Besides having been in the military, being a volunteer Victims Services Crisis Counselor for over a year, and even taking self defense/Krav Maga classes regularly… having a family really brings security and safety to the front of your mind. Over the years, I’ve taken several ideas from articles, EMTs and police officers in my emergency communications toolbox.

Among the the tips I’ve heard about and use are:

• Create a speed dial/short cut on your phone for 911 and other emergency numbers.
• Add a label to your family and other emergency contacts, “ICE – theirname”. ICE stands for “In Case of Emergency” and first responders look for that in phones they find at the scenes of emergencies. I also add the relationship to the person in the contact notes. For example: “ICE – Marcela – Wife”.
• Every night before bed, I put my phone next to my bed and put the “speed dial” screen up… so if there is an issue, I can get to my 911 speed dial quickly.
• Put a list of emergency contact names and contact information on your refrigerator, ESPECIALLY if you have kids. That’s one of the first places that emergency services personell will look.

These tips may make a few seconds difference in an emergency situation. I’ve heard about a new tip that I may add to my security toolbox, an app called Guardly.

“It takes eight taps to dial 911 on the iPhone,” Sookman says. Should the Guardly user place the app in the device’s dock, that process is reduced to three taps, he says.

Although I haven’t used it yet, the app is supposed to help with a few issues with the normal “dial 911″ approach.

• Triggering an alert in the app dials 911 AND a customizable list of family that can be notified of your emergency. They can also be sent SMS text messages and emails.
• Your GPS location is also sent to first responders and family.
• There are also other features like a loud alarm, as well as automatic photos and video coming soon and some paid features.

Here’s a full review of Guardly on Mashable. Guardly’s pricing and feature comparison between the free version and the premium version points out that many of the best features are paid. That’s great from a business perspective, but at $10 per month, that gets a little steep for a family. I haven’t found info on pricing discounts for a family or multiple users, but will post in comments if I do.

I’ll be trying out the app and maybe the premium services before making a full recommendation, but it certainly looks promising. What steps do you and your family take for health and safety?

From O’Reilly Answers comes a great how-to; How to Send a Text Message from Your Mobile Website, a nice tutorial with example code to add to your mobile-friendly website. (more…)

Since I’ve had my iPhone, over 14 months or so, I’ve reveled in my ability to check email, do research, watch videos, get directions and product/service ratings and generally keep myself occupied where ever I am. In my car, at a restaurant or even when I don’t want to get up off the couch and walk to my desktop computer.

I also see it’s limitations, and still make use of my notebook computers and desktop computers most of each day, if not over the weekends. But as I travel, and my 2 year old daughter wants to watch movies/games when we are traveling, I’m interested in a “netbook” PC for more mobile use that I can’t always accomplish with my iPhone. This new generation of light, mobile PCs has come down significantly in price, from over $1,200 or $1,500 to $300-$500 in some cases. Dell has a Mini 9 Netbook with a 9 inch screen, and MSI has a Wind line with a 10 inch screen are some great examples.

This article from CNet on the “big bang” of conflict between computer manufacturers getting smaller products to market and phone handset builders going more full featured was very interesting. They focus on the handset and the small netbook pc at the ends of the spectrum of “mobile computing” but of course I think it’s smarter to look at the human side of “getting my computing/information needs met”. Broader and more holistic I think.

I see the trend of my needs/wishes from work computer, to desktop home computer to some type of notebook computer to phone handset. Depending on my tasks/intentions, I’ll choose the right tool for the job… much like my kitchen knife set, paring knives, steak knives or chopping knives on call all at the right time. It’s a simple analogy, but I think it works… as computing becomes another tool of our environment, our options multiply and conform to our work styles.

I’m considering a “netbook” (somehow I doubt this term will catch on with mainstream consumers) for traveling and light work when my MacBook Pro is too much, and my iPhone isn’t enough. I think it will also replace the need for a mini travel dvd player for long flights to Argentina with my daughter. It won’t replace my desktop (Mac Mini with 23 inch display), my work notebook or my iPhone, but I think it’ll find it’s niche in my life and computer use.

What about you, will you go with a netbook and a simple phone handset? Or a desktop and smartphone? Is there ONE perfect device for you or is “perfect” the option of micro, mini and maxi at the right time?

I’ve had an OpenID for nearly 2 months now, and I have to say I’m really enjoying the ease and simplicity it offers.
From the OpenID Wikipedia page:

OpenID is a shared identity service, which allows Internet users to log on to many different web sites using a single digital identity, eliminating the need for a different user name and password for each site.

I’ve been using it for as many online sites/services as I can, including my Basecamp projects with 37Signals’ Openbar which ads simple project switching and even product (to Highrise) switching!, online mind mapping at MindMeister, and will soon get some plugins for WordPress to use it on my blogs.

As a site or product owner, I’m not sure how easy it is to enable it’s use yet, but I do know it does a lot to lower the bar for signups and participation. How many times have you stopped reading an article, downloading something, commented, or even join a new service because you didn’t want to go through a long painful signup process? It certainly has stopped me.

But OpenID makes it easy to join any online community activity, as you can control how long your authentication lasts, how much data/info is shared, etc.

There are several providers, but you can also use the url of many common services you may already be on, from Blogger, flickr, Technorati and AOL. I went with VerisignLabs Personal Identity Protection, part of the website security/trust company Verisign.

I’m certainly going to be recommending an optional OpenID implementations to all my clients with sites. If you own a website with logins, what’s keeping you from implementing OpenID as a login/password option and making it easier for new signups/users?

[tag]openid, open id, data portability, usability, product management [/tag]

A little levity on Monday… a pal sent me this (thanks Jay) the SEO Rapper. He riffs on CSS, SEO and other “best practices”… he’s pretty good, if not exactly expressive.

The US Census Bureau is getting ready to conduct the 2010 Census, the population count that will be used to calculate congressional districts and funding. The trouble is, they have usability problems with the handheld computers they were planning to use, in addition to the organizational communication issues you may expect from a government agency that does the bulk of it´s work once every 10 years. Here´s the story.

Evidently, they built and are doing at least some testing of the systems, but it sounds like they fell into the classic “waterfall” development trap: build it out, then test it.

Big worries for the nation’s first high-tech census should have been obvious when tests showed some of the door-to-door headcounters couldn’t figure out their fancy new handheld computers.

Agile User Experience Design (Agile UX) would likely have prevented this problem by introducing low-detail (paper-prototype) testing earlier in the development process. By testing with paper prototypes and even more functional prototypes on computers much earlier in the development process, the problems with the interface and system logic could have been found, and new solutions created that worked better BEFORE the systems were written and constructed. As it is, the budget may QUADRUPLE for this project… not anything I´d like on my resume!

Of course the CEO of the company that built the devices offers this excuse:

“After you spend about 30 minutes to an hour familiarizing yourself with it, it’s as easy to use as a modern cell phone,” Raimondi said.

As “easy as a modern cell phone”? You´ve got to be kidding me… modern cell phones, with some notable exceptions, (iPhone and a few others) are a total confusing mess of features and functions. Most tech-savvy people take days of focused use to master some of the interactions and complexity. They can probably make a phone call, but I´d hardly call modern cell phones “easy to use” in general. You can take the massive migration to the iPhone as some small proof of that.

Besides the obvious error in logic above, the CEO also ignores the demographic and usage scenarios of the users… Census takers are likely not to be super-tech saavy computer enthusiasts, and they may not have days to train or get familiar with the systems.

I´m not belittling how tough the problem of designing this system is, but their process and understanding of how to design systems could use some modernization… I think they should try going back to pencil and paper themselves…

I’ve spent a little time recently on iTunesU (iTunes link), Apple’s area for free audio and video casts from universities around the US. I’m very impressed by the content and subject matter of these… I’ve downloaded a few and it’s great to keep in touch with some strategic thinking while traveling. Here are some of my favorites, add any you find in the comments.

Yale Business and Management
From problem-solving to experimental design and innovation.
iTunes link.

Stanford University’s Human-Computer Interaction Seminar
From usability testing and designing for simplicity to human cognition and sketching experience design.
iTunes link.

Stanford University’s Technology Ventures Program
From startups and social networking to successful negotiations, branding and leadership.
iTunes link.

MIT Business and Leadership
Guanxi, the Art of Relatinships: Microsoft and China
iTunes link.

AmEx OPEN Forum Videos
With Seth Godin the marketing visionary, Sean Parker of Facebook and Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia.
Web link.

What are your favorites?

I love how Bruce Schneier can make complex security issues so clear and understandable to non-technical folks that don’t have a security background. Security, access to your personal data and privacy of it are VERY important topics currently, but they are very complex to understand.

Here he has a great article on the concept of platform security vs. the age-old business concept of “lock-in” – raising the bar of cost/pain to switch to a competitive product. He talks about Apple iPhone/iTunes a lot, but the Microsoft examples (NGSCB or Next-Generation Secure Computing Base) are more telling to me. When you think of his examples, lock-in is pretty pervasive in tech and non-tech areas.

Lock-in applied to Software Services
It makes me think of the “lock-in” concept as it pertains to software services… In many methodologies, including “waterfall” and traditional marketing/advertising processes, the delivery process is the lock-in mechanism. That is, the client doesn’t get work until the end of the project, until then, clients only see documentation, comps and so forth. Very little that can be useful to another team, so the incumbent is locked-in to finishing the project. Clearly that’s good for the service provider, but sometimes it can be a real risk/problem for a client engaging them.

One of the interesting benefits of Agile methodologies and the concept of Agile User Experience, (Agile UX) is that at each “sprint” or short term milestone (usually 3-4 weeks) clients get a set of formed deliverables. Not perfect deliverables, but something that is technically able to be brought in-house or to another development team without losing the entire value.

Now some would say that the lock-in concept here is a very good thing… so would the companies that Bruce references in his article. But for the end client, whether it’s us as consumers, or software services clients, the ability to “switch horses” to keep their project on track is a very good thing. It decreases the risk associated with selecting a software vendor.

Services without the Lock-in
For firms using Agile or Agile UX, (and us at Neudesic) this “non-lock-in” approach lowers the bar for selection and lowers the risk for clients. The strategy is to “lock-in” clients by keeping them happy, and by more frequent interaction and small course corrections. It’s a “soft lock-in” based on client satisfaction… in my opinion, that’s the way to go.
What do you think?

36 teams enter. 1 team leaves.

The PhizzPop Design Challenge pits top interactive, Web, and design agencies against one another to push the limits of technology and creativity in a battle royale. Think Mad Max for design.

The regional teams have been selected and will duke it out in New York, Boston, Chicago, Austin, and Los Angeles, with the regional winners competing against one another, and San Francisco winner AKQA, at the South by Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin, TX.

http://phizzpop.visitmix.com

Here are several third party video podcasts covering the Chicago Design Challenge:

http://www.creativepro.com/story/news/26197.html

—
As many of you know, I manage the User Experience Practice at Neudesic… we are competing this week against the likes of FrogDesign, Telligent and others for the regional win, and the chance to compete again at SXSW in March ’08!

Wish us luck!

Neudesic is sponsoring NuCon 2007!
NuCon will feature what’s Nu and upcoming in Microsoft’s Businss Technology offerings!

Topics Include overviews of Visual Studio 2008, Server SQL 2008, and Microsoft Business Platform Value.

WHEN:
Thursday, November 8th 2007 – 8:30am – 5pm

WHERE:
Hyatt Regency Irvine
17900 Jamboree Blvd., Irvine, CA 92614

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Should be an interesting overview of what’s happening in Microsoft’s tech offerings. I’m especially interested in the Silverlight/WPF stuff.

FYI Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, VB, C#, Python, and Ruby, and integrates with existing Web applications. Silverlight supports fast, cost-effective delivery of high-quality video to all major browsers running on the Mac OS or Windows. More here.