Month: October 2009

bookmark_borderUp

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Last night we went to see the latest movie from Pixar.. er.. Disney.. er Pixney… Disnar? Whatever.. it’s a Pixar movie through and through.

We chose to see the version being shown in 3D (Real-D as per copyrighted technology) and all in all it was an excellent movie with a silly story underpinned by some fantastic writing and acting.

Yes, that’s right, I said acting.

As ever the storytelling is first rate, something Pixar have always been good at, and the opening scenes, tackling the early life of the main character are truly moving and, without giving anything away, tackle a “grown up” issue in a clever way. The adults will probably get more out of this section of the movie than the children but the film doesn’t suffer for that.

Of course there are some good laugh out loud moments, coupled with character development along the way, that take you on the journey with the main characters and certainly make them seem more real than, say, the characters in The Incredibles (the only other Pixar ‘people’).

And what I think is really telling is that all that stunning imagery on screen, the subtle use of the 3D technology, and some genuinely lifelike scenery at points, is the last thing I want to mention, and even then it’s to say that it didn’t get in the road at all. Not once did I find myself losing focus on the story being told to ponder how they get water to look so realistic, or how they get feathers to float on the breeze exactly like they do in real life.

It was only on leaving the cinema that I paused to reflect that nothing I had just seen exists anywhere except on a computer.

It’s also telling that despite having the 3D technology available, and unlike Ice Age 3D, there were no scenes obviously designed to ‘feature’ the technology. Instead it was used to naturally re-enforce the ‘reality’ of the setting. Very clever, and very well done.

I’ve not seen, or read, much about this movie, which is a shame because it is wonderful. Perfectly pitched as a family movie without pulling any punches, it is probably the best bit of story telling to come from Pixar since they started.

Ohhh and whilst I remember, the new short shown before the movie was brilliant, and the trailers for the new Christmas Carol movie (which DOES look likes it makes excellent use of pushing the 3D technology hard) looks cracking!

bookmark_borderFat man thin?

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Our eldest niece has her graduation ceremony this evening. As is the way of these things, only two people can attend so her Mum and Aunt Louise are going along.

As I’ll be at a loose end, and as it is late night shopping night in Glasgow, I thought I’d nip in a get a couple of new shirts for work to replace a couple that have seen better days.

However I realised that it has been a while since I checked through my wardrobe so last night I took 10 minutes to rifle through some shirts that have been hanging there, untouched, for a some time now. They are a direct result of the vagaries of sizing and whilst they SAY they are the same size as my other shirts, they are most definitely not!

Imagine my surprise and, I admit, delight, to find that all bar one of them now fit me. It’s like getting free clothes. It probably means I’ve also just ‘acquired’ a couple of pairs of jeans and a jumper or two, all of which have been languishing at the bottom of drawers, hidden away in shame.

I can’t say that I’ve been particularly good on the diet or exercise front recently so it bodes well that the weight is slowly (ohhh so very slowly) dropping off and I might even be so bold as to predict that by Christmas I’ll heading towards the lower end of the 15 stone scale. Or, you know, I might not be that bold because been here, done that, ate the pizza and failed!

It is a nice feeling though, a wee pickup, when these things happen. Not quite as good as finding a crisp ten pound note lurking in the depths of a pocket of a seldom worn jacket but every little helps.

bookmark_borderDo you plan to review your plan?

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Nobody really likes planning. Plans are bad in the eyes of many people, seen as a necessary evil by others and some people would rather just jump straight in and figure things out as they go along. However, if you approach them the right way, planning can provide more than just a set of deadlines. Specifically I’m talking about the type of Information Plan that is covered in Managing your Documentation Projects.

In that respect, plans are good. They help set the direction and make sure everyone knows what they need to do to get there.

Yup, plans are good. The creation of a plan usually drives discussion around the deliverables and the audience of the information.

It goes without saying then, and I’m sure you all agree that, and this is just in case you’ve missed my point, plans are good.

Unless you don’t revisit the plan throughout the project. At that point, through no fault of the plan, the plan is useless.

It’s very very easy to get sucked into the detail of your current work, understanding how to explain to users how Widget X works if you are running Component Y, and I’m as guilty of that as the next person. Revisiting your plan throughout the project will help keep you from losing sight of the woods for all those damn trees.

bookmark_borderBad bad bad

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The other day, as I was off work with a bad back, I found myself on the sofa aimlessly surfing the channels for something to distract me. I must have channel hopped for about 20 minutes before I realised it was approaching the hour and there might be a movie starting on one of the many movie channels at my disposal.

Please note that by this point I had watched all the movies and TV shows that I’d previously recorded and the prospect of painfully extracting myself from the sofa to get a DVD, and then trying to bend down to put it in the player, was not an appealing one. There was a book nearby but I wasn’t really in a reading kind of mood and frankly I was just looking for something to act as a distraction.

And that may have been why I found myself watching Babylon A.D.

Don’t get me wrong, it was certainly a distraction in as much as it was fascinatingly awful in a myriad of ways. The only way I can explain how bad it was is to suggest that for the most part, whilst watching the movie, I felt like I was watching some pre-release edit where the final scenes hadn’t actually been filmed or properly cut together. Quite bizarre. If it weren’t for the fact that I couldn’t lie down as it was too painful, I’d have guessed that I’d fallen asleep for a few minutes here and there.

In saying that it was a good distraction, yes it was dull, badly shot, woeful written, poorly edited and by and large I’d suggest you all avoid if at all costs, but ultimately it left me pondering.

Why do we watch bad movies?

I say we because I know that other people do this, that once we have committed to watching a movie then, come hell or high water, we’ll damn well see it through to the end. Oddly, for me at least, that commitment takes all of a few minutes to make but once I’m past that point then no matter how awful the acting, or directionless the directing, I will watch until the closing credits.

The same sort of weird logic applies to watching a movie from part way through. Typically this only happens if those first few minutes are enough to grab my attention, a perfect example of this would be Duel. I remember flicking through the channels late one night and happened across this movie about halfway through. There was something about the way it was shot and acted that grabbed my attention.

I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on but I was gripped, watching the rest of the movie and thoroughly enjoying it despite knowing I’d missed the opening part of the movie. But I watched it anyway. It was a few years before I finally saw the entire thing (it’s well worth a watch, early Jaws-era Spielberg without the big fake shark).

However I can find no good reason as to why I watch bad movies all the way to completion. I am quite capable of changing the channel if something bores me, and I’ve stopped watching movies because part way through i’ve realised I’m not really in the mood (movies I’ve later gone on to watch and enjoy), but if it’s a properly bad movie I’m riveted.

Car crash cinema?

bookmark_borderWhat do the users really want?

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I have no idea what our users want.

I do know they want information, and I know they want that information to be kept up to date as our product evolves and as far as those basic needs are concerned, I’m happy that we are meeting them. Beyond that I admit I’m not really that sure.

Over the past couple of years we have plugged a lot of gaps and improved the documentation provided in key areas all whilst keeping up with new features being added to the product. We’ve moved to Author-it to give us the advantages of re-use and multi-format publishing and on the whole we’ve built a good reputation within the company.

So it’s time to take stock and look at the next area we need to improve and to do that we need to know what our users want.

On the one hand we are lucky in that we have access to a small number of them, and if we can arrange the time we can sit down with them and ask them direct questions. However there is a large portion of our audience that isn’t available to us and who we also need to converse with.

Rather than try and start up a conversation from cold, I’m thinking it would be a good idea to ask them to complete a short survey, the results of which we can discuss when appropriate.

But what to ask? In the past I’ve tried to get users to score the documentation on a number of criteria (who easy it was to find the information, if it answered their questions and so on) but that doesn’t really give much scope to start a conversation.

So I’ve been looking about for some examples and to my delight have found many. I’ll probably be picking and choosing questions from the following, but I thought I’d list them here in case anyone else finds them useful:

I’d also urge you all to take part in the last one, it’s relevant to us all.

Have you run user surveys? I’d love to hear your stories, successful or otherwise.

bookmark_borderOdd socks

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Lonely socks, originally uploaded by Gordon.

Where do they go, the odd socks in life? Why do they leave? Do think they won’t fit in? Are they unhappy with their twin? Are they just wanting to forge a new life, alone and independent? Or are they plucked from their comfortable existence, screaming and crying, dragged off to somewhere else?

Do they find each other, these oddities, console and comfort each other, and plan their way back to where they belong?

They must be lonely.