When Wesabe launched, their then-CEO Jason Knight posted office hours. During these times (noon – 4pm pacific), anyone could call and talk directly to the CEO. You could be a current customer, prospective customer, or anyone else curious about Wesabe. I really loved the idea.

The idea reminded me of professor’s office hours in college. Dedicated time set aside for one-on-one with your professor. I didn’t go often, but when I did I found it really valuable.

Announcing our office hours

So it’s about time we try office hours at 37signals. On Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3pm to 5pm central time, I’ll be standing by to take calls from customers, prospective customers, or anyone who has a question about 37signals. You’ll find the phone number and additional details listed on the Office Hours page.

Let’s talk about it

You can call and ask product questions, pre-sales questions, suggest feature requests, lodge complaints, offer praise, share ideas, discuss recent blog posts, or talk about good or bad experiences using our products. Anything that’s on your mind is fair game. I’m here to listen, share, and be available to help in any way I can.

I have no idea how this is going to work out, so it’s deemed more of an experiment than a permanent fixture, but let’s see what happens.

For the technically curious, I’m primarily using Grasshopper to manage the calls, numbers, and messages. During office hours, Grasshopper forwards all calls to one of my numbers. During off hours, Grasshopper plays a recording. Cool tech and a nice product.

I look forward to talking to you soon.

This weekend I did a quick Q&A session at LessConf via video. Thanks to Allan from Less Everything for making it all work out.

One of the last questions went something like this: “What sort of things outside of design can make you a better designer? What else can inspire you to be a better designer?”

I’m glad someone asked because I’ve been meaning to talk/write about this for a while.

The answer: Nature. Spend some time outside. Take a walk in the woods. Stroll through a prairie. Visit the desert (especially the Sonoran). Climb a hill. Get down on your knees and look at the grass. Plant a garden. No space? Get some plants or flowers and put them on your desk. And if you’re lucky enough to live near botanical gardens, visit a few times a year during peak seasons.

What you’ll experience are ridiculously good designs. Millions of iterations are folded into what you see. Everything is the product of a million successful tries. The colors and shapes and structures and textures are manifestations of survival. If it’s alive it’s good design.

Then look closer. Check out the subtleties. It’s not just green, it’s a dozen shades of green. That red may be orange from a different angle. Then flip it over. There’s a whole new design lesson on the underside.

Explore the seasons. Spring is especially enlightening for designers. It’s redesign season. From brown and dead and woody to green and alive and soft. Colors burst through, new textures emerge. And it’s not just visual. It’s temporal too. Different things popping at different times and in different ways. Each design is an idea. And each one slightly better than last year.

How does this make you a better designer? For one, just spending time around so many things that work will positively influence your design thinking. Some people like surrounding themselves with beautiful objects, furniture, and art. A walk outside is a better value.

You’ll also begin building a deeper understanding and appreciation for subtlety. Nature can be loud, but it usually whispers. You’ll also sharpen your observational skills. Great designers are great observers. You’ll learn more about color than any color wheel or book can teach you. Lastly, you’ll clear your mind and fill it back up at the same time. Very few things can achieve a simultaneous refresh and refill.

Take a walk outside and look around.

Target people who have never used a product like yours before. (It’s what Clayton Christensen calls “competing against nonconsumption.”) These people don’t know a solution exists or the ones they’ve tried were too expensive or confusing. These folks aren’t picky (yet). They just want something simple that works.

That means you can win by creating something that’s good enough to meet these basic needs. There’s always more customers on the low/simple end than the high/expensive end. (The low/simple end may not demo as well to the press at a trade show, but it’s what a ton of people actually want.)

Three examples:

1. Nintendo goes after people who aren’t using other video game systems. While Xbox 360 and Sony one-up each other trying to reach experienced, demanding gamers, Nintendo goes after newbies. The Wii’s controller makes video games so simple that a three year-old can play it. And the company is thriving because of it.

2. The Jitterbug is a cell phone created for senior citizens and others who find traditional cell phones too complicated. While fancier phones offer tons of features and apps, the Jitterbug stays simple and focuses on what its demographic cares about. The phone has a large screen and keypad, offers a landline-like dial tone, has an extra powerful speaker, is hearing-aid compatible, and there are no contracts involved.

3. Nearly half of all undergraduate students in the US now attend community college. Why? They are more affordable, have more lenient admission standards, offer online degrees, and focus on market-driven degrees aimed at nurses, firefighters, law enforcement officers, and EMTs. All that means they are able to enroll students who otherwise might never wind up in a classroom.

If you build a simpler, more affordable alternative to what’s out there already, you can bring new people into the fold. You don’t have to grab a piece of someone else’s pie — just bake a new one.

Related: How Obama targets nonconsumption [SvN]

Like the rest of the world, we’re big Gary Vaynerchuk fans. So when Gary asked us if we wanted to team up with him to sell some books, we said HELL YEAH WE DO.

So here’s what Gary and I came up with:

• Buy a copy of Rework and Crush It! together and you’ll get access to a private 3-hour video Q&A session.
• Buy five copies of each and you’ll get access to the Q&A session + a free ticket to a day-long business seminar with Gary and me in Chicago (exact date/location TBD, but after Rework is launched March 9, 2010).

Get the details and check out promo at the Crush It! site. We hope you enjoy the books, and thanks for supporting both of us!

A couple of recent 37signals mentions at Entrepreneur Magazine re: charging for products…

Harness the Power of ‘Freemium’

As for when a web service should start charging, Fried’s answer is simple: immediately. Charging from the outset tells users that the product has a specific value, Fried says. Trying to charge for something that was previously free can undermine the product’s value, causing potential customers to ask why the service is suddenly worth more than it was in the past.

“My feeling is that you should begin charging right from the start…The longer something is free, the less it’s worth,” he says…

“The best advice I can give regarding pricing is this: Have a price. Don’t be afraid to charge for your work. And make it a number you’d pay yourself,” he says.

Radicals and Visionaries

“You pay for everything in your life except some of the stuff on the internet,” Fried says. “That’s the built-in human behavior we’d like to mimic. The problem with this free thing is, if you’re going to hook people on free for four years, and all of a sudden start charging for things, that doesn’t work very well.”

Entrepreneurs are getting the wrong message from the Klondike buyout of YouTube and the “ridiculous” valuation of Facebook, [the founders of 37signals] say, pointing out both companies are still hemorrhaging cash and haven’t figured out a way to make money. Free is a bubble that will burst when investors run out of patience.

“I’ve been talking to startups, and people have this notion that all they need is eyeballs, all they need is a lot of users and then something magical will happen, and then they’re going to be a huge success,” says Heinemeier Hansson. “That’s going to lead to a lot of unavoidable failures.”…

“The answer,” Fried says, “is to be fair on prices, deliver great services that your competitor can’t and simply outlast free.”  

“Why business loves Charlie Rose” discusses Rose’s interview with Susie Buffett, Warren’s wife.

Rose’s interview with Buffett’s wife, Susie — three months before her unexpected death in 2004 — was both authentic and touching. It was the only TV interview of her life; she gave a glimpse of why Warren treasured her and how they made an unconventional marriage work. It was one of Rose’s least affected, most nuanced performances; mention it to [Buffett friend Bill] Gates and you can hear him well up a little.

Below is the interview. I remember watching it when it originally aired and thinking that she seemed like a really amazing lady. Warren really does know how to pick ‘em.