So it only took me a ton of years to figure out 1 silly thing.

Your product is your brand.

I’d been thinking about doing all these things that were “DS4 design” branded.  Why,, no one wants to wear a brand that no one knows a thing about.  People want cool stuff and to later find out it’s part of a known brand, or it is associated with a brand.

So that’s it,, go make stuff (he Fred, why not listen to your own advice?)

Make products, your products are your brand.  So where are your products?

I have Onenote on my tablet PC, and I have the earlier version of Evernote, but this is a completely new level of the two of them together.

It’s not having the app in multiple places, it’s putting together those multiple places that make it that wonderful.

I’ve got 4 free beta invites for interested parties. Drop a way to reach me in the comments.

I’m very excited to see that the real gap between the web, mobile, and the desktop is reducing.

Thanks to Bezos and Jobs and a few margaritas, now you can download and read ebooks straight from your iphone without an amazon eBook purchase. The AT&T network has bought it all up and now any iPhone owner can read their ebooks all day long for free, any book from Amazon

David Seah (Dave to humans who have met him for more than 3 seconds) is the mastermind behind The Printable CEO and other amazing time management/productivity/organization sheets and forms. I even got him to autograph(see the pic above) his own form (that reminds me, I should get Tristan to sign an Ionic Breeze!)

I make a point to communicate with people online who I find fascinating, and that generate truly amazing content, Dave’s work is quite singular in this regard. He, surprisingly to me, began to ask many questions of me and my process, as I was curious about him and how he went about things. He has run the gamut from web design to game design, currently experience design. He’s well rounded, well spoken, and will likely shove a camera lens in your face that is about twice as big as you expect. Wait till he posts about the cool little hack on said camera!

Dave and I are both in the position of trying to develop products, sell them, and actually make things that people want (and are useful). We discussed a lot about fulfillment (personal, and places to ship your products from). We discussed virtual products and how to interact with the aspects of rights management therein (a scary proposition) (more on this and the rest of these conversations in later posts, fear not).

Of course we began with the hysterical introduction of getting out our various writing tools and pads, anyone watching would have likely been rolling their eyes. Out came two Moleskines, mine book style, his reporter style, we of course compared our built in hacks, his copiously readable and designed notes, and a filled pocket with tricks galore, mine with volume label, pen holder (on spine) and again the pocket filled

(personal moleskine pocket stash: stamps, $20 bill, post it tabs (mini), prepaid postcard, and a spare biz card).

Having someone to converse with on your projects, especially as removed as someone who has shared interests and goals, yet there is no overlap (his sales will never impact my sales) is such a great type of person to find. I cannot recommend this sort of discussion enough. Each of us is working towards developing products, and generating income while doing what we love. It was great as we both have been researching many of the same things, and it was interesting to see where our knowledge overlapped, and where one of us had found much more information on a particular topic.

We also discussed Linkedin, as we have both been searching for a number of particular answers (that neither one of use knew exactly where to go with) and we noted that it seemed by far to be one of the best places for genuine business knowledge transfer. We also noted that for “old school business info” SCORE (the SBA’s retired executive coaching wing) is a really useful place for knowledge on simple things like getting a business license, which ones we needed, and the like.

Do go and read Dave’s articles please, you’ll be better for it!

He even did a post about our meeting,, cool!

It’s so funny, Dave is so introspective, while I sat there and we talked his pen flowed across the page. I always enjoy watching people who take copious and excellent notes, as it is a wholly different experience from my hideous chickenscratch.

Apparently I should go do things now, but there’s much more to write of Dave’s and my meeting in the near term (as well as enumerating my ongoing projects and how Dave’s advice has helped me.)

Have a great day! Go make an online friend a real friend!

He’s got a great piece related to an article by Josh Kopelman about “Feed Frenzy” and what to do about all our feeds.

Brad accurately distills the info Josh generates in his article (here)

The crux of it is all pretty straightforward. There are feeds for everything. You get tons of email. Why don’t you get a smart dashboard that integrates them nicely?

It’s a simple question, there’s probably a few simple answers, (damn I’ve got to learn to code). My guess is it’s somewhere between a video game interface, digsby, netvibes, and google reader. It’ll be fun to see soon, (hopefully).

This also brings up a bother I’ve had for some time. I’ve always wondered about setting up, as Tim Ferris is wont to say “rules for email.” I haven’t added them (I’m fairly good at weeding out the chaff, but I need to be smarter about them.)

Additionally, I’m web based (ok, at home, not at the office,, it is the land of outlook, I don’t mess with the system). I want a way that yahoo, gmail, (and, shudder,, hotmail) can play nicely together in an interface I don’t want to vomit on. Additionally,, please Gmail,, give me an option to use “regular” style email (no threaded conversations). So far Netvibes and Pageonce (I think that’s the one) haven’t really scratched my itch here yet. Also,, let’s find a way to get plaxo less “flashy” and more integrated with this magical service. Then I can have a “web button” (I won’t even go into my “art button” that’s a combo of all adobe software, solidworks, and painter, but I digress).

Whew,, there’s my diatribe and it’s late.

Tune in again when Fred says something else inane! (wait,, I’m Fred)