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Posts
Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow.
René Descartes, who 392 years ago had the dreams that inspired his Meditations on First Philosophy. Download the book here: http://goo.gl/iTd73
He was a French philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the ‘Father of Modern Philosophy’, and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day. In particular, his Meditations on First Philosophy continues to be a standard text at most university philosophy departments. Descartes’ influence in mathematics is equally apparent; the Cartesian coordinate system — allowing algebraic equations to be expressed as geometric shapes, in a 2D coordinate system — was named after him. He is credited as the father of analytical geometry, the bridge between algebra and geometry, crucial to the discovery of infinitesimal calculus and analysis. Descartes was also one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution… (more)
A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.
William Shakespeare, whose plays Othello and The Tempest were performed for the first time on a November 1.
He was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon”. His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright… (more)
Download the complete works of William Shakespeare: http://goo.gl/4iGVY.
Download “The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare”: http://goo.gl/QvvsT.
Download some Cambridge Companions to his work: http://goo.gl/bEno6.
Download Routledge’s “Wiliam Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage” (6 volumes): http://goo.gl/SQL6J.
(via thecultofgenius)
Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.
I adore art… when I am alone with my notes, my heart pounds and the tears stream from my eyes, and my emotion and my joys are too much to bear.
Giuseppe Verdi, who would be 198 years old today.
was an Italian Romanticcomposer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century. His works are frequently performed in opera houses throughout the world and, transcending the boundaries of the genre, some of his themes have long since taken root in popular culture – such as “La donna è mobile” from Rigoletto, “Va, pensiero” (The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves) from Nabucco, “Libiamo ne’ lieti calici” (The Drinking Song) from La traviata and the “Grand March” from Aida… (more)
He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great.
Herman Melville, who would be 192 years old today.
He was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd. His first three books gained much contemporary attention (the first, Typee, becoming a bestseller), but after a fast-blooming literary success in the late 1840s, his popularity declined precipitously in the mid-1850s and never recovered during his lifetime. When he died in 1891, he was almost completely forgotten. It was not until the “Melville Revival” in the early 20th century that his work won recognition, especially Moby-Dick, which was hailed as one of the literary masterpieces of both American and world literature. He was the first writer to have his works collected and published by the Library of America… (more)
I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (via thecultofgenius)Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.
Anton Chekhov, who passed away 107 years ago.
He was a major Russian playwright and master of the modern short story. He was a literary artist of laconic precision who probed below the surface of life, laying bare the secret motives of his characters. Chekhov’s best plays and short stories lack complex plots and neat solutions. Concentrating on apparent trivialities, they create a special kind of atmosphere, sometimes termed haunting or lyrical. Chekhov described the Russian life of his time using a deceptively simple technique devoid of obtrusive literary devices, and he is regarded as the outstanding representative of the late 19th-century Russian realist school… (more)
The ordinary acts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest.
Thomas More, who was executed for treason against King Henry VIII of England 476 years ago.
He was an English humanist and statesman, chancellor of England (1529–32), who was beheaded for refusing to accept King Henry VIII as head of the Church of England. He is recognized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church… (more)
People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (via thecultofgenius)I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.
Walt Whitman, who would be 192 years old today.
He was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality… (more)
“Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity.”
- Albert Einstein
I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something.<br/> —Jackie Mason
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Info
- Project Leader and Internet/Media/Speech TechnologistInternet | Orlando, Florida Area, USSummary
Creative, execution-oriented project leader with deep and varied experience in delivering technology for the internet, speech applications and digital media; combining discipline, focus, energy, humor, insight and innovation to facilitate organizational achievement.
Experience- Jan 2013 - PresentSenior Program Director | Product Manager, Voxeo Hosting / Voxeo
- 2006 - PresentMember, Board of Governors / The Geneva School
- Oct 2010 - Dec 2012Senior Director, Product Delivery / Voxeo
- Jul 2010 - Oct 2010Senior Project Manager / ioko
- Jul 2008 - Jul 2010Director, Program Management / Voxeo
- Apr 2007 - Jul 2008Director, Program Management / Yahoo! Inc
- Oct 2004 - Mar 2007Senior Software Project Manager / Yahoo! Inc.
- Jan 2003 - Oct 2004Senior Software Project Manager / Musicmatch, Inc.
- Oct 1988 - Dec 2002Software Development Manager / Xerox Corp
- 1986 - 1988Programmer / Royal Bank of Scotland
Education-
1983 - 1986University College, London
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Posts
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Photos" data-title="I blame Fahlon for this..." data-link=""> " data-title="Tonight's listening :-)" data-link=""> " data-title="Yum: Vietnamese Wedding Reception!" data-link=""> " data-title="Nom nom nom" data-link=""> " data-title="Depeche Mode Called - Fax is Dead!" data-link=""> " data-title="close encounter of the avian kind" data-link=""> " data-title="Robed in the blooming garb of spring" data-link=""> " data-title="That's more like it!" data-link=""> " data-title="Now: just need people - and food!" data-link=""> " data-title="Best salt and pepper pots ever!" data-link=""> " data-title="Turkey Pie!" data-link=""> " data-title="" data-link=""> " data-title="" data-link=""> " data-title="Now with guests" data-link=""> " data-title="Ready for lunch guests" data-link=""> " data-title="Mmm... lunch!" data-link=""> " data-title="Abella!" data-link=""> " data-title="Birminham's finest Halloween entertainment..." data-link=""> " data-title="Oh look - the spirit of mobility!" data-link=""> " data-title="That should be enough..." data-link="">
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Posts
- Jun 18, 13
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Posts
- Jun 18, 13
About two years ago, The Starter League set out to teach absolute beginners how to code. Since then, they’ve expanded their offerings to include HTML, CSS, and design.
To date they’ve graduated over 600 students from all over the world. A true success story on so many levels.
One thing they’ve noticed along the way is that their best students return back to take additional classes in different disciplines. They may start learning Rails, but then they want to learn advanced HTML/CSS. And then they want to learn visual design.
Further, these students seem to want more than just the independent skills – they want the whole integrated package. They want to know how to build a product and turn that product into a sustainable company.
Announcing Starter School: A truly unique program
So today The Starter League announces their newest — and most ambitious — initiative: Starter School.
Starter School is an intense, full-time, 9 month program. It’s basically the grad school for people who want to learn how to build software and start companies. It’s small and hands on: there are only slots for 52 students. This way every student can get the attention they deserve.
They’ve lined up an outstanding roster of teachers, and put together a thorough, full-time, 9-month program where you’ll learn everything you need to know to build the back-end, design the front end, and bring your product to market. It’s the most well-rounded curriculum I’ve seen yet.
A few folks from 37signals will be teaching. Ryan Singer will be teaching product design. Mig Reyes will be teaching visual design. I’ll be dropping in to teach a few things, too.
Tuition for the 9 month program is $36,000. The inaugural class will get $3000 off. To help, I’ll also be providing partial scholarships for three highly motivated, sharp students. Other scholarships will be available too. Details will be provided after you submit an application.
If you want to learn the whole stack – programming, design, and business – from some of the best, don’t delay. This is a one-of-a-kind program. Apply to Starter School today or just find out more.
Disclosure: 37signals is an investor in The Starter League.
- Jun 17, 13
Today our first five customers started using Know Your Company, our newest product. We’re hoping to roll out around five new customers every Monday for the foreseeable future.
I thought this was a great time to talk a bit about how we’re building Know Your Company. Not the tech, specifically, but the approach.
From the start, I wanted to approach the development of Know Your Company as if we were starting a separate company inside 37signals, not just building another product at 37signals.
So I went back to 2003. That’s when we originally built Basecamp. Basecamp was basically a new business inside 37signals. I looked back at how we did it.
We had a small team of four – two designers (me and Ryan), one programmer (David), and one person who could help with a variety of things (Matt). We were building something to scratch our own specific itch.
We didn’t have much tech to lean on. We didn’t have Rails, we didn’t have a centralized billing system, we didn’t have a centralized log-in system, we didn’t have much experience launching a product with a new business model (subscription pricing), we didn’t have a server farm (we just had a shared server slice on another company’s machine), etc.
Basically, a lot was very new to us, and the newness was invigorating. It allowed us to approach problems objectively rather than fitting our problems into solutions we’d already built before. Think of it more as a bespoke suit than something off the rack.
Basecamp was a bespoke suit, but just about everything we’ve done since then has been trying to fit into Basecamp’s clothes in one way or another.
I wanted to get away from that way of thinking with Know Your Company. It’s just too easy to continue to lean on the things you’ve done, the decisions you’ve made, and the infrastructure you’ve already built.
So here’s what we’re doing.
We’re starting with a small team of four. Me and Jonas on design. Trevor on programming. And Dan as the multipurpose jack-of-all-trades. I’m also doing sales/demos, which is something we’ve never really done before.
Further, just like when we launched Basecamp, I did all the customer support for the first year or so. That’s what I’ll be doing with Know Your Company too.
As for billing, we’re not using Queenbee, our centralized billing system that powers Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, Campfire, and a variety of other things we sell. Instead, we’re building a bespoke billing system from scratch. Just what we need, nothing we don’t.
This way we don’t have to compromise a business model approach because our billing system is only set up to do things one way. If we have a different idea for how we want to bill customers (or accept payments), I don’t want to be hamstrung by old decisions. I want to have the freedom to make new decisions.
Queenbee also has a bunch of admin tools built in so we could comp accounts, change ownership of an account, look up a customer and update their information, etc. We’ve left that all behind with Know Your Company. Know Your Company has its own custom admin built right into the product. This way we can build specific admin tools to onboard new customers, update accounts, generate invoices, and everything else that’s unique to Know Your Company.
Another thing we’re doing differently this time around is sales and setup. Our default position when building new products is to make them self-service, just like Basecamp’s been since day one. No interaction with us is required to sign up. Just click a button, pick a plan, sign up, and you’re off and running.
That model has obviously been very successful for us. No question about that. But let’s learn something new. Let’s get a feel for what the opposite approach is like. What if we were full-service instead of self-service? What if we were very hands-on, rather than completely hands-off?
So that’s what we’re doing with Know Your Company. There’s no self-service sign-up. If you want to use Know Your Company, we have to give you a personal demo first. Want to sign up? We’ll walk you through it step-by-step. We’ll even load up your employees for you so you don’t have to do any work. And we’ll also populate your account with a specific set of questions so you don’t have to think about what to ask your employees if you aren’t sure what to ask.
Isn’t full-service harder, more time consuming? Yes it is. And wow it’s been worth it. I’m getting to have a nice conversation with every customer we have. I’m getting to learn a lot about their companies, their struggles, and their goals. This is very healthy for us. The product is going to be way better for it – especially in the long-term.
The business model is all new, too. Instead of defaulting to our Basecamp-famous monthly subscription fee, we’re treating Know Your Company more as a one-time investment in each employee rather than an ongoing recurring expense. So instead of charging a monthly/annual fee, we’re just charging $100 per employee one-time. Once you’ve paid $100 for an employee, you never have to pay for them again. You can use Know Your Company with them for as long as they work for you.
Now, we’re not entirely free from the past. There are still a few things we’re leaning on because they aren’t hampering our flexibility.
For one, we’re using 37id – our centralized sign-in system. Know Your Company customers can sign in with the same username/password they use for their Basecamp accounts. That’s easier for them than having to sign up with another username/password.
We’re also using Rails, which we didn’t have the luxury to use when we built Basecamp. And we’re leaning on our sophisticated server infrastructure and the things we’ve learned about email, too. But the load we’re putting on the system is barely a pimple so I don’t feel so bad about that.
And of course we have the reputation and trust build up behind 37signals over the last 14 years.
But as far as our development approach goes, this feels the closest to the feeling we had when we were building Basecamp nearly 10 years ago. Lots of new things, lots of new approaches, a feeling that we can build whatever we need rather than fitting new ideas into old decisions.
If you’re interested in becoming a customer, please review the introduction letter I wrote. If it resonates with you, and you fit the profile, drop me an email and I’d love to show you around and maybe even get you started.
- Jun 17, 13
Steve Jobs: The Most Important Thing (via Farnam Street). A simple reminder that each of us has the ability to shape life into whatever we can dream up.
- Jun 14, 13
- Jun 13, 13
As we watched Apple unveil iOS7, the 37signals Campfire room quickly turned to awe of what they had achieved. A redesign so shocking and deep bestowed upon a product so popular left many mouths agape. Whether you happened to like the final product wasn’t as relevant as marveling at the vision, drive, and sheer determination to pull it off.
Apple has a way of making people feel like that.
But what followed next is at least as interesting: We all sought to explain just how they did it. Is it all Ive’s eye? Is it that they explore more ideas than anyone else? Is it never accepting “good enough”? Forgoing customer input and trusting their own instinct? Hundreds of triple-A designers and developers?
There were lots of suggestions. But stepping back a meter or two, it was clear that we all simply reached for our own grandest ambitions and rebranded them Apple’s secret sauce. Theorizing why Apple is able to do what it does is an organizational Rorschach.
That doesn’t make it a useless exercise. Au contraire. It just makes it more about you than them. It lets you tease out your goals and aspirations for your own work and process. It’s a kick in the ass to marvel at greatness and think of reasons “why are we not as awesome as that?”.
An organization as rich and storied as Apple has a thousand reasons for why it got to where it is. Pinning it on any one answer is futile, but it’s sure to spark a healthy debate. Indulge.
- Jun 13, 13
Rails ships with a default configuration for the three most common environments that all applications need: test, development, and production. That’s a great start, and for smaller apps, probably enough too. But for Basecamp, we have another three:
- Beta: For testing feature branches on real production data. We often run feature branches on one of our five beta servers for weeks at the time to evaluate them while placing the finishing touches. By running the beta environment against the production database, we get to use the feature as part of our own daily use of Basecamp. That’s the only reliable way to determine if something is genuinely useful in the long term, not just cool in the short term.
- Staging: This environment runs virtually identical to production, but on a backup of the production database. This is where we test features that require database migrations and time those migrations against real data sizes, so we know how to roll them out once ready to go.
- Rollout: When a feature is ready to go live, we first launch it to 10% of all Basecamp accounts in the rollout environment. This will catch any issues with production data from other accounts than our own without subjecting the whole customer base to a bug.
These environments all get a file in
config/environments/and they’re all based off the production defaults.
So we have something like this forconfig/environments/beta.rb:# Based on production defaults require Rails.root.join("config/environments/production") beta_host_name = `hostname -s`.chomp[-1] BCX::Application.configure do # Beta namespace is different, but uses the same servers config.cache_store = :mem_cache_store, PRODUCTION_MEM_CACHE_SERVERS, { timeout: 1, namespace: "bcx-beta#{beta_host_name}" } # Each beta server gets its own asset environment config.action_controller.asset_host = config.action_mailer.asset_host = "https://b#{beta_host_name}-assets.basecamp.com" endThis gives each beta server its own memcache namespace and asset compilation, so we can run different feature branches concurrently without having them trample over each other.
Since many of our associated services are shared between production and the beta/staging/rollout environments, we take advantage of the YML reference feature to avoid duplication:
production: &production url: "http://10.0.0.1:9200" beta: <<: *production rollout: <<: *production staging: url: "http://10.0.1.2:9200"
Custom Configuration
To run six environments like we do, you can’t just rely onRails.env.production?checks scattered all over your code base and plugins. It’s a terrible anti-pattern that’s akin to checking the class of an object for branching, rather than letting it quack like a duck. The solution is to expose configuration points that can be set via the environment configuration files.Lots of plugins do this already, like
config.trashed.statsd.host, but sometimes you need a configuration point for something existing in your code base or for a plugin that wasn’t designed this way. For that purpose, we’ve been using a tiny plugin called Custom Configuration. It allows you to do configuration points like this:# Use cleversafe for file storage config.x.cleversafe.enabled = true # Use S3 for off-site file storage config.x.s3.enabled = trueIt simply exposes
config.xand allows you to set any key for a namespace and then any key/value pair within that. Now you can set your configuration point in the main environment configuration files and pull that data off inside your application code. Or use a initializer to configure a plugin that didn’t follow this style.
In-app stage switcher
For 37signals employees, we expose a convenient in-app stage switcher to jump between the different environments and setups. That’s mighty useful when you want to checkout a new feature branch or ensure that everything got rolled out right.Rollout to 10%
While the rollout servers are always ready, we only use them when a feature is about to go live. The process is to deploy the feature branch you’re about to merge to master to the rollout environment. Then you flip the switch withcap rollout tenpercent:enable, which instructs the load balancers to send 10% of accounts to the rollout servers. When you’re content that all is well with the feature branch, you merge it into master, deploy to production, and turn off the rollout again withcap rollout tenpercent:disable.The great thing about doing it like this is that the enable/disable action is very fast. It’s not like the scramble to do a full capistrano rollback. This just ticks the load balancer to send some traffic or not. So the second you catch an issue, you can get the 10% back on regular production, fix the problem, and then try again. Great for your blood pressure levels!
Just do it
For a long time, all we had was the staging environment. But the addition of multiple, dedicated beta servers to test feature branches concurrently, and the rollout environment to deploy with more confidence, has been a big boost to our workflow. There’s not a lot of work in setting this up and Rails was built for it from the beginning. The defaults are just a starting point. - Jun 11, 13
For a long time I’ve felt like the only thing worth working on is the next most important thing. Why spend time working on something that’s less important if there’s something more important that needs work?
I’ve changed my mind on this. I think it’s always good to be working on two things: The next most important thing, and the next most interesting thing.
It’s hard for an interesting thing to compete for your attention if your only criteria for attention is criticality. Interesting things are rarely critical. They’re exploratory. And if you only think in terms of what absolutely needs your attention right now, you’ll never leave room for things that might satisfy your curiosity. That’s important too, just on a different level.
It’s in this spirit that I hope we have the courage to be more experimental at 37signals. Experimental design, experimental tech, experimental business models, experimental strategies, experimental experiments that may lead to brand new insights and outcomes we didn’t know we were capable of before.
I’m looking forward to the surprises.
- Jun 11, 13
Hi everyone—my name is Dan Kim, and I’m incredibly honored to introduce myself as the 37th signal! I joined the team on June 3, and I’ll be helping to build a brand new product, Know Your Company.
Ever since I started using Basecamp in 2007, I’ve admired 37signals. Like many of you, I’ve followed their work closely. I’d nod my head in agreement as I read SvN posts, watched videos, or read their books. They’ve consistently valued simplicity over complexity, thinking instead of talking, shipping over planning, and working remotely instead of commuting. It soon became my dream to work at 37signals.
It certainly wasn’t easy trying to make my dream come true. I had applied for positions a couple times before, but my skills didn’t match up well. Even though I have a decade of experience in web development and programming, I was rusty. Over the years I had transformed from a programmer to a manager. I couldn’t build from scratch anymore. I couldn’t ship anything by myself. That scared the living hell out of me, and so I needed to make a change.
And that’s when I discovered The Starter League. It’s a three-month, in-person program that teaches beginners how to design, program, and ship web apps, right here in Chicago.
I’m a recent grad myself, and it’s changed my life. I enjoyed it so much, I stuck around as a teaching assistant to help mentor others. And my work there helped me strike up a conversation with Jason, which led to a couple lunches, sharing some ideas, a successful trial project, and officially being hired.
But like many others, my career has had its ups and downs. I’ve seen the inner-workings of a wide variety of companies. Some were as big as 45,000 and others as small as 2. I’ve seen the good and bad of every possible company culture—startups, agencies, consulting, corporate, you name it. So it’s hard to express how happy I am right now to be surrounded by an amazing culture, learning from some of the best designers and programmers in the world.
And I’m thankful for all of it. Each experience has helped me realize and respect how important a person’s work can be to their happiness. That’s why I’m so excited to work on Know Your Company. We want to help small business owners build and sustain great companies that people love working at. That’s an incredible mission and challenge that I can’t wait to explore.
On a personal note, I live out in Chicago’s Northwest Suburbs, so I’ll spend some of my time in the office hanging out with these awesome folks. The rest of the time I’ll be working remotely at home, where I can annoy my incredibly patient wife Julie, watch our twin boys Andrew and Jonas grow up, and walk our super cool dog Parker.
Finally, and most importantly, I want to send a big, heartfelt “Thank You” to all of my friends, family, and colleagues who have helped me to get here. I couldn’t have done this without you.
All the best,
Dan - Jun 11, 13
The latest Basecamp for iPhone release involved an immense amount of refactoring with how HTTP requests and HTML pages were rendered. In a previous release, my coworker Sam wrote several methods that didn’t serve to reduce duplication, but instead their purpose was to increase clarity. Since the focus is on comprehension rather than just reusability, it’s easier to understand what is going on and jump in to solve the next problem.
This pattern has been eye-opening, and I’ve been using it to hide implementation details and remove comments explaining what chunks of code are doing. Instead, the name of the method explains what is going on. The gist here to communicate Intention Not Algorithm:
The most important thing about any (without loss of generality) method is what it accomplishes or why one would call it, not how it does whatever it does.
Here’s one example from Basecamp for iPhone of this. Since we make heavy use of web views, we need to keep track of when the page loaded with content. How we accomplish this actually doesn’t matter, but the why matters greatly.
In this method that is mixed into every
UIViewControllerthat makes requests via AFNetworking, the intent of remembering when the page loaded feels tangled up with the code surrounding it:module Browser def enqueue(request) operation = client.HTTPRequestOperationWithRequest(request, success: lambda { |operation, response| normalRenderer.new(self, operation).render(response) @pageLoaded = true }, failure: lambda { |operation, error| fallbackRenderer.new(self, operation).render }) client.enqueueHTTPRequestOperation(operation) end endAll we need is an instance variable to keep track of when a page has been loaded, but if you come back to where that variable is set on its own, it’s confusing. The how doesn’t matter here, but the why does. Let’s try pulling that out into its own intention revealing method:
module Browser def enqueue(request) operation = client.HTTPRequestOperationWithRequest(request, success: lambda { |operation, response| normalRenderer.new(self, operation).render(response) markPageAsLoaded }, failure: lambda { |operation, error| fallbackRenderer.new(self, operation).render }) client.enqueueHTTPRequestOperation(operation) end def markPageAsLoaded @pageLoaded = true end endNow, the intention is clear and the implementation is just details. A simple
attr_writer :pageLoadedcould have accomplished the same job, but it still doesn’t give a clear message as to why it was called.
Our recent release focused heavily on improving offline detection. This module’sviewWillAppearmethod listens for two customNSNotificationCenterevents that fire when the device goes on and offline:module Offline def viewWillAppear(animated) super on "WentOffline" do |notification| showOffline end on "BackOnline" do |notification| restoreFromOffline end end def showOffline if isPageEmpty OfflineRenderer.new(self).render markPageAsLoaded end end def restoreFromOffline request if client.isInactive end endI could have shoved the code for what happens when the device switches states into their respective blocks, but now the intent is clear. Did the device go offline? Show the offline page (unless if something was on the page previously). We’re back online? Restore the controller from the offline state by requesting the page again.
Give this a try the next time you come across some code or a comment that covers What But Not The Why, instead of leaving it as a knot to unravel months later. - Jun 04, 13
Customers don’t just buy a product — they switch from something else. And customers don’t just leave a product — they switch to something else.
The last workshop sold out in just a few days, so if you‘d like to attend, register now.
It’s in these switching moments that the deepest customer insights can be found. On the 21st of June, a select group of 32 people will attend a unique, hands-on, full-day workshop to learn about “The Switch”.
Most businesses don’t know the real reasons why people switch to — or from — their products. We’ll teach you how to find out.
The workshop will be at the 37signals office in Chicago. The cost to attend is $1100. The workshop will be led by 37signals and The Rewired Group.
You’ll participate in live customer interviews.
You’ll learn new techniques for unearthing the deep insights that most companies never bother to dig up.
You’ll understand why people switch from one product to another and how you can increase the odds that the switch goes your way.
And you’ll be able to put everything you learned to immediate use.
There’s only one simple requirement: You’ll be asked to bring something with you. It won’t be a big deal. Details will be provided one week before the workshop.
Spots are limited. Only 32 people will be able to attend and participate. Want to be one of the 32? Register now. We will see you on June 21.
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Posts
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- Jun 18, 13
When you go to a conference, there are typically several talks going on at the same time, and you can always tell there's a popular paper coming up when you see people leave a bunch of rooms at once and head straight into one. There's also the unfortunate case when someone speaks, and there's only a handful of people in the room, all in the back staring at their laptops. Open Data City visualized this activity during the German internet conference re: publica.
Open Data City used MAC addresses and access point connections to keep track of where devices went. So a person might be in a room connected to the nearest access point, disconnects as he leaves, and then reconnects as he reenters another room, which provides the flow.
It's fun to watch the conference play out even if you didn't attend. Each dot represents an attendee, and as the animation plays the dots migrate from room to room. Click and drag over the dots to select specific people. [Thanks, Michael]
- Jun 17, 13
As data grows cheaper and more easily accessible, the people who analyze it aren't always statisticians. They're likely to not even have had any statistical training. Biostatistics professor Jeff Leek says we need to adapt to this broader audience.
What does this mean for statistics as a discipline? Well it is great news in that we have a lot more people to train. It also really drives home the importance of statistical literacy. But it also means we need to adapt our thinking about what it means to teach and perform statistics. We need to focus increasingly on interpretation and critique and away from formulas and memorization (think English composition versus grammar). We also need to realize that the most impactful statistical methods will not be used by statisticians, which means we need more fool proofing, more time automating, and more time creating software. The potential payout is huge for realizing that the tide has turned and most people who analyze data aren't statisticians.
Yep.
Those who disagree tend to worry what might happen — what kind of data-based decisions will be made — by non-statisticians, and that should definitely be a priority as we move forward. Non-statisticians often make incorrect assumptions about the data, forget about uncertainty, and don't know much about collection methodologies.
However, as a statistician (or someone who knows statistics), you can shoo everyone else away from the data and gripe when they come back, or you can help them get things right.
- Jun 14, 13
Curious about how people use "geek" and "nerd" to describe themselves and if there was any difference between the two terms, Burr Settles analyzed words used in tweets that contained the two. Settles used pointwise mutual information (PMI), which essentially provided a measure of the geekness or nerdiness of a term. The plot above shows the results.
In broad strokes, it seems to me that geeky words are more about stuff (e.g., “#stuff”), while nerdy words are more about ideas (e.g., “hypothesis”). Geeks are fans, and fans collect stuff; nerds are practitioners, and practitioners play with ideas. Of course, geeks can collect ideas and nerds play with stuff, too. Plus, they aren’t two distinct personalities as much as different aspects of personality. Generally, the data seem to affirm my thinking.
Or maybe pop culture (geek) versus education (nerd).
- Jun 13, 13
It's just metadata. What can you do with that? Kieran Healy, a sociology professor at Duke University, shows what you can do, with just some basic social network analysis. Using metadata from Paul Revere's Ride on the groups that people belonged to, Healy sniffs out Paul Revere as a main target. Bonus points for writing the summary from the point of a view of an 18th century analyst.
What a nice picture! The analytical engine has arranged everyone neatly, picking out clusters of individuals and also showing both peripheral individuals and—more intriguingly—people who seem to bridge various groups in ways that might perhaps be relevant to national security. Look at that person right in the middle there. Zoom in if you wish. He seems to bridge several groups in an unusual (though perhaps not unique) way. His name is Paul Revere.
You can grab the R code and dataset on github, too, if you want to follow along.
- Jun 12, 13
A few years ago I downloaded speed dating data from experiments conducted by Raymond Fisman, et al. (2005), which represents about 8,000 dates by 551 people. On each date, people scored each other on attractiveness, intelligence, ambition, and some other things, along with a yes or a no to seeing the other person again on a regular date.
Fisman, et al. noted gender differences in mate selection, such as: "Women put greater weight on the intelligence and the race of partner, while men respond more to physical attractiveness." And this: "Men do not value women's intelligence or ambition when it exceeds their own." Seemed like data worth checking out.
(Side note: Do people even speed date anymore?)
Three sections:
- How the speed dating worked
- What women and men want in a partner
- Dating up the social ladder
How the speed dating rounds worked
In case you're unfamiliar with the speed dating process, here's how it works. There are two groups. Typically one group is women and the other is men. The point of it all is to match every woman with every man for a short period of time so that by the end, every one has gotten a chance to quickly know each other. The assumption is that you can learn a lot about a person in a short period of time.
In these speed dating sessions, the women stayed seated, and the men shifted each round. The pairs chatted for four minutes and then the men shifted again.
People scored each other on a 1-to-10 scale and indicated whether or not s/he wanted to date the other. So a few things can happen:
- Man wants to date woman, but woman is not interested.
- Woman wants to date man, but man is not interested.
- Both are not interested.
- Both are interested, so information is exchanged.
This also presented interesting dating styles. I won't go too in depth here, but it's fun to take a quick look.
Some people said yes to almost everyone, casting a wide net, whereas others were more stingy with their yeses. Some got a lot of yeses but only returned the favor a couple of times. Some people were really likable and ended up with a lot of mutual yeses.
For example, here are the one-way connections for the first dating session:
These are the mutual connections from the same session:
What women want vs. what men want
So what made one person more dateable than another? We can look at the pre-date surveys that asked others what they looked for in a partner and what they thought the opposite sex looked for. It was a 100-point scale, and participants were asked to divide those 100 points between attractiveness, intelligence, fun, sincerity, ambition, and shares the same interest.
The chart on the right compares the medians of what women said they want and what men said they want.
Women weighted the attributes more evenly than the men did, with intelligence on top and ambition on the bottom. In contrast, men weighted attractiveness more heavily. Ambition was also weighted lowest by the men but a few points lower, which matches the results in the paper.
There's nothing unexpected here. Although I thought sharing the same interest would be higher.
The contrast between what one group says it wants versus what the opposite thinks the other group wants is interesting. For example, women think men place attractiveness much higher in priority at the expense of intelligence and sincerity. And men think women actually weigh attractiveness more highly, also at the expense of intelligence and sincerity.
This is just what people said they wanted though. Is that what they actually wanted? As you might expect, the higher the ratings for all attributes, the higher the yes rate (the proportion of daters who said yes at the end of a round).
The trend is most clear with attractiveness and fun, which are easier to judge than the others in four minutes. The yes rates kind of level off for ambition and sincerity towards the higher ratings.
Look at intelligence though. There was a slight drop in yes rate when someone was rated with a 9 in intelligence by their peers. I suspect this was partially due to the relatively low number of people with this rating (only 26 of them), and the small group of high-intelligence people collectively had lower attractiveness ratings.
The trends are roughly the same when you split the results by gender. Although I would have expected women's yes rates towards men to continue upward given women ranked intelligence higher than attractiveness. Instead, that's how the men's yes rates towards women look.
Dating up (and down) the social ladder
We see this in sitcoms and movies all the time. There's a character who is less (traditionally) attractive interested in someone more attractive. His or her friend who is a genius in relationships launches into a speech about how said character has no chance because he or she can't date up the social ladder. Some might say s/he is undateable.
How does this "rule" pan out?
In the previous distributions, people got higher yes rates when they were rated more attractive by their partners. Flip this around. The more attractive someone was, the more selective they got. It's like the dating pool decreased for an individual the more attractive s/he was.
This doesn't stop people from trying though.
We only really see the change in selectivity with attractiveness (and kind of with fun) when you look at the full distributions, but we see a little more when we compare dating up versus dating down. As shown below, for every attribute, the median yes rate was higher when daters scored their partners higher than themselves. For example, the yes rate was much higher given a dater thought the partner was more fun than her or him.
Again, the difference is most obvious with attractiveness and fun, which makes sense because those are easier to judge in four minutes. You can see the wider spread between the points. However, there's still a spread for intelligence, sincerity, and ambition.
You can also see that the women were more selective than men. It's hard to say from the data alone if this is because the women were actually more choosy, because the men were less desirable, or a little bit of both. I'm guessing it's the women being more selective.
If we go back to the pre-date survey, the actual dating for men is similar to what they said was desirable in a partner. For women though, the speed date results are fairly different from their pre-survey responses. Again though, I suspect the difference comes from the challenge of judging a person in four minutes. Or not. If the former, speed dating seems better suited for men, and if the latter, well, I'm not sure what to do with that, so I'll let the ladies weigh in.
Back to the original findings in the paper. It looks like women do put slightly more weight on intelligence than men, and men put slightly more weight on attractiveness. However, the chart above seems to go against the results that men don't value women's intelligence or ambition when it exceeds their own. If it didn't matter, the yes rates for less ambitious and more ambitious would be near equal. I'll have to dig a little more into the discrepancy, but I suspect we might see something closer to the results when you control for the other variables (mainly attractiveness).
In any case, it's definitely not a straightforward decision.
Another way to look at it is that we don't see any yes rates of zero in the chart above. At the end of the day, even if you are less attractive, less intelligent, less fun, and less ambitious, just remember: There's still a chance.
- Jun 12, 13
Damien Hirst is an artist known for a number of works, one of those being his large production of spot paintings. There are over a thousand of them painted by him and his assistants, varying in size, number of dots, density, and color. Amanda Cox of The New York Times plotted paintings sold from 1999 to present, topping out at $3.4 million. That's a whole lot of dottage.
- Jun 11, 13
The Onion tackles data privacy:
"As a law-abiding resident of this nation, I have the right to do whatever I want without a shadowy organization recording my every move, unless of course it's part of an electronic campaign designed to figure out, based on all of my emails and phone conversations, what types of clothes, shoes, and houseware products I like. Then it’s fine." Sources later confirmed that Landler had posted a Facebook rant on the issue, which had generated a pop-up ad from a company that restores lost PC data.
- Jun 11, 13
It seems like the technical side of map-making, the part that requires code or complicated software installations, fades a little more every day. People get to focus more on actual map-making than on server setup. Map Stack by Stamen is the most recent tool to help you do this.
We provide access to different parts of the map stack, like backgrounds, roads, labels, and satellite imagery. These can be modified using straightforward controls to change things like color, opacity, and brightness. So within a few minutes you can have a map of anywhere in the world with dark green parks and blue buildings. You can get very precise with image overlays and layer effects, using layers as cut-out masks for other layers. Or just make a regular-looking map in the colors you want.
The idea is to make it radically simpler for people to design their own maps, without having to know any code, install any software, or even do any typing.
It's completely web-based, and you edit your maps via a click interface. Pick what you want (or use Stamen's own stylish themes) and save an image. For the time being, the service is open only from 11am to 5pm PST, so just come back later if it happens to be closed.
See here for a taste of what others have done so far.
- Jun 11, 13
OpenStreetMap, the free wiki world map that offers up high quality geographic data, has grown a lot in the past eight years. The OpenStreetMap Data Report shows all these changes. Says the report: "The database now contains over 21 million miles of road data and 78 million buildings."
There are various parts to the summary, but the star is clearly the map of edits. Green indicates an older edit, and white indicates more recent edits. Blue and pink represents everything else in between. Above shows the global overview, but it gets most interesting when you zoom in on cities.
New York:
London:
Activity in Tokyo is bustling:
Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the report to see live updates to the map.
- Jun 10, 13
With all the stuff going on with surveillance and data privacy — especially the past week — it's worthwhile to revisit this essay by Daniel J. Solove, a professor of law at George Washington University, on why privacy matters even if you "have nothing to hide."
"My life's an open book," people might say. "I've got nothing to hide." But now the government has large dossiers of everyone's activities, interests, reading habits, finances, and health. What if the government leaks the information to the public? What if the government mistakenly determines that based on your pattern of activities, you're likely to engage in a criminal act? What if it denies you the right to fly? What if the government thinks your financial transactions look odd—even if you've done nothing wrong—and freezes your accounts? What if the government doesn't protect your information with adequate security, and an identity thief obtains it and uses it to defraud you? Even if you have nothing to hide, the government can cause you a lot of harm.
"But the government doesn't want to hurt me," some might argue. In many cases, that's true, but the government can also harm people inadvertently, due to errors or carelessness.
You might not have anything to hide right now, but maybe a random string of choices that was completely harmless looks a lot like something else a few years from now, to someone sniffing around the archives. The patterns when there are no patterns sort of thing. Personal data without the person. [via @hmason]
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- Apr 18, 13
The tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte in the central crypt of the Eglise du Dome Church at the Hotel des Invalides, Paris.
- Apr 17, 13
Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz, self-taught scholar and poet, passed away 318 years ago.
She was born in San Miguel Nepantla, near Mexico City. She was the illegitimate child of a Spanish Captain, Pedro Manuel de Asbaje, and a Criollo woman, Isabel Ramírez. Her father, according to all accounts, was absent from her life. She was baptized 2 December 1651 and described on the baptismal rolls as “a daughter of the Church”. She was raised in Amecameca, where her maternal grandfather owned a hacienda… (more)
- Apr 17, 13
“Women desire six things: they want their husbands to be brave, wise, rich, generous, obedient to wife, and lively in bed.”
- Geoffrey Chaucer - Apr 17, 13
Geoffrey Chaucer telled the Canterbury Tales for the first time 616 years ago at the court of Richard II.
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales (mostly written in verse although some are in prose) are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return… (more)
Dowload the Canterbury Tales here: http://goo.gl/1muxc.
- Apr 16, 13
“Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.”
- Francisco de Goya - Apr 16, 13
The tomb of William Shakespeare at Holy Trinity Church, Stratford.
- Apr 16, 13
“Proclaim forgiveness and reconciliation, which are the only way to achieve stable harmony.”
- Joseph Ratzinger - Apr 16, 13
- Apr 16, 13
Francisco de Goya passed away 185 years ago.
He was a spanish romantic painter and printmaker regarded both as the last of the old masters and the first of the moderns. Goya was a court painter to the Spanish Crown, and through his works was both a commentator on and chronicler of his era. The subversive imaginative element in his art, as well as his bold handling of paint, provided a model for the work of later generations of artists, notably Manet, Picasso and Francis Bacon… (more)
Check out his gallery here: http://goo.gl/k7dWn.
- Apr 16, 13
Joseph Ratzinger, one of the most powerful minds alive, celebrates today his 86th birthday.
He was born on 16 April 1927, at Schulstraße 11, at 8:30 in the morning in his parents’ home in Marktl, Bavaria, Germany. He was baptised the same day. He was the third and youngest child of Joseph Ratzinger, Sr., a police officer, and Maria Ratzinger. His mother’s family was originally from South Tyrol (now in Italy). His brother, Georg Ratzinger, a priest and former director of the Regensburger Domspatzen choir, is still alive. His sister, Maria Ratzinger, who never married, managed Cardinal Ratzinger’s household until her death in 1991. Their grand-uncle was the German politician Georg Ratzinger… (more)
- Apr 15, 13
The tomb of Leonardo da Vinci in Château d’Amboise.
- Apr 15, 13
- Apr 15, 13
“People of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.”
- Leonardo da Vinci - Apr 15, 13
Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest geniuses that ever lived, was born 561 years ago.
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the renaissance man, a man of “unquenchable curiosity” and “feverishly inventive imagination”… (more)
- Apr 15, 13
“Only the artist, not the fool, discovers that which nature hides.”
- Filippo Brunelleschi - Apr 15, 13
The tomb of Filippo Brunelleschi in the crypt of the Cathedral of Florence.
- Apr 15, 13
Philippo Brunelleschi, most famous for engineering the dome of the Florence Cathedral, passed away 567 years ago.
Little is known about the early life of Brunelleschi, the only sources being Antonio Manetti and Giorgio Vasari. According to these sources, Filippo’s father was Brunellesco di Lippo, a lawyer, and his mother was Giuliana Spini. Filippo was the middle of their three children. The young Filippo was given a literary and mathematical education intended to enable him to follow in the footsteps of his father, a civil servant. Being artistically inclined, however, Filippo enrolled in the Arte della Seta, the silk merchants’ Guild, which also included goldsmiths, metalworkers, and bronze workers. He became a master goldsmith in 1398. It was thus not a coincidence that his first important building commission, the Ospedale degli Innocenti, came from the guild to which he belonged… (more)
- Apr 12, 13
“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.”
- Seneca - Apr 12, 13
The stoic philosopher Seneca took away his own life 1948 years ago.
He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero. While he was later forced to commit suicide for alleged complicity in the Pisonian conspiracy to assassinate Nero, the last of the Julio-Claudian emperors, he may have been innocent. His father was Seneca the Elder and his elder brother was Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus… (more)
Art: La mort de Seneca by Luca Giordano, 1684.
- Apr 12, 13
