The Productologist

The Inmates are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper

I have been meaning to read this seminal text on application development and usability for some time (read: years), but somehow it always ended up on my reading list just below something else. After seeing some others reference the book and discuss conference talks where the author expanded on his theorems, I decided to bump The Inmates are Running the Asylum to the top of the list. After finishing it up, I was surprised, to say the least.

Steve Kaufmann posted an article over at Dumb Little Man about how not everything requires How-To manuals. The post covers a variety of areas, but one struck me as especially relevant for Product Managers–

“I worked for two large corporations in the 1970’s and 80’s. They were both established leaders in their field. Millions of dollars were spent in meetings, studies, Return on Investment(ROI) analysis and more studies, usually resulting in the decision not to go forward. Neither company exists today.” -Steve Kaufmann of LingQ

Well, we made it to the 1 year mark! 39 posts (that’s an average of 3 per month for you non-math majors out there).

It has certainly been an interesting ride so far and I have learned a great deal about blogging, Product Management and Product Management blogging. Thanks to all of my subscribers, readers, commenters and lurkers for either joining in the conversation or sticking with me.

In recognition of the last 365 days (next year it will be 366), here’s a short list of notable events and some favorite postings:

Firsts

• First post: 20Feb2007 (the obligatory “Welcome” post)

The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley with Jonathan Littman

I spotted this book at my local library while perusing the business book section and was drawn to it by the fact that it was written by someone involved with IDEO.

For those of you who don’t know what IDEO is, they are a world renowned product design firm based out of the San Francisco Bay area. They are responsible for many product designs you are probably familiar with, such as the Palm V and HandSpring PDAs, the Swiffer sweeper, the interior of the Amtrak Acela commuter train and others. You can check out more about what they have done and what they do on their website.

I recently decided that it was time to get a replacement to my dead USB mouse, which I used when I moved my laptop to conference rooms, prospect and customer sites and while traveling. I had put off replacing it, since the laptop provided by my employer has both a track pad and keyboard nub pointing device and I figured that I could get by using one of those when I had to undock from my desk. However, I have come to the conclusion that pointing devices that are built into the laptop are fine for general UI navigation (starting apps, opening files and the like), but not so much for hard-core navigation inside an app or through a document. Enter the Logitech VXNano.