Sponsor: Harvest  →

My thanks to Harvest for again sponsoring the RSS feed this week.

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Sponsorship by The Syndicate

Sponsor: Harvest

How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity  →

From HBR’s executive summary of Ed Catmull’s article on creativity at Pixar (Via Merlin):

The trick to fostering collective creativity, Catmull says, is threefold: Place the creative authority for product development firmly in the hands of the project leaders (as opposed to corporate executives); build a culture and processes that encourage people to share their work-in-progress and support one another as peers; and dismantle the natural barriers that divide disciplines.

I couldn’t agree more. One of the reasons this is such an effective way to foster creativity amongst a group is that it keeps morale high. When you’ve got designers and developers who have to answer to what they see as the whim of an invisible executive, they quickly lose their will to take risks, work hard, and persevere unto breakthrough and innovation.

As Catmull says in the original article, great talent is better than great ideas. And talent will only stick around as long as they feel happy, challenged, and appreciated.

How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity

Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee  →

This is exactly what it says on the tin and it is fabulous.

Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee is a new internet video series where Jerry Seinfeld borrows a classy old car, picks up a comedian friend of his, and they go out for coffee. Their whole conversation is recorded and turned into a 15-minute video.

The basic premise is not unlike your typical 5by5 podcast (though the production is certainly different: these episodes are video, and a several-hour conversation is edited down into a 15-minute show). What makes it akin to a 5by5 show in that you feel as if you’re eavesdropping on a real-life conversation between two friends that just so happens to have been recorded for all to enjoy.

Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee

The Sparrow Problem  →

David Barnard looks at Sparrow’s rankings in the App Store, compares them to his own experience selling apps, and makes the case that despite how popular and well-liked Sparrow was it wasn’t making enough money to sustain their 5-person team and give a return to their investors:

The age of selling software to users at a fixed, one-time price is coming to an end. It’s just not sustainable at the absurdly low price points users have come to expect. Sure, independent developers may scrap it out one app at a time, and some may even do quite well and be the exception to the rule, but I don’t think Sparrow would have sold-out if the team — and their investors — believed they could build a substantially profitable company on their own.

The Sparrow Problem

A Theory About Why Affluent Folks Feel Busy  →

Jordan Weissman writing for the Atlantic:

A University of Texas economist argues that those who can afford to do everything are stressed because they can never have the time to do it all.

Weissman’s article is based on this discussion paper written by Daniel S. Hamermesh and Jungmin Lee in 2005. It’s a very interesting study that states:

Any group, regardless of its hours of work, will perceive itself under increasing time stress as its ability to purchase market goods increases.

Putting their conclusion in my own words, if you make $25/hour at your 40-hour-a-week job this year, and then next year get a raise to $30/hour, you will feel more crunched for time even though you still work the same number of hours and your job responsibilities did not change.

(If you’re interested at all in this stuff I recommend you at least read the introduction and conclusion sections of Hamermesh and Lee’s paper, if not the whole thing.)

And all this reminded me of something else I learned about people who feel overwhelmingly busy. It’s something Tony Schwartz wrote about in the Harvard Business Review Blog last May: that the trick to staying productive and making decisions without getting paralyzed by stress or mental fatigue is to automate as many of the inconsequential decisions as you can:

It turns out we each have one reservoir of will and discipline, and it gets progressively depleted by any act of conscious self-regulation. In other words, if you spend energy trying to resist a fragrant chocolate chip cookie, you’ll have less energy left over to solve a difficult problem. Will and discipline decline inexorably as the day wears on.

“Acts of choice,” the brilliant researcher Roy Baumeister and his colleagues have concluded, “draw on the same limited resource used for self-control.” That’s especially so in a world filled more than ever with potential temptations, distractions and sources of immediate gratification.

One of the most iconic, real-world examples of someone automating their daily decisions is Steve Jobs. He wore the same outfit every day. It was one less thing to think about; one less decision to make each day. And that gave his mind more freedom to think about bigger things.

A Theory About Why Affluent Folks Feel Busy

Awakenings: An Android Design Process  →

Sebastiaan de With on the design of doubleTwist’s Alarm app for Android:

I’d say every designer should design a clock at some point. There’s a lot of ways you can design a clock, and it’s surprisingly difficult to design something so attractive that it is remarkable, yet neutral enough to be liked by a very wide audience. One only has to look at the market for watches to see how intensely personal clock design is. I am still not quite content, and I’ll probably never be: I’ve found designing clocks to be a rather consuming affair.

In my review of the Nexus 7 I concluded by saying: “When I’m using a device like the Nexus 7 I want to know where the details are. Where is the magic? The fun? The incredible 3rd-party apps?”

Well, doubleTwist’s Alarm app is one fine answer. It’s beautiful, thought out, full of detail, fun, and highly functional.

Awakenings: An Android Design Process

Jessica Ghawi’s Late Night Thoughts on the Eaton Center Shooting  →

Jessica Ghawi was shot and killed last night at the theater in Colorado. Just last month she escaped the shooting that took place at the Eaton Center in Toronto thanks to a sick feeling in her gut just 3 minutes before the gunman opened fire in the food court. She wrote a blog post about it:

I was shown how fragile life was on Saturday. I saw the terror on bystanders’ faces. I saw the victims of a senseless crime. I saw lives change. I was reminded that we don’t know when or where our time on Earth will end. When or where we will breathe our last breath. For one man, it was in the middle of a busy food court on a Saturday evening.

Jessica Ghawi’s Late Night Thoughts on the Eaton Center Shooting

The Importance of Going First  →

Seth Godin:

In more and more fields, the originator of the novel idea reaps an outsize share of the benefits. One reason is that it’s easier to gain attention quickly. Another is that once you gain attention and reputation, it’s easier to lock in permission and turn it into a foundation for your next project. And most of all, when attention is precious, earning that attention with innovation is priceless.

Steve Jobs:

I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.

The Importance of Going First