Thought & Theory

Since Oprah is on Twitter, everyone you know is going to be on Twitter. This is inherently good and bad. Good because you finally don’t have to explain to your friends what Twitter is anymore, bad because eventually Twitter will seem like an overcrowded party that used to be “exclusive” and “cool”.

There are two main points to this post, let’s start with #1:

Staying Social. Twitter is full of different types of users who think Twitter is used for many different things (which it is). The whole point of Twitter, it’s core function, is being social. Talking with other people through @replies and DMs (direct messages) is the foundation of Twitter. Simply posting random updates about your life and a picture here and there will not get you to Ashton Kutcher status. I know that isn’t everyone’s goal and that’s fine, but to be fair to the people following you and true to the “social” part of social media, talk to people. Spend the extra time during the day to get involved in conversations, ESPECIALLY ones that are directed at you! I’ve found countless real-world interesting people on Twitter that are posting, but aren’t talking to anyone. What’s the point? Please let me know if I missed the boat on this one.

Point #2, Good Twitter Tools. Here are a couple Twitter tools that I have used, use on a daily basis or have heard are kind of cool:

• Tweetie is by far the best iPhone app I have used, and I would know, I have 4 of them on my phone right now. It’s worth the $5 and the UI feels very native to the iPhone. I’ve yet to experience one error message, one missed @mention, etc. Also, you can manage multiple Twitter accounts, which is very helpful on the go!
• Tweetie again, but this time for their desktop application. I tried Tweetdeck, I really did. It lagged like crazy, it distracted me and the UI just seemed quirky to me. Tweetie is well organized, simple and gets the job done. You can shorten URLs without confusion, threaded DMs like iChat, write multiple tweets and leave open to post at a later time (good for quick notes), repost (RT) other people’s tweets and the only item I am waiting for is multiple account management. I was happy to spend $20 to support a solid app, but could have had it for free with advertisements.
• Tweet Dumpr is a very simple service that I just found today. I remembered interacting with a few nice people early on when I joined Twitter a couple thousand tweets ago and couldn’t remember their names. Tweet Dumpr creates a line by line text file (.txt) of your past 3200 tweets that gets emailed to you almost instantly. If you remember part of someone’s username, search for it in the text file and BOOM! Lots of great uses can come from combing through your last 3200 tweets.
• Tweepular is an online app that you plug your Twitter account info into and you get a broad sweep of your followers and people you are following. You can do some account cleanup, using their bulk un-follow services and you can also find the Tweepular influencers who you aren’t yet following. Here’s a blog post high-five to Jason Tryfon, Tweepular’s creator.
• Tweetgrid is my favorite Twitter search application out there. There are a couple others, including Twitter’s official search engine, but Tweetgrid has worked well for me and is very lightweight and simple. Plug in keywords, search your name or anything fun and follow along in real time as results come in (without having to click to refresh results). Also, you can view up to 100 results at a time AND you can monitor 9 searches at one time (yes 9 searches).

I know there are a ton of other Twitter Tools out there, if you have anything to recommend, feel free to do so in the comments. We are always looking for new tools to try out and of course share.

And of course, follow us on Twitter: @thoughtntheory, @helloportfolio (on Twitter vacation right now) and @iwearyourshirt

All of us at Thought & Theory have come from rather strict 9-5 (sometimes even 8 - 7) jobs at various companies and advertising agencies. While that amount of work never scared us (hell, i think we work longer days now), the lack of freedom didn’t really help the creative process. Now that we’ve been on our own, we’re fortunate enough to have the freedom to work our own hours and make our own schedule.

I can take an hour off here and there to take my mom to the airport, go grab a lunch with an old colleague, hang out with my girlfriend for a bit, go read a book for an hour, etc. It’s changed my life and I don’t know if I could ever go back to a formal 9-5 again.

The misconception about having such a loose schedule is that not enough work gets done. But I can tell you from experience, letting creativity happen on its own has dramatically increased my work quality and output. You’re not forcing work during a set amount of hours and in turn your work doesn’t feel so rigid and forced. I get more done in a concentrated session of 4 hours then I would normally get in an entire day of work at my old jobs. It’s due to the fact I can wait till I catch an idea or brief moment of inspiration, and ride that until it ends instead of staring at a blank screen and creating on the spot.

So given the opportunity, what would you do with your time if you worked flexibly? Or if you do, how does it compare to your previous jobs?

Feel free to post this on your blog and link your response in our comments. The original blog meme originated from: Career Life Connection

Have you ever had an urge to tell all your friends why you love something? Even if it’s small and possibly insignificant, like the love you have for girls who love beards? Well were happy to announce we created a small application to help you do just that.

yiloveit is a place for anyone who has a twitter account, and some love to spread. Profess your love for someone, something, or someplace, and we’ll post it to your twitter feed automatically for all of your friends to see. Attach a photo, write your message, and let it go. Free love, baby! It’s like the 60’s, but with twitter accounts…

Dennis and I will be live streaming on Ustream.tv today at 3pm EST. You can watch us in the embedded video below or on the iwearyourshirt.com Daily Shirt Show. Stop by, say hello and ask some questions about Thought & Theory!

In case you missed the live broadcast, here is the recorded video:

Broadcasting Live with Ustream.TV

Happy New Year! In the spirit of the moment i wanted to share some tools that have really helped make 2008 a productive and successful year for us.

1. Dropbox - Dropbox has single-handedly been the most useful tool for us. The ability to sync files seamlessly between all computers in the company has really kept the ball moving - no more waiting for files, they’re just there. We’ve also found it extremely useful for sharing/collaborating with clients, allowing any client on any platform to grab a folder within the project and view and edit files. Dropbox is free for up to 2gb of space, and $9 a month for 50gb - you can’t beat that.

2. Google Docs - We use Google Docs to house most of our literature in a single application independent location. We keep everything from proposals, ideas, and client docs, all usually written within Google Docs, saved, shared, and exported (as .doc or .pdf) directly online. We also use it to house a single calendar that displays all upcoming tasks, and important deadlines. For a totally free solution, it’s unmatched - all you need is a browser.

3. Ruby on Rails - Rails is nothing new to us here at Thought and Theory. Our first app, Only Human used Rails when the framework was in it’s infancy. Now, however, Rails has evolved into something pretty incredible. With features like ultra readable code (à la ruby), a clear distinction between business logic and presentation logic (à la MVC), an amazing host of gems and plugins (à la the awesome community), MERB(!), and a great deal more - Rails is leading the way for us in terms of a nice solid platform to build upon. Disclaimer: we are not moving towards a Rails only development process, it’s just that we like it, and you should too.

4. GIT - Source code management isn’t a joking matter anymore, you gotta do it, especially when working with a team. We’ve used subversion in the past, but now we are getting hooked on GIT (pun, maybe?). For repository hosting we’ve been using Github, but codebasehq is looking pretty darn sweet for teams.

5. jQuery - Again nothing new for us, but it deserves a huge high-five. Javascript is fun again - thanks jQuery!

Happy New Year, be safe!