Design Pornography

meetings, we all love them

nospam@example.com (Anthony) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:09:22 -0400

The WSJ has an article about why we secretly love meetings, but publicly say we hate them. Here is a telling quote: David Mazel, a research analyst, thinks people like meetings because "you can stay busy without accomplishing a thing." He says "having gone to the meeting is the work." These people scare me. People that would rather sit in a meeting room under fluorescent lighting than leave work an hour early. If you remain busy by doing nothing, wouldn't you rather do nothing outside...

How $39 cost $888

nospam@example.com (Anthony) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 16:23:57 -0500

I have a gym membership with Washington Sports Club. In 30 days I will no longer have a membership with them. The reason is simple - $39. $39 is what they charged me to change my default gym to one closer to my house. An utterly bogus charge. The gyms are roughly 1.5 miles apart. This, to Washington Sports Club, is a $39 update. An update to one line on a computer. They must be using a really fancy font for that line. When I changed my default location I was not told about the charge....

the beginning of the end for pay per click?

nospam@example.com (Anthony) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:02:29 -0500

An interesting study came out today titled, "New Study Shows that Heavy Clickers Distort Reality of Display Advertising Click-Through Metrics". Of course, like everything these days, it should be taken with a grain of salt. But it's findings are interesting and align with what I've wondered about for a long time, exactly who is clicking on ads? I've done this only a handful of times, but I tend to shy away from them. The reason for my click shyness is that I've been burnt by the ad that claimed...

The future as designed by idiots

nospam@example.com (Anthony) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:25:23 -0500

The WSJ has one of those "what will the future be like" articles up now. Here is a rather upsetting quote from it: "There's no reason 10 years from now that you won't record every meeting you've been in, maybe record all of the audio or have a little video camera on your glasses," says Mr. Cutts (an engineer at Google). Why? Why would you ever want to do this? Unless your a sociopath why would you want to do this? Who would want to be in a meeting sitting cross from the weasel with a video...

The failure of activist websites

nospam@example.com (Anthony) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 14:26:11 -0500

Let's pretend you run a website for a group looking to save the world. The sky is falling and time is of the essence. For those of you in this role, what is your website? Is it singularly focused on the pressing issue of the day? Or is it a museum piece dedicated to archiving what you did before? The majority of websites are not meant to be archives. Websites are not museums capturing the work of the past and making it easy for students to do their homework. Could you imagine Apple making it...

I Want To See It All

nospam@example.com (Anthony) — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 09:26:56 -0500

I've just launched my new blog project: iWantToSeeItAll - traveling the world, how to do it and what to when you get there. I spend too much of my life dreaming about my next trip so I figured why not write about it. Tell all your friends.

3 lessons from great managers

nospam@example.com (Anthony) — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 07:52:00 -0500

Yesterdays post was about lessons learned from bad managers. Today I cover the three best lessons I've learned from good managers. 1: Pitch in at all levels Poor managers and leaders think they are the king and above some menial task. Those managers that wrap themselves in a blanket of their own superiority are the ones that eventually fail. The best managers I've had I've seen: sweep the floor install memory into my laptop help out with the tasks of someone many rungs below them Good...

3 lessons from bad managers

nospam@example.com (Anthony) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:39:00 -0500

My management style has grown over the years by emulating the styles of good managers I've had and by minimizing the behaviors of bad managers I've had. Sadly, in the recent past I've been spending too much time learning what not to do. Below are three management no-no's I've learned. 1: Failure to communicate The first job I quit was due in part to a manager that just stopped talking. The weekly staff meeting stopped. Assignments for the entire team seemed to be put on hold and he stopped...

our national political tradeshow

nospam@example.com (Anthony) — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 10:40:00 -0500

Many years ago I used to read tech magazines and be amazed and excited by what was happening at trade shows. The "journalists" would gush over some new ghee whizz toy, wax rhapsodically about the music played before Steve Jobs takes the stage and giggle over the booth girls. To my inner geek a tech tradeshow sounded like the most blissful place on earth. If I only I could attend one then I too would be where it is at, right at the moment that it is happening. My dream came true when I got to...

the absurdity of Iowa

nospam@example.com (Anthony) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:38:15 -0500

Tomorrow night citizens of Iowa will be the first to vote in the presidential primaries. The results will be touted, debated and analyzed continuously until Tuesday when New Hampshire votes. Based on the results in Iowa some candidates will be forced to drop out of the race. Others will involuntarily be pushed out of the race as the media congeals around the "winners". The absurdity is that, if turnout is high, 150,000 people will vote. 150,000 people out of 300 million citizens have that much...

Have you hugged big brother today?

nospam@example.com (Anthony) — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 13:16:06 -0500

From the Washington Post The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law. Read the entire article here Well, Bob it seems you've gotten one too many parking tickets so we have to let you go. See here at SuperHappyLucky Co. we've done research that shows that employees with fewer than five parking tickets in a lifetime are just more...

The diner state

nospam@example.com (Anthony) — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 09:47:21 -0500

Is Iowa nothing more than a collection of diners and greasy spoons? Do Iowans get their three squares from a diner each day? Is it still the 1950's where the back drop of a diner symbolizes Americana? Does Denny's own Iowa? After watching the latest episode of election '08 I am left wondering about the state of Iowa. I think I've seen a corn field once. Other than that the state consists of diners. There should be a congressional investigation.

I sell nothing and I get paid for it

nospam@example.com (Anthony) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 23:06:00 -0500

It seems to me that trying to move from the non-profit world to the for profit world is as difficult as moving from porn to mainstream entertainment. That non-profit smell just turns off our corporate counterparts and I am not really sure why. Having worked in both environments I can confidently state that the for profit world is a cake walk compared to the challenges of the non-profit world. Allow me to just focus on one area: the products that each sell. Profit making businesses sell...

Make your mobile site seamless

nospam@example.com (Anthony) — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 09:59:48 -0500

Ready to take the mobile website plunge? Well where to put your mobile site? That is, should it be in a sub domain of your existing domain? A sub directory? Or one of these fancy .mobi domains you've heard about? .Mobi is a top level ICANN approved domain specifically for handheld devices. For users of handheld devices the big advantage of .mobi is that any .mobi site they visit is guaranteed to be tailored for handheld devices. The big downside is that consumers, for the most part, have not...

You are unsubscribed. Please allow five days for you to be unsubscribed.

nospam@example.com (Anthony) — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 07:53:44 -0500

Somehow in the ebb and flow of the Internet I was subscribed to the Snapfish email marketing list. Thankfully, they have an unsubscribe link in their emails. I clicked this and was asked to confirm that I indeed wanted to be removed from their list. The resulting success message: You have been successfully unsubscribed. Please allow five business days for this to be effective. Why could they possibly need five days, or even five minutes, for this to become effective? Is their email system...