Janet Rae Dupree suggests that since computers are already doing left brain tasks so well, it’s time for us to focus more on our imaginative, creative right-brains:

…now that computers can emulate many of the sequential skills of the brain’s left hemisphere — the part that sees the individual trees in a forest — the author Daniel Pink argues that it’s time for our imaginative right brain, which sees the entire forest all at once, to take center stage.

Wikis are good for the right brain, and the creative process, since they don’t bog you down with complex steps and processes – the domain of the left brain. [Read more]

Whenever Apple unveils a new product, Steve Jobs often mentions “Apple Design” alongside all the other new features. And for good reason – the company takes design very seriously – so seriously that it’s a major selling point and the company has won numerous design awards including eight just this month alone.

Michael Lopp, senior engineering manager at Apple and author of Rands in Repose and the best-selling Managing Humans, shared some insights into Apple’s approach to design as a panelist at this year’s SXSW conference.

Pixel Perfect Mockups

From Businessweek’s Helen Walters:

This, Lopp admitted, causes a huge amount of work and takes an enormous amount of time. But, he added, “it removes all ambiguity.” That might add time up front, but it removes the need to correct mistakes later on.

10 to 3 to 1

Apple designers come up with 10 entirely different mock ups of any new feature. Not, Lopp said, “seven in order to make three look good”, which seems to be a fairly standard practice elsewhere.

Designers have complete creative freedom with those initial 10 designs, then choose to three to refine further until they reach the ultimate design.

Paired Design Meetings

Designers have two regular meetings a week. In the first, they explore any idea without constraints – it’s a chance to push their creativity as far as they can – and then some.

In the second, they try to work out all the details for a crazy idea and see how viable it is in reality.

This process and organization continues throughout the development of any app, though of course the balance shifts as the app progresses. But keeping an option for creative thought even at a late stage is really smart.

Too often, organizations constrain themselves by what they think they can get done, and don’t explore seemingly harebrained ideas. Apple does, and in an ingenious way that transforms what could be boundaries into opportunities that result in the unequaled products they seem to produce with amazing consistency.

The paired meetings, Lopp said, give designers a variety of ideas to present to senior management. Designers:

…take the best ideas from the paired design meetings and present those to leadership, who might just decide that some of those ideas are, in fact, their longed-for ponies. In this way, the ponies morph into deliverables. And the C-suite, who are quite reasonable in wanting to know what designers are up to, and absolutely entitled to want to have a say in what’s going on, are involved and included. And that helps to ensure that there are no nasty mistakes down the line.

It’s amazing to see an organization that’s truly postmodern in its ability to transcend ageless stereotypes. Apple’s designers and management seem to recognize that, above all else, both have value in designing, producing, and selling a smash-hit product – not just once, but with consistency. Isn’t that the secret to success?

(via Infinite Loop)

Scott Karp makes an excellent argument about how a simple user interface enables greater adoption and more effective use of advanced tools:

The archetypal example of simplicity driving technology adoption is Google search. Type what you’re looking for into a box and click “search.” What could be simpler? Especially when that’s the only thing on the page. [Read more]

Overnight we launched a completely new design for Blog on Wiki Patterns. It’s both a new look and better overall functionality for the site. Posts now appear in a stream in the left column, which gives you a better picture of recent writing. Books now appear in the middle column, and the right column is all about tools (About, Subscribe, Search, and a list of books on wikis & social media in business, technology strategy, and digital culture).

Feedback on the new design is welcome! Please leave thoughts below in the comments.

John Gruber just published his Macworld Expo Predictions. While reading his well-reasoned arguments why we will see a new thin MacBook Air?, should see a new Apple TV, and won’t see DRM-free music, one prediction got me thinking. He suggests the rumored Newton-like tablet device is very likely in development but won’t make it out of the labs in time for the Keynote tomorrow morning.

There’s still the “what would I use it for?” factor. It seems to me it would need to be something more than just an iPod Touch with a larger screen — if that’s all it is, then what’s the point of buying one instead of a smaller, poctetable, iPod Touch or iPhone? I simply lack the cleverness to imagine what that hook might be — but I can’t imagine Apple releasing such a product without an obvious “Oh I gotta buy that” hook.

John Gruber gets it right – the tablet needs a hook. I think that hook might be eBooks.

The Sony Reader hasn’t sparked the market; neither has the Amazon Kindle. But both have set the stage for the typical Apple product introduction. They’ve raised awareness of this type of device, established the basic underpinnings of a market, and gotten people excited about the prospect of carrying multiple books in a very light device.

But they’ve also failed to live up to the hype in some big ways. The interface on the Sony Reader is much too complex. All the device should have is a simple control that navigates a menu of titles, and turns the pages when you’re reading an ebook. Philippe Starck said the Kindle designers weren’t “courageous” enough to strip everything else away and focus on the one thing that matters when reading a book: the page.

That’s where Apple comes in.

Time and time again we’ve seen that Apple’s design team are courageous enough to focus, focus, focus on what really makes each device sing. I can imagine an Apple designed ebook reader being a simple, incredibly thin, magnificent piece of aluminum that looks as simple and uncluttered as it should be. It would be the technological version of the book page – nothing to distract you when you’re trying to focus on reading.

So that’s the design argument. What about the infrastructure?

Apple already has it: iTunes

As of July 31, 2007, the iTunes Store surpassed Amazon and Target to become the third largest music retailer in the US.

Apple already sells music wirelessly via the iTunes Wi-Fi Store for iPhone and iPod Touch. This makes selling eBooks feasible, especially since the file size for eBooks would at least be the same, if not slightly smaller than music files.

So that’s the infrastructure argument. What about the experience?

Now we wait and see.

Check out my new Wikipatterns book – a how-to guide for growing wiki use in organizations with practical advice from a wiki expert. (That’s me!)

Here’s what people are saying about the book:

• “Create an idea-sharing environment where incomplete can be linked together and from this, solutions emerge.” – From the book’s Foreword, by Ward Cunningham
• “I’m going to recommend this without even reading it! Should be an e2.0 must-read top-shelfer…” – Susan Scrupski
• “Just pre-ordered this from Amazon. Looks to be a good read and an essential tool in any E2.0 evangelist’s tool kit.” – Scott Gavin
• “I love it when this happens, a blog I’ve read for ages (devoured some would say) gets published in book format. Needless to say my copy is already ordered.” – Gordon McLean

In the September issue of Men’s Vogue, writer Michael Specter says of the iPhone, and Apple’s emphasis on design: “You can count on one hand the number of American corporations that take design seriously. There is target and Knoll, and then there is Apple…People want to make [Read more]

I discovered SlideShare from a post on Garr Reynolds’ blog about the World’s Best Presentation Contest he’s judging in April. SlideShare is like YouTube, but for slideware presentations, and allows you to upload up to 30MB files (it accepts PowerPoint directly, but I had to [Read more]

The Design Encyclopedia – A growing, collaborative resource that describes, tracks and explains culture, commerce, politics, media, sports, brands – everything possible, really – through design. The encyclopedia has Rules of (Wiki) Engagement, which is a very good [Read more]

David Galbraith writes about how the we’ve gone through another computing revolution that’s even more important than the one that made the desktop dominant over computers that filled a room. At the center of this new revolution is the laptop – the “truly personal [Read more]

In his recent post about my blog, Christian Long commented that he’d like to know how I podcast every blog entry: “Want to figure out how he manages to podcast every single blog entry.  Robots or his own time/energy?  Either way, I’m intrigued…and envious, too!” (think:lab, 1 Sept 2006)

Since you asked, I’ll reveal how I do it! Last spring, I discovered a tool called Talkr, which takes the RSS feed from your blog and uses  some very good text-to-speech technology to create audio files. It didn’t take me long to set up a free account and submit my RSS feed. Then I added a small bit of code to my blog template to create the “Listen to this Podcast” button you see at the top of each post which links to the corresponding audio file. Next, I submitted my podcast feed to the iTunes podcast directory, and created a page http://www.ikiw.org/podcast that gives readers information on how to subscribe to the podcast using iTunes or other podcast aggregators.

Besides being a natural complement to the blog, it also makes my blog more accessible for people who have to rely on audio either due to visual impairment or very demanding schedules. I hope you like it!