I'm a big Boston sports nut. And, as cliched as the sports metaphor may be for discussions on teamwork, there are lessons to be learned from the collapse of the Red Sox, which was the worst in baseball history and has ongoing and transformative consequences for the organization. There were, of course, many reasons for the losing streak that took the Red Sox from a healthy lead of nine games in the AL wild card race to the low point of their 2011 season, where they dropped out of playoff contention entirely.

In this age of ubiquitous information, knowledge workers and organizations can be overwhelmed, even paralyzed by the mass of data presented to them daily, unable to make sense of it all. Our ability to collect data has increased exponentially as our lives and careers have become increasingly digitized. From e-commerce transactions to bodybug health sensor info to digital video capture, we produce more data than we can hope to consume. We have too much information to analyze and don't quite have all the right tools to do it yet.

Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our links round up.

Tech Talent Wars: Boston
The Talent Wars are heating up in Boston, as tech companies of every kind, from start ups to Fortune 500 firms, unload their best artillery fire in the recruiting battle. One of the most original recruitment efforts in the fight so far comes from the rapidly growing, venture funded HubSpot, which is trying to encourage software developers at big companies to make a "prison break" for HubSpot's hipper environs. Of course, Boston and the surrounding tech burbs are filled with many of the aforementioned large company "prisons" for devs to break out of, and HubSpot is willing to make it worthwhile for experienced talent, with a $1K bonus for each year spent at a big firm. A 20-year veteran of an enterprise software giant could stand to get the equivalent of a new car as a signing bonus … not too shabby. Whether other cash rich, talent strapped companies in Boston will counter HubSpot's aggressive move remains to be seen, but it's clear that the war for development brainpower is escalating in Beantown, with no end in sight.

At Involution, our software design methodology approximates that of the industrial design process: Designers take an overall, system wide view of the product, and are responsible for specifying, as much as possible, the final form and function. This means that, just as an industrial designer understands her materials, be they metal or silicon, so too must the software designer understand his, be they pixels or code. Ours is a rigorous and broad perspective, which requires that the designer be fluent with everything from concept sketching to pixel pushing to prototype coding. In the end, asking a user interface designer to understand all of these parts of the process gives them a powerful set of tools for creating effective and beautiful software, which is always our goal. And while taking this path to creation can be challenging, we find it yields positive results.