The Internet is a place of constantly shifting content and services. New sites are added every second, and more infrastructure is developed in the blink of an eye. But…

Rarely have we had to deal with the equivalent of a mass extinction of web content. To a great degree, we assume that anything that is placed on the Internet will be there forever (or what we narrow-mindedly view as “forever”). And as such we build trust into services that are deployed: Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, WordPress, Delicious, etc. (just to name a few).

Last week, the well-known design resource site Smashing Magazine made a move that was abrupt and unexpected. Visitors viewing their site on March 22nd were automatically redirected to a landing page with the title “Smashing Magazine Needs Use Your Help Today“. This page urged viewers to purchase a $10 copy of content articles collected in PDF, vaguely indicating that the site and its Smashing Network parent company were possibly maybe in some infinitesimal way on the verge of utter collapse and please, sir, give us some money?

Whatever the internal situation maybe have been, it was unfortunate because Smashing Mag is a good provider of useful and (more importantly) original content for creative professionals – specifically those in my area(s) of expertise. And as suddenly dire as the situation seemed to be, I began wondering what would happen if Smashing Magazine powered down the servers tomorrow and closed up shop forever.

Bookmarks have been a staple of web browsing since… well, forever? While physically possible, it’s highly impractical to store a local copy of all content you find on the web – defeating the purpose of the Internet and information sharing in general. The idea is simple enough: you’ve found something in the tubes you’d like to take note of but don’t want to keep a running spreadsheet somewhere, so just use the browser’s bookmarking options. In recent times, this has migrated out of the browser and moved to services like Delicious, Diigo, and Ma.gnolia (more on them in a moment).

Suppose that Smashing Mag simply ceases to exist. They would almost assuredly try and sell their existing content to cover their outstanding bills, which would then end up making its way into the archives of various other sites around the net. But by-and-large, a great many people who have saved references to articles will be set adrift. I can easily think of ten articles I have bookmarked from their site that I’ve referred to for help or a tutorial in the past week. If SM goes, so go those resources.

This brought back some of the thoughts I had at the time Ma.gnolia went under, for reasons much less sublime than the delicate dance of revenue vs. the bills that have to be paid. Ma.gnolia’s servers simply blew up. Ka-boom. Gone. All those bookmarks and bits of info someone thought were worth keeping? Not there anymore. Some lucky people were able to get partial data recovery, but the disaster wiped out most everyone’s information permanently and effectively ended Ma.gnolia’s service.

We’ve built up trust in a variety of services, services that we go so far as to place intimate information into and to store significant resources and (speaking metaphysically) important parts of our lives. But we tend to forget that these services are largely free and exist from funding because of third-party interest (most likely for your ad revenue), ignoring a sad reality that when the bill collectors (or worse, the database grim reaper) come calling all the userbase-loyalty in the world isn’t necessarily going to save your data – be it created or bookmarked. What happens if Yahoo! Decides that Flickr is too much a drain on their resources? What if Google suddenly scraps Gmail? Unlikely for companies that are so large, but the point is you don’t know because you don’t have direct control over it.

You can make the same arguments for brick-and-mortar providers. What happens if my utility company moves to another region? What if my bank goes under? What if my insurance company stops supporting me? These things happen all the time, and they would happen much more often on the Internet but for the fact that, despite its world-wide nature, there still exist relatively few major services on the web. When they happen in the real world they are potentially life-altering, and the increasing degree to which we store information externally means that the same result could happen on the web.

So what am I getting at? I don’t know – just musing I suppose. Events like this cause me to worry about this wonderful, magical online world where we build and share and ride ponies while petting kittens. It’s fantastic, and the fantasy can make us forget that the only truly safe place for your data is burned onto a disc in a fireproof safe. Just something to ponder.

Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CPB for short) is a ginormous design and advertising firm based out of multiple cities. Their impressive client list includes powerhouse names such as Microsoft, Burger King, Old Navy, Best Buy, Coke Zero, etc. These are not amateur people. However, even the pros can sometimes foul up… and the higher you are the harder you can fall.

CPB has been the subject of much debate in the design community as of late because of their questionable practice of turning to crowdsourcing for some of their client projects. There are many issues with this, not the least of which is the comparison of minimal costs that CPB spends on crowdsourcing versus the ludicrous sums they are paid for their “work”. Crowdsourcing (or “spec work”) has been under fire for some time in the design community, many professionals feeling that such practices take unfair advantage of designers with potential talent who in the end are paid little for their skills except in the debatable fee of prestige.

The dam broke when news hit that a Brammo Electric Motorcycles had contracted CPB to redesign their logo as part of a branding project with the titanic firm. CPB turned again to its crowdsourcing practices, placing the job as a specwork bid on CrowdSpring, pricing it at a $1000 fee for the logo chosen. $1000. One Thousand Dollars. CPB’s fee to Brammo was probably easily 7-10 times that amount, plus the ability to add yet another successful brand to their repertoire. The news quickly made it’s wade into the Twitterverse, whereupon a flurry of angry messages were tossed about. Many were simple statements, many contained a #cpb hashtag, and many were @replies to CPB’s Twitter account itself.

The latter action mentioned here – the @replies to the CPB account – are the most important because the CPB website homepage devotes a good portion to the feedback the CPB Twitter account receives. For example:

So, upon the wave of angry sentiments via Twitter, CPB’s feed on their homepage was covered in a deluge of comments such as:

• “Crispin Porter is ‘crowdsourcing’ an identity job on spec site”
• “Crispin Porter + Bogusky has no integrity for design [link to article]“
• “Crispin Porter + Bogusky has no respect for design or its clients”
• etc, etc, etc

Ouch. Social media is a great thing when it works to your advantage but it is a fickle, fickle beast. CPB probably got what they deserved in this instance, but it serves as a valuable lesson to anyone using such tools: be careful. Transparency is generally valued in a business, but sometimes having the ability to control how press about you is distributed on your own site has its advantages.

Note: the above screenshots are no longer current as CPB has launched a new version of their site. However, they still devote a prominent portion of their homepage to a Twitter feed of responses and updates.

In general terms, I felt that the conference excelled in its presentation, organization, and facilities. I didn’t list anything I disliked about regarding these areas in my last post, because I don’t feel there was anything worth complaining about (well, the wifi was a little spotty). The conference coordinators secured a variety of fun and posh sites for the various legs of the event. Thursday night: opening party (with free wine and beer) and at Slowdown. Friday day: extensive conference with powerhouse speakers at the renovated Kaneko library. Friday night: closing party at the Nomad lounge (with, once again, free wine and beer). All locations were situated in about a one square mile area in downtown Omaha, close to a variety of hotels… all of it being right off the highway. Accommodations were definitely not a source of complaint.

The conference area at Kaneko had been decorated and laid out in a way that was interesting and stimulating for the attendees. Several art installation pieces had been added, in addition to a nifty touch-screen interactive display provided by Phenomblue. The conference area easily held the 450+ attendees, with big screens so everyone could see even at the very back. Fruit and refreshments were available freely throughout the day. Breakfast was provided at the conference area, and there were plenty of breaks for networking. There was even a BigOmaha iPhone app that had been developed specifically for distribution at the conference to encourage attendee participation.

Needless to say, we wanted for nothing at the conference, which left us to focus on the presenters.

Jason Fried

Jason is the president and founder of 37signals, a Web interface design and usability consultancy based in Chicago. He spearheaded the concepting, design, and development of Basecamp, 37signal’s web-based project management tool for designers, freelancers, and creative services firms.

BigOmaha Guide

I’m not a fanatic about 37signals, but I’ve read a fair amount of their blog posts on Signal vs. Noise and I’ve always been very interested in the viewpoints described there… having had to deal with a variety of work situations that had more processes and cultures. Jason didn’t say anything I hadn’t heard him say before, but he had some extremely pertinent and interesting points:

• Knowledge: Share it. Businesses tend to horde their knowledge and expertise, lest the competition trample them. Jason advocated following the example of world-famous chefs, like Emeril Lagasse or Mario Vitale, who freely share their knowledge and reap huge business rewards from it.
• Byproducts: Every action you take produces a byproduct. 37signals started out as just another creative firm. They quickly found that the tools they needed to do their job the best they could didn’t exist… so they built them. Next thing you know, Basecamp and RAILS have come into existence.
• Failure: This was kind of a buzzword at the conference. Apparently there has been a big push in entrepreneurial circles to fail early and fail often because many investors gauge your potential success on how much experience you’ve supposedly gained from your mistakes. Jason debunked this, saying that failure for the sake of failure is ridiculous.
• Focus: Your business focus should be on things that don’t change. “No one is going to say in ten years ‘Gee, I really wish this stuff cost more’ or ‘Why doesn’t this take longer to ship to me.’ Customers always want lower prices, faster delivery, more options and features, etc. Focus on those things, and the details will follow.”

Jason is a bit of an enigmatic figure, enhanced by the reclusive way that the 37signals crew conducts their business. All-in-all, the speech was relatively brief yet informative. We quickly discovered that Jason hates most words in the English dictionary, such as “goals”, “plans”, “investments”, etc. At one point he described 37signals’ lack of planning saying “We have no idea what we’re doing. We just take each day as it comes.”

Micah Baldwin

Micah is VP and Chief Evangelist for Lijit Networks, a Boulder, CO startup that provides publishers a robust search and stats tool. Lijit is Micah’s sixth startup, having sold his last startup, Current Wisdom, in the beginning of 2007. You can read more about Micah’s philosophy of success through failure at his blog, Learn To Duck.

BigOmaha Guide

I have to be honest about Micah: I really have no idea what his presentation was about. Something to do with failure, and that it’s OK to fail as long as failure is an event, and not your journey and/or destination. The difference between being a “failure” and being a “loser” is how you handle the pitfalls.

Good advice and viewpoints, but what I feel I learned the most about from Micah is how to present yourself to your audience, whether it be techy-geek conference attendees, customers, or business investors: Be Yourself. Micah was, I think before anything, blunt and open about his experiences and standpoints and explained situations that led him to give the advice he did. Micah didn’t speak about his current business venture, Lijit, but instead focused on those events that had led him through his many ideas and startups. He summarizes: “Sometimes the best way to learn to duck, is to get punched in the face.”

Jeffrey Kalmikoff

Jeffrey is your average 29-year-old tattooed metal-head with an eye for design and a nose for tomfoolery. The focus of his work is as chief creative officer for the Chicago-based, community-business-centric skinnyCorp who is best known for their multi-million dollar tee shirt business, Threadless.

BigOmaha Guide

I think I’d have to say that my favorite presentation was probably Jeffrey’s. Jeffrey combined the business sense and advice of Jason Fried with the openness of Micah Baldwin to produce a highly interesting and entertaining speech. Jeffrey advocated building brands that evoke a feeling a friendship, and growing that friendship into a greater sense of community. Threadless exists solely because of an active community of contributors and readers, without which the company would simply be another t-shirt shop. Jeffrey recommended taking steps in business to become more open and transparent with customers and users, because this helps bring them into the community mentality. Ownership of a product, site, location, etc. shifts from the individual to the group as a whole.

His slides kicked ass too.

Ben Rattray

Ben is the founder and CEO of Change.org, a social network for nonprofits, political campaigns, and engaged citizens around the world. He’s also a frequent speaker about how organizations and activists can use the social web to advance social change and is a graduate of Stanford and the London School of Economics.

BigOmaha Guide

Mr. Rattray gave a presentation that, at first glance, may have seemed out of place at an entrepreneurship conference. Instead of focusing on business ideas and keys to success, Ben implored the audience to use their skills and resources to do something that matters. Success is a shallow thing if you’re the only one benefiting from it. Ben had several poignant statements about using your time wisely, in both the metaphysical and realistic sense. “If you’re not doing something that you are passionate about, then you are wasting your time” and “If you are doing something, then you are actively making a choice to not be doing something else during that time” are a few of the ones that stuck in my mind.

Ben also offered some sobering reminders that seem to be left out of advice given to starry-eyed thinkers wit big ideas. Mr. Rattray related that whatever you do, sacrifices will be made. Sometimes they are in the form of assets, be it money or time. Other times they consist of relationships, friends, activities, or hobbies. The path to making something greater than yourself isn’t easy, but life is too short to aspire to achieve mediocrity or less.

Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vaynerchuk, self-trained wine expert, is revolutionizing the wine industry. His blog, Wine Library TV (affectionately known as The Thunder Show), boasts a cult-like following resulting from his enthusiastic, unconventional, and often irreverent wine commentary.

BigOmaha Guide

I’d never heard Gary speak before. I’ve viewed a couple of his WineLibrary casts, but I being a relatively uninitiated wine drinker (I’m more of a beer man), wasn’t overly impressed. It’s just not my thing.

Gary the Motivational Speaker is something to behold, however. As a rule, I generally think that if you need to hear someone spout out absolutisms to get motivated to do something, you’re probably not bound for greatness anyway. But Gary does have an intense energy, and the way that he shows his obvious passion for life is definitely inspiring. To summarize his topics would be difficult, because he spoke on a wide variety of subjects: business, life, family, passion, success, etc. The gist: Get out there and grab what you want, and don’t make excuses for yourself. Don’t settle for what you don’t want, and never feel like you don’t deserve to be 100% happy with your life all the time. High talk, but something I think everyone needs to hear and be reminded of occasionally.

Going to school at Missouri State University, I always ended up riding the shuttles since a lot of my classes were downtown in the design building; this is a good 10 minute drive from the main campus.  During my travels on the Bearline, the drivers would inevitable have NPR going over the intercom system.  I regarded it as a novelty, filled with random bits of jazz, the soothing voices of pundits, and the occasional odd tidbit of practical information.

It wasn’t until a few years later that I really started listening to NPR.  Mostly, it gained my attention as a relatively unbiased source of news regarding this recent 2008 election.  Given that I don’t have a TV at home (because I don’t watch the crap that’s on the networks and I loned all my Xbox games out), I tuned in especially for the presidential debates.

Before I knew it, it had its own setting on my stereo in my Mustang and I was listening to the streams while I was at work.  As soon as I realized this, I took a step back and started asking myself: Why do I like this eclectic mix of musical oddities, political jargon, and downright dry humor?

The News

As I said, I started listening to NPR around election time.  I supplemented my political information by watching some CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News (when Shep Smith is on).  But it wasn’t just the presidential info; NPR has a ton of other news about the world that probably wouldn’t end up getting filtered into the mainstream networks.  Things about Syria, the DRC, treaties, social commentaries, and interviews with real people.  I find the news content from NPR to be highly engaging, extremely varied in subject matter, and very succinct.

The Music

Many a time I’ve switched the radio over to NPR on a Sunday morning on my way in to church and have been delighted to find some smoothe jazz.  That makes the trip in at 8:30 to run the sound system quite a bit more bearable.  In addition, there are a ton of music types and genres that get play time, keeping with the general global information theme that’s present across the board for NPR’s programs.  If you hit site for their World Cafe program, you’ll instantly be introduced to music from a multitude of different countries and locales.

The Comedy

All that other stuff is good, but this was the real lynchpin in my growing relationship with NPR: they have fun.

I first became acquainted with the novelty that is public resource comedy many years ago with the Red Green Show on PBS.  While NPR doesn’t have anything quite like Red Green, they do have Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me, a news satire program *slash* comedy gameshow.  I discovered this one Saturday afternoon when I become bored with Pandora and wanted a change.  It is absolutely hilarious…in it’s own special dry way.  Anything with Mo Rocca in it can’t be bad.  They even have Tom Brokaw on from time to time, who is one of the few older people that I can not only tolerate, but admire.

So…NPR has my full endorsement as a source of awesomeness.  Whether it’s for your news, your musical engagement, or because you want to hear a dramatic reading about love from the point of a deer (they seriously had one…I tried to find a link to it but finally gave up), then NPR is definitely worth a listen.