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Vol. 3 No. 1 |
Newsletter of Menlo
Innovations |
January 2004 |
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The next big thing. Although
mountains can be pretty to look at, if you live among them, getting
cable or DSL internet access can be problematic if not impossible.
Many smaller towns, especially in California, still suffer the pain of
dial-up. WiFi (Wireless Fidelity) will soon change all that.
Cerritos will be one of the first cities to offer its residents wireless
high speed internet access.
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Other tech trends to watch for in 2004. The
"bottom up" wave brought on by the Internet, the continuing debate about Big Brother and
an increase in the use of open-source software are just some of the trends to
watch out for this year
according to Fortune Magazine. |
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Huron Valley PMI Meeting - Monday Jan. 19. Speaker: Susan M.
Kornfield, J.D., Chair, Intellectual Property Practice Group, Bodman, Longley & Dahling
LLP. Topic:
"Top Ten Intellectual Property Tips For Project Managers" Have you directed your project team
to violate the law? Is it ok for your project team to find photos on the
web and incorporate them into training materials or your internal web
site? Can you copy articles from magazines and include then as an
appendix for management reports? Do your programmers use
"free" code that they downloaded from the web? Stop guessing,
come hear respected Intellectual Property attorney Susan Kornfield share
the "top ten intellectual property tips for project managers."
Visit
the Huron Valley PMI website to obtain more information and to register.
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Computers that care. At Menlo, we use
high-tech anthropology® to create usable and useful software. But, is it
really possible to form an emotional relationship with your computer? We have seen the future
of computers and it's all about you. Read about an effort at
MIT that is pushing the limits
of computer interaction.
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Consider "fear" as a aspect in computer
design. Why fear? "I want my automatic vacuum cleaner to fear
heights so that it doesn't fall down the stairs." says Donald A.
Norman, a professor at Northwestern University. Read about why he argues
that "autonomous robots, from vacuum cleaners to Mars explorers,
need to deal with unexpected problems that cannot
be solved by hard-coded algorithms."
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A new "Taste of Success."
Come join us and learn how to dominate your market space with High-Tech Anthropology®.
Attend Menlo's new 90-minute seminar on High-Tech Anthropology® and learn the keys to building great software.
This free "Taste of Success"
seminar is offered Wednesday, January 21 at Menlo's
office in downtown Ann Arbor. Click
here to register.
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Making work visible. We have also observed the
following with our High-Tech Anthropology practice used to develop
software: "The way in which people
work is not always apparent. Too often, assumptions are made as to how tasks are performed rather
than unearthing the underlying work practices." according to Lucy
Suchman, principle Scientist at Xerox.
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Scientist freeze a pulse of light. Yet
another example of what Robert Metcalf would describe as disruptive
technology. This could have huge implications for the development
for quantum computers and improve the security of fiber optic communications
by
reducing the ability to eavesdrop.
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Hurry! Sign up for a Menlo Class. The Menlo
January and February class schedule is out. Time to buckle down and learn
how to really apply those use cases, manage those projects, and deliver
systems successfully!
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The eight biggest tech flops ever. "Some of the
greatest flops of all time have come from high tech. Millions of
dollars and countless person-hours have been wasted creating
products so bad, so misguided, and so difficult to use that entire
companies have been destroyed." says Jim Louderback.
What were the tech flops
of the past year? What are likely to be the flops
of tomorrow?
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Can you afford to train 100 people? YES, with
Menlo's new TRAIN THE TRAINER
Program you can. If you have bright and intelligent people on staff with the appropriate
interests and skills, we can teach them to teach you.
Our TRAIN THE TRAINER Program lets you develop your own in-house training capabilities to teach
Menlo's core curriculum. For a fraction of the cost of an external training program you can
train internal trainers, customize the curriculum, and launch an
effective in-house education program. Call us at
(734) 665-1847 to find out more.
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Going deeper than Google. What do you
do when you don't know what to type into Google because you simply
don't know what's available? Within a year this problem will
be solved. Grokker will have
ten times the reach of Google in terms of available web pages."
says Paul Hawken, chairman of Groxis.
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What does the Internet really look like? Most of
us use
the Internet every day searching for information and sending
emails. But how is it constructed? "A project to
create a comprehensive graphical representation of the internet in
just one day and using only a single computer has already produced
some
eye-catching images." |
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About Menlo |
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Are your Executives having these conversations?
"We are about to purchase a million dollar software solution and
we're not sure if it's the right thing to do.
"
"We’re about to approve a $3.5 million dollar budget for a new custom
software project and we don't want this one to fail like the last time."
"We have an old piece of software that no longer meets the needs of
our business, but we're not sure how to modernize it without disrupting our current operations."
"We are a software product company concerned that our user's
experience is silently killing our market share."
"We have a great idea for a new product, but need our first stable production version launched
in less than 3 months."
Menlo uses High-Tech Anthropology to define the user
experience and discover the highest priority business needs.
It is applied at the beginning of a new
endeavor and then iteratively during the entire project,
leveraging the Menlo Software Factory. The objective it to construct early-stage
functioning prototypes to confirm initial findings and then carry the project to
completion.
For those who wish to transform their own organizations, we also
teach these methods to our clients at The Menlo Institute.
Created in the spirit of Thomas Edison's Invention Factory in
Menlo Park, Menlo is passionate about inventing
software that makes a positive difference in the everyday lives
of businesses and their employees.
To find out more,
contact us, or attend our free 90-minute
success seminar.
Menlo Innovations
212 N 4th Ave
Ann Arbor MI USA 48104
Phone: (734)-665-1847
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