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The Start of Something COMMON

Posted on 01. May, 2011 by in Bike industry, Client News, Personal | No Comments

The Start of Something COMMON

I didn’t exactly come to Boulder Digital Works to help start a bike company. But, sure enough, I’ve been involved – at least to some degree – in the early stages of Common Cycles as part of a bigger ongoing role designing a user experience and writing code for COMMON.is. Anyways, my role as more of an observer than a participant in the creation of Common Cycles has been an interesting chance to think about the bike industry in general and what I was actually doing in it. Something I realized: Passion isn’t special. Humility is.

Latest: COMMON, SXSW

Posted on 19. Mar, 2011 by in Boulder Digital Works, Client News, Personal | No Comments

Latest: COMMON, SXSW

Welcome to the FearLess Cottage. As alluded to in my last post with the Vimeo-Facebook embed form, I’ve started an internship here where I’ll be helping Alex & Ana Bogusky, Rob Schuham and some other really smart, really nice folks to launch COMMON. The concept, briefly, is to build a socially and environmentally sustainable brand that can launch any number of independent, loosely connected ventures. In the midst of getting rolling with all this, I took my maiden voyage to SXSW Interactive as part of Boulder Digital Works’ 20+-member delegation. Not surprisingly, the highlights of my trip all happened away from the throngs at the convention center.

Embed a Vimeo video as FBML

Posted on 07. Mar, 2011 by in Personal | 12 Comments

Embed a Vimeo video as FBML

I spent a while earlier today trying to embed some Vimeo videos in a FBML box on COMMON’s Facebook page and it was kind of a pain. Facebook doesn’t like Vimeo’s new iframe-based player, and you have to specify a thumbnail image for an embedded flash object. So in case anyone else is trying to do the same thing, I made a little form. It’s not pretty but it gets the job done.

A brief guide to cycling documentaries

Posted on 14. Feb, 2011 by in Bike Racing | 1 Comment

A brief guide to cycling documentaries

Aspiring filmmakers, take note. These three shots will pretty much cover all your bases.

Props for Zombies, thoughts on barcodes

Posted on 26. Dec, 2010 by in Boulder Digital Works, New Media | No Comments

Props for Zombies, thoughts on barcodes

I’m pretty stoked that my recent BDW project Zombies Vs. Hippies has been well received by ad critics and the BuddyPress community. Here’s what we actually learned in the process.

A winged horse teaches us about sponsorship and funding

Posted on 14. Dec, 2010 by in Bike Racing, Sponsors | No Comments

A winged horse teaches us about sponsorship and funding

Sponsorship and investment funding are different ways of getting money to run a cycling team, and the lack of clarity around that difference is a major source of the confusion around what’s actually happening with Pegasus Racing. My best guess is that they never had a major sponsor on board for their would-be ProTour squad. Instead, they found someone who agreed to fund the team until they could sign a sponsor. Then that investor decided to do something else with his money.

2 new releases from BDW

Posted on 01. Dec, 2010 by in Boulder Digital Works, New Media | No Comments

2 new releases from BDW

Three months ago, I came to Boulder Digital Works to learn and collaborate in new ways. This week, my first two experiments in that process were released. Zombies vs. Hippies is a mobile game developed in conjunction with Austin-based Exopolis as a pilot program for Microsoft Tag. DoYouHave5Dollars uses the mechanics of daily-deal and limited-sale websites to make it easy for people learn about issues and contribute to nonprofit organizations.

Who would win in a fight between a user and a designer?

Posted on 24. Oct, 2010 by in Boulder Digital Works, Personal | No Comments

Who would win in a fight between a user and a designer?

In the two months that I’ve spent at BDW, we’ve learned a lot about user-centric design, mostly through our work with the Interaction Design Association. But we’ve also heard from some really talented people about their personal creative processes and seen the amazing work that they’ve produced. At this point, those are the two outlooks that will drive much of what we do over the next year and possibly well beyond our time here in Boulder.

Tumbleweeds at Interbike

Posted on 27. Sep, 2010 by in Bike industry | 1 Comment

Note the distinct lack of crowdedness in the background.

In general terms, Interbike’s malaise has been attributed to a couple problems that are pretty specific to bike manufacturers. But the big change from last year to this year was the number of non-bike companies that opted not to exhibit even though they have shorter lead times and can fill small orders whenever. In other words, Interbike isn’t working for the companies that it should still be working for.

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