January 2012
5 posts
3 tags
The Silent Future
jQuery is the de-facto library for the web, installed on 85% of websites. There are calls for the last few major release versions to be shipped in all major browsers. However, look what just came along. Two way data binding in the form of <angular />, Ember.js and friends. Suddenly the very thing that jQuery is so good at, DOM manipulation, is abstracted out of the picture.
The lesson,...
1 tag
Getting Things Done with Google Apps and Do.com
I was chatting with @h4rrydog a couple of days ago about the best tools to collaborate “internally”, i.e.: between ourselves and with ad hoc teams of other people. Every man and his dog has their preferred workflow but I just setup one that’s so delightful I can’t help but share it.
The setup is to use a Google Apps email address (n.b.: #) with Do.com. The workflow is...
3 tags
Released pyramid_assetgen package.
I’ve released a Python package called pyramid_assetgen that helps integrate Tav’s Assetgen static build tool with the Pyramid web application development framework. As the docs say:
Using it allows you to code in languages (like CoffeeScript and SASS) that compile to JavaScript and CSS, swapping between a refresh-the-page-to-see-changes development environment and an optimal HTTP...
1 tag
The Dominatrix and the Case of the Missing Tools
When I first heard about the BBC’s Sherlock, my heart sank. Talk about flogging a dead horse.
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson’s adventures in 21st Century London. A thrilling, funny, fast-paced contemporary remake of the Arthur Conan Doyle classic.
Last night, I watched it for the first time. It was exceptionally good. Bursting with character and rapier dialogue. The...
1 tag
Interesting stuff over Xmas
Back this morning after a break in Croatia and Prague. While I deliberately left my computer at home, my information addiction was strong enough to have me peeking regularly at my phone.
The best post I read was Everything is a Service, on the shift to a service oriented economy. I also enjoyed this clearly written reminder on the different ways to go viral.
Cory Doctorow’s keynote on...
December 2011
1 post
3 tags
Filter by Proximity, Sort by Most Recent
This post is about a user interface pattern, a common use case for it and an example implementation. The pattern is adding an extra dimension to a timeline. The use case is showing results that are both recent and nearby. The example implementation uses a slider widget and an adequate-result-volume algorithm.
When you have 1000 messages and you want to prioritise the best 50 to display, sort...
October 2011
1 post
1 tag
Togethr as Earthquake Smoothing System
Togethr is an app platform and social marketplace with aspirations to become a social economy. Why, you might ask, do we need a new social economy? Because to treat an illness you go to the cause.
Ever since Keynes, governments have borrowed money to stimulate growth in order to protect jobs. The cause of the economic crisis is not debt but instead the need for job security. Job changes are...
September 2011
2 posts
4 tags
From WikiHouse to #Manyfacturing
I’ve been part of the team behind WikiHouse. It’s a fascinating project that points to a future where the Internet disrupts manufacturing.
WikiHouse is an open source construction set. A standard for designing houses that can be made using CNC milling technology. On one level you can download, print and assemble ready-designed houses. On the other you can tweak, share and...
2 tags
View from the Hub Westminster
Absolutely knocked for six at the view from the Hub Westminster boardroom.
July 2011
3 posts
5 tags
Talk about the Format
A few weeks ago, I hosted a lunch at the Sheffield Doc Fest. It was billed as being about how documentary makers can make effective use of the web. The vast majority of documentary makers were asking the wrong question:
how can I use the web to fund and distribute my documentary?
Let’s pretend for a moment that the web for documentary makers is YouTube. YouTube provides publishing,...
2 tags
Safety in Numbers
Yes, the media need the book thrown at them (and, as HUGE says it’s not just one tabloid but all of them). But how on earth were the voicemails accessed in the first place?
The phone companies left the back door open, effectively issuing everyone with a default password of 1234. If I did that as a web developer, I’d be hung out to dry. There’s no question that it was...
3 tags
It's called a Pull Strategy
What should leaders think about? What’s the strategic conversation that cuts to the heart of the matter?
If you look at my last post, it’s all about web strategy and content strategy. We know that the web has disrupted and continues to disrupt everything, so it’s clear that organisations need a strategic approach to it. However, one of the fascinating things to learn from...
June 2011
2 posts
4 tags
What Kind of Authority Does Web Strategy Need?
I was fortunate to meet Jonathan Kahn last week. The first time I came across his agency Together London, I was electrified by the copy. Finally! Someone articulating what I had been trying to say:
It’s not 1999 any more. The web is the primary channel. Get a web strategy.
One of Kahn’s insights is that getting the web right requires a shift in focus:
A typical web or...
3 tags
Upgrading Browser Support from Yahoo to Google
At Large Blue, we often deferred the question of which browsers a website should support to Yahoo’s list of A-Grade Browsers. Now though, it’s time to switch to mirror Google’s strategy of supporting the two most recent versions of every browser.
Deferring to Yahoo’s list of A-Grade Browsers made a lot of sense. It delegated the research to Yahoo and came with a stamp...
May 2011
1 post
Customer's Point of View
Whenever I order a minicab, I have to sneak in the final question:
“How much is it going to cost?”
Whenever I order food to pick up, I have to say:
“Oops, sorry, how long is that going to take?”
In both these situations, it’s understandable that the minicab company and restaurant don’t want to volunteer the information. If the minicab company...
March 2011
1 post
3 tags
How to Write a Proposal
If you trade on your ideas, you need to know how to write a good proposal.
It’s not easy. Every situation is different. There’s no golden structure or template. Seven headings to rule them all.
There is, however, a method. It’s based on visual thinking and the Pyramid Principle.
To write a good proposal, use post-it notes and bullet points to construct a logical...
February 2011
1 post
4 tags
Using the web securely in a repressive regime
Two nights ago I got an email from a friend in a country not so far from Egypt. He/she was considering trying to help document and raise awareness of brutal government repression and was worried about being tracked down (and possibly much worse) when using the web.
I spoke to Tav, who knows a great deal about decentralised systems and web anonymity. He explained things to me, which I shared...
January 2011
1 post
3 tags
Catching Up
I haven’t posted in a fair while. Partly because I’ve been busy with work. Partly because I’ve been working on weblayer.
The office has been busy on http://openideo.com and its offshoots. I’ve been managing the redesign and redevelopment of a major NGO’s websites and working on a financial startup on top of the usual load of proposals and whatnot.
weblayer is...
October 2010
1 post
1 tag
A New Kind of Business
Customer Development is essentially practical. It’s advocated as a JFDI approach that “just works”. Samuel L Jackson standing at the top of the stairs with a handheld megaphone shouting “Get out of the building!”
Which is perhaps all very well if you’re bootstrapping a startup but makes me wonder not just whether but how and why it works.
The answer...
September 2010
3 posts
How Retailers Should Use Foursquare
Yesterday, as I walked into a clothes shop near Oxford Street, I heard a beep. I’m not sure what it was but it made me think, hang on, do “real world” shops count visitors? They record their sales but do they know their conversion rates?
This led me down the path of thinking about location based services and the potential to use data from check-ins to pro-actively...
How Made by Many Work
Check out the presentation here.
Seeing The World Differently
A year or two ago, I bought a new bike. As I tried different models out, I discovered single speeds (with no gears) and disk breaks (like you get on a motorbike).
Suddenly, whenever I was out and about, I started noticing single speed bikes and disk breaks. I could hardly go past a cyclist without spotting one or the other.
More recently, I started wearing glasses. Suddenly, as I...
August 2010
6 posts
“I can hear the cries of developers around the world as I write this: “You...”
– Agile Development, meet Agile Business.
A Groovy Kind Of Love
My last post was about the relative place in the hierarchy of traditional advertising and PR agencies, relative to smaller practitioner agencies who focus on customer experience, for example through service design. It wasn’t a short post and, as @juzmcmuz pointed out in the comments, it was a bit woolly:
there is actually an important difference and distinction between...
Why Ad Agencies Are No Longer In Charge
I work for a company, Large Blue, that describes itself as an integrated digital communications agency. A few years ago, we were a video production company and web development agency. Over those years, we’ve thrashed through “what we are” umpteen times. However, it wasn’t until yesterday that I really understood what was going on.
Prompted by this comment exchange...
“Companies should stick to one of three types of activities: managing...”
– Getting stuck into the http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/
Shanghai's Gamble
I recently got back from a trade mission to Shanghai. My first time in mainland China, I spent a week being whisked about the city with my mouth open.
It is a staggering cityscape. The sheer concentration of high rise after high rise is exhilarating. Watching the towering shapes flit by from a neon lit expressway feels like being in the future.
We were there ostensibly to sell UK...
In The Beginning
There is a wealth of advice to be had on how to run a startup. However, it all tends to presuppose that you have one.
Agile development is all very well. When you have a development team. Customer development is all very well. Unless you’re building a sales roadmap for vapourware.
In the beginning, in the lonely days at burn rate zero (when there’s nothing to burn) the...
July 2010
2 posts
“it’s hard to do a really good job on anything you don’t think about...”
– Protect the headspace that really matters (#).
Value Development
I’m reading Steve Blank at the moment. Inspired by this article on the Lessons Learned blog, I flicked through this slide deck, which persuaded me to buy his book on Customer Development.
Reading the book, I’m nodding constantly as he sets out a formalised workflow for testing whether you have a market, seeing if people will actually buy your crazy idea, then (and only then) scaling...
June 2010
4 posts
Gaining Execution Intelligence
Here’s a headline that doesn’t need the article: “Ideas Are a Commodity, It’s Execution Intelligence That Matters”. As Virginia Woolf reacted to Proust, what more is there to say after that?
To succeed in business, you need execution intelligence to become second nature. To be internalised as intuition. In this slightly less succinctly titled post, Hello...
WatchWhy Accountants Don’t Run Startups.
Launching Mint.com →
Scaling mint.com from garage startup to $170m business.
4 tags
Guess like a Grandmaster
I’ve been having an ongoing debate recently with @tav about productivity. It stemmed from my sending him the Rework book for his birthday, in yet another quixotic attempt to steer him away from his self-imposed perfectionism.
In this debate, I found myself rehashing the received wisdom about productivity. You know the terminology. Release early release often (ooh err missus), lean,...
May 2010
7 posts
2 tags
Prototypes & Edge Cases
There are two types of prototype. One you throw away and one you can build on.
If you’re making the first one (which should only be to evaluate the user experience) you should explicitly not worry about edge cases. Get straight to something clickable and park the form validation.
However, if you’re using the prototype to evaluate the technical implementation, it’s dangerous...
Ford's horse
tav: hmz, i didn't say ignore what people want
tav: i only said don't listen to what they say
“Within 6 hours deserts receive more energy from the sun than humankind consumes...”
– The DESERTEC Foundation.
http://github.com/thruflo/thruflo →
Source code in progress on Business Development with Version Control.
Stable States
I had a brief chat yesterday with @meltingman about my last post, A Simple Agency. He asked me to put it in context.
I think most people are comfortable with the concept that things happen through phase changes. You take a glass of tap water and put it in the freezer. It’s water, it’s water, it’s water — suddenly it’s ice.
You can put the same thing in the...
A Simple Agency
Each project has a “Project Lead”. The Project Lead is the person who’s most suited to deliver the core of the work. There is only ever one Project Lead per project.
A Project Lead will perform much of the role of a Project Manager. However, they are different from a Project Manager in that they actually do the work.
Project Leads work on one project at a time.
Each...
“What your fiercest rival does badly, do incredibly well.”
– Strategy’s Golden Rule
April 2010
10 posts
4 tags
Business Development with Version Control
Over the last few years, I’ve moved from making websites to selling them. As a proper geek, I’m loaded up with concepts like abstraction. Yet, when I’m writing proposals, I copy and paste.
Yes, I start in TextMate, with bullet point notes. Yes, I dabbled in rst2pdf. Yet here I am with a backup disk full of Keynote documents. Because at some point you have to start...
Mark Earls on The Next Web →
Interesting take on trends: it’s a herd thing, not an influencer thing. However, surely people need to ‘see’ their fellow sheep to follow their behaviour and how do they find out what other people…
“Hanging around, messing around and geeking out”
– Three years of collaborative, ethnographic work on kids’ informal learning with digital
media. Link via @timekord.
1 tag
Ideas Project →
Nokia: another big brand devouring crowdsourcing.
1 tag
Lotame →
Now there’s a site making a ‘lota’ noise about innovation in permission marketing. Quite what’s behind it all is hard to gauge, aside from the betaworks funding.
2 tags
Not disruptive, and proud of it →
Aka the fable of the tortoise and the hare.
Tellja →
Customer referral platform encouraging word of mouth.
2 tags
Political Reality
It’s election time here in the UK and reading the papers is like using a deoderant as a flame thrower. They both need a big health warning.
In today’s Sunday Times, Rod Liddle on Zac Goldsmith. According (big pinch of salt) to Rod, Zac’s anti-campaigning. He’s banging on doors and telling the truth.
The headline, “Listen posh boy, answers don’t win you...
2 tags
Crowdswooping
I’m going to more and more meetings at the moment where I’m selling crowdsourcing. The pitch goes like this:
One of the major trends in marketing is ‘deeper’ not ‘wider’, as is the shift from perceived value to trading through ‘thick’ tangible value. Crowdsourcing, talking generally, engages people in creative problem solving, within an...