Gingerman
One of my favorite places in Austin. A true pub. A great variety and selection, and a great back patio. You can probably find me hear most nights during SXSW after 8pm.

Easy Tiger
The up and comer. I’ve only been to this place once, but I was really impressed. Great brew selection, and they have awesome food. Try a half pound of the corned beef, and wash it down with a milk stout.

Anything made by 512 Brewing
Within walking distance of the convention center, there honestly are too many great bew places, but no matter where your at, you can never go wrong with something from 512 Brewing. And the Java Porter, yeah it’s one of my top 3 beers. So so good.

Black Star Co-op
A little bit north of the action, but don’t pass this place up if your near it. Great food, great staff, and exceptional beer.

LoveJoy’s
So I’ve never been to this place, but I’ve always wanted to go. A biker brewbar. Sounds too good to pass up. If anyone is brave enough to go with me, the first one’s on me.

Franklin’s
Believe the hype. This place is worth waiting 3 hours for. At least once. Everything is delicious, but the moist Brisket is the best, and they have good slaw.

Salt Lick
Amazing BBQ, beef ribs that will make you look like Fred Flinstone, and tangy and unique sauce. I love this place. The real one is 25 minutes southwest of austin, and worth the trip, but there is also an outpost at the airport.

Green Mesquite
A hidden gem, they have some really great jalepeno cheese sausage. Stop by after swimming at Barton Springs.

Black’s
Want the real BBQ experience? Take most of a day and head out to Lockhart. I’ve only been to Black’s, but i hear their are a few other decent places in this town as well.

Jmuellers
I’m going to go out on a limb here and recommend it, even though I have yet to personally try it. It has received high praises from multiple credible sources, and I’m certain it won’t disappoint.

I know I might catch some flack from other local’s on this one, but here goes nothing…

whole foods
yep, you read that right. Call me crazy, but i think whole foods has some of the best tacos in Austin, especially when it comes to lunch and dinner. Here’s the order details: Pork or chicken, corn tortilla, refried beans, rice, queso, guac, and…. dragon salsa (that’s the key).

royal Blue grocery
I may get torched on this one as well from fellow local’s, but oh well. With either taco deli’s fare, or their own line of tacos, you can’t go wrong. try the chicken, egg, and cheese, and thank me later.

Torchy’s
The classic stand by.

Chilantro
Something different, but oh so good. and get a side of kimchi fries.

La Condesa
Another option you may not hear a lot of talk about, but it’s different and tasty. a tad bit pricey, but worth it.

Casa del fuego
The midnight taco, across the street from all the action. You can’t go wrong with this one.

caffe Medici
Amazing coffee, great location, and an exceptional interior.

Frank’s Hot Dogs and Cold Beer
Coffee at a hot dog joint? Don’t tell anybody, but YES. It’s the only place in Austin that i’ve found intelligentsia espresso being served, and it’s awesome. and make sure to get a artisan sausage egg and cheese biscuit to go with it. amazing.

juan pelota
Not the friendliest of staff at times, but a great cup of coffee. and it’s lance armstrong’s bike shop, yo! make sure to go downstairs and see some of the memorabilia, if your into cycling.

halcyon
Good coffee, good food, and a nice ambiance. and it’s right by the gingerman

progress coffee
A few unique drinks, and an interesting locale to match.

royal Blue grocery
my go to nook for coffee, tacos, and pastries while working downtown. great all around.

In this series, I’m not so naive to think that I cover everything (as I’m still exploring the city myself) but I do hope to provide a good survey of local favorites, and a few hidden gems.

I’ll cover a few of the essentials: coffee, tacos, BBQ, good brew, nature, and that Other Thing.

Enjoy! and as always, if you have a different opinion, feel free to voice it!

Jobs remembered being impressed by his father’s focus on craftsmanship. “I thought my dad’s sense of design was pretty good,” he said, “because he knew how to build anything. If we needed a cabinet, he would build it. When he built our fence, he gave me a hammer so I could work with him.” Pg. 6

It’s interesting that at the beginning of Job’s life, we see that one of his biggest influences is not some distant, technical wizard of his time, but rather his own father, his attention to detail, and the fact that he intentionally included Steve in his own projects.

Personally, I have only been a father for just over 2 years now, but I am regularly amazed (and too many times alarmed) at how much influence I have on my kids, for both good and bad.

I hope that fifty years from now my children will also be able to tell, with joy, of the values they learned from me, through both word and deed.

For my children will most definitely learn something from me. The question is, will it be apathy or passion, precision or carelessness, love or hate?

I recently read a few outstanding articles that speak to this issue of 1) owning vs. challenging a brand’s monopoly, and the related issues of 2) embracing what is unique about a company 3) creating a unique and extremely useful shopping experience based off of a unique brand ; and I wanted to pass these along here:

Apple’s unchallenged monopoly
http://kensegall.com/blog/2011/11/ads-apples-unchallenged-monopoly/

Why Jeff Bezos is OK with Amazon being Amazon, and nobody else http://m.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/ff_bezos/all/1

What Ron Johnson learned from building the Apple Store Empire http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/11/what_i_learned_building_the_ap.html

I thought maybe a few of you might benefit from this list as well, so I’ve included the list below. And as always, if you have something to share, do please leave a comment and a link!

http://cargocollective.com/kreathaus/following
This is not all tablet interface design, and you do have to be careful what you choose to browse, but I have found the cargo collective network to be the best source for the latest and greatest stream of digital design work. Particularly the following two designers:

http://cargocollective.com/bcline

http://cargocollective.com/jonaseriksson

A few others:

http://www.landingpad.org/

http://beautifulpixels.com/

http://app.itize.us/wp/category/ipad

and my gimmebar findings:

https://gimmebar.com/user/jonathanbowden

After receiving the book from Amazon (that story here), I was first suprised by the shear size of the book. This things a monstor, by today’s literary work’s standards. Close to 3″ tall, and it’s not even large print. Isaacson has surely done his homework, not to leave any stone unturned. Which leads me to this post.

I am only a small bit into the book, but I am already enthralled, if you can’t tell, ha. So when I saw that PBS would be airing an hour documentary special on Steve’s live, I thought it would be interesting to compare the two works.

While somewhat informative on a very very high level, I was really suprised how much detail and backstory was left out, compared to the book. Granted, this is to be expected wthen comparing an hour long video production versus an exhaustive literary work, but I was still suprised by just how much was skimmed over.

So as I make my way throught this mountain of a book, I wanted to share my thoughts along the way, in smaller snippets here on my blog.

I will try and keep the post relatively short and to the point, starting with a quote or section from the book. And as always, I would love to see the discussion grow with your own observations.

I am only 23 pages into the work, but my mind is already racing with new insights and observations Walter Isaacson has dug up, to the benefit of us all.

Here’s to the crazy ones.

Fast forward to this past Saturday, when I received an approximately book shaped package. I was giddy, to say the least. I knew the book was set to come out publicly this Monday, but I thought maybe Amazon had picked up some customer “surprise and delight” cues from their recent acquisition of Zappos, and had surprised me with the book a few days earlier than expected.

No go. It was a different book, from a different vendor.

Disappointed, I consoled myself in the fact that I would have the book in just a few days, assuming Amazon’s stellar track record would stay true. Or so I hoped.

Monday morning I awoke to an email not telling me my order had shipped or would be arriving soon, but rather that they needed further information from me to complete the order.

I understand that I supplied incomplete information and therefore partially my fault, but this was over two weeks ago. Disappointed that this had not been addressed much earlier, I completed all that was needed, and then waited for progress.

And I’m still waiting, over 24 hours later. It’s tuesday, yet Order status: shipping soon. With no further details as to why.

You might have surmised this already, but I’m pretty disappointed with this whole user experience. So for what it’s worth, here are a few suggestions. again, mostly from the high expectations I have from my fantastic experiences with Zappos:

1) When a pre-order is placed, handle all necessary paperwork / fulfillment details immediately, so that the order will ship as soon as possible.

2) A customer who goes out of his or her way to pre-order an item should have that item in hand at the same time it is available to all, if not before. Otherwise, I don’t see the use of pre-ordering. For instance, I pre-ordered a book set to come out to the public on this past Monday, and it should have been at my house on Monday, if not earlier. On a side note, kindle customers did receive their copy early. But I will leave the fragmented user experience / company to another post.

3) If the above two options cannot happen, and the item cannot be shipped until the release date, all customers who pre-order a hardback copy should be given a kindle copy until the hardback comes in the mail.

I realize this last suggestion is a big step, as it was questioned on twitter when i originally proposed it, but here is my reasoning: Amazon should do what all of the best business do: play to their unique strengths, in order to create a substantial competitive advantage.

First, Amazon is without a doubt the industry leader in online book retail, and the accompanying fulfillment and delivery system. Nobody else even comes close. Nobody. This is the first strength to play off of.

Second, and not as strongly, Amazon is a major player in the ebook market, though it is seeing major competition from iBooks and others. They have a good platform, and some promising new devices, but they are in a fearce competition, and need something to help them stick out.

If Amazon combined the two strengths, as I have suggested above for pre-order customers, it could create a HUGE competitive advantage, and greatly increase it’s repeat customers for such transactions.

As it stands currently, I went through the extra steps of pre-ordering the Steve Jobs autobiography, and yet I might receive it on 4 days late, on Thursday. Or Friday. who knows really.

I love Amazon’s services. I genuinely hopes this actually spurs changes that help Amazon, whether ones that I have stated, or something different entirely. I just wish Amazon would take a few pointers from Zappos, and their over the top customer service. It sure does pay off, just look at the purchase price they paid for the startup.

Update
I sent an email with these thoughts to Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of amazon, and he responded! Granted it was through his assistant, but that’s understandable. He understood my frustrations, and greatly appreciated that i went beyond just frustration and offered a solution. He is not sure if my ideas are completely feasible, but he has passed the ideas down to the heads of the respective departments. A class act. Well done mr Bezos!