Tue, Feb 9 2010
And we’re tracking it!
This may not have been the quirkiest Superbowl ad, but it was certainly my favorite.
So simple, so topical, so brilliant. What were your favorites?
When I was just a wee little lad, I loved to take my toys apart, much to my Mother’s dismay. Back then it was about being curious, now as an adult the ability (or accessibility) to disassemble something for reasons of repair, customization, or investigation becomes another aspect I find myself considering when buying a product. This notion is anything but new, but taking into account certain ecological and economic predicaments we find ourselves in now, isn’t it a necessity? A recent article on Core77 by Alex Diner, Afterlife: An Essential Guide To Design For Disassembly, looks at DFD or Design For Disassembly as both a business and design strategy. Diner walks us through a detailed roadmap that outlines a method of DfD, as well as shares examples of products that employ a similar tactic.
Today, I woke up where tech startups are “supposed” to be HQ’d. We’ll see about that.
Outside of pretty frequent visits to the Apple Mothership in Cupertino, I’ve spent very little time meeting with start-ups out here.
Let it be known, I love New York (hence the B.I.G.), and I think it provides an amazingly perfect environment for quirky. I’m excited to see us grow in a place where design, business, and media all converge. It’s the concrete jungle where dreams are made of, after all.
As for the schedule… today and tomorrow, Mitch and I have action-packed days of meetings with all types of people… investors, partners, and friends. I’m excited to see what the business/start-up culture is like out here first hand. I’ve just heard the myths/legends.
If I had to guess, I’d bet everything is pretty much the same, besides the bagels.
Tuesday night, I’m heading down to Long Beach to meet up with Mike Lacy & Jason Port for a mind blowing second half of the week. We’ll be attending the TED conference, rubbing elbows with people with much larger brains and trophy closets.
Look for more from me during TED. I look forward to sharing some of the inspiration that gets sprung upon us with you.
Hello there, Quirks.
Despite my techie background, I’m a blog virgin, so be gentle on me.
Working on Pen Zen reminds me of my knife block, which is awesome for those of us still in the phase of life where nothing comes in sets: www.kapoosh.com.
Gui Weinmann is one of the latest additions to the Quirky team, working with our development team to ensure the best user experience on Quirky.com. Make him feel welcome!
Gui is a technologist who likes to build good things. Before joining the Quirky team, he built the virology database at Princeton University, a secure online solution for a popular liquor shop, and a sales management platform for eBay, but he insists that none of these experiences was as cool as the time he worked for P. Diddy. Gui graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and has never been to Asia, the Middle East, or Antarctica — yet! He speaks three spoken and innumerable programming languages. He loves his wife, all his nieces and nephews, and cycling. He thinks the best ideas are the quirky ones.
Since this week is New York’s Social Media Week, I’ve decided to weigh in on something troubling me: I’ve yet to encounter anyone that can fully grasp the significance of social media. This might be due in some part to the only people I speak to on a regular basis being Facebook stalkers or randoms so taken with my 140 character missives that they must track me down via Foursquare/Latitude… but at the end of the day these should be the very people exposing its fundamentals rather than waxing poetic about their last awkward lunch date. I say this because social media has exposed us all for what we really are: geniuses. We are all Brian Wilson, but a Brian Wilson that went to bed before making Pet Sounds. That is to say: we create mighty inescapable works, (suffer a nervous breakdown), and the world moves on with our endeavors forgotten or relegated to a heap of Web 2.0 ephemera. I suspect this is why I’m fascinated with Quirky. It is such a refreshing break from the typical collective blathering. We can finally make the products of late night ramblings, cafe frustrations, or cubical quandaries into physical bits rather than strictly electronic bits. Or failing that we can scrape up the remnants of last decade’s snark and so eloquently crush the hopes and dreams of those more talented and successful than ourselves.
On Saturday, our office finance guru turns… well, we’re not gonna get into that, because let’s face it, the ol’ chap doesn’t look a day over 16. We celebrated his birthday today with King Cake straight from New Orleans — Mardi Gras at the Quirky offices is a week-long affair — and homemade muffins care of Nikki, our CBO (Chief Birthday Officer). Thankfully, the super-exciting sales day is preventing us from slipping into serious cake comas.
So far we’re at 3. Between them over 45 years of web development experience. The race continues. Internet Explorer… be warned: we will win. It’s just a matter of how much time you’re going to waste us in the process.
Everyone and their mother has an opinion on this year’s Oscar contenders, and the Quirky staff is no different. Here, our picks for the top three categories.
BEST PICTURE
WINNER: Avatar (duh)
HONORABLE MENTION: Inglourious Basterds
BEST ACTOR
WINNER: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
BEST ACTRESS
TIE: Gabourey Sidibe, Precious, and Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia
WRITE-IN FROM MIKE LACY: Penelope Cruz in anything
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