If strengths and weaknesses are the same thing

I think in some problems the strengths and the weaknesses end up being the same issue. For instances in Co-ops, where a main strength is the localised control over activity and intentions and similarly a main failing point is the exact same issue. This is an interesting prospect to me as it seems to suggest that good solutions only come through a wicked problems analysis. Or at least an IBIS one in which there are tightly quantised strengths and weaknesses to, essentially calculate net value of features in a system. 

So I am not sure if this is relevant or interesting to anyone but I think it is something worth considering. I would perhaps even say that this is a good measure for how solvable a problem is. If solutions generally include features as strengths and weaknesses then great solutions are probably hard to find. (I have no data supporting this it just seems to be an interesting possibility) I think this is a little relevant with the idea of how to ask an answerable question. 

Artificial Limitations in PlanHQ

Recently PlanHQ have done a bunch of updates to their service which are making it a lot more usable. I think they are still missing the money in some respects and they persist in providing an interface which seems to remove all familiarity and context driven knowlege from the process of business decision making.  Workflow should not be ignored, yet the updates are exciting. Now it works in most browsers quite acceptably.

One aspect of their product which they are yet to change is the minimisation model. Currently the do not offer a free product, though next week they are opening one aspect of the product to free accounts, which in its self is not a bad thing but I think most costumers they could get are turned away buy the fact they have to pay even on the lowest level. My real gripe with this model is that it often inspires companies to create really lame lowest level products. In the case of PlanHQ it is not too different, their lowest level model includes a number of serious hindrances that are completely artificial to the system. There is no complexity involved just convenience on the customers part, for updating to the higher services. The limitation in this software are things like the number of users, which is 3, and the number of (presumably) concurrent goals, which is 10. There are a few other more legitimate limitations like higher security and customisation, but really, for $9 a month, you can only have 3 users. I think that is really lame. 

So in protest, perhaps, I have been using the software on a trial plan for 30 days. On Monday I think I am going to start paying for it but I am still really annoyed that I would have to pay $49 just to get more than a few users. 

Ok so I hate artificial limitations, especially ones you have to pay for. But all this ranted, I think that the limitations in something like twitter really make the product. Without such a thing it would be quite a different, and presumably less desirable service. 

Just is my last utterances I think PlanHQ should set up a contractor account system. That could be really nice, almost like a CMS service. Perhaps this is a distorted dream that would never work as well as Sugar or Highrise with companion services. 

Asking for Money but not Typesetting

I love this image except for the ugly typesetting. :-)

I really do not know much about its historic importance but I think there is some. I think campaigns like this could be really effective.

If anyone knows about they history I would be interested to find out.

Seen on Dark Roasted Blend one of my favourite blogs in the world.

reCapture

I found this really neat service called reCAPTCHA which uses segments of scanned books that are hard to ORC as CAPTCHAs. I think this is pretty brilliant. Company here. 

I am totally going to use this service for my apps online. A few big players are already using it. 

Luxury Things of Importance

I love this trend. I love the art and the style and the blood of these sorts of ideas.

So yea, Designer Gasmasks. I want to make one now. The artist is also pretty neat. 

Does anyone know a good blog for more of this kind of stuff.

Everyone can Function

Another great talk by Randy Pausch, this time on time management. I think everyone should watch this. I think it is pretty inspiring. It is worth the 1.5 hours it takes to watch. 

Great Cameras for a Change

The trend these days seems to be to make everything badly and remove the point of elegance and design from things like cameras and everything else. Humm that is a negative outlook, perhaps I don't actually think that. Anyway. Today with the help of Medgadget I came across this fabulous site including cameras of purpose driven design. They are all designed around event and built to carry stories. They use a variety of materials and methods but are all simply lovely. I think.

I need one.

Mysterious Places

The other day when driving back from BarCamp Orlando I saw an interesting thing in one of the medians on the highway. It is a strange tower like thing just south of Ocala on 441. In any case, when I got home I tried to find out what it was by looking at google maps then google earth with social data on, and so far I have found nothing. So... I decided to go visit it. I have not gone yet but I hope to at some point in the next few weeks. Then I realised it would be neat to have a map where anyone can add similar things. When I say anyone I really mean anyone I care about hearing from but I think that really could be just about anyone (email me if you want to add things and I will invite you to the map)

So here is the map with the first place marked. For some reason I can not really get it to give me the zoom setting I wanted so you are going to have to click on the push pin and zoom into it.

If anyone knows any cool places (in any country) please comment we can try to make a collection.



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Hearing but not living advice

I think it is easy to give great advice that people listen to and believe and agree with. However I think it is really rare that they actually manage to implement it. I think this is not because people are not good at implementation I really think it is more because a lot of advice is not designed well for that purpose. Perhaps there is also a proponent that is the kind of person being advised, some people are very willing to document and enable advice as it comes along. However, I think in general people sort of Grok the advice they are given, consciously make some kind of ruling over it. Though I would argue the outcome of that ruling is irrelevant, and then they move on. I guess I think it is more like forgetting than anything else, but in the context of implementing, as opposed to just considering, I think it could be related to a lack of emotive power, of a given piece of advice. 

So I think it is much easier to offer a advice that gives a good potential or ideal solution and much harder to offer advice that will actually get implemented. Maybe this is only the case because a lot of the advice giving I have data on is unpaid design consulting or similar. Perhaps where there is more of a sale there is a greater propensity to follow a given point of suggestion. 

Hermes and Buagatti Come Together to Save the World

This morning I was reading some old feeds and I found this simply wonderful thing. A collaboration between Hermes and Bugatti to make a version of the Veyron using Hermes leather and colours. To me this is more than just a great thing, this is the representation of a assimilation of two of my favorite companies. I love these people, not because they create expensive crap but because I think the do it with such elegance and style that I want to try to incorporate their theory methods in my own work. In any case, if someone would get me this car I would be really pleased. 

In other new, the blog, Sybarites, that seems to have originally posted this article is pretty neat. I think it is going on my OPML

Consultation or Comment Request via an Open Feed

So I think it would be cool if there was a way to make a feed that would be in someone's reader or something that was just there so other people could post things they wanted comments about by the reader. I think this would be good for people who were often doing consultation or who's opinion was often requested on certain things. I have set up some personal shared lists in my Google Reader that go to specific people, so whenever I get an item I want to hear from them about I just tag it accordingly. I think this is interesting and useful but even cooler would be like a feed address that people could mail to just to get questions answered by someone offering this service. I guess that could be set up pretty easily. Perhaps I will do it after lunch.