It's not just a state of mind. It's a good way to suck up.

I'm going into the city this afternoon, and I couldn't help but notice how many Starbucks there are in the financial district:

Soon they'll just be another utility: Garbage, gas, water, coffee...

I saw a talk by interface guru Alan Cooper last month, who presented a well thought-out process for designing an interface and feature set, then astounded the audience at the end, responding to a question about usability testing by stating, "We don't test."

Now true, anyone who's worked on a site and gone through focus groups (especially if the client is on the dark side of the glass with you) knows the dangers of testing, namely that someone (you, the client, or another focus group attendee) will glom on to a few tidbits that came up that they happen to agree with, creating 'refinement by anecdote' and generally killing off usability for the many by tailoring to the few, where 'the few' is a moving target, in the end creating a big venn diagram of usability that includes nobody.

Is there an alternative? I won't claim to have the answer (and, humbly, I would venture that Mr. Cooper doesn't either), but it might be a good first step to admit that your site might not be the site for everyone. Think of how auto manufacturers design cars, or how they focus test for them. They are tailoring a specific model to a specific mindset, and it's okay to throw out audience segments in order to be the best of breed for one particular segment, be it a sports car enthusiast, or the impulse buyer.

Outpost.com does a pretty good job of this, with zero shipping or tax, anything you want can show up the next day for less than it would cost to go get it locally.

Anyhow, the point here is that by trying to grab the biggest market share, many fledgeling dotcoms are grabbing the thinnest market share, who's only reason for shopping preference is offline advertising or a sock puppet.

We can do better than this.

Went to see Cirque.. Had a lot of fun. Noticed some odd synchronicities:

Six of us went

Six cellphones (two Nokia, four Samsung)

Five Palms (3 Palm Vs, 2 Palm Personals)

Six cars (two Saturns, two Volkswagons, a Honda and a Geo)

All cars were green.

Okay, so it's no big, but six green cars driving caravan to the freeway was a little odd after seeing Dralion. Made me feel like one of the acrobats. I wonder, if I were an acrobat, would I be one with a harness? Or would I not do anything dangerous?

Do you have a harness in case you fall?

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Update: (May 8th)

I was mistaken, that should be Six Palms (4 Palm Vs, 1 Palm Personal and 1 Palm Professional). To think, I actually thought Heather didn't have a Palm...

So I was walking through campus about an hour ago when the Campanile started its noon music, an intricate piece you wouldn't think to hear played on giant bells in the sky, and I was thinking again about how I wish I kept an audio recorder on hand to capture moments like this. If for no other reason than to see how much of the moment could be captured and conveyed in sound alone (or sound with a log entry). At that moment my friend Ammy calls my cell and says "Campanile?" when she hears. She's been gone from Berkeley for five years, but memories stick.

Not two minutes later I was walking through Sproul Plaza, listening to Earth Day devotees and dot-com hawkers, when I heard a distinctive beat coming from Lower Sproul. It was a small band brought in by Superb called Shrinking Violet (NOT to be confused with Shrinking Violets). Anyhow, walking into Lower Sproul, it sounded like I was walking into the Bronze (I am not ashamed to make Buffy references). Very cool music, and even with three guitars, you can still hear the words. They're in the Bay Area for the rest of the week, so look 'em up, or see them when they're back home in Thousand Oaks (Los Angeles).

On an unrelated note, I saw my CS project partner there and we were discussing Japanese culture, and how they love to import all things that represent the 50s in the U.S. I used to be scared of the time when they would move on and start idealizing the 60s, but now I realize it's happened. Now I'm appropriately scared of what the 70s may bring to the land of the rising sun...

Seeing Cirque du Soleil tonight. I'll check in tomorrow.

There are a bunch of items on the bargaining table when shoppingfor a new job. Salary, stock options, relocation expenses,signing bonuses, parking expenses, and other perqs are all negotiateduntil a mutually acceptable balance is found (or not). One item rarely open to negotiation is vacation time. There are strict rules on how much you get, how much you can save up, and how you can use it.

Why is this? The simplest reason, and sadly the most common, is just that it's company policy. Mandated salary ranges, stock options, and signing bonuses aren't mentioned in the employee handbook, but "10 hours of vacation per pay period" might as well be the company's mission statement, considering how difficult a rule it is to bend.

Opening up vacation time to negotiation can be beneficial for both the employee and the employer. Consider the impact more vacation time would have on the company and the employee: Most employees are given 2 weeks (sometimes 3) a year, starting their first year. Some companies add a week by pooling vacation days and sick days in the same bucket, but this shouldn't be seen as an advantage, and can work against you, when an extended illness finds you pulling vacation days instead of disability pay.Most companies would soonergive someone 20% more in compensation before they would let them work4% less days per year.

So why fight the battle? Simple. The way we work has changed a great deal in the last twenty years, and fundamental workplace changes are only now starting to catch up. Concepts like telecommuting and flexible hours are starting to get the recognition they deserve, and the way we work is only making it easier to support longer vacations.

First and formost, it's important In many industries, the tech sector especially, employees are almost as modular as the cubicles they inhabit. Examine your own workflow for a moment. It's likely that you're part of a Redundant Array of Indispensible Employees (RAIE).There are a bunch of reasons, most of which aren't truly valid. But to start, I'll breifly mention two valid reasons. There are certainly some valid reasons:

• Many positionsrequire continuity. Having a point of client contact absent 'too' oftencould convey a lack of organization within the company, or a decreasein responsiveness to client needs.
• Consistant output. In workgroups where the aggregate outputcan't support a drop in productivity (managerspeak for Spring Fever),Two or more people taking time at once could cause schedules toslide.

Both of these can be overcome creatively, but while managements will sometimesgrant leaves of absence (without pay) on a case-by-case basis to employees who have proventhemselves, they are almost never open to negotiating vacation timeat the outset of an employment relationship, especially when thepotential employee is a fungiblecommodity.

Can't remember the difference between Socratism and Platonism? Confused about the difference between Rationalism and Experientialism? If so, it's time to brush up on your Isms.

Well, at long last I'm launching the redesign of my weblog.

To save us all a lot of bother, I'm not moving recent entries over from the old log to the new, but if you're interested in the past, you can peer into the archive.