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This was one of my favorite podcasts yet! Check out the podcast. Here's a teaser video for you:
(Yes, Julio has decided to begin us on the march towards Video Podcasting, so we have prototyped a couple of episodes with video.)
Last week I went to the Cut&Paste graphic design battle in San Francisco. Above is a picture from the event. It was pretty intensely cool. Check out the event description from the website:
Cut&Paste is the live digital design competition that pits eight of their city's best graphic designers against each other in an elimination battle of creativity, technical expertise, and wit. The competitors will work live on stage, in front of an audience and panel of expert judges. An MC will host the festivities and a soundtrack will be provided by hometown favorite DJs .
Here is a video of the event by Cool Hunting:
Great, memorable ad for Yoga Center by Leo Burnette. These straws were put in local juice bars. [via 37 signals]
Recently, Microsoft introduced the Zune. For those of you who haven't heard of this product, the Zune is supposed to be Microsoft's "iPod Killer". Engadget installed the Zune with horrendous (ableit humorous) results. [Thanks to reemer for the link]
It amazes me how you could completely mess up such a high-profile product launch. Consider how much money and effort has been thrown into the development of this product. Doesn't anybody try these things in advance??
Well, this is depressing... Here's a report that gives some reasonable evidence showing that all those penny-stock email tips that you get actually do get people to buy.
Spam Works: Evidence from Stock Touts and Corresponding Market Activity
We get some great speakers at Stanford, but this event line-up I'm currently at is ridiculous! Check out the list of speakers below. Man, sometimes I really love this school... Starts in 30 minutes.
2006 TechNet Innovation Summit at Stanford University
America's top leaders in technology will discuss emerging industry trends as well as the public policies that will shape the future of our nation. Moderated by award-winning journalist Charlie Rose, this event will be taped for broadcast and will feature:
* Brian Halla, CEO, National Semiconductor
* Reed Hastings, Founder and CEO, Netflix
* Jerry Yang, Founder, Yahoo!
* John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
* Scott McNealy, Chairman, Sun Microsystems
* Bill Gates, Chairman, Microsoft
A brief study in character under duress, from this weeks headlines.
Steve Wynn accidentally puts his elbow through Le Reve, a $139 million Picasso painting that Wynn owns:
He raised his hand to show us something about the painting -- and at that moment, his elbow crashed backwards right through the canvas.
...
"Look what I've done."
The rest of us were speechless.
"Thank God it was me," he said.
Kanye West loses Best Video Award in the MTV Europe Video Awards:
... he crashed the stage Thursday in Copenhagen when the award was being presented to Justice and Simian for "We Are Your Friends."
In a tirade riddled with expletives, West said he should have won the prize for his video "Touch The Sky," because it "cost a million dollars, Pamela Anderson was in it. I was jumping across canyons."
"If I don't win, the awards show loses credibility," West said.
My buddies over at url.com have a post about MySpace that I can't get out of my head. Basically, they were trying to customize their MySpace page. Everybody knows that a huge part of MySpace is customizing the page, so it must be pretty straight forward to do, right? Not so:
... I went to MY myspace page. “OK, so there must be a link ‘customize your page’ or something like that so I can paste in this code…” click, click..
(5 minutes had passed)
“Hmmm, I don’t see a link that says anything about customizing the page.. OH, is it the ‘manage blog’ link?” click, click. “Hmm.. I see a link that says ‘Customize Blog’ where I got that screen shot for my previous post…. maybe it’s here” <- totally confused.
(10 minutes had passed.)
“That was just for customizing the blog not the Myspace page! I don’t need to customize the blog yet! Just putting a background on Myspace! Where do I paste in that code!” <- starting to sound more like users who left confused comments.
Again, when people ask me what I do, I say “I’m a web developer” so I believe I’m above average in terms of being Internet savvy.
... finally, I carefully read one of the sites, and it said “go to the edit profile page, and paste it in there.” I was thinking “but I DID check that page like 100 TIMES, and there was no box that said “paste your code here to customize your background”
I read it again and again and it said “paste it in the ‘about me’ box”
HUH??? You mean, paste the code for the background in the ‘about me’ box?? You mean like this???
Yes, that's right. To customize your MySpace page, you need to put custom CSS in the "about me" field. Not the "CSS" field, the "bout me" field. This is one of the most unintuitive pieces of design I've ever seen. Yet the crazy thing is that millions of users jumped through this hoop to customize their page.
Why? Perhaps users valued control and customization enough to sacrifice usability? Perhaps MySpace is just resting on its network-effects laurels and doesn't care to make it easier for users to use?
Or perhaps there is something appealing about the bad design- customizing your page almost seems like a hidden trick and that makes it more exciting. I'm reminded of the secret menu at In-N-Out Burger, where customers in the know can order a "double double animal style". There's something appealing about knowing these "hacks", little "secrets" which differentiates the experienced users from the new users. New friends are forced to ask you how to do it and you explain it to them. The act of learning and subsequently passing on these little "hacks" builds excitement and loyalty around the experience.
Winston Churchill's definition of success:
"The ability to move from one failure to another, without losing enthusiasm."
It certainly resonates with the lives of many of the leaders whom I've studied this year.
[Via my Dad]
Here's an excerpt from the FAQ section of web company, SkinnyCorp, describing what they are looking for in an employee:
Q. How do you become a skinnyCorp employee? How can I become a skinnyCorp employee?
A. You have to be amazing. When we hire, which we don’t do very often, that’s the first thing we look for. Amazingness. Followed very closely by awesomeness, and then insaneosity. You also have to be able to hold your breath for 6 minutes while completing a mile-long sprint. Do you have what it takes?!
[via 37signals]
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