Introductory interface talks are boring. More importantly, by neccessity, they are the same old content recycled. And recycled uselessly, to no end.

Because if the audience members were interested in interface design, they would already know the content of the talk. Or, to put it another way, if they didn’t already know the content of the talk, they clearly didn’t care.

So when I gave a talk last week at the Italian Perl Conference, in Pisa, Italy, I didn’t give the type of introductory interface design talk that you’d expect.

Instead, I gave a talk entitled: “Doing the Work”

In Doing the Work, I asked the following questions:

• What if software development was like Magnum, PI?
• What if software development was like a seesaw?
• What if software development was like a mathematical problem?

I could tell you more, but I don’t want to give away the punchlines.

The audio was recorded, so as soon as I get it, I’ll be setting it up with the slides for a more complete experience.

What do you think?

Where do you see opportunities to apply leverage?

Where’s the worst repetition in your everyday computing life?

What other software do you know, where all the competitors work exactly the same?

What tools help you multiply time?