Microsoft’s new product, SURFACE, is a crazy computer with a tabletop interface. Does this mean MS is looking to compete with IKEA? Perhaps, if IKEA gets in to the $10,000 table market. The features on this thing seem too good to be true, but if it does half of what MS says, then we’re looking at a quantum upgrade in how we interact.

Their website says that Microsoft has been working for more than five years on a super secret computer table that can do all sorts of cool things, and you can put your feet on it. Check it out:

It reminds me of the old Pac-Man tabletop games I used to play when I was a teenager — perfect because you could set a slice of pizza right next to the controls. I don’t think I’d put pizza on the Surface’s surface, but they show some interesting applications with cocktail glasses, so who knows?

How about an MP3-playing universal remote worldphone with WiFi access? And throw in Bluetooth. Heck, gimme a whole mouthful of Blueteeth.

On paper, the more features a gadget has, the better. In the field, however, too many features just leads to frustration. It’s called “Feature Creep.” It’s taxing consumer patience, and costing businesses big bucks. This recent New Yorker article nails it:

a recent study by Elke den Ouden, of Philips Electronics, found that at least half of returned products have nothing wrong with them. Consumers just couldn’t figure out how to use them. Companies now know a great deal about problems of usability and consumer behavior, so why is it that feature creep proves unstoppable?

“However humble or unknown, the veterans have renounced what are accounted pleasures and cheerfully undertaken all the self-denials: privations, toils, dangers, sufferings, sickness, mutilations, life . . .”

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

So I’m a creative. So what. That’s one of those broadstroke, high-altitude descriptors that boarders on the pejorative. Use creative as a noun, and you’ve conjured up the image of some ratty-jeaned dilettante who spends all his discretionary income on Red Bull and salon haircuts. (Hey, I just described myself).

Sure, we get to write/film/design for a living, but I’ve always maintained that, professionally, what we do is more craft than art. We’re tradespeople, like carpenters or electricians or steamfitters. Yeah, the ideas we have and the solutions we recommend can have beautifully artistic components, but form always follows function.

So, if some black-turtlenecked type with lozenge-shaped glasses tells you your communications strategy should “emote a genuine resonance” or “bespeak the segment-centric zeitgeist” or some such malarky, run screaming in the opposite direction.

Creative we may be, but there are ways to keep us in line (and ways we keep ourselves in line while we’re at it). Tug McTighe over at American Copywriter offers up a smattering of suggestions that do just that. The lesson is that when creatives (cough, cough) and clients work together, the results are bee-yoo-ti-ful.

Example thus:

Too often, we create concepts out of thin air based on poorly written briefs or for ill-conceived projects. So start with research, do benefit testing, interview consumers of the product, watch them at home, whatever . . . Respect each other enough to try to do it right the first time versus wasting two weeks concepting a project without the proper insights or account planning.

A popular belief maintains that to do something quickly means to do it sloppily. That’s an interesting insight, since we are constantly being asked to do things faster and more efficiently. Remember the days when we had to communicate by mail, and it could take a week or more for people to get our information? Neither do I, but I hear it used to be like that. The point is that technology and innovative thinking have always helped us do things faster.

The same “speed means sloppy” misconception is now being applied to e-learning. Just like the PowerPoint of the past, people are wondering: “How can e-learning be any good if you have to make it rapidly? Rapidly means crapidly!”

I think this is a myth, and my buddy Tom Kuhlmann agrees. Okay, I don’t really know Tom, but his article, “5 Myths About Rapid E-Learning”, debunks the idea that you give up quality for speed. He breaks down five common myths many of us have about rapid e-learning development. Money quote:

. . . noted e-learning archaeologist, Werner von Oppelbaumer, is quick to point out that crappy e-learning existed years before the rapid development tools came on the scene. In fact, he goes on to say that crappy training existed before e-learning was a form of training . . . I’ll admit there’s a lot of bad e-learning out there. I’ve even created some. However, it doesn’t exist because of the tools. It exists because the training isn’t designed well. You cannot blame the tools for poor learning design. The secret is learning to use the tools appropriately.

Exactly right, Tom! Today’s tools let almost anyone quickly develop e-learning. Just like in the past, however, its the substance, not the speed, that determines whether or not it’s good. The best e-learning–at any pace–has to be built on dynamic design and strong content. Think of it like car repair: If you want something that really works, sometimes it’s best to leave it to professionals. Keep that in mind if you need effective e-learning in a hurry.

We get this, what, about every three or four years, right? The 50s hit us with the original 3D movie phenomenon (and introduced paper glasses that made entire audiences look like Devo devotees).

I remember late 70s or early 80s when a local TV station in Chicago showed Creature from the Black Lagoon in 3D. We lined up at 7-11 to get our glasses, then yawned in disappointment when the Creature slithered across the screen. There was more depth to the plot.

A few years later, Jaws 3-D. And I’m pretty sure there was a Friday the 13th in 3D as well. Jason goes Pole Vaulting, maybe?

Here we are in 2007 and I’m being told that 3D is ready for yet another renaissance. So says a league of extraordinary directors (Mssrs. Speilberg and Jackson). An experimental film featuring a U2 concert uses new 3D technology, and apparently offers an amazing experience:

. . . this is definitely not the 3-D of drive-in memories. The concert film gives the audience the palpable experience of being present, as the camera swivels around Bono’s face, then soars over and down among the 60,000 concertgoers. And though the new version still requires audience members to wear glasses, they are not the old red-and-green variety but sleek black ones.

Pardon me if I don’t get excited. For the past 30 years, I’ve heard plenty about how 3D would revolutionize my visual entertainment experience, and it’s been strictly dulls-ville every time. Keep the glasses, I don’t care how sleek they are.

A Michael Liedtke article appearing today via AP highlights YouTube founders Chad Hurley’s and Steve Chen’s lack of concern about their legal woes and potential competitors (Joost and the currently unnamed Murdoch venture).

Hey, guys: If Viacom sues you for $1 billion and you are not worried, then you need to be committed. More surprising than their ambivalence, however, is that they drank their own Kool Aid.

Sure, they’re negotiating revenue sharing with big-hit producers, but apparently they don’t really need it:

“… Hurley believes YouTube would thrive even if Hollywood studios and music labels had all of their material removed from the site.”

In his own words:

“What our users want to watch is themselves,” he said. “They don’t want to watch professionally produced content. There are so many people with cameras that have the opportunity to create their own content and so many more people with editing tools to tell their stories, we feel this is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Chad, are you kidding me?

Sure, there are die hards who subscribe to the video blogs and enjoy other user-generated content, but if Hollywood, broadcast/cable tv, and recording studios had their content removed, your mainstream audience would disappear.

I don’t go to YouTube to watch home made videos about how Pele is the greatest soccer player. I go to YouTube to find old footage of Pele (probably Viacom licensed, by the way). Afterward, I might watch the vid some kid from Omaha posted about the king of the beautiful game

The mainstream wants professionally produced content. Sure, they enjoy user-generated efforts, but believe me, they find that after watching the slick stuff they were looking for in the first place. I don’t think it works the other way nearly as often.

Here’s the scenario: You have website. So does your primary competitor. Most of your customers buy, or at least shop, via the Web. So how should you approach your Web presence? For starters, make sure it works better than your competitor’s.

And by “works better,” I mean it makes it easy for customers to do what they came to do. Period. That’s why we use the Web—to DO stuff.

For this year’s annual beach trip, my family is looking to rent a house on the beach. Having spent many July 4ths in south Myrtle, I had some idea where I wanted to stay. I also know the names of the two big rental shops. Time to get online, right?

Today I checked out the two rental agency sites (let’s call them Rental Company A and Rental Company B), and I’m amazed by the discrepancies. They’re especially perplexing when you realize both sites are built by the same company.

Regardless, here’s the rundown of how Company A trounced Company B in helping me do what I wanted to do: (more…)