Talk Less, Do More

Discovered The Little Book of IDEO today and it led to a series of films created by various teams around the world to represent the company's culture and values. The above is one of my favorites and a philosophy I'm embracing this year. 

The Little Book of IDEO: Values from Tim Brown

The Code of Life

In The New York Times, author and book critic Juliet Waters shares what happened once she realized that learning to code could enhance her career:

The first surprise of learning to program? I actually enjoyed it. Yes, programming is challenging, frustrating and often tedious. But it offers satisfactions that are not unlike those of writing. The elegant loops of logic, the attention to detail, the mission of getting the maximum amount of impact from the fewest possible lines, the feeling of making something engaging from a few wispy, abstract ideas — these challenges were familiar to me as a critic. By my third month, I had internalized a new logic, a different way of looking at information. By the time summer came around, I was learning about good web design by constructing web applications, taking them from simple prototypes to something sophisticated enough to test with users. And by the end of the course, I knew the basic structure of computer operating systems.

Now, I was never going to be a career programmer. Though I got into it with the idea of getting myself out of a financial pinch, it turned out to be unnecessary. I managed to transition from a book critic to a features writer.

But my code year changed me. Whenever I meet someone involved in technology — which is pretty much everyone these days — I have a real understanding of what they’re talking about, whether it’s an I.T. consultant working with a bank trying to exploit the possibilities of Big Data or a biomedical engineer who has created software to more precisely visualize an M.R.I. scan. Knowing some code has made me feel more connected to others in our tech-driven society.

Everything is a Remix, Case Study: The iPhone

Kirby Ferguson extends his fantastic series Everything is a Remix with a one-off case stufy of how remixing ideas and designs led to the iPhone. 

Ben Chestnut: Creating an Environment for Creativity and Empowerment

Ben Chestnut is MailChimp's co-founder and CEO. After studying industrial design and physics at Georgia Institute of Technology and working as a designer for an mp3 website, Ben founded The Rocket Science Group in 2000. There, he built web apps—before they were even called web apps—for companies like BellSouth, CNN, Coca-Cola and The Arthritis Foundation. Within a year, Ben launched MailChimp, which grew alongside The Rocket Science Group. MailChimp was a hit, and he started focusing exclusively on it in 2005. Since then, MailChimp has grown from 9,000 users to more than 3,000,000. MailChimp makes it easy to design and send beautiful emails, manage your subscribers and track your campaign's performance. It takes powerful tools like segmentation, a/b testing and ROI tracking, and turns them into something anyone can use.

This presentation was recorded live at The Summit, hosted by The Youth Cartel on November 10 and 11, 2012.

Apple : Lincoln Center :: Google : Broadway

Google I/O is currently going on and Apple's WWDC is around the corner. This has led to many conversations between my developer and tech friends about which one is better, which one is moving ahead and which one is staying behind, and on and on. 

For me Apple is to Lincoln Center as Google is to Broadway. 

They both offer a multitude of products in various forms. They both have specific visions and financial goals. They both offer merchandise that intrigues me and makes me want to find out more. When they are good I seek them. But I definitely gravitate towards one and check it out first and more often because it is more in tune to what matters to me and what I enjoy. 

Updated: ​Jed Bernstein, who led Broadway’s trade group, will take over as president of the performing arts center next January.