say of civilizations–is instructive for how big corporations ought to partner with innovators/creatives.
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Chick-fil-A and the Business of Story Listening
Consumer-facing businesses have a unique opportunity to touch millions of real lives in a personal way every day. Put on your consumer hat for a minute and think through your day: the coffee shop barrista, the cashier at McDonalds, the sales associate at Target, the attendant at the gas station, the waiter at your restaurant, and on and on. Indeed we have conversations with several people every day–probably dozens a month–in the context of retail businesses. Retail employees are amazingly prevalent in our lives – a prevalence surpassed only by our friends and family members. That consumers spend so much time and even emotional energy interacting with employees creates a real opportunity for businesses to go beyond traditional roles of sales and customer service.
A few weeks ago I had the privilege to visit Chick-fil-A headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, for an all-day tour and series of discussion with the company leadership. Based on my conversations, here’s my impression of how Chick-fil-A sees its business: 1,600 community spaces where 7+ million Americans spend time with their friends and family… and to these spaces their customers bring their stories, their needs, and their hopes. Although it is great chicken sandwiches and a welcoming restaurant that get people in the door, once customers show up employees have an opportunity–albeit brief–for real interaction. Yes there is customer service: taking orders, making change, delivering food. However, there’s more. Chick-fil-A wants to serve the full range of needs of its customers. So when an elderly woman walks in the door, the posture isn’t just: “what value meal can I serve this woman?” It is also: “What is this woman’s story?” and “In my few minutes of interaction, how can I somehow connect with and empower this woman?”
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Visual Presentations: From Bullet Points to Story Telling
Most people’s use of Powerpoint is appalling. Times New Roman. Stock Powerpoint templates. Way too much text. Not sure of the next slide. Eek. Combine this with the fact that most people giving a Powerpoint presentation are actually trying to persuade their audience, and we quickly understand the oxymoron that is “Powerpoint persuasion.”
Edward Tufte – the father of visual representation of data – has a wonderful essay on the perils of Powerpoint. He writes, “the popular PowerPoint templates (ready-made designs) usually weaken verbal and spatial reasoning, and almost always corrupt statistical analysis.” Zing.
Into this morass of bad fonts and poor communication lands an emerging school of “visual thinking.” Dan Roam’s book The Back of a Napkin is a fabulous “how-to” guide for using diagrams and sketches to present ideas. It’s so basic – yet so profound.
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Data Visualization and Its Future in Consumer Web
Data visualization will likely be central to the future of the consumer web experience. Much design today seems to begin with the idea of a literal page on which we scroll up and down to view its length. It is as if we are looking at a long piece of paper which just doesn’t fit within the size of our monitor. Gaming has led the way in creating awesome experiences for interacting with objects. My hope is that we will see the world of data viz brought to bear on other types of content: data, news, and video.
For anyone new to the field, it is worth buying a book by Edward Tufte, considered the grandfather of data visualization. Trained as a political scientist, Tufte began exploring data representation on his own as a side project,
self-published a “little book” (The Visual Display of Quantitative Information) on the subject, and over a few years essentially became the father of a new discipline. Next time you are around hackers, check out their bookshelf. Positioned next to MySQL, PHP, and JSON books, you’ll often seen the oversized Tufte hardback. A surprising number of serious hackers have been inspired by Tufte’s work. I have also heard that Tufte’s one-day in person course is truly superb—and a great way to get a good price on the books.
The applications of Tufte are really exciting. Consider Palantir, an amazing Silicon Valley company that is known to have recruited several hundred of the smartest engineers in the country. Their primary product is a data analytics/visualization tool that empowers human analysts to analyze multiple, large sets of real time data. Think about a military intelligence analyst trying to mash up phone call logs, bank records, and location. Added onto this is a sophisticated way of controlling access to specific parts of data. Essentially, it is the ultimate tool for large organizations with human analysts and lots of data… which is, well, all of the intelligence world, plus finance, government, and even industry (think about Walmart, Amazon, or Harrah’s). To top it off, TechCrunch has speculated that Palantir will be the first billion dollar company (its current valuation is $735mm) that never had a sales force. As founder Alex Karp said, “We are long on dealing with the most important problems we can find. We are short on the near term. So, we’re not hiring a sales or marketing team… and don’t plan to get any of them.” Any project with Alex Karp, Peter Thiel, several hundred first class engineers, and no sales force or “MBA-types” is one to keep an eye on.
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The Underappreciated Competitive Advantage: The Ability to Get Things Done
The more time I spend observing men and women who are high achievers, the more I realize that while many have visionary leadership, keen intellect, and a passion for change, perhaps their most unappreciated yet impressive skill is their ability to get things done. This sounds outrageously oversimplified. To many people “getting things done” seems like a commodity skill set—sure there are tricks but at the end of the day all that matters is that people check off their task list. From my study of a few outrageously impressive people, efficient task management is one of their key competitive advantages. So if you are serious about making a difference in whatever sphere you work, spend a few hours exploring project management. You’ll find that productive management results in more successful projects (e.g. that new non-profit finally gets off the ground), more free time (for your friends or family), more sleep (yielding more focus), and/or more time to explore your passions (to figure out how you actually want to spend your time). Below are a few resources I have found helpful in my journey. Please send your tricks and tips my way!
Knowledge:
Getting Things Done (buy here): the classic book on the subject. I really believe this book can change your life. Allen has consulted with hundreds of top executives. What he finds is that after these executives implement a trusted system for task/project management, they unleash an inner-creativity. They literally start coming up with all sorts of new ideas for their business or personal interests. Allen argues that since the human mind is so inefficient in determining what to store in its short term “RAM,” once you clear that memory of lots of tasks and reminders (by writing them down in an organized fashion), you free up intellectual computing ability to devote to other processes (including brainstorming). You can find a summary of some of the book’s highlights here.
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