Off to Chicago to check out the concert on Thursday. If you’re in the Chicago area, be sure to buy your tickets for a great benefit concert.

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So good I actually made a blog post about it instead of posting to twitter. Made by Pete Candeland and Passion Pictures.

There are two main points to this post, let’s start with #1:

Staying Social. Twitter is full of different types of users who think Twitter is used for many different things (which it is). The whole point of Twitter, it’s core function, is being social. Talking with other people through @replies and DMs (direct messages) is the foundation of Twitter. Simply posting random updates about your life and a picture here and there will not get you to Ashton Kutcher status. I know that isn’t everyone’s goal and that’s fine, but to be fair to the people following you and true to the “social” part of social media, talk to people. Spend the extra time during the day to get involved in conversations, ESPECIALLY ones that are directed at you! I’ve found countless real-world interesting people on Twitter that are posting, but aren’t talking to anyone. What’s the point? Please let me know if I missed the boat on this one.

Point #2, Good Twitter Tools. Here are a couple Twitter tools that I have used, use on a daily basis or have heard are kind of cool:

• Tweetie is by far the best iPhone app I have used, and I would know, I have 4 of them on my phone right now. It’s worth the $5 and the UI feels very native to the iPhone. I’ve yet to experience one error message, one missed @mention, etc. Also, you can manage multiple Twitter accounts, which is very helpful on the go!
• Tweetie again, but this time for their desktop application. I tried Tweetdeck, I really did. It lagged like crazy, it distracted me and the UI just seemed quirky to me. Tweetie is well organized, simple and gets the job done. You can shorten URLs without confusion, threaded DMs like iChat, write multiple tweets and leave open to post at a later time (good for quick notes), repost (RT) other people’s tweets and the only item I am waiting for is multiple account management. I was happy to spend $20 to support a solid app, but could have had it for free with advertisements.
• Tweet Dumpr is a very simple service that I just found today. I remembered interacting with a few nice people early on when I joined Twitter a couple thousand tweets ago and couldn’t remember their names. Tweet Dumpr creates a line by line text file (.txt) of your past 3200 tweets that gets emailed to you almost instantly. If you remember part of someone’s username, search for it in the text file and BOOM! Lots of great uses can come from combing through your last 3200 tweets.
• Tweepular is an online app that you plug your Twitter account info into and you get a broad sweep of your followers and people you are following. You can do some account cleanup, using their bulk un-follow services and you can also find the Tweepular influencers who you aren’t yet following. Here’s a blog post high-five to Jason Tryfon, Tweepular’s creator.
• Tweetgrid is my favorite Twitter search application out there. There are a couple others, including Twitter’s official search engine, but Tweetgrid has worked well for me and is very lightweight and simple. Plug in keywords, search your name or anything fun and follow along in real time as results come in (without having to click to refresh results). Also, you can view up to 100 results at a time AND you can monitor 9 searches at one time (yes 9 searches).

I know there are a ton of other Twitter Tools out there, if you have anything to recommend, feel free to do so in the comments. We are always looking for new tools to try out and of course share.

And of course, follow us on Twitter: @thoughtntheory, @helloportfolio (on Twitter vacation right now) and @iwearyourshirt

After about 3 - 4 weeks of hard work, we’ve released a fully-redesigned version of TheCommon.org. We’re really pleased with the results and even more pleased with the response from users.

Big thanks goes out to all people involved. And like always, look out for updates in the near future.

Visit TheCommon.org

Update: The video was made by Andy Anderson at Paradox Media Group.

If you’ve ever watched MTV or any of its properties over the past few years then you’ll recognize the work of Dan and Andre from Dress Code NY. They’ve just released a new book called “Never Sleep” focusing on a designer’s transition from art school student to working professional. We sit down and chat with them about the book, Dan’s virginity and various aspects of life as a designer.

Read the article

Looking for a new job? Who isn’t? Student or Professional – we’re all in the same boat now and we’re being rocked by the salty sea they call The Economy.

Whether you’ve recently lost your job, are new to the job market (student, recently relocated, switched industries) or just need a change of scenery – we’ve collected a diverse panel of portfolio masters to help you learn from their mistakes and successes when it comes to presenting your portfolio.

Panelists

• David Smith – Axis Design Solutions
• Rob Knox – PGA Tour
• Patrick Carter – The Kurtis Group
• Dennis Eusebio – Thought & Theory
• Karen Kurycki – The Kurtis Group

Moderator

Varick Rosete – nGen Works

More Details

See AIGA JAX for more details

CLR is a semi-monthly online magazine focused on sharing stories of inspiration and motivation. Each issue will feature 2-3 stories from guest authors relating to a central topic. Our first issue will have our guest authors answering the question “How did you get to where you are today?” We will also be featuring other editorial content about what’s been motivating and inspiring us lately. If you’re a designer, programmer, marketer, blogger, or even if you work at 7-11—we hope that the short stories we plan to share will leave you motivated and enthusiastic about work, love and life.

The Creative Living Room

Part of me wants to see them realize this vision. Apple could use some competition.

I’ve been incredibly busy with iwearyourshirt.com as of late and have found a few ways to better my ability to multitask. I didn’t even think about writing this post until I read a similar one at 37signals.com. Here are a couple of my personal tips and observations:

1. Attack things head on, but 1 at a time. You may have 30 separate tasks that need to be done, but start with the most important and break them down individually.

2. Don’t try to check e-mails while doing other things, especially returning phone calls or conference calls. You’ll lose e-mails, forget about them, ignore the call or piss someone off you are supposed to be listening to. E-mails should be focused on by themselves and so should most phone calls.

3. Set aside time daily to do things if need-be. Tim Ferriss (of the 4-Hour Work Week) talks about checking e-mail twice a day and feel free to let people know your schedule. I check my snail mail at nearly the exact time everyday. I leave my laptop (obviously), cell phone and everything else behind. It gives me time to take my dog Plax for a walk and focus on whatever bills or crappy direct mailers I need to read. Bills are important and can easily get neglected in the shuffle (this may sound dumb, but it happens to all of us).

4. Close other programs. I used to leave 10 programs open and try to shuffle through all of them and think I could do it all at one time. My e-mails started to get ignored, to-do lists were growing cob webs, sticky notes were piling up and safari had too many tabs/windows to manage. Again, focus on one thing at a time. If you want to read your Google Reader, close all other tabs, shut down Mail, close the sticky notes, quit Photoshop and spend the time to read your RSS feeds. It’s really okay if you have a couple bold feeds in your list.

5. Don’t obsess over looking at every e-mail that comes in. No matter how many e-mails you get a day, they don’t have to be looked at the instant they arrive in your inbox. Finish what you are working on, complete the tasks you had schedule and let the e-mails sit unopened for 30 minutes or more, it’s really OK!

If you have any tips on multitasking or programs that help you out, feel free to share them in the comments.

I can take an hour off here and there to take my mom to the airport, go grab a lunch with an old colleague, hang out with my girlfriend for a bit, go read a book for an hour, etc. It’s changed my life and I don’t know if I could ever go back to a formal 9-5 again.

The misconception about having such a loose schedule is that not enough work gets done. But I can tell you from experience, letting creativity happen on its own has dramatically increased my work quality and output. You’re not forcing work during a set amount of hours and in turn your work doesn’t feel so rigid and forced. I get more done in a concentrated session of 4 hours then I would normally get in an entire day of work at my old jobs. It’s due to the fact I can wait till I catch an idea or brief moment of inspiration, and ride that until it ends instead of staring at a blank screen and creating on the spot.

So given the opportunity, what would you do with your time if you worked flexibly? Or if you do, how does it compare to your previous jobs?

Feel free to post this on your blog and link your response in our comments. The original blog meme originated from: Career Life Connection