What I Want from Diapers – At a Glance Color Indicators

There are a number of indicators to determine if Cooper’s diaper needs a changing:

  1. Is he screaming?
  2. Does the front of the diaper feel and look full?
  3. Are his clothing, blankets, or crib wet?

As you can see, all the items in this list are what economists call lagging indicators. In addition, two of them have fairly unpleasant consequences.

Continuing my thoughts that diapers should be made for parents, not kids (i.e. 86 the cartoon characters) – I think diapers should change color based their ‘status’. Yes, exactly like those dorky Generra Hypercolor shirts from the late ’80s.

Then, I can see – at a glance if this is why Cooper’s alarm is going off.

Sure, the entire diaper changing color would be nice. I’d also be up for geo-political trivia, where the answer is displayed upon saturation.

Huggies, Pampers, Anything in R&D along these lines?

UPDATE 26 March 2007
Along the same lines:

“I was surprised at changing time with a message on J’s diaper: “My Last Diaper!” — a message from one of her teachers that we needed to bring in another batch of diapers”Sara Brumfield via Parenthacks

What To Do with 10 Sears Ads?

Sunday Star Tribune seemed a little heavy for a boring, post-holiday, January weekend. As I culled out the handful of things I actually care about;

  • comics
  • big box electronics ads
  • “signature” – maybe there’s something interesting this week
  • “money + business” – maybe there’s something interesting this week
  • the Satellite radio article in “arts & entertainment” – complete fluff piece. Aside from reading like an ad for Howard Stern. I hope the Strib got some ad dollars for the article. More on that at the Work Better blog.

I also found:

  • 2 duplicate Office Depot ads
  • 2 duplicate PartyAmerica ads
  • 5 duplicate CompUSA ads
  • and yes, 10 duplicate Sears ads
  • I don’t know how advertisers pay the Strib and measure its usefulness, but this can’t be helpful. Plus, I didn’t page through any of them. So, doubly un-helpful.

Radio’s Age of Desperation

Stern finally moves to satellite radio on Monday and I was reminded in the Neal Justin’s The New Golden Age of Radio.

Problem is….satellite radio is boring (coincidently, Sterns departure makes the FM dial even more boring). Removing the regional limits of the FM dial is something Clear Channel has already been doing for years. I’ve got more than 4 days (down from 6) of unlistened, FCC-free, cost-free, region-free, audio of exactly the things I’m interested in sitting in my iTunes library right now. No need to wait until Monday.

In the age of on-demand video (Netflix & ‘on-demand’), knowledge (Google), news (Google), audio (podcasts). Pushing a format listeners can’t rate, fast-forward, or re-listen seems like a step backwards.

In the end, I predict in the next couple years XM or Sirius will sell their satellites to the other and distribute all their programming over the internet. It has all the benefits of satellite distribution (infinite channels, outside of the FCC’s jurisdiction) with little of the overhead.

“I believe that people will pay for radio, it’s everything iPod can’t be. IPod can’t give you content and we can” – Howard Stern.

Could someone please introduce Howard to a podcast. I have a show to record.

Disc Drives to Go the Way of Disc Drives

I predict in 2 years, Apple will start shipping computers lacking CD/DVD drives.

Why Apple? They were the first to drop 3.5″ floppy drives, Zip drives, and modems.

So, how will big, heavy software installs (like OS’s) be shipped? I’m thinking USB flash drives or network connections. What else is the .Mac storage and a NetBoot good for?

Maybe they’ll get real crazy and ship an OS X install on all iPods by default.

No, I’ve got nothing more than a hunch on this. A hunch and a more discs than I’ll ever need.

UPDATE, 22 months later:

“How’s Apple making it so much thinner than current MacBooks? By eliminating the optical disk drive” – John Gruber

Yes, A Juicy Lucy Is All That

When Jen asked me to pick up cheese for burgers tonight, it wasn’t on my mind at all.

At some point, I was inspired. Perhaps Scott and Dave‘s quest finally got to me.

Before I knew it, there was two slices of medium cheddar between two quarter pound patties squeezed together and slapped on the grill. Yep. Despite being in NE Minneapolis – we was grilling up Juicy Lucys.

Yeah, tasty. Best way to have meat and cheese and cheese and meat.

Definitely worth an ongoing quest.

What if Your Customers Took Over Your Company’s Blog?

The Work Better Weblog is 2 years old this month. To celebrate, I’m starting an experiment in multi-author business blogs, community-building, and transparency – each Working Pathways client gets posting access.

That’s right – if you’ve hired Working Pathways, you automatically receive a login and password to publish whatever you’d like to the Work Better Weblog.

As I stated in the invitation email:

“Post anything you’d like. Yes, anything – your thoughts on the internet, work process, whatever’s on your mind, even about working with me, and this experiment. Everything’s fair game.”

The first batch of invitations has gone out.

There’s a good chance there’ll be some new voices here in the coming months. Keep an eye on the by-line.

First Crack 69. Garrick Talks About Attention, Advertising, and Interruptions

Just me today to kicking off the new year with a new mic – Sennheiser e816S, a simplified production process, and a glass of Armagnac.

Things on my mind:

  • Cooper’s crying is like interruption-based advertising is like a Vonnegat story.
  • Distribution is Advertising.
  • Removing distraction for the New Year; moving status indicators to my dashboard and unsubscribing from yahoo podcasts, ruby on rails, and a pile of rss feeds.
  • Errol Morris’ First Person
  • Special thanks to Dave Slusher for remembering the story was Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron, Lewis for the bottle, Sam for the delivery, and Jeremy Piller for the theme music.

Listen to Garrick Talks About Attention, Advertising, and Interruptions [10 min]