smackfoo.com | I find your lack of faith disturbing.

It would appear record companies aren’t the only corporates’ immune to missing the entire point of an actual, genuine online journal and presence:

The organization’s announcement is essentially a press release dumped into a blog entry, the byline of which merely says “Blog Council.”

A spiffy logo and canned announcement full of pointless drivel and corporate kiss-butt self-idolizing hippy crap does not a blogging community constitute. Mr Storey nails it best — “After six years big business still has no idea what to do with this blog thing.”

Stuart Brown rolls us through his take on 2007 - More Web Design Trends & Cliches:

“It’s been well over a year since I compiled the original list of web clichés, so I figured it was time to revisit some of the trends currently prevalent in web design now.”

Some interesting punters have turned up in the parade along with some gorgeous descriptive illustrations. Succinct and devoid of the typical fluff and space fillers many such “reviews” tend to collect.

Shawn Blanc reflects on his current work load and Creative Design Poverty:

“There is much more to design than white space, the two-thirds rule, and font selection. Those tricks and elements surely help when we’re stuck, but I know for certain that they are not what real creative design is all about.”

Tools and standards cannot define creativity in of themselves. Design is the outward expression of inward creative thinking.

“I look at the elements and standards of good design as the launching pad to what creative design is really about: Creating.”

Amen.

I think we have another candidate for Gruber’s Jackass of the Week:

Asked why he as a black man grew up during segregation could advocate discrimination, Mr Hutcherson said: “How many homosexuals have you ever seen had to ride on the back of a bus? I haven’t seen one. I know that many blacks have in the past.”

Whatever happened to “Love thy Neighbour” — in the “too hard” basket?

You know, there is so much one could say about this and so many colourful high-descriptive terms spring to mind, yet I cannot help but think to react extremely negatively is simply providing the exact response this type of behaviour is attempting to illicit.

There is nothing right or “good”, morally, religiously or otherwise to defend the position Mr Hutcherson is taking.

Anne Zelenka of Web Worker Daily fame asks:

“What’s the best way to handle rudeness online?”

Ignore it.

Lets rewind a moment for context, given Anne has also offered up the following observation:

“While you can learn something from your critics, when criticism tips over into personal insults that’s a good time to turn away.”

I have a special, purpose built receptacle for email that might cross the line from sarcasm into stupidity and abuse. It’s called ‘Trash’. Trash is quite remarkable in that it can make virtually anything magically disappear. One moment it exists, the next, it does not. Once gone, it no longer has any potential to affect otherwise good judgement.

Arguing on the Internet is stupid. If you respond in an attempt to straight-jacket the ignoramus who initially made such comment, you will provide exactly that which is wanted — a reaction. Ignore it and move on.

Emotive, abusive and mentally challenged outbursts are almost always an attention seeking activity. Ignore it and the behaviour will cease, or it’s perpetrator will go elsewhere for their cheap thrills. Call them out and the argument will already be lost.

Jason answers a question on how 37signals perceive the relative importance of formal education:

“What we care about is intelligence, curiosity, passion, character, motivation, taste, intuition, writing skills, and the ability to make smart value judgements.

Which echoes a point that I see re-enforced time-and-time again. Formal education is no substitute for quality experience. How one handles the outside-of-box scenarios can be far more telling of experience and skill set, than smart handling of the day-to-day details alone. Jason continues:

“A few of these qualities may benefit from exposure to higher education, but we feel most of them are better learned through practical experience.”

Indeed I dropped out of tertiary education during my second year, as the material being taught had absolutely no relation to real-world environs and was painfully out-of-date. I then bounced around various IT related jobs (on purpose to an extent) in an attempt to gain valuable experience and exposure that I could utilise in future, more structured roles.

Granted, a degree or doctorate might have opened more doors at the outset, but if the decision makers behind those very doors are looking for dynamic, flexible people with the ability to think laterally and make intuitive and experience based choices — and more often than not, they are — then no amount of education (alone) will solve that need.

Michael Lopp has written one of the single most quotable articles I’ve read in recent times, entitled The Nerd Handbook:

“Your nerd spent a lot of his younger life being an outcast because of his strange affinity with the computer. This created a basic bitterness in his psyche that is the foundation for his humor.”

“Now, combine this basic distrust of everything with your nerd’s other natural talents and you’ll realize that he sees humor is another game.”

It’s frightening just how ‘close’ many observations are and how many I can put my hand up to — truly required reading for anyone that works with, lives with, or simply wishes to better understand the nerd.

Cameron reflects on a recent design brief:

“..design isn’t just some magical entity. I don’t boil lizards and fairy dust in a cauldron while mumbling pseudo-Latin phrases and waving my hand about willy-nilly to make a website, it’s not magic, or even talent. It’s work; It’s art.”

There is as much, if not more to learn in an initial failure, as there is in an instant home-run. And learning why something doesn’t work means that exact same mistake or design flaw is far less likely in future. The outcome of re-working a slightly miss-aligned concept is often a strengthening in skill set and talent, something that immediate success without the hard yards, doesn’t always provide.

As a result, Cameron’s designs are among some of the single best I have seen used within the tumblr network.

The only guide to calling “Shotgun” you’ll ever need. Simple, yet utterly brilliant.

Jesper takes another cracking shot at why stuff keeps staying broke, despite constant development marching forward:

“Okay, stop. Guys working on larger capacity hard drives, flash drives, cheaper memory, better power supplies, fundamentally different CPUs and cures for cancer, you can keep going. The rest of you, spend five years fixing the fundamental issues.”

The problem is that fixing issues just isn’t sexy. Oh, sure, you can make debugging sound sudo pseudo-sexy, Joyent’s constant spruiking of dtrace to all who will listen is proof of that.

Fixing problems has always been the Achilles Heel of any software or hardware platform, because it’s often easier — both up-sell and manage — to build something new than fix the old one. The entire software and hardware industry is entirely geared up to consume and burn, not rebuild.

And that won’t change until the consumer and the market embrace the concept of “green” re-use and re-cycle concepts. Ironically it’s just as much our fault — for demanding change over improvement — as those controlling the product cycles. Makes you think, doesn’t it.