Writer's Warning: To be honest, the main reason I'm writing this is to provide future Googlers a cautionary tale and to try and suck a couple lessons from a terrible experience. The good part of our movie was very good, and my worries were eased, but the main lesson here is that a misstep sucks. A lot.

With something as delicate as moving the entirety of your possessions, every single detail matters. We’re close to the end of our move, and I feel it’s only fair to report on the experience we’ve had with 1-800-PACKRAT, why we chose them over PODS, and what we’d do next time.

A Promising Beginning

Our initial calls with Pack-Rat were great. Marge and Ron were both as helpful as could be—professional, kind, and helpful. And when our container arrived, it was clean, secure, and on-time. There were a couple errors in our contract that needed clearing up, but things were going great.

Bump in the Road

But naturally, it didn’t last. On the 16th, we called to check on the progress of our container so we could call an audible if need be and stay with friends until our belongings arrived. Our move coordinator let us know that our container should arrive in Austin on the 18th, so the earliest it could be delivered is the 19th. So we headed on to Austin, booked a hotel, and signed a lease.

On the 18th, I called again to make sure we could get a delivery time set up for the 19th, and that’s where things went south.

They let us know our container would not arrive until the 24th and cited something about how they give a date estimate, then their transit coordinator gets bids for the transportation, and they can’t control this.

Ugh, that sucks. But surely, surely, they’ll just go ahead and cover their error and compensate us for costs incurred as a result of their misstatement. Of course they can’t fix the inconvenience of their mistake, but they can cover the financial burden, right?

Downright Reprehensible

Wrong. They let me know that they reviewed the tape, and while they did say the 18th, they did not say it was a guarantee. And having not sealed their number with either blood or the secret handshake, they were not to be held to it. (Okay, I made up the secret handshake part.)

And to add insult to injury, when going over when their on-the-label policy specified our container would arrive by, they flat-out lied about when pickup occurred. Despite a voicemail on the 12th assuring us our container would be picked up in an hour, Pack-Rat’s customer service told us, “It seems your container was picked up on the 13th.”, and when confronted with this untruth, it was simply dismissed with, “All right, I’ll give you the 12th then.”

So for the six days of hotels, dog boarding, being forced to eat out, not having clothes for the first few days at a new job, and being unsure of the status of 95% of our belongings, they offered: nothing. We are flat-out screwed and left to figure it out for ourselves until they can find the lowest bidder to get our things here as cheaply as possible for them.

Mistakes are Expensive, but Inevitable

I don’t think I’m an unreasonable man, but I do have expectations for companies.

• I expect a company to honor their word.
• I expect a company to take their care of the entirety of my belongings seriously.
• I expect a company to make mistakes, then fix them.

Whether you’re a cross-country moving service or an independent software development shop or a butcher, I understand that mistakes are made. Lord knows I make them all of the time. But I expect myself, and others, to be humble, admit them, and work our asses off to fix them.

It remains to be seen if our things arrive safely, but if they don’t, I have no expectation that we’ll be in any way taken care of. Don’t make the mistake I did, use the reputable, well-known moving company. They even reached out to apologize about our inconvenience and went so far as to figure out our dog’s name. I think Pack-Rat could pay attention and learn a thing or two.

The eventual resolution: In the end, Pack-Rat offered us a $200 refund as per their standard satisfaction policy. We'd hoped for more to cover the expenses of 6 unexpected days without our things, but it's nice to receive anything. The most frustrating thing is that there has still been no admission of flawed policies, and the most encouraging thing is that, despite my complaints, everyone on the Pack-Rat team has been an absolute pleasure to deal with. Not enough was done for me to change my recommendation, but the team's pleasantness did leave me with less of a bad taste in my mouth.

Most of you know of Tweetbot, the new iPhone Twitter client from Tapbots. And if you haven’t heard of it, you owe it to yourself to give it a try. It’s well-worth $1.99 just to play with it and check out the visual design and user experience decisions that Mark and Paul made.

After launch, there was a minor kerfuffle with a couple of critical reviews of Tweetbot from Marco Arment and Benjamin Brooks, who are both fairly internet famous. And Paul posted a tweet that read like this:

“IMO if you don’t think UI/UX is a pretty differentiating feature you probably should be an Android user.”

If you hang around with Apple fans much, you’ll realize that comment is pretty much the equivalent of this.

A Disagreement With Ben

In the case of Ben’s argument, I simply don’t agree with him that the details that went in to Tapbots are insufficient to give it merit. He uses cars as a metaphor to convey what he’s trying to get across, so I’ll run with that.

My wife and I own a Subaru Outback, named Deborah (Please direct complaints to my wife.), which we’re in love with. (Perhaps there will be a separate post on this some day.) Here are a few reasons I’m in love with Debbie:

• When you cut the engine off, the car’s audio fades out instead of cutting to silence.
• The back seats fold completely flat and seamless when you lay them down.
• The shifter is sturdy and feels absolutely wonderful to the touch.

They’re features that aren’t earth-shattering, but in something I use every single day, they’re gold to me. The overall feature set is very similar to other cars in its class, but the details make it worth more than its peers to us.

At the end of the day, this is a value judgment, and that’s all right. Overall, I think Ben might agree with me on that (even though he comes to a different conclusion on the app), but it could have been communicated more clearly.

A Disagreement With Marco

I like Marco Arment more than the next guy. I’m an Instapaper evangelist, and when he speaks, I listen. I don’t think I’m alone. And I know Marco knows the value and difficulties that come with bootstrapping your own iOS development company.

That is to say his opinion is both well-informed and influential, and I think a lot of responsibility comes with that. My main squabble is with his writing and framing. For example, here is a quote from his piece:

Tweetbot is a very good app…

and another:

It really is very good.

But the title of this article is Tweetbot’s Limited Innovation, which is explicitly critical and creates dissonance with his defense of the article. It’s not to say an article can’t have a critical title and tone while noting a few positives, but the acuity of the criticisms the title can’t be dismissed so easily as Marco does in his tweet.

And I’ll quote his piece a little more liberally to illustrate my other issue:

A new Twitter client that essentially offers the Twitter app’s features, but in different places, isn’t enough of a difference for me to switch. If anything, it supports Twitter’s “don’t make full-featured apps” position. Maybe they were right.

This isn’t to say that Tweetbot shouldn’t exist as an option for people who really do like it a lot better than all of the other full-featured Twitter clients.

Here, he argues that their application’s features support Twitter’s recent announcement that they’re going to tighten the reigns on their ecosystem. And he says “maybe they were right”, presumably that they should limit what apps are allowed API access, but then he immediately follows with “This isn’t to say that Tweetbot shouldn’t exist…”

I find this particular critique much too harsh to be palatable and overall unfair, especially given the ulcers I’m sure the guys of Tapbots bear from worrying about whether Twitter would someday pull the plug on their beloved application.

A Disagreement With Tapbots

I’ve never poured months, maybe years, of my life into an application. And I’ve never fielded questions for months of “When will Tapbots be here? When will Tapbots be here?” and received fairly sharp criticism. So perhaps I’m not qualified to comment here, but I certainly think Tapbots could have responded in a more healthy manner.

What an opportunity to create good will and turn a negative into a positive. Something along the lines of the following personal responses could have been gold:

Hey Conscientious Dissenter, I appreciate you taking the time to write about Tweetbot, and I’m sorry version 1 didn’t meet your expectations. We were really looking to differentiate on user experience in this version, and we’re very proud of what we did. We have some great features planned down the road, and we hope you’ll revisit us in the future. In the interim, we felt your criticisms were a little bit harsh given the amount of love and effort that went into Tweetbot, and we hope your readers understand that for many of them, Tweetbot might be the Twitter client they’ve been waiting for.

From a business perspective, mitigating disaster is important. Rather than give influential members of the Apple community a proverbial kick-in-the-nuts with an Android barb, it would be a huge win if you could at least avoid keep them from publicly decrying you.

My Tweetbot Review

I honestly haven’t decided myself if Tweetbot will replace Twitter’s official client for me. It’s certainly fun and has some touches that make it an absolute pleasure to use.

But coming from a guy who usually leans to the side of sticking his fingers in his ears and crying, I wish both the reviewers and the developers would have been more supportive of one another in their evaluations and responses.

This morning on OPB, there was an interesting discussion, which you can read about here. This was the crux of it:

Portland (debatably) needs to meet some federal requirements for water quality. To do this, rates will increase 80% over the next 10 years. But this means some Portlanders who are already struggling financially will fall further behind. How will Portland handle this?

A fair question, with a disappointing answer. Here is the jist of that:

Portland already has one of the best systems in the nation for financial utility assistance. Water is the most important thing to human life, and many people pay much more for natural gas, cable, cell phones, etc.

But I'd disagree with this as any sort of reasonable defense to the question that was asked.

Better (or best) isn’t the goal ¹

Hopefully, you’re doing whatever you’re doing because you think it will solve problems, meet goals, and ultimately, make the world a better place to live in.

In the case of the Portland Water Bureau, I’d expect their goal to be something like this: We believe that judicious usage of water is essential to maintaining a quality of life that we support, and for people who can’t afford it, we want to help.

But whatever your dream is (even if it’s just to get filthy rich), beating your competition isn’t enough. Being the city where those in financial turmoil can best afford water isn’t enough. Being the search engine that delivers the best results isn’t enough.

Your goal is your goal

“Better than the rest” is an easy metric, and it’s something to feel good about. But if you’re better than everyone else, that doesn’t necessary mean that you’re meeting your goals yet. And I’d argue that greatness lies somewhere between being better than everyone else and achieving the dream you set out to accomplish.

Recently, I lauded the web community for their openness and kindness. But the internet, and the community of people who create things on it, isn’t without its dark side. And I’ve been a member of that dark side.

It’s easy to forget that there are real, live humans behind the pixelated little avatars we talk to and about online. And it’s also easy, at least for me, to forget that there are more praiseworthy virtues than cleverness and humor. Josh Bryant said it better than I could have.

So what’s a guy to do when he’s getting inundated with the smart-aleck attitude of the internet, himself included? For me, the answer was taking stock of my heroes.

I realized I was valuing a lot of things in people—shipping great products, having a keen eye for detail, or being able to find humor in any situation. But I wasn’t placing enough value on things far more important: kindness, caring, integrity, and the whole slew of virtues that matter.

Turns out, it’s easy to be an ass on the internet. (And probably, many folks who are asses on the internet are kind, caring, wonderful people, too.) But when you spend 10+ hours a day staring at a screen, the folks you follow and admire kind of become the company you keep. And the person you are sort of starts to become the company you keep.

And an internet ass isn’t the kind of person I want to be. So here’s to a bright future of encouragement, virtue, and yes, occasional good-natured criticism.

The other morning, OPB (Oregon’s completely awesome NPR affiliate) ran a piece on The Other Wes Moore, a fascinating story of two people. One is Wes Moore, a black man born and raised poor and fatherless in Baltimore, now an investment banker, Rhodes scholar, and author. The other is Wes Moore, a black man born and raised poor and fatherless in Baltimore, now in prison for murder.

The context of this particular piece was author Wes Moore at the Multnomah County Library speaking with high school students, and one made a particularly astute statement about the imprisoned Wes Moore:

I’m not sympathetic to his choices. I’m sympathetic to the lack of choices available to him.

This statement got me thinking about something that’s been in my mind for a long time.

Just How Few Choices Were Available?

I don’t think the student went far enough. I think a more accurate way to phrase it would have been, “I feel sad that murder was the only choice available to him.”

You might say, “Hogwash! One may be inclined to make a decision, but they always have the freedom of choice.” But if we follow the causality change a bit further, don’t the events in his life dictate exactly how inclined he is to make one particular “choice”, and don’t those events also dictate how willing he is to play against the odds in a given circumstance?

I’m not treading any new ground here. Wikipedia defines determinism thusly:

the concept that events within a given paradigm are bound by causality in such a way that any state (of an object or event) is completely, or at least to some large degree, determined by prior states.

And I think I fall in the completely camp. Not just because I’ve seen The Butterfly Effect, but because it’s easy to imagine that our minds run constant, tiny equations, and the only input they have is what they know, and the only output they have is what we “choose”.

A Valuable Illusion

This is offensive to some. Maybe many. But there’s some good news, too. Free will doesn’t matter. Only the feeling that something was an act of volition matters. If we feel like something was an act of the will, that’s good enough.

I believe this, at least in some part, because of a conversation I had with a friend in his dorm room 7 years ago about whether computers can actually generate completely random numbers. A conversation that I dismissed with a, “Huh, interesting.” and thought it didn’t matter at all. And I’m sure there are a number (a number approaching infinity, no doubt) of other reasons I believe this. But I don’t think, given the circumstances, I can believe anything else.

But computer-generated random numbers truly seem random, and that matters. Without the illusion of free will, we live life under the power of a metaphysical dictator. And no matter how harsh the dictator, that’s hard on the mind and soul.

What does It All Mean?

Are there practical ramifications of this? I’d say no. You’re either inclined to buy into this argument or disinclined. (But it’s going to be completely based on your past experience and external circumstances, so don’t get too excited.) But neither way matters. Either you’ll go forward and continue making choices, or you’ll go forward and continue playing out the story of your life, contingent upon whether I’m right or wrong.

In my life, I tend to be a bit more understanding of people’s paths, however different from my own they may be. And I tend to want to praise myself a bit less, as I don’t feel my successes are much of my own doing.

But at the very worst, I feel like a spectator in a pretty spectacular world.

There have been plenty of under-the-hood changes going on around these parts that hopefully none of you noticed. This post will be pretty nerdy, but there might be some value for anybody.

Content Management System

I’ve been moderately outspoken in my criticism of ExpressionEngine 2. If you’re wondering why, just read what Kenny Meyers said. I would still argue that EE is a very flexible, potent system for developers, but coupled with the difficulties it brings for end-users, I just wasn’t comfortable using it daily.

So where to turn?

I’ve built a couple of sites on WordPress 3, which was a wonderful upgrade. It’s much more flexible while maintaining its ease-of-use and simplicity. Huge kudos to the team on that. But a CMS still feels like overkill.

Enter Jekyll. It’s so simple that it makes my brain hurt.

I’ve been writing my posts in Markdown for awhile. Essentially, it’s a human-readable syntax to write HTML without using a WYSIWYG editor. And with Jekyll, you write your posts in markdown, tell it a template to use to process said template, and voilà. You’re done. Your text editor is your CMS.¹

And it generates flat HTML files that are served lightning-fast and without reliance on a database, so no painful crashes because of a database being slow. It’s super useful when your wife and mom need to visit your site at the same time.

Analytics

I’ve also left my first love for stat-tracking. I was a happy Mint user for quite some time, but I was never thrilled with the blandness of the interface or the cumbersome upgrade process. So I turned where everyone else did, Google Analytics. But what good statistician is satisfied with once-a-day stats?

I’d remembered hearing a thing or two about Clicky at some point as well, so I checked them out.

I was amazed. They have some great features on top of what you normally expect from an analytics service. Maybe most of you have been tracking stats with this granularity for awhile, but here are a few things that are blowing me away:

• User-by-user sessions. Want to know what the user from Comcast in Scranton, PA at 8:18am did? You can see exactly which pages they visited. You can also name visitors so you know exactly who they are when they come back.
• Live stats. You can see how many users are currently visiting your site and the actions they’re doing as well.
• Native iPhone app. There’s a really nicely done native app with (limited) push notifications for your viewing pleasure.

Next Up

I really need to clean house. I did the HTML, CSS, and JS for this site a year ago. It’s a little embarrassing to think that folks are viewing the source on this baby. I’d also live to get access to bit.ly Pro and track shortened hits from jpcody.in. Oh yeah, and after a server re-organization, I need to update all my portfolio projects so the links work again.

Totally Lost?

I don’t know what to tell you, I’m sorry this wasn’t more exciting for you. Here are two wonderful things: The Inevitable Decline Due to Clutter by Seth Godin, a Japanese treadmill game, and a great post on liking, loving, and faith at my favorite blog of 2010.

This post is a response to Kenny Meyers' recent post, Making Friends. Read that, or you won't get this.

Recently, Making Friends has found its way into my Twitter stream umpteen times. In it, Kenny Meyers essentially makes the following argument: all of our superheroes have grown fat, old, and moderately decrepit, but we’re still insistent on lauding them and throwing flowers at their feet as they give 400 talks a year and switch from writing code to writing checks.

And it’s a point that’s rattled in my head on more than one occasion. As I sit through another 17 vapid masturbatory praise-retweets from someone I do consider or have considered a hero, I wonder why I still even keep up with them. Then I stop.

I think what he’s lamenting is just the way of life. The revolutionaries become the government, and a new generation finds their flaws and starts a new revolution. The old guard changes. That’s OK. Just because Jeffrey Zeldman and Jason Santa Maria aren’t saying things that are interesting to him doesn’t mean the community is on the brink of collapsing.

When Happy Cog unveiled their $800 a month hosting of LAMP-only stacks, Jeff Croft (on his Twitter account, which is private) made some interesting points about the complex needs of modern web applications. As did he when he perceived many people who are “Internet famous” prescribing responsive web design as a cure-all. He’s been a great example of having well-formed, contrary opinions.

Kenny says this in his piece:

We’ve psuedo-elected a representative body of like-minded people. When the IFs do disagree it’s over some trite bullshit like the HTML5 brand. They all chew and spit the same dogma. It’s not difficult to agree with platitudes.

Many people call that a community, but I call it a collaboration of fools. Where are the fire-starters? Why are we reading direction-less ships like Cognition? Does Andy Clarke really come up with compelling speeches 175 times a year? When was the last time you stopped and thought, “Wow. Jason Santa Maria really knocked my pants off.”

Well, I trust that Kenny’s going to step up to the plate from here on out, become that voice, make more effort to give back, and use his own Internet fame for what he sees to be good.

We all have our own decisions to make. We can choose to go to the latest web conference and hear 37 white guys give their 1,412th rendition of an hour-long talk. (And sometimes get some great value from it.) We can keep up with whomever we choose via Twitter, Facebook, RSS, e-mail, or old-fashioned stalking. So go ahead and follow, unfollow, friend, de-friend, or do whatever you do on a given network.

One thing I am sure about the web design and development community is that it’s one of the healthiest, kindest communities I’ve ever been a part of. Sure, there are some sour apples. But as someone still too dumb to have made many meaningful contributions (but working on it), I have access to my heroes in a way that isn’t the case in any other field I know of. I’ve had coffee, email exchanges, meals, and conversations that have made me feel the way getting a Greg Maddux autograph did as a kid. Except I can pretty much do it any time I want.

That’s amazing. And I’m grateful for it, even if I don’t agree with everyone on everything. (And even though there are plenty of people with whom I don’t agree on much.) But the more that we can hash out our issues publicly and kindly, the better the web will be for it.

Recently, I was reading an interview with former Apple CEO John Sculley on Steve Jobs. By far, my favorite snippet was this, as Sculley describes Jobs’ admiration for Dr. Edward Land, co-founder of Polaroid:

Both of them had this ability to not invent products, but discover products. Both of them said these products have always existed – it’s just that no one has ever seen them before. We were the ones who discovered them. The Polaroid camera always existed and the Macintosh always existed — it’s a matter of discovery.

It goes hand-in-hand with John Gruber’s description of Stanley Kubrick discovering the perfect camera angle in his wonderful talk, The Auteur Theory of Design.

Things already exist—perfect camera angles, ingenious product ideas, beautiful songs, new strategies. But we have to have patience and dedication, then put ourselves in positions to discover them.

Foreword: This matter has rolled around in my head for no small amount of time now. We'll see if I can write about it aptly. I'd like to clarify that this is an indictment of myself before any others. It's a way of thinking and a struggle I've found myself wrapped in. And many, if not most, if not all, of the people who come to your mind during this reading are phenomenal people. I'm not criticizing any one person but a system in general. You may continue.

The Church

The economics of creating a version of a secular product and aiming it at churchgoers are alive and well. This used to be primarily t-shirts and sermon themes. These, thankfully, became passe and generally the subject of ridicule. Lately, something new seems to have emerged. I wouldn’t argue that it’s the same thing or spearheaded by the same people, but I’m starting to wonder if it’s equally silly.

I’m talking about Christian blog networks, Christian Stuff White People Like, Christian conferences, et al. The market of “Christian” + [secular idea or product name] is alive and well, recession notwithstanding. Don’t listen to me, just note the 440,778 pixels of ad space on Christian TechCrunch.

An aside: Can we please stop using Christian as an adjective to describe inanimate objects. Your blog is not a Christian. Your book is not a Christian. I know it’s convenient and has become accepted usage, but maybe we could push away from that?

Moving along. We want to ask bold questions on our blog. We don’t want to be like the Christians that came before us. We want to be forward-thinking, break new ground, create conversations, tweetup, lead the social media revolution, and more. So we blog, and then other Christians comment on our blog. Or we create conferences, and other Christians attend our conferences.

We create a peer group completely isolated from those in the world who do not ascribe the term “Christian” to themselves.

The Resistance

If you haven’t read The War of Art, you’re cheating yourself. In it, Steven Pressfield lays out a fairly simple thesis: You were put on this earth for a purpose—to do some sort of work. And there is a force that opposes that work and manifests itself in a multitude of ways, which can be called Resistance.

He doesn’t make many assumptions about the particulars of what endows purpose or what is behind Resistance, but he does posit that both are spiritual issues. The Resistance can look like a lot of things: disorderly work spaces, distractions, unhealthy relationships, and so on and so forth. He’s actually fairly ruthless in his ascription of Resistance.

I’d argue that “Christian” things have become Resitance for Christians. It’s much easier to blog or attend conferences of like-minded individuals or start a Christian golf cart company than it is to go about our lives, spend time with people in some way unlike ourselves, and have constructive conversations about the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

What if we mess up? What if we tell them Jesus loves them regardless of whatever shortcomings we perceive them to have, but then we find that we don’t love them? What if we are convicted about something? What if we just don’t like them? What if we become entangled in relationships to the point that we have to stop using we and them language, but we become them, and they become us? Will my friends from church still like me? What if I find out that in practice, my theology is wrong, and I have to change what I believe?

Those are hard questions. They’re scary questions. Know what’s not hard and scary? Christian golf carts.

Doing Your Work

All things to all men, cultural sensitivity, relativity, effective communication. I know, I know. But I do find it hard to imagine that Jesus would spend precious seconds of his life firing up his Google Reader, clicking over to [insert blog name here], and commenting on whether iPads are going to be the future of church communication.

I’m a little averse to the idea of “What would Jesus do?” thing as a life choice metric as it assumes we know the correct answer to that question, so I don’t want you to put too much stock in the preceding paragraph. But we do need to ask ourself what we are to do.

I personally came to the realization that I was living in Resistance. My job was in a church. My writing was for a blog aimed at churches. My friends were from church. I was practically eating at a church. But unless someone stumbled into the church I worked at or happened to stumble upon something I wrote, I wasn’t influencing or being influenced by people unlike myself. And when your work is to make disciples, that’s not a healthy balance.

So my big ask is that we stop trying to become the next big thing in Christian culture or create the next huge Christian blog or start the next giant conference. Let’s do stuff, then write about it later instead of just blogging.

Less talking, more doing. Instead of creating a new site focused on iPad applications for emerging Christian leaders of the next generation catalyst synergy, coach your kid’s soccer team. Make cookies for your coworkers. Consider supporting your neighborhood association instead of paying airfare plus hotel plus rental car plus meals plus conference tickets.

Re-evaluate what your work is and what it should be, and make sure the two align well.

I wish iTunes had some sort of feature to stop playing after the current album. Here are alphabetical artist transitions that can bring any sort of zone I'm in, focus I have, or enjoyment of mine to a grinding and complete halt.

• Bon Iver to Bone Thugs-N-Harmony—From folksy falsetto to Flowmotion in two seconds flat. The most common and egregious transition.
• The Album Leaf to The Fantastic Mr. Fox soundtrack—Think chill, electronic post-rock. Then think of a hillbilly hoe down.
• Dixie Chicks to DJ Danger Mouse—Their Home album is thoughtful, and slow, and reflective. DJ Danger Mouse is Jay-Z plus the Beatles.
• Explosions in the Sky to Falco—Instrumental post-rock to Rock Me, Amadeus. Oh yeah.
• Radiohead to Rascal Flatts—A very, very swift transition from electronica to embarrassing.
• AC/DC to Alabama—I've never hit this one in day-to-day life as I don't listen much to either. But the thought is downright scary.

23 years ago today, a black sedan pulled into the parking lot of a nondescript brick building. The kind you see everywhere in the suburbs. Built at an indeterminable time between 1975 and 2000, faux columns, concrete stairs. You've seen them before.

The film flickers, the camera shakes, whispers become louder. The driver of the car approaches the rear, passenger-side door. Click. Creak. The camera drops. Now there is talking and shouting.

"It's Joshua!"

"Hold the camera, momma! No, no, take it, Steve!"

Feet shuffle. Nervous pacing becomes spirited jogging. The camera switches to a nausea-inducing view of pavement, but the tape records the laughter and tears and shouts.

You can't plan for moments like this. You think you'll film the whole thing. You think you'll hold the camera steady. But you're kidding yourself.

The moment you meet your child for the first time isn't a moment for planning, composure, and efficiency. It's not a moment that's filmed by Ken Burns and narrated by James Earl Jones. It's a moment filmed by dad and narrated by mom, both raptured a thousand times more than they expected when the back door opens.

The Delivery

This is the story of my birth.

I've watched the film time and time again. I've seen myself delivered from whatever unsure future I faced into the arms of loving and caring parents who wanted nothing more than happiness and success for me.

I've seen the beauty and power of adoption first-hand.

Before I was born, my father was born, in Ireland. Both his mother and father died, and he too was adopted—into the United States. Somehow, some way, out of an Irish orphanage and into a Massachusetts home. Were it not for adoption, I'd never be here.

Before my mother was born, her father was adopted. His mother died, and his father was a drunk who gave his sister away for a bottle of whiskey. Were it not for adoption, I'd never be here.

The Friends

Caroline and I have always had a soft spot for adoption and imagined it was part of our future. And in the last year, we've watched the Seays, the Vogeltanzs, the Joneses, the Lohses and the Hendricks either begin or end the adoption process.

We're beyond grateful to have such wonderful people in our lives—full of love and grace and humility. We believe in them, and we believe in their cause. We believe in their cause because we believe it's our cause and your cause. Adoption matters.

The Plug

Kevin Hendricks recently wrote Addition by Adoption, an hilarious look at adoption, parenting, and life. Kevin is a stand-up guy and a great writer, and he and his wife, Abby, live out what they believe.

So the purposes of this little story and plug are twofold: one, to let you know about what Kevin is doing. And two, if you are considering adoption, I want to buy you a copy. So here's what to do:

Ahem. The instructions used to be to comment, but they were from a previous version of this site where comments were in existence. But rest assured, a lucky soul received a copy of Kevin's book.

Efficiency is a friend to business and productivity, but it's an enemy of community. Trust and lasting relationships are built on the belief that the other party values you more than they value themselves.

And in order to truly value others, we set aside our schedules and plans. We let our coffee meetings run to two hours. We spontaneously drive an hour to Sonic. We take an hour on the phone even though we have a thousand other things to do.

If you're trying to keep your community efficient, you're depriving yourselves and those around you. Relationships are inefficient, but they're worth it.

Caroline and I are staying at a hotel in San Diego to get a three-day break from winter in Portland. We fly for nearly free thanks to parents at Delta, I can work from the road, and we scored a great deal on our accommodations on Priceline. Despite the good price, I'd never stay here again, but I'm not going to complain about it.

The guest representative let us know the airport shuttle would arrive in ten minutes, but it took an hour. I have called the front desk multiple times with no answer. Our bed smells like tacky perfume. The sink leaks to the bathroom floor. None of these things are major, but they add up. And, based on my experience as in high school statistics, four problems are not an anomaly, they are systemic.

Dang man, tell them!

I won't mention it. I'm not the complaining type. I tend to eschew conflict where possible, try not to be disruptive, and worry that I'm simply being a pain ¹. I'm having a great time with my wife exploring a new city, and I have better things to do than fight with an underpaid, overworked hotel manager.

But I'll never be back.

This is where it's important to use your own service, personally solicit feedback, get things right the first time, and fix problems before people ever complain. For every guest, customer, or individual who complains, there are plenty who don't. Who you'll never get back. Who are costing you money.

So what? You just got it on Priceline.

Every customer is just as valuable as another. Whether they are providing profit or helping to cut the loss, they're doing you a favor by choosing your organization. Whether they're using Webkit nightly builds or Internet Explorer, they're still a customer. Never become of the mind that one customer is more valuable than another. They're customers, and they're serving you. It's your job to give them the best possible experience.

If you're married to utilitarianism, then think of it this way: You don't know how frequently any given customer will return. You don't know their network and influence. You don't know when and where they'll review your organization. And as a business-owner, you can't afford to take a chance that their impact will be disproportionate to their price point.

Too negative, shut up.

All right, how about this? Same trip story.

My wife and I had lunch at Chick-fil-a here in San Diego. And some friends here in San Diego were so gracious to drive us—us being without a car and all. We ordered lunch for ourselves and friends, and one of the eight total items we ordered was not ready at the same time as the others.

They graciously informed us that they'd bring the sandwich to our table when it was ready. We didn't complain. No big deal. But when they brought it, they brought a coupon for a free meal along with it.

Later in the day, after our friends were gone, we took our coupon, bought two bus passes, and rode 30 minutes back to Chickfila.

Now that is how you proactively address problems and build intense loyalty.

Those of you who know me are likely to know I've been on the job hunt for awhile now. Little was changing for about seven months, and it was getting fairly discouraging. Unfortunately, the temptation to define our value based on external validation is part of the human condition. It just happens. But then, two-weeks-ago happened.

Between Tuesday and Wednesday, I received three job offers. I was on the verge of making my decision Sunday when another organization called to ask me to come in that afternoon for a pitch. Seven months unemployed, I had four people to give a final decision on Monday.

Why I Said That Stuff

This isn't an exercise in hubris. I was obviously unemployable for seven months; I would like to emphasize that. Some days I considered going out and applying for jobs that would have likely rendered me fairly unhappy. It's not fun to watch your wife work her tail off for five months while you freelance, look for jobs, and eat kettle chips.

But in those seven months, I pursued something I love. I tried things. I tried lots of different things. I learned the niche that I learned that I loved within the thing that I learned that I loved. I found people who were amazing at the thing that I learned that I loved and the niche that I learned that I loved within the thing that I learned that I loved.

I read. I worked. I created things to work on when people weren't paying me to work. I thought. I wrote. I thought some more. I tried not to incessantly refresh cnn.com and espn.com. I waitied. I wrote about what I thought and why I thought it.

And then I had the amazing opportunity to say no to three people.

But even more, I had the opportunity to say yes to Qworky.

What I'll be doing

Well, Qworky has a product. It's a product that's going to be a pretty big help to a lot of people. A product I believe in. A product that will have a website as soon as I finish making it. And Qworky has a team. A team of smart guys and girls who really believe in the product, genuinely care about people, and are smart as a whip.

I'll be the QX Developer, which is short for Qworky Experience Developer. I'll be taking their product and helping them make it a dream for you to use. Taking every hurdle possible that's between you and your work and leave it crying in the corner. Helping you get from waking up to doing what you love to not doing what you love and instead doing what you love to do outside of work.

I'll be doing a little freelancing for some time, wrapping up old projects and perhaps starting some new ones. But mostly, I'll be thinking about experiences, which thrills me to no end. I'll leave my nose in articles such as this, this, and this. I'll work from here. And I'll get one of these.

I feel fortunate and inspired that so many people who know me prayed for me, thought of me, connected me with opportunities, and truly cared for me. I feel grateful that I have a wife who worked so hard and waited so patiently while her husband sought his passion.

But most of all, I feel encouraged, and I hope you do too, that hard work, dedication, risks, and dreams still lead to great promise and opportunities. I hope you'll take these words as a challenge and encouragement to find and do whatever you love. To surround yourself with great people. And to live a fuller life.

A lot of folks have been complaining about the lack of multitasking on the iPad¹. And previously, on the iPhone. But they're framing this discussion in the wrong way.

Apple can't do multitasking

For some reason, this is how the debate is framed. "Apple can't figure it out." "The processor isn't powerful enough." "No multitaskz?! Apple FAIL!!11!."

The fundamental issue here isn't that Apple can't figure out how to offer multitasking or can't come up with the technology for it. The technology community keeps having that discussion again and again.

The real issue is that Apple doesn't want multitasking. Apple, like Dave Crenshaw, knows something that most of us are too stubborn to concede. Multitasking causes problems.

Problems? What problems?

For the casual user, multiple simultaneous applications present a paradigm problem. The model is abstracted too much. You have an application, in which you have a window (many times abstracted further by tabs), in which you have the tasks you wish to complete. At any given point, you might have zero windows open or one thousand windows open. Either situation brings confusion.

For the power user, multiple simultaneous applications present a paradigm problem. Too often I end up with this:

Just before I end up with this:

Or I end up with this:

All of which are confusing and irritating situations for me. I can imagine this is only exacerbated if someone is simply a casual computer user or new to computing altogether.

A better way

Apple, however, implicitly proposes a solution.

Allow multitasking. But by making switching applications just as simple as running multiple applications at the same time.

You want to multitask with applications? Just close one, open the other, and the SDK will allow developers to automatically save your state. System-level cut, copy, and paste also mean you can easily transfer text and images between applications.

Now, you no longer have to deal with multiple applications being open, memory being eaten by tasks you're unaware of, or crashes from too many things going on at once.

If each of my applications would open via a simple process in a near-instant, my need for multiple applications would be nearly obliterated.

Not completely though. From time-to-time I need to split windows like this:

And I consider some of my utilities that run in the background as non-negotiables (looking at you Quicksilver, TextExpander, 1Password, and Droplr.)

But you know who doesn't? Your mom. Or the average user.

Apple isn't looking to replace your MacBook Pro. Or your Mac Pro. Perhaps OS 11 will take things in the direction of the iPhone OS, but I hope not, and I doubt it.

What they've done is made a consumer-level machine that removes abstractions. No application/window/tabs/tasks model. No mouse and click model. No desktop metaphor.

It's not a failure. Or a misstep. Or a dealbreaker. It's just not a computer for you and your creative power. But for John Doe, the iPad is the future of computing.

1. No doubt, in some cases, because a contrary opinion will get page views and inspire counter-articles like these. For some, it's about the bottom dollar, not circumspection and contribution.   [Jump back]

In a link roundup over a month ago, John Nack from Adobe linked thusly:

How to make dotted borders in Photoshop. (Not hard, but we should simplify the process.) [Via]

And on Twitter, he said essentially the same thing, although not in the link roundup context:

How to make dotted borders in Photoshop: http://bit.ly/90bmx7 (Not hard, but we should simplify it.) (via @thinsoldier)

This didn't sit right with me, but I wasn't sure how to communicate what I was feeling. Sitting here today, with who knows what inspiration, it hit me.

In interfaces and systems, you should treat users like they're dumb. In conversations, this should never be the case.

Simplify your experiences, then simplify them some more. Provide simple assistance along the way. Any time users have to ask for help or misunderstand something, that's your fault, not theirs. Your experiences should aim to be intuitive and simple for anyone that you would like to use them.

This trick, shared by Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain, was making the rounds because it was a significant help to Photoshop users. No one at Adobe should write this off as, "not hard." Obviously, it is hard. And that's their problem, not the users'.

Lately, I've been particularly impressed by the idea that actual market saturation is a point much higher than I would anticipate. More simply, the sandbox is a lot bigger than I realized.

I tend to think, "Oh, someone is already doing X, so I need to think of something new." More and more, I'm realizing how wrong I am.

I'm coming to a point where I want to recognize my main competitors as my best contributors.

The iPad Again

I think Microsoft misses the boat here with their reality distortion field around Apple products. I'll include a couple of quotes that come to mind:

Watson claimed that many developers of applications for the iPhone OS–which the iPad uses–are not making money. Developing applications for the iPhone and iPad is expensive, he said, because iPhone OS uses the Objective-C language rather than Microsoft’s more pervasive .NET platform. And Apple’s control over the platform has alienated some people that make software for its products, he said.

Brandon Watson, Microsoft Director of Product Management, on the iPad (via Daring Fireball)

There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.

Steve Ballmer on the iPhone (via Electronista)

I think Microsoft displays an old model of business here. Armchair analysis and hours of watching Mad Men confirm that this practice took hold as marketing and advertising rose to greater prominence with the television. If you could tell everyone why that other brand of adult undergarments was underperforming¹, then they would select your brand by default.

A different, better mindset

But are these really the customers you want? The kind who just blindly believe you that the other guy is less good? And further, in this age where reviews are so accessible, your press release or off-hand public quote carry little value.

Instead, praise innovation. Praise your competitors. Assure your customers that you're excited that the bar is raised and you can't wait to deliver an even better product with these new ideas and some of your own.

There is more than enough room for two creators of operating systems. There is more than enough room for another concrete company, coffee shop, or whatever you're passionate about. But build on the work of your competitors, praise what they're doing, and make yourself better in some way. That's where success lives.

Earlier today, Neven Mrgan and John Siracusa were having a little chat about the adequacy of the automatic and manual transmission metaphor making the rounds in the iPad context.

If you don't know Neven¹, he's a bright and kind guy. But given his brightness, he tends to disagree with people online sometimes. Particularly, the aforementioned conversation and the occasional banter with Merlin Mann. And when he disagrees, he wants to keep it nice. So he adds a colon-parenthases emoticon².

Over time, this gets awkward, and it brought me to a simple realization, which I shall call Neven's Law. It can ring true of Twitter, online chatting, and email. Essentially, any digital, written communication:

The appropriateness of a medium is inversely proportional to the number of emoticons necessary in a given discussion.

Now, I appreciate them having these conversations in public so the masses can participate. But now that we have a law, perhaps we can apply it and bump these conversations up to the easiest-possible theater where emoticons are no longer necessary.

Or, we can continue with our emoticons—using them as clues for the audience that, "this would be better said elsewhere." But there you have it. Now go forth with your new knowledge and continue discussing.

:)

This idea hit me while navigating some sort of phone option choose-your-own-adventure thing:

Have an iPhone application that lets me select my options before calling, then hit a "call" button that goes straight to a human.

Want to go one better?

Allow the user to somehow let you know a favorite artist, perhaps when generating a support ID or upon calling, and generate a Pandora-esque playlist based on their preference as hold music.

And even one more. The best of all:

Have an iPhone application that lets me select my options, tells me an estimated wait time, and allows me to request someone call me when they're available.

These are the little things that make Cody Industries, Unincorporated the best intellectual property distribution organization currently sitting at 45.512013, 122.611064.

The iPad has generated lots of discussion about computing metaphors, computer interactions, and general technology. Of course, there's been plenty of the usual banter as the masses decry the closed platform, the evils of the App Store, the lack of an optical drive, and so on and so forth. That's to be expected of anything worth discussing.

Creation and Consumption

But I'm particularly intrigued at the discussion of creation versus consumption circling around Alex Payne, Joshua Blankenship, Tim Bray, and Peter Kirn. The first two gentlemen, in particular, are men who create things that make me want to a) be better and b) give up because I'll never match them.

Joshua Blankeship had this to say:

But the iPad is not designed to fill my desire to create, it’s mainly designed for me to consume the creations of others. It will change the landscape of personal computing and find its way into the hands of a ridiculous amount of people who are very happy to simply consume. My hands just won’t be among them anytime soon. I have too much creating to do.

He's a careful, caring guy. But I think he goes a bit too far here with his tone towards this machine.

The folks I've seen discussing this are in two fields—design and development. Ten inches of screen real estate and no physical keyboard aren't right for their type of creation. But for other creators, I think this device can really hit the sweet spot; especially at $499. Let's look at a few ways this could help creators:

Types of Creators

Writers. Imagine Ommwriter on this thing, with the physical keyboard dock. You've got a 10-inch machine, capable and portable, that's perfect for writing extended works. Additionally, no multi-tasking has the benefit of no distractions. It's also nice for people who need to create short-form content on the road: bloggers, copywriters, etc.

Photographers and designers. At $499, this would be a great second machine for creatives. Your portfolio, wireframes, sketches, etc. It's portability is key here. As a second machine, you could easily sketch things here as you spoke with a client, giving them visual feedback and brainstorming. And it works anywhere. Whiteboards are gigantic, and laptops are feature-rich. It's certainly a nice-to-have.

Leaders. With iBooks and portability, a device like this can give leaders the flexibility to inspire and challenge others as they go about creating environments and cultures. I know plenty of leaders who love their netbook because it lets them do what they need and create what they need on the go. I'm confident the iPad will only work better for this audience.

Learners. Creators are, by nature, learners. On your person, you can have The Elements of Style, The Elements of Typographic Style, Wikipedia, A Cormac McCarthy novel, your favorite photographer's entire portfolio, and anything else you need. There is a certain paralysis that comes with too much information, but there is also a certain freedom. I'd never be where I am today without the wealth of information made available online and the democratization of knowledge.

The Takeaway

I'm right with the spirit of what some of those before me have said. Creators have to constantly fight the battle of consumption paralysis. And ravenous consumption will inhibit the progress of many would-be creators.

And this device isn't geared for heavy-duty creation. But it can certainly help some people continue creating with more flexibility.

And what of consumption? Everyone consumes; it's inevitable. But it's not up to Apple what you consume. It's up to you.