
LINK: Ryan on Jobs-To-Be-Done Radio- Ryan on Jobs-To-Be-Done Radio
I talked about software design and seeing through the customer’s eyes for 30 minutes on Jobs-To-Be-Done Radio. In my favorite part we thoroughly debunked personas and talked about how situations, not attributes drive behavior. Hosts Bob and Chris are collaborators of Clay Christensen and they strongly influenced my thinking over the past year. It was a blast to chat on the show.
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Don’t have the right gear? Make it.- I’ve been working on some video tests with the iPhone and I needed to mount it on tripod for some steadier shots. Some folks in the office had good things to say about the Glif from Studio Neat, but the only one we had lying around didn’t fit my phone and sat kinda goofy on our tripod plate. So, I did something I wouldn’t have imagined possible a few years ago. I printed a new one.
We got a 3D printer in the office a few months ago. So far it’s been used to make li…(more)

LINK: The 37signals Report Card- The 37signals Report Card
We’ve long believed in the value of transparency at 37signals. It’s why we write about how we work and why we provide real-time information about our customer happiness and uptime. We like being held to a high standard, and we think there’s no one better to do so than our customers.
Today we’re taking another step towards greater transparency with the launch of the 37signals Report Card.
This report card, which we’ll update monthly (…(more)

VIDEO: “If you wanna meet with me… come…-
“If you wanna meet with me… come to the garden… with your shovel… so we can plant some shit.” -Ron Finley
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- Wanted: 25 special customers.
- We’re working on a entirely new product, and I’m looking to meet some potential customers. We can meet in person, over the phone, or via Skype, etc.
The tool is for the small business owner who runs a company of between 25 and 75 people. You used to be smaller, but now you’re bigger. And you experienced some personal growing pains along the way.
When you were smaller, you used to know everyone a bit better. When you were smaller you used to be in the loop a bit more…(more)

LINK: The importance of quick and dirty- The importance of quick and dirty
Quick and dirty is a skill. Use it or lose it. My latest article for Inc. Magazine.
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Current status- We have a lot of data to parse through at 37signals. Our internal stats application, Dash, does the majority of heavy data lifting for us, including reports, application health, CI builds, and much more. Our Campfire bot named Tally happily pings us when a build fails, deploys are fired off, and when Nagios alerts pop up.
I had a problem though: I needed to have all of this data open constantly to absorb it. Either I had to look at the pages on Dash directly or make sure I’m in the …(more)

When empathy becomes insulting- Most corporate customer service departments seem to have been reduced to call scripts of apologies with no power whatsoever to actually address the problems they encounter. That’s the conclusion I’m left with after dealing with three business bureaucracies this year: Comcast, Verizon, and American Airlines.
All train their front line people to glaze the interaction with the plastic empathy that’s supposed to make you feel like they care, even when they demonstrably do not…(more)

Today U.S. Lawyer Booted From Russia for (Allegedly) Refusing to Serve as Kremlin Spy- There are at least two fail-safe ways to get yourself kicked out of Russia. One way is getting caught spying on Russia. The other way is being asked to spy for Russia and refuse.…(more)

Today Hunger Striker Launches Twitter Campaign to Close Gitmo- Detainees can't tweet from inside Guantanamo Bay. So when they want to pressure the government to close the facility, they get their lawyers to tweet for them.…(more)

Today Yahoo to Buy Tumblr and 'Not Screw It Up'- At eight o?clock this morning ? eastern time, before most of its West Coast-centric workforce even woke up ? Yahoo announced it is going to buy Tumblr for $1.1 billion in cash. There was a press release, and company CEO Marissa Mayer posted a GIF on her personal tumblr page. ?We promise not to screw it up,? Mayer wrote. ?Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going.?…(more)

Today Recap: The Sacrificial Lamb Does Not See the Knife on <em>Game of Thrones</em>- The third season of Game of Thrones is finally here, and we?re back to chronicle the TV adaptation of George R. R. Martin?s world of Westeros -- and how it differs from the books -- in a series of letters between Wired writers (and Game of Thrones fanatics) Laura Hudson and Erik Henriksen.…(more)

Today Dish Network's Apps Alone Might Be Enough to Make You Subscribe- Now access to Dish's complete On Demand library, previously a perk only for iPad users, is available for iPhones as well as Android phones and tablets.…(more)

Today Sin-Filled Confessionals Harbor the Burdened's Deepest Secrets- For Billie Mandle, Catholic confessionals are not just dimly lit boxes where people go to confess their sins. They're archives that collect and preserve deeply personal moments left behind by parishioners.…(more)

Today Robot Guns, Combat Facebook: The Tech of the Army's 'Last' Afghanistan Brigade- The last full-up Army brigade in Afghanistan has all the latest tech.…(more)

Today Why Buy When You Can DIY? This Startup Lets You Do Both- Craft magazines, websites, and TV shows inspire the imagination -- big box craft retailers, not so much. Go to an art supply store and the endless sea of beige linoleum, harsh fluorescent lights, and surly staffers will conspire to squelch your creativity. Fortunately, an online solution exists: Kollabora, a startup trying to make shopping for art supplies as social and beautiful as making things with them.…(more)

Today Tumblr Updates iOS App With New Path-Like Interface- Tumblr is still shipping. Despite all the noise surrounding the Yahoo-Tumblr acquisition, the company has just pushed out an update to its iOS application introducing a new user interface that now includes the almost Path-like post chooser, previously introduced in the Android version.
This interface design is becoming more common today, but it’s most reminiscent of things like Mac’s Fan Stack feature, for example, or social network Path, which popularized the concept on mobile dev…(more)

Today Study: Free Computers Don't Close The Rich-Poor Education Gap- According to a new study, we really don’t have to worry too much about the nearly 1 in 4 children without access to FarmVille at home.
“Our results indicate that computer ownership alone is unlikely to have much of an impact on short-term schooling outcomes for low-income children,” report Robert W. Fairlie and Jonathan Robinson in a new study of a large-scale randomized computer give-away experiment in California. On the one hand, it’s good news that doomsday predictions…(more)

Today Amazon Studios Picks Up “Alpha House” Comedy Series Starring John Goodman, Gives “Zombieland” The Axe- In the wake of releasing eight comedy series pilots into the wild last month, Amazon is starting to make decisions concerning which pilots will be purchased for development and which will get the axe.
According to Reuters, the company has chosen to build out Alpha House, a show featuring John Goodman about four Senators in DC who live in a house together, along with Betas. Betas tells the story of startups trying to make it in the world and stars Ed Begley Jr. Amazon picked up this series back i…(more)

Today Tumblr's Adult Fare Accounts For 11.4% Of Site's Top 200K Domains, Adult Sites Are Leading Category Of Referrals- How much of Tumblr is porn, and what is Yahoo going to do about it? On the latter, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer spoke to its plans for addressing content that is not “brand safe” earlier this morning on a call about its $1.1 billion acquisition of the site, saying that Yahoo will need to have “good tools for retargeting,” and will “monetize in a way that is tasteful.” But as for the former, it’s often been something of a black box – there simply wasn&…(more)

Today Zappos Rolls Out iOS App Update As It Ponders The Future Of The Mobile Shopping Experience- Las Vegas-based apparel retailer Zappos rolled out an update to its iOS app today that saw the company fold some neat new features into the mix. There are a few new graphical flourishes here and there (users can now change the animal that appears when adding an item to their cart), and user order history is much more visual than it was in days past — it now integrates images into the mix rather than forcing users to jump into each order.
Possibly the biggest addition to the mix is a featur…(more)

Today Dijit Brings Its Personalized Social TV App To PCs With The Launch Of NextGuide Web- If the last few years have all been about building compelling mobile-first or mobile-only experiences, the latest trend seems to be bringing those experiences back to the web. (Just look at Instagram!) Anyway, with that in mind, social TV startup Dijit became the latest to follow this lead, with the launch of NextGuide Web.
The new web experience is kind of like Dijit’s NextGuide app, in that it helps people search for and discover new shows they’d like to watch, while providing ways…(more)

Today E-Commerce Startup Monogram Launches A Publishing Platform For Shoppable Fashion Magazines- Last fall, fashion commerce startup Monogram launched an iPad app that was aiming to be kind of like a mobile, shoppable magazine for those hip to fashion. It had all the makings of a great mobile commerce app: It looked good, it was easy to use, and it allowed viewers to buy all the latest fashions really easily.
But it didn’t catch on the way that the team had hoped, according to founder Leo Chen. One of the reasons he believes the app didn’t resonate with users was that “the…(more)

Today Siri Competitor Maluuba Brings Sports Results And TV Schedules To Its Android And Windows Phone Apps- Maluuba, the Waterloo, Canada-based Siri competitor and TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2012 Battlefield finalist, today announced that it has added two new features to its voice-powered personal assistant app for Android and Windows Phone: sports and TV schedules. With this, Maluuba users in the U.S. and Canada can now ask it for near real-time sports results and query the service for TV listings in their area by name, genre or channel.
One aspect of the service the Maluuba team has always been proud of …(more)

Today Turning Haiti, Tunisia and the West Bank inside out: A documentary on JR’s worldwide participatory art project to air on HBO tonight-
“We use images like a weapon to fight for social causes,” says a man in the trailer for INSIDE OUT: The People’s Art Project, a new documentary that airs on HBO tonight. The doc tells the story of JR’s INSIDE OUT, a global art project in which anyone, anywhere, can send the artist a portrait and have a poster-sized version sent back to them for pasting in public spaces. JR's TED Prize wish: Use art to turn the world inside outSince the project’s launch in 2011, when JR received …(more)

Yesterday New playlist: The big picture;li>-
Ready for a Sunday binge of talks that will make your head spin? In this new playlist, twelve speakers take on our biggest issues: shifting global powers, the value of democracy, climate change, the nature of time, the future evolution of the human race. Some of these talks bring good news and some bring potential bad news — and all of them bring to mind new questions as they supply answers to old ones.
Watch the TED playlist, “The Big Picture,” which includes talks by Misha…(more)

3 days TED Weekends investigates why we judge others- Rebecca Saxe speaks at TEDGlobal 2009. Photo: James Duncan Davidson
Above and slightly behind your right ear, exists a part of your brain many scientists believe is specifically dedicated to thinking about other people’s thoughts – to predicting them, reading them, and empathizing with them. It’s called the temporoparietal junction, and this is the area cognitive neuroscientist Rebecca Saxe focuses on in her research.
Rebecca Saxe: How we read each other's mindsAt TEDGlobal 2009, S…(more)

3 days Your weekend reading: The case against empathy, gorgeous photos from the NatGeo contest- If you can only digest six awesome pieces of Internet content this week (plus one congrats), look no further. Here’s a round-up of the best stories on the webs this week.
Paul Bloom: The origins of pleasure
TED speaker Paul Bloom makes a compelling case against empathy, arguing that empathy alone is not sufficient to uphold morality — and may even work against it. [The New Yorker]
42 truly stunning photos from the 2013 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest. [The Atlantic]
Wo…(more)

3 days X marks the spot: TEDx event brings hope after bombing, plus this week’s TEDx Talks- The city of Karachi, Pakistan, was on lockdown after bomb blasts claimed 57 lives in the midst of a tumultuous election. And on the day of TEDxBahriaUKarachi, yet another bomb shocked the area. Still, organizers Furqan Hussein and Sana Nasir boldly tread onward toward putting on a memorable event. “‘Ideas for Survival,’ our theme, sowed […]…(more)

3 days An in-office TED all about design- Paola Antonelli, MoMA’s design curator, talks about why she acquired 14 video games for the museum’s collection at an event in our office called “Design is Everywhere.” Photo: Ryan Lash
Whether we’re conscious of it or not, design affects us in hundreds — if not thousands of ways — each day. Just think back to your morning. A designer made the decisions that went into the craftsmanship of your bed, your futon, your mattress. A designer determined the fo…(more)

3 days Only connect!: Fellows Friday with Erik Hersman, on the rise of his go-anywhere modem BRCK-
Five years ago, the non-profit tech company Ushahidi exploited existing technology to create a powerful platform that allowed users to crowdsource crisis information sent over SMS. Now the Kenyan company is set to do the same with the BRCK, a wireless, rugged, battery-powered modem ready for any environment. As the BRCK’s Kickstarter campaign gathers steam, Ushahidi co-founder and TED Fellow Erik Hersman tells us his vision for the BRCK and how it could change how we connect — in Afri…(more)

Giving It Away: TED Radio Hour examines generosity and philanthropy- How can we give in better and smarter ways? This week’s new episode of TED Radio Hour explores the effects of giving – of your money, your time and your love. As our consciousness of philanthropy is shifting towards crowdsourcing and justice-centered discourse, people begin to self-organize around the causes they are passionate about. This episode describes how we, on a grassroots level, can give in new ways.
Volunteer firefighter Mark Bezos kicks off the hour with a story of a small, see…(more)

Today This week's sponsor: Igloo Software- If SharePoint and Facebook had a baby, it would look a lot like Igloo (without the recessive balding or oversharing tendencies). Hosted, managed and with a major release every 90 days, Igloo is a whitelabel content platform built for today’s needs. We also have Sandwich Video.…(more)

Today Matt Mullenweg on Yahoo-Tumblr- » Matt Mullenweg on Yahoo-Tumblr“We’re at the cusp of understanding the ultimate value of web publishing platforms, particularly ones that work cross-domain.”–Matt Mullenweg of WordPress.…(more)

MapBox Develops an Open Source Vector Format for Maps- » MapBox Develops an Open Source Vector Format for MapsMapBox's new vector-based map tiles are more stable, more scalable, and customizable to an amazing degree.…(more)

Paul Irish on Chrome Moving to Blink- I know you’ve been asked this plenty of times already, but: no new vendor prefixes, right? Right?
Nope, none! They’re great in theory but turns out they fail in practice, so we’re joining Mozilla and the W3C CSS WG and moving away them. There’s a few parts to this.
Firstly, we won’t be migrating the existing -webkit- prefixed properties to a -chrome- or -blink- prefix, that’d just make extra work for everyone. Secondly, we inherited some existing properties that are prefixed. S…(more)

W3C to Publish Encrypted Media Extensions Specification- » W3C to Publish Encrypted Media Extensions SpecificationThe W3C announced today that it intends to publish the controversial Encrypted Media Extensions extension specification despite highly outspoken resistance, paving the way for native web DRM.
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Research Tips For Designers and Developers- » Research Tips For Designers and DevelopersHow is the waterfall web design process like the childhood game of "Telephone," and how can we fix it? Bringing designers and developers into the discovery and research phase is a good start, says Happy Cog creative director Chris Cashdollar, who shares stakeholder interviewing tips in this helpful Cognition post.…(more)

Rachel Andrew on the Business of Web Dev: You Can’t Do Everything- In any given day I can find myself reading up on a new W3C proposal, fixing an issue with our tax return, coding an add-on for our product, writing a conference presentation, building a server, creating a video tutorial, and doing front end development for one of our sites. Without clients dictating my workload I’m in the enviable position of being able to choose where to focus my efforts. However, I can’t physically do everything.
I’m one half of a two-person web development business…(more)

Breaking the 1000ms Time to Glass Mobile Barrier- Ilya Grigorik discusses in detail how to construct a mobile website that loads as quickly as possible. A site that not only renders in 1 second, but one that is also visible in 1 second. With hard statistics as evidence to show why this matters, Ilya discusses techniques to deliver a 1000 millisecond experience.
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