Art

How to Draw an Owl

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ November 15, 2011 ⋅ One comment

On Documentation One recent afternoon I found myself in deep conversation with potential consulting partners, holding out for a difficult requirement: “Excellent Documentation”. That’s a tough one to quantify, let alone describe; why hold out for something at once critical and ineffable? Doesn’t every project talk about the importance of providing documentation, yet rarely deliver [...]

Fragmentation of Social Sharing Environments

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ October 22, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Progress requires innovation, success spawns imitation, competition requires differentiation – and after 7+ years of “Web 2.0”, there are multiple sharing environments vying for our attention (and participation). Content Creation Blogging has morphed beyond it’s “personal diary” origins; Blogger, WordPress, and the various CMS platforms have moved to become a long-format publishing platforms that continue [...]

Google+ is Active, not Passive, Social Networking

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ July 4, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

This past week saw the introduction of Google+, the search behemoth’s entry into the social networking fray. A slew of posts, articles, opinion pieces, etc. were sure to flow – and as I settled down with some time and a backlog of links to review, here are my initial thoughts on the service. Do I [...]

A Nice Knock-Down Argument

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ April 20, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Sales and the Gantt “Why exactly does he want to meet again?” I could sense the exasperation in Karl’s voice, faintly; the sales manager wasn’t about to slip out of his professional demeanor over some perceived technical triviality. But for the fact that the request was coming from his newly-hired PMI maven, he probably would [...]

The Hegemony of Large Numbers – Ignoring Common Sense

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ February 28, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Ok, maybe I’m stretching the meaning there, but that’s a cool sounding title, and what I see as an interesting phenomenon. People get excited about Large Numbers, and think they have meaning and importance simply because they are Large Numbers. Big Errors For example – years ago, when an application manager was whirling around the [...]

Vintage Technology

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ February 9, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Here’s one of those videos making the rounds via eMail. I found this in my inbox at work, from an observant friend who apparently likes the same web sites I do (although I had originally this as a great example of minimalist site design). It’s interesting to note how the magical becomes the mundane. I [...]

Learning About Data Visualization

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ December 5, 2010 ⋅ 2 comments

Even though there is an art to visualization design, it stands to reason that this is a skill that can be taught / learned. I remember going to campus visits with my daughter, and hearing about a textbook considered to be a timeless classic – teaching students how to draw. What a concept – I [...]

Art and Science of Data Visualization (Part 2)

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ November 14, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

Just a little more theory and background on Data Visualization, to eat up the rest of your weekend. Unlike the McCandless video, this video will take some time investment – but well worth it, if you want to charge your batteries on this topic. (via Flowing Data) From earlier this year, Martin Wattenberg gives a [...]

Art and Science of Data Visualization

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ November 7, 2010 ⋅ One comment

“Data Visualization” has been an extremely active and popular topic for a few years – we can use Google’s Timeline search feature to see the growth in interest since 1980: That local high in July of this year was due in no small part to David McCandless’ Information is Beautiful talk at TED this past [...]

Designing for Devices

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ October 10, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

My last entry on design for a bit – just some thoughts on the added complexity when designing applications for multiple client devices. Fast Changing Device Landscape The “last mile” of user/computer interaction has seen a number of exciting innovations over the past year or so. Phones are getting physically smaller, yet have bulked up [...]

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