Thinkcage

“I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.”

Actor, Michael Caine describing Jaws: The Revenge— a movie he’s supposed to be ashamed of.

I found that quote, and the entire CNN interview with Caine very charming. Great perspective from a guy who’s been doing what he loves for a very long time.

I think many of us—especially those with an artistic or creative bent— can appreciate his sentiments about taking jobs “because I thought no one was ever going to offer me another one”. We all face doubts in our work and may have to pay our dues, so it’s encouraging to see how he has reached a level where he takes jobs only when they interest him; when “they’re so good they interrupt my life”. When you find a project like that, work isn’t work anymore and that’s where the interesting things start to happen.

I’ve seen so many of Jason Fried’s talks at this point, that I think I could do a pretty good job of filling in for him if he ever gets sick before an event. But I keep watching as the talk evolves and new nuggets of thought are revealed.

Jason’s ideas about business are fresh and almost too obvious (as I believe the best ideas are). His thoughts about how to run a business, productivity, and creativity are often at the front of my mind as I work and refine my own work/life balance.

I loved the tilt-shift effect when it was making the rounds on photos awhile back, but the effect is even more stunning in video. Still I can’t help but love the irony that move makers have probably spent millions of dollars and hours trying to make special effects miniatures NOT look small only to have this come along and make real footage look fake.

Beached from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

All I know right now is that I want to do all of it better. Everything better. Better, better.

I don’t know how else to say it: Merlin Mann inspires the living shit out of me. His recent post, Better, incapsulates so much of my feelings about the web, my passions, and why I do what I do. He is right in so many ways; it is all about getting better.

Getting better is what drives me. I pray to be better daily. I am in a constant state of analysis — always trying to figure out what it is I’m doing, seeing, experiencing, making, building watching, drawing, listening to, whatever… and how it can be better.

Getting better is fucking hard. I can do a good job. I can make my client/boss/wife/kids happy, but it can always be better. And not everyone wants to be better. You wife doesn’t want to hear that dinner could be better. Your kids don’t care to hear that obviously their grades could be better. Your boss doesn’t want to know that his decisions could be better. But I won’t stop trying.

Merlin’s post is all about the bullshit that we can all easily fall into when we let others tell us what is important and feel the need to do everything. If you ever read anything I share, read this.

And when you’re done, read the brilliant getting started page on 43folders. And when you’re done reading that, go make something. Something fucking awesome.

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.