Group items tagged

In 1981, Garrison Keillor, the popular host of Minnesota Public Radio’s satirical “A Prairie Home Companion,” offered listeners a free poster of his mythical sponsor’s “Powdermilk Biscuits.” To everyone’s surprise, more than 50,000 requests poured in; the station faced a $60,000 printing bill. To avert “financial disaster,” as MPR president William Kling later recalled, the station used the back of the poster to advertise products for sale, such as a Powdermilk Biscuits T-shirt. The idea worked. “I think we netted off that poster, which was really our first catalog, $15,000 or $20,000,” Kling said. “It instantly became clear that there were things like that you could do.”1

“Sorting, Classifying, and Labeling Experiences”

No, we’re not giving anything away in this post. Instead, we’ve got some work to do, and we need you to play an important role in it. Our most interesting (and important) project for 2009 is something we are modestly calling “The Smashing Book”: a smashingly written, beautifully designed and professionally printed book. It will be created by and for the Web design community. Four key decisions have already been made: the book’s title will be “The Smashing Book”; it will be a paperback; the price is fixed, as is the release date, which is early September 2009.

Focus Group session, but here are the top 9 I wanted to share: