Fast Company has a list of 12 of the Year’s Best Ideas in Interface Design. Two neat items there:

Master Lock’s Speed Dial combination lock reinvents an object that’s remained static for decades. It opens on up/down/left/right directional movements which are more intuitive than numbers or alpha-numeric code and easier for folks who are elderly or have disabilities.

In “How Do You Reinvent Something as Common as the Padlock?”, Lea Plato, lead designer of the lock, explains the design process.

Electronics in general hint a lot at directional movement. We use that kind of movement all the time in all different things, whether it’s volume control or play and fast forward. Even way back, the VCR used directional symbols to show what you wanted to do. I think being around technology everywhere—and it hinting at directional movement—played a part in the actual function of the lock. You just remember directional movement more easily. It’s more intuitive than numbers or alpha-numeric code.

John’s Phone is a great example of underdoing the competition. It’s a cell phone that makes and accepts calls. That’s it. The phone even includes a store-it-inside-the-phone paper pad and pen for jotting down numbers.

Obviously it’s a poor fit for most folks, but it carves out a nice little niche for people who just want a phone that gets out of the way. Plus, it seems great for toddlers in a “My First Phone” kinda way. More details at Fast Company.

37signals and Meetup go way back. Meetup was one of our first design clients back in the day. And founder Scott Heiferman was even a guest poster for a month here at SvN back in ‘03. We’ve watched closely as Meetup has grown and evolved since then, especially during the tumultuous period after it began charging customers. It’s been almost six years since that fateful decision so we decided to sit down with Scott and talk about it.

In April of 2005, Meetup went from free to pay and started charging organizers of meetings. Many customers were outraged:

Congratulations, you’ve officially joined the “Asshole Club” along with the likes of BELL CANADA, EXON, KFC, McDONALDS, and all the other mega-corp. conglomerates who don’t give a shit about anyone or anything but lining their own pockets with money.

Others predicted the company’s demise:

I think it’s fair to say most organisers were shocked, and most of the ones I’ve spoken to will simply cease organising for their groups…There isn’t anything Meetup is doing these days that users can’t simply do on their own and more effectively, and there’s plenty of open source software to make use of and create your own website.”

Meetup wasn’t expecting the harsh response. “We were really naive,” says Scott Heiferman, founder of the site. “We figured that if people didn’t like it, they would just say, ‘OK, I’m not going to do this.’ As opposed to really taking it personally. Because this wasn’t like we were taking away their medicine. But people were so upset and we got such anger and such vitriol. The backlash was very bad. And we were surprised by that.”

According to Heiferman (seen at right in a photo by Tim Wagner), the site lost around 95% of its activity. “Now imagine you’re the hot startup – people forget we were the hot thing that was on 60 Minutes – and all of a sudden, in a flash, you see 95% of your activity go away. I mean, that’s the backlash in its most visceral form. It was like, ‘Oh, man what did you do? What do we do?’ We never really wavered seriously, but it’s a punch in the gut. It’s saying, ‘We were touching this many lives and now we’re touching not many lives, and oh, everyone hates us.’

“Now, did we think it was going to be less? No, not really. We knew. We said, ‘OK. If we get 10% or 5% to continue and pay that would be great.’ Because we were in this to make something great for people.” And Heiferman knew to do that, something had to change.

Little goes according to plan
Back in 2002, the original revenue model for Meetup was to charge venues $1 for each person brought in to a café, bar, pizza joint, bowling alley, etc. for a Meetup. “For a number of reasons it failed,” says Heiferman. “It was too early. It was hard. There was a discrepancy between the number of people who said they were going to come and who actually showed up. And too many people were going to their Meetup [at a coffee shop] and not buying coffee.”

Little was going according to plan. Heiferman explains, “Most of what we thought Meetup was going to be used for, people didn’t use it that way. And what they did use it for were things we didn’t imagine when we were building it. It never crossed our minds that this would be a political mobilizing tool.” Yet that’s where Meetup was quickly gaining the most attention. Politicians like Howard Dean embraced the tool and so did a then-unknown Illinois State Senator named Barack Obama.

At the same time, Meetup began pursuing additional revenue streams. It charged political organizations. It added AdSense. It experimented with Meetup Plus, a premium offering.

None made much of a difference though. When asked what made Meetup Plus special, Heiferman answers, “God, I don’t even remember what it got you. It got you some kind of features where you would be able to…I don’t know. I can’t remember.” Heiferman laughs and continues, “That was the problem. That’s a problem with a lot of freemium things. We refused to handicap the core, free product. So it wasn’t compelling.”

Think Tank makes great photography bags. Like all manufacturers they stand by the quality of their product. However, they believe the “Lifetime warranty” is nothing more than marketing BS.

Here’s a great statement from their No Rhetoric Warranty page:

If you’re 30 years old when you purchased a bag, are you really going to return it 30 years later for repair? The only way this is possible is if the bag has stayed in your closet the majority of the time. Remember the leather cases in the 1960’s? Is anyone returning these bags for repair under the “lifetime” warranty? This is why the lifetime warranty is more of a marketing gimmick than the truth. Is it the life of the bag, or your personal life? The normal life of a bag, if it is used weekly, is four to 10 years, which is not “lifetime.” If lifetime means your personal life, when you’re dead, you won’t need the bag, unless it’s a body bag.

I found this statement refreshing. I’m not sure how big Think Tank is — how many employees or revenues. This straight-talk made them feel like a shop around the corner, and I like that.

It’s been almost a year since we published REWORK, a book that violated a lot of the publishing industry’s conventional wisdom…

Conventional wisdom: Books targeted at entrepreneurs generally don’t sell very well or usually end up on the bottom shelf.
REWORK: Written specifically for starters and small business people.

CW: For the price point of our book, it must be at least 40,000 words. Readers want something bulky that’s got lots of content.
REWORK: We chopped the final edition down to 27,000 words (from 50,000+). You can get through it in just a few hours.

CW: Business books don’t have illustrations.
REWORK: Each essay accompanied by Mike Rohde’s artwork. (Mike explained the process in these posts: part 1, part 2.)

CW: The copyright page goes at the beginning.
REWORK: The copyright page is at the end. And there’s no foreword either. That lets readers get right to the meat of the book.

CW: The back cover should be filled with a lengthy explanation and blurbs.
REWORK: The back cover is as pretty as the front cover. A few key points and that’s it.

CW: The format should be long chapters.
REWORK: Filled with short essays, most just a page or two.

CW: A business book should use business-y language.
REWORK: Plain language throughout (and even some cursing).

CW: Books don’t have commercials.
REWORK: Coudal helped us created great trailers and even a Karl Rove “attack” video that helped get the word out about the book.

Things turned out alright. Last night, 800 CEO READ named REWORK business book of the year. 800 CEO READ said, “If you are an aspiring business book author or publisher and want to know what a truly exceptional business book looks like, REWORK is the example…[It’s] the best-conceived and designed book of the year.”

REWORK has now sold over 110,000 copies in the US and remains on the New York Times’ Hardcover Business Best Sellers list. It’s also been translated around the world. And best of all, every day we get letters from readers who tell us they’ve been inspired by the book. Thanks to everyone who purchased the book and has taken the time to write us. And thanks to 800 CEO READ for the award. Also, we have to give credit to our team at Crown for giving us the slack to run with these ideas.

We hope REWORK’s success shows that 1) business books don’t have to be like business books and 2) you can fight back against the “it’s the way we’ve always done it” mentality that homogenizes so many books (and plenty of other stuff too).