I know this because we have been called in to provide relief to their haggard clients and attempt to fix the abominations they create.

This Company seeds distrust and their actions work to destroy the reputation of our industry. By the time we are brought in we have to provide an over abundance of assurances that Happy Cog is nothing like the Company. We have had to do this enough times now that during sales pitches and conversations, we go out of our way to position ourselves as anti-agency so as to be crystal clear that our modus operandi does not entail finding ways to issue change order after change order. As professionals it is not in our fabric to do so but who can blame the client after being burned so bad?

Yesterday, we lost a project to the Company. They pitched with spec work and underbid the effort. I'm willing to put cash money down in Vegas that the client will end up blowing past their deadline and forking over more money than originally proposed. What looked great to them this week will become high blood pressure a year from now. Somewhere North of where I am sitting right now a butterfly flaps its wings and a small disaster begins to build.

I'd love to call the client and try to talk them off the ledge but there's only so much you can do without coming across like an angry person who is pouting because they lost. Look, I don't mind losing work to people I know who share our passion for quality, devotion to creating great solutions and a high standard of professionalism. I'm happy to loose a project to our friends and peers, but when the Company (or anyone like them) takes one away from us, any of us, I'd like nothing more than to see them all leave their cubicles and find their way in front of a fast moving bus.

Maybe this project will be different and the good people we spoke to won't get the shaft as so many others have. And maybe I'll go home tonight and find twenty burros wearing sombreros making churros after eating a hoof-full of habaneros. Hey, it could happen.

GARB: BROOKLYN BETA

Time flies when you're being hip in Brooklyn. Recently described as "the new bohemia" by USA Today a good time can be had by all but only if you're ready to arrive in fashion that allows you to drop a kayak in a river and make a grilled cheese sandwich!

The American Kef ($24.00). Slim Fit Ten-Pleat Tennis Collar Formal Tuxedo Shirt ($135.00). Levi's Acid Wash Skinny Fit Jeans ($31.00). Motorola RAZR V3 ($43.00). Woodsman's Hatchet (ETSY) River Ferret (Free). The Hathaway, Eye Patch ($29.95). Fila Skele-Toes EZ Slide Shoes ($49.95).

Whatever your reason for being so rad in New York's East Bank, I'll see you all in October.

While enjoying a frosty cold beverage at Javelina, I noticed that his iPhone, placed face down, flashed occasionally like a mini strobe light. As I had never seen this happen before my left eye-brow naturally raised slightly tipping off Nevin that I was curious about what I had just seen.

Typically, when the iPhone receives a SMS message, it flashes on the screen for a few seconds. Long enough that if the phone is placed face-up, it draws the attention of everyone within range, not just the intended recipient. This is potentially awkward enough that most of us place our phones face down but this also prevents us from seeing said message. Unless you have the sound turned up, then it's difficult to know when a SMS has been received.

Until now, thanks to Nevin.

If you look at your iPhone when its face-down you'll notice that the camera and the flash face "up." Fortunately, Apple thought through how to use the flash to alert the user when a message has been received. You'll find this brilliant feature under Settings > General > Accessibility. Scroll down to "LED Flash for Alerts" and turn it "on." The camera flash will now blink when a message comes through but no where near as bright as when the flash is used while taking a photo.

It's quiet. You won't miss it. And it looks pretty cool.

That is all.

Those who follow me on Instagram, Flickr or Tumblr have already seen my chronicle of this view. For the rest of you, here is a sample of what I have seen and will miss soon.

On Tuesday afternoon we closed title on our next home in the South Congress neighborhood. By the end of the month we'll have a completely different view of Austin but nothing quite so high as our deluxe apartment in the sky.

Mr. Irelan is with me on the flight as well but sitting in another row and next to the aisle. I prefer the window so I can see what's going on if I want to while Ryan likes the option of moving about the cabin without interruption. Meanwhile, two time zones West of our position, Mr. Anders will take to the sky on his own flight.

The three of us are spending a good portion of our Sunday morning and afternoon to get to Philadelphia. As you may have heard, we have blocked out all of next week to completely redefine, rewrite, redesign, and redevelop our studio website. This is a project I have been waiting two years for and I'm very pleased that we're finally getting to this task.

We tried this before. After the merger there was a genuine effort to recreate our online home but the challenge was too great at the time. The relationship between two companies and three studios was too green to tackle a job that all of us had deep personal and professional attachment. Add in a very busy project roster to make the whole shebang more difficult. There were other mistakes that we made which I hope we'll document in some way in the near future. Happy Cog has a history and tradition of being open and honest, I don't see why we can't share that backstory, eventually.

Last December, Greg Hoy and I got together to talk through problems and opportunities that came up in 2011 and how to turn it all into positive actions in the new year. As it does each year, the topic of website redesign came up. Our biggest challenge in the past has been finding the time to get with all the people we needed to be involved. We have attempted in the past to schedule resources but time and distance always proved too much to manage around busy work schedules. So, we came up with a plan to get half of our team in one place, for one week, to completely overhaul our website into a proper foundation that we can use to progressively enhance over time.

The following week, right before Christmas, Greg and I blocked off the time on team calendars and met with project managers to inform them of an internal project that would require certain people to be unavailable for client work. We held ad hoc discussions to delegate preparatory tasks like content audit, requirements gathering, and writing new marketing objectives and strategy. By early January we were well on our way to a solid project plan. Two weeks ago jobs and responsibilities were delegated and assigned to each individual on the project team. Last week work started on creative direction and the formation of a technology/development plan. Meanwhile, the three principals met and made our final decision on the new brand in time for Helms Workshop to delivery the final brand package just in time for work to begin on Monday.

So far we've I'd say we've Hannibal Smith'd it.

The engines have just throttled back a bit and the nose has pitched forward ever so slightly which means we'll be landing soon. With each mile closer to Philly my excitement for next week climbs closer and closer to "off the charts." For so long, we have all wanted to make this happen and it's finally coming together like Legos. Next week we'll all be documenting this event in one form or another over blogs, Twitter, Cognition, and a variety of Path and Instagram accounts. Don't forget to check our new Tumblr site to keep up with our progress and group antics.

My friends, my business partners, my co-workers often suggest that we are on a normal course but I see a sea to conquer, a divide to cross, a path to success so clear in my mind that it's already happened. It's possible this is my Achilles heel but I'll be damned if I let complacency set in.

Success favors those who take risks no matter how big or small. And while there are many, many steps between failure and success I see it all happen at once, ending only in total success. Of course failure is an option but to dwell on such thoughts is to give in. The loss is merely a form of surrender that we are all born and raised with but it doesn't have to be that way.

I am an impatient man and I know I am not alone.

There was a time when our employers, global markets, and credit ratings helped persuade a better path forward but enough is enough and we have to see past thirty, sixty, or ninety days. When we are older we'll talk to tomorrow's youth and encourage them to follow in our foot steps that, at this time, seemed like walking with anvils crashing on our heads.

Lets conquer 2012 together and make it a point in time when we can all look back and agree that's when it all really began.

A personal thought about this position. The UX community seems to put an unnecessarily strong emphasis on quantity as it pertains to conferences and public speaking. At Happy Cog we like to see members of our team speak and teach others but we're looking for a designer, not a public speaker. I'm looking for someone who is more interested in creating solutions instead of delivering slide shows on stage. If you desire to work with a highly skilled, highly talented team that loves nothing more than an elegant, well crafted solution then please send me your resume, references and salary history.

Meanwhile, over at Authentic Jobs they are kicking off the New Year right with a special on job listings for the first half of January. Post a job before January 12th, 2012 and receive 50% off the fee (this promotion also includes the UK site). To take advantage of this special offer post a your listing and use promotional code TWELVESTOREY during the payment process. Let me know if you have any issues posting your job and I'll get someone to help. As an added bonus to you, dear Airbag reader, send me your listing and I'll personally promote it from this site and my Twitter account.

One last related thought in effort to score a Jobs Post Hat Trick. In case you missed it, Cameron posted a nice teaser for Authentic Crew, a service/application that has been in the works for a while. I have a lot of passion for this addition to the Authentic suite and I'm ecstatic to finally see it start to come alive. Crew is going to be a big asset to everyone's career path.

Last year wasn't easy. I thought '09 and '10 were rough but '11 took the prize. Let's be honest though, a lot of the stress was of my own creation: starting Creative Mornings San Francisco and deciding to relocate Happy Cog from San Francisco to Austin. As for the relocation, if anyone would have listed out every possible, conceivable thing to go wrong with the transition to Austin I might have chickened out. Creative Mornings was a bigger challenge and cost than I had planned on but I'm happy with the results. I'm also thankful for Erika Hall taking over and continuing to grow the event. Despite the unknown, I moved forward with a sense of happiness and optimism and met with, seemingly, a constant barrage of set backs and unforeseen challenges.

Sales at Happy Cog proved to be more difficult in 2011 than the years before. I know we weren't alone having talked to other shop owners all over the country. Sure we did pretty good but I don't think any of us want to go through that kind of struggle again. Ever. Way too many signed projects disappeared, people lead us on only to drop off the face of the planet or come up short on cash right before the start of the project. My shop lost a project after having scored the highest on the client's hiring criteria. We were dismissed because we didn't work out of Los Angeles even though we already have an existing client right next door to their location. That short story right there is the epitome of how stupid 2011 was. Despite all of the idiocy we dealt with the year ended stronger than ever.

Too much of 2011 was spent in planes, rental cars, and hotel rooms. I earned A-List Preferred status on Southwest Airlines by mid-September--not an achievement that I am particularly happy about. On more than one occasion I was flying in and out of Oakland International Airport twice in one week. Last year I traveled by jet plane to New York City, Sun Valley, Atlanta, Kansas City, Fort Collins, Raleigh, Los Angeles, Irvine, Palm Springs, Birmingham, Minneapolis, Denver (three times), Ko'Olina, Kapaa and Austin (four times before the move).

It wasn't all bad though. I got to spend two days with the monks at the Kauai Hindu Monastery. Truly an experience I will never forget and hope to repeat again. We bought the monks a tree for Christmas to plant on their grounds and I want to see how it turns out a few years from now.

Which brings me to the real reason for finally coming back to this poor, tired, website that has seen little love or attention over the years, especially 2011. I have missed Airbag and tried on several occasions to participate in the on-going conversation of our community. I wrote several blog posts last year that never saw the light of day. Too worn out, stressed or both, I deleted more words than I can to remember. I did so because I was burned out. Without clicking the "publish" button I knew already what people would say or not say. I had become the worst editor when I didn't need to be. So I took a break and assumed I didn't need to post to that effect as many others have done before me.

Instead of drafting prose I spent a considerable amount of time in Photoshop tinkering with ideas I've had in my head for a long time. This also turned into a self-defeating exercise but instead of stopping I chose to work towards a smaller victory by working towards a simple solution preferring to get something out-the-door instead of letting the vicious self-doubt cycle continue to torment my creativity into depression.

As a result, I posted this earlier to Dribbble today.

It is a sneak peek at what's coming and soon. It's not going to turn any heads. I could give a damn if it did but I'm happy with it and ready to move on. If anything I'll beat Gruber with launching his redesign. That achievement ought to earn a few mojitos at the local realtors cougar bar.

It's silly, really, to be so obsessed with something so small and I'd be lying if I didn't feel dumb about it. I tell people all the time not to worry about site design in favor of creating content and there I sat in 2011 doing exactly what I preached against. Learn from my stupidity people. Look and learn.

In a matter of days the design will be finished and I'll hand it off to a few guys who are more adept at turning it into a fully functioning, improved Airbag experience. And just in time as I have a lot of plans for Airbag, Happy Cog and the Austin interactive community in this new year--some of which has been in progress for a few months now.

I have a good feeling about this year. I don't recall the last time I felt this positive about the prospects for the new year but I like the feeling and I'm going to go with it.

Happy New Year everyone.

It's the second time I've been on the program and answered questions about what it's like to start and run a web design business, what it's like to work at Happy Cog, how do I deal with clients and their RFPs, etc. All fine questions that I am glad to discuss, but I don't believe I've ever been asked what I don't like about being a business owner.

The toughest part about my job (aside from worrying about cashflow) is that it's hard to tell if I'm really doing a good job or not. As I don't report to anyone the only real metric I have to rely on is the bottom line. It's a horrible way to validate performance on the job—I may as well be shlepping time-share property in Acapulco—but that's what I have to work with. I receive positive comments from clients, peers, and co-workers but none of them are able to see all that I do in order to provide a truly comprehensive review.

The Rocket Scientist, as supportive and wonderful as she is, says that just looking at how far the company has gone in the last five years says it all. I listen to her feedback but I also know that with the right amount of initiative a monkey could start and grow a banana business—It's just a matter of how much failure you are able to endure and find a way to fight through the setback. Take a punch and get back up fighting. How many times do I keep getting up before feeling like a sucker?

I keep thinking that once I can go thirty, sixty, ninety days without any problems then I'll know that I'm doing it right, but the longer I'm in business it's clear that thinking is impossible. Especially in the client services business.

When I was in high school I got a job at the local grocery store to bag items and provide carry out service for customers. On my first day the assistant manager called a fellow bagger to the front desk. She introduced me and ask that they train me.

My training was nothing more than a on hour tour of the entire store (front, back, upstairs, and outside) because my "trainer" just wanted to slack off as much as possible. He never told me how to do my job or told me anything about what I was expected to do. This type of training continued long after I was hired and the curriculum resulted in most new hires being completely useless. It was amazing to watch relatively intelligent people turn into mouth breathers as soon as you put them in front of a pile of objects and asked them to neatly arrange them into bags.

Months later I decided that I had had enough of having to compensate for new employees poor performance and volunteered to start and run a better training program. I didn't expect additional pay, I just knew that with the right training I could improve performance and thereby customer satisfaction, their own job satisfaction, and I wouldn't have to work twice as hard. It worked and all I had to do was provide a few goals, criteria for success, and some hands on training without the pressure of working in front of customers.

One day I got called to the front office by the store manager, John Jacobsen. He was 6'8" and played college football for USC. He was known for being stern and grouchy which resulted in most people being a little terrified to be in his presence and I was one of them. As I approached he came out of the office, threw his hands on my shoulders, looked in my eyes, and said, "Greg, you're doing a great job with the training, I appreciate that you took the initiative and I've just put in a raise for you. Keep up the good work."

It would have taken a crowbar to remove the perm-a-grin and the overwhelming sense of pride that I was doing a great job. There are a lot of moments of joy to be had in this world but a job well done ranks at the top for me. I don't yet know how to get that kind of validation as a business owner but I'd give my left arm to have that kind of feeling again.

In the meantime I am a cog at the top of the machine, but I am a happy cog.

Hundreds of readers replied with support, curiosity, and doubt. All-in-all it has been the best response we could have hoped for. A lot of the responses pertained to the Twitter integration. I suspect most of the comments we received were the result of people just kicking the tires but there were a few who questioned our motive and intentions via Twitter and blogs. As someone who has led this project from the very first day let me walk you through our thought process.

In some very early discussion about Cognition the topic of comments came up. I suggested that we try to find a way to integrate Twitter and comments instead of having them be two separate pieces of functionality. Mr. Unger (Director of User Experience), playing the much needed devil's advocate, questioned the idea of how we would integrate Twitter, "if comments are restricted to 140 characters, it does not seem that format would allow for much substance." To which I replied, "The idea of using Twitter from comments came from the fact that comments on most blogs are dead. There are a few blogs that have productive comments from their users but otherwise we have all seen a shift from blog comments to Twitter comments. The idea was to embrace this shift and a format the encourages brevity or responsive blog posts (for those who always want to write a short essay as a comment). It would be cool to find a way to incorporate reader's Twitter comments but after a month if it sucks then we'll just move on."

None of us could imagine creating a blog without comments—but we have all observed that commenting on blogs, in general, has decreased since the use of twitter has increased. Of course there are exceptions—there will always been exceptions—but it seems that these days most readers will respond almost exclusively via Twitter instead of leaving a blog comment. Because of this it seems that blog comment threads are rarely engaging on the majority of websites today. Sure, there are some cases where every now and then a blog post will actually foster a good comment thread but as long time Airbag reader Thibaut noted:

Of course this applies to Twitter comments as James Young observed on his blog:

The problem with most comment threads is that they can reach that useless tipping point very quickly. Without having an active moderator to keep up with all of the various threads it's practically impossible to provide any sort of conversational value.

Meanwhile we have also informally noticed a decline in blog usage since the wider adoption of Twitter within our community. Sites like Airbag have been rotting away like the Soviet's Pacific Fleet in the 90's, their glory days seemingly behind them while waiting for their room assignment at Sunset Estate. Happy Cog loves blogs. So much so that I think almost everyone of us has at least one and the majority of us have three or more. What if we could help bring some life back into the old network by encouraging people to write blog posts when they have more to say than what can fit into one-hundred-and-forty characters? Anything we can do to bring writers back to their blogs would be a "big win" win.

With all of this in mind here is our pre-launch strategy in a nutshell: Let's use Twitter for what it's good for: quick and disposable comments and let's encourage more thoughtful responses on blogs. We'll have harnessed Twitter in an appropriate way while, hopefully, bringing new life to old blogs (or maybe even start a few).

It's a little early to say whether commenting-via-twitter-and-blogs works or not but the sheer numbers of positive comments tells us that we're on to something with this idea. After a few days it's already evident that some tweaks are needed. For starters, we realize the design needs to provide equal emphasis on promoting a blogged response as much as one via Twitter—if not more so. And blog comments/links should be given more emphasis because we should reward those who take the time to write out a longer response. Meanwhile, we've already started mapping out how to filter out retweets, reposts, etc.—that should help improve the signal-to-noise ratio.

We'll keep working at this until we either get this right or end up turning to a different solution. However this shakes out, we're already learning from trying something new which ultimately means adds value for our clients, our friends, and our community.

UPDATE My friend and colleague Greg Hoy comments on the user response thus far and our approach for making changes.

Somehow, our subset of the industry cares. Whether it's the latest HTML technique, a new CSS hack, or help for a sick pet, I've seen our community come together like Voltron and provide support, fix the problem, or sometimes just collectively laugh or cry. This kind of support is downright rare. Our community strives to improve as a team; even though we're made up of tens of thousands of individuals who will never meet, we'll stop what we're doing to rally together when needed.

As you may know already, our friend Cameron Moll has started a campaign to raise twenty thousand dollars for Charity: Water, an organization that installs fresh water wells in African villages. Twenty thousand dollars is an ambitious goal, of course—but I firmly believe it's attainable if we can combine our online reach and financial resources. While this is Cameron's initiative, I see this as a challenge for everyone in our industry. Let's see what web designers and developers can do here.

In an effort to help raise more support and awareness, I reached out to a few friends of mine, business owners and successful individuals who can help support this campaign. I'd like to personally thank Jim Coudal of Coudal Partners, John Gruber of Daring Fireball, Josh Williams of Gowalla, Rick Ellis of ExpressionEngine, Todd Dominey of SlideShowPro, Aaron Mentele and the crew at Electric Pulp and Mike Monteiro of Mule Design for making a generous contribution, each proving that together as a community we can go find some water.

With disasters in Haiti and Pakistan, I know it's been a tough year for giving—but Cameron's campaign has some fantastic momentum building behind it. Just as we've always done, let's band together and find some water. I'm not asking you to put off rent, but consider holding off on buying that movie on iTunes or ordering one less drink at the bar this week and help find some water. Wait a week before buying the pro version of Twitteriffic and help find some water.

If you are not able to contribute monetarily this time that is perfectly understandable. Please consider blogging, tweeting, throw up a Bat Signal, anything that will bring more of us together and support a great cause.

What I love most about *** is that so many things were deconstructed to serve a different purpose. This collection is a mixed media fanboy's dream come to life.

You really have to stand back a few times to really see the entire work—but those moments are are few and far between. Curiosity just beckons you to step forward, to internalize how a smaller subset of pieces fit. The colors, subject matter, and even orientation create seemingly infinite possibilities for how all of these pieces could relate to one another. Looking closer to a small group (at random, there are no defined subgroups) creates a new relationship. And finally zeroing in on a single piece continues the intensity of the entire work or sometimes provides a nice visual break through pieces that do not feature as much detail.

To my surprise each piece is sold separately and very easy on the budget. After picking my jaw up off the floor and wiping the drool from the corner of my mouth I worked with Daniel to pick out fifteen pieces. Much of the collection is still available to aspiring art collectors or those who appreciate fantastic deconstructive art.

If you are in the Bay Area drop what you're doing and head over to Jack London Square. Dealy Dawk Mutip will run till September 19th with a reception on September 4th from 6-9PM.

Wow! I wish more executives took the time to learn and understand core principals of design and function as it relates to the experience. Sadly, the reality is that every year there will be at least one time that you and I will have to fight the good fight because a client or in-house executive thinks their ten-second intuition knows best.

Screw you Seth and your stupid curly head. Take your Hollywood crap and invade some other large gathering of people. Oh, I hear the unemployment lines are really popular right now.