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Making people pay
Start time: 0:35
Giving something away for free is fine as a step one as long as it leads to a step two where you charge for your product. Pick a price that seems fair to you and that you’d be willing to pay. If you’re not willing to pay for your own product, don’t expect anyone else to either. Also, your price tiers need to make sense relative to each other. The price of Haystack changed at the last minute. Changing prices post-launch can cause real headaches.

Targeting nonconsumption
Start time: 13:38
Instead of stealing part of an existing market, create a new one. Invent your own category by fusing things together and/or looking at what people are really trying to achieve and solving that.

See related links for this episode. Previous episodes available at 37signals.com/podcast. Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or RSS.

We’re getting really close now. Back in August we previewed 37signals Accounts — our new single sign-on system for Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire. Today we announced that we’re just a few weeks out from official release.

We just put up a 37signals Accounts pre-launch page detailing the basics, the benefits, a few screenshots, and FAQs.

Here are a couple highlights:

Centralized sign-in screen

Since we launched Basecamp back in February 2004, every time anyone wanted to log into to any one of our products they had to go to their own custom URL. It’s been fine, but it’s always made us cringe a little. It’s a lot to remember and we often get emails asking us where to log in. Each time we have to explain the custom URL thing. It’s just not right.

So one big part of the 37signals Accounts transition is to centralize sign-in. You’ll now be able to sign in to any one of your accounts at 37signals.com. Here’s roughly what the universal sign in screen will look like:

FYI, you can still sign in at your own custom URLs too. Those sign in screens will look the same as they do today – with your logo centered at the top.

Launchpad

If you sign in, and you use multiple products (or have multiple accounts on a single product), you’ll see the new Launchpad. The Launchpad lists all your accounts. Click one to instantly sign in to that account. You can drag and drop reorder the accounts and columns to best fit your workflow.

The Launchpad is also where you’ll be able to edit your identity. Change personal information (username, password, avatar, etc) here and it’ll change in all your accounts.

And more…

The 37signals Accounts upgrade is a big deal. We understand it will be a bit of a hassle for everyone to pick a new username and password, but you’ll only have to do it once and it will only take a few seconds. Then you’re good to go.

The new 37signals Accounts system also lays the groundwork for a variety of enhancements and cross-product integrations you’ve been asking for. We’ll begin working on these in 2010.

In the meantime, check out the 37signals Accounts pre-launch page and let us know if you have any questions.

Thanks again for your support!

Splitting the check can cause headaches. Here’s a neat idea for a device that makes it simple. [via K]

Ever found yourself in a situation where you want to split the restaurant bill with your buddies, and all want pay by Credit Card. Like you want to get the calculations down to the last penny, or sip of Apple juice? Fret Not, if the Piece of Cake ever comes into existence, it’ll give going Dutch with friends a whole new meaning. By using this device each one can pay for just what they ate using their CC. The screen displays the total items consumed and you select your share to be automatically calculated.

‘Till then, another way out: credit card roulette.

When the bill comes, instead of dividing it up everyone drops their credit card into a folded up napkin. The cards are mixed and someone pulls one out at random. The unlucky person whose card is drawn pays for the entire meal; everyone else gets off scot free.

Bad news for one person, good news for the rest.

Some recent posts at the 37signals Product Blog:

Basecamp
New in Basecamp: Add due dates to to-dos!
This one’s been a long time coming. It’s been our top request for quite a while. Now you can add due dates to to-do lists in Basecamp. We spent a lot of time working on the experience, the interface, and flow, and the speed of this feature. Countless variations and hundreds of little tweaks later, we think we nailed it. We hope you’ll agree.

Inc. magazine looks at how an organic produce farm in Indiana uses Basecamp
“Now the partners use Basecamp to discuss strategic decisions and keep up to date on marketing efforts, crop conditions, and chores. Through Basecamp, the partners also check a daily log from Caruso, the farm’s manager, who documents what happens in the fields. Among her recent posts: ‘Fixed a little wind damage on the field. Not too bad, though. Much warmer and windy. Mice seem to be eating squash seeds, so I moved all trays up to the cloche.’ Entries like that help all the partners sleep a little easier.”

New in Basecamp: An easier way to add 10 milestones at a time
“Now just click a ‘Pick a date’ field and up pops a calendar. Click the day and it’s set. That’s all there is too it. Faster, easier, more contextual, and more fun to use.”

[Case study] SEO company: “Basecamp has cut our project management time in half”
Dan Kaplan from SEO company periscopeUP tells us how his team uses Basecamp to manage two production facilities, three writers, and three designers spread around the world.

Yesterday, I mentioned why the attempt to Frankenstein designs (Frankendesigns?) fails so often. In response, Yuri Victor pointed to this interesting Paul Rand essay on “The Politics of Design.” Rand explains why demanding many solutions to a problem merely leads to waste and confusion.

One of the more common problems which tends to create doubt and confusion is caused by the inexperienced and anxious executive who innocently expects, or even demands, to see not one but many solutions to a problem. These may include a number of visual and/or verbal concepts, an assortment of layouts, a variety of pictures and color schemes, as well as a choice of type styles. He needs the reassurance of numbers and the opportunity to exercise his personal preferences. He is also most likely to be the one to insist on endless revisions with unrealistic deadlines, adding to an already wasteful and time-consuming ritual. Theoretically, a great number of ideas assures a great number of choices, but such choices are essentially quantitative. This practice is as bewildering as it is wasteful. It discourages spontaneity, encourages indifference, and more often than not produces results which are neither distinguished, interesting, nor effective. In short, good ideas rarely come in bunches.

The designer who voluntarily presents his client with a batch of layouts does so not out prolificacy, but out of uncertainty or fear. He thus encourages the client to assume the role of referee. In the event of genuine need, however, the skillful designer is able to produce a reasonable number of good ideas. But quantity by demand is quite different than quantity by choice. Design is a time-consuming occupation. Whatever his working habits, the designer fills many a wastebasket in order to produce one good idea. Advertising agencies can be especially guilty in this numbers game. Bent on impressing the client with their ardor, they present a welter of layouts, many of which are superficial interpretations of potentially good ideas, or slick renderings of trite ones…

Expertise in business administration, journalism, accounting, or selling, though necessary in its place, is not expertise in problems dealing with visual appearance. The salesman who can sell you the most sophisticated computer typesetting equipment is rarely one who appreciates fine typography or elegant proportions. Actually, the plethora of bad design that we see all around us can probably be attributed as much to good salesmanship as to bad taste.

More articles by Paul Rand.

In “A Talking Head Dreams of a Perfect City,” David Byrne describes what he loves in different cities.

There’s an old joke that you know you’re in heaven if the cooks are Italian and the engineering is German. If it’s the other way around you’re in hell. In an attempt to conjure up a perfect city, I imagine a place that is a mash-up of the best qualities of a host of cities. The permutations are endless. Maybe I’d take the nightlife of New York in a setting like Sydney’s with bars like those in Barcelona and cuisine from Singapore served in outdoor restaurants like those in Mexico City. Or I could layer the sense of humor in Spain over the civic accommodation and elegance of Kyoto. Of course, it’s not really possible to cherry pick like this — mainly because a city’s qualities cannot thrive out of context. A place’s cuisine and architecture and language are all somehow interwoven. But one can dream.

Byrne’s article is fascinating, but so is this inital warning about singling out individual elements — the idea that cherry picking is a pipe dream. Qualities cannot thrive out of context. Everything is interwoven.

The soul of a carrot
A related example (popularized by Michael Pollan): the soul of a carrot. Scientists keep trying to isolate the part of a carrot that makes it healthy. They have identified 15 carotenes in the carrot, yet the resulting carotene pills don’t produce the health benefits you get from munching on actual carrots. Pollan explains why the reductive reasoning of food scientists is problematic:

We know carrots are good for you, right? People have been eating them for a long time and the assumption was that what was good in cancer preventing in the carrot was the beta carotene. What makes it orange. So we extracted that and we made these supplement pills and we gave them to people and low and behold in certain populations like people who drink a lot would get sicker, were more likely to get cancer on beta carotene and the scientists kind of scratched their head. There is a couple of explanations. We don’t know. But one may be that the beta carotene is not the key ingredient. You know there are 50 other carotenes in carrots.

Food is incredibly complex. It’s a wilderness, you know, we don’t know what’s going on deep in the soul of a carrot. And we shouldn’t kid ourselves to think we can reduce it to these chemicals. It also may be some synergies between different thing. Beta carotene is also found in the company of chlorophyll, maybe it’s that combination that contributes to health. The point is we don’t, as eaters, need to know what makes carrots work. We can eat carrots, they taste good, they’re good for you. It’s that simple.

Isolating the healthy part of the carrot is harder than it looks. There are hidden combinations at work. There’s a soul there that we don’t completely understand.

The sum is often greater than the parts
In today’s isolate then cut-and-paste world, it can be tempting to go around trying to single out just the best parts of things. Think of the “show three comps” method of delivering designs to a client. Inevitably the same thing happens: The client picks a few elements from design #1, a couple from #2, and a few others from #3. Then the designer(s) try to frankenstein these pieces together into a “perfect” hybrid — which turns out to be quite imperfect. All that cherry picking destroys any sense of cohesiveness. The end product looks like a collage instead of something unified.

When you cherry pick, you lose integrity. You lose the below-the-surface aspects of what makes something great. You cut the invisible strings that hold the whole thing together. You wind up with a mash-up instead of something that’s got soul.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t strive to improve, refine, and combine ideas. Just keep in mind the price you’re paying along the way.

When people ask me what I do all day I have a hard time summing it up. I design, I edit, I think, I review, I suggest, I teach. Some things I mess up, some things I fix up.

But what I really do most of the time is trim, tuck, iron, cut, press, and fit. I’m a software tailor.

And I’m starting to think that’s my perfect role. My team is incredible. I don’t need to tell them what to do. If there was a fantasy software league, I wouldn’t trade my team for anyone.

But there are times during the development and design process where the things we make just don’t fit as well as they could. That sentence could be slimmed down. That design element could be trimmed off. We could cut a step out of that process. And the overall experience could use a good press to iron out any stubborn wrinkles.

So while a tailor can make bespoke clothes, most of the time they’re fitting clothes other people made. And most of the time that’s exactly what I’m doing — fitting software my team made.

Some people may call this process editing, but I think it’s more akin to tailoring. So that’s how I’m going to explain my job from now on.

I’m a software tailor.

“Off the Chart” talks about how recent unemployment rate predictions turned out to be way off the mark. The reason: “Reality has produced numbers of its own.”

And that’s the problem with projections. Reality is a terrible collaborator. No matter how much you try to work with it, it has a mind of its own. And it never listens to you.

Plus, it’s easier to be a cheerleader than a doomsayer — especially when you have a vested interest in the outcome. That’s how people wind up in an overly optimistic fantasy world. No one ever submits a business plan to an investor that says, “This probably isn’t going to work.”

Next time you see someone with a plan or chart with made up projections, imagine it also contains unicorns and dragons. It might as well.