Simplicity Rules

Big changes for me. My mapping API book goes to the printer this week. And, at the end of the month, I will join Programmable Web full-time as Executive Editor. I will manage a staff of freelance writers and do a bunch more reporting myself. We cover APIs and mashups of all sorts, with a healthy amount of mapping in there.

I’ve been calling this my first real job. I’ve never had benefits (other than from my own company) or actual vacation days–the sorts of things that most people are used to. Of course, it’s not “real” in the sense that I’ll work from most anywhere and have flexible hours.

I’ll also have a big challenge on a tiny team trying to do huge things. That’s exactly where I like to be.

“Occasionally people slip out the front door and then they wander.”

That was the problem facing a senior center in Germany. Their patients, afflicted with dementia or Alzheimer’s, would walk away in a desperate search for a reality that only exists in their heads. The story is told in fifteen minutes on an episode of the Radio Lab podcast:

“He sat on an advisory board at the senior center. And one day he came up with this idea. It’s one of these ideas that’s so out there and yet so simple that you think it just couldn’t possibly work.”

Install a bus stop. Or, more appropriately, a fake bus stop. That’s all it took to stop the wandering patients and give the staff a chance to notice they’ve slipped away.

Do you have a recurring problem with your website, business, or personal life? Perhaps you need a fake bus stop, something that works with the other party rather than against them… and still ends up giving everyone what they want.

Almost every day I walk down to a local Mexican restaurant and spend at least an hour there. The same restaurant. Every day. I may have mentioned this before. If there is anyone who needs out of a rut, it’s me. That fact gave me an idea for a new side project, which I started work on in early December, six weeks ago.

It’s called unrut and I think it’s a good example of a version one product. I included only basic functionality–there’s a lot of room for improvement. But instead of spinning my wheels as I attempted to finish a marathon list of features, I kept things simple. Users can search for places and then mark them as visited. What remains is a nice little organized list of places to try.

Using only cookies, the site remembers what you’ve marked as visited. So, if a place comes up in a subsequent search, you won’t have to mark it visited again. Would it make more sense to include user accounts, so that the site would work no matter what computer you are on? Yes. However, I trimmed this from the feature list for two reasons:

1. It is not a necessary feature in order to get feedback from people on the concept
2. Every site should let you sample, registration optional, so the cookie functionality will remain even after I include user accounts

And how about incorporating location-sharing sites to automatically determine where you’ve been? Yep, that’s a good idea. But creating a first version is about pointing your ship in the right direction, not necessarily sailing it all the way to your destination. Use the two simplicity paths to figure out the core and just launch that. You can always add stuff later.

Since posting a message about it on my Twitter feed this morning, I received good feedback. Some people asked for the things I already knew I needed. Others have said things that didn’t occur to me. That’s the power of getting a side project out there.

We all have side projects and I’ve written about many of mine on this site. I’d love to hear about your side project. And if you want help getting it done in six weeks, let me coach you.

I’m lucky. I get to see many side projects from talented people, such as through my role as organizer of Portland Web Innovators. We have a recurring event, Demolicious, to share what people have been working on. In fact, there is one next week. If you’re in Portland, please attend.

There is something else I see often–side projects that don’t get finished and languish in a half-complete state. Or worse, they become trapped as unexecuted ideas. It’s nobody’s fault. Life takes over, priorities are forcibly skewed. Side projects, which are often passions, hit the back burner.

That makes me sad. And I’d like to help change it by starting my own side project as a side project coach.

This is part of my continuing campaign to help others create on the web. I’ve written tutorials, a book and over 100 articles on Programmable Web. These are passive methods. While rewarding, they don’t provide much connection with those I am helping. Side project coaching, working one on one, will help me work toward my goal much more actively.

It’s a new year and it seems like a perfect time to pounce on those cobwebbed projects. If you have a side project, resolve to finish it in six weeks. If you know someone I can help, send them my way.

I have a problem: I don’t remember who you are. Okay, maybe not you, but in my travels around the Internet, I sometimes become connected to someone on a social website that I don’t remember. I could use a little context, some help triggering my memory.

Has there ever been a time when the average person has maintained contact with more people? Has it ever been this easy to make these contacts public? Between Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and scores of other social sites, many of us see over lists of hundreds–or more–of individuals.

A study showed that we can’t maintain more than about 150 relationships. I’d agree that it’s tough to be real friends with more than that. But I’d also counter that contacts on social websites aren’t always exactly like the “friends” we keep in the offline world. This is especially true when contacts are more casual, such as on Twitter or when reading blogs.

The following are issues I’ve noticed with social software where I believe a little context would be useful:

• I don’t remember why I subscribed to your blog. I’m sure you wrote an awesome post that was linked from someone who I respect. Now you’ve written three posts about topics that don’t interest me and I’m struggling to remember our common interest. Google Reader, which I use for tracking blogs, lets me use folders and rename the feed. Those can help, but that often doesn’t tell the whole story.
• I don’t remember who you are or why I followed you on Twitter. You can see this is largely about my memory. As a simplicity practioner, I purposely expunge many details from my brain. This is another example where the software should help me out. Yet, there is very little to go on: your user name, your real name (which may not be set) and your bio. That’s often not enough.
• I can’t decide whether I should follow you on Twitter. Again, I only have so much information to go on. Hopefully you’ve included a link to your website, which helps a lot. Twitter, being a casual social network, skips the whole “friend handshake” thing where you request a friendship and then I approve. I like it this simpler way, but one bit of context that is lost is the message where you tell me why you want to be connected. That can be immensely helpful.

Got Any Ideas?

I see a few ways social software could help us out and I’d love to hear your ideas.

• Let me create a private note that I can use to remind me why I followed you or subscribed to your blog. LinkedIn actually has this feature (see embedded video), but it’s relegated to a paid feature. And LinkedIn Pro is over-priced at $25 per month.

• Track how I found you by remembering the blog post I read when I subscribed, or the retweet I clicked on before following you. Web analytics for publishers has come a long way, but similar software doesn’t exist to help consumers. I believe it is the job of whatever software I use to track content to help me make sense of it.
• Show me our friends-in-common. Facebook does this, of course. On Twitter, I need to go to a third-party website to figure it out. And for blogs, we can share individual posts, but there isn’t an easy way to share the feeds. If there was, I might be able to tell why I subscribed to a blog from the context of which of my friends also subscribe.

Have you noticed these problems, too? What solutions do you have?

Lately I’ve been thinking of distances in terms of a strange unit you’ve never heard of: the LaBo. You’ve never heard of it because I made it up. It’s the number of steps between my house and the local Mexican restaurant, La Bonita.

While I was actively writing my book I would go to La Bonita (which I lovingly call “LaBo”) every day to put in a couple hours of writing. Then I met Ben, who founded Walker Tracker, and I started wearing a pedometer. Each day I could count on at least the 3,000 steps that took me to La Bonita and back.

I started to pay attention to step counts on other walks through the neighborhood. And I couldn’t help but think of them in terms of that daily jaunt down to get fish tacos. The hardware store is one LaBo away. A coffee shop on Killingsworth is about 1.5 LaBos, as is the tea shop on Alberta. A walk to the park, around the track and back? Just over a LaBo.

But I don’t expect this unit of measurement to mean much to you. It’s from my house, after all. And these are the number of steps with my stride. The beauty is it takes something that I can feel and makes it more concrete.

You could do the same and it doesn’t just have to be about distance. A puzzle lover might think of things in terms of how long it takes to complete the Monday crossword, in most newspapers the easiest of the week. “Wow, that Sudoku was a doozie–it took me two Monday crosswords to finish it.” Or, “This post office is busy. It’s been half a Monday crossword and I’m still not to the front of the line.”

There’s a precident for the LaBo, and your own similar measurements, in what astronomers call the Astronomical Unit. If you want to be a pest, try asking people how far it is between the Earth and the Sun. Most will ask clarifying questions and may even toil over how many million miles to guess (it’s 93). When they’re ready for the answer, just smile and say, “one Astronomical Unit.”

The Astronomical Unit helps make sense of how far away planets and other solar objects are using a unit that means more than billions of miles ever would. Step counts–and the LaBo–have had similar clarifying effects for me.

What units could you use to help you make more sense of the world around you?

When I was in middle school, my family hosted a man, his wagon and his many donkeys on our 30 acre ranch. His name was John Stiles and he lived a technology-free, nomadic lifestyle. In an age when even mere high school aquaintances friend me on Facebook, the Donkey Man may be the one person from my past who will never find me. So, I would like to find him and I need your help.

I had the honor to tell the story of my time with the Donkey Man at Ignite Portland (the video is embedded below). Since, many have encouraged me to take up the effort to locate John and I hope this post will be the first step toward that.

Like my previous post that mentioned him, I expect others who are looking for John will find this page. Please take a moment to send me a message, or add a new point to the Donkey Man Collaborative Map. Please include at least the year and John’s location. Feel free to include more about your experience, as well.

Here is the current map:

After my talk, one of the 600 people at Ignite Portland came up to me and said she met him in Santa Fe in 1996. John is so noticeable and has met so many people that I believe we can all piece together his story if enough people are exposed to it. Can you help me solve this mystery?

I’m not sure why I never thought of this. Want to make someone feel good? Create a Google Ad using his name as the keywords. Then, when he does his next vanity search, he’ll see your message front and center (or, well, off to the right, probably).

This is exactly what happened to my friend Rick and I wish I could take credit for it. The advertiser is anonymous for now.

The same might work to get the attention of an important prospect. And there are all sorts of nefarious uses I can think of. But I prefer to consider the way it was used in the image above: as a simple, inexpensive gift that will brighten someone’s day.

(And, yes, it may not work with some more common names, but that just means you need to dig a little deeper to figure out how the friend searches for himself).

When creating products, feature creep is the usually slow process by which additional complexity is added. It is not intentional, but it is normal. And it doesn’t stop at your projects, either. It infiltrates your life, creating personal feature creep.

Rather than additional functionality, personal features are usually commitments we’ve made, or ventures we’ve taken on. In fact, that side project with its own feature creep might be contributing to your personal feature creep. As with creating real products, making your life the way you want involves questioning what’s necessary.

Zen Habits has a post on how to fix feature creep in your life, with a four step program:

1. Start from a blank slate.
2. Only add the features you really use and love.
3. Slowly implement the reduction in the code of your life.
4. Avoid future feature creep.

The process is similar to one of the two simplicity paths: build up from the core. And, though it’s twice the number of steps, my fix feature creep post can also be turned toward your own life. For example, “research before committing” is probably a good way to avoid finding yourself with responsibilities you don’t want.

The full Zen Habits post is worth a read, as it provides practical advice for each of the four steps.

Hat tip: Valerie Yakich

Nine months ago I stared at a blank page in Open Office. I was excited and overwhelmed to be starting my first book. I had a publisher and had cleared my schedule, but I was beginning to realize that was the easy part.

What follows are the lessons I’ve learned so far getting to the first complete draft.

Write Every Day

The most common writer’s maxim turns out to be true. Writing every day makes it a habit. Once writing became part of my routine, I ensured that I could take advantage of a powerful force: the large accomplishments that come from the compound effects of daily progress.

I was also greatly helped by continuing other writing. My productivity spiked once I had daily posts to log with Programmable Web. The outcome was contrary to my initial thinking, but daily accountability helped cement my routine. Plus, blogging works the writer’s sprinter muscles. I was able to write more, faster.

Don’t Quit Your Day Job

My original schedule had me finished with the book by May. Like most estimates, it was overly optimistic. But I had yet to learn an important lesson about my brain. It wouldn’t let me write for more than three hours per day, maximum.

Truthfully, some of my most productive writing days were over within 90 minutes. Writing a book is both a marathon and a sprint. It requires a series of short bursts of energy over a long period of time. The best part is that when my writing was done for the day, there was time for other projects. And whatever part of my brain controlled writing wasn’t used in programming or event organizing.

I wish I’d realized writing did not require a full day sooner, because I could have been easier on myself. If I write another book, I’ll do it alongside other projects. You do not need to clear your schedule or quit your job to write a book. To start, you don’t even need a publisher (remember, that’s not the hard part). Just write it.

Make Time For What’s Important

You can accomplish any large task if you consistently make small amounts of time for it. In The War of Art, Steven Pressfield described the things that keep you from forward progress:

“The secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.”

I read Pressfield’s book, on my friend Kareem’s recommendation, in the middle of my writing process. Because many examples involve Pressfield’s life as a writer, it resonated on that level. It also reminded me of side projects that gather dust un-launched. We all have them. I believe writing a book is an excellent practice and can give you the encouragement to execute any idea.

My friend Tom recently begged readers to stop talking and start doing. “Just decide what you want to do and work your ass off doing it,” he says. It’s easy advice to give, but it’s even easier to ignore.

It turns out that writing a book–or finishing whatever project you have–isn’t hard to do. Just follow this simple list: 1. Start working on it. 2. Keep working until it’s done. If it really is important to you, the continued effort will be well worth it.