Negative Space in Product Design – Value from things that things don’t do.

Posted on July 18, 2007 by Thomas Purves

I figure the single sound that must bring the most collective happiness to people the world over is exactly the sound your alarm clock doesn’t make as soon as you hit the snooze button.

I’ve been trying to think up, ever since my alarm came back on this morning, some other examples of this principle in practical action. In visual design negative space can be as important to a composition as the subject.

1. (When it works) Google search creates it’s value from the search results that it doesn’t return.

2. Desani creates value by not putting all that sugary Coke crap in your Coke water – and just giving you not flavored Coke water in a handy portable container.

3. Of course the iPod shuffle was most distinctive features were the ones it didn’t have.

4. Tokyoflash makes a (awesomely cool) business out of not making it easier to know what time it is.

5. Strategic nuclear weapons

8. What else there must be lots? What softwares or products are handy for features they don’t have or, for features they do have, are handy for the negative not-uses of those features?

Posted in Archive, Business, design, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

RIM Slams Canadian Carriers for Data Rates

Posted on July 9, 2007 by Thomas Purves

BunnyHero (wayne a. lee) says:

Rim blasts Telcos for high cost of wireless:
“Research In Motion Ltd., riding high after finally gaining entry into China’s lucrative wireless market, blasted Canadian cellphone companies yesterday for their high data rates and for not competing against each other strongly enough.” michael geist writes about the article: -From BunnyHero [11:47:25 AM TorCamp ChatSwarm]

You may have seen this in the papers this morning. And my own famous post [canada-worse-than-3rd-world-countries-when-it-comes-to-mobile-data-access] has been garnering another flood of traffic and inbound links again this week. This is a major issue in Canada and it’s about time the story has broken in the mainstream media. That story of mine is now up to 130 comments and trackbacks if you want a sense of how much this issue is really starting to bug Canadians. That is an awful lot for a little blog like this one.

Posted in Archive, connectivity, mobile, opendata, wireless | 5 Comments

The Tricks and Challenges of Social Computing in the Office

Posted on July 6, 2007 by Thomas Purves

Great set of notes (thanks Stephanie!) on Suw Charman’s recent talk at google (been meaning to link to this for a while) on the tricky art of introducing social software to the office.

“Low-level fear of social humiliation. How are they going to come across to their peers and bosses? Fear of making mistake. People don’t realise they’re afraid, they just feel a bit uncomfortable talking /publicly/ to their collegues. E-mail is different because it feels private, it’s 1-1 communication…

ut often if permission isn’t explicitly given to use such tools, that will really get in the way. “Blogs as diaries”, etc — psychological mismatch. What the boss /thinks/ blogs are, and what they are used for in business.”

“Some very mundane use cases: Disney used blogs to announce events (threw away their customer crappy tool). Personal knowledge management — “what have I been doing, what stuff do I need to find again?” Person who has to report on what he’s doing: blog about it, and let boss read. Competitive intelligence. What’s happening out there/in here. Also, “oh this is interesting!” — people blogging about social things, not business-related things. Actually good, allows people to get to know each other. steph-note: I think Google understands that. We tend to underestimate the importance of social relationships in business.”

Posted in Archive, Business, enterprise2.0 | 2 Comments