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	<title>Amir Khella &#187; All</title>
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		<title>How to prototype interactive iPad applications in 30 minutes or less using Apple Keynote</title>
		<link>http://blog.amirkhella.com/2010/06/16/how-to-prototype-interactive-ipad-applications-in-30-minutes-or-less-using-apple-keynote/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.amirkhella.com/2010/06/16/how-to-prototype-interactive-ipad-applications-in-30-minutes-or-less-using-apple-keynote/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 16 Jun 2010 17:57:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Amir</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[All]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[featured]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.amirkhella.com/?p=972</guid>
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How long does it take to go from idea to prototype that you can test with users? A month? A week? Few days? How about 30 minutes?
What if you can prototype your next idea quickly and cheaply without ...]]></description>
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<p>How long does it take to go from idea to prototype that you can test with users? A month? A week? Few days? How about <em>30 minutes</em>?</p>
<p><em>What if you can prototype your next idea quickly and cheaply without using any special wireframing or design tools? </em></p>
<p><em>What if you can send your prototype to friends to play with and give you feedback, without having to worry about uploading it to a server or making sure they have the right platform?</em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em>What if you can embed that interactive prototype within your product presentation, and click through it to show your audience how it works, rather than overloading their imagination with bullet points?</em></p>
<p>And what if you can do all this without writing a single line of code?</p>
<p>The challenge with existing prototyping tools is that they require you to become a designer in order to create a good looking, interactive prototype. By taking design out prototyping, you can focus on simply placing components on a page, editing their text, and create links between components and other pages. And contrary to popular beliefs, a prototype doesn&#8217;t need to look ugly or rough, especially if you&#8217;re presenting it to a prospective client or investor.</p>
<p><em><strong><span id="more-972"></span></strong></em></p>
<p>The video below shows a sample prototype created using Apple Keynote and <a href="http://www.keynotopia.com/" target="_blank">Keynotopia</a>&#8217;s iPad prototyping elements, without using additional graphics or tools. You can also see how I am testing the SAME prototype on an iPad, tapping my way through different screens and dialog.</p>
<p align="center"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="600" height="490" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/DOiCdZYVpqM&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="600" height="490" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DOiCdZYVpqM&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
<p><strong>Here are some screenshots of the graphics used in that presentation, which were all created in Apple Keynote.</strong></p>
<p><a rel="ibox" href="http://www.keynotopia.com/" target="_blank"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="a94f44d6-f2cf-48d3-a993-4613fdbd5eef" src="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/a94f44d6f2cf48d3a9934613fdbd5eef_thumb1.png" border="0" alt="a94f44d6-f2cf-48d3-a993-4613fdbd5eef" width="578" height="433" /></a></p>
<p><a rel="ibox" href="http://www.keynotopia.com/" target="_blank"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="754dd643-8b44-4e3f-8a5f-80d0f8d4371a" src="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/754dd6438b444e3f8a5f80d0f8d4371a_thumb1.png" border="0" alt="754dd643-8b44-4e3f-8a5f-80d0f8d4371a" width="578" height="433" /></a></p>
<p><a rel="ibox" href="http://www.keynotopia.com/"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="11e90a78-474c-4d29-9408-d26d76c8c6fc" src="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/11e90a78474c4d299408d26d76c8c6fc_thumb1.png" border="0" alt="11e90a78-474c-4d29-9408-d26d76c8c6fc" width="578" height="433" /></a></p>
<h3>So how can you create a similar prototype in 30 minutes or less?</h3>
<p>First, you will need to  <a href="http://www.keynotopia.com" target="_blank"><strong>get the Keynote Prototyping template</strong></a> , and install the file &#8220;iPad Prototype.kth&#8221; into &lt;UserName&gt; -&gt; Library -&gt; Application Support -&gt; iWork -&gt; Keynote -&gt; Themes. Alternatively, you can double click the file to open it in Keynote, and choose file -&gt; Save Theme. This will create a theme in Keynote that you can reuse to create new presentations, as shown below.</p>
<p><a rel="ibox" href="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/7ccf8415c9eb4021bec33151be3907d91.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="7ccf8415-c9eb-4021-bec3-3151be3907d9" src="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/7ccf8415c9eb4021bec33151be3907d9_thumb1.png" border="0" alt="7ccf8415-c9eb-4021-bec3-3151be3907d9" width="580" height="447" /></a></p>
<p>When you create a new presentation based on the <em>iPad Prototype</em> theme, you will see a single black slide. To access the assets, you need to go to the toolbar and click View -&gt; Show master slides.</p>
<p><a rel="ibox" href="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/514ba6ce44f247a19d03f516374d3e8d.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="514ba6ce-44f2-47a1-9d03-f516374d3e8d" src="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/514ba6ce44f247a19d03f516374d3e8d_thumb.png" border="0" alt="514ba6ce-44f2-47a1-9d03-f516374d3e8d" width="348" height="470" /></a></p>
<p>This will reveal the master slides panel above the slides panel, allowing you to click on a specific master slide and copy/paste assets into your slides.</p>
<p><a rel="ibox" href="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/0380afaf5d634beb8ca623c8fa1fed1b1.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="0380afaf-5d63-4beb-8ca6-23c8fa1fed1b" src="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/0380afaf5d634beb8ca623c8fa1fed1b_thumb1.png" border="0" alt="0380afaf-5d63-4beb-8ca6-23c8fa1fed1b" width="586" height="389" /></a></p>
<h4>Step 1: Drawing a blueprint</h4>
<p>To create your prototype, start by defining the different app screens that you will need and how the user will transition between them. I typically do this as a state diagram as shown below (Created on the iPad using Adobe Ideas).</p>
<p><a rel="ibox" href="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/bf67265d96854b6aacba92c074c818df.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="bf67265d-9685-4b6a-acba-92c074c818df" src="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/bf67265d96854b6aacba92c074c818df_thumb.png" border="0" alt="bf67265d-9685-4b6a-acba-92c074c818df" width="640" height="480" /></a></p>
<p>It&#8217;s important that you get this diagram right because it will save you time doing modifications to your prototype later on.</p>
<h4>Step 2: Putting together application screens</h4>
<p>Next, you create a new slide for each screen, and copy/past components from the masters into each slide (Select a master slide &gt; Select an object &gt; Select target slide &gt; paste object). Since all objects were created in Apple Keynote, they are fully editable (resize, change labels, change colors, add/remote elements, etc&#8230;). Each object is a group of building blocks that are grouped together. You can either double click on an object to select each sub-object, or ungroup using the Ungroup button on the toolbar, edit sub-objects, then group again. Grouping makes it easier to select and move objects.</p>
<p><em>Hint: After you&#8217;ve created each screen, you may find it at times easier to move the static components of that screen into its own master slide. That will save you time in making modifications in each slide if you decide to change something later.</em></p>
<p><a rel="ibox" href="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/5b565dc4d4d34c08ab409e6080874ee71.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="5b565dc4-d4d3-4c08-ab40-9e6080874ee7" src="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/5b565dc4d4d34c08ab409e6080874ee7_thumb1.png" border="0" alt="5b565dc4-d4d3-4c08-ab40-9e6080874ee7" width="603" height="451" /></a></p>
<p>After creating each screen, you duplicate (CMD+D) slides and add additional elements to them (pop-ups, fill text, &#8230;).</p>
<p><a rel="ibox" href="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/65874a06e27d4e3082cbb3fc49f2552e1.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="65874a06-e27d-4e30-82cb-b3fc49f2552e" src="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/65874a06e27d4e3082cbb3fc49f2552e_thumb1.png" border="0" alt="65874a06-e27d-4e30-82cb-b3fc49f2552e" width="595" height="442" /></a></p>
<p><a rel="ibox" href="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/dca8f2bcf0564bc6820aceee059547371.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="dca8f2bc-f056-4bc6-820a-ceee05954737" src="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/dca8f2bcf0564bc6820aceee05954737_thumb1.png" border="0" alt="dca8f2bc-f056-4bc6-820a-ceee05954737" width="597" height="447" /></a></p>
<h4>Step 3: Adding interactivity</h4>
<p>Finally, it&#8217;s time to create transitions between screens. You do this by going through your state diagram, and for each slide, select the element that would transition it to another slide. For instance, clicking a picture shows the profile pop-up, so you&#8217;d select the profile picture (you can select all pictures in the slide), and in the Inspector -&gt; Hyperlink select the target slide. Do this for every transition that you have in your state diagram. Keynote will add a blue indicator on each hyperlinked element in your slides.</p>
<p><a rel="ibox" href="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/1258da8c37ce42ff89c47e07ebb7cb9f.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="1258da8c-37ce-42ff-89c4-7e07ebb7cb9f" src="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/1258da8c37ce42ff89c47e07ebb7cb9f_thumb.png" border="0" alt="1258da8c-37ce-42ff-89c4-7e07ebb7cb9f" width="372" height="353" /></a></p>
<p><em>Hint: Keynote is smart enough to know when you rearrange your slide, and will keep track of the right slide you link to even if you change its sequence order.</em></p>
<p><em>Test your presentation frequently to double check that you&#8217;re hyperlinking the correct slides.</em></p>
<p>That&#8217;s it! You now have an interactive prorotype within your presentation.</p>
<h4>Test it on an iPad !</h4>
<p>If you&#8217;d like to test this prototype with users and see how they&#8217;d use it, you need to export it as QuickTime as shown below (This will prevent screens from automatically advancing if the user clicks a spot that&#8217;s not hyperlinked. You then open the prototype in QuickTime Player 7, and interact with it.</p>
<p><a rel="ibox" href="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/88729712c9e64c01a9d711fd83bbeadd.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="88729712-c9e6-4c01-a9d7-11fd83bbeadd" src="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/88729712c9e64c01a9d711fd83bbeadd_thumb.png" border="0" alt="88729712-c9e6-4c01-a9d7-11fd83bbeadd" width="592" height="413" /></a></p>
<p>If you&#8217;d like to test the prototype on the iPad, you need to export the prototype as <strong>PDF</strong>, email it to yourself or put it in DropBox, then open it on the iPad. In the video above, I use GoodReader to show the PDF file.</p>
<p><em>Hint: Unfortunately, the Keynote iPad app does not support hyperlinked navigation, so if you open this keynote file on the iPad it will only advance sequentially.</em></p>
<p><em><br />
<img src="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/themes/infocus/infocus/lib/scripts/thumb.php?src=http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Screenshot iPad Keynote Prototype 2.png&amp;w=612&amp;h=234&amp;zc=1&amp;q=100" alt="" /><br />
</em></p>
<p><em>Bonus Hint: Keynote has an automatic tweening/animation feature called Magic Move. If you want to have fun by adding animated transitions, fading pop-ups in and out, you can do so by copying and pasting the shape across two slides, select both slides then selecting the effect as shown below. I found this feature to be unpredictable at times.</em></p>
<p><em><br />
</em></p>
<p><a rel="ibox" href="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/3caaa13c10354ff6bceaf7663ceaa2a6.png"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" title="3caaa13c-1035-4ff6-bcea-f7663ceaa2a6" src="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/3caaa13c10354ff6bceaf7663ceaa2a6_thumb.png" border="0" alt="3caaa13c-1035-4ff6-bcea-f7663ceaa2a6" width="233" height="437" /></a></p>
<h4>Final Words</h4>
<p>Remember that a prototype doesn&#8217;t need to be perfect. It just needs to convey your idea better than your words do. Don&#8217;t over-engineer it, and don&#8217;t prematurely optimize it. Just put together something that users can see and play with. You will get many more insights than spending hours in focus groups, market research and surveys.</p>
<p>Next time you&#8217;re giving a pitch, remember to <em>show more and talk less. </em>If a picture is worth a thousand words, a prototype is worth a thousand pictures.</p>
<p>Creating prototypes is like doing magic: once you understand that all magic happens in the spectator&#8217;s mind, you can focus on bringing what matters to the audience. Everything else is a distraction.</p>
<p>If you think this tutorial is useful, or if you have any feedback or questions, leave me a comment below. I will do my best to reply to every single one of them.</p>
<p><a style="text-decoration:none;" href="http://bit.ly/keynotopia" target="_blank"><div class="download_box"> Click Here to Get the Keynote Toolkits</div></a></p>
<p><strong><div class="divider"></div></strong></p>
<h2>Update</h2>
<p>Wow! I didn&#8217;t imagine when I wrote this blog post that it will generate so much buzz and love in the blogosphere and the Twitterverse. In the past two weeks alone, more than 10,000 people read this post and more than 500 downloaded the iPad Keynote toolkit.</p>
<p>Having received so many requests to create a variation for the iPhone, I spent the past few days creating the most comprehensive <a href="http://www.keynotopia.com" target="_blank">prototyping toolkit for Keynote</a>. Over <strong>200</strong> assets total, all created in Keynote. The premise of this toolkit is to help anyone put together an interactive prototypes of their idea and test them with users in less than 30 minutes. The other benefit is to embed these prototypes in product pitches and demos, and be able click-through screens without leaving the presentation.</p>
<div id="_mcePaste" style="position: absolute; left: -10000px; top: 7872px; width: 1px; height: 1px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden;">Wow!Wow! I didn&#8217;t imagine when I wrote this blog post that it will generate so much buzz and love on the blogosphere and the Twitterverse. In the past two weeks alone, more than 10,000 people read this post and more than 500 downloaded the iPad Keynote toolkit alone.</div>
<div id="_mcePaste" style="position: absolute; left: -10000px; top: 7872px; width: 1px; height: 1px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden;">Having received so many requests to create a variation for the iPhone, I spent the past few days creating the most comprehensive wireframing and prototyping toolkit for Keynote. Over 100 assets total, all created in Keynote. The premise of this toolkit is to help anyone put together an interactive prototype of their idea and test it with users in less than 30 minutes. The other benefit is to embed these prototypes in product pitches and demos, and be able click-through screens without leaving the presentation.</div>
<div id="_mcePaste" style="position: absolute; left: -10000px; top: 7872px; width: 1px; height: 1px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden;">Here is a video of an apartment hunting</div>
<div id="_mcePaste" style="position: absolute; left: -10000px; top: 7872px; width: 1px; height: 1px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden;">I didn&#8217;t imagine when I wrote this blog post that it will generate so much buzz and love on the blogosphere and the Twitterverse. In the past two weeks alone, more than 10,000 people read this post and more than 500 downloaded the iPad Keynote toolkit.</div>
<div id="_mcePaste" style="position: absolute; left: -10000px; top: 7872px; width: 1px; height: 1px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden;">Having received so many requests to create a variation for the iPhone, I spent the past few days creating the most comprehensive wireframing and prototyping toolkit for Keynote. Over 100 assets total, all created in Keynote. The premise of this toolkit is to help anyone put together an interactive prototype of their idea and test it with users in less than 30 minutes. The other benefit is to embed these prototypes in product pitches and demos, and be able click-through screens without leaving the presentation.</div>
<div id="highlighted_text">iWork 09 is 60%+ off on Amazon today (down to $33 from $79). <a href="http://amzn.to/AmazoniWork  ">&gt;&gt;&gt; Grab it while it lasts</a>.</div>
<p><strong><div class="divider"></div></strong></p>
<div><strong><br />
</strong></div>
<p>Here is a video of an apartment hunting app prototype assembled with the toolkit and exported to the iPhone as PDF (displayed in GoodReader, which is the best PDF reader on iPhone/iPad).</p>
<div id="_mcePaste" style="position: absolute; left: -10000px; top: 7872px; width: 1px; height: 1px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden;">Here is a video of an apartment hunting</div>
</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="640" height="385" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1EZds-dA7I4&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640" height="385" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1EZds-dA7I4&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>
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		<slash:comments>29</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Docverse acquired: An Inspiring Success Story</title>
		<link>http://blog.amirkhella.com/2010/03/09/google-acquires-docverse/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.amirkhella.com/2010/03/09/google-acquires-docverse/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:45:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Amir</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[All]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[featured]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.amirkhella.com/2010/03/09/google-acquires-docverse/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Working with Docverse has been one of the highlights of my career. When I reconnected with Shan and Alex after they moved from Seattle to San Francisco, and heard their pitch, I got totally hooked by their vision for the product; what excited me wasn’t just how great their technology was, but how focused they ...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Working with Docverse has been one of the highlights of my career. When I reconnected with Shan and Alex after they moved from Seattle to San Francisco, and heard their pitch, I got totally hooked by their vision for the product; what excited me wasn’t just how great their technology was, but how focused they were on providing the most  intuitive and transparent user experience. When I asked them during the kick-off meeting about the limitation of current technology, they both answered &#8211; almost at once: “<em>Don’t be limited by what we have. Let’s focus on designing the best user experience, and technology will follow.</em>” And they delivered on every word in that promise. We always refined and picked the best designs to have, no matter how difficult they were to implement. This is the holy grail for any UX designer: to have a carte blanche for envisioning the best thing, knowing that there is a team of wizards who will make it happen.</p>
<p><span id="more-887"></span></p>
<p>What’s unique about <a href="http://www.fictiv.net/portfolio/docverse/" target="_blank">Docverse’s user experience</a> is that it never tried to change the way people did something. Instead, it tapped into people’s existing habits and workflows to provide them with easier, faster, and more secure way to share and collaborate on their documents. We carefully observed how people already used email attachments, how they changed and saved documents, and how they previewed and merged each other’s changes. Andwe <a href="http://www.fictiv.net/process/" target="_blank">brainstormed</a> for days at a time about how to make every part of that workflow better, without forcing users to do anything different, and sometimes without asking them to do anything at all. The best user experience was to have no user experience: the more transparent the product became, the more users were focused on the main task: editing a document together. It was the document, not the product, that’s always been the center of the universe.</p>
<p>Docverse just works.</p>
<p>I am grateful for having the opportunity to work with this amazing team, and being part of that great journey that started less than 18 months ago with a spreadsheet of ideas, to sketches and designs hanging all over the green walls of their Howard street office, to a functional product, and finally, to a successful <a href="http://blog.docverse.com/2010/03/05/googled/" target="_blank">acquisi</a><a href="http://blog.docverse.com/2010/03/05/googled/" target="_blank">tion</a>. It’s been a true rollercoaster ride through a unique and inspiring Silicon Valley success story.</p>
<p>I blame Docverse for raising the standards of what I will be expecting from technology teams to make a user experience, no matter how challenging, come to life.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img class="aligncenter" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; margin-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="Google Docverse" src="http://blog.amirkhella.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/GoogleDocverse2.png" border="0" alt="Google Docverse" width="348" height="85" /></p>
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		<title>Customer Development Hacked: How to find and interview 10,000 customers in one day</title>
		<link>http://blog.amirkhella.com/2010/02/24/customer-development-hacked-how-to-interview-10000-customers-in-one-day/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.amirkhella.com/2010/02/24/customer-development-hacked-how-to-interview-10000-customers-in-one-day/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:11:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Amir</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.amirkhella.com/2010/02/24/customer-development-hacked-how-to-interview-10000-customers-in-one-day/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If you’re creating a new product, a question might be lingering in your mind: How do you find the right customers to interview?
Here is one of the traditional methods for conducting customer interviews:
1. Make an educated guess about your target audience’s demographics
2. Look in your contact list and social network for people who might match ...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>If you’re creating a new product, a question might be lingering in your mind: <strong>How do you find the right customers to interview?</strong></p>
<p>Here is one of the <i>traditional methods</i> for conducting customer interviews:</p>
<p>1. Make an educated guess about your target audience’s demographics</p>
<p>2. Look in your contact list and social network for people who might match your criteria</p>
<p>3. Create an online survey and send them to these people. (better, ask them for a phone interview)</p>
<p>4. Ask for more recommendations and introductions.</p>
<p>The biggest flaw with this method is the assumption that your contacts provide a valid sample of your target audience; At best, you might get few answers that help you refine your questions, and your criteria for interviewing future, and at worst, you might end up believing the wrong answers because they happen to support your idea. </p>
<p>So what’s a better strategy?</p>
<p> <span id="more-873"></span>
<p><strong>Start with the tribe leader, because his voice is worth 10,000 voices</strong>. This person might be a bestselling author, a blogger, or one of the top consultant in the field. What&#8217;s important is that this person is seen as a leader and expert by your target audience; they listen to him, they trust his opinion, and they share their thoughts and feedback with him.</p>
<p>For instance, if you&#8217;re working on a new presentation tool, <a href="http://www.presentationzen.com/">Garr Reynolds</a> would be a great example. If you&#8217;re creating the next agile project management tool, <a href="http://blog.mountaingoatsoftware.com/">Mike Cohn</a> might be your guy. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that this expert is not just a tool expert, but a community expert as well. He uses best practices, works with the tools, and knows other people who use them.</p>
<p>Why is his voice worth 10,000 voices?</p>
<ul>
<li>He reads dozens of books on the topic, so he might save you the time to read them by sharing his insights and conclusions, or by recommending the most useful ones to read.</li>
<li>He interacts with your potential audience on a daily basis; he writes for them, he reads their comments, and he speaks to them in conferences and seminars.</li>
<li>His blog analytics provides him with great insights about the audience&#8217;s demographics, which he might be willing to share if you ask nicely</li>
<li>He knows other experts in the field that he can introduce you to</li>
<li>He knows his active readers, and can suggest some people for you to interview </li>
<li>He is a power user of other products in your market, and already knows what people like and dislike about them</li>
<li>He probably knows your potential competitors, and some of their current and previous employees</li>
</ul>
<p>Once you&#8217;ve identified the tribe leader, get in touch with him and ask for an interview. Keep in mind that his time is valuable, so you will need to find a good incentive to get his attention: If the person is offering consulting services, hire him. If he&#8217;s a second degree connection on LinkedIn, ask for an introduction from a common connection. If you&#8217;ve already started a blog on the topic &#8211; which is a great way to find early customers &#8211; then ask the expert if he&#8217;d like to be featured in an interview on your blog.</p>
<p>When you interview the customer expert, make sure you ask him questions about him and his audience. Keep your interview questions open-ended to give him a chance to share wisdom and insights that you didn’t ask about. Find out what his readers like and dislike, what they read, where they hang out, and what they buy. Ask him for introductions to other experts and active community members that you can interview later.</p>
<p>By working earlier with this community expert, you will find that he may be able to provide you with insights that would otherwise take you a long time ,and a large number of users, to get on your own. </p>
<p>And if you continue to work closely with the community expert, and you&#8217;re creating something that he (and his followers) care about, it&#8217;s likely that he&#8217;ll give you a good mention on his blog once you&#8217;re product is out. That&#8217;s probably worth 10,000 more voices.</p>
<p>Interviewing the leader is not a substitute for interviewing other tribe members, but it&#8217;s probably one of the best ways to get started.</p>
<p><i>This blog post was partly inspired by an insight from </i><a href="http://www.hulu.com/watch/117659/biography-tyler-perry"><i>Tyler Perry&#8217;s biography</i></a><i> (<b>recommended</b>), where he talks about the turning point in his career. After he&#8217;d exhausted all his financial resources seven years in a row, and couldn&#8217;t find audience for his plays, he finally went about it a bit differently: he visited the city’s churches and persuaded their most powerful musicians and choir members to take roles in the production of his plays. The opening night was one of the coldest nights in Atlanta, yet there was a line around the corner trying to get in the theater. His show sold out that night, and almost every night since then. Perry hired community leaders, and made them into cast members. That made all the difference.</i></p>
<h2  class="related_post_title">You might also like reading...</h2><ul class="related_post"><li><a href="http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/07/08/the-human-side-of-business/" title="The human side of business">The human side of business</a></li><li><a href="http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/10/24/the-monkey-trap/" title="The monkey trap">The monkey trap</a></li><li><a href="http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/09/09/our-testimonials-word-cloud/" title="Client testimonials&#8217; word cloud">Client testimonials&#8217; word cloud</a></li></ul>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Which moment does your product own?</title>
		<link>http://blog.amirkhella.com/2010/01/04/which-moment-do-you-own/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.amirkhella.com/2010/01/04/which-moment-do-you-own/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:03:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Amir</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[All]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Design]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.amirkhella.com/?p=856</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[During a pitch practice at the Founder Institute, I heard something that really captured my attention and  inspired me to think about product stories in a new way. After describing a scenario, the founder in the hot seat said:
&#8220;&#8230; I want to own that moment.&#8221;
I started thinking about which successful products own which moments in ...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>During a pitch practice at the Founder Institute, I heard something that really captured my attention and  inspired me to think about product stories in a new way. After describing a scenario, the founder in the hot seat said:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;&#8230; I want to own that moment.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>I started thinking about which successful products own which moments in my daily life. Here are some examples:</p>
<ul>
<li>&#8221; I want to share some files with my team&#8221;. DropBox owns that moment</li>
<li>&#8220;I&#8217;d like to show you how I am imagining this interface&#8221;. Balsamiq owns that moment</li>
<li>&#8220;I want to embed a form in my blog&#8221;. Wufoo owns that moment</li>
<li>&#8220;I want to create a cool slideshow for my website&#8221;. Animoto owns that moment</li>
<li>&#8220;I am starting a new client project&#8221;. BaseCamp owns that moment</li>
<li>&#8220;I&#8217;d like to know what my friends have been up to lately&#8221;. Facebook owns that moment</li>
<li>&#8220;I&#8217;d like capture some thoughts.&#8221;, Evernote owns that moment.</li>
</ul>
<p>You get the point.<span id="more-856"></span></p>
<p>Unfortunately, many products come out so bloated with features that it&#8217;s hard for them to own any specific moment. They are trying to offer too many features and several benefits that users are left wondering &#8220;<strong>When</strong> will I need this?&#8221;.</p>
<p>I believe that products should focus as much on <strong>WHEN</strong> as they focus on <em>what</em> and <em>how</em>. If your product is the first name that comes to mind at a specific moment, then you&#8217;ve owned that moment. And when you own a moment, you don&#8217;t just have a user; you have everyone involved in that moment.</p>
<h3>So how do you identify that moment?</h3>
<p>You can guess it, of course. But that&#8217;s not the best way to go about it.</p>
<p>One of my favorite activities is to ask users to think aloud while they are trying to accomplish certain task. I constantly encourage them to tell me what&#8217;s going on in their mind while they are looking at an interface or clicking through dialogs. <em>After</em> the task is done, I ask them more questions about that moment. Why were they struggling with that screen? What were they looking for? Why didn&#8217;t they try to accomplish it another way? What would have been the best way to accomplish that?</p>
<p>When I identify a recurrence of that moment, I make sure it goes into the user stories and is highlighted as a potential moment that the product can own. When marketing and sales are consistent with these stories, they can provide a clear message that will trigger the product&#8217;s name when someone finds themselves in that moment.</p>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>From corporate design to startup design: A love story</title>
		<link>http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/12/07/corporate-design-vs-startup-design-a-love-story/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/12/07/corporate-design-vs-startup-design-a-love-story/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 08 Dec 2009 04:07:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Amir</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.amirkhella.com/?p=818</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This is a story about a designer who left his corporate wife and fell in love with a startup chick.

View more presentations on SlideShare.

You might also like reading...The secret life of ideasEvery man dies, but not every man lives.The Apple Hierarchy of Needs]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<blockquote><p>This is a story about a designer who left his corporate wife and fell in love with a startup chick.</p></blockquote>
<div style="width:575px;text-align:left" id="__ss_2670992"><object style="margin:0px" width="575" height="450"><param name="movie" value="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=corporatedesigntostartupdesign-alovestory-091207215126-phpapp02&#038;rel=0&#038;stripped_title=corporate-design-vs-startup-design-a-love-story" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"/><embed src="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=corporatedesigntostartupdesign-alovestory-091207215126-phpapp02&#038;rel=0&#038;stripped_title=corporate-design-vs-startup-design-a-love-story" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="575" height="450"></embed></object>
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</div>
<h2  class="related_post_title">You might also like reading...</h2><ul class="related_post"><li><a href="http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/09/26/best-startup-advice-from-lao-tzu/" title="Useful advice from Lao Tzu">Useful advice from Lao Tzu</a></li><li><a href="http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/10/29/h7a30/" title="The Day Death Spared Me">The Day Death Spared Me</a></li><li><a href="http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/11/04/the-eagle-who-lived-as-a-chicken/" title="The eagle who lived as a chicken">The eagle who lived as a chicken</a></li></ul>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>The eagle who lived as a chicken</title>
		<link>http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/11/04/the-eagle-who-lived-as-a-chicken/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/11/04/the-eagle-who-lived-as-a-chicken/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:05:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Amir</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/11/04/the-eagle-who-lived-as-a-chicken/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[One day a young eagle fell off the nest and was picked up by a farmer. The farmer was kind enough to bring the small bird to his barnyard so that it doesn’t perish. The young eagle found a good home with the chicken and grew up believing he is a chicken. He waited for ...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>One day a young eagle fell off the nest and was picked up by a farmer. The farmer was kind enough to bring the small bird to his barnyard so that it doesn’t perish. The young eagle found a good home with the chicken and grew up believing he is a chicken. He waited for the farmer to bring food, he quacked when a chicken laid an egg, and he enjoyed running around and sitting in a hole in the ground on sunny days. Life was good and comfortable, and the eagle’s wildest adventure was to run under the fence with his friends to that cliff where they looked at the mountains and wondered what lied on their other side.<span id="more-184"></span></p>
<p>One day he was with his fellow chicken picking seeds off the ground when a shadow covered the sky above him. He lifted his gaze and was mesmerized by the sight of a beautiful eagle cruising the sky. Unlike other chicken that he saw trying to fly, this eagle didn’t seem to be making much effort. With his wings spread wide, he was flying smoothly and changing his direction with the slightest gesture. “Wow. Look at that!”, yelled the young eagle to his friends. “Who is that?”, he asked. “That’s an eagle”, replied a chicken. “He’s the king of the sky. But we belong here on earth. We are chicken.”, she continued. And the eagle staring at the bird disappearing in the horizon as if it was gliding on an invisible path that only he could see.</p>
<p>Days later, the old eagle was flying again over the barnyard and was stunned by the sight of an eagle running around with the chicken. He surged down to the ground. As the other birds saw him they ran back to hide in the house. He descended in front of the other eagle before he reached the door.</p>
<p>“What are you doing?”, asked the old eagle.</p>
<p>“What do you mean?”, answered the young one.</p>
<p>“What are you doing running around with chicken?”.</p>
<p>“I am a chicken. These are my brothers and sisters. I grew up with them.”</p>
<p>“No you’re not. You’re an eagle. You belong in the sky, not on the ground.”</p>
<p>“No I am not. I am one of them. All I know is to do as they do, and to eat what they eat. I can’t even fly.”</p>
<p>“You can’t because you never tried. But you’re an eagle, just like me”.</p>
<p>“Even if what you say is true, I’ve lived all my life as a chicken. I am not an eagle anymore&#8221;.”</p>
<p>“It’s the heart of an eagle that matters, not the way he lived or ate… Come with me”</p>
<p>The eagle took another look at his friends hiding in the comfort of home. “Don’t listen to him!”, yelled one of the chicken. “He is tricking you&#8221;,” said another. “ If you go with him, you will die!”. “ Come back and be with us”…</p>
<p>But deep inside the eagle’s heart, a faint voice told him what he needed to do. He took one more gaze at the barnyard where he spend all his life playing with his friends, then turned around and followed the older eagle.</p>
<p>A moment later, the arrived at the cliff he used to visit sometimes with his friends. They stood next to each other on the edge looking at the mountains in the distance. Without a second of hesitation, the old eagle jumped off the edge, spread his wings and soared upward.</p>
<p>The young eagle looked down the cliff and trembled. He’d never flown before. May be he would die. May be he should go back.</p>
<p>“Don’t look down.”, the old eagle said “Look up at the sky. Aim toward the sun. Give it a bit of faith.”</p>
<p>The young eagle lifted his sight up, spread his wings and leaped…</p>
<p>Back at the barnyard, the chicken heard a triumphant cry that ascended to heaven. Their feather trembled and they looked at each other without exchanging a word. They know they will miss their brother a lot. They know he might visit some day and tell them how it felt to fly. And they will gather around to hear his stories about the lands he visited. But for the time being, they would keep doing what they did best: living as chicken.</p>
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		<title>If you love something, give it away</title>
		<link>http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/10/31/if-you-love-something-give-it-away/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/10/31/if-you-love-something-give-it-away/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:39:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Amir</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[All]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.fictiv.net/?p=715</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There is very little for me to say after watching this.


You might also like reading...The Day Death Spared MeAdobe Flash Catalyst &#8211; First impressionsThe secret life of ideas]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>There is very little for me to say after watching this.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">
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<h2  class="related_post_title">You might also like reading...</h2><ul class="related_post"><li><a href="http://blog.amirkhella.com/2010/06/11/finding-the-g-spot-startup-lessons-from-lady-gaga/" title="Finding the G-Spot: startup lessons from Lady Gaga">Finding the G-Spot: startup lessons from Lady Gaga</a></li><li><a href="http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/12/07/corporate-design-vs-startup-design-a-love-story/" title="From corporate design to startup design: A love story">From corporate design to startup design: A love story</a></li><li><a href="http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/03/22/thank-you-bucky-personal-reflections-on-the-life-of-buckminster-fuller/" title="Every man dies, but not every man lives.">Every man dies, but not every man lives.</a></li></ul>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>The Day Death Spared Me</title>
		<link>http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/10/29/h7a30/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/10/29/h7a30/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:11:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Amir</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/10/29/h7a30/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Based on a true story
Traffic on the freeway slowed down to a halt that Friday evening. Everyone was coming from the same direction and going to the same destination. After a long sunny week, clouds were starting to gather, looking down at the streets in sarcasm, and preparing the town for another rainy weekend.
He stops ...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: right;"><em>Based on a true story</em></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Traffic on the freeway slowed down to a halt that Friday evening. Everyone was coming from the same direction and going to the same destination. After a long sunny week, clouds were starting to gather, looking down at the streets in sarcasm, and preparing the town for another rainy weekend.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">He stops his car few inches away from the one ahead of him. He glances at the infinite line of cars that disappears in the horizon and realizes that the week won’t let go that easily. He turns on the radio in search for some distraction from this moment. The same songs that were playing last week are playing again. He turns it off and glances up at the sky.<span id="more-142"></span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">“Are you kidding me?”, he groaned. He’s been waiting for this weekend, like every other weekend, with great anticipation. It’s been a long week. Long days with endless meetings where no decisions were made, frequent visits from his manager to inform him about what the next hours of his life should be spent on, and long emails written mostly to people who were sitting at the end of the same hallway.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">But today is different. He feels burnt out. He remembers the feeling when he stepped out of that building letting go a long exhale, as if he’s been holding his breath for the past 5 days. He felt like doing what he did back in school when the bell rang after a period of several boring classes in a row. He ran out of the classroom with everyone else and screamed their lungs out. He didn’t know back then why they were all doing this. But it felt good. Now he knows the nature of  what he was releasing with those screams. He knows that it was the only way of expressing how they all felt. But he cannot do it anymore. He’s a grown up now. And unlike children, grown ups know how to deal with reality.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">A series of honks brings him back to the scene he’s playing a role in. He notices that the car ahead of him moved forward few meters and the ones behind him were urging him to follow. It was as if everyone was trying to get as far as possible from where they are coming from. “Follow the follower”, he thought. He puts his car in gear and starts moving, but a glance at the fast moving exit lane on his right makes him realize that it’s best to take the inroads. He sneaks into the faster moving traffic, takes the exit, misses the yellow light flipping red and stops by the white line. He is often amazed at the amount of lines on the road. Lines separating one direction from another. Lines separating cars going the same direction. And lines dictating when he can turn and when he should just keep going. He;s always felt that as long as he followed the lines, he will reach his destination safely. And he rarely wondered who drew these lines in the first place. Someone who knows what they’re doing, probably… Hopefully.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Light is still red, and the ticking sound of his left turn blinker relaxes him a bit. It reminds him of the sound of that old clock hung on the wall in his grandfather’s house. As a kid, he used to spend long moments mesmerized by the fast moving needle. He once asked his grandfather “why is that red needle moving much faster than the other ones?”. His grandfather chuckled and replied: “because it’s got much more important things to do!”. And he replied back: “I can’t wait till I grow up! I have very important things to do”. The ticking sound of the blinker is different than that of the clock. It ticks twice, instead of once. Two quick ticks, a second of silence, and then two more quick ticks, and so on. One tick in farewell of the second that passed, and another welcoming the one to come. And before one knows it, the next click signals the end of that last second, followed by another for the future one. And between one tick and the other, now happens. His attention shifts from the ticks to the silence between the ticks. And the more he becomes aware of that silence, the longer that silence feels. It was the same silence between the ticks of his old grandfather’s clock. The same silence that mesmerized him as a kid. That eternal moment between the past and the future.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">He’s brought back to reality with another series of honks. He sees that his light is now green and he’s holding back a line of cars behind him. He puts his car in gear, presses the gas pedal, and the car starts moving forward. Then the car suddenly stops, urging his body to jolt forward and stop under the pressure of his seatbelt. “What the…?”. The car is still on, no gas or battery lights, it’s in the right gear, and his foot is on…. His foot is now on the brake! He stares for a second at his foot that just made its own mind to release the gas pedal and hit the one next to it. Then with the corner of his eye he feels a slight motion to his left. He lifts his head and sees it coming. The old rugged Honda was cruising at 40 mph, crossing the red light, and approaching in a straight line that ends on his side of the car. He sees the car crossing the white intersection line without slowing down. The license plates reads H7A30.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">He read  before that during moments of danger, time stretches almost indefinitely. He also read that when one is coming to his final moment, he will see all his life playing back in front of his own eyes.Like a movie. And now, he is experiencing both. The volume of everything around him decreased to a mute. The speed of all things slowed down to a pause. Even his blinkers gasped one more tick and stopped. There were no two ticks this time around. Just one last tick. The past. Then he saw it all. He saw every moment in his life flashing. Everything he said. Everyone he met. Every place he’s been to. They weren’t flashing quickly. Feeling that something was quick requires time. At that moment, there was no time. These moments were just there. He saw his childhood moments. His first day at school. His first kiss. His graduation. His first day on a plane. His new job. He saw how some small things he did made big impact on others, and some big things he did made no impact whatsoever. He saw how simple moments stretched to fill more of his life, and how years of doing the same things he despised were not even there, as if they didn’t count. And he sees a man in the middle of all these moments. He was standing in front of a closed door with his back toward him. As the man slowly turned around to face him, he was still staring at his back. In that place where time didn’t exist, his fear had no face. He’s been the one placing masks on that face all his life. He’s been giving him his voice. The voices of many others. And when he didn’t find a voice to cast, he created new voices for him. This time, he didn’t have a voice at all. He was just standing there. And he knew the things that were behind that closed door. All the things he’s dreamt about doing. All the things he’s always enjoyed doing and ended up gathering dust in his life basement. All the things that he thought he would have time to do later, when he gets more time. Everything he’s imagined himself to be and do when he was a kid. And all the things he’s been always itching to do and has been rationalizing why he should be doing other things instead. He always thought he’d have more time…</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">He moves forward to open the door. His fear doesn’t stop him this time around. He passes through his fear as if it were a ghost, and as he does, he merges with him. In this moment, as he became fear, he sees it all. He feels how weak and powerful he is, how small and huge he became, and how hated and loved he felt. He grabs the door knob and turns it around. The door is suddenly sucked into the void behind it, and a flood of light came through it.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Light. Lots of light…  He closes his eyes to shield them from the bright scene in front of him. And as he does, his ears are suddenly deafened by the sounds around him. It was as if he was coming out of the womb, and everything around him was so bright and loud. Loud screams. Not human screams. They sounded like alien screams. more like loud squeaking. And the feeling of a cold breeze touching his ear.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">All at once his senses come back to him. He is sitting in his car looking at the tires of the red Honda as they just crossed the white line and started screeching over the dry asphalt. He glances up at the driver and their eyes met for a second. Then the Honda driver tries to steer his car away from the collision course. The red car is now gliding over the road, still approaching at a deadly speed, but slowly curving away from its previous destination. All this is happening in slow motion, and he is watching it the same way he watches a movie: he is a detached observer. With his hands still on the steering wheel and his foot on the brake, he watches the other car drifting past his front bumper and missing it by an inch. His car shakes for an instant when the air between both cars is strongly disturbed, then the other car spins and stops in the middle of the road.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">The next moment feels as if someone just hit the pause button on the playing scene: total stillness and complete silence. None of the cars stopped at the intersection is honking. Everyone seems to be here now. No one is thinking about what happened at work, or what will happen at home. They are all experiencing a moment out of time. And everyone is waiting for someone else to move. As his foot decided to hit the brake few seconds earlier, it now leaves it to gently press the gas pedal. The car starts moving, and he finally takes that left turn and hears the blinker latching off. He glances in his rear view mirror at the scene behind him: no one is moving yet. The red Honda was now stopped in the middle of the intersection, facing the opposite direction it came from after spinning 180 degrees. He glances at the licenses plates in his rear view mirror and smiles. Few drops of rain show up on his windshield. He looks up at the clouds and smiles even wider. Rain never felt so good.</p>
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		<title>The monkey trap</title>
		<link>http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/10/24/the-monkey-trap/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/10/24/the-monkey-trap/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 24 Oct 2009 16:20:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Amir</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.amirkhella.com/?p=132</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There is a popular method used in the East to capture monkeys. The hunters place a bunch of bananas in a bowl with a narrow opening at the top, and they fix the bowl somewhere in the jungle. A monkey passes by and notices the smell of banana coming from the bowl. He inserts his ...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>There is a popular method used in the East to capture monkeys. The hunters place a bunch of bananas in a bowl with a narrow opening at the top, and they fix the bowl somewhere in the jungle. A monkey passes by and notices the smell of banana coming from the bowl. He inserts his small arm through the narrow hole, grabs a banana and pulls his hand out. But the hole in the bowl is too narrow for his fist holding banana to pass through. The monkey tries pulling harder but he only hurts his wrist against the sharp edges of the bowl. In the meantime the hunters are approaching slowly and confidently. They see the monkey struggling frantically and they smile at the sight they&#8217;ve witnessed hundreds of times before. The monkey is holding on to the banana so hard that it&#8217;s impossible for him to realize that it is the one thing that is standing between him and his own freedom.<span id="more-132"></span> All he needs to do is to let go of it and he&#8217;s free. The hunters are now few feet away. At this point most monkeys start screaming and pull their arms so hard that they faint from pain even before the hunters reach them. And there are few monkeys who surrender to the fact that the hunters are going to capture them when they see them coming. They just sit next to that bowl accepting that destiny. And in relaxing to that destiny, their hands let the banana slip and they are surprised to see that they are free when they stopped trying to be free.<br />
There are even fewer monkeys who smell the banana, look at the bowl for a bit and start to think: why would someone place bananas in a bowl and leave them out in the open? When something is too good to be true, most often it is not. These few monkeys feel that there must be enough bananas up the trees. And even though it would take them a lot more effort to climb many trees where no banana would be found, it&#8217;s not worth giving up their freedom and reach for the ones inside the bowl.<br />
Some of them end up finding enough banana to survive on. Fewer find a tree where no monkey has been before, and it&#8217;s got enough banana to feed them for life. Many others struggle to find enough banana to eat for the day. And some perish in search for their own bananas. But even those who didn&#8217;t find any banana up a tree agree: the view from that tree top was like nothing they&#8217;ve seen before.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">
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		<title>Listening</title>
		<link>http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/10/11/listening/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/10/11/listening/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:49:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Amir</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.amirkhella.com/2009/10/11/listening/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Today I asked myself: Whom am I listening to?
Every day, I am presented with dozens, if not hundreds, of voices and opinions.
The voices of news anchors, journalists and bloggers.
The voices of book authors and narrators.
The voices of actors and show hosts.
The voices of my teachers.
The voices of my family and friends.
And the voices of my ...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Today I asked myself: <em>Whom am I listening to?</em></p>
<p>Every day, I am presented with dozens, if not hundreds, of voices and opinions.</p>
<p>The voices of news anchors, journalists and bloggers.</p>
<p>The voices of book authors and narrators.</p>
<p>The voices of actors and show hosts.</p>
<p>The voices of my teachers.</p>
<p>The voices of my family and friends.</p>
<p>And the voices of my past and future.<span id="more-131"></span></p>
<p>All these voices present a pointer to some truth, but the truth itself waits to be <span style="text-decoration: underline;">real</span>ized. It&#8217;s not real unless it&#8217;s within me.<br />
That&#8217;s why I usually don&#8217;t get someone&#8217;s advice until I personally have an experience that I can reflect upon and realize.</p>
<p>Most of these voices don&#8217;t present truth, but they show opinions. Mostly second hand opinions.</p>
<p>But within me, I always had a faint voice. One that&#8217;s very hard to hear unless I turn down all other voices, including my own, and sit quietly.</p>
<p>That voice always knows something that I don&#8217;t, and it&#8217;s been trying to tell me all along.</p>
<p>And this voice has been right every single time.</p>
<p>I experienced the bliss of following that voice when I trusted it without questions,</p>
<p>and the miseries when I let my mind interfere, rationalize, and tried to find a better alternative to that voice.</p>
<p>And sometimes that voice is very loud. Loud enough to save my life from a definite danger.</p>
<p>Like that day I was driving through an intersection and this voice yelled &#8220;STOP&#8221;. I obeyed, and I found a car running the red light and heading toward my side of the car, missing it by less than an inch and spinning in the middle of the road to a stop.</p>
<p>I remember how loud that voice used to be when I was a child. Loud and clear. It told me at every moment what I needed to do.</p>
<p>Even before I remember understanding a spoken language, that voice communicated without words.</p>
<p>Then I learned how to speak, and how to listen.</p>
<p>And I started listening to everyone, and everyone never stopped speaking.</p>
<p>And that voice retreated in a corner inside me waiting for a moment of silence to be heard again.</p>
<p>Most of these moments came when I am doing something that&#8217;s either relaxing, or requiring my full attention.</p>
<p>And I started to understand and respect the mysterious nature of that voice, even when it doesn&#8217;t make sense.</p>
<p>And the fact that it communicates beyond knowledge. It communicates truth.</p>
<p>Not universal truth. Not agreeable or rational truth.</p>
<p>My truth.</p>
<p>It mentions places, people, things to do, and things not to do. Then it falls silent, waiting for me to show a bit of faith before it speaks the next truth.</p>
<p>And that leap of faith is all that voice needs to start speaking again.</p>
<p>And I learned that I cannot sit down and wait for it to tell me everything before I start moving.</p>
<p>I need to move. To act. And when I do, I feel it gaining more courage, and more volume to speak a bit louder.</p>
<p>Sometimes I doubt it and think that it may be just <em>my own voice. </em>But I go back and realize that there is no way I could have known the things that voice is telling me.</p>
<p>Listening to that voice makes me feel like a kid again. Connected to mystery rather than just knowledge. Comfortable with the uncertainty of tomorrow, rather than trying to create a plan for it. Knowing that I do have a companion, a mentor, who knows everything and will reveal the truth at the right moment.</p>
<p>When asked &#8220;<em>If there is heaven, what would you like to hear God saying when and if you go to there?</em>&#8220;, Steven Spielberg replied &#8220;<em>Thank you for listening&#8221;.</em></p>
<p style="color:#008;text-align:right;">
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