April 2009 Archives

For years it was a rumor that Google ran their massive datacenters within many movable standard shipping containers. On April 1st, April Fool's Day, the company confirmed this and released pictures and video of the centers (no, it wasn't just another Google hoax on April Fool's Day). Google also talked about the custom server design they've been running to accomplish the massive scale they've achieved over the years. What's interesting is how they framed all of this around a goal of energy efficiency and cost savings.

In honor of Earth Day (a belated honor since Earth Day was April 22nd), I'd like to share this video. Any geek, especially ones that run datacenters, will appreciate this video. Pretty cool to move more than 1,600 servers in a self contained shipping container with a huge crane.

Saw this awesome picture on the AdFreak and 37signals blogs a few days ago and loved it. Someone at Audi wanted to challenge BMW in this ad, and BMW responded quickly with a billboard across the street saying "Checkmate." This is what I like to call "conversation sensitive" advertising and two companies having some fun.

How should Audi respond?

There's been discussion about the potential for electric cars for many years, even a documentary about why it hadn't worked called, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" When oil prices were high there were many companies looking into this again and some high end manufactures, like Tesla Motors, are producing them now. One of the obvious issues has been the ability to charge, which begs the question, how far can an electric car actually be driven?

Better Place has a bold plan that is explored in this TED 2009 talk by Shai Agassi. This isn't the typical TED talk with cool visuals or amazing technology but more about a real world solution for a problem that has--and will--continue to drain the economy and call into question relations throughout the world.

Nintendo Wii sold out quickly when it was first released and its popularity only continued to grow. The interesting thing about the Wii is that it isn't just for video game fiends and the other usual suspects. Whether it's playing the guitar and drums in Rock Band, or working out with Wii Fit, there's something for everyone. And that's good--because Wii is everywhere. There's even a bar/restaurant here in Boston called Achilles Project, where you can play on a Wii while you have a beer (although, one might argue, that could be disastrous for your game).

At GotVMail, we knew couldn't come up with any good reason not to set-up a Wii Room at our headquarters, so we went ahead and mounted a nice LCD screen on an Ergotron cart and put it with the Wii in a dedicated room for people to enjoy.

So, how do you convince your boss (or yourself) to purchase and install Wii in your office? Use one of the arguments I've listed below.

• All work and no play makes for some really agitated employees. Everyone at GotVMail works incredibly hard, but sometimes people need a break. Easy way to blow off some steam? Play a fellow team member in a 10 minute game of tennis! (Of course.) Playing Wii is a good way to free your mind, let go of your frustrations, and think like a kid for a bit (and that's good for everyone's productivity).
• Wii gets employees talking. No matter the size of your company, there will be people who don't interact with each other on a regular basis. Wii brings a lot of people together, and during a few games, gets them talking, too. Wii lets up to four employees play at a time. This is crucial for community building in your workplace.
• We all could use some fun. These days, fun is hard to find. People are struggling. Why not make the workplace a little more upbeat? No, playing Wii won't solve the economic crisis, but it might help some of our bigger problems seem more manageable.

It's great to see people taking a break and having some fun playing the Wii in any of our offices in Boston or Austin. Our most popular games have been Wii Sports and Madden 09 in the quick 5 on 5 mode.

So send this blog post to your boss and get employees playing Wii to relax, socialize, have fun, and be more productive.

Saw this fun Sprint Now television commercial the other day and then saw it again on the AdFreak blog. The voice over used in the commercial is what originally caught my attention, but I also liked the data representation graphics. It was even more intriguing to hear this whole concept might have come from the success of the Sprint Now widget.We're obsessed with data for sure, and it's cool to see this "real time" data as a representation of what we're doing with mobile phones today. But what's really fascinating is that the ad starts with phone calls, and the rest is other activities--some of which aren't even performed on mobile devices.

Today TechCrunch posted that Information Architects released the Web Trends Map 4 final beta. This very cool visualization "maps the 333 most influential Web domains and the 111 most influential internet people onto the Tokyo Metro map." Seems like iA Inc. releases this once a year based on research on traffic, revenue and other key metrics.

This is a nice way to see a massive amount of data which is interrelated and provide some visual interest to what otherwise would have been a pretty boring report. A nice twist is iA has released the high quality images of this in "beta" asking for the "crowd" or internet community to help catch any errors before it goes to final production. This is a great way to get a passionate group of people to improve a product or service.

I think our pre-school and kindergarten teachers had it right: at a certain point in the day, you just need to close your eyes, and if possible, get some shut-eye. Even in the "adult world" of 9 to 5 work, there's just something about "shutting down" both your computer and your mind for about fifteen minutes per day that just re-starts your brain, and makes you even more productive when you wake up.

But why won't people admit that napping--a practice rooted in childhood--could actually boost productivity in adult environments? After all, the statistics are there to support the benefits of napping: according to the National Sleep Foundation, "[a] study at NASA on sleepy military pilots and astronauts found that a 40-minute nap improved performance by 34% and alertness 100%." Researchers at the Center for Sleep and Consciousness also discovered that sleep's basic function is to "remove the noise" accumulated in the brain from tasks performed each day, allowing the brain to "refresh" itself. The University of Wisconsin's Sleep and Medicine Program also states on their site that sleep is vital for proper brain function: "Some experts believe sleep gives neurons a chance to maintain themselves. Without sleep, neurons may become so overloaded by normal cellular activities that they begin to malfunction." Why not give our brain the help it needs with a fifteen or twenty minute nap each day to recover and consequently, be more productive?

We're a long way from providing an assigned "nap time" for those who work in offices, but I'm doing my part as a business owner and considering the benefits for our employees, all of whom stare at bright computer screens for more than eight hours a day, working on multiple projects. Even if the solution is something as simple as asking people to take fifteen minutes each afternoon to simply shut their eyes and recharge, something has to be done to beat the afternoon "drag" when the brain starts to feel the fatigue of the day. Who knows, we might even have to take one of our empty spaces here at the office and create a dedicated relaxation room...