I hope you’re well, given the circumstances. It’s been more than three weeks since my family began our new stay-at-home lifestyle. I can’t say it’s starting to feel normal, but at least we’re developing new behavior patterns.

For example, I’m no longer the only member of the family meeting with people over long video conferences. My pre-teen daughters have discovered Zoom rooms, where they’re meeting their friends. One of my daughters even played a game of Sorry! with a friend over FaceTime.

None of this is “normal,” but humans find ways. And we’re lucky to have digital communication technologies, which help us stay connected with our friends, families, colleagues, and the world. Yesterday, John Gruber made the following observation in his blog:

Feeling isolated? Cooped up? Me too. But imagine what this would’ve been like 30 years ago. This sort of crisis is what the internet was designed for, and it’s working.

Good point. Over the past few weeks, the primary question hasn't been whether we can do certain things online, but how we will do them.

I’m part of a privileged group of people who can work without having to move our bodies to other physical locations. (Perhaps you are, too?) I was already partly remote before the crisis, so adapting to the new reality hasn’t been that difficult for me.

Still, some activities have been easier than others. Regular work meetings have been relatively easy. Workshops, less so. Teaching has been the most challenging. But I’m making progress on all fronts. (I’m also wondering how the new skills I’m learning will change my work after the crisis is over.)

The premise of Living in Information is that we’re moving many of our critical interactions from physical places to digital places. The pandemic has dramatically accelerated that process. It’s also made us more aware of the importance of digital places.

As you adapt your activities to our new reality, consider how lucky we are to have technologies that allow us some degree of normalcy under these unusual circumstances.

Also worth your attention...

• Anna Goldfarb in The New York Times: “Whether you’re having a cozy chat with your far-flung besties, or plan on dropping in to a video chat room filled with dozens of strangers, here’s what to know about having a successful virtual happy hour.”
   
• The Harvard Business Review on how managers can support remote employees.
   
• Stephen Anderson on how to run successful remote workshops.
   
• Allan Chochinov on how to hold a virtual graduation ceremony.
   
• "Space, as it relates to infectious disease epidemics, isn’t just about quarantine; it’s also a design problem." Design in the age of pandemics.
   
• "Instead of focusing on the user, how might we instead design for whole, interdependent systems?" Alexis Lloyd on the unintended consequences of user-centered design.
   
• "More than an encyclopedia, Wikipedia has become a community, a library, a constitution, an experiment, a political manifesto—the closest thing there is to an online public square." Wikipedia as “the last best place on the internet.”
   
• Thoughts on Slack’s information architecture redesign.
   
• Spurred by the quarantine, I’ve been rethinking how I use social networks.
   
• The return of NASA’s mid-1970s “worm” logo as evidence for nostalgia for the future.
   

The Informed Life With Aynne Valencia

Episode 32 of The Informed Life podcast features an interview with Aynne Valencia. Aynne is my colleague at the California College of the Arts, where she is the former Chair of the undergraduate interaction design program. She’s also the Director of Design at San Francisco Digital Services, which designs digital experiences for the citizens of San Francisco and the city employees that serve them.

Prior to working in government and education, Aynne had a long trajectory in the private sector. In this conversation, we discuss the differences and similarities between business, government, and education. As you’ll hear, I was especially keen to learn if projects in these domains follow different cadences.

The Informed Life Episode 32: Aynne Valencia on Work Cycles

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P.P.S.: If you haven't done so already, please check out my book, Living in Information: Responsible Design for Digital Places. You can buy it from my publisher, Amazon, and other fine purveyors of the printed word.

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