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.

1. The iPhone - Nobody can deny the brilliant utility that is the iPhone. Sure, it sucks at making calls; but who likes talking on the phone anyway? From public transit directions on the go; to tons of time and frustration saved through the many Timer app uses; to the countless apps eliminating the need to own a multitude of devices from a calculator, to a guitar tuner, to a flashlight – the iPhone is one of the biggest winners when it comes to helping you live efficiently.
2. A Macbook / Macbook Pro - Along with the iPhone, these can eliminate the need for alot of other posessions: a home stereo system, a television, and – with a decent internet connection – cable, or even trips to the movies. Best of all, you can take it all with you wherever you go. And with the Remote app for iPhone, you can control your media from afar.
3. 

   Every heated mattress pad comes with a remote to turn you...*it*...on.
   Heated Mattress Pad - Huh? You say. Don’t you mean a heated blanket? Hell no! Heat goes up genius, haven’t you heard? So why would you put heat on top of yourself, when you can have it coming from below. I was skeptical at first, too; but these things are amazing. On those cold winter nights, why heat your whole place, when you’re going to be staying put for the next 8 hours? You can even get the two-sided model so your sleeping partner can control her or his own side of the bed – or you can just leave one side off for the nights you snooze solo. There’s no simpler way to lower your heating bills – and reduce your carbon footprint – than with one of these. At least until they release the heated Snuggie®.
4. Sonicare Tooth Brush - I held out for so long, but just couldn’t wait any longer, and I’m glad that I didn’t. These things really make a difference in the health of your teeth and gums. When I finished brushing with a manual toothbrush, my teeth still felt like pumice rocks when I was done. Now, they feel like pearls. With the prospects of eternal life on the horizon, I’m holding on to my teeth for damn sure.
5. Faucet Water Filter - Your water is regulated by the EPA, which is stricter than the FDA (who regulates bottled water), so it’s got to be clean, right? Well, yeah, for the most part, but what about those miles and miles of pipes delivering that water to your Kleen Kanteen? Since I know you live in a relatively dense area to keep things in walking distance, you probably live in an area with some pretty old pipes. Instead of drinking out of bottles that use double the water inside of them just to make themselves, filter the water at the source. If you’re a stickler, the Aquasana has the most complete data about its filtering capabilities, but the Culligan is more reliable and cheaper up-front.
6. 

   This rice cooker can program your VCR.
   Rice Cooker - I know I lead a sheltered childhood, but would you believe I had never seen one of these until I lived in California and had an Asian roommate? Rice makers rock! Especially for those who are wheat-free. You throw rice and water in, press a button, and you have rice for days. Since you’re probably smart enough to not consume evil white rice, but don’t have the patience to stand around to wait for water to finally soak into your brown rice, you’ll love that many of these have a scheduling feature that allows you set what time you’d like the rice to be finished. You might want to drop some extra coin on a Zojirushi: it comes with a recipe book for a bunch of delightful dishes (like Jambalaya) that you can make with the touch of a button. How does it do it? I has artificial intelligence. It knows. Oh, it knows. If you don’t want to spend that much, you can always set up a Craigslist alert.
7. Sleeptracker Watch - Ever get a full night’s sleep and wake up feeling like the living dead? You probably woke up during the wrong stage of sleep. Sleeptracker is a watch you wear that monitors your body for signals of your more alert periods of sleep. Then, it picks the best time to wake you up – within the 60-90 minute window you’ve set. It sounds crazy, but everyone from Dr. Phil, to 37 signals’ own Jason Fried uses these to wake up. If you get the fancy model, you can even upload your sleep data to do all sorts of creepy things with.
8. A Library Card - Okay, so this isn’t technically a gadget per se, but have you seen lately what one of these things can do for you? Sure, it’s no Kindle when it comes to eliminating to need to own physical copies of books; but it can get you movies and audiobooks too, and costs you little more than what you’re already paying Uncle Sam. Oh, and the books you get there have nice full-color pictures and such in them. I like to place books on hold through my local library’s web site, and they get delivered to my closest branch within days. Magic! If you haven’t used your local library lately, do it today.

Well there ya have it, hippies: some necessaries, to go along with your hacky sack and bong.  

——

Cat photo from Mihnea

No related posts.

The Egg Roll of My Life

The world of Graphic Design, especially when you are a student, is like the movie, Best in Show: it’s a little subculture of people, to whom one mundane subject is of ultimate importance. Celebrities are created in this little world, to the point where you will eventually hear someone say “can you believe we’re in the same room as [insert name that 99.9% of the population is unfamiliar with].” This phenomenon of course surrounds every interest from Alpaca grooming to Zamboni driving, which is what makes the movie so relatable and interesting. 

Yes! I finished all of the Handi-Snacks!

When you’re in Design school, you’re taught that anyone who has had a piece in the publication, Communication Arts is one of these celebrities. Getting into this magazine is apparently the ultimate thing you could aspire to do, if not only in your career, then perhaps in your entire life. I drank the Kool Aid on this one, and thus aspired to achieve this goal, and regarded any individual or firm who graced the pages of this magazine with the utmost respect. I flipped through the pages, practically memorizing the name of every firm and designer in the cities that I imagined moving to after graduation. Oh, if only I could get a job at one of these impossibly awesome firms, my dreams would come true. Surely each of these designers is constantly surrounded by a cloud of gold dust and diamond dragonflies.

But after graduation, my dream didn’t come true. I had made a pilgrimage around the country, visiting the cities in which these untouchables worked, and even managed to meet with some of them. Much to my surprise, they weren’t 50 feet tall, and weren’t followed around by servants that fed them grapes and fanned them with palm leaves. They looked at my portfolio, said kind words, then politely blamed the 2002 economy for not hiring me.

I didn’t have the guts, the money, nor the connections to move to one of these cities and gamble on finding a job, so I put my tail between my legs and went back to the cornfields of Nebraska. But my luck didn’t change there. A couple months prior, I had been on my second interview with the agency of my dreams, and now I was being told by firms that I quite honestly thought sucked that they weren’t interested. To make matters worse, at the time there wasn’t a single Communication Arts winning firm in the whole city of Omaha. I was stuck in a virtual Graphic Design wasteland, and my dream of learning how to be a famous designer, from a famous designer, was dead.

So I “settled” for the best I could do. An architecture firm was looking to hire their first Graphic Designer, and they decided on me. I wasn’t going to study underneath a famous designer, but at least I was going to call the shots to a certain degree. Plus, I had a job now, so in the conservative Omaha minds of the people in my life, I was finally a worthy human being.

Within two years, my dream came true. A brochure I had done – my very first real print job – got into Communication Arts. It was astonishing to receive that glorious e-mail that announced this achievement. Surely now my life would change dramatically – I would probably be thrown a ticker tape parade. Or at least my phone would ring with young designers nervously calling me for my guidance the way I had done to the glitterati when I was in school. Maybe one of those 50 foot giants would call me up and beg me to come work for him, and get me out of this wasteland. The awesome talent that I was sure I had – but that nobody had recognized until now – had finally been acknowledged. Now I should be happy.

No ketch toy. I is fail er

It wasn’t long until the excitement wore off. There was no ticker tape parade. No new job offers. No calls from young designers wanting to work for me. The architects I worked with, who knew a thing or two about the importance of awards, nodded graciously as I pointed at the gold-stamped award that I had hung on my grey tweed cubicle wall. My non-designer family and friends tried vainly to share my enthusiasm with me, once I was done explaining what an awesome thing I had done. But I didn’t feel full. How could this be? I was a famous designer now. What I had achieved was monumental. Maybe this award was just a fluke. Or worse yet, maybe I had been fooled into thinking that this was something to aspire to. Maybe other designers didn’t consider this to be the Holy Grail of design.

A Moment of Clarity in My Cloudy Egg-Drop Soup

But it turned out some did – and it wasn’t my twisted perception of this goal that had been the problem. My moment of clarity came when I was organizing an awards show for the local AIGA chapter. We were having drinks with the judges of the competition, on a beautiful September day on the patio of Mr. Toad’s, under old Oak trees in Omaha’s historic Old Market District. The subject of Communication Arts came up, and one of the judges gushed “that is the one thing that you work to achieve in your entire life: to. get. into. Communication. Arts.”

I think I went deaf for a few seconds after hearing that. I hadn’t been fooled. I was a fool. A fool surrounded by fools, dreaming of becoming an even bigger fool. The other people on the patio laughing and enjoying their afternoon beers, the babies being rolled by in strollers, all of the people oblivious to what the hell Communication Arts was, were going in slow motion. Did this person say life? Or career? I honestly don’t remember, but what difference did it make. We had flown this famous person in from another country. I still don’t know, but I assume they had been in Communication Arts. I had been in Communication Arts, but to this person I was just some peon somewhere in middle America. 

That was when I realized that this was a dream I had chased for all the wrong reasons. Until that moment, I wanted to win more Communication Arts awards. To someday start a super rad firm and wallpaper the walls with said awards. To hire interns to scan photos 18 hours a day for no reward other than putting my name on their résumé. To fly around the world to speak about the awesome work I did for the stupid clients, and all of the sweet awards I had won from doing that awesome work, and to sell a book featuring the awesome work, and the words explaining the awesomeness of said work. To design graphs that looked like amoebas, and take pictures of plastic figurines, to put in annual reports that made shareholders call up The Company and say “what the fuck are you doing with our money!? Oh, a famous designer designed this? Awesome!“

This person must have said “life,” because I suddenly thought about mine. Winning that award hadn’t done anything for anyone other than myself. I hadn’t solved any problems, or helped anyone, or inspired anyone to do anything for anyone. Why had I even wanted to achieve this? Because someone told me it was an awesome thing to achieve. Someone who lives in a world where regular people tell regular people that they are awesome, and more regular people tell those people they are awesome, and those people think to themselves “I am awesome,” and tell those original people, and the people after those people, “here is how to be awesome,” and then those people nod their heads and say “he is awesome. I hope I can work for his awesome firm, and be awesome like him” and they do so for a few years and then think to themselves “why am I not awesome yet? I have worked for this awesome person, wiped their awesome ass with my sweat-drenched design school diploma, and their aura of awesomeness has failed to permeate my young, soft, naive skin.” Someone who was told the same thing by another person who had marinaded in the salty oceans of said world for a little bit longer.

Peeking Inside Your Fortune Cookie

If I could do it all over again, would I change a thing? No way. This is one of the many times in my life that I pursued a dream or a goal, only to find out that it was something I either didn’t want, or wanted for the wrong reasons. Even though I now recognize that Goals Are Bananas, I’m sure I’ve yet to pursue a few more Chinese Food Goals in my lifetime; but that knowledge has prevented me from wasting my energy on things that clearly weren’t going to make me happy. Some would call me a quitter, but if I had stuck with some prior goal, I’d currently be a professional Bowler – and c’mon, do I need to explain why I wouldn’t change a thing?

The world is constantly telling us there are things we need to strive for. We need to get a higher-paying job. We need to go back to school. We need to buy our girlfriend a really huge diamond. Recognizing when achieving something isn’t going to make you feel fulfilled is a skill that can maximize your health, wealth, and happiness. Has there been something in your life that you strove for and achieved, only to discover it didn’t make you that happy after all?

———–

Chinese food photo by joeandsarah. Celebrating kid by charliehey. Jumping cat by raindog.

No related posts.

Tried everything to save battery life on your iPhone? Disabled the WiFi? Disabled Bluetooth? De-cluttered your desktop? Stopped checking e-mail every five minutes, and still finding yourself tied to the dock with the headset just to have enough juice to make all of your phone calls for the day? Try the kadavy.net Battery-Saving Wallpaper, which you can download right now! Not only will it save you battery life, it will reduce your carbon emissions for the year by nearly half a pound!

No related posts.

“…Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far. The Europeans value themselves on having subdued the horse to the uses of man; but I doubt whether we have not lost more than we have gained, by the use of this animal. No one has occasioned so much the degeneracy of the human body. An Indian goes on foot nearly as far in a day, for a long journey, as an enfeebled white does on his horse; and will tire the best horses. There is no habit you will value so much as that of walking far without fatigue….”

No related posts.

As you may have heard on my latest Be A Design Cast appearance, I have launched SustainablePrint.org: a wiki that will – with the help of folks like you – become the most comprehensive resource for Designers to consult when trying to reduce the environmental impact of their print projects.

As you can see on the site, I have gotten the ball rolling, but I only know so much about this subject so in order to be successful the project needs the expertise and experience of members of the Design, Paper, and Printing industries. Please help by contributing, offerring your suggestions, and telling every design, printing, and paper expert you know!

No related posts.

• Get a blank t-shirt.
• Order some letters. bonus typographer points if you can piece together something decent from a sheet full of individual letters.
• Spell out your favorite designer brand on the t-shirt, using the letters, and iron them on.
• Wear your stylish new shirt proudly on the street.

No related posts.

1. The SustainLane presentation I spoke of is now available on the Green Festival website. Just click on the “launch greenfestival radio” button and find it in the player. It’s currently in the track #42 position. If you’re itching to skip ahead to my part, I start right around the 7:15 mark.
2. I was recently a special guest on Be A Design Cast by my friends Nate Voss and Donovan Beery at Be A Design Group. It seems the internet tubes that the sound was traveling through from San Francisco to Omaha caused somewhat of an echo – they should really install some drapes or carpeting in them.

No related posts.

We’ll be presenting “Markets are Conversations” at 4pm on Saturday, April 21st in Room one at the convention, which is held at McCormick place. Come check it out, but if you can’t make it, there will likely be a podcast or video available on the Green Festival site after the festival. the presentation is available on the Green Festival website.

No related posts.

As you may have seen in my twits, sustainlane.com has launched! SustainLane allows people to review sustainable, “green,” and organic products and businesses, and I’m more excited about it than probably anything I’ve ever done before in my life (yes, I know, it’s “just a website”…this is how simple my life is). It’s going to make it easier than ever for people to find products and businesses that are socially, environmentally, and/or health conscious.

 Sustainability, green living, environmentalism – whatever you want to call it, has been a big issue in politics lately – but it is not a partisan issue. Even if you don’t buy Carbon Dioxide as a pollutant, or aren’t concerned with a company’s treatment of animals or people half a world away, you certainly have concern for the well-being of yourself and your family. Here are some things you might not know about products you use every day:

• Those dryer sheets that nearly everyone uses contain narcotics, neurotoxins, and carcinogens such as chloroform. At least one SustainLane user seems to prefer the all-natural Trader Joe’s Lavender Dryer Bags.
• Nearly all toothpastes contain Sodium Laureth Sulfate. The FDA currently encourages manufacturers to remove this believed carcinogen, but it’s not yet required by law. Those who wish to be proactive may want to switch to Dental Herbs Company’s Tooth and Herbs Paste.
• The mattress you sleep on may contain toxic PBDE’s, that are starting to accumulate in people’s bodies – even in breast milk. You may want to switch to European Sleep Works natural latex mattress next time you buy a mattress.

So go check out what regular people have to say about their favorite green products and businesses – or maybe you have some favorites of your own you’d like to share; and enjoy those shiny buttons and stars that I obsessed over for hours!

No related posts.