I received the above notification today. A new client has put a penny in our bank account. We haven’t started the project (or even signed the contract) yet; this is clearly some validating that they have the correct bank details in their system.

I appreciate the gesture (better to work it out now then when they actually owe us something), but it’s such a weird artifact. There’s some interesting signal processing thing happening here; the message (“Hello Portigal bank account, are you receiving?”) isn’t meant to contain any actual content (“Here’s some money!”) but the system doesn’t allow any contact without content, so $0.01 is this meaningless amount that gets moved in order to prove out the connection.

I’ve authorized services like PayPal or Quickbooks to read and write my bank account; if I recall, they send a value below $1.00 and then ask you to verify the amount.

But this is just write access and we’re still doing ping/validations.

Will they deduct $0.01 from my first invoice? Will they try to get it back? Are penny errors so common now that there’s no concern about these piling up here and there?

Otherwise, I guess, woo-hoo! Free money!

Print vs. Online: The ways in which old-fashioned newspapers still trump online newspapers. [slate.com] – Jack Shafer recounts his rejection of and then ultimate return to consuming the news in good olde print. For him, attention to and retention of the news is much improved. Our old friends tangibility and experience exert their influence on him as well. Recent research seems to support his experiences. How might newspapers create real value out of this burgeoning new respect for the medium? There might be something to Shafer’s sarcastic idea about having his carrier hand-deliver his digital content with cues to the familiar physical form. There’s a little bit of a buzz lately about hybrid digital/physical delivery systems, like the recent Phoenix Down album-delivery system on a sweet flash drive, noted below.

I started missing the blue Times bag on my lawn and the glossy goodness of the Sunday magazine. Perhaps if I could have gotten my carrier to toss a blue-bagged computer preloaded with the Times Reader onto my lawn every morning, I could have survived. But no. What I really found myself missing was the news. Even though I spent ample time clicking through the Times website and the Reader, I quickly determined that I wasn’t recalling as much of the newspaper as I should be. Going electronic had punished my powers of retention. I also noticed that I was unintentionally ignoring a slew of worthy stories…My anecdotal findings about print’s superiority were seconded earlier this month by an academic study…The researchers found that the print folks “remember significantly more news stories than online news readers”; that print readers “remembered significantly more topics than online newsreaders”; and that print readers remembered “more main points of news stories.” When it came to recalling headlines, print and online readers finished in a draw… Newspapers are less distracting-as anybody who has endured an annoying online ad while reading a news story on the Web knows. Also, and I’m channeling the paper a little bit here, by virtue of habit and culture a newspaper commands a different sort of respect, engagement, and focus from readers.

Phoenix Down: Brooklyn hip hop trio release their latest album on a pixelated feather [coolhunting.com]

Besides eliminating clutter, one of our favorite upshots of the post-CD era is the micro-movement of creative USB stick design. We’ve seen Doc Martens, surfboards and Red Stripe bottles among other adorable forms for the little devices, so it’s somewhat surprising that more bands haven’t paired sound and vision like Junk Science and Scott Thorough recently did by releasing their new album Phoenix Down on a mini-hard drive. Loaded with the tracks, as well as instrumentals, a cappella versions and a bonus folder of remixes and more, the limited-edition flash drive is a soft-rubber pixelated feather-a fitting mix of nature and digital for their 8-bit-heavy sound and lyrics like “the future’s pixelated.”

• [from steve_portigal] Shit Painted Gold – [Post-modern detachedly-ironic consumerism makes the brain work hard. We'll tell you these products are crap and that we've not added any value by changing the color, but we have transformed them nonetheless. So, we hope you'll be happy to pay a bit extra for them. Now, please exit through the gift shop.] Nothing looks fancier in your home, office or garbage than shit painted gold. these amazing one of a kind art pieces will legitimize your ability to say to people, "why yes, that shit IS gold" [Thanks, Jeannie Choe!]
• [from julienorvaisas] What comes after One Day for Design? [AIGA] – [Along with many others, we participated and commented on the 1D4D experience. AIGA hints that they are analyzing conversations and data gathered that day to guide their very reinvention. Stay tuned…] On April 13, we reached out through the existing networks of several prolific tweeters who led exchanges on the future of design, the concerns of today’s designers and the opportunities for design communities…Together with our partners in this project, the independent branding collective VSA Partners, we are now synthesizing the comments and discussions generated through this event. We will share the results here as we summarize them and develop ways for AIGA to respond. In June, our national board and chapter leaders will review all of this research from the past year—including the results from “One Day”—and work with us to outline the next steps. This is the year that AIGA will pivot toward new forms of serving the profession and its members.
• [from steve_portigal] Pink Tools for Women: Learn today, Teach tomorrow, Build forever. – [Had this one sitting around forever. Love the message of empowerment; I'm willing to buy the pink-as-brand and NOT pink-as-shallow-way-of-feminizing-design but what else are they doing (besides Tupperware business model) to make these products specifically for women?] Founded by three women deeply entrenched in do-it-yourself projects, Tomboy Tools was launched in 2000 as the dream-turned-reality of being able to provide women with hands-on education, high quality tools and a fun way to make a living from home. Our Mission Statement: To build confidence and empower women through education, quality tools and an independent business opportunity. Today, while our mission statement rings as true as ever, our slogan is shorter and more concise. Our slogan underscores the power of Tomboy Tools in the marketplace and the value we provide both to female customers seeking hands-on education with high quality tools and Home Consultants looking for a great career.
• [from steve_portigal] Conversations With Bert: Andy Samberg [YouTube] – [As a fellow introvert, I recognize Bert's slight shift into a more deliberate and mannered "interview mode." While he's not quite Terry Gross (and has a way to go to do the type of interviewing that we do), this short clip is a good source for a number of interviewing techniques, mixing equally between "what to do" and "what not to do." I'll have to use this in my next workshop and ask people to make note of the ways that Bert is successful or unsuccessful as he asks open-ended questions, reveals his own perspectives, redirects the conversation, feeds back, acknowledges what Andy says, and asks follow-ups.] Sesame Street's Bert sits down with comedian and Saturday Night Live cast member, Andy Samberg, to talk about life, literature, cuisine and of course, socks.
• [from julienorvaisas] Memories destroyed in a flash [The Independent] – [Nice discussion of pros and cons, and implications of the broad transition to digital photos. This cultural shift will have huge implications generationally.] Spend a few minutes watching a Facebook feed and you quickly see it is not just our viewing experience that has changed. The way we store and display our pictures has radically altered the nature and type of photograph we take. A high proportion of photos on social networking sites tend to be posed self-portraits, the telltale arm holding the camera often hoving into view at the side. The breadth and scope of the pictures we display has decreased. We've moved away from Sontag's idea of photos as being accessories to our memories, towards photos as a brag – a way of telling the world what fun we're having, and how good we look having it. "You can guess it's taken for the benefit of an audience: It's not necessarily better or worse – just different. It was never so much the case with your personal album."

• [from steve_portigal] Blu Develops a Social Networking Device for Smokers [NYTimes.com] – [While it's a bit of a weird idea, it seems to fit with the already weird e-cigarette better than the very old-school tobacco experience] The new “smart packs" ($80 for 5 e-cigarettes) emit and search for the radio signals of other packs. When they get within 50 feet, the packs vibrate and flash a blue light. Packs can be set to exchange information about their owners, like contact information on social networking sites, that can be downloaded to computers. The packs also conveniently vibrate when a smoker nears a retail outlet that sells Blu cigarettes. Later versions will be tethered to a smartphone through an app. Adam Alfandary, 24 was skeptical. He said that the social aspects of smoking were a part of the reason he continued to light up, but he scoffed at the idea of a cigarette that would do the social part for him. “I think that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. And I’m saying that in full acknowledgment that smoking is one of the dumbest things I can do.”

• [from wstarosta] A Retrospective View of 50 Years of Advertising Research) [ARF.org] – The Advertising Research Foundation is celebrating its 75th year of being in the business of marketing research. When asked about some of the industry's advances in the previous 50 years, chairman Gian Fulgoni owes many of them to technology that allows marketers to more effectively communicate their message and measure it's impact. His sentiments and even the industry terminology he uses highlight the fundamental differences between market research and design research.] In the 1980s, for example, the availability of point-of-sale scanner data provided a much-needed solution for Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) and other industries. For the first time, marketers had the tools needed to quickly and accurately measure the impact of price, promotions and print / TV advertising on brand sales, develop sophisticated market mix models, and link sales lift to various promotional and advertising levers.
• [from wstarosta] PSFK Asks the Purple List, What are the Limits of Digital? [PSFK] – [The next time you are brainstorming and you come up with an idea to make an analog object, action or experience better by digitizing it, pause and consider this fact that I just learned: Your brain can recognize the time faster on an analog watch than a digital one! More about the trade-offs of going digital here…] There’s another way to approach this question, by venturing to guess that there’s nothing un-digitizable, rather there are deeply human things that will just be conveyed in different forms. For example, our need for feedback as in the above is one representation of a “deeply human thing,” but another interesting manifestation comes up when you start thinking about digital books. There’s a lot of social data encoded into the act of carrying a physical book. If I see you on the metro and you’re carrying a book I’ve read, it makes me want to talk to you. And if I don’t, I’m at least subtly comforted knowing that I’m in the company of someone likeminded.
• [from julienorvaisas] Plastics News Executive Forum: Human behavior holds clues to design [Plastics News] – [Is it possible to avoid a reference to The Graduate? I'll try. We often see design thinking methodology applied to development efforts of end-products and services, of consumable things. When it's already soup. Here the plastics industry is having a dialogue about inspiring innovation at the "ingredient" level. Interesting question about where the responsibility for innovation lies.] It may be tempting to think of concepts like “design thinking” or “open innovation” like they’re just new business buzzwords. But designers and many OEMs have embraced the ideas for years, and plastics firms would be smart to join the party, experts said at the Plastics News Executive Forum. One molder in attendance pointed out that, in his experience, some OEMs are bad at innovation. “Many of our customers come up … with new designs that are horribly flawed. What’s the fundamental breakdown organizationally, where companies [that] are supposed to do this for a living are really bad at it?” he asked.
• [from steve_portigal] R2-D2 makers an attraction at WonderCon in S.F. [SFGate] – [The devotion of fans is a constant source of wonder and delight.] A fully functional droid can cost as much as a Toyota Corolla, and takes half a decade or more to complete…R2 builders study the movies frame by frame to mine the tiniest details for their droids. Builders say they get asked two questions all the time: "Can it fly?" and "Does it project a hologram of Princess Leia?" Neither of those visual-effects-enhanced features from the movies is practical or possible because the technology doesn't exist. Builders also get frequent requests to sell their droids, and to perform at parties. That answer is "no," too. The R2 Builders Club operates with the blessing of Lucasfilm, with the understanding that the droids are not produced for sale. There's also a Jedi-like code among the builders, who consider profiting from the droids a trip to the Dark Side.

• [from steve_portigal] Book Lovers Fear Dim Future for Notes in the Margins [NYTimes.com] – [While there's a bit of 'Death of Print! Oh noes!' at work here, the impact of digital technology on archiving is, in general, a mounting challenge (and frequent blog fodder)] Twain was engaging in marginalia, writing comments alongside passages and sometimes giving an author a piece of his mind. It is a rich literary pastime, sometimes regarded as a tool of literary archaeology, but it has an uncertain fate in a digitalized world. “People will always find a way to annotate electronically,” said G. Thomas Tanselle, a former vice president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and an adjunct professor of English at Columbia University. “But there is the question of how it is going to be preserved. And that is a problem now facing collections libraries.” [Thanks, Stacey G.]
• [from steve_portigal] Bidder wins `lucky’ car registration number 16 for cool $8.5m [The Standard] – [Arbitrary extrinsic value for meaningful symbols, albeit for charity] Suen was willing to shell out such a large sum because 16 is his lucky number. More than HK$18.5 million was raised at the auction, where the proceeds go to charity. Suen also tried to get 668 as a gift for his wife but was outbid by number plate collector Ngan Man-hon, who paid HK$3 million for it. Ngan said that he liked 668 as it sounds auspicious in Cantonese. In recent years lucky car plates have become popular among mainland collectors so the prices for the better ones remain high….The sale trumped Saturday's auction under the Personalized Vehicle Registration Marks Scheme. Then, car plate B0NUS was sold for HK$220,000 while 201314, which sounds similar to "Love you forever" in Putonghua, went for HK$22,000…Suen's lucky number trails 18 and 9, which were sold for HK$16.5 million in 2008 and HK$13 million in 1994, respectively. The third most expensive number was 2, which went for HK$9.5 million in 1993.

• [from julienorvaisas] Apple Says Chinese Supplier Made Changes After Suicides [NYTimes.com] – [The awkward truths revealed by increased transparency around our fancy gadgets is a topic we've discussed before. Here, Apple's investigation is admirable, but hotlines and nets to catch suicidal employees do not seem to be adequate solutions reaching towards the core of the problem.] Apple said that Mr. Cook and a team of independent suicide prevention experts conducted a review of Foxconn’s factory in Shenzhen in June and made a series of recommendations. Mr. Cook and the team also reviewed changes that Foxconn had put in place, which included “hiring a large number of psychological counselors, establishing a 24-hour care center and even attaching large nets to the factory buildings to prevent impulsive suicides,” Apple said in the report. “The investigation found that Foxconn’s response had definitely saved lives.” Apple said it recommended areas for improvement, including “better training of hotline staff and care center counselors and better monitoring to ensure effectiveness.”
• [from steve_portigal] Create with people, really! [InternetActu.net] – [Google Translate excerpt from a French review of our innovation session at Lift11] But this is not the most important, says Steve Portigal, because all these methods can be acquired by whoever wishes. No, the most important thing is to change the culture, the process by which we do things. "Companies often think they know the problem and are confident they know to solve it, better than anyone." It is their products, services, customers, suppliers, engineers … But a little humility does not hurt, the consultant recognizes the height of his experience "It is actually rather sit back and see that the problem is not what we thought. We must confront the ambiguity and be tolerant to other approaches, to reach the measure of data (and methods). "
• [from steve_portigal] Shorter E-Books Show Promise for Mobile Devices [NYTimes.com] – [In ReadingAhead we called for the creation of *digital* reading experiences] The Atavist is (publishing) stories that are longer than a typical article but shorter than a novel ­ in the hope that they will find a home on the glassy screens of mobile devices. The dimensions of mobile devices are quite limited. So it’s important to exploit the advantages that the devices do have. Success depends on thinking beyond a “one-to-one transition from book to e-book,” and on doing more than replacing paper with pixels. The Atavist integrates clever tools into the text, like interactive timelines and character biographies to help a reader quickly find her place without spoiling the plots…But it’s much too early to know whether the Atavist and its brethren will become permanently rooted in our reading culture or become a “fossil, embedded in the archaeology of the medium of reading…We are seeing a new category take shape that reflects a new paradigm of what it means to read on a new device.”
• [from steve_portigal] Geneva and Lyon, 2011 [a set on Flickr] – [Photos from my trip to Geneva (with a side trip to Lyon) for Lift11]

• [from steve_portigal] Le Laboratoire des Nouvelles Lectures (LNL) – a community centered around the future of reading – This week Lift is launching a new project: Le Laboratoire des Nouvelles Lectures (LNL) – a community centered around the future of reading. LNL is an open platform designed to inspire and incubate new forms of reading experiences based on all the new technologies now available. The LNL is an initiative of the Salon du Livre et de la Presse de Geneve (the Geneva Book Fair), and is produced by LIFT, Edipresse and Bookapp.com.
• [from julienorvaisas] Tablets Rekindle Our Love of Reading–Books, Too [Fast Company] – [MFD is used here by the survey companies Brock Associates and iModerate Research Technologies – quite a name, that one! – to signify a Multi-Function Device which includes ebook readers as well as tablets. And possibly smartphones. You know, personal electronic devices. Mobile technology. We don't know what to call things anymore. In any case, here's more research to suggest that though people enjoy reading on and read more on their "MFDs," it's an additive effect, encouraging non-digital reading activity as well. Ereading does not replace non-ereading. Reading begets reading.] Despite the fact that the survey showed MFD users had great "affinity" for their devices, "struggling to to come up with significant shortcomings to reading ebooks on them" they were also inspired to read more old-school books. Perhaps they were reminded of the pleasures of reading, and were reluctant to haul their Kindle into the bath with them for a book-accompanied relaxing soak?

• [from steve_portigal] Lending Coming Soon for Kindle [Kindle Forum] – [This announcement from Amazon produced a lot of skepticism on the important caveat – that lending will be dependent on the publishers. Nice move that allows Amazon to raise their eyebrows innocently, "Oh, sure, we're allowing people to share eBooks. It's those greedy publishers that won't let you do it. But don't look at us!"] Later this year, we will be introducing lending for Kindle, a new feature that lets you loan your Kindle books to other Kindle device or Kindle app users. Each book can be lent once for a loan period of 14-days and the lender cannot read the book during the loan period. Additionally, not all e-books will be lendable – this is solely up to the publisher or rights holder, who determines which titles are enabled for lending.
• [from steve_portigal] Proposing a Taxonomy of Social Reading [Institute for the Future of the Book] – [Bob Stein opens the conversation on how we can further the dialog about what it means to be social in reading. The wiki-like format he's used allows for discussion but is pretty difficult to navigate. I've linked here to the overview page that summarizes the current entries in the taxonomy] In recent months the phrase “social reading” has been showing up in conversation and seems well on its way to being a both a useful and increasingly used meme. While I find this very exciting, as with any newly minted phrase, it’s often used to express quite different things…In order to advance our understanding of how reading (and writing) are changing as they begin to shift decisively into the digital era, it occurred to me that we need a taxonomy to make sense of a range of behaviors all of which fit within the current “social reading” rubric.
• [from steve_portigal] Cross-examining your interview skills [Slideshare] – [Discovered through Google Alerts since it quotes me, but shared here because it's a great reference for a lot of fundamental interpersonal (and other) aspects of interviewing]
• [from steve_portigal] Some crayons belong in kids’ mouths [Seattle Times Newspaper] – [Old news perhaps, but new news to me. A surprising brand name for a beverage!] In 2003, Seay bought the Crayons trademark for use with food and beverages from someone who had been tinkering with using it with juices on the East Coast. The crayons trademark is not the same as Crayola, a company that sells a popular brand of the colorful writing instruments known as crayons. Coincidentally, another local company — Advanced H2O on Mercer Island — uses the Crayola brand name for a bottled-water line called Crayola Color Coolerz.
• [from steve_portigal] HP’s Slate specs slated by bloggers [Boing Boing] – [As Homer Simpson said, it's funny cuz it's true] it's just a pretty keyboardless netbook. Its most interesting characteristic is a bizarre slide-out tray that exists only to display the Windows 7 licensing information. It's like something from some kind of screwball comedy about awful product design: HP was apparently obliged to do this because it didn't want to mess up the exterior with this compulsory information panel.

• [from steve_portigal] ThatsMyFace.com – [Technology continues to trickle down, where image processing and digital printing previously associated with movie special effects and commercial printing now enable little businesses to crop up, offering fairly unique types of products] Gifts with personalized faces, including custom action figures, celebrity action figures, 3D portraits, masks, jewelry, papercraft, and ornamental heads.
• [from steve_portigal] How to Have an Idea [Frank Chimero] – [A little comic that amuses as it inspires and teaches, suggesting that creativity is tied to doing, not just thinking or (gulp) talking. Manifests so adroitly while we believe user research really comes alive when you use it to start generating concepts for things to make and do] No one crumples a blank sheet of paper.
• [from steve_portigal] The Medium – E-Readers Collective [NYTimes.com] – [A Kindle feature takes advantage of the inherently digital nature of the medium, but has consequences for the experience] But many writers don’t write aphoristically, and many readers don’t read for aphorisms. In a popularly highlighted world, we all may begin to. The dotted line, like the distinctive hue or underscore that signals a word is clickable on the Web, may be a new kind of punctuation that affects contemporary style. (Amazon's most heavily highlighted books include Gladwell’s “Outliers” and Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture”) Readers coming to e-books freshly purchased from Amazon might be taken aback to find them already marked up. Stumbling on a passage that other people care about, framed as though you should care about it too, can seem like a violation of virgin text. It’s bad enough that vandals have gotten to your “new” edition before you have and added emphases unendorsed by author or publisher. What’s worse is that they invariably choose the most Polonius-like passages.