Clearly the site needs to be smarter than it is. I need to be able to look for a particular date, navigate days, check out yesterday’s scores and see tomorrow’s matchups. All of that will come (and was in the plans already). I was just surprised at how quickly and obviously those flaws came out.

Along with posting about the experiments that they’re undertaking as a company, the comments for that post are a really interesting discussion about the decisions 37signals is making with these experiments. There are some really thoughtful responses and always some really dopey ones. But it’s a cool conversation to see.

The highlights for me were the law session. It was really informative about how the law deals with intellectual property and how to go about protecting yourself and your intellectual property. It’s something that I’m very interested in because of the ramifications it has on the web. There is constant debate about copyright, and ownership, especially in the area of user-generated content. So I paid close attention and asked a lot of questions.

Overall I would say that it was a very beneficial investment of a day, and $85. I would recommend it to anyone who is thinking about starting their own business. It’s not just in Seattle either. SCORE is a national organization. I think they said that there are 55 chapters nationally, so look them up on www.score.org.

And I think that version 1.1.3 of the iPhone software was a great addition. The psuedo-GPS functionality with the maps functionality is freaky accurate. Now for the gripe.

I have to click into the phone portion of iPhone to get to my contacts. It’s at least 2 clicks to get to a particular contact detail page from anywhere on iPhone. Now I may be wrong, or not know a shortcut or a feature that is out there to get my contact list accessible from the home screen. So if anyone knows of a way, please let me know in the comments.

Scrabble is a old standard board game that is probably past it’s prime (like most board games). The target for those games is not the 15-30 year olds that are on facebook. However, there are about 550,000 daily users of Scrabulous on facebook. Most facebook users fall within that 15-30 year age range. That seems like a market that is excited about your product Hasbro and Mattel. Seems to me that you should try and capture those users, and not piss them off.

If you burn this bridge, it doesn’t mean that they won’t play Scrabble, but it does mean that they’ll find ways to not have to pay to play Scrabble. Whether it’s a facebook application, or some other software developer who decides to distribute a version of your game. Turns out that you should have led the way and developed a facebook application of your game. But you didn’t, so these 2 brothers did. They developed the game for you. People love it. I love it. Seems like it would be a great idea to tell them that you want to partner with them. Hell, even ask them to develop other games into facebook applications for your companies. It’s obvious they know how to do it, and you don’t.

I’m all for copyright protection, and digital rights and all that stuff. It’s essential to the ecosystem we live in, but it’s just so short-sighted to throw lawyers into a situation that should be handled with  tip of the cap, and compensation for the work the Agarwalla brothers have done to market your game to a new market. 

Don’t take Scrabulous away from us. It’s fun, and it’s a way to enjoy your game with people all over the world. I understand you want a piece of the action. Can’t we all just get along, drink some tea, eat one of Grandma’s cookies, and play some Scrabble?

For a long time I thought that I just needed to tough it out. Work through it, walk it off, get some duct tape, or rub some dirt in it. But I have recently tried to practice what I’m calling “Productive Avoidance”. When I hit a stretch where the project I’m working on feels like a weight around my neck instead of a challenging opportunity to make or do something fantastic, I walk away from it.

Maybe I write a blog post, or work on a project that’s totally unrelated. Sometimes it’s working on experimental things that will never see the light of day. The point is to pursue something that will spark my creativity. That will grab hold of the momentum that I feel slipping away, and give it some freshness. And in doing so, I am able to get new and fresh ideas rolling around in my head. These ideas may pertain to the project that was the cause of my avoidance in the first place. That’s not the point. That project will benefit from me not being burnt out.

If I just avoid working on that project, it never goes away and I just feel flat and uninspired. Diverting my attention, even if just for a few minutes gives me, and in-turn the project energy and life.

The web has undoubtedly entered a new and exciting phase. Designers, developers and entrepreneurs are energized, refueled and producing some mind-blowing projects. The buzz is most definitely back! Vitamin is a brand new online magazine dedicated to that new web industry.

I know that I’ll be frequently the site to see more great ideas from these luminaries, and also to offer my ideas in the comments area that are open to all visitors.

Anyone who is familiar with 37signals or their blog, Signal v. Noise, will recognize a lot of the content in the book. It seems that a lot of the concepts, if not the text, was culled from their posts on Signal v. Noise. At first I felt like that cheapened the book, but after getting through the whole book, I appreciate it because it’s a compact resource that is organized into a cohesive book. Of course I could spend hours searching through the archives to find information and posts about particular “Getting Real” concepts, but I think that Jason and the 37signals crew have given us a great example of “Getting Real” by giving us an affordable, valuable resource that doesn’t try to do too much.

If anyone out there has tried it, please let us know your thoughts on Campfire.