HOME | ON TAP | COFFEE & TEA Story by Kate Simon Photos by Stuart Mullenberg Apparent simplicity is a precarious thing. Iced coffee seems like it should be a cinch—just throw some strong brew on the rocks and you’re good to go. But coffee is a fragile potion, sensitive to brewing techniques and…

Why don't successful people and organizations automatically become very successful? One important explanation is due to what I call "the clarity paradox," which can be summed up in four predictable phases: Phase 1: When we really have clarity of purpose, it leads to success. Phase 2: When we have…

In case you missed it, I wrote a thing about stealing @shawnblanc’s paperless office setup: http://t.co/KlFSZxQP

Follow @bakadesuyo The technique is called non-evaluative listening: We can achieve real communication and avoid this evaluative tendency when we listen with understanding. This means seeing the expressed idea and attitude from the other person’s point of view, sensing how it feels to the person,…

In less than a decade, Aronowitz has hopped between some of the Valley’s most admired startups: eBay, LinkedIn, and Facebook. And she’s learned how to relate design’s importance within a big organization. When Facebook first reached out to Kate Aronowitz in late 2008, the then-head of LinkedIn’s…

I first learned the Design Studio methodology from Todd Zaki Warfel, founder of Message First and perhaps one of the best designers I’ve been fortunate enough to learn from. The concept originated in architecture and industrial design schools, and I believe Todd was the first to apply it to…

“Panels are the best way to make four interesting people boring.” My experience exactly. http://t.co/93ZNukMc

monro: A predictably excellent treatise from @uie on how and where mock-ups & protoypes fit in to the bigger picture. http://t.co/Mmv9wc5T

Responsive design wants a new design and approval process. RESPONSIVE COMPING by @elefontpress. http://t.co/O3tiEMNa

It has become almost a cliché to say that cross-disciplinary teams are a key component for successful . If certain problems are beyond the scope of any individual—and most of them are—the way to address them is with a team with complementary skills and a common language in which they can all…

Wonderfully written column by @carr2n about @blam's tech site, The Wirecutter. http://t.co/eekC8d38

Love, love, loving @PaulRobertLloyd’s article in @ALlistApart, “The Web Aesthetic” http://t.co/1kLkSVSb

This, from the shockingly recent past, on US #guncontrol http://t.co/o1oe1RQT Like Conn., Colorado massacre sparked debate, but briefly.

Taiichi Ohno was one of the inventors of the Toyota Production System. His book is a fascinating read, even though it's decidedly non-practical. After reading it, you might not even realize that there are cars involved in Toyota's business. Yet there is one specific technique that I learned most…

Much to chomp on here. The web we lost (by @anildash) Highly recommended. http://t.co/UUQtoayl

NEW BLOG POST: The 'Trigger Objective' - The secret of good strategy http://t.co/HbFRVhur

To understand how air-force navigator Tyler Stark ended up in a thornbush in the Libyan desert in March 2011, one must understand what it’s like to be president of the United States—and this president in particular. Hanging around Barack Obama for six months, in the White House, aboard Air Force…

Pixar story artist Emma Coats has tweeted a series of “story basics” over the past month and a half — guidelines that she learned from her more senior colleagues on how to create appealing stories: #1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes. #2: You gotta keep in mind what’s…

After the great dot-com bust of 2000, there was one lasting symbol of the crash: Herman Miller’s Aeron chair. The ergonomic, mesh-backed office chair was launched in 1994, at the start of the bubble; at a cost of more than $1,000 at the time, it quickly became a status symbol in Silicon…

We all get the picture, bad economy = more innovation. In the last few years we’ve seen the explosion of small batch artisan brands trying to pull themselves up from their grassroots bootstraps to make it in the big bad world. While some took to pedaling grandma’s “to die for” pastries from food…

Photo: Ben Shaul "You’ll notice we’ve got lots of electronics around—most of which we’ve taken apart,” says New York Times R&D Lab creative technologist Alexis Lloyd, casually sidestepping two turquoise exercise balls. Walking toward Lloyd’s desk, where she’s working on an indecipherable screen of…

Timely thoughts from @blankenship on what actually matters: http://t.co/LOubnQ83

emilybell: Breathtakingly good from @AlexisMadrigal on Obama's tech team.Key lesson for all, if you get this stuff, you win http://t.co/3TWXId8S

“The World’s Most Creative CEO” says Nike’s culture is perfectly suited for the new, unpredictable age of business. #genflux Modern business is pure chaos. This series is about the people who are adapting to disruption, and succeeding. Read More “The last thing we want,” says Nike CEO Mark Parker,…

“Innovation was scale"-@harper RT @gigaom How Obama’s tech team helped deliver the 2012 election http://t.co/EoG9nX82

Lessons From The Man Who Transformed Ford’s Design Culture http://t.co/eJ5a2zmZ

tomcoates: Interesting post from @rellyab about info and considerations that might help more women want to speak at your events: http://t.co/JfIp1Qzp

Paula Scher is principal at the well-regarded New York City design practice, Pentagram. She’s held that august position since 1991, and during her busy tenure she even found time to redesign Metropolis magazine when we went from a large, tabloid size to a smaller format with the November 1999 issue.…

Before Quartz became a device-morphing business site and the buzz of online journalism circles, it was a blank canvas. That’s an enviable position these days, particularly if you’ve got the backing of Atlantic Media and a staff pulled together from places like The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The…

Americans are living longer, with our average life expectancy now surpassing 78 years, up from less than 74 years in 1980. But we are not necessarily living better. The incidence of a variety of chronic diseases, like diabetes, cancer and heart disease, has also been growing dramatically,…

How I Learned to Defrag My Brain by @alexknowshtml http://t.co/ToTiMIYm

Perhaps no other living director has done as much for the art of the title sequence as David Fincher. The filmmaker’s work inarguably helped kickstart the title design renaissance of the 1990s, a revival that the medium still enjoys to this day. From the slumberous doom of Alien³ and the meticulous…

Jeffrey Zeldman is a web designer, author, entrepreneur, and speaker. As one of the first web designers, he has had a pronounced impact on the profession. In 1995, he launched one of the first personal sites and began publishing widely-read tutorials on methods and principles of web design. In 1998,…

It's becoming hard to remember life before digital news. We now take for granted instantaneous availability of news and information on devices ranging from desktop PCs to tablets to smartphones, We now break news, add commentary and interact with audiences on social networks like Twitter and…

TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE Kevin Delaney is the editor of Quartz, a new business news site coming in September from Atlantic Media. It is located in New York, with offices opening soon in Asia and Europe. Delaney came to Atlantic Media from The Wall Street Journal, where he served as managing editor…

Many service companies, including our own, would love to follow in the footsteps of successful people like Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson at 37signals, or Ryan Carson at Treehouse—transitioning from a client-services company to a products company, through bootstrap funding. And it’s…

Great post about startup life by Ben Horowitz http://t.co/sQD6JZvD

Toronto Star (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Sometimes an ordinary life is completely extraordinary — and hearing about it stops you dead in your tracks and makes you reflect about yours. A story first appeared in the Toronto Star in March that I only just heard about through a tweet last week. Imagine…

Unsurprisingly, I _love_ the latest @contents article. Go read @tealtan on rethinking how we design content: http://t.co/eKrQBJiI

Much has been made over the years about Google’s amazing employee perks, most notably their incredible company cafeterias, with their sushi bars, hand tossed pizzas, and made-to-order omelettes. Google feels incredibly strongly about the importance of this perk – enough so that I know of two…