I saw this huge laptop in SF last week and it got me thinking. We are always trying to build smaller devices, what about larger devices?

Imagine if a person could know almost everything about you by simply looking at you. He could tell your profession by looking at your hands and wrists. He could tell where you were from by your dress and speech. He could tell what you like to eat and drink from your teeth and lips. With little effort he could know your deepest secrets and know you better than your best friend. These are the attributes of Sherlock Holmes, a fictional private detective from turn of the century literature. Holmes may at times have seemed like a super hero with a near omniscient power of the criminals he chased, but his abilities were based on real skills that are honed by real-life detectives every day. 

US automakers are in deep trouble. They’ve been overtaken by Japanese automakers like Toyota in terms of size, revenue, profit, and number of vehicles on the road.

We are happy to bring you the first of a series of posts provided by people working within a unique field. These “Insider Views” are intended to provide an on-the-ground perspective of a particular field.

Over the past couple weeks I followed the election in Iran and the subsequent protests. I was struck by something that made this uprising different those that I had seen before.

Mark Dwight, the founder, CEO, and sole investor in Rickshaw Bagworks seems blessed with the ability to speak inexhaustibly about the messenger bag industry.

I had the great pleasure of witnessing two of my fellow researchers describe their research processes at last Tuesday’s session of BayCHI. These researchers were Kate Rutter of Adaptive Path and Steve Portigal of Portigal Consulting.

A short time ago, a co-worker and I were curious about the medical system and what we were getting for the huge chunk of the GDP (18%) we are paying as a society.

When someone is speaking, do you think about what the other person is saying, or do you think about what you are going to say next?

At ActiveComm Labs, we are big believers in communication and what it can do to improve research. Our background in both user experience research and communication has allowed us to harness the experiences of our users and provide the most accurate feedback to our clients. Our background in communication includes many years of research and training with hostage negotiators across the country. Through this training we learned the skills and techniques that negotiators use to resolve crisis situations and how to apply them in a research setting. We consider Active Listening to be one of the key components of an overarching method that we call Active Observation®. Active Observation® is a synthesis of Active Listening skills, influencing techniques and advanced observation of non-verbal communication such as facial expressions and body language to generate a deep and dynamic understanding of an individual.