Nate's Tumble Log

The Times They Are A-Changin

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 11:34:31 -0500

Lots of changes going on in 2012. One of the big ones for this here blog is it’s moving. I’m going to be doing my personal blogging over at:

Ninjas and Robots

It’s part of Dustin Curtis’ new blog network, SVBTLE. It’s got a great focus, and has re-upped my commitment to writing. Hope you have some time to check it out.

“I hate people who don’t understand April...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 11:12:37 -0500

“I hate people who don’t understand April Fools…” (via reddit.com)

The reason I’ve stayed subscribed to the Barack Obama...

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 15:26:00 -0500

The reason I’ve stayed subscribed to the Barack Obama emails is that the subject lines are so damn interesting from a marketer’s perspective. Every single one of them seems well crafted to get opens. The one I got today is in parentheses:

(I tried.)

Great video my wife sent over to me. When I think about the...

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:50:00 -0500

Great video my wife sent over to me. When I think about the companies that I’m loyal to, there’s only a few, and it seems like it’s because they’ve done a great job communicating why they make things.

Apple pisses me off often with things that have gone wrong with my iPhone, wireless equipment and power chords. But damn, do I firmly get behind the “why” of their company. So I stay loyal, even with the faults.

37signals also comes to mind. There are collaboration tools with more power. Sometimes there’s even features I feel like I could really use but they don’t have. But I give their tools the first look and chance when a need for a collaboration tool comes into my focus. And it’s because they’ve done such a great job with communicating the whys of what they do. So many other products are just products. No soul that I resonate with.

Then I think about the companies I have no loyalty to. Shoes. I’ll go down that list of Zappos shoes and pick whatever looks like it suits me best. I don’t give a crap about the brand. Most of them seem to make shoes so celebrities can wear them.

When does design matter?

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:36:41 -0600

This isn’t meant as a troll or a rant. Or meant to spark any outrage.

And it feels like I need to preface this with:

I do believe design (informational and stylistic) is insanely important in many situations to early businesses. It’s just that I get confused when.

Look at the Clear app that sold 350,000 downloads in the iPhone app store practically overnight. The only reason that early product works is because of insanely awesome style and design.

But when is style and information design going to matter to the core of your business or you can just put anything up there? I don’t think it’s always “clear”. (Hehehe. See what i did there? :D )

This post was inspired when noticing an interesting situation where a lack of design (stylistic AND informational) doesn’t seem to be hindering their business.

I needed to figure out some parking at Midway airport in Chicago. So I find these guys:

http://www.parkrideflyusa.com/mdw-chicago-midway-airport-parking/

Mother of god is this site confusing. I wanted to book a reservation. My eyes were drawn immediately to this thing:

I must be able to click that “outdoor parking” to get to the reservation form for outdoor parking…

But no. You get this:

I didn’t scan the paragraph quick enough to find the link at the end of the test to make a reservation. I completely missed it for 10 seconds or so. Ok there it is.

Ok, reservation dates selected. Now I need to pay. This is where it gets really interesting. It took me 3-4 times longer than normal to fill in my address and payment information:

If you look at the address information. Zip code comes before City. Country comes in between City and State. The state drop down menu isn’t wide enough to display the directions from the first entry: “Selec…”. Country isn’t wide enough either. I’ve never encountered a payment form in this order before.

Simply because of the way these things seem like they were haphazardly thrown together it was very awkward to fill this thing out.

Bonus for the Canucks: If you select Canada as your billing country, that State/Province drop down doesn’t contain any provinces. :)

One last treat on the payment details screen:

The expiration fields aren’t wide enough. You can’t tell what month or year you’ve ended up selecting. I had to double check before I clicked submit on this page.

Ok, so this site “sucks”. And I generally judge a business by it’s cover. I can’t help it. I distrust business often when their websites are left to rot. But here’s the interesting part. Go look at their yelp page:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/midway-park-ride-and-fly-chicago-2#query:midway%20airport%20parking

50 reviews. 4.5 stars. Tons and tons of glowing reviews of how much they love this business.

Instead of complaining about these forms and their confusing content you read “Easy, easy online booking” type reviews. People are thrilled by the online experience :)

Maybe it’s easy for you to decide. Oh, Clear is doing todo apps so they need to use style and information to set themselves apart, and parking companies are atrocious usually in technology and service, so you don’t need to worry about website design yet. Maybe it’s that easy sometimes.

But then you see projects like 37signals Highrise redesign. They had tested a long page sales letter that looked pretty ick to many folks. And it out performed their original design:

http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2977-behind-the-scenes-highrise-marketing-site-ab-testing-part-1

Or have you seen the Pinboard website? That guy is awesome, and his service seems extremely useful for folks. But man, bookmarking? That’s a pretty flooded area of business. Surely you need KILLER design to stand out:

http://pinboard.in/

Really? That’s it? And a neon green button to pay? Awesome.

Or the contrast between

http://www.cnn.com/

and

http://www.drudgereport.com/

I can’t believe many of us would predict Drudge Report would be as successful as it is looking like this.

How do you guys decide? You have a new business idea or your working on a new project. What inside you tells you you need to sweat the information and the style of your app or your homepage before pushing it out there? Or is it instinct? Just dumb luck?

I'm giving up. Oh wait. Facepalm.

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:56:00 -0600

So I’m working on this new thing. I’m not going to reveal it yet, because it’s still getting figured out before I want to promote it too much.

The gist is, I’m doing some very unscalable things to test out some conceptual product ideas. If you want to read a great article about achieving scale by doing things that don’t scale, you should read this:

http://joel.is/post/12790799237/achieving-scale-by-doing-things-that-dont-scale

I’m basically doing some very manual things that I hope I can automate. If not, I’m probably and hopefully exploring an idea space where I’ll eventually discover something.

And this non-scalable thing, I’m charging for it. I put out a shingle of a website, and took out a Pay per click (PPC) campaign. And bam. 2 sales on Friday. I was pumped. Making a sale on something completely new that you have just a tiny bit of confidence will resonate with folks is a major high. I talked about those 2 sales all weekend.

I decided to make some tweaks. I raised my prices by just $10 and added some other pricing plans. If this thing will eventually scale, I really need to be able to charge more. So I got the new plans and pricing out there early on Saturday.

Come on sales!

Nothing on Saturday. That’s fine. Traffic was lighter than on Friday.

Nothing on Sunday. Crap. Ok, well maybe it’s because it’s the weekend.

Nothing on Monday. Fack!

Ok, maybe those first sales were flukes and 1) this isn’t resonating like I thought it would with customers as being a big pain to solve or 2) I can’t end up charging what I’m charging which is really going to make future revenue goals tough.

Back to the drawing board. Turn off all the PPC ads.

Then I get an email today, Wednesday. It says:

“Trying to sign up for the XYZ plan, but the form is giving me an error and won’t pass me onto the payment page”.

Wait what? Lemme check. You must be wrong, friend…

God damnit! He’s right. Friggin form doesn’t work anymore. I screwed it up when I increased prices and added the new plans, and I never bothered to check it again.

Looking at my logs, I’ve had other folks in the last three days make it past my pricing page to this form. It seems highly plausible someone else got this form error too trying to make a purchase, and just never bothered to email me.

Two lessons from this:

1) In the desire to be a lean startup, and make quick experiments, don’t be so hasty that you miss details like testing your payment form. I’m usually a very detail oriented guy, but I flaked out on this. Do quick experiments, but sweat those details.

2) PPC campaigns don’t always result in immediate sales. There was a guy yesterday who emailed me about my service and the guy today trying to use my screwed up payment form that only discovered me through these PPC ads. But they had clicked on these ads at least 3 days ago. And just now are getting back to me.

Folks are busy. Don’t assume your PPC experiments are a failure after just 24 hours. Or even 72 hours.

Ok, back to work on this thing. But I’m curious.

Is there something you gave up on too soon? Did you discover you gave up on it too soon, or just have a nagging feeling you might have?

“Aw poor guy, look at his disabili-WHAAAAAT!” (via...

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:28:24 -0600

“Aw poor guy, look at his disabili-WHAAAAAT!” (via reddit)

"THEN WHY HAVEN’T YOU DONE IT YET?? Do you realize how easy it is to do something, ANYTHING, that you..."

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:00:05 -0600

“THEN WHY HAVEN’T YOU DONE IT YET?? Do you realize how easy it is to do something, ANYTHING, that you can be proud of? Fuck man, put up a fucking blog. Try to write a novel. Shit, just read a book a week and write a review of each! It doesn’t have to be good…”

- A great quote from Tucker Max as he reviews some job applications.

Recap of round two responses — TuckerMax.me

Am I confused about the GPL or are they?

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:09:00 -0600

It’s crazy to me that I’ve been “dealing with” open source licenses for what seems to be my entire professional career. 13 years. And I still can’t definitively tell someone what is or is not allowed under something as popular as the GNU General Public License, or GPL.

The latest example is about some stuff I was researching about Wordpress themes. A few theme providers I’ve noticed are following along with Wordpress and licensing their themes under the same license as Wordpress. Which is the GPL version 2.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

So I’m checking out a particular vendor and perusing their FAQ. They mention they are licensing under the GPL.

But then mention this bit a little later on:

Reproduction, copying, or redistribution for commercial purposes of any materials or design elements on the themes is prohibited.

If I understand the GPL, that prohibition doesn’t make sense. Right?

I know I can’t claim ownership of the product, and I need to mention if I make a change, but as long as I distribute the source code that I modify, I can copy and commercially redistribute these things as I please.

Looking at the GPL’s own FAQ, we see:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLCommercially

If I use a piece of software that has been obtained under the GNU GPL, am I allowed to modify the original code into a new program, then distribute and sell that new program commercially?

You are allowed to sell copies of the modified program commercially, but only under the terms of the GNU GPL. Thus, for instance, you must make the source code available to the users of the program as described in the GPL, and they must be allowed to redistribute and modify it as described in the GPL. These requirements are the condition for including the GPL-covered code you received in a program of your own.

I must disclaim of course, I am not a lawyer. So don’t use anything in this post that looks like “advice”. It’s not. I’ll likely remain confused about bits about open source licenses for my entire life.

But I think these guys have their use of the license wrong. Thoughts?

UPDATE:

As some commenters have pointed out in regards to assets:

Looking at the GPL/Wordpress/Thesis/WooTheme controversy from awhile ago I noticed this:

http://wordpress.org/news/2009/07/themes-are-gpl-too/

Looks like even if a Theme has to be GPL’d it doesn’t necessarily mean the images and the css are or need to be.

Short documentary on IDEO's process

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 07:19:00 -0600

Great documentary on IDEO’s process. It’s funny though. Doesn’t seem too surprising. Just give some smart diverse people a few constraints and let them run their brains all over the place. A few other take aways:

Go immerse yourself into the life of the user.
Ask all the questions.
Nothing is sacred and should be assumed.

"Ninjas are a species of ghost bred for the purpose of assassination and other nefarious deeds. It is..."

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:03:35 -0600

“Ninjas are a species of ghost bred for the purpose of assassination and other nefarious deeds. It is said that a ninja is able to move like the cat, glide like the owl, bark like the dog and sing like the moth. No-one ever hears a ninja’s approach, because he stealthily places earmuffs on the watchmen and guards as he passes by.
A ninja carries deadly weapons of stealth, such as the death star - a huge planet which can shoot other planets with a laser - or the nun-chuck, which can chuck nuns. He dresses in black, because it is flattering to the figure, and covers his face with a mask to prevent freckling. When a ninja strikes, it is always to kill. Occasionally the victim may escape with psychological damage and bodily wounding. These are referred to as ‘ninjuries’.”

- Dr Theophilus Pudding’s World of Knowledge of the World: Ninjas (via colepierce)

Haunted

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:11:00 -0600

“I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair I’ll fix it.” - Mitt Romney

This isn’t a political post. There’s a post I wanted to write recently, and Romney’s recent soundbite spurred it to get completed.

Mitt isn’t saying something that’s just the viewpoint of Republicans. I’ve heard this same sentiment from the rich, the Democrats, the middle class, whoever.

I’ve said such things myself.

See, I don’t understand “the very poor” in the US. I don’t understand that situation. And I can’t stand that I don’t. I’m intellectually curious about all kinds of stuff and yet homelessness, how I can help, and even if I should be helping, leaves me super confused.

—

There’s an image that continues to haunt me.

My wife and I were coming back from the suburbs of Chicago at about 8 at night on a freezing cold day in January. There’s often someone hanging out at Belmont and Kimball, one of the exits from the highway. That someone is usually holding some kind of sign, asking for money. You’ve seen someone like this a million times. I have. But this guy had a sign that said:

“Unemployed. I hate to bother you with my problems. But I have a 3 year old son.”

That sign sums up a bunch of problems I just can’t get my head around.

I’m all over the place with my feelings of generosity and people that need to beg for money. I’ve given money. I’ve bought entire meals for folks. But I’ve also had situations that reverse my desire to be generous.

I’ve given folks money who claim it isn’t enough. I’ve given folks leftovers or even an unopen box of cereal only to be looked at like I wasn’t doing something good enough.

I also have disabled relatives.

In paricular I have a relative who is paralyzed from the waste down and needs a wheelchair. Life is at least 10 times more difficult for her than me and she works a full time job. But I have never seen her complain about her situation in life.

She pops in my head when I see someone who looks to be completely able bodied asking for money. I can’t help think, how can my relative work hard and find work, but this guy can’t?

I’m not thinking this with any bitterness or condescension.

I’m just actually very interested in the answer to this.

Where is the safety net that Mitt is talking about?

Why is this poor guy outside in the cold. Dirty. Doing something that would seem he is very embarrassed to do in order to obtain some spare change from goers by?

I’ve “heard” Walmart doesn’t pay a living wage. Is that that the reason stuff like this happens? We think there are jobs out there at places like Walmart or fast food chains.

“Why can’t the guy flip burgers?” - everyone has thought.

But even if he did, would he even have enough money to keep a 3 year old fed and warm somewhere?

Or then there’s folks on Michigan avenue in Chicago. Chicago’s million dollar mile. Full of the most expensive stores this planet has to offer. And there’s folks outside those stores who look like they haven’t had a shower in many months. Some of those folks look like they aren’t very sane either.

The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves in their separate and individual capacities.

- Abraham Lincoln

There’s definitely people out there that clearly can’t get off the streets on their own. They wouldn’t even be able to walk into a place that was helping them even if it was a block away and you pointed out to them where to go.

What does all this mean? I want to figure out what Mitt means by this safety net. I want to prove to myself that we either have the right things in place to help the homeless and the very poor or we don’t. I’ve assumed too many things and I need to see it for myself.

Next Thursday is my orientation at Inspiration Corporation.

They have a ton of programs helping people with homeless and jobs. My intention is to help them as much as I can, and learn from them what the state of this safety net actually is.

If you are looking for something new to do with your time in 2012, come on and join me over there or the hundreds of similar places all over the country.

I’m sick of making assumptions and not really knowing if all these people that are out on the street asking for our help need it or not. And if they need help, what kind of help do they need. Do they really need money because they can’t get jobs that can actually get them out of being “the very poor”? Or do they need a point in the direction of a place that could help them and prepare them for a job interview somewhere?

I haven’t met anyone yet who has those answers and I’m sick of being haunted.

I FOUND ICE CUBES 'GOOD DAY'

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:56:03 -0600

murkavenue:

CLUE 1:
   “went to short dogs house,
   they was watching Yo MTV
   RAPS”
Yo MTV RAPS first aired:
   Aug 6th 1988
CLUE 2:
Ice Cubes single “today was a good day” released on:
   Feb 23 1993
CLUE 3:
   ”The Lakers beat the Super
   Sonics”
Dates between Yo MTV Raps air date AUGUST 6 1988 and the release of the single FEBRUARY 23 1993 where the Lakers beat the Super Sonics:
   Nov 11 1988 114-103
   Nov 30 1988 110-106
   Apr 4 1989 115-97
   Apr 23 1989 121-117
   Jan 17 1990 100-90
   Feb 28 1990 112-107
   Mar 25 1990 116-94
   Apr 17 1990 102-101
   Jan 18 1991 105-96
   Mar 24 1991 113-96
   Apr 21  1991 103-100
   Jan 20 1992 116-110
CLUE 4:
Dates of those Laker wins over SuperSonics where it was a clear day with no Smog:
   Nov 30 1988
   Apr 4 1989
   Jan 18 1991
   Jan 20 1992
CLUE 5:
   “Got a beep from Kim, and
   she can fuck all night”
beepers weren’t adopted by mobile phone companies until the 1990s. Dates left where mobile beepers were availible to public:
   Jan 18 1991
   Jan 20 1992
CLUE 6:
Ice Cube starred in the film “Boyz in the hood” that released late Summer of 1991, but was being filmed mid-late 1990 early 1991 and Ice Cube was busy on set filming the movie Jan 18 1991 too busy to be lounging around the streets with no plans. Ladies and Gentlemen..

The ONLY day where:
Yo MTV Raps was on air
It was a clear and smogless day
Beepers were commercially sold
Lakers beat the SuperSonics
and Ice Cube had no events to attend was…

   JANUARY 20 1992
   National Good Day Day

-Donovan

I’ve been walking/running 5 miles a day. You start to see...

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:45:24 -0600

I’ve been walking/running 5 miles a day. You start to see some awesome things. :)

United States Postal Service tries to compete with Google using fear

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:55:12 -0600

Dear United States Postal Service,

Saw this last week. It looks like it’s been out maybe since October

Are you kidding me?

Use the mail, because computers get hacked? Whoever came up with this campaign at the USPS has seen way to many political attack ads.

Remember Hillary Clinton’s commercial: “Don’t vote for Obama or your kid is gonna get kidnapped at night” or at least that’s how I remember that commercial goin.

I know the USPS is in trouble financially. They are closing offices and might even move to less frequent service. I can assure you, if you have a chance at solving these dilemmas it is not through some kind of War on Drugs type fear tactics to get people to send more mail.

A big reason the fear won’t work? The fear targets a shrinking market. I don’t even have an anti-virus on my computer any more. I’m protected via a firewall and I use a Mac. Window’s computers ship with an antivirus that does pretty friggin well now. Shoot, even my parents and inlaws who still kind of need to worry about viruses - because they’ll click on anything :) - don’t have to anymore…

I bought them Chromebooks. They don’t have viruses.

What you need to do is embrace the future. Embrace what’s working. Figure out what the “box” is that you and electronic delivery are competing in, and create a few attributes that you bring to the market that aren’t in that box. And spend all your time, money, and energy outplaying everyone at those attributes.

Read Blue Ocean Strategy.

Ok, so here’s my list of things that just thinking about your problem for 30 minutes I can come up with to get you down some better paths. I’m absolutely naive to your business and what you can actually do better. But I’m also positive you aren’t innovating very well but you can get better.

Fire your marketing department. Or at least get them to watch how Google is out marketing you on Television.

Contrast your junk commercial with Google’s.

This commercial gives me goose bumps. It’s emotional, and it elevates the things that Google is doing on the web and through things like email.

Have you seen an Apple commercial for the iPhone? There’s like a dozen of these commercials that are all about apps that other people have made. There’s even more that just shows off what awesome things an iPhone or iPad can do.

There are ton of awesome things still being done over mail.

Like letters to home to wives and families from soldiers over seas.

Or my wife has been gushing for 3 days about a letter sent from our 2.5 year old niece. She wanted to draw something for my wife. So she drew all sorts of things on some scrap paper, and her mom added a few notations in the legend letting us know which abstract piece of art signified what. Our niece drew our whole family :) and sent that thing to us. Not scanned and emailed.

Or look at Picplum. Those guys are printing pictures and delivering them to people’s mail boxes. People love real pictures still. And getting things in mail especially gifts is precious.

I can go on and on.

People LOVE to get mail. They love the surprise. Mail is so awesome now more than any time ever because it’s so much less full of junk than my email.

Look at the crazy things going on with subscription services these days. Read Techcrunch. You’ll see another subscription service popping up over and over. People are buying stuff so they can get automated shipments of surprises every month to their mail box.

T-shirts, baby clothes, toys, cookies. Fucking notebook paper!

Showcase those.

Spend your commercial money telling people about the Picplums and other companies that deliver awesomeness over mail. Get those folks more business and you’ll get more business.

Can the government acquire private companies? I imagine you could. Take your commercial money you are blowing on this crap, and start acquiring companies doing innovative things with mail.

Like the aforementioned Picplum. Or any company doing the stuff above. Get some folks actually doing cool shit with mail on your team!

There’s so much more you can start tackling. There’s companies that are devoted to doing things like scanning mail and digitizing it. Or getting rid of the bulk mail for me. YOU COULD BE DOING THESE THINGS!

Or instead of getting everyone scared of viruses and hacking, help folks get more secure. Become a certificate authority and teach classes on how to setup encrypted email. Charge for those classes and the certificates.

My parents talk about paying for classes just to learn basic things like this still.

Or what about Amazon Local. People want instant delivery gratification. How can you be a cog in that machine? Help Amazon send more packages. If you have to stop mail delivery on certain days, retool your carriers to do more innovative package delivery to help the Amazons. Or even better help things like local book sellers deliver books!

Team up with the local book shops closing down and help them do same day delivery of their inventory.

I’ll stop now. But I hope you get the point and that someone reads this over there. You guys kick so much ass but apparently are oblivious to it. And there are so many people innovating on mail and package delivery bit you are sitting here trying to strike fear into the hearts of Grandmas and the businesses that need to communicate with them.

You can be better.

I was making a sad face when I saw yet another “Going out...

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:53:45 -0600

I was making a sad face when I saw yet another “Going out of business” sign in my neighborhood. But then I as I got closer to the sign and what it actually says. wtf?

What happens to children left unattended at Molly’s...

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:53:53 -0600

What happens to children left unattended at Molly’s Cupcakes in Chicago.

Jobs that make people money aren't the jobs that make people happy

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 09:49:30 -0600

The New York Times graph of the jobs the wealthiest 1 percent of US citizens have was making the rounds a week ago.

Coincidentally I stumbled on this article last night.

The 10 jobs the happiest US citizens have.

Clergy
Firefighters
Physical therapists
Authors
Special education teachers
Teachers
Artists
Psychologists
Financial services sales agents
Operating engineers

There’s some interesting contrast there. There’s also a link in there to the most hated jobs.

Director of Information Technology
Director of Sales and Marketing
Product Manager
Senior Web Developer
Technical Specialist
Electronics Technician
Law Clerk
Technical Support Analyst
CNC Machinist
Marketing Manager

Definitely a couple surprises. I would think Artists wouldn’t have as much job satisfaction as they do. Not because they don’t have an awesome job. They do. But making a living is obviously tougher doing that than say being a web developer. But the awesomeness and freedom of art wins over the challenge in making money.

And good news for people that want money and happiness. Sounds like you want to be in Financial services sales? Really? That’s definitely a surprise.

Diggin Marco Benevento. A bit from the iTunes review: Is it...

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 17:28:27 -0600

Diggin Marco Benevento. A bit from the iTunes review:

Is it jazz? It depends on what your definition of that is these days. It doesn’t sound like anything else out there

Baggage

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:48:16 -0600

I’m inspired watching my dog constantly.

One thing that’s never stopped being amazing is how little baggage she carries with her.

It’s very noticeable on walks. When it’s time to take her for a walk, we’ll just say the word walk, and in a blink she’s at the door ready to go. She could have been sleeping, but as soon as something is going on, she’s ready. She doesn’t need to pack anything, put any shoes on. No doggy sweater necessary.

Contrast that to my wife and I. It’s time for a walk, and I’ve got to get shoes on. I’ll check the temperature on my iPhone.

Dammit Siri. I said “weather”. Not “call Steve”.

Coat. Hat. Gloves. Even if it’s gorgeous out, there’s still minutes worth of baggage that I need to obtain in order just to go for a quick walk with the dog.

I wish I could be ready as fast as the dog.

This behavior inspires me to look at products through a similar lense. What kind of baggage do these products put on me?

Because it’s very rare that I wish to have even more baggage added to a routine or function I want to achieve.

I’ve started bringing an iPad with me to outside functions when I need a computer. Not because the iPad is awesome. I actually find the device pretty frustrating compared to an actual computer or printed out piece of paper.

But I can just grab the damn thing and go. I leave my back pack behind along with all the other cruft it contains (charging cord, monitor adapter, loose change).

The iPad has eliminated so much baggage for me when I need to go somewhere; it’s won a spot in my life.

I love books. I love book stores. Reading paper books is a superior experience than anything electronic. And yet, I haven’t bought a paper book for years. Paper books become too much baggage. I have book shelves and book shelves that take up way too much space. Those books become impossible to locate when I do need them again after their initial read.

eBooks have removed so much baggage again. So they’ve won.

I’m not telling you something you don’t know. You’ve heard “keep it simple” a million times. But still people create things like my cable set top box or some forms I just filled out to get into some SAP billing system. Clearly some folks need to be reminded that stuff would be better if there was just so much less baggage involved.