[Fireside Chats are round table discussions conducted using Campfire.]

The Chatters
Dave Brasgalla (Icon Factory)
Brian Brasher (Firewheel Design)
Jon Hicks (Hicks Design)
Corey Marion (Icon Factory)
Michael Schmidt (Cuban Council)
Josh Williams (Firewheel Design)
(Moderated by Matt and Jason from 37signals)

Matt	paste an icon or icon set that you’re proud of making and explain why.
Corey
Brian
Jon
Jon	I guess I had too!
Corey	Didn’t know Hicks did the Firefox and Thunderbird icons, nice work
Jon	It’s kind of my one-hit wonder!
Josh	I did these icons for a Pawn Shop POS system years ago. The thought of Pawn Shop icons has always made me laugh a bit:
Josh
Corey
Corey	One of our original three sets when stockicons.com launched
Dave
Dave	Cave Troll. :-D
Dave	Those LOTR icons, I love the CCave Troll, but the book… I’ve been after texture for so long, and that time I hit exactly what I had in mind

The Washington Post got world class violinist Josh Bell to play his Stradivarius at a subway stop to see how commuters would react. Turns out they didn’t react much.

In the three-quarters of an hour that Joshua Bell played, seven people stopped what they were doing to hang around and take in the performance, at least for a minute. Twenty-seven gave money, most of them on the run—for a total of $32 and change. That leaves the 1,070 people who hurried by, oblivious, many only three feet away, few even turning to look.

“At a music hall, I’ll get upset if someone coughs or if someone’s cellphone goes off. But here, my expectations quickly diminished. I started to appreciate any acknowledgment, even a slight glance up. I was oddly grateful when someone threw in a dollar instead of change.” This is from a man whose talents can command $1,000 a minute.

The one group who consistently tuned in: kids.

The behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away.

Perhaps related, there’s an interesting anecdote about how Bell started young…real young.

Bell is that he got his first music lessons when he was a 4-year-old in Bloomington, Ind. His parents, both psychologists, decided formal training might be a good idea after they saw that their son had strung rubber bands across his dresser drawers and was replicating classical tunes by ear, moving drawers in and out to vary the pitch.

His subway set began with Bach’s “Chaconne” (here’s a piano version) which he calls “not just one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, but one of the greatest achievements of any man in history.” The article also quotes what Brahms said about the Bach piece: “If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind.” [via JK]

Update: The author of the piece writes, “This story got the largest and most global response of anything I have ever written, for any publication…With little or no elaboration, more than 100 readers so far have told me that this story made them cry. It was not a reaction I anticipated, at least not so universally, and it has somewhat taken me aback. Can those of you who had this reaction try to explain it?”

Sigh. Front page of the New York Times yesterday: A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs.

The Blogger’s Code of Conduct has arrived to keep us in line. Look at the initial version of 102 words vs. the current version with 569 words. How big will it get?

I have tons of respect for Tim O’Reilly and I know the intentions here are good, but do we really need a policy document to tell us that death threats are bad? Do we need a manifesto to tell us that we have the right to restrict nasty comments on our own blogs? What will this code actually do anyway?

I hate the idea of an FCC-like mob of nannies determining which word are acceptable (see George Carlin). This document certainly isn’t that bad, but it’s a step in that direction.

Let’s rely on common sense instead of a code. Blog owners shouldn’t be held responsible for content written by site visitors. Blog owners should decide on their own which comments are acceptable or not. Let people post whatever they want and let blog owners delete whatever they want. If you don’t like that someone is deleting your comment, you can start your own site complaining about how that blog is suppressing you. If you don’t like what someone allows at his/her blog, don’t read it.

The web forces us to confront some ugly truths. We see humanity as it really is, good and bad. The same thing that makes the web wonderful is, occasionally, what makes it terrible. That’s the tradeoff we agree to when we get on this ride. And it’s worth it.

It’s like living in a city. You deal with a loss in civility. (Any girl who walks around NYC hears more offensive comments in a day than most bloggers hear in a lifetime). But in exchange you get the wonder of being in a thriving metropolis. The culture, the diversity, the excitement, the energy, and the vitality. Let’s not all move into a gated community just because there are a few bad apples around.

Making Every Pixel Count talks about the importance of photography at real estate sites. “It’s so important to have photos that are professionally presented,” says Rosalind Clarke, a senior sales associate with the Corcoran Group. “If things look shoddy or unprofessional, not only are buyers going to find the property unappealing, they’re going to associate you with being shoddy and unprofessional.”

A Realtors’ association survey found that when it comes to web features that buyers consider “very useful,” 83 percent cited pictures, 81 percent cited detailed property information and 60 percent cited virtual tours. (I bet the tours figure is low because few sites offer them. I’d much rather see a video walkthrough of a place than a couple of still shots.)

Below are some example photos (befores are first, afters are second) from the article and accompanying slideshow. They show the difference good equipment, a wide-angle lens, and a sharp eye for composition can make.

Kare.com is the site of famed iconographer Susan Kare.

My work has continued to be motivated by respect for, and empathy with, users of software. I believe that good icons are more akin to road signs rather than illustrations, and ideally should present an idea in a clear, concise, and memorable way. I try to optimize for clarity and simplicity even as palette and resolution options have increased.

Some of her work from the 80’s:

Our next Fireside Chat is with icon designers from Cuban Council, Firewheel Design, Hicks Design, and Icon Factory. What question(s) would you like to see us ask?

Orvis

Gregory Maher writes:

I was just checking out some gear on the Orvis Web site and found this interesting feature. When checking out, you can round up your purchase for charity. Orvis will quadruple your offering making a donation to the McCloud River Redband Trout. Pretty neat.

30 second portfolio

Tim Van Damme writes:

When you arrive at The Consult’s homepage, you’ll see a link in the top right corner saying “Short on time? View our 30 second portfolio”. My first reaction was: “I’m always short on time, and I am indeed interested in getting a quick overview of your work!”.

Vista

Des Traynor writes:

Found a screenshot that is the antithesis of Simplicity…

Is there ever, EVER an excuse for a dialog like this (taken from Windows Vista).

You’d think after the joke that was the XP Puppy Search, they might put more effort into these dialogs. (Note: I’m pretty sure this isn’t default search prompt, but thats still no excuse.)

Clotaire Rapaille believes all purchasing decisions lie beyond conscious thinking and emotion and reside at a primal core. He helps Fortune 500 companies discover “the code” (i.e. unconscious associations for their products) that will help them increase sales.

In this interview, he talks about the limits of traditional market research.

They are too cortex, which means that they think too much, and then they ask people to think and to tell them what they think. Now, my experience is that most of the time, people have no idea why they’re doing what they’re doing. They have no idea, so they’re going to try to make up something that makes sense. Why do you need a Hummer to go shopping? “Well, you see, because in case there is a snowstorm.” No. Why [do] you buy four wheel drive? “Well, you know, in case I need to go off-road.” Well, you live in Manhattan; why do you need four wheel drive in Manhattan? “Well, you know, sometime[s] I go out, and I go—” You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand that this is disconnected. This is nothing to do with what the real reason is for people to do what they do. So there are many limits in traditional market research.

Rapille argues that for communication to succeed it has to speak to someone’s inner reptile. “We’re cheaper” doesn’t connect with people in a lasting way. You have to go deeper than that. Plus, when you offer a deeper connection, it’s harder for someone else to come along and copy your success.

It’s absolutely crucial for anybody in communication…to understand what I call the reptilian hot button. If you don’t have a reptilian hot button, then you have to deal with the cortex; you have to work on price issues and stuff like that.

In the kind of communication I’m developing and using, with 50 of the Fortune 100 companies who are my clients, almost full time, it is not enough to give a cortex message. “Buy my product because it’s 10 percent cheaper”: That’s cortex. Well, if the other is 15 percent cheaper, I move to the others. You don’t buy loyalty with percentages. That is key. It’s not a question of numbers; it’s the first reptilian reaction…

Everything has to be on code. Everything you do should reinforce the code; not just the packaging or the communication should be on code. The leaflet, the brochures, everything should be on code. And if you are the first one to position yourself like that, knowing all the different aspects, you have a competitive edge. They might try to copy, but they don’t know the formula; they don’t know the code behind it.

Examples of products that are on code after the jump.

Zune

Daniel Øhrgaard writes:

Notice how the little, er, laser-beam-thing (?) above the navigation suggests moving from left to right, i.e. first you “meet zune” and in the end you, inexorably, require “support”... Well, at least it’s sorta honest.

PHP Developers’ Network

Megan Jack writes:

Check out the yellow box that alerts you that this article may be out of date. I’ve come across a lot of content on the web that is not dated. Is this article from 2005 or 1998? Who knows. The PHPMac method could be applied to any site – I think a lot of misinformation occurs when people don’t realize that content they are reading is out of date, either because there is no date or because they don’t notice that the article or website is several years old. About.com is particularly bad for this (no dates on articles).

“In business, I look for economic castles protected by
unbreachable ‘moats’.”
-Warren Buffett

According to Buffett, the wider a business’ moat, the more likely it is to stand the test of time.

In days of old, a castle was protected by the moat that circled it. The wider the moat, the more easily a castle could be defended, as a wide moat made it very difficult for enemies to approach. A narrow moat did not offer much protection and allowed enemies easy access to the castle. To Buffett, the castle is the business and the moat is the competitive advantage the company has. He wants his managers to continually increase the size of the moats around their castles.

When looking to purchase a business, Buffett pays careful attention to a business he understands not just in terms of what the business does but also of “what the economics of the industry will be 10 years down the road, and who will be making the money at that point.” He is “also looking for enduring competitive advantages.” This, in a nutshell, is what makes a company great: the width of the moat around the company’s core business.

Morningstar’s site explains why the concept of economic moats is a cornerstone of its stock-investment philosophy and describes some of the main features of wide moats.