NeoCon 2010

We’re still flush from our trip to NeoCon in Chicago - forgive us, it was heaven.

The keynote speaker was Yves Behar. He’s Swiss, he works in San Fransisco, and he makes some amazing things. His keynote was pretty special, as well. The topic was Design in the Age 360º.

Essentially, Behar’s point was that new designers had to work between two poles. One pole was personal expression; what you wanted to say, how you wanted to say it, your own taste and decisions. The other was modern technology, the cutting edge of modern design. In a sense, you have to navigate between what you love and what your buyers (clients, users, etc.) need and will find useful.

It’s bold for a designer, especially one as high profile as Behar, to come out even a little bit on the side of the buyer rather than that of the creator, but it’s the right thing to do. We like to think Smart Furniture does it every day. The address was refreshing and apt, and Behar has securely caught our attention as a guy to look out for.

Herman Miller to Re-Introduce the George Nelson Basic Cabinet Series!

This fall, one of our favorite dealers will be re-releasing a classic series of modular furniture, the Nelson Basic Cabinet Series. The last time you could buy these simple, elegant pieces was back in 1958, 13 years into George Nelson’s service as Herman Miller’s Director of Design (1945-1972). The cabinet line was meant as a useful and attractive storage solution, as well as a waiting room set; the centerpiece of the collection is the Nelson Bench. The new line, updated slightly to include the Nelson Bench with metal legs, was debuted at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, ICFF. Smart Furniture was there to see the set’s debut, and we even snapped a few pics: The simplicity of the furniture is emblematic of Herman Miller’s overall philosophy under Mr. Nelson; minimal stylization, faith in simple materials, and a complete aesthetic fitting for modern life. Smart Furniture couldn’t be more excited to be bringing this furniture to our customers, and we know you’ll love the Nelson Basic Cabinet Series as much as we do!

Summer is here, and so is Google Commerce Search 2.0

6/17/2010 08:01:00 AM

School is out for the summer, and that means it’s time for some swimsuit shopping, travel purchases and—before we know it—buying back-to-school supplies. To help retail sites get ready for the summer shopping season, today we’re launching Google Commerce Search 2.0 for retailers in the United States and United Kingdom. The new version of Google Commerce Search provides a better experience online for shoppers and greater control—with immediate ROI—for retailers. Google Commerce Search, first launched a little over six months ago, is an enterprise-grade website search solution hosted in Google’s cloud and designed specifically for online retailers. This second release includes a number of improvements:

• More merchant customization: Today we’re introducing a full merchandising dashboard, which gives merchants more control over promotions, ranking rules and filtering. Marketers and product merchandisers can now do all of this themselves—no custom code necessary. New intuitive retailer controls like time-based promotions, navigation bar with filters, and simple product ranking rules mean seasonal optimizations can be done on the fly.
• Better shopper experience: With query autocompletion, retailers can offer common queries to shoppers in real time, as they type, without any custom coding. GCS is also faster and more relevant than before thanks to search quality improvements. Because it’s hosted in the Google cloud, search results are returned to shoppers in less than a second. We’ve also added spelling and stemming dictionaries and new custom synonym options to make shopping on a retail site as easy and accurate as searching on Google.com.
• Improved browsing and navigation: Many shoppers depend on the search bar on retail sites when they’re looking to make a purchase, but some people will always prefer to navigate through different categories and discover new products. Now, Google Commerce Search allows visitors to shop by browsing around your site as well as searching directly for products.

Finally, we’re making the benefits of Google Commerce Search 2.0 available to a wider range of retailers by introducing a pricing model that starts at $25,000/year. Get in touch with us to learn more. As more consumers turn to online channels to purchase and research products, it’s important for your site to keep up with them using the best technology out there. So with summer just around the corner, make sure your sunscreen’s on, your beach blanket is ready and your e-commerce site is optimized with Google Commerce Search. Posted by Nitin Mangtani, Senior Product Manager

Google Enterprise Blog: A week to celebrate Small Business

Monday, May 24, 2010 at 12:29 PM

This week we’re joining others throughout the country to celebrate National Small Business Week, declared by the President of the United States to recognize the impact of small businesses on America’s economic well-being.

We hear great stories every day about how Google Apps is helping small businesses compete and grow. So, to honor the millions of small businesses across America, we’re kicking off a week-long blog series to share their stories. We’ll highlight some of the outstanding entrepreneurs and small businesses that we’ve worked with over the past few years, how Google Apps has helped them grow, and examples of ways small businesses are using tools in the Google Apps suite.

To start, we’d like to share a story showcasing Stephen Culp, Founder and Chairman of Smart Furniture and CEO of Delegator. Read Stephen's post on the Official Google Blog to see how his business is using Google Apps – and stay tuned for more small business news throughout the week.

Posted by Michelle Lisowski, the Google Apps team

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Google Apps Features Smart Furniture Founder

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/hello-google-apps-hello-real.html
Hello Google Apps, hello real collaboration

5/12/2010 02:53:00 PM

This is the latest post in an ongoing series about Small Business and resources for entrepreneurs. Previous posts have covered how Google AdWords and Google Places can help business owners use technology to drive success. -Ed.

I’ve talked to a lot of small businesses that don’t have the budget or the resources to invest in and maintain technology. That’s why I love telling them about Google Apps — a suite of web-based office tools — and how it can help move their businesses forward.

I always find that it’s easier for small businesses to understand the benefits of Google Apps when one of our customers tells the story for us. So I’ve asked Stephen Culp, Founder and Chairman of Chattanooga, TN-based Smart Furniture and CEO of Delegator, to share his experiences with Google Apps, and how he took a company that started out in a Stanford professor’s garage and made it a success. (Sound familiar?) We’ll continue the conversation with Stephen and other Google Apps customers at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce America’s Small Business Summit next week in Washington, D.C.

As the founder of three companies, an attorney, Naval Reserve Officer and former Peace Corps volunteer, I’m a believer in an entrepreneurial approach to virtually everything. Smart Furniture, for example, started back in 1998 in a Stanford professor’s garage, with a new business model called “Design on Demand®” that allows furniture and interiors for homes and offices to be customized for you, and more importantly, by you, all on the web.

Smart Furniture began as a small and growing company with phenomenal people, but limited budget (and time) for technology, especially the wrong kind. We tried for years to scale efficiently without pouring money into the “standard” infrastructure to run our business. We considered the idea of Microsoft® Exchange, and while the idea was great, in practice it got a lot more complicated — and expensive.

Then, in 2008, we discovered Google Apps. We liked the general virtues of SaaSapplications that were inherent in Google Apps, and the fact that the applications improved over time without any effort from our team. Plus, the collaborative benefits were game-changing. Google Apps took that idea of efficient, company-wide collaboration and — unlike the alternatives — made it real.

In other words, for us, Google Apps does just what technology should. It frees up resources to focus on our actual business. It offers tools we didn’t have — or hadn’t integrated — before, including third-party apps from the Google Apps Marketplace. It replaces unnecessary layers of tech silliness with a simple, intuitive, integrated platform that actually serves us — our team and our goals.

Google Calendar alone increases our efficiency exponentially. Everyone can look at the same calendars, create new ones for events, projects or work groups, and share them, without having to master a byzantine instruction manual. Then there are the collaboration benefits. Before Google Apps, we’d constantly lose information as people changed roles or moved on to new projects. With Google Sites, we’ve eliminated the need for shared servers and their little air-conditioned server rooms, and replaced our entire intranet with one comfortably situated in the cloud. We use Google Sites to store company files and team members’ bios, and support our project groups. Meanwhile, Google Docs allows everyone to contribute to projects and idea creation — a key part of our company culture. We create documents to solicit feedback, track ideas, keep common agendas, take notes, prepare for meetings, manage inventory and even organize our company’s softball league. It’s part of almost everything we do.

Yes, our IT guys freaked out at first. Some thought that eliminating the maintenance of our previous system, a.k.a. Frankenstein, would make them no longer necessary. What they didn’t realize was how much better their jobs would get. Now they have the time to work on interesting projects — building, creating and innovating, rather than constantly rebuilding, patching and defragmenting. Our team is amazing, and we’re glad to have them back out of that air-conditioned server room.

At Smart Furniture, Google Apps helps build and support our culture, an important part of the secret sauce that has helped us succeed. Our culture keeps all of us working together, enjoying our days, not peering out the window wondering when we can clock out. As any company grows, it’s hard to maintain the sense of close collaboration that a small business has. Google Apps keeps us chatting (we all use chat in Gmail), collaborating, learning and growing together, as if we were still in the one-room office where we began — which was, incidentally, about the same size as the server room we were planning to build for Exchange.

In our experience, as a small business, the wrong technology can distract your team and drain resources, while the right technology can seamlessly support your goals. Both Smart Furniture and Delegator are on pace for greater than 100 percent growth in 2010. Customer satisfaction rates are at record levels, and we love where we work. For us, Google Apps is the right technology.

Stephen in the flagship Smart Furniture Studio

Posted by Tom Oliveri, Director, Google Apps and Enterprise

Rico's Week with the Generation Chair, Day Five

The seat cushion doesn’t get talked about very much, because of the Generation’s Main Big Deal, which is the back and arms being so innovative and awesome. I’d rather it not get left behind, though, because my rear end is feeling very comfy and has been so all week. I don’t ever feel like I’m sliding out of the chair when I lean back, the seat pan adjusts deep enough for me (I’m 6’1”), and it seems to breathe well even though it’s a cushion and not space-age like some other chairs. Let’s see, have I left out anything? Oh yeah, design. Other than mentioning that the arms look different, I haven’t really discussed the chair’s design features. When you look at it from the side, you notice that the back curves in towards the lumbar region, then back out again and seems to even curl over forwards at the top. That seems a bit unlike what you would expect in a chair, until you think about this chair’s purpose and construction. Each of the curves accentuates the back’s supportive ability, while still enabling it to flex and move just about any way you want it to. From the back, it looks awesome because of the way the back is made – colored rubber with holes in it, with a great profile and contrasting colored frame – I mean, you can see the pictures shot from the back. I think that, although the side profile looks a little goofy, the back is stunning enough to more than make up for it. So my conclusion is: because I prefer to sit still, I wouldn’t go for a Generation, but I love the way it looks. However, having moved around in it for a week, I would be able to honestly recommend it to my sister, who Can’t Ever Sit Still. She’d be very comfortable in this chair long-term.

Rico's Week with the Generation Chair, Day Four

I’m sitting normally today, and by normally I mean facing forward. The only abnormal part of the way I’m sitting is that I’m sort of slouched sideways and leaning on my left elbow while I work. The Generation’s back being so flexible, I am able to feel supported and not strained even in that ergonomically incorrect position. Do I sound like an advocate for bad posture? I really hope not. I really believe in sitting well for the sake of my bad back, and do notice when I’m sitting wrongly. My back tells me. And then I have to tell my daughters that I can’t pick them up for a while. And my chiropractor tells me that I’m an idiot, and my wallet gets thinner. So I really do have incentive to sit correctly. Having sat in the Generation for almost a week, I can tell that it’s not noticeably harming me, and so my arbitrary verdict, based on not feeling pain or discomfort, is that it’s a good chair for people who normally have good posture but like to move around in their seats. Bear in mind that my back isn’t yours, nor are my sitting habits yours. That’d be boring, anyways – if we were all behavioral clones of each other …

Rico's Week with the Generation Chair, Day Three

Today, I attempted to do what I had never thought about doing before. I sat backwards in my office chair and leaned on the back. I can only imagine this being useful when sitting at someone else’s desk watching them work, or participating in something that does not require the use of typing or mousing actions. With that qualifier, it was comfy enough, but not as comfy as sitting backwards in a dining chair without arms. Because a task chair needs to have arms and a frame, which get in the way of your legs a little bit, the Generation wasn’t as great backwards as it is forwards or sideways. However, the part that really was neat was that the top of the seat back bent back and I was able to rest my arms on it while I was sitting backwards. I still prefer the quarter-turned or sideways positions, and can rest my arm on the flexible seat back in that position. This chair would be awesome for the type of person who can’t sit still in their chair, or is always sitting on their leg, or is up and down frequently, or needs to look at the ceiling a lot (like if you work in a cubicle and don’t have a view … the flexible back would save your neck a lot of pain from straining to see something beyond your cubicle walls).

Rico's Week with the Generation Chair, Day Two

Day Two Today, I was mildly surprised when I walked up to my desk and found the Generation chair still waiting behind it. I think I really like the color – it’s not so much of a shock as it was when it was sent over from our Studio in the first place. It’s true that Lemongrass isn’t really that color, but I’ve decided that it sounds neat, so what the heck. As I look at the arms of the chair, they seem aesthetically different than most chairs, and I think that’s because they were designed to not be in the way while still being there for your arms to rest on if you want them to be. This chair has the Height Adjustable arms, rather than the High Performance version. Having not used the High Performance arms, I’m not sure what the main difference is, but these have enough cushion, go up and down easily and lock into place just fine. While they move around a lot and feel loosely connected to the frame, they actually stay locked in place better than most of the performance task chairs I’ve sat in recently. One of my pet peeves is when I put the arm where I want it to be and it decides that it wants to move somewhere else when I lean on it. These feel like they were meant to be leaned on, both by my arm and (if I feel so inclined) by my back when I’m sitting sideways in my chair. That does bring me back to what I started talking about (regarding why the arms look aesthetically different than most chairs); they are designed to be out of my way when I’m sitting sideways with my legs under one arm and my back against another. They are successful at that job and do not infringe on my leg’s personal space, and while my arm-backrest isn’t super comfortable, it doesn’t cause me pain. I find that, rather than sit sideways, a more comfortable position is to turn about a quarter of the way around, counter-clockwise, and use both the back of the chair and the armrest for support. It’s actually surprisingly comfortable to sit like that while typing this.

Rico's Week with the Generation Chair, Day One

In the realm of ergonomic task seating, the Aeron was first, a groundbreaking chair in both design and comfort. Following on its heels was a host of chairs that mimicked the design and couldn’t touch the comfort. But recently, with the Embody’s advent and the quality chairs produced by Steelcase and Humanscale, the discomfort of the consumer can be alleviated in any number of ways by any number of contenders. If you’re a fan of being able to sit in the best position possible for your body and for comfort, you have choices. But what if you don’t want to sit still, with your feet flat on the ground and your arms at a 90 degree angle, and your back straight? What if you move a lot, or need to use the same chair to task and to collaborate? What if you (gasp) like to sit crooked? This week I’m testing the Generation chair by Knoll, created with just such needs in mind. The one I’m sitting in has a Lemongrass colored seat and back and a polished aluminum base and frame. It’s the kind of color that would look horrible in my parents’ house and super cool in my friend’s condo. The basic adjustments of this chair are the levers built into each armrest for up and down movement, a paddle built into each side of the seat’s underside (left to adjust seat pan depth, right to adjust seat height), and a lever at the right rear of the seat to adjust degree of tilt. The tilt adjustment has three settings: Slacker Recline, Moderately Relaxed, and No Recline for You. The rubber back has a ton of flex to it, so each of those positions incorporates give, and stretching is easy and even encouraged by the back’s flexibility. Even though it doesn’t have any additional lumbar support, I don’t feel like the chair is lacking in that area as I sit in it. We’ll see how the week goes!

Celebrate Earth Month

This month marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. Join more than one billion people in the commitment to sustainability. Let's build a healthier, prosperous clean energy economy now for our future. You can take action through Education, Recycling, Conservation, Sustainable Development and Green Building. Learn more about LEED Certification – an internationally recognized green building certification system (both residential and commercial) recognizing strategies in energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts. LEED promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in these key areas.

You can support the green movement through eco-friendly furniture. Smart Furniture believes in sustainability and we support the efforts of our partners in reducing their carbon footprint – most notably Herman Miller, Steelcase, Emeco, Loll Designs, MASH studios, Gus Design Group and Ecotots.

The Red House / High Point Furniture Market

Last weekend, a few of us headed to North Carolina to attend the well known High Point Market - one of the largest home furnishings shows. We saw some great furniture, admired newly launched products and met with both current and prospective vendors. It was a great show!  

One of our most interesting visits, however, was not at the Market. The famous Red House, only a mile from the market, was a noteworthy event, and we have the t-shirts to prove it. In case you have not heard of this furniture store, I highly suggest you watch this video.

Meeting "10 Gauge" was one of the main highlights of the trip.

Time Lapse

My multi-faceted buddy Eric's compilation video of some of the portraits he's painted in the last few months. Could make for some great wall décor at the Studio.

Favorite Youtube Videos

When your work revolves around the internet world, it's tough to not stay on top of the latest viral video. Here are a few of our staff favorites from YouTube; we've shared them with each other, and now we'd like to share them with our fans and customers. Enjoy the Keyboard Cat, favorite by: Karen We have more submissions from our staff and will be posting all week. Stay tuned!

The Street of Eames

Today is Saturday, the 17th of April, and my husband, Jason, our friend, Lisa, from Herman Miller, and I have all piled into our friend Caroline's car. Caroline is one of the dedicated co-directors who has helped make the Street of Eames such a successful annual event. Our car makes its last of many turns, winding through a typical dated suburban community in Portland. It is still early, only 9am on a Saturday, and there are already plenty of cars lining the streets to catch a glimpse of the architectural gems scattered around the neighborhood. One particular home is located at the end of an unabiding court. It is referred to as a 'Rummer', meaning it was built by Robert Rummer, who has now been retired from residential home building for nearly two decades. Built between 1960 and the mid-'70s, these stylish post-and-beam homes gained much inspiration from the Joseph Eichler homes built in California during the late 1940's. These homes are spread all over Portland's West Hills and Beaverton, with small pockets in other communities. Known for their geometric lines, deep overhands and inner courtyards the Rummer homes nestle into the lush northwest background with the same fit as a villa fits into the landscape of Italy. A bright, peachy-red door leads us into an inner courtyard and we easily adjust to the peaceful earthen tones and large window scapes that highlight the homeowner's fine collection of vintage modern furnishings. Our mouths communally drop at the sight of the floating fireorb that intersects the main living area, each piece of furniture equally complimenting the other. This is just classic good design. We leave the home refreshed, and are off to explore seven other homes, each equally inspiring in their own way. That first home turns out to be our favorite stop along the Street of Eames home tour. With Caroline supplying us with architectural knowledge and an amazing insider's perspective, we gain an even greater appreciation of the uniqueness each design brings. These homes are a mix of contemporary and mid-century modern design, reflecting each owner's individual personality by emulating the rich architectural history of the city. What makes this tour really special, is that all money raised goes directly to support after school programs for homeless children in the Portland area. Each volunteer, homeowner, director and vendor does such a fantastic job of keeping this objective at the heart of the event. Sadly, this was the last Street of Eames home tour, as alternate sources of funding will support these after school programs. However, I have a feeling this group of mid-century modern lovers will find a way to continue their contributions to the community.

From left, Lisa Hubbs and Sophia Levens at the Street of Eames Home Tour

The Rummer House