This is completely motivated by Michelle Greer’s poking and prodding (pun intended) over her idea of organizing a blood drive via Twitter, the social messaging network. Read her blog post about the entire thing and get over your fear of needles like I did. Just get over it. I’m most likely going to pass out, but it doesn’t matter. Michelle will be there to hold my hand. Or David Neff. Or Mike Chapman.

See you there.

Nowadays, the PC and the internet combine to change the way lots of things are done, but the change I get most excited about is the democratization of virtually everything with these tools. Armed with a computer and a connection to the web, anyone can be a film producer, a musician, an artist or a journalist (don’t worry, the irony of this article isn’t lost on me).

Last night, I really felt this change within the work that I do as a designer. While settling on the branding for Michelle Greer’s latest entrepreneurial project, I decided to use Mac OS X Leopard’s screen sharing function for the first time in iChat. To break it down, using this feature, I could turn my computer into Michelle’s and she could watch what was going on from her end; we communicated via iChat’s voice chat, which was turned on automatically for our convenience.

Within a half hour of “using” her computer and mine, we had typography and a color palette chosen and collaborated on a business card that I layed out and she could instantly give me feedback on. There was no need for ping-ponging emails back and forth or me drawing up screenshots from PSDs to JPEGs (which believe it or not, can be a grueling process). It was fast, efficient and fun.

The internet has made so many changes in the way people’s lives function and I’m continually finding ways to integrate some of these tools into the way I work. I just finished a meeting with a client and instantly shared a creative brief in Google Docs; I use GrandCentral to manage my phone calls from potential clients; Basecamp is my project manager; Twitter is my watercooler.

What tools do you find invaluable to the way you work? What magical application do you wish existed for your industry to make your job way easier? Do you think that these tools are only beneficial to those that are technologically inclined or do you think anyone can find value in them? Let me know!

I’ll admit, that my interest in wine has definitely increased since I’ve been keeping an eye at him on Wine Library TV and on his personal, more business-orineted, blog. When I heard he was going to be back in Austin for a signing of his recently released book, Gary Vaynerchuk’s 101 Wines: Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight, and Bring Thunder to Your World, I knew I had to take the chance to see him speak again. True to his book title, Gary inspired, delighted and brought the thunder to Grape Vine Market on Tuesday afternoon.

After a brief introduction by Jeff Jones, local Twitterer and Vayniac, Gary went into a quick recap of his life to this point. He made sure to graciously convey his appreciation for everyone’s attendance by acknowledging the probable inconvenience of an event at one in the afternoon. The sincerity and passion that poured out of this guy was incredible as he had the entire group of 30+ people hanging on his every word. This man is truly one of the most down-to-earth, humble, appreciative and considerate people I have met, celebrity or not.

After the short introduction, he opened up the floor to questions which incited discussion (read: two-way) which hit on everything from his perspective on the future of social media/the internet, to his childhood, his relationship with his family, to his $2B goal of buying the “New Jersey” Jets (what he would call them on his way to make them “America’s team”). What would have only made the event better, in my opinion, is if we were all sitting at a huge table over dinner at someone’s house, the bottles of wine a-flowin’, of course. The intimacy of the conversations would deem that a more appropriate setting.

Looking around the room at one point, I couldn’t help but notice the seemingly random mix of people absolutely riveted by this guy. If I had to venture a guess, I would say the age range in the room was between early 20s to early 70s. It amazed me that one guy with a wine video blog can bring those people together. During the discussion, Gary mentioned one of his favorite things about wine is the way that it brings people together. From my branding perspective, I would go so far as to say that the Gary Vaynerchuk brand brings people together. So, if wine = (me + other vayniacs) = Gary, then wine = Gary Vaynerchuk. This, boys and girls, is what you want for optimal brand equity (e.g.: Volvo : safety :: Gary Vaynerchuk : wine).

Here’s a guy that gets technology, gets social media and gets marketing and branding like the best of them. I should note, that all the understanding in the world of these topics can bring success, but really, to me, happiness is the ultimate success and one that Gary definitely seems to have a grasp on. But how do you gain that? What I’ve learned from Gary is the importance of being genuine and how this leads to happiness. For Gary, authenticity is what drives happiness and optimism and I could not agree with him more. You can have all the material things in the world, but if at the end of the day, you can’t be proud of your legacy, then what’s the point, right? I think Gary is the perfect example of a brand that is (quite literally) human, engaging and is done right. His generosity, human-ness and approachability are, to me, what has brought the guy so much success. Well, working your ass off and answering every single email your fans send you doesn’t hurt either.

I’ll leave you with a quote of one of his responses at my question to him on what keeps him going and inspires him daily:

“I woke up, nobody died overnight, I’m pumped!”

Imagine the supermarket aisles if every brand you interacted with had this kind of outlook on life. Until that day comes, I’ll just watch Wine Library TV and LOST on my Apple TV. ;)

For more coverage, make sure to read Tim Walker’s awesomely extensive recap of the afternoon, as well as video perspective provided by Kristine and Dane.

If you don’t know much about my musical tastes, you should learn that the one thing I really love musically is remixes. I think it’s great to hear someone else’s interpretation of an original song and how they can mash it up with another song. Not to discredit original artists—I merely love the newness of a remix and the weird blend of certainty and uncertainty all in one.

That said, let it be known that Facebook is currently remixing your profile in their studios in the Valley. Let’s just get it out there; there’s nothing you can do about it (opt-in, remember?). Okay, now that we’re over that, let’s examine what’s happening (you can view slides from the presentation to bloggers and the media here).

There are three major parts to the redesign:
• Profile Tabs
• Publisher Box
• Navigation

Profile Tabs
TABS?! Well, I’d say this was a long time coming, what with the introduction of Applications and the ever-accelerating popularity of the Wall. Profiles were growing way too tall and even as I tried to collapse every Application I wasn’t interested in, it was still a burden to have to scroll so much for something as simple as getting to the Wall. Anchor links for the icons under your profile picture helped, but were way too small and required thinking about an extra step; let’s be honest, I never used them.

Tabs are a great way for users to visually interact with their information. It’s a simple concept and the average internet user gets them. With Facebook becoming more and more popular with the “average user,” I’m sure the design team at Facebook is really keeping that in mind with these redesigns.

I mean, tabs only kinda worked for Firefox, right?

Publisher Box
Essentially it seems like this round of design and interface revisions is all about consolidation. The Publisher is a consolidated and tabbed graphical utility that will let you easily post information to your profile; it will also let you post items to other people’s Walls.

I’m not really impressed or offended by the Publisher. I think the consolidation is necessary and naming it is only a means for simplification on the part of the design team for users to easily refer to “that thing that posts stuff.”

Here’s a mockup of the two items together:

Navigation

Clean and simple. I thought I hated it at first, but looking at it for a while, I understand why I changed my mind. It’s a well known fact that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg loves Apple (he’s been called out on mimicking Apple CEO Steve Jobs on more than one occasion). Take a look at the new navigation above and check out the Mac OS X toolbar in the current version of OS X Leopard:

I would say it’s almost a total rip off, but you know, integrate it if it’s already proven to work, right? The new navigation bar is familiar. It’s one of the major components of my daily computer use.

Conclusion
Overall, I think when redesigns like this come out, users go into interface shock. Things aren’t where they used to be. Icons are slightly different. Everything’s shinier and there’s a learning curve. You hate the redesign because it slows you down.

We already knew that with the opening of the Facebook Platform for Applications the social network was trying to position itself as something like a web-based operating system. They’re getting closer with every new upgrade and revision and visually, this is the closest they’ve come. Let’s not forget the existence of an Inbox, Chat (recently released), Search (branded as Spotlight in OS X) and drop down menus. We’re on the verge of a “Facebook OS.” Think of the possibilities of this kind of infrastructure for a social network. It’d be as if my OS X could talk to the OS Xs and Vistas of my contacts saved in my Address Book. And you know that data portability and OpenID will be major factors in this Facebook OS. Exciting to see what these guys come up with.

If you want to keep up to date with all of the changes before the launch this Spring, make sure to become a fan of Facebook Previews. What are your thoughts? Do you like the design? Absolutely hate it? Do you think they should just pay you to sit there and play in Photoshop all day instead? How would you make the new design better?

ED. NOTE: Apparently, TechCrunch writer Erick Schonfeld also wrote about this topic on the same day as I did. Also, check out Hayes Davis’ response to the two posts, for a more technical perspective (one that I totally agree with).

Today I took a 72-question Myers-Briggs quiz on the Facebook app MyType. It’s funny how spot on these seemingly silly quizzes can be (I guess that’s why the theories surrounding them have been around for so long). The quiz determined that I’m an ENFJ (Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging) [typelogic] [wikipedia]. It’s interesting to read through the different characteristics of my personality type and the ones of a few people who mentioned theirs on Twitter.

As you can tell, it seems I am very Extroverted (a recent development only in the past six years), fairly iNtuitive, VERY Feeling and just barely onto the Judging side. I would even go so far to argue that I most likely fluctuate between ENFJ and ENFP on a pretty consistent basis after reading through the description of the latter.

I am thinking it would be an interesting social experiment to put this personal designation on my business cards or make a tshirt that stated my acronym. How much quicker people would get to know me! What do you think about these results if you know me in the real lifes? What are your results? If I made you a Myers-Briggs tshirt, would you wear it?!

Check out a video of the Capital MetroRail car walk-through here.

A 14-mile light rail route has been proposed yet again for the city of Austin. It would be built by the city and would integrate with the planned Capital MetroRail that’s set to open in the fall.

I filled up the other day and my mid-grade gas was $3.50/gallon. I would rather pay two bucks for a round-trip ride on a sweet, non-emission producing rail car (especially if it had wi-fi).

Brewster, get McCracken dude.

Cullen’s blog post about learning Ruby on Rails yesterday inspired me to write about what’s going on and also to make it a point to document things more and more (and not just photo-wise on Radar).

I’ve been meaning to learn a new programming language and made the decision that it would be Rails a while ago. For me, it’s always easier to learn things when you have 1) a group of people to do it with and 2) when there’s a tangible event you can attend (the Austin on Rails boot-camp in a couple of weeks). I was excited when a few people showed interest in learning it together.

As a designer, I’m looking forward to the chance to get to peek under the tent since normally the furthest I get to anything close to code is the XHTML/CSS of a site. It will be interesting to see my progress since this is the first true programming language I’ll be learning. I feel it will make me a better designer in the long run since I’ll have a better grasp of what a programmer has to go through. Not only will I get to better empathize with him/her, but I’ll have a strong foundation as to what is possible when we’re developing a site together. At the end of it I may not be a Rails expert, but I’m willing to learn all that I can to make me a better part of the web development process.

A discussion came up last Friday at Jelly between Cullen, Dusty, Seth and I to see if we could figure out a way to share knowledge between each others’ disciplines. Naturally, a new project stemmed from this, something we’re calling Half Hour Hacks. The premise is, stand up in front of a group of us and teach me something unrelated to my field in 30 minutes or less; it’s a way developers, designers and everyone in between can learn from each other.

The site is live, but there’s no content on it yet; more on this as it develops in the next few days. I feel only good things can come from creating more and more ways for the Austin tech community to come together, mingle and cross-pollinate ideas. It’s time for us to start producing some cool stuff. I’m ready!

I have configured Twitter to get instant notifications via SMS on my iPhone (I prefer this instant notification over an iPhone web app like Hahlo). Not everyone uses it this way—I just happen to be a texting fiend. The people I follow to my phone are mostly good friends or people that live in/around Austin so I can be attune to what is going on in my environment. I would go crazy if I got a text when all 150+ people I’m following updated. (If you live anywhere other than the US, there is a 250 incoming message limit on your phone.)

I’m all about not missing a beat when it comes to activity that involves me on Twitter. As such, I like to be notified of any interactions that are occurring with me. Let’s get started.

First, let’s look at what my settings look like in Twitter under Notices:

Some things of note here: 1) “Show me all @ replies” is selected, 2) “New follower emails” are turned on, and 3) “Email when I receive a direct message” is off. This goes back to the way I primarily use Twitter to push info to my phone.

The first option is not configured that way by default, so make sure you go in and change it so you can receive responses to people talking to you. The second is so I can make sure I know who is “friending” me on Twitter (I don’t necessarily have to friend them back). The third is superfluous to me since I get a text when someone DMs (direct messages) me. Some people like to keep this checked so they can keep an archive of their DMs, especially if they tend to include important info better suited for a desktop situation vs. a mobile one (links, street addresses, etc.). I’ll take the +1 email with the new follower because, other than keeping track of the number of people following me, that’s the only notification I get of a follower, but the DM emails are redundant.

Configuring Twitter to show you all @ replies like I have them lets you get your notifications from people talking to you, whether you follow them or not. When their message gets sent to your phone, it will show up like this—the parentheses denoting that you’re not following them:

(username): message

Play around with the rest of the settings to customize your Twitter experience. Again, you might find that you don’t want anything sent to your phone.

Another way to make sure you receive notification of people talking @ you is with tracking. If you want to be notified when people tweet about a specific subject, send

track subject

where the word “subject” is replaced by a word you want to track. I made sure to track “cesart,” my username, just in case people forget to place the @ in front of my name when talking to me. Hopefully your username is unique enough that you can do this. You might not want to track something generic like “internet” or “bill,” especially if you’re having everything pushed to your phone. I also use tracking to follow subjects I’m involved in like “conjunctured.” Tracking is like a Google Alert for the global Twitter feed.

There is of course way more than that to Twitter and I’ll most likely be writing about it later. ‘Til then, check out the Twitter Help section to answer questions. I’ve used it before and it’s actually really helpful (imagine that). Tweet away!

I just realized that this weekend is going to be a crazy one. And I’m super excited. Here’s the itinerary:

Friday For starters, Dusty is hosting yet another Jelly in Austin at Café Caffeine in South Austin. If you don’t know what coworking is, you should definitely read up on the concept.

Recently, coworking has received a lot of press (the New York Times has even covered it—you know it’s gotta be a substantial movement). I’m glad I get to meet so many kickass people week after week. I’ll most likely be there Friday afternoon; show up for an hour or from 9-5. It’s casual!

Saturday Last week, John came up with the idea to go on a quest to find a bar/several bars in Austin that would be startup-friendly. Out of the loads of bars that we have between 6th Street, the Warehouse District, the east side and anywhere and everywhere around town, you would think we’d find at least one—enter the Startup Barhunt.

We’re continuing our search for the next American Idol, I mean, cool bar on Saturday night. We might revisit some players from last week (Spill for a dance party and creepsters, anyone?) and we’ll definitely be timing it for 30 minutes at each place on someone’s cell phone this time (not it!). We meet at 9:30 at Halcyon and go go go from there. Last week we ended the night with some awesome Thai food from Thai Passion. Get the pineapple fried rice—you’ll love me for it. This time I’m planning on wearing the nerdiest shirt I can find—my SeeqPod shirt from SXSW. SeeqPod rules!

Sunday Sunday, the second Austin Startup Drinks will be happening at the Hotel San José. Even though it’s hosted by me in Austin, this is Andrew Hyde’s brainchild. He was actually in attendance at the inaugural event; Scoble would have been there this week, but he’s out of the country. Maybe look for an appearance by Luke Wilson. ;)

I’m going to have some prizes from the guys over at Freshbooks (who I love, by the way), so make sure to add yourself to the Facebook invite and come along!

So there you have it. Startupalooza. Uhh, SXSW nano. Nerdachella. Austin. This weekend. Be there.

Mad shoutouts to Dusty, John, David, Kat, Kristine, Keely and David N for a kickass last couple of days. These people inspire me so much. All badasses. Every single one of them. :)

This got me to thinking about what my optimal breakdown for a day would be if I only had to work (or think/innovate) for six hours out of the day—25% of 24 hours. I think graphically, so of course I made a pie chart:

I didn’t want to go into too much detail (à la About A Boy), but the general idea is there. What’s interesting is how structured my day actually turns out to be. What’s even more interesting to me is that the sweet spot of creation time (I didn’t want to call it “work”), is counteracted with three 6-hour chunks of the complete opposite kind of activities: sleep, body work (eating/exercising) and full out relaxing. So for every hour I do of making things, I have to balance it with an hour of (mental) relaxation, an hour of sleep (physical relaxation) and also a
half hour each of eating and exercise (body work?). Whoa.

Figure out your optimal hourly breakdown? Does it look like mine or do you need more sleep? More food? More exercise? Less exercise? Geek out…make a pie chart!

Yesterday, Google Maps announced their release of Google Street View in Austin. I saw them on the UT campus a while ago an lo and behold there I am. This is a great addition to the Google Maps features for the city.

Constituents can utilize SharingHope.TV to do more than just distribute their work. We want to offer a platform that, ultimately, helps match the right audience to the right content, that lets constituents build and interact with communities of people, thereby deepening and transforming the content itself.

So, like I always quote my favorite advertising professor, “it’s not about what it’s about.” To me, the most powerful thing is that the American Cancer Society “gets it” (or at least they value the opinion of someone internally who tells them they should “get it”). It’s great that we have a communication tool that allows us to connect with each other on a deep and personal level. Ultimately I think the internet is the single most powerful communication tool we’ve had to date. The way that some people are using it right now is absolutely amazing to me and my best wishes go out to David and his team at ACS.

I’m sure we all know of someone who has gone through a battle with cancer. Now imagine how much easier it would be (as the person with cancer or a friend/family member) to understand the emotions you’re going through if you instantly had a support system worldwide to help you cope. Think about how much easier it would be for you to ask the questions or educate others on the experiences you are going through or went through. I know when I had to go through this experience with a close family member of mine, a site like this would have made it so much easier to understand. Especially since this is in a format that I understand as far as my age group is concerned.

I encourage everyone to check the site out and if you have something to say, join the conversation. There are some inspiring stories out there to tune in to.

Silverstein recalls one of the fundamental paradoxes of marketing that I remember learning about in my early advertising classes. In his article, he quotes Harvard Business School professor John Quelch:

“Instead of cutting the market research budget, you need to know more than ever how consumers are redefining value and responding to the recession.” Quelch also points out: “It is well documented that brands that increase advertising during a recession, when competitors are cutting back, can improve market share and return on investment at lower cost than during good economic times.”

The moral of the story as far as I can see it is you have to spend more to make more. If brand experts, authors and 19 year-old college students all know this, why is it that hoards of top managers fail to see this point? Is it because during a recession (or any time, for that matter) only measurable results are valued? Or is it because as a whole, marketing and advertising are undervalued as a part of the business schema?

This raises an important point for me: retroactive investment won’t be as necessary if you value and invest in high-quality marketing from the inception of your brand. If your customers love you, they’ll do anything to keep you around even when times are tough.

[photo credit]

I just used Down For Everyone Or Just Me to check the status of a site. Turns out it really is down and the Google ads want me to be okay with the outcome. The internet is so entertaining.