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Show what you mean

“Saying what you mean” may be a great way to build a strong friendship. It is not, however, a great way to build website navigation, or a presentation visual.
It is not that words are lame. They are wonderful, precise, meaningful. But they do not provide the immediate understanding visuals carry. Reading is a complex, fairly [...]

The stroke of insight of Jill Bolte Taylor

Jill Bolte Taylor is a brain scientist. So you will soon understand the extraordinary insight she got when one morning, she woke up with a terrible pain on the left temporal lobe. As a person, she was both living an intense connective experience and a struggle for survival against a stroke. As a scientist, she [...]

Who you are guides what you do and what you are looking for

Admittedly, this title is not going to get me a Pulitzer prize, but just check it out. I just completed the Strengths Finder 2.0 survey, from Gallup. This survey is a set of 177 questions, where you need to define your position on a range between two assertions each time.
At the end, you get a [...]

To act or do nothing, that is the (other important) question

I read this morning an interesting article in Le Monde – New York Times Section. In summary, it presents a quick overview of some recent studies of preferences for action or inaction when situations arise, their impact on success and self-worth, and what may cause such a preference.
The text was informative, but one [...]

Is Collaboration really the $588 Billion Problem?

Collaboration is a big word. It is in everything we do, particularly at work, except maybe for Trappist monks and hermits retired far out in the desert. So it is difficult to evaluate precisely the impact of communication and collaboration on your business, be it in terms of productivity, baseline, bottom line, or top line. [...]

Getting started with visual communication

Written communication has captured for centuries the lion share of communication. From the memo to the sales letter, to the meeting minutes, most interactions at work are initiated, supported or summarized through words. Yet, there are things that words can hardly convey. And as subtle, coherent, comprehensive and precise words can be, they remain a [...]

The Visual Table of Elements

 
My boss sent our Strategy team this link to Visual Literacy. Usually, I keep what we do private, well, because it is, but this particular link is available on the web, and could interest many people. Also, it is not about knowing, or having access, it is about making a contribution, doing something with what [...]

If requirements are conversations, who’s talking? :)

Since it appears these requirements gathering and maturation efforts can be seen as conversations, let see who should be involved in these discussions in the first place.
Customers are the ones who have a need. They know what they need to achieve, and they should know what is missing in their current arsenal to achieve their [...]

Getting things done without doing everything yourself

Yesterday, a friend of mine and I had an interesting conversation, during which we pondered some ideas that we could all learn from. He is a very successful business manager at Hewlett-Packard, thanks to an unfair number of qualities that we will not share here. He is a an achiever. He gets things done. Done [...]

Requirements are conversations

The word requirement is often heavily charged with frustration and disappointment, especially in the software industry, from all sides – customers, business people, designers, developers.
Too often, customers are asked what they want, only to hear later that it cannot be done, for some confusing technical reason. Too often, developers or designers are trying to understand [...]

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