I wrote about the PhweetGeek and this post is about my other creative nemesis Bo McFarland. I’ve known Bo for a number of years. We’ve spent time on numerous occasions together fleshing out designs for the future. Both of us have been studies or students of social networks and involved one way or another in the evolution of social media.
Not long after getting David’s commitment and recently off completing an assignment with Bo for a quite separate application, where we’d hooked up as he’d just finished another Facebook application. We ended up working our tails off on that one too. Bo also knows I become pretty driven when there are deadlines to meet. We really hammered out that concept.
So was quite natural to turn to Bo and start sharing my latest idea. Much like David at first he didn’t get it. He prodded me and probed me as I brain dumped again what became the initial screens on a whiteboard. It was an important session as I then went home and mocked them up into something that isn’t all that far from the alpha we have today.
Bo went to work thinking further out and detailing use cases. We began talking about what it would look like. I sent him a crude brief. A few days later I had back the first iterations of Phweet in Black and White. Some extra talent and time went into the lettering.
I know Phweet and the Phweetman together and separate are just perfect for what we needed. I spent years in major consumer products companies and have developed many brands from scratch. We had none of the BS and we got something together quick. It didn’t come without creative tension. It did come with a dose of reality to get it done fast. Simple learning. Don’t agonize over things that are basically right.
Bo then began working on a broader color palette and thinking about something much beyond our Alpha version. What you see today is not what he’d want it to look like. It’s where the combination of expediency and my crappy CSS skills got us. We know we have some fixes to do and a huge opportunity to learn from usability and user comments.
Bo will want your insight and we need lots of users, support and probably dollars to take the emergence of something that can be great to the next level.
