Ai is pleased to announce that our very own Mayor Jack Reynolds has been nominated as a finalist in the Amusement category of the 13th Annual SxSW web Awards. The website, www.alexanderinteractive.com/jack, would never have come to fruition had it not been for everyone's favorite dog on the Internet. There is a wide array of Mayor Jack's video collection, the largest and most eclectic photo gallery of anyone online (man or beast), and a selection of buddy icons to download. Mayor Jack is quite the social butterfly, so there are also plenty of options for you to connect with him.

Mayor Jack Reynolds had this to say about the award nomination: "..."

Actually, he was sleeping. But it is safe to assume that if he was awake, he would have been grateful that he could inspire a website and if we all know him well enough, he is both humbled and excited to be considered for the award.

The SxSW Web Award Nominees can be viewed at sxsw.com/interactive/webawards/finalists, and the voting takes place online at sxsw.com/peoples_choice.

Ai is pleased to be mentioned not once but twice in this month's Internet Retailer. (We're in the print magazine as well as the website.)

The cover story, The dollars are in the details, quotes this author as well as other industry experts on how to nail the details in UXD. Ai's angle, as always, is to combine analytical research with active listening and observation of users' needs and behaviors.

More expansively, Alex Schmelkin and Josh Levine are quoted at length in a profile on customer-centric web design. Our mantra, as always: understand motivations, empower users, and test, test, test!

In addition to being mentioned in IR, Team Ai is also going to IR: in two weeks we'll be in sunny Orlando for the Internet Retailer Web Design 2010 conference. Ai has some serious coverage this year, which we'll be detailing in a news item shortly but includes:

• Two days of private design consultations, run by Josh Levine and Ed Samour
• Two live on-the-fly site critique presentations, featuring yours truly
• Ai's first expo floor booth; stop by and say hi!

One last one before the new year

Our VP of Security takes on an 8 legged intruder

Barring a last-second epiphany from one of our contributors, aiaio is going into its winter hibernation, returning in January. See you in 2010.

Ai has had, by its standards, a solid year. We've launched a number of websites that present industry-leading user experience and effective transactional intelligence.

We have been rather pleased, then, to have had our work widely recognized by the industry as best-in-breed this year.

Ai regularly submits its work to the Interactive Media Awards, an independent panel that rates websites on their design, execution and ease of use. This year, Ai sites received an unprecedented six Best in Class awards in a wide variety of industries, from ecommerce and B2B to politics and education. (It's not easy, either: the site we considered our most cutting-edge fared the poorest with the judges.)

In 2009, Ai also submitted its work to the Davey Awards for the first time. Several of our sites were considered noteworthy, and two of them, Ivanka Trump Collection and Mayor Jack Reynolds' website, received Gold Prizes from the Daveys. We're pleased to have been cited and are shooting for even better marks next year.

Awards are not the goal of Ai's output. Our work is not overly clever or cute. Ai's sites are effective: they help people achieve their goals on a site, and present options in an intuitive, inviting manner. That the industry's judges of quality rate our work so highly speaks to the changing nature of web design toward smart user experiences. We couldn't be more pleased about it.

Most importantly, awards reflect a team effort. No Ai website would be successful without the coordinated effort of all our disciplines: strategy handing off to user experience; creative giving solutions their personalities; the development team coding, testing, and innovating; and the project and engagement management that makes it all go. We innovate and problem-solve as a group, and the end results speak for themselves.

Our congratulations go out to our friends and clients at Air America, Chelsea Clock, Continental Airlines (International Restaurant Week is a two-time winner), Handy Store Fixtures, Ivanka Trump Collection, Pex Supply. We look forward to an even more successful 2010.

Earlier this week I was invited to speak at my son's 1st grade class. The topic was entirely open-ended: arrive, talk for an hour about something that I know about, and contribute to educating the future leaders of America.

I opted to teach the cadre of six- and seven-year-old learners about "How the Web Works." A few slides on the Internet, a few fun screenshots of websites, something called "HTML," a brave dive into the world of desktops-routers-servers, and a lot of Q&A. I did not know what to expect in terms of the class' understanding of websites, their purpose, or how they work.

Was I ever pleasantly surprised.

These kids knew everything. I showed BrainPopJr.com, FreshDirect.com, Amazon.com, SteinerSports.com, Disney.com, YouTube, Skype, Google Weather, Google Maps, and more. Every kid knew every site. "That's where Mommy and Daddy buy our groceries." "Yeah, we buy LEGOs, books, and Wii games there." "Can we watch Kittens Inspired By Kittens?"

They knew what a web browser was. They could identify every modern browser. Unsurprisingly, they asked "What's that N thing?"

Beyond the digital, I wanted to give the kids a sense of how everything on the web ties together. Stretching my own arts and crafts capabilities beyond their sensible limits, I prepared a number of wearable pictures of desktops, routers, and servers. We embarked on a game to route Internet traffic.

The kids wearing computers looked down at the site on their chest, found an available router walking around, connected a cable to the router, the router found the appropriate server for the site, connected a cable, the server connected back to the router, router back to the computer. Rinse and repeat. Seventeen times, with 17 giggling kids and their patient teachers. The scene quickly devolved into the controlled chaos of blue and red yarn crisscrossing the room. I think the kids got it. They certainly had fun clipping yarn to each other.

We returned to the digital Interwebs to enjoy the lighter side the Net. If nothing else I got to use all of the Keynote effects that Ai's Design Director never lets me have fun with during our sales pitches, most notably when I got to "peel away" a web page revealing the HTML under the hood. That felt great (Sorry Nathan.)

Now it was YouTube time. I sheepishly glanced at the head teacher, asking with my eyes, "Is this ok? Trust me..." and got back a subtle "Yes, but you better know what you're doing" nod.

If you thought Internet celebrity videos were funny to watch crowded around Pete-from-accounting's cube, I encourage you to try out a few with first graders.

Numa Numa incited a spontaneous 34-arm-flailing hysterical dance you'd more likely expect to see at a Phish concert. Think your co-workers do a good British accent? You should have heard my son's classmates lamenting Charlie's teething woes. And forget about that Sweet, Confectionery Precipitation. That just wasn't fair to the teachers that had to deal with these kids for the five hours following my presentation.

I had an incredible time. Most important, I learned quickly that the future of the web is in very capable hands. And I got to use the Keynote Sparkle effect.

Ai's Devin Ikram and, er, yours truly were interviewed for an eMedia Vitals article on web design and content sites. It's a good read, and covers both the high-level strategic perspective and the hands-on designer's view of the same topic.

Check it out: What's SEO without engaging Web design? on eMedia Vitals

Ai's own David Wertheimer is reviewing noise-canceling headphones on Boing Boing this summer. His first review, of the Etymotic hf2, just went live.

David has been (proudly and loudly) sampling headphones in the office and on his bike rides every day. The series should be fun to read. Stay tuned.

Days in transit: 1

Modes of transportation and personal conveyance utilized:

1. Taxi
2. Acela high-speed train
   
3. D.C. Metro subway system
4. Airport shuttle bus
5. Private automobile
6. MTA New York City subway system
7. Escalators
8. Elevators
9. People-mover walkways
10. Exterior stairs

• Two train stations
• One airport
• One parking garage
• One outdoor parking lot
• Seven subway/metro stations

Yesterday was the third successful Tie Tuesday at Ai HQ.

What, pray tell, is Tie Tuesday? As it sounds, it's when this otherwise ultra-casual office dandies up for a day, and anyone who's game sports some proper neckwear. Outfits range from tie-and-jeans to full slacks-and-shoes getups, and are worn regardless of client-facing assignments--two of us wore ties to a casual on-site client meeting yesterday.

Tie Tuesday came about naturally, after two of our developers wore ties on a whim in the same week. "Hey," we thought, "this oughta happen more often." But one guy wearing a tie does not a movement make, so acting on a tip from this author's wife, Tie Tuesdays at Ai were born.

We're doing it until Memorial Day. If you're in the neighborhood on a Tuesday this spring, just look for the dapper dons on the Shake Shack line. (Shake Shack Tuesday--now there's an idea....)

Ai took its second team business trip by train this week and came away completely satisfied with the experience.

We took the Acela from New York to Washington, D.C., a strikingly fast ride (2:40) compared with driving (4:15) and even Acela's own New York-Boston line (12 miles shorter yet an hour longer). Our entire trip was downright pleasant.

What makes the Acela so great?

1. Convenience. Train stations in the northeast are located downtown with ample taxi and subway access. (Compare with air travel: no hour-long $40 cab rides out of town.)
2. Hassle. Or, rather, the lack of it: no security checks, no traffic, no boarding by zone. Just a queue to get onto the train, and the odd requirement that we sign our tickets for the conductor. 
3. Comfort. The Acela is roomy: tall ceilings, wide aisles, lots of places to stand and stretch. The snack car is a pleasant walk and is staffed by inviting attendants. We grabbed four-seat work areas with fold-out tables, which allowed us to collaborate, and hang out, as a group. A beverage cart brought us sodas and Entenmann's cookies (!). The Acela's seats are on par with most airlines, but with better legroom.
4. Access. For three hours, we had respectable connections to the rest of the world via Verizon and AT&T cell phones. Acelas don't have wifi yet, but we tethered a laptop to an bluetooth EVDO connection and were able to email and share files comfortably.
5. Time. Going to the airport for a shuttle flight would have taken roughly the same amount of time as our train ride. But instead of spending most of that time in transit--driving to the airport, waiting on security lines, sitting without electronic equipment before takeoff, taxiing to a gate, taking another car into town--our three hours were spent comfortably, in a single seat, with laptops and phones fully operational.
   

Which is not to say rail travel is perfect. The Acela is far from its high-speed potential, and suffers from Amtrak's notorious reliability problems: on our Boston trip our train completely died in Rhode Island, then began running smoothly 15 minutes later. But at least there we were on the ground, looking at foliage, enjoying our comfy cabin.

Our trip was a success, and so was the commute. Here's to hoping President Obama's high-speed rail concept actually goes somewhere.

Click to zoom.

"The evil that men do lives after them;
the good is oft interred with their bones"
—Mark Antony, William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

Like a newborn baby, an idea is sensitive and needs special care. If you are not careful, you can actually kill an idea. On the other hand, if you nurture an idea, you can see it from conception to incubation to realization and application.

Here are some links to guide you through the nurturing process that can help you give constructive feedback.

1. Ways to kill and ways to help an idea: A good list of what to say and what not to say.
2. How to kill an idea, or help it grow: More suggestions.

After much cajoling, poking, and prodding, the office convinced me to perform a magic show at this week's Hamster Time (our Friday afternoon "blow off some web-steam" gathering).

Enjoy the show, part 1, part 2, and the encore.

Ai and Steiner Sports rolled out a great context-aware ad panel that presents product search results based on page content on espn.com.

The search widget, as we call it internally, receives a search phrase from ESPN when a page is called. The widget checks the steinersports.com database for related products, then shows the top two results on the page. There are also default items in place when the search phrase doesn't return any relevant results.

The widget is the product of a three-way collaboration between Ai, Steiner and ESPN. Our thanks to ESPN for helping to get everything running smoothly.

A full news item will be posted soon, but in the meantime, try it out: Derek Jeter on espn.com

Exactly one year ago this week we started Soup Club at Ai. Once a week, a different member of our staff received the high honor of walking over to Hale and Hearty Soups at 23rd & Madison. They presented a redemption form torn-up, taped remnant of a redemption form, got an employee to initial it, and walked out with a steaming hot cup of liquid lunch. They also got to choose the subsequent week's recipient. Thanks, H and H, for a memorable year.

Suggestions for this year's lunch club?

If you ever wanted to find me in the office just ask for the guy with the big headphones, bobbin' head, and deep bass lines thumpin' at a soulful, funky 4/4.

Music has always played a vital and spiritual role in my life, and to be able to have those sounds glisten in my ears while I apply my craft at my desk is purely harmonious.

Since I can't be at the clubs everyday, I bring the dance floor here. My mixer (keyboard) and turntable (mouse) help in producing some of the most illest, dirtiest 12 inch white label html mixes and css dubs. I'll even drop some vocals from our javascript guru's too.

I couldn't do any of this without the right equipment.

• Headsets:
  • Sony MDR-V700DJ Studio Monitor Series
  • Sony MDR-EX85LP Buds when I'm on the go
• Microsoft Natural Ergomic 4000 Mixer
• Microsoft Laser 4000 Tabletop
• Dual 20" Samsung SyncMaster 204BW Multimedia Players
• Notepad++ Media Controller
• Photoshop CS3 EFX-1000
• Custom Mods/Add-ons
  • Web Developer
  • Firebug
  • HTML Validator
  • Tails Export
  • Operator
  • WAVE
  • Yellowpipe
  • YSlow
  • Pixel Perfect
  • Screengrab

Ai is currently (and rather proudly, in this economy) hiring a few more hands for a busy spring season. We have several jobs posted and have heard from hundreds of people in the past few weeks. We've seen many good resumes and have a full slate of interviews this week.

Unfortunately, we've also heard from many people who are, to put it bluntly, doing it wrong. As our dear friend Loren has attested, few things about job placement are worse than misdirected or inappropriate contact. So I've made a short guide to getting one's foot in the door properly--and what it takes to do it right. Here's your 10-point plan for getting a job:

1. Read the job posting twice. If you've found a good job and are questioning whether you're a good fit, sit on it. Leave your browser for an hour, then come back and read the want ad. The right jobs will become obvious. Those are the ones you should reply to.
2. Follow instructions. If the ad asks for a cover letter, write one. If it asks about foosball proficiency, as one of ours famously did, mention it. This is your first deliverable: get it right.
3. Do your homework. Googling a company takes minutes and gives you a huge advantage. More than once we've been swayed to interview a candidate based on a love of dogs and an appreciation of Jack. One guy even sent us a photo of his dog. (We met him, too.)
4. Customize. Write a cover letter that speaks to the position you're replying to. A resume geared toward the position helps, too.
5. Don't spray and pray. I have received any number of responses to our IA position--a targeted, talent-focused role--from IT executives, software developers and designers. This position is wrong for all of them. "Getting the resume in front of the hiring manager" doesn't work, because I'm not filing good resumes away for future reference; I'm marking them as not doing #1 on this list.
6. Don't be pushy. Related to #5. Why did I receive 11 calls from placement firms when our ad says, "No recruiters, please?" Because they all believe in the no-no above. Sorry, guys, but we made our preferences explicit, and all you're doing is ignoring our request.
   
7. Be respectful. Showing up a few minutes early for an interview is a great first impression (and at Ai, it often means we'll start early, too). If you're running late or have to cancel, call us--we're people too, and we understand. Standing us up or rolling in late is much worse.
8. Ask good questions. Everyone likes to feel like they're interesting, and interviewers are no exception. Don't you want to know more about our company? Our client types? What all those photos on the orange wall are for? Immerse yourself and show us you want in.
   
9. Be thankful. Not grateful, silly; just send a thank-you note. A few sentences in an email is plenty. Just let us know that you're paying attention and you're still interested. It's not a decision-maker, but it adds to our overall impression.
10. Smile. Enough said.

Launching a website is time for celebration at Ai, as it marks the end of a phase for us. It is a gratifying feeling for all who have worked on a project to see it pushed into the world of the internet for all to see.

One of our office traditions is the creation of project memorabilia. Upon wrapping a project, it is common for all who worked on it to leave their signature on an item related to the gig.

For instance, upon launching Continental Restaurant Week 2008, the team all signed a chef's hat:

For Contract Pharmacal Corporation, a pharmaceutical drug manufacturer: two giant aspirin pill paperweights, autographed last week:

This ritual is another way for our team to feel a sense of accomplishment aside from the golive. It allows us to leave our mark within the office, displayed on the famed Orange Wall in our foosball room. It is generally initiated by the project manager of a project as a "Thank You" and "Job Well Done" to their team, and is a fine example of how much pride Ai employees take in their work.

David Wertheimer just sent a note to the company saying the next two people who post a blog entry to AIAIO will get Shake Shack this Friday. We can get whatever we want, and he's paying.

I would like 1 Double ShackBurger, 1 B&W shake, and onion rings, please.

Ai has an active internship program. We have two in the office now, one gaining work experience, the other earning course credit (and, we hope, gaining work experience too).

Intern Cat Small is winding up her internship today, and wrote up a summary of her experience, which she shares here:

When I applied to work as a Web Design Intern at Alexander Interactive, I had no idea what I was in for. Coming from a one-man small business to a full-grown office was amazing.

I arrived for the interview early, not knowing what to expect. Katie was at the front desk, and I thought she was nice. As I waited for Jim to interview me, I glanced around and took in the atmosphere. I looked at the magazines, thinking that it was very nice of them to provide guests with material while they wait. Jim soon came out and interviewed me briefly. It was nice, and I noticed how large the office was (at least compared to my last job). I left the interview feeling hopeful and relieved. A while later, I received a response saying I was hired.

Working at Alexander Interactive for the past 3 months has been a wonderful experience. Everyone is amazingly friendly and the office has a home-away-from-home feeling to it. Instead of dreading coming to the office, I felt excited to see what my next assignment was, what bagels would be there on a certain day, and what Hamster Time would be like on another day.

I learned so much about communication, project management tools, web design, and many new phrases including 'sync-up' and 'ping'. I also learned an important lesson about balancing work and fun. Many jobs are stressful, and web designing on a tight schedule often is. However, in a good environment, you can cool off and come back to your work with a new, more positive outlook.

I thank everyone at Ai for being so kind to me and hope to work there (or some place as wonderful) again in the future.

Cool weather or not, Miami Beach was a great destination last week, as Ai hit the Fontainebleau Hotel for the Internet Retailer 2009 Web Design Conference. We enjoyed four three days of sessions, interviews, private consultations and networking with retailers from around the country.

As presenters, our favorite day was Thursday, when Josh Levine and I each took the stage. Josh and Action Envelope's Seth Newman gave a smart and fun presentation on the Ai/Action relationship and the most recent site launch. It was well received and by far the best-looking presentation deck of the week.

I spent the afternoon giving live, off-the-cuff design critiques with Ethan Giffin of Groove Commerce and Betsy Emery of Tellus. We had great rapport, strong audience participation, and thighs of steel as we stayed on stage for two and a half hours.

Many thanks to everyone who took the time to talk with us and exchange ideas. We'll see you at the Internet Retailer Conference and Expo in Boston in June.

Headed to Miami for Internet Retailer's Web Design '09 conference? So are we. Ai will be in full force during Monday's website consultations, and we'll presenting a case study and sitting on a panel in the redesign workshop. Stop by and say hello.

We'll also be Twittering from the conference--we're working on a local display, but you can follow #aiaio tweets here as well.

Being a web designer at Ai brings many interesting things to my plate. Today, for example, I stuck superhero bodies on 17 kindergartners' heads.

Let me explain. Our president, Alex, volunteered to have his son's class come for a visit to see the company and what we do. The agenda for the day was to teach the kids how a website is made, have some snacks and pizza, and partake in a couple of creative activities, which would lead to their very own website.

The excited and curious children kids settled in the conference room with hot chocolate and heard a brief introduction about websites in general and clients. Then they were taken on a tour through the office, to learn how a website is made with quick stops at the desks of people from each department.

Then it was website making time. We had them draw their own postage stamp designs on a piece of paper that could be sold on a website. After they were done, I came in to show them the "ecommerce" website I had designed for them that would soon showcase their art. Everything was in place in my Photoshop file except for one thing, which I needed their help to finish. On the homepage were 3 rows of kids' heads (which I had cut out from their school pictures) floating in space without bodies. We had an assortment of bodies for them to choose from to attach to their heads. We had Batman, Cinderella, The Hulk, Snow White, Spiderman, and others. Excitement filled the room and "OMG! That's me!" was screamed about 20 times before the teacher had to calm everyone down. The kids picked their new bodies, I dragged the bodies to their heads, and the new image was uploaded to our server.

Nick, our front-end engineer, then showed how the HTML can be changed and modified. Using Firefox's plugin, Firebug, he showed the kids how it's possible to change text colors, font sizes and background colors very easily. When Nick finished, the stamps had been scanned and uploaded behind the scenes and were live for Nick to show them in the gallery. The website also featured video clips from the day that we had taken during the activities, including an inspiring performance of the kids' school song.

The day took a lot of planning and was executed perfectly by all involved. The results: Some very happy kids and pizza for all--including a pleased but exhausted Ai team.

The Ai bake-off was a huge success.

Ten entries and a few thousand calories later, developer Sean's "Crack the Code Cheesecake" took top honors, followed by a hotly debated second-place showing by, of all things, a bacon dish and fender Ashley's "Depressive Cupcakes." True to our friendly competitive spirit, an active debate is raging as to whether the bacon (sweet but not baked) is more or less appropriate an entry than Brazilian empanadas (baked but not sweet).

The agency bake-off idea is proving popular: someone just bought agencybakeoff.com and registered the Twitter account. Ai's expert bake staff accept all challenges.

We love to have fun friendly competition. We've done bowling, pool and even paintball outings. Now we're competing to identify ideas.

Recently our lead blogger David Wertheimer headed up a competition that will in turn get this blog rolling with content. The way it works is that if at any time during the day (even in client meetings, since it makes for a good conversation starter) you hear someone mention something blogworthy, you simply call out "Blog Post" and earn a point in the game, with a second point going to whoever writes the post. We also are having a baking competition tomorrow.

I feel like these competitions are good but they do raise some concern. I've done some research on competition in the workplace and have found some interesting observations. 

Jody Urquhart advises companies not to create undue competition among individuals:

Urquhart says that when employees have the notion that surpassing others is more important than doing a good job, they lose focus and start putting out low-quality work. She says that organizations can achieve so much more when they channel the same energy that drives competition into work that requires collaboration and shared objectives. "Cooperation should be valued over competition" writes Urquhart, "because teams are far more powerful than individuals.

In a world of no-holds-barred competition, those who rise to the top are the most ruthless, the most driven, and -- all too often -- those with the weakest consciences. Who rises to the top? The most able and honorable competitor, or the cheater? Can you tell until it's too late? Does the rash of top executive prosecutions tell you anything about the results of a "winner takes all" outlook?

Today marks the launch of Ai's blog on Movable Type, version 4.23. We've migrated from Blogger, which has been a sufficient but quirky host, to a locally installed open-source blog platform. Ai is a fan of open-source platform and we're delighted to use open-source MT.

Using MT, we hope to expand our blog's performance in numerous ways, one of which is to open our blog (at least for a little while) to the entire company. For the next few months we hope to have a diverse slate of bloggers contributing thoughts and ideas from Ai. Look for more items on coding, design, best practices and the like. And, of course, food.

Happy Holidays to all of our friends, families, clients, blog readers, and fellow internet-makers. Be sure to check out our 2008 Holiday Card.

Each year we close the Ai offices the week before New Year's. This year, the way the weekends fall, we'll be out for 11 consecutive days. It's a well-deserved break for our hard-working staff. And while we're off, free of blackberries, Photoshops, Rails gems, and AJAX libaries, we'll be thinking of what is ahead for us in 2009: contributing to open source projects, speaking at conferences, more mobile websites, and continuing to crank out incredible design and dev work on some of the web's most challenging interactive projects.

Have a wonderful holiday season, and a Happy New Year.

Junior front-end engineer Skottey Forden penned a heartfelt letter to Ai that he wanted to publish publicly. Happy holidays, and happy anniversary, Skottey:

One year ago today I sat down in my desk chair for the first time. Uncertain of what to expect of my first real-world industry job, especially as a lowly intern, it's easy for me to express the mix of nerves and excitement I was enduring. To look back on that day seems almost silly considering how much Ai has grown on me. It has become my life and my reason to wake up in the morning, and in one year's time I now feel like my employers and co-workers are more like family to me than merely people I work with.

Throughout my internship and from the start of my full-time employment, this company has given me endless opportunities to flourish and grow for myself and my abilities in the facets of work that we do here. I learned a great deal in my years of higher education but the skill sets that I have obtained through my time at Ai have no comparison. Every day that I spend in our office I am surrounded by the most inspiring and intelligent people who collectively work together to create the most beautiful and functional interactive works I have seen and am proud to play a role in.

To work at Ai, one must obviously have the talents necessary to do your part in building a quality product for our clients. We must know how to execute the tasks assigned each day, how to manage time, and how to treat your work as if it is your baby.

But a spirited attitude is almost an unspoken prerequisite to be a part of our team. Ai prides itself not only with its work but the cheerful and diligent demeanor of all those who call Ai "home." The Ai family is constantly motivated to learn and build on capabilities to produce high-level and technology-driven design and interactive works with the end-user in mind. To achieve this sought-after quality of work, sharing a positive attitude is almost a necessity. You will not find a single person through the Ai office doors who does not share a claim to this perspective.

With one year past there is a clear and bright future ahead for myself and Ai as a whole. With a new year just around the corner the boundaries seem endless in all that we as a team are capable of. Tonight our collaborative team of programmers, coders, designers, project managers, strategists, quality assurance specialists, system administrators, information architects, interns, and of course the head honchos all embark on our year-end holiday party. I could easily say, "Hey guys, thanks for throwing me an anniversary party, that's terrific!"

On the contrary, my humility is saying that our party is just that--a celebration and a time to reflect on the spectacular work that we have accomplished. To the Ai family: I thank you all for taking me under your wing and giving me a place to grow and call home. I look forward to stepping into a new year with all of you and I can't wait to see what is in store for us.

Tips for making the best impression with your emails is my latest column for iMedia Connection. As with the last one, it's practical advice for email marketers, based this time on my observations and experiences with airlines' communiques. Check it out.

Ai technical director Martin Anderson and senior developer Ed Samour are speaking at Apachecon in New Orleans this week.

Developers attending the conference should visit the OFbiz symposium Thursday to see their presentation, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love OFbiz. The rehearsal was fascinating and fun--don't miss it.

Ai has a unique holiday tradition: on Halloween, the office exchanges costumes, Secret Santa-style. Everyone gets dressed in full upon arriving at work, and we spend the day in costume, including an all-hands trip into Madison Square Park.

Among the notable costumes this year:

• Several impressive homemade costumes, including human sushi, an oompa loompa, and a person dressed as Facebook (my favorite)
• Three men in tights
• A banana and a monkey, who chased each other in public at lunchtime
• Several personality-appropriate costumes, most notably the official Hofstra University mascot (although we all love Mario from Nintendo)

IDEO's toy group generates up to 100 ideas in a 60-minute brainstorming session.

Each week at the Onion, editors propose as many as 600 articles before settling on 18 to write.

Creative organizations need room to experiment. Give people space to think, propose, iterate, attempt. From the many sparks of creativity come the flames that burn brightly.

Ai adheres to this mantra. We rcently developed a logo for a client that began with 94 different suggestions (and 30 or so concepts in the first revision). Had we done less, neither we nor the client would have found the best solution.

Do you give yourself room to be creative? How?

I am pleased to announce the release of Ai's first whitepaper, Free Shipping: Holiday Hit or Headache. As the title suggests, this paper summarizes the research and opinions across the ecommerce industry about free shipping for the 2008 holiday season.

Following the research is an eight-point list of suggested holiday strategies. We cover free shipping, as expected, as well as discounting, loyalty programs and repeat-purchase incentivization.

Since this is the blog, I can tell you I had great fun researching and writing the whitepaper, and that I have more topics in the works. Look for them here and on the Ai news page in the coming months.

Ai technical lead David Yoon made a great compilation of Web 2.0 Expo observations, below. This wraps our conference coverage.

General points from the conference:

Technology: the conference from a technology perspective was very heavily focused on just a few topics:
-- cloud computing and the problem of scaling websites
-- next generation of browsers and bringing web applications even closer to desktop applications
-- graphics and the re-emergence of Javascript as a hugely important language

Wednesday

Lessons from Visual Programming with JavaScript: John Resig (creator of jQuery) talked about Processing.js, a new library that he created to help interact with the canvas element.

10 things we've learned at 37 signals
--I thought this was one of the better talks of the conference
-- planning is overrated/decisions are temporary/optimize for now
-- create waves of interest -- momentum is very important
-- interruption is the enemy of productivity
-- out-teach, out-share, out-contribute
-- most of these points are applicable for small, non-client facing tech shops

Go REST with Rails
-- DHH gave a great talk about REST and Rails, aka reasons for a restful architecture (mainly for communication/interaction between sites), and discussed some of the features that are built into the framework to handle it. Most developers here already know the principles/reasons but it was a good presentation.
-- Support in rails 2.1 for etags/not modified headers

Thursday

Building in the Clouds: Scaling Web 2.0
-- Panel discussion about cloud computing from a variety of companies (google, 10gen, amazon), where it currently is and how to make best use of it.
-- Ability to scale massively in a very short amount of time - example of the facebook photo application that scaled from 5 servers to 5000 in a week using amazon.
-- Not suited to all application/companies, developing for cloud applications requires a shift in developer mentality.
-- Relevancy/importance of cloud computing

Designing for the Internet(s) of the future
Very interesting talk by Genevieve Bell - anthropologist researching trends in global internet usage
-- China now has more active internet users than the US, this trend will continue
-- Internet is becoming widespread in the developing world, though generally it's become shared (1:many people per device), asynchronous (delay of days/weeks between the transfer of information)
-- Trend toward disconnecting from the internet
-- Concerns: Privacy issues, cultural health

The sequel to SQL: Why you won't find your RDBMS in the clouds
Great technical talk about object databases/cloud computing.
-- scaling databases: partitioning (sharding) over multiple servers is hard/slow when using relational databases
-- object databases
- examples: BigTable (google), SimpleDB(amazon), Mongo (10gen)
-- pros: scaleable
-- cons: - no joins across tables...
- eventually consistent (not good for banking transactions)
- query limits (1000 entities for google, 250 for amazon)

Friday

State of Web Development
-- chrome/gears, web applications are becoming more and more like desktop applications
-- js will become *really* fast in the next generation of web browsers, the language will potentially have much more influence
-- rise of Ajax as the important medium for providing a better user experience.

Guestblogging today are David Yoon and Sean Auriti, two of Ai's developer team, who attended the conference and shared their observations.

Here are Sean's thoughts. We'll post Yoon's on Monday.

Sean

"REST with Rails" was a good refresher with some good points on keeping the code DRY as well as providing different formats of content using a single url.

Great takeaway: keep it restful, every resource should have its own controller.

I learned some things on the new rails 2.1 caching methods... can change etags, expire time. Saw how simple coding can be by using rest methodology. Very easy to implement, atom feeds, api calls and csv exports.

Presenter David Heinemeier Hansson is the creator of Ruby on Rails and a partner at 37signals.

Barry Libert's "We and Me" presentation at Web 2.0 was certainly enthusiastic. In reviewing my notes, I'm noticing that if you combine his concepts with Chris Fahey's session on seduction, you've really got something....

Businesses are not good listeners. The good news is that Web 2.0 allows them to create conversational websites that lure customers in (Barry). To do this, the sites need to dazzle, amuse, and deliver with flair (Chris). Forget about "what I can tell you" (Barry). Flatter them, tempt them, create mystery (Chris).

Be rewarding--use contests and givebacks combined with open communication (Barry). Plan for delight, and evaluate the results with psychology and emotion (Chris). Seduce (Chris). Converse (Barry). And see your sales and satisfaction levels rise.

Avinash Kaushik's session on analytics for the Web 2.0 era was the most informative and useful session I encountered. Not only is Avinash entertaining and knowledgeable, he spiked his presentation with clever lines and actionable takeaways.

Defining bounce rate: "It's my favorite statistic. I came I puked I left."

Analytics: "It's often 90% what happened and 10% what to do. It should be 90% what to do next and 10% what happened."

His statistics callouts are good reminders of what all site operators should be monitoring. Event logging. Success metrics. Visitor loyalty. Visitor recency.

Data mining is a crucial piece of doing business online, especially in a slowing economy. Ai is expanding its analytics team in order to capitalize on the very things Avinash underscored last week.

One of my favorite sessions at last week's Web 2.0 Expo (and I'm not just saying this because he's an old industry friend) was Lane Becker's Customer Service Is the New Marketing. Lane runs Get Satisfaction and sees these things firsthand. His insights were smart and useful for anyone selling products in the 21st century.

Lane's big takeaway: "Act like a hotel concierge." Stark and obvious, it is nevertheless an important reminder to anyone in business. Consumers treated with respect and a can-do mentality will develop loyalty and appreciation above and beyond a basic liking of product or service.

This theory is important for us locally, both inside and outside Ai. We don't have an account management team, which makes our project managers (and our president, and assorted other employees) directly responsible for keeping our clients happy. This makes communication a priority and minimizes siloed output, both of which Lane cites as vital to success.

Lane's suggestions have a more obvious application with our clients, many of whom run successful ecommerce businesses. The more they listen to customers and gear their sites toward client satisfaction, the better they will be at pleasing and retaining business. And as Lane noted, even a modest increase in customer retention can nearly double a company's profit.

These concepts also touch upon a recurrent theme of the expo (and of Web 2.0 in general): the power of users to beneficially transform businesses. The time has come for companies to embrace the shift in customer communication.

Yesterday was another day of Smart Overload at Web 2.0. To see both Tim O'Reilly and Clay Shirky in the same hour, then attend several thought-provoking sessions, was a great way to continue the week.

Some of the callouts I hope to explore in depth in this space next week:

"Web 2.0 means letting users into your back office." --Tim O'Reilly

"If you continue to try and solve a problem and fail, perhaps it's time to consider it a fact, not a problem" --Clay Shirky (paraphrased)

"It's not technology, not 'what can I sell you,' it's about businesses having conversations, and caring." --Barry Libert, Mzinga

My colleagues are at the conference today, and I'm looking forward to hearing about the sessions I've missed.

Come back Monday for continued commentary and ideas.

We interrupt our Web 2.0 Expo coverage (such as it is) to point you to the burgeoning press exposure of, well, us.

Alex and Josh (and Jack), SAI 100 Nominees--voting is active, and as of this writing they're #16 on the list! Please stop by and show your support.

Alex in the Observer--talking real estate alongside Fred Wilson (and here's some Web 2.0 Expo conversation, just to be topical).

And finally, we're participating in Internet Retailer's Web Design 2009 conference. Josh is presenting alongside Seth Newman of Action Envelope, while I'll be on an afternoon panel, and several of us will be hosting design reviews in the pre-conference. Hope to see you there.

Just back from the first full day of the Web 2.0 Expo. (It's still rolling; I have a couple of colleagues awaiting the Expo Floor Crawl in an hour or so.) My early report is that it's really very good--no disappointments, no real surprises, just lots of meaty, thought-provoking content.

I particularly enjoyed Lane Becker's presentation on customer service as the new marketing, much of which matches my own thinking. And Avinash Kaushik's afternoon session, Web Analytics 2.0: Rethinking Decision Making in a "2.0" World, was a standout: his smart, funny presentation was delivered to the most crowded room of the day. The expo floor (and the box lunch--thanks, Sean) were as expected, with a vibrancy that was appreciated amid a gloomy week in the New York business world.

I'll be back at the conference Thursday and Friday, and over the next week or two I hope to publish followup posts on each topic I explore during the expo. Stay tuned.

We're nearly two weeks removed from UX Week and the concepts and theories we explored are still permeating our company. More than just an industry conference, UX Week was a gut check: how are we approaching our craft, and how can we learn from our peers to improve our processes?

Among the ideas we're exploring this fall is a prototyping sequence. Ai typically operates in a linear process (outside of development): great research begets great architecture begets great design begets great websites. But many of our clients are collaborative, proactive or just plain curious. For them, an iterative, rapid-prototyping model may allow us to share ideas quickly and powerfully, and save time later on. We haven't finalized the process yet, but we're excited to try it.

We're also going to spend more time in whiteboard sessions than at our desks. Sharing ideas early is key to an integrated approach, and we've had great success in recent months bringing developers, strategists, designers and IAs into one room to hash out ideas.

But most of all, we're still digesting the great perspective offered by some of the presenters. Zipcar: "We're an IT and marketing company that happens to have a lot of cars." Pixar: "Use small teams for complex problems, and fail as quickly as possible." Solid learnings that are not soon forgotten.

So here's the thing about going to a UX conference (and the reason Josh had me join him): with UX on the brain, everything exudes an experience.

The experience of my canceled flight and frantic rebooking. (More on that later.) The experience of the first class/Clear security line. The experience of my swanky modern hotel room. The experience of attending a forward-thinking conference in a deliberately old-world venue. The experience of eating lunch. Even the conference itself gets scrutinized--the packet, the registration booth, the timing.

Properly aligned, user experience really does impact all aspects of a consumer-driven society. It certainly makes its home online, where the experience is a heavy majority of the overall opportunity; but the general concept carries through elsewhere. Like customer service phone calls. And ecommerce home deliveries. And....

Josh and I are on our way to UX Week in San Francisco. I'm looking forward to seeing my old friends at Adaptive Path and soaking up the collective wisdom of our young industry.

Twitter doesn't seem to have a with_friends feed anymore, so check our own feeds (Josh / me) for live updates--yes, Josh, that means you--and check this space for longer thoughts as time allows.

I wrote an article for iMedia Connection that was published today.

5 ways to avoid common email blunders is--well, the title sums it up nicely (thanks guys!). It's a bit of practical advice for the many companies who may be running mailing lists without considering the big impact of little details.

I hope to publish regularly in iMedia Connection and elsewhere and will be sure to cross-link any posts from this blog.

Update, July 28: my article was picked up by shop.org the day it was published, and appeared this morning in their top-5 "most clicked" list. I'm pleased to see such widespread interest. Look for essays on similar topics on the Ai blog as well as elsewhere.

Last post.

I am going to be moving on, leaving Ai in the capable hands of the excellent people who work here, and this blog in the hands of David and whoever else he can pull into it. Instead of blathering on about tech, I'd like to take this opportunity to talk for a minute about my heroes and influences.

There are a few pivotal figures that taught me a number of critical lessons. These people influenced me and have shaped my thinking about life, career, people and the universe in general. They are a disparate group, and at times seem to have little in common, but each one has brought a unique perspective and insight into their particular slice of life.

Lets start with the parents, of course. My Mom taught me about compassion for other humans, and taught me at an early age that "I can do anything I want in life" - proving that it's possible to teach freedom.

My Dad taught me about ethics and principles, and how to work with groups of people. He also bought home a dumb terminal with a scroll of paper attached to it, with which he proceeded to call up the DEC-10 at his work, to let me play the dungeon game that ran on it there. I was immediately eaten by a Grue, and my life changed forever.

Claudio Adolpho Iedwab, South American martial arts champion, and the creator of the Gorindo School, taught me about true excellence and how its possible to push one's self to new heights. He also taught how its possible to be scary good at something, and yet humble and friendly.

John Harris, band manager, concert promoter, deal maker, and founder of the Harris Institute, was the first person to teach me about business, leadership, and negotiation. Introducing himself as "someone who has never held a job", Harris has built an enduring legacy around him, touching the lives of scores of professionals in the Canadian music industry.

James David Smith, hardware guy, self taught, self made, my former employer and later business partner. Runs a business that makes remote controlled lighting equipment used on Broadway. Also, ever see the scrolling signs on the Toys 'R Us store in Times Square? Him. Ever see the scene in Phantom of the Opera where the stage seems to be on fire? Him. He is the kind of person that will casually teach himself trigonometry as he needs it. Jim taught me about entrepreneurship, and the incredible power of following through on a great idea, and making it happen.

And finally,

Alex Schmelkin and Josh Levine - founders of Alexander Interactive. From them I've learned about consultative sales, about maintaining a culture that is both fun and excellent, but most importantly about having the courage to recognize when it's time to change the way they're doing things, and then swiftly moving on implementing that change. This commitment to continuous improvement, (instead of clutching ideas the way so many people do), is one of the things that distinguishes them in their industry, and in the world of business in general.

I thank them for the opportunity to work with them, and with all of the other great people at Ai. I'll miss you guys.

One of the fun things about being a small company with a hang-loose mindset is basic office flexibility. Among other things, this has led to a good amount of commuting by bicycle.

In a city where millions are encouraged to ride bicycles, then aren't given anywhere to put them, Ai welcomes cyclists right into the office, where the concrete floors and century-old radiators make for ideal short-term bike storage.

We have one hard-core daily biker and several other occasional riders, including this author. On any given morning, people seated near the service elevator open the door several times for a cyclist and his gear.

Bicycling to work is good for everyone: it's healthy, non-polluting, and takes bodies out of the transit system. It also fosters a little community of riders in the office, some of whom meet and ride in together every now and again.

Life at Ai: healthy and fun! Like the office foosball table....

Imagination is a scary word in business. It raises images of finger painting and story time. It threatens business people with the onus of being creative - a place that may be out of their comfort zone. There is a constant search for repeatable formulas that can be brought to bear on business decisions; formulas that relieve business from the necessity of periodically re-examining the fundamental assumptions the form the foundation of their day-to-day activities.

Imagination, however, is the critical ingredient in business success. Imagination:

1. Allows one to see past the existing context, the ideas and assumptions, that form the foundation of the many day-to-day activities of business. This is creative destruction.
2. Allows for perception of the larger environment - the big picture. This shows the fundamental market and societal forces bearing down on the business.
3. Allows for a synthesis of a new context, one that is more in alignment with the larger environment than the old context.

Ai is currently hiring a user experience lead to add to its UXD resources. (We're hiring a freelance IA, too... email me if you know anyone for either position. But I digress.)

I have gotten an unsettling amount of recruiter contacts in the days since we posted the job ad. Most of them are polite enough, and I turn them down, politely. This is nothing new; Loren and I have a long history of frustration with muscle-in tactics.

But I occasionally get inquiries that just blow my mind. Consider this, which came to me via LinkedIn, which is usually a good place for targeted communication:

While Linked In is a great resource, it cannot give you access to the most elite talent in the Internet arena. We can. Our difference is that we aggressively call directly into your top competitors and leading firms in your field to source candidates who are among the top 10% in your industry.

* Aggressive cold call recruiting.
Our recruiters make 150 or more calls per day. We directly call into your competitors to recruit the top 10% in North America.

* We work exclusively for you.
The candidates we recruit are exclusively yours, and we will never send someone we recruit on your behalf to any other company.

The long-awaited Sports Museum of America opens to the public today.

It is an experiential place, full of tangible exhibits and games. One can hold Alex Rodriguez's baseball bat, compare the weight of an Olympic javelin and shotput, and do skill tests in cycling, skiing, rowing and--most interesting--Nascar pit crew.

SmA is an Ai client, and a few of us had the pleasure of attending their opening night gala last night. (I posted a few photos after the event.) Having toured the museum firsthand, I can confirm that it's great fun for any sports fan. We expected to just poke around during cocktails but wound up spending more than an hour reading, watching and playing.

Congratulations and best of luck to the Sports Museum of America and its founding team.

When I started working at Ai there were about 6 people. Now there is about 40. In speaking with a colleague yesterday, I stumbled upon the essential mechanism of a scaling company: breakage. A scaling company is one in which good, working processes break. Continuously.

The mechanism itself is simple: business processes put in place when there are 6 people stop working when there are 12. Processes that work at 12 people then strain under 24. Processes at 24 fail at 35. Failing processes are a normal part of a growing company. It's healthy. Painful, but healthy.

The role of good management is to be ready for process failures and respond actively: either by adjusting or replacing business processes to fit the needs of the company at its new size. Unfortunately, this can't be done prematurely - it can be just as destructive to roll out a process that is optimized "too large" than it is to cling to one that is optimized "too small". The balancing act is to wait until the appropriate time to adjust a business process, recognizing that occasionally it will feel like overkill when it is initially implemented.

The other factor that can be easy to overlook is that there are people involved. Processes shape people's jobs and thus their experience at work. If a person's job description changes as a consequence of a process adjustment, it can be interpreted as a change in their prestige or status. Great care needs to be taken in order to not unduly ruffle feathers in the pursuit of a working organization. The people have the same value they've always brought - its the organization that has changed.

The tech team at Ai is split into two parts. Roughly two-thirds of our staff are developers, the behind-the-scenes programmers and creators of software and rich applications.

The other third are front-end engineers, handling the HTML, CSS, and scripting languages rendered by browsers. Both teams are tight-knit and collaborative, particularly the front-end team.

In this spirit the smaller crew coined itself a little ways back: they are the Fenders, short for "front-enders" (obviously). They take great pride in their work, compete for compliancy accuracy, and play some mean foosball. Most importantly, they work as a team. With a great name.

By extension, the developers are Benders, for back-end, although the term hasn't made the same impact. The Fenders, on the other hand--or "Fendas," as our Bronx-style lead Fender likes to say--are really making a name for themselves. Two of our clients have started using it regularly.

The next time you hear about web page creation, don't think simply in terms of client-side coding or web design. Think: fender.

Ai is conducting informal usability testing for a client this week. We've had a small procession of strangers come to our office for 45-minute sessions, and in exchange, we're handing out American Express gift cards.

This is the first time we've done tests on-site, and it may be our last. The testing has gone great, but we've had one person double-air-kiss our moderator and another demand twice as much compensation as we offered in our ad.

Then there's the job candidate who stopped at our front desk on her way out. Our office manager, Katie, was in deep discussion on the phone, and handed the woman a gift card, inadvertently paying her $50 for her job interview.

Imagine Katie's surprise when she got off her call and discovered the usability tester still in her session.

(The interviewee kept the card. What would you have done?)

We took a little field trip yesterday. (The guy in the clown suit is our front-end tech lead.)

Our newest developer is an affable California actor/musician named Mike. He came to Ai very deliberately: not just to take on a new job, but to have a new experience, shifting from freelance life on the west coast to a full-time gig at a boutique agency in Manhattan.

We thought it'd be interesting to hear Mike's take on joining Ai. Here is his story.

It's 80 degrees in California. The sun is shining, the surf is epic, and I'm enduring a bone-chilling winter in New York City; I've accepted a job here at Alexander Interactive, and these are my reflections on my first couple of months here.

Prior to taking this job, I've spent a long time freelancing, largely because I wanted the flexibility to pursue music and acting, but also because there's a certain stubborn pride in flying solo.

As a freelance developer you have opportunities to interact with so many different kinds of organizations. You see their strengths and weaknesses; the star players that make them great, and the mediocre-types that weigh them down. You bounce in for a while to launch a new web property or maybe to incubate a fledgling app idea with a prototype.

But then when it comes to evaluating these engagements as full-time employment opportunities, you start to sound like Goldilocks - this company's too big; that one's too small. This one's too structured or limiting; that one's too disorganized or perhaps underfunded for their expectations. Some companies define us too rigidly, while still others lack enough methodology and process for us to grow as individuals, team members, decision-makers, artists and engineers.

At the end of the day, the choice of employment is an exercise in personal branding ... and I was fundamentally unwilling to marry my personal brand to that of an organization, big or small. Was it a fear of commitment? Was it that I felt the other "hats" or interests would somehow be lost upon taking a "full-time" job as a web developer? Did I think that somehow an employer would dismiss my range of possibilities? Or had I simply not found an organization that I was going to be proud to be a part of?

Some people said I had the perfect LA life - 5-minute commute to my own office, flexible schedule to surf and rehearse with my band, coding through my twilight primetime as I pleased. I had complete flexibility, which was great, but it was a lonesome existence. Encounter a problem? Just me and The Google, baby. I was lacking community, challenge, and direction; and I knew it.

What makes this Ai place special, isn't that everyone here is excellent at some piece in the web development puzzle. It's that the people here are real people, bringing their talents as "individuals" to the team - and trying to excel in disciplines beyond those called upon at work.

A tech lead is leaving work with a violin amidst a 60-hour week, on his way to orchestra rehearsal. Another dude is reading Chekhov ... in Russian! Yet another has made a career change from teaching, and enjoys discussing philosophy. One of the javascript gurus plays bass like Jaco! The list goes on, of course, but already it's sounding contrived. My point is that people here are fascinated by a lot more than just elegant code and sleek design - they're drawn in by the patterns of the world at large.

And this drive to see order in the world and in our work pays off big for clients. People here kill themselves to build things the right way. Folks here groan when clients stubbornly choose less-than-usable solutions. Everyone here hang their hats on goodness, and it's not in a taking-credit or competitive sense - it's in the genuine appreciation of a solid product.

I'm really fortunate (and stoked, in the California vernacular) to have discovered a group of 40 men and woman that are doing solid work, and having fun while doing it. If my fooseball skills can improve half as much as my programming has, I'm going to be all set -- actually strike that -- my fooseball skills need a pretty severe overhaul.

When I came in for interviews in December, my final interviewer had googled me and found a goofy YouTube video of me dancing at a wedding a couple of years ago. I shook my head and thought "Oh man, that's it - there's no way I'm getting that job" as I left the interview. Upon recounting this episode now to one of the founders, he responded "Are you kidding me? That video's *why* we hired you." Amen to people with a sense of humor in an age with no *real* privacy.

There's great stuff going on here. We've just built a social network using Ruby-on-Rails, we're building beautifully-usable websites, and we're helping our clients extend their brands everywhere from Facebook to the iPhone. And you know what? It feels really good to say "we". And for my old colleagues and clients reading this - I'm happy to say, I'm still available to build to help build your digital idea. Because now I'm part of a killer team, doing just that. No longer a solo artist - I'm with the band, man.

And for all you maverick freelancers out there that could never imagine ever setting foot in an office again, consider that this is a golden time to be at this company of this size - a delicate balance of freedom and know-how accountability. And though I'm miles away from "home", it feels a bit like a homecoming.

Once upon a time I had a rock band called Blue Shift. We made music, loudly, in smoke-filled bars (remember those?) in the 90's in Toronto, wishing we had enough money to be able to afford to record more of our stuff. I like to think that we were ahead of our time. As you may have noticed, you've never heard of us.

A little while ago I was suddenly struck with a revelation - a lot of the problems I had back in those days, stuff that held us back, had simply packed up and left in the night. I could now afford recording equipment, due to both my increased income (from, you know, zero) and by the fact that digital recording technology had made professional recordings so much cheaper than they used to be. There were many channels to digital distribution open on the Internet.

I had been sitting around thinking about trying to scrape together yet another band from craigslist when suddenly it struck me - why not just go and get the old band? The fact that we don't live in the same city doesn't matter.

So now I'm looking at four words I never, ever, thought I would see: "New Blue Shift Album". We're all sitting on our own project studios, as it turns out. The project will basically work like this:

• We'll agree what songs to record. We'll establish song structure and tempos.
• I'll record a scratch vocal and guitar track to be a guide.
• Our bass player will be doing drum programming - he'll create bed tracks (drum and bass).
• We will lay down our overdubs (guitar, vocals, keys etc).

Any one of us are allowed to mix at any time. Someone doesn't like my mix? Fine - make your own. We continue to lay down tracks and make mixes as we go along.

Eventually we agree on approving mixes to be the "official version". We get enough tracks like that - and that's the new album.

I am quite inspired by this - this is a way in which the Internet has personally changed my life - something that simply was impossible before is now in reach. I'll probably throw up a side blog to talk about this project as it progresses.

I went to PyCon over the weekend. It was definitely the largest tech conference I've been to so far. Subcultures fascinate me in general, but this was really interesting. Over 1000 really smart, focussed and innovative technical types crammed together in the same hotel. It was kind of like drinking from a fire hose - I needed to take little timeouts in order to make it through the weekend.

Geek culture is generally polite and trustworthy. I found that I had no problem letting a complete stranger watch my laptop while I went to the bathroom.

Maybe it was just affinity at work. I sense that many people were dealing with similar problems that we were trying to solve in different ways. For example, I found that one tutorial leader was applying himself to a problem space (massive, fail-safe parallel computing), using Python, that seemed very similar to the kinds of things that Erlang was designed to handle.

Perhaps Test Driven Development should be called Guilt Driven Development. Mostly it seems to just make developers guilty about not testing their code enough. Or for those who do test, smug. Bastards.

Oh and finally, I learned a lot about using slides. So many people know this, but I've never seen "less is more" so graphically spelled out for me. I'm never using bullets on a slide again.

Today marks the start of Ai Fridays, a new way for us to wind down the workweek. This is a hard-working office, and we're doing our best to acknowledge the need for a) targeted, stress-free time and b) a little bit of fun.

Our new Friday format is threefold.

1. Breakfast in the office. Some of our peers buy everyone lunch daily, but that's more of a perk, and this is more of a thank-you for a job well done. It's also a nice way to start the day. The breakfast station behind my desk has been convivial all morning. Our routine will be bagels, orange juice and the like, although at an unspecified Friday in the future I'll be rolling in an omelette station.
2. Fuss-Free Friday. This applies to how we're supposed to work: no meetings, no calls, no instant messaging, infrequent email. In a client-driven business, we often spend the bulk of the week in conversation, leaving little time to get things done. Fridays are now earmarked for "me" time, where we can all focus on projects with minimal distraction.
3. An early whistle. At 4 or 4:30, we're turning on music and taking the beer out of the fridge. Ai employees typically work past 6, so the last few hours of the week are now a weekend kickoff. We'll get a little work done, but we'll get to enjoy some communal downtime and finish Fridays with a smile.

I'm not terribly consistent with blogging or speaking to the press, but this past week I've done both. I weighed in on an article that Tom Acitelli writes in The New York Observer asking if silicon alley still exists.

Ai is seeking an executive producer to lead our talented and currently executive-less team of project managers. Details are on the Ai site as well as some popular industry job boards. We're excited to staff this position and provide another senior-level resource for our projects.

I was startled by how many irrelevant replies the craigslist post received. Fully one-third of the first day's emails have been from people offering their services to our firm--recruiters looking for a fast buck, of course, but also people selling Flash, IT outsourcing, software solutions and the like.

With apologies to Loren, who is a better rant-and-rave blogger than I am:

If a company posts a job ad, and you work in a parallel, unrelated and unsolicited area, and you're not really looking for the type of work we're hiring, emailing the in-box shilling your services is not going to get you any business. Quite the contrary: odds are, we will remember you as a spammer and a cold-caller, which will negatively affect our view of your work before we even get to know you.

But never mind all that, we're on a talent search. Know anyone?

Now before I get too far into this, not all recruiters are bad, shifty, underhanded, manipulative and entirely quick-buck-oriented and self-serving (and several less polite things I can think of), but I am occasionally amazed at the snake oil quality that many bring to the table. Here's an email I got today:

Hello Loren,

This is XXX following up with you in regards to this exceptional candidate. I do feel strongly that he would be a great asset to your team at Alexander Interactive. Again, his key points are:

If you are interested in this engineer or top recruiting services, follow up with me at your earliest convenience. I know you would be very impressed with the level of service and candidates we provide to our clients.

Please feel free to refer to our website for more information and call me at the number below to discuss your technical hiring needs in detail.

Best,

XXX

So in no particular order:

• This is obviously a boilerplate letter - both from the hokey tone, and the fact that it says "key points are" without any actual key points listed.


• This also indicates that the recruiting individual didn't bother to check his letter, meaning that he isn't that interested in what I may actually want in a candidate.


• The subject line was "Surprised I haven't heard back as yet; do you have time today?" What? I'm shocked, shocked that I didn't drop everything to look at your candidate that I didn't ask for, that we've never spoken about, that you selected randomly from the stack of resumes in front of you and decided to push on me.

Recruiters, read this next part. Read it well:

• I only work with recruiters that bother to listen to what I want in a candidate.
• I never schedule interviews without looking at resumes first. Ever.
• If you don't hear back from me about a candidate, it means I'm not interested. Period.
• Recruiters that annoy me, by acting manipulatively, by trying to "trick" me into scheduling an interview, who try to mess with the other staff here in an attempt to get to me, who constantly call but never leave voice mails - these go onto a blacklist. The entire recruitment company, not the individual agent. There is no way off the blacklist.

Generally I find that recruiters subtract value from the equation. Besides making hires more expensive for us, they generally act as a kind of contrary indicator about candidates. Good developer candidates don't need recruiters - they go straight to Craigslist. On average (and yes there are exceptions) the value of candidates from Craigslist is head and shoulders above the value of candidates from recruiters.

So if you are a recruiter - be the exception to the rule. Listen to your clients or potential clients. Don't play games. Or don't "be surprised that you haven't heard back from me". I'm ignoring you.

For the rest of this week I will be attending the Internet Retailer 2008 Web Design Conference in Miami. I'm looking forward to it. The agenda looks very good, and so does the weather.

I will be twittering my thoughts during the conference. Feel free to follow along. The link above is to the Ai team; you'll hear from our president and creative director, also in Miami, plus random thoughts--very random--from my coauthor Loren Davie and other Ai employees in New York.

We're trying something new (for us) here at Ai - sabbaticals.

Happy holidays from Ai and Mayor Jack, our breakout star.

David just signed off for the year and I still have to get my foundation-less predictions for 2008 out.  Wait! Wait!

Hello, and my thanks to Loren for the introduction. As noted below, I will be posting regularly in this space moving forward, with a keen eye toward developments in online branding and the user experience. Ai covers a wide range of clients, which opens us to great breadth of coverage. Including Loren's tech investigations.

I come to Ai from the client side, so I'm still getting the hang of the business from the agency side. I'm new to this blog but not to blogging in general; my personal weblog is in its tenth (!) year. I am pleased to be blogging professionally and covering relevant topics in a business setting.

Loren and I (and our coworkers, if we can rope them in) look forward to sharing intriguing conversations about technology and the business of making websites, including some "looks behind the door" at life at our company. Stay tuned.

We have some changes coming for this blog (and the Ai website) in the near future. The first change is that I'm not driving this alone anymore, I'm going to be joined by our new Director of Strategy, David Wertheimer. Here's a sneak peak at his bio:

David Wertheimer, Ai's Director of Strategy, has a diverse background with expertise in online communication, marketing, ecommerce and the user experience. He leads the company's strategic initiatives, from usability studies to data analysis, and provides focus and vision to front- and back-end web development projects.

David has been bringing brands to the Web for twelve years. In his years online, he has been a designer, manager, director, blogger, book author, columnist, educator, and public speaker. Past achievements include creating world-class media websites for The Economist and Billboard magazines and leading 200% growth in online retail sales as the marketing director for Clarins USA. He has also worked in consulting roles for a wide range of companies including Yahoo! HotJobs, Draftfcb and Rodale.

David has an MBA from the New York University Stern School of Business and a bachelor's degree from Franklin & Marshall College. He lives in Manhattan with his wife and their dog.

So I've had a day to digest the FOWD conference (the speakers) on Wednesday here in New York. The quality of the speakers was pretty good overall, although there was some yawn-inducers.

So, due to my extreme lazyness, instead of comprehensively reviewing the day (you can get my incomprehensible coverage from my twitter feed. I thought I would hand out some awards for moments during the day.

Best Slide: "Why are email campaigns like gay porn?" - Matthew Patterson (Campaign Monitor)

Most obsequious presentation: Microsoft keeps showing up in the weirdest places. Linux conventions, design conferences. They were here, as a sponsor, and had almost nothing to say. The poor guy on stage was a "User Experience Evangelist" within Microsoft. Can you imagine that job? Running around, trying to tell people - "Hey, maybe you shouldn't pop up the same security warning over and over without giving people a 'remember my decision' option. Maybe the talking paper clip isn't a great idea..." I just felt bad for him.

Most like the Comedy Channel: Joshua Davis. It was obvious why they picked him to open, the guy knows how to work a crowd. He's an artist that uses algorithms to generate amazing randomized pieces from human-created input patterns.

Most overdue presentation: Elliot Jay Stocks, kicking off the Web 2.0 design aesthetic backlash (big fonts, bevelled curves, reflective logos). He established the rule: unless your name actually has the word "reflect" in it, you can't use a reflective logo. Don't be sheep!

Most notable presentation of information designers are supposed to know anyway: Ryan Singer of 37 Signals. Find out the most important stuff on the screen, use contrast for emphasis, make decisions...don't they teach you this stuff in school?

I can't imagine someone hasn't already run with this idea, but it strikes me that the random text that spammers put in their email to get around Beysian filters constitutes some pretty fine (simulated) stream of consciousness poetry. Check out this gem I received this morning (actual spam payload deleted):

With my foot the supple ball, for perhaps
The high whites spread over the buried earth.
Allowing me to let your picture form and wake
Of tree-dividing sky finally comes down to
Out of the road into a way across
X. The British Attack on the Arctic
II. List of Franklin Search Parties
will come, blighting our harbingers of spring,
Of the matter of snow here. Both of us have grasped
Palladio who beckons from the other shore,
That squareOh, 56 x 56
They move against, or through, or by, or toward.
The winged winds, captives of that age-old foe
to restaurants for Early Bird Specials.
Of observation lying on the ground
then takes a step back, to be safe as she reaches.
Empty streets I come upon by chance,
Pierced by the mist that fades away,
XI. Franklin's Last Voyage

So I went to the New York Software Industry Association panel on Monday. They had three very interesting panelists: David Teten of Nitron Advisors, Laurel Touby of Media Bistro and Carter Burden of Logicworks. (The panel was moderated by the NYSIA president - Bruce E. Berstein).

I didn't really go in with the intent of "covering" the event, so my notes are pretty helter skelter, but here are a couple of points that really stood out for me:

Offshore

Board of Advisors

Equity

Partners

Attracting Customers

Interns

Time Magazine has named one of our clients - DonorsChoose.org one of the 50 best websites of 2007. Number 4, in fact. Thanks Time!

DonorsChoose.org, for those who don't know, is a website where people can find and fund proposals by teachers. Its been mentioned in the extensively in the press. We've been involved with them since 2002, when we built their New York regional website.

DonorsChoose is currently gearing up for their national expansion - so this couldn't come at a better time! Once again congratulations to DonorsChoose!

Crunch time here at AI. We're launching many, many websites at the same time. (Why the hell am I writing this? I should be debugging something...).

Let me be clear: I don't like crunch times, and I think the first step is prevention: try not to have to much stuff happen at the same time, have reasonable deadlines, properly staffed projects etc. However the best laid plans of mice and men oft gang aglay, and sometimes crunches are inevitable.

There is an art to surviving crunch times. If one isn't careful one can easily burn out. Burn out is hard to recover from, and can lead to various problems down the road, including health and psychological issues, as well as simply not being very productive afterwards.

So how to survive a crunch?

Pace Yourself

Its a marathon, not a sprint. Ignoring the problem up until the last minute and then trying to work around the clock is a recipe for disaster. Increase the hours gradually weeks ahead of the deadline, so you can get enough through the pipe that the end isn't totally out of control. Figure out the number of hours a day you can sustain. For me I know I can do about 12 hour days for weeks as long as I get enough sleep. However, if I go over that number, or if I can't get 8 hours of sleep, I'll start to spiral down. And make mistakes.

Take Care of Yourself

Get enough sleep. Drink liquids. Eat well. Do all the things that you're already supposed to do to take care of your body. You need it to function in order to think. There is working hard, and then there is just messing yourself up. If you work 24 hours in a row then you will not be getting anything done the next day. Make sure you're not just stealing time from yourself.

Measure Your Progress

Make sure you have a way to track what you're accomplishing, and to be able to track what needs to be done. This means that someone needs to pause momentarily to maintain a list of things to do: checking off items that have been accomplished, adding items that are outstanding and so forth. This is essential for two reasons - first, it allows everyone to get a real sense of how much work is left to do. Without that there's usually a lot of unfocussed anxiety surrounding the project. The second reason is it provides a sense of accomplishment when people see how much work they've already done. This is an important part of morale in the project.

Clear Your Mind

When you go home at night you need to get the project out of your head. This allows you to rest properly and recuperate. Find something very antithetical to the nature of the project - something that exercises some other part of your brain. For computer-bound information workers, this could be something really physical, or something otherwise low tech. I like to cook and play guitar. When I don't do this, I inevitable wind up having dreams about whatever I'm working on. I hate that.

Reward Yourself

Ah, so much psychology. Give yourself little rewards as you go through the crunch period, for being a good little worker bee. "If I work until 9 pm again then I get to have a beer when I get home." Um, look at the second point, Take Care of Yourself again, though.

Hard Stuff When You're Fresh, Easy Stuff When You're Burnt

During the course of the crunch time, you'll have moments when you're pretty awake and sharp and moments when you're not so awake and sharp. You need to be doing the right kind of work in both areas. The rule here is easy: do the hard stuff when you're sharp, and the easy stuff when you're dopey. This is the best way to avoid making bad mistakes and wrecking stuff when you're too far gone for anything more complicated than operating a dessert spoon.

Thats it for now - please feel free to add your own tips for surviving crunch times. Remember - if you're crunching all the time then something is seriously wrong (bad management, not enough resources etc), but occasional crunches happen and can be handled well if you're careful.