What’s all this about then?

Hello, I’m Neil. I’m a Product Manager, Project Manager, Developer, UX Expert, Designer, Marketeer, Tea Maker/Drinker and Arm Wrestling Champion. Over the last 20 years I’ve been all those things at one time or another, well apart the arm wrestling.

But at heart I am craftsman. I like to know how things work, how to make them useful and how to make them beautiful. That has been my quest over the last 20 years and it has taken me to the far-flung corners of the digital world. They say travel broadens the mind and having been down and dirty in the digital world for the last 20 years I have witnessed projects which have been sublime and projects that have been positively atrocious. But what has perhaps been most fascinating has been how we have evolved as users.

Back in the early eighties, William Gibson (the chap who coined the word ‘Cyberspace’), wrote about a pocket assistant, that could guide and give you information about your location anywhere in the world – what an awesome if unrealistic idea that seemed. Now my 5 year old takes it for granted that he can get Siri to beatbox while eating his Weetabix.

But while this brave new digital world may be about 30 years old, it is still at heart a tribal place. A world where we specialise and experts are revered. We talk a lot about working as a team but all too often we put the needs of our tribe – developer, designer, PM above those of the user. And this dear reader, is my reason for sharing my thoughts with you. How can we demystify these specialisms and break down the tribal barriers, strip things back to the essentials and make things that not just work, but work better – better for the development team, the client and, of course, the user?

So here I am, standing on my virtual soap box, pontificating about prototyping and open-source software, in the hope that my experience will help others of every tribe to create products which to paraphrase another William (Mr Morris): are both useful and beautiful.