SociaLens

"Creativity is not a talent, it is a way of operating." John Cleese talks about research surrounding creativity, and the factors to consider to facilitate being creative.

The label "User experience design" emerged in order to combat the small-mindedness of design for technology that was prevalent in the early 90s. During the technological boom of the last 20 years, with the emergence of the Web, prevalence of computers in all aspects of our lives, and the increasing complexity of the things we are building, "user experience" has been a helpful term in that it continually reminded us to think beyond whatever narrow thing we're considering at the time, and to consider the entire user's experience. And now, in 2012, with Apple, Inc. having the largest market capitalization of any company in the world, and an endless stream of CEOs and pundits talking about the importance of user experience, I suspect the phrase "user experience design" is no longer necessary, and could even be harmful. Harmful because it suggests that the only folks who need to worry about user experience are the designers, when in fact companies need to treat user experience no different than they treat profitability, or corporate culture, or innovation, or anything else that's essential for it's ongoing success. The companies that succeed best in delivering great experience are those that have it as an organization-wide mindset.

Aguinis noted that the power-law approach has applications in groups of all types and sizes, including governments, nonprofits, education systems and corporations. However, changing theory and practice will be challenging, due partly to deeply entrenched notions of fairness and equality in society and business. Further, it could pose difficult ethical dilemmas, because it requires taking care of the "superstars" first in the context of treating everyone fairly.

Nelson Mandela's health scares send Twitter into overdrive, but South African officials made savvier use of social media to keep the world informed on the global icon's latest medical woe.

A UX strategy has four primary components: Where are you now? Define the value you're delivering to your users today, identify known issues, and explore ways your product can realize what the business hopes to achieve. Where do you want to be? Specify the purpose of what you're building and what needs it will address. Identify opportunities to enhance your product and the guiding principles that will inform product design decisions. Explore all phases of a user's interaction with your product to identify how all product components will fit together. How will you get there? Plan the development of your product to accommodate continual enhancements while maintaining cohesion across the experience. Translate your plan into tangible requirements. How will you measure success? Define what success looks like for your product and what methods will be used to validate your product's success.

Forget First Class! Find out who's sitting next you on your next flight. Remember the days when you sat at your airport gate wondering and worrying who might be sitting next to you? Those days are over now for travelers who can't get enough social networking on the ground. Airline travelers no longer have to be nameless and unknown. In fact, with 'social seating' now available on a number of airlines, you can find out all kinds of things about your fellow travelers. Welcome to the new "mile high" media club.

According to a TV Guide user study, social networking discussion about television shows drives tune-in, loyalty and live viewing ratings. Due to social network impressions, 17% of respondents polled said they became a fan of a particular show, and 31% claimed they continued to watch a program. Twenty seven percent said that they watch more live programming to avoid internet spoilers, up from 20% in 2010. TV Guide queried from it's over 24 million monthly users.

Criminal Justice Degrees Guide created an infographic with twenty case studies about how Facebook data was used to conclude a legal case.

Colleges do not have to actively monitor the social media accounts of their athletes for NCAA rules violations, according to a ruling released Monday. Last summer the NCAA said it was investigating nine rules infractions by the University of North Carolina football program, including not being vigilant enough in monitoring social media for evidence of rules infractions. As ESPN columnist Sarah Spain wrote at the time, the NCAA was setting itself up to open a potential can of worms.

Logos surround us in digital and physical space, but we rarely examine the thought and artistic thinking that goes into the design of these symbols. Utilizing a silent vocabulary of colors, shapes, and typography, logo designers give a visual identity to companies and organizations of all types. From cave painters to modern designers, artists throughout history have been reducing the complex down to simple ideas that communicate with the world.

Spoof site, or headline grabbing awareness campaign?  Whatever it is, Shell and Greenpeace are fast becoming a Twitter trend today. The bogus Arctic Ready web site, has been inviting crowdsourced headlines for its 'Shell in the Arctic' 'campaign'.  The associated Twitter account @arcticready claims to be committed to clean and safe Arctic energy. Contributors are invited to add captions to images of the Arctic.

"Focus groups can only tell you so much. Companies in the mobile business also need to know the right problems to solve, which involves understanding people's implicit needs and unknown desires. Ellen Isaacs, a user experience designer and ethnographer for PARC, explains the benefits of using ethnography to develop better mobile products."

"CEOs are sometimes rewarded for taking excessive risks - a practice that helped fuel the recent recession but could be altered if companies are more strategic in how they compensate their chief executives, a Michigan State University scholar argues in a new study."

"Small companies might turn to an out-of-box ESN like Salesforce (Chatter), while larger companies buy an ESN platform and then customize it to fit their needs.  But one of the biggest problems with ESN's right now is that developers and trainers don't account for culture."

Marion Crain, JD, suggests looking at other legal models such as marriage law to more accurately respond to the realities of the employment relationship, particularly at termination. "The employment relationship possesses many attributes that we associate with marriage: emotional and economic investment, interdependence, and expectations that the relationship will endure absent bad behavior," she says.

"Climate change caused by global warming is slowing down world economic output by 1.6 percent a year and will lead to a doubling of costs in the next two decades, a major new report said."

This website is designed as a social mirror to show the prevalence of casual homophobia in our society. Words and phrases like "faggot," "dyke," "no homo," and "so gay" are used casually in everyday language, despite promoting the continued alienation, isolation and - in some tragic cases - suicide of sexual and gender minority (LGBTQ) youth. We no longer tolerate racist language, we're getting better at dealing with sexist language, but sadly we're still not actively addressing homophobic and transphobic language in our society. Let's put an end to casual homophobia. Speak out when you see or hear homophobic or transphobic language from friends, at school, in the locker room, at work or online. Use #NoHomophobes to show your support. And visit one of our resource websites to get more involved.

"The Pottstown (Pa.) Mercury is using a Pinterest board of wanted-criminal mugshots to engage readers and help police make arrests"

"One of the keys to happiness at work is earning a lot of money, but what is equally important, if not more important, is that our earnings not be inferior to those of our peers, that is, of the colleagues we compare ourselves to. This is revealed by a study carried out at Universidad Carlos III in Madrid that analyzes the relationship between happiness and income from work."

"With an 8.1 percent August unemployment rate and 12.5 million Americans out of work, a new Temple University study examines a neglected area of research: how the unemployment process impacts the willingness of those laid off to endorse or return to their previous employer."