Today at work I had one of those lengthy, impassioned discussions with the senior leadership of my company – the sort of discussion that makes […] Read More
Author: Shawn
I received a rejection email the other day from a man who had interviewed me for a job. I haven’t been rejected many times in […] Read More
Don’t misunderstand. I believe in the Internet. It’s deeply embedded in my life. It makes so many things so much easier than they used to […] Read More
Spotify has arrived in the US! Twitter was all abuzz when the announcement came, and lots of my friends jumped on board as soon as […] Read More
There have been a couple of interesting developments in news media in recent weeks. The first development is the mostly symbolic vote by the House […] Read More
James Dyson was not happy with his vacuum cleaner. It wasn’t powerful enough, and he determined that the problem was the bag. The bag’s purpose […] Read More
As promised. The second article I alluded to in my last post is really a series of articles ars technica ran last month. It’s an […] Read More
This is intended to be the first of seven (possibly more) posts on game-changing business ideas. It’s often difficult to recognize when something changes the […] Read More
In my last post I attempted to list the things I found especially resonant last year in media, entertainment, art and journalism. I say “attempted” […] Read More
It would probably be better not to say anything. Advertisers won’t like it, and publishers who depend on ad revenue will like it even less. […] Read More
Better late than never, a list of things I enjoyed in 2010. In the interest of time and space, these are just the things that […] Read More
The latest highly-publicized, hotly-ridiculed move by my adopted city of San Francisco was to ban the Happy Meal. And so once again we have lobbed […] Read More
Two years after Pinch Media released their iTunes App Store Secrets report, I still see this iconic curve on a regular basis: It doesn’t matter […] Read More
The ongoing BP / Deepwater Horizon oil disaster is a sickening object lesson in the evils of oil. Of course it’s just the latest in […] Read More
The House recently passed a major financial reform bill, and the Senate will vote on it as soon as there’s enough Republican support to push […] Read More
I was a good Bryn Athyn boy once. Many people reading this will have no idea what that means, but briefly, Bryn Athyn is a […] Read More
Things are ugly right now. After the healthcare bill passed, we all heard how a few so-called tea baggers hurled racial slurs and other insults […] Read More
I feel like the media constantly bombards us with two completely opposite visions of the future: In future #1 I can talk to my home […] Read More
Today I walked down to Cafe Dolci to grab a banh mi (I always order a combo of grilled pork and paté incidentally), and there […] Read More
When future archaeologists unearth the cities of what was once the great empire called America, and they sift through the remains of our civilization looking […] Read More
“[The writer] does not need to invent the fiction because it is already there.” – J.G. Ballard I’ve been on a kind of media fast […] Read More
Meetings without a specific agenda are evil. A vague agenda isn’t good enough. It’s a waste of everyone’s time. Know exactly what you want to […] Read More
It’s Friday, and here’s my video of the week… wait, let’s enhance it:
A while back I wrote a post called my favorite web services, and I thought I would revisit it in the spirit of end-of-the-year (or […] Read More
I have an idea. Every Friday I’ll post a video from my YouTube “Favorites.” It won’t necessarily be new, or timely, or funny, or profound. […] Read More
One of the things that stood out for me amongst all the hype around the Motorola Droid before the device hit the market was the […] Read More
What the hell is wrong with Nokia? It’s as if they got together as a company, identified all they ways their software could suck, and […] Read More
So I don’t have a Kindle, and I don’t want one. For some reason I’m predisposed to dislike it. When I try to articulate my […] Read More
I updated one of my two Macbook Pros to Snow Leopard yesterday, and although the official price tag for the new OS is only $29, […] Read More
Americans, it’s well known, aren’t interested in soccer. Americans prefer the other football. We don’t like hockey either, which isn’t surprising, since it’s a lot […] Read More
Yes old friend, I’m talking to you. You with the high-paying office job, the fine house in the suburbs, the lovely wife and the precocious […] Read More
Whenever the conversation turns to Apple, there erupts a certain amount of troll vs. fanboy squabbling. Usually there are a few would-be referees in the […] Read More
What if the company that made your computer forced you to use only their web browser and email application? (Remember, Microsoft was prosecuted for less […] Read More
I suppose I could create a bridge between them, but sometimes it’s fun to just watch.
If Sarah Palin falls in the forest and the media ignores her, does it make a sound? I shouldn’t have to wish for Sarah Palin […] Read More
It’s been a while since I posted here, and I’m introducing a new category: Elimination Dance. Instructions: An elimination dance begins with a crowded dance […] Read More
I’ve spent much of my career working at well-regarded agencies – large and small, and I’ve worked with my share of brilliant people at each […] Read More
After holding out for a couple of years, I’ve become a full-on twitter convert. I wasn’t avoiding twitter on principle or anything. I just couldn’t […] Read More
I have a somewhat irrational affection for Costco. The selection is good, the prices are low. They have a generous return policy (my friend just […] Read More
I just finished watching the second season of Mad Men, and I’m left with a familiar bittersweet feeling. The same one you get when you […] Read More
[Disclaimer: The following post is partly a reprise of one I wrote last year] March Madness is almost here, and my workplace productivity is bound […] Read More
There’s no shortage of ideas for how the newspaper industry might save itself – by adopting new business models, distribution strategies, etc. The other day, […] Read More
My last post, “How to win at Yelp: a guide for businesses” was inspired by the recent controversies surrounding Yelp, and the gist of the […] Read More
Last week, the East Bay Express published a lengthy story accusing Yelp of extortion. Among other things, the article charges Yelp of offering to take […] Read More
In the tradition of The Giant Pool of Money, its spinoff Planet Money and this fine piece of writing by Henry Blodget in the Atlantic […] Read More
From ClickZ: More than two years after its founding, San Francisco startup Scout Labs has unveiled its first software suite, an assortment of Web monitoring […] Read More
Kyte’s super-simple content production features are perfect for engaging fans of a show like Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, so it’s cool to see how the […] Read More
Remember CD-ROMs? Remember how cool they were and how for a brief moment in the early 90s it seemed every possible thing was being CD-ROMified […] Read More
There are a lot of people lining up for stimulus dollars, a lot of ambitious and long-dormant projects being dusted off by governors and mayors […] Read More
Here’s a remarkably simple formula for personal finance. It’s genius, and I wish someone had told us this sooner.
Well, the Eagles lost the NFC championship game… again. This is what Philadelphia teams do. Instead of outright sucking like you can always count on, […] Read More
As I wandered through the crowded mall in Washington D.C. on Inauguration Day, chatting with people and overhearing many other conversations, a theme emerged. Or […] Read More
The economy is in rough shape these days. Nobody’s job seems secure, and no industry is safe, but the Web is an especially hard place […] Read More
I’ve worked on a few online video sites in my career, and on every one of those projects we confronted the question of whether to […] Read More
I mentioned in an earlier post that for the past few months I’ve been working with Kyte. That’s their widget above. My lineup of shows […] Read More
Who killed the economy? Hint: call your lawyer. The witch hunt to expose the people responsible for the current financial crisis has been underway for […] Read More
I received my weekly BayCHI job bank email today, which has always contained at least twenty or thirty postings. Today, however, it was so thin […] Read More
I’ve been doing battle with the CSS on this blog recently, and I’d gotten it to an acceptable (if not optimal) place in Safari and […] Read More
The purpose of the iPhone Human Interface Guidelines (requires login) is to help developers create well-designed experiences for the iPhone that also measure up to […] Read More
On many occasions and even in a recent post, I’ve said that I just don’t get twitter. I was certain I didn’t want to tune […] Read More
Raven Zachary posted recently about Apple’s new criteria for application acceptance, where he noted that there are now more fart apps than sudoku apps for […] Read More
The other day on my bus into downtown SF, a down-and-out looking guy stepped on and asked if anyone could give him the dollar he […] Read More
Yesterday, NPR’s On The Media aired an interesting segment about Bush and language. It wasn’t another jab at his butchering of English; it was a […] Read More
The somewhat agonizing ritual of sending holiday cards has been my way of keeping long-time and distant friends up-to-date on my life, and each year […] Read More
The end of 2008 is upon us, and that means pundits of all stripes are busy trying to boil it all down. I’ve been reading […] Read More
For the last couple of months, I’ve been working for Kyte (more on that in a future post), and yesterday we got a nice shout […] Read More
I wish I could maintain this perspective all the time: Thanks Louis CK
Just a year ago, two of my most powerful Internet addictions were Yahoo Fantasy Sports and Yelp. Now, I hardly think about either one. Yelp […] Read More
In my last post, I mentioned that you can use Yahoo Pipes as a buzz-watching tool. Today I made three short videos to illustrate how […] Read More
Social media analytics and measurement has rapidly emerged as a market over the last few years, and there are a lot of companies trying to […] Read More
I could almost go so far as to say that Evernote is the best free app period, iPhone or otherwise. In Evernote’s case, it’s iPhone […] Read More
Like a party guest who insists on staying long after the alcohol is gone, the music is done, and I’ve dozed off on my couch… […] Read More
Re-distributing the wealth? Turning the other cheek? Someone has to stop this guy…
No, I don’t mean I’ve been flirting via twitter. It took me a long time to sign up for twitter. I just didn’t get it. […] Read More
When the folks in “real America” want to make a point of distinguishing themselves from the rest of us, they often spit words like French, […] Read More
The economy is blowing up. The election has a certain circus quality to it – more than the usual presidential election. I started a new […] Read More
Edward Tufte famously declared that PowerPoint is evil, and in my life as a consultant, I’ve witnessed quite a bit of love and hate directed […] Read More
I might expand this into a larger article at some point, but for now it’s just something I decided to cobble together for a quick […] Read More
My friend Rebecca is thinking about purchasing a scooter. Not a leg-powered one (like the “Razor” that was so popular with dot-commers), but a real […] Read More
The Business Technology blog over at WSJ reports on a recent study of more than 100 corporate social networks. Ed Moran, a Deloitte consultant, found […] Read More
Perusing the online blogopolis today, I saw that Xeni over at boingboing has proposed a new greeting card that would thank the recipient for “not […] Read More
Please indulge a moment of self-pity… I know a designer’s job isn’t rocket science, but that doesn’t mean everyone is qualified to make design decisions. […] Read More
Why do they call these things “circulars?” The word makes me think of my mom, clipping coupons from the Sunday paper for the weekly trip […] Read More
I’ve been stretched too thinly across a few big projects and trying for nearly three months to find a couple of qualified people to help […] Read More
I was doing a little housekeeping the other day, and I found a packet of cream-colored, cotton fiber resume paper that I must have bought […] Read More
After a mostly fun eighteen-month ride, I decided to leave Scout Labs. As part of the founding team, I played a big part in defining […] Read More
The big athletic footwear companies have built their marketing campaigns around aspirational themes and creating connections between regular sports hobbyists and elite athletes. If you […] Read More
Back in my agency life, clients were always asking us to create “viral” campaigns that would get the attention of the digital youth. Our inside […] Read More
Have you ever noticed the way American beer commercials emphasize packaging gimmicks? The wide-mouth can. The label that turns blue when it’s cold. The easy-pour […] Read More
I was reminiscing with my colleagues yesterday about the dawn of the ATM machine. We were remembering how, when banks first started to install them, […] Read More
I can barely remember now, but before the age of MapQuest (and, subsequently, Google Maps), if I needed to go somewhere I’d never been to […] Read More
In this week’s installment of his ‘Circuits’ column, David Pogue asks, “Are you taking advantage of Web 2.0?” By ‘you’ he means your company, and […] Read More
‘h’ is for hypocrisy. If the premier selling point of a hybrid vehicle is fuel economy, then you have to wonder why Lexus won’t reveal […] Read More
A couple of times in my career as a User Experience professional, I’ve worked for bosses whom I considered to be ridiculously (some even dangerously) […] Read More
The guys at 37 Signals have a list of what they call “red flag” words that often come up in business communications and can get […] Read More
The state of Texas recently held an “e-vote” to choose a new license plate design. There were five designs in the running, and over 450,000 […] Read More
In my post yesterday, I questioned the value of “process” in web and software development and discussed my successes and failures both with and without […] Read More
UPDATE: There’s a Part 2 now. When I started in the web development business about a decade ago, I worked at a small agency with […] Read More