Branford Marsalis on Students today

When I'm not doing web design or application development for the web, I'm a graduate student @ Iowa State University (online) and an practitioner of jazz via the alto saxophone. While I was in undergrad, I found most of the classes to be directionless and I was always frustrated with the minimalist efforts by fellow students as well as my own students (I was a Comp. Sci. TA for a couple of years). I would constantly ask myself, "Why are you here if you had no intention of at least trying to be the best @ international affairs or business management or accounting?".

It wasn't until I got into graduate school that I realized that real work is done by those who do not expect advancement in exchange for mediocrity (aka lazians).

I found a video clip of Branford Marsalis, a very prominent jazz artist and musician, speaking out about how he feels about the aforementioned lazians in general and I think he has an excellent point...take a minute to watch. (Warning: harsh language ahead)



Real: Rewards / Recognition for meaningful efforts

Imagined: Bonuses for the undeserving

1 billion visits? R or I Challenge

I’m not sure if the world knew about this but this past week, the global internet audience surpassed 1 billion visitors in December 2008, according to comScore. That’s quite a bit of traffic on the web, and I want to say personally that I’m proud of each and every person who made those 1 billion visits possible. Where would the salaries of so many web designers, web developers, information architects, and the gross revenue of Google be without all of you?

What I am not proud of is the fact that over the last five years, global internet interest in philanthropy has declined every year and is down almost 50% overall since 2004. (See: Google Global Insights for Search: Philanthropy)

Question: If the Internet has more people on the web than ever before and the most talented people building sites every day, how does the interest in philanthropy decline so much? We have open source technology, lots of engaging websites, and more rich internet applications than ever before...What is (not) happening?

One possible answer: Some are interested more in money and / or recognition and may think that not much of either will come from using their skills and time for humanitarian or philanthropic purposes.

Another possible answer: Perhaps some are willing, but unaware of how to get started or connected with meaningful groups and organizations.

Challenge: I would like to challenge each and every UI designer, user experience and information architect, web developer and web / graphic designer to use your technical or artistic skills to help at least one philanthropic project in the next 30 days. Why not take a break from list of clients that always seems to have a million 'tweaks' to your design in favor of a new client that is ecstatic to have someone actively contributing? Try visiting Designism Connects, which is a website that connects causes to creatives and vice versa.
If you have a success story, let me know via comment. We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences.
I have already made contact with a group and I intend to design / program to help their cause. I also have a very big philanthropic plan in the works to expand this effort.

Real: Your ability, your creativity, your knowledge, your awareness, your accountability

Imagined: Diffusion of Responsibility

UX vs XA

(Credits: casch52 In and Out for a while)

I recently read an article that proposes several valid points comparing the composition of user experience design to experience design. (Read: From UX to XA: what is this Experience Design dem speak of today?)

As a practitioner of UI / UX design and a student of human computer interaction, I am often shocked about the lack of understanding of the UX role within the design process. Often, the practice is to build a technical framework and then ‘throw’ UX into the flow after some concrete development has occurred, if at all (Read: 10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design). But I think that is where the problem begins.....(User) experience design is an abstract concept that is being mistaken as a concrete discipline. Yes, UX designers end up creating visualizations of concepts in the form of mockups, wireframes, mental models, or storyboards. But that does not mean that UX, which uses Photoshop or OmniGraffle or Powerpoint (yuck) consists of the aforementioned tools alone. These are the tools available to us today. When the universe advances and Adobe Photoshop CS 900 (Extended) and Microsoft Office 2090 becomes available as an internet download to our brain, then we may use completely different tools as user experience designers (yes...I said ‘we’, as in I expect to still be here in 2090). User experience design, information architecture, usability, etc. are persistent and will outlive any and all technologies that are used to promote them.

Real: User Experience is not a transitive discipline and consists of several overlapping disciplines

Imagined: Adobe CS 900 (Extended), Microsoft Office 2090

How to be a free thinker

I'm not sure how many people are familiar with Scott Berkun, who is an accomplished author of several popular books such as Myths of Innovation and Making Things Happen, but he routinely posts essays that often alludes to metaphysical, epistemological, and philosophical discussions. He recently wrote an essay entitled How to be a free thinker, which identifies several limiting flaws within social norms and the practice of emulation in lieu of demonstration within several disciplines. Here is an excerpt:
"Even under the guise of what we comically call education, most of us, most of the time, are taught to copy. To memorize. To understand someone else’s theories....The beginning of wisdom starts with asking two questions. Why do we believe what we believe? And how we know what we know". Scott issues 3 very interesting challenges that may invoke free thinking.

Is free thinking real or imagined?

Birth of R or I

After going through what seems like purgatory to get this blog up and running, I finally have published the site. Welcome to Real or Imagined, a place where you and I can vent some thoughts and you can choose whether something can or cannot exist.

I look forward to posting many things here (i.e. concepts, ideas, thoughts, etc.), conduct book and content reviews for the sake of objective opinions, and several topics that are important in my life (i.e. Information architecture, HCI, information design, interaction design, user experience, philanthropy, etc.).

Let's get started...