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I just noticed that several members of the Adaptive Path team including Brandon Schauer, Todd Wilkens, David Verba, and Peter Merholz are about to release a new book titled Subject to Change: creating great products and services for an uncertain world. It's been quite awhile since I've picked up an enticing book on customers/design/product development and so I'm eagerly anticipating its arrival. The team at Adaptive Path always seem way ahead of the curve when it comes to identifying patterns in product design. I'll share my thoughts on the book once it arrives from Amazon. The last book I read in this general category was Scott Berkun's The Myths of Innovation, a marvelous exploration around the history of innovation that I'd encourage any engineer or designer to read.

Last year I had the great pleasure of attending Adaptive Path's MX Conference in San Francisco. They are offering this event again this year and would encourage you to explore the event site to see if it might be of interest to you. It was the source of tremendous inspiration for me last year between the various sessions and networking with other attendees.

Posted by Rob at 11:32 PM | Permalink

Game designer Will Wright discussed his upcoming game Spore at TED this year. What particularly impresses me about his talk is his emphasis on the importance of building user empathy in a game which is a hallmark of "design thinking." Of course, Wright was truly a pioneer in this concept long before it became Avant-garde with SimCity and perhaps culminating most recently with The Sims. The role of empathy when designing user experiences is a crucial one. Sid Meier is another lgend that has continued to push the limits.

In his TED session, Wright cites many on interests such as astronomy, science fiction and astrobiology as having a major influence on the development of the game. Since I share many of these similar interests, I'm clearly looking very forward to this game and it might ultimately lead to an upgrade of my home computer. It's funny how interesting games have always played a catalyst in my decision to upgrade my computer. I can tell you exactly when the last time I upgraded my computer -- it coincided with the release of Half Life 2.

Be sure to check out this video in which Wright, soon to be awarded a Fellow of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) this month, comments:

Basically the reason is that I make toys like this is because I think that if there's one difference I can possibly make in the world, that I would choose to make, it's that I would like to give people a little bit better calibration on long-term thinking because I think that most of the problems world is faced with now is the result of short term thinking and the fact that it's so hard for us to think fifty years, one hundred, years one thousand years out.

Posted by Rob at 11:07 PM | Permalink