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Dec. 3rd, 2001 10:34 amPreparing for my trip to Boston tomorrow. Plan to leave by car with the black dog at 6 AM. That's 5 AM Boston time, so even if the trip takes 14 hours at the outside, I should be at H's house by 7 PM, a most respectable hour. Must get a full night's sleep tonight for the long day's drive.
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vyoma got me thinking about software usability in a different way last week. I thought of it another way this morning, when I had an idea about how I would like my software personally tailored to me. For example, if I think about what I do in a typical day with my computer, I find that I need a web browser, a messaging and data transfer client, a text formatting tool (for e-mail or documents or web), an image formatting tool, a database application, and a multimedia application. That's it. If Microsoft went and created this all-in one simple package and I really liked how it worked, I'd buy it, and I wouldn't really worry about using any other software.
I helped my younger brother-in-law with his resume this morning. I totally love helping people with their resumes. I haven't updated mine for over a year, but I love working on them. When well executed, they're artfully composed documents that clearly and concisely outline the most salient aspects of a person's life experience. I like playing with the balance between too few and too many words in a resume. For this one for my brother-in-law, it could fit just neatly onto one page. My last one was too long - 4 pages, I think. I'll have to do one up soon for practice. Make it a nice 2-pager. Or a nice 2-worder: I AM.
One of my earliest on-the-job learning experiences was at the age of 24, at my first job as a telephone service representative for a local call centre. I was meeting with the VP to review a 2-page memo I'd written to him about something that I thought should be changed with a program we were doing, and he started the meeting by saying, "This memo is too long. I never read memos that are longer than a page, so I only read the first page of yours." It was one of those classic moments when your body's throat dries up a bit, and you hear yourself laugh uncomfortably while trying to think of a witty way to fill the ensuing silence. I remember recognizing even at that time that I wasn't really that experience. I remember just observing how I responded to his comments and how the discussion continued. We ended up becoming fairly good friends not too long after that meeting.
Okay, I've used up my allotted 30 minutes in LJ-land. I'll probably drop a note in here sometime during the trip. I'm glad I'll have the dog along for some company.
vyoma got me thinking about software usability in a different way last week. I thought of it another way this morning, when I had an idea about how I would like my software personally tailored to me. For example, if I think about what I do in a typical day with my computer, I find that I need a web browser, a messaging and data transfer client, a text formatting tool (for e-mail or documents or web), an image formatting tool, a database application, and a multimedia application. That's it. If Microsoft went and created this all-in one simple package and I really liked how it worked, I'd buy it, and I wouldn't really worry about using any other software.I helped my younger brother-in-law with his resume this morning. I totally love helping people with their resumes. I haven't updated mine for over a year, but I love working on them. When well executed, they're artfully composed documents that clearly and concisely outline the most salient aspects of a person's life experience. I like playing with the balance between too few and too many words in a resume. For this one for my brother-in-law, it could fit just neatly onto one page. My last one was too long - 4 pages, I think. I'll have to do one up soon for practice. Make it a nice 2-pager. Or a nice 2-worder: I AM.
One of my earliest on-the-job learning experiences was at the age of 24, at my first job as a telephone service representative for a local call centre. I was meeting with the VP to review a 2-page memo I'd written to him about something that I thought should be changed with a program we were doing, and he started the meeting by saying, "This memo is too long. I never read memos that are longer than a page, so I only read the first page of yours." It was one of those classic moments when your body's throat dries up a bit, and you hear yourself laugh uncomfortably while trying to think of a witty way to fill the ensuing silence. I remember recognizing even at that time that I wasn't really that experience. I remember just observing how I responded to his comments and how the discussion continued. We ended up becoming fairly good friends not too long after that meeting.
Okay, I've used up my allotted 30 minutes in LJ-land. I'll probably drop a note in here sometime during the trip. I'm glad I'll have the dog along for some company.
