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Henry Ford is rumored to have said “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

So don’t listen to customers.

Henry Ford has also long been rumored to have said that customers can have any color car they want, as long as it’s black. (Or something along these lines.)

So don’t offer choices.

But you should listen to your customers, right? Create products based on what they want, and not what you think they want.

So you should pay attention to your customers.

Yet companies like Apple routinely design and develop products in a vacuum, hitting home runs and ignoring the pleas of customers who insist they need a 3.5” floppy drive or a QWERTY keyboard. How do you explain their success?

So you should…uhh…wear a turtleneck.

When I was in school, I spent a lot of time reading and writing. I found that my writing was heavily influenced by the authors I read. It’s a good thing I never cared for Dickens, or my blog posts might be much longer.

As I read more and wrote more, I learned to absorb without being too influenced. I grew my own identity and stabilized my style.

Reading business books and blogs can sway you too much. It happened when I read Good to Great. It happened again after The Tipping Point. Now, I realize it happens with pretty much every book, and I’ve learned to push back a bit. To learn and absorb without donning a white cloak, shaving my head, and drinking the Kool-Aid.

Platitudes and the metaphor du jour can be quite dangerous. Read, learn, and move on. Do something: move the needle.

A garden requires attention: one must carefully consider what will be planted and where, weeds must be pulled, and it will need regular water and fertilizer.

A blog is no different. I redesigned my grundyhome.com blog a while back. I can’t leave it alone. I tweak it constantly, changing links and rewriting copy. I do the same to Non-Profit Chas and pretty much any website I manage closely. If you read blogs through a feed reader, you may not notice these.

Design Your Garden

You must design your blog to be efficient and meet your content needs. Don’t add anything that you can’t support and that won’t bear fruit. What’s the purpose of this elements? Widgets are dangerous for this reason: there are a lot of useless blog widgets that take up space, distract your readers, and weigh down your pages.

And like any garden, it should reflect your own style.

Pull Some Weeds

Look at your blogroll – do those links still work? When you started your blog, you probably threw some content into an About page. Is that still correct and relevant? Think of this in terms of broken windows theory: every defect in your site hurts your visitors’ perception.

Feed and Fertilize!

This is the hardest part of having a blog. Creating valuable content and posting on a regular, consistent basis is the best thing you can do for your blog. I’ve struggled with keeping a posting schedule, coming up with content ideas, and finding new avenues to promote my blog. Now I set reminders and keep brainstorm lists to help me stay on track.

Watch it grow!

Check your stats – page views, visitors, feed subscribers – with proper cultivation of your blog you’ll see the numbers grow. It takes adjusting and consistency. After all, if you neglect your garden you can’t expect it to thrive.

Now, how you harvest your blog is a different post entirely…

Sometimes I think about what it would have been like to be born hundreds or thousands of years ago, when so much of our taken-for-granted world was yet-to-be-invented.

Would you have been able to grasp the concept of gravity? The number zero? Basic geometry? What would it have taken for such a breakthrough?

Up until the late 19th century, technology seems to have advanced quite slowly. Innovations where largely physical and each new scientific consideration could create thousands of new products or technologies. From my (admittedly limited) perspective, improvements were few and far between.

It’s long baffled me that innovation and invention have accelerated so fast since then. We had the 1870s discovering the telephone and alternating current. Within 30 years, we had the radio, automobile, airplane, submarine, photography, and dozens of other huge improvements. How many things were invented between 440 A.D. and 470 A.D.?

Now flash forward to 1970: what major inventions have happened since then? TONS! You can see from this Wikipedia Timeline of Invention that the last century has competed with most any other period from our past.

So why is it so hard to invent something new? Because new creations require a substantial knowledge of the current technology, a process for developing and testing your work, and the resources to make it happen. Invention isn’t necessarily an epiphany: it’s a slow trudge through failure to find success.

Grad school is a great place to start inventing: you’re acquiring the knowledge, have access to tremendous tools, and a funded Ph.D. program will pay you to do it. It’s not a perfect scenario, but it’s an opportunity that’s hard to find elsewhere.

This line of thinking inevitably leads me to the future; what might be invented in the next 5, 10, 50, or 100 years? And what can I contribute?

I hate calendars. They’re home to some of the worst software I’ve used. One of the worst things about them is the complete disregard for interface and usability.

The first, and most obvious, goal of a calendar is for people to find an event. Whether they know of the event or are just browsing, finding an event is the most basic task. So let’s look at some main options that I’ve used or implemented.

30 Boxes / Wall Calendar

If you have a lot of events, this view makes it hard to fit the information. If you don’t have a lot of events, there’s a lot of wasted room. Or the boxes distort to show the events you do have. The wall calendar view makes sense for one thing: giving you a quick view of what dates fall on what days. This is the worst of all event calendar interfaces. But having built and implemented many calendars for many client websites, I refuse to do this for most projects.

List

The list is a very basic approach: show the events in order by date. These are more of a headline style, with some or all event details broken out. This works well for very few events, but is a cognitive nightmare when there are hundreds of events.

Weekly / Date Range

This is a version of the list view, but pared down to a specific date range such as a week. If the user knows when the event is happening, this can reduce the cognitive load by cutting down to a handful of events. However, this can also produce results with too many or even no events at all – both of which defeat the purpose.

Agenda

The agenda approach displays a list of events in order by date, with the date displayed prominently. Makes sense, right? It makes it easier to find events you need quickly, with enough info to catch your attention but also find specific events without parsing a lot of descriptive text.

Tools and Trick to Make it Better

Category Filter

The filter is a great way of breaking down events by category. This is even better when it gives the option of subscribing to a specific calendar (if you’re into that kind of thing).

Date Picker

The picker view is a throwback to the wall calendar, but with the benefit of cramming it into a much smaller space. Bonus points if the only days with events are the only ones you can select. In this example, the whole week is highlighted because it’s used in combination with the weekly date range approach. Note how the dates are all the same – only one of those weeks has any events, and it’s not even the one that’s highlighted. A great use of a date picker is to quickly move past many months or years to find events in a specific date range.

Question: What’s the Best Calendar Interface?

Answer: The one that’s best for your content. Too many events or too few and any of these options are terrible. But combined with a category filter and a date picker, and most of these can be usable. I always liked how Google Calendar gives me several options, rather than forcing me to wade through a wall calendar or scroll past hundreds in a list to find the one I want.

A few years ago, I spent a week and a half on vacation for the winter holidays. I left my computer at home, having made the decision to disconnect and enjoy my time away. I felt nagging urge to check my email. There were withdrawal symptoms. After a few days, I found myself much more relaxed.

The Rev. Hugh Page, Jr. writes a blog for first-year students at Notre Dame. He recently taught a class about contemplation and the first year experience, in which he introduced the idea of building time into ones day for contemplative activities.

From his post, at http://fys.nd.edu/Deans_Blog.html:

I also assigned some rather interesting praxis oriented assignments such as:

• A Technology “fast” – turning off cell phones, computers, and other devices and taking a ninety minute meditative walk
• Contemplative sketching and photography exercises
• Walking the Prayer Labyrinth at St. Mary’s College
• Using poetry and the writing of aphorisms as a means of recording general impressions about personal growth and life
• Wandering the “stacks” of the Hesburgh Library
• Using the techniques of artistic composition to “frame” intellectual interests and objectives
• Identifying contemplative role models

Since my vacation experiment, I’ve wondered how I could introduce this into my daily life. I want to use it as a way to recharge. I want to reduce the guilt I feel when I leave my cell phone at home and am entirely disconnected. Most of all, I want to remind myself how important my life is outside of work and the Internet.

Have you integrated such activities into your life? What do you do?

Today, I fought a battle about why our websites look so good on Macs and bad on PCs. My short answer was that Macs make text look prettier. After a diatribe about why we have to start designing to make these look good on PCs, I pointed out that it’s nothing we can change – it’s something we have to accept. I not-so-nicely suggested that he take the issue up with Microsoft.

If you’re new to this issue or if you just need a quick way to show off the differences and reasons why this happens, this post is for you.

Example 1: Content area from ND.edu

Check out the full screens… notice how the Flash and the images aren’t any different? This problem is pretty much limited to text.

ND.edu, Windows Firefox 3

ND.edu, Mac Firefox 3

Why this happens

Joel Spolsky wrote about this issue a couple of years ago, with an excellent summary:

Typically, Apple chose the stylish route, putting art above practicality, because Steve Jobs has taste, while Microsoft chose the comfortable route, the measurably pragmatic way of doing things that completely lacks in panache. To put it another way, if Apple was Target, Microsoft would be Wal-Mart.

The two biggest reasons, in case you’re interested.

1. Anti-aliasing

Mac computers, by default, smooth the edges of fonts to make them truer to the design of the font. This is called anti-aliasing. Windows computers, however, handle this differently – and it’s not always by default. The result? Text looks smoother on Mac machines and to many Windows users, this looks blurry. This also causes fonts to look bolder or lighter.

2. Font substitutions

Text on the web generally gets rendered based on the fonts you have on your computers. This means your computer will use whatever it has, rather than the ideal font that the designers/developers wanted. Sadly, there are limited default font options on both Macs and PCs. Sometimes, this is a conscious choice – rewarding the folks with more selection – and accepting the fact that some people will end up with a different, less-desirable font. Don’t have Lucida Sans? You might end up with Verdana, and that’s going to look different.

Is there nothing we can do?

Well, everyone could just switch to a Mac. But mostly, it’s on designers and developers to realize how their sites will be consumed. It’s not a problem, per se, it’s just a matter of awareness and acceptance of what the technologies will do and why.

Most people hate cold calling. Even if you can turn your connections into a visit or a phone call, you’re still starting off with nothing: no reputation to precede you, no interest, no warm lead. Chances are, you’re walking into a cold brick wall—someone who knows they’re going to humor your sales pitch.

This is the trick I’ve used to overcome the cold call and turn it into a warm – or even hot lead.

It’s a pretty simple phrase, actually:

“Let’s take a look at what your competitor is doing.”

It doesn’t matter if you’re talking to Roy’s Hardware or a Fortune 500 company: people are competitive. If they’re best in the industry, they are desperately looking for something to help them keep their lead. And if they’re not the leader, then the customer is going nuts realizing that their competition is winning.

I used to go into a sale from the angle of “here’s how I can help you.” But that implies that the customer needs you to fix them. People don’t like feeling broken.

The competitor angle speaks to a more definite urge. You’re on the same team, now. Their competitor is your competitor, and your expertise can help the customer kick their butt.

As a web marketer, I’d pull up the competition’s website. I’d make notes of what they did right and what they did wrong. I’d make lists of search keywords that the competition performed well on. Where they were winning. I’d make careful note of their weaknesses.

The competition’s weaknesses are opportunities for your customer. They’re positive things they can focus on.

When you call or visit your prospect, start off by making informed assessments of their industry. Ask if they saw what they competitor has been doing recently. Ask how much time they’ve spent on their competition’s website. Mention the competition by name.

That’s when you tell them you can help them beat (or extend their lead on) the competition. Now you’ve got key points from your research to carry it on to the next meeting. Don’t give it all up then – use this newfound interest to schedule your first meeting, make a presentation, send more information about your business, etc.

What’s the difference between inventors Leonardo Da Vinci and Thomas Edison?

Da Vinci created. Thomas Edison innovated. Edison (and his team) methodically processed hundreds or thousands of options for filament materials until they arrived at the best result. They prototyped, tested, revisited, and revised.

(Flickr Photo by Sam the sham)

Innovation isn’t luck. It’s a process. Even when the figurative light bulb pops on, the idea needs nurturing and development before it can be carried out.

The Ground Rules of Innovation

1. Generate ideas first, evaluate ideas later.
2. There are no bad ideas. The worst ideas are often stepping stones to good ideas.
3. Nobody owns an idea. Evaluate ideas on their merit, not based on who came up with them.
4. Be inclusive.
5. Maintain the team.

The Right Team

Who can be innovative? Everyone. Creativity can come from the most unlikely people, given the environment and framework. It’s better to be inclusive. Innovation requires different thinking, and an approach from the outside is a great way to help spur a change of perspective.

More importantly, the team needs to work well together. If team members don’t value each others’ ideas, refuse to contribute, or overpower the other members, remove them. Get the right people on your team, and get rid of the wrong ones.

The Process of Innovation

A process can draw innovative thinking out of the furthest corners of our minds. It’s an iterative process: one idea builds on the last.

Step 1: Start with Something

Take something familiar and start there. What could you do to change it? What would make it better? What might improve on it? It’s really hard to start from scratch. A blank canvas is creation; innovation is about incremental improvement. A starting point gives you something to react to, to build upon.

Let’s imagine we’re starting with a simple square. Changing a square is easy – add some colors, change the width of the lines, etc.

Step 2: What are the factors?

Identify the individual factors that make up your starting point. List them all out.

• A square has four sides
• Connected at 90 degree angles
• The sides are all equal in length
• The inside of the square can be filled with color
• The square can be rotated to any angle

Get as detailed as possible. Don’t take anything for granted, such as the fact that a square is two-dimensional.

Step 3: What factors could you change?

Go through your list of factors and ask how you might change them. How would it affect the square? Could you combine these changes?

Obviously, we could switch up the colors and lines, as we figured above. But we could also change the length of the sides (a rectangle), angles (a parallelogram or trapezoid), or replace the colors with a texture or anything you like. Let’s add another side (a pentagon).

Step 4: Go nuts

What about the off-the-wall ideas? Here’s your blank slate. You’ve already identified incremental improvements, but you’re not limited to small changes anymore. What huge changes or new ideas could you try?

So forget about our square. Let’s throw a bunch of sides in there, and make it three-dimensional. Let’s add gradients and make it bigger. A little big of texture… And voila: dodecahedron!

Application: The Real World

It’s important to apply this process within the real world. Combine your idea generation with research, customer input, and testing. Prototype, apply, revisit, and revise. Edison’s team would revisit their experiments and tests once they acquired new information.

Acknowledgements

Much of this post is borne out of a fantastic seminar put on by Linkage. I’ve spent a month kicking these ideas around and letting them settle before trying to share them.