rant

i.e. the 40-30-30 rule:

On a ride up the ski lift, my coach told me I was missing the point. He explained that success in ski racing, or most sports for that matter, was only 40% physical training. The other 60% was mental. And of that, the first 30% was technical skill and experience. The second 30% was the willingness to take risks.

I’ve never heard of it before, but it makes sense, and can be applied anywhere. Read the full article, but the take away is to embrace risk and go for it, push yourself beyond your comfort zone.

(via thedonutproject)

SpongeBob SquarePants is celebrating 10 years of being on the air! Original pilot aired in the US on May 1, 1999 and the “official” series premiere followed on July 17, 1999. The show is translated into 25 languages and airs in 170 countries! Go SpongeBob!

The title of this one page website might be a little bit deceiving, for me the focus is not really typography, and the execution is so simple some may take it as nothing at all, but it really is an experiment (I love those), a test of an idea with a surprisingly engaging outcome.

“While this may not be the most practical layout on earth, it does illustrate some ideas worth mentioning. By keeping areas of content hidden until they are needed it can make a website look much cleaner. It also makes extensive use of navigation within a page (instead of between pages). I think both of these ideas should be used a lot more in web design.” – Matthew James Taylor

Try it here and read the rest of the author’s thoughts here.

Love it so much you need to follow every instance of the word being uttered on twitter?
Then Helveti-Tweet is for you!

I miss the animaniacs. I think I’ll go add them to my netflix list right now.

When will major businesses learn that design matters? Recently we saw how Tropicana lost 20% of it’s sales with a simple redesign of it’s packaging, well, here is an opposite story. With really good design Jacek Utko was able to increase circulation of his newspaper by as much as 100% in some places. This is a pretty inspiring TED talk.

Getting pretty excited about these new Simpsons stamps coming out in May! You can pre-order now, there is even a fancy “Framed Art” version (pictured above), and you can vote for your favorite Simpsons character too! I guess occasionally some (semi-private) government agencies can get it right!

Last night, I attended another NYPL Live event. The evening was, once again, stimulating and a good way to learn some new things about the world. Thomas Friedman was in conversation with Nandan Nilekani. Who is Nilekani? I didn’t know either, but after the evening was over I was surprised that I was so ignorant before.

For one, Nilekani is the one who gave Friedman the idea for the title of his book, The World is Flat. For another, he is someone who came from modest beginnings to being a founder of a huge multinational corporation, and a personal net worth of over 1.3 billion. A great American success story if I ever heard one, except all of this took place in India, and the company is headquartered there. I think Nandan may be something of national hero there because of this.

Maybe it’s just PR but I was surprised by how honest Nilekani was about what it takes to run a business in the 21st century, especially in light of the recent global economic and climatic changes. For example, he was very clear that companies can no longer afford to do business with the kind of disregard for the environment, that companies in the west, had up till now. He has many ideas on how to make India competitive in today’s world. He seems very pragmatic and he doesn’t overlook India’s many problems but is instead very aware of them, and seems to have solutions for them.

We should all pay attention because, as John Stewart said while interviewing Nilekani on the Daily Show, India will probably be our new overlord soon.

some interesting facts from the evening:

• india has one sixth of the worlds population, about 1.15 billion people
• infosys, nulakani’s company, gets 1.5 million job applications a year
• there are only about 25,000 positions
• India has more cellphones than the US has people
• India is very diverse religiously but these religions are able to generally coexist peacefully.
  Nilekani hopes India can become a role model for other countries in this regard.
• a demographic dividend is a good thing, India has one right now
• global climate summits are essentially unfair for developing countries like India, because developed countries got to reap the benefits of not worrying about polluting and now they want to share responsibilities in the repercussions

Reading the paper is very important. Any newspaper will do as long as you get a healthy helping of international events. It’s important to know what is going on in the world. Alfredo Jaar was very adamant about this when he instilled this bit of wisdom in me at a workshop. How can you be mindful of your place in the world if you don’t know what is happening around you. How can you make it better if you don’t know what is wrong.

I love reading a physical paper, but in today’s digital world it’s hard to find the time for the dead tree version. It’s true the digital version is much more convenient, accessible, and even more current, but I find it hard to read, hard to browse and casually look for what catches your eye. The whole thing is just not as visually appealing, not to mention the ads that are constantly vying for your attention, distracting you, and sometimes literally covering the very content you are there to see.

All of this is why I find NEWScan so appealing (actual front pages from the print versions of 14 major papers) . For a visual person like me this is a great way to get your daily headlines. So much information in one quick visual browse.

***

I’ve been seeing and hearing a lot about the death of the Newspaper lately on the internets. It is very disconcerting. I’d much rather live in a world where I can read something that has been edited, researched, and generally vetted as newsworthy than a world where a video of some ten year old farting on his grandmother’s cake is deemed by the masses to be the content most worthy of my time.

However, right now, that seems like exactly where we’re heading. Every week a new previously unsinkable behemoth of a paper or magazine closes shop, unable to provide content in physical or digital form. What is going on?

Once again, I turn to my favorite internet pundit Clay Shirky. I think he may have the answer: “Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism.” Maybe even if newspapers don’t exist in the future, a new yet un-thought-of form will have emerged that will give me the edited, researched, and generally vetted as newsworthy content I seek. Maybe old fashioned papers, and people like me who enjoy them, just have to accept what is happening because as Clay says ” ‘You’re gonna miss us when we’re gone!’ has never been much of a business model.”

If you haven’t read Scott McLoud’s Understanding Comics you should. This guy is really a master of his craft. If you are a graphic designer, artist, or do any kind of visual expression this book will really expand your understanding of visual communication. Reading it put a lot of things into a new perspective for me.

I found a Ted Talk video, it doesn’t do his books justice, but it does give you a glimpse into his mind:

Wow he looks totally different in real life than his comic alter ego! (I guess the checkered shirt is the same.)