My Name is Russ. I’m Running for the Information Architecture Institute Board of Directors

Written by Russ on September 5, 2008 – 1:32 pm

And I’m running on a platform with Matthew Milan and Livia Labate.

Over the past few weeks, we have spent a lot of time together working through some of the key issues that we think are real, real important and that are in the best interests of the membership of the Information Architecture Institute.

Unlike many election (ahem, POTUS), this isn’t an “us versus them” thing. We’re not “against” anyone, per se, we’re simply like-minded on things from a high-level perspective and we are passionate about the organization and the members. There is absolutely nothing but respect and appreciation for those who are current board members or who have been board members in the past.

I’d say we would all agree that the IAI has had nothing but a positive impact on us, and we want to give back.

That said, I’m posting, verbatim, my Bio and Position Statement, as submitted for candidacy to the IAI Board of Directors. Here goes…

Russ Unger’s Bio

I have been working on websites since 1993—when there was only Notepad to code with and Mosaic was the only browser around. That was when I found that my interest in User Experience Design and Information Architecture began to flourish.

Since then, I have worked with a number of major brands on large-scale Intranet and Extranet applications. I have also worked off-line, creating unique biometric (fingerprint reader) applications and have been responsible for creating user interfaces for mobile. I have also taught courses in Web and Interactive/Flash Design.

I have been active in our community as an editor for Boxes and Arrows and have recently explored the role of author. In addition, I am currently co-authoring a book on User Experience Design with Carolyn Chandler for Peachpit Press.

I am a mentor for the IAI and have worked with several mentees to assist them in their careers.  This experience has allowed me to revisit and renew my appreciation for people who are just starting out in their careers and what we, as an organization, can do to further support them.

I am the current Event Coordinator for the IDEA Conference.  I have actively pursued and landed several sponsors for the conference through my personal contacts.  I have assisted in identifying various speakers and have encouraged many to become speakers. I have supported the effort for many months and have learned a great deal about the Information Architecture Institute and conference planning and marketing.  This has been a lot of effort—and a lot of fun.  I would like for my involvement to continue beyond IDEA and feel I would be a valuable member to the board.

Position Statement: Vision, Empowerment & Transparency

Matthew Milan, Livia Labate and I are running on a common platform in the hopes of being able to make a more meaningful impact to the Information Architecture Institute if we are elected.

We believe that the IAI needs to be a more transparent organization.  We need to open a dialog with our members, encourage their involvement and find improved methods of making people aware of what is happening within the organization.

We believe the IAI should take a leadership role in educating our membership, people who are new to the workforce, new to working within our field and the companies that will hire them.

We believe that the IAI needs to get better at marketing and selling Information Architecture. We need to, as an organization, provide the services to companies who want to hire our members and begin practice areas where our coaching would be invaluable.  Likewise, we need to train our members how to do this within their companies.

Finally, we strongly believe that the IA Institute should have a clear vision of its role within the User Experience community and more importantly how it contributes to the advancement of the field of Information Architecture. With strong vision comes strong capability, and we have a duty to our membership to provide this role.

The Information Architecture Institute is an organization that our founders and previous boards of directors have built-up and established as one that is well respected. I am constantly reminded of how proud I am to be a part of the IAI every time I meet or engage another member of this thriving community.  My goal is to continue to guide our organization into a long-term future of sustainable growth.

We are at a critical time in our growth and evolution as an organization.  To me, the highest priorities are to establish a more transparent organization with a long-term vision that empowers our membership. We have an incredibly gifted member base, many of whom are very interested in becoming more active, helping to grow and shape our organization.

Moving forward with the doors wide open, it is crucial that the IAI continue evolving as a transparent organization.

IAI members need the ability to become as aware and active within the organization as they choose to be—with ease.  Support can come in ways large and small: through publicly displayed meeting minutes, open-attendance Board of Directors meetings or other methods, such as via Twitter, Directors blogs, etc. An increased transparency of our on-going efforts and activities is something that we can be proud of, and reach out with.

We need to identify new ways to empower our members further by helping them in the field, where it counts the most.  As a dynamic organization of professionals, we do a fantastic job of being at all of the places where we all are supposed to be.  We need to get better at being at the places we currently are not at.

Now is the time to use our membership’s successes to help them open doors into other industries and start reaching out to organizations where the relationships are as untapped as the mutual benefits.

A few introductory approaches to this could include:

• Encouraging our membership to present at other industry conferences; selling is one thing, educating and sharing knowledge on the value of Information Architecture throughout the business world will create true long-term strength.
• Improving upon the established marketing of the organization and help our members “Sell IA”.
• Engaging beyond our members, to the companies who are interested in working with us. These companies need coaching and education that foster understanding common career goals, paths and placement of these roles as pillars of their organizational structure. We can help them “Sell IA” to the companies they work for.
• Expanding IAI outreach to aide and assist the people in our field who are (or will be) new to the workforce. We should start in the college years by speaking to students and counselors.  We need to help them understand what skills companies value, and to help them locate jobs.  We need to coach them on appropriate types of work product and examples to be able to show and highlight experience and growing expertise.  As a mentor, these particular issues strike close to home; many of our members who are new to the workforce are communicating that they are having difficulties finding their first jobs.

The IAI can continue to expand and lead with a clearly defined vision for our future, initiatives to empower our members by providing appropriate marketing, training and tools that meet their needs, and by becoming a more transparent organization that we all have the power to engage and influence.

I hope to be a part of this.

Contact Information
I would be happy to further explore our position in greater detail.  Please feel free to contact me via any of the methods below.

• Twitter:
• http://www.twitter.com/openiai
• http://www.twitter.com/russu
• Join the discussion on Facebook at:
• http://bit.ly/openiai
• LinkedIn:
• http://www.linkedin.com/in/russunger
• I blog at UserGlue UserBlog:
• http://www.userglue.com/blog
• I can be reached via email at:
• russ [at] [this domain]

Posted in Community, IAI, Information Architecture | 2 Comments »

IDEA 2008: An Interview with Andrew Hinton

Written by Russ on August 27, 2008 – 9:11 pm

My second interview with a speaker for the IDEA Conference is with Andrew Hinton. The IDEA Conference is in Chicago from October 7-8 (just in case you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past few months–or in case this is the first time you’ve ever seen anything I’ve written, as an alternative).

Andrew Hinton, on the other hand, spends most of his time in the Philadelphia-area. I’ve mentioned a few times–to Andrew and others–that he looks astonishingly just like his photo. In this day and age, there are a lot of photos out there that often capture a best side of people that doesn’t seem to exist, but Andrew’s pretty captures exactly him.

It’s really not that big of deal, and I’m not sure why this has amused me for so long, so I’ll apologize and move on to more interesting things–like my interview with Andrew.

For starters, you should know that Andrew Hinton is one of those guys that I often refer to as “so damn smart it that the things he easily discusses often makes my head hurt”.  That’s a compliment, and I consider myself lucky to get to work on this project for IDEA.

Andrew is also a father, and from brief side conversations with him since I’ve had the fortune to make his acquaintance, it is very clear that that particular part of his life is the most important and the part he cherishes the most.  Parenthood is difficult enough with all the rest of life getting in the way, and to be good at being a good parent and finding ways in a world that constantly tries to divide our attention, it can be next to impossible.  This is not only one of the biggest compliments I can pass along, and it is also reason enough for him to earn your respect.

And if you’re fortunate enough to get to see him present, he will sufficiently handle the rest.

I feel as if I’ve lauded enough praise, so now I’ll tease the interview that will be live on Boxes & Arrows later.

RU: What would you recommend to people who are just getting started in the field and who are interested in becoming more active in the industry—or who just want to follow in your footsteps.

AH: It means a lot to get involved in your community of practice. You don’t realize what an impact it makes on people around you, but it’s huge. Find some problem that needs solving that tickles your fancy, some skill or service that the community could benefit from that you get a kick out of working on, and dive in. Lurking is fine at times, but if you want to be “active in the industry” you have to engage. You can engage the conversation at any level, as long as you have a sense of humor & perspective about it. And read all kinds of stuff—don’t just read “design” crap all the time. We all breathe each other’s air way too much, and it’s important to get ideas from outside the UX bubble.

As for my footsteps, I don’t recommend them—mainly because I don’t know that I could’ve walked those steps on purpose if I’d tried. Which is to say, follow what obsesses and excites you, whatever crazy path that might take you down, and there’s probably somebody somewhere willing to pay you for doing it well.

Andrew Hinton will be speaking at the IDEA Conference on the topic of “Context”. You’ll probably want to be in Chicago from October 7-8 to learn more about that.

First 30 commenters get invited to the IDEA BBQ FTW.

Posted in Conferences, Presentations, User Experience Design | No Comments »

Passive-Blind Voyeuristic Social

Written by Russ on August 26, 2008 – 1:52 pm

That title alone makes me feel like this entire post should be written by a slew of people who are a whole heck of a lot smarter than me, so I apologize in advance if you stumbled across this and thought you were going to get something highly academic.

It seems to me that there is a perception that “being social” means that you have to actually engage other users actively.

I do not think that is true.

I think that you can be socially involved with someone by quietly watching them–lurking, if you will.  In fact, “lurking” has been going on in email discussion lists, online forums and, dare I mention it, BBSes for years and years.

Lurking, I believe, is sitting back and watching the conversation–letting it all happen around you, without anyone knowing you’re even there.  However, with lurking, you also begin to understand the behavioral patterns and personalities of others.

Just by watching.

Seems kind of passive, if not voyeuristic to me.

So, if someone serves you up content based upon the actions of others who share similar traits with you, or have identified similar likes and aspirations, then it would seem to me that is rather blindly doing so–you don’t know who those other people are, just that they’re like you.

It’s like seeing a bunch of nameless, faceless “you”-types running around and doing their business and getting content served to you based upon their–and your–collective actions.

So, Passive-Blind Voyeuristic Social would be sitting back and watching content as it is served to you based upon actions that others, identified as being similar to you, and then acting upon it, which in turn influences someone else’s results as they do the same.

Or, at least, so I think it is. Sure, there’s a good chance that someone else has already thought of this and has a better definition, but this kind of works for me right now, and it makes sense to me as another way in which we can interact–socially–without having to actually cross any lines of “faux friendship” and add to our ever-growing lists of contacts that we may not actually even know.

It’s a great way to provide context and direction to users without forcing them to reveal themselves to each other.

There is an unbelievable amount of power in the following statement:

People <like you> who <do something> also <do something else that you’re not doing>.

Don’t you want to know? iTunes has been doing it for us for quite awhile (and have since taken quite a few nickels from my coin purse), but that is very loosely based upon qualities of music–and not “qualities of Russ”; there’s an opportunity to go a little deeper and deliver content to our users that don’t require them to becoming visibly engaged.

I’m going to go ponder this for a bit. I’d welcome additional thoughts.

---

Note: Search engines have been offering up “What People Are Searching For Now” types of content since, like, forever.  This is different as it is actually based upon some identifiers that you have selected, and have in common with others, without actually having to engage them.

Posted in Community, Social Networking | 7 Comments »

IDEA 2008: An Interview with Bill DeRouchey

Written by Russ on August 18, 2008 – 4:22 pm

If you do not know by now, IDEA 2008 is going to be in Chicago on October 7-8, with a pre-conference on October 6th, put on by MAYA Design.  The conference is going to fantastic–we’ve recently added Jesse James Garrett to speak about the Aurora concept browser.

Behind the scenes, I’ve been the “Event Coordinator”–and while it has not always been clear to me what that is (it’s mostly “do as much as I can in every situation possible–fast!)–and it has been a lot of fun working a little deeper with the Information Architecture Institute and getting to understand “how things work” a bit more.

One of the roles I took on was to interview some of the talent.  We’ve got a great line up for IDEA 2008, including:

• David Armano
• Jason Kunesh
• Dave Gray
• Elliot Malkin
• Edwin von Gal
• Jesse James Garrett
• Chris Crawford
• Albert Canas
• Jason Fried
• Aradhana Goel
• Bill DeRouchey
• Andrew Hinton

My first interview was with Mr. Bill DeRouchey.

Many moons ago, Bill and I happened to have been up late on the same night. It may have been a weekend–well, it was any night, really, as we’re always up late.  Christian Crumlish had turned me on to some Brian Eno music and I was asking about alternatives. I don’t even recall what the selection was, but Bill made it–he set up a muxtape for me so I could find some new tunes to work/study by.

I checked out his website, watched is presentation from Interaction08 and we started some email chatter.  Before long, we were doing random emails, talking about book ideas, swapping war stories and a bunch of general back-and-forth humor.

We built some trust.

We became friends.

We hashed out a panel for SXSW called “Friendship is Dead” (and you should vote for it, please!).

We reviewed secret paperwork for each other.

We (gasp!) even spoke on the phone!

And I even asked Bill his thoughts about this in the interview that is now live on Boxes & Arrows:

RU: Over the course of 2008, you and I have become “friends”—at least I’d say that, and I believe you’ve said that. We most likely will not meet face-to-face until October at IDEA in Chicago, yet I’d say we have built a level of trust and respect for each other—we’ve even worked “virtually” on putting together a panel presentation for SXSW together. How do you think that happened, and who should we blame?

This fascinates me too. It’s true. We’ve never met face to face and we’ve only talked on the phone once, but we’ve had enough online interaction to build both trust and friendship. How the hell is that possible? Tracing it back is an interesting case study. On Twitter, I noticed a few friends (people I have met f2f and trust) keep talking to @russu. Okay, I’ll see what this guy is up to. Seems harmless enough, okay, follow. Then we made some connection on music, and the conversation developed from there. But is this really different at all from meeting people in the “real world”? You meet through mutual friends, connect on something simple, and then just keep talking. That’s the beauty of Twitter. People are giving you many opportunities to connect in some way. Sometimes it clicks and you make a new friend. If you never actually meet, so what? Yes, it’d be a shame, but geography should never be a barrier to connecting with other people.

Please take a moment and read the entire interview, and get to know Bill DeRouchey a bit better!

Posted in Blogging, Community, Conferences, Presentations | No Comments »

SXSW Panels of Interest

Written by Russ on August 8, 2008 – 2:23 pm

I personally submitted one panel for SXSW and actively participated in the submission of 2 others.  Beyond these, I also have several friends / peers / colleagues that have also submitted their own.

Each of these is worth seeing on their own merits, but they all also need your votes so that the rest of the SXSW-attending world can get to see them as well. Please take a few moments of your valuable time and vote positive for these panels!

Friendship is Dead - Russ Unger, David Armano, Bill DeRouchey, Matt Milan

Your Name Sucks! - Kit Seeborg, Christian Crumlish, Andrew Hinton, Russ Unger & Dave Taylor

Social Patterns and Antipatterns For The Win! - Christian Crumlish, [and others, yours truly participated in]

Micro-Interactions in a 2.0 World - David Armano

Engaging Youth: Getting Them Off the Sofa - Bill Bulman

Learning From Broadcast to Make Immersive, Evocative UX - Michael Leis

See What I Mean: Using Comics to Communicate - Kevin Cheng

Being a UX Team of One - Leah Buley

Are Women Taken More Seriously on the Web? - Laura Roeder

Old Media Finds New Voice Through Twitter - Colonel Tribune / Robert Quigley

Influencing Internet Legislative Changes: Why and How - Sachin Agarwal

The Problem With Design Research - Robert Hoekman, Jr.

The 7 Rules for Great Web Application Design - Robert Hoekman, Jr.

Try Making Yourself More Interesting - Brian Oberkirch

User Experience 2009: More Crap You Already Know - Dan Willis

Let’s Get Social: Moving From Me to We - Aaron Strout

Fly, Peacock, Fly: Generative Visuals Without a Line of Code - Mario Klingemann

From Global to Mobile: What’s Next in Local, Contextual Search - Don Turnbull

The Street is a Platform - Andrew Huff

Don’t Be A Dick: Creating Sustainable Work Environments - Dave Lippman, SISU

Good Design, Powerful Content Management - Guild Copeland, SISU

Crowdsourcing: Shark Jumped or Wave of the Future? - Ross Kimbarovsky, CROWDSpring

Is Spec Work Evil? The Online Creative Community Speaks - Mike Samson, CROWDSpring

Managing Your Online Identity Outside the Walled Garden - Joshua Porter

Designing for Sign-Up - Joshua Porter

Mobile 2.0: The Next Frontier - Chris Bernard

Okay, that’s a lot, but there are some pretty great people with some pretty great ideas.  They’d all appreciate your votes (as would I!).  Check them out, sign-up for SXSW and please vote up the great panel ideas!

If I have left anyone off, it was definitely an accident.  Please share your favorites and/or my oversights!

Posted in Conferences, SXSW | 5 Comments »

SXSW Registration & Hotels

Written by Russ on August 4, 2008 – 6:33 pm

SXSW Registration is now open.

So what, right?

Well, I’ve never been before, but those “in the know” (as well as the fine folks who send the SXSW Panel Submission emails) say that if you intend on attending that you should sign-up now and book your hotel right away.

That’s no easy task, for what it’s worth.

The hotel registration form has a drop down that coincides with a Google Map. The hotels are listed in order of proximity to SXSW, but you cannot see the prices unless you sift through each of the hotels.

One by one.

That’s not fun.

Fortunately for you, I decided that I should not be the only one to go through this hell, so I’ve copied down all of the hotels–in order of closest to farthest to/from SXSW, along with the prices for 1-4 occupants.

Without any additional ramblings from me:

Hotel	Cost - 1	Cost - 2	Cost - 3	Cost - 4
Hilton Austin Downtown	215	235	255	275
Courtyard Marriott Downtown	206	206	206	206
Residence Inn Downtown	217	217	217	217
Hilton Garden Inn	173	173	193	193
Hampton Inn Downtown (Recommended by Kit Seeborg)	189	199	199	199
Four Seasons	355	355	na	na
Omni Downtown	199	214	229	244
Driskill Hotels	275	275	na	na
Intercontinental	239	239	na	na
Radisson Town Lake	185	195	205	205
Sheraton Austin Hotel	184	194	204	204
LaQuinta	127	137	137	137
Embassy Suites Downtown	195	195	205	205
Hyatt Regency Austin	194	194	219	244
Holiday Inn Town Lake	127	127	127	127
Doubletree Hotel - University	146	146	146	146
Doubletree Guest Suites	180	180	193	193
AT&T Conference Center	209	209	209	209
Clarion Inn & Suites	109	112	112	112
LaQuinta Capitol	99	109	109	109
Wyndam Garden Hotel	108	108	108	108
Omni Southpark	165	165	175	175
Marriott Austin South	174	194	194	194
Embassy Suites Central	162	172	182	192
Crowne Plaza	136	156	176	196
Courtyard Marriott Central	129	129	129	129
Radisson North	115	115	115	115
Ramada Limited North	70	70	70	70
Barton Creek Resort & Spa	250	250	na	na

*Note: Not all hotels may be available due to registrations filling up quickly!

Posted in Conferences, SXSW | 1 Comment »

My Apple 3G iPhone Experience: I’m Pretty Surprised, Pretty Disturbed, and Ultimately Failed

Written by Russ on July 22, 2008 – 11:38 am

There has been a lot of discussion around the 3G iPhone, and I’ve been leery. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to shift away from my comfort zone with my Blackberry, but I figured it was probably time for a change and time to go through the awkwardness of shifting experiences.

Always learning and all of that.

Obtaining the 3G iPhone wasn’t really that difficult. Wait in line, pay the premium, activate the phone, go home and tinker all day get back to work.

All-in-all, it was pretty painless, pretty fun and my inner geek was giddy as a school girl.

Then, strange things started happening.

The Troubles Begin

Sometime in the first evening of 3G iPhone ownership, things started getting wonky. Things felt different, and applications started acting up. It was frustrating and I was frustrated, but I was willing to suck up some of the blame to my unabashed downloading and installing of nearly every single application I could get my hand on.

I did a full restore of my phone.

A couple of hours later, things were back to awesome. I went to bed.

I woke up, all set to get back to geek, and something strange was afoot.

There was no email in my Inbox. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

Look, I’m not going to pretend I’m uber-popular, but, dammit, I get a lot of email. Something is generally broken when I do not.

I fiddled. I adjusted. I tried things out. I nearly cried. And yes, I even checked the 30-something emails on my laptop before I broke down and called AT&T, knowing this was going to be the equivalent of standing in line for the new roller coaster at Disney. I was screwed, and I knew it, but I wanted this to work.

I talked to my first rep who transferred me to Apple Support faster than you could say “a…”.

30 minutes later, after the 20 minute AT&T queue, I got a rep. I explained the problem (”Not getting email”). I repeated my vital information a few more times and explained my problem again. I was told the network is slow, all new people signing up, etc. Just be patient, Russ.

That sort of seemed like a cop out, so I explained that my wife’s 1st Gen iPhone, right there in my hands, was getting email and we were both existing subscribers. The rep didn’t get it or didn’t care–I’m not sure.

I explained that I felt the person did not understand my question and asked to please be transferred to a supervisor.

<click>

I spent over an hour on the phone to get hung up on, and I was even being a pretty nice guy.

My ear was sweating from the phone and I was parched, but by gosh I got right back on the pony and started the process allllll over again, with a few extra more “punch in your phone numbers” and “what’s your addresses” thrown in for good measure.

As if I was talking to a twin, I got…the same problem all over again.

I explained that I felt the person did not understand my question and asked to please be transferred to a supervisor.

<click>

At least it was only about 30 minutes of my time this time around. Oh, and I had hit the “Take a survey” button before the call, failed the person miserably and asked for a follow-up call, knowing I’d never get one, of course.

Not to be outdone by the hanger-uppers, I called again.

Miraculously, I found a person who could help me–and did!

I went to Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings

A nice, full reset of the phone and within a minute or so, all my email started swirling down to my phone in 3G & wifi goodness.

Of course, I still hadn’t been able to get MobileMe to work, no one would answer the email requests I sent in… I did finally get a response and was asked to reply to that email with information which bounced, as luck would have it. About a week later, I got the MobileMe issue fixed because a rep was kind enough to help me out via the chat help.

Just the Beginning

I was surprised when the same issue happened again a few hours later, but I was armed with the knowledge of how to heal myself, so I did that.

A few hours later I did it again. And again. And again.

Early the following week, I made an appointment for the Genius Bar on Michigan Avenue in Chicago and make a lunch trek to the store.

The only real difficulty I had was that I have an AT&T-purchased phone, so they had to give me a “white box” model, made specifically for these exchanges (hmmm…), instead of a pretty Apple black box.

I’m not that much of a prima donna, so I let it slide, happy to get my iPhone back.

Except that the “Genius” took my screen protector off and got it a little dirty, applied it crooked, etc. They should have just issued me a new pack and let me do it myself, but if I pay $15 for a replacement… eh, phone is back and I’m happy.

On my train commute home from Chicago, a rep from AT&T called me to follow-up from my poor experience that I had.

<insert needle scratching across record sound>

Really.

She was kind and she informed me that if I felt I was having problems getting the people to understand my question and get it answered that I should feel free to ask for a supervisor.

I let her know I had done that.

She instantly issued a $25 credit to my account and told me she had the history of my calls in front of her. I let her know the last person was quite helpful so, you know, please don’t make him eat paste while the others were being forced to eat it.

All Good Now?

I certainly thought so. Until later that evening, when my email stopped coming to my phone again and just hung while I was trying to poll the various accounts.

I called the support, again. This time, however, I went directly through Apple.

I spoke to a man by the name of:

Chris M.

He’s an iPhone Support Specialist, and I’ll spare you all his information, unless of course, you need some help and then you can send me a note with your email and I’ll share it. Chris was a patient, thorough person and worked with me through a lot of long waits–upwards of an hour as he made me fully restore my phone, just in case the previous restore had captured something nasty that brought the same problem back to haunt me.

Everything seemed fine. Chris gave me all of his information in case the problem came up again, and we both agreed that this certainly was odd to have the same thing happen again, and certainly it should not be the phone.

I guess that must have meant that it was me, because it happened again the very next day.

I emailed Chris in the evening and he called me at home to help with the issue. That was pretty cool.

We checked out a few more things, I popped off the screen, unscrewed some hinges and took out the battery and stuff…

Just kidding.

Then he made me an appointment for Saturday at the Genius Bar in Oak Brook, Illinois for 1:50pm to exchange the phone a second time. This wasn’t great news, but it was better than a “not perfect” phone.

From Not-So-Great to Right-in-the-Crapper

I grabbed my 4 year old daughter and headed off to the mall. I figured we could share a little daddy-daughter fun at the outdoor mall with the big Disney and Land of Nod stores. Sometimes, it’s great to be a dad.

This day was not one of them.

We arrived a little late thanks to an accident on the tollway–and thanks to being a little late.

I explained this to the older woman at the Genius Bar as she frowned and checked me in–I think.

I think, because she just stopped and walked away from us while an older guy was being kind of bark-y to people and was moving around us. A younger girl popped up at the computer and asked me what I wanted.

Excuse me?

I asked her where the other woman went–she was helping us and didn’t say anything, just typed away on the keyboard and said nothing. Could she please go get her so we could find out what was going on?

“I’m replacing her, she’s on break. Why are you here?”

What? I just gave her some information. I’m here for a replacement phone with an appointment made for me by a Product Specialist ™. Please go get her so we can find out what’s going on.

“I’m here now. What do you want?”

Inject your own tone; it was busy, I was holding hands with the apple of my eye and getting frustrated. I told her I was there for a replacement.

[blank stare]

Older guy is still walking around barking. My daughter is tensing up.

Me: “Could someone please help me? Excuse me? Could someone talk to me?”

[blank stare]

Me, to barking guy: “Excuse me sir, can you help me? Hello?”

[ignoring]

Me, louder: “Excuse me, Mr. Brick Wall, Anyone, can you please help me? What’s going on here?”

Barking guy, who, by the way, looks like this (only less blurry):

He yelled at me. He really, seriously yelled at me.

He yelled, “CAN’T YOU SEE WE’RE BUSY?!” and summarily ignored me with the replacement person standing in front of me.

My daughter asked me, in a pretty dainty, nervous voice, “Daddy, why did that man yell at you?”

Good question.

I wasn’t exactly sure why I was getting ignored and yelled at, but I pulled my daughter out of the throng of people and the rage of a bitter, old, orange-wearing man to calm things down. I’m sure he was happy I disappeared, but I walked back up to him, tapped him on the shoulder and when he looked at me I pressed that good ol’ camera button and snapped his picture and let him know he was about to be “Internet Famous” and then twitpic’d that thing out to the few followers I have.

The reaction from Twiterati was one of surprise and shock.

The reaction of the guy sounded something like “mucking berk” but it was busy and I’m not real sure why he was talking gibberish anyway.

Down But Not Out

We left, but I wasn’t about to be finished. My iPhone was still less than perfect.

I called our pals at Apple. It is, after all, in the iPhone’s contact list by default.

This was not about to be easy, however. I got through to someone who was a little surprised, if not offended, by the story. He connected me to an iPhone Product Specialist. Sort of. It took about 30 minutes, so I shopped with my daughter (kitty alarm clock, tambourine, wind-up bird in a cage, sweater vest and a work shirt) with the ear piece in. She was not a fan, but we had fun.

I spoke to a Product Specialist. He basically told me he’d “see what he could do”, which really kind of floored me at this point.

He called the manager of the store (Jamie, for what it’s worth) and called me back. They could do an exchange for me, but it would have to be white.

I allowed myself a chuckle, thought of a couple of friends with their white phones, decided I could turn this into a “Stormtrooper” type of thing and my inner geek would be satiated.

Return to Ignorance

I went back to the store.

Mr. Grumpy was there, but I informed him I was there for Jamie. He was looking smug–or maybe I was just defensive and PO’d and had a tired kid on my hands–and told me Jamie had stepped out. I let him know I had an appointment, made by a Product Specialist a few moments ago and his face sort of shifted a bit.

Jamie was tracking down my phone.

The place was still crowded–like they were giving away gold and gas cards. The old grumpy guy kept circling us and I asked to have him stay away from us. Little kids don’t like yellers, after all. We got bumped into a small area by the door to the stockroom.

Time doesn’t pass too quickly in this situation.

One guy, with a white goatee (and this is for the sake of Apple & Oak Brook Apple Store) saw that my daughter was doing very well. She was tired, but hanging out, being patient and far more level-headed than, say, any Apple Store employee to date.

He called her princess. +1

He disappeared into the stock room and came back with a bright yellow t-shirt, although too big, it was a gift for a kid. +2

He was very nice and she thanked him. He was high-five worthy in a -10 sort of universe.

You rocked, sir, and you were kind and empathetic. It’s as if you actually understood customer service and you were surrounded by monkeys from a CareerBuilder ad.

Jamie did pop up a couple of times, let me know he was looking. He asked if I had my receipt of purchase–which I did. Oddly enough, I had explained to the Product Specialist that I had my receipt–but that it was from an AT&T store purchase, since I had already gone through the issue at the Michigan Avenue Apple Store.

Oddly enough, this AT&T receipt meant that Jamie, the Store Manager ™ was unable to swap my phone. “It’s a part number thing, you understand. I wouldn’t even be able to swap the SIMs–it wouldn’t let me and the phone would be no good to you.”

Kind of like the one in my hand. Except it works, but the data would cut out from time to time. Which would be no big deal if I wasn’t an uber-geek who relies on data more than voice, of course.

Of course.

Jamie let me know that he wouldn’t be getting another shipment of phones in the next day (Sunday), but probably “early next week…”

He was, after all, really sorry.

Really?

Then why didn’t anyone apologize to me, to my daughter for being yelled at? Why didn’t anyone understand the impact of that? Why didn’t anyone apologize for dropping the ball, being rude and not communicating as they should?

Where Failure Meets EPIC FAILURE

Clearly, I was not happy.

I had just went through some hell–from a product perspective all the way down to having an uncomfortable talk with my daughter about “how people really talk to each other”.

I explained to Jamie that really, none of this seemed enough.

He explained that it was entirely out of his hands.

Entirely?

Really?

I started to leave. We needed to get out of there before I said a lot of things that aren’t meant for the blogosphere, yet alone truck drivers (and I can say that; my father was a truck driver and that brings cursing to a whole new level, folks).

“Russ…”

I stopped. Perhaps this guy was worth the trouble. He wasn’t actually unkind; he was pretty genuine and tried to be thorough and I think he wanted to help. Heck, I’m sure he was exhausted and had had it up to here with damn people like me.

“Yes?”

“What do you want me to do?”

Yes, he said that.

He may as well have spit in my face.

My opinion is that when you invoke such a phrase you’re quitting.

What do I want you to do? Give me a free iMac. I’ve been eyeballing a refurbished one to purchase through the Employee Purchase Program, but after 12+ hours of my time wasted throughout this process, I’d call that about break-even. Plus, I’d be replacing a Vista PC, so +1 Apple, right?

I didn’t say that.

I knew the answer. “You know I can’t do that, sir.”

Do I? Then why did you ask what I wanted you to do.

Instead, Jamie, you should have given me some options. You should have bent over backwards a little bit.

You should have prevented this blog from being written by doing something as simple as a discount card, an option to <do something else>, some music, some ProCare, something.

Yes, you should have.

Shame on you for NOT even thinking of it, but instead asking me what I would like for you to do.

You, Jamie, failed. I’m sorry, but that’s an F-.

Sidebar: I worked for a video store while in college. My district manager always told me that 1 complaint card would sting worse than taking a $100 loss on the day. Think about that. That’s 1 phone call versus 30-40 video rentals back at the time.

That’s the way customer service works. You don’t take advantage of the uber-geeks who want your product. We do have our limits. And we don’t deserve to be treated poorly in any situation. We are your fans, your advertisers, we are the goofy people who stand in long lines outside of you stores that generate free media coverage for you.

The Follow-Up?

I sent an email to my buddy Chris M. at Apple over the weekend and let him know I was pretty unhappy. I let him know that I thought he’d done right by me and I’d share that with people, but that I had really been met with a poor reception and pretty terrible follow-up from the Apple store.

It’s Tuesday now and he hasn’t followed-up. I sent him an email today letting him know that I was disappointed not to have received a response from him.

Now, I’m back to square zero, with a phone “mostly works”.

How do you think I feel?

Tags: Apple
Posted in Rant, User Experience | 8 Comments »

Book 'em, Dano

Written by Russ on July 7, 2008 – 8:44 pm

I’m writing a book.

About User Experience Design.

For Peachpit Press.

With my long-time friend Carolyn Chandler.

(I had started this blog post with the background first, but let’s face it, the news is better than the back story!)

Ever since the IA Summit back in March, my life has been an absolute whirlwind. No single event has energized me more and excited me more about the career that I am in. There are so many kind, talented people in this field–there’s never a loss for someone willing to offer input and/or advice–and only out of the interest in helping a colleague succeed.

It makes me feel lucky even to be in this field.

If I had a nickel for every time I sent out a private message to someone on twitter, shot an email off to someone I’ve never met but have bonded with through the various social, etc. tools out there or sent an IM or text message to all the other folks, I’d be more than willing to buy us all our very own chumby.

The good news–for me–is that I’ve not had to pay those nickels. The bad news–for you–is that I’ve never gotten paid those nickels. So, you know… No chumby for you.

It was a couple of months back that I sat down and started to put together some of the thoughts that were banging through my head. I had been mentoring a few people through the IA Institute and there were some common themes bubbling up and they seemed to be in line with some of my own experiences. As a mentor, I hope to guide my mentees through some of the challenges as best as I can, hopefully avoiding some of unfortunate situations that I’ve been through.

Frankly, I’ve made a lot of mistakes. Some embarassing. Some financially unpleasant. Some caused bridges to be burned. Some bridges did a fine enough job burning themselves without any real help from me. Some were filled with a lot of disappointment.

In all cases, I made sure that I learned with every failure, no matter how microscopic and no matter how much it banged up and bruised my ego. There were a lot of times where I questioned whether or not I had what it takes to be in the business of business at all.

Like most things in life, however, tomorrow is always a new day, and all of those heartbreaking challenges led me to new lessons and new opportunities, and eventually, those painful situations started to be a thing of the past. Don’t get me wrong, there are always going to be bumps in the roads, but the bumps are a lot more managable these days and I’ve got an arsenal of all those experiences to help me out.

I thought that, much like some of the mentees I’ve worked with, many other people might share a lot of the challenges that I have had. I thought that, perhaps, I could spare them some of that pain, embarassment, bridge burning and even some of that financial discomfort.

I’m a nice guy, right?

(Yeah, well, take that with the humor it was intended with, please!)

I started putting together the outline for a book based upon those experiences and lessons learned. My thoughts were pretty simple–put this all into a nice little tidy package where someone could open it up and jump to any section and get the right information that they would need to appropriately arm themselves to handle the UX task at hand.

As I was writing the outline, I sent a networking email to Carolyn and we got into the “What’s up?” game with each other. I ended up sharing my outline with her and she had some fantastic feedback. Frankly, she also added a couple of ideas that were beyond my comfort zone and experience, but that also fit perfectly between the covers of the book that I was thinking of.

Carolyn is kind, brilliant, and generous to a fault. She offered to step-up and take on authoring challenges of some of the chapters for me–out of the kindness of her heart, and out of interest in being involved in such a cool project.

I would be foolish to turn down such a generous offer, so I didn’t. I didn’t stop there; we had been brilliantly playing off of each other in the back-and-forth of the outline, we had a built-in respect and sort of a nurturing and guiding toward each other’s content.

It was pretty cool and pretty exciting to process to be a part of.

So I asked her to simply be the co-author of the book.

She accepted.

We started putting together an outline and started going back and forth between some peers, asking questions, doing the research, making connections and, as of right now, we have officially signed with Peachpit Press to write a book that was tentatively titled:

User Experience Design for Small Teams with Large Responsibilities

We’re pretty sure that’s going to change (try saying it 10x fast!), but the book itself is underway. We’re going to cover a lot of a UXD process and a couple of other fun things that will help guide individuals who are new to the field, new to freelancing or who need some guidance through a project.

I am very excited about this opportunity and very lucky to have such an awesome co-author. I would also be remiss if I didn’t thank a bunch of people (who are not Carolyn), in no particular order: Bill DeRouchey, Christina Wodtke, Dan Brown, Lou Rosenfeld, Steve Baty, Donna Spencer, Wil Wheaton, Xian Crumlish, Mario Bourque, David Armano, Troy Lucht, Tom Napper, Brad Simpson, Kevin Cheng, Chris Miller and Kurt Karlenzig. All of these folks (and I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone; apologies if I have!) happily offered advices, reviewed notes, kicked me in the seat of my pants and/or criticized and praised where it was needed just to get this to point.

I can’t imagine what they’re on the hook for next, but when you’ve got even a moment of time to bend the ear of folks of this caliber, you should consider yourself pretty blessed.

I know I do.

Posted in Presentations, Social Networking, UXD Book, User Experience, User Experience Design | 3 Comments »

AT&T and Getting an iPhone - Worth It? Possible? Fair? Suck?

Written by Russ on July 1, 2008 – 4:50 pm

For quite awhile, I’ve not really cared about the iPhone. I have a Blackberry and it’s held its own. My wife has an iPhone I got her last year and I like it. I miss my camera. I miss some of the features and IM-like text messages call out to me.

I decided that I want an iPhone, and recent events (next post, I promise!) have afforded me the luxury of purchasing one on July 11th, when the 3G iPhone is launched.

But today, I spoke to AT&T to see how the landscape would play out for me, given the scenario with our family plan with them.

The Scenario

Me: Blackberry 8830
My wife: iPhone 4gb

Me: Upgraded phone in September 2007
My wife: Has never upgraded through AT&T since we started with them

Me: Not available for reduced-cost hardware upgrade
My wife: Reduced-cost hardware upgrade AVAILABLE!

The Logic

In my mind, it does not matter who is the owner of which phone, on which line. All that matters is that we have the option to purchase a new phone at a reduced cost and that we pledge 2 more years of our ever-increasing-costs mobile service plan.

To be fair, I realize that this could kind of seem like skirting the system. I don’t see it that way, but when you get down do it, I don’t write the rules.

I just wish the rules were better, overall, so we could not feel like we’re going to get royally screwed out of $200.00 to get a 3G iPhone on July 11th.

I should, from where I stand, be able to purchase the iPhone as the hardware upgrade for my wife. Then, I should be able to pass it along right over to my line and apply the services to it that I see fit.

Right?

Why should AT&T care who has which iPhone and on which line? THEY’RE BOTH UNDER THE SAME CONTRACT FAMILY PLAN!

Sorry, that’s just so crazy that I felt like shouting at the interwebs.

The Real Deal

As my curiosity became more and more piqued, I took the deep dive and called AT&T’s nearly worthless Customer Support.

Oh, like it’s a secret. Find any mobile carrier that has a glowing reputation.

After my second call (see, I told you), I learned a few things:

1) If I buy an iPhone at the reduced hardware cost, it has to go to the line assigned (my wife’s line)
2) If I simply swap out the SIM card–well, I don’t know exactly. What I gather is that I cannot do this and that there will be some form of hell to pay in the form of some sort of weird pro-rating of costs or they’ll take my baby or something evil.
3) Customer Support really knows less than most of us who truly give a crap about this stuff, and they certainly have no motivation to make us happy. In the least.

So, What Can I (We–I’m Not the Only One Feeling a Bit Ripped-Off Here) Do?

Good question.

The answer is this: I don’t know.

However, I have some questions of my own about all of this–and I need your help.

If the iPhones use SIM cards, why the heck does it matter which phone I upgrade? That is, I should be able to do a hardware upgrade on my wife’s iPhone and then just swap out the SIM cards, call AT&T and pick the services I want.

Right?

Any reason this won’t work?

What is the worst they can do? Upcharge me another $200?

I do not know, but any speculation outside of what I’ve written and what AT&T has told me would be appreciated.

I’d prefer it if AT&T doesn’t Rogers us.

Posted in Rant | 7 Comments »

New Word: Friend-igrated

Written by Russ on June 30, 2008 – 10:13 am

Oh, these wonderful social thingies allow for so much flexibility with our language.  Here’s a new one for you, and hopefully you heard it here first.

Friend-igrated:

When creating social identities, the ability to show friends intertwined in your own thread/feed/etc.

Example:

I just signed-up for Swurl and I like how it displays all of my feeds in a familiar blog-like format. I’m still looking to see if they let you see a friend-igrated display so that I can keep track of the people I follow, too.

(Catch that “friend-igrated” refers to people you “follow”? heh)

Posted in Community, Social Networking | No Comments »