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Archive for June, 2010

  • Thu, Jun 3 2010

    5 Productivity Blockers And How To Avoid ‘Em

    By danielle at 2:20 pm

    Hello Quirks!

    After celebrating a fabulous birthday yesterday, we’re ready to move full-speed through another great year. And you know what that means… self-improvement time! Oh yeah, we’re excited too.

    Here at the office we thrive off of your ideas. They make us laugh, make us cry (not usually though) and speak to the true innovation of the future. But no matter how moving they may be, it’s not until you send it into our Quirky world that the real magic happens. This magic, my friends, is what we call collaboration. Collaboration is the power behind our social product development. Unfortunately, there are some actions and attitudes that have the power to stop this wonderful process in its tracks.

    These are called “productivity blockers.” Studies have found that during most ideation sessions, many good (even great) ideas are lost, forgotten, and thrown to the wayside. I know what you’re thinking; Quirky ain’t no boardroom. Good point… but we can also fall into this dreaded trap if we’re not careful.

    Dilbert Brainstorming

    Keep yourself, and our community, safe by making sure to never (ever) commit these five PB sins:

    1) Thou shall not get distracted. Why? When you want to get an idea out and developed, and do it in an original way, it’s important to focus!

    2) Thou shall not repeat inspiration. Creative sparks are one of a kind, so don’t think that going back to that same person/place/thing that inspired you last time is going to help you give birth to your next great idea too. Branch out, explore some (insert noun here) new!

    3) Thou shall not second-guess. Say it with us: you are a creative person with worthy ideas. Please share all of them, no matter how weird they may be!

    4) Thou shall not rush. We value quality, even over efficiency. Don’t let the pressure dull your innovative thinking, okay? Stop, read submissions and comments from others, and make sure you really think before posting.

    5) Thou shall not put thy eggs into one basket. Make sure spread your creative juices across multiple idea developments. Creativity is muscle to be whipped into shape.

    By steering clear of these traps, you can also avoid the second creative-killer, “topic fixation”… but more on that later.

    Get out and get down with your creative self. Influence away!

    • 6 Comments
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  • Wed, Jun 2 2010

    Twang… Quirky… June 2

    By jason at 6:05 pm

    On June 2, 1875, Alexander Graham Bell discovered he could hear sound over a wire, while experimenting with a gadget called the “harmonic telegraph”. The sound was that of a twanging clock spring. I think we all know how that story ends.

    From the “twang” to the “Cloak”, great minds have been coming up with great stuff for years. And now, they can do it online through Quirky.

    A year ago when I walked into Quirky’s offices, I thought, “Cool little office, and damn, this guy Ben even sleeps in the back conference room! This is going to be a BIG hit.”

    WOW, how much has changed: new digs, great team, and no bed in the conference room. Although I’m not based in the NY Q HQ, our team is building a great company that wouldn’t be possible without the help of our partners, the community.

    As a youngster, I didn’t have any birthday parties (summer birthday, so I was never home) so today I’ll celebrate with all of the Quirksters. It’s a great day, and it’s something I’m so pumped to be a part of. Thanks to Ben for giving me an opportunity to help him fulfill his passion and execute the vision of Quirky!!

    And now we’re working on a few BIG Partnerships that will add significant promotion to Quirky…

    By the way, for all those Jeopardy fans: did you know that Ken Jennings began his 74-game winning streak on June 2?

    “Individual commitment to a group effort — that is what makes a team work a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” – Vince Lombardi

    – PortoDog

    P.S. Hoping someone will take that awesome ice cream cake out of the freezer…

    • 1 Comment
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  • Wed, Jun 2 2010

    Reflections On A Year of Awesome

    By nikki at 3:10 pm

    A year has gone by.

    And to echo what Mike said before, I could not feel more lucky to be part of such an amazing company. It is truly unbelievable to think that a year ago it was literally 3 of us sitting in a room trying to make it all happen. And well, I think we have all proved that it is more than “happening” now. I feel the office is humming with excitement, buzz, movement, energy, enthusiasm and knowledge. And of course rock star products, people and smelly melting plastic from Bertha.

    I continue to be thankful for the opportunity to grow and develop with this company. I started out in sales (for Kluster), then switched to PR, then to copy writing, then to customer service, community ambassador, and I am settled here (for the time being) in Operations with a side dish of Domestic Sales.

    So while you Quirks are thankful that we have created a place for your innovation and invention ideas to come true, I am thankful for a work environment where I continually learn and feel challenged each and every day. (Sorry if that got slightly corny, Quirks.) It is the truth.

    I will admit – I remain perpetually cold in the office. At Avenue A it was because of our faulty heater, and here, well we have to thank Bertha for needing so much AC so she does not overheat. (well, or maybe, it is just me!)

    But if the AC is my only issue here at Quirky, well then, I think I have it pretty good. :)

    Looking forward to our upcoming year/s ahead. Thanks once again to Ben, the entire Quirky Team, community and investors.

    P.S. For those interested, I was able to purchase a $3 pashmina in Soho… you can really bargain for scarves when it is 85 degrees outside in NYC!

    • 1 Comment
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  • Wed, Jun 2 2010

    Our Digital Baby

    By matt at 12:39 pm

    Aww, Quirky’s one! Cute.

    When you were growing up, did you have a wall in your house where your folks would measure you every year to see how much you’d grown? I did. But I can’t find the picture of mine, so here’s one with Martha Stewart instead. If Martha does it, it must be cool.

    Well here’s the website version of that. Monthly visits, starting waaaay back when Quirky was a wee baby up to last month.

    Look at our kid go! I feel like a proud papa. But look at the growth over the past couple months. Dare I propose that Quirky is entering puberty?

    Oh boy, here we go. Happy birthday Quirky!

    • No Comments
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  • Wed, Jun 2 2010

    Getting Our Old On

    By mike at 10:03 am

    All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece, but not too much. ~ george harrison

    A year ago today, we turned the Quirky machine on and told the world about it. Here’s what’s happened since then.

    People have spent nearly 100,000 hours on quirky.com. That’s 11 years.

    We’ve been seen in every country around the world except the following: Sierra Leone, Guinea, Western Sahara, Niger, Central African Republic, Somalia, Eritrea, Turkmenistan, North Korea, and Svalbard and Jan Mayen.

    The top 10 cities that love Quirky are (in order): New York, London, Los Angeles, Sydney, San Francisco, Singapore, Chicago, Paris, Atlanta, and Hamburg.

    The iPad is the top mobile device used to get quirky.

    52% of you are a PC. 39.7% a Mac.

    And the following chart lists the most popular Quirky staffers as determined by Google stalking, er, i mean, search results. Those flying under the radar will have their names withheld in order preserve their personal SEO ranking, or lack thereof.

    There’s so much more I can say about the last year but you probably have the attention span of a gnat so I’ll keep it short. Quite simply, none of this would have been possible without you. Thank you so much for taking part in this Quirky experiment and making it a success.

    Having gone from 3 of us sitting in a shared office space in midtown to 20 people and 1 robot now filling our sweet SoHo office with a constant creative buzz, I am nothing short of amazed of what we’ve been able to accomplish. It’s our job to help bring people’s ideas to life and I cannot tell you how much fun that is.

    I am greatly looking forward to this next trip around the sun. I can’t imagine what you all will surprise me with next.

    All experience is an arch wherethrough gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades for ever and for ever when I move.  ~ alfred, lord tennyson

    • 7 Comments
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  • Tue, Jun 1 2010

    Bienvenidos, Danielle!

    By jess at 6:25 pm

    Meet Danielle, our rad new general intern. This summer, she’ll stay busy learning the ins and outs of the Quirky machine and helping out with everything from community education to customer service to social media and more. She’s a talented gal, and we’re jazzed to have her on board!

    Name: Danielle E. Alvarez

    School: Syracuse University, Class of 2010 – Magazine Journalism, Modern Foreign Language

    Hometown: Valhalla, NY

    What makes you quirky: I don’t really like cake (or most desserts for that matter) so I’ve always had birthday brownies instead. I make my bed each and every morning. I sometimes find myself apologizing to inantimate objects that I accidentally bump into. I take pictures of my food before I eat it (because of my food blog). Apparently I’m incredibly quirky.

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  • Tue, Jun 1 2010

    Spice Up Your Submissions! (With HTML)

    By jess at 5:50 pm

    Using HTML codes to embed photo/video into your submissions is a great way to bring life to your ideas, but it can be daunting for non-techies. No more! We make it easy with some simple tutorials.

    Embedding Images

    1. Upload your photo or diagram to an image hosting site like Photobucket or TinyPic.

    2. Find your image’s HTML embed code… most hosting sites provide one for you. Here’s a sample:

    <IMG SRC=”http://IMAGEURL.JPG” BORDER=”0” ALT=”We Love Quirky“>

    The IMG SRC tag is the most important element of the code. It tells our site from where it can pull your image. The ALT tag is less important. It is the alternate text that appears if a user’s browser doesn’t support images. Some codes will also include a BORDER tag. For our purposes, we can go ahead and ignore that.

    3. If needed, change the image’s dimensions to fit your entry by adding WIDTH=”" and HEIGHT=”" tags, which are measured in pixels. The optimal width for posting on Quirky is 450 pixels.

    <IMG SRC=”http://IMAGEURL.JPG” WIDTH=”450” HEIGHT=”200” BORDER=”0” ALT=”We Love Quirky“>

    4. Copy and paste the embed code right into your text entry, and our platform will automatically translate the bracketed code into HTML.

    Embedding Video

    1. Upload your video to a video hosting site like YouTube or Vimeo.

    2. Find your video’s HTML embed code… most hosting sites provide one for you. Here’s a sample:

    <object width=”425″ height=”355″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/GqYeWg7igkU&rel=0&color1=0×402061&color2=0x9461ca&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1″></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowScriptAccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/GqYeWg7igkU&rel=0&color1=0×402061&color2=0x9461ca&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowfullscreen=”true” allowScriptAccess=”always” width=”425″ height=”355″></embed></object>

    3. To avoid problems with overlap, change your video’s dimensions (in bold) by changing object width to “425″ and height to “355″ in two places: at the top of the code and the bottom.

    4. Copy and paste the embed code right into your text entry, and our platform will automatically translate the bracketed code into HTML.

    Et voila! You’ve now coded in HTML.

    Questions? Head on over to the Site/Tech section of the forum. Our tech-savvy Quirky community members are always happy to lend a helping hand.

    • 4 Comments
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  • Tue, Jun 1 2010

    Beamer: Now Shipping

    By ben kaufman at 1:54 pm

    For those who have been waiting patiently for your Beamer… the product is ready, and fantastic. Head on over to your email to confirm your order! We look forward to seeing your well-lit, low-light photographs.

    • 4 Comments
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