A Spartan Life

An aggregation of things I read or find interesting

fastcompany:

Got an emotion that you can’t quite find the words for? The Emotionary can probably help. It’s a website that invents new words for those moments when you just can’t find the right one.

Help us come up with more words that describe modern emotions. We’ll make a list of your responses! Which ones can you think of?

A startup is like a mosquito. A bear can absorb a hit and a crab is armored against one, but a mosquito is designed for one thing: to score. No energy is wasted on defense. The defense of mosquitos, as a species, is that there are a lot of them, but this is little consolation to the individual mosquito.

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PG is so good

How to Make Wealth (via davehyndman)

(via fred-wilson)

Bijan Sabet: One size doesn't fit all

bijan:

One thing you learn as a parent is how different one child is from another and as result what works for one kid doesn’t necessarily work for another. An example in our house: we have 1 kid in private school and 2 kids in public school.

I think there is a tendency in startup land to believe that…

stephenwildish: Friday Project - An egg inside. Discovered the wonders of the Manchester and Worcester eggs this week.

stephenwildish:

Friday Project - An egg inside. Discovered the wonders of the Manchester and Worcester eggs this week.

(via laughingsquid)

comedycentral:

This was magical.

If you ever needed a reason to follow @TheDailyShow, this is it.

Here’s the original segment, in case you missed it.

cabinporn:

The Dune Shacks of Peaked Bars Historic District.

From The Provincetown Design Group:

Nestled into the ever-shifting shapes of the Province Lands dunes, they are primitive in structure, but surrounded by a rare sort of richness – the mesmerizing environment of the ever-changing dunes, great undulations of sand that are constantly swept by the ocean’s winds into new shapes and that have long been a place of withdrawal for artists, eccentrics, writers and Cape residents.

Since the mid 1990s, area non-profits have offered solitude in the dunes to writers, artists, scientists, historians, musicians, and dancers through summer and fall shack residency programs.

Photos by Chris Seufert, Paul Neumann, Debra Bacon, and Stephanie Foster.

I took a 7 week coast to coast road trip after being laid off from Boeing. I didn’t have a camper but realized that being able to pull off the road at a rest or truck stop was the way to go to make the trip affordable. With a few sheets of 1/2” plywood and misc. hardware this is what I came up with. The effort was well worth the time and materials.

(via scotchjazzdusk)

fastcompany: 5 Ways To Thrive During Marketing’s Seismic Shift To Mobile  During SXSW, major brands convened to discuss how to move forward with mobile. Urban Airship’s Scott Kveton outlines the key trends and strategies that emerged and provides examples of brands adding value via mobile. What is increasingly clear is that mobile will confound the cookie-cutter campaign creator, bother the bulk emailer, and annoy broad-audience advertisers. Brands that rely on traditional, one-way mass media must completely re-engineer their approach for mobile, because when customers perceive marketing as an interruption, they take immediate action to tune you out. Find your value in your customers’ lives. Engage each customer in the key moments of their day. Deliver value based on location. Allow customers to personalize their experience to gain relevance. Don’t sell to your customers: entertain, engage, and delight them. Read more here.

fastcompany:

5 Ways To Thrive During Marketing’s Seismic Shift To Mobile 

During SXSW, major brands convened to discuss how to move forward with mobile. Urban Airship’s Scott Kveton outlines the key trends and strategies that emerged and provides examples of brands adding value via mobile.

What is increasingly clear is that mobile will confound the cookie-cutter campaign creator, bother the bulk emailer, and annoy broad-audience advertisers. Brands that rely on traditional, one-way mass media must completely re-engineer their approach for mobile, because when customers perceive marketing as an interruption, they take immediate action to tune you out.

  1. Find your value in your customers’ lives.
  2. Engage each customer in the key moments of their day.
  3. Deliver value based on location.
  4. Allow customers to personalize their experience to gain relevance.
  5. Don’t sell to your customers: entertain, engage, and delight them.

Read more here.

Actually pretty useful.. I find it excellent as an interviewer as well fastcompany: Interview Tips For When Someone Asks, “What Questions Do You Have For Us?” When the interviewer asks if you have any questions for them, it’s your opportunity to show them how much insight, moxie, and knowledge you have stored up. Here’s your playbook. If I started tomorrow, what’s the first project you’d want me to tackle? Beyond showing how you’d hit the ground running—and helping the interviewer to picture you doing so—this question will preview what the working state of the gig is like. What are the must-have personality traits for this position? This question will help you further fill in your forecast: Self-starting might mean you have little guidance; collaborative may mean you’ll be mired in meetings. Also, Gregorio notes, ask this will help the interviewer crack his or her robo-scanning and see you as a whole person. What would you like to see more from in this position? Ask this and you’ll learn why the last guy lost the gig—plus get a fuller picture of what your potential employer counts as success. (Then, when you get the job, make those goals happen.) Do you like it here? “This question might take interviewers back a bit,” Gregorio says, “but their answer will be telling.” If they respond with an automatic yes! then you’re probably entering into a positive culture (or talking to someone in denial), and if they look askance and search for meaning, chances are there’s a storm a-brewing beneath the interview-y sheen. Why would I not be a fit for this job? Inviting a critique shows you can handle feedback, Gregorio says, and it lets the interviewers give voice to any worries they might have about you. For comments and more, check out the full story here. What else should you ask during an interview? Let us know in the comments. [Image: Flickr user John Morgan]

Actually pretty useful.. I find it excellent as an interviewer as well

fastcompany:

Interview Tips For When Someone Asks, “What Questions Do You Have For Us?”

When the interviewer asks if you have any questions for them, it’s your opportunity to show them how much insight, moxie, and knowledge you have stored up. Here’s your playbook.

If I started tomorrow, what’s the first project you’d want me to tackle?

Beyond showing how you’d hit the ground running—and helping the interviewer to picture you doing so—this question will preview what the working state of the gig is like.

What are the must-have personality traits for this position?

This question will help you further fill in your forecast: Self-starting might mean you have little guidance; collaborative may mean you’ll be mired in meetings. Also, Gregorio notes, ask this will help the interviewer crack his or her robo-scanning and see you as a whole person.

What would you like to see more from in this position?

Ask this and you’ll learn why the last guy lost the gig—plus get a fuller picture of what your potential employer counts as success. (Then, when you get the job, make those goals happen.)

Do you like it here?

“This question might take interviewers back a bit,” Gregorio says, “but their answer will be telling.” If they respond with an automatic yes! then you’re probably entering into a positive culture (or talking to someone in denial), and if they look askance and search for meaning, chances are there’s a storm a-brewing beneath the interview-y sheen.

Why would I not be a fit for this job?

Inviting a critique shows you can handle feedback, Gregorio says, and it lets the interviewers give voice to any worries they might have about you.

For comments and more, check out the full story here.

What else should you ask during an interview? Let us know in the comments.

[Image: Flickr user John Morgan]

IF you can go to this, you should.. jay is a phenomenal human being and sherpaa is doing kick-ass things jayparkinsonmd: I’m speaking at Etsy’s annual conference, Hello Etsy on March 23. Here’s how they describe it: Hello Etsy will address the future of consumption, new methods of production, alternative approaches to work, and more purposeful ways of doing business. I’ll be giving a whole new talk about Re-Imagining Work: Jay Parkinson emerged from medical school into a broken industry. Rather than going down the standard route, he became an entrepreneur with the ambition to fix it. By reimagining how doctors define health, how they communicate, and how they get paid, he is creating a new system for providing care for patients. Parkinson, founder of Hello Health and Sherpaa will discuss how we can reinvent our approach to work, especially in a system as rigid as that of healthcare. Other speakers include Chris Anderson, the ex-editor of Wired, Robin Chase, the founder of Zipcar, and many other greats. You should go. Btw, they asked me to take that photo.

IF you can go to this, you should.. jay is a phenomenal human being and sherpaa is doing kick-ass things

jayparkinsonmd:

I’m speaking at Etsy’s annual conference, Hello Etsy on March 23. Here’s how they describe it:

Hello Etsy will address the future of consumption, new methods of production, alternative approaches to work, and more purposeful ways of doing business.

I’ll be giving a whole new talk about Re-Imagining Work:

Jay Parkinson emerged from medical school into a broken industry. Rather than going down the standard route, he became an entrepreneur with the ambition to fix it. By reimagining how doctors define health, how they communicate, and how they get paid, he is creating a new system for providing care for patients. Parkinson, founder of Hello Health and Sherpaa will discuss how we can reinvent our approach to work, especially in a system as rigid as that of healthcare.

Other speakers include Chris Anderson, the ex-editor of Wired, Robin Chase, the founder of Zipcar, and many other greats. You should go.

Btw, they asked me to take that photo.