The Prince Of Swords

I was catching up on Bloglines again and one of the visual design sites I track pointed out this set of diagrams.

The Art of Complex Problem Solving

I read more of the site and it turns out that Mr. Clemens started this company to blend art and science to find out “what ideas look like”, something I realized I’m always trying to figure out too. Very nicely done. As you scan this, see if the artifacts have the same effect on you, where the diagrams and text are so parallel, they resonate.

1. Like Cory I too have weird visualizations going on where all axises of surfaces and intersections connect for me into symmetrical shapes with imaginary red laser lines which I often try to step on while walking. Part of why it is often hard for me to concentrate. Reminds me of Han Qing-jao without the shame… or gods. May be related to why I am able to size things very well, like when arranging furniture. Yes, that couch and table will both fit on that wall. Those boxes will fit in that box if you put the first one on its side, long ways at the bottom and the other one on its end.

2. I like solid, heavy things. (I hate foam core or hollow doors, paper plates, folding chairs.) To me the size of an object dictates a certain density. If the size to weight ratio doesn’t match what I expect (which is calculated for me automatically), I don’t like it. (Is there a golden ratio for weight?) Like my MacBook, it is sleek and thin, yet when I pick it up it is heavier and more solid than I expected. Yeah! I can keep it. Red enameled, stainless steel dice would be a very cool density.

3. I have an economy of motion fetish especially when opening doors. I prefer to approach a door that opens in from the left, grab the knob, open it with my right hand with a jolt so that as I begin to pass through the door, twist my back to the left a few degrees, catch the knob on the opposite side behind my back with my left hand, so that just as my left foot crosses the threshold, the door is closed. I do a brief pause to make sure I can feel the latch click and am on my way.

4. I generally feel like an alien being. I constantly feel out of rhythm with the world and its people most often in conversation. Part of it has to due with my insatiable need for interesting topics and deeper levels (even if I do not contribute them). My brain is constantly working things out based on new information. But, it doesn’t tell me what it is doing or what it has decided so when asked how I got to some conclusion, I can’t replay the steps. This makes teaching or even explaining to somebody how I do whatever it is that I do, very difficult for me and them. It is also annoying because in meetings I am prone to ask questions too early. So I sit in a meeting listening to everyone while I guess my brain is putting together puzzle pieces and extrapolating outcomes as it goes until is runs out of pieces. So it tells me to ask a question but doesn’t tell me why. I get an answer from someone who generally looks confused about why the question was asked and I go back to listening. Twenty minutes later, somebody turns to me with some kind of discovery in their eye, and says “Aha! That’s why you asked that question” and they go away thinking I knew where the meeting was going the whole time. Greetings, Alien! Take me to your leader.

5. I never actually know what I’m doing, I’m making it all up as I go along. Yes, all of it.

As a new Mac user I was compelled to do the MacHeist thing. Very cool. I’ve been demoing DevonThink Pro for a while so getting the Personal version instantly made this worth it. I already owned a TextMate license (and have been reading the PragProg PDF on it).

The vendors have been delivering my licenses over the last few days so I’ve been playing with a new package each night. I’ll try to write up some summaries.

I recently trashed my MacBook by probably installing some random badness (like trying to recompile SCPlugin for MacTel use) so I decided to wipe and re-install which turned out to be a very quick and easy process (minus the transfer time for my music collection).
Now that I’m back up, I’ve been continuing my Mac metamorphosis. The only legacy app from Windows I hadn’t replaced yet was Visio, which I’ve never really liked but due to some process engineering work I’ve been doing lately, has been making it appearance on my desktop regularly. There are a couple of solutions like running Parallels or even maybe VMWare, but I’ve decided that it is time to move on and not put any Microsoft apps of the past on my shiny new Little BlacBook.
For graphing in Mac, OmniGraffle is your answer. I downloaded the trial and jumped right in. The main goal was to recreate the Riva Visio Stencils. Riva is a process diagramming method that focuses on Roles, Activities, and interactions. It comes from the book “Business Process Management: A rigorous approach” by Martin Ould. It was brought to my attention by Neil Benson at Increase Consulting in the UK. I use it to map what people do and how they could interact with a software system.
Business Process Management: A Rigorous Approach (Paperback) by Martyn A. Ould
Here is his site. There are Visio stencils you can download.
Things I like about Riva: - focused on roles and their interactions (via explicit state changes) - compact diagrams vs boxes and diamonds - it is easier for me to follow these diagrams than swimlanes since your focus bounces all over the lanes where Riva has a clear flow - case refinement is easier to extend (decisions or cases) than with typical diamonds for decisions since cases are represented in a linear path that can be added to, where adding more diamonds alters the diagram much more After I maxed out the 20 object limit in the OmniGraffle trial, I bought a Pro license and got down to polishing a first draft of my Riva Stencils. My bet was that by building a set of stencils I’d learn OmniGraffle faster since I had a clear goal in mind plus I’ll be doing some modeling this week and put the stencils to real use.
After about 10 hours of dinking with it, my first draft is complete. The main lesson I’ve learned is that Mac is Beautiful and works. As crazy as it sounds to non-Mac peoples, the quality and style of my Mac seriously does make me happier to work with it which again confirms the “Broken Windows” theory from psychology.
If these work well this week, I may release these to Graffletopia.com and share the love. Here is what I have so far: