Leave It Behind > Brian Bailey

The latest reviews

So many people have posted reviews of The Blogging Church on their blogs or on Amazon these past few months that I can't acknowledge them all without turning this into a very boring blog. My sincere thanks to everyone who has purchased the book and taken the time to share their thoughts - the feedback is very helpful and always interesting!

I do want to single out one very thorough and generous review. This was by Nathan Smith on Godbit, an excellent resource site for web designers who care about web standards.

For those of you who have been blogging for awhile, as you’re reading through this book, you will find many insights which you will agree with already. I think this book would be an ideal gift to a pastor. It masterfully describes the benefits of letting people hear an authentic voice. Much like blogging, the book’s brevity lends to its impact.

Read the full review.

If you ever want to track what people are saying about the book, or about your blog or organization, Google's blog search is a great place to start. Here's the search for blogging church.

If you don't have your copy yet, check out The Blogging Church on Amazon, where you can search inside the book, read an except, and browse over 20 reviews.

The 37 things I love about 37signals

I've written frequently about how much I love 37signals - the company, products, and the vision behind what they do. Over the past month, I've had the chance to dive deeper into these tools, including the latest addition, Highrise, as well as their guiding philosophy, Getting Real. It's an interesting mix, because on the one hand, I've used their products to manage projects, organize my life, and write a book, but I've also learned from their methods and used them to guide many design and development decisions.

As I was going through my notes from the Getting Real book, I realized I had a large collection of observations that might be more interesting in one post rather than spread insidiously throughout numerous entries. So here they are, the 37 reasons I love 37signals. If you'd like a good overview, checkout the recent Time magazine article: Small Is Essential.

1. Over 1 million customers - 8 employees

2. The Job/Gig Board - perfectly executed

3. Getting Real - first writing a very helpful book, then self-publishing it, sharing the results of the experiment publicly, and making it available online

4. The products: Highrise, Basecamp, Campfire, Backpack, Writeboard, and Ta-da Lists

5. Ruby on Rails - they built an amazing development platform, then made it available to everyone for free

6. Signal vs. Noise - one of the best software blogs because it is truly helpful and diverse, not just promotional

7. The Customer Summit - a one-day conference in Chicago for customers to share and learn how to get the most out of the tools

8. A newsletter that is entirely plain text, informative, and respects your time

9. Product blog - tips, news, and customer profiles for all the products in one place

10. A belief in the beauty of less - features, options, employees, meetings, promises

11. They built a blogging tool for Signal vs. Noise, but decided not to turn it into a product

12. In a different situation, they chose TypePad for the product blog, when a customized solution was more trouble than it was worth

13. Principle: Don't focus on details too early in the process

14. Instead of being tied to what URL is available, the products have real names, making conversations about them a joy (Backpack, Basecamp, Campfire, Highrise) and accessible to everyone from corporate VP's to parents and teenagers

15. Principle: No beta software

16. The apps are for everyday people who want to get things done, not just early adopters or geeks

17. The software meets real needs because it met their needs first

18. Principle: Don't waste time on problems you don't have yet

19. Customer stories like this one

20. Principle: Copywriting is interface design

21. Fantastic customer support - when I've needed help, I've received it right away

22. Principle: Don't try to be all things to all people.

23. A commitment to grow slow and stay independent

24. Principle: Avoid distractions and communication addiction. Just shut up and get to work.

25. An ongoing effort to share knowledge, ideas, and mistakes for the benefit of everyone, including competitors

26. Product pages show you what you can do with the software, instead of a feature comparison chart

27. Hiring principle: Avoid specialists - look for smart, happy, and enthusiastic people with diverse skills

28. They acknowledge that there are emotional and non-tangible aspects to software, a feeling you get while using it

29. Principle: You don't have to fix every bug instantly - there will always be flaws, the key is to put them in perspective and prioritize

30. They value customer service so much that the president of the company has been doing it since Basecamp first launched

31. Great presentations - I saw Jason at SXSW three years in a row and his talk was the highlight each time. The one-day workshops receive rave reviews.

32. They are committed to their software, customers, and business above all else, not the latest web trend

33. A regular blog feature is Screens Around Town, featuring UI examples from other apps and sites. Even though bad examples are everywhere and easy to mock, the posts instead focus on the great work that is being done in various corners of the web.

34. My favorite story - Basecamp was launched without a billing system. They knew it wasn't needed for 30 days, so why delay the launch? Plus, the limited time frame forced the project to be focused on the essentials.

35. From the blog and numerous interviews, it's clear they have a healthy perspective on work and life

36. Embracing a distributed team and building the tools to make it work

37. When something conflicts with the core vision, a hearty willingness to piss people off

A few good links...

1. The best and most important blog post during my break: Dave Winer's Advice for Campaigns. I wish a campaign would take this seriously and make the process about improving the country and not just electing a person.

Take the money you raise and instead of spending it all on advertising, spend some of it on stuff that helps people now.

2. Incredible 2-hour Q&A with Rob Bell of Mars Hill in Michigan (MP3 download). There are some truly powerful, and truly funny, moments.

3. Entertaining New York Times article on how presidential campaigns choose theme songs.

4. After all the wonderful, wacky web videos of the past few years, there's one that for some reason is still my favorite: The Shining Remixed.

Two new TypePad features

TypePad, the blogging service that powers this blog, has rolled out a couple of helpful features recently. First, you can now make the editing window where you type your posts as large as you want it to be. Previously, you could choose between two sizes, but it was difficult to work with a really long post. Now, simply click "Bigger" a few times and you're all set. Since we're never really satisfied, I wonder if it would be a good idea to remember your window size for the next post? Or would that be one of those features that seems helpful, but is actually annoying?

By the way, TypePad now warns you if you try to leave the post page without saving it, which is very handy.

The second and more important feature is the ability to create custom standalone pages. Now, if you want to have an About page, list your 10 favorite books or create a special contact page, you can do it easily from within TypePad. You get to name the page yourself (all are .html) and provide all the content and HTML you like. The site automatically incorporates your normal header, design, and other content. Then you can link to it as you like. There's even the ability to make a page the default page for your entire site, if you'd like to introduce yourself or your organization to your visitors before they reach the blog.

I still think TypePad is the best overall blogging platform, the perfect mix of simplicity and power. If you're looking for a cheaper alternative, though, visit Wordpress.com which is also a terrific service and is free for most uses.

The Boy of Summer

We wanted the start of the summer to be a wonderful time for Ben, partly to celebrate his new life as a 6th grader and also to recognize all of his hard work during elementary school. More important than the grades, of course, is who he is — his kindness, respect for everyone, and simple genuineness.

There is a constant battle at this age between maturity and innocence. On the one hand, some kids are exploring music and carrying iPods, starting to flirt, wear certain clothes, and resist the embarrassing affections of their parents. Other kids are still reveling in the wonders of childhood - filled with imagination and the joy of playing, largely oblivious to what others think, and still very attached to the comfort and love of their family.

Sometimes it's tempting to nudge your child along as you see their friends run toward the teenage life (these children almost always have older siblings, by the way). I've had that instinct, but thankfully Lori has taught me love and treasure every moment of Ben's complete sweetness and innocence, and the fact that he'll still hold my hand when we're walking through a crowd.

Here's some fun ideas for indulgent summer fun that Ben is having a blast with...

The Dangerous Book for Boys. This book is already a huge best seller and deservedly so. It was originally published in Britain where it became a big hit. They customized it a bit for the American audience and Amazon has had trouble keeping it in stock.

Essentially, it's a guidebook for everything a young boy should know.  Everything from making paper airplanes (which Ben has been doing all weekend) to secret codes, baseball MVP's to making a bow and arrow. The book is absolutely gorgeous, a pleasure to hold, and packed with fun things.

Backyard Baseball 2007. Ben has loved this game for years and when a new version came out just in time for summer, how could we resist? It's available for most platforms, but we got it for the GameCube. Side note: this is another example of why the Wii is so great. There are many good games for the Wii itself, but the fact that it can seamlessly play GameCube games helps fill in any gaps. We've even taken advantage of the Virtual Console to get Pac-Man and Donkey Kong!

Star Wars Mashup. Just in time for Memorial Day Weekend and the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, this unbelievable site allows the Star Wars obsessed to create their own videos by editing and combining clips from the movies. The software (completely online and platform agnostic) is flawless and simple to use. Ben was immediately captivated and has created numerous videos that are hilarious. I think just about anyone with a love for Star Wars would enjoy this. And if you're just interested in web and video technology, it's worth a look as well.

Fetch on PBS. This was our favorite new show last year and we've been waiting eagerly for the second season. It finally starts on Memorial Day. It's a fun game show that celebrates smart, well-rounded kids. We always enjoy it and usually learn a few things as well. It's a great show to watch with your kids, probably 8 and older.

Scholastic Summer Reading Buzz. This is a fantastic new program from Scholastic. Every time your child reads four books this summer, they will donate a book to a child in need. What a great way to encourage reading while also putting the focus on others. Like the big, hungry man at the all-you-can eat buffet, they don't know what they're getting into with Ben - the boy can read a mess of books during the summer! There are also book recommendations and a lot of other fun things on the site.

Learning

I love to learn new things. When I think about my favorite professional or academic moments (in other words, not birth-of-a-child or wedding-day-type moments), they are almost all occasions where I was pushed and challenged to dive into a subject. My favorite classes in college were a couple of political theory seminars and independent studies that were both very focused and tough.

I remember some amazing technology projects over the years that pushed and stretched what I thought I was capable of. Now that I think of it, that's my definition of the best kind of learning - when you're surprised that you've made it to the other side and gleefully pleased at the result. I remember spending a couple of weeks attempting to install Oracle on a couple of Linux servers using LVM and stumbling into success an hour before we were going to try another solution. It's funny to think back on the endless stream of technology hurdles and the many different methods to overcome them. More often than not, the solution hasn't come from some expensive support contract - it's come from Google, trusted friends, books and some "wow, I really hope this works" experiments.

I wish I could say that I am entirely self-motivated to learn new things, but that only carries me so far. I absolutely love new things and ideas, but to really learn something, it helps to have true motivation and not just a manufactured one. Thankfully, I've had that in spades of late.

Recently, I've had the opportunity to spend a lot of quality time with the Linux command line and PostgreSQL. I know it sounds silly, but I am continually blown away by the beauty and utter clarity of these tools. Once you understand the foundations (which I am only beginning to), the power and ease is amazing.

PostgreSQL is a phenomenal open source database. I've learned the basics of connecting to various databases, viewing the structure, adding and dropping tables, inserting and deleting data, aggregating data, and fairly simple SQL queries. Just these few skills make so many things possible.

The server side has been even more fun. I've finally become comfortable with tail, grep, htaccess and htpass, tar, vi, chmod, chown, ssh, scp and sftp. I have no illusions about my level of understanding, I haven't even begun to get past the surface with these, but I at least have a good foundation to build on.

One of my favorite things about working with Linux (as well as Unix and the Mac OS X command line) is the rock solid consistency. Many of these tools and commands are largely unchanged over the past 20 years. Of course, all of these systems are constantly evolving, but there's a core stability (in multiple ways) that rewards any effort and investment.

Next up? PHP, Ruby on Rails, CSS and going deeper with these great tools.

5 weeks off

It's fun to be blogging again after my five week sablogical. That's the longest I've gone without blogging since I began three years ago. It was great to focus on the last month of school, spend a bit more time with the family, learn some new things, go on an awesome trip with Ben, and finally train my mind to stop wondering if what I'm currently doing, reading, watching, or thinking would make a good blog post!

Of course, I visited the blogosphere every so often to see how the neighborhood was holding up. Just like a physical vacation, a virtual vacation helps you appreciate what you have and the people you know. Being away for this long, I can't help but realize how little of the daily froth and stir of men and things (the one line from Tocqueville I always remember) truly matters. Arguments come and go, heated debates reach a bitter end, blogs start and fade away - if you miss a few, there are always more just around the corner. I think it's a healthy thing to achieve a certain detachment from that.

On the other hand, I value even more those few voices that are constantly challenging me to look at things differently, introduce me to new ideas and people, and just want to share this amazing and always fascinating life with anyone who is willing to listen.

I'm up for that.

Ed Young video blog

Earlier this month, Ed Young started a cool video blog and YouTube channel. It's been great watching these behind-the-scenes videos where Ed gets to share what's on his mind in a very informal way. The first video, where he discusses the struggles and challenges of ministry, has already been viewed over 3500 times.

There are so many fun and interesting ways to use technology to communicate, and new ones come online all the time. For instance, video blogging is barely mentioned in The Blogging Church and that came out just five months ago. I can't wait to see what's next!

Summer is here

Today was the official start of summer in our house, otherwise known as Ben's last day of school! This is always a fun day, but this one was particularly special as it was his last day of elementary school. Twelve weeks from now he will be a 6th grader in a wonderful middle school just a few hundred feet from his current school and still within walking distance of our house. He's very excited and definitely ready for new challenges (we all are, in fact).

Ben spent his first six school years in the same school, which was a fantastic experience. In fact, he had three of his teachers for the entire time and the relationships he developed are truly special.

The day included an awards ceremony and a final walk through the school for the 5th graders, cheered like conquering heroes - no formality or pretension, just a lot of smiles and congratulations.

Lori and I are blessed with a truly amazing boy. I don't think any parents could have it easier than we do. With Ben rapidly approaching life as a teenager, we can't wait to see what fun, surprises, and, of course, challenges lie ahead.

Our tradition is to see a movie on the last day of school and this year it was Shrek the Third, which was a great time, but my least favorite of the three. We have a few more treats in store over our long weekend together.

Lori shared some thoughts on our big day as well.