It sounds like it boils down to having fun, remembering to enable imagination, and staying interested in the world around you and having the ability to get interested enough to make that real for other people. Sounds good to me.

”
MB: Being able to make vivid counterfeits is one of the joys of being a graphic designer, and one that we don’t take enough pleasure in. One of my partners in London once mocked up a whole issue of Fortune to help a client see his business differently.

One of the hard lessons I had to learn as a designer starting out was that good design is not a self-evident imperative for most people. I tell students that they are spending time and money in design school acquiring an abnormal sensitivity to design that most regular people should not be expected to share. Yet various groups of these ‘regular people’ are usually the ones who initiate our work, fund and approve it, and ultimately are the audiences for it. So the biggest challenge we face is figuring out how to meet people on their terms, not ours. I never talk about educating the client. I hate that phrase. Almost always it’s the designers who need the education, not the client, not the audience. Yet designers and clients both tend to recede into their areas of expertise, and it takes work for us to wrench each other out of it. Making prototypes that help people imagine the effects that design decisions will have in the real world can be a very potent tool. Those fake Wall S
treet Journal articles were supposed to do exactly that: remind a client who had spent six months showing themselves PowerPoint presentations that there was a real world out there filled with people who didn’t share their fascination with their business strategy or, actually, care at all whether they succeeded. It’s a good reality check, and it helps to shift the design work from an internal exercise that’s done for management approval, to work that’s done because you’re seeking results with real people in the real world.

So of course—to get to the other part of your question—dealing with the real world means being as interested as possible in stuff that’s not about design. All of the work I’ve done that I’m proud of somehow emerged from the fact that I’ve gotten really interested in that other part: the subject matter of a book, the business of a client, the content of an exhibition. Luckily, I can get interested in nearly anything. And I have learned the hard way that there are a few things I’m just not interested in, and can’t seem to do good design for: I avoid these projects now.
”

Read the whole interview/newsletter.

From Cluetrain Manifesto

”
You are human

‘Scary isn’t it? Good. You ought to be scared. That’s a realistic reaction. You want comfort? Invent your own. Exhilaration and joy are also in order. But face the facts: the tracks end at the edge of the jungle.”
“

A new picture that told a familiar story. It’s still all about people. People + conversations=content, community, authenticity.

I haven’t read thru all of these yet. I’ll let you know what I think after I finish my studies. The beginning of Naked Conversations says it’s a continuation of Cluetrain and I had a very enlightening experience with that after re-reading it recently.

So off to Cafe Press I went. I know that I can upload imagery of my own to make all kinds of things…..mousepads, stickers, clothing, bags, etc.

I did that last night. Late last night.

I woke up this morning to this email in my inbox:

”
Dear Shopkeeper,

Thank you for using CafePress.com!

As you may know, CafePress.com provides a service to a rich and vibrant community of international users. From time to time, we review the content in our shopkeepers accounts to confirm that the content being used in connection with the sale of products are in compliance with our policies, including our Content Usage Policy (CUP).

We recently learned that your CafePress.com account contains material which may not be in compliance with our policies. Specifically, designing, manufacturing, marketing and/or selling products that may infringe the rights of a third party, including, copyrights (e.g., an image of a television cartoon character), trademarks (e.g., the logo of a company), “rights in gross” (e.g., the exclusive right of the U.S. Olympic Committee to use the “Olympic Rings”), and rights of privacy and publicity (e.g., a photo of a celebrity) are prohibited.

Accordingly, we have set the content that we believe to be questionable to “pending status” which disables said content from being displayed in your shop or purchased by the public.

You may review the content set to pending status by logging into your CafePress.com account and clicking on the “Media Basket” link. The content set to pending status will be highlighted red.

Please visit our Content Usage Policy (CUP) for additional information regarding your use of the CafePress.com service. Once there, you may access our Copyright, Trademark & Intellectual Property Guidelines and FAQ’s for more detailed information regarding Intellectual Property Rights.

We apologize for any inconvenience that the removal of your content may have caused you. Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,

Content Usage Associate
CafePress.com
CUP@cafepress.com

”

The thing about uploading your own art is that you actually become a ’shopkeeper’. I didn’t want to do that, I just wanted to get a mousepad for me with the photo I took. I was flummoxxed. I was confused. This was a photo I took. How could I possibly be violating copyright law? So strange.

This is the photo:

Did you know that you can’t take pictures of icons without violating copyright? I didn’t.

Part One: (Kind of a chant) This is the land that I love, I love. This is the land that I love, I love.

Part Two: (A lilting choral part of the round.) I hear America singing, I hear her singing, varied carols I heeeeaaarrr.

Part Three: ?

Part Four: ?

Does anyone remember this song? Or am I making it up and thinking it’s a memory?

Hmmmmm. So many influences guide us. It’s hard to say how we become what we are because some of it must be unconscious. These experiences that seep in unnoticed because we are young or for some other reason. It’s a good example of why it’s not such a bad idea to question what you are being told.

The world is changing. I guess I’m just constantly amazed and excited by it. It’s really fun to watch, experience and participate in.

This content is also available via TIVO. Way to go Rocketboom.

I hope you get a chance to take a listen.

And yet the sound continued. We grew confused. How could this be, we thought we had removed EVERYTHING. we had not obviously. and then i saw it. it was under a basket that contained papers and some cd’s. it was beeping. a high pitched sound that could eventually drive someone mad if the source had not been located.

Suduko! it really ate our brains that night. The whole night did not go as planned after that. Everything was turned upside down after the stress and confusion of trying to locate a high pitched ‘my battery is dying sound’. You can imagine the relief when the sound was eradicated. My husband and I laughed til we almost cried. We recovered, but not without an altered opinion of the device/game Suduko. That’s a really good thing to test with consumers. That freaked us out and it was impossible to tell it was the game. Our world just gets more interesting and confusing. Another great example, Suduko.