First YDN video podcast with Jonathan Leblanc

Jonathan gives a few shout outs to the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library and my new book, Designing Social Interfaces.

The best part is when the host says he considers the Yahoo! Developer Network to be “the unsung hero of the Internet.”

The book has arrived!

the book has arrived!

Originally uploaded by erin_designr

We started our book proposal around June of ’08…

Smile! You're on candid skitch

Not a manga or mad man among them.

Slides from our mini-workshop at IDEA 2009

Erin and I presented a condensed run through the highlights from our social design patterns project and then debuted the beta of our Social Mania card game that aims to teach and facilitate discussions about these interrelated principles, patterns, and practices. Much chaos and hilarity ensued and we learned a lot about how to explain and teach the game and perhaps how best to play it as well.

Designing Social Interfaces: 5 steps, 5 principles, 5 anti-patterns

View more presentations from erin malone.

The new phone book is (almost) here!

The writing is over (for this edition), the book has “shipped to the printer,” and the cover mechanical (shown above, in its technicolor glory) is in the can. My tech writing career is now complete: an animal book with O’Reilly!

Presenting social patterns to patternistas at PLoP

Social Design For Patternistas

View more documents from Christian Crumlish.

Last week I was in Chicago for PLoP (Pattern Languages of Programs) 2009, co-located with the Agile conference. PLoP is a unique conference, in some ways more like a funky academic confab than a typical tech industry conference. Most of the time is spent in workshops, revising papers about patterns and reviewing small pattern collections. The rest of the time is spent debating fascinating philosophical questions and playing excellent ice-break games.

This year (my second PLoP) I presented an update on the social design patterns project geared towards people more familiar with the computer programming (aka “Gang of Four” or “Hillside”) design patterns, and then we workshopped chapter 3 of the book (the engagement design patterns).

Today's the last day to vote for my so-called SxSW panel

Erin and I want to get a bunch of people together at South by Southwest in Austin next March to play SocialMania, the card game we’ve just started beta testing. If that sounds fun, go (sign up and) vote one snaps up for SocialMania: Designing Social Interfaces – The Game.

Also, Dave Gray, myself, and a some other fantastic people are prepared to talk about the rise of the unbook (not the opposite of a book but an unfinished book, a deliberately never-finished book – Designing Social Interfaces is, to some extent, and unbook). I’ve been involved in publishing and technology since the late ’80s and have some thoughts to share from that perspective. Dave Gray and Jay Cross have really worked on this unbook idea in public, as it should be done, and Dave’s Marks and Meaning (current version is 0.5, I believe) is already a wonder.

One more plug: another collaboration with Dave Gray and a different lineup of heavies, including my colleague LukeW from Yahoo! as well as Aza Raskin from Mozilla and peeps from Microsoft and the Goog. The theme is Browsing the Future: Visualizing the Everywhere Internet and I believe Dave will be rapidly sketching the conversation in real time. The comments on that particular proposal and very encouraging.

Vote early and often, or rather just in the nick of time and just this once. Thanks.