“Respond to emails with as few words as possible. Aim for a sentence, but if just a word will do, use it.* It will take practice, and some might dislike it. I argue that this is a fair trade for getting more time to work (and live) productively.”

But I of course fear that my short reply will come across as rude. What is better: Getting a brief reply or none at all? Maybe Five Sentences is a good middle ground.

I fully agree with Fred Wilson’s post from 2009 on email intro etiquette:

“When introducing two people who don’t know each other, ask each of them to opt-in to the introduction before making it.” – Fred Wilson

The Double Opt-In Introduction

(thanks Cameron)

“If we want to really show what design is and what it can do, we need to get design elevated to the partner level. Partners have major equity stakes, real decision-making power, and are involved in product development from the beginning.” – Cameron Kozcon

A quote I keep coming back to. Taken from an A List Apart post written by my studiomate and friend Cameron Kozcon: An Important Time for Design.

Kern & Burn is an online and print publication that curates discussions, interviews and essays about design entrepreneurship

Thanks to the above graphic and this post over on brain pickings I will never look at a simple fold the same way again. Same goes for an ant.

Yesterday it was revealed that embarrassing, inaccurate or simply personal data will have to be deleted from the internet and company databases if consumers ask, under a new set of European laws.

Article: BBC ‘will delete all users’ data’

(via @piersfawkes)

Jeff Atwood’s graph on what it means to be a parent. Read his post here. Best article I’ve read so far on the topic of parenthood.

(thank you Paul)

Researchers found that having dogs present increases collaboration. …

I’d say it’s time to get a studiomates dog as it is supped to improve productivity and camaraderie in your work environment. The finding is part of a study by Crain University. Read about it in this interesting article over at 99percent on 8 Counter-Intuitive Ways to Improve Your Well-Being & Creativity.

Not sure how I missed this fantastic post on The Lost Art Of Design Etiquette by Dan Rose. I especially applaud the ‘name your layers’ portion of the post.

“What is the impact of the closing down of the Wilderness on the development of children’s imaginations? This is what I worry about the most. I grew up with a freedom, a liberty that now seems breathtaking and almost impossible. Recently, my younger daughter, after the usual struggle and exhilaration, learned to ride her bicycle. Her joy at her achievement was rapidly followed by a creeping sense of puzzlement and disappointment as it became clear to both of us that there was nowhere for her to ride it—nowhere that I was willing to let her go. Should I send my children out to play?

Even if I do send them out, will there be anyone to play with?
Art is form of exploration, of sailing off into the unknown alone, heading for those unmarked places on the map. If children are not permitted–not taught–to be adventurers and explorers as children, what will become of the world of adventure, of stories, of literature itself?”

(via Raul)

SO&SO is a lovely new short-form journal for the wandering interneteer. The current, second edition tries to resolve the Atheist / Agnostic distinction. Interesting.

(Hat tip to the creator Alasdair Monk.)

The ever so fabulous and now bi-costal Jessica Hische wrote an interesting post on The Dark Art of Pricing. Recommended reading for every designer/illustrator.

Here’s an interesting round-up of Quora Entries Every Startup CEO Should Read.

(via Chris Glass)

Plan B, it turns out, is a lot harder than it seems. But that hasn’t stopped cubicle captives from fantasizing. In recent years, a wave of white-collar professionals has seized on a moribund job market, a swelling enthusiasm for all things artisanal and the growing sense that work should have meaning to cut ties with the corporate grind and chase second careers as chocolatiers, bed-and-breakfast proprietors and organic farmers.

An honest look at what it means to run a small business: Maybe It’s Time for Plan C, by Alex Williams

Did you ever try to download a user’s manual for an electronic product that you own but the manufacturer does no longer offer it on their site? There is hope: Try a search on Amazon.com. It hosts PDF manuals of thousands of electronic products including those of items that have either been discontinued or are no longer available for sale on Amazon.com.

Go to Google and type the following query. Replace the word PRODUCT with actual name of your product as in above screenshot.

PRODUCT filetype:pdf site:ssl-images-amazon.com OR site:images-amazon.com

Read the full post over on labnol.org: Find PDF Manuals for your Electronics using Amazon

(via labnol)

“The most critical time for designers to be involved in a digital product is all the time, but it’s perhaps most important for them to stick around after the launch, when they can see how a real user base is using it, and then amend, refine, revise and evolve it. But it’s at just about this time that most studios are preparing invoices and shuffling their staff on to other clients’ projects.” – Khoi Vinh

Read Khoi’s full post: The End of Client Services

As it turns out, we have a way to prevent gangs of humans from acting like savage packs of animals. In fact, we’ve developed entire disciplines based around this goal over thousands of years. We just ignore most of the lessons that have been learned when we create our communities online. But, by simply learning from disciplines like urban planning, zoning regulations, crowd control, effective and humane policing, and the simple practices it takes to stage an effective public event, we can come up with a set of principles to prevent the overwhelming majority of the worst behaviors on the Internet. – Anil Dash

Read Anil Dash’s full post: If you’re website is full of A**holes, it’s your fault

(via chris glass)

“The internet, at this time in history, is the greatest client assignment of all time. The Western world is porting itself over to the web in mind and deed and is looking to make itself comfortable and productive. It’s every person in the world, connected to every other person in the world, and no one fully understands how to make best use of this new reality because no one has seen anything like it before. The internet wants to hire you to build stuff for it because its trying to figure out what it can do. It’s offering you a blank check and asking you to come up with something fascinating and useful that it can embrace en masse, to the benefit of everyone.” – Ben Pieratt

(Thank you Sonali)

I am incredibly honored to be featured on The Brander, a fine Swiss online journal that features stories about brands and their creators, generated by renowned journalists and photographers. The independent publication is the creation of Zurich’s branding agency Branders and aims to portray big, small und exclusive brands from all over the world.

A big thank you to Roman Elsener for the article, Stefan Falke for the photography and Tessa Pfenninger for the translation.

Here’s the link to my feature: Tina Roth Eisenberg – a modern Swiss Miss

He explained that I should start working on a project as soon as it was assigned. An hour or so would do fine, he told me. He told me to come back to the project every day for at least a little bit and make progress on it slowly over time. (…)

He explained that once your brain starts working on a problem, it doesn’t stop. If you get your mind wrapped around a problem with a fair bit of time left to solve it, the brain will solve the problem subconsciously over time and one day you’ll sit down to do some more work on it and the answer will be right in front of you.

(…)

The above quote is from Fred Wilson‘s father’s day post about a lesson his dad taught him.

As I have expressed before, I am quite frustrated with how we use email. I know, I am not alone. I have declared email bankruptcy and explained in another post how email has become my primary source of guilt. I currently have an auto-responder set up that has the sole purpose of setting expectations low. Here’s what it says:

Hi there,

Tina – ready to change the way we use email

The overall response to the auto-responder has been positive. Of course, I get an annoyed comment here and there, but it has helped me feel less guilty. Also, people have proven to be more understanding, less annoyed with my late or lack of reply. It’s obviously not an ideal solution, but better than nothing.

What do you think of Chris’ idea? And his proposed rules?

“I am troubled by the devaluing of the word ‘design’. I find myself now being somewhat embarrassed to be called a designer. In fact I prefer the German term, Gestalt-Ingenieur. Apple and Vitsoe are relatively lone voices treating the discipline of design seriously in all corners of their businesses. They understand that design is not simply an adjective to place in front of a product’s name to somehow artificially enhance its value. Ever fewer people appear to understand that design is a serious profession; and for our future welfare we need more companies to take that profession seriously.”

- Dieter Rams

(in this telepgraph.co.uk article)

(via coudal)

Words and phrases that Kurt Andersen found annoying and didn’t want used in New York Magazine during his tenure as editor.

(via Chris Glass)

What already was an amazing day has now been officially pushed into magical realms with this NewYorkTimes Style Section feature of Studiomates. A big thank you to the writer, David Hochman! My favorite line: “It turns out that 140 characters in a Twitter post cannot compete with 26 characters in a Brooklyn loft.”

Read the full article on Studiomates here.

I am honored to have been interviewed by Alice Yoo of MY MODERN MET for the Content Curator’s series.

The graphic above and the quote below totally hit home for me. “Ownership as a Burden” is a term that I have been thinking about a lot recently. Especially now, with a pending move ahead of us, I go through my stuff and ask myself ‘what’s really active’?

“As quickly as a new laptop becomes yesterday’s technology in a brittle plastic shell, or a power tool idly collects dust in the garage, it seems that material possessions are changing from treasure into junk, from security into liability, from freedom into burden, and from personal to communal.”

From an article by Rich Radka for Sharable. Found over on Uncomsumption.

When your environment is cluttered, the chaos restricts your ability to focus. The clutter also limits your brain’s ability to process information. Clutter makes you distracted and unable to process information as well as you do in an uncluttered, organized, and serene environment.

Scientists find physical clutter negatively affects your ability to focus, process information | Unclutterer

(via unconsumption / PSFK)

FOMO —Fear of Missing Out— is a great motivator of human behavior, and I think a crucial key to understanding social software, and why it works the way it does. Many people have studied the game mechanics that keep people collecting things (points, trophies, check-ins, mayorships, kudos). Others have studied how the neurochemistry that keeps us checking Facebook every five minutes is similar to the neurochemistry fueling addiction. Social media has made us even more aware of the things we are missing out on. You’re home alone, but watching your friends status updates tell of a great party happening somewhere. You are aware of more parties than ever before. And, like gym memberships, adding Bergman movies to your Netflix queue and piling up unread copies of the New Yorker, watching these feeds gives you a sense that you’re participating, not missing out, even when you are.

Read the full post.

To help you make the shift from design student to design professional easier Doug Bartow, principal of id29, and his colleagues put together this article listing 29 things they think all new designers need to know.

Read the 29 things all designers need to know.

(via idsgn)

Here’s an interesting Hunch article discussing what your email domain says about you. I am totally guilty of stereotyping people by their email addresses: A friend recently recommended an accountant. When I saw his email address, I called up my friend and said: “I don’t want to hurt your feelings but I want you to realize that I will never hire anyone that has an aol email address. This person and I live in different solar systems.”

Here’s the link to the article. Make sure to check out the interactive version of the report.

(via @cshapiro)

Read the full blog post: New Challenges For Creative Leaders in 2011: What’s Your Take?

In a recent blog post, venture capitalist Fred Wilson talked about his ongoing struggle with email management and the various solutions he’s tried, concluding: “Every time I make a productivity gain, the volume eventually overwhelms me.” It’s a familiar problem. We’re all extremely busy, and we all get too much email. So what to do? Read these fantastic recommendations over the 99% blog: Email Etiquette for the Super-Busy.

Signed, Tina, drowning in email.

The business tips in David’s post were excerpted from the mini-book Brilliant At The Basics of Business 100, by author, designer, and teacher Nicholas Bate of Oxford-based Strategic Edge.

Read the full 100 business tips in this free PDF (70kb).

During a lovely conversation with a young German designer, we both agreed that well established designers here in NYC are down to earth, humble and approachable. Something that is entirely not the case in Germany, she said. And I agree. I am regularly amazed at how lovely and humble so many of these super-established designers in our industry are. I never forget when I met Steff Geissbuehler for the first time. He sat down with me and we had a 20minute chat and bonded over our common Swiss roots.

Or take Michael Bierut who so generously agreed on giving a CreativeMornings talk in January of this year. Not only did he give a talk but a brand new talk on clients. (Anyone who knows how much time it takes to put a talk together must be equally humbled by this as I was!)

The list goes on, add Steven Heller, Debbie Millman, Paola Antonelli etc.

One of my readers pointed me to this wonderful article called The Kindness of Strangers by Jessica Helfand. I love the part where Jessica talks about Milton Glaser:

I have heard that Milton Glaser will never accept a social invitation if it means canceling a class, because his students come first. This makes him a rock star in my book, and makes me wonder if we should start teaching ethics in design school. If charity begins at home, how can we proclaim new and progressive agendas of social change without examining ourselves, our students, our profession?

Here’s to the rockstars in our industries that stay humble and approachable!

The Kindness of Strangers, by Jessica Helfand

GOOD Magazine featured this coat designed to help the homeless, and employ them. Design student Veronika Scott envisioned a way she could help, by designing a coat which could allow homeless people to stay warm, but also preserve their dignity.

Read the full story.

(via ideasareawesome)

Torschlusspanik
German – Translated literally, this word means “gate-closing panic,” but its contextual meaning refers to “the fear of diminishing opportunities as one ages.”

Tartle
Scottish – The act of hestitating while introducing someone because you’ve forgotten their name.

Prozvonit
Czech – This word means to call a mobile phone and let it ring once so that the other person will call back, saving the first caller money. In Spanish, the phrase for this is “Dar un toque,” or, “To give a touch.”

Dépaysement
French – The feeling that comes from not being in one’s home country.

Can you think of any expressions to add?

(via Sy)

I agree with Courtney Boyd Myers: While it could be a tad complicated for an average reader, it’s a great tool for writers and bloggers who frequently link to NYTimes stories.

Here’s how it works. Take the base URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/world/americas/01colombia.html

To link to a specific paragraph, simply add a “#” and the number of the paragraph, e.g.: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/world/americas/01colombia.html#p2

To go a step deeper and skip to a particular sentence, try e.g.: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/world/americas/01colombia.html#p2s2

And where it gets really gets cool: To highlight that section, simply switch the p to an h. e.g.: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/world/americas/01colombia.html#h2s2

To simplify things, if you hit your shift key twice on a Times story, small icons appear next to every paragraph. Click on one of them and it’ll place the paragraph linked URL up in the address bar of your browser.

Read the full article over on TheNextWeb: The New York Times Introduces The Evolution of the Hyperlink, by Courtney Boyd Myers.

Hopefully more sites will adopt this feature. Hat tip, NYTimes!

(via @davidbauer)

What you’re worth is a question only you can answer. It’s loosely a combination of your ability, experience, and instinct. I don’t believe any of these three can be objectively measured, therefore it’s your responsibility to make a subjective assessment and assign a dollar amount to it.

Some people charge by the hour, but I won’t. If my worth requires more time to shine through, the client should not be penalized. But if my worth gets me to the answer faster, why should I be penalized?

Liz pointed me to an interesting article titled “When “Best’ Isn’t Good Enough” by Judith Newman.

In a medium where it is often oddly difficult to interpret tone, where the lines of friendship, love and business are easily muddied, and where people are sometimes a little too eager to shine brightly in the drab sludge of daily missives, something as seemingly trivial as an e-mail signoff can loom large. It can be a clue to both the personality of the sender and the standing that the recipient has in his or her social universe. It can enlighten, amuse and enrage — sometimes all at once.

How do you sign your emails?