Dispatched from the Hong Kong airport. As airports go, one of the best on the planet. I’m sitting in a cafe drinking a 0.5L Carlsburg having just finished a chili squid dish over fried rice. Delicious. Enroute to Bangalore in a couple of hours.

Global travel never ceases to amaze me. Even here, you can find a Burger King (but why would you want to visit it?) I used to call it jet lag, but now I call it travel shock. 14 hours from SFO to HKG and then a few hours layover before heading on. Remind me in my next job to only have offices one flight away…..Meanwhile, I’m pondering: Is it better to have 2, 10 hour flights or one 14 hour and one 6 hour flight. Opinions?

We’ll see how time goes in terms of blogging this week – I’ve found myself busier and busier. On the plane over, I saw a great show on the Lincoln Highway. Since I have a couple of weeks off over the summer, it looked really interesting. For now, back to layover behavior alternating from work, to book, to computer…..

This entry has been brewing for some time in my head and an incident at my present office environment prompted me to actually write it; though it’s not specifically about my present office environment, it’s more a melange of experiences through my lifetime.

It’s difficult to imagine that there are many more unpleasant daily destinations than a men’s toilet. Even so, there is a hierarchy of men’s toilets. Gas stations, rest areas, and public parks have to rank at the bottom (so to speak) and five-star hotels have to rank at the top. In between, we find the ubiquitous office john which, in my experience, range in cleanliness and convenience between a hole in the ground park loo and the five-star hotel. The difference? The people inhabiting the building!

So here’s my set of pet peeves:

• Lack of Accuracy – Guys, I mean come on, how hard is it to hit the toilet? Apparently, it’s a challenge given the residue on the walls, floor, and fixtures. Eeewww. Does your home toilet look like this?
• Trash in Toilet – Even the skankiest of men’s rooms has a trash can. Why do cigarette butts, beer bottles, candy wrappers, condoms, newspapers, and other associated non-human waste or toilet paper items end up in the toilet? Is it too much of a stretch to deposit these items in the garbage? Apparently so.
• Mismanaged Reading Material – Every man knows it’s best to visit the can with some entertainment and that it’s a thoughtful thing to do to stock it with relevant reading material. Does the storage area have to be on the floor?
• Food in Toilet – Do I even need to say more than the title of this one? This room is designed for the other side of food processing, not eating!
• Phones in Toilet – Hey, I understand multi-tasking, I do it constantly, but is it really necessary to carry on your phone conversation while taking care of business? It’s not like you’re the only person there (other interesting sounds in background) and some of the things you talk about, cheating on wives, proprietary company information, etc. Puh-leeeze.
• Stale Bowl – There’s this little lever or button on all commodes, is it really that difficult to press or pull it to leave a fresh, (relatively) clean bowl for the next patron? Oh yeah, if it didn’t go down the first time, try, try again. While we’re at it, ever heard of a mercy flush, that’s a good practice in a shared space….
• Hand (head, and body) washing – The men’s room isn’t generally a shower in the work environment, but you wouldn’t know it from the level of moisture in and around the sinks. It looks like 1,000 monkeys taking shredded paper towel aided sponge baths. The faucet, soap, counter, and floor are covered with water and paper towel bits.
• Maintenance – When the toilet is broken, supplies are exhausted, or the men’s room is thrashed, why not get some maintenance? I walked into a men’s room recently where the toilet was overflowing and guys were walking in and out simply ignoring it. What’s that about? All offices have facilities, call them!

And yes, I have seen each of these activities and objects in the workplace over the past 25 years. Alright, anyone want to give their pet peeves on the Ladies Lounge? I feel better having written this, even knowing nothing will change…

Yet another TED Talk…guess I’m a cheerleader for their content. Another video well worth watching showing the reality of today’s unmanned combat capabilities and raising the question of ethics as the trend accelerates. If Homo Evolutis didn’t get you thinking, P.W. Singer’s talk on the future of combat will…

So, we’re worried about the state of our economy, and rightfully so, but who will protect us from ourselves? How about the rise of Homo Evolutis? How about the demise of Homo Sapiens? Have I got your attention yet? Science fiction or science fact? You decide.

Aside from this issue, the first half of this video has some of the most clear thinking around the economy I have seen and it aligns nearly perfectly with my take on the situation. If only I was articulate enough to share it in this way. Invest 20 minutes to watch Juan Enriquez share The Ultimate Reboot below…

Like many geeks, I like theories and laws. In fact, I have my own law: Harding’s Water Principle. Well, I’m advancing another theory that could become a law or principle, the Supermodel Software Theory.

I’ve spent the last 25 years of my life developing software. Some of it really bad, most of it simply average, and I’ve had the pleasure to work on very few extraordinary projects. I’ve been engaged in these projects as an architect, product manager, systems analyst, software developer, QA engineer, technical lead, manager, manager of managers, and executive. So I’ve seen the whole lifecycle, multiple times from multiple different perspectives.

Here’s what I’ve learned: Great software has three attributes; aesthetics, usability, and utility in a specific mixture which we’ll discuss in depth. Aesthetics are what you’d expect, is the software visually appealing and inviting. Usability covers how the human interacts with the software, is it easy to learn? To use? Do I want to use it? And utility covers the spectrum of functionality, does the software do what I need it to do to be useful?

Average software tends to be designed and developed by people who are content to benchmark. Go to any airline’s website, they all look the same, have the same features/functions, and generally behave in the same way. They have utility in common and largely compete in that arena (which is a good thing when you want to book a ticket, check flight status, request an upgrade, etc.) But, do you love to use the software? Do you want to go back? Or do you often dread fighting it to get done what you’ve set out to accomplish? What tends to be wrong is the over focus on the utility, features and functions everyone else has. Consequently there is an under investment/focus on aesthetics and usability and a lack of discipline in the selection of the features that truly matter to the user.

Bad software tends to be hugely unbalanced across aesthetics, usability, and utility. We can all think of great looking software that is useless, highly helpful software that is useless, and utilitarian software that is useless. Often, very popular software fits into these categories, for example, Dbase III (I’m dating myself by using this example) got the mix right, Dbase IV, messed it up royally. Consequently, Foxbase and then MS Access were able to take their lunch money.

Great software is like the rarest of supermodels; those people with incredible looks, a fantastic personality, and high learning agility. Why does this matter you might ask? For humans, if something looks good, it gets the benefit of the doubt (aesthetics.) That’s not enough to sustain interest, but is often enough to open the door. Now, if that supermodel has a great personality (usability) that goes along with their inherent good looks, you’re on to a winner. Why? Because ugly and mean are nearly impossible traits to fix. Finally, if we discover that our supermodel has some useful skills, but even more importantly, is willing and able to acquire new skills, we’re going to be very, very happy and we will attempt to form a long-term relationship with that person.

It’s worth talking about learning agility. Like ugly and mean, stupid is nearly impossible to fix. Ignorance can be addressed. This learning agility – the ability to transform ignorance into knowlege – is an analog to the utility layer. How we do this is to focus on a small subset of things where we can excel. Over time, by doing this consistently, the base of knowledge (or utility of software, or feature breadth if you will) grows ever more complete and compelling. But the important part is to select one area where the software can be truly excellent. In the utility portion of software development, the industry at large has little discipline, we go overboard, trying to get every feature/function under the sun stuffed into the software. While that can be intellectually interesting, it’s not particularly helpful.

The theory is: Like a supermodel, it’s essential to have pretty, nice, basic and focused competence, and learning agility in software because people are predisposed to accept the possibility of improvement when they enjoy the product. The order is vital, because people are less tolerant of highly utilitarian software lacking looks and personality (we may hope we’re better than that, but we’re not. Remember, ugly, mean, and stupid are forever. Ignorance can be cured.)

So, using the theory, the recipe for building great software is pretty straight forward. Design a compelling user interface first which ideally contains the core feature where your software will be truly excellent. Resist the urge to benchmark. Test your concept early and often with your users and adjust as quickly as possible. It’s better to be pretty, with a good personality, and only truly excellent across a narrow area to start. Once in the market, identify the next most vital utility in a narrow band, get that right and release it. Rinse and repeat as necessary. Now, does this guarantee extraordinary software? No, it doesn’t. But if this process is followed, the chance that your software will be great increases dramatically.

So, the next time you or your company plan to undertake a software project, dust off this theory and try it. Remember, the choice is yours. Escape the tyranny of benchmarking, resist the urge to load down the project with hundreds of features, and find a nice, attractive, project with high learning agility to bring home to meet the family. You’ll be glad you did…