presented out of context

Excerpt from "Why you'll always think your product is shit" by @andrewchen

to have the foresight and the skill to refine something to the point of making it great also requires the ability to be hugely critical. More critical, I think, than your ability to even improve or resolve the design problems fast enough. And because design all comes to making a whole series of tradeoffs, ultimately you don’t end up having what you want.

From "Why you'll always think your product is shit" by Andrew Chen

Thanks to Eren for sharing.

"So much of creation is discovery and you can't discover anything if you can't see what you're doing."

Bret Victor talks about the importance of witnessing the process of creation, "to be able to try ideas as you think of them" and that if there's a "delay in the feedback loop" then this "whole world of ideas" might just never be.

When Apple Integrates Siri to Apple TV Sets

Eureka moments, you never know when they'll hit you. To remind this to us my roommate taped a peace of paper right on top of our sink (that or she's hinting something) a quote from Thich Nhat Hanh from his book Present Moment Wonderful Moment,

Washing the dishes 
is like bathing a baby Buddha. 
The profane is the sacred. 
Everyday mind is Buddha's mind.

In other words, even a simple moment can bring enlightenment. And that's exactly what happens. I find myself wanting to take notes of thoughts and ideas at the darndest moments. As I'm washing a big frying pan trying to carve out the stir fry demise, in the shower waiting for the conditioner to set in, during the downward facing dog position on the yoga mat. You name it, whenever there's no pen, paper or iphone at sight inspiration loves to come and give me the elbow. 

"Gaining Dunbar points for your brand" a sneak peek at 2015's buzzwords? via @garyvee

Gary Vaynerchuck comments on brand EQ vs. IQ,

...the brands that figure out how to connect emotionally, EQ over IQ, are going to be the brands that succeed, and this new dunbar number, the commercial dunbar number, is definitely in my opinion the most important number in business in the 2015 world.

I was an unpaid door-to-door salesperson for @Path, until 2.0 took away my reason.

If you've followed or bumped into my photography blog, Botox the Ghetto, you might remember my (relatively) short post on my love affair with Path. Here's a section:

I'm this * * close to being marked as spam among my friends all thanks to a little startup called Path...

Having been on facebook since waay back, I've given up on sharing photos a long time ago. Hence when I experienced the intimate, very romantic setting of Path I began using it instantly. Their app is close to perfection. Their graphics & layouts are exquisite. Everything was fantastic. And I was super pumped -ready to share away the deepest, most boring, corners of my days. Until I realized friends needed serious convincing to join. So I emailed, messaged, poked non-stop for 72 hours, successfully recruiting a couple. Who I'm pretty sure joined just to shut me up. And when I began harassing them to upload avatars they politely stopped responding to my emails. Fair enough.

Now despite the awkwardness created by my self-proclaimed & unpaid spokesmanship we have a tight little community on Path.  

"Dear boss, here's what I've been meaning to tell you" #pz2011

You know you go to these conferences wondering if you stand out from the crowd while hanging out with the crowd and in hopes of learning from the crowd, somehow. But it's also interesting to watch the balance, contrast and movement between each speaker, as one leads the way to the other.

Here's a quick reflection of the flow of energy today, at Istanbul's very own annual Marketing Summit successfully held by Management Centre Turkiye. Hosted by Don Draper doppelganger in a parallel universe, the super chill Miles Davis fan, Mr. Peter Economides. Whom I'm suspecting might be building a massive wooden bird to fill with 50 marketers & branding experts, somewhere along the coast of Athens.

But without further ado, canim patronum, dearest boss, first of all...

 

"I swear I was at the conference today."

 

You see, "Marketing is jazz."

 

And one should "Remove the speed bump, provide value with information, insights & assistance and plant seeds" 

 

It's "relationship marketing" so please boss "have patience."

 

Don't get me wrong "Content is still king!" but "Context will drive..." 

 

Let's "make 1/20 of the messages" we send out about our product, and the rest just really valuable content.

 

Let's not push.

 

And be sincere.

 

Also did you know that "79% of smartphone users use their smartphones to help with shopping"

 

And we've had a hunch boss that "Turkey, is the right place and the right time."

 

And hey did you know that Vodka can be kosher?

 

...and we need to move fast because our "biggest competitor is tomorrow"

 

"Because we live, in an open source world."

 

And they might,

 

So right now boss, let's just listen. And we'll take it from there.

 

Quotes from: Peter Economides, Guy Kawasaki, Gary Vaynerchuck, Obi Felten, Micael Dahlen, Richard Lewis, Hamish McRae

"..the way has now been opened for the innovating consumer to be a casual entrepreneur.”

Among the potential producers are the innovating consumers themselves, as well as consumers adopting the initial design, who then decide to produce the design for sale to others. The exciting news for consumer-innovators is that it is getting steadily easier to commercialize an innovation oneself; you need not give up an attractive job or career you already have. Companies can be hired to produce your design in volume, to accept and process customers’ orders and payments and to ship the completed product to the customers for you as well. It is a far cry from the all-consuming entrepreneurial effort that was required to perform these tasks in earlier days. In effect, the way has now been opened for the innovating consumer to be a “casual entrepreneur.”

From The Age of the Consumer Innovator [MIT Sloan Management Review]

Smartphone photography, taking a leap from "pretty" to "functional" and the age of curation.

For those of us who've been lucky enough to take a bite out of the zest of professional photography it's always been a painful internal debate whether or not "instant photography" is a satisfying form of expression. 

Todays instants are not quite the polaroid but the smartphone. iPhotography or also known as iphoneography constitutes the definition of instant: quick. The present moment is captured at a glance and a tap. A tap or two more and you have a well rounded image pleasing to the eyes. And the best part? Its mobility. An additional tap and the world inhales it with you.

Quick, easy and feels good. Has the potential to excite and spread like wildfire. You've probably heard its comparison with fast food, which might indeed be an accurate one.

So from an artistic stand point I'm continuing to shy away from using iphotography as a form of expression. That's why I've been sharing my smartphone photography in its rawest sense possible, without the glitter, the filter, purely functional: to show, to point, to remember. With some exceptions.

But I must admit, with each new and beautiful app, with each new release of a better smartphone lens, it's getting harder and harder. And I can't help but be all like "woah that looks pretty-tap-make-prettier-share" as oppose to snap, bath, burn, bath, fix, scan, edit, save, store or snap, snap, snap, delete, snap, plug, upload, wait, wait, edit, save, share.

Again this is one of the reasons why we wanted to create Pikz. To be able to curate photographs that inherently have a more functional usage and to put our own personal emphasis on the context & foreground in which its presented.

Pretty, outside of the context of art, with all its charming mobility the techy-century has to offer, will always be in vogue but its time to also worry about how pretty is displayed across all mediums and find new and exciting ways of consumption, both here & out there. 

The photo above was a camera screenshot, sent to my mac, then taken using instagram from my computer screen, then sent back to my laptop, grabbed a screenshot of a section of its full screen view, edited it in photoshop, shared it on path, uploaded it to posterous. Haters gonna hate.

SV analyst Mary Meeker comments on Turkish fashion site Trendyol.com

Mary Meeker discussing "Internet Trends" during Web2.0 Summit 2011 briefly comments on female founded Turkish fashion startup Trendyol's success,

A Turkish fashion site. They have 4 million users, founded 2 years ago. And Turkey is the textile capital of the world. And they really like fashion. And the demo skews very young, they are one of the top facebook countries and they (Trendyol) have a kickin' entrepreneurial team, great team.

It's not just the designers job to worry about aesthetics

Bill Gates is super-smart, but Steve Jobs was super-ingenious. The primary distinction, I think, is the ability to apply creativity and aesthetic sensibilities to a challenge

"Estetik kaygı" as we would say in Turkish: to have aesthetic concerns in everything one does. This phrase is usually associated with art and artists but anyone can (and should) be concerned when involved in the process of giving birth to a product, a brand, a service.

Like Mr. Jobs, Franklin enjoyed the concept of applied creativity — taking clever ideas and smart designs and applying them to useful devices.

Though most of us can still only operate MS paint it's nonetheless our utmost responsibility to train our eyes and carry at least a degree of "estetik kaygı" at all times.

NYTimes, "The Genius of Jobs" by Walter Isaacson