Denise Caruso has published her final Digital Commerce column for the New York Times. The column rang the big bell in my head with statements such as: “Today, the only vision required to make zillions of dollars in the Internet economy is nearsightedness.” and “Internet companies that ignore the people behind the computers are going to fail.” She says VC John Doerr is encouraging “executives to think about starting companies and building products that they believe will change the world, rather than merely amassing wealth.” I worry about the shallowness of some of the companies and products being built in the new Internet economy. What corners are they cutting in their design to be first to market and appease investors with the big IPO? How many will be able to sustain their products and live up to their hype? Does it matter if they are truly satisfying their customers if they can spin the right hype to launch their stock? Will the bubble finally burst when all the dot com shareholders realize that they haven’t been using the proper criteria to evaluate the success of a company? (appropriately, Denise is starting a non-profit research organization)

Heard on the radio today that a company (didn’t catch the name) in the Bay Area has installed an onsite gas station (which cost them a quarter of a million dollars). They really understand the concept of employee benefits! The gas isn’t free, but it’s cheaper than usual, and you can have the cost automatically deducted from your paycheck. Awesome. My dream benefits would be: onsite car wash, oil change, massage, and bookstore or fully stocked library (or a monthly credit at an online bookseller — heck I’d even use it for work-related books).

The Matrix won a pile of Oscars and Phantom Menace didn’t. Yay! There IS a spoon!

I enjoyed this Time article about how a design economy is taking over America. I’ve always paid attention to (what I consider) good design so I didn’t really notice it was entering the mainstream until I realized I was actually finding elegantly crafted household items at Target. When I finished reading the article, it dawned on me that the web has brought style to software. I wouldn’t say that anyone creating traditional application software and certainly not command line UIs (though that’s a “fashion” statement of its own now) was interested in style. Applications eventually settled into that standard OS look and feel (Mac, Windows, Unix) which was boringly similar because it needed to be consistent and therefore useable. But the web has brought style to what is essentially becoming the software you primarily use on your system (though in a browser). Most people, the ones new to computers these days, mainly surf the web; that’s what they think the computer is. The software they see and use are the web pages they visit. Many developers and designers are paying attention to usability in this new realm, though they often end up compromising with artists or their marketing department or other people who don’t “get” the principles of user interaction. I don’t think “web apps” will settle into the same visual consistency that a Mac or Windows app has, though there will be common paradigms for interaction. Is this a good thing? Well, it makes the world a more beautiful place. And my hope is that it is provoking more task-centered user interface design instead of “OK, we need to make this look and work like Microsoft Office.” It should be all about understanding form and function, as you would when designing a physical object. (article via xblog, which I think is the bees’ knees!)

Some people tell me I’m easily amused. Once in a while I see what they mean. I downloaded a bunch of these TV Theme Song ring tones for Nokia phones. Just to listen to ’em. For my own amusement. I don’t have a Nokia phone. And I’m not sure whether a service like this one is offered in the United States (anyone know?). Ultimately, I suppose if I had an all-in-one PDA + MP3 player + cell phone device, it would be able to play any multimedia or do anything the device was capable of to signal an incoming call. And I would set it to behave differently depending on who was calling. “Why’s your PDA meowing?” :-) (link obtained via Kestrel’s Nest’s link to Craig Charles)

I noticed when I was sleeping in late with my cold (which is almost all gone now, thanks!) that I get a lot of telemarketing calls during the day. I assume this happens while I’m at work too (though I suppose the super-spy agents may have their satellites trained on me to see when I am near my home phone), so now I know why I get so many calls on Saturday mornings. The autodial software, having determined that I’m never home during their business hours on weekdays, puts me in the “let’s blast her out of bed on Saturday morning” queue. If there’s anything worse than getting woken up too early on a weekend morning, it’s getting woken up by someone trying to sell you something over the phone. And I keep getting duplicate calls from people trying to sell me the same thing someone else already yakked at me about. That really bugs me. Someone’s either writing buggy autodial software or the humans aren’t updating the database with the info that I’m not interested. Readers who remember my previous telemarketer rant will note that I have pretty much given up on my “just hang up if there’s a pause” strategy, and, indeed, the autodialers are getting smarter. Not a surprise.

I knew this would happen sooner or later. You can now sell advertising space on your car with Carvertising. Their web site claims $250/month, but I bet that depends on a lot of factors. Still, though, with my awful commute and the large number of wandering eyeballs on those clogged highways, I could probably pull in a pretty hefty fee. It’s a captive audience with a very nice income. (via Bird on a Wire)

From the “unknowingly throwing all my money into the same bucket” department: Iams was purchased by Procter & Gamble back in August ’99. Talk about a conglomerate. Here’s the press release. I should have figured something was up when I heard the Albertson’s ad proclaiming that Iams premium pet food was now available at the supermarket. Pet owners are worried that Iam’s formula will change as P&G; cuts costs. Apparently, this isn’t true. Yet. I always worry about companies cutting costs and not telling consumers. Every time I drink a Nantucket Nectar I check the label to make sure they haven’t switched to high fructose corn syrup.

Found on Medley (thanks LIM!): an article (speech?) about Diversity in Engineering. It points out that engineering is a creative activity, but the public doesn’t see it as such. “Designing a solution that elegantly solves the problem and satisfies the constraints is one of the most creative activities I know.” Yes. Yes. Yes. That is where I find much of the joy in my chosen profession. And I would have loved to hear the talk he mentions about “the difficulty women have with a car that has been designed for the 50th-percentile male.” I am forever whining about how there is no place to put my purse in the car when it’s full of people (the whine, since it usually takes place when I’m driving folks to lunch and I’m therefore hungry and grumpy, takes the form of “If women designed cars…”).

I’m not an extremely environmentally conscious person, but I do hate to see hypocrisy in environmental issues. I was at Eddie Bauer the other day and noticed a stack of pamphlets next to the register. They were foldout pamphlets describing their GLOBAL RELEAF® TREE PROJECT. I was really miffed at how much paper they used to print out the pamphlets and said to the woman at the register “They could have conveyed the same information on one card and saved more of these trees they’re talking about!” She replied, in her own miffed tone of voice “But it’s printed on recycled paper!” Which prompted me to go off into my often used rant: “REDUCE! Reduce is the first edict! You reduce, reuse and THEN you recycle!!!” She didn’t seem to get it, and I calmed myself down and said “Never mind. I’ll send corporate an email. Thank you.” Argh. So I’ll stay on my soapbox for a minute and remind any of you who like to remember these things that when you are purchasing products, if you can’t decide what brand to buy, pick the one that has used the least amount of packaging. Notice that some products include boxes around their bottles and others leave off the box. Choose accordingly. (Yes, I realize “soapbox” has suddenly become a bit punny.)