Today I’m doing something I’ve wanted to do for years. I’m starting my own studio and I’m calling it Tinker

Check out tinkerstudio.com

As those who know me might expect, Tinker is going to focus on strategy, experience design and product development in the mobile, social and emerging tech space. If my initial projects are any indication, I’ll be working with startups, agencies and individuals—a mix that’s very appealing to me. Of course, there are few personal and collaborative projects that have languished in a Moleskin for some time that I plan on squeezing in as time permits. 

Tinker will start as a studio of one but I expect it to grow and change organically over time. As someone who’s spent the past 12 years in New York City working with startups and agencies, I’ve never witnessed a time where the creative tech community was more inspiring, collaborative, dynamic and capable. Just as every industry is being redefined before our eyes, I expect the concept of what it means to be a creative/consulting/product/service/etc. company to also evolve and there’s no group of people I look forward to working with and learning from as we help define it than the army of creative folks right here in NY. No less exciting is that I’ll also finally get to fulfill my dream of working in Brooklyn. (ps: I’ll see you in DUMBO this Friday, Schnitzel Truck!)

So what am I going to work on? I’ve spent the past few months working with the amazing team of people at kgbweb on getting our product to a private beta launch. We successfully hit that milestone last week and I will continue to do work with the team in a part time creative advisory role as the product continues to evolve. Additionally, this week I’ll be kicking off an Android project with some old friends I’d worked with in the past – a great combination of research and design. I also plan to build more writing into my daily schedule so stay tuned for a more more lively everydayUX as well as some new ideas I’ve had for features that I haven’t had the time to explore over the past two years. 

Not enough projects? The most exciting one of all is currently set for early March—my wife Karen and I are expecting our first child. Not only will I be happy and proud to be building my own business from scratch, but it will also allow me more flexibility to spend more time with the family during these first few months. 

Now that I’m on the brink of embarking on this very different chapter in my life, I’m giddy with excitement. While this is something I’ve always wanted to do, I wouldn’t have been able to make the last, crucial, leap without the people around me who helped me either with advice, inspiration, encouragement or in most cases, all three: my wife, Karen; my mother, Vicky; Dennis Crowley, Buster Benson, Dan Parham, Chris Reardon, Sundance DiGiovanni, Nick Bilton, Kip Voytek, Toby Joe Boudreaux, Naveen Selvadurai, Champ Bennett, Michael Lewis, Sandy Fershee, Judd Frankel, Silvia Fernandez, Jeff Bonna, Lian Chang, Gabe Berezin, Tom KleteckaIan Cunningham, Kevin Cancienne, Chad Pugh, Omar Elsayed, Danny Newman, Michael Surtees, Paul Dix, Stephen Baker, Mike Brady, Kevin Kearney, Matt Galligan, Phoebe Espiritu, Oliver Turner, Jeff Dachis, Hyo Yeon, Brian Murphy, and many more that I’m sure I’m forgetting and already feel awful about! Tinker Studio is live thanks to you all.

Whether it’s this week, next month or next year, if there’s something you’d like to work on together, shoot me an email at alex@tinkerstudio.com or come check out the site and we can take it from there.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 

- alex

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This is one of the best examples of a company publicly showcasing their product roadmap. My other favorite is Dropbox’s Votebox section (login required) – bonus points for letting their users vote on what they want to see and have the amount of votes they have reflect their engagement with the service.

Both of these reflect a really excellent trend in transparency (and user involvement) that I think we’re going to start seeing a lot more of.

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Bob Pittman understood what Google does not: When it comes to consumer products, it’s not about “technology.”   It’s about consumer behavior and brands.   Consumers don’t like to customize.  They don’t like to be forced to learn new ways of doing things.  They actually don’t like “technology”–at least not for technology’s sake.  Consumers like to keep things simple and easy. 


This Blodget piece from Silicon Alley Insider couldn’t be more spot on about what Google struggles mightily with. Yes, people love Gmail because it’s very good at some things. Does that mean Google should turn it into some sort of communications Frankenstein? Absolutely not.

Also, let’s take a moment to analyze this wildly awesome sentiment that is so difficult to grasp for so many companies:

When it comes to consumer products, it’s not about ‘technology.’ It’s about consumer behavior and brands.

Nobody cares how many giga-whatevers your product has if it doesn’t seamlessly fit into the lives they lead. This is exactly what Apple is getting right with their approach to the iPad and what many other companies that are driven by engineering rather than experience are getting so wrong.


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There are a couple great things about this video:

  • The Weather Channel is bringing QR codes to a mass audience in a way that’s easy to understand.
  • They’re speaking to owners of an up and coming platform instead of just focusing on the low hanging fruit.
  • The little timer they use prior to displaying the code shows a nice understanding of the technology and the way their users will interact with it.

  • All in all, good stuff.

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    This video does a great job of showcasing the creative process of getting from lo-fidelity sketches to high-fidelity wireframes. Sometimes I think clients think (hope) we actually work this quickly. Hat tip for the use of “Battle Flag” – brings back some mid 90s memories.

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    This is the exact gaming scenario (down to the example game) we were kicking around the other day. There’s so much fun stuff you can design with this kind of “hub + satellite” setup. Here’s hoping to it someday being possible.

    A group of friends is huddled around a coffee table to play Zynga’s Poker Live. On the table as a centerpiece is an iPad–it shows a 6 and a pair of Aces as the flop, with a current pot of $100,000. Each player looks at their hand on their iPhones, considers how much they are going to bet. One player taps their bet higher and then flicks their chips off of their iPhone screen and onto the pot pile on the iPad. That’s how you do touchscreen Texas Hold’em.

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