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Jessica Hische and Chris Shiflett first crossed paths at Studiomates, a Brooklyn based co-working space where some of New York's most talented designers built businesses and influential organizations. Visit our Substack for bonus content and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/jessica-hische-and-chris-shiflett Jessica, known for her lettering and illustration work with clients like Wes Anderson and The New York Times, and Chris, whose career spans from the early foundations of the web to co-founding Brooklyn Beta, both experienced firsthand what happens when passionate, independent creatives come together. Today, they're channeling those lessons into Studioworks, a business platform built specifically for independent studios and creative professionals. They're tackling the unglamorous but essential parts of running a creative practice—invoicing, project management, client relationships—with the same care and community spirit that defined those Brooklyn days. In this conversation, we talk about the magic of Studiomates and Brooklyn Beta, what they learned from running their own studios for years, and why they decided to bootstrap a tool for the creative community rather than chase venture capital. It's a story about building something sustainable, beautiful, and genuinely useful for the people who make things. Bios Jessica Hische is one of the most beloved and influential designers of the past two decades. She's best known for her lettering and illustration, but equally for her generosity in sharing what she knows. Jessica was part of the original Studiomates community in Brooklyn, has worked with clients like Wes Anderson, The New York Times, and Penguin Books, and now brings her creative leadership to Studioworks, where she and Chris are building better tools for independent creatives and small studios. Chris Shiflett is a longtime friend of the design community whose career spans the deep foundations of the early web and the heart of the creative world. His early books on HTTP and web security became unexpectedly influential at a time when the internet was still taking shape, opening the door to some extraordinary projects — including one that generated nearly half of the internet's traffic and another responsible for a fourth of the world's email. After years helping big internet companies solve scalability problems, he realized he was more inspired by the people creating them — the designers, founders, and builders making things people love. That shift led him to the original Studiomates community, to co-founding Brooklyn Beta, and ultimately to the work he and Jessica are doing today with Studioworks. Premium Episodes on Design Better This ad-supported episode is available to everyone. If you'd like to hear it ad-free, upgrade to our premium subscription, where you'll get an additional 2 ad-free episodes per month (4 total). Premium subscribers also get access to the documentary Design Disruptors and our growing library of books: You'll also get access to our monthly AMAs with former guests, ad-free episodes, discounts and early access to workshops, and our monthly newsletter The Brief that compiles salient insights, quotes, readings, and creative processes uncovered in the show. And subscribers at the annual level now get access to the Design Better Toolkit, which gets you major discounts and free access to tools and courses that will help you unlock new skills, make your workflow more efficient, and take your creativity further. Upgrade to paid
Cameron is the founder and CEO of Fictive Kin, and co-creator of Brooklyn Beta and Kinference. Cameron has had a significant impact on a pocket of the technology and design industry. We talked about the state of technology, the state of design within those technology businesses, and many more other things.
Matthew is a designer, entrepreneur and a co-founder of Letterboxd, a social media site for film discussion and discovery. We talked about his path, how he bootstrapped and incubated Letterboxd, and how he has approached leading the company, and evolving the product, in the decade-plus that it has been around.
Show notes: http://betweenscreens.fm/episodes/147 - What’s the elevator pitch for Brooklyn Beta? - What’s the origin story of Brooklyn Beta? - What exactly did you want to make different with this conference?
This week on Development Hell we brag about how awesome we are via discussion about conference prep as a speaker. How much crap should go on your slides? How do we change our talks for different audiences? What’s our worst presenter experience? We also throw Paul Reinheimer under the bus. Did you know STICKERS ARE NOW AVAILABLE? BUY SOME NOW AT devhell.info/shop!!!! Do these things! Check out our sponsors: Roave and WonderNetwork Follow us on Twitter here. Rate us on iTunes here Listen Download now (MP3, 53.1MB, 1:14:00 ) Links and Notes Brooklyn Beta OSCON Open Source Bridge Roave Foundation
Cameron Koczon is the founder of Fictive Kin.
Dave Rupert is a front end developer and one of our favorite people on the web (and in life).
Sarah and Josh talk about the awesomeness known as Brooklyn Beta.
We hit the Double Deuce this week with special guest Jim Gay. Jim is the author of Clean Ruby, the upcoming book that applies “Data, Context and Interaction” (DCI) concepts to Ruby and Rails development. Jim is clearly much smarter than us, so we took this opportunity to attack him mercilessly as a representative of the sexist Ruby community. Jim also shares his experiences as a self-published author. In addition, we talk about how True North PHP planning is going for Chris, and Ed’s experiences at Brooklyn Beta. If you’re a true believer, you’ll do these things: Check out our sponsors WonderNetwork Follow us on Twitter here. Rate us on iTunes here Listen Download now (MP3, 33.1MB, 1:14:41) Links and Notes Jim Gay Clean Ruby Brooklyn Beta Cory Booker True North PHP Maciej “Pinboard guy” Ceglowski Ben Pieratt Codeconnexx 30x500 DCI on Wikipedia DCI web site GeekFeminism Wiki article on CouchDB talk at the 2009 Golden Gate Ruby Conference Anti-Oppression 101
Episode 42 - Hosting Your Own Developer Conference Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Tony Dewan stopped by the studio to talk to us about what it’s like to organize a conference. His re:build conference has had some of the top designers and developers in the industry come speak. He shares his tips, opinions and experience so that anyone interested in organizing their own conference can understand what is involved. re:build - A conference for developers & designers rebuildconf.com 2011.rebuildconf.com tagboard.com/rebuild2012 Show notes You live and die by your speakers! Choosing/finding/signing speakers Have an opinion and stick to it Picking/working with venues Clever ideas to limit costs sweat the details - badges, speakers needs, etc sponsorships are hard don’t do it alone understand your target audience - speakers, ticket price, sponsors it’s a labor of love - you won’t make much money Other awesome, inspirational events: Brooklyn Beta Talentopoly links - Noteworthy links posted on Talentopoly in the last two weeks FuelUX - A lightweight library that extends Twitter Bootstrap Manymo - A Better Android Emulator The Top 10 Alternatives to Google Adwords CSS3 Microsoft Modern Buttons Better TDD Workflow via Exclusive Tests in Jasmine and Mocha
After some downtime spent taking mental reps, Chris and Ed are back with a vengeance for one of our best shows. Joining us is Chris Shiflett, PHP fellow and security expert. They talk about how we interact with non-techie members of dev teams, what they’re doing with Node, the state of the Canadian soccer program, heavy vs lightweight frameworks, tribalism in programming communities, and the importance of balancing work with life. We also talk to Chris Shiflett about his role as co-founder of Brooklyn Beta, and what they’re trying to accomplish with the conference. If you’re more animal than man, you’ll do these things: Check out our sponsors, Engine Yard and WonderNetwork Follow us on Twitter here. Rate us on iTunes here Listen Download now (MP3, 42.1MB, 1:37:04) Links and Notes “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” –Robert A Heinlein Read Write Web: Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login Funkatron.com: We’re the Stupid Ones: Facebook, Google, and Our Failure as Developers Zend Framework Symfony Slim Flask Silex Jon Tan on The Pastry Box Project Paul Graham: How To Lose Time And Money Brooklyn Beta Beyond Beta Todd Park, US CTO Viktoria Harrison of Charity: Water
Update: Our first posting of this episode had a glitch in it around 14:50. It should be fixed now. If you already have the episode, you should re-download it. Our fourth episode is all ready for your listening pleasure. In this exciting episode we focus on “The Conference Experience” and discuss why programming conferences are so important to developers. Chris talks about why CodeMash was so awesome and the awesome talks full of awesomeness that he attended. Ed talks about his own experiences with speaking and attending conferences, complete with a total derail by Chris on why a certain conference rubbed him the wrong way. Oh yeah, you also find out our opinions on what constitutes a “well-written PHP application”. I’m sure you will be surprised by our answers. As always, we welcome your feedback. You can always hit us up on Twitter where we love to read what you say and promptly ignore it or privately mock it. Download now (MP3, 51MB, 1:20:18) Links Capistrano Phing Whiskey Disk CodeMash JSConf OSCON Brooklyn Beta