Hospital Food and Bookmarks

This month I spent too much time in hospitals.

I wonder why the food in the cafeteria is NOT healthy. Its because most cafeterias are run as cafeterias and not as health centers. You don't want to scare anyone, and want to make sure there is a comfort food option. Who are we kidding? They are run by the cafeteria paradigm-basic food. Ideally not terrible. Put cheese on everything, this is America, dammit. The sawdust cheese, they won't even notice!

I also sketched out the idea for a children's book, called the Bookmark Lady. It is about performative moments in a hospital, and being able to overcome your own emotions by being kind to others-and handing out bookmarks as gifts. Sometimes people need to be distracted by their own simple humanity-just long enough to get out of their own heads about being scared at a hospital.

Take yourself out of the model and figure out your real goal. Nutrition and good emotions. Use both to get through what ails you.

MIT Hackathon in XR

Attended the MIT Hackathon about XR, actually called a Reality Hack.  I crafted and scripted the narrative about Desegregation in Miami in 1957-specifically a story about Frank LeGree and how his family had picketers outside his house, threw rocks and eventually erected a cross on his front lawn-all in order to get him out of a neighborhood.

The video of the AR experience we created is here: https://youtu.be/C6w3e4wqwfk

Our team would love to do more with AR and explore this and other stories of America's growing pains further. Desegregation of schools, different neighborhoods in large cities i the 1950's. Life for a growing country and how that time period brought forth change that is still unresolved today. 

Connect that period with When They See Us-and #OscarsStillSoWhite and you will see how America still exists in black and white for so many people. The best part of the Hackathon was the idea that so many different people could come together to build a new reality. One in which the only judgments issued are on a lack of imagination.

Mark Twain

I've been doing some research on Mark Twain's visit to the Azores. He stopped in Horta on his way to Palestine-a series of correspondences that would become his book,  Innocents Abroad.

Most of what he wrote about the Azores in that book was not kind, he was trying to create jokes-and also created a cynical sense of the superiority of the American traveler. He made himself the joke of an ugly American-especially viewed from the perspective of today.

In the Book about the Dabneys, there is evidence that he was in their house. Below is a quote from one of the female residents.

“At 10 the parlor was quite full….One young man had his note-book out all the time and remarked as I gave him some verbena,’I am taking notes as I am a correspondent of a paper’. 

‘Horrors;, writes CPD, “how we may appear in print,’

A future cultural experience!

Having spent Thanksgiving in Provincetown, with all its associated Portuguese heritage, I noticed that there is an Annual Blessing of the Fleet and weekend-long Festival at the end of June (6/25-28/2020) More information can be found here:
https://provincetownportuguesefestival.com/

It's never to early to plan your time in this seaside town, especially bc it fills up so quickly in the summertime. See you then!!

UX and Agile Software Development

Whatever you call your job in UX-User Experience Designer/Researcher/Architect/Visionary, you are trying to understand and focus in on one main opportunity.  Or, as is more common, the SERIES of opportunities that will lead you into a successful Experience for whomever is using your system.

Mostly, this gets applied in the area of software. And frankly, depending on the style of software development-it breaks.  Take Agile, for example. No longer are you looking to make the experience about your user-you make it about breaking up the research you can do into manageable chunks for the Development Team.  Your focus is no longer on the person who will be using the end-product, but rather the person on the team who will feel as if the process is getting enough of the proper inputs.

It's a way to make the process of software development seem scale-able, and so now you can apply Design Thinking into the sprint and everyone is happy.

You can't do big picture stuff 2 weeks at a time, and Design Thinking is not about insights that can be cleverly packaged.

Sometimes you will uncover insights that will break the larger product. And because the rest of the team is already following the train tracks laid out for the project-the train has left the station-heading to a place where it will run out of track. Sometimes pivoting is required, based on UX work.

Good luck with bringing back that kind of news to your team. Not only do we have to pivot on the product, but we also need to change our way of working. Even if it is just a matter of a week to have sessions about re-envisioning the product-the mechanics are already greased to follow the old process. It's possible. But just be aware of how much harder it will be.

Visiting an Artist Studio-in LaGuardia??

I was walking to my flight at the Jetblue Terminal and saw a tiny art studio in the lobby area.

Stopping, I chatted a bit with the woman who was running the space, Anna, but was rushing to my flight and I couldn't linger.  What a funny place for a popup art location, I thought.

And then I came through again, and my plane was delayed. Finally I had the proper time.

This time I stayed for a good while, and spoke to Davi Leventhal, an enchanting man who told me about being raised Brazilian in NYC, something I related to, being raised Azorean in Boston. Anna was there as well.

His art was based on fuxicos-simple circles of fabric, which when combined, make a giant tapestry of color and energy.  Visitors are invited to make one and leave one. I made 3, but one fell apart.  He gifted me one-which I will attach to a blanket my Vovo made me.

His assembly method reminded me of my Mousetrap Project, creating small pieces of beauty which are seen as a strong presence when mounted together. And because there was the interactive element, of getting to sit and sew (especially in what is normally a stressful environment), the was a performance piece that I was happy to have experienced.

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For more info:

https://www.davileventhal.com/about.html

https://www.aviationpros.com/airports/buildings-maintenance/press-release/21076449/the-port-authority-of-new-york-new-jersey-local-artist-residency-program-returns-to-laguardia-airports-marine-air-terminal-for-second-year

https://www.queenscouncilarts.org/2019-artport-artists

Lean UX Seminar

Took a Lean UX=Scrum seminar, great to see others struggling with it as well.

Grateful that (most) of my teams will be going through it-easier to make change if everyone's on the same page.