Keith Instone

I am at the Midwest UX conference.

I am just hanging out today. Tomorrow I will be the emcee in the Gallery Theatre. (It is hard to find, so if you are going to a session there, be sure to follow the signs to the 2nd floor and then the additional signs to the theatre.) If you are here and want to find me, your best bet is to come to the theatre.

Here are the sessions in the theatre that I will be attending: (links to slide decks added as they are posted)

• Designing the Election Experience
• On "Shrink It And Pink It": Designing Experiences For Women
• Bridging The Mobile Design Gap
• Extreme Design: The Secrets To Successful Design Pairing
• Building A Responsive Design Process

A great set of sessions! You can follow along with these sessions, and the rest of the conference, with the Twitter hashtag MWUX12. And since I cannot make it on Saturday, I will be following Day 2 virtually myself.

The next stop on my tour around the area to re-connect with my user experience colleagues and talk about options for my next career will be:

• Wednesday, April 25th, Noon: Lunch at Great Lakes Brewing Company, 2516 Market Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44113

If you are in the Cleveland area and would like to join me for lunch, then please leave a comment here, send me a tweet, leave me a message on Facebook or contact me on LinkedIn. Or just show up at GLBC at noon and ask for the Instone reservation.

I would love to hear what you are working on. I would be happy to share some stories of what I have been doing. And share some of the "crazy" ideas about what I might do next.

And you may want to show up REALLY just to hang out with the other awesome user experience people who might be there.

I am spending the whole day in the Cleveland area, visiting something on the west side in the morning, visiting someone on the east side in the afternoon, then attending the NEOUPA presentation at the Cleveland Clinic at 6pm. I will probably return home after that, not sure I will have enough stamina to stay after for food and drinks.

Last week, I toured Detroit and other parts of Michigan, as I "hauled Molly" during her visit on Friday. Overall, I got to connect with people at Refresh Detroit and TechSmith and MSU UARC. Many more people in the Ann Arbor / Detroit area to see. Dayton, Columbus coming up next month.

I am going to the 2012 Midwest UX conference (May 31 - June 2) in Columbus and I'd like others from the Toledo region to join me.

Last year was the first year for Midwest UX, and it was a great conference, with content rivaling events that are much farther away. If you are interested in user experience and in the Toledo region, I highly recommend you go to Midwest UX (and/or Internet User Experience, in Ann Arbor, slated for July 16-18 - follow @internetUX for info).

To encourage people from the region to attend, I am running a little contest. The winner gets $100 off their Midwest UX registration. To enter, send me an email (to midwestux at instone dot org) with why you think you should win, in 100 words or less. I will pick my favorite on April 15th and send you a promotional code so you can go off and register and save $100. $350 is already a bargain: $250 is a steal.

There is only 1 thing I ask of the winner: write up a summary of your experience at the conference on Saturday, June 2. I will be missing that day (my daughter's high school graduation is then). Post your summary publicly (anywhere you want) so that I can see some of what I missed, and others can benefit from my $100 contribution. You can write up more than just what you learned on Saturday, of course.

Contest only open to people who live in the Toledo region (loosely defined) and have not already registered for Midwest UX. You cannot use it for workshop registration, only a regular conference pass.

Starting in April, I will not be an employee of IBM. Why? They laid me off. I am not upset about it.

It was a great 10 years. I got to work with great people on really challenging and interesting business problems. I contributed to several important, transformative efforts within the company. I made a difference for users across a variety of IBM digital touchpoints.

What's next for me? I do not know yet. If you are going to the IA Summit this week, then I want to talk with you about opportunities to collaborate. I am excited that I will get to do something new and different, and can build upon what I experienced working for IBM for a decade.

What did I learn, teach, discover, accomplish, survive the past 10 years? Four items to start with as I reflect back a bit.

1. You can indeed have effective, distributed, worldwide teams (e.g., dozens of people, all working remotely, in many time zones) but it is not easy. It takes discipline, planning, good communication skills, and proper use of a wide variety of tools.

User experience methods are useful for planning the "team experience" and information architecture skills come in handy for organizing the work spaces.

2. Agile UX & development processes, in general, are a better way to work in large corporations, since it makes it easier to do continuous, incremental improvements.

In a large, complex, systems-driven infrastructure, the "trick" is in the analysis phase (aka "writing stories"), where large problems are broken down into smaller work items. Avoid the roadblock parts of the infrastructure - things that are so broken, they need to be thrown away.

Certain parts of the user experience will always stink until the company commits to starting over from scratch. Make progress where you can and constantly remind management what is FUBAR.

3. One of the trends I see coming is more and more integration of UI design systems. Within IBM, our latest web redesign included a huge effort to combine our intranet and internet UIs. They do not look exactly the same, but our definitions/implementations of breadcrumbs, local navigation, icons, page grids and other UI elements are the same now.

The business case includes both UX benefits and costs savings. For example, a widget developed for the intranet can easily be used on internet sites.

The integration is happening at a larger scale within the company now. With platforms evolving quickly (smart phones, tablets), companies will need to spend even more time integrating UI design systems to make all of their digital touchpoints fit together.

My personal interest is on the information architecture side: how to organize the elements in the design systems (in a multi-faceted classification scheme, of course) so they can be integrated.

4. A technique I used for dealing with stakeholders on a daily basis was acting like a "requirements therapist". Groups would come to me with the "solution" in mind (e.g., "add a link to the home page", "we need smaller tabs to fit them all on our pages") and I would ask them lots of questions about how they got to this as the answer to their problems.

What is the actual business problem you are trying to solve? What are the user needs, goals, tasks? What other options did you consider (and what are the pros/cons of each)? What impact would this have on other business units? What would be the ideal user experience (even if we know that is not possible)? What is the bare minimum we can do to move us in the right direction? And so on.

Sometimes the net result was no actual change to the user experience, but the client changed through the therapy.

Four of my thoughts after 10 years with IBM, without getting into the weeds. And boy, are there a lot of IBM business and technical details I have gotten into over the past 10 years, things only an "innie" gets to experience. I guess that is something else that is important: how to stay at a high level for a while, and when to get into the details to actually get the work done. Being able to switch your brain quickly from the "clouds" to the "weeds" - and back - is crucial.

10 great years: now to start the next great 10 years!

I shut down the site for a while so I could fix some things on the back end. You would not have noticed, except that I have not been posting anything for longer than usual. Everything seems working on the new version of Drupal, new hosting service, etc. So a lot fewer excuses to skip write something here!

I learned about the Frontiers in Service conference back in 2007 and I have been keeping an eye on it ever since. It is where a lot of IBMers present their Service science, management and engineering research. Sylvia Long-Tolbert also had great things to say about it back when she was a professor in the business college at the University of Toledo. After touring the world, the conference is making its midwest USA stop next month, so I am trying to figure out a way to get there. Not my core areas of interest, but I am sure I would learn something.

• About Frontiers in Service in general
• Hosted by Ohio State University
• Download the Conference program (PDF)

A few things that I notice that make me want to go:

• Lots of IBMers, presenting their latest research and talking about the state of the field of service science. Jim Spohrer, Wendy Murphy, Paul Maglio, Jeanette Blomberg and more.
• Some "service design" presentations that I should be able to apply. Not as focused as Emergence was in 2007 but I should get something out of it as a practitioner. I like that they have "best practitioner paper awards" - so this is not just research for researchers.
• I see some presentations by Dwayne Gremler from BGSU. I have not met him yet.

The price is a big minus: hard to justify that for something that is not in my core interest area. Given the cost, family things (the summer is already packed) and work (being a weekend conferences helps there), not sure I will make it. If I miss it, hopefully there will be Twitter stream to follow. And I can follow up with my IBM colleagues separately to get reports from the conference.

Midwest UX was 3 weeks ago. I am still trying to review the presentations and the reports about the conference. My list....

Summaries, recaps and other things about the conference

• Twitter: #midwestux, @midwestux, Twubs archive.
• Johnny Holland reports: Day 1, Day 2.
• Photos and sketch notes: By Binaebi Akah, in general, Twitpics.
• Recaps by: David Farkas, David Paul Andre, Diego Pulido, Christian Manzella, Marc Sexton, Digital Life.
• Rate the speakers
• List of slides: Deborah Edwards-Onoro.
• Other things: Lanyard, Facebook group.

Slides and presentation material

• The Secret Lives of Links. Jared Spool (keynote)
• Interaction Design for Social/Mobile Innovation. Haig Armen, Chris Stone (workshop)
• ¿Dónde Está? (Where Is It?). Oscar Fernandez
• Creating Data Driven Dashboards for Web Applications. Des Traynor
• Flip This Lab! Retro-fitting An Older House As a User Experience Lab. Jackie Martinsen
• Little People, Big Challenges: UX with Kids. Carol Smith
• UX Research in the Real World: Stories from Rwanda. Veronica Erb
• Cooking UX with Cultural Leftovers. Erik Dahl
• From Cancer to Bankruptcy (recap). Brad Nunnally
• Empowering Teens through Design Education. Larissa Itomlenskis
• Lean UX: Getting Out of the Deliverables Business. Jeff Gothelf (working lunch session)
• What UX Designers Can Learn From Going Out To Eat. Jimmy Chandler (workshop)
• From Mega Website to Mobile Experience. Edward Stull & Marty Vian
• Adaptive Mobile UX Design (slide transcript). Jen Matson
• Mobile Design, Thinking Beyond Apple. Brad Colbow
• Don't Watch TV - Experience It. Brian Stone
• 10 Truths and a Lie: Answers You Need to Understand Web Analytics. Erin Jo Richey
• The Mystical Power of Descriptive Statistics. Wendy Stengel
• Fast-Track Content Strategy with Mental Models. Eric Wiley & Vince Frantz
• Creativity Through Play. Kimberly Callery
• Design for Life. Marc Rettig (keynote)
• All You Really Need To Know About Users You Learned in High School (More or Less). Dan Willis (keynote with Get down)
• MacGyver Prototyping (PDF). John Wayne Hill, Chris Basham, Wes Michaels (workshop)
• Agile's Secret Step: Discovery. Lis Hubert
• Influencing Business Using a Wall of Knowledge. Heidi Munc, Derren Hermann
• Taming the Nine-Headed Stakeholder Monster. Geoff Alday
• Winning Big in UX: Changing the Problem-Solving Culture in Organizations. Jay Morgan
• UX with Bill Hicks. Ian Fenn
• Beyond Frustration: Three Levels of Happy Design. Dana Chisnell
• Reputation Modeling to Build Smarter Objects. Bryce Glass
• Defining the User Experience of Emotion and Content. Jason Wishard
• Every UX Person Needs a Portfolio. Abby Covert (working lunch session)
• Practical Accessibility. Chris Merkel (workshop)
• "This Product Sucks!" A Sampler of Product Design Issues. Darren Kall
• The Nature of Information Architecture. Dan Klyn
• Thinking with Your Hands. Karl Fast
• Destroying the Box: Experience Design Inspiration from Frank Lloyd Wright. Joe Sokohl
• Mobile UX is a Business Decision. Bill Litfin (panel)
• Leading a Successful UX Project. Derren Hermann & Christina York (panel)
• Untitled. Jesse James Garrett (keynote)

Let me know if I missed something.

I am missing my first IA Summit, after making it to the first 11.

I can get some value from the conference remotely.

• I am definitely following #ias11 on Twitter. It will get crazy soon, as the Saturday sessions kick off and people are tweeting from up to 4 sessions at the same time.
• I also plan on tweeting with attendees, asking them questions and sometimes even participating in online discussions that stem from what happens face-to-face.
• Decks are being posted to SlideShare. Some people won't post until after the event, which makes sense, so this will become more useful over the next few weeks. Martin Belam is also maintaining a list of slides.
• The conference CrowdVine instance has some activity.
• Some pictures are being posted to Flickr with the ias11 tag.
• The Facebook event is pretty quiet.

I have not found anyone who has written a recap of Day 1. Or who is planning on doing "trip reports" from the event. Everyone is too engaged there, I completely understand.

If you find some other way to participate remotely in this great conference, let me know!

I will be at the Midwest User Experience conference on the weekend of April 9th (in downtown Columbus, Ohio). It is great to have another conference nearby that I can participate in without having to get on a plane. (Or miss any work - that sounds like a bug, not a feature.)

In just a few short months, the awesome team of mostly IxDA Columbus and COUPA volunteers have done an amazing job of getting fantastic keynotes, along with a great mix of local and "international" speakers for the rest of the program. I am helping them out, glad that I can contribute in my small way.

It is already sold out. Sorry if I sent you email in the past, got you excited about it, but you were not quick enough to get in. If you are attending from the Toledo region (or passing thru on your way from Ann Arbor, perhaps) then contact me to see if we can arrange a car pool.

If you are lucky enough to have a ticket, be sure to list yourself at Lanyard and/or Facebook so others know you are coming and you can connect with them.

There are still ways your company can be a Sponsor. So please consider that - it will be worth it.

I may organize a group excursion to the final Blue Jackets regular season home game (Saturday, April 9, 7pm). If you are interested in hanging out with your user experience colleagues at an NHL game, contact me.

Finally, if you really like the concept of a top-notch user experience conference here in this part of the world, I am interested in proposing Toledo as a future host city. Lots to figure out, but let me know if you want to try to make that happen.

I attended "Why we buy, why we brand: a historical look at our relationship with brands" by Debbie Millman last night. Another great AIGA Toledo event. Glad I went, informative and inspirational talk, good to get out of the house and see some colleagues, good to be on the University of Toledo campus, and a great turn out on a Friday night.

Debbie is an "icon" in the design community, pun intended, with her books and radio show/podcast, and AIGA leadership. And of course, her work. Things we see every day, like a font for candy and wildly popular orange juice labels.

It was great to have her in town, as part of the Detroit/Toledo Design Re-View competition.

This talk (sometimes labeled the reverse, "Why we brand, why we buy") has been given before in Richmond, Harrisburg, Hartford, Providence, Baltimore, and Milwaukee, to list only a few. Alaska is a future stop. What a road show!

Here are the 2 best recaps of other versions of this talk (and then I do not have to repeat the details here):

• Ryon Edwards of Riggs Partners, from the South Carolina presentation
• xtine burrough at DesignEducator.info, from the Orange County talk

You can also buy a Designcast of this talk from Print.

Now, my thoughts.

I think I was the only one tweeting the talk. I did not do many, but a few things jumped at me as Debbie was talking:

• Big brain bang 50k years ago considered cultural universals. Making and marking things.
• The brain likes to solve puzzles, creates different neural pathways when figuring out a logo
• most popular brands now are those services that connect people. Brands as connectors, we are part of the pack

Debbie offered a free book to anyone in the audience who could name the first trademark. I knew it, since I was Googling things and drafting this blog entry while she was talking. I decided to stay quiet and see if anyone else knew it. Sorta feels like cheating when you use Google to win prizes.

The biggest chuckle from the crowd may have been when she showed the Evolution picture.

The history part was enjoyable. I actually enjoyed the "pre-history" - before 1875 - more.

I know that she had some quotes about the iPod, but she did not have any Apple-fan-girl stuff that I recall. That was a refreshing change.

She was honest that her presentation was kinda light on the "science" stuff - even saying that past audiences have told her that was the most boring part when she went more in depth on it. But that was the most interesting part to me. As such, I'd have to say her talk was more about the HOW WE BRAND and less on the WHY. It was still good, but it would have been better for me with more of the science and fewer examples. I realize I was not a typical audience member, tho. I will still have to rely on the Brain Lady as my source of helping me understand why people behave the way we do. (Sad that I will miss her next visit to the area, February 24, hosted by Michigan CHI.)

I think a few times she said "people buy the brand" which irks me sometimes. I feel like people buy products and services, influenced by the brand. And the brand influences them based on the sum of the experiences they have had with those products, services and the company overall. Something to debate over drinks.

As is often the case, I do not think of good questions until I am driving home. One would have been about "place branding". Her examples were almost all products, a few services, but I did not recall any branding examples centered on geographic areas. She touched on this in her pre-history (how flags have evolved to represent nations) but not later. It would be nice to find place branding examples and try to fit them into her 5 waves. I guess my question would have been if she has tried this and if not, does she think that place branding even fits into the waves. Some might say that place branding is "behind the times" of product branding, not as mature. I dunno. Place branding for the Toledo region is actively underway, so it would have been good to try to connect those dots.

Another good question might have been about the future. When does Wave 6 start and what will it be about? I like to put speakers on the spot and make them predict the future sometimes.

So, net, it was a good talk, glad I went, I hope others enjoy it too.