I get overwhelmingly motivated by two things. One is seeing something incredible somewhere, like Newser, I Want You To Want Me, Moodstream, Coda and just about anything else sweet. And the second is failure. Failing myself or seeing others I know fail always lights a fire under my ass to get my shit together and make something. I think the struggle comes from having the right toolbox ready to harness the motivation. When I get motivated to build a coffee table it's tough from my Brooklyn apartment, but when I get motivated or inspired to write ...

Working for any company can be compared to well anything, any number of analogies can be formed, but for me, I'll geek out with one about programming. I find myself after 10+ hour days thinking in code and dreaming in code, a strange paradigm as my conversations seem to remind me of programming solutions I discovered earlier in the day. Regardless of my entrenchment in code and my increasing disdain for the web build I still appreciate looking at life through php.net or whatever it may be. Working at a new company is like learning a new language. All you do is adjust you skills to a new syntax. ...

Google Chrome is out for you PC lovers, us Mac people are awaiting its arrival anxiously. And after I have read through the Docs I am very anxious. Not only is Chrome a new browser, it is a new way of browsing the Internet all together, front-end and back. Its architecture it similar to modern operating systems and its main focuses are stability and taking market share from IE. That is some pretty news to any developer. I haven't gotten the chance to actually use the browser, but even reading the docs is fun. Someone show me any technology documentation that is a real page turner. Scott McCloud ...

Interaction design has its place, it beautiful dabble point between idea and execution. It is the crucial bridge that takes idea to reality. I have been thinking about my understanding of interaction design as I am preparing for a BIG round of interviews starting Monday in New York. I still haven't quite gotten over my Jeff Benjamin SNAFO and I am trying to make sure It doesn't happen again. So with that this is my idea of interaction design's place in the process and why I take to it. Photo by: isabelle boring I am passionate about strategy. School pounded it into my head and it ...

Global brands can have tremendous traction on the local level, if they can find out how to appeal to locals of an area on their terms. We see hundreds of national campaigns and even regional campaigns for huge global brands but not too many hyper local campaigns. Campaigns aimed at a city, not New York City or even Los Angeles City, but Portland Oregon City, or even Boulder Colorado City. But how do brands become a part of a small community? How can they successfully run a hyper local campaign? Like they say, start the campaign at digital and build out. But it takes a bit more than that. What ...

Jeff Benjamin from Crispin, Porter + Bogusky asked me the other day what my interaction design philosophy was in a phone interview. I totally dodged the question, I didn't know anybody could have a philosophy for interaction design. Hell, I'm still not exactly sure what all interaction design is. I figured this is probably something I should think about. After a bit of searching I found Chad Vavra's Philosophy. I like it, and it lead me to come up with my own: "Complexity, born out of straightforward technology, creates meaningful connections between the human mind and the technological brain. Users and their technology are melded together as the later ...

Once again SitB&R has had a makeover. And with this makeover comes a whole new identity that hopefully FINALLY makes sense. Personal branding - as far as I know - is pretty important, especially when looking for that first job. So having zachblank.com AND sitbandr.com separate was really hurting me because it was really two separate identities, with neither really representing me. The biggest curse for a brand it having split personality disorder. Something I was definately suffering from. So with this comes the Zach Blank creative revolution. SitB&R will become active again and will explore creativity, branding, strategy, development (brand & code) and try and share some funny thing ...

Watch out for the new features in 2.6, they turn Wordpress into the next free online text editor. The new revisions feature really sets it apart and for me makes it a desirable tool for online text editing and private sharing. I wouldnt be suprised to see more talk about Wordpress turning into a suite of tools to be used in this sense. Really cool.

Thanks Adobe - after giving you thousands you give me back a few hundred - no really it's great. For those in education (not me anymore!) Adobe Flex Bulder 3 is FREE. I signed up last night and am drooling over my free lagit copy that is soo to be. No idea what I am going to build with it, but it will be sweet to learn. I am fresh with the Actionscript 3 craze, so i hope i can jump right into this puppy. Ideas?