September Meeting: Back of the Napkin

[Joshua Kaufman]

The San Francisco UX Book Club will hold its next meeting on Thursday,
September 10, 2009, 7pm at Parisoma, 1436 Howard Street, San
Francisco. (I was originally planning on having this meeting in late
August but with Burning Man happening right around then, I thought it
best to push it back to the week after.)

The meeting will focus on "Back of the Napkin" by Dan Roam. Big thanks
to Todd Siegel for volunteering to moderate and Parisoma for again
donating their space to the club.

RSVP on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=110376194481

Get the book:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Back-Napkin-Solving-Problems-Pictures/dp/1591841992/
SF Public Library:
http://encore.sfpl.org/iii/encore/record/C%7CRb2133530%7CSback+of+the+napkin%7COrightresult?lang=eng&suite=def

NEXT BOOK

Thanks to everyone who voted on the next book! The results are as
follows:

Mental Models by Indy Young [299p], 11 votes, 37%
The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda [127p], 10 votes, 33%
Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of
Data by Stephen Few [223p], 4 votes, 13%
The Elements of User Experience: User Centered Design for the Web by
Jesse James Garrett [208p], 3 votes, 10%
The Humane Interface by Jef Raskin [256p], 2 votes, 10%

It was ~very close but "Mental Models" by Indy Young will be our next
book (after "Back of the Napkin"). If anyone has read "Mental Models"
or is just interested in the topic and would like to moderate that
meeting, please let me know.

As always, thanks for your participation in UX Book Club San
Francisco.

Cheers,
Joshua Kaufman
UX Book Club San Francisco Unorganizer

[Henry Eakland]

Good meeting this past week to discuss "Back of the Napkin."

Thanks, Todd, for moderating the discussion; and thanks Sean and your
partners there at PariSoma for hosting us once again.

Walking to BART after the meeting I remembered a discussion at a
recent design conference in SF, the DMI (Design Management Institute)
Re-Thinking Design conference. One of the speakers, Tony Golsby-Smith,
spoke about how "strategy is less about spreadsheets and more about
conversation." Just another mental model or approach to discussing
business strategy: Golbsy-Smith, a former comparative lit professor
turned business consultant, is all about words and language; Dan Roam
presents his "visual" approach in the Back of the Napkin.

The lesson or take-away for me is that there are lots of approaches
out there: being conversant in several and being able to tailor your
approach to the audience would seem to be the most effective method.

henry

[Sean Savage]

Thanks Henry! Good points. I'll see you next time!