January 29th, 2008
So the guy who just doesn’t care has started a local phenomena called emotion socks (see he really cares!). This is a form of twittering where you express your mood in terms of socks. For example say its raining and you are feeling down. You might express this as “Im sitting in the house with my rain is depressing socks on”. Perhaps you are excited to go to a the big super bowl game this weekend on you might state “I’ve got my going to watch the patriots demolish the giants socks on”. Going to see the Phoenix Suns? You might say “Changing in to my purple and orange phx suns socks.” You get the picture.
So Sunny Thaper requested that kThxTees offer Integrum branded business time socks. Well this just isn’t practical, but we think we have something worked out for biz time Nike shoe line!
January 21st, 2008
So we broke for quick lunch. We had sat with Matt Browne and Chris Abad from Integral Impressions. We then went a working lunch on architecture. I used to want to be an architect and have a father in-law that is a well known architect. So, I will save you and not go into detail about how much I loved this session as I am sure I might have been the only one in the building that loved it. I learned a ton about Mies and Rem
After this enlightenment Jim Coudal took the stage. What a great personality and stage presence. I could listen to Jim talk all day. He is just a fun guy. He showed this great video about being less than focused. The great thing is that he emphasized that it’s okay! You learn a lot in failure and success. Short attention spans are NOT necessarily bad. Use them to your advantage.
He mentioned that a good strategy is to fail a lot. Client work is a good way to develop your craft on someone else’s dime. When looking to do a product evaluate on three things…
- Can we make money?
- Can we be proud of it?
- Can we learn something new?
The items are not mutually exclusive. It is important to balance financial items and satisfaction. You have to constantly adjust to where you are at. It is okay to not know what you want.
The day wound down with a panel session of all presenters fielding questions. It largely had a lot to do with stealing. Jason voiced that it pisses him off when people steal 37 signals work and Carlos voiced that he feels similar to the RIAA in his views of protecting his work. Largely this whole conversation grossly turned me off as I am very liberal when it comes to copyright. I realize that these guys are largely talking about gross theft which I am against, but they portrayed it poorly.
I am sure there is tons that I missed as I feel so wordy just writing down a three part series. Overall, I enjoyed the conference and got a lot out of it.
January 21st, 2008
After a quick break, we started back up with a talk from Jason Fried of 37 Signals. He talked about how he originally started Spin Free and then partnered with Carlos Segura to form 37 Signals. He outlined 10 things that impede us from success. I will note that the power went out during this presentation and he performed flawlessly in working right through it without missing a beat. Additionally he did excellent at fielding questions. I really must say he quite a good speaker.
1. The great unknown
Don’t get wrapped up in a 5 year plan or complex financial projections. Be opportunistic. Avoid product roadmaps and don’t be afraid to wing it.
2. Red flags
These words should scare you (need, easy, only, can’t, just and fast). DANGER WILL ROBINSON
3. Worrying about things that don’t matter (yet)
Pixels and polish, the what if’s, parternships, customization, etc. The longer it takes to develop something the less likely you’ll launch it. (OH SO TRUE)
4. When is enough, enough?
You need to use it. Cover basic needs.
5. Too many cooks.
Work expands to fill people/time/resources available. If it takes more than 2 or 3 people the scope is probably too big. Expand to the edge before growing.
6. Not enough cooks.
This could be a blog post in and of itself. This was the big take away for me. Good chef’s become great by sharing their secrets, teaching others, promoting, educating and sharing what they are known for.
7. Interruption is the enemy of productivity.
It was interesting to see Jim Coudal’s almost contrarian response to this.
8. Passive vs active communication.
Communication usually fails, except by accident. Passive means like IRC, Campfire, IM and email work better than things like direct interruption (should tapping). When you write, you think! Passive tends to be shorter and more to point.
9. Meetings are toxic
They focus on symptoms rather than causes and should be a last resort. Meetings are costly. No such thing as a 1 hour meeting. Ten people in a 1 hour meeting is a 10 hour meeting.
10. Make tiny decisions
This is like judo, break down everything into very small decisions. Small decisions are easy to undo. They create progress which is great for morale. Tiny decisions prevent large mistakes. Move quickly.
Jason talked a bit about sustainable pace (in different terms). He favors small projects released regularly. Eventhough all 37 signals products were down during this talk he was very composed. Again I was impressed. He urged people to “eat their own dogfood” and engage in self marketing of their products.
January 21st, 2008
Last week I spent time with Ruinous in Chicago, IL for the SEED Conference. I figured I would give a quick recap and some random thoughts. The conference had a good pace and an interesting feel. I suspect people either left really inspired and excited or completely and utterly bored. I have never been an overwhelming fan of 37 Signals so while I was excited to attend, I wasn’t sure what to expect.
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We rode the Red Line from Hotel 71 to Illinois Institute of Technology and found out that it probably added 3/4 of a mile to our walk. Normally this would be no big deal, but with the sub-zero weather it was not fun. Upon arrival we quickly got greeted by two folks and handed a Field Notes journal. I grabbed a bagel and OJ. Got situated and headed into the auditorium for the conference to begin. The crowd was noticeably different than that of Rails Conf . Average age was probably late twenties/early thirties and a mix bag of designer/coder/entrepreneur.
Jim Coudal started by introducing Carlos Segura. It was interesting to note that Carlos was an original partner in 37 Signals. He talked about several case studies and ventures he has been associated with. He was inspiring in noting that recognizing your surroundings and not discounting how difficult that is to do is what helps him succeed. He had several slides about man hole covers to illustrate this. One of my favorite quotes from Carlos was “Communication that doesn’t take a chance, doesn’t stand a chance”. The message was to push the envelope. He talked about a brand being a statement. That Volvo stands for safety, BMW for engineering, Ferrari for performance… What the hell does FORD stand for?
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He highlighted how he put this to work in the Rock Shox The Earth is not Flat campaign. I was hands down floored by how much detail went into this campaign. The attention to detail and authority he demanded to make it work was awe inspiring. He transitioned into his work with Corbis and how important it is to convey connection, personality, emotion and value. That it is important to be committed in same fashion as a team member.
He touched on fact that he thought print was not dead and that people like physical things. This was great because I would hate to see my beloved books become extinct. He really emphasized that his brand is TRUTH. Nothing is free, nothing is easy and you have to work hard to make it. He challenged pricing by asking customers what their budget was and then determining if he could achieve the results they wanted within those constraints. This is an approach we have long talked about and I really like. I liked Less Than Allan’s comment about real estate on this subject. I really would like to do a separate blog post on that.
He started to wind down the presentation by stating that you have to build trust with your customers. The easiest way to do this is in the little things (being on time, being honest, etc). He rightfully pointed out that the customer is irrelevant in doing the work and that really we are advocates of the target. This is always difficult, but paramount to recognize. Be upfront in the beginning while you are still friends was a common theme. He hinted that you need to create your space and your environment. You can’t do everything, you have to apply sense and sensibility and be detailed in your craft. Bring in outside resources as necessary.
Last but not least. Consciously manage your brand. A quality brand is a lot like personal hygiene. It takes a lot of effort to be good. Check back for Part 2 and Part 3 later.
January 21st, 2008
So this last week I attended the SEED Conference in Chicago, IL. I hope to post about it in more detail later. One thing I did was Twitter Track the word seed during the conference. This morning I went to all the twitter pages of everyone that twittered about seed over last 5 days. I then went to the home page listed in their twitter account and subscribed to the RSS feed. I then quickly generated an OPML file of the feeds. You can download it and import to your feed reader of choice. If you attended SEED and want to be added to the OPML feed just comment to this post.
January 15th, 2008
So the master designer whipped up a new blog theme for me. Loving it’s simplicity and clean look. PLUS it has RED. You can NOT go wrong with RED. Thanks Matt!
January 15th, 2008
So in an effort to get out the office (and house) a bit more and do real life networking instead of that phenomena known as “social networking” in the digital world I have been attending more local events.
It started with an informal twitter meetup lunch at the Sonoran Brew House. It was a great intimate meeting with about 15 tweeters. I got to meet lots of new people and have good dialog with old friends. Arizona’s Premier Business Photography company was on hand to capture the event.
I missed the Phoenix Refresh meeting, because I was celebrating my wife’s birthday (and Elivs’ too). Erica Lucci has a recap.
The next day I got a word that the AZ Groups tech lunches were opening an south east location. So several of us stopped by and checked out the action at a packed Chipotle’s It was nice to meet several people from the .NET world and hear about what is new and exciting on the other side. Lots of curious questions about ruby and rails.
That Thursday was Social Media Club. This was a bit of a drive for me and I had very limited time because had kids to drop off and pickup. This was a whole new crowd of people with a very different feel. The event was held in the offices of Jobing.com and featured Jody Gnant. I learned a lot about U stream and lifecasting in general. I started a Club Integrum stream to host our Thursday Dance Parties.
I rounded out the week with an unscheduled visit to TweetupAZ. I didn’t plan on attending because of my schedule but it worked out perfect to stop by for an hour on the way back to theqc. This event was huge (over 50 people) and had tons of great conversation. It was very non technical but very social. Good times.
I missed the Ruby AZ meeting yesterday, but will be attending the Phoenix Rails meeting today. Then tomorrow it’s off to Chicago, IL for the SEED Conference.
Add to this 3 or 4 great technical lunches that have been fundamental in bouncing a new idea and you have a recipe for a great month already, but of course Arizona is technologically dead and there is no community here. ; )
January 7th, 2008
Several weeks back some arizona rails consultants headed to Streamers for lunch. We go there rather regularly because the food is good and there are several things on the menu that a bit quirky and favorites of the team. As noted before, I am trying to take everyday life experiences and relate them how to run a company better.
It seems like every visit someone comments that the menu is hideous. It has pastel colors exploding all over the page and there is so much content in horrible fonts that is amazing you can even read it. The menu is just overwhelming with choices. This started to get me thinking about how maybe they have TOO many choices and with a cleaner design perhaps they would do better.
However, after a lot of pondering on this subject, I’m crazy like that. How are they still in business? Why do we go there? The truth is the atmosphere is pretty nice and the food is great. In all honesty, they get most of their traffic off repeat business and word of mouth referrals. Come to think of it everyone on the team orders on advice of what others have had. I mean how else do you decide to order the “Quatro Fromaggio” out of the endless list of sandwiches? I think that being focused and having a clean design is extremely important in the software world, but in reality delivering business value and making the customer happy is still ulitimately king.
If you have been to a Quiznos lately probably noticed that they have completely redesigned themselves. They have stripped out almost every choice. I was disappointed at the lack of choice the last time I went there. It was too focused and too clean. I felt like I was missing out. They were cheating me out of my comfort zone!!! I ordered the equivalent of a Whitecastle slyder in sandwich form (Slammies). I was dead set on being bummed out. Then I ate the thing and was like WOW!!! This is awesome. A virtually party in my mouth! I walked away not caring that they simplified things. They had chosen to excel at this new sandwich type and they succeeded. Kudos Quiznos.
Point being, kick ass at what you do. Make your customers walk away remembering you for what is important to you. If you do via slick design and simplicity GREAT. If you maybe you aren’t the slick marketing wizard, it doesn’t mean you can’t succeed.
How important do design and marketing effect what you are doing or how you do it?
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