Can I run an entire blog from my iPhone? We shall see. The new release if th SqaureSpace app has started me thinking about my blog again. I've noticed that sitting in front of the computer puts my mind emmediately in to work mode. And I can never seem to find time to finish thinking through what I have to say.

Alright, let's think this through.

Squarespace iPhone app
1. Create and edit posts. Good
2. Take photos or add from photo library. Eh... this will do. If I use one of my new favorite apps, Pastebot, I can grab images from other web sites. I mean I review web stuff. This is important!
3. Video. Hmm. I only have a iPhone 3g. No video built in. Ustream to the rescue. Record local share to YouTube. Embed with Pastbot.
4. Embeded links. So far, haven't round a turn key way to do this in the Squarespace app, but again Pastebot Mateo the job here.

I'm excited to get started. and I think I finally found a use for Pastebot.

WHAT!?! No Submit!? Square space to the rescue! 

A Huge Catch, and quick fix! from conceptsguy on Vimeo.

The joys of trying to use a CMS based content management system based on a template design structure, you have to kinda hack your way in to getting what you need.  Don't take that as a bad thing. Building off the SquareSpace interface is a dream, and just down right fun! But as it goes, it comes with some quarks. As the video shows, it was quick check to see that I needed to increase the padding a bit on the main container, and the button was in plain view!  A simple solution for a pretty huge problem!

I've taken a few minutes to capture just a few ways that I keep an eye of design, and where I find a little inspiration every day.

Twitter.com (more specifically Tweetdeck)

I've been using twitter for some time now, and while there is a ridiculous amount of confusion about what to do with twitter, I find that its a fantastic monitoring tool to stay up on design trends.

I absolutely love tweet deck for their column few of search results. My two favorite search terms, "User Interface Design" and "Web Design Inspiration" provide me with a regular feed of more amazing links to resources and inspiration than I could possibly ever consume.

Smashing Magazine

Smashingmagazine.com is will probably not be a surprise to anyone reading this list. They've been around for several years now, but I will say that they are consistently providing top notch material for designers, freelancers, developers, and creatives in general. I'm not sure how they manage to scrape the internets to find such great resources over and over, exposing new and fantastic content authors, but they they continuing to find resources for individuals that  push the envelope in design and more importantly taken a clear stance on usability.

Envato

I wouldn't say that I'm obsessed, but boy am I impressed with the Envato community. I'll admit, I commonly rest in that space of the 95% of online users that consume content, but rarely contribute.  And I feel like I'm just steeling in some horrible way when I spend time on any of the Envato sites.   Tuts+Hub, Marketplaces, FreelanceSwitch, AppStorm, Creattica, and TheNetsetter.  I could spend most of my day just enjoying the smooth styling of their pages let alone the resources I gather while I'm there.  

These sites were created for me. I'm sorry guys! If you go there, have fun! But just remember that when Envato was starting I'm sure they were thinking, "What style, feel, content, and resources would George Brook in Kansas City want to enjoy?" They weren't thinking of you, and its not your fault!  Maybe one day, but for now, I've fallen in love with the Envato sites.

The Rabbit Hole

As you all know, as you dig in to the web, it can easily become a glorious and almost overwhelming rabbit hole of information, but when it comes to design I love it.  I love finding one page that links to another and then another and another analyzing how we can make code usable. How do we take data that once was impossibly in-consumable (double negative?) And put that top love of Creme (more to come on that theme soon), that golden Crema that rises to the top of the perfectly made espresso shot. All at the same time invoking emotion, simplicity, intrigue, and making information accessible to all.  

Infegy  "Understand Millions Instantly"  And that's the dead truth.  Infegy just launched their new website today! It truly reflects the quality of their product(Social Radar). and as I sat in their offices talking through their goals for the site, it took very little time after they showed me their tools for me to realize that this is going to change the way that brands view their customers.  No longer do the companies control their brand through conventional media.  People are the new media.  Every business will tell you that word of mouth is the best sales person.  But what if word of mouth could spread between single individuals at literally the speed of light.  Wouldn't you want to know what those people are saying?  I did.  Its just incredible.  I could see sentiment analysis showing me the positives and negatives of conversations. I could see trends. TRENDS!!  They were archive over a billion feeds just so that you can look in to the past to see what changed from now until today.  For the better, or in todays economy, for the worse.  

How could I as a company begin to address the real media that matters? My customers. Not only can you see the global vision of what's being said by everyone instantly, but you can drill down to the top feeds, and even all the way down to the very individuals that made the comments. What an opportunity.  No longer are customers 100 stories down, below the streets, in amongst my competition.  They are right in front of me telling me exactly what they think of my product.  Mind blowing!

Needless to say. I had a great time working with the crew over at Infegy helping them pull together a design that really spoke to that level of a product. 

Don't wait to give them a call to start looking at Social Radar!

Untitled from conceptsguy on Vimeo.

Now here's my late night introduction. 

Coming Soon from conceptsguy on Vimeo.

May 7,  2009 marked the first annaul Big Omaha conference.  As with most attendees that showed up,  we saw Gary Vaynerchuck, Jason fried, and a handful of other big players on the roster for keynotes, and then looked at an unbelievable price, and there was no questions that we would close shop for 2 days and head to Omaha, Nebraska.  Looking back,  I'm trying to think what I expected as I took the 3 hour drive.  From Google street view of the address marked on the site, I saw an old building, that wasn't too big, so I knew that this wasn't going to be Web 2.0 in San Francisco, or SXSW in Austin.  From the design of the web site, I figured it would be quality at least, and from the little chatter on twitter (#bigomaha) people seemed interested, but mostly in @garyvee. 

Every person I talked to in a unified voice exclaimed, "Wow!" .  Organizers, Jeff Slobotski (now self employed) and Dusty Davidson of BrightMix set the bar for the Midwest no less high than the sky.  I can't count how many times that I heard people say it was in the details.  Big Omaha branding everywhere.  Sponsorship were cleverly place above above the urinals, outlets, doorways, and buckets of starburst.  Projectors with twitter feeds have been done before, but never were they perfectly placed as a side element just as a conversation starter. I'm doing a virtual walk through in my mind, and there is just too much to cover.  The center pieces on the tables, simple and creative, but fitting.  The Traffic flow, I never felt crowded or felt like I couldn't hear the speakers.  There was never a lack of coffee, redbull ( not my thing, but very popular) and snacks.  The breaks were not too long that you were bored, but long enough to take care of nature's call, and chat with some new acquaintances about the last keynote before getting back to see more. And the after parties were just long enough, and just chill enough to grab a drink, grab a couch, and talk about your plans to be the next Jason Fried of 37 Signals 

And the space....  Don't get me started on the space.  First off, lets step back.  Omaha is a gem.  Or at least Old Market of Omaha is a diamond in the rough.  I am so glad that I booked a hotel in walking distance, because the walk was gorgeous.  Turn of the century brick paved buildings and streets with outdoor seating nearly every twenty feet. Shops, art galleries, cafe's, lined several blocks next to a beautiful park and river walk.  Just a wonderful place to be.  Then make your way down to the Kaneko. This recently renovated old brick warehouse boasted a stunning creative library and work space, open art gallery, and what appeared to be space for installation pieces, and wonderful events like Big Omaha.  Just fantastic.

So the conference.  That's why you're reading this.   Thursday evening Gary Vaynerchuck made an appearance at Slowdown, a small concert venue and bar (part of the Saddle Creek records development- Very cool by the way) along with a live  taping of "Winelibrary TV".  How great was it to have the opportunity to be in a small venue ( 150 people tops) chatting it up with creative designers, developer, biz devs from around the nation and Gary V joining in on the conversations. 

Friday was packed with back to back Keynotes from some phenomenal entrepreneurial inspirations, with an overall message to  'Just do it!"  It was the first conference that nearly every speaker fit right next to the previous speaker.  Jason Fried started off the day talking about focussed action.  Not worrying about tomorrow or the 5 year plan, but get the work done today, and stop making it so complicated with business turns and plans, but get to what it is.  Creating great ideas, and doing top notch wor.  Something 37 Signals does right.  Micah Laaker from Yahoo followed up with a great tool set and history of design from yahoo and his personal career. (maybe he didn't fit quite as well).  

Let me take one moment to only just mention the Adriana Gascoigne  of Girls in Tech sorority recruitment keynote.  I think the message was fine, but the venue was wrong, and the lack of clear answers in Q&A was almost embarrassing.  There's only so far that being cute can get you in a room full of ambitious Entrepreneurs . That's all I have to say about that. 

Micah Baldwin of Lijit was great.  Very open and honest about pushing past the failures and mistakes and moving on to do great things. After lunch we all laughed so hard as a no-show speaker spawned a impromptu panel Q&A with Gary Vaynerchuck, Jason Fried, Micah Baldwin, and Jerrery Kalmikoff.  Not going in to this, I hope that they put up video soon. It was just great. Straight off from the panel Jeffrey Kalmikoff of Threadless  led in to taking action and building community by being transparent and accessible to your audience, clients, and peers.  After a short break, Ben Rattray of Change.org straighten us all up by pushing home the message that our gifted talents and resources can be used to change the world in a big way.  Very convicting, and very good.  A small spotlight on some Omaha entrepreneurs really help support that "Go for it!" mentality as we saw just a few faces that were doing just that in Omaha.  Finally Gary V. of Winelibrarytv.com gave his always entertaining  and passionate keynote on passionately pursuing success, purpose, and family.  The poster boy  of the "Just do it!" message.  I will say that for the first time, Gary did step outside of his normal speach and gave some great practical points that I really took note of. 

Closing up the evening with a great dinner with some new friends from Anova Solutions in Lincoln Nebraska, and then heading out for some drinks at Nomad Lounge.  I drove home the next morning excited for the connections I made and the inspiration I got from the speakers, and just the Omaha itself.  I  am looking forward to seeing the plans come together next year at Big Omaha 2010.

This morning I received a promotional email from the online service mypsdtohtml.com. This is not uncommon. I receive pretty regular emails from them about a project that they want to help me with (whatever that means). But today little did they know that they would spark a little social community. 

Hi,

Just wondering if you have any more news about the project PSD TO XHTML
that you want to develop with us?

For more questions please contact us or visit our website for price references:
www.mypsdtohtml.com

This email was nothing new, but what was new was that instead of it only being sent directly to me, it was sent to 300 client email address. Now first off, I could go in to the incredibly bad business practice of sharing the contact info of all your clients to all your other clients, but I've heard that blog is already being written. I'll link to it when I get word.

No what wasinteresting, was that from the rapid fire emails back to PSDtoHTML complaining about the situation, conversation from designers started to surface. One person was complaining about an annoying client, and another person could relate and so on.

Thinking more for the need to not be annoyed by constant email blasts, I started a very quick NING social web site. http://psdtohtmldesigners.ning.com/ Like I said more of a way to stop emails, but it could be a way for those to that want to chat to do so, and let the rest of us get back to work. Little did I know that lots of people wanted to chat. Not all 303 email addresses have joined, but within a couple hour 20 + Designers and developers were posting images of their work, talking about themselves and sharing experiences.

Not only was I excited but it confirmed once again this ability for different people from different parts of the world, with a common NICHE interest could quickly connect over a rouge, all be it bad form, email. 

Looking forward to where this leads and looking for more opportunities to find such connections. 

Have you had any experiences like this?  Post a comment or shoot me an @conceptsguy message on twitter.