We currently live in a world dominated by experts. You only have to open a newspaper or switch on the television to see experts giving pronouncements on everything from parenting to the economy. In a world of multifarious complexities, the need for such experts is clear. We need experts to filter the huge flow of information and simplify it into something more digestible.
The thing I like about Jason Fried and 37 Signals is their tight focus on what they do. They are at once their own clients, customers and dev team. This gives them a great deal of freedom when it comes to features, functionality and process. However companies like 37 Signals are definitely in the minority, and most of us have to deal with much wider range of issues and stakeholders.
I've been in Boston the past week, attending User Experience 12. I arrived late on Friday night and was greeted by the tail end of a hurricane. Pouring rain and 60 mile an hour winds weren't go to stop me from sightseeing, so after purchasing a brolly I hit the Freedom Trail the following day. It turns out that wandering round Boston in the rain isn't much fun, so I ended up wandering around the Museum of Fine Art instead. If you find yourself in Boston on a blustery day, I can highly recommend the collection at this fine museum. On my travels I came across a discount theatre tickets stands and and bought a ticket for the stage version of Donnie Darko. I wasn't not quite sure what to make of the play, but it was definitely interesting. At the very least it made me want to watch the movie again.
I've been interested in how the lessons learned from game design can be used to improve online experiences for a while now. I guess this interest started when I started learning about the concept of a "flow states". Flow is the state of being where you lose all perception of time and you flow from one successful task to another with seeming ease. It's great if you can get into this state at work as you feel "in the zone" and can get a lot done in a short space of time. Sadly the number of distraction in the modern work place, combined with the fact that we're perpetual multi-taskers, makes entering into the flow state at work a rare occurrence.
The beauty of Taoism is that it's a very holistic belief system. Rather than setting down rules and doctrines, Taoism focuses on the natural order of the universe. Nature has it's own pace, so rather than struggling against the flow, Taoism teaches us to move with it. After all, a young sapling will bend with the wind while the mighty oak gets torn from its roots. Sometimes nature is an unstoppable force and the only way to survive is to understand it's core essence and be flexible. The same could be said of many a web design project.
As some of you already know, I'm a qualified PADI dive instructor, and spent a good part of my twenties travelling around Asia, teaching people to dive. During the surface intervals, me and some of my colleague would jump off the side of the boat to practice our breath hold diving. We started just by finning down, but quick progressed to variable weight diving where we'd grab hold of a weight belt to pull us down, and then haul it up afterwards. We weren't very good, and I've later found that this practice was also quite dangerous, but it was fun and killed some time.