Tag: Shawn Blanc

The Creative’s Workspace. Shawn Blanc’s tips on creating a pleasant environment and effective habits for working from home.

The worst assumption

The worst assumption I could make would be that I have it all together. That I have it all worked out and never have to change my lifestyle, habits, or work routines.

Living proof that focus and diligence are moving targets by Shawn Blanc.

Fighting to Stay Creative:

Diligence isn’t a personality type, it’s a skill we learn.

I’m really excited to see Reeder 3 go live tonight in the App Store. Shawn Blanc and Ben Brooks wrote great reviews of it. I just set it up on my iPhone to sync with my Fever install. No more Google Reader. Pretty slick update to an already great app.

My Sunday night reading list

Spent the evening with my Kindle, a few cups of tea, and my most recent items from Instapaper. The highlights of my reading list for the night:

A good smartphone comes but once a year

I thought this chart from The Verge was terrific. Focus and restraint breed quality. (via Shawn Blanc)

You Can’t Buy Word of Mouth

Evangelism is word-of-mouth marketing. It’s the best kind of marketing because it’s honest and personal. We don’t pay attention to television commercials and magazine ads because we don’t trust them. We do, however, trust our friends recommending something to us.

And so, companies want their customers to tell their friends about the product. But try as you may, you can’t force people to talk about your product, which means that the next best thing is to try and get people to at least use it.

Shawn Blanc – You Can’t Buy Word of Mouth.

Apple’s fourth interface

Steve said that each of the three user interfaces made possible a revolutionary new type of product. The mouse enabled the Macintosh. The click wheel enabled the iPod. Multi-touch enabled the iPhone. What will Siri enable?

Shawn Blanc – Apple’s Fourth Interface

We just want to read

How many people are subscribers to The New Yorker iPad app that don’t actually read for whatever reason? If the app were easier to use and quicker to access, then you’d have users, not just subscribers. And users tell their friends about the recent article they read; users read the app in front of their co-workers during lunch break; users actually get invested in the app. If you can garner the attention of your subscriber base, and not just their money, then your road to growth gets significantly easier.

Shawn Blanc – We just want to read.

An Ode to Software

Put another way, writing a weblog full time is not unlike farming. Lots of chores and lots of busy work that take up time every single day, but the fruit of that labor is seasonal.

Shawn Blanc – An Ode to Software.