Nov 1, 2006

Innovation Frameworks; Remote Usability: User Experience professionals meet-up in Hyderabad

Satyam organized a meet up for the HCI Hyderabad group on the 30Th of October at our Cyberspace office, Hyderabad. It was a very lively event with a lot of participation from the audience. Deepak Namboodri from CA gave a presentation on remote usability testing with a case study. Ashish Tiwari from Cordys had an interesting point on the challenges in "variables" to be considered in remote usability testing. Raman Saxena from CA had an interesting take on different usability methods and combining these techniques for optimal results. Kaladhar Bapu of the Microsoft User Experience group joined in with interesting queries.

I gave a presentation on Innovation Frameworks. The topic was about how teams/organizations can envisage, motivate and sustain innovation. Innovation is not a fiefdom of a few and most of all not only a "eureka" moment. Innovation can be planned and "frameworked". User Experience/Usability professionals can and must innovate for our professionals to move up the value chain. Ashish Tiwari had interesting views on organization culture and its effect on innovation. Kaladhar Bapu made some interesting points on the democratization of innovation. Raman Saxena made an emphatic statement on taking control at the appropriate time in discussions. I completely agree on this point as I have also sat in innumerable meetings where due to a large audience and the inherent need of people to voice their opinion, a lot of time has been wasted. Will upload the presentation soon.

All in all the presentation was interesting and I did not get beaten up/stoned or jeered :). I think this was mostly because I reminded the folks that it was my campus they were in. Another faux pas has to be mentioned. Sorry Diya Sur! Called up Subhashish Karmarkar of Convergys just before the meeting and he was shocked. Apparently Diya told him that the meet was cancelled and he and the Convergys team were heading home! Well, methinks the motive was to take the left-over food home. But I beat her to that!

There was a mushaira (poetry recitation) after the presentations and it ruined my reputation as a poet. Kaladhar Bapu refused to take heed of Diya Sur’s suggestion to give me a platform for my shairi (poetry) at the world usability day 2006 to be held at the ISB (Indian school of Business, Hyderabad). Kaladhar Bapu and his colleagues would appreciate all the help that they can get for this. Get involved!

Will upload the Innovation Frameworks presentation soon. Keep watching this space.