Thinkcage

I have been reading more than my share lately about creativity and productivity. A brief mention in the a recent issue sent me back to read Kevin Kelly’s New Rules for the New Economy from Wired 5.09 in September 1997. This passage, in particular, caught my attention (emphasis mine):

Wasting time and being inefficient are the way to discovery. The Web is being run by 20-year-olds because they can afford to waste the 50 hours it takes to become proficient in exploring the Web. While 40-year-old boomers can’t take a vacation without thinking how they’ll justify the trip as being productive in some sense, the young can follow hunches and create seemingly mindless novelties on the Web without worrying about whether they are being efficient. Out of these inefficient tinkerings will come the future.

Everything we know about productivity and what it is to be productive seems wrong. Ideas are the currency of the future. Measuring them by the metrics of the past is only holding us back.

Just spotted ShoeGuru, an online shoe store that has one of the nicest interfaces I have seen for shopping online. The site features a beautiful, subtle backdrop for really nice images of the products. The list view has only the essential information: the image of the shoe, the price, and the name of the model. The display isn’t burdened with categories, item numbers, reviews, ratings, “digg this”, and all of the other things that typically compete for your shopping attention.

The individual product detail page is even better showing a large photo of the shoe. The description, pricing and cart tools fade into the background, though still readable, making the shoe image really stand out.

Sure, this solution might not work for a company with significantly more or diverse products. But it is a great solution for what it is and a compelling offering of a great looking line of shoes.

As I wrote previously, ESPN page 2 writer, Paul Lukas, recently proposed a contest to design the uniforms for Oklahoma City’s yet unnamed NBA basketball franchise. I immedially whipped up a concept based on a little spoof piece I had done a few days earlier. The results were posted to ESPN.com today along with a nice mention of my entry. You can see it and the full list here in Lukas’s column:

Meet the Oklahoma City uni finalists

I found these great vintage Christmas cards in some things my dad sent me when he moved out of his house in Wisconsin.

They are in a neat decorative box, complete with envelopes. The set features a few different designs of wintry scenes in a watercolor style complete with a shiny gold stripe at the bottom. The message inside wishes the recipient an “old fashioned Merry Christmas…”. I think it’s cool that these were meant to look old fashioned years ago when they were made.

I’m going to try to convince Holly to let us sent some of these out next Christmas — I think they’re wonderful.

Oklahoma City is a buzz this morning with the news that we’ve finally landed our own NBA franchise. Within hours of the announcement this leaked image showing the new team name and mascot was discovered:

That’s right the new team will be called the “Oklahoma City I Love this Basketball Team!”s. In a snippet from the press release leaked with the image, I Love this Basketball Team owner, Clay Bennett commented on the selection of Oklahoma celebrity Toby Keith as the team’s mascot:

“Toby is a local legend. With his love of chest hair and barbeque, Toby represents the hopes and dreams of Oklahomans and, indeed all Americans. I can’t think of a more meaty face to represent what is sure to be America’s team.”Clay Bennett, owner, Oklahoma City I Love this Basketball Team!

I’ve been a Blockbuster Online subscriber since the early days of the service. It hasn’t been perfect but does offer a good value and decent selection. The recently added in-store exchange was a nice touch, adding a lot of new value without raising prices. That’s almost unheard of these days.

For those of you unaware, Blockbuster has a variety of plans that offer x number of movies out at a time for one monthly fee. Much like Netflix, you choose movies using web app, creating a queue of movies you’d like to see. They ship you 2 or 3, you watch them and mail them back and they ship you more. About a year ago they added the ability to return the movies in one of their retail store AND take an equal number of movies home with you right then. Not only did this save time in mailing the movies back, but it also did not count against your online plan so you still got your 3 movies in the mail a couple of days later. Free movie rentals. Awesome!

A few days ago as I browsed my queue, a lightbox-style modal dialog popped up in my browser. It seems the online system was now more tightly integrated with the retail stores which noticed that I had already rented a movie that was in my queue and offered to automatically remove it. Nice touch. It’s nice to see a web app with such a helpful feature.