Recently we became aware of a triathlon the proceeds of which support Special Olympics, AZ. This seemed like a great opportunity because we like triathlons and we think that Special Olympics make our community a better place. So, TRUE is sponsoring several participants in the Special Olympics Unified Triathlon (including Jeremy and me). The event groups athletes from the Phoenix area with Special Olympics AZ athletes in unified relay teams. Each team has 4 members. One member gets to participate alongside a Special Olympics AZ athlete in a leg (swim, bike, or run) of the unified triathlon.  I get to ride with Alex during the bike leg.

This is our first year, so we don’t know what to expect. But, we’ve heard from those that participated last year that it is a blast. We think it is a great idea and are glad to be a part of it.

If you are interested in supporting Special Olympics, you can donate at: Special Olympics Unified Triathlon.

This event has something for everyone:

• Nerds: see Harry Potter 6 before the other nerds.
• Super-nerds: see Harry Potter 6 on the ginormous Scottsdale Cine Capri screen before the other super-nerds.
• Everyone else: see a fun summer movie and help a deserving charity.

Click here to see the event invitation for details (we designed it).

Visit the ASID Arizona North Chapter web site or call (602) 569-9169 to reserve your seats.

I welcomed a friend to Facebook with a status comment: “Welcome to the world of one-line reality.” As soon as I posted the comment I began to think about Twitter and Facebook status updates. Facebook’s new home page design betrays the fact on which Twitter has built its business: a simple feed of very short blurbs is nearly as addictive as crack. We love pictures and join groups on Facebook, but the real attraction for most, the honey that brings us back again and again, is the endless wonderful supply of tiny glimpses into the lives of others.

Without a doubt, this has been significant in my own ability to keep up with the people who form my world. It gives me a much better sense of what is happening on a daily (sometimes moment-by-moment) basis in their lives. People widely distanced from me geographically are now a part of my daily routine. And, they’re a part of it on my terms, at my convenience. I can jump into a thread of thought and disappear just as abruptly without causing any offense (not by the coming and going, at least).

However, everyone knows that these updates are no more than headlines. The full story can rarely be accurately captured in that one line, and certainly, it can’t be represented comprehensively. I have often found myself truncating matters to make sure they fit into the short space of a Twitter post. Just last night I posted: “had to call Tempe FD because pigeons caused an electical fire in our office development.” There was smoke and blackened stucco, but no visible flames. The “fire” was in an outside light in an archway and was not likely to cause serious damage. But, Tempe Fire wanted to come take a look and make sure everything was cleaned up and fixed. So, the post (not by intention) made the matter sound more dramatic than it was.

So, while I love the status feed, I begin to wonder how it is impacting my perception of reality. Is it furthering the simplistic sound-byte view of the world already established by modern media and communication? Is it expanding my view of reality by giving me glimpses into the lives of people I would previously never have seen? Is it both things at the same time? If so, what is the net effect?

Let me know what you think. How are Twitter and Facebook status feeds impacting your world?

I know the blame lies with the terrorists, but, here are some things I think Microsoft could do better:

• If I set my auto-update option to NOT install updates automatically, DON’T auto install anything
• If I set my auto-update option to NOT install updates automatically, DON’T auto install anything

If Microsoft would follow these two suggestions, they could at least make this customer happy. Even if they followed only one of the above, I would be happy. For now I’ll wait for System Restore to complete and hope that more diabolical schemes are not unleashed on my computer tonight while I am sleeping.

While I wait, I’ll take the opportunity to talk about “smart” systems. At least in the US, we seem to be enamored with the automatic. The “smarter” the system is, and by smarter I mean the more it can make decisions about what you as the master of the system would like accomplished, the better we deem the system to be. The plight I am currently in is an example of this sort of “smart” computing. The smart system thinks to itself, “The security patch is critical, therefore the master (me) would obviously want me to install it, therefore I will install it. Oh, the update wants to restart the computer, but master is still not here, I’m sure he’d want me to do it. Oh, master left some programs open and they won’t shut down automatically, but I need to shut down, I guess I better force quite them. Won’t master be proud of me.”

It all reminds me of the recent 30 Rock episode when Kenneth has to do double duty as Jack Donaghy’s assistant. Kenneth, however, has no idea how to determine what will be important to Mr. Donaghy and what will not. As a result, he constantly interrupts Jack and causes problems. In the end, Jack relieves him of his duties as assistant.

In my opinion, most smart computing (even the really smart stuff by Apple) tends to fall short just like poor Kenneth. If humans, who are much better at anticipating the desires and reading the intentions of other humans, have a hard time being “smart” servants of one another, why would we expect computers to do better? And, it seems, that the smarter we try to make the systems the more trouble they tend to cause. I think we ought to let the smart computing dream go (at least for now) and leave the important decisions to the ones who will have to clean up the mess (you and me).

Growing up I spent lots of time around wrestling and football tournaments, both as a spectator and as an athlete. At wrestling tournaments the champion takes home a medal and the big poster-board size bracket. I never won a wrestling tournament, but if I had (insert Uncle Rico joke here) I doubt that the medal would have meant as much to me as the bracket. The medal is abstract because it only represents the final result, where the bracket is specific because it represents a complete history of the tournament experience by including the names and final scores of every opponent.

I’m also really into bracket design. I like how the precision and order of a bracket layout collides with the utter chaos that ensues as a tournament unfolds. As a kid I would hand-draw video game tournament brackets for my friends, and a couple years ago I got the chance to design a bracket for a sports social network.

We worked really hard to make our bracket design:

Fast to fill out – our entire bracket fits on a single 1024×768 screen so there’s no paging or scrolling. Also, a site visitor doesn’t need to log in before making selections – this makes it easier to convert new visitors into site members.

Visually interesting – we gave our bracket a hardwood background and, like the key and sidelines of a basketball court, we used different wood colors to distinguish between areas of the page (branding, navigation, scores, prizes, tournament round titles, bracket).

Easy to interpret - there was quite a bit of debate on this point. When designing a bracket, you need to provide visual states that answer the following:

• Before a game’s result is known – which team was picked?
• Before a game’s result is known – which team was not picked?
• After a game’s result is known – was the pick correct or incorrect?
• For the next round – is one of the teams in the matchup already eliminated from the tournament (ie. incorrect pick from the previous round)?

My position was that the MOST important thing with a bracket is to answer the question, “How may correct vs. incorrect picks did I have this round?” So, the first design of the bracket used color cues and icons to give a site member an immediate, qualitative sense of how well he/she did in a given round:

• Gold with an Arrow Icon: before a game’s result is known, team that was picked.
• Beige with No Icon: before a game’s result is known, team that was not picked.
• Green with a Checkmark Icon: after a game’s result is known, the pick was correct.
• Red with an X Icon: after a game’s result is known, the pick was incorrect.
• Beige or Gold with a Strikethrough: the team in the matchup was eliminated in a previous round.

Our client didn’t like the use of color to emphasize correct vs. incorrect picks, so we went with this approach:

• Gold with an Arrow Icon: before a game’s result is known, team that was picked.
• Beige with No Icon: before a game’s result is known, team that was not picked.
• Gold with a Checkmark Icon: after a game’s result is known, the pick was correct.
• Gold with a Strikethrough: after a game’s result is known, the pick was incorrect.
• Beige or Gold with a Strikethrough: the team in the matchup was eliminated in a previous round.

What we ended up with was fine, but I was a little disappointed; my biggest complaint about the brackets I’ve used at ESPN and CBS Sportsline over the years is that they don’t make it easy/fast enough to get the info I care about the most – for a given round, did I get my picks mostly right or mostly wrong? I thought our solution with solid, bold colors and icons provided the clarity that the Worldwide Leader and others were missing.