Thinking about the concept of “less is more”, takes me back to a small and initially unpromising project that a maverick boss of mine persuaded me to get involved in many years ago. It provides an interesting example of counter-intuitive optimisation.
The scene…
There was a manufacturing plant which produced credit cards. The plastic cards were manufactured in sheets; this involved a lamination process which started with a “layup” of three plastic sheets and ended up with them laminated together as one sheet.
The lamination was done in a press which was heated and then cooled; this caused the plastic sheets to melt slightly and to become welded together as one. To produce cards with flat and clean surfaces, each layup also had shiny metal plates on either side to produce a smooth finish.
Tim Berners-Lee was, or is, the father of the Internet, that remarkable network that has done to connect millions together. Indeed, my personal view is that the Internet may be the only real tool that people have to protect and defend democracy.
I’m sure thousands know the background ofSir Timothy John “Tim” Berners-Lee, to give him his full name, an Englishman living in the USA.
There was an introduction to the the way that Sir Tim wants to see the web move in yesterday’s Post.
But Tim recently (February 2010) gave a talk in Long Beach, California, entitled The year open data went worldwide. This takes the concept much further.
Very early on in the life of this Blog, indeed on the second day, I wrote a short article about the NASA mission to the moon, some 40 years after the event. You see, for me that has been the historic event of my lifetime.
I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.
Apollo 11 badge
That speech before Congress by President Kennedy was on the 25th May, 1961. I was 16 and was enthralled by the idea of being alive when man first set foot on another planetary body. That came about on July 20th, 1969 at which time I was living and working in Sydney, Australia. I took three days off work, rented a TV and watched every minute of the event.
Exploration is a core need of man. By pushing out the boundaries of our knowledge we continue to offer hope to mankind.
So it is with great disappointment that it has been announced by President Obama that the manned mission programs to the moon are to be severely curtailed – that sounds terribly like political speak for cancelled!
As Eugene Cernan (last astronaut to set foot on the moon) said:
I’m quite disappointed that I’m still the last man on the Moon. I thought we’d have gone back long before now.
I think America has a responsibility to maintain its leadership in technology and its moral leadership… to seek knowledge. Curiosity’s the essence of human existence.
Curiosity is indeed the essence of human existence.
That curiosity and the investment in space exploration by NASA on behalf of the whole world has shown us some remarkable findings about Saturn and it’s majestic rings. Just watch the video segments in this piece from the BBC.
The one-time cost of Cassini-Huygens mission was $3.26 billion. Just 0.3% of the cost of one year’s expenditure on U.S. defense spending.
Science missions like Cassini enhance cooperation between nations, and greatly contribute to scientific progress which benefits everyone.
Perhaps the big Banks would like to pick up the cost of further manned missions to the Moon?
There seems to be an upsurge of interest in the philosophy of “less is more”. A couple of recent articles about product design, in general and in a specific case, address relevant aspects of this phenomenon.
What do we know?
On one level, we tend to question: how can “less” be “more”? We know it makes no sense! This is true: it really does not make any sense, if all that we focus on is measurable, countable, sequenced information – the kind of information understood by the “left side” of our brains.
On a different level, we know that “less” really is “more”. Less complexity is more simplicity and fun; less distraction is more concentration; and so on. This makes sense when we are thinking about the whole picture – the kind of information which is handled by the “right side” of our brains.
At the moment and on this topic, there is a specific product which is exercising the minds of people who follow these things. Continue reading “Less is more!”→
“Innovation” means different things to different people but, generally, it involves the application of novel ideas, products or processes for some purpose. But even if we can agree on “what” it is, do we understand “how” innovation happens?
Managing 'bright' ideas
There is a significant change taking place in the way that the process of innovation is understood. We can put this in the context of developments in the manageability of other areas of business activity in recent times. Read more of this Post
The technology of communication devices, systems, services has changed hugely over the years. There have been lamps, telegraph, telephone, radio, television, and a variety of others (I suppose we should also include smoke signals!).
A replical of a Morse code transmitter of 1844
The characteristics of each technology have dictated the behavioural model of the systems and the services available to users.
With the advent of the Internet, systems have tended to emulate traditional models: bulletin boards, post (email), with the web (world wide that is!) being based on a well-known “request-response” model until relatively recently.
But, now, the gloves are coming off! People are building software-based communication services to provide whatever behavioural model they choose; consider, for example, Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed and there will be many, many more.
So far, their matching of the models to any specific requirements has been very loose. They build something and then figure out what people use it for!
There is an opportunity to get serious now: to decide whatever experience we want users to have; to design it and build it. Then to iterate models based on live tracking of actual scenarios. This is potentially very big … and keep half an eye on “augmented reality”.
The scene…
