Oil & Heaven
Originally uploaded by JHawbaker1800

Graffiti artist, I honor the place where your craziness and my amusement become one.

Gadget lovers everywhere were hanging on every liveblogged word of the WWDC Keynote today, where Steve Jobs announced the new iPhone 3G. Thanks to the rumor mills, there were few surprises, the biggest of which might have been the one-month wait until the release date! That aside, there’s plenty to talk about.

35% of the Fortune 500 in the iPhone 2.0 Software Beta
Amid all the talk about which features the new iPhone included or didn’t, I think this statistic was mostly overlooked. We all knew that Apple was going to make a push for Enterprise business, but to have such a high level of participation in the software beta is a big deal. It certainly bodes well for their chances of making a dent in the growing market for business-class smartphones. I also believe this move will position Apple well when (not if) they decide to push Mac sales to the enterprise. A big challenge with the iPhone was convincing CTOs that it was more than “just a toy” and addressing their real concerns about business-related features and security. Watch this video of IT executives talking about the 2.0 software — Apple understands needs of this market. They will surely take the lessons learned and apply them to the Mac.

White is the New Black, Again
When the iPod Classic was introduced in only black and silver, the color that started it all was suddenly gone from the iPod lineup. Now it’s back, as a “limited edition” color for the 16GB iPhone 3G. The white iPhone will be the new tech status symbol come July 11th. Gizmodo has a fun post on the resurgence of white in the palette: Apple Says White is Cool Again, But Is It?

The Future of the iPhone Line
There has already been a lot of griping discussion about the “missing features” from the iPhone 3G. As the WWDC approached, rumors were flying about everything from a front-side video camera for iChat to solar power panels. (Okay, the solar panels were far-fetched.) I think it’s safe to agree with John Gruber that the iPhone 3G is Apple’s big push for market share, not an attempt at a second revolution. What Gruber doesn’t say, but I am inclined to believe, is that Apple will add a higher-end iPhone product to the line at some point in the near future. They will be happy to sell tens of millions of iPhones at $199 and $299, but they also know there’s still a market for $399 and $499 iPhones with more memory and features. They would be foolish to pass that market up, so just as the iPod eventually became a line of products at different price points, so will the iPhone.

Hot WWDC News via SMS
Hopefully you already know that tomorrow is practically a holiday. That’s right, it’s the first day of the Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference, where Steve Jobs is expected to announce the new version of iPhone. Expect 3G, GPS, iChat, Solar Power and premium espresso. For those of you as brand-addicted as I am, theilife.com is providing an SMS update service for hot news during the keynote.

Cycling Photography
The changes are slim that I’ll be posting photos of myself in cycling attire, but thanks to the Fat Cyclist, I know now the art of hiding your gut while being photographed in a skin-tight cycling jersey.

Pop Phone
Seth Godin posted a YouTube video of cell phones cooking popcorn. The video’s authenticity is in question, but it’s entertaining and thought-provoking since the brain cancer/cell phone link has been back in the news.

…Finally
Last but not least, Hillary’s Fond Farewell. Senator Obama, if you’re listening, do not name Hillary your running mate unless your goal is to completely undermine the powerful brand you’ve built.

Praise the Lord, Eat a Biscuit!
Originally uploaded by JHawbaker1800

The Big Biscuit Barn has become part of the Saturday bike ride tradition for Team Green Nasty. The biscuits are truly praise-worthy, and the people are as friendly as you’d expect. We’re not sure what to think about Super Hair People.

I rode 33 miles today, and thankfully the stretch home after biscuit time was only about 4 miles. With every ride, I’m feeling stronger about my chances of surviving and even enjoying the 470 miles of RAGBRAI later this summer.

In honor of the first night of Riverbend
Originally uploaded by JHawbaker1800

For those of you outside of the Chattanooga region, Riverbend is our annual music fest dedicated primarily to country bands and has-been classic rockers. So, in honor of the mulleted masses who make downtown uninhabitable for ten days each summer, I am proudly wearing this badge of indie rock snobbery.

I’m speechless. This must be a joke: Are You Generic? It’s straight out of the Stuff White People Like playbook — hating corporations and loving t-shirts. (hat tip: Guy Kawasaki)

37Signals tells us why they skip Photoshop when developing a user interface. The reasoning behind their methodology is solid and it certainly supports their focus on usability. On the other hand, it put a spotlight on one of my few complaints about their work: the lack of visual appeal. Clean, user-focused design doesn’t have to look dull, and I’d love to see them bring as much refinement to the aesthetics as they do to the usability.

A high school classmate of mine, Joe Brown, is a locavore blogger who recently traveled to Cuba and explored their local food culture. He also confessed to what many of us have always suspected: “all academics are secretly communist.” Good to know.

And finally, it sure is nice here in Mayberry.

I’m reading Surprised by Hope, the latest book by N.T. Wright, which is about the Resurrection and how it should affect our worldview and the church’s mission on earth. I like this quote from a chapter entitled “The Strange Story of Easter.”

And the question of Jesus’s resurrection, though it may in some senses burst the boundaries of history, also remains within them; that is precisely why it is so important, so disturbing, so life-and-death. We could cope-the world could cope-with a Jesus who ultimately remains a wonderful idea inside his disciples’ minds and hearts. The world cannot cope with a Jesus who comes out of the tomb, who inaugurates God’s new creation right in the middle of the old one.

An Open Letter to the Web Analytics Professionals at Nashbar.com:

I’m sorry. Really. I realized today what I’m doing to you, but I can’t stop myself. I’m messing with your metrics. At least let me try to explain.

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you know that I recently took up cycling. I’m training for RAGBRAI, as a matter of fact. Naturally, I need a few things: shorts, jerseys, a new helmet and a bike rack for my car. The problem is that I’m a really picky shopper.

You can’t track this, but several friends told me about your site, so I started there first. That was probably a week or so ago, but I still haven’t bought anything. Like I said, I’m a picky shopper. I can’t decide which jersey I want, but I’ve got a few in mind. They’re all open in different tabs in Firefox. And almost once a day, I sit down at the computer and try to choose. All I’ve really done is end up with different items in each of the different tabs. Until two days ago, when I added a pair of shorts and a helmet to my cart! Maybe tonight I’ll complete my purchase, but please don’t get your hopes up.

I know this is causing you all kinds of problems. I’m sure you use persistent cookies, so if you want to track me from start to finish, you can find out my initial visit was direct. But you’ll probably notice a few abnormalities–visits supposedly referred by your own site, for instance. Or a high number of days to purchase or visits to purchase. On the flip side, if you’re measuring Engagement, you might want to thank me. Visit duration, page views, recency… it’s all there in spades.

All in all, one of the metrics that matters most will come your way soon: conversion. Hopefully you’ll forgive me for the trouble I’ve caused to your other reports. Or maybe I’m not that unusual after all…

My younger brother is a history buff. The kind with bookshelves full of obscure titles about Russian history and his other personal favorite, Napoleon (they’re both short and aggressive). Now he’s tackling a subject a little closer to home — a biography about our father.

They were sitting at my kitchen table yesterday afternoon, going over a rough timeline of my father’s 20 years in the military. My dad loves to tell a story, so there were a lot of interesting and funny anecdotes shared. He’s never talked that much about his military service, but he fought in Vietnam and served tours in Germany and Korea. One of the stories he shared really struck me as a great example of his restraint and convictions.

For a while he taught a rifle course at a college in Pittsburgh and had his uniform spit on by a student in an elevator. The young woman said something to the effect of “if we didn’t have to pay for all you people, we could go to college for free like they do in Russia.” I can imagine many people would’ve told her to catch the next flight over. Not Dad. He stayed silent and let the woman go on her way, probably feeling smug about her personal protest. Dad’s perspective was different, believing that anything he might have said or done in response would have only reflected poorly on himself or his country.

Tim Ferriss and Seth Godin are conspiring to change office life around the world. Well, maybe not, but they both wrote posts this week examining new ideas about what matters in the workplace and what shouldn’t. Seth took the first shot, on Monday, when he wrote about the new standard for meetings and conferences. I can’t put it any more eloquently than this:

If you’re a knowledge worker, your boss shouldn’t make you come to the (expensive) office every day unless there’s something there that makes it worth your trip… It’s hard for me to see why you’d bother having someone come all the way to an office just to sit in a cube and type.

On Thursday, Tim Ferriss started a series of interviews with the geniuses behind Best Buy’s Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) initiative. If you’re not familiar with ROWE, get the scoop straight from the creators or read this Business Week article. Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson, who created the program, told Tim that ROWE is not only transforming business results at Best Buy, but also the personal lives of their employees:

Six months after teams go live, they are asked how much more productive they perceive they are on a scale of 0-100%. Then managers are asked how much more productive the team is according to actual business results. If perception and reality match, that’s a winner. Under this model, ROWE teams show an average increase in productivity of 41%. It makes sense.

On the personal side, ROWE has transformed people’s lives. We’ve heard stories about ROWE saving marriages, allowing people to be better parents (and opened the door for some to actually be parents), get in shape and give back to their community.

In part two of the interview, they encourage readers to start thinking about what it would be like to truly control their own time:

At 4:00 p.m. on a sunny Friday, your boss lets you leave early. Goody, right? Wrong. This is a school kid’s view of time, not an adult’s. If you’re getting your work done, then why should someone have the right to tell you where to be?

Indeed. I count myself as a knowledge worker. I don’t believe that I was hired because I could fill a cubicle for 40 hours a week, but rather because I have a certain base of knowledge and can provide insight and new ideas, think critically and help accomplish business goals. ROWE should be perfect for people like me. However, I can’t imagine ideas like that capturing the minds of mainstream corporate management.

What do you think? Can you imagine ROWE ever working in your company?