Category Archives: Etc.

The New Project: ScreenPug

Posted on by under Etc.

Lately, I have been inspired by a whole host of things. The disruption of book publishing continues as ebook sales continue to grow. My trip to SXSW early this month reminded me again of the entrepreneurial spirit that so many people are embracing. And I continue to be fascinated with the application of lean methodologies to areas ranging from web start-ups to health care.

All of this inspiration has led to my next project, a software project called ScreenPug.

My founding thesis is that we need a new tool for writing and publishing in a world of screens. All the tools we have now from Microsoft Word to Adobe InDesign were built to make printing on paper more efficient. What we need now is a tool that makes it simple to publish our works on screens.

I am not the only who is seeing this need. Kevin Kelly has started a blog called Screen Publishing and a user group in the San Francisco Bay area to explore publishing on screens.

I have three founding principles for Screen Pug:

  1. The writing interface should be simple and eliminate distractions. WriteRoom and OmmWriter are good examples of this approach. WordPress even has a full screen mode that does a pretty good job.
  2. The content should be separated from the formatting, stored in HTML and CSS.
  3. The tool should interface with WordPress for blog posts, it should let you publish ebooks in popular formats like epub or mobi, and create pdf files with a push of a button.

There are lots of programs that have pieces of this, but none of them have it all in one place and none of them focus on the writer.

To do more than just talk about how publishing should change, this weekend I am participating in Startup Weekend Portland. I will be pitching the idea of ScreenPug and seeing if I can recruit some folks to help make this idea real.

If this sounds like something you would be interested in, do two things for me.

1. Drop your email address at http://screenpug.com.
2. Share the news. After you signup, you’ll get a website url that you can tweet, facebook, blog, email to others.

Thanks for listening as always and I plan to have something to share with you very soon.

“Your playing small does not serve the world.”

Posted on by under Etc., Personal

I shared this with a friend today and thought I should share this with everyone else.

This was one of the passages we read at our wedding.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Marianne Williamson is from her book, A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles, Harper Collins, 1992. From Chapter 7, Section 3 (Pg. 190-191).

Trying out Tumblr

Posted on by under Etc., Personal

Tumblr is an interesting site that pulls together information from the wide variety of sources where you may be storing it. You can take your flickr photos, twitter messages, blog posts, and del.icio.us links and put it in all one place.

I used to try and put everything up here. You can see by the lack of material that that strategy is not working.

For family and friends, you probably want to watch my tumblr site going forward. It will be a better source of information about what is going on with me and the family. If the experiment fails, I will direct everyone back here.

Think different.

Posted on by under Apple, Etc.

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

-Apple Computer

Check out Zaadz newsletters, this was from Philosopher’s Notes.

a really short moment

Posted on by under Etc.

There is going to be a moment and
it is actually going to be a really short moment,
in relationship to all this other
garbage
yougottadotogettothepointyougettomake the stuff. 
But that is the thing that I kinda live for. 
It is like there is this one moment where
you
figure it out,
and you get it,
and you think it is going to be the best thing you have ever did.

And it is really really exciting
and I never get over it
and it hasn’t changed in 34 years
and as long as you can feel that,
you can do it.

-Taken from and inspired by Paula Sher: Type is Image

[hat tip: Signal vs Noise]

inBubbleWrap

Posted on by under Etc.

The new 800ceoread site inBubbleWrap is running in full swing.

This week is the grand opening and we are pulling out all the stops.

Today we are giving away the chance to spend a day with Ben and Jackie from Church of the Customer. You will get their undivided attention and help in develop your plan for customer evangelists.

We will have more cool things as the week goes on.