A few years ago we launched the 37signals Job Board to answer a question we heard all the time: “Do you know where we can find a programmer or a designer? We need to hire one but we don’t know where to find one.” Since then, over 5,700 jobs have been posted, and many positions have been filled.

Another question we hear a lot

So there’s another question we’ve been hearing a lot: “Can you recommend a web designer to help us with a project?” or “Do you know any good web design firms in Chicago? Or New York? Or Denver?” Now we’ll have an answer to that question as well: Haystack.

Here comes Haystack

Today we’re launching Haystack. Haystack is a site where web designers (firms and freelancers) can answer the three basic questions a client typically asks at the beginning of a search:

• What does your work look like?
• Where are you located?
• What’s your typical budget range?

This is what clients want to know. Haystack lays it all out for them. Browsing on Haystack is like browsing dozens of web designers sites, but browsing them all on the same page. It makes finding the right web designer significantly easier than the old fashioned way (finding and browsing dozens of different designer’s sites). Clients can favorite firms they like and review them all on one page (that’s nicely printable and sharable, too).

What’s it look like to clients?

Here’s what Haystack looks like to a client who’s browsing to find a web design firm. They can filter by city and typical budget range. They’ll see pictures of matching designer’s work so they can hone in visually:

View in more detail

What’s it look like to designers?

Adding yourself or your company to Haystack is a quick two step process. You upload a picture that best represents your work, you choose the major city that’s closest to you, and you select your typical budget range. We then create a Haystack listing card for your company. The card is created as you’re filling out the form so you can see exactly how it’s going to look.

Your card is then added to the mix so clients can spot it as they browse the site. Everyone who is listed also gets a dedicated page where they can describe their company in more detail and display their work at full size.

Does it cost anything to be listed on Haystack?

Nope. Any web designer can list themselves or their company for free. Free listings include one image, and a small Haystack listing card.

We also offer a Pro listing for $99/month. The Pro listing includes room for a 6-image slideshow, your logo, and a listing card that is four times as large as the free listing. Pro listings also appear above free listings.

View full size

How will we be promoting Haystack?

We’ll be promoting Haystack through a variety of web-based ads, targeted local advertising (“Looking for a web designer in Boston?”), links on blogs, mentions in newsletters, and promotion to the 37signals customer base (which is made primarily of small/medium businesses). We’ll be bringing the traffic so you’ll be getting the exposure. All for far less than it would cost you to reach the same number of people.

If you’re a web designer, get listed today!

Get listed on Haystack today! We hope Haystack helps you land great clients. And if you’re a client, we hope Haystack helps you land a great web design firm.

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.

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!

The 2016 announcement is just hours away. Will it be Chicago? Rio? Madrid? Tokyo? The favorites appear to be Chicago or Rio, but who knows. I’d like to see Chicago win.

As as Chicagoan, I’ve seen the campaign close up. A recent poll suggests Chicago citizens are about equally split on whether or not they want the games. The results show slippage from the 2-to-1 support found in an earlier Tribune poll in February.

I think this reveals a flaw in the local marketing of the games. And I think there’s a good lesson in all this: Chicago sold the features, not the benefits. Chicago didn’t tell its citizens why the games would be good for Chicago. Chicago didn’t lay out the lasting legacy of the games for the city. What’s really in it for us? Why should we really support it? What happens after they are over? 8 years of work for a few weeks of sunshine. Then what?

This is a bit of Friday-morning quarterbacking, but here’s what I would have loved to have seen: A campaign centered around Chicago 2017. Show us what the city will look like after the Olympics. Give us a reason to want the games for the decade after the games. Give us examples… If a kid’s 16 years old today, what will the city be like for her when she’s 26? How will the games make Chicago a better place for Chicagoans. Will it be a better place to grow up? Why? Will it be a better place to work? Why? Why would we want to put up with all the construction, traffic, congestion, and attention? Why will it all be worth it?

I do hope we get the games. I do think it will be great for the city. But I have a hard time communicating why. And if I can’t say why, I can’t tell other people why. Shallow support is barely support. That’s a problem.

The bad reasons — the reasons not to support the bid — are the easy reasons: Debt, higher taxes, corruption. A Chicago 2017 campaign could have given me the good reasons. They could have made the good reasons easier to remember and communicate than the bad reasons. I think Chicago 2017 would have put more people into the “I’m for the games” camp than just under 50% and falling.

A little over a month ago we (almost) introduced 37signals Accounts — our new single sign-on (and more) system. Development continues, but we’re closing in on the start of the transition. More on this in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, we wanted to show you one of the cool things that comes with every 37signals Account: The Launchpad.

The 37signals Launchpad will list all the accounts you have on Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire. You’ll see the Launchpad if you sign in at 37signals.com and you use multiple 37signals products (Basecamp and Highrise, for example) or have multiple accounts on a single product (two or more Backpack accounts, for example).

In time we’ll be adding more functionality to the Launchpad, but here’s a video demonstrating the basics you can expect when we launch:

We hope you enjoyed the preview. Stay tuned for more information regarding the launch of 37signals Accounts.

This weekend I had a problem with my alarm system at home. My alarm had gone off (false alarm), but for some reason it wasn’t releasing the phone line back to the phone. This meant that when I picked up the home phone I got that “there’s a phone off the hook” repeating tone.

I didn’t realize this was the problem until about 1:30am Sunday morning. So I called ADT (alarm company) to see if they could help. I wasn’t expecting a great experience after midnight, but a great experience is exactly what I got.

I called their 800 number, pressed one key, and got a human. She was very well informed and genuinely friendly. This wasn’t an outsourced-to-another-contintent-and-follow-the-script experience. Even though it was a confusing and rare problem, she understood what I was explaining and began looking for a solution.

She wasn’t sure exactly how to fix the problem since my alarm system has a hardwired phone cable (an important detail for this problem, but not worth explaining here), but she politely put me on hold and asked her supervisor. 30 seconds later she had the answer.

It’s subtle, but I think this makes for a better experience than transferring me to someone else who may be able to answer my question. When you’re transferred you feel like you have to start over. Whatever rapport you’ve built up with the first person is missing with the new person. Background information may have to be repeated. Stories may have to be told again. Transfers are frustrating.

Anyway, in order to fix the issue I had to trip the alarm. She stayed with me on the phone while I went through the process and talked me through exactly what to do and when to do it. It really felt like I was talking to a friend. The tone was casual, helpful, and friendly the whole way through. I never felt rushed or stupid or inferior. Everything was handled perfectly.

My experience with late-night call centers or customer service calls has almost always been sub-par. The quality seems to suffer in off hours. But this interaction with ADT was fantastic. It was a great experience and it reminded me of the other great experiences I’ve had with ADT. The salesperson was great and the installer was great too. One experience tends to reinforce other experiences.

The whole experience made me happy to be an ADT customer. It’s been a while since a customer service call reminded me that I was a happy customer. And that reminds me just how important it is to provide great customer service.