SIGNAL VS. NOISE

Something of the Year.

Brian Unger's Person of the Year list includes "Gastro-Intestinal Sugery," "The Makeover," and "Terror." He concludes that the ultimate Person Of The Year is the "Year In Review." It's a pretty accurate list, but he left out Having A Reality Show About Nothing, Having a Reality Show That Isn't Real, Having A Reality Show About Screwing Over Your Relatives, and Having A Reality Show That Makes You Look Really, Really Bad.

One More Reason Why I Love VW Ads

From an ad for the new VW Phaeton:

We made a car that questioned every convention that crossed its path and agreed with only those that made sense. We made a car that has all the things you need and none of the things you don't.

Well, that's not entirely true, the Phaeton comes with massage seats, and you don't really need those. But then, what the heck.

A comfortable combination of serious and playful. Vintage VW advertising even when pitching a $60K+ car. Good to see they aren't afraid of themselves. But is it appropriate for the audience?

37signals Year in Review

2003 was a good year for 37signals. We got back on track after a challenging 2001/2002 "post-bubble" season. This year we completed a wide variety of interesting projects for new and repeat clients alike. Further, we completed our first book Defensive Design for the Web (due out in Feb 2004), launched 37express, designed and developed Basecamp (launching January 2004), added Ryan Singer to our team, moved into a new office, switched from Sprint to Verizon and back to Sprint, ate Italian food 3 days a week, and more. Thanks to everyone who made it possible.

This year we completed the following projects (that I'm allowed to mention):

• Summit Credit Union intranet redesign
• Meridian IQ active shipments redesign (37express)
• Performance Bike Supergo redesign
• Panera Bread usability anaylsis & recommendations report
• Panera Bread bulk bagel ordering restructuring
• TurtleTrader cleanup and CSS restructuring
• SRA.org redesign
• Meetup "tab and bubble" and "Meetup Plus" designs
• FindAccountingSoftware.com form redesign (37express)
• Shopping.com redesign
• Clear Channel cc.com analysis and recommendations
• ERNI various page redesign (37express)
• Kinja design
• Gawker Media CSS/XHTML template
• ULINE my account and order history redesign (37express)
• Compass Bank home page redesign (37express)
• ...and more (we'll be updating our work section soon).

We also presented/spoke at:

• HOW Design conference in New Orleans
• Reboot 6 in Copenhagen, Denmark
• BloggingWorks in Chicago
• 37signals Contingency Design Workshop in Chicago
• ForUse usability conference in Portsmith, NH
• SEEK AIGA & Northern Illinois Conference in DeKalb, IL
• Ragan Web Content Management Conference in Chicago, IL

We're really looking forward to 2004. Keep an eye out for our book, more offerings from 37express, a new "Inspiration" research report series, the launch of Basecamp, more from BloggingWorks, and something tentatively called "The Deck" (a collaboration between 37signals and Coudal, among others). We also have some interesting ideas planned for Signal vs. Noise so stay tuned. And, speaking of SvN, thanks for everyone's comments and contributions -- SvN would be boring without all of you.

Thanks again everyone!

Product Recommendation: Shure QuietSpot

I just got this Shure QuietSpot cellphone headset and I couldn't be more satisfied with it. I've had a bunch of cellphone headsets before, and they were all crap. This is the first one that really sounds good (on both ends), fits comfortably, blocks out ambient noise, and is adjustible enough to give "customization" a good name. This is a well designed product. If you're in the market, do check it out.

And, in case you are wondering, no I don't wear this thing in public. Down to those people. Down.

Peace On Earth?

This article in USA Today suggests holiday travelers are mostly ambivalent about any terror warnings the Feds have issued for the next couple of weeks. Despite the warnings, Tom Ridge is telling us to "just go about your business."

It kind of makes me wonder, though, wouldn't we do that anyway?

In the months following Sept 11, 2001, I can remember spending 3 hours trying to get into San Francisco as the bridges were slowed due to terror watch CODE ORANGE!!! And I remember reporters swarming the airports at Thanksgiving and Christmas, interviewing travelers and asking Just how safe do you feel??? It seemed the country was on some kind of terror watch 24/7 for months, until we got used to CODE ORANGE!!! and, somehow, stopped being so scared.

But now that the good ol'Homeland Security Dept. is warning that no, this time it's a *real* threat, I wonder if complacency will turn to caution. I, for one, don't think so. And this poll at CNN.com suggest I'm not the only one.

'Sup with the Discrepancies?

I've long been fascinated by the little "fact-based" discrepancies that pop up depending on who is reporting a news story. Today's stories about the new Trade Center are great examples. This MSNBC article says the tower "would include 70 stories of office space." This Reuters story says the tower "calls for 60 occupied stories." And this CNN article says "there will be 63 floors of office space." So, which is it? 60, 63, or 70 floors of office space? Shouldn't this be a cold hard fact outlined in the official plans? Where's the room for interpretation?

Separating Store From Products

At Palm, the Zire 71 handheld has a page in the products section and also one in the Store section of the site. Apple is another company that has a separate area of its site called Store yet still discusses products elsewhere.

Other manufacturers, like Dell and Gateway, take a different approach and integrate shopping throughout their site — the shopping cart is clickable right from the home page.

Do you think the separate store or the integrated approach is better for these manufacturer/retailers? Any theories as to why each company chose its respective model?

Some Tabbed Browsing Ideas for Safari

We all love Apple's Safari browser, but there are two major things that really irk me about its tabbed browsing system.

1. There's no way to consolidate multiple open windows (with tabs) into a single open window with tabs. For example, if I have 2 open windows with 3 tabs in one and 5 tabs in the other, I'd like to be able to have all the tabs "jump" into one window and then close the "empty" window. Or, if I have 6 open windows, I'd like to convert the 6 open windows into a single open window with 6 tabs (that were the windows).

2. I'd love to be able to reorder the tabs in a window by dragging them around. Or, if I do want to keep multiple windows open, how about letting me drag tabs between windows?

Wouldn't that be nice?

OurType is Inspiration

OurType's site design is amazing. The type is the design. Smart as hell. It's a whole new way to think about displaying/selling fonts online. Some great ideas here. This is brand new thinking. Definitely breaks the mold. I'm finally excited about the potential of Flash again. It might be time to dive back in. Now if I could only upgrade my copy of Flash 2.0 to MX...

'Tis the Season

Nordstrom's holiday shop features a nice gift finder that lets you find the right gift by a combination of recipient, lifestyle, and price range (most sites let you choose only one of these options). Any e-commerce site that you think handles the holiday season particularly well?

Back from the Wilderness...

Some of you may already know that, after leaving 37signals and going fishing for a while, I pulled up stakes and moved out to Corvallis, Oregon to work for a small company called Bigha. Our goal is to make interesting, non-conventional products to help people enjoy the outdoors in a non-competitive way. Right now we have one product and it's a recumbent-style bike.

I'm coming out of the wilderness because we finally launched our new site at http://www.bigha.com. It's still a work in progress, but I think it's a big step forward for us.

Most of you probably never saw the old site, but, trust me, it was bad. It was almost entirely Flash-based and a lot of the people who used it didn't even know they could buy the bike online (in fact, our Web site is the only place you can buy the bike).

First off, I'd love to hear what people think of the site. I know it's quite bandwidth-heavy, but we felt that, given the nature of the product and our target audience, big, high-quality images were critical. And I know that the code is quite ugly--chalk that up to me being in a big hurry. But it should display "properly" in IE 6.0 for Win, IE 5.x for Mac (though there are a few small issues based on bugs in IE), Mozilla for Win, and Safari for Mac. Those were our targets given our browser stats.

Secondly, JF asked if I'd be willing to share some thoughts on the change in going from the design-firm side to the client side, so here goes...

I'd been on the client-side in the past when I worked at Lifetime Television, but that was a long time ago and before I had any experience in an agency environment. Going back to being on the client-side I've found that there are some key differences in developing within one world vs. the other.

• Time. Though I am working on some non-Web projects at Bigha, a huge proportion of my time on a daily basis is devoted to the site--far more than would be practical or financially feasible if I were working on the Bigha site from the design-firm side of the fence. The downside is that I don't have the variety of working on projects for different kinds of clients, but I have to say that I'm finding the ability to really, fully devote myself to this one "cause" very refreshing.


• Open, Honest Communication. This is partly a function of the people I work with at Bigha, but I think it's also a function of being on the client-side. The dynamics are entirely different because we're co-workers talking to each other all day, every day, not contractors talking to the people who hired us once every few days. There is zero BS here -- people say exactly what they think and it makes things go a lot faster.


• More Organic Development. Because we all sit together and see each other all day, every day, we were able to develop the site in a much more organic way. I did, in large part, define the structure of the site in advance, and I did develop some basic templates up-front, but after that, content development and design development were one and the same. It wasn't a situation where one person wrote some copy that was plugged into a template, which was then pushed live. Someone would work on copy, bounce it off everyone else, I would flow it into a template, we'd talk about it, and then the person who wrote the copy would make tweaks to the content and I would make tweaks (sometimes major changes) to the design. The two components influenced each other in a big way. This was certainly less efficient than a more process driven workflow, but I think the end result tells a stronger, more cohesive story. This was the biggest adjustment for me because I'd become accustomed to a much more process-driven approach where things were done in discreet sequences.


• Much Less Documentation. Again, because we see each other every day, things that would be heavily documented in a design firm/client relationship could be done in shorthand. I did mock up a few schematics at the outset, but I never developed a functional spec or anything along those lines. I just explained what I was looking for to the engineers and we talked through any issues as they came up. I'm still going to document everything for future reference, but this saved a huge amount of time during development (it also helped that our engineers are great to work with).


• Lots of Work. Having come from an environment where we would deliver a handful of design templates that would be used as the basis for a site, the amount of work required to build out an actual, fully functioning site came as a surprise to me and my initial timeline projections were waaaayyyy off. This was partly due to the organic development process outlined above, but was mostly just because there's a heck of a lot to do. There's a huge difference between building templates and building a site -- esp. when the site combines elements of a content and a commerce site.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, but those are the things that jump to mind right now. My biggest concern was that I would get bored working for just one client all the time -- and in other situations that could very well have been the case -- but the challenge for us here at Bigha is big enough that I think I'll feel fully occupied for a good long while.

Anyone considering a change from one world to the other, please feel free to post questions here. And anyone else who's made the jump, please feel free to chime in as well. My experience could very well be the exception rather than the rule.

And anyone interested in buying the bike, by all means, go right ahead! ;-)

Well Read?

The San Francisco Chronicle has ranked the best books of 2003 and I was surprised to find only one (1!) familiar title. (McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury, at that.)

I'm not sure if I should be embarrassed or not. How could I have missed all these books? Am I not watching enough Oprah?

MSNBC Redesign

Hey look, MSNBC was redesigned. A note on the redesign from the Editor on Chief. Personally, I miss the distinctive large-type first paragraph lead-in on their articles.

Saddam Hussein Captured: The Dems Respond

Comments by the Democratic presidential candidates Sunday on the capture of Saddam Hussein [N.Y. Times, registration required]. I was particularly impressed with the level of maturity and respect offered by Dean:

This is a great day of pride in the American military, a great day for the Iraqis, a great day for the American people and, frankly, a great day for the administration. This is a day to celebrate the fact that Saddam's been caught. We'll have to wait to see what happens to the campaign later.

While Kerry can't put politics aside and slips in a woulda-coulda shot:

If we had done this with a sufficient number of troops, if we had done this in a globalized way, if we had brought more people to the table, we might have caught Saddam Hussein sooner. We might have had less loss of life. We would be in a stronger position today with respect to what we're doing.

Dean sounds like a rational leader and a proud American. Kerry sounds like bitter and negative politician. I think these quotes embody why Dean, the unknown outsider, is leading the well-known insider (with a far more impressive resume and military / foreign policy experience). Kerry can't help but be a politician -- and it's destroying him.

Canadian 2 Canadian

Canada calls P2Ps legal and imposes a tarrif on MP3 players.

"The money collected from levies on "recording mediums" goes into a fund to pay musicians and songwriters for revenues lost from consumers' personal copying."

Blogging for Business Presentation

If anyone is interested, here's the presentation (in blog-like format) from a recent 1-hour Blogging for Business session I gave at the Ragan Web Content Management conference here in Chicago on Tuesday. I ran it in Safari and didn't test it on other browsers, but it should work just fine. There's a small link at the bottom of each page that will take you to the next page.

Stop Light. Now Go Again.

The first thing I thought after I read that physicists stopped light was "if someone on the street asked me to stop light, I'd have no clue where to start." The second thing I thought of was that old joke, "How many physicists does it take to unscrew a lighbulb..."

Home Sweet Crime and Prostitution.

The most dangerous cities in America have been ranked and the ghetto that is North Charleston has been ranked #12. North Charleston has been practically abandoned by all quality of life since the closure of the Naval base a decade ago, and has been overrun by drug squats, prostitution and homelessness. Ironically, it's a mere 6 miles from what most people call the most beautiful city in America and my new home, a place where I'm routinely woken by the sound of horse-drawn carriages clopping down my street. (4 of the most dangerous cities are in SC! Geez!)

The list boasts some other stepchildren cities: Parma, OH, the #18 safest city, sits just outside Cleveland, the #19 most dangerous. Hamilton Township, NJ , the #22 safest, is near Trenton, NJ, the #15 most dangerous. And Fremont, CA, home to the Shellen clan and the #25 safest city sits not too far from Oakland, the # 21 most dangerous city.

Interesting. Also, some of the cities *I* would have thought would make the list didn't: Chicago and Manhattan are absent from the most dangerous, and New York, NY ranks among the safest!

Primarily Preordained

Am I the only one out there who believes our entire primary system needs an overhaul? I live in Colorado and I find it absurd that New Hampshire and Iowa; followed by Arizona, Delaware, Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Carolina more or less get to decide my (Democratic) voting options for November 2, 2004.

Not only are the voters in second- and third-round states going to be looking over their shoulders at the momentum from New Hampshire and Iowa, as best I can tell only 26 states have primaries in the first place.

Do we vote on different days for the final presidential election? No. Do only slightly more than half the states get to vote in the final presidential election? No. The only way to reduce the influence of a few states on the outcome of the election is to have a single, nationwide "National Primary Day." It's probably too late to avoid giving Bush his ideal opponent, but who's with me?

Carnegie vs. Wolfowitz

Dale Carnegie's Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment suggests:

• Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
• Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.
• Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
• Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
• Let the other person save face.
• Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise."
• Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
• Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
• Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

Doesn't exactly jibe with Paul Wolfowitz' no-soup-for-you response to France, Germany, and Russia today. Does the administration really think this is the way to get its opponents in line? Or is it just a slap in the face to those who opposed us? If the latter, what good does that do?

Update: Bush Seeks Help of Allies Barred From Iraq Deals (NY Times) says, "White House officials were fuming about the timing and the tone of the Pentagon's directive...Several of Mr. Bush's aides said they feared that the memorandum would undercut White House efforts to repair relations with allies who had opposed the invasion of Iraq."

...and Happy Holidays From Les.

If you're starting to get the holiday blues, stop what you're doing, turn the volume up on your PC and laugh your ass off while Lester Nelson sings his favorite holiday classics. (My favorite is Frosty the Snowman, featuring The Do-Re-Mi Children's Choir.)

Lester, by the way, gave me the best Christmas gift ever by designing the cover of my soon-to-be released book. (And, by the way, "soon-to-be-released" is relative.)

All I Want For Christmas

Oh, that I was born too soon! Here's some hot new toys from The Discovery Store:

The DNA Explorer which "helps junior scientists extract and map real deoxyribonucleic acid!!" Fun!

The Whodunit? Forensics Lab which teaches kids to "analyze handwriting, decipher blood type and examine mysterious fibers." Cool!

The Spy Motion Tracking System "tracks movement up to 75 feet away." Awesome!

The Trading Spaces Design and Redesign House! HOLY CRAP!!! Why am I not 12 years old?!

Dean Rides the Cluetrain

Cluetrain Manifesto authors David Weinberger and Doc Searls are consultants to the Howard Dean campaign, according to this feature in the NY Times. No wonder than that Joe Trippi, Dean's campaign manager, says the campaign's structure is modeled on the Internet, "which is organized as a grid, rather than as spokes surrounding a hub."

Update: So where's my money? (Doc denies it).

I'm sure some of my thinking and writing has influence; but I'm sure it's not only on the Dean Campaign. When I read or listen to Cameron Barrett and Stirling Newberry, both involved (one officially, one voluntarily) with the Clark Campaign, I sense some degree of influencethere too...But there is a big difference between influence and employment. I'm not employed by any campaign.

The Best of Craigslist

Funny: The best of craigslistselected from postings positively-reviewed by readers (especially relevant if you're the "drunk blonde lady urinating in my backyard," "the fucking guy from the arcade," or the "Silly Hoochie with the prada shoes").

For Sale: Kyocera 7135 Smartphone for Verizon

I've owned this phone for just a few months and no longer need it. It's in excellent condition and works on the Verizon network. Palm OS syncs via USB -- even works perfectly with iSync and OS X. You can see more pictures and more details at the ZDNet review. The phone sells for about $499 new. I'm asking $385 which includes the original box, manual, cables, and a car charger that is normally about $25 and a Verizon-branded headset also worth about $30. If you are interested, please email me at jason [at] 37signals.com.

Uncle Mark's 2004 Gift Guide & Almanac

It's easy to comparison shop. Sometimes too easy ("ugh, not another 200 results to compare"). If you just want that one right product, as recommended by someone in the know, check out Uncle Mark's 2004 Gift Guide & Almanac. Creative Good's Mark Hurst offers this free downloadable PDF guide that explains the one "right" digital camera, PC, game console, etc. to buy.

Curb Your Enthusiasm is Back

The best comedy (show?) on TV is back for a 4th season starting January 4, 2004 on HBO.

Take One Shot

Official drinking games for The Simple Life and The OC. {via Aubrey Sabala}

DJI & NASDAQ: Is Today the Day?

Looks like the DJI might break 10,000 for the first time since June 02, and the NASDAQ might break 2000 for the first time since Mid-January 02. The S&P 500 has been on a steady march up since around April of this year. All this while the Dollar plumbs new lows vs. the Euro, and US Productivity hits 20-year highs. Which direction do you think the US Economy is headed? If you're a business owner, can you feel it on your end? And, if you lay the blame on Bush for the recession, do you give him credit for the rebound? Or, are these just natural economic cycles?

Almost Excellent.

Scene: Home Depot.
Setting: I am there to purchase paint for a few touch-ups in my bathroom. I made a point to note the name of the paint my landlord had purchased is "Colorado Springs." Below is the conversation I have with the Home Depot Paint Salesman.

Me: Hi, I need to buy some paint.
HDPS: What brand?
Me: I don't know.
HDPS: Satin finish, glossy, heavy weather?
Me: Uhm...I don't know. It's called "Colorado Springs."
HDPS: What are you painting? A bathroom?
Me: Yes!
HDPS: That's a Ralph Lauren color and you'll need a satin finish.
Me: (paraphrased) Wow! As a customer, I am so happy that you are familiar with the brands your store carries and the appropriate finish for the kind of project I am about to commence. A thumbs up to you for your admirable customer service!
HDPS: Now, do you want a gallon or a quart?
Me: Uhm, I don't need a gallon, how about a half gallon?
HDPS: We don't sell it in half gallons, we only sell it by the gallon or the quart.
Me: Okay, but I don't need a gallon and I might need more than a quart, so how about two quarts?
HDPS: It'd be cheaper to buy a gallon.
Me: But I don't need a gallon.

I end up with a gallon, half of which I don't use. What I *wish* would have occured: HDPS tells me to buy the gallon and return the unused portion for a refund. Now that would have been excellent customer service and would have won my allegience in the Home Depot/Lowes war for good.

At least he knew what color I needed.

I do, You Do, We Do.

There's a good posibility that even mentioning the words "gay" and "marriage" in the same post is going to bring me to social ruin here in the Bible belt, and a good chance I'll be tossed from the Southern baptist church I attend, and an even better chance that I'll be barred from upcoming oyster roasts on the Battery, but I don't care. This fantastic article about what is undermining marriage in America should be considered by everyone - especially Baptists in Charleston. (There goes my invite to the Govenors Ball.)

From Point #2: "You can be married to someone you met at the breakfast buffet. Knowing her last name is optional. And you can be married by someone who was McOrdained on the Internet. So before you lobby to ban gay marriage, you might want to work to enact laws limiting the sheer frivolousness of straight marriage. You should be lobbying for an increase in minimum-age requirements, for mandatory counseling pre-marriage, and for statutory waiting periods before marriages (and divorces) can be permitted."

McOrdained! Statutory Waiting Periods! Take that!