Hello. Welcome to the weblog of Sean Sperte. This is a collection of writings and links relevant to the topics of design and technology. Read more →
Introducing the ExpressionEngine Reactor Team.
One of the core reasons why I love using and working with ExpressionEngine isn’t as much about the functionality of the system as much as the overall philosophy. That philosophy results in an approach to software design that allows for cool things like this new Reactor team – a group of committed members of the add-on developer community. In the words of Leslie Camacho, EllisLab’s CEO, this new team “can contribute directly to ExpressionEngine using a system modeled off Open Source contributions”.
Such a great idea.
Wordmark it takes a word and sets it in every font you have installed on your computer.
With companies like Square, Simple and now Dwolla, I’m really starting to get excited about how my generation is bringing technological innovation to the financial industry.
You’ve all seen the video Microsoft produced demonstrating their vision of future productivity. Now you’ve got to read this brief rant on the future of interaction design by Bret Victor. He says:
… this vision, from an interaction perspective, is not visionary. It’s a timid increment from the status quo, and the status quo, from an interaction perspective, is actually rather terrible.
He goes on to describe explain the problem he has with what he calls the Pictures Under Glass trend of interaction.
Maciej Ceglowski, founder of Pinboard.in, on why social software sucks:
Asking computer nerds to design social software is a little bit like hiring a Mormon bartender.
That’s not the only zinger I could have quoted, but it was my favorite. The whole article is extremely insightful; well worth the read time.
Sidekick looks like a great solution for the modern laptop user. It intelligently updates laptop settings (things like brightness, default printer, server settings, etc.) based on location. It’s like Network Locations on steroids. (Via Josh Puetz.)
I loath Daylight Saving Time, and this video, which attempts to explain it, does nothing but fuel my hatred for it. (Via Shawn Blanc.)
Shame on me for not previously linking to Fantastical, one of my favorite new utilities for Mac. It’s a simple menubar application that allows you to view, create and edit calendar entries using natural language.
I was privileged to sit in on TechStars Seattle’s Demo Day today and one of the presentations stood out to me – see if you can tell why. Smore helps self-promoters (like small businesses) create great looking, single-page, promotional pages, which they call online flyers.
Klout, a website that attempts to assign a score to your online influence, recently changed their ranking algorithms, which resulted in lower scores for everyone. And, therefore, the social media world flipped out.
The argument, apparently, is that there’s an entire ecosystem now built around the ranking of online reputation, and that the scores are used in job interviews and compensation evaluations. You know, just like junior high.
Frankly, I wouldn’t want to work for a company that uses my Klout score to determine whether to hire me or how much to pay me.
Here’s a concept video by Microsoft showing their vision of how the world will look in 5-10 years. It’s chock-full of a bunch of almost dizzying motion graphics, but is fun to watch.
I can’t help comparing it to Apple’s Knowledge Navigator concept video, which was produced almost 15 years ago. I personally prefer Apple’s approach more – the singular subject narrative. It’s easier for me to mentally digest. I feel like I only have so much brain bandwidth to dedicate towards understanding the concepts, and if the story itself requires explanation or interpretation, I get overloaded and miss things.
Search Engine Land:
On Tuesday, Google announced that by default, it would encrypt the search sessions of anyone signed in to Google.com. This means that when someone searches, no one can see the results that Google is sending back to them.
Though inconvenient for web publishers who track incoming search traffic, that’s a good thing. It reinforces privacy for those who are explicit about using Google’s encrypted search. But:
Google has designed things so that Caller ID still works for its advertisers, but not anyone else, even though the standard for secure services isn’t supposed to allow this. It broke the standard, deliberately, to prevent advertiser backlash.
So they’re passing referrer data on sponsored links so advertisers can still track incoming traffic, regardless of whether the user has used Google encryption or not. It makes sense from a business perspective: keep the paying customers – the advertisers – happy. It means, though, that Google’s privacy policies are being dictated by money. That can’t be a good thing.
This isn’t a post about Steve Jobs. Or maybe it is.
Here’s the short story: after almost 12 years of working for The City Church, I’m going to exit employment and enter the technology/web space. I’m still not sure exactly what I’ll be doing, but I have several opportunities in front of me, and I’m excited for the future.
The long version of the story starts on July 10th, when God dropped an idea into my head that I couldn’t ignore. It was one of those disruptive ideas that, anecdotally, has the potential to change the face of the Internet – to put a dent in the universe. I told my wife and a few close friends, and everyone I told agreed.
There’s a story Jesus tells in the Bible about a master who gives three servants each money (“talents”) and then goes away on a journey. The three servants each steward the money differently, and one ends up just burying the money because, as Jesus tells the story, he knew his master to be shrewd. When the master returns, the three servants report what they’d done. The first two servants had invested the money and had gotten double the return. Obviously the master was pleased. The third, however, got a stern rebuke and the money that had been given to him was taken away and given to another servant.
There are many lessons in the story, but for me, I learned I cannot bury that which has been given to me.
After weeks of prayer and counsel with mentors and pastors, evaluating the risks, and considering the season that both my family and the church are in, I’ve made the decision to leave the job I’ve had for over 10 years in order to pursue this idea God gave me. Starting October 31st I’ll no longer be employed by The City Church.
It’s a bitter-sweet decision. I’ve always felt that working for the church has been more than a job. It’s been a calling. And while I realize I don’t have to work there to still contribute to the vision, the job made it more practical. The word “volunteer” has been used a lot in this process, and I’ll obviously be doing that, but applying my skills in a volunteer capacity won’t yield near the return as being able to work 40+ hours a week does. And that’s a hard thing to reconcile. I’ve been able to do what I love, for a purpose I believe in, while getting paid for it.
Jobs are temporary though. Our callings – what we’re designed to do – go beyond our jobs. That’s what I’m learning.
I feel accountable to this thing God’s given me. I don’t want to “bury my talent”. Even though I may not be able to execute on this idea immediately – it still requires some time to formulate and develop – I have to start the process.
In November I’ll either have taken another job working for a startup, or will be self-employed and taking freelance projects. Or there might be a completely different opportunity for me to take by then. In the meantime, I’ll be working to brand (or rebrand) myself online; discovering my new voice and personae. That means my website (and this blog) will likely get an overhaul. You’ve been warned.
As I said, I’m excited for the future. How can I not be? I’m doing what I feel I’m supposed to, and my wife is in agreement, it’s great timing, and I have great opportunities in front of me.
I wonder if this is how Steve Jobs must have felt in 1976.