Defining our industry's methodologies, standards, and culture have long been a part of Happy Cog's values.

We started Cognition as a product to offer advice, create a dialogue, and serve our industry and clients to help them with their goals and aspirations.

Learn more about Happy Cog at happycog.com.

1. 

   Under Pressure

   

   8/22/13

   by Anthony Colangelo

   Deep in the middle of the night, illuminated by the glow of five screens full of graphs, data, code, and live video, I sat on edge, as I monitored a small army of servers. The O Music Awards, a 24-hour, live-streamed music and awards festival in New York City, was in full swing.

   Sometime after 3am, I saw the first warning sign of a major issue—a slight uptick in an otherwise-flat graph. Over the next few seconds, it grew to a huge spike, and I alerted the team that we had a problem. Thanks to some well-configured caching, the homepage and live streams were unaffected, which meant a large majority of users didn’t even know we were having an issue. But, the failures were going to cause errors during voting, and a few other pages on the site were going to crash. The situation wasn’t great, but the mission-critical things were still working properly.

2. 

   It's About Damn Time

   

   8/15/13

   by Greg Storey

   The last two months have been a whirlwind of activity and positive evolution for Happy Cog.We have been on a small, carefully-planned hiring spree for almost all of our departments. We put a lot of mileage on our Authentic Jobs account, put our personal networks to good use, and ended up hiring eight new people. With the latest acceptance letter received weeks ago, Happy Cog has hit the 30-person mark, and we’re still not done; we’ve got a few designers to hire for the Austin office.

3. 

   For Shame.

   

   8/8/13

   by Michael Johnson

   Our profession’s affection for public shaming is well-documented.

   Following morning exercises atop the Bauhaus, Johannes Itten lined his students at rooftop’s edge, held aloft their previous day’s work, and, before a gathered crowd, publicly humiliated each of his young students. While students showed significant improvement and other instructors adopted Itten’s pedagogy, the practice came to an official end in 1928. Tragically, a student stepped over the edge when Itten, still storming through a particularly scathing admonishment, thundered that the boy “lacked contrast of soul.”

4. 

   Getting Real About Self-Confidence

   

   8/1/13

   by Yesenia Perez-Cruz

   When I was a rookie designer, self-doubt ruled my life.

   On a typical day, harsh criticisms like: “You’re a terrible designer! So and so asks way better questions than you do. You’re using four button styles, and your subnav looks like a pack of hot dogs.” consumed my thoughts.

   Many people don’t like to admit their lack of confidence because it is perceived as weak. I’m four years into my career now, and I’m still working on taming that nagging voice inside my head. Luckily, I’ve learned that confidence is a skill, just like typography and CSS. It requires practice, time, and discipline.

5. 

   Thomas Bayes, Save Me From Statistics!

   

   7/25/13

   by Joe Rinaldi

   The only class I’ve ever failed was Statistics. I mean I flat-out failed that class.

   Since then, I’ve been statistically impaired. I’ve never argued with the value of crunching collected data, but I’ve always struggled to see the value in statistically-predictive analysis. In my role in sales, however, I’m very interested in understanding the behavior and the alchemy behind our sales process. Many of our leads come in through our online planner, but discerning how they arrived at the gates of our form has always been a mystery.

6. 

   The Dumbest Man in Congress

   

   7/18/13

   by Jeffrey Zeldman

   Years ago, when men wore hats and the world was black and white, a small-town newspaper roused the ire of its hometown legislator, one Phineas P. Farnsworth, by labeling him “the dumbest man in Congress.”

   Not one to consider the merits of a criticism or take it lying down, the offended congressman immediately convened a press conference in Washington, DC. Journalists representing all the big American newspapers duly gathered to learn what was on the heretofore-unnoticed representative’s mind.

7. 

   Stand on One Foot and Other Public Speaking Tips

   

   7/11/13

   by Jenn Lukas

   This is my last week at Happy Cog. I’ve coded a lot of websites in my six-plus years here, but I’ve also written and spoken a lot about coding websites. At Happy Cog, you are encouraged to put yourself out there and share what you know, which can be totally awesome, terrifying, and sometimes confusing. When I first started speaking, I, like many others, was in the “terrified” camp. I told this to my then-HC-co-worker, Dan Mall, and he said something along the lines of: “If you get nervous, stand on one foot.” Of course, I thought this was some kind of sure joke, but then he continued, “You’ll have to focus all of your efforts on not falling over that you’ll forget to be nervous.” Some of the best advice I’ve ever received.

8. 

   MegaDesk Today. MegaHotDesk Tomorrow.

   

   6/27/13

   by Katie High

   Assuming you’re at work, it’s very likely you spend more time at the very desk you’re sitting at right now than you do anywhere else. However, if your employer has followed some of the latest trends in office design, you may have more opportunities to break free from that chair. As we in our Philadelphia office prepare to move to a new work space, I can’t help but wonder what the effects will be on the projects I manage.

   Even before I joined Happy Cog, I heard rumors of the “MegaDesk.” Visitors all seem to share that “whoa” expression when they first encounter our setup. It’s one 1500 sq. ft. room full of a long, single dual-sided desk (and a little brother version on the opposite wall we call “Lonely Island.”) We fit 20 people in this space. Our CEO Greg Hoy describes its origin:

9. 

   Keep Calm and Carry On

   

   6/20/13

   by Brett Harned

   You know the poster: the one that was really amazingly-inspiring for a few minutes in 2000 until it was killed by hundreds of parodies. I’ll admit it. I loved it when I first saw it. Still do.

10. 

    Hey Hoy!

    

    6/13/13

    by Greg Hoy

    Before I published a few posts and contributed to a podcast or two offering lo-fi career advice, I never got emails from strangers asking me for my opinion about their particular career dilemmas. Now I am receiving them with enough frequency that we might be onto something. So indulge me as we launch the first installment of “Hey, Hoy!” my (hopefully) semi-regular career advice column.

    The theme for this week? Don’t keep your manager in the dark. They’re there to help you. Let them.

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