Creating is like uncovering something that normal people can’t see.

It’s our task to uncover it, to make it real.

It’s our task to sweat, and to dream.

It’s our task to uncover what we know is there beneath the stone.

The people around you — they can’t see it. They’ll shout. They’ll disbelieve.

But you can see it in your head, and that is enough.

And so you must work.

This is the task of every creator.

Every coder. Every musician. Every designer. Every entrepreneur.

From a block of stone, to a statue that others can see.

Looking at the stats for the last few days of the new version of Discovr Music I was amazed to see the uptake of iOS6 accounting for over 77%.

The full breakdown by iOS version is:

Similarly iPhone 5 has made a strong start, although it has a little way to catch up to iPhone 4S and iPhone 4.

Apple’s naming of iPhones here is a little confusing compared to the marketing names. Basically:

iPhone2,x = iPhone 3GS

iPhone3,x = iPhone 4

iPhone4,x = iPhone 4S

iPhone5,x = iPhone 5

Will be interesting to see how these numbers change over the coming months.

– Stuart

As a technical founder of a startup, and having been in many far from ideal jobs in the past, I believe it is my job to make sure developers are looked after.

I’ve seen many situations where companies expect developers should be spending every waking hour hacking away on their project. Developers who work long hours are thought to be more committed to their job. People are rewarded based on hours rather than output. This is neither productive nor healthy.

There are many things you can do to keep developers motivated and productive. I believe a key to this is encouraging them to work on other things, give them options, here they can step away from a massive code base, start something new, learn new things and recharge. Let them be creative.

What You Should Be Doing

• Do Internal Hack Days – we try to do these every few months, it’s a great opportunity to try out new things (some of which have become features or projects). You’ll find that your developers will often learn a new tool or technique that benefits your product. But most importantly it’s a great mental break and reward.

• Encourage External Hack Days / Events – there are hundreds of amazing developer events around the world, from Startup Weekend to hack days. These are a great opportunity for developers to meet new people and create something new in a short time. We organised the first Australian music hack day, and recently Sam and myself competed in “AppAid – Coding For A Cause” where we made an app for charity in 48 hours. I know I came back inspired to create.

• Encourage Side Projects – side projects are a great way for developers to scratch an itch and learn more on their own time. It also expands their skill set outside programming to things such as design and marketing, which can only help in their day jobs.

• Give Developers Flexibility – have different tasks developers can work on during the day, maybe they have been stuck doing a backend task for a few weeks? Give them a simple front end task to mix it up. Maybe there is a tool that needs to be evaluated? If the developer isn’t in the zone that day, maybe they’ll decide to do one of these other tasks rather than loading up Hacker News.

What You Shouldn’t Be Doing

• Think You Own What A Developer Does In Their Spare Time – if the developer isn’t a founder / owner of the company and they create a side project, in their own time, it’s theirs, hands off. Contracts probably say different, but this is my opinion of what is right.

• Expect Hack Day Productivity Is Normal – yes developers can make an app in 48 hours during a hack day. No they won’t make a production quality app in 48 hours during business hours. It’s a very different process and level of quality.

What Now?

In the end we want the best product created in the shortest amount of time possible. A startup is a series of short sprints, in between those short sprints everyone needs to recharge. Unchain your developers and let them create.

– Stuart

Discuss on Hacker News

Melissa Buckner

I’m one of the founders at Filter Squad where we make Discovr for iPhone and iPad. We’ve been lucky enough to get some decent traction so far with around 3 million users.

Like everyone else, I often feel overwhelmed with too much information — emails, notifications, blog posts, & more. Some of this information is legit. Some is just due to my own unchecked addiction to information. Whatever you call it, one thing is true: a world full of emails, messages, and interruptions will keep you very busy from doing anything at all.

Recently I’ve been inspired by Brad Feld who talks about going off the grid to get more done, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who talks about the state of flow. For me, I definitely do my best work when I have long periods of uninterrupted time to think, to experiment, and to create. So to help me reach and stay in flow, I started a regime about six months ago that reduces my incoming information.

My first step was to add a permanent Out of Office message to my email. This helped establish that I wasn’t always available instantly. From there I’ve been experimenting with periods without email or social media. This has been really good, and I recommend that you try it. Here’s how to do it:

Step 1: Add an Out of Office
Add a permanent Out of Office message to your email. My current message is: “Hi, I’m working on a new app right now. I’m really focused on that so I won’t be replying to email until Date X. If it’s urgent, you can call my wife on ### and she will pass on the message”. Putting my wife’s phone number stops all but the most urgent calls :)

Step 2: Create an Inner Circle
Restrict information so it comes from a smaller ‘inner circle’ of people. My inner circle is my team, and my investors. They can contact me anytime, about anything. For this they need an easy way to communicate:

Phone – my inner circle has my number, and they can call me or SMS me anytime. SMS works well because typing is a barrier to long messages, and it’s a step away from the net. As none of us really use the phone much this channel hardly gets used. SMS is also cumbersome for sharing files, so a second channel is useful.

Secret email – I’ve recently created a new email account that only my inner circle knows. This works so well. I check this account and I know everything that I really need to know. (You could also use email filters, but I like the mental space of a separate account). A new email address also comes with the benefit of no unwanted subscription emails.

Note: this method does makes it harder for people to engage with you, and it shifts the onus of work onto others. This means you need to be contactable when it’s important, and it also requires a team of great people around you — they need to know why you are doing this, and they need to be self-motivated to get their work done.

Step 3: Delete the Offending Apps
Next, trash Twitter, Mail, Hacker News, Reddit etc from your phone. Stick with this for two weeks. The goal is to break your habitual, reflexive checking all the time. (n.b. the Concentrate app is also good for this, but I like the commitment of the full delete). Once you are used to this, trash these apps from your computer as well. Right now I only have Mail for my inner circle on my laptop and that’s it. No email on phone, no Twitter etc. I still dip into Flipboard every now and then for a little info taste, but the pace is much reduced – it’s less an addiction and more a leisurely stroll.

Tip: If you still want to push content out to the world, you can use the awesome Buffer app for this. This lets me post to Twitter and Facebook without getting too caught up in reading random stuff. To keep the social conversation going (comments, replies etc) set up monitoring to do so at specific times…

For the Pros
If you can handle all of the above, then I recommend you step up to the pro version: hand over control of your main accounts to your partner. Get them to change your email and social media passwords, and not tell you the new credentials. (Your partners are often motivated to keep you away from your email, so this works particularly well). Right now I don’t even know my own passwords for email or Twitter.

After doing all of this, the biggest problem for me was cold turkey malaise – a general uneasiness in the absence of information. This is hard to shake at first. It’s that feeling that important things might be happening and you don’t know what is going on.

In reality, it just doesn’t matter. People will find a way to get through if it is important. Often they’ll contact another team member, or you can set up filters and alerts for your key partners. Also, direct your customer support emails to a separate address that you check at specific times. I love this – it gives me a dedicated time and place to talk with our customers, and this helps me listen to what they need. Hint, if you want to contact me, I reply to heaps of customer emails every day.

If you think you can’t do this in your job, then take another look. As a startup, we get lots of inbound enquiries, we have team members, and investors, and customers, and biz partners. It is absolutely possible to have less information coming at you, and it’s great.

P.S. you can still sneak in an information snack anytime you like. You just won’t feel addicted or overwhelmed like before, and it’s such a great feeling. You should do it too.

–
Want to find out more? Follow me on Twitter, or get the early scoop on the new app we’ve been working on.

Producing more volume? Producing higher quality output? Retaining more information? Shipping on time?

Maybe it’s being generally happy and satisfied with life? Giving more to those around you?

Whatever your definition, the universal elixir for more awesome is wellbeing.

We talk about wellbeing as this big catch-all super virtue and the key to happiness, but so few of us are prepared to make the little tweaks that give us the best possible chance of living our best possible life.

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. ~World Health Organization, 1948

I get it. We’re all busy. We all have deadlines up the yin-yang. When time and brainpower are at such a premium, who can afford to waste either on feel-good luxuries when you were due to ship two hours ago?

This is something we discuss a lot as a group. That silver bullet that will make us harder, better, faster, stronger.

But wellbeing is a continuum. A holistic approach to balancing mind, body, and environment. When these are in check, wellbeing is high and awesome comes much easier.

These tips tend to be pretty consistent performers in the daily quest for balance:

BODY
1. Go outside. Get some fresh air. Move your limbs. Get some sunshine. The 10 minutes spent walking around the block is better spent refreshing You, than refreshing your inbox. Put it in your day planner with an alarm.

2. Do more exercise. You’ll learn to love it. If you work really hard, you’ll be rewarded with so many sweet endorphins you will want to train again tomorrow just to get another fix. You’ll think more clearly too.

3. Refuel with premium. Cut the processed crap. Eat fresh. Even if you are sitting in your chair all day, your brain needs way more fuel than you’d think to function well. Treat yourself when you really feel like it, but make quality nutrition your default setting. Your mind and body will perform more reliably.

4. Get some sleep. Sleep recharges both brain and body, and without it you start the next day at a handicap. Sleep is so important to my optimum daily function that I set an alarm for night time saying GO TO BED!

MIND
5. Do something different. Take a new route to work or perform your daily tasks in reverse order. Get out of autopilot and start thinking about what you are doing and why. Eventually it will become habit to always look for a better way to approach a task.

6. Be stretched, but not stressed. Being stretched, or pushing yourself to realise greater potential, is empowering and can be exhilarating. It’s a positive energy force. Stress causes all kinds of really nasty health ailments and hinders performance and stamina.

7. Stop multitasking. For tasks that require quality output, close your email/Twitter/Facebook and give your brain a chance to breathe.

8. Audit your day planner. Economise your time spend to include things you like. On my drive to work, I listen to a design podcast. I feel like I’m learning something new (which may/may not improve my actual work) and the guest interviews leave me feeling inspired for the day.

9. Start your day in control. On your terms, not rushing out the door with toothpaste on your face. Get up earlier. It sucks, but it gets easier after 21 days, so hang in there.

10. Do something nice for someone else. Especially when you don’t have to. I’m a big fan of the thank-you card. But be warned — expected reciprocity, or using your good deed as a personal PR campaign on Facebook voids all positive karma points.

Fake Grimlock say...

12. Mix it up. If you’re blocked on a task, get up and move somewhere new. The next room, coffee shop, or outside. Often, a new environment brings a fresh perspective.

13. Have a good pit crew. Whether it’s friends, family or colleagues, not everyone can be 100% all the time. Support each other and cultivate honest, authentic relationships.

Do you agree with my tips? How do you optimise for awesome?

A few years back, I stumbled upon the Split Seconds playing one of the side stages at Western Australia’s Southbound festival. Drawn in by the super catchy indie-pop beats “Bed Down” and “All You Gotta Do“, I was fascinated by their rocking, instrument-swapping stage show.

Fondly dubbed the “Splits” by fans, this popular, all-singing quintet hail from our hometown, Perth, where they’ve been recognised locally with five WAMi awards, including Best Indie Pop Act.

Despite the obvious geographical disadvantage of being located 3000+ kms from the other Aussie capitals, the Split Seconds are all too familiar with the national touring circuit. Billings have included some the biggest shows and tours like Homebake, Southbound, Big Day Out, St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival, Big Sound and Pyramid Rock.

We’re excited about the recent release of their debut album, You’ll Turn Into Me, and welcome popular frontman, songwriter and guitarist, Sean Pollard, to the Discovr artist series.

Sean Pollard of Split Seconds, how do you find new music?

Finding music used to be about the trip down to ’78 Records in Perth on Saturday mornings and going digging through the racks to find something that looked interesting.

I used to buy one CD a week; sometimes two, if I could find something cool at Sanity in the Maddington Metro.

I remember buying the first Hives record, because I liked the look of the cover, knowing absolutely nothing about the band at the time.

Same for the first Built To Spill record I bought–I remember reading a review in X-Press in the food court and then going straight into Sanity to buy it.

Obviously, with the emergence of things like Rdio and Spotify, stories like these will probably become totally archaic–but it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

These days it’s a lot more about sating any level of curiosity straight away.

I still kind of hear about music from the same sources–ads, reviews, radio, word of mouth, street press–but it’s all about instant edification now.

I’ll probably stream or sync maybe 4 or 5 albums a week through Rdio (I’m not 100% across Spotify yet), but still endeavour to buy a physical record if I really think it’s worth buying (or if it’s been made by a friend!).

At the end of the day, I probably do buy less CDs than I used to, but due to the digital options available to me now, I’m listening to a lot more music which is more varied and adventurous than if I didn’t have these options.

Split Seconds are touring nationally to launch their new LP, You’ll Turn Into Me. Check Facebook, Twitter or web for tour dates!

Here’s the first single from the album–”Top Floor”.

Dave is listening to:

"Trem das Onze" Adoniran Barbosa (1964)

This is the original composition of Trem das Onze. It’s typical of the ‘samba paulista’ style - a form of samba that came out of the city of São Paulo in Brasil.

I first heard this song when I was living in Brasil. It gives me mega saudade for that time in my life.

Stu is listening to:

"Survival Expert" Something for Kate

Amazing new song from one of my favourite ever bands. Best listened to in headphones.

Kristy is listening to:

"Hold On (feat. Sampha)" SBTRKT

Beautiful, super catchy and great vocals from Sampha. Gets stuck in my head.

Ben is listening to:

"Ultra Light" Surkin

Joyous, juvenile, body-moving. This banger of an album is back on repeat after hearing Ultra Light in a recent Justice DJ Set.

Darcy is listening to:

"The City" Madeon

Another amazing song from the boy wonder, almost as great as Finale.

Sam is listening to:

"Antiphon" Hidden Orchestra

Still into ambient this week, enjoying the meandering accompaniment of Hidden Orchestra’s Night Walks.

Great tunes. Check them out!

What are you listening to? We love a good recommendation–drop by our Facebook page and let us know. We’ll add them to our office playlist next week.

You can also check our past team tunes all in one place, on Pinterest.

Every Hour is Valuable

Whether you’re a consultancy or a startup, every hour is valuable, the difference lies in how directly.

When charging for your services each and every hour is directly billable, so each and every hour must be tracked and accounted for. “Wasting” an hour on anything not directly billable wastes precious earnings, unless you can figure out a way to make it understandably billable to your current client. There’s also overhead in time keeping, both in time and morale. Conversely, given you can work a certain number of hours in a week you’re guaranteed to make a certain amount of money.

For the startup, each hour is valuable in improving the quality of the products. Longer term gains are acceptable. Beyond the MVP, better architecture is appreciated. You can more easily spend time on your tools and processes. And, thank goodness, you don’t have to worry about every 15 minutes, you can just focus on making the products better. However, fast MVPs and iterations are key to the fledgling product company’s life and you may have to invest more hours in your working week.

Who You’re Building It For

Developing products under consultancy means you’re building it for a client, and they are generally not the end user. Often it requires a great deal of tactful manoeuvring to convince the client to make the decisions which best benefit them and their end user rather than the ideas they preconceive without knowledge of how software is actually used. This can become exhausting and demotivating, but it’s the clients you need to make happy to get paid.

Product companies are building products directly for their end users, albeit with some financial gain along the way. It is in the company’s best interest to build the best, most satisfying products for their users and is happily touted as priority at the discretion of the builders, because that attracts more users which is the primary financial motivator.

Focus

Building products per hour is very different from building products long term. Building just a few products for an extended period lets you focus on the details, invest time in the little things that make users smile, and explore the depths of technology choices and capabilities.

When bouncing from project to project it’s easy to lose a sense of direction to a product. The tools and practices have to stay general, easy to pick up. Longer term intentions and architecture can become muddied or confused. However focusing on a few products for too long can lead to a slight tunnel vision and is perhaps still best accompanied by a few other more diverse projects, potentially of personal interest.

Variety

Working on just a few products means the quality of those products can become higher, but sacrifices variety. The opportunity to work on many different things means a greater spread of challenges, and a wider breadth of technologies. It’s easier to stay abreast of the latest and greatest with more opportunities to experiment, although they must consistently pay off. But the most rewarding is becoming immersed in differing domains and subjects, learning enough about each project’s particular business problems and crafting new, elegant solutions for each.

Finishing

The greatest satisfaction from building software comes from finishing. It can be something small—implementing a fantastic new algorithm, elegantly expressing some core business logic, or tying some hairy processes together. The best are the larger, more public finish lines—launching a new product, releasing a new version, or completely refreshing a user interface. In my experience, consulting tends to have many smaller goals, some for their own sake and others which are stacked together toward an occasional big launch. Startups tend to invest a lot into a few products, so the launches are big, and the refreshes many. Generally they also don’t go into “maintenance mode”—it’s always about improving the products as much as possible.

But This Is Just Me

These are my experiences of these two alternatives, but I’m sure there are many shades in between. There are many other details which have influenced how I’ve felt about these experiences too; belief in the products, passion for the work itself, travel, location and conference opportunities, fantastic colleagues, and interesting challenges to name a few. Both capacities have been thoroughly enjoyable, and I look forward to learning more about building products and the opportunities lying beyond.