Musings tangentially related to SvN…
Another goodie from SvN, the advice “Don’t make a post a project”:
Jason F: it’s more important to get this content out there than to put it off further because there’s more to write.
Jason F: So don’t make the post a project
Mark I: Yep, I’ll publish within the next 5 minutes.
Ryan S: takes note on “don’t make a post a project”
Ryan S: that always kills me
Jason F: RS: It’s just like software design.
Mark I: No kidding.
Mark I: I’m so freaking picky when I write something I drag on forever.
Jason F: Too much polish keeps the people from the content
Jason F: The value of the content is more important than the last 10% perfection
Ryan S: yeah the hard part for an amateur writer is knowing what is polish and what is substance
Truer words have never been…typed in a group chat. I wonder how much time I’ve wasted futily waiting for that last bit of polish to come to me? I wonder how long I’ll futz with this one?
And one more little nugget regarding the boys over at 37Signals:
[T]heir delightful schtick is all about giving businesses the courage to calm down, to ignore the pressure to come off as a credible member of the “enterprise” community when doing so defies your every other intuition, and instead to use a bit of common sense.
This little passage was in reference to some of the complaints leveled over their free-wheeling use of the ever-versatile fuck-bomb. I can’t help but think of cluetrain and these sentiments first echoed back in ‘99! For such a popular work, it sure didn’t seem to make too many inroads in the enterprise community, but maybe they’ll get a clue one day.
Finally, a great quote from a FastCompany article on design:
The boundaries between design and art constantly intersect. But design, for me, is never frivolous. And one of the essential elements that differentiates design from art is function.
Finally. A way for me to draw a better separation between art (one of my girlfriend’s main interests) and design (one of mine) and maybe, just maybe put an end to our constant bickering about the two. Design can indeed by whimsical, but never frivolous. I’m starting to think that’s what chaffs me about art.