Posts by John Tornow

Braden Kowitz, from Google Ventures:

I’ve observed that teams often like to walk through UI designs as they would a blueprint – showing where each element belongs on the plan. Each screen shows how the product might look in a different situation, but the screens are not connected in any way. The problem is that when designs are presented this way, you’re only building an understanding of how the product looks. You’re not focusing on how the product works, and you’re not simulating how customers interact with it. So when teams critique designs as blueprints, it severely limits their ability to reason through the interactivity of the product.

The best product designers practice story-centered design. They begin by crafting stories that show how customers interact with a product, and only after they’ve accomplished that do they design screens as a way to tell that story of interaction.

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Blake Griffin, writing in Derek Jeter’s new venture, The Players’ Tribune:

Ballmer wants to win no matter the cost. Donald Sterling didn’t care if we won – at least if it meant he had to spend money. It wasn’t just about spending money on players. For years, our training staff wanted to buy this sophisticated computer software that would let them scan our bodies and keep track of our progress throughout the season. Sterling wouldn’t sign off on it.

When I walked into the training facility for the first time this summer, the entire vibe was different. People were smiling. From the security people to the game operations staff to the office staff, everybody seemed happy to be there. For the first time ever, they were on permanent contracts. Under Sterling, all the staff were on temporary contracts. Top to bottom, everybody just appreciates being appreciated now.

When I walked into the trainer’s room, the staff was going crazy. They showed me the new body scanning software. Ballmer signed off on it Day 1.

First, The Players’ Tribune is a fantastic site. They are about 4 articles in, and already it is must read for any sports fan. The site is extremely well done, well designed and carefully edited.

Second, Steve Ballmer is going to be a fantastic NBA owner. Clearly he understands how to make everyone feel respected, whether they are the star player or a security guard.

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Lovely piece in this Sunday’s New York Times:

For most of us, Siri is merely a momentary diversion. But for some, it’s more. My son’s practice conversation with Siri is translating into more facility with actual humans. Yesterday I had the longest conversation with him that I’ve ever had. Admittedly, it was about different species of turtles and whether I preferred the red-eared slider to the diamond-backed terrapin. This might not have been my choice of topic, but it was back and forth, and it followed a logical trajectory. I can promise you that for most of my beautiful son’s 13 years of existence, that has not been the case.

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Julie Zhuo, on Medium:

[Start-ups] need people who:

operate with good intuition. There’s simply not enough time, money, or people at a start-up to invest in a bunch of research or data-gathering. Good product and people intuitions are what lead to successful outcomes in the arena of high-risk plays.

are well-rounded, jack-of-all-trades. It’s more important to have something be functional and done quickly than it is to be done in the most scalable and robust way. That’s why people who can jump into any number of problems and Mcgyver it are so highly valued at start-ups. Practicality matters; specialists and sticklers for perfection need not apply.

are proactive and don’t mind ambiguity. If you’re looking for someone to give you mentorship, training, or a structured environment in which to learn and grow, working at a start-up is going to be frustrating because those are not going to be priorities for the company.

possess a healthy dose of optimism. You have to believe what you’re doing is valuable in order for it to actually be valuable. If you don’t feel that optimism but find yourself attracted to the idea of a start-up for other reasons fortune or fame or freedom there are other, more certain routes to achieve those goals.

Spot on. All of these also apply for building a start-up team within an established company.

Also, “big” companies aren’t all that bad. There are trade-offs for sure, but no company is completely perfect or terrible, regardless of size.

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Starting next year, you’ll finally be able to watch HBO on the web without a cable subscription. In a dream come true for cord cutters, HBO CEO Richard Plepler has confirmed the company plans to launch a “standalone, over-the-top” HBO Go subscription offering at some point in 2015.

This is fantastic news. Once the live sports issues are tackled (I’m looking at you NFL, take a lesson from baseball) we may see some true innovation in this space. Imagine a world where you get to choose what you want to consume, and put your money behind that choice. Sign me up.

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Kevin Ashton, writing on Medium:

His eyes fume from his Twitter profile: he is Hollywood-handsome with high cheekbones and dirty blond, collar-length hair. Next to his name is one of social media’s most prized possessions, Twitter’s blue “verified account” checkmark. Beneath it are numbers to make many in the online world jealous: Santiago Swallow has tens of thousands of followers. The tweets Swallow sends them are cryptic nuggets of wisdom that unroll like scrolls from digital fortune cookies: “Before you lose weight, find hope,” says one.

Sounds amazing.

There’s just one thing about Santiago Swallow that you won’t easily find online: I made him up.

This is a fantastic story about how easily someone can be created out of thin air, and made “influential”; online. We shouldn’t be so quick to believe everything we read online.

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Jason Fried, on Signal v. Noise:

There are designs that are close, but not there yet. There are obvious conflicts that will need to be resolved. There are lingering things that confound you, confuse you, or upset you, but you know that eventually they’ll work themselves out. Eventually you’ll find the right way to do something you’ve been struggling with.

It’s hard to live with something that isn’t quite right yet – especially when it’s your job to get it right. It’s important to know when to say “it’s fine for now, but it won’t be fine for later.” Because moving forward is critical to getting somewhere. And, eventually, you’ll figure it all out. It’ll all work out in the end.

A great reminder.

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Marco Arment, on The Magazine shutting down:

I thought making a high-quality app was the hard part that was keeping iPad magazines from being more successful, but the app turned out to be the easiest and least important part of the business.

Ed Cumming, writing for The Guardian:

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Ello’s emergence has been how little time it has taken for people to be rude about it. If you can’t be an early adopter, be an early denigrator. Criticisms emerged about how private it really was and bugs in the system. The founders admitted to being surprised by the level of interest and were at pains to explain it was still in beta-testing and far from the finished product.

We’ve been chatting about this at the office for a few days, and there is an interesting consensus building: First, it is clear that a lot of people are clamoring for replacements of Facebook and Twitter. Second, it is clear that the expectations of what most of the attempting start-ups call a Minimum Viable Product is really not viable at all. In fact, in Ello’s case, it falls far flat of public expectations.

What the public seems to define as an acceptable starting point, the Minimum Desirable Product, is much more than has been attempted so far. If we’re going to get the next wave of social networking upstarts, the bar is set far above the basics of messaging and friends lists.

And really, if you launch a social networking platform without a native mobile (especially iPhone) experience, you’re just too far behind to even consider.

Ello shows us that these upstart social attempts are far from perfect, but here’s hoping these startups keep trying and eventually we can break away from two monster social networks and have more great options to choose from.

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Andy Swan, on bringing a new Makers Mark product to market:

What Bill Samuels did was force innovation through voluntary restriction. He specifically restricted his master distiller from doing THE two things that every other company in the world would have done: Change the recipe slightly or create a premium “single barrel” or longer-aged version.

By not allowing yourself to use all of the tools at your disposal…by not allowing yourself to do the things that normal people do…by not allowing yourself to compete on the features that every other product has…you can force yourself to innovate, differentiate, and create a unique value proposition.

Constraints drive innovation.

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A runaway title in a division of behemoths, then an unexpected sweep against a trio of Cy Young winners.

Beating the past three Cy Young winners in a three game sweep is a heck of a way to proceed to the club’s first Championship Series since 1997. Proud of my hometown team, and looking forward to Friday.

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No trip to San Francisco would be complete without at least one fantastic restaurant visit. This time we took a  Mission detour to a little Roman-style Italian restaurant called Locanda recommended by some local friends. Pictured is the radiatore with lamb ragu, a fantastically-prepared simple bucatini, lamb carpaccio and a few fried olives thrown in for good measure. If you’re in the area, this place is amazing and highly recommended.

Somewhere over New Mexico. This view never gets old.

During our recent trip to San Francisco, we took some time away for an afternoon to explore Muir Woods. Well, as it turns out, with a sleeping baby in the back seat we decided not to risk disaster and actually stop to get out of the car. So our version of exploring was to drive around the hills and take everything in from within the car. Eventually, we did stop a bit to walk around on the beach area. Here’s just a few of the scenes along our stop.

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending Apple’s 2014 World Wide Developers Conference, aka WWDC. (Although for everyone there, it is really aka “dub dub”.) It was an incredible experience. It was a whirlwind 5-day-long nerd sensory overload that left me energized, humbled and ready for a fantastic year. Here’s just a few photos snapped along the way.