David McCreery

How much for a letter to Grandma?

2012-01-21T10:25:00.000-08:00

I just want to find out how much it will soon cost to send a regular letter, such as to grandma, or more frequently, with a rent check to my landlord. It would be nice if the Postal Service could just say that it'll now cost 99 cents or whatever on their homepage, instead of directing people to a lengthy table with links to spreadsheets.

Kudos to MIT

2011-12-19T20:26:00.000-08:00

Today the New York Times reported that MIT. is expanding its online course offerings to include actual course credit. I hope that more universties, especially the flagship state universities, follow MIT's lead.

Sharing course materials make sense for many reasons. They're a great reference for graduates who want to keep their skills current. They're also an asset for anyone else who may not have the time or money to enroll in a four-year degree program.

Stanford's Computer Science Department is another leader. Their course materials are a fabulous resource to anyone getting started in computer programming.

Angry Birds take Manhattan

2011-12-17T06:27:00.001-08:00

Maybe the Angry Birds will battle the Muppets for Manhattan domination?

Third time's a charm?

2011-12-16T09:25:00.000-08:00

I don't get Klout. I signed up at the urging of an entrepreneur friend who has no less than 1,400 Facebook friends and enough in real life that she gets invited to events at Art Basel Miami.

Although the service might reward an articulate blogger, who has a interesting content and a devoted following, it might also credit someone who simply has a modest of friends and regularly posts a sufficient amount of party photos that get liked and reshared.

For instance, posting an iPhone photo of the NYC skyline as seen from the Empire State Building doubled my Klout score from 17 to 38. The photo was nothing special, but it garnered five likes and a single re-share.

I find it interesting that I've earned a badge for clocking in a full 3 visits to their site. If three qualifies me as an addict, I'm afraid where a full 10 will lead.

Best places to work--for who?

2011-12-15T14:07:00.000-08:00

Glassdoor recently came out with its best places to work list. Like it's counterpart from Fortune, the list doesn't make any sense. How can you put consulting firms and retail chains next to each other in the same list, where people in the former typically have multiple Ivy League degrees and $150,000 starting salaries (partners get paid by the 1,000,000) and the latter may only have workers with high school diplomas that average $25,000 per year?

A more meaningful list would segregate companies by educational level or selectivity, where people could at least compare jobs that are relatively obtainable. A high school diploma is probably the only qualification for most retail jobs such as Trader Joes, REI and J. Crew. For some corporate jobs, a bachelors degree might get you in the door, such as lower-tier technology firms like Intuit or Rackspace. To get interviewed for associate (post-MBA) positions McKinsey, Bain or Goldman, you need to have at least one Ivy League school on your resume (the key exceptions are for Stanford and Northwestern).

I'm always skeptical when consulting firms are listed in the top 5. The pressure is so high that most people quit or get fired after two years. The environment is grueling, with long hours that typically involve spending weeks living out of hotels while working at client sites in the middle of nowhere. And when people leave, they don't change consulting firms, they work in industry or try their hand at startups.

Additionally, the top consulting firms do not have large headcounts: I've always wondered how they get enough responses to tip the ratings in their favor. Bain, is estimated at having 5,500 professionals according to Wikipedia. This is about 1/4th of Google and 1/10th of Dow Chemical.

A Million Little Photons

2011-12-12T13:14:00.000-08:00

The City of New York is willing to pay up to a million dollars for organic ideas to light up Lower Manhattan.

If you need any ideas, Lyon is the perennial champion, with it's annual Festival of Light.

LOWER MANHATTAN PLACEMAKING AND LIGHTING DESIGN CONSULTANT SERVICES RFP

Hotmail! Really? Why?

2011-12-07T18:18:00.001-08:00

Isn't Facebook the best email for Facebook users? That's why they give you a username@facebook.com address and an inbox, right?

Don't even think of checking in from THERE.

2011-11-29T13:32:00.001-08:00

Years ago, I remember the terms of service for Java and how they warned not to use their products in nuclear power plants. It's something I think about every day when I turn on the computer.*

It's comforting to know that Foursquare is also looking out for us, lest someone have the bright idea to check in from a Fourth of July party or a Doctor Strangelove screening.

1. GRANT OF LICENSE - ... Licensee shall not use the API in connection with or to promote any products, services, or materials that constitute, promote or are used primarily for the purpose of dealing in: spyware, adware, or other malicious programs or code, counterfeit goods, items subject to U.S. embargo, unsolicited mass distribution of email ("spam"), multi-level marketing proposals, hate materials, hacking/surveillance/interception/descrambling equipment, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, abusive or otherwise offensive content, prostitution, body parts and bodily fluids, stolen products and items used for theft, fireworks, explosives, and hazardous materials, government IDs, police items, gambling, professional services regulated by state licensing regimes, non-transferable items such as airline tickets or event tickets, weapons and accessories, automatic or autonomous control of vehicles, aircraft or other mechanical devices, dispatch or fleet management, or emergency or life-saving purposes. For Applications that provide real-time route guidance, Licensee must have an end user license agreement that includes the following notice: YOUR USE OF THIS APPLICATION IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. LOCATION DATA MAY NOT BE ACCURATE.

* No. Not really. As a fresh computer science graduate, I somehow interviewed with the operator of a nuclear power plant. They didn't ask about my Java skills. Instead, they asked a lot of meaningless psychological questions that involved what kind of tree I was. I didn't hear from them for a while, until they reached out to ask if I knew of anyone looking for programming work. I pointed to myself. That was the last I heard from them.

What's in a name?

2011-11-27T18:05:00.001-08:00

If the namesake of your business school goes bankrupt, what happens to naming rights? Now might be good time to find a different photo to lead off the campus tour with.

I'm actually a little sad to see SYMS go into liquidation. I got some of my first suits and other business attire from them.

What is Big Data for $200?

2011-11-21T09:18:00.001-08:00

One man wins a quarter-mill on Jeopardy! by downloading the question archive and sorting it for the most common themes.

NPR: How One Man Played 'Moneyball' With 'Jeopardy!'

Hyperlocal < The Yellow Pages

2011-11-16T19:52:00.001-08:00

I'm endlessly amused by the number of online companies that cut corners on hyperlocal to come up with nightlife suggestions that are inferior to both the yellow pages and actually walking down the street.

Our first specimen in the Walk of Shame is the Mapquest Mvibe. Neighborhood scores are allegedly based on "editorial evaluation of what would be the range and pattern of optimal scores to experience a vibrant lifestyle." The small print notes that the neighborhood description is "excerpted from Wikipedia."

It's been years since I've relied on Mapquest for any sort of directions and this doesn't restore my confidence. I'm at a loss to explain how the United Nations Headquarters ties for "best place" with what Yelp labels a dive bar.

Better yet are the suggestions for hotels in the area. Somehow, the website ignores the UN Plaza Millennium Hotel and lists no less than 5! FIVE!! parking garages. Yes, I know. Beds are expensive in NYC. Overnight parking is the only civilized accommodation rate in the city. But I would prefer to have access to a toilet without wandering to the Starbucks on 2nd Ave.

Things are not much better with the iPhone app Flagthat. I tried using it to look up the sushi spot Oms/b. I was less than 100 feet away at the time. However, the application seemed to be doing a white pages search, somehow returning results for oral surgeons and what looked like residential listings.

This is particularly disappointing since the developers are based in Manhattan and city hall provides a concise list of every single restaurant in the city.

Don't mind me, folks, just need to get the old wet-dry vac.

2011-10-25T06:33:00.000-07:00

Executive duct tape

2011-10-23T18:34:00.000-07:00

If only every manager was this open minded.

Ceci n'est pas une interface ideal

2011-10-20T13:47:00.000-07:00

Rotary iPhone

Apple uses this image of a touch-based rotary phone in its iOS user interface guidelines to remind people that it's not enough to make something look cool: it actually needs to be functional. Yet the fact that someone took time to render such an interface suggests that the concept may have been tested before it was ultimately abandoned.

Be like Steve

2011-10-07T13:19:00.000-07:00

HP may have coined the expression, "The Computer is Personal Again" but it only rang true for one company. It should ring true for many more. The secrets of good design are not secret. They are not even new. Some of the best books on product design are over 20 years old. Anyone who aspires to be the next Steve Jobs should read the following:

This book will make you want to run out and create something. Every story you heard about the Macintosh Division is true. We were the hand-picked children of Steve Jobs. The industry joke was, "What is the difference between Apple and the CubScouts?" The answer: "The Cub Scouts have adult supervision."It was like playing pinball only you were the ball.

The MacIntosh Way [Free download] Guy Kawasaki

The Design of Everyday Things

Donald A. Norman

If designing an iPhone is too pedestrian, how about a safe nuclear power plant?

The Non-Designer's

Design Book

Robin Williams

Learn the basics of good typography and design without enrolling in an MFA.

The Art of Innovation

Tom Kelley

Watch how people act in the real world to inform
your design decisions.

For further inspiration, look at the organizations who promote high design:

Design organizations

Red Dot

AIGA

MoMA

Design consultancies

Italdesign

Frog Design

IDEO

Branding firms

Pentagram

Wolff Olins

Winkreative

Know your customer

2011-06-18T05:20:00.000-07:00

Sanford C. Bernstein & Co is the preeminent research firm on Wall Street. When analyst Craig Moffett says that poverty threatens phone and cable TV spending, people should listen.

"The bull case for the telecom sector rests on the notion of a rising tide of smartphone adoption that will lift all boats. For this thesis to work, operators will need to extract additional revenue from lower-income Americans. And yet it isn’t clear that there’s any revenue left to extract."

People seem to be overly optimistic on how many people can really afford the latest shiny gadget or giant McMansion. Eventually, your market can get saturated.

It also raises questions about the future of consumption in the US, which is 70% of GDP. If wages and retirement savings shrink, who's left to drive spending? What would Henry Ford think?

Poverty could derail telecom, cable gravy train

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/poverty-could-derail-telecom-cable-gravy-train/49560?tag=content;feature-roto

Curse of Apple

2011-06-10T05:49:00.001-07:00

When you own enough Apple products, you start seeing Steve Jobs everywhere. Such as in this photo of the endangered Great Hamster, from Alsace, France.

Go for broke

2011-05-10T09:21:00.000-07:00

In one of the few documented cases of lawyers having a sense of humor, Ireland's Law Society Magazine spices up dry legal articles with shameless puns. They provide a lighthearted touch to a magazine that covers many serious human rights topics, including the stories of human rights defenders who have been arrested and abused.

NAMA is much less interested in the transfer of bassets.

The commission is to consider introducing rules concerning BAT levels.

http://www.lawsociety.ie/Documents/Gazette/Gazette%202011/May2011.pdf

Telling a story with Facebook

2011-04-08T06:18:00.000-07:00

The United Nations Refugees Agency (UNHCR) posted an interview with colleagues trapped in their compound in the Ivory Coast on their Facebook page.

The posting succeeds because it's (1) immediate, (2) authentic, (3) informative and (4) visual.

Small details make it come alive: "This morning, one of the refugees gave birth and she named her boy after our security officer, Bizo."

This isn't your standard press release reposted to Facebook.

It's a pity that the best option to endorse it is to "like" it.

Die train! Die train!

2011-04-05T13:27:00.000-07:00

The German national railways has launched an elegant new iPad application that plots your routes Indiana Jones-style using Google Maps. The transportation information is not limited to Germany, it has the entire European time table. Notably, this even includes the city buses and trams in my city of Geneva, Switzerland.

Above is a sample trip across the Alps to Milan. As an added bonus, the application will even add trips to your calendar.

More ideas for 404 not found

2011-03-29T06:07:00.000-07:00

If you can't come up with something clever for your "page not found" messages, try donating them to a non-profit instead.

The little things

2011-03-16T04:34:00.000-07:00

Google recently changed it's page not found page. While not as much fun as the Tumbeasts at Tumblr, seeing the small sketch still made my day.

Paying attention to details like these to surprise and delight users makes the difference for good websites.

Mine has a street scene from Torino, Italy.

Online pricing at Financial Times

2011-03-10T10:07:00.000-08:00

The Financial Times is stalking me on Facebook with offers of 33% off an online subscription that's supposedly limited to graduates of my MBA program. (top)

However, anyone who visits the FT website seems to get the identical "limited" offer (bottom).

The actual price doesn't seem very clear. The subscription choices are monthly and annual. The price for annual is shown on a weekly basis. Only after multiplying and dividing, is it clear that the monthly subscription is about 70 cents to one dollar more expensive on a per week basis. Which may be a small price to pay for the ability to cancel after 30 days.

Oddly, the price for an online-only subscription varies widely depending on which country you say you live in. Many western countries default to a price denominated in Euros, while many developing ones get a price denominated in US Dollars, which is about 40% cheaper due to the exchange rate.