Author: 37signals.com

Back in mid November we got an email from someone claiming that we were infringing on their “Haystack” trademark. To their credit, the email was kind and calm. No legalese, no pointed cease and desist, nothing harsh — just a “Hey guys, we’ve got a problem here…” email.

They felt our use of Haystack was infringing on their registered Haystack trademark in the “business information services” category.

Over the next few weeks we traded a few emails back and forth. We didn’t agree with their claim, but we didn’t want to get into a protracted legal battle either. Any time you can avoid lawyers is a good time. They agreed.

We discussed purchasing the trademark from them, but we couldn’t agree on a price. So in the end we decided we’d just rename our Haystack service. We were only a few months in, and we’re in this for the long term, so renaming early wouldn’t be a huge deal. We’d cut our losses and move on. The sooner the better.

Sortfolio

So today we announce that Haystack is now called Sortfolio. We kept the haystack.com domain name so the old haystack.com URLs redirect instantly to the new sortfolio.com URLs. No broken URLs, no interruption in service.

Promotion begins again

We poured a lot of promotional effort into Haystack during the first month. Lots of folks have been getting lots of work. Unfortunately we had to go quiet during the trademark negotiations. We didn’t want to promote a name we might have had to change.

Now that we’re back in the clear, and Sortfolio is live, we can begin our promotional campaign again. We’ve got some big stuff planned including a special, innovative promotion we’ll be running on The Deck starting in a few days.

We will also be giving all current paying Sortfolio customers a free month to say we’re sorry for having to pull back on promo for about 45 days. Details on this will be emailed to our paying customers shortly.

Find a designer or get a client

So, if you’re looking for a web designer, or you’re a web designer looking for work, check out Sortfolio today. Continued success to everyone.

Every time I see the Burj Dubai tower over the surrounding skyline, I think of Gaudi’s La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Totally different buildings, but similar skyline standouts.

Eko: A Traffic Light Augmented by Progress Bars.

Superhuman tape measure skills.

Craig Mod writes in:

I took a trip to the Himalayas about 2 months ago and brought a new camera with me.

I had such a blast using the camera I thought it would be fun to review it.

But I wondered why are camera reviews always so clinical? We don’t use cameras in clinical settings.

As an experiment I decided to combine a camera review with a travelogue. After all, we use cameras on the road, not in a laboratory.

I thought you might be interested in the final result.

In hindsight it was an obvious idea but I’ve yet to see anyone else do something like this before.

Neat idea and executed really well. Plus the photos are terrific.

The story behind the iconic design of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” (from this documentary about the album’s creation). The direction given by the client: “Simple, bold, and dramatic.”

We’ve talked here before about the benefits of a monthly recurring revenue model. With one-off selling, the customer pays you once and then you’re back at square one. But get them to subscribe and you get a steady drip of revenue.

Now obviously not every business can go with this model. But it’s worth asking yourself if there’s a creative way to get people paying you every month.

For example, nAscent’s Art Taster’s Circle offers up art subscriptions [via UD]. You pick a piece, they come and install it in your home. If/when you decide you’re ready for a change, they’ll come and replace it with another piece of your choosing. If you decide to go ahead and buy a piece, part of your monthly fee goes toward the purchase. No idea how large a market there is for this, but good for nAscent for experimenting with a new model.

You can sell bacon. Or you can start a
Bacon of the Month Club. You can sell wine. Or you can offer a Monthly Wine Club. You can rent one movie at a time. Or you can be Netflix. Here’s a list of dozens of other things you can get by monthly subscription.

Any other interesting monthly subscription models out there that you know of?

Some Getting Real-ish lessons from “The Accidental Empire of Fast Food,” a story about the success of Danny Meyer’s Shake Shack:

1. Have an enemy. In Meyer’s case, the enemy is fast food that strips away the human experience.

“The whole experience is to cram people into a cookie-cutter space, to feed them as many unhealthy calories as possible — then get them to leave,” said Mr. Meyer, the president of the Union Square Hospitality Group and the Yoda of Shake Shack. “That stripping away of human experience? That is where fast food went astray.”

Contrast and compare, then, with the three Shake Shacks in New York City, where patrons are cheerfully welcomed at the counter of a neighborhood-centered, urban-fantasy version of a burger roadhouse. On the menu? Whole-muscle, no-trimmings, fresh-ground, antibiotic-and-hormone-free, source-verified-to-ranch-of-birth, choice-or-higher-grade Black Angus beef.

Furthermore, “people have to wait in line just to place their orders,” Mr. Meyer, 51, said on a recent afternoon. “After that? They have to wait for us to cook their orders. And then? We hope they’ll stay awhile, as they eat. To enhance the communal experience.”

2. Resist growth just for the sake of growth. (Shake Shack is opening more locations now, but slowly and only after years of refusing to expand.)

The Shake Shack rollout is precedent-shattering for the Union Square Hospitality Group. “We’ve always resisted expanding anything, ever,” Mr. Meyer said. “We resisted offers in Las Vegas. We resisted reality TV shows. And it took six years with Shake Shack before we decided to go forth and multiply.”

3. Get real with it, put something out there, and see how people respond.

Mr. Meyer’s accidental empire began with a hot dog cart in 2001, part of an art installation in Madison Square Park. “To our astonishment, every day, a line would form,” Mr. Meyer said. The cart expanded into a burger stand, “and none of us had any idea that that could be a success.”

4. Keep things simple.

Shake Shacks “are profitable,” Mr. Meyer said. “They don’t need a robust economy to work. They have a highly focused menu. They are replicable. There is no reservation operation. There is no florist. And it’s a fun thing.”

5. Focus on quality not quantity.

“Our focus is not on how many you do,” [Meyer partner David] Swinghamer said bluntly. “If we can’t do it right? We won’t do it.”

Mr. Meyer commented that “we will grow as broadly as we can, without losing the quality, the hospitality, the community. And the sense of humor.”

And it’s working. Each of the Manhattan Shacks makes more revenue per location than either McDonald’s or Five Guys Burgers and Fries.

Related:
Choosing the right things to say no to [SvN]
Danny Meyer: Hospitality is king [SvN]

In “Menu Mind Games,” William Poundstone dissects this Balthazar menu (full size PDF) and tells you the logic behind its design.

Can you guess the tricks being used here? Click image to find out.

The piece offers a revealing look at how restaurants use typography and layout to drive customers toward high priced items. Also interesting is the strange jargon used by industry insiders, like puzzles, anchors, stars, and plowhorses.

A star is a popular, high-profit item—in other words, an item for which customers are willing to pay a good deal more than it costs to make. A puzzle is high-profit but unpopular; a plowhorse is the opposite, popular yet unprofitable. Consultants try to turn puzzles into stars, nudge customers away from plowhorses, and convince everyone that the prices on the menu are more reasonable than they look.

Related:
Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It) by William Poundstone [Amazon]
Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping by Paco Underhill [Amazon]

A lot of companies seek to control employees. They have handbooks and policies. They monitor emails. They make rules about what’s allowed and what’s forbidden.

But “control” is a tricky thing. The tighter the reins, the more you create an environment of distrust. An us vs. them mentality takes hold. And that’s when people start trying to game the system.

That’s why workplace managers who seek “control” might want to consider the advice Shunryu Suzuki gives in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind:

The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in its wider sense. To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him. So it is with people: first let them do what they want, and watch them. This is the best policy. To ignore them is not good; that is the worst policy. The second worst is trying to control them. The best one is to watch them, just to watch them, without trying to control them.

Imagine an employee handbook that just said: “We trust you. Be mischievous.”

Time: 21:36 | Download MP3

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Lessons learned at 37signals
In this talk, Jason discusses what he’s learned at 37signals over the years. Topics covered: The idea that you should “fail early, fail often” is bogus. Plans are guesses. Interruption is the enemy of productivity. Sell your byproduct. Emulate chefs. Focus on what won’t change. If you want to do something, you’ve got to do it now.

See related links for this episode. Previous episodes available at 37signals.com/podcast. Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or RSS.

Seth Godin asked some people to write a brief essay about what they think matters now. It could be anything. Even just an image if you wanted. Here’s who contributed:

The result: What Matters Now, a free 82-page PDF eBook.

I decided to write about apologizing. Specifically about saying “I’m sorry”. It’s an easy thing to do, but so many companies get it wrong.

Here’s my essay:

Check out the complete What Matters Now book today.

When things go perfectly, sometimes it’s hard to tell if it’s because your design was perfect or because your design didn’t matter.

It’s never really a redesign until you redesign it the day before it launches.

Legendary director Akira Kurosawa reportedly went to great lengths to make his films seem authentic.

His perfectionism also showed in his approach to costumes: he felt that giving an actor a brand new costume made the character look less than authentic. To resolve this, he often gave his cast their costumes weeks before shooting was to begin and required them to wear them on a daily basis and “bond with them.” In some cases, such as with Seven Samurai, where most of the cast portrayed poor farmers, the actors were told to make sure the costumes were worn down and tattered by the time shooting started.

Reminds me of how Sacha Baron Cohen never washes Borat’s suit.

A stickler for authenticity, during filming he never washed his gray Borat suit and never wore deodorant.

“The smell is an added thing for people to believe that I’m from a country where hygiene wasn’t a necessity,” he explains.

Sometimes it’s the little things.

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

—Parkinson’s_Law, discussed in this “Beyond The Pedway” profile of 37signals (and also years ago here at SvN: “Don’t break Parkinson’s Law”)

Camouflage Art by Liu Bolin: “Inspired by how some animals can blend into their environment, Liu Bolin from China uses camouflage principles to create amazing contemporary art.” Ya gotta see the rest of these too.

The About Samsonite page throws around important sounding phrases about embodying the brand, leveraging craftsmanship, and creating unique solutions.

By identifying trends and interpreting travelers’ needs, Samsonite continues to infuse innovation and new ideas into travel, re-igniting the sophistication and experience of the past.

Yawn.

It’s a good example of the way big companies wind up talking. Bloated language is what happens when copy gets filtered through a committee.

Compare that to The Saddleback Story, the tale behind bagmaker Saddleback Leather.

It all began when I had my first bag made while living in Southern Mexico as a volunteer English teacher to kids who needed a little help. I had looked everywhere for just the right bag, but with no luck…

In my search, I walked into a little leather shop and met the fellow working leather in the back. I asked him if he could make me a bag if I were to draw it out. I told him that I wanted this bag to be made so well that my grandkids would be fighting over it while I was still warm in the grave. He said “Si” and I said “Bueno” and that’s how it all started.

And it continues from there. Now that’s copy with a pulse. A personal story like that is something a little guy can deliver that a big corp can’t. A tiny company can bring people inside the fold this way and turn a perceived weakness (small size) into a strength.

More…

Are you reading Derek Sivers’ blog? He’s really been killing it with good posts lately. The “hippie capitalist” (he’s a musician who founded CD Baby) is a master at offering simple advice that delivers real impact.

Some recent examples:

• Let pedestrians define the walkways
• Present one idea at a time and let others build upon it
• The challenge: Don’t speak in future tense
• There’s no speed limit. (The lessons that changed my life.)
• Prob my all-time fave essay of his is Ideas are just a multiplier of execution (which was quoted in Getting Real)

His site also offers detailed notes on books he’s read with a focus on titles about business, investing, and psychology. I’ve found those notes are a perfect match for Instapaper, the iPhone app that lets you read web pages even when you’re offline and saves your place on longer pieces. Together they make a terrific subway reading combo.

Meetings: The practical alternative to work. (via Ariel)