A collaboration between InOverYourHead and The Minimalists. Lovely stuff.
1. Enter the front door of your home. Toss off your shoes. Notice, lying beneath, a pair of boots you have worn only once. Shrug.
2. Turn on the television and sit on your Ikea couch. Attempt to relax….
Salad Onions: How To Get Rid Of Your Crap
Lego Patent Drawing from 1958
Greatest patent or greatest patent?
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Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things.
Our gross national product … if we should judge America by that – counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.
Robert F. Kennedy Address, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, March 18, 1968 — Via Scott Porad
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[China] has around eight people of working age for every person over 65. By 2050 it will have only 2.2. Japan, the oldest country in the world now, has 2.6. China is getting old before it has got rich.
The Economist (via oracleofballard)
TechStars Reality TV - To The Benefit or Detriment of Entrepreneurship?
As I am sure many of you have already heard, TechStars will be hosting a reality television show on Bloomberg TV starting September 13th. When I first heard this via Geekwire I was excited. I have always found movies and television that portrays individuals and teams working their asses of and then achieving their well deserved success very inspiring. Very synonymous with wanting to hit the weight pile after watching a high adrenaline movie like 300 or Rocky. However, after further reflection I am not so confident that this will be a good play for TS.
Allow me to insert a disclaimer - I have never applied to TS and am thus not a bitter reject. In fact, I would love to be a part of the program someday if that opportunity came about. I really admire TechStars and what they have done for the entrepreneurial community (they also happen to be the best incubator in my hometown of Seattle), but I value the entrepreneurial community more - thus why I am a bit skeptical of a TS reality television show.
Here are my issues with the show, and if anyone has a different take on this situation or feel that I am in anyway wrong, do not hesitate to let me know.
-Essentially, quality (and we’re talking quality in the network producer’s and executive’s eyes) reality television is about drama. There are very few reality television shows that are not 95%-100% about drama. I will say there are a few that began with less of an emphasis on drama, but ultimately they leaned in that direction - The Apprentice, Deadliest Catch, American Idol, and Ax Men to name a few. The trend I have seen is that shows inherently try to stretch out their lives and thus turn to the inter-relational dynamics as opposed to the actual topic as more and more episodes are aired. Even if TS Reality only runs one season, how many viewers will actually care about seeing multiple nifty hacks or the utilization of an API that saved a bundle of coding time? Once that drama is captured and shown, perhaps even fostered (as if startups need any more of that) then the viewers will undoubtedly think this is the norm within a startup culture. Do you think 18 year old rookie fisherman expect their fishing crews to act like a true team that is as effective as possible or do they brace themselves for clashing personalities because of years watching Deadliest Catch at home? Or we could take the American Idol/Simon Crowell style reality show and hypothesize about how this show could change the way VCs, Angel Investors, and boards interact with their startups/investments. Either way excessive drama is never a good thing.
-The next issue I have with the show is that it may lead toward attracting the wrong sorts of individuals into the entrepreneurial community. Attention and publicity for the overall community is both beneficial and inevitable as more and more sweet products are made and successful exits recorded; however the attention can be a double edged sword as some people learn about startups and are attracted to it solely for the chance to be a ‘RockStar’. Right now the startup community is on the whole quite humble, supportive, and welcoming - but when people dive in just for the glory, that community feel will change quickly.
-The last point I will bring up is just an overall lack of understanding why TS decided to go forward with this in the first place. Was it to raise awareness for the entrepreneurial community? Perhaps. Was it to raise awareness about their program? How many candidates that have an actual shot at getting into a program such as TS do not already know about incubators such as 500 Startups, YCombinator, and TechStars - I am inclined to say very few. Perhaps it is about differentiating themselves from the other incubators. That would be the only valid rational I can think of, but does not mean it is without its problems.
Let me again say I really like the program and there are results to show for the hard work that has been done both to create TS and inside TS. I have met a few individuals involved with TS here in Seattle and I would relish the opportunity to work with any of them. I also plan to watch the show whenever possible. However, I am currently not convinced this is a great longterm move for entrepreneurialism at large.
If you agree or disagree please do not hesitate to let me know. What say you?
Purple water, pink hills, blue sky - Lake Chelan, WA
“Some woods, perennially lush, are notably lacking in charm. Tall clean-boled oaks and tulip poplars may be good to look at, from the road, but once inside one may find a coarseness of minor vegetation, a turbidity of waters, and a paucity of wildlife. I cannot explain why a red rivulet is not a brook. Neither can I, by logical deduction, prove that a thicket without the potential roar of a quail covey is only a thorny place. Yet every outdoorsman knows that this is true, That wildlife is merely something to shoot at or to look at is the grossest of fallacies It often represents the difference between rich country and mere land.” - Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac.
Eloquently put.
Salad Onions: Henry Rollins: The Iron
Henry Rollins sang in Black Flag, then he started a label, then he was a spoken word artist. He’s pretty great, and wrote a pretty great essay about - of all things - training.
The Iron is the best antidepressant I have ever found. There is no better way to fight weakness than with strength….
Stuff I like
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“David Ogilvy, internal memo: “How to Write,” 1982:
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Creating an Outstanding Startup Culture
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