Dave Balter, from the clever word of mouth marketing agency BzzAgent, has a special treat for our Signal vs. Noise readers. His new book, The Word Of Mouth Manual, Volume II, which costs $45 at Amazon, can be downloaded for free in PDF format.

It’s a good idea because: 1. Dave put everything he knows about the power of word of mouth onto the pages (and he knows a lot), 2. Dave is self publishing the book (you know we love that), and 3. Dave is walking the walk by initially promoting the book solely by word of mouth.

If you want your customers to start talking about your products and services, this book is a must read. SvN readers: get your free copy in PDF right now.

A beautiful speech on Father’s Day in Chicago by Barack Obama. Wherever you fall politically, give this talk about family, responsibility, expectations, and ambition a listen. There’s a bit of politics and religion in the last few minutes, but the underlying message is universal. Happy Father’s Day.

A collection of “Made in…” clothing labels from around the world.

You read that right. We’re looking to hire a new designer that can kick our ass. We’re looking for our current aesthetic to be challenged and changed. Redesign 37signals.

This is the chance to redefine the look and feel of 37signals. We’re going to start with the product marketing sites. We expect some of that influence to trickle down into the apps over time. But initially this is all about a new design language on our public-facing marketing sites.

You’ll have virtual free reign. We want you to take the lead. You’ll have a lot of influence here and across the web design and software design world.

We’re looking for someone who understands type, someone who understands color, someone who understands proportion, someone who understands what it takes to give something a distinct style all its own.

Bring us a fine art angle. Bring us something hand drawn. Bring us great design. Bring us design that communicates a clear purpose. Design that’s friendly, warm, and inviting, yet elegant, modern, and fresh. Bring us design that feels good.

If this is you, share your work and share your thoughts. Tell us why you’re the one for us. Email us at svn [at] 37signals dot com and include [Designer] in the subject. We won’t be able to get back to everyone, but we’ll be in touch if we think you may be the right fit. This is a full time position.

Thanks much. We can’t wait to get started working with you.

Reference: Posting on the 37signals Job Board.

BMW presents GINA, a new take on car design, materials, and flexibility. The GINA replaces the traditional metal/plastic skin with a textile fabric skin that’s pulled taut around a frame of metal and carbon fiber wires. Even the shape of the car can change. Fascinating and creative design study.

The rear lights just shine through the skin:

Here’s a video of the design in action.

Bill Taylor, the original founder of Fast Company magazine, and author of the inspirational Mavericks at Work, came to our offices last week to grab some coffee and talk shop.

Bill’s recent piece about how Zappos pays you a bonus to quit lit up the webwaves and got linked up in a billion places. Bill just posted an article he wrote about 37signals based on our meeting last week.

Bill is a great guy. He’s full of energy and positively infectious. I first met him at the Business Innovation Factory conference last year. I look forward to being involved with BIF-4 this year. Its a wonderfully unique conference with a seriously diverse group of speakers. It’s one of the most interesting conferences I’ve ever attended. Highly recommended.

Thanks again for coming by the office, Bill! And thanks for the article.

We’ve got a very exciting announcement today. We’re launching a new 37signals Affiliate Program. This one pays cash. Plus there’s a twist we think you’ll really like.

Now and Forever

Many affiliate programs pay cash on new business referrals. Our new program does that too. However, we wanted to take this a big step further.

We’ve found the recurring revenue model to be a great fit for our business. Customers pay us every month to use our products. We felt it was fitting that anyone who referred a customer our way should also earn a piece of that recurring revenue. So that’s what we’ve done.

Earn 50% on sign-up and 5% of future recurring revenue

When a customer signs up through your referrer link, you’ll earn 50% of their first month’s payment (after they make that first payment), then 5% of their future monthly payments for the life of their account. As you refer more and more customers, your automatic recurring revenue can really begin to add up.

How much can I make?

Review the commissions chart to see the initial and recurring payout per product. At this time Basecamp, Highrise, and Backpack are part of the program. We may add additional products down the road.

For example, if someone signs up for a Basecamp Max plan, you can earn $75 (50% of the first $149/month fee) from that signup. Then, if they pay for 8 months of Max, you’ll earn an additional $59.60 ($7.45/month x 8 months) for a total of $134.60 earned from that one customer.

Check your earnings in real time

Once you’ve signed up, you can check the “My Earnings” section to see your earnings in real time. You’ll see a chart that looks like this:

Easy promotional tools

We’ve started you out with a link you can share via email, IM, Twitter, etc., plus banners you can post on your site or blog.

Get paid often

Once you’ve earned over $100, you’ll begin to be paid roughly every 45 days. We’ll keep the payments coming every 45 days as long as you have over $100 in accrued earnings.

Potential earnings from free signups too

If someone signs up for a free account, and then upgrades to a pay account later on, you’ll earn the 5% recurring revenue from the upgrade.

Didn’t you already have an Affiliate Program?

Yes. We will be phasing that out over time. People who are already part of the old program (credit, not cash, and no recurring revenue) can remain in the old program. But new people who want to join our affiliate program will be joining the new program.

Sign up today and get started promoting and earning!

Signing up for the 37signals Affiliate Program takes just a few seconds. Then you’re off and running, promoting, and earning.

We fully expect some motivated people will ultimately be able to make nice livings off referring 37signals products through the Affiliate Program. The income you can make off the recurring revenue model will really begin to add up.

We have a lot of fun stuff planned for the new 37signals Affiliate Program. We’re excited to see where this goes. We wish you the best success and hope to hear your success stories!

Special thanks

Special thanks to Jeff Hardy for pulling the code strings to get the new 37signals Affiliate Program working. He did a great job.

When designing a UI we usually go right from a quick paper sketch to HTML/CSS. We skip the static Photoshop mockup.

Here are a few reasons why we skip photoshop:

1. You can’t click a Photoshop mockup. This is probably the number one reason we skip static mockups. They aren’t real. Paper isn’t real either, but paper doesn’t have that expectation. A Photoshop mockup is on your screen. If it’s on your screen it should work. You can’t pull down menus in a Photoshop mockup, you can’t enter text into a field in a Photoshop mockup, you can’t click a link in a Photoshop mockup. HTML/CSS, on the other hand, is the real experience.
2. Photoshop gives you too many tools to focus on the details. When you use Photoshop you can’t help but pay attention to the details. The alignment, the specific colors, the exact shapes, the little details that may matter eventually but they certainly don’t matter now. The start is about the substance, not about the details. Details are for later.
3. The text in Photoshop is not the text on the web. Once you’re looking at a static Photoshop mockup you can’t quickly change the text without going back into Photoshop, changing the text, saving the file, exporting it as a gif/png/jpg, etc. You can’t post it online and tell someone to “reload in 5 seconds” like you can when you quickly edit HTML. You have to say “Give me a few minutes…”. Also, type in Photoshop never seems to be the right size as type in HTML. It just never seems to feel the same. It doesn’t wrap the same, it doesn’t space out the same.
4. Photoshop puts the focus on production, not productivity. Photoshop is about building something to look at, but about building something you can use. When you’re just worried about how it’s going to look, you spend too much time on production value. HTML/CSS lets you be productive. You’re constantly moving forward towards something more and more real with every change.
5. Photoshop is repeating yourself. Ok, so you’ve spent 3 days on a mockup in Photoshop. Now what? Now I have to make it all over again in HTML/CSS. Wasted time. Just build it in HTML/CSS and spend that extra time iterating, not rebuilding. If you’re not fast enough in HTML/CSS, then spend the time learning how to create in HTML/CSS faster. It’s time well spent.
6. Photoshop isn’t collaboration friendly. I sorta touched on this before, but let me hit this point again: HTML/CSS lets you make a change, save, and reload. That’s our collaboration flow. “Here, let me change this. Reload.” These changes take seconds. “Here, let me float this left instead of right. Reload.” Seconds. No selecting a tool, changing a few items around manually, saving, exporting, uploading, giving people the new file name, etc. HTML/CSS is build for rapid iterative prototyping while Photoshop… isn’t.
7. Photoshop is awkward. You can’t help but know your way around Photoshop after working in it for 10 years, but I still find it awkward to get simple things done. Working with a pen feels so much more natural to me than going back to the toolbar over and over. A pen can draw anything, but in Photoshop you need to use the text tool to type, the shape tool to draw a shape, the menu bar to adjust this or that, etc.

None of this is to say we think Photoshop is bad or a waste of money or time, but for us we’ve found that going straight into HTML/CSS affords us the best iterative and creative experience. HTML/CSS is real in a way Photoshop will never be.

We’re lucky to live in the age of Dean Kamen.

Greg asks:

When your product just launched and the user base is starting to grow, you’re happy about any positive feedback you receive from your first users. But just as soon, you start receiving feature requests from the same users. While it’s easy to say “No” to a feature as a team internally, I found it less easy to tell a customer that their suggestion won’t see the light of day anytime soon (for any number of reasons). How do you respond to such requests — especially when the feature “makes sense” as an extension but might be too much of a niche (a power-user feature) or not a top priority right now. The answer might be to just say it, but I thought I’d ask anyway to see what your experience has been and how users responded.

We say no to a lot of ideas — including most of our own ideas. But it’s important to remember that no can be temporary. No now may be yes later. Or it may be no forever. The trick is to figure out which camp a certain no falls into and then respond appropriately.

For example, if someone asks you to add something to your product that you absolutely know you won’t be adding (Gantt charts to Basecamp, for example), you can be clear. “We appreciate the suggestion, but we will not be adding Gantt charts to Basecamp. We’ve taken an entirely different approach to project management with Basecamp…” And so on. If you are going to give an absolute no, it’s nice to briefly explain the thinking behind that decision. It helps people understand that you’ve thought about the no.

However, if the idea sounds reasonable and interesting, but you just don’t have plans for it right now, you can turn that no into a thank you. “Thanks for sending the suggestion over. While we can’t guarantee we’ll be adding this feature, we can promise you we’ll review it and possibly consider it for a future version.” Even though we say no to just about everything by default, we do read and consider every suggestion. Some make it in, some don’t. Some show up in weeks, some may take years. Plans change, markets change, products change.

But most of all, being clear, direct, and honest is the best policy. Don’t string a potential customer along. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Just be clear and set realistic expectations. Telling someone yes when you really mean no is a recipe for a bad experience down the road.