LA Galaxy and US Under 20 forward Jose Villareal has been making some noise this year (and at the end of last), with this scissor kick at the death against Toronto serving as the latest sign this talented striker is nearing prime time.

With the senior Men’s National Team looking for scoring power in the Hexagonal, and beyond, the left-footed Villareal could become an attractive option for Jurgen Klinsmann. Villareal could sit in a slot behind Jose Altidore, running off target forward for scoring opportunities. A clear talent, Villareal should at the very least get a look in this summer’s Gold Cup.

Best news of all: Villareal is a Homegrown signing for the Galaxy who rose quickly through the club’s youth system. Although still in its infancy, VIllareal, along with the likes of DC United goalkeeper Bill Hamid, demonstrate the talent MLS youth systems will hopefully be producing in the coming years.

This is a great way to force folks to think of mobile and understand why it’s important to site development. We till spend 90 percent of our workday in front of laptops and desktops — often connected to large and beautiful monitors. While this is great for productivity, I’m afraid it causes a bit of mobile blindness.

Limited edition USA v Costa Rica World Cup Qualifyier poster by Denver animator Shaw Nielsen and Denver printer IndyInk.

Only 100 were printed and they’re available (signed and numbered) for a pretty reasonable $100. Let’s hope this is something US Soccer will be doing going forward for home qualifiers. With matches coming up in Seattle, Salt Lake, Columbus and Kansas City, we could see some really nice prints.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with some really talented people throughout my career — including now that I’m at the Urban Institute. My colleague Tim Meko, our infographics specialist, put together the graphic below for the Catholic News Service to explain the Papal Conclave. Even better, he put together this “making of” time-lapse video by taking a screen capture every two seconds while working on the project.

What you’re looking at here is 22.5 hours of work, spread over nearly two weeks. Watch it and see if we can get Tim over 1,000 views.

Tim Meko’s conclave infographic for the Catholic News Service.

After that, the video was picked up by Upworthy and Mashable and a wonky viral hit is born.

Overcast from James Lancett on Vimeo.

Overcast via Vimeo.

Better than email. Better than meetings.

Dispatch helps teams discuss and organize their work, including the things they have in Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote, and Box.

via Dispatch: Discuss and organize your work with your team..

Evernote has a new business tool that allows users to keep personal and professional, shareable and searchable notebooks for all business needs, ranging from HR Documents to project planning. It’s Evernote’s take on Sharepoint or Box.

Evernote Business | Evernote.

Meet the Obama campaign’s $250 million fundraising platform.

Kyle Bush discusses building the Obama campaign’s online fundraising platform on top of Blue State Digital’s existing platform. After the building the platform the Obama team performed 240 a/b tests to perfect it. The difference between the original form (which is pretty standard industry fare) and the optimized form is above. And the difference is striking.

Also, if someone in your organization asks, “Why can’t we do that?” Pat of the answer is that the Obama Campaign employed 14 front-end engineers, with six dedicated to online fundraising.

The Coop Toy Line. Concept design by Federico Rios.

The coop would go from trike, to scooter, to bike, growing with the child and all parts could be sent back to the manufacturer for reclamation after the child has outgrown them.
(Found on Yanko Design)