.oO Tailwind

So I’ve had my new vibrating friend for a couple of days now and so far we’re getting on fine.

I was hesitant in getting a Blackberry for various reasons:

1. I’m not into people using them when I’m talking
2. I don’t like the way people become seemingly addictive to them
3. I don’t like the idea of being available all the time
4. I think it encourages people to send you email when this isn’t the ideal method of communication

But in the end I had to try as I’ve been struggling to keep on top of my email.

Now, like I said, in my line of work it’s best that I don’t sit at my desk all day. I should be taking part in projects, in workshops, having discussions, brainstorming etc. If I’m sat at a desk I’m in admin mode, and I’m not paid to be in admin mode, I’m paid to be in ideas mode.

Anyway, I’m not about to change the behaviour of the world and encourage everyone to start talking more and spend less time writing and re-writing emails only to stored them in a drafty folder to write them again in the morning (we’ve all been there).

So, I’m now the proud owner of a Blackberry 7290. Entry level model? I’m not sure, but so far so good.

Jason Mesut posted the following comment on my last post:

“…I am fascinated by why people are so into them and how the interaction actually works (nerd alert). But I know it will make me write even terser, ruder emails than normal; i’ll be answering emails from bed on Sunday morning; and I will also be that wanker in a meeting answering his blackberry rather than listen to whoever is speaking.”

And I pretty much had the same thoughts.

But the reality (after 2 days) is seemingly different:

Interaction
The user experience of Blackberry is a post or two in it’s own right, but just quickly I find it an intuitive and clever little system.

Yes you have to learn to ’speak Blackberry’, but this happens quickly as it does when you get a new mobile and you try to send an sms. It reminds of when I received my shiny new Nokia 6310i a few years ago. It just worked the way I thought it would.

Writing Style
Yes. THIS is interesting.

I find that due to the keypad, you tend to write shorter emails that ‘could’ come across as terse. To this end I’ve added a signature saying ‘Sent via Blackberry’ as some kind of weird caveat for my succinctness.

Constant Availability
Okay - so though you can constantly receive emails, it doesn’t actually mean that you have to reply to them.

It does help you to work out those mails that need a reply and those that don’t. So it’s really down to your filtering processes and not the technology.

Meetings
JUST SAY NO!

Don’t answer it. Simple as that.

Switch off the vibrate so a cow doesn’t moo from your bag when your in mid-flow to the CEO of Xcorp.

Anyway, more later I guess as I get into it. But so far, so good. My hell isn’t being realised.

Today is a sad day.

Today I find myself in possession of a Blackberry.

Oh my word. Say it isn’t so.

I’m a man of gadgets, anyone who knows me knows this fact, but this is one I didn’t really want to have. But all too often I find myself ‘out of the loop’ on some of my projects as there are so many and they move so damn fast, that it’s an attempt to keep on top of the emails.

But why can’t people just send less email?

I hate this ‘Teflon shoulders’ syndrome whereby people absolve themselves of responsibility because they ‘emailed you’ or ‘cc’d you’.

My job requires me to be away from my desk, so sending me emails that need an urgent reply isn’t the best way to get me.

Well, it might be now.

Sheesh.

But I fear turning into one of those Crackberry zombies who rudely switch off from a meeting to delete a message from someone offering penis extensions or shares from Uganda.

If anyone sees me doing this, kick me.

Would you believe it?

I’ve started talking to another of my ’station platform buddies’ now! He’s a guy I’ve stood next to for 3 years and we’ve never so much as said hi before. But today he joined in a conversation I was having with the only person I speak to at the station.

Of course, being English we have to be given permission by the circumstance, so the fact that the train was n hour late was enough. If you just openly speak to someone for no reason, you’d be locked up here!

Stupid isn’t it.

I’m going to try and reel in the other ‘platform buddies’ - I challenge you to do the same.

Yeah you know the guy, say Hi to him.

Okay - so this post is pure drivel. But I do find this behaviour interesting.

When I was at university studying I always wanted to see this on something, a volume dial that goes up to 11!

See gizmondo.

So, in a previous life I was a bit of a search specialist. I still am when it comes to the user experience of said search, but I have waned on what’s what on the tech front etc..

So with a view to upping my acumen in this area ,and yours dear readers, I’m going to trawl search related news and offer you the best of the rest.

Caveat here - if you are a search specialist/guru/swame, you will be picking this stuff up form the usual suspects like SEW and SER. So just expect similar news, but with my commentary.

Click to Call in Google Maps
When I worked at Yell.com it was always clear to me that Maps were going to eat the directory lunch at some point. Location based services lend themselves particularly well to this visual form, and there’s something inherently engaging and intuitive about maps.

Why is this?

People love maps and there is so much ambient information held within them. They perform on a primary, secondary and tertiary task level. You can see the geography of a place, it’s proximity to others and routes in and out. Of course there’s a lot more, but n information terms maps offer lots of layers in one hit.

I guess that’s why I love mindmaps so much as a note taking form.

How many times have you ever opened up a map just to look at it?

No?

Come on!

Anyway, Google have finally launched Click-to-Call on their maps. Eeek everyone else, this is a great thing.

Search for Pizza in your locale and then, when they are highlighted, click-to-call and you’ll be connected.

Oh the seamlessness.

Consistent Protocol for submitting to Search Engines
Anyone who’s ever worried about their effectiveness on key search engines such as Google, Yahoo! et al (yes okay, I’ll say it) and MS Live will be all to familiar with the curiosity of how the spiders and their algowotsits work.

Well, try this for size; the major players are coming together to support a standardised protocol called ‘Sitemaps‘. This means that site owners can now tell search engines about their content rather than expect those lil’ digital arachnids to do the work.

The black art of submission may have just gotten easier. But hang on, there is a whole industry built on this, so maybe it’s not that good.

If like me you fancy digging a bit more, go to the official site.

That’ll do for now, I’m on the train and have work to do.

The BBC has given up control of its promotion slot for the sake of cricket.It allows users the ability to have ‘Ashes Mode’ on or off so that coverage of the Ashes (which is real man’s baseball for all you US readers) can be displayed upfront and central.Here’s an overview and explanation and here’s the BBC homepage. Go play.I just love the Beeb.

The English are funny aren’t they (we)?

We’re not overtly social creatures unless of course we have a drink or two then we’re ‘right up for it’.

I was trying to explain to someone the other day why I think that we have such a problem with drinking in this country and I think it’s due to our traditional reservedness.

In times passed we’ve ‘used’ drink as a way of ‘releasing’ ourselves.

As an island nation with Victorian legacy, this was necessary I guess.

But today’s generation will grow up so distant from those days of ‘British Reserve’ they have no idea why they get battered, they just do.

The days of worrying about what others think, I believe have gone. As a kid when I used to get up to no good we’d ‘scarper‘ just at the sight of a grown-up.

Nowadays they threaten to knife you and tell you to f*ck off.

Those scallywags!

Anyway, I’m interested in this erosion of British reserve but am happy to see it alive and well in certain quarters.

Silence in a lift for example.

I catch the same train form the same point on the platform every morning and see the same faces day in and day out.

I talk to one of my fellow travelers because we’ve broken the ‘duck’ as it were, we’ve had consequence to exchange. Not that I remember when. But the others? Oh no, not the others.

I can’t talk to them, I’ve no reason to.

It makes me laugh that we Brits need a reason to talk. We won’t talk to people we see everyday, but we will be half-way across the globe and we’ll ‘tip our hat’ on first sight of another from Blighty.

Why are these rules different when Brits are abroad?

Also, in my building I see lots of people, those whom I’ve spoken with I will always say hello to, but those who I haven’t I don’t.

I think that this behaviour is consistent with everyone, but I noticed today that because I had spoken to someone new at work and when I passed them on the stairs I suddenly had consequence to say hi.

I’d seen them lots before, but because we’d exchanged words on that day it now seemed okay to say ‘hi’.

Bloody weird isn’t it?

Or is it just me?

This morning I was awaiting a physio appointment on a running injury I have when I was looking for something to read in the waiting room.All the usual dross was there. It never ceases to amaze me how old copies of Harpers & Queen, Country Life and Car magazine find their way into these places. Maybe it’s a tactic employed by some marketing people somewhere?Anyway, I picked up a 4-month-old copy of Time magazine and started reading when I strayed upon an advert for the new A340 XWB which means ‘Extra Wide Body’ - see what they did there. Genius.So it set me to thinking. Why oh why does an aerospace manufacturer feel it necessary to advertise in a consumer facing magazine such as Time?I mean it’s not like I ever get to choose the class of plane I fly on is it? In fact I rarely choose the airline, often being guided by price.Imagine the scenario.; ‘Hi return ticket to Berlin please. Oh and do you have any Airbus A340 XWBs available..? You do…? Oh good!’I guess it’s some random attempt at giving airlines a weird differentiator - ‘We use Airbus A340 XWBs. So fly with us.’Hmmm.Anyone know of any other campaigns of this type?I guess one that has been a little bit successful is the Intel chip, but then consumers could choose.Which reminds me, I once heard someone describe the new super jumbo A380′British Airways to Berlin. #ding ding da ding# with Scarebus inside’

Check out this guy doing doing impressions of LL Cool J, Jay-Z and Snoop. I love the way he not only slips effortlessly into each impression, the lyric style works so well too.

Today, I was informed by one of my readers that I come across a bit ‘ranty’.Do I rant? I hope I not.I write my postings once, as I like the stream of conciseness affect. I’m inclined to avoid reading them through more than once as my subconscious kicks in. It starts to vet my thoughts, rewrite them and ask ‘what will people think?’.I have very strong opinions about my discipline, but then again I should, I work for one of the world’s largest providers of ‘user centered design’. I’m employed to have an opinion.So if it comes across a bit like a ‘rant’ then, there you go. Maybe I have a bee in my bonnet. But it’s all good-natured stuff really.PS - I don’t wear a bonnet, they’re for Easter only.