How many companies would let one of their own openly attack and criticize its actions in public?

That’s the job of The NY Times’ Public Editor, a “readers’ representative” who investigates the actions of his own paper. His job is to follow up on reader complaints and make sure everything at the paper is on the up and up. He’s like the journalistic version of an internal affairs cop.

He’s given a wide berth to call it like he sees it too. For example, he recently took issue with the paper’s decision to run a discounted ad from Moveon.org criticizing Gen. David Petraeus.

The ad violated The Times’s own written standards, and the paper now says that the advertiser got a price break it was not entitled to…

For me, two values collided here: the right of free speech — even if it’s abusive speech — and a strong personal revulsion toward the name-calling and personal attacks that now pass for political dialogue, obscuring rather than illuminating important policy issues. For The Times, there is another value: the protection of its brand as a newspaper that sets a high standard for civility…I’d have demanded changes to eliminate ‘Betray Us,’ a particularly low blow when aimed at a soldier.

I won’t get into the politics of this specific issue, but I do think it’s refreshing to see this level of transparency from a big media company. After all, a newspaper’s job is to serve as a watchdog that tracks the hypocrisies and abuses of power taking place in big government and big business. So it better be able to take a long, hard look at itself too. What’s good for the goose…

There’s a lesson here for non-media businesses too. The age of secrets is dying. It’s all going to be out there. If you report on yourself and tell the truth about both your successes and failures, you get ahead of the curve. Sure, sometimes that might mean taking a short-term PR hit. But in the long run, you make it back in spades by earning long-term credibility.

Design Shack
David Appleyard writes: “I noticed this at a recently re-designed CSS gallery and thought it was quite an original idea! A fresh take on navigation through designs.”

iSquint
Rosano Coutinho writes: “When most progress indicators aren’t accurate, they rarely admit it, but the one in iSquint does. Somehow, makes me feel less negative towards the software and the innacuracy.”

Apple recently posted an iPhone update which, among other things, adds an “iTunes” icon to the iPhone home screen.

I love where they put it. They didn’t put it where consistency tells you to put it. That would be on the left side. They put it where context tells you to put it. On the right side right above the iPod icon. Even the icon’s arrow points right down to the iPod.

A few other observations… This is currently the only button on the screen (perhaps besides the SMS button) that makes Apple any incremental money. Setting it off by lining it up on the side really makes it stick out. I think that had something to do with the decision. It’s also the only icon in purple. It really stands out. I think that was intentional too.

Anyway, I love that Apple favored context over consistency in this design decision. Consistency is the easy choice. Context is the thinking choice.

A week ago we announced the SEED Conference. We’ve sold over 100 seats so far and only about 20 seats remain. If you want to attend, you’ll want to act quickly.

Visit the SEED Conference site to find out more and get yourself a seat for $399.

We look forward to seeing you on Oct 29 in Chicago.

Oliver writes:

I become frustrated at trying to introduce more innovative methods of software development at the large IT consulting firm I work for. Are there any methods to trying to get 1980’s waterfall lovers to even think of rapid development techniques as anything but “silly crap suitable for start-ups but with not place in Real Development Companies” (paraphrased), or should I just quit and find somebody more exciting to work for?

Most people fear change because they overestimate the risks and underestimate the gains. If you want to convince them to change, you have to address both issues.

In my experience, the only way to address the perception of risk is through first-hand experiences that Nothing Bad Will Happen. Anecdotal, or even hard, data rarely sways anyone unless they’re already in a desperate situation.

So pick something small in your organization. Internal systems are usually a good fit. The worst that could happen is usually that you’ve wasted a little time (and organizations running waterfalls should be intimately experienced with wasting time for much less noble causes). You don’t end up looking foolish to clients (a common fear).

Pitch this system as a test balloon for another way of doing things. To smooth things further, you could throw a boon to kick it off the ground, like “Peter and me will come in on Saturday to set everything up for this”, so that you reflect that you have some skin in the game too and that you care.

Odds are that people will like how things work on the test trial (i.e., they’ll start reevaluating the gains). They’ll appreciate that you’re working in iterations, how quickly you can adapt to changes, and how enthusiastic people on that project seem to be.

If all goes well, this will lead to “why can’t we work like this on project X?”. Maybe this call won’t come from top decision makers right away, but it’ll come from anyone else who’s been exposed, and it’ll hopefully start an internal debate based on first-hand experience.

Then again, maybe it won’t. But at least you’ve given it a shot, so you won’t feel bad at all when you hand in your resignation and move on to a place that provides a more rewarding work environment.

Brian Crabtree of Monome sent us a link to the above clip and writes:

Thought you might like this design detail. We originally had a sortof “logo” pattern flash on startup, which is abstract in reality, pretty disassociative. Now you get the satisfying sense of physically “giving” power to the device.

Related: [Fireside Chat] Brian Crabtree (Monome), David Rose (Ambient Devices), and Nathan Seidle (Spark Fun Electronics)

José Bonnet asks:

How do you handle the pressure to grow?
Do you keep just saying ‘No!’?

I love this question because it’s one we get a lot. I also think it gets to the root of what growth means and how it’s perceived.

Let me say upfront that I may be interpreting José’s question incorrectly. I’m assuming he means hire more people when he says grow. I assume he’s talking about the physical space the company takes up.

Here’s the answer to the question I think he’s asking: No, we do not feel pressure to hire new people in order to grow.

Growing without “growing”

Just about every journalist I’ve talked to recently asks about the growth at 37signals. “You’re still just 8 people, how do you plan on growing?” “When will you begin to really grow the company?” “Why have you decided not to grow the company?”

The answer is always the same: We are growing, but not physically. You can grow without “growing.” In fact, I think it’s a healthier path.

Our customer base is growing. Our revenues are growing. Our customer satisfaction is growing. Our product offering is growing. Our integration options are growing. This is the kind of growth we want.

How you grow is up to you

We’ve intentionally set up our business so our headcount doesn’t need to grow linearly with our key business metrix. We’ve put self-serve at the core of our company. Self serve sign up, self serve upgrade, self serve downgrade, self serve cancellation.

We’ve been constantly tweaking the UIs for the apps to make them even more self sufficient. By making things clearer and simpler we make help/support less necessary. We’re obviously here to help people when they need help, but we’ve seen significant growth in our customer base without significant growth in customer service requests. This is the biggest payoff of simplicity and clarity. Less confusion and frustration for our customers, and less time and fewer company resources required to explain away bad design decisions, confusing features, and missed expectations.

Most companies need to continue to hire to generate/sell new business, service custom/key clients, handle a mountain of customer support inquiries because of the complexity inherent in their products, etc. We aren’t that kind of business. And I would recommend that if you are building a business – especially a web-based software business – you don’t build one of those businesses either. They’re rife with pressures to “grow.”

Has the tech industry forgotten the lessons of the first tech bubble?

AuditoriumA.com: “The only criticism that we’ve received from some members of the press is the fact that we currently charge a fee for the Paid Edition of our service. Sigh. It seems that the tech industry has already forgotten the lessons of the first tech bubble and is back to the self-deluded idea that great technology alone is enough to survive over the long term. The past few weeks we’ve felt a lot like the owners of a restaurant that gets a five star review only to have the reviewer rant on about how the restaurant is planning to charge for its delicacies. Shouldn’t the restaurant owner just line his walls with advertisements and be happy?”

“From Scratch”: NPR show about the entrepreneurial life

“We meet with the nation’s leading pioneers from the business world, the social sector, entertainment, and the arts. From Scratch personalizes the lives of these entrepreneurs by providing listeners with a candid, first-hand view of their launching process. Guests speak about their sources of inspiration, set backs, financial hurdles, partnership dynamics, feelings of self doubt, helpful allies, and break though moments.”

Great interviews of the 20th century

“The Guardian and Observer’s unique series of the best interviews of the last century….From David Frost’s conversations about Watergate with Richard Nixon to Marilyn Monroe’s last interview, Princess Diana’s confessions to Martin Bashir and Bill Grundy’s disastrous grilling of the Sex Pistols on live television.” [via JK]

Chart junk in the New York Times?

“Checking out the New York Times’s infographic on the housing bubble, I thought ‘Wow! Look at how much prices climbed!’ Then I read the fine print and realized they’ve completely distorted the vertical scale to make the increase look enormous.”

This profile of Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster gives a summary of his management philosophy:

• Listen to what users want. Try to make the site faster and better.
• Hire good people. “We work hard trying to get the right kind of folks.” It pays off: they hardly ever leave.
• No meetings, ever. “I find them stupefying and useless.”
• No management programmes and no MBAs. “I’ve always thought that sort of thing was baloney.”
• Forget the figures. “We are consistently in the black, so if we do better or worse in any given quarter it is absolutely irrelevant.”
• Occasionally, give people “a very gentle nudge”. This can be done over lunch or on the instant messaging boards.
• He doesn’t reply to any of his 100 daily messages, most of which beg Craigslist to do a deal. “I’m not real chatty on e-mail.”
• Put speed over perfection: “Get something out there. Do it, even if it isn’t perfect.”
• “Don’t screw it up by doing things that make people feel worse about their work.”

[via Good Experience]

April writes Ask 37signals:

As a developer, I often feel overwhelmed by the amount of new technologies and languages to learn. I work long hours as it is, and the last thing I feel like doing when I get home is spending more time trying new stuff out at the computer. Do I really have to be the kind of person that is excited about spending 24/7 at the computer to be a programmer? I love my job, and I love what I do, but I want a life outside of it too.

I think the best programmers are those that do have a life outside of computers. Those who value their time in front of the screen because it’s finite, because it’s competing with other interests. That usually drives you think twice about spending eons just playing around for the heck of it (not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that).

In my opinion, the best way to learn new technologies is on the job. I learned Ruby because I wanted to escape the pain that PHP and Java was giving me and because I had a fresh project to try it on (Basecamp). I built Rails because I needed it for Basecamp. I got into Ajax because we wanted to give Ta-da a compelling UI experience. I got into REST because we didn’t want the API for Highrise to be an afterthought. I picked up on OpenID because the thought of building single-signon for all 37signals’ products sounded like a drag to build from scratch.

Sure, you some times need to do a cursory investigation on a new technology to see whether it would be a good fit for the work you’re considering it for. But that shouldn’t be a two-week project. If the technology you’re considering takes more than a few days to get a feel for, that’s information in itself (I would probably never bother with it). So you go for the taste and if it feels good, you apply it to something real.

That does require that you’re working in an environment that’s open to new technology and willing to invest in your growth as a developer by allowing you to use it. If you’re not working in a place that fits that description, I’d start looking for a place that does.