VICE News Superior

So I have started watching VICE News and you should too. 

It is on HBO and is superior to the other big news outlets in so many ways. 

The intensity and clarity of their photography and videos is unbelievable!

My daughter said to me:

“This is clearer than REAL life!”

And she was right…I don’t know how they do it. 

Also, they remove all the clutter from the news screen that CNN, MSNBC, and others use at the top and bottom of the screen–instead it’s just clean, focused, and right to the news point. 

VICE puts the key messages in callouts right on the screen in large and easy to read boxes–the impact is you see the visual and the print message dramatically together and you get it and remember it!

They do this for their photos and videos.

Finally, with all the “talk is cheap” news these days, it is nice that VICE seems to focus more on reporting and less on subjective opinion. 

With all the failing, fake, and alternative news out there, it is nice to see that someone has invented a better news program.  😉

(Source Photo: Vice News)

Bird In The Bush

Thought this was an absolutely amazing and spellbinding photo of a bird peeking out from a bush.

I’ve never actually seen anything like this captured up close like this. 

The bird seemed to cooperate.

It reminds me of a baby gestating in it’s mother’s womb, so content, so sheltered. 

Not quite ready to come out into the real world, but snug in place, yet observant.

Too soon to be contemplating next steps in the complex world outside its immediate cozy shelter. 

Perhaps, there is a part of us that craves that simplicity, innocence, and existence sheltered from all the bumps and bruises.

Oh, to have such peace of mind and spirit, absent heart-wrenching day-to-day dilemmas we face.

Like a bird nestled in a bush looking out with that simple wonder and purity of life itself. 

(Source Photo: The Highly Talented, Rebecca Blumenthal)

OJ x 6

Okay, I like orange juice like everyone else, but this is ridiculous.

At least 6 types of Tropicana OJ in the refrigerated section of this small neighborhood deli.

Get this:

• No Pulp
• Some Pulp
• Lots of Pulp
• Calcium (Enriched)
• Orange Peach Mango 
• Orange Strawberry Banana

Good thing is the juice cartons are color-coded or you might just pick up the wrong one–and then what?

Ah, I’ll just take the one made from oranges–the fresh ones from Florida!

Choice is a good thing, but consumers must be getting more picky.

Then again, maybe I am getting old, because I still remember when I only had to select between Tropicana and Minute Maid. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Robot Man

Don’t know exactly what it is about this little robot guy, but I really liked it.

The simplicity of the body and limbs joined by the connector joints and the head as just a clear crown on the rest.

To me, it looked relatively realistic as how robots of the future might actually look.

Humanoid, but so sleek that they are us but in many ways a step up from our aging selves.

Perhaps, someday the brains of humans and the bodies of machines will really come together in a better alternative to ourselves.

Living (indefinitely) longer and even pain free in bodies that carry mind and soul into the future.

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Solve That Problem Simply

I have always been intrigued by simple solutions to complex problems.

Bloomberg Businessweek has a great example of how a Fulbright Scholar studying in Beijing solved the smog problem for many people wanting to reduce the danger to themselves and their families.

Air Filters that purify the air can cost around $800, and often one is needed for each room.

But Thomas Talhelm founder of Smart Air Filters found he could do the job with a simple HEPA filter, fan, and velcro strap to hold them together for just $33/kit.

He tested the results and found that he could remove 90% of particles 2.5 microns and above in the room.

Talhem’s biggest problem now are copycat DIY air filters hitting the market.

If only inventors could come up with a simple solution to protecting intellectual property in places where either there aren’t rules or they aren’t strictly enforced.

When innovations are so easily copycatted, there is less incentive to problem-solve and think out of the box, and that’s a problem for society where the s___ really hits the fan. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Cell Phone?

Some people are averse to change and to technology–and then there is Gary Sernovitz.

This guy in the Wall Street Journal today boasts how he is one of the last 9% of American society that goes without a cell phone (let alone a smartphone).

At 40 and as a managing director of an investment firm, he says if he needs to make a call he uses one of the 30 working remaining payphones in Manhattan or borrows his wife or a strangers phone–so much for personal independence and self-sufficiency. Does this guy (and wife) live at home with his mommy too?

He calls himself a “technology holdout” and actually goes on to says that he is scared of getting a cell phone because he is afraid of losing himself.

While admittedly, many people do go overboard with technology, social media, and gaming to the point of addiction, I am not sure that getting a cell phone is alone a major risk factor.

Sernovtiz says he adheres to Henry David Thoreau’s philosophy of simplicity–and that inventions “are but improved means to an unimproved end.”

Thoreau went to live in the woods to “live deliberately” and focus on “only the essential facts of life,” perhaps like many ascetics and spiritual guides before him have. And as such, this is not a bad thing when done for the right reasons.

But Sernovit’z One-sided message is a negative one, because technology as any tool is not bad in and of itself–it’s how we exert control over the tool and ourselves, balancing productive use from misuse and abuse.

If Sernovitz is so afraid of using technology, perhaps he should question himself as an investment manager and disavow use of money–which can be used for many evils from greed, hoarding and selfishness to financing terrorism–and instead go back to bartering forest lumber and chicken eggs?

When I asked my 16-year old daughter what she thought of Sernovitz’s article, she said he can’t differentiate “simpler from easier.”

Don’t mind me if I pass on this guy’s book, “The Contrarians.” 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Simple Stick Figures Showing Complex Feelings

I came across these funny YouTube videos (beware though a little racy) with millions of views.

They are done using stick figures (or the more provocative term the creators use).

The focus is on 2 friends–“Red” and “Blue” and their interactions with other varied colored figures.

I think the stick figures are a brilliant way to tell about them and their exploits, so that you focus on their inner characters and their message and not on their superficial body looks.

Also, the notion of “color” for the different people is one hand a easy way to differentiate them, but also seems to have implications for the varied cultures and colors of people throughout the world.

Apparently, there is a YouTube Channel with a whole series of these 2 minute + skits, and now I understand that this stick figure theme is being made into a full length movie.

What I like about these is the simplicity of using these colorful stick figure characters to show life’s ups and downs, relationships, and feelings in a very direct straightforward (and also raw) way.

Sort of like seeing and experiencing the complexities of life boiled down in simple and unfiltered way.

While 2 minutes is entertaining, I think 2 hours of this “in your face” would have me wanting to throw these sticks in a great big bon fire, yep. 😉

Go Simple!

Two interesting recent articles discuss the importance of building in simplicity to product design to make things more useful to people.

Contrary to popular belief, simple is not easy. Mat Mohan in Wired Magazine (Feb. 2013) says that “simplicity is about subtraction,” and “subtraction is the hardest math in product design.”

Two of the best recent examples of simplicity through subtraction is what Apple was able to achieve with the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and iTunes, and what Google did through its “sparse search page.”

Unfortunately, too many companies think that “quality is associated with more,” instead of less, and so they pack on options, menus, and buttons until their darn devices are virtually useless.

Similarly, an article in the Wall Street Journal (29 March 2013) advocates that “simplicity is the solution,” and rails against the delays, frustration, and confusion caused by complexity.

How many gadgets can’t we use, how many instructions can’t we follow, and how many forms can’t we decipher–because of complexity?

The WSJ gives examples of 800,000 apps in the Apple store, 240+ choices on the menu for the Cheesecake Factory (I’d like to try each and every one), and 135 mascaras, 437 lotions, and 1,992 fragrances at the Sephora website.

With all this complexity, it’s no wonder then that so many people suffer from migraines and other ailments these days.

I remember my father telling me that you should never give consumers too many choices, because people just won’t know what to choose. Instead, if you simply give them a few good choices, then you’ll make the sale.

Unfortunately, too many technologists and engineers develop ridiculously complex products, and too many lawyers, legislators, and regulators insist on and prepare long and complex documents that people aren’t able to read and cannot readily understand.

For example, in 2010, the tax code was almost 72,000 pages long, the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) is about 2,700 pages, and the typical credit card contract now runs to 20,000 words.

Even the brightest among us, and those with a lot of time on their hands, would be challenged to keep up with this.

While rewriting and tax code is a welcome topic of discussion these days, it befuddles the mind why most of the time, we simply add on new laws, rules, regulations, amendments, and exclusions, rather than just fix it–plain and simple.

But that’s sort of the point, it’s easier for organizations to just throw more stuff out there and put the onus on the end-users to figure it out–so what is it then that we pay these people for?

The plain language movement has gotten traction in recent years to try and improve communications and make things simpler and easier to understand.

Using Apple as an example again (yes, when it comes to design–they are that good), it is amazing how their products do not even come with operating instructions–unlike the big confusing manuals in minuscule print and numerous languages that used to accompany most electronic products. And that’s the point with Apple–you don’t need instructions–the products are so simple and intuitive–just the way they are supposed to be, thank you Apple!

The journal offers three ways to make products simpler:

– Empathy–have a genuine feel for other people’s needs and expectations.

– Distill–reduce products to their essence, getting rid of the unneeded bells and whistles.

– Clarify–make things easier to understand and use.

These are really the foundations for User-Centric Enterprise Architecture, which seeks to create useful and usable planning products and governance services–the point is to provide a simple and clear roadmap for the organization, not a Rorschach test for guessing the plan, model, and picture du-jour.

Keeping it simple is hard work–because you just can’t throw crap out there and expect people to make sense of it–but rather you have to roll up your sleeves and provide something that actually makes sense, is easy to use, and makes people’s lives better and not a living product-design hell. 😉

(Source Photo: Dannielle Blumenthal)

At The Speed Of Innovation

Here are three perspectives on how we can speed up the innovation cycle and get great new ideas to market more quickly:

1) Coordinating R&D–While competition is a good thing in driving innovation, it can also be hinder progress when we are not sharing good ideas, findings, and methods in a timely manner–in a sense we are having to do the same things multiple times, by different entities, and in some more and other in less efficient ways wasting precious national resources. Forbes (10 February 2012) describes the staggering costs in pharmaceutical R&D such that despite about $800 billion invested in drug research between 2007-2011, only 139 new drugs came out the pipeline. Bloomberg BusinessWeek (29 Nov 2012) notes that for “every 5,000 to 10,000 potential treatments discovered in the lab, only one makes it to market” and out of the pharmaceutical “valley of death.” The medical research system is broken because “there ultimately no one in charge.”  The result is that we are wasting time and money “funding disparate studies and waiting for researchers to publish results months or years later.” If instead we work towards our goals collaboratively and share results immediately then we could potentially work together rather than at odds. The challenge in my mind is that you would need to devise a fair and profitable incentive model for both driving results and for sharing those with others–this is similar to a clear mandate of together we stand, divided we fall. 

2) “Rapid Fielding”–The military develops large and complex weapon systems and this can take too long for the warfighters who need to counter evolving daily threats on the battlefield. Federal Computer Week (19 July 2001) emphasizes this point when it states, “Faster acquisition methods are needed to counter an improvised explosive device that tends to evolve on a 30-day cycle or a seven-year process for replacing a Humvee.” There according to the Wall Street Journal (11 December 2012) we need to move to a model that more quickly bring new innovative technologies to our forces.  The challenge is to do this with reliable solutions while at the same time fast tracking through the budgeting, acquisition, oversight, testing, and deployment phases. The question is can we apply agile development to military weapons systems and live with 70 to 80% solutions that we refine over time, rather than wait for perfection out of the gate.

3) Seeds and Standards–To get innovation out in the hands of consumers, there is a change management process that needs to occur. You are asking people to get out of their comfort zone and try something new. According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek (17 December 2012) on an article of how bar codes changed the world–it comes down to basics like simplicity and reliability of the product itself, but also seeding the market and creating standards for adoption to occur. Like with electric automobiles, you need to seed the market with tax incentives for making the initial purchases of hybrids or plug-in electric vehicles–to get things going as well as overset the initial development expense and get to mass development and cheaper production. Additionally, we need standards to ensure interoperability with existing infrastructure and other emerging technologies. In the case of the electric automobiles, charging stations need to be deployed across wide swathes of the country in convenient filling locations (near highways, shopping, and so on) and they need to be standards-based, so that the charger at any station can fit in any electronic vehicle, regardless of the make or model. 

Innovation is the lifeblood of our nation in keeping us safe, globally competitive, and employed.  Therefore, these three ideas for enhancing collaboration, developing and fielding incremental improvements through agile methodologies, and fostering change with market incentives and standards are important ideas to get us from pure exploration to colonization of the next great world idea. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Dyson Vs. Dirt Devil

For those of you neat freaks out there, you probably have been sold on the King of Vacuum cleaners–the Dyson!

Dyson, a British company has built a vacuum cleaner (and fan and hand dryer) empire with 4,000 employees and $1.5 billion in sales.

For a number of years now I have used Dyson including their super powerful (and expensive) “Animal” bagless cleaner–this thing actually ate up one of my phone cords and tore it to shreds.

I’ve also had other Dysons and my experience has been that while they look really nice in their bright yellows and grays, and sort of sleek for a vacuum, but they tend to break down–especially the motor for the brushes that work on the floor that I find accumulates hair and dirt around the spinner until it stops working.

The other thing that I’ve found with the Dyson is they come with so many annoying attachments, many with no place to actually attach them all–I think it is overkill for most people’s basic cleaning needs.

After going through a number of Dysons, I finally got fed up with paying so much and getting so little, and we decided to stop “investing” in short-lived Dyson vacuum cleaners.

Instead we said let’s get a simple, cheapo, Dirt Devil for like 50 bucks and run it into the ground. If it stopped working we could replace it 6-10 times for the cost of a single Dyson!

We purchased the Dirt Devil, and my expectations were very low–I actually considered it an experiment in purchasing this low-tech machine, and just seeing what we would get.

Well, it’s been about 3 months and I can’t believe the amount of vacuum you can get for so little money with the Dirt Devil–it is bagless like the Dyson and without scientifically measuring the amount of dirt it picks up, I’d say it is almost equivalent in getting the dirty job done.

Additionally, the Dirt Devil–doesn’t come with all the useless attachments–a case where more is less–and it weighs only around 8 pounds, which is 1/3 of what the Dyson weighed–so it is much easier to use around the home.

Similarly, when I look at the cool Dyson fans without blades, it seems almost magical how they actually work, but frankly who cares if it cost $300-$450 and doesn’t work as well as a basic floor Vornado that sells for about $120.

My opinion is that Dyson is generally overpriced and underperforms–but at least you’ll have the image of innovation and performance, even if not the reality at the price point.

Anyway, If I had a vacuum cleaner dream, it would be to one day get one of those “commercial” vacuum cleaners that you see being used in the huge buildings–almost non-stop use–and they may cost a little more, but they actually give you more as well. 😉

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Molly DG)