Disqus - Latest Comments for Raena

Re: Hey Raena - HOWTO: Epic Lazy Lemon Slice

Raena — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 00:59:57 -0000

Good luck :D Some wow might be added in the form of candied peel!

Re: Hey Raena - HOWTO: Epic Lazy Lemon Slice

Raena — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 04:16:08 -0000

Aw no you di-int!

--
Regards,
Raena

Re: Hey Raena - Pass/Fail Fail: When Designers Think Design Solves Everything

Raena — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 23:32:14 -0000

Pants, thanks for taking the time to comment when you obviously found it a bit confronting! :)

The thing that bugs me about these design exercises is that it just encourages the belief that design for design's sake is the sum and total of the practice. And the thing is, it's not. If designers want to challenge themselves, there needs to be a real world problem to solve. Otherwise it's just faffing about in Illustrator.

Tyler even alludes to the design-is-for-problems idea himself on twitter just now.

If your design isn't solving a problem what is it doing? (twitter)

What is it doing? Tyler clearly had some problems in mind that he thought should be solved, for example:

I tried to remember my previous trip through John F. Kennedy Airport and when and why I needed to reference my boarding pass. It seemed like I first needed to know which flight I was on. I put the gate right next to this, but made the flight number first because gates tend to change quite often. Next came my seat which I always look at a few times while boarding the plane. After that I put the zone, which is how they board the airplane initially and always seemed like the biggest cluster-fuck of people not knowing what zone they were in or how to find it on their pass.

So, you know, there's obviously some thinking about problems in here. But they're all passenger-centric, and that's really not what a pass is about.

BTW: Tyler is a dewd. (Yeah I know that's obviously not his real photo, but the bio definitely says he.)

Re: Hey Raena - Pass/Fail Fail: When Designers Think Design Solves Everything

Raena — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 23:17:14 -0000

Hey Kit,

Thanks for the long and detailed comment. :D

I agree about that name situation; it's tricky, and in an artifact that is designed chiefly for identification of you and your flight arrangements, it's so important not to bugger it up. And I absolutely believe you when you say 'even ten seconds.' Hell, even three. It's amazing how tiny little problems snowball that way.

I don't mind the habit that some places are in of capitalising one's family name, which helps reduce any ambiguity about order and purpose. It certainly helps reduce the interpretation time it takes to identify which name fragment is the family name.

When you say this:

The main feeling here is that Thompson is operating on the assumption that the crude design of the passes don't provide any usability or technical benefits worth retaining, and as such I'd say he's misunderstood the problem space before developing a solution.

You just summed up what took me a few hundred words to hint at :D He's solving the wrong problem.

Re: Hey Raena - Pass/Fail Fail: When Designers Think Design Solves Everything

Raena — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:22:17 -0000

yeah, I touched on that. Didn't think it needed its own callout, though, it's not easy to miss ;)

Re: Hey Raena - Pass/Fail Fail: When Designers Think Design Solves Everything

Raena — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:14:58 -0000

Yeah. Certainly every pass I've had from an airport has been thermal on a pre-printed, or worse, it's been on a slip akin to a shopping receipt.

But even in the instance when you do have 100% control over its appearance (ie printing your boarding pass from home), there are still issues.

Re: Hey Raena - Pass/Fail Fail: When Designers Think Design Solves Everything

Raena — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:32:18 -0000

Perhaps you could explain what about this headline is inaccurate.

Re: How to Setup Multiple Twitter Accounts with One Email Address

Raena — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 20:53:38 -0000

Sub-addressing is by no means restricted only to gmail. If you'd rather use something else, check to see whether your mail server supports it!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

Re: Yes! We Do Want You to Comply With the Law

Raena — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:42:25 -0000

Ah, it's never too late to enjoy a comical sticker, though... :)

Re: Yes! We Do Want You to Comply With the Law

Raena — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 20:45:09 -0000

I'm dying to know what's on that sticker, but your Twitpic reference doesn't work.

Re: Brush Bundle Vol 1 Photoshop Brushes by Designfruit

Raena — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:45:59 -0000

Absolutely lovely. Thanks, Designfruit!

Re: Bloody oath, it's National Swear Day!

Raena — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:44:59 -0000

Check out this post:
http://cereta.livejournal.com/652008.html

It's specifically about rape, but you could replace rape with assault and still get the same result:

Say it with me, now: not all men are like that.

And of course, they're not. But you know what? Too damn many of you are, and too damn many of you can be in the right circumstances. And I'm not going to apologize for saying that.

... And yes, you probably have stories of a time when your girlfriend/friend/girl who was at your apartment was drunk and you didn't rape her. And you don't tell them because you don't think that's even a story. And it shouldn't be, but let me tell you: you should start telling them, because those 18-year-old boys who don't think they're bad guys sure aren't listening to us. Maybe they'll listen to you.

Men shouldn't have to say they're not going to beat up on women, but maybe if more of you do, there's some positive change in the air. Maybe.

What a fucking world.

Re: Twitter and Facebook app Seesmic may ditch Adobe for Microsoft

Raena — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:44:49 -0000

> As for Mac and Linux users, well, Le Meur said there are fewer than you’d think — 80 percent of Seesmic Desktop users are on Windows.

It'd want to be a pretty big improvement to justify annoying 20% of your customers.

Re: Why do some book publishers seem intent on wandering off a cliff?

Raena — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 21:03:19 -0000

I quoted the bit I mean: finding authors, editing their stuff, and marketing it. I suspect that you think this costs a whole lot less than it really does.

Re: Why do some book publishers seem intent on wandering off a cliff?

Raena — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 03:21:32 -0000

Dear publishers, charge for where you bring value — discovering, editing and marketing great authors.

Doing all that isn't free, you know.

Re: Australian News Corp chief attacks Google, bloggers

Raena — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:39:16 -0000

something of such limited intellectual value as to be barely discernible from massive ignorance.

So he *does* read News' blogs, then...

Re: Hey Raena - Green Avatars for Iran: An Exercise in Slacktivism

Raena — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:52:13 -0000

I really don't agree that your *only* two options are to colour an icon and fly to Iran to chuck bottles at the Government.

Is it really so hard to muster up the words to have an original thought of our own? Surely that shows more evidence of our passion, interest, support, and concern than chucking our avatars at a webapp?

Re: Hey Raena - Green Avatars for Iran: An Exercise in Slacktivism

Raena — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:56:44 -0000

If it's made a genuine difference to someone you know, then awesome sauce; and if it makes a deep difference to you, double sauce.

I'll punt on you being in quite a small minority, though.

Re: Hey Raena - There's more to NetRegistry's naughty nurses

Raena — Mon, 18 May 2009 10:46:02 -0000

Aw, thanks for that. :)

I think it's far too easy to underestimate the socialising power of marketing material. It's absolutely true that the vastest majority of people wouldn't look at a particular image and say that they consciously get a message of depersonalisation or whathaveyou from it (see above with Aaron).

The power of suggestion from repeated daily exposure means it doesn't need to be spelt out in black and white.

Re: Hey Raena - There's more to NetRegistry's naughty nurses

Raena — Mon, 18 May 2009 10:38:09 -0000

It's a kind offer to host my 'excellent blog' for free for a year. (I think you made a typo, it should be 'low-traffic and neglected blog' ;) I'm good for hosting right now, but I appreciate the gesture and you strike me as the kind of guy who'd hold to that if I were to take you up on the offer.

However, I think it's kind of short sighted of you to consider only your customers to be your family, though, or worthy of an apology, because you and your company's sphere of influence goes a lot further than that. I mean, Nett's a perfectly good example -- I'm sure you have readers who aren't also NR customers. Hell, I've been known to pick up a copy from time to time. You're on Twitter (are you also the person posting on @netregistry?) and you have a blog, so I can see you're not just some insular company that only communicates via secret insiders-only newsletter. You took the time to come here and to other blogs and respond.

Thinking of everyone I've worked for, I can't think of a single person who wouldn't want their company to be recognised as a leader -- not just in terms of market share or profitability, but also as a thought leader within the industry and a good example of how to do it the right way. You seem like the kind of guy who'd agree with that.

You used the analogy of having a disagreement with a family member versus some random passer-by on the street, but I think there's room in your example there for your friends or neighbours, as well. Your potential customers are more than just passers-by on the street, surely?

You're right, there are much more astonishing things to get angry about (I'm not really angry, just... not happy). Actually a colleague today said something like "I get what you mean, but I see you don't also have a post decrying the way women are depicted in motor racing."

I don't like that either, but I don't go to motor racing, don't work in motor racing, don't even have anything to do with automotive stuff. I don't even own a car. Consequently I don't notice it when it happens cause it's not in my face. But this is something that happens in my industry, and happens to me personally. It gets oxygen from me and women like me who notice this stuff because it matters to us.

Thanks for coming by and taking the time to write, anyway. If nothing else I have three interesting new blogs to read. :)

Re: Hey Raena - There's more to NetRegistry's naughty nurses

Raena — Mon, 18 May 2009 10:21:43 -0000

Hey, you've written a lot here and I only have so much time in my head for this issue, so I'll try and break it up with some quotes -- which, again, I'm not doing to take it out of context, just to show you what specific issues I want to try to respond to here.

I'm not saying you didn't bother to read it, but I think when people bring their agendas to something, they're not always joining the dots properly. And you know as well as I do that most people will NOT bother clicking the link, so their impression of my article rests with how you choose to present it.

Sure. I'd do it if I were writing about something on SitePoint, for example, because a lot of people read that and not all of them are going to go ahead and do that (I don't think I'd post about *this* issue there, jsut speaking generally). But over here with my pitifully small readership, yeah, I had a case of the slacks. I'd like to think the five or six people who do read my blog would take the time to do that, but it's true that I should have done it here anyway, because it's the right thing to do.

And I did say that most of it was fine, except for characterising some *pretty moderate women* as hardcore feminists. I'm sure I could have said so louder and I'm sorry that I didn't make that clearer. I'll go and edit the post if you like to indicate this better.

You used lines of mine to suggest that I come from the "opposing team" (so to speak) who just sees all feminists as "extremists" - when, as the part of my article I did paste above shows, is far, far from the case.

I wasn't trying to cast it as the opposing team at all, as I pointed out. Clearly I didn't do a very good job of that. I'm *trying* to say that you have a misguided opinion of what constitues extremism, and what constitutes people in your market.

I find that misleading analysis, I have every right to point out parts that may contradict how you're presenting it as.

Indeed you do. I'm sorry you feel that I tried to mislead. I'd really like to believe that people would go and read it for themselves, and I wouldn't feel comfortable dumping a bunch of your text onto my blog here anyway.

Again, though, this was the only point I took umbrage with and felt like commenting on. Overall it's a really good post. If anything I actually felt better having read about the process you went through in developing the idea, not to mention the fact that you'd taken the time to write about it at all.

And that's not because they're all male chauvinists who enjoyed it, it's because even most of the women aren't so extreme in their reaction to what is and isn't "sexism".

You keep using these loaded words, 'sexism' (I never used that term, did you notice?) and 'extremist/extreme/extremism'. If you don't agree that they're loaded I'm sure you can at least see how they're quite strong -- people don't usually say sexist outside of the context of suggesting that the person is being wilfully sexist, and people don't say extremee when they mean 'not to my liking' -- extremist means WAY left field.

I don't think I can put it any clearer: it's my deeply held belief that it is not extremism to say that women are depicted poorly in IT; it's a fact that is quite noticeable to many people and affects many more.

Most people think that you reading into the pregnant woman's head not being in that shot is just ridiculous projection on your part. I'm one of them. That is just a standard commercial pregnancy shot from medical advertising. It's not saying "This is all you're worth", it's saying "This is about pregnancy which is about - gasp - having a baby inside your stomach"!!! I mean, really.

It's hardly a new idea to talk about reducing women to body parts. Usually it happens with the good old tits and arse, but I'm not sure why a pregnant belly ought to be any different. And yeah, 99.999-infinity% of people don't notice or care about that stuff in advertising, the Gruen Transfer's ratings notwithstanding, but that doesn't mean it's not there, or that one is not entitled to think about it. 99.999% of people don't think about astrophysics either.

Fire up your favourite search engine and search for the phrase body chopping. There's also a video that touchces on the idea and explains it better than I can. I'm sure you'll still think it's silly, but perhaps it'll show you I'm not just pulling the idea out of thin air. (Skip ahead to about 8:20 for the stuff about dismemberment.)

Many women would be offended by your perception of that image - ironically, more than men would be. But I think you were looking for the reaction, by then.

Please don't invalidate my views by characterising it as attention-seeking. It's a pretty cheap shot.

And believe me, if I just wanted to get a reaction, there are easier ways -- like having a little squeal about it on twitter, as an example, or being quite a lot more acid-tongued. if I were really very angry about this, believe me, that would be extremely clear.

You said you had no problem when you saw the stand (before you got pumped up by the feminist reactions you read) - but that image was a huge poster (hung twice) at that stand, and you didn't seem to find it so confronting or objectionable.

Actually, I did. As I said:

But I’d visited the booth on Tuesday, and spoke to one of the male nurse dudes, and I’ll tell you I honestly did have a sense of feeling a bit icked out at the booth.

At the booth. I had a feeling of being icked out at the booth. I was uncomfortable with it.

I only wrote about it after the fact because I found it interesting that it had been discussed at all (not "pumped up", as you put it), and for whatever reason occurred to me at the time I felt compelled to share what i felt. If anything, I tend to *undervalue* my gut instinct about things like this; I was kind of surprised anyone else had bothered to raise it at all.

And look, I know that the male dominance in the IT world must make it extremely uncomfortable for the women involved in it, at times. I know there would be legitimate cases (those REAL "booth babes" at the show made me ill).

Yeah. I only saw the red pants girls in passing, and I didn't feel especially compelled to take note of who it was.

I'll agree it's a bit rude for the chatterboxes to only discuss yours and not the others. If you know who the owners of that booth were, feel free to share and I'll give you my solemn promise that I will write them a pissy email.

It's also entirely possible that yours is the tallest poppy; there were a lot of low or no-profile exhibitors there.

I guess what I'm trying to show is that even low-level stuff like this contributes to the problem. It's nowhere near as bad as putting 'kiss' on some chick's lycra-clad arse.

Don't get so hung up on your hang ups, that you can't also see cases where things are not examples of what you hate or fear in life.

I get what you *meant* to do, which was to be cheeky and funny. I still feel that this campaign is an example of unconsciously creating an experience that isn't welcoming to women. I *don't* think this campaign, or even your post, is an example of overt and deliberate hostility. I'm not even super-furious about what happened, just a bit disappointed.

Look I'm sure you're heartily sick of reading about it and I have to go to bed. But I do think it's good thing that you and the others took the time to respond to me and others. I'm especially pleased to see you chose to do this as good old-fashioned comments as distinct from a 140-character ten-second brainfart. Thankyou for visiting and responding, I really mean it.

Re: Hey Raena - There's more to NetRegistry's naughty nurses

Raena — Mon, 18 May 2009 07:13:28 -0000

That's a good thing to mention about language.

You'll note I tried to avoid using the words "booth babe" in my post to describe the nurses; it's certainly loaded. I also chose not to use the word 'sexist'; it's a word that's ordinarily used with an accusatory tone and usually implies a deliberate decision, and I don't by any means want to imply that NetRegistry did it deliberately.

It obviously didn't work very well because you, Jonathan and Aaron have all come back firing with comments that you didn't mean it and you meant it to be lighthearted. I get the message. I can see that, really I can. I'm just trying to point out how there are unintended consequences of using certain symbols.

Confession time: I did actually use the words 'booth babes' to tell a colleague that I'd seen them while wandering past (in fact, it was probably something along the lines of "Hey, there are totally booth babes over there!") which I accept is unfair, and with the benefit of taking the time to think about it I'm quite sorry I said so.

On the other hand, 'booth babes' itself is a concise shorthand to describe chicks at a booth who are there to stand out, as it were. We all find ourselves hobbled by preconceptions; for my part, I've been to enough events where there are chicks 'on display' whose only function is to hand you a flyer and pout for the camera. It's usually the right assumption to make. In your case it was not. Don't get me wrong, that's a good thing.

Thinking of that photo, sure, the girl on his lap *might* be a self-made millionaire, in much the same way as the pregnant woman *might* be the Prime Minister. But are these interpretations really the first thing that would come to mind to you? Really *really?* Marketing shorthand, remember.

That's not to mention the fact that the man is the one who's the focus of that photo -- he's facing the camera, he's the one wearing the symbols of success in business (suit, cigar) and she's the one who's 'slipped in to something more comfortable.'

I don't mean to get all Art Interpretation 101 or anything, but given that so much of this conversation revolves around stereotypes and marketing, it's hardly irrelevant to talk about it.

And yeah, I used those words to describe *the trope this image suggests* -- words that match the stereotype behind the image. Describing a concept depicted in a photo, especially one that is likely a staged stock photograph, is very different to me describing a real person. It'd be more accurate if I'd posted a picture of your nurses and said "Wahey, check out these bits of fluff."

And I'm sorry, but describing a *symbol* in a *staged* photo (again, not a real person) is miles away from accusing a real live sexual assault victim of being partially to blame. It's practically nothing like it, in fact.

Re: Hey Raena - There's more to NetRegistry's naughty nurses

Raena — Mon, 18 May 2009 07:12:34 -0000

Stephen, it doesn't matter whether it's done worse elsewhere. (It was even done worse right there at CeBit.) It still doesn't sit right with me.

Re: Hey Raena - There's more to NetRegistry's naughty nurses

Raena — Mon, 18 May 2009 03:10:05 -0000

Aaron, I read all of your post, and I'm sorry you think I didn't read it properly or couldn't be "bothered", but I don't feel the need to paste a five hundred word excerpt from your post when people are perfectly able to click the link and read it for themselves. In fact, you'll note I said your post was reasonably fine, except for the part I quoted.

Your comment (and the other NR folks in here come to think) reads as if you think I'm saying that you did this deliberately. I'm not saying that at all; not once did I say anything like that. In fact I even say a couple of times that I think it's unintentional. It sounds as though you feel quite put out by the fact that some people have chosen to characterise it as a deliberate act on your part. I don't think that's the case at all. I'm sorry if you think I meant that.

My problem with what you wrote there was twofold. The first problem is that you're tarring everyone who doesn't like that you did with the same brush by saying "our detractors" and "extremism" in, more or less, the same breath. If that's not what you meant, then fine, but I'm sure you can see how it reads that way. And yeah there were a few people who were getting quite worked up and being extremely shrill, but equally there were others (even in the cesspit that is Twitter) who were being quite moderate. It's not accurate to say that *everyone* who had something to say about it was being a dick.

I noticed you mentioned that you're reasonably new to that end of the market so maybe the idea hasn't come up for you before, but the way women are portrayed isn't always positive (even when it's not intended), and it's a very real and legitimate problem for women in the industry. It's not extremism, not at all.

The second problem is the assumption that we 'extremists' have nothing to do with your market. I mean, look at Donna, above, who *is* a customer and *does* agree with me. And I'm sure you know from reading above that I'm certainly not a paying customer, but I'm absolutely in your demographic -- to dismiss the concerns of people like us as 'haha, not my problem' is shortsighted and frankly pretty naive.

Again, if we're not the kind of people you meant, then fine. But it didn't read this way at all.

Thanks for stopping by.

Re: Hey Raena - There's more to NetRegistry's naughty nurses

Raena — Mon, 18 May 2009 00:41:24 -0000

Oh, I'm sure of it. Context changes a lot about what a particular message means or implies, too. Like I said, those posters or the nurses out of context are OK, but together... not really.

IT generally has a major image problem and I'm glad you want to address that.