You’re reading Signal v. Noise, a publication about the web by Basecamp since 1999. Happy !
Learning from failure is overrated and its redux [both from SvN] sparked a healthy debate. Well, now there’s a new study that backs up the idea “we” learn more from successes than from mistakes. Ok, it’s a study of monkeys. But still…
Browsers visiting 37signals sites (all our marketing sites combined)
We’ve added new categories to The 37signals Job Board. You can now choose from Customer Service/Support, iPhone Developer, Business/Exec, Copywriter, Programming, Miscellaneous, and Design.
We are very proud to announce that Joshua Peek will be joining the ranks of 37signals as a full-time employee in January. Like most of the other programmers we’ve hired at 37signals, I first got to know Josh through Ruby on Rails where he has been doing a fantastic job for years now.
We’ve been trying to hire him just about ever since, but despite our best efforts, we haven’t been able to get him to drop out of college. So that’s also why we’ll be waiting impatiently until January for Josh to wrap up the final batch of tough classes.
Josh has actually been working on the 37signals suite of products for quite some time as a contractor, though. So when I announced that we’ve come to an agreement on permanent employment this morning, there was much rejoicing from the rest of the team:
Joshua Peek will be the 15th signal.
Pagehand is a word processing app designed exclusively for Mac OS X. It has some unique UI touches for being a desktop word processor. (One of the app’s features: “Never forces you to choose from a bewildering array of small icons.”)
Say you have a document open and you want to change it from one column to two columns, you click the ‘Columns’ button in the toolbar:
And the toolbar gets replaced by a special “columns” state.
Check out how you set the options:
When you’re done, you click in the body of your document to revert the toolbar back to its normal state.
That’s a very different approach from the Word-style dialog box with 10 fields in it. The downside is you have to navigate quite a lot to do simple things. But maybe it’s better in the end.
Separately, it’s interesting how the app’s UI is used for the layout of the app’s marketing site too:
Michael O’Leary, chief executive of the European budget airline Ryanair, is hardcore about saying no:
Ryanair promises four things: low fares, a good on-time record, few cancellations and few lost bags.
“But if you want anything more — go away! Will we put you in a hotel room if your flight was canceled?” Mr. O’Leary asked rhetorically. “No! Go away.”…
“Will we give you a refund on a nonrefundable ticket because your granny died unexpectedly?” he asked. “No! Go away. We’re not interested in your sob stories! What part of ‘no refund’ do you not understand?”
Miss your flight because you had to wait too long at a Ryanair help desk? Too bad! Your luggage is slightly overweight? Throw away the excess, or wear it on the flight! Try to tote your duty-free purchases onto the plane in a shopping bag, when you already have a carry-on bag? Prepare to fork over $40 at the gate.
Sounds like a bad experience in many ways (Southwest manages to take a similar approach without coming off as hostile to customers). But a lot of people only really care about those four things Ryanair promises to deliver. By pleasing that core group, Ryanair is managing to do something that most airlines find impossible right now: It’s turning a profit and growing the number of passengers it flies.
From our internal Campfire chat room:
| Sam S. | i like how supermarket house brands seem to have nice clean packaging lately |
| Jason Z. | totally, Sam |
Have you seen the new stuff Walmart is doing? |
|
| Sam S. | house brands used to look cheap but now they look expensive |
| Jason Z. |  |
 |
|
| Sam S. | haven’t seen that |
| Jason Z. |  |
| Sam S. | safeway/dominick’s O Organics branding is nice |
| Jason Z. | I think those are pretty fresh |
| Ryan S. | it’s interesting how white space packaging has been slowly moving downmarket |
over the last like, 6 years |
This interview with Wendy Kopp, founder and chief executive of Teach for America, reveals some interesting parallel thinking with ideas 37signals has also discussed.
Kopp on the pointlessness of planning…
I also had this revelation that we were no longer going to go through all this development of strategic plans. We would go through this massive process of creating these endless strategic plans and reviewing them. And I don’t know how many years we did that until I said: “Forget it. We don’t even need to do this anymore. Let’s figure out our priorities and how we are going to measure our success. And then we’re going to let people run after those goals.” And that just freed up all the energy.
Related: Don’t write a functional specifications document and Eliminate unnecessary paperwork [Getting Real] and The only plan is to learn as you go [SvN].
On the importance of saying no…
There are certain lessons…One of them is the importance of focus, the importance of saying no.
There was so much good momentum and we were asking all sorts of good questions and launching new, good ideas. But ultimately, they took away resources and energy from the fundamental core of what we do, which we came back to believing was the most powerful thing. The obsession with truly staying focused on our core mission, I think, came from that.
Related: Start With No [Getting Real] and The most powerful word is no [SvN]
On test-driving employees before hiring…
I used to hire people and then realize within two days whether someone was going to thrive or not. So I said, “Let’s actually find out what we’re going to know two days in, before someone starts.” We just send them a bunch of stuff that they would get otherwise on their first day and say, “Here are the challenges of the day.” And we ask them to write up their answers, and then actually engage with them deeply so that we understand whether they have the skills that a particular role is going to require.
Related: Work with prospective employees on a test-basis first [Getting Real].
Continued…
A little something we’re working on. Can you guess what it is?
Design Jobs
Temple University is looking for a Interactive Developer/Web Developer in Philadelphia, PA.
Arc Worldwide | Leo Burnett is looking for a Senior Content Strategist in Chicago, IL.
Creative B’stro is looking for a Information Architect in San Francisco, CA.
Lime Wire LLC is looking for a User Experience Designer in New York, NY.
Afar Media is looking for a UI Designer in San Francisco, CA.
Linkstorm is looking for a Senior Interactive Designer in New York, NY.
Garmin International is looking for a Software User Interface Designer in Olathe, KS.
Programming Jobs
Braintree Payment Solutions is looking for a Software Developer in Chicago, IL.
Fluid, Inc. is looking for a Lead Web Developer in San Francisco, CA.
Yelp, Inc. is looking for a Front End Engineer in San Francisco, CA.
Threespot Media is looking for a Software Engineer in Washington, DC.
Groupon is looking for a Rails Developer in Chicago, IL.
Animoto Productions is looking for a Program Manager in New York, NY.
Showpopr.com is looking for a Rails Web Developer in New York, NY (or remote).
View all Programmer Job listings
More jobs
View all of the jobs at the 37signals Job Board. (The Job Board now has internships too.)
