“Over at MediaPost, Max Kalehoff writes about the need for R&D within advertising agencies, hitting on some things I’ve been thinking about lately. The entry comes out of a question Max asked at the Innovative Marketing Conference: ‘Why the heck are advertising and marketing agencies so often so late to invest in or experiment with new technologies and emerging media, while the marketers and clients demonstrate increasing interest and tendency to pursue them directly?’”

“Tim Bray posts that an answer to a tough technical problem came while mowing his lawn. I don’t have a lawn any more, but when I did, I often did my best thinking while mowing.”

New book looks at how the ferocious bidding war for housing and education has quietly engulfed America’s suburbs.”

“I generally don’t do the cartoons for money, but prefer to distribute them freely via the internet, or whatever means I have at my disposal. If people want to use my cartoons for their own stuff, or help support the cause, the best thing they can do in exchange is consider buying a bottle of Stormhoek, if and when they come across it.”

“How many times have you been to a party and someone asks: ‘What do you do?’ ‘Where are you from?’ ‘Oh, how do you know them?’ So I give you the 10 tips to avoid small talk with people and get an interesting conversation…”

“How to do smart software development even when facing impossible schedules? Say you’re the lead developer on a small, five-person team. You’ve been working for weeks on a project, and the team is just starting to jell. Your team members range in experience from a senior architect to a junior programmer just out of school. Then your boss calls you in and tells you the senior vice president was just on the phone chewing him out, and he wants your project done yesterday.”

“The first time Eric Smith laid eyes on Tom Szaky, in April 2005, he felt a shiver of panic. Oh, my God, Smith thought. What have I gotten myself into? There they were, about to meet with Home Depot’s global product merchant, John Fuller, a guy who could make or break a young company with a simple yes or no, and Szaky, the founder and CEO of TerraCycle, all of 23 years old at the time, shows up looking as if he’s just rolled out of bed after a night of heavy partying–rumpled, unshaven, and dressed in jeans, a sports jacket, a shirt with no collar, and a John Deere baseball cap.”