march 2008 archives
When Rob Foster, Todd Ericksen and I went to Washington DC to attend a Tufte Conference we made a point to stop by the Vietnam Vetrans Memorial . It was just after twighlight and there were only soft lights illuminating the memorial. The dim lighting set the mood and invited you to look harder to see the detail of the names. You couldn’t help but to find yourself touching the stone and feeling the names of the fallen as you walked along side the memorial. We went to several other monuments and memorials and heard tourists chattering and even yelling, and then to come to this one and hear only the wind in the trees was a very spiritual experience. You were compelled to whisper and show reverence for the hallowed ground on which you walked. As close to the feeling of the temple as I have felt outside of those walls.
This memory was brought about by a link from Cameron to the Interactive Vietnam Veterans Memorial A great way to interact with the wall and see the actual names if you aren’t able to see them in person. The ability to add photos and stories to each name is another great method of making it a very personal experience.
(Art is “Vietnam Reflections” by Lee Teter)
posted by
aaron
on Monday, Mar 31, 2008
Offices and The Creativity Zone. Why it’s important to have office space that allows you to concentrate and get in “The Zone.”
posted by
emmy
on Sunday, Mar 30, 2008
“[The Savior’s] power is such that he could obtain anything on this earth. He need not ask for water at the well, for tithes and offerings…, or for personal service in any other work of his kingdom. He asks us for these things… so that he can bless us with something of far greater importance to us than that which we give. That is the Lord’s way.”
Elder Dallin H. Oaks, in The Lord’s Way (thanks for the book link, Tadd!)
posted by
ted
on Saturday, Mar 29, 2008
Where several of us have been since Tuesday.
The Web App Summit was great! Can’t wait to share the things we learned…
posted by
rick
on Friday, Mar 28, 2008
“Everything I have made is absolutely unnecessary.”
Philippe Starck, in an interview with German newspaper Die Zeit, also announcing he will retire soon. (Wow, I hope I can say just the opposite and yet still have as prolific a career.)
posted by
cameron
on Friday, Mar 28, 2008
This looks like something only Cameron could pull off.
Via Core77.
posted by
clifton
on Thursday, Mar 27, 2008
Sunrise in Salt Lake.
It’s been a while since we’ve posted something about God’s handiwork, so here’s a beautiful sunrise coming over the Wasatch Mountains captured by my sister Katie on her way home from the late shift. Way to keep an eye out and a camera handy, Sis…
posted by
ted
on Wednesday, Mar 26, 2008
Just to make it clear: we are hiring. We have open positions for both Senior Designers, with 5-7 years experience, Junior to Mid-level designers, with 0-4 years, or genius college students with our paid summer internship. All positions are located here in Salt Lake City, with amazing benefits and possible relocation. We are also interested in exploring telecommuting options for remote HTML/CSS experts. Interested?
To apply online, please visit our jobs website at http://lds.org/emp/hr and see the listing for Interaction Designer. Or get right to it and shoot us an email with your resume and portfolio link.
posted by
jason
on Tuesday, Mar 25, 2008
I recently decided to step down as the Director of User Experience in the IT department of the Church. While I thoroughly enjoyed my work as a Director (best job of my life to date), I found myself longing to get more hands on in product design and development. I’ve now started as a Product Manager assigned to the Priesthood department where I’m working on new ideas for how the Church uses the Internet.
So, we have a new job opening. We need a new Director for our User Experience group. You can read the official job description for the full details, but let me give you my quick “unofficial” job description and a thought.
This job rocks! It has great management support. Joel Dehlin, our CIO, is our biggest fan and supporter. It’s a very challenging job. You have to be a great leader to a team of very talented and competent professionals. It’s a job that has a multitude of different kinds of end-users. Our end-users include Church employees, General Authorities, missionaries, Church leaders, Church members, and people who do not belong to our faith. Many of our solutions have to be global and work in a variety of languages and cultures. This job requires you to be a leader in the IT department. You need to work effectively with the CIO and the other Directors to accomplish department-level objectives and goals. Finally, and possibly the most challenging, you need to figure out what a user experience group should be and do at the Church. I’ve learned that you can’t just copy and paste what you’ve learned in previous jobs into the Church. Practices and approaches that have worked in other organizations, don’t always work or apply here. You have to discover the Lord’s Way to do your work. Working in that position the past two years has been a fun, wonderful, challenging and growing experience for me as I’m sure it will be for my replacement.
The person we need may come from a very unexpected place or they might come from our current team. I don’t know, but I am confident the Lord will help us place the right person in this position. Let me make a sincere request. If you are feeling a prompting regarding this position, either to suggest it to someone else or to consider it yourself, please act on that prompting. There are plenty of great places to work in the world doing meaningful, important work. If the Lord wants you where you are, we want you there, please stay there and have the impact He intends. The Lord needs good people doing good things everywhere. However, consider that the Church is also a great place to work where you can do meaningful, important work. If the Lord wants you here, we want you here. In this matter, like many others, you and others will be blessed if you seek to know the Lord’s will and then follow it. Again, if you’re feeling a prompting, I simply ask that you act on it. I suggest you also take a good hard look at the full job requirements as well. Thanks!
posted by
tadd
on Tuesday, Mar 25, 2008
“The gift of the Holy Spirit adapts itself to all these organs or attributes. It quickens all the intellectual faculties, increases, enlarges, expands and purifies all the natural passions and affections; and adapts them, by the gift of wisdom, to their lawful use. It inspires, developes, cultivates and matures all the fine toned sympathies, joys, tastes, kindred feelings and affections of our nature. It inspires virtue, kindness, goodness, tenderness, gentleness and charity. It developes beauty of person, form and features. It tends to health, vigour, animation and social feeling. It developes and invigorates all the faculties of the physical and intellectual man. It strengthens, invigorates, and gives tone to the nerves. In short, it is, as it were, marrow to the bone, joy to the heart, light to the eyes, music to the ears, and life to the whole being.”
Parley P. Pratt, Key to the Science of Theology, p. 98 partially cited by James E. Faust
posted by
tadd
on Tuesday, Mar 25, 2008
“If you could kick the person responsible for most of your troubles, you wouldn’t be able to sit down for six months.”
Author unknown, cited in “How to Be Totally Miserable: A self-hinder book” by John Bytheway
posted by
ted
on Sunday, Mar 23, 2008
Saturday Supercar Spotting:
Saw this today in the parking lot at IKEA in Draper. I am pretty sure it was a kit car, but still pretty awesome.
posted by
rick
on Saturday, Mar 22, 2008
