Designing a new website is like buying a new computer—as soon as you have gleefully unwrapped it from its packaging and checked your Gmail, something even more awesome is on the market. The piece of electronic joy you were so excited to possess may not be immediately rendered useless, but it is certainly lacking something. That’s why Project Logic is being released in phases.

A couple weeks ago I was “encouraging” our team to put a bit of a rush on the web build so we would definitely deploy before February 1. The design is infinitely more modern than our current website, we were updating content like crazy, so in theory we could have made that date work.

I want you to share in something our clients experience, something that we’re doing to prove we live by our own words.

Since Logic hired me in December 2009, I have been giving marketing reports that say things like:

January 2010: I reestablished our newsletter. Also, we need to redesign the website.
February 2010: We now have blog and Twitter followers! Also, we need to redesign the website.
March 2010: News of our expansion is traveling rapidly! Also, we need to redesign the website.
April 2010: (You get the drift)

If there is one phrase you’ll here frequently repeated in our office, it’s “You know what would be really cool?” followed by a dreamlike narration of what we could do with a prospective project (given appropriate time, budget, and mutual enthusiasm).

But it’s not only with our own projects—we often wax philosophical about things like how glorious the world would be with a Detroit-Chicago high speed train. In fact, public transportation (specifically, rail) sometimes stirs up a hornet’s nest around here.

So, when I asked Pierce, our U.S. to China intern, to compose a blog post describing his experiences with technology in Shanghai, I was thrilled to death that what he wrote mirrors our excitement in the Ann Arbor office…and then some.

This past week two seemingly preposterous claims were made:

1. Someone approached me at a coffee shop and asked if I teach community college in Qatar.

2. Google announced it is now activating 300,000 Android phones every day.

I hereby rescind my vow to not talk about gaming apps.

Rovio’s "Angry Birds" has been the Top Paid app in the App Store for quite a while, and in pretty much every country that has an App Store. Currently "Angry Birds" is the #2 app in the U.S., just below "Angry Birds Seasonal" which was released for the holidays. A few weeks ago I caved on the $0.99 cost so I could see what all the fuss was about.

Given its unbelievable popularity you probably already know this, but if not, the premise is such: pigs (green ones, sometimes wearing crowns or helmets) have stolen the birds’ eggs, which…

Last time I promised to talk more about innovation and Professor Jeff DeGraff’s talk at TEDxDetroit. DeGraff, Clinical Professor and "Dean of Innovation" at The University of Michigan Ross School of Business, began his presentation by succinctly stating “In a down market, innovation is your only friend.” To support his claim, he delivered an argument that R D expenditures at many US companies are consistently dropping during the Great Recession, while expanding within international corporations. To avoid blatantly plagiarizing I attempted to swipe some stats myself on the internets.

On Wednesday, I attended my first TED event, TEDxDetroit. It was, for me, what presenter Erik Proulx calls “hope porn”. I laughed, I cried, cliché, cliché, cliché (though very true).

For those who aren’t familiar with the conferences, “TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design.” I would argue that TED is not at all small, but no matter. TEDxDetroit is an independently organized TED event, one of several that occur across the globe weekly. TEDxDetroit 2010 featured more than a dozen of the best and brightest minds sharing their passion, wisdom, and innovations.