Using infographics to understand the ingredients of a successful team. Read more here.
Why the Chicago Bulls were successful
Sweetest bike light
Cracking a 250 year old code
On creativity
Quote from the bad ass ad man. Thanks Tina.
“Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.”
― George Lois
Designing creative spaces
Via Fast Company.
Obama O's
Expires November 2016.
Klangkarussell - Sonnentanz
Betoko - Raining Again
Generals & leadership
Long and fascinating look at leadership in the military, via The Atlantic.
Eames Case Study No. 8
Panoramic shot of the Eames Case Study house in the Pacific Palisades, CA (thanks Kim).
Architecture for Dogs
MUJI designer Kenya Hara takes on a new venture, via NY Times.
Eames on Eames
Heath Ceramics
Today I stumbled onto the new Heath Ceramics store in Mission. Beautiful space, beautiful products. One giant wall tells their story through shapes of their product lineup over time.
Creative Mind
Brown University runs a site called Creative Mind to investigate the topic of creativity. Physicist Leon Cooper talks about process.
"You try things and they don't work, so you try something else."
Young Bok Park photography
The future of sharing
Everything in its right place
Design talk at Zurb
Spoke to a packed audience today at Zurb.
Unconventional FTW
Do things that don't scale
In early 2009 we were one of sixteen companies accepted into the prestigious seed funding program called Y-Combinator. If you don't know YC, read this article in Wired or visit their web site. On the first day of the program, we presented Paul Graham with ideas on how to spend the next 3 months growing (saving, really) our company. He, having seen hundreds of companies fail prior to us, dismissed our 'brilliant tech strategies' citing the wrong approach. Our hearts sinking, we looked at one another with puzzled faces, (gulp) "What were we going to do?". He broke the silence with a simple question, one that forever changed the course of the business: "Where is your market?"
At the time we didn't have much of a market. The product/market fit wasn't yet there, and it showed. Weekly revenue was less than what it costs to buy an iPad. There was one city that showed promise. The 'city that never sleeps' had signs of people sleeping. Paul, in his iconic voice, said, "So your customers are in New York, and you're here in Mountain View [California]." "Yeah..", we said. He restates, "Your customers are in New York, and you're in Mountain View". After an awkward silence, his voice rises, "What are you still doing here! Go to New York City!".
For the first time in our internet lives we were given permission to do things that don't scale. His message was to forget convention of solving problems from behind a computer screen. In the early days, it's not programming that will make or break you. It's the people, the customers. Leave the computer, and go to the people. We did, and never looked back.