Aaron Gerdes

Today I tried calling my Senate representative, Patty Murray, to request that she support the Internet Radio Equality Act.

I was greeted with a robotic message that said “You have been forwarded to an automatic voice messaging system. The mailbox belonging to [Senator Patty Murray’s office] is full. Goodbye.”

That’s representation for you.

Maybe a blog is a better way to do my part to create support? Save internet radio.

John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing has just completed a book. I’ve found his website to be full of useful tactics and I’m looking forward to seeing his thoughts in print. His particular approach to low cost, small business marketing is smart and effective.

He recently relayed the story of suggesting to his publishers that blogs are an excellent way to promote his book—and getting eye rolls in response.

Let’s show ‘em they’re wrong.

Life has been busy lately! I’ve gotten engaged, will be married this December, holidays are coming, there’s lots of work to do with Rocket Dog Creative and other projects, and I’ve had a cold I can’t shake.

Not that these things shouldn’t be high priority, but every once and a while I get a good reminder to keep working on this blog.

Mary Schmidt posted about a great visual reminder from Mike Sansone on why blogging is important. It’s worth passing along:

Your web presence without a blog:

Your web presence with a blog:

Photos by florriebassingbourn and kyrielle, respectively.

The server my blog was running on suffered a catastrophic crash after the host (obviously not Rocket Dog Creative) had removed it temporarily from the backup routine. I’ve been able to piece most of it together from a few old backups and my RSS feed, which was cached by FeedBurner and Bloglines . I’m very glad I’m using both of those tools.

The hosting firm has been very accommodating getting things up and running again. A good case study in disaster management.

So, please be patient.. still need to fill in a few posts, then we’ll be back to regularly scheduled programming.

Michael Bierut (of Pentegram) talks about the scope of a design blog.

Warning: Similar sentiments found here.

So what’s with the title?

“Alpha is the new beta” was a phrase that came up in the conversation that sparked this blog. I don’t think I said it (I think it was Toby!), but it had a meaning for me.

I’m moving away from perfectionism, hopefully to a more productive flow-state of releasing ideas in draft form and gathering earlier feedback. This blog is a part that – in progress on lots of levels, from focus to design. Public rapid prototyping.

Speaking of which, I’m noticing a trend. Thomas Leonard was doing it. Flickr and Gmail did it. Even Adobe!

Its releasing a product for public, no-cost testing—sometimes even while you’re still defining major features. Even at the risk of competitors using it to leapfrog. Or the risk of commoditizing your concepts before they hit the market.

Maybe this is done because the feedback gathered and its clarifying properties add enough value to offset the risk.

That said, it’s a temporary title.

To keep myself on track, I should lay out some thoughts on why the blog is here. These are subject to renegotiation as needed.

• Defense of my honor. While meeting up Dave Gray, Riaz, and Toby Getsch in Bellevue on Wednesday, I committed to starting a blog or being publicly accused of lies. Here it is, guys! (Note: If you ever get a chance meet up with Dave, do so. I hear he always buys the drinks!) Thanks, Dave! :)

• Clarification. My mind has been running like a guitar amplifier lately: good for growing ideas, but lots of extra noise/gain. Perhaps writing my thoughts where other people can read them will help.

• Critique. I’m sure I don’t get enough of this! Aggregating it publicly will keep me honest with myself.