1. ⁘  ⁘  ⁘
  2. ⁘  ⁘  ⁘
  3. Abbott, Edwin A. 1
  4. Abo, Akinori 9
  5. Acaster, James 2
  6. aesthetics 19
  7. agile 30
  8. Akasegawa, Genpei 3
  9. Alexander, Christopher 135
  10. Alexander, Scott 5
  11. Ammer, Ralph 6
  12. Anderson, Sam 1
  13. anxiety 9
  14. Appleton, Maggie 5
  15. Arango, Jorge 4
  16. architecture 110
  17. art 86
  18. Asimov, Isaac 5
  19. attention 17
  20. Aurelius, Marcus 14
  21. Bacon, Edmund 1
  22. Barragán, Luis 1
  23. Barrett, Sarah R. 1
  24. beauty 58
  25. Beck, Kent 1
  26. Beddoes, Thomas Lovell 1
  27. Beneyto, Carlos 1
  28. Bertaud, Alain 1
  29. blogging 22
  30. body 11
  31. boredom 9
  32. Brander, Gordon 1
  33. Branwen, Gwern 1
  34. Bray, Tim 2
  35. Brooks, Frederick P. 22
  36. brutalism 7
  37. building 16
  38. bureaucracy 12
  39. Burnham, Bo 9
  40. business 15
  41. Cage, John 2
  42. Camus, Albert 13
  43. care 6
  44. Caro, Renan Le 1
  45. Centers, Josh 1
  46. chance 11
  47. Chang, David 1
  48. change 16
  49. Chapman, David 1
  50. childhood 6
  51. Choi, Roy 3
  52. choice 8
  53. Churf, Young 1
  54. Ciechanowski, Bartosz 1
  55. cities 51
  56. Cleary, J.C. 8
  57. Clegg, Gordon 2
  58. code 20
  59. collaboration 18
  60. collections 31
  61. color 23
  62. commonplace 11
  63. communication 31
  64. community 7
  65. complexity 11
  66. Compton, Michael 1
  67. connection 24
  68. constraints 25
  69. construction 9
  70. content 9
  71. Cooper, Muriel 1
  72. Copland, Aaron 1
  73. Corum, Jonathan 2
  74. craft 66
  75. creativity 59
  76. Crichton, Michael 1
  77. crime 9
  78. Critchlow, Tom 5
  79. critique 10
  80. Cross, Anita Clayburn 10
  81. Cross, Nigel 12
  82. css 11
  83. culture 13
  84. curiosity 11
  85. cycles 7
  86. Danielewski, Mark Z. 4
  87. darkness 28
  88. data 8
  89. Dawidjan, Ryan 1
  90. death 38
  91. Debord, Guy 6
  92. decisions 10
  93. DeCorah, Katy 1
  94. design 131
  95. details 31
  96. discovery 9
  97. Dondis, Donis A. 1
  98. Donnelly, Kate 2
  99. doors 7
  100. drawing 23
  101. economics 13
  102. Eden, Terence 2
  103. efficiency 7
  104. Eisenman, Peter 8
  105. emotion 8
  106. ending 14
  107. engineering 11
  108. Enslen, Brad 1
  109. ethics 14
  110. euphony 38
  111. evolution 9
  112. experience 14
  113. farming 8
  114. Farnaby, Thomas 1
  115. fashion 11
  116. Favreau, Jon 3
  117. features 25
  118. feedback 6
  119. Few, Stephen 2
  120. Fishburne, Tom 1
  121. flaws 10
  122. food 16
  123. form 19
  124. Foulston, Marie 1
  125. friendship 6
  126. Froes, Hugo 1
  127. fun 7
  128. function 31
  129. games 13
  130. gardens 26
  131. Garfield, Emily 4
  132. Garfunkel, Art 6
  133. geography 8
  134. geometry 18
  135. goals 9
  136. goodness 12
  137. graphics 13
  138. Guston, Philip 1
  139. Hansen, Tully 1
  140. happiness 17
  141. Harper, Thomas J. 15
  142. heat 7
  143. Hido, Todd 1
  144. Hill, Dan 2
  145. history 13
  146. Hoff, Melanie 1
  147. Hoffman, Yoel 10
  148. Hofstadter, Douglas 6
  149. Hohne, Courtney 2
  150. Holzer, Jenny 1
  151. home 15
  152. html 11
  153. humanity 16
  154. humor 6
  155. Hurst, Mark 1
  156. hypermedia 22
  157. i 18
  158. ideas 21
  159. identity 33
  160. images 10
  161. industry 9
  162. information 42
  163. infrastructure 17
  164. innovation 15
  165. interaction 10
  166. interest 10
  167. interfaces 37
  168. intuition 8
  169. invention 10
  170. Isaacson, Walter 28
  171. iteration 13
  172. Ive, Jonathan 6
  173. Jackson, Steven J. 14
  174. Jacobs, Jane 54
  175. Johnson, Rian 2
  176. Kafka, Franz 2
  177. Kate, Maya 2
  178. Kaufman, Kenn 4
  179. Kaufman, Charlie 2
  180. Keith, Jeremy 6
  181. Keller, Jenny 10
  182. Kelly, Kevin 3
  183. Kerouac, Jack 1
  184. Kingdon, Jonathan 5
  185. Kiriakakis, Kostas 1
  186. Kleon, Austin 13
  187. knowledge 29
  188. Knuth, Donald 2
  189. Krakauer, John 1
  190. Kramer, Karen L. 10
  191. Krishna, Golden 10
  192. Krishnan, Rohit 0
  193. Kwan, Jeong 1
  194. language 20
  195. learning 30
  196. Lee, Chang-dong 1
  197. Lewis, C.S. 1
  198. life 59
  199. light 31
  200. Liu, Howie 1
  201. Lloyd, Alexis 1
  202. Lo-Fang 1
  203. Loewy, Raymond 2
  204. loneliness 12
  205. love 26
  206. Lovell, Sophie 16
  207. Lu, Ryo 1
  208. Luhmann, Niklas 1
  209. Luu, Dan 8
  210. Lynch, David 1
  211. Magnus, Margaret 12
  212. making 77
  213. management 14
  214. Marr, David 1
  215. Mars, Roman 13
  216. material 39
  217. math 16
  218. Mazanek, Claudia 1
  219. McConnell, Ivana 1
  220. McGilchrist, Ian 1
  221. meaning 33
  222. media 16
  223. melancholy 52
  224. memory 29
  225. Menking, Amanda 1
  226. metaphor 10
  227. metrics 19
  228. microsites 49
  229. Miller, J. Abbott 10
  230. minimalism 10
  231. Miyazaki, Hayao 30
  232. modularity 6
  233. morality 8
  234. Mudford, Trys 1
  235. Murray, Gordon 2
  236. music 16
  237. Müller, Boris 7
  238. names 11
  239. Nanda, Neel 1
  240. nature 51
  241. networks 15
  242. Neustadter, Scott 3
  243. Newport, Cal 1
  244. Nielsen, Michael 1
  245. Nietzsche, Friedrich 1
  246. Nilsson, Magnus 2
  247. notetaking 35
  248. novelty 11
  249. O'Connor, Siobhan 1
  250. objects 16
  251. Oh, Jung-mi 1
  252. order 10
  253. ornament 9
  254. Orr, Eric 1
  255. Orwell, George 7
  256. Ott, Matthias 4
  257. ownership 6
  258. Parr, Kealan 1
  259. patterns 11
  260. Peacock, E.E. 1
  261. perception 22
  262. perfection 7
  263. performance 17
  264. Pernice, Kara 1
  265. Perrine, John D. 9
  266. Perry, Sarah 1
  267. philosophy 6
  268. photography 20
  269. physics 6
  270. Pinker, Steven 8
  271. place 14
  272. planning 15
  273. Pleşoianu, Felix 1
  274. poetry 13
  275. politics 9
  276. Pollan, Michael 6
  277. Popova, Maria 2
  278. Poppendieck, Mary 1
  279. practice 10
  280. problems 31
  281. process 22
  282. production 7
  283. productivity 12
  284. products 21
  285. programming 9
  286. progress 16
  287. Prokopov, Nikita 2
  288. Pye, David 42
  289. quality 26
  290. questions 8
  291. Qureshi, Nabeel 1
  292. Raskin, Aza 1
  293. reading 16
  294. reality 13
  295. Reichenstein, Oliver 5
  296. religion 11
  297. Rendle, Robin 12
  298. Renieris, Elizabeth M. 1
  299. repair 28
  300. research 17
  301. Reveal, James L. 4
  302. Robinson, Edwin Arlington 1
  303. Rodrigues, Ana 1
  304. Roethke, Theodore 1
  305. Rohe, Ludwig Mies van der 1
  306. Rossetti, Christina 1
  307. Rougeux, Nicholas 4
  308. Rushdie, Salman 1
  309. Russell, Bertrand 1
  310. Rutter, Kate 3
  311. Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de 2
  312. Schapiro, Meyer 1
  313. science 17
  314. seeing 36
  315. senses 11
  316. Shah, Ankit 1
  317. Shakespeare, William 4
  318. silence 9
  319. Silver, Adam 1
  320. Silverstein, Murray 33
  321. Simmon, Robert 1
  322. simplicity 14
  323. skill 17
  324. Sloan, Robin 5
  325. Smith, Justin E. H. 6
  326. Smith, Cyril Stanley 29
  327. Smyth, Hamish 1
  328. socializing 7
  329. society 23
  330. software 68
  331. solitude 12
  332. Sorkin, Michael 56
  333. sound 14
  334. space 20
  335. spirit 10
  336. Spolsky, Joel 1
  337. Stengers, Isabelle 1
  338. streets 10
  339. structure 13
  340. Strunk, William 15
  341. style 30
  342. symbols 12
  343. systems 18
  344. Takatani, Shiro 1
  345. taste 10
  346. Taylor, Dorian 16
  347. teaching 21
  348. teamwork 17
  349. technology 41
  350. texture 7
  351. thinking 31
  352. Thomas, Dave 1
  353. time 54
  354. Tolkien, J.R.R. 6
  355. tools 32
  356. touch 8
  357. transportation 16
  358. Trombley, Nick 44
  359. truth 15
  360. Tschumi, Bernard 0
  361. Turrell, James 6
  362. typography 25
  363. Tzu, Sun 2
  364. understanding 32
  365. urbanism 68
  366. ux 100
  367. Vallandingham, Jim 1
  368. Vieira, Sara 1
  369. vision 7
  370. visualization 34
  371. wabi-sabi 8
  372. walking 23
  373. Wallace, David Foster 33
  374. Wang, Shawn 6
  375. war 7
  376. waste 12
  377. Watanabe, Kei 1
  378. Webb, Matt 14
  379. Webster, Noah 2
  380. Wechler, Lawrence 37
  381. Weinberg, Gerald 1
  382. Weinberger, David 1
  383. whimsy 11
  384. White, E.B. 15
  385. Wibowo, Amy 1
  386. wisdom 20
  387. Wittgenstein, Ludwig 7
  388. words 35
  389. work 81
  390. writing 55
  391. Wurman, Richard Saul 18
  392. www 88
  393. Xu, Bing 2
  394. Yamashita, Yuhki 4
  395. Yanai, Itai 1
  396. Yang, Katherine 1
  397. Yu, Lu 1
  398. Yudkowsky, Eliezer 17
  399. Yurieff, Kaya 1
  400. Zakas, Nicholas 1
  401. zen 38
  402. Zittrain, Jonathan 1
  403. ⁘  ⁘  ⁘
  404. About
  405. RSS Feed
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Matt Webb

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  • Social Attention: a modest prototype in shared presence

    An Article by Matt Webb
    interconnected.org

    My take is that the web could feel warmer and more lively than it is. Visiting a webpage could feel a little more like visiting a park and watching the world go by. Visiting my homepage could feel just a tiny bit like stopping by my home.

    • www
    • socializing
    • A status emoji will appear in the top right corner of your browser. If it’s smiling, there are other people on the site right now too.
    • Select some text, as if you’re going to copy it.
    • Your selection will be shared automatically with all the other people on the same page as you. It will appear for them as highlighted words.
  • Micromorts

    A Definition by Matt Webb
    interconnected.org

    There’s a standard way to understand the relative danger of any activity. A micromort is "a unit of risk defined as one-in-a-million chance of death." For example:

    • skydiving is 8 micromorts per jump
    • running a marathon: 26 micromorts
    • 1 micromort: walking 17 miles, or driving 230 miles

    Generally being alive averages out at 24 micromorts/day.

    • death
    • chance

    The article goes on to discuss the concept of microCOVIDs as a useful measurement of the risk of catching COVID-19.

  • Mutual appreciation

    A Fragment by Matt Webb
    interconnected.org

    To use slightly different terms, mutual appreciation is a healthy jealousy without envy – a drive to achieve the same but without wanting to take it from the other.

    1. ​​The Small Group​​
    2. ​​Scenius​​
    • collaboration
    • teamwork
  • Ancient magicians as innovation consultants

    An Article by Matt Webb
    interconnected.org

    The Codex Justinianus (534 AD), being the book of law for ancient Rome at that time, banned magicians and, in doing so, itemised the types:

    • A haruspex is one who prognosticates from sacrificed animals and their internal organs;
    • a mathematicus, one who reads the course of the stars;
    • a hariolus, a soothsayer, inhaling vapors, as at Delphi;
    • augurs, who read the future by the flight and sound of birds;
    • a vates, an inspired person - prophet;
    • chaldeans and magus are general names for magicians;
    • maleficus means an enchanter or poisoner.

    I happen to have spent my career in a number of fields that promise to have some kind of claim to supernatural powers: design, innovation, startups…

    It’s not hard to run through a few archetypes of the people in those worlds, and map them onto types of ancient magician.

    • Those like Steve Jobs (with his famous Reality Distortion Field) who can convincingly tell a story of the future, and by doing so, bring it about by getting others to follow them – prophets.
    • Inhaling the vapours and pronouncing gnomic truths? You’ll find all the thought leaders you want in Delphi, sorry, on LinkedIn.
    • Those with a good intuition about the future who bring it to life with theatre, and putting people in a state of great excitement so they respond – ad planners. Haruspex.
    • Those who have the golden mane of charisma: enchanters. Startup founders.
    • People with a great aptitude for systems and numbers, who can tell by intuition what will happen, from systems that stump the rest of us. We call them analysts now. MBAs. Perhaps the same aptitude drew them to read the stars before? Mathematicus.
    1. ​​Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview​​
    • magic
    • innovation
  • How would I improve RSS?

    An Article by Matt Webb
    interconnected.org

    My sense is that RSS is having a mini resurgence. People are getting wary of the social media platforms and their rapacious appetite for data. We’re getting fatigued from notifications; our inboxes are overflowing. And people are saying that maybe, just maybe, RSS can help.

    1. ​​Re: How would I improve RSS?​​
    2. ​​aboutfeeds.com​​
    • rss
    • blogging
  • Like, just a post complaining that screens should be better

    An Article by Matt Webb
    interconnected.org

    It’s been 19 years since Pixar released Monsters, Inc. with all that CGI hair. Where are my hairy icons? Ones that get all long and knotted as the notifications number goes up.

    Why can’t I feel my phone? I found that paper from 2010 (when I was complaining about keyboards) about using precision electrostatics to make artificial textures on touchscreens.

    I should be able to run my thumb over my phone while it’s in my pocket and feel bumps for apps that want my attention. Touching an active element should feel rough. A scrollbar should *slip. Imagine the accessibility gains. But honestly I don’t even care if it’s useful: 1.5 billion smartphone screens are manufactured every year. For that number, I expect bells. I expect whistles.

    1. ​​A Brief Rant​​
    • interaction
    • software
    • interfaces
    • devices
  • Four years of noting down my favourite words

    An Article by Matt Webb
    interconnected.org

    I like words, and I note down ones that catch my eye as we cross paths.

    Sometimes I read over the list, random access style, just to remind myself of forgotten thoughts. Each word is a bookmark into a little cascade of concepts in my brain.

    So because I’d like to keep these words somewhere I can find them in the future, I’m putting them here.

    Storm Doris
    Mimecom
    Cloudbleed
    Athleisure
    Cromwell
    H7N9
    Trappist-1
    ... (+448)
    
    • words
    • euphony
    • collections
  • Primitive design

    An Article by Matt Webb
    interconnected.org
    1. I want it to feel intuitive
    2. I want any new features to be platform features, not one-offs.

    And the second of those is weird, right? It’s like sketching out a toy spaceship, having a list of rules about play, and attempting to simultaneously invent the shape of the Lego brick.

    That’s platform design I suppose. Redesigning a newspaper will mean bouncing between comps and style guides, designing both. Inventing the iPhone user interface will have seen apps and app paradigm evolving together.

    1. ​​Co-Evolution of Problem and Solution Spaces in Creative Design​​
    • design
    • systems
    • making
  • Hints towards a non-extractive economy

    An Article by Matt Webb
    interconnected.org

    There’s a movement called the circular economy which is about designing services that don’t include throwing things away. There is no “away.”

    A non-extractive economy is going to look very different to today’s economy. These points feel opposed somehow but they are part of the same movement:

    • With CupClub, it’s all about infrastructure.
    • With the battery-free Game Boy, it’s untethered from infrastructure: once manufactured, no nationwide electricity grid is required to play.

    We’ll need better tools to track and measure. There will be new patterns for new types of services. New technologies to build new products. New language. So it’s fascinating seeing the pieces gradually come together.

    1. ​​Introduction to Permaculture​​
    • economics
    • recycling
    • infrastructure
  • I don’t believe in Zoom fatigue

    An Article by Matt Webb
    interconnected.org

    It’s not Zoom fatigue, it’s Zoom whiplash.

    It’s a hunch. I can’t prove this.

    The trick to get around this is to move smoothly up and down the gradient of social interaction intensity, never dropping below a basic floor of presence: the sense that there are other people in the same place as you.

    Instead of having two modes, “in a call” and “on my own,” we need to think about multiple ways of being together which, minimally, could be:

    • In a video call
    • In an anteroom to a video call, hearing the sound of others
    • In a doc together
    • On my desktop but with the sense that colleagues are around

    And the job of the designer is to ensure that their software ensures the existence of these different contexts, instead of having the binary on-a-call/not-on-a-call, and to design the transitions between them.

    • communication
    • work
    • transitions
    • software
  • Clues for software design in how we sketch maps of cities

    An Article by Matt Webb
    interconnected.org

    Given there’s an explosion in software to accrete and organise knowledge, is the page model really the best approach?

    Perhaps the building blocks shouldn’t be pages or blocks, but

    neighbourhoods
    roads
    rooms and doors
    landmarks.

    Or rather, as a knowledge base or wiki develops, it should - just like a real city - encourage its users to gravitate towards these different fundamental elements. A page that starts to function a little bit like a road should transform into a slick navigation element, available on all its linked pages. A page which is functioning like a landmark should start being visible from two hops away.

    1. ​​The Image of the City​​
    • urbanism
    • cities
    • software
    • understanding
  • aboutfeeds.com

    A Website by Matt Webb
    aboutfeeds.com

    Use feeds to subscribe to websites and get the latest content in one place.

    Feeds put you in control. It’s like subscribing to a podcast, or following a company on Facebook. You don’t need to pay or hand over your email address. And you get the latest content without having to visit lots of sites, and without cluttering up your inbox. Had enough? Unsubscribe from the feed.

    You just need a special app called a newsreader.

    This site explains how to get started.

    1. ​​How would I improve RSS?​​
    • rss
    • blogging
    • microsites
  • What the prototype tells you

    A Fragment by Matt Webb
    interconnected.org

    As soon as I make something, I think of the 100 things I want to have next. That’s why prototyping is good. You don’t need to have much imagination, you just listen to what the prototype tells you.

    1. ​​The situation talks back​​
    2. ​​Co-Evolution of Problem and Solution Spaces in Creative Design​​
    3. ​​The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth​​
    4. ​​The game discovering itself​​
    • design
    • making

    Writing here about experiments in virtual presentation / video conferencing software.

  • The surprising effectiveness of writing and rewriting

    An Article by Matt Webb
    interconnected.org
    • The act of writing the first draft creates new “essential data” that feeds the imagination and makes possible figuring out the second draft.
    • Or: In your head, ideas expand until they max out “working memory” – and it’s only be externalising them in the written word that you have capacity to iterate them.
    • Or: Good writing necessarily takes multiple edits, and the act of writing and act of rewriting are sufficiently different that performing both simultaneously is like rubbing your tummy and patting your head.
    1. ​​The McDonald’s Theory of Creativity​​
    • writing
    • thinking
    • iteration

See also:
  1. software
  2. rss
  3. blogging
  4. design
  5. making
  6. interaction
  7. interfaces
  8. devices
  9. microsites
  10. collaboration
  11. teamwork
  12. death
  13. chance
  14. economics
  15. recycling
  16. infrastructure
  17. magic
  18. innovation
  19. words
  20. euphony
  21. collections
  22. www
  23. socializing
  24. urbanism
  25. cities
  26. understanding
  27. writing
  28. thinking
  29. iteration
  30. systems
  31. communication
  32. work
  33. transitions