Ben Skelton's Blog

VanUE Event

Wow, we had a packed house for Tuesday's VanUE event! Gentry Underwood did an awesome job of showcasing some of the knowledge sharing initiatives underway at IDEO. One concept that really resonated with me is having an always-on video conference link between offices in the water-cooler area of the office. I think it would be pretty cool to grab a snack or drink in Vancouver kitchen while chatting with someone in Calgary who is doing the same thing. Maybe we will be able to incorporate something similar in the new office design :)

From a presentation standpoint Gentry's talk was one of the best I have seen in a long time. He had an incredible deck (which seemed more like watching a timed movie then static slides). In addition he showed us the actual IDEO intranet, which was cool to see. 

Thanks to ThoughtFarmer for footing the bill to bring Gentry up to Vancouver, Analytic Design Group for the kick-ass snacks and of course VFS for continuing to host us. In addition a huge thank you to Gentry for such a solid presentation!

VanUE will be back on Tuesday January 20th with Greg Bell.

Blame Twitter!

It has been approximately five months since my last post :(  You can blame Twitter for the lack of activity on my blog... Lately I have been finding that I can disseminate the majority of my thoughts in 140 character posts on Twitter. Not sure if this says more about my thoughts then the usefulness of Twitter. If you are interested in keeping up to date visit my Twitter page.

Anyway, here is a little update of what has been happening in the last little while:

• Habañero has been growing steadily in both Vancouver and Calgary. The Calgary office now has seven people! In Vancouver we have the entire fifth floor and recently acquired a large portion of the seventh floor. We also have our name on the sign in front of the building (a small thing, but it makes me happy when I see it).     
• I have been doing quite a bit of client work as of late. Most of it has been focused on strategy and high-level information architecture. Last year I stepped back from client work to focus primarily on business development, but I have found that spending a portion of my time on client work makes me stronger at business development. I figure it is because I have more real-world examples and client scenarios to bring to the table when chatting with perspective clients. Looking forward I am always going to try to be working on one or two client projects at a time.
• I took a month long vacation in September and went to Paris, Istanbul, Berlin, London, Dublin and Los Angeles. Istanbul, Berlin and Dublin were amazing!
• I have been flying A LOT this year. I ended up hitting Super Elite status on Air Canada in under six months. The good thing? The more you fly with Air Canada the better it gets. Interestingly enough, it is not the lounges or the upgrades that are the biggest benefit, although they are nice. The best perk? You get a special phone number so you don't have to wait on hold when you call. The second best perk? Instant KK (IKK) which means you can use your Aeroplan points to book any free seat on Air Canada at the Classic Reward level. No more Aeroplan reward seat availability problems. Yay!
• Kathleen and I will be teaching the User Experience Done Right! course in both Calgary (December) and Regina (January). During the two-day course we will teach participants how to master the real-world tools and techniques used by Habañero to create exceptional user experiences for each website, intranet, and web application we build. The cost of the course is $799, but anyone reading this blog can sign up using the Habañero customer rate of $499. You just need to send me an email first to let me know that you heard about the course here :)
• I purchased an iPhone 3G a couple of months ago and hate it more and more every day I use it. A good percentage of the calls I make fail or disconnect within the first minute and the interface is S-L-O-W. I am going to switch back to a BlackBerry when RIM releases the BlackBerry Curve 8900 "Javelin" in Canada. I'll likely pick up an iPod Touch as well for music and video on the go.