Additionally, I didn’t even think to notice that it wasn’t yet available on Kindle. My publisher had shipped the epub to Amazon in August, after all.

But, many of you have asked about the Kindle version, and – thanks to giving Amazon a nudge – now it’s here. I went ahead and bought a copy myself just a couple of hours ago, and I’m very pleasantly surprised. The words are right there for reading (and there are LOTS of words in this book), and the illustrations (with the exception, of course, for the color chapters) serve their purpose wonderfully.

So, if you’ve been waiting for the Kindle version, or wondering if it would be any good – I’d have to say that this book could still be extremely useful this way. You could do the majority of reading on the Kindle itself, and supplement with CloudReader, iPhone, or iPad for color examples. I know how much lugging around extra stuff sucks. You can start reading Design for Hackers in minutes if you wish.

Update on ranking

After doing incredibly well on the Amazon best-seller list, the paper version is still standing strong at #108 overall on Amazon, and just dropped to #2 on the Computers & Internet category. Buying the paper version helps this ranking (and any hopes of a NYTimes ranking), but if you bought the Kindle version instead – I couldn’t say I would mind that at all.

Update on out-of-stock issues

Note that Amazon currently says that Design for Hackers will ship in “10 to 14 days.” From what I’ve been told by my publisher, this isn’t accurate. Amazon is it’s own beast, and unfortunately, we have very little control over what that page says. Amazon just ordered a bunch more books, and will be getting them shortly. However, (and amazingly) all of the first print run has now been sold to vendors (such as Amazon), so Wiley is printing a new batch right now.

Thanks again, so much, for your shocking enthusiasm and support. I can’t even process what is happening right now.

UPDATE: I’ve also been informed that the Kindle version is available in the UK, and in Germany (in English).

Related posts:

1. Design for Hackers (the book) is here!

Best-selling author, David Kadavy!

I was aware that yesterday Design for Hackers ranked as highly as #18 overall on Amazon, but I hadn’t really been called this before – especially not from one of the world’s largest publishers. This was for real.

Even Chris was surprised to be saying this. Weeks earlier, as I prepared for the launch, I asked him what was the ultimate, maximum thing I could possibly expect to achieve with this book.

“Usually, we try to go for top 100 on the Computers & Internet category.”

When I asked, timidly, whether I should go for NYTimes best-seller status, he said it was “not possible.”

Just a “Technology Book”

As I understand it, the reason was that Design for Hackers is what is referred to as a “technology book,” in the publishing industry. Everything about these books is designed to get them out quickly enough that they aren’t out-of-date by the time they are released. The timeline is breakneck fast (I had 6 months to write – long by “technology book” standards), and (maybe because of this?) the price tends to be much higher (around $40 cover price) than your typical paperback (around $15). Plus, the audience is much, much smaller.

Somehow, on launch day, my book easily burned through #1 in the Computers & Internet category, all of the way to #18 overall on Amazon (currently #32). Author Central says there are over 8,000,000 books being sold on Amazon. #18. Wow.

Design for Hackers blew past many mainstream titles: Go the F**ck to Sleep, Dick Cheney’s In My Time, and even past Tim Ferriss’s The 4-Hour Body. (It’s only sort of coincidental that “4 Hours” is part of the title of this post. I really admire, and have learned a lot, from Tim’s work. This book couldn’t have happened without many things I learned from The 4-Hour Work Week)

This despite nearly everything that usually comes along with a mainstream book release. I can hardly count the number of things that weren’t exactly how it “should” be done about this launch:

• The release came earlier than I had expected, so I didn’t have time for the standard “pre-order push.” This helps determine how many books are printed and shipped, and helps with NYTimes best-seller status, so it was purportedly not that critical.
• Probably somewhat due to the above, Amazon ran completely out-of-stock within about an hour. It currently says it “Usually ships within 7 to 13 days.” Who buys a book that is that back-ordered!? Apparently, you do, and I thank you for that. (my publisher has informed me that they are working with Amazon on getting the book back in stock)
• There were ZERO reviews on the Amazon page. The book timeline has been fast, and this book is a pretty in-depth read, so there wasn’t time to get genuine reviews up. (There is currently a review up from an early reader)
• Most physical bookstores don’t have the book on their shelves. Not that there are many left. But, the other day I wanted to drop by my local Barnes & Noble to sign some books, only to find out they still weren’t in stock.

Not to mention that I have no publicist, no literary agent, and no staff.

So, how did this happen?

I’m not going to pretend this is a complete mystery just for the sake of appeal. I worked with what experience, resources, and relationships I had to do the best launch I could. I, of course, want this book to do very, very well. I talked with friends like Noah Kagan (AppSumo), and Ramit Sethi (NYTimes best-selling author of I Will Teach You to be Rich) to see what advice they had. I made sure to keep an email list, and cherish its subscribers, and to try to coordinate a launch in which I get lots of people to all buy my book at once.

There are a few things that I can posit (besides a hunger for design literacy) contributed to such an amazingly successful launch: my email list, Hacker News, and Kickstarter.

The email list

This group of folks has by far had the most impact (though most of them come from Hacker News, which I’ll talk about next). I’ve built it up since I announced the book deal. I tried to give them content as it came along, though honestly, I didn’t get as much out as I had planned because the book-writing was just too intense. I’ve had plenty of unsubscribes, but many have stuck with me along the way. I’ve gotten to know many of them, gotten their feedback and support, and learned a lot about what they need to learn about design.

So, after posting on my blog, I emailed these amazing people and explained to them my situation: my book is out > I want it to do well on Amazon > please buy it.

Hacker News

Incredibly, there were not one, but two links related to Design for Hackers on the front page of Hacker News all day yesterday: the blog post (which wasn’t a gigantic surprise), but even the Amazon link (which was a huge surprise). The blog post alone got over 10,000 views yesterday. 10,000 views on a post that basically says “hey, here’s my book, please buy it?”

Since the Amazon link actually performed better on Hacker News (and is now on the Amazon best-seller list), I can only imagine it got much more traffic.

Kickstarter

A couple of weeks ago, I also had a successful Kickstarter campaign. Part of the reason I couldn’t coordinate a “pre-launch” was because it took nearly a month just to get my campaign accepted to Kickstarter. It got rejected twice, but I kept working on it. Honestly, it turned out much better because of it.

The Kickstarter campaign had a number of benefits. I also suspect it may have had the killer benefit:

• I got to practice launching. I don’t have a ton of experience launching things (other than blog posts). It was good practice in trying to convey what I had to offer strongly enough that 138 people – many whom I didn’t know before – took out their wallets and gave me money to tour the U.S..
• It built awareness. I was amazed at how much people rallied around the Kickstarter campaign. I’m sure many people who hadn’t heard of my book before did because of it’s success.
• It built my confidence. When you spend most of your day behind a computer, in your apartment by yourself, you sometimes have no idea if anyone really cares about what you’re producing. It’s always nice to have positive feedback and be reassured that there will be some people who are interested in what you’re offering.

And the killer benefit?

I ordered the books for Kickstarter backers, in succession, on Amazon yesterday. It may surprise you that it was actually much easier (and just as cost-effective) to just send the books to my Kickstarter backers through my Amazon Prime account. Yup, I paid Amazon’s full price for each of them. One side-benefit was Kickstarter uses Amazon Payments, so I got to use my balance from that to buy the books (so, I didn’t have to pay Amazon Payments fees on that portion). I knew I was going to be busy with the launch, so I hired a contractor to do the ordering for me.

Not a ton of orders. “Only” 70 books. They were doing it so fast that Amazon’s fraud department called to make sure the activity was authorized. “Are you buying things today?” “Yes, I most certainly am.”

So, while my blog post was going viral, and many of you were kindly buying my books, my Kickstarter backers were also having their books ordered for them. This may have helped with the ranking.

I say may because Amazon’s rankings are a big mystery. The only thing I really know about them is that they are updated very rapidly – probably by the hour.

I was told through a couple of sources that if I ordered all of the books from the same account that the orders wouldn’t affect my ranking. Other sources said that it might. I suppose that it probably did.

That’s It?

Of course, these things didn’t materialize out of thin air. This is just what I did to make the best of what I had at hand. I still like to think that people have enjoyed my writing thus far around the Design for Hackers topic, and that they are generally amazingly hungry to learn more about design. It’s still incredible to me that something as seemingly mundane as fonts and colors is of such interest to so many people.

How far can this go?

In my conversation with my publisher this morning, he conceded that now, yes, it may be possible to reach the NYTimes best-seller list. Even with the lack of reviews, and out-of-stock woes, this little “technology book” could hit the mainstream. Could you imagine that?

Imagine a discussion on NPR about the hidden meanings of different fonts.

Imagine Conan O’Brien talking about design literacy.

Imagine Oprah talking about white space. (even if she hadn’t retired, this, admittedly, would be unlikely, but you get the idea.)

Furthermore, imagine the mainstream media using the word “hacker” for what it really means: someone with a thirst for solving problems, a passion for sharing, and a vision to reinvent his or her world.

Maybe I’m just dreaming, but you’ve already exceeded my dreams. So, thank you for that.

No related posts.

It was less than 10 months ago that I told you that I would be writing Design for Hackers. Less than 10 months, and the book is already available. In fact, I just signed a bunch of books for some of the amazing 138 backers of the Kickstarter campaign, and I’m also packing my bags and going on tour, starting (oxymoronically) with stops in Boston and NYC next week.

UPDATE (4:33pm CST): I just realized that Design for Hackers is now #36 #22 #18 on ALL OF AMAZON (screenshot below for posterity). Wow, I am so blown away – I never expected this. Thank you. -David

TL;DR

This is going to be a massive post, so here’s a little outline for easy skipping.

• how this book came to be
• the book
• why I want you to buy today
• teaming up with Hacker Monthly & KISSmetrics
• questions?
• I’m going on tour!

Such a fast timeline is typical of “technology” books such as this. There was actually merely 6 months of actual writing time allotted for this book. It was a long, cold, winter holed up in my apartment writing. I put everything on hold: my client work, travel plans (I turned down a free round trip to Hawaii using a friend’s extra airline miles!), and the majority of my social life. There was no time for distractions as I dug in for the biggest project of my life: condensing my entire understanding of what makes good design into 300-or-so short pages.

A lifetime, plus six months

Six months doesn’t seem long, but as I like to tell those who ask, the book took a lifetime, plus six months, to write. It all began with my childhood obsession with drawing. I passed many boring Nebraska days, alone in my room, drawing. I drew everything: I copied from “how-to-draw” books, I drew characters from my favorite video games, and I even drew lettering. My encouraging relatives would sometimes surprise me with $5 bill for drawing when visiting their houses – while my brother mowed the lawn.

When it came time to go to college, it naturally took only moments to choose what I wanted to study: I knew I wanted to do something artistic, and – coming from the fiscally conservative land of Warren Buffett – I also wanted to get a job. “Graphic design” was the clear choice. Honestly, I wasn’t precisely sure what I was getting myself into.

But it was a great fit. I found communicating visually to be challenging and stimulating – purposeful, yet nuanced and artistic. And typography. God, how I grew to love typography. It was rational in being bound to language, yet artistic and expressive.

This love was bolstered by an opportunity to study design in the ruins of Ancient Rome. “Why would you study design in Rome?” people would ask. I wasn’t sure at the time, but I soon learned how important Roman typography was to the history of design. The influence of the letterforms that were born during this time – as products of pen and ink, of chisel and stone – can still be seen in the latest typefaces. Furthermore, understanding this was a perfect conduit through which to understand the most important principle of design: that form is a product of a mixture of intention, culture, and technology. Pandora’s box had been opened, and I was seeing the world through new eyes.

I spent my final semester of college once again locked in my room. Aside from my usual classwork, I devoured every typography book that I could find in my Unversity’s vast library. I read Chappell, Tschichold, more Tschichold, and of course Bringhurst. I conducted experiments in typography, color, and geometry, repeatedly rearranging the words from a bottle of deodorant. I gained new sensitivity not only for letters, but even more so for the tiny bits of space that surrounded them. Seeing typography in a new way, I was forced to rebuild my entire portfolio.

A convergence

This obsession slowly converged with my love for computers and the internet. I drooled at my neighbors’ computer as a child, but it wasn’t until my brother left his college computer at home for a summer that I really got to spend quality time with a computer. I “broke” it countless times, having to reinstall everything. I used the web space that came with my AOL account to make my first website in 1996. It didn’t get updated much, but I got to dabble with HTML.

Then came writing. I never liked writing growing up. In fact, I hated it. I remember reading somewhere that Steven King had said that he was “constantly on fire to write” as a child. That made no sense to me. “That makes no sense to me,” I told my brother.

“You know how you feel about drawing? Well, that’s probably how he felt about writing,” he told me. At that point, it made some sense.

Responding to an irresistible internal force I started my blog in 2004. If you read the first post, it’s clear that I had no idea what I was doing. I think I mostly wanted a playground on which to improve my coding skills. A little more than a year later, I was whisked away to Silicon Valley by a startup.

Discovering the entrepreneur

What I found in California once again rocked my world. It was refreshing to be surrounded by optimism, technological savvy, curiosity for solving problems, and a culture based upon merit. This had not been my environment when growing up in Nebraska.

I was thirsty for the energy of The Valley. Coders got together for all-night software development parties (SHDH), and some startups consisted of a group of 12 guys crammed into a 3-bedroom apartment (Meetro). I rode CalTrain up to San Francisco to go to tech events – only to take the slow midnight train back to San Jose so I could go to work the next day. Suddenly, I was surrounded by people that made sense to me. I was beginning to discover: I was an entrepreneur, and there was nothing I could do to resist that.

Independence Day: starting the journey

Once I was free from employment, I vowed to never work for anyone else again. Working for VC-backed startups had taken it’s toll. I was tired at looking at my paycheck, asking myself “did I really generate that much value in the past week,” and knowing that I had not.

In the summer of 2007, I cashed out some Google and Apple stock that I had bought a few years prior, and began a long road of exploration. I wanted to remind myself that I was really good at something. I felt that if I really trusted my passions, I would eventually be able to create something of value. I wanted to recreate that feeling I had when I was alone in my room, drawing – so engrossed in what I was doing that I would skip meals.

I met up with other entrepreneurial wanderers at cafes in SF, where I now lived. We would explore random projects, helping each other with what we could, for 12 hours a day. I remember many times, leaving a cafe with the realization that I had not made a penny all day – but feeling great about the work I had done.

After a year of this, I had found enough of my entrepreneurial voice that I knew that The Valley wasn’t necessarily for me. I had met amazing people, and had learned a lot about myself, but I knew I didn’t want to raise money for a startup. I knew that the value of paying $1,000 a month for a tiny bedroom (with no job, mind you) had reached the point of diminishing returns. I wanted cheap rent, my own space, and a few cold winters to force me to really dig into my psyche, and hopefully find something good. Chicago was the logical choice.

At this point, I had gotten enough personal projects (and my savings) out of my system that I was ready to do some client work. I set up Kadavy, Inc., and – thanks to the great connections I had made in The Valley – I had some great clients.

Entrepreneurs who make money

Additionally, I was sharing space with entrepreneurs that actually made money. The Valley had taught me to believe in myself, and had unlocked creativity; but finally I was learning the nuts and bolts of business. I learned how to incorporate, invoice clients, and really how to earn my keep.

But I couldn’t stop working on side projects. Eventually, I gained enough passive income (more about that in the future), that I could comfortably pursue my creativity without being too concerned about keeping steady client work. It wasn’t much, but – after a year with no income – I was a master at living small.

This freed me up to explore the love for writing that had developed over the years. There was something exciting to me about packaging concepts into approachable and entertaining bits – like a chef mixing together unlikely ingredients to present bites with an overarching flavor, underlying notes, and a surprising finish.

As always, I wrote about what I knew: a problem I had recently solved, or something so basic that I took it for granted. Eventually it dawned on me that the one obsession that had persisted throughout my life was probably the subject on which I was best equipped to write. One blog post later, I had a book deal.

The book is here today

So, here it is, a lifetime and six months later. Everything that I know about what really makes great design great has been condensed into a few hundred pages. There are few life experiences that haven’t informed this book: from drawing in my room as a child, to studying the graffiti on the walls of Pompeii; from working with architects on typographic installations, to working with back-end developers on Django dash or Rails Rumble; from meticulously experimenting with typography, to producing designs at breakneck pace at a startup; from designing just because I loved to, to designing for economic efficiency – it’s all in here.

This is the product of my journey, and I’m proud to present it to you. Here it is, printed brilliantly in full color.

In it, you’ll find:

• Color Theory: How can you enliven your designs by understanding how colors interact?
• Proportion and Geometry: How can you establish a grid that is suitable for the device on which your design with be displayed?
• Size and Scale: How can you create clean design just by choosing the right type sizes?
• White Space: How can you use it elegantly to communicate clearly?
• Composition and Design Principles: How can you use them to make your designs more compelling?
• Typographic Etiquette: What tiny typographic details can make a huge difference in what you’re communicating?

Spreading design literacy

I see this book as much more than the product of lifelong obsession: I hope that it will be part of a turning point for mankind. It sounds crazy to type that, but really, that’s what I hope for. I hope that it will contribute to the revolution of design literacy.

What do I mean by design literacy? When Gutenberg invented the printing press, very few people knew how to read or write. Just a little over 500 years later, most of us are literate. We learn how to read and write in school. Clear communication is necessary for success.

Now we have tremendous publishing power. We create our own flyers, our own PowerPoint presentations, and we even tweak our Tumblr themes. We’re armed with a dizzying array of fonts – enough to make Claude Garamond blush – and most of us have no knowledge of how they really differ, or how to use them to facilitate clear communication.

I believe it naturally follows that the ability to use design to communicate clearly will eventually be as widespread as the ability to use language to communicate is today.

Starting with the Hackers

So why start with the Hackers? Because they’re the ones who are reinventing the world, one line of code at a time. They break down oppressive business models, and create markets from resources that were previously untapped. They can do this so much more effectively with good design.

Hackers have all of this power because they come from a sharing culture. If they run across an error while programming, a quick Google search or RTFM will likely lead them to a solution. This isn’t true when learning design.

Many designers try to share what they know, but since many of them truly are naturals, they have trouble articulating the decisions that they make. You can’t tell someone to “use white space,” and expect a great result.

In this book, I break down all of the factors that make a design great. I explain how different typefaces convey different moods, and why. I explain how different color arrangements convey different feelings, and how specific colors can communicate specific things in certain contexts. I’ll explain how tiny bits of white space, or tiny typographic details, can change what it is that you’re communcating.

Buy books, get bundles

Today – September 14th, 2011 – is the day I’d like for you to buy this book, so I’ve teamed up with a couple of partners that I know you Hackers will like, plus, I’m offering some of my own time and attention to help you with design. If you aren’t interested in my book, I don’t expect that you’ll buy these bundles just for the extra stuff (though sometimes, the value of what you’ll get is as much as that of the books themselves). Consider these giveaways a “thank you” for buying (from Amazon) today nowish.

What’s in it for me (and other people)

You’ve seen similar promotions from other authors such as Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk, or Eric Ries. These great authors do promotions like these because they want as many of you to buy at one time as possible. They’re shooting for the New York Times bestseller list, so they want you not only to preorder lots of copies of their book, but it’s not important to them where you buy the books from. All of the booksellers count towards the New York Time bestseller list for that eek.

But, I’m not expecting to be on the New York Times bestseller list. The genre of my book is far to niche for that: it’s a small but elite group of people who are not only building cool stuff with code, but who also want to build their design skill.

So, I’m shooting for a good Amazon rank. Things have been going well so far. I haven’t really actively asked anyone to buy my book yet, and it’s already an “Amazon bestseller,” ranking as highly as #13 in the “Hacking” sub-sub-category.

If you really look at that rank in context, it looks as if my book is dangerously close to being #1 overall.

As you’ve probably figured out by now, Amazon updates their sales rankings pretty rapidly. So, the more people who buy today, the higher the ranking for Design for Hackers will be.

The higher the ranking for Design for Hackers, the more people who will discover the book while randomly browsing Amazon. The more people who randomly discover the book, the faster design literacy spreads. (I won’t B.S. you either: this helps me out, too: in the form of hopefully paying out my advance, and eventually earning a small royalty per book sale).

What’s in it for you? Hacker Monthly & KISSmetrics

If you’ve enjoyed my writing so far, simply buying my book benefits you. First of all, you get a great book: a full-color, exhaustive breakdown of everything visual. But, the better my book does, the more I can dedicate myself to teaching you about design. Beyond this book, I hope to continue developing content that entertains and informs. I want to teach you how to do my job – as if it were my job.

Hacker Monthly

As an added bonus – as a “thank you” for buying today before Saturday, you’ll get a free 3-month digital subscription to Hacker Monthly (for new subscribers only).

Hacker Monthly condenses the best articles from Hacker News for each month in one easy-to-read issue. I know what it’s like to lose a whole day hitting “refresh” on Hacker News, reading every article that comes through. Hacker Monthly eliminates all of that, and ensures that you see the very best content that comes through Hacker News – all laid out beautifully, on any device you want (PDF, MOBI, EPUB format). Since I really have the Hacker News community to thank for the opportunity to write this book, I’m especially happy to be working with Hacker Monthly as this book launches.

Even if you buy only one copy of the book (which is plenty, really!), you get the Hacker Monthly subscription.

KISSmetrics

For those of you who buy at least three copies of the book, I’ve teamed up with KISSmetrics. In addition to the Hacker Monthly subscription described above, you’ll get a free subscription to KISSmetrics, good for as many as 55,000 “events” per month. KISSmetrics doesn’t even offer a free plan, and normally starts at $29 per month. This plan is lined up just for you guys, and is good for life.

For those unfamiliar, KISSmetrics helps you track and improve the stuff that matters about your customers. Instead of needing to wade through tons of confusing web stats, KISSmetrics keeps you focused on the metrics that will actually help your business grow.

Bootstrapper Bundles

Time remaining for Bootstrapper Bundles: These offers have expired! “Design Baller” packages below are still available.

For those individual Hackers, or small teams, I’ve wrapped up the above into a few “Bootstrapper Bundles.” These bundles can be redeemed today before Saturday only. Buy extra copies of the book to give to your co-founder, your teammates, or even donate a copy or two to your local library.

• 1 book: get a free 3-month digital subscription to Hacker Monthly. Forward your Amazon receipt to 1book@designforhackers.com
• 3 books: get the Hacker Monthly subscription, and a free KISSmetrics subscription, good for 55,000 actions a month, for life. Forward your Amazon receipt to 3books@designforhackers.com
• 5 books: get the Hacker Monthly & KISSmetrics subscriptions, plus an email consultation of one screenshot. I’ll give you at least 3 tips to improve your design. Forward your Amazon receipt to 5books@designforhackers.com
• 10 books: get the Hacker Monthly & KISSmetrics subscriptions, plus a 2-minute, publicly posted design consultation screencast. This will be just like the ones I did for my Kickstarter backers. Forward your Amazon receipt to 10books@designforhackers.com

If any of this interests you, please buy the book on Amazon »

Design Baller Bundles

Time remaining for Design Baller Bundles: 143 days, 17 hours, 58 minutes, 38 seconds ago

Understanding design isn’t just valuable for small companies and teams. I know some of you have entire departments of giant companies – or entire giant companies themselves – that are in need of design literacy. Or, maybe you just like to build forts out of books. Maybe you just hate trees and want to wipe them off of the planet. While you need a ton of books for any of this, I know you also probably need a little time to get budget approval to buy that stack of books. So, I’m giving you guys a whole week to redeem any of these bundles, which also include the Hacker Monthly & KISSmetrics subscription.

• 25 books: HM & KM, plus a 1-hour Skype consultation. We can talk about whatever you want! Forward your Amazon receipt to 25books@designforhackers.com
• 50 books: HM & KM, plus a 1-hour Skype presentation for your company. It will be just like I’m there! Forward your Amazon receipt to 50books@designforhackers.com
• 250 books (damn, playa!): HM & KM, plus I’ll come talk at your company, anywhere in the lower 48. Forward your Amazon receipt to 250books@designforhackers.com

If any of this interests you, please buy the sh*t out of this book on Amazon »

Already bought a book?

Some of you, of course, already bought a book. Or, maybe you’re one of the amazing people who backed my Kickstarter campaign at a level that got you a book. If this is you, or you already bought a book from a retailer other than Amazon, then just forward a screenshot or image of your receipt to the appropriate address above. (if you’re a Kickstarter backer, I’ll just recognize your name – we’re cool)

Does it have to be Amazon? What about Kindle & other ebook formats?

If you’re dead-set on buying from a retailer other than Amazon, or on buying in Kindle or some other electronic format, I still really, really love you; but none of these purchases are eligible for these bundles. Only paperback copies bought from Amazon will count towards the Amazon rank of the book. Thanks a ton for your interest!

Catch me in your city

Thanks to $5,827 raised from 138 amazing Kickstarter backers, I’m going on a U.S. tour. Not to waste any time at all, I’m going to be hitting Boston on the evening of September 19th, and NYC the evening of September 22nd (yes, next week, that’s how fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants this is). I’m still working out details on venues, but sign up for updates for your city here.

Related posts:

1. “Design for Hackers” available on Kindle

The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual by Christopher Lock et. al.

Written in 1999, and published in 2000, this book was an appropriate introduction to a world-changing decade. It’s a collection of “95 theses” explaining how authentic, global, person-to-person communication would transform the way businesses interact with their customers. Through e-mail, message boards, and blogs (implied though not mentioned), the power behind information distribution would soon be shifting from that of large corporations, to that of individuals – human beings. My favorite thesis: “Markets are Conversations.” This was an exciting book for me to read because it was clear this power shift could change much more than just how business and customers interacted – it was the signal that soon the truth would always be more clear.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell

This 2000 book was another fitting introduction to a decade because it presented the phenomena that would be the champions of the decade. The “Connectors” and “Mavens” – through blogs, message boards, and social networking sites – would soon be seeing more power to expand their vast networks of acquaintences and validate their expertise; making them the most sought after customers in companies quests to make their products go “viral.” Of course, it would all really depend on the “Stickiness Factor” of said products. This book was important to me not only because it helped me understand how ideas spread, but I found Malcom Gladwell’s style of writing and packaging of concepts to be inspirational, and helpful to observe.

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen

With the amount of information a person encountered in a given day rising exponentially, a new way of working was needed. In 2002, David Allen published this book, outlining a system of how to route all of that stimuli into a system that allows one to prioritize, delegate, and DO all of the things that need to be done. It was followed with religious fervor, and the whole concept behind the book came to be known as “GTD.” This book spawned countless GTD-related blogs, software tools, and physical-world hacks such as The Hipster PDA Keychain. This was an important book for me because it responded to the pain that I – and I think everyone – felt with managing a tidal wave of information, and the now seemingly endless possibilities that each day presented.

Four Hour Work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, & Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss

By virtue of our changed ways of accessing, interacting with, and managing information – the way we interacted with our physical world changed as well. With asynchronous communication techonologies such as e-mail and IM – now accessible from the palm of your hand, suddenly the whole concept of needing to be at a particular place at a particular time, just to make a living, started to look more antiquated. By use of the 80/20 rule, outsourcing, and running small tests with technologies like AdWords, Tim Ferriss’s 2007 book showed the world just how far one could stretch their potential. One can automate their income, freeing up time to pursue their passions, all while traveling the world. The bombastic title turned off many people; but I believe this book will stand as a marker in a revolutionary change in the way we work. This was an important book to me because it validated and made more clear just what it was about 9-5 that didn’t make any sense to me.

The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits & True Growth by Fred Reichheld

With a good portion of power now undeniably within the grip of the individual, organizations had to change the way they did business. This 2006 book outlined a concept, called Net Promoter Score, that has become a standard metric in today’s top organizations. By asking “The Ultimate Question” of your customers, “how likely are you to recommend X to a friend?” companies can now identify their “promoters” and “detractors,” and link a metric to a customer’s experience in any given interaction with their company. NPS leaders, such as Enterprise Rent-A-Car, innovate on customer experience from the bottom up – distributing ideas developed by the employees that have the closest contact with the customer. This was an important book for me because it was exciting to see how the internet had changed the way top companies viewed their customers.

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough & Michael Braungart

With most of the basic needs of the American middle class met, and easier and cheaper sharing of information, the environment was a hard issue to ignore. This 2002 book exposed not only the broken industrial system that was (and still is) harming our planet and our health, but the faults in our attempts to fix them (for example, recycling is really “downcycling” – degrading materials each time). Braungart and McDonough promote a Cradle to Cradle concept that employs waste-free systems that make optimal use of “technical nutrients” and “biological nutrients.” This was an important read to me not only because I found it to be practical and realistic approach to a cleaner and healthier environment; but it introduced me to thought frameworks that can be used in other areas to design an integrated lifestyle.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan

Yet another book whose popularity was made possible by a shift in power, The Omnivore’s Dilemma called in to question our relationship with one of the most essential – yet underconsidered – sources of life: the food we eat. While America owes much of its success to our access to cheap food, the side-effects are emerging. Food safety issues, obesity, diabetes, and a lack of transparency of where our food comes from are all products of industrial agriculture and public policy that is enmeshed with our apathy toward our relationship with food. In this 2006 book, Michael Pollan dissects the sources of our food to reveal a lack of biodiversity, cultural apathy, and a broken political system. Since publishing this book, Pollan has published In Defense of Food, and appeared in the movie Food, Inc. and concern for the source of our food has become a mainstream topic. This book was important to me because it opened my eyes to the link between what I eat, and how I feel.

What is the What? by Dave Eggers

Through 9/11, the internet, and increased gobal travel, this decade brought us more awareness of the people with whom we share this world, and brought life to the inequities that were once nothing but news headlines. What is the What?, a 2006 novel written by Dave Eggers is a product and reflection of that. It follows the life of Sudanese refugee, Valentino Achak Deng from boyhood as his village is ransacked by the murahaleen, and as he walks through Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya, suffering and witnessing unbelievable horrors and losses. Accounts of his days in Africa are interspersed with stories of his subsequent struggles in America as a member of the Lost Boys of Sudan program. This book was important to me because the accounts of Deng’s experiences were a conduit through which to understand the suffering that exists in the world. It was humbling to read, and made me not only appreciate my life; but it reinforced my belief that we rarely have as much to lose as we think we do.

I think the 00′s will be remembered as a decade when everything we take for granted about how we live our lives was called into question. The models for how we access, understand, and distribute information were violently disrupted, exposing the now obsolete frameworks within which we live our lives. In the 10′s we will rebuild those frameworks.

I’m looking forward to rebuilding with you in the 10′s.

No related posts.

• Six select members, all of us entrepreneurs in Chicago.
• We read books on our own – based on the challenges we each face as business owners. Sometimes they are from the Personal MBA list, sometimes not.
• We meet for brunch one Saturday a month at a swanky place in The Loop, and invite a business leader from a particular field of expertise to join us each time and talk about their experiences.
• We keep each other updated on what we’re reading, and how it’s helping us with our businesses.

Sorry to say, but you’re not invited. There’s a ton of people we wish we could include in the group – but won’t. Here’s why we’re keeping the group small:

• Having a safe place to share confidential information about our businesses enhances the learning experience. This is really a big one.
• The waitstaff already hates us for putting down 6 credit cards at each brunch. Six is enough.
• In today’s world of bloated invite lists, “maybe” RSVP’s, and no-shows, it’s nice to know who is going to be there each time. We have stronger relationships within the group this way.

That said, I encourage you to start your own DIY MBA group, and I’ll do whatever I can to help you if you do. If you do, we would be very interested to hear how you run your group. Further down the road we can share resources and ideas, and maybe even find a way to join forces.

Some books/resources I/we have found useful:

• Harvard Business Essentials books. Right now I’m reading Finance For Managers
• The Ten-Day MBA
• Business Models Made Easy. What does that phrase that gets thrown around The Valley so much really mean?
• Harvard Business Review. Way more substance than those mags that are more fashion than they are business.
• John Bain & Company Interview Preparation. “Crack the Case” quizzes that show you how a top consulting firm thinks.
• SCORE Free Small Business Counselors in your area.

No related posts.

When I returned to The States, I was starving for more. My design program wasn’t concerned with these aspects of design, but my university’s library had any book I needed about typography and proportion. In addition to my regular class work, I regularly spent 16 hours a day, alone in my apartment, devouring all of these books. My curiousity with the relationship between proportion and beautiful typography became an obsession. I even conducted my own exercise, where I laid out copy from a deodorant stick onto a canvas using nothing but proportionally-derived space to create a hierarchy. A few years later, when I taught a typography class, it was this odd exercise that I adapted into a lesson plan that was published in Ilene Strizver’s Type Rules!.

After all of this experimentation, I, of course had to re-do every project in my portfolio to live up to my new standards. I developed a sort of technique, which I demonstrate in this video. No, I’m not using the golden ratio. I’m simply creating a series of “blocks,” of descending size, based upon the aspect ratio of the “canvas” itself. I then use those blocks to determine margins, the size of elements, and the size of spaces between those elements. Oh, just watch the damn video.

I talk about this technique a little in my Design for the Coder’s Mind presentation, but this video should give you a much clearer picture.

——–

Image via briangeek

Hey, FREE book!

Best comment (relevant & thought-provoking) will receive a free copy of Kim Elam’s Geometry of Design, a book which I personally find fascinating. It’s full of illuminations of geometric proportion’s influence in beautiful design. Deadline: midnight PST Wednesday, February 18th.

Related posts:

1. Design for Hackers (the book) is here!

Thanks so much to all who chimed in on the creativity convertition! When I decided to solicit these ideas, I really wasn’t sure if I should expect to hear much of anything outside of my general understanding of creativity, but I really found some useful tips out of it all. Here are the 10 tips (in no significant order) that were 1) my favorite tips, in combination with 2) submitted by someone who invited – or at least attempted to invite, other people to participate.

Vote (NOW!) for your favorite tip by leaving a comment with the number of the entry that is your favorite, to determine who wins a copy of The Guerilla Art Kit. I’ll close voting at midnight PST Tuesday, February 11th.

Finalists

1. jelling recommends a set of playing cards by Brian Eno that give random suggestions, such as “honor the hidden intention of your error.”
2. Mary suggests assembling a “committee of whimsical people” to drink beer and brainstorm at a particular Tuscon, Arizona bar – and trying not to barf.
3. Adelle recommends Fuel Your Creativity, a blog soley created to provide inspiration.
4. sj suggests that you read magazines from industries NOT related to your own to get ideas from a different perspective.
5. Roger (who submitted via e-mail) has written a great blog post telling you to embrace failure: “errors serve a useful purpose: they tell us when to change direction.”
6. Stephen Davis suggests a blog post by Seth Godin, about how the market conditions of a recession can fuel creativity.
7. Gordon says that something as simple as some household chores can keep him thinking creatively.
8. Ryan suggest, amongst other things, that when listening to music “listen to whole albums, don’t use random,” presumably to keep yourself in one particular frame of mind.
9. Mark discovered in his improv class don’t try to be original.
10. Patty finds that by helping others, she gains a new perspective.

I’d like to add that 1) it was exceptionally difficult to narrow this down to the maximum of 10 that I promised, and 2) there are a couple of slightly late entries in this list that were so strong I decided to include them.

Remember, Vote (NOW!) for your favorite tip by leaving a comment with the number of the entry that is your favorite. Also, please feel free to continue the conversation about creativity, on the original post.

——–

image via wolfpix

No related posts.

UPDATE The finalists have been chosen! Thanks to everyone who participated. Vote (NOW!), but please feel free to continue the conversation in the comments below.

How do you keep yourself thinking creatively? Maybe you just go for a walk, you do some yoga. Maybe you spar at your local boxing gym, or fire a gun at a firing range. Maybe it’s a website full of inspiration that you visit, or a simple blog post somewhere that gives you inspiration. The best answer to this question will win a copy of The Guerilla Art Kit, by Keri Smith – which will teach you to start an artistic revolution through your creativity. Whatever it is, be creative – and share it with us. Here’s how the convertition* works:

1. Submit your ways of being creative: do this by @ replying kadavy on Twitter, or simply leave a comment here. Also, if someone told you about this convertition, be sure to mention them, for Karma’s sake (they get clout in the convertition for telling you about it). Your creativity tip can be something you try yourself, or a website, article, book, or blog post that keeps you creative. Need some ideas? Check out my blog post, Eight Life Hacks for Creative Thinking. There may be ways that you stay creative that you hadn’t realized. (This blog post, by the way, is ineligible for submission. Sorry, I only wish.)
   • Not required, but encouraged: include “#cr8” in your tweets so everyone can follow along.
2. Be one of the finalists: Out of all of the submissions, I’ll pick no more than ten finalists. My admittedly unscientific criteria will be the following:
   • Originality of idea: while it may really keep you creative, simply saying “painting” is not likely to land you there – unless your presentation is really interesting (see next).
   • Presentation of the idea: Simple tweets and links to blog posts certainly stand a chance, but why not make a quick video of your creativity inspiring activity of choice – or some other format. The only requirement is that it can be shared on the web for all to see. Your presentation should arouse curiousity, entertain, or simply better explain how said activity keeps you thinking creatively.
   • How many people you get to participate in this convertition: As mentioned above, be sure to share who it is that told you about this convertition (and remind your friends to say you sent them). Remember socializing is a good way to keep yourself thinking creatively.
3. Get voted for: After I pick the finalists, and present them in a new blog post, I’ll ask all of you to vote – via comments – for which tip you like the best. It’s tempting to tell all of your friends to vote – and as such, this is totally permissible and encouraged.

So, how do you stay creative? Blog it, tweet it, whatever – take two minutes to share it with us, and you can win this excellent book. The deadline for submission is Midnight PST, Tuesday, February 3rd. Has passed.

Here’s a video version of the call-for-entries you might enjoy, too:

About the book (via Princeton Architectural Press):

We are living in a golden age of self-expression. The explosion of user-created content on blogs and social networking sites moved Time magazine to name “You” their 2006 person of the year. But while we may be spending a lot more time in virtual worlds, we have not lost the urge to make our physical world more meaningful. By leaving art and ideas in public places, you can affect someone’s day—change their mood or their mind—and maybe even change the world in the process! more >>

*convertition: sort of a competition, but more of a conversation: convertition.

——-

Image via alicepopkorn

No related posts.

I have a habit of teaching myself things. Yes, I did get a Bachelor’s in Graphic Design, but that didn’t teach me how to use the software, program for the web, and many other things that I know how to do today. If it taught me anything, it taught me how to think, and gave me an opportunity to learn how to think for myself. I even supplemented my education by locking myself in my apartment for the final semester of my education, and checking out every typography book I could find. I learned through that experience that a good portion of the faculty at my University didn’t know a fraction of what they claimed to about the subject. I wouldn’t trade the experience of organized higher education, but it’s not one that I’m eager to repeat.

So why don’t I go to business school? 1) I feel like the teacher-to-student format of most schools is outdated. And I’m not alone on this. 2) I don’t see much value in titles, or words that summarize the complexity of an individual’s experiences in an easily-digestible format (i.e. “I went to Harvard Business School”) 3) I don’t want to pay the actual dollar costs, and opportunity costs, just to be able to say those words (not that I believe I could get into HBS). Going to business school just isn’t my style.

I could just read a bunch of books. Josh Kaufman had put together a nice list of 77 books you can read to get a “Personal MBA.” It’s a nice list. But simply reading all of those books isn’t quite right because 1) It would take me ages to motivate myself through all of it 2) I would be learning in a vacuum, no insight from other minds, and 3) I would miss out on the most valuable aspect of getting an MBA – the people whom you meet.

So what am I to do? I want to get a group of people together to read the books on this list (and/or some that aren’t on this list), and 1) motivate each other to actually read the books 2) discuss the books, so that we aren’t learning in a vacuum, and 3) teach each other through sharing our related experiences in our actual business lives.

I’d probably organize it through Meetup or a Ning page. If there’s enough people, there could be different “tracks,” like the “Design & Production” track – smaller groups of people who read a specific set of books together. The individuals in the groups could present and summarize the books to one another, or present to groups who are in other tracks.

Actual business students and professionals in related fields could come to speak, or participate in discussions. Events and “meetups” would take place in Chicago, but there could be discussion and interaction on the web, as well.

This can be whatever the founding members make it to be, but ultimately, it should be a nimble, efficient, and scalable peer-learning experience. Are you in? Do you have ideas or thoughts? Comment now! And pass this on to others whom this may interest. Wherever they may be.

No related posts.

There are two sorts of people in the world, who with equal degrees of health and wealth and the other comforts of life, become the one happy, the other unhappy. Those who are to be happy fix their attention on the pleasant parts of conversation, and enjoy all with cheerfulness. Those who are to be unhappy think and speak only of the contraries. Hence they are continually discontented themselves, and by their remarks sour the pleasures of society, offend personally many people, and make themselves everywhere disagreeable. If these people will not change this bad habit, and condescend to be pleas’d with what is pleasing, it is good for others to avoid an acquaintance with them, which is always disagreeable, and sometimes very inconvenient, particularly when one finds one’s self entangeld in their quarrels.

An old philosophical friend of mine, grown from experience very cautious in this, carefully shun’d any intimacy with such people. He had, like other philosophers, a thermometer to show the heat of the weather, and a barometer to mark when it was likely to prove good or bad; but there being no instrument yet invented to discover at first sight this unpleasing disposition in a person, he for that purpose made use of his legs. One was remarkably handsome, the other by some accident crooked and deform’d. If a stranger at the first interview regarded his ugly leg more than his handsome one, he doubted him. If he spoke of it, and took no notice of the handsome leg, that was sufficient to determine my philosopher to have no farther acquaintance with him.

I therefore advise these critical, querulous, discontented, unhappy people that if they wish to be loved and respected by others and happy in themselves, they should leave off looking at the ugly leg.

No related posts.