Archive for May, 2008
Chumby nation
Mike | May 30th, 2008I got a Chumby, I got a Chumby (said in best schoolyard sing-song, please). Just off my right elbow is a 6″ wide bean bag with a touch screen. The device is hooked up to our wireless network in the office and the screen cycles through the half-dozen or so widgets I have loaded onto [...]
Innovative Design – British Currency
Ross | May 30th, 2008In March 2008, the United States Department of the Treasury unveiled the new five dollar bill. Featuring a purple Helvetica five, the new $5 USD bill was designed by a 147 year old government agency (U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing) which employes 2,500 people and has an annual budget of $525 million USD. The [...]
Paying Your Employees To Quit
Ross | May 27th, 2008Zappos, the online shoe store, has a very unusual approach to weeding out customer service employees that Zappos does not believe will ultimately make the grade. One week into the training program for new customer service employees, Zappos offers new employees $1,000 to resign on the spot (about 10 percent accept). This is a very [...]
Creative Living
Ross | May 27th, 2008If you were asked to design a house but had to make it no more than 94.5 inches (240 centimeters) wide, what would you do? Yes, that’s right – 94.5 inches WIDE. Belgian architect-designers Pieter Peerlings and Silvia Mernets from sculp(it) were faced with just a dilemma for one of their projects located in Antwerp, [...]
Most Valuable Brand In The World: Google
Ross | May 27th, 2008Market research firm Milward Brown concluded in its 2008 BrandZ rankings that Google, for the second year in a row, is the most valuable brand in the world — with an incredible $86 billion in brand value. Milward Brown combines balance sheet data with other factors, such as consumer sentiments, to come up with its [...]
Ask crowdSPRING: How many countries does cS reach?
Ross | May 26th, 2008We’ve long admired 37signals, a great Chicago company located only a few blocks from us. We love their products (Mike and I have used Backpack since 2006, when we first came up with the idea for crowdSPRING, and our development team uses Basecamp to manage multiple projects and for collaboration). We also love their Signal [...]
Submarine warfare
Mike | May 23rd, 2008Every day we sit together over lunch. We have a big table and we either bring leftovers from home or go out to grab something in the neighborhood. It’s a really nice 30 or 40 minute break – the conversation usually is about movies or TV or politics. It serves to recharge us and has [...]
