Today at work I had one of those lengthy, impassioned discussions with the senior leadership of my company – the sort of discussion that makes […] Read More
Category: Blog
I received a rejection email the other day from a man who had interviewed me for a job. I haven’t been rejected many times in […] Read More
Spotify has arrived in the US! Twitter was all abuzz when the announcement came, and lots of my friends jumped on board as soon as […] Read More
James Dyson was not happy with his vacuum cleaner. It wasn’t powerful enough, and he determined that the problem was the bag. The bag’s purpose […] Read More
This is intended to be the first of seven (possibly more) posts on game-changing business ideas. It’s often difficult to recognize when something changes the […] Read More
It would probably be better not to say anything. Advertisers won’t like it, and publishers who depend on ad revenue will like it even less. […] Read More
Two years after Pinch Media released their iTunes App Store Secrets report, I still see this iconic curve on a regular basis: It doesn’t matter […] Read More
It’s Friday, and here’s my video of the week… wait, let’s enhance it:
A while back I wrote a post called my favorite web services, and I thought I would revisit it in the spirit of end-of-the-year (or […] Read More
I have an idea. Every Friday I’ll post a video from my YouTube “Favorites.” It won’t necessarily be new, or timely, or funny, or profound. […] Read More
One of the things that stood out for me amongst all the hype around the Motorola Droid before the device hit the market was the […] Read More
What the hell is wrong with Nokia? It’s as if they got together as a company, identified all they ways their software could suck, and […] Read More
So I don’t have a Kindle, and I don’t want one. For some reason I’m predisposed to dislike it. When I try to articulate my […] Read More
I updated one of my two Macbook Pros to Snow Leopard yesterday, and although the official price tag for the new OS is only $29, […] Read More
Whenever the conversation turns to Apple, there erupts a certain amount of troll vs. fanboy squabbling. Usually there are a few would-be referees in the […] Read More
What if the company that made your computer forced you to use only their web browser and email application? (Remember, Microsoft was prosecuted for less […] Read More
I suppose I could create a bridge between them, but sometimes it’s fun to just watch.
After holding out for a couple of years, I’ve become a full-on twitter convert. I wasn’t avoiding twitter on principle or anything. I just couldn’t […] Read More
[Disclaimer: The following post is partly a reprise of one I wrote last year] March Madness is almost here, and my workplace productivity is bound […] Read More
My last post, “How to win at Yelp: a guide for businesses” was inspired by the recent controversies surrounding Yelp, and the gist of the […] Read More
Last week, the East Bay Express published a lengthy story accusing Yelp of extortion. Among other things, the article charges Yelp of offering to take […] Read More
From ClickZ: More than two years after its founding, San Francisco startup Scout Labs has unveiled its first software suite, an assortment of Web monitoring […] Read More
Kyte’s super-simple content production features are perfect for engaging fans of a show like Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, so it’s cool to see how the […] Read More
Remember CD-ROMs? Remember how cool they were and how for a brief moment in the early 90s it seemed every possible thing was being CD-ROMified […] Read More
I’ve worked on a few online video sites in my career, and on every one of those projects we confronted the question of whether to […] Read More
I mentioned in an earlier post that for the past few months I’ve been working with Kyte. That’s their widget above. My lineup of shows […] Read More
I received my weekly BayCHI job bank email today, which has always contained at least twenty or thirty postings. Today, however, it was so thin […] Read More
I’ve been doing battle with the CSS on this blog recently, and I’d gotten it to an acceptable (if not optimal) place in Safari and […] Read More
The purpose of the iPhone Human Interface Guidelines (requires login) is to help developers create well-designed experiences for the iPhone that also measure up to […] Read More
On many occasions and even in a recent post, I’ve said that I just don’t get twitter. I was certain I didn’t want to tune […] Read More
Raven Zachary posted recently about Apple’s new criteria for application acceptance, where he noted that there are now more fart apps than sudoku apps for […] Read More
The somewhat agonizing ritual of sending holiday cards has been my way of keeping long-time and distant friends up-to-date on my life, and each year […] Read More
The end of 2008 is upon us, and that means pundits of all stripes are busy trying to boil it all down. I’ve been reading […] Read More
For the last couple of months, I’ve been working for Kyte (more on that in a future post), and yesterday we got a nice shout […] Read More
I wish I could maintain this perspective all the time: Thanks Louis CK
Just a year ago, two of my most powerful Internet addictions were Yahoo Fantasy Sports and Yelp. Now, I hardly think about either one. Yelp […] Read More
In my last post, I mentioned that you can use Yahoo Pipes as a buzz-watching tool. Today I made three short videos to illustrate how […] Read More
Social media analytics and measurement has rapidly emerged as a market over the last few years, and there are a lot of companies trying to […] Read More
I could almost go so far as to say that Evernote is the best free app period, iPhone or otherwise. In Evernote’s case, it’s iPhone […] Read More
Like a party guest who insists on staying long after the alcohol is gone, the music is done, and I’ve dozed off on my couch… […] Read More
No, I don’t mean I’ve been flirting via twitter. It took me a long time to sign up for twitter. I just didn’t get it. […] Read More
The economy is blowing up. The election has a certain circus quality to it – more than the usual presidential election. I started a new […] Read More
It’s taken me a few days to write this post, partly because I’ve been busy (remarkable in itself, since I’m officially unemployed right now), and […] Read More
I’ve been off the grid for a couple weeks, backpacking with my brothers. We embarked a day or two after McCain announced his surprising (and […] Read More
Edward Tufte famously declared that PowerPoint is evil, and in my life as a consultant, I’ve witnessed quite a bit of love and hate directed […] Read More
I might expand this into a larger article at some point, but for now it’s just something I decided to cobble together for a quick […] Read More
My friend Rebecca is thinking about purchasing a scooter. Not a leg-powered one (like the “Razor” that was so popular with dot-commers), but a real […] Read More
The Business Technology blog over at WSJ reports on a recent study of more than 100 corporate social networks. Ed Moran, a Deloitte consultant, found […] Read More
Perusing the online blogopolis today, I saw that Xeni over at boingboing has proposed a new greeting card that would thank the recipient for “not […] Read More
Please indulge a moment of self-pity… I know a designer’s job isn’t rocket science, but that doesn’t mean everyone is qualified to make design decisions. […] Read More
Why do they call these things “circulars?” The word makes me think of my mom, clipping coupons from the Sunday paper for the weekly trip […] Read More
I’ve been stretched too thinly across a few big projects and trying for nearly three months to find a couple of qualified people to help […] Read More
Lots and lots of people have passed this video around, but it puts a giant, ridiculous grin on my face everytime I watch it. This […] Read More
Don’t ask me why, but I was looking at Sean Hannity’s website today. OK, I was looking for a video clip of his recent interview […] Read More
After a mostly fun eighteen-month ride, I decided to leave Scout Labs. As part of the founding team, I played a big part in defining […] Read More
…and not just because my recent investment in oil futures depends on the price continuing to rise. The sudden upsurge in the price of gas […] Read More
The big athletic footwear companies have built their marketing campaigns around aspirational themes and creating connections between regular sports hobbyists and elite athletes. If you […] Read More
Back in my agency life, clients were always asking us to create “viral” campaigns that would get the attention of the digital youth. Our inside […] Read More
My small town library was one of my absolute favorite places when I was a kid. I regularly borrowed to the full limit of what […] Read More
Have you ever noticed the way American beer commercials emphasize packaging gimmicks? The wide-mouth can. The label that turns blue when it’s cold. The easy-pour […] Read More
I can’t believe I’m writing about Britney Spears, but bear with me. One would hope that Britney bottomed out somewhere around the head-shaving or the […] Read More
I was reminiscing with my colleagues yesterday about the dawn of the ATM machine. We were remembering how, when banks first started to install them, […] Read More
In this week’s installment of his ‘Circuits’ column, David Pogue asks, “Are you taking advantage of Web 2.0?” By ‘you’ he means your company, and […] Read More
‘h’ is for hypocrisy. If the premier selling point of a hybrid vehicle is fuel economy, then you have to wonder why Lexus won’t reveal […] Read More
A couple of times in my career as a User Experience professional, I’ve worked for bosses whom I considered to be ridiculously (some even dangerously) […] Read More
The state of Texas recently held an “e-vote” to choose a new license plate design. There were five designs in the running, and over 450,000 […] Read More
As a user experience guy, one of the things I do for my job is try out every new web service that comes along. Most […] Read More
Today I ordered a book called Information Dashboard Design from Amazon.com – my latest in a series of work-related purchases. Of course, whenever you buy […] Read More
My iPhone and a good soundtrack is essential to my daily commute. Here’s a list of what I’ve been listening to lately: Radio Lab – […] Read More
The February issue of FastCompany magazine includes an article provocatively-titled, Is the Tipping Point Toast? about the work Duncan Watts has done researching influence. The […] Read More
The other day, I was watching – for maybe the fiftieth time – this video by sigur rós for the song “Glósóli” It’s a stunning […] Read More
From the image above, you know I’m not talking about the notorious former football great. In case you’re counting, yes, that’s twelve varieties of Tropicana […] Read More
When I was a kid, my parents controlled my TV diet, and while I was hardly deprived, I was never at risk of becoming a […] Read More
Came across this fun design exercise via the xblog today. My entry is above. Instructions below: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random The first article title on the page is […] Read More
President Bush is touring the Middle East right now, and he has made sure to bluster about Iran’s fictional nuclear ambitions at every stop, but […] Read More
Some kind of silly excuse for a Golden Globe Awards ceremony took place last night, with no speeches, performances or jokes – just winners announced […] Read More
Is it really too much trouble to add flavor to your water after you pour it? I was busy washing dishes while my girlfriend was […] Read More
Am I the only one who wants to punch my TV whenever I see Chad on those Alltel commercials? He reminds me of the pretty […] Read More
I’ve been seeing a lot of advertisements for cars that feature voice recognition technology. Like this clever one for Ford’s SYNC: Or this one for […] Read More
After using the WordPress default “kubrick” theme for months longer than I wanted to, I finally got around to redesigning this blog. I wanted a […] Read More
Along with the usual flow of annual family newsletters and photographic Christmas cards, featuring matching cable-knit sweaters and first visits to Santa, this year I […] Read More
File this under “random.” I’m not sure what to make of this, but as I was listening to the speeches of the various candidates after […] Read More
I upgraded my WordPress software, and I’m theoretically able to filter comment spam now. I got a handful of new blog posts in the works, […] Read More
Part of the reason I write so infrequently here, is because I write quite a bit here and here. Also, there’s work. I know that […] Read More
In the latest version of mail.app in Leopard, some of the fields have moved. I had some trouble sending mail because I was used to […] Read More
I spent several hours on Friday unsuccessfully trying to install Parallels and then Windows XP on my Macbook Pro. I was able to get it […] Read More
Yesterday’s word of the day, apparently, was “influence.” At least that’s what was on the mind of a few big bloggers. Steve Rubel started the […] Read More
The notion that consumer-generated content lacks authority is not a new one of course. Wikipedia has been in the middle of this storm for a […] Read More
I started a new job recently. This came with the usual changes – new office, new policies, processes, people – but one of the peripheral […] Read More
Today, I took my car to the nearest Shell station to get it smog checked – a bi-yearly(?) ritual for drivers in California. The friendly […] Read More
Well, it’s not the Jetta. It’s two women in a Passat blindsided by an SUV as they discuss Volkswagen’s controversial Jetta commercials that depict… well… […] Read More
YouTube got a lot of flack for making a recent deal with NBC, so perhaps it was not NBC’s prerogative to lampoon it. Still, you […] Read More
My next deathmatch post was going to compare these two music recommendation services. I’ve used both pandora and last.fm for a little while, and I’ve […] Read More
Ok, this isn’t exactly a new topic, but some thought-provoking (and entertaining) nuggets have come across the wire recently. This photo nicely sums up my […] Read More
Did that get your attention? That’s the name of the movie I saw last night, as part of the San Francisco Independent Film Festival. It’s […] Read More
Driving into the city on I-80 today, I saw a billboard for BAJobs.com touting the website’s “better interface”. I think it’s the first time I’ve […] Read More
“There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something […] Read More
From the booking process on the Singapore Airlines web site. I only wish I’d seen this in time for Tracy and I to travel as […] Read More