Kevin Vogelsang

HDR photography is wild.  They’re like a punch in the face from the world’s visual information (they actually make my eyes hurt).  Even a picture of a dirty building with a motorcycle looks incredible.

Got any links to some good galleries?

-Kevin
8.17.2010

A few weeks agao, I was in Barcelona, and I visited Gaudi’s still-unfinished cathedral, Sagrada Familia.  The cathedral offers a very cool example of  the use of complexity in design.

Up close, Sagrada Familia looks like a mash of stuff.  And it is really.  A lot of people say it looks like it’s melting.  There are many ornaments and just a lot of stuff going on.

On the side of the cathedral I’m describing, there are many statues depicting scenes from the birth of Jesus: the roman soldiers killing on the newborns, the Three Wise Men, the appearance of the Angel Gabriel to Mary, the birth in the stable, and so on.

The design of the building as captured in the pictures above isn’t particularly appealing (although it is unique, which can be enjoyable) .  I’d say it looks complicated and messy.  However, if you’re looking at the cathedral in person, and you’re able to look at it as a whole, it’s marvelous.

It took me a while to unravel why this was.  In design–whether it’s music, architecture, or a story–people desire unity and structure.  There needs to be a sense of closure and fulfillment.  And this mass of stuff does provide closure and coherence, but it does it in a more novel manner: it does it through narrative.

Anyone can quickly tell that there is a story being told through the stone scenery; you don’t need to know anything about the Christian religion.  Each scene is fairly modular and is arranged according to a hierarchy of importance.  The most important parts of the story are front and center.

The scenes quickly give the observer a feeling of “what’s this story being told”?  It’s almost the same feeling and communication one gets when reading a graphic novel.  You can see that there is something happening. The hierarchical structure of the arrangement (which isn’t linear like a graphic novel) gives the scenes a sense of order.

But, and most importantly, the hierarchical structure draws the observer to the center and points towards the sky, and the story culminates with a green cedar tree surrounded by doves–a symbol of peace and salvation and rebirth.  The story then slowly fades into the heavens.

-Kevin
7.7.2010

A while back I wrote a post on Complexity and Simplicity in relation to Design (Complexity vs Simplicity).  I also wrote a short post illustrating the difference between Complexity and “Complicatedness.”

The overall message: simplicity is not the full story and good design isn’t necessarily simple, but it is elegant.

However, I failed to mention what the real use of complexity is.

If you make something extremely simple, people will often say, “well that’s quite nice,” and they’ll move on and give it little thought.  It’s obvious. But, if you correctly provide a dose of complexity, you’ll give them something to ponder.  You’ll give them the feeling that there is something more.

-Kevin
7.5.2010

I love descriptive phrases that are used to describe people.  Here’s a few, see  if you can guess who they are (some are the same person of course):

“The Dark Knight”
“The Man of Steel”
“The Boy Wonder” (okay, this one actually really sucks…too bad for this character…)
“The Webbed Wall-Crawler”
“The Masked Manhunter”
“The Clown Prince of Crime”
“The Man of Tomorrow”
“The Caped Crusader”

Most of these are excellent.  They couldn’t be used to describe any other character.  At the same time, they’re simple words we understand, and they guide us to the correct mental image that we should associate with the character.

Here’s something else interesting about descriptive phrases:
We have phrases that we would use to privately describe ourselves (self-image).  We could also come up with phrases for ourselves that we would use to describe how we think other people would describe us (perceived image).  Strangely enough, self-image and perceived image are almost never the same.  The difference is significant and depends upon an individual’s personality–how we judge ourselves and how we think we portray ourselves.  (In fact, there are some psychological tests, such as the Predictive Index, that are based on this idea.  Perhaps more on that one tomorrow…)

So what are my descriptive phrases for myself? Well, I haven’t thought a whole lot about this, but I’ll share some of mine if you share some of yours.  That way I don’t feel so stupid. Here’s a few that I would use:

“The Hillbilly Hill-Climber”
“The Visionary Cowboy”
“Thunder Wrapped In Skin”

Now, I don’t think I can rightfully claim all of those right now. But, if someone were to describe me that way, I think I’d be fine with it.  These are “self-image” phrases.  My “perceived image” phrases would probably be different.

Alright, so what’s some of yours?

-Kevin
5.18.2010

p.s.  I don’t actually feel stupid about sharing any of this.

I had an interesting chat yesterday with a guy that thinks about the Web probably as much as I do (or more).  The subject of the conversation was Open vs. Closed systems, a very prevalent discussion right now.

On the Web, there seems to be different universes forming with different fundamental laws governing them.  The most prominent of these “universes” being Apple’s media ecosystem, the Twitter-verse, and Facebook.  People enter these universes and interact differently with the Web and other users.

Defining Open and Closed is a bit of a discussion in itself, but I’d describe Twitter as being completely Open.  The Twitter API is like electricity; Twitter powers any piece of software that is designed to use it. But, it provides such a fundamental functionality, it can power many things (just as electricity delivers energy).

Apple maintains a high level of control over their system through their vertical integration from hardware, software/media, to distribution. They have certain rules for what can be done on their devices.  You manage and obtain shows, music, and apps through iTunes.  This is a closed system.

The major question posed during this conversation was, “How do Open and Closed systems affect innovation”?

Here’s my answer after this conversation (thanks to Brad for framing it within the context of evolutionary processes):

Early in their formation, closed systems produce the most innovation and value. With a closed system, if the designer gets it right, clearly defined rules and uses allow people to immediately build within the system and harness it.  If the system really gets it right (and I think Apple did), it will be the optimal system at that point in time. Consequently, Apple’s universe exploded very quickly.

Early in the development of open systems, people aren’t really sure exactly what it really is for and what it can do. Twitter started as a micro-blogging system with an open API (other programs could interact with it), so you could post short messages like, “I’m eating soup.”  However eventually people started doing very interesting things with this system, people started to figure out what it really was, Twitter developed more capabilities, and people started better understanding the laws of the Twitter-verse and how to operate within this universe.  Then Twitter suddenly had a trove of openly available data.  This further enhanced the platform.  The platform (Twitter) and the users co-evolved.  It took a long time for this to come about.

Intelligent design of closed systems is much faster at producing growth, and optimal in the short term.  Thus, closed systems can really hit the nail on the head and deliver in a short burst.  However, they suffer long-term risk. Apple has to get things right since they impose constraints. They don’t leave it to others to find their way.

Open Systems don’t have constraints, and the agents within can pursue whatever they desire within a loose set of fundamental laws. Open systems evolve and take longer.  But in the long term, evolutionary processes are very powerful.  In the beginning things are a mess, but once people start to get it, and since people can pursue whatever they desire, the activity grows explosively. Consequently, innovation comes about by sheer brute force of having so much activity.  And when selective pressures come along, something will stand.  There is less long-term risk.

You could think of a closed system as an arrow. If it’s on the mark, it’s beautiful and elegant. But if it’s off target, it produces nothing.  You better have someone skilled shooting the arrow.

Open systems however are more like a shotgun, once the powder is ignited (think of an old gun that takes a long time to load), it fires, and hurls a mess of small projectiles at the target.  It’ll hit something.  Although it’s not nearly as pretty or elegant, almost anyone could hit the target to some degree.

Not a perfect analogy, but it’s the best I could do in a limited amount of time.  It’s difficult without having two similar systems (Apple and Twitter do different things).  Here’s one that could provide a model: Encylopedia Britannica and Wikipedia.  Once Wikipedia got going, it blew encyclopedias out of the water.

Thoughts? Clarifications for me?

-Kevin
5.7.2010

I still don’t think anyone has really wrapped their mind around what a “book” really is.  This needs to change, particularly in this age of “New Media.”

There are two aspects of a book:

1) It is not a wad of text.   It is a cohesive package of communication.  It is a product.

Writers can use any form of media in their books now.  I’m hoping to see (or discover, if they already exist) publishers/authors that are writing a more full experience; they can use the medium that best suits what they are communicating.

Magazine publications seem to understand this best.  But, they’re still thinking of magazines in the same way–they’re just adding videos and interactive ads.

2) A “book” is a conversation.

“Books” are more alive than ever.  They can quickly be updated and adapted.  They are a conversation with the audience.  This conversation includes what is being communicated in the book itself, as well as the conversation surrounding the book.

When writing 10 Powerful Personas, I realized that the comments I got back from people on my manuscript were valuable content.  Why not leave these valuable comments and let people write themselves into the body of the text?

Graphic.ly–a digital comic book reader– allows you to put comments/thought bubbles anywhere on the comic.  You can also toggle whether or not you want to be able to see your comments and the comments of your friends. (Follow the previous link to see a video of it in action.

Once this perspective is internalized by the digital publishing ecosystem, we’ll have a much fuller and much more magical reading experience on hand.  And I can’t wait to see it.

-Kevin
5.6.2010

from Wired Magazine

Yesterday, I read an article in Wired about a recently discovered fossil of a 60 million year old turtle that had a particularly thick shell (1.5 inches thick, 3 feet across).  The turtle fossil was found close to fossils of the world’s largest known snake species that grew to a length of 50 feet. Scientists theorized the turtle’s thick shell was necessary for fending off this huge snake species.

The article made me think of a very powerful concept, Coevolution–the change of an object (in this case a biological species) triggered by a related object.  As the snake grew larger, the turtle evolved a thicker shell to protect itself.  Or did the snake grow larger as the turtle’s shell became thicker?  This question is equivalent to asking which side of the scissors does the cutting.  Coevolution is a continuous process that involves the evolution of the objects happening in parallel.

Coevolution is curious because it tangibly illustrates the age-old concept of balance in the universe. The existence of one object creates a role for the other. To go even further, I’d say coevolution describes the genesis (and maintenance) of this balance.  Would there be a role for the Joker without Batman?  Batman’s existence completes the Joker.

The concept of duality found within joy and pain, love and hate, and so on is often talked about.  It is easy to observe and notice the human sensitivity to contrast and relative scales.  What is more interesting is the mechanism that delivers such paradoxical dualities, how it affects the world in many contexts (learning, political parties, psychology…), and how it can be used.

-Kevin
4.12.2010

To add a little more clarity to what complexity is:  complexity is not “complicatedness.”

Complexity is intricate, but it is not convoluted.

-Kevin
3.6.2010

Both are important.  They are the two sides of elegance.

We tend to push simplicity: “all things should be as simple as they can be.”  And this is probably best.  It’s harder to mess up simple things.  Think about architecture.  It’s hard to go wrong with columns and arches and domes (assuming they are constructed properly).  But, ultimately, it’s about elegance, not simplicity.

Very few people are skilled enough in an art to highlight complexity.  But, it exists and it’s part of the world.

It’s also beautiful.

-Kevin
3.5.2010

All people must have or find a “sphere of influence.”

Our sphere of influence is a realm in which we are a mover, a high impact player, the X factor.  Within our sphere of influence, we matter…a lot.

This sphere may be large or small.  It may be easy or hard to find.  It could be a role within our community.   It could be within our family. It could be on a sports team.  It could be within lines of code.  It could be our garden.  It could be the entire world.

The most important thing is that we find it.  We need to find it for ourselves and for everyone else.  Our energy needs to be directed somewhere where it matters.

-Kevin
2.2.2010