Semantic Void

Edward De Bono, author of the book titled ‘Six Thinking Hats‘, theorized the Six Hat Thinking methodology. As stated in his book:

It is not possible to be presensitized in different directions at the same time just as it would not be possible to design a golf club that was the best club for driving and at the same time the best club for putting. That is why the Six Hats method is essential. It allows the brain to maximize its sensitivity in different directions at different times….The essence of parallel thinking is that at any moment everyone is looking in the same direction — but the direction can be changed. An explorer might be asked to look north or to look east. Those are standard direction labels. So we need some direction labels for thinking. What are the different directions in which thinkers can be invited to look?

This is were the hats come in. Each hat symbolizes a thinking direction. De Bono’s six hats are:

• White Hat: is neutral and objective, concerned with objective facts and figures.
• Red Hat: relates to intuition, emotions & opinion.
• Black Hat: is gloomy, and covers the negative - why things can’t be done.
• Yellow Hat: symbolizes brightness and optimism, indicating hope and positive thinking.
• Green Hat: focuses on creativity: the possibilities, alternatives and new ideas.
• Blue Hat: is concerned with the control and organization of the thinking process.

Thats all about the Six Hats. But where does Google fit in?

Lets take a look at the Google logo:

If we apply the Six Hat approach to interpret the logo, we get:

• 2 blues: signifying the unified and organized thinking process at Google.
• 2 reds: signifies that they value intuition, emotions, opinions of the users. Outputting innovative products by not just their brains but their hearts as well. This is evident from the simplistic and intuitive UI designs of Google Search and Gmail.
• 1 yellow: symbolizes their optimistic outlook, hoping that every new product would bring them one step closer to their ultimate aim and that is to organize the worlds information.
• 1 green: new ideas, alternatives, innovation…Well, thats Google

Conclusion

The above interpretation of the logo actually seems to be in sync with the current image of Google and the prevalent mindset of the average googler. Did I just unearth Google’s success formula?

Hope so

Last week we hosted the second BarCamp Pune. We received an overwhelming response wherein geeks flew down from all over India to participate. In fact, this time BarCamp Pune succeeded in obliterating international boundaries. Rahul Thathoo, a CS student from Stanford, presented his session from thousands of miles away. His session dealt with a bottom up approach to online advertising via discussion forums.

Watch his presentations on YouTube: Video1 Video2

Busy organizing, I managed to slip into a few of the sessions . I finally learnt how to build an eclipse plugin (had thought of doing that months back). There were some great presentations by folks from ThoughtWorks. They shared about their methodologies to agile project management. Their idea of organizing requirements in the form of storyboards really fascinated me. In fact, I now have my own storyboard at work. This certainly is a great way to keep the team updated with what you are working on and how you intend to accomplish it.

Angrez Singh, developer of FireWatir, showcased his latest work.

This time around we decided to do things a lil’ differently, hence we organized a dinner party after the event was done with. It was here that the we conceived the idea of organizing the ‘HackCamp‘ in the coming months. This event would cater to all the hackers, crackers and coders out there. No presentations. No sessions. Just pure code/mods/hacks. I’ll post more about this as soon as we get things going.

Don’t forget to check out the videos and pics from the event.