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Conversation as Brain Candy

March 27, 2009 •

When the news is dom­i­nated by sto­ries of vol­canic erup­tions, cor­po­rate bank­rupt­cies and lay­offs, or yet another exam­ple of Wall Street malfea­sance, it’s easy to get depressed. Espe­cially in this grey Seat­tle spring weather…

So it was a won­der­ful con­trast to enjoy some stim­u­lat­ing con­ver­sa­tions over the past 24 hours with two vibrant and accom­plished women: one, a con­sumer mar­keter par excel­lence, and the other a top-notch inter­ac­tion designer.

It felt like we’re mem­bers of the same tribe, even though we’d never met each other before.

In our “Candy Jar”

In no par­tic­u­lar order, here are a few of the things we touched on dur­ing our brief time together:

  • Mem­o­ries of intro­duc­ing experience/interaction design to the New Zealand busi­ness com­mu­nity
  • Mem­o­ries of intro­duc­ing cap­i­tal­ism to Hun­gar­ian bot­tlers right after the Berlin Wall was taken down
  • Hyper­Card — remem­ber when?
  • Seat­tle ver­sus Sil­i­con Val­ley — pros and cons 
  • The plea­sures to be found in fine white bur­gundy wine, espe­cially when you can find it at a rea­son­able price
  • The many joys of Seat­tle for “food­ies” — or for hik­ers, bik­ers, yoga or pilates enthu­si­asts
  • The fun of design­ing the ini­tial user inter­faces for first-gen­er­a­tion dig­i­tal cam­eras
  • Mar­ket­ing those early Macs…
  • What it feels like to talk to new­com­ers in the work­place who can’t remem­ber what life was like back when cam­eras required film
  • The excit­ing new options for lis­ten­ing to the mar­ket­place and see­ing the chang­ing per­cep­tion pat­terns as they unfold across tra­di­tional and new media, such as social media
  • What can hap­pen to a staid busi­ness (like an insur­ance com­pany) when you intro­duce expe­ri­ence design into the mix, and then men­tor and train a core cadre of peo­ple who dif­fuse this dis­ci­pline more broadly through­out the com­pany
  • Trav­els to Europe, wine tast­ing in France
  • The dif­fer­ence between design, when approached as a strate­gic prob­lem solv­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions dis­ci­pline, ver­sus its more com­mon func­tion as busi­ness “cake dec­o­rat­ing”
  • Microsoft and UX/experience design — pro forma, or the real thing?
  • Mar­ket­ing as art or as busi­ness archi­tec­ture
  • Daniel Pink and his notions about the grow­ing import of “right brain” qual­i­ties and think­ing styles for busi­ness and soci­ety
  • The impact of serendip­ity or luck in our early career oppor­tu­ni­ties
  • And a whole bunch of things I can no longer remem­ber

Yes, we enjoyed free-wheel­ing con­ver­sa­tions, mov­ing flu­idly back and forth between busi­ness and plea­sure, with­out being all that con­scious of the tran­si­tions.

Brain candy for right-brain thinkers…

Trackbacks

  1. Conversation as Brain Candy says:
    March 27, 2009 at 8:59 pm

    […] Read the orig­i­nal:  Con­ver­sa­tion as Brain Candy […]

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

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