About my Zuckerbirthday.

By dpknudtenJan 01, 2014
All of you kind Facebook folks who wish me a "Happy Birthday" every January 1st need to stop. It's not that I don't appreciate the greeting (which I most certainly do, especially from those I haven't seen in decades) but…it's not actually my birthday. January 1, 1901 is my Zuckerbirthday—the bogus date I selected when I first signed up for Facebook a long, long time ago. Why? Because I'm a natural contrarian who doesn't like…
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Three chords + the truth =

By mctootNov 05, 2013
Mama's hooked on Mary Kay. Brother's hooked on maryjane. Daddy's hooked on Mary two doors down. That's modern day Shakespeare, and a lyric from Kacey Musgrave's breakout album Same Trailer Different Park. Three simple phrases sum up a family's condition in just sixteen words. That's tight storytelling, too—and one of the reasons I love country music. Country music is three chords and the truth. - Harland Howard I'm all with Harlan about that. Not what…
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It takes a neighbrahhood.

By mctootOct 25, 2013
I ran into an HR situation today that was quickly resolved with three simple words: 1. Dude 2. Not 3. Cool When used in combination, they form a phrase of surpassing power, an incantation capable of transmogrifying a raging jackass into a repentant basset hound. "Dude, not cool" (DNC) is a defacto code that's pretty much guyiversal. And it's applicable everywhere and anywhere a male (of any age) has crossed over into DoucheLand. Now it…
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GETTING CREATIVE: It takes a neigh BRAH! hood.

GETTING CREATIVE: It takes a neigh BRAH! hood.

By dpknudtenOct 25, 2013
I originally posted this in 2013, but given the amount of bad bro behavior going on, I think it's worth an update and a repost. -dp I ran into an HR situation today that was quickly resolved with three simple words: 1. Dude 2. Not 3. Cool When used in combination, they form a phrase of surpassing power, an incantation capable of transmogrifying a raging jackass into a repentant basset hound. "Dude, not cool" (DNC)…
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Nest Protect’s Substantive Style

By mctootOct 09, 2013
Nest is all over the InnerTubes with their latest high-style foray into the lowest of tech: their Nest Protect smoke alarm. The category, once the province of boring beige ceiling boils, was just blown apart by this upstart manufacturer of premium prosaic appliances. Sound familiar? That Nest CEO Tony Fadell is an Apple grad is no mistake. It's clear that while there he paid brilliant attention. Not to the hype or showmanship, but the modus…
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A foolish consistency.

By mctootSep 26, 2013
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. - Ralph Waldo Emerson Instagram has responded quickly to Apple's release of iOS7 operating system update with a nicely done revision of its popular iPhone app. But I can't help agreeing with John Gruber in this regard: Nice job overall, but I think making avatars (a.k.a. profile pictures) circular is a mistake. Sure, that’s what Apple is doing…
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Tablet First Design

By mctootSep 12, 2013
Not very long ago, websites were a strictly desktop experience and built with that in mind (e.g., full keyboard, pointing device, nearby access to printer, etc.). Then came mobile with its limited screen real estate, sub-optimal input interface and processing power limitations. What happened then? Many companies created two distinct sites: a desktop superset of functionality site, and a mobile-based subset experience. The desktop was the design flagship for both sites ("Desktop First" design).And that…
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UX levels up

By mctootAug 08, 2013
Oculus Rift has been a amorphous ghost on my radar for a while now. After all, the potential of virtual reality is pretty obvious to anyone who games, has an FPS fetish, or has ever read William Gibson or Neal Stephenson. But that potential always seemed to be just a little too far beyond the technical horizon. Recent news of John Carmack joining the Oculus team makes me believe this potential is now a lot…
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Designers < Directors

By mctootJul 11, 2013
The recent beta of Apple's iOS 7 is getting a lot of press, much of it somewhat dubious to downright negative at best. But all the gyrations regarding font weight, color palettes and icon size are missing a much larger point, best explained by iMore's Rene Ritchie here. I agree. iOS7 is, one way or another, going to be HUGE. Whether it's hugely successful or a huge flop remains to be seen, but either way, it…
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Schedule your subconscious.

By mctootJul 04, 2013
Some dude named Murphy gets a law ("Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.") Gordon Moore, too ("the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every two years.") Well, I want one of my own—so here goes: "Time devoted to subconscious creative thought is as, and in many cases far more, valuable than the conscious variety." History is replete with examples of this (two great examples: Archimede's bathtime funtime water displacement observations and Kekulé's snake & tail daydream…
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Protect your power cycles

By mctootJun 28, 2013
Creativity is such an elusive thing, but if you're paying attention, you're sure to have noticed a few things about the way you work. Me, I can solve yesterday's late afternoon/night intractable problem in the first 30 minutes of the next day. For other collaborators of mine, it's the late hours of the night (and even the next day) that seem to get them into the right frame of mind for working. These are what…
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Swiss Army knife—or scalpel?

By mctootJun 18, 2013
What is an app? A lite version of what has been called an "application" in the past? A purpose-built, single focus tool? A little of both—or something different altogether. That's a question I've been asking myself every since I downloaded Q Branch's Vesper for my iPhone. I like to mess around with a wide variety of apps for all sorts of professional reasons, so when one of my favorite bloggers (John Gruber @ Daring Fireball)…
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“Follow/Like us on Facebook!” Why?

By mctootJun 07, 2013
They're far less prevalent than the in early days of the social media gold rush, but you can still find them: ads with with a little something extraneous in them that invites the viewer to "Follow us on Facebook." Every time I see something like that, I ask myself two simple questions: 1. Why? 2. What's in it for me? For affinity brands, the answer is obvious. The "what's in it for me" is a…
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De-Facing Facebook: The coming anti-Social correction.

By dpknudtenApr 07, 2012
Originally posted some time in late 2009. Still think it's going to happen. Guess I'm just a...futurist. - dp (writing 6.30.2011) It's inevitable. And for many, it's going to be painful. I'm talking about what happens when the first wave of Social Networking enthusiasts crashes into the rocks of real.We've already seen the first of its victims. Remember that wack mom who faked her Space and quite possibly led to the suicide of a teenager?…
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People like p z l s.

By dpknudtenApr 05, 2012
Originally posted some time in 2009. Re o t d oo re ak a oin . - dp You see it all over the place, every day. Puzzles. Games. Invitations to engage/enrage/enrapture. Pattern recognition: it's fundamental to our very survival and has been hard wired into our brains since Ogg figured out those things in the dirt pointing in one direction meant there was food on the hoof somewhere over that a way. People really,…
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Siri, can you pass the Turing Test?

By mctootMar 26, 2012
Originally posted some time earlier. Recycled for maximum blog churn. - dp Has anyone tried to get the iPhone 4S's Voice Assistant Siri to pass the challenge created by Alan Turing? From Wikipedia: "The Turing test is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior. In Turing's original illustrative example, a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with a human and a machine designed to generate performance indistinguishable from that of…
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Twitter=Mars, Facebook=Venus

By mctootMar 22, 2012
Originally posted some time earlier. Recycled for maximum blog churn. - dp Women are different than men. Shocker, I know. But consider the following observation. It proves one of two things: A. That I am a chauvinist ass or B. That while painting with a timezone-wide brush, there's some truth here worth considering. My argument, unsupported by recognized fact or demonstrable metric, is that Twitter is to male communication styles as Facebook is female varieties.…
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Google+?

By mctootMar 12, 2012
Originally posted some time earlier. Recycled for maximum blog churn. - dp Here's my quick two-minute response to a friend's Google+ query re: Google+: "The thing that intrigues me most about G+ is what you started right here: a conversation with people you've curated into a posse (for whatever reason). A quick scan of this circle shows me only one person I know (hi Brian!) other than you, but because you've vetted this group (and…
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Sharing, not shilling.

By mctootFeb 27, 2012
Originally posted some time earlier. Recycled for maximum blog churn. - dp I've got a problem. A client is finally waking up to the potential of social media. Hallelujah for that. The problem is, they are rock solid certain that the best way to use it (for them) is as a always-on megaphone for their products and services. The online equivalent of dragging their catalog behind an airplane over a baseball game. To say they…
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Determining the difference

By mctootFeb 15, 2012
Originally posted some time earlier. Recycled for maximum blog churn. - dp So much of social media is based on tiny, seemingly insignificant nuances between apparently identical entities. That's a long way of saying that sometimes apples vs. apples is actually Golden Delicious vs. Granny Smith. So how's a person to understand the diff between the Facebook/MySpace, Tumblr/Posterous, Wordpress/Movable Types of the social media world? Test drive to see which thrives in your personal socmedia…
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Showroom vs. Barroom.

By dpknudtenFeb 11, 2012
Originally posted some time in 2009. Reposted because this is a personal manifesto that's truer and truer every day. And yes, obnoxious pedants, truer is a word. - dp (writing 6.30.2011) Ah, the good old days. You come up with a product, gloss it up with some graphics, and then pick one of a handful of communications channels and pummel the entire United States until they staggered out like zombies to buy it. Even if…
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Facebook status updates.

By dpknudtenJan 26, 2012
Originally posted some time in 2009. Don't Facebook as much, or Twitter. Too dang busy (shoemaker's children, if you know what I mean.) - dp I have a confession to make. I signed up for a Twitter account close to a year ago. Had to. Working in advertising/marketing, especially on the creative side, demands keeping up with all the latest, even if it's dumb, halfbaked, or just plain stupid (think: Jonas Brothers). So I signed…
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Location Based Hominid.

By dpknudtenJan 22, 2012
Originally posted some time in 2009. Recycled for maximum blog churn. - dp There's been a lot of Cable TV babble about cell phones, "location based" services, and the creeping fear of Big Brother knowing where I am, what I'm buying, what I'm watching, what I'm thinking! ARRGGGH! My advice: just relax. And if you're really, really worried, just turn off your phone dipstick! This has been the same fear/pseudo argument of the Luddites since…
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