Category Archives: Life

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I liked this collection of thoughts and lessons from Julie Zhuo, a design director at Facebook, including:

Sweep up the crumbs. Wipe the tables. Turn off the lights. Plug the holes that need plugging—even if it’s menial, even if nobody will know you did it. Do it in service of the product, the company, and this wondrous, magical thing you are all building together.

It reminded me of this story from Adii Pienaar, founder at WooThemes:

As CEO, I don’t necessarily think that washing dishes is part of my “job description” and it doesn’t carry any obvious priority in terms of things I need to get done today … sometimes the best thing I can do in my business is the smallest, simplest thing; especially if that means I can remove obstacles for my team.

(these were published at medium and svbtle, respectively)

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I remember years ago when the Great Divide tasting room was a small, cozy spot where you could wander in and sample three excellent beers for free. When they expanded the room (took out an entire wall) and started charging $1 per sample I thought the two events were related. From PJ over at Denver off the Wagon:

In the middle of 2011, Great Divide realized they had an interesting problem. People had learned that small samples of the beer were free, and on a Friday night would pour into the taproom, slam a flight of high octane brew, and wander off to other locations of lesser repute. Call them frugal or hyenas, these were not the patrons the brewery hoped would fill their bar stools on a Friday evening. But what could a fledgling, 17 year old brewery do? To charge for samples would be disingenuous to their fans, friends, and future followers. To keep them free would be to attract these hooligans of the night.

This is a great example of how putting up the right “barriers” can help improve your business (plus more excellent local writing from the folks over at DOTW).

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From Forbes:

Here’s how it works. Members buy plots of land on Powder Mountain (early lots were rumored to have sold for $1 million a pop), build a home and get access to a private lodge and thousands of acres of skiing, riding, biking and hiking.  Membership to Summit also brings a year-round program of speakers, conferences and concerts. The goal is to create a community of like-minded entrepreneurs who dig the Summit ethos of innovation, art and social impact with some hard partying mixed in.

You had me at skiing. And hiking. And community…

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I found a poll over at Hacker News via John Siracusa:

I am surprised at how many people, like me, who select text to highlight what they are reading. Some reasons include tracking your reading position, increasing text contrast, or as an “intra-page” bookmark.

It seems natural for me to highlight as I go and I almost didn’t realize I do this. I wonder if others have noticed it. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone (friends or coworkers) do it…

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David Cohen has a good observation about shaking hands:

The handshake is thought to have developed as a gesture of peace, to show that neither side was carrying a weapon in their right hand. Since I’m not really afraid that anyone I meet at a conference will be carrying a spear, you’d think we could just move past this tradition.

I’ve tried pre-empting friends and folks I’ve met before with a fist-bump to avoid the germy, awkward palm-to-plam interaction. It’s less-often received as ‘inappropriate’ or a cultural “faux pas” and I can’t help but think President Obama is mostly to thank for that. But new encounters don’t feel right with a bump… for now.

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Here’s a great article on the shift in technology popularity and values from Francisco Dao at PandoDaily:

In San Francisco, one need only look at conference speaker line-ups that often consists of people who haven’t accomplished anything except raising an angel round and amassing Twitter followers to see that we’re doing the same thing [as Hollywood]. The result is we’ve created a culture of tech celebs who, like Paris Hilton, are famous for little or nothing.

Reminds me a bit of what I was talking about with Charlie back in 2010 about those attempting to find success in celebrity.

As Mike Davidson elegantly put it:

If you want to be influential, lead by doing, not by talking, and certainly not by duping. If what you create is really good, other people will talk about it for you.

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Rachel and I have been living in our house for almost two years now. Last year I found a neat little online startup (out of Denver, I later learned) called BrightNest that helps us take care of all the chores and things we never quite knew we should do (plus the ones we did) around here.

Throughout the year it has a great set of “must do” reminders for things like cleaning your oven, testing your smoke detectors, disconnecting your hose bib from any outdoor water spigots. Plus, it starts to ask questions about your house and give specific suggestions tailored to you, for example: we have tips on how to fix scratches in our hardwood floors and a reminder check our sump pump in the basement every spring. Every todo has an estimated time for completion and describes the benefit to you and the house (cost savings, for example).

BrightNest also asks you to tell it about your various appliances and provide make and model number information to not only keep track of this information in your “Homefolio” (I had no idea what kind of fridge water filter we had) but also directly link to online resources like PDF manuals and guides that it can find.

I’d highly recommend BrightNest as it’s another tool that allows both Rachel and I to offload some of the worry and “to do list” that comes with a house. In fact, it allows multiple accounts to share a “house” to help split up the work. Sign up for free at brightnest.com*.

* This is a referral tracking link, as far as I can tell I get no benefit from this

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Kudos to the team at Lift for launching their iOS app today:

Lift is a simple way to achieve any goal, track your progress, and get the support of your friends.

Rachel and I used to have a website many years ago where we tracked our goals and would encourage each other (“Nice work on yoga, you get an exercise check today”) and Lift is now the well-designed, simple app that I’ve been looking for as a replacement. Here’s my concise review:

This app has become a part of my daily routine. It’s helped me become more regular at the stuff I know I should do but “forget to” (looking at you, flossing…). It’s also a fun way to track habits and activities and then visualize it (I thought I ran more than I did). I’d recommend this app to anyone.

Download Lift in the app store.

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Ben Bleikamp, a designer with a very respectable and enviable design career:

I respect founders immensely—I’ve worked for them my entire career. But me not founding a company is not a question of risk, a lack of ideas, or that I don’t want to change the world. I simply value other parts of my career more.

If you find the right group that’s well established and a fun place to be (culture, again) then why isn’t that seen as a success? Why must everyone be entrepreneurs to be successful?

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We’re planning to head to Breckenridge and Vail in September for their respective Oktoberfests. This is my favorite time of the year and after these 100-degree days I’m very ready to start wearing sweaters.