The game is what you catch, not what you spill.

I ran into this quote reading an article called “Creation Myth” by Malcolm Gladwell. Ed Klein here at 22 passed it on to me because we had a conversation about the author and Steve Jobs.

The actual quote came from Nathan Myhrvold who was a former executive at Microsoft. The game he’s referring to is the game of inventive ideas. Building a successful creative department has to have this function to succeed. Just being clever can be very effective but it can’t be just that. You have to have the inventors circling the strategy and objective along side the craftsmen.

These inventors are a hit and miss crew. Constantly thinking of new ways to communicate and connect people with brands is the goal. Most ideas have been done before or aren’t good enough for the digital space. But when you look into the past at companies like Xerox Parc and Apple. You will see a culture of constant invention. 1 out of every 100 ideas are actually worthy of moving forward. But that one idea can be a game changer. Read the article and let me know what you think.

Design First. Information Second.

My 10 yr old daughter is struggling in Science at the moment. She usually does well but is now having some focus issues when it comes to electricity and the elements. When I sat down with her the other night to help her study, something hit me as I flipped through chapters 3 and 4.

Now I get that my daughter gets distracted easily but how could she possibly focus with a textbook that looks like it was designed by a 10 yr old. You have absolutely nowhere to look first. Someone somewhere decided that kids learn more with visual references. I totally agree with that. But just throwing them into page layouts with zero regard to design and art direction only makes it worse. I myself actually started to feel distracted and confused as I was trying to find key facts and information. You start to read one area and get pulled into another by some bad font treatment or poorly made sidebar graphic.

There’s a reason why a company like Apple is so successful. It has a strong visionary leader of course but what they really excel at is design. Simple, beautiful easy to read and easy to use design. I wish every company (or textbook) could operate with this much restraint and artistry. Maybe our young will have an easier time learning.

KILLER iPad Application and How to Make Apps Pop

It’s funny to me how powerful WOM is as it relates to the downloading applications for iPhone and iPad. I recently came across one of the most amazing music applications since pandora for independent artists called AWEDITORIUM. Download it now if you can because both the usability and the music are killer. But it gets you thinking… how do you even discover new apps in the first place?

Top 25 list at iTunes, which is how I found this gem. So how do you make an app actually get downloaded? You could either cross your fingers and hope it pops or you can bumrush iTunes. Most application downloads happen on the weekends so do an application download ad display buy between Tuesday and Thursday (it’s during this time period that the top 25 is identified) and do this for a month. I think you’d be surprised as to how easy it is to make the top 25 but it’s up to the app itself as to whether those downloads will continue.