You’re on the old version of the site. Maybe you got here from another site. Or maybe you know magic. Either way, have a look at the new site, at plain old jackcheng.com.

A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.
Albert Einstein

Aside from darting by the registers and out the front door with a bag full of books, The 4-Hour Workweek is the biggest kick in the ass you’ll find at the bookstore.

This is not one of those get-rich-quick books (though some parts of it may seem like it). In fact, the moneymaking schemes Timothy Ferriss suggests are in my opinion the weakest part of the book.

But that doesn’t matter, because this book is not about getting rich from a million-bucks-in-the-bank sense. It’s about what you would do if you had a million dollars in the bank.

I think you can reduce the thinking down to two basic principles: 1) ruthless efficiency and 2) not playing by other people’s rules. If you’re working a 9 to 5 and find yourself really only spending an hour a day doing actual work, this book is for you. If you’re an entrepreneur killing yourself working 12 hours a day, this book is for you. If you dream of traveling the world or spending your time doing what you enjoy, this book is for you.

The 4-Hour Workweek is littered with some of my favorite quotes from great thinkers, artists and poets. They show that althought the book is written for today, the thinking behind it is timeless. We all struggle with the forces that prevent us from living a more fulfilling life. Quit wasting your time on the trivial. Buy this book.

I get stuck out in the rain more than the average person. Ask me about the forecast and if I’m not near a screen with an Internet connection, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. I probably forget my umbrella a good half of the time. When it pours, I either get soaked or I buy one of those inadequate umbrellas they sell on the street for three bucks (in which case I only get soaked from the knees down). I’ve already lost one of said street umbrellas, broken two more and I can feel my fourth coming apart at the hinges. I don’t just need a new umbrella. I need an intervention.

Is the Ambient Umbrella the solution to my wet-sock-woes?

A smarter umbrella.

Maybe. It’s a dead-simple idea: the umbrella glows if the forecast calls for rain. If the blue LED catches your eye on the way out the door, you’ll know to take it with you. The umbrella works by pulling weather data in wirelessly from a reliable radio-frequency network and is made by a company called Ambient Devices. This diagram on their site shows what they’re all about:

I love the philosophy. Pushed information interrupts the flow of our daily lives (annoying email/txt weather alerts). Yet, having to pull the same information requires significantly more effort and attention (find/wait for the weather report on the tv, visit the website). Ambient information, on the other hand, is sorta just… there. It’s a natural part of your environment and stays in the periphery until it’s needed.

What makes the Ambient Umbrella different from some other ambient devices out there is that this umbrella understands context. It’s designed with both location and occasion in mind, and presents helpful information in a form that’s immediately actionable. What if we approached marketing in the same way? Instead of interrupting people or demanding their attention, what if companies figured out a way to stay in the background until they could be helpful, delightful and relevant?

Something to think about, rain or shine.

…

By the way, keep your eye out for David Rose, co-founder and CEO of Ambient Devices. He’s going to be speaking here in NYC at IDEA2007, a conference in October on designing complex information. He’s also posted some nice concept sketches of the Ambient Umbrella on his Flickr page, and he’s participating in a fireside chat with the 37sigs dudes as well.

Ambient Umbrella Sketches, from David Rose’s Flickr Page

P.S. If you haven’t filled out my 3-question survey yet, I’d appreciate the feedback. It’ll really only take a minute or two. Thanks!

This isn’t as good as meeting in person, but it’s a way to get to know you nonetheless! It’s for my personal curiosity and I don’t plan on republishing the answers, so feel free to be as anonymous or as specific as you like. Click through for three-question form… thanks!

Continue reading ‘A quick survey!’

HBO’s Flight of the Conchords is my new favorite show. There are a lot of ways to describe Bret McKenzie (one of the elves from Lord of the Rings) and Jermaine Clement (the dude from the Outback Steakhouse commercials), who bill themselves as “New Zealand’s fourth most-popular folk comedy duo.”

If you’re me, that means you’ve been telling people the Conchords are a self-deprecating version of Tenacious D. Or Spinal Tap meets Ricky Gervais’ Extras. Or similar to but kinda the opposite of Entourage. If you’re my friend Michael, then you’re saying the Conchords are like the Monkees crossed with Curb Your Enthusiasm. And if you’re Grant McCracken, you go straight to dissecting the (at least) nine different types of comedic subroutines (including three levels of splicing) that give the show its own blend of humor. Oh you crazy cultural anthropologists ;)

Here’s a scene from a recent episode:

One of my favorite moments in the song is when Jermaine shouts out “What’s wrong with the world today? Unnn say mmm mmm nah nay nay,” as if he’s singing someone else’s song and doesn’t know the rest of the verse. It’s phenomenal.

In interviews, Bret and Jermaine have said that they play exaggerated versions of themselves. I think the brilliance is in their frankness (or their Bretness and Jermainess, if you will). Ultimately, the Conchords speak and sing to us in our own language. They manage to find humor in the awkwardness that we all share.

Last friday was the culmination of a story many years in the making. In more ways than one, it’s the ultimate fish-out-of-water tale about someone who doesn’t follow the rest of the pack. Someone with impeccable taste who, against all odds, is able to summon a kitchen of wizards, unite them under one purpose and live up to the harshest critics and the highest expectations. Someone who just… does things differently.

Continue reading ‘Cooking with Magic’

I love going to restaurants that have paper tablecloths. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s especially nice when I’m stuck on a project and need to think outside the office. The last one I went to was a family-style restaurant down by the South Street Seaport. The food was terrible, but the paper tablecloth and bucket of crayons made up for it. In hindsight, they probably seated us in the kids section.

Anyway. What if there were a cafe where you could write on almost anything? Walls could be covered with chalkboard paint or even post-its like so:

Pixelnotes, by Sirkka Hammer and Duncan Wilson

Imagine paper tablecloths, paper plates, blank paper cups (all made from recycled material, of course):

The trays could be dry-erase boards, and, depending on which beverage or snack you ordered, you’d get a different-colored pen or marker. It’d be an awesome place for a brainstorm session or a writer looking for some inspiration. The best part is that when you’re done, all you have to do is fold your ideas up and take them with you. The cafe could even gather all the random scribbles and doodles that people leave behind and make a book out of the most interesting ones.

If you’re a big LOST fan like me, your mind is probably still hemorraging from last week’s season finale. If you haven’t seen it yet, don’t worry, I won’t give anything away :). I’ll just say it was the best episode all season, yet despite this, one of the shining moments came during the commercial break.

I’m talking about the MasterCard “Priceless” spot featuring three grade-school kids dancing to “We want the funk.” If you follow this blog, you’ll know I’m not a fan of spending ridiculous amounts of money to make TV spots. But this, as they so commonly say, was just good television. It had me laughing uncontrollably and wishing I had a DVR.

Even more shocking is that two days later, the video’s still not on YouTube. It’s not on MasterCard’s Priceless.com site either, nor is it on any of the online commercial archives. The best I could find was a handheld-cam-recorded clip of the 15-second spot.

All of a sudden, I’m (like many others) obsessing over this commercial. I went to the extent of emailing my friend at Mccann. Somebody get on this! The clock on this viral time-bomb is ticking…

[update] Here it is!

Hey all, just a quick nudge to check out PSFK’s London Conference on “trends, ideas, and new marketing.” Tickets are still available and there’s a great lineup of speakers and panelists. PSFK has been posting some profiles of each one of them.

Nice icons, by the way ;)

Talk to your boss and get the company to pay for it. Or if you’re your own boss, write it off on your taxes. You won’t regret it.

I’m breaking my near-2-month non-blogging streak to post this screenshot of Coda’s release notes, because they’re awesome in ways I can’t begin to describe.