NBC News chooses our Headline theme for their recently launched Tumblr blog.

Headline is an impressive theme from Airspace Workshop. In fact, without the Tumblr “Follow/Reblog” buttons, you would likely never even know it was a Tumblr theme.

Great use of space, columns and post types, along with lots of great elements and little touches. If you’ve ever wanted a magazine-style theme for your Tumblr blog, check out Headline!

10 Terrific New Tumblr Themes on Mashable

via U.S. National Archives (http://bit.ly/bSisuf)

Given the intimate size of our company, we often find ourselves fulfilling numerous roles throughout the day. One moment we’re handling client phone calls, the next we’re in a creative brainstorm, or reviewing mockups, or visiting the printer for a press-check, or…

If you were to divide our working hours into groups, they’d include categories such as “Creative Conference” and “Account Research,” in addition of course to “Graphic Design” and “Web Development.” When combined, those activities lead us towards solutions for our clients, and from a business perspective, provide valuable revenue that keeps Airspace Workshop in business. However, tucked between the deliverables and bank deposits lies a valuable byproduct that benefits both our clients and our business.

Yesterday I read an article by Seth Godin entitled Betting On Smarter that reminded me of this fact. The focus of his article is marketing, however it’s equally applicable to technology, design and the web. In it, he makes the distinction between marketers who strive to make their customers smarter, and those who work to make them dumber:

A few benefit when they make their customers smarter. The more the people they sell to know, the more informed, inquisitive, free-thinking and alert they are, the better they do.

And most benefit when they work to make their customers dumber. The less they know about options, the easier they are to manipulate, the more helpless they are, the better they do.

This brief excerpt reminded me that in addition to a website or brand identity, we also deliver knowledge, and our role of “Designer” or “Developer” is equally important as our role of “Educator.”

We’ve been working with Posterous to develop two customizable themes for their blogging platform, and today we are proud to announce that both Headline and M82 are officially available. If you’re looking for a dead-simple way to post everything, check out Posterous.

Show me the money!

During a recent trip to San Francisco, I found myself face-to-face with a Bank of America ATM at the Ferry Building Marketplace. Our encounter would be brief. After sliding my debit card through the reader and entering my PIN, I was presented with a number of options on the touch screen, including multiple cash denominations. Rather than pressing “OK” or “Enter” and being presented with various transaction types, I simply selected the amount I wanted. Moments later my cash and receipt were dispensed and I was on my way. Total number of keystrokes, including a 4-digit PIN: five.

Yesterday I made a withdrawal from the Bank of Hawaii ATM located in Kaimuki. First off, it “eats” my card, as opposed to swiping it. Then it requests my PIN, and instructs me to “Press Here After”. OK. Select a transaction type, “Fast Cash”. Select an account (even though I only have one), “Checking”. Select a preset amount, “$20″. Some whirring occurs and the cash is dispensed. Shortly after, my card is ejected, along with a receipt. Total number of keystrokes, eight. That’s 60% more effort than the Bank of America ATM required for the same transaction, and an unexpected lesson in how thoughtful design can substantially improve usability and user experience.

Entering the Flash vs HTML 5 argument is a trip down snoozer lane, but this passage from Hartmut Esslinger’s book ‘A Fine Line’ kind of framed the debate in a new light. Esslinger’s ID company frogdesign helped Apple design the original Macintosh line, he comments on overcoming the challenge of low fidelity dot-matrix printers that were ubiquitous at the time. Apple was focused on designing a computer that could produce high-resolution graphics and needed a printer that could deliver them in a home or office. Esslinger’s aside at the end is a telling piece of history that most people will have long forgotten.

Apple made an under-recognized breakthrough in the 1980s with its advances in desktop publishing. Our goal was to move beyond the horrible graphics of dot-matrix printers, so Apple began by licensing modern typestyles from the German type setting company, Berthold. We then took the Canon’s high-end copy engine and combined it with a Macintosh board, which had the capability to process the high-resolution PostScript graphics of scalable fonts, and added a “soft window” user interface. The printer was an instant success. With it, Apple pioneered an entirely new industry for design software (companies such as Adobe wouldn’t have started without it).

To be fair, Apple did not indirectly create Adobe, as the technology embedded in the printer was in fact Adobe’s first invention – PostScript. Founder John Warnock, a former Xerox PARC employee, created a technology that allowed scalable fonts for high-end main frame printers ($30,000 = high end). A combination of the Apple Laserwriter ($7,000), a copy of Aldus Pagemaker and a Macintosh is what set-off the Desktop Publishing revolution. Esslinger’s passage hints at the lucrative future for the publishing industry that we benefit from today, but their solution for protection against poor-quality graphics is the clue to Apple’s current strategy for the web. In the 1980s, Apple built a computer (the Macintosh) the industry did not understand or need, only until all the pieces were in place did the value of the Macintosh computer ascend. Apple’s foresight to use PostScript within the printer and OS allowed Adobe to be part of that revolution. Today, Apple is still trying to protect itself from poor-quality graphics, ironically from Flash, an Adobe acquisition from Macromedia. If you replace the Macintosh of the 80s with the iPad, you’ll see a pattern that Apple again needs to build the proper ecosystem for the device to exist within. Flash is a capable tool, but to Apple’s standards, it provides them with enough reason to break rank with the Industry – again. The iPad and iPhone is Apple’s new Macintosh and unfortunately for Adobe, Flash is the clunky dot-matrix printer of the 21st century. Oh the drama, nap time.

I gave up TV a few years ago for the greener pastures of the Internet, so far its been a life changing experience. I’m no longer running home to watch my favorite shows or channel surfing to fall asleep. By giving-up the idea of ‘current’ in my normal diet of procedural dramas and late night punditry, the internet is a bottomless well of on-demand content. But, once and awhile I get to sit in front of a real TV signal, live people and all. Of the few times that’s happened, I realized how obvious it was that you’re really watching commercials with story interruptions. I also noticed major trends in thematic programming (vampires, sci-fi, 80s TV) and commercials, but one thing stood out in particular.

Maybe by chance, but I had watched a group of unrelated commercials all using one prop in particular – the robotic arm. From cell phones, credit cards and bicycles to TVs, cars and deodorant. The robotic appendage had replaced the hand model and the SAG actor all together. Of all the products depending on such robotic presentation, only the automobile seemed the appropriate salesman. Robots have been a fascination on TV since the first black and white programs, but just the robotic armature is something new. What could a robotic arm possibly communicate better then a doe-eyed model? When did we decide that an animated robotic arm was an appropriate prop for soap?

Could this be a trend spawned by male techno-lust and Bjork? Or could this be a sign of things to come. In an increasingly technical world, have consumers outgrown the need for human representation in exchange for robotic mannequins? Ironically, I hope we don’t forget that our appetite for such electronics are not assembled by mechanical hands, but Chinese ones.

Below are a few videos as evidence of our fascination with the robotic arm. Special note goes out to the Chevy Malibu for replacing human parents with the efficient metal variety. I’ve also included a commercial using robotic legs, for shoes obviously, and at the bottom is a reminder of how car commercials use to be made.

Introducing Headline, our second Tumblr theme. It consists of a three-column layout and a number of built-in features that may be customized directly within Tumblr’s Appearance menu, including: Custom fonts, colors, and images; Twitter integration, including hovercards via the API; Typekit for advanced typography; Disqus comment moderation; Streampad audio playlists; VigLink and Amazon Associate monetization; and Google Analytics to keep track of your metrics. Headline is elegant, easy-to-use, and best of all, free!

View the Headline Demo | Learn About its Features | Install on Tumblr

* DeLorean not included.

If your workflow requires shuffling files between two or more computers, then you are well aware of how difficult it can be to manage that process. It’s inevitable that one day you’ll forget to sync your work from home, only to realize your mistake when the client arrives for a design review. Even worse, you overwrite today’s work with yesterday’s file, then spend the rest of the night repeating your efforts. Yippee!

My current solution involves Chronosync and an iPod, which is very effective, but still susceptible to user error (I’ve forgotten the iPod at home, or at the office, numerous times). Recently I discovered Dropbox, which is perhaps the most elegant solution I’ve come across for syncing files on various computers. The service is web-based, but tightly integrated with the operating system, creating a seamless experience. Simply drop files onto a folder and voila, they are now available on your other Dropbox enabled computers, as well as the web.

There are numerous things that Dropbox does right. They clearly explain what they provide and the benefits of using their software. The design aesthetic reflects the product’s simplicity and elegance. They eliminate risk by providing the software free of charge. The product is truly top-notch, but it’s a marketing twist they’ve integrated into the service that got my attention.

The Dropbox business model is based on a Freemium structure. The software is available for download, free of charge, but basic accounts are limited by storage capacity. Typically, users who wish to increase their service level may do so by paying a monthly fee, and Dropbox is no different, offering two account upgrade options, at $9.99 and $19.99 per month. However (this is where marketing savvy comes into play), there is an additional method for increasing your storage capacity that is not for sale. Instead, it requires a bit of social capital, in the form of a referral.

Affiliate rewards are a popular incentive, but typically these are monetary, in the form of a one-time kickback or percentage of future income. Dreamhost uses this system for hosting referrals, Shopify provides a percentage of future sales, and entire businesses have been built around Amazon’s Associates program. What’s genius about Dropbox’s system is that it utilizes the service itself as the reward. Get your friends to register with Dropbox, and we’ll reward you with more storage!

Currently there is a limit to the referral bonus (3 GB, or 12 referrals at 250 MB per referral), but that could easily be lifted to generate more buzz if necessary. Furthermore, these referrals are generated organically, facilitated by individual users, and propagated through existing social networks. It’s one thing to have Dropbox boast about itself, quite another to have your peer do it for them. After all, that’s how I discovered it.

The Mokapu Point buoy displaying swell direction oscillation during the Hawaii tsunami

In today’s Star Bulletin, Erika Engle discusses the role of social media during Saturday’s tsunami, including a mention of Buoy Alarm, which was flooded with Twitter traffic yesterday after people discovered the Mokapu Point buoy twitter feed (@buoy51202).

While NOAA utilizes a completely different system to monitor tsunami activitiy (DART), the effects of the surge’s ebb and flow were noticeable at the Mokapu surface buoy, mainly in the oscillating swell direction between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. HST. I suppose many chose to follow the buoy on Twitter expecting to see a dramatic spike in wave height, but when you consider the tremendous volume of water in the Pacific, to have it shift direction 9 times in approximately 5 hours is actually quite remarkable, and requires an amazing amount of energy.

Yesterday’s event was also a great illustration of how social media enables communities to dynamically respond and adapt in real-time. A niche product with little attention was suddenly thrust into relevancy, and a loose-knit community was able to champion it without formal management, oversight, or permission. Self-organization is perhaps the greatest power of social media, giving it a speed and efficiency that traditional media lacks.

The flow of information via social media was faster than broadcast media, Lum said: “I’d read a Tweet about a buoy, the waves passing the buoy, and a couple minutes later I’d see it (on TV).” Some ocean buoys, connected to buoyalarm.com, are rigged to post ocean activity to Twitter.

Of course there are drawbacks and potential pitfalls to self-organization, such as the amplification of misinformation, but a diverse community with a shared interest will mitigate those errors in due time. What is apparent is that we’ve entered an age of an information surplus, and managing that surplus will be our next challenge.