chrisrivard.com

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

I work at Jive Software now.

2 things:

1. When someone creates, they are sharing their best approximation of what they think is true. So when you design (or create art) it’s no different than baring your soul. You are effectively saying, this is the way I think the world works. This is the best that I have at this moment. The truth as I see it. That’s humbling and delicate. There is an art to managing designers. Not many people have the requisite skills.

2. There is massive (avoidable IMHO) friction between analysis and design. I had an experience today that left me absolutely peeved, but in … Continue Reading

Reading Tim Brown’s new book and generally, I think it’s a stinker. Explaining design and business and innovation a tough row to hoe, so I still think the book is a worthy read for anyone interested in the subject.

Not until about halfway through does it really start to become a well-structured thought on “design thinking” (quotes for loaded phrases).

There are good nuggets, however, like this one:

“The obvious counterpart to an attitude of experimentation is a climate of optimism. Sometimes the state of the world makes this difficult to sustain, but the fact remains that curiosity does not thrive in organizations … Continue Reading

Thinking about a video showing a robot stacking coins on the rim of a glass – it fails to balance a coin 99 times out of 100. Then 1 of them balances and the robot goes on to the next hundred – and successfully stacks another. Now there are 2 stacked. There is no limit to the number of coins available to stack.And so it goes, on and on. That’s the state of AI. Over time the robot’s arm stacks coins until it can no longer reach the top of the stack. Then the robot begins to stack coins below … Continue Reading

a tiny microphone in your ear. maybe an embedded device. facial recognition contacts. learning a new way to speak without speaking. that’s how telepathy works.

Ezio Manzini-Keynote: Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability from Interaction Design Association on Vimeo.

I’ve been building a lot of furniture lately. And reading a lot of design books. Mostly about the business of design. Much of the focus in these books revolves around sustainable business models. We want companies to stand the test of time. A good example is from the book A Fine Line is Montgomery Ward – a company that I remember as a typical chain department store. MW had about a 100 year run, but ultimately couldn’t change with the times and went out of business, overtaken by stores like Target. They couldn’t reinvent themselves for whatever reason – the … Continue Reading

In Creativity, Inc. ** the authors focus on how one “makes” and “breaks” connections as an element of one’s “creative profile”.

Connection Breaking:
Can you accept it when things don’t work out the way you thought they might? Can you stand being wrong on the most important issues? Are there places where being wrong is not acceptable to you? Is fantasy acceptable? Can you be silly? Can you tolerate ambiguity when things don’t make sense? Can you hold different points of view at the same time, knowing that both might be right?

Connection Making:
Do you enjoy new ideas, both yours and … Continue Reading