A FOOLISH CONSISTENCY

Played hoops today at the iconic Venice Beach ball courts, a...

Sun, 13 May 2012 23:03:22 -0400

Played hoops today at the iconic Venice Beach ball courts, a place any serious basketball fan knows is one of two meccas of streetball in the world (along with Rucker Park in NYC). BALLER ACHIEVEMENT: UNLOCKED

the irony of reblogging this does not escape me

Sat, 12 May 2012 03:12:17 -0400

the irony of reblogging this does not escape me

“Make things = Know thyself”, How to steal like an...

Tue, 08 May 2012 15:10:11 -0400

“Make things = Know thyself”, How to steal like an artist

Some beautiful writing by Jonathan Harris on the state of our times: With terrorists bringing down...

Mon, 07 May 2012 17:37:56 -0400

Some beautiful writing by Jonathan Harris on the state of our times:

With terrorists bringing down airplanes, earthquakes bringing down cities, and revolutions bringing down governments, what will fall next is anyone’s guess. Half the world is starving, the other half can’t stop eating, and the liquids we need like water and oil are getting harder to find. Many are losing their jobs and their homes and their faith in the whole idea of money and markets, and the cult of the dollar is becoming increasingly specious. Scientists in Switzerland are trying to replicate the Big Bang in a tunnel, others are cloning life and engineering genetics, doomsday prophets are preaching apocalypse, new age mystics await universal awakening, there’s buzz about imminent tech to turn air into energy, and the Mayan calendar’s about to run out, just as our planet passes through the center of the galaxy for the first time in 12,000 years, which might make the north and south poles flip and change places, uncoupling the crust of the earth from its core. Politicians, economists, and corporate tycoons are desperately trying to prop up a worldview that is broken and quickly collapsing, telling people that everything’s fine and things are getting back to normal. But normality no longer applies.

Yet through all this, we get up in the morning, we have a cup of coffee, we eat a bowl of cereal, and we live another day. We go on dates, cook dinner, get haircuts, buy new socks, and think about what to do in the summertime, or what to give Mom on her birthday. No matter how dramatic the backdrop, still we get on with our everyday lives, which don’t feel epic at all.

It is this range of experience — from the scientists trying to play God, to the leaders trying to play wise, to the children trying to play house — that defines what it’s like to be living right now: to be fluent in the crazy complexity of our interconnected global reality, and still to come home at night and be a good Dad.

Shifting perspective between these two scales and still maintaining our common humanity is what it’s all about.

Because in all of the craziness, our common humanity is what we are finally starting to see.

And more:

The future is ours to imagine. It’s up to us to put forth visions of how things are and could be. The more beautiful and believable our visions can be, the better chance they’ll have at succeeding.

—

Read the entire piece here.

Living in Silicon Valley.

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 20:05:03 -0400

Living in Silicon Valley.

Transcendence vs. Acceptance Recently read a couple of great books— David Chadwick’s...

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:58:00 -0400

Transcendence vs. Acceptance

Recently read a couple of great books— David Chadwick’s Crooked Cucumber, about the life and times of Zen priest Shunryu Suzuki, and Parahamama Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi (free to download on Kindle, I think). Both were fascinating and well worth reading, but they also seem contradictory in how they treat the role of miracles and the extraordinary in our lives— here’s a Goodreads review where I try to reconcile the two.

"You don’t need an institution in order to learn something. All you need is the desire to learn and..."

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:35:19 -0400

“You don’t need an institution in order to learn something. All you need is the desire to learn and the will to see it through. Self-teaching is, of course, involved in all education. A teacher might share information and point the way, but you must then take that material and teach it to yourself. Anyone who knows anything is self taught.”

- From a great essay on Design Professionalism

"Miss Lora" by Junot Diaz

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 20:19:07 -0400

"Miss Lora" by Junot Diaz

Finally starting to upload some of the photos I took a few...

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:21:08 -0400

Finally starting to upload some of the photos I took a few months ago in Italy— these are a couple of scenes from Rome. [1]

One thing I realized as I uploaded these months-old photos is the value of immediacy in the content we share nowadays— these photos uploaded now feel far less valuable than say, an Instagram you could have seen in the moment when I was traveling. Real-time enables vicarious experiences in a way that can’t be replicated by time-shifted sharing, and in a world where infinite new, novel content can be accessed, older material matters less and less. This is interesting when juxtaposed with the trend of vintage-style photos, shared in real-time, that are intended to evoke nostalgia of the present moment.

Here’s a good essay making the rounds recently about just that phenomenon, the rise in popularity of the “faux-vintage” photo. Thought this was on point:

Documentary vision is kind of like the “camera eye” photographers develop when, after taking many photos, they begin to see the world as always a potential photo even when not holding the camera at all. The habit of the photographer involuntarily framing and composing the world has become a metaphor for those trained to document using social media. The explosion of ubiquitous self-documentation possibilities, and the audience for our documents that social media promises, has positioned us to live life in the present with the constant awareness of how it will be perceived as having already happened. We come to see what we do as always a potential document, imploding the present with the past, and ultimately making us nostalgic for the here and now.

[1] This was my first extended time using a DSLR, so most of my shots didn’t come out quite like I hoped and I felt like I didn’t come close to doing justice to anything I saw. Looking forward to practicing more.

This is what joy looks like. Happy birthday dawg.

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 22:17:33 -0400

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]

This is what joy looks like. Happy birthday dawg.

Quick Thoughts from SXSWedu

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 10:00:06 -0500

A lot of people in startups bag on the value of conferences, and I agree that these things are pretty noisy most of the time, but I’ve gotten a good deal out of SXSWedu so far (this is the second year SXSW has added an education component to their music, film, and interactive conference). One especially important aspect of this event for me was the ability to learn about education from the perspective of actual educators & policy-makers, which is a departure from the insular tech bubble I’m typically exposed to.

Here are some quick thoughts I wanted to jot down while they’re fresh in my mind.

Content is the starting point for education - Learning starts with content people consume - books, lectures, videos, interactive material. The good news is that there’s an explosion of freely available great content to learn from online. But, while great content is necessary for learning, it’s not close to sufficient. Which brings me to…
Education is discourse - While the content is important, what really matters in education is discourse— the back-and-forth between students, experts, and peers. These interactive conversations (things like recitations, study groups, review of student work) help crystallize ideas and concepts and ensure that students solidify their understanding of what they’re learning. I think the massive online courses being offered of late are great— but they’re a little too one-way and seem far from the ideal solution, especially in non-technical areas. Here’s a great slide I saw in a presentation by John Boyer of UVA that sums it up very well: “Teaching is the art of the educational conversation”.
Tipping point - Listening to a lot of talks about higher education suggests that we’re approaching a tipping point in how we think about and deliver higher education to students. Widely available Open Educational Resources created by hundreds of universities. Massive online synchronous courses from top schools like MIT (MITx) & Stanford (Coursera & Udacity). Sufficient calls to action and alarms of crisis from public figures like Peter Thiel who talk about the need for higher education reform & changes in our attitudes towards college & debt. Global internet access and exploding worldwide demand for skills acquisition.

A lot of trends are converging and I believe that the higher education system as we know it will be completely unrecognizable in 5-10 years. [1]

The winds of change are afoot!

Skip to the 0:56s mark of this video for one of my favorite clips ever:

[1] That may be a little optimistic because of how entrenched college is in terms of both mindshare & tradition, but it feels like there’s a big revolution that’s just getting started. Once we hit a tipping point in employer acceptability the dominoes will fall fast.

"It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might..."

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 02:02:00 -0500

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.”

- JK Rowling (via brycedotvc)

nevver: Stanley Chow

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 22:37:13 -0500

nevver:

Stanley Chow

Brand Values That Matter

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 04:20:40 -0500

Long lines for sold-out product releases.

Instantly recognizable logo and enduring global brand, coveted by consumers worldwide.

Beautiful, iconic products made by superstar designers.

Sound familiar?

The first company that comes to mind is of course Apple. I find it interesting, though, that the above description is just as apt for Nike. [1]

In my mind, Nike has been absolutely crushing it lately in terms of product innovation and consumer demand - witness their long lines of camped-out customers for retro shoe releases, the Fuel Band they just released that’s basically a better-designed, mainstream version of what products like FitBit and Jawbone Up are delivering, or the Nike+ Basketball shoe sensor+iPhone app that I’m absolutely stoked for.

Their devotion to making well-designed products and continually innovating is positively Apple-esque. I couldn’t get over the uncanny similarities I see between the two companies so I figured I’d talk a little about why I think that matters. (This is a pretty shallow analysis overall, but I found it noteworthy)

Yes, both companies have built enduring global brands by making well-designed products that delight consumers (I still get excited when opening a brand new orange Nike shoe box, something I can’t say for anything other than Apple products).

But in my mind, what really connects Apple & Nike is something deeper- philosophies ingrained in the companies in how they think about their customers and how they position themselves. They aim to elevate the users of their products by presenting them with high, lofty ideals— and they PUSH them towards living out those ideals.

Recolutionary creatives who change the world.

Athletes who respect their bodies and conquer all.

It’s evident throughout their advertising and brand messaging [2]— they show a deep respect for their target audience (Apple truly believes in the power of creatives; Nike reveres the athlete) and want to enable them to do amazing things. The products are rarely the focus of the messaging - the products are just enablers of the talent already inherent in their users. They sell you on a lifestyle- on an ideal- and make simply the best products in the world to help you get there.

As Simon Sinek says, it’s rarely the “how” or “what” that matters, but the “why”.

—

[1] The cynic might also add another shared trait - global PR crises about the working conditions in their Asian manufacturing facilities. Seriously - exact same controversy, decades apart. One could digress into pondering what this unsavory parallel between two corporate behemoths says about our global capitalistic-at-any-cost culture.

[2] Both companies have run simply iconic ad campaigns throughout history - here are just a few examples:

MJ on Failure

1984

Joga Bonito

iPad 2 ad. Not quite iconic, but typical Apple - all about what you’re empowered to do - the product is just an enabler

"It’s really almost impossible, as he puts it, to judge art, that it’s so subjective, you..."

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:36:56 -0500

“It’s really almost impossible, as he puts it, to judge art, that it’s so subjective, you can’t really say, well, this performance is better than that or that writing is better than this and that, if you get caught in that trap of relying on other people, however great they are, to tell you whether you’re any good, you’re either going to consciously or subconsciously start playing to that group.”

- Why Woody Allen is Always MIA At Oscars (NPR)

Something about this photo… credit to Robert Kaczynski

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 05:39:13 -0500

Something about this photo…

credit to Robert Kaczynski

"There’s an education bubble, which is, like the others, psychosocial. There’s a wide public buy-in..."

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:04:33 -0500

“There’s an education bubble, which is, like the others, psychosocial. There’s a wide public buy-in that leads to a product being overvalued because it’s linked to future expectations that are unrealistic. Education is similar to the tech bubble of the late 1990s, which assumed crazy growth in businesses that didn’t pan out. The education bubble is predicated on the idea that the education provided is incredibly valuable. In many cases that’s just not true. Here and elsewhere people have avoided facing the fact of stagnation by telling themselves stories about familiar things leading to progress. One fake vector of progress is credentialing—first the undergraduate degree, then more advanced degrees. Like the others, it’s an avoidance mechanism.”

- i don’t always agree with Peter but he’s spot on about education

A Conversation with Peter Thiel - The American Interest Magazine (via pegobry)

"I want to learn something. That’s the real pleasure, when you understand an idea or you answer a..."

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 21:32:18 -0500

“I want to learn something. That’s the real pleasure, when you understand an idea or you answer a question. When I was a little boy I used to think you could get all the answers to all the questions. I thought that you could learn who God is and will he answer why he made me. You think you are going to get those answers but you don’t. (Laughs)”

- Francis Ford Coppola on what interests him, happiness, money, and creative purpose. (via curiositycounts)

Font Rendering in Firefox 4

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 10:00:05 -0500

Subtly awful:

Why We're Building Polymath, a New Platform for Learning

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 06:20:00 -0500

“Your brain is a terrible thing to waste” - Christopher Wallace

One of the things I’m learning as a first-time entrepreneur is how it’s way too easy to put your head down and get caught up in execution mode, doggedly pursuing a grand vision that lives in your head that other people in your life are only vaguely aware of. In an effort to combat that, I wanted to put my thoughts down and share what I’ve been working on with my co-founder Dan over the past couple months.

—

Let’s start with a little story.

I graduated from Penn with a degree in Systems Engineering (and a cool $100K in student loan debt) a couple of years ago. I think my college experience was pretty typical in that most of what I learned that still sticks with me, I learned outside of the classroom. Instead of joining most of my classmates on the path to Wall Street doing consulting and banking, I decided to work full-time at a startup called Venmo, where I’d been working on marketing and customer development as I finished up school. My first day of work was a surprise — despite never really coding much before, I was told that I’d be building our new iPhone app. Gulp. I bought a couple books and got to work, in what was a tough and lonely process learning an entirely new skillset.

Fast-forward a few months. I decided that coding full-time wasn’t ideal for me — I wanted to be involved in all parts of the product development process, and I left to find a product manager role. Despite having some product background, I didn’t have great technical knowledge of design fundamentals, and needed to learn a lot more about marketing and messaging. I did what anyone would do and asked the smartest people I knew to help me out — recommend great resources for me to learn from, answer questions I had, and keep me motivated by keeping tabs on my progress. With their help, I learned a lot and, armed with my new knowledge, finding a cool position was not a problem. Awesome!

—

The point of that story wasn’t to ramble about my life. It’s to highlight a process that happens so often to people in this new generation of work (Fast Company does a good job talking about this climate in a couple of pieces— Generation Flux and The Four-Year Career). You leave college with only some tangible work skills (and maybe some debt) and a bunch of on-the-job training to be done. You switch jobs or careers a few times in your quest to find something that you’re good at and is fulfilling to you. Along the way, you constantly reposition yourself by learning new skills that will better prepare you for the work you want to do and keep you up-to-date with the latest technology.

I think more people are realizing that rather than being the exception, this is the new normal. Writer Ben Casnocha does a great job here talking about how the career “escalator” of old that we expected has now disappeared:

For the last sixty or so years, the job market for educated workers worked like an escalator. After graduating from college, you landed an entry-level job at the bottom of the escalator at an IBM or a GE or a Goldman Sachs. There you were groomed and mentored, receiving training and professional development from your employer. As you gained experience, you were whisked up the organizational hierarchy, clearing room for the ambitious young graduates who followed to fill the same entry-level positions. So long as you played nice, you moved steadily up the escalator, and each step brought with it more power, income, and job security. Eventually, around age sixty-five, you stepped off the escalator, allowing those middle-ranked employees to fill the same senior positions you just vacated. You, meanwhile, coasted into a comfortable retirement financed by a company pension and government-funded Social Security.
People didn’t assume all of this necessarily happened automatically. But there was a sense that if you were basically competent, put forth a good effort, and weren’t unlucky, the strong winds at your back would eventually shoot you to the top. For the most part this was a justified expectation.

No, says Ben— now, “Entrepreneurial career strategy involves learning while going, executing while planning, finishing while starting, aiming while firing.”

We live in a time when we’re told to follow our passions. Do things we love. The world is our oyster. And for the most part, that’s abundantly true — the most fulfilled people I know are the ones pursuing their dreams, the ones who figure out what they really want and reinvent themselves along the way to their goals. The Columbia econ graduate figuring out the music business and launching her singing career. The Penn Bioengineering masters opening a tea house. The former risk consultant learning UX design and photography and starting a new career.

That’s all great, right? But the problem with this is something I’ve faced firsthand — there is incredible inertia in finding and learning these new skills and getting started, enough so that there are tons of people doing things they don’t love or that are otherwise suboptimal (lower pay than what they could be earning with an updated skillset, for example). Despite there being ample (free!) resources online about anything we could possibly want to learn about, it’s incredibly hard to filter it all and find the most relevant information and content. It’s hard to know what you need to know. It’s hard to learn something new on your own without getting peer help. It’s hard to prove what you know once you’ve learned it! And so this combination of issues often keeps people from even getting started on their path to new knowledge and more rewarding work. These are the problems we’re setting out to solve with Polymath.

We all know the flaws of traditional higher education institutions— extremely high cost, overly rigid structures, laughably outdated course content that struggles to keep up with industry changes… the list goes on. But the model obviously works in a number of ways— you get unparalleled access to a community of like-minded learners, high-quality content, and expert-led instruction. We’re trying to combine the benefits of traditional schooling with the unique power and reach of the web to enable and empower the next generation of people to learn & do what they love, and we couldn’t be more excited about what we’re working on. Stay tuned!

Thanks for reading! If you liked this post, get involved by signing up for the Polymath beta.