Our players :
The Black Crowes, a southern rock band who are famous for 2 amazing records and a slew that followed of diminishing quality.
Maxim, the tits and ass magazine you look at in the airport magazine rack that’s full of instructional articles on how to maintain your lifestyle as a douchebag.

The Crowes have a new LP coming out, which is heralded as “a return to form.” Maxim ran a review of the album, giving it 2.5 stars.

The reason for the hubbub is that no one from Maxim has heard the album.

Here’s my .02….

If you are in the business of hype… fabricating emotion from ether, don’t be surprised when it backfires.

There is a lot of hype about the new Crowes album. I’ve heard all about a “return to form,” comparisons to The Southern Harmony and “the sonic majesty” or some other shit. I like the Crowes, I find their first 2 albums the be amazingly good… their second to be one of the better albums of the 90s, but like anything, I’m leery when I see so much bullshit built up over something that’s doesn’t exist yet.

Maxim wrote a review based on a combination of a few things : Response to massive hype, the Crowes reputation, and the quality of their last 3-5 albums which were also surrounded by the same type of hype.

Fair? Not at all, but if the Crowes PR can tell me it’s the best album they’ve ever released, why can’t a rag like Maxim tell me it’s just not that good with the same amount of credibility?

Environments.

Why do we like to talk about environments?

What makes that such an appealing alternative to page, or event?

An environment combines several key emotional and physical aspects into a single, very understandable concept.
Architecture and interior design are very comprehensive disciplines. Both have an inherent combination of Art and Science that appeals to us all.

Living Spaces
Think of a room in your house
If it gets cluttered, it gets uncomfortable.
If it’s empty, it’s devoid of purpose.

Typically, when a space gets overwhelmed with clutter, we tend to take 2 actions:

• Spread it out (hence the shed)
• Throw it out

Online, we don’t tend to live in our own spaces, so we take less care.

To simply claim something is an environment is typically wrong
Each environmental space we create has 2 main reasons for existing :

• It Must have a Function
• It Must be Comfortable

Therefore
When we declare something to be an environment, it has to have the following defined:

What is the Purpose?

• What is the Size & Shape?
• What is the Decor?
• What is the Activity?

If we are unable to define the space, it is not a proper environment.

Worksheet
What is the Purpose?
Why are we creating this space? What is it meant to contain or describe?
What is the Size & Shape?
Does it contain multiple activities or spaces? Are there pre-defined constraints?
What is the Decor?
What is the aesthetic of the space? Is it unique or follow a previous direction?
What is the Activity?
What is the expected use of the space? What is its intended use?

Back in the nineties, my approach was based on Hagakure, but the focus was on the unstoppable force.

It was the beginning of the bubble. It was better to accelerate than slow down, and I expected everyone around me to keep pace.

Fans of Ayn Rand have told me that I followed her Pragmatist ideals. I think Ayn Rand didn’t account for my rock star tendencies.

Anyways…

I’ve found my work to be centered on striving for a singular purpose… or at least a solid tiering of goals.

Do one thing, do it very well, go to the next. Basing very complex interactions in this model has led to some fantastic results.

It’s been a hard sell to the backwards UX people who are still counting clicks and using phrases like “well, it could go there”

“We could…” means “We’re not going to” in my vocab. If you have to debate, yoink it out. You’ll be much better off without it.

“You are neither cold nor hot, so because you are lukewarm, I will spew you from my mouth”

Bill ‘The Butcher’ Cutting

The singlemindedness of an idea is what will propel it.

When the idea takes on additional weight, it falls apart, or changes to something it was not meant to be.