Within our personas and scenarios, the people and their stories are not arbitrary. They are stories of the lives of our clientÂ?s current and potential customers, and they serve as comprehensive guides to how our clients should interact with those customers, in the moment or over a lifetime, to profit their business. Three years ago, personas and scenarios were Â?a process stepÂ? in our iterative, user-centered development process, whereas today they are the platform upon which many of our insights are communicated, and our solutions are modeled. Over the past few years, they have risen in importance and become a primary tool for communicating data analysis, strategic business frameworks, new product and service concepts, and cross-channel brand experiences....

....Customer-centric discussions, strategy and results continue to increase their prevalence in the boardrooms. Personas are a clear, comprehensive, human way to tell those stories.

Experience Planning Group, edited by Parrish Hanna, "Customer Storytelling at the Heart of Business Success," Boxes and Arrows, 17 Jul 2005.

patterns are a designer's rules of thumb

In a general sense, patterns are a designer's rules of thumb, the intuitive principles, often unspoken, that guide design work. And just as our innate knowledge of grammatical rules allows us to speak fluently and create well-formed sentences, an architect's innate sense of patterns allows him or her to design fluently, to create well-formed buildings.

Max Jacobson, Murray Silverstein, Barbara Winslow, Patterns of Home, Taunton Press, 1992, p. 4.

“Life is too short for a man to hold bitterness in his heart.”

The recent UCI Track Cycling World Championships held near Los Angeles included a display honoring [Marshall "Major"] Taylor. It featured one of his lightweight racing bikes and his defining statement: "Life is too short for a man to hold bitterness in his heart."

Brion O'Connor, "Major Injustice," Delta Sky, July 2005, p. 70.

slightly disruptive

Make the slightly disruptive mindset sustainable. Artists keep what they call a “morgue”-- it is a journal of images, ideas, and sketches they gathered from all sorts of sources. They are able to refer to the journal in the studio for inspiration and ideas. Record your thoughts and ideas in a journal. Add stimulation from other observations--magazine articles, images, and ideas. The goal is to break your pattern of thinking and look at the same things you do everyday through a different lens.

Geof Hammond, Slightly Disruptive, a Play Red Paper, 2005. (PDF)

Misquoted

USA Today's Kevin Maney has an interesting piece today about some well known and oft-repeated technology quotes that he says simply aren't true. Among those for which he finds no evidence or outright counter-information, are:

• "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, founder of IBM.
• "Everything that can be invented has been invented." -- Charles Duell, U.S. Patent Commissioner, 1899.
• "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" -- Harry Warner, Warner Bros., as movies with sound made their debut in 1927.
• "640K ought to be enough for anybody." -- Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder, 1981.

There is one well-known quote which turns out to be true: "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." — Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment, in 1977. Now, next time you see one of these quotes, probably on somebody's PowerPoint presentation, you can call'em on it!

http://archives.trblogs.com/2005/07/not_what_you_th.trml http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/kevinmaney/2005-07-05-famous-quotes_x.htm