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There's no such thing as a born writer. It's a skill you've got to learn. You've got to write X number of words, before you can write anything that can be published, but nobody is able to tell you how many words that is. You will know when you get there, but you don't know how long it will take.
-- Larry Brown
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The Secret to Great Writing is... |
...rewriting. When I was an English major in college, I learned that while rewrites are time-consuming, and it kinda sucks to throw away your work, the result that emerges is almost always superior to what you had. So too with writing web sites and software. A first draft can certainly be strong, but not nearly as good as a second or third draft. And by draft, I don't mean edit. I mean rewrite. What I found in college is that the scene is broader, more contextual when you rewrite. The first draft is generally about the plot. The second draft is more about the subtleties of the scene and character development. The third is usually trimming the unnecessary from the second draft. It's lean, it's clean, and it moves the story forward in the right way for the reader. Here's what greeted the user in 247Toolset's administrative backend:  The menu at left is cumbersome and difficult in its organization. For a while now I've wanted to change it, but it was in the back of my to-do list. Yesterday and today, I gave it a lot of thought. Here's the new version:  Not cumbersome. Clean. And frankly, a lot more expansive without feeling bloated. Now to get started with converting about 80 pages of backend... |
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Most sites on the web give the user a single thing to accomplish. They're very focused, and they do that single task very well. Take Twitter... you type in your tweet, and you click the "Tweet" button. Or Typepad, for blogging. A bit more information, a bit more complicated... but that's about it. Title, article, a few tags, and maybe an uploaded picture. Now Google, aside from its simplistic (but very robust) search functionality, offers more complicated tools. Calendar is one of their more complicated tools. You can Quick Add an event...  ...or you can choose the full suite of event options.  While the market for those who want to manage a calendar is certainly universal, it's estimated that about 25 million people use Google Apps. Compare that to Twitter's 145 million users. With complexity comes a decrease in audience. How do you take multi-faceted, complex tasks and help the end-user easily manage those tasks? Interface design is hard. Very hard. Nobody likes to read a user manual. Nobody likes to feel stupid. Everyone wants to look and feel smarter and more powerful through the tools that they use. Interface design is probably best defined as the attempt to make everyone happy. For those who get frustrated by the exercise of trying to make everyone happy, it's likely that they will give up quickly. For those who persist, it takes several iterations, many discussions, lots of open listening, and rewrite after rewrite. As I go through the interface of 247 with various people, I'm always seeing how things could improve with simplification and clearer language and presentation. Then the editor in me has to determine what lands on the To-Do list, and what falls on the To-Don't list. Every decision comes with a trade-off that has an impact on the future of the business. I love the process of the decision-making, of balancing the load. It's a skill with no name, really. It's probably akin to day-trading, but with less, um, drama. And then with each change, it goes out into the package and I learn what my customers think. My chief job then is to help them remain honest with me. Most people steer clear of open criticism, but that's exactly what I need - knowing what didn't communicate. That too is a skill with no name, but more essential than just about anything else. |
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I wish the Right would ditch the words "conservative" and "conservatism." The founding fathers never said anything foundational using those words, and they mean different things to different people. "Freedom" and "independence," on the other hand, are less ambiguous and were used by the founding fathers. I mean, if we're really going to talk about getting back to the traditional aspects of our country, then asserting "conservatism" is twisting our origins. Being free to choose the direction of your own life - that's well established in our nation's history. While I may not agree with your choices, as long as those choices aren't impacting the liberties of others, it's nobody's business but yours. Liberty, freedom, independence - those are foundational words. Conservative - not so much. |
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shel·lack·lus·ter [shuh-lak-luhs-ter], noun
1. the unenthusiastic state of mind one possesses while giving a speech after suffering a public "shellacking" |
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Yesterday, an acquaintance of mine who owns a business asked my how I would solve the problem of making it easy to verify someone's ID in the absence of a wallet or other credentials, without using biological markers (fingerprints, retinal scan). In other words, easy and without the use of special equipment. My first thought was to use a cell phone. There's no reason why I couldn't text your number to a special number and have us both receive the same 4-digits number to confirm with each other, along with my name. It could also be used to get into locked buildings. The phone has a GPS device already, so a simple app could message my location to the number and pulse the lock mechanism for those with electronic access. No idea if he likes the idea or not, but I forwarded it on. I looked up a few domain names, which is what I usually do for things like this, and I discovered that idbyphone.com is already taken. By Microsoft. The domain doesn't go anywhere, but they've owned it since 2007. |
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My buddy’s wife used to regularly put $3,000 a month on the family credit card. Last year, she doubled her rate, increasing more and more each month throughout the year. Horrified at where they were financially, my buddy called foul. Adopting a spirit of cooperation, his wife agreed to freeze her spending at the current level. Problem solved, right? |
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A well-placed consultant to non-profits just received a demo of 247Toolset. His remark: "Brett, that's brilliance. It's user-friendly. I mean, sometimes things are brilliant, but you can't see how to use it. But this is functional brilliance." He then cited eight people with whom he wants to connect so that they can see it too.It's a good Monday so far :) ETC: This is a great moment in my product's history. The consultant just sold it to one of his clients. That's the first time that a sale was made without me being there. And he's setting up a big meeting with another client later this week. Booyah! |
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One of my heroes has died at the age of 96.  That's him when he was 70, celebrating his birthday by swimming through Long Beach Harbor towing a flotilla of 70 boats. Jack LaLanne towed the boats with his hands and feet shackled for a mile past the ocean liner, the Queen Mary. A good man who lived a good life. (Via Instapundit.) |
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