In his presentations and writings, Matthew May is a passionate advocate for elegance. In an era where civility seems to be increasingly in short supply, the pursuit of elegance might just bring us all a richer life.

It may be instructive to say, for those who might reflexively object, what elegance is NOT. Elegance is not necessarily formality. Elegance is not always stoic. Elegance is not necessarily traditional or tradition-bound. Elegance is not, perhaps above all, unfriendly or off-putting. In fact, just the opposite.

Elegance is warm and friendly, Matthew May says it’s seductive. I think if we have experienced elegance, we know it is so.

And, because it is so true that the enemy of elegance is not complexity but excess, I stop there.

The Consumer Electronics Show featured some very interesting coming technologies. One struck me… gesture technology.

As demonstrated, gesture technology enables a user to make hand motions in front of a properly equipped device to replace remote controls, or mouse movements, or keyboards and the like. In other words, make a specific hand motion in the air in order to advance to the next channel on your TV. Pretty cool.

This peek at the future, also prompts some reflection on the wider realm of human gestures. How many gestures do we make a day? For what purpose, and toward whom? How precise and careful are we about our gestures?

Seems like gestures are a pretty powerful way to communicate… powerful enough to now spawn a new technology. Perhaps we might want to be more thoughtful and considerate with all the gestures we make… even before the day when they activate technology.

A renowned Christian theologian, Ignatius of Loyola, developed a discipline of prayer for the religious community he founded — the Jesuits — called “The Spiritual Exercises.”  There is a nearly perceptible magnetic pull, for some of us anyway, toward a system, a framework, a set of useful exercises.

As the end of the year draws near, one exercise I would recommend is pondering two directions — backward and forward. And what a wonderful exercise it is to look back on the recent past, and to look forward to the immediate future. This exercise, in many ways a spiritual one, bestows a great gift to us… the gift of perspective.

There are some who would contend that nearly every significant decision error humans can make is really an error of perspective.

‘Tis the season to look back, and look ahead… to enrich our perspective.

It isn’t just design thinking that requires the rigor of discipline. It’s simply good business.

Steve Jobs has said of his company, Apple Inc. “We don’t know how to build a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk.”

Especially in demanding economic conditions, it takes rigorous discipline to not cave, to stay true to your essence, your brand. The temptation to cut prices, to lower standards, to sacrifice fair margins is intense. It requires disciplined leadership, not merely in design, but in every corner of the business.

Jim Collins calls it the ‘discipline to discard.’ Jonathan Ivie calls it ‘knowing what to leave out.’ Matthew May says ‘have something missing.’

No matter what you call it, all the current talk about design thinking and using design as a platform for ‘non-design’ pursuits comes down to a discipline. It’s so tempting to not want to miss out on an opportunity, that we’re fond, it seems, of throwing even the kitchen sink into the mix.

The discipline to exclude in order to achieve design excellence is really an act of confidence and courage. The confidence that our solution is the right solution, the courage to advance it into the unknown of public critique.

It’s the technology, in one application, that displays the down and yardage on your television display as if it is painted on the field. It’s also the technology that will enable you view a street scene through your iPhone camera and see posted restaurant reviews/ratings for all the eating establishments on that particular city street. Augmented reality is pretty exciting stuff.

And that’s just the beginning, it appears. There is work in progress to apply this technology to a wide range of life experiences, media, and services. It could be very exciting.

It’s name — Augmented Reality — also, in my view, begs some larger issues. Before we embark on augmenting the reality around us, there would seem to be a screaming need to improve our very grasp of the reality around us. One of the pitfalls of emerging technology is that it often gets out ahead of our human capacities. This is not an argument to slow down, or even limit, technology. It’s perhaps the clarion call to advance more rapidly and thoroughly our human capacities. Augmented reality challenges us to be better at reality itself.

If you’ve tried to visit this blog in the past weeks, you’ve either found it unreachable or without new content. An explanation is in order.

The Vox Blog was infected with a vicious automated virus/worm that perplexed even my loyal and diligent technical wizard. H1N1 notwithstanding, this was a tough one to get past. The virus kept taking down the site. Currently, you’ll see past blog postings but no comments, and no accurate dating for the postings. We’re working on it.

It’s maddening that I’ve been a victim of a faceless vandalism, and now an expensive remedy. There are probably numerous lessons about the nature of our digitally connected world, and I’ve not begun to sort all of them.

However, it seems even more important to not back away from the opportunity to speak and write and engage ideas. So I won’t.