Fri, Apr 30 2010
Our first Quirky Town Meeting was a crazy success. If you missed it, check it out here!
Quirky Town meeting 1
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Our first Quirky Town Meeting was a crazy success. If you missed it, check it out here!
We’re busy gearing up for our first-ever Quirky Town Meeting tonight. Here’s how it’s gonna go!
- Starting at 6 p.m. EST, we’ll be broadcasting live from Quirky HQ using UStream, an awesome online video service.
- Our Quirky Town Meeting channel is located at the following link: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/quirky-town-meeting.
- UStream allows for live broadcasts, as well as live chat. PLEASE NOTE: You must sign up for an account with UStream in order to participate in the chat. If you have a question at any point during the broadcast, type it in the box to the right of the screen and send it over!
If you are looking for a movie to watch this weekend, I recommend Gary Hustwit’s Objectified. This is the same director who also brought you the font-focused documentary, Helvetica (2007). Objectified, released last year, is a walk through the world of product design/manufacturing, punctuated with interviews by design practitioners like Chris Bangle, Mark Newson, and Karim Rashid (to name a few). Along with the famous faces in the design world, this movie also shares the thoughtful commentary of design critics like New York Times columnist and author, Rob Walker.
Objectified provides a quick/entertaining overview into the system(s) of creating products and our complex relationship to them. This movie can serve as a good starting point for anyone who wants to learn more about design and get aquainted with some of its notables and topics. For more information about the film, check out this review posted last March on Core77.
Hey Quirks,
As some of you have noticed, there is sometimes a short lag time between when one project ends and the next one is launched. We know you are curious as to why this might be so I figured it was time to share some insight.
I can assure you it’s not because we are out to lunch or taking coffee breaks (unfortunately we don’t really take many of those while at the HQ) but it is simply because we are reviewing/discussing ALL the submissions and community votes/comments to ensure we make the best decision for each and every project.
Please bear with us if you see these slight delays. We promise that we’ll be selecting the winner(s) as soon as we can.
Also, one thing we will work toward doing in the future (and you can see that we have started it for the Gym Carry naming project) is updating you with a current design brief after the ID phase is over.
In other words, after the ID phase has ended and winner(s) are selected, we will do our best to add descriptive briefs to the project desciption boxes when projects launch. We will include info like:
– Here is what we currently know about the industrial design of this product.
– Here is what we are still investigating about the industrial design of this product.
– And here is what we need from you all in the mean time.
Often the “here is what we need” will be your brilliant naming suggestions, but in some cases it might be a different project, maybe ID round 2, maybe product research round 2, etc.
Bottom lines:
1. Trust that we are working to move projects along as fast as we can – there is a lot that goes into every decision.
2. We will do our very best to inform the community of our current “design briefs” so that you can use this info when submitting your names/taglines/logos.
We think this will work to help you all in your submissions and in turn help our products be even more awesome.
As always, hit us up with questions about any of this and we will continue to do our best to move projects along as speedily as possible!
On an unrelated note, how sad? Double scoop of gelato slid right off my cone last night after lick 1. 
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about how things tend to progress on the Internet, particularly in social arenas. Below is a diagram of the conclusions I’ve come to…
Or maybe it works more like this…
This time of year, there are some big design shows, and to continue in my series on Design Inspiration, I thought I’d highlight some.
ICFF (International Contemporary Furniture Fair) – NYC, May 15-18
ICFF is the US’s biggest design show of the year. Each year furniture companies and design companies big and small pack into the Javitz Center here in NYC to display their latest and greatest. The best part about this is that it brings the entire design industry to one city for the week, so there are tons of spin off galleries and parties all around town where you can talk with different designers.
BKLYN Designs – Brooklyn, NY, May 7-9
BKLYN highlights the best of NYC’s most artistic borough. This show is much smaller than ICFF, and acts as a prelude to the bigger show for NYC. My favorite part about BKLYN is that most of the exhibitors are entrepreneurial designers who are very willing to talk with all show patrons about their work and their careers.
Salone del Mobile (aka Milan Design Week) – Milan, Italy… last week
Ok, so we all wish we could have spent the week in Milan, and I hope I can make it to this show someday. The Milan show fills the entire city with furniture and designs from all around the globe, and like ICFF it boasts spin off galleries and parties. If you missed out like I did, check out Core77′s coverage of the show here: http://www.core77.com/blog/milan10/default.asp.
This morning, we opened our inboxes to find several orders from ThinkGeek, one which pushed Switch over threshold after a quick six days in pre-sales!
ThinkGeek is one of the leading online retailers of “stuff for smart masses”, and they’ve expressed a fair amount of interest in our products over the past several months. This morning, they purchased Switch, Click ‘n Cook, and Cloak.
To sweeten the pot, this arrangement shakes out prettttty well for the community members who influenced these products. Why? Well, according to our new terms and conditions, Quirky shares 30 percent of revenue for direct sales and 10 percent of revenue for indirect sales with the community for products 0036 and onward. But, since Switch is product 0035, Click ‘n Cook is product 0033, and Cloak is product 0030, the old terms and conditions still apply — so we’ll be sharing 30 percent of ALL PRODUCT REVENUE, direct or indirect, with the community for these products.
That’s a lotta dough… $14,839.50 just this morning, and thousands to come. Dare we say it? Millions may not be so far off!
“The CPU,” he said, “runs at a certain speed. It can execute a fixed number of instructions per second, and no more. There is a finite limit to how many instructions per second it can execute. Right?”
“Right,” I said.
“So there is no way, really, to make code go faster, because there is no way to make instructions execute faster. There is only such a thing as making the machine do less.”
He paused for emphasis.
“To go fast,” he said slowly, “do less.“
http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-to-write-fast-code.html
p.s. the site should be a bit faster now 
The date is set for our first-ever Quirky Town Meeting:
Friday, April 30, at 6 p.m. EST
We’re excited to engage our community on UStream, using a combination of live video broadcast and chat. We’ll talk more about that a little later, but first… the agenda!
There’s lots we want to discuss, including:
- Product manufacturing updates.
- The idea selection process, and what goes into Quirky staff decisions.
- Our development/design process.
- Our open business model.
Anything we’re missing? Hop to the forum to let us know if there are any other topics you think we should add.
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
Nice sentiment, Billy, but unfortunately that thinking won’t fly in the product development world.
Naming is a key phase in the Quirky process, but lately, it’s gotten a little overwhelming to sift through the HUNDREDS ideas, good and bad, that we receive each week. So, we’ve decided to experiment a little with our idea submission limits for naming and tagline — you’ll notice that the limit for the Tape Stamp tagline project, which launched today, is 2 instead of the regular 3.
Hopefully, this will help everyone think a little more about their name/tagline suggestions, before they hit the big red submit button. The following resources/blogs may also help:
Name Wire: The Product Naming Blog
CatchThis: Catch Word’s Naming Blog
Snark Hunting: The Naming and Branding Blog
Happy naming, Quirks!
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