It's me, Pete... from the podcast.

Tom Metz

I had been singing with Tom Metz for a while before we did our first bit. 

He’d joined In The Buff a few years after me and immediately began parading his awesome all over the place. As a performer with a fragile ego, a new kid with awesome exuding from him is enough to challenge a world view. 

It’s been a long time, and memory is fuzzy. What I remember pre-Tom is an era of being one of the funny guys. I had a series of bits myself, in fact; Pete’s Joke Corner (in which I told a joke with smokey jazz backup about a leprechaun and a 12-inch pianist), and MasterPete’s Theater (in which I performed metal lyrics in a style loosely reminiscent of slam poetry). There was even rumor at the time that MasterPete’s was in the running for a slot on the Contemporary A Cappella Society’s humor compilation CD. Didn’t happen, but that there was rumor that it could happen is enough for me. 

This was pre-Tom. 

Then Tom came. The guy is impossibly, magnetically charming. Invite him to a light dinner reading of The Fountainhead and Tom would bring levity dressed up in school-boy awkwardness and leave the room thirsty. You see, Tom has been gifted with more than his fair share of social grace. No, I don’t mean he trucks with Emily Post. I mean, he operates in a social context with a surreal fluidity; his humor is precisely timed and rarely off-target, always self-deprecating, and never beneath the audience. 

His antics on the performance stage one-up his moves on the social stage, and that’s where I feel I met Tom for the first time. Stage lights are for Tom just as Superman’s yellow sun: they give him immense power. They sharpen his already keen wit and polish his improvisation. 

Tom is not an actor as such. But as I quickly grew to appreciate his gifts on stage and work with him, I began to learn from him. I have yet to come into orbit of someone who has such a gift to connect with people as Tom Metz, and what he has taught me through observation alone makes a catalog of subtlety and nuance that I think about in every broadcast I deliver, every photograph I make. 

Insofar as this project is about giving thanks for the people and relationships that have made me who I am today, Tom has given me career-defining insight into how I create for the public. It’s a very short list of people that sit in the back of your mind, festering, searching for opportunities to work together again someday. 

Tom is at the top of my list.

For this project, there were only three people for whom I had an idea for their portraits from the start, and Tom was one of them. To me, he’s always represented this sort of timelessness and class that I associate with gentlemen of the screen—Gable. Bogart. Welles. Tom would have to do the 1940’s headshot for me. And to do so in the beat-up CU cap and the trucker-plaid shirt? Icing all the way down.

Chad Niedt and his epic new album on Kickstarter

This guy was in my a cappella group in college. He’s still doing music, and is supremely talented at it. Check out his video above and then help a brother out with a few bucks for his campaign.

Horror month kicks off this week

If you haven’t subscribed to The Next Reel, and you’re a nerd for movies, you really should. This week, Andy and I take on John Carpenter’s The Thing from 1982 to kick off our month of horror flicks. Plus, it’s episode 50, which is cool in its own special way.

It’s a funny movie, The Thing, not just because of the spider legs coming out of the head, but because of just how well it holds up as a cultural portrait of the state of things. It’s a film about paranoia and fear and partisanism; it grapples with what it means to address an opponent who wants to defeat you through assimilation. Come to think of it, I can’t think of a better, more appropriate distraction from debate season than a dose of The Thing. Plus, Andy drops “socialism” into the conversation a few times. Can’t go wrong with a little alien socialism, my mama always said.

This week was Andy’s pick. Next week, it’s all mine: 28 Days Later. It’s one of my favorite horror films, but certainly my very favorite from the zombie oeuvre.

On Taking Control: Digital Clutter

For the last three weeks, Nikki Kinzer and I have been talking digital clutter on the Taking Control podcast. It’s a great discussion, as always, but I’m plagued by the high level. With all these things, there is so much detail lost at the expense of the overview.

I live my digital life at the center of a Venn diagram of methodologies from three guys.

  • David Allen: David is the Getting Things Done guy. The general daily, weekly, monthly workflow from David has been central to all my organizing effort for a decade.
  • Merlin Mann: Merlin is the Inbox Zero guy. There’s a funny thing going on with Merlin right now—I have a hard time knowing whether he’s sworn off talk of process in favor of creative. But it should be noted that his take on managing email as a function of GTD and the active work it takes to both stay on top of the signals at the expense of the noise and still feeling freedom above it all is transformational. His podcast, Back to Work on the 5by5 Network is fantastic for creatives looking for ways to find value in their inner-selves. So, it’s strange, but comforting.
  • David Sparks: David is Macsparky, a lawyer by trade with a gift for Mac nerdery and penchant for paperless. HIs iBooks ebook, Paperless, is the gold standard for going … ahem … paperless on the Mac. Of the 1,324 incredibly valuable tips he delivers in this fantastic book, I’ve implemented 1,323 of them so far.

These three guys are the nexus of inspiration for me. Given the amount of stuff I create—words, images, sound, code—when I’m lost in the muck it’s usually because I’ve lost my internal instructions for processing it all. Going back to a classic from one of these guys is usually enough for me to remember that my peace comes when I’m feeling like I have widgets AND I know what to do with said widgets.

When you listen to the shows this week, know that it’s these guys and so many others that are the foundation for my thinking about these issues. I hope Nikki and my interpretation of these concepts comes as the same support for you.

Ted Strand

I met Ted Strand about a decade ago. He’s married to my wife’s childhood friend, Meg, and as such, we were introduced under parental duress. “Meg and Ted are moving to Portland! You HAVE to go see them! You simply HAVE to go!” That turned out to be a great suggestion.

I count Ted as one of my very best friends. But that’s not why he’s first in this list. He’s first in this list because of good timing and meat.

Ted was a pharmaceutical rep for many, many years. In that role, despite his distinct lack of medical training, he demonstrated to those of us in his sphere an incredible ability not only to memorize complex sets of data, but to digest and interpret that data in speaking to others with more training and experience than he: doctors. In many ways, pharma sold Ted short—he’s a problem solver, not a pitch man.

The pharmaceutical sales biz is imploding right now, if you hadn’t heard, and Ted’s moved on. Now he’s into big data, applying that same preternatural gift of internalizing complex data to engineering. This time, he gets to help organizations solve their data troubles and deliver new services to their customers. In my years in marketing, my time training and developing sales people, I’ve met very few so naturally gifted at the art of transitions, nor so dedicated to helping others solve their most difficult challenges. Ted is one of those people that makes life look easy.

Even with all that going for him, in my view there’s no restaurant in town that matches Ted’s backyard. He’s a guy that takes his meat with extraordinary deliberation. As often as Ted has come when I’ve needed his support, he’s provided salve to my greatest ails with meticulously prepared steak. He’s a role model as a professional, as a father to his two beautiful daughters, as a husband, and perhaps most importantly as a chef.

Pete’s 40th Birthday Yearbook—The Amazing Race

Later this year, I’m turning 40. To celebrate, I’m going for a 5,000-mile drive.

I believe that I am who I am because of the grace, kindness, criticism, and expertise of those around me. I’m taking this year to collect those relationships the best way I know how, in photos, to bring them closer to me, rekindle the old, and launch a few new ones. I can only hope that by highlighting the impact that so many people have had on me, I can do so similarly for those in my own sphere.

I’m leaving Portland early on the morning of August 27th and heading south. I’ll be in San Francisco the next morning, then Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson, Salt Lake City, Boise, Seattle, and back home, all in under 10 days. This trip is just the start of my year, however. At some point, I’ll need to make it east. Then France and South Korea. Here’s hoping.

Because this initial trip is a bit of a race, I’m not planning on much more than 15 minutes per portrait session. Amazing Race, for sure.

I’ve already started sending out email requests for time on calendars and have received gracious responses so far. This coming week is the big week, though, lining up schedules and locations and rest stops and showers.

I’ll be writing more about the experience here. As for the photos, I’ll be publishing them all in my own gallery under the Creative Commons licensure. They’ll be making their way into my daily photo project as well.

So, as I get ready to kick this thing off, I suppose I’ll close with a quick note of pre-thanks. For all those I’ll be shooting and those I’m sure I’ll miss this time around, thanks for all you’ve done to make me who I am and for the work you do every day that goes to make my own work better. I’m honored to be in your orbit, and I look forward to seeing you soon.

The curse of acquisition

I guess congratulations are in order. Dom Leca posted on his company blog that Sparrow, the fantastic email client for Mac and iOS, has been acquired by Google.

In the same breath Dustin MacDonald writes on the Acrylic blog that the company—makers of Pulp and Wallet—is being acquired by Facebook.

This is such great news for Dom, Dustin, and their teams. Really, great payoff for the hard work of developing innovative apps that have certainly found a home in my workflow. But this point gets me, from Dustin: 

Facebook is an invaluable service that we all use daily, and a company I believe is one of the most innovative and important around today. After visiting late last year, I discovered that we shared many of the same core product design goals and principles, and it soon became obvious that it was a natural fit. Simply put, there’s an opportunity at Facebook to have a big impact in many people’s lives. More importantly, Facebook is full of extremely talented people who will be able to help realize its full potential in the years to come.

I have to imagine Dom shares some of that feeling for Google. It’s great. The thing is, the apps that these guys and their teams were turning out were _already_ serving an invaluable service for me and my business. Facebook is a social tool with large and mostly-anonymous teams of engineers. They’re doing great work, but for the most part I don’t know who they are, and their contributions are completely transparent to me in my daily use. 

But Sparrow, Pulp, and Wallet? I invested in those apps, and would have continued to invest in those apps, because they provide a service to me that is direct and tangible. Maybe—_maybe_—I could make the case with Google. But I’m pretty sure I won’t feel Dom’s hands in the mix in my use of Google services. I’m dead sure I won’t feel the impact of Dom’s team at Facebook.

By acquiring these companies, Google and Facebook killed a little bit of ecosystem today. They just absorbed creativity, individuality, and art, and re-branded the energy that comes of it as their own. That’s a sad mark on the independent software development community, and a loss to the hundreds of thousands of users who count on these products to continue to grow and thrive. 

So again, congratulations. You will be missed. 

Marco Arment adds this in his thoughtful post on the issue, which is too good not to update:

If you want to keep the software and services around that you enjoy, do what you can to make their businesses successful enough that it’s more attractive to keep running them than to be hired by a big tech company.

Apple bows out of EPEAT (updated)

UPDATE: And… they’re back. In a weird first-person letter from Bob Mansfield currently on Apple’s Environment page:

We’ve recently heard from many loyal Apple customers who were disappointed to learn that we had removed our products from the EPEAT rating system. I recognize that this was a mistake. Starting today, all eligible Apple products are back on EPEAT.

The problem now is that fewer and fewer Apple products are currently eligible for EPEAT. Apple’s next move will likely be to push a changing standard of recyclability into the EPEAT spec so that their products like the Air and the new Retina MacBook Pro are technically eligible once more. It’s bold, and it’s arrogant, and it’s a quick resolution to something that clearly surprised the company.

—

Here’s the word from CNET: 

Apple has decided to stop participating in a major program devoted to the production of environmentally friendly products, reportedly saying that its design direction is no longer in line with the program’s requirements.

Late last month, Apple told the nonprofit EPEAT group that the company would no longer submit its products for green certification from EPEAT and that it was pulling its currently certified products from the group’s registry.

First, let’s not mistake this move as a signal that Apple is suddenly going to be dropping old laptops into the chipper and flushing the shavings into our water supply. They might, but I doubt it. A move like that presumes that the company was only manufacturing according to the green standard because the standard exists. I find that terribly hard to believe—I can’t think of many consumer electronics manufacturers that are outright evil.

I’m writing this on my new favorite computer ever. It’s the new 11.6“ MacBook Air, and I love it as much as I loved my old 10” PowerBook from years back. I’ve owned several laptops between then and now, and this one is the best, fastest, most comfortable of the lot. Much of that love comes from the form factor—the razorblade taper and the full-sized keyboard make for a brilliant combination. 

But the thinner Apple makes their machines, like this MacBook Air, the more custom the components have to be—standard hard drives and memory and fans just don’t fit in this device. That makes it hard for outsiders like iFixIt to dig into them, but that doesn’t make them any less disposable. It makes them less disposable for anyone who isn’t Apple.

Apple maintains it’s own recycling program and from everything I can find, that program is not in any danger. Apple pulling out of EPEAT is first and foremost a signal that Apple is best equipped to disassemble and competently recycle their own products, and outside agencies are not equipped to pass judgement on that recyclability. Apple built it, Apple knows best how to tear it apart.

What is the role of the EPEAT certification in the sales process? How many times have you walked into the Apple Store and made a buying decision based on EPEAT rating? Me? Never. Maybe the green statement has cemented my decision as a good one, but it has never been a determining factor. And it’s never, ever come up in a conversation with a floor salesperson. Never. 

My sense is that the certification is box decoration, and Apple is confident enough in their internal processes that they don’t need the box decoration to move those boxes. You could make the case that this damages EPEAT more than any other party, which would be a shame. Lobbying efforts on behalf of the environment are important, even if the box decoration is not.

Build & Analyze #84

On Build & Analyze #84 this week, Marco Arment and Dan Benjamin talk through the philosophical differences between patent infringement and copyright infringement. It’s one of those head-slapping-oh-shit founts of awareness that erupts when you realize you’ve been gifted with a sense of insight. I spend a lot of time thinking about these issues for a guy who spends zero time actually patenting or infringing patents, but Marco’s take on these issues is absolutely worth listening to if you’ve never found yourself cursed with such an inner monologue.

Man versus Monkey in Thailand

Let’s just say we’re out to dinner. Maybe there are a bunch of people with us. I go into one of my charming “dinner scripts”, which is great, until I’ve had a glass of wine too many and I have to break out the B or C-level material. That’s when I might say this…

“You know, I used to live in Korea, right? And would watch a lot of local TV… long, hot afternoons and such. So, this one day, I turn on the Korean sports channel and I see this guy in a diaper racing a monkey up a tree to cut down coconuts.”

Then there is silence. Cause people think I’m drunk, and they largely see this as another one of “Pete’s tales of animal cruelty”.

But that’s not what it is this time, see? This time, it’s real! And now I have proof! It’s the annual Man Versus Monkey competition in Thailand!

So watch this thing, and get a load of just how terrific the audience reaction is—the old man is a complete celebrity.

Vytautas Mineral Water from Lithuania

Just when you think you’ve grown comfortable with the fact that marketing is used more often for evil than for good, you stumble across something like Vytautas Mineral Water from Lithuania and realize that all is still very wrong with the world, but there are things in it that are, in fact, awesome.

Kottke might just nail this Apple event rumor

Mostly dead liveblog of Apple’s event:

As a teaser, I’d like to offer the world’s worst prediction for today’s event: Apple announces the iPhone 5. Could you imagine though? After Apple declined the version number bump with the introduction of the 4S, what would a device need to do to warrant it? A fusion energy source? Teleportation? A camera that sees into the future? My money’s on a built-in quadrotor system so that your phone could autonomously run errands for you or spy on your enemies.

Shows this week

Three new releases this week.

the naked marketers • Ep 46: Megan Who?
Dane and I try to make sense of life without Megan, who quit us this week. She stuck it out with our inanity for 46 episodes over two years and finally could take it no more. Apparently, her shiny new role with the Cause Marketing Forum is too compelling a mistress for us to compete anymore. She has such a great presence on these shows, and while we both congratulate her on the change in her role and the exciting opportunities ahead, she will be sorely missed for her good spirit, great humor, and unending patience. That, and she’s dead to us, of course.

The Next Reel Film Podcast • “When Harry Met Sally…”
Predictably, we love this movie. And so far, I can fairly say that this is a movie about which no one I have ever actually met has not loved as well. It’s the quiet, funny kid… the kid that’s just too charming to pick on, even though every now and again, he might eat a booger. It’s also our very special New Year episode because of all the New Year redux scenes in it. It’s a theme thing. Seriously, listen to this show and make sure to comment on Facebook to share your thoughts with me and Andy.

Taking Control • Ep 49: How to make an organizing goal
Finally, Nikki gets to something that has bugged me for years: resolutions suck. They don’t actually deal with the positive change you want to achieve in your life, they deal with the things you invariably hate about yourself for some reason or another. Better to create goals, structure them as projects with milestones, and give yourself a plan to achieve them. Fine to use the New Year season to set some new goals and reset priorities, but once you get good at setting organizing goals, you’ll want to do this all year round.

Dumb as a marketing differentiator

Ina Fried – Adobe’s Mobile Flash Pullback Puts Android Tablet Makers in Tough Spot

RIM rep on their strategy going forward with regard to Flash:

“As an Adobe source code licensee, we will continue to work on and release our own implementations. RIM remains committed to delivering an uncompromised Web browsing experience to our customers, including native support for Adobe Flash Player on our BlackBerry PlayBook tablet (similar to a desktop PC browser), as well as HTML5 support on both our BlackBerry smartphone and PlayBook browsers,” RIM said in a statement to AllThingsD. “In fact, we are pleased that Adobe will focus more efforts on the opportunities that HTML5 presents for our developers, and shares our commitment to HTML5 as we discussed together at DevCon Americas.”

Seriously.

Gruber on conflating Flash benefits

‘Opponents’:

It’s not that iOS’s popularity for web browsing led to the death of mobile Flash; it’s that the lack of Flash — and the resulting overall improvement to speed, responsiveness, and battery life — led to the popularity of iOS for web browsing.

(Via Daring Fireball)

Yeah, that’s about how it shakes out. And that, I’d wager, is what’s going to do in Flash on the desktop too. I know I’m not shy about discussing the improvements in stability and battery life on my own laptop since I disabled Flash on my system. I say the same to my non-technical parents, who also have now moved to a Flash-free lifestyle. If my parents can do it, anyone can.