Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #319 - Google IO part two

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #319 - Google IO part two

Hi Mom,

I am very inspired by things I witnessed and people with whom I interacted at Google IO. I am particularly inspired by the last presentation I attended. I may have found my niche. I am very drawn to the issues of design and user experience (UX).

Locally, there were many presentations, and I am really glad I went. Above is a picture from the opening keynote.

Colin and I had a bit of trouble finding parking, but once we made it in, we enjoyed the GR keynote which dealt with IoT -- The Internet of Things. Local tech moguls discussed smart things and how advances are happening right here in Grand Rapids.

One of my favorite presentations of the day was by Aaron Van Prooyen and Larry Martin in their talk entitled How Game Development Made Us Better at Life. They spoke a great deal about failure, how failure is inevitable, and what we can learn from failure.

These guys described their journey to be game developers and their failures along the way.

I was really impressed with these guys and their energy. I really hit it off with Aaron with whom I share many of the same interests, such as a love of science fiction, namely Star Trek and Star Wars.

I was intrigued by this guy's company (above) so I took a picture.

MOVE SYSTEMS.

I was also really captivated by Erik Dahl's presentation on Designing Our Futures.

I was captured by Erik's presentation from the start as soon as he shared slides featuring R. Buckminster Fuller, which were lat the beginning of the presentation as seen in the photos above.

One thing he did that I really liked was asking us to close our eyes and picture our happiest moment. Then he asked how many of us were interacting with products or software in those moments and how many of use were with people. Almost everyone thought of a time with people and not products. Thus, the simplest design concept to remember: people not objects. It's the way that people interact with objects that is important and not the objects themselves.

He had us design a vase in 20 seconds. Then he had us think about a better way for people to enjoy flowers in their homes and then, abstracting out, a better way for people to connect with nature.

The content became very meaningful to me with the next slide: "Stories are how we understand and shape the world."




Erik shared part of a documentary featuring writer Harry Crews speaking on the subject of stories.

See Harry Crews video below.

Stories about interactions. We should be problem finding before problem solving.




 Put identity before effort.

All of us are responsible for creating the future. What do we want that future to be?

A DESIGN PRACTICE FOR THE 21st CENTURY: metaphor, abstraction, reflexivity, feedback, pace, agency, and opacity.

Good books:

FLOW by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

BOOKS BY DANIEL H. PINK

A Whole Mind

To Sell is Human

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

ERIK DAHL SLIDE SHARE

ERIK DAHL

UX AXIOMS

@eadahl

+Erik Dahl

Erik is also involved in the Midwest UX conference. I may attend. It's In October.

Reflect and connect.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.

Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.


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- Days ago = 321 days ago


- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1605.21 - 10:10

NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.