We’re still in private beta, but are slowly bringing users onto the system. If you’re interested in givi Contactually a try for yourself, sign up and skip the waitlist at http://www.contactually.com/beta.

Thank you so much for your wonderful post about Unstuck! And you’ve posted a great set of questions. Here are some thoughts in response:

In terms of the process we take a user through to help them get Unstuck, this is based on two decades of working with people in stuck moments and seeing the patterns. For nearly twenty years, we’ve worked with leaders and people in businesses of all types, and we’ve seen patterns of where they get stuck, how they get unstuck. When we set out to do this app, we studied people in more personal stuck moments and then compared those situations to what we know form the business world.

The expertise really comes down to a few things: Knowing the right questions to ask. Being able to put things into context. Doing an expert job at pattern matching. That’s what we do every day with clients, and with Unstuck, we’ve found a way to apply it to a whole new realm.

One point worth emphasizing: What you get out of this app really depends on how much enthusiasm you put in. It becomes more relevant the more you use it. The best way to get unstuck is to work on getting unstuck. What this app is doing is helping you do that.

As for the interaction design, we’ve designed this for the iPad specifically, because we think it’s the perfect platform for the kind of interaction and experience we want to create. Down the road, we’ll look at how to extend your access to other kinds of devices you use throughout the day—phones, laptops, etc.

Hope this helps and look forward to hearing how you, and your readers, are using Unstuck.

David
Unstuck.com

Or one could spend just a little more and get more from WP.com, in the form of a bundle. At least, that’s what WP.com keeps inviting me to do, in the form of a taskbar suggestion that I upgrade to a $99 bundle including domain name and mapping, custom design, no ads, 5GB more space, and videopress.

I’m not going to go for the bundle. I’ll be looking for a theme that I could stand to use without CSS, but is free at WP.com.

I’ve said elsewhere that the increased price of custom CSS was an inevitable consequence of the introduction of premium themes; they can run up to $100, so compared to those prices $15 was looking weirdly cheap. They just threw in the fonts and the promise of support (which remains patchy) so that the price increase would look slightly less egregious.

Since anyone who is investing in custom CSS will also need the no-ads upgrade (why would you spend money on tarting up your blog if it’s then going to be defaced with tacky animated ads?), and will often also have the domain upgrades… well, then you’re looking at around $80-$90 a year, and at that point it would be silly not to at least investigate self-hosting.

I’ll also be watching for the actual appearance of WordAds on blogs.I hope that your application to the program is accepted.