Here's a survey that backs up what we've been saying for years: websites with bad usability (ie, most of them) lose companies real money.

Today in Big Fractal Tangle, I started my first "tangle yarn" about RDF, the Resource Description Framework. Tangle Yarns are informal how-tos & reviews of Semantic Web technology. They're what I wish I could have read when I first started exploring this area.

people on the web clearly have too much time on their hands.

a site that celebrates this:
web zen

My favorites are:

lemur

and

no hands kitten

You've probably seen the kitten photo. You probably haven't seen the hilarious Photoshop variants of it.

Today on Slashdot, it was asked: "After a few years in a typical office environment, I began working from home full-time as an independent contractor (web programmer) a couple months ago ... Being in the same apartment to sleep, eat, AND work every day definitely leads to cabin fever. Have other people experienced this? What have you done to deal with the situation?"

Here's one response (very funny).

Yesterday I launched a new blog called "Big Fractal Tangle", which is devoted to the Semantic Web. I've already received several nice comments about it from the people I met at ISWC 2003 last month. I'm thrilled with the visual design of it, which came together quite nicely over the weekend. Perry Sandlewick, our new designer, has a great eye.

I received some mail from an old friend, who said that my remarks against corporate office space might offend people without the freedom to work at home. That's a good point I didn't consider.

More specifically, I meant that it's best for software and web developers, not necessarily for the world at large. There are obviously endeavors that require collective onsite participation ... choirs, for example. My view is that many software & web companies hemorrhage time & money because they can't get their heads out of the traditional location-dependent, everyone there at the same time, mindset. More than a criticism though, location independence is a genuine competitive advantage for us. It's part of my sales rap to talk up our difference, which in part involves making the competition seem bloated and outdated.

Even so, I usually say "work from their own location", which could mean their own private office. I have workers that don't work at home. It's the location-independence that's key. If I had to rely on the local talent, or physically import it, it'd cost everyone much more money. Keep in mind, I'm also marketing myself to developers. One of my chief goals is to recruit and retain very talented developers. The anti-corporate thing works well, especially with people in corporate settings (see Dilbert).

BTW, a conservative estimate is that one in four workers in the US is a "free agent", meaning they work for themselves or run their own microbusiness. This includes home businesses, contractors, accountants, real estate agents, etc. There's more of us "unplugged folk" than is commonly believed, especially in the post dot-com economy (where many have been pushed out).

Here's some Flash cartoons that made me laugh out loud recently (particularly the End of the World)...

Dad vs AOL
NYMUG
Switch
End of World

The last is an iPod parody of Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. Before watching it though, you should watch the first clip here. Yes, this is the CEO of the most powerful software company in the world, and one of the richest people alive.

Here's the iPod spoof. Just in case you haven't seen one of these commercials, have a look at this one.

From Burningbird: "There is become two types of people in the world -- those who control and those who work. When we, who work, become nothing more than cheap, non-differentiated interchangeable parts to those who control, then there's a lot more at stake than some geek jobs in the States."

I don't see it as an America/Elsewhere issue. I see it as cost-effectiveness vs. corporate waste. Free agents are people who control and work.

I've been using free agent developers from all over the world for five years now. I'm loyal to the ones who can get the best work done in the least amount of time with the least amount of cost. The best ones could do my job as well ... I just have the client, this time.

America's too hung up on "daddy-take-care-of-me". We're still operating on the assumption that a business will provide for us like it did in the 50s, and it's a faulty premise.

Immuexa's original mission statement was "build cool tools that help real people learn, create, and communicate." I remember wandering the hallways of Lotus (whose management was mission & vision crazed), planning my escape and writing that mission statement in my head. Each word of it was important to me, especially the non-corporate "cool" and the phrase "real people", which begged a question often on my mind back then.

Over time, Immuexa's "mission statement" got much simpler. I decided to simply convey the "what we do" part of it: "custom-built software & websites". In doing so, I switched us from being a product-based company to being a service-based company. Rather than building cool tools, we were custom-building for others.

The company really did change after that, or at least our clientele did. We basically became a website shop, which looking back I realize was a detour. I deliberately put the "software" before the "website" in the tagline but everyone else got it wrong. They just saw the websites, though our real expertise was software.

I'm ready to go back to "cool tools." Not necessarily that exact mission statement, but the spirit of it: that vision.

Storybot progress halted in mid-May, though it's never been far from my thoughts since then. My goals for it have evolved quite a bit, particularly in the last two months. Now I see clearly that it'll be more than a photo program. It'll earn both halves of its name.