January 2012
1 post
1 tag
My Interview on The Setup →
I’m a fan of Daniel Bogan’s The Setup and am honored to be on a short list of interviewees alongside heroes like William Gibson and Keita Takahashi. There’s a certain kind of ambient learning that makes The Setup work as an interview blog. The answers to the boilerplate questions are revealing when considered across the full archive—you start to understand people by the...
December 2011
2 posts
“All systems for developing human potential try to teach us to know and...”
– Robert Masters & Jean Houston in Listening to the Body: The Psychophysical Way to Health and Awareness
4 tags
Revisiting The True Weight of Things
Last year I wrote about the light-heavy rocks at a temple in Kyoto. You made a wish and lifted the rock, and if the rock felt light, it was said your wish would come true. Back then I saw the rocks as a game of expectations—if you were ready for the weight of the rock, it would feel lighter. “If you’re the kind of person who takes on new challenges in life prepared for their heaviness,” I wrote,...
November 2011
2 posts
2 tags
100%
Our office is next door to a meditation center. Though we’ve been next door for almost a year, it wasn’t until recently that I started attending the open sittings held every Tuesday and Thursday night. I guess it’s a kind of ease-of-access syndrome, like having a museum membership you never use or living in a city for twelve years without visiting any of the landmarks.
...
2 tags
The Keyframe Bias
At the office we have adjustable height desks, the ones you can turn into a standing desk with the press of a spring-loaded lever. The guys have used sit/stand desks at previous jobs, and we’re all familiar with articles like this one in the Times touting the benefits of standing versus sitting.
An article like that can start a small-scale revolution, make you rise to your feet—literally—and cast...
“Among his last advice he had for me, and for all of you, was to never ask what...”
– Tim Cook, speaking to employees at Apple’s celebration of Steve’s life.
October 2011
4 posts
5 tags
Two Right Legs →
Thought Catalog published an article I wrote about making roast chicken dinner.
3 tags
Integrity
I was doing some work at home Wednesday night. I was in the flow, really into it, so much so that I’d lost track of time and forgotten to eat dinner. When I finally came to at around a quarter to eleven, I saw the news: Steve had died.
I read some early reactions, some eulogies and remembrances from friends recounting their first experiences with Apple products, or that time Steve had said...
September 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Pendulums, Tea and Jack Cheng →
An interview for Justin Kropp’s site, in which I talked about product work vs. client work, freelancing while traveling, and lo-fi tools and how they fit into the work/life balance thing. These topics have been streaming on repeat in the back of my mind like a Sigur Rós album for some time, and it was refreshing to stop everything else for a moment to pay attention to the music.
August 2011
1 post
Roundhouse: Jack Cheng/Disrupto →
A brief interview I did in Carbonmade’s swanky new Clubhouse, in which I talk about portfolios, points of view, and my loathing of minimal movie posters.
July 2011
1 post
Memberly →
Absolutely thrilled to announce Memberly, our new platform for subscription services, along with the Steepster tea of the month club, powered by Memberly :) Here’s the backstory from our company blog.
June 2011
2 posts
4 tags
Speaking of Libraries
In 1971, Marguerite Hart, the children’s librarian of my hometown of Troy, Michigan, wrote to dozens of politicians, writers, artists and otherwise notable individuals asking them to send in a few inspirational words for the children of Troy on the opening of its first public library. When I wrote about recalling the smell of the stacks, this was the library I was thinking of. I remember...
3 tags
May 2011
2 posts
Design for Entrepreneurs and Hackers
disrupto:
We’re teaching another class at General Assembly. Our first, called “Making it in Midtown” was about pitching your startup to media companies. This next one’s called “Design for Entrepreneurs and Hackers.” Here’s a brief description of the class, which will meet once a week for four weeks (we’ll…
David Cole and I are teaching this class. We’ve got some ideas for the...
4 tags
Decoded
One of the first CDs I ever bought was Jay-Z’s Hard Knock Life Vol. 2. It was part of one of those Columbia House/BMG deals where you got twelve discs for the price of one and had to pay four bucks “shipping and handling” for each disc. Once they roped you into the program, they’d send you a new CD every month and you’d have to either pay for it, send it back, or...
April 2011
3 posts
One True Thing
My last semester at college, the iPod became a recurring topic of discussion in the classroom. It was 2005, and the fourth-generation model (the first with the click wheel) was rocketing up the adoption curve. A faculty member at my university was quoted in Newsweek saying it seemed like two out of three students were walking around with those white earbuds. My professors used it as an example to...
The Wish as Spectacle
A week ago I went to Ananda Ashram in Monroe, NY for an ‘Earth Day Weekend’. My friend Jerri helps out there, and one of the activities was a ceremony to bless the newly-planted garden. As part of the ceremony, we were handed ribbons of four different colors, corresponding to the four compass directions. We were asked to write an intent on each ribbon and then tie them to wooden loops...
“That year, spring came to the Puget Sound country as it frequently does, like a...”
– Reading Tom Robbins’s Still Life With Woodpecker has been like sifting through a pillowcase of Halloween candy. It’s bursting at the seams with its share of tootsie rolls and jolly ranchers, red hots and smarties, the occasional king-sized snickers bar and in cases like the one above,...
March 2011
1 post
January 2011
3 posts
Disrupto + Sleepover
If this were a press release, the title would be something like “Disrupto acquires Sleepover.” But since I’m not keen on writing press releases, here’s the story: our friends David Cole and Tag Savage of Sleepover have trucked out their belongings from San Francisco and joined our company here in New York! They started on Tuesday.
I first met David when I was in San...
3 tags
Staggering Resolutions
At the beginning of 2010, I decided to do my New Years’ resolutions a little differently. Instead of making a plain list of things I wanted to accomplish, I tried to plan out the entire year, month by month, thinking it’d be easier to focus on a few things at a time. Shortly after, a friend confirmed my instinct by sending me this article in which science writer Jonah Lehrer explains...
October 2010
1 post
August 2010
1 post
The True Weight of Things
It was the only english sign in the whole place. It said:
< Omokaruishi > This means heavy light rocks. If you felt this rock is light you will get your wish.
The words had been printed on a sheet of paper, laminated and attached to the bottom of a wooden sign that said the same exact thing, except in Japanese. Next to the sign was a pair of egg-shaped rocks resting on stone pedestals...
May 2010
1 post
Habit Fields →
My article in A List Apart on the memories and habits we embed in the things around us.
January 2010
1 post
More Fun at MJR →
A piece I wrote about participation hooks at MJR Theatres, a local chain in Southeast Michigan.
November 2009
1 post
Roulette →
My love letter to New York, how I got there and looking for patterns along the way.
September 2009
1 post
30 Minutes a Day →
Some thoughts on binge learning and how to make long-term memory work in your favor.
April 2009
2 posts
Steepster
Recently, my friends Mike, Jason and I flipped the switch on Steepster, a project that’s been lurking in the back of my mind for some time now. The idea’s pretty simple: you keep a tealog—a quick daily journal of the teas you drink—and follow friends and other tea lovers on the site and see what they’re drinking:
This way, if you’re obsessed with tea or even just getting into it, you can keep a...
Doing the Dishes
This essay’s about something that almost everyone does without really thinking. It’s an act in which, even equipped with the best tools, you still have to get your hands wet. But “doing the dishes” is just a name for this certain type of activity; it’s merely a part used to describe the greater whole.
Dishes don’t do themselves.
You can let the dishes sit there, but you have to do them...
March 2009
2 posts
Lessons from Improv →
The first in a series of four articles I wrote for Behance’s The 99 Percent on an improv comedy class I took. Other articles: 2 3 4
Denial
Denial gets a bad rap sometimes, but the right kind of denial, especially when you’re embarking on a new project, can be tremendously motivating. Good denial is a wonderful thing.
Good denial is often the result of inexperience. Good denial doesn’t know well enough to realize what the obstacles are, and that’s why good denial plows right through them.
Good denial is marked by action; it’s a...
January 2009
2 posts
In Praise of Lo-fi
Whenever I travel, I feel a remarkable sense of clarity on the return trip. It usually hits me as I’m staring out the window of the airplane cabin or train car. I think it happens because on the way there, you have all this pent-up anticipation — you’re looking forward to seeing old friends or new cities, and chances are you’re still worrying a bit about hotel confirmations. And whether all your...
Buckminster Fuller's Universe
It’s no coincidence that I’ve referenced Buckminster Fuller a few times lately. Fuller is known for popularizing the geodesic dome — Epcot center and the crystal ball that dropped in Times Square last Wednesday are examples of such structures. Bucky’s also perhaps infamous for his utopian visions of floating cities or putting an energy-saving bubble around midtown Manhattan:
Image courtesy of...
December 2008
2 posts
StickyScreen
I have a habit of putting sticky notes on the edge of my monitor. Usually these notes consist of mantras I come up with based on something I’ve learned or read recently. I have to change it up about once a week because if I get too used to seeing it, I start ignoring it.
Meet StickyScreen
My new mini-project takes the note off the edge of your monitor and puts it smack dab in the middle. The...
Time on Your Side
We all have nagging to-dos — the ones we put off for weeks or months (or even years). When we finally get around to taking action, we realize that we spent more time dreading them or worrying about them than it actually took to do them.
For the past couple months, I’ve been attaching a time estimate to the end of each item on my to-do list. This simple trick has completely changed how I deal with...
November 2008
2 posts
Maxing out Your Triangle
I find that most people take on new jobs, projects and hobbies for three reasons:
To learn something new
To pay the bills
Because they love doing it
These three things fulfill some of our very basic needs — they give us stability, excitement, ways to contribute and opportunities to grow. If you’re with me so far, then allow me to present exhibit A, the love-growth-cash triangle:
Here’s...
Passion Projects
Thank you. For all the supportive comments and emails. It’s been 3 weeks since I took the leap and I’ve already sat down a ton of interesting people for lunch and tea. A surprise for me so far is the number of new projects I’ve had to turn down or pull myself away from. I’m going to tell you about one of these projects.
Meet Will
My friend Will has been bitten by the travel bug (though it’s...
October 2008
2 posts
On Permanence
How many times has this happened to you:
You summon all your brilliance to put together a killer design, email, presentation or blog entry.
Time whizzes by and you’ve read, re-read, tweaked and re-tweaked everything for the five hundredth time.
The instant you look at the sent message, printed slides or published blog entry, you notice typos, redundant phrases and other things that make...
I am my own boss (and so can you!)
This is my last week at ss+k. I’ve had a wonderful two years at the agency and have nothing but nice things to say about the people there.
The last major risk I took was coming to New York without a job three years ago. Look what it got me: colleagues I’ve learned a shitload from, amazingly supportive friends, fascinating conversations over tea and a city I consider home. In fact, if I go back...
September 2008
3 posts
Muji Chronotebook
Start with the simplest thing imaginable: a blank sheet of paper. Add a rows of lines and it becomes a notebook. Add a grid instead and it becomes an drawing pad for architects. Add a few tiny boxes and it turns into a to-do list. Put in dates and you’ve got a calendar.
But as they teach you in your high-school econ class, everything has a cost. For each function or feature you add, you lose a...
Risk-inverse
We’re in a recession. Lawmakers are scrambling. Businesses are in a hiring freeze and suddenly we all own a little piece of AIG. Everyone is hunkering down and preparing for the worst. The phrase “especially in this economy” is the new black.
Translation:
Great ideas and opportunities are being left on the table. Few people want to take chances right now. And when everybody plays it safe, the...
How to Remember Stuff
My short-term memory has been getting worse. A friend kindly suggested that I’m just getting old, which I guess is in some ways true. But I don’t blame aging brain cells. I blame the Internet.
The downside of sitting in front of a computer all day and having another one in your pocket is that after some time, you let the ‘cloud’ take over. And like any other muscle, the less we use those parts of...
March 2008
1 post
Routines for Creativity
One of the biggest problems facing retirees is that they don’t know what to do with all that free time. Many end up returning to the workforce, working jobs as Walmart Greeters just because they need someone to structure their day. We’ve heard that too much freedom is paralyzing. Without a specific plan of action, we feel helpless and overwhelmed.
Routines give us structure, and this is good for...
February 2008
1 post
51 Ways to Change Your Life
We’re obsessed with lists. Not shopping lists or top-five-robotic-villains-of-after-school-cartoons-from-my-childhood lists (Megatron, Doc Ock, Krang, Dr. Claw, Dr. Robotnik) but different kinds of lists.
When I was cleaning my desk a few weeks ago, I found a folded-up copy of Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth. Flash back two years: I shrank the font down enough to print it onto one...