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This Week in Love is a series of blog posts where Sachi and I share what we love. Browse the archives and follow @weekinlove on Twitter.
This Week in Love: AeroPress Coffee Maker
Remember those orange flying rings called Aerobies? They were a little like a Frisbee, but would fly (almost) forever. In fact, an Aerobie was used to break the Guiness World Record twice for "longest throw of an object without any velocity-aiding feature."
The inventor of the Aerobie flying ring was an Alan Adler from Palo Alto, CA. While I loved my Aerobie as a kid, Mr. Adler invented something that gives both of us great joy as adults: the AeroPress Coffee Maker. Like the flying disc, it's engineered to get results.
Why We Love It
We both love a dark, rich cup of coffee and drink our share of espresso. We've never owned an espresso machine and have always looked for ways to get the espresso experience at home. Drip coffee or Keurig coffee makers just don't get to that level of flavor. Plus, espresso machines can be expensive. The Aeropress is the closest we've come to espresso at home for a fraction of the cost - about $26 on Amazon. (affiliate link)
Here's how it works...
The Aeropress makes one cup of coffee at a time and involves a bit of a process. For me, it's a daily ritual I enjoy. People who drink tea know what I mean. The basic idea is that you fill a tube with coffee and hot water and then manually press it through a filter into a cup. A really simple idea that works.
The Basic Parts
The paper filter goes in the black plastic filter, which attaches to the bottom of the bigger tube.
Fill it with coffee and hot water, insert the plunger and press the coffee into the cup.
The resulting coffee is richer and smoother than we thought was possible at home. Plus, it takes about 10 seconds to clean and is made from durable materials. All for under 30 dollars (US).
Quick note on our policy regarding products. As always, This Week in Love is not a paid advertisement. We have no connection with AeroPress aside from loving the product. However, some products we cover may be for sale on websites like Amazon and we may use affiliate links. This means that if you click an Amazon link from this page (for instance), Amazon will know it came from our website and give us a small slice of the purchase price. We'll let you know when this is the case, like this:
You can get the Aeropress from Amazon for under $30 US on Amazon. (affiliate link)
Don't miss the next Week in Love. Follow us on Twitter @weekinlove.
About the video:
A few photos from behind the scenes:
Sachi Cutting
Materials ready to shoot
Everything on deck
This Week in Love is a series of blog posts where Sachi and I share what we love. Browse the archives and follow @weekinlove on Twitter.
This Week in Love: PEMCO Commercials
It's not often that we're prepared to come out and say that we love a series of insurance commercials, but these are near and dear to our hearts. They're commercials for Seattle-based PEMCO Insurance (with DNA Seattle) and part of a campaign called "We're A Little Different. A Lot Like You."
Why we love them:
Wherever you're from, you know the things that make that region unique. You know how people think and what they do. Seattle and the Pacific Northwest is no different. Most people have notions of Seattle that involve rain, coffee, computers, grunge music, etc. But there's a second level of culture that only the locals see.
This series of commercials has done an amazing job of plucking those little bits of culture out of the NW and portraying them proudly in commercial form. They're a little embarassing, but that's what it all about. We think you'll find them to be funny and endearing snapshots of what makes the NW the NW.
Here are a few 30 second samples:
As always, This Week in Love is not a paid advertisement. We have no connection with PEMCO aside from loving the commercials.
Don't miss the next Week in Love. Follow us on Twitter @weekinlove.
This Week in Love is a series of blog posts where Sachi and I share what we love. Browse the archives and follow @weekinlove on Twitter.
This Week in Love: The Radiolab Podcast
Over the last couple of years, podcasts have become a big part of our lives. We work from home and end up sharing our listening habits, for better or for worse. We've discovered a number of podcasts that we love. We play them while working (especially doing creative work), cooking dinner, working out, etc. They've become among our most frequently used types of media and we listen through iTunes and Stitcher Smart Radio. We explain podcasting here.
While there are podcasts on nearly every subject imaginable, we prefer informative ones. We want to be enlightened, to learn something new. That's why we fell in love with a podcast called Radiolab by Jab Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. It is, by far, our favorite. At heart it's about science, but more than that, it's about exploration and discovery. Produced in hour-long shows and twenty minute "shorts", the hosts pick a single topic and dive into the details, usually from several different perspectives, in a way you'd never expect.
Photo: Radiolab/WNYC
But Radiolab is not just great content - it's great production. Jad Abumrad (who recently won the MacArthur Genius Grant) runs the sound design and integrates music and sounds in a way we've never heard before. For example, a guest describing an experience is not a flat audio feed. Their commentary usually includes background sounds, the hosts' voices, and layers of sound, all artfully composed into a unique experience. Further, while their discussion is mostly scripted, it comes off with authenticity and friendly humor.
Here are a few of our favorite episodes:
What's gotten into you? In this hour, Radiolab uncovers a world full of parasites. Could parasites be the shadowy hands that pull the strings of life? We explore nature's moochers, with tales of lethargic farmers, zombie cockroaches, and even mind-controlled humans (kinda, maybe). And we examine claims that some parasites may actually be good for you.
What can machines tell us about being human? This hour of Radiolab, Jad and Robert meet humans and robots who are trying to connect, and blur the line.
On this hour of Radiolab: a journey to the edge of human limits. How much can you jam into a human brain? How far can you push yourself past feelings of exhaustion? We test physical endurance with a bike race that makes the Tour de France look like child’s play, and mental capacity with a mind-stretching memory competition. And we ask if robots--for better or worse--may be forging beyond the limits of human understanding.
It’s easy to look back at Internet history and spot the points of major change. A famous example is the Web 2.0 era which spawned products like Twitter, Facebook and other lasting features of the Web. Some would say we're in the cloud era now, with nearly everything we do on computers being moved to off-site servers.
This is a guest post by friend of Common Craft, Darren Barefoot. He's a writer, marketer, Canadian and a big hockey fan.
During a hockey game in March, 2010, Boston Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara drove Montreal Canadians forward Max Pacioretty into the stanchion that separates the player's benches. Nearly a year later, it still looks like a brutal hit as Pacioretty 's head bounced off the corner of the boards. Chara received a five-minute penalty and ejected from the game. Pacioretty was sent to the hospital.
The next day, Mike Murphy, the NHL's vice-president of hockey operations released a statement about the incident. To the confusion of many fans, he chose not to further punish Chara for the hit. Murphy used a common generalization for the incident, explaining that it was "a hockey play". There was no further comment from league officials on the polarizing incident, but the sports media was host to an orgy of outrage and consternation.
The NHL's pronouncement from on-high was typical of how professional sports leagues addressed questions of the "supplementary discipline of players". They hold discplinary meetings in private, and emphasize expediancy over transparency. Traditionally, the less discussion there is of such incidents, the better.
Last summer, the NHL hired a new chief discplinarian, former player Brendan Shanahan. Fans knew Shanahan's predecessor as sometimes controversial and secretive, and so the new sherriff in town promised "a clean slate" and "fresh eyes".
The tale of the disciplinary tape
Among the changes that Shanahan has implemented, one stands out as a radical departure from the professional sports league status quo. Every time the NHL hands down a suspension--there have been 32 suspensions thus far--Shanahan records a short, explanatory video that the NHL shares with players, team staff and fans.
The videos are not only extraordinary for the way Shanahan openly discusses the NHL's rationale for a particular decision, but they're also terrific examples of coherent, precise explanation. Here's a recent example:
Shanahan introduces each video (he has some experience as a pitchman), and then offers a play-by-play of the infraction. He uses the typical tools of the sports broadcaster to break down an incident. He shows the play in slow-motion from a variety of angles, and highlights details of players involved.
Shanahan takes care to balance the hockey lingo with straightforward language. In the above video clip, he describes how:
Carcillo chips the puck behind Gilbert at the Edmonton blue line, creating a race toward the end boards. This is a 50-50 puck that either player can win, and in such cases a reasonable amount of physical contact is permissable as the players jostle for position.
The new or casual hockey fan may not know phrases like "chips the puck" or "50-50 puck", but the careful language makes it easy even for the non-fan to understand what happened. Shanahan is also careful to contextualize the incident, describing the game situation, previous antagonism between players, injuries sustained and other contributing factors.
Finally, he wraps up each three or four-minute video with a bullet point summary, as if he's just presented a set of PowerPoint slides on a new HR program at Dunder Mifflin.
The NHL has also begun to make more instructional videos public. Here's one called "Clean Hard Hits and Good Decision Plays" that aspires to show players and fans how to avoid appearing in the more punitive videos.
Heretics in the church of sport
If you're not somebody with a season tickets or a jersey section in your closet, these may simply seem like well-made if ordinary illustrative videos. They are that, but they're also a kind of heresy in professional sports. No other professional sports league has publicly produced videos like this to explain league rules and how they're broken. The NBA officials seem to be paying attention, though. They recently released a video rather defensively titled "Wade Winner Legal" to address criticisms that Dwayne Wade traveled on a game-winning shot.
They've proved to be an antidote to a lot of the plague of speculation and hyper-analysis that occurs in the sports media. Bruce Ciskie, writing for SB Nation, discusses the impact the 'Shanaban videos' (as they've come to be called) have had on fans and players:
I thought a two-game ban on Minnesota's Pierre-Marc Bouchard was patently ridiculou...But even in a situation where I disagreed with Shanahan, it's hard to say that his video didn't lay out a pretty strong case for the move he decided to make.
The videos are also working because the players are paying attention. I'll say it again. In a preseason that lasted less than two weeks, Shanahan's department was forced to do ten videos, nine of which involved decisions to suspend players for incidents.
In nearly two months of the regular season, the same group has issued eight suspensions.
In discussing why they introduced the videos, Shanahan cites the role of video in player instruction generally:
This generation of players, you can tell them a message, but what they really want to do is see it. This is how they’re coached. They get called in, and they don’t get a lecture, they get shown a video. It’s how they are trained and taught. It’s not enough for them to read a memo anymore.
Shanahan's comments apply to this generation of fans, as well, who are as literate with video as their parents were with words. The NHL videos are great examples of explanation in action. They combine the best of sports media with the best aspects of explanation--context, audience analysis, reptition and summation. They're great inspiration for today's communicators.
Today we've published a new video: Social Networking (Facebook).
This video is a much-requested sequel to our video on Social Networking. As you likely know, a lot has changed in the world of Social Networking as Facebook has emerged to be one of the standards - and this video is aimed at why. It covers the basic ideas through the story of a woman who becomes a member and discovers how the social network and status updates help her feel more informed and engaged with her interests.
I grew up playing soccer and over the past few years, Sachi and I have become bigger fans than ever, especially for our hometown Seattle Sounders. The rules of soccer came pretty easily to Sachi who didn't play as a youngster - with one huge exception: the offsides rule. I tried to point it out at matches, explain the idea, etc. Eventually, visuals did the trick and now she's the one throwing her arms in the air.
Indeed, the offsides rule has a serious, worldwide explanation problem. It's adoption is limited by how the idea is being explained. And looking forward to The 2012 Olympics in London, this is an explanation problem that's ripe for a solution.
Enter Neil Wolfson, who won a competition to design a coin which was sport related for a series to celebrate the Olympics. According to Wolfson:
"I'm a football fan, I followed the Premier League since its inception and if I had 50p for every time someone had asked me to explain the offside rule I'd be a very rich man.""When the coin is in circulation I hope people like it and I hope people are able to use it to explain the offside rule."
So, the coin is a visual aid meant to be used in concert with a verbal explanation. Sounds familiar. The real magic of this explanation though, is that it also buys beer.
I'm excited to be one of the keynote speakers at the Training Magazine Conference and Expo. The event is in Atlanta, Georgia on February 13-14th. The event is set up to have multiple, short keynotes over the course of the conference and my talk will focus on the "Art of Explanation". Here's the description:
While technology increases connectivity, connectivity increases complexity. The time between decisions is shrinking and the scale of information around each decision is exploding. How do we craft explanations when faced with this dual challenge? How do we make sense of complex issues in the shortest time possible? Learn a breakthrough approach for crafting explanations that people get, and act upon the first time out. See how an explanation can move someone from disinterest to motivation and even excitement. Lee LeFever, renowned for building short, creative video explanations, will share what he’s learned about the key elements of great explanations.
I hope to see you there!
The show went on sale at noon on Saturday, December 10th. 12 hours later, we had over 50,000 purchases and had earned $250,000, breaking even on the cost of production and website. As of Today [the 13th], we've sold over 110,000 copies for a total of over $500,000. Minus some money for PayPal charges etc, I have a profit around $200,000 (after taxes $75.58). This is less than I would have been paid by a large company to simply perform the show and let them sell it to you, but they would have charged you about $20 for the video. They would have given you an encrypted and regionally restricted video of limited value, and they would have owned your private information for their own use. They would have withheld international availability indefinitely. This way, you only paid $5, you can use the video any way you want, and you can watch it in Dublin, whatever the city is in Belgium, or Dubai. I got paid nice, and I still own the video (as do you).
I really hope people keep buying it a lot, so I can have shitloads of money, but at this point I think we can safely say that the experiment really worked. If anybody stole it, it wasn't many of you. Pretty much everybody bought it. And so now we all get to know that about people and stuff.
