nayiaisms

Three key principles of designing home-run products

Thu, 31 May 2012 15:49:51 -0400

Three key principles of designing home-run products:

People love to express themselves. This is why we buy the clothes we like, enjoy customizing our World of Warcraft characters, decorate our apartments, change our profile and cover photos, put bumper stickers on our cars, among many other things. Every decision you make is a form of self expression. Even if you are buying a pair of $5 throwaway glasses for Coachella, you’re exercising your taste whether you’re doing it consciously or not.

If you can provide a fun new way for people to exercise their taste and creativity to express themselves, people will try it. People love trying new things and being the first to spread news to their friends about the new thing, which is always great for a new product.

“We choose to go to the moon… not because they are...

Tue, 29 May 2012 23:57:08 -0400

“We choose to go to the moon… not because they are easy, but because they are hard…”

Writer's Bloq, Inc.: Top Ten Most Angsty Characters in Fiction

Tue, 29 May 2012 13:59:00 -0400

Writer's Bloq, Inc.: Top Ten Most Angsty Characters in Fiction:

From the Writer’s Bloq team, this week’s Tuesday Tidbit: *disclaimer: all teasing is done out of love, respect, and just the slightest envy of the characters. (Alternate title “Top ten Fictional Characters whose lives could be set to a Radiohead Soundtrack.”)

Charlie – The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Considering the title explicitly venerates a passively lived life – Charlie has to make it onto the list. His existential woes include unique anxieties over sexuality, coming of age, corrupted innocence, etc. “I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn’t try to sleep with people even if they could have. I need to know that these people exist.” Don’t leave me high, don’t leave me dry. This uncanny resemblance to a Radiohead song makes Charlie an easy #10 in angsty-ness.

Yossarian – Catch 22

Wait so…to be dismissed from combat, I have to be rendered insane…but to be rendered insane, I’d have to request an insane test…and thinking I’m insane proves I’m insane? RUNAWAY.

Macbeth – Macbeth, King of Scotland

Just settle for Thane of Cawdor next time, buddy. “You do it to yourself, you do, you and no one else.”

Donny – House of Blue Leaves

That awkward moment when your Godfather doesn’t cast you as Huckleberry Finn so you decide to blow up the Pope…

Mersault – The Stranger

Basic paraphrase of novel: “Oh no – the sun is too bright on the sand…the effect is blinding…the only way for me to cope is to shoot an Arab five consecutive times. Alas, I remain indifferent…just like the world. But if people yell how much they hate me at my execution, I can find meaning amongst the black hole of meaninglessness.”

Ugh. We liked you more when you just hung out with gangsters.

**Harry Potter **– specifically Order of the Phoenix

Hey Harry….did Voldemort kill your parents? Your 27 speeches delivered in Caps Lock really drive this point home.

Gollum – Lord of the Rings series

Classic whining over your birthday present being stolen…

…and then letting your obsessive pursuit of it manifest itself in the form of split personalities for 556 years, eventually leading to your dark, dismal, death…

Frankenstein’s Monster – Dr. Frankenstein

“I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on.” #self esteem issues

Holden Caulfield – The Catcher in the Rye

Maybe we are jumping to conclusions, but it seems like he hates phonies….

Holden Caulfield, the hipster class’s most highly regarded character, has unique anxieties over sexuality, coming of age, corrupted innocence, etc.

“You ought to go to a boy’s school sometimes. Try it sometime,” I said. “It’s full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques. The guys that are on the basketball team stick together, the goddam intellectuals stick together, the guys that play bridge stick together. Even the guys that belong to the goddam Book-of-the-Month Club stick together.”

Oh, Holden. If only you knew how much your readers uphold this monologue as they listen to “Fake Plastic Trees” on their big state of the art headphones. Yet…are they the Book of the Month Club you so despise? #META.

Drum roll, please…

Hamlet

His existential woes include unique anxieties over sexuality, coming of age, corrupted innocence, etc. These elements, along with mommy drama, a fatal misstep of thwarted action, manipulative friends, a suicidal girlfriend, and nostalgic memories of a dead clown really cover every case scenario of angst.

So thanks Shakespeare, for stealing every plot idea ever.

“To be, or not to be, — that is the question”

Yep. Pretty much!

"When you do something noble and beautiful and nobody noticed, do not be sad. For the sun every..."

Tue, 29 May 2012 13:35:16 -0400

“When you do something noble and beautiful and nobody noticed, do not be sad. For the sun every morning is a beautiful spectacle and yet most of the audience still sleeps.”

- John Lennon (via david)

Startup Founders: Don't Freak Out

Mon, 28 May 2012 15:33:26 -0400

By: Dharmesh Shah

“Remember, if the pain doesn’t kill you, it only hurts a lot. A lot of the time, near-fatal events are often just that — near-fatal. They don’t quite kill you. Startups are vulnerable, but generally resilient.

Your natural reaction when something really bad happens is to think about the worst-case scenario. But, that’s usually counter productive. Think about the most likely scenario and solve based on that.

Try and make a realistic determination of how important it is to respond quickly. Often, when something really bad happens, entrepreneurs make the mistake of assuming they have to respond immediately. In many cases, that’s both unnecessary — and risky. For example, if someone threatens legal action, resist the temptation to respond immediately

What you don’t want to do is start compounding a bad event with panic-induced mistakes. It’s important to remain calm and give yourself time (and sometimes distance) to make plan a thoughtful response. I know, that’s easier said than done. If it makes you feel any better (it should), know that most entrepreneurs (even the successful ones) have near-fatal events happen.”

Nine Dangerous Things You Were Taught In School

Sun, 27 May 2012 10:19:35 -0400

By: Jessica Hagy “Be aware of the insidious and unspoken lessons you learned as a child. To thrive in the world outside the classroom, you’re going to have to unlearn them.

The people in charge have all the answers.
1. Learning ends when you leave the classroom.
The best and brightest follow the rules.
What the books say is always true.
There is a very clear, single path to success.
Behaving yourself is as important as getting good marks.
Standardized tests measure your value.
1. Days off are always more fun than sitting in the classroom.
The purpose of your education is your future career.”

creatingaquietmind: 21 Story Underwater Hotel (via enpundit)

Sat, 26 May 2012 12:47:32 -0400

creatingaquietmind:

21 Story Underwater Hotel (via enpundit)

"Today is a new day. Hiding from your history only shackles you to it. We can’t undo a single thing..."

Fri, 25 May 2012 16:57:06 -0400

““Today is a new day. Hiding from your history only shackles you to it. We can’t undo a single thing we have ever done, but we can make decisions today that propel us to the life we want and towards the healing we need.””

- Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free (via creatingaquietmind)

"New York City Tech Boom Sets Pace"

Thu, 24 May 2012 15:47:08 -0400

"New York City Tech Boom Sets Pace":

“New York has the nation’s fastest-growing tech sector and has surpassed Boston as the No. 2 hub, behind Silicon Valley, for Internet and mobile technologies, according to a report released Wednesday by the Center for an Urban Future.”

By: Jennifer Maloney

“When I’m traveling and the wifi is slow, I’m...

Wed, 23 May 2012 13:29:13 -0400

“When I’m traveling and the wifi is slow, I’m like…”

This blog is spot-on.

The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs

Tue, 22 May 2012 16:26:49 -0400

His saga is the entrepreneurial creation myth writ large: Steve Jobs cofounded Apple in his parents’ garage in 1976, was ousted in 1985, returned to rescue it from near bankruptcy in 1997, and by the time he died, in October 2011, had built it into the world’s most valuable company. Along the way he helped to transform seven industries: personal computing, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, retail stores, and digital publishing. He thus belongs in the pantheon of America’s great innovators, along with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Walt Disney. None of these men was a saint, but long after their personalities are forgotten, history will remember how they applied imagination to technology and business.

In the months since my biography of Jobs came out, countless commentators have tried to draw management lessons from it. Some of those readers have been insightful, but I think that many of them (especially those with no experience in entrepreneurship) fixate too much on the rough edges of his personality. The essence of Jobs, I think, is that his personality was integral to his way of doing business. He acted as if the normal rules didn’t apply to him, and the passion, intensity, and extreme emotionalism he brought to everyday life were things he also poured into the products he made. His petulance and impatience were part and parcel of his perfectionism.

By: Walter Isaacson

"Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it."

Tue, 22 May 2012 15:50:59 -0400

“Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.”

- David Foster Wallace

Photo

Mon, 21 May 2012 13:38:49 -0400

Think You Deserve To Be Called a CEO?

Sun, 20 May 2012 16:32:56 -0400

By: Alexander Haislip

“1. Attract Awesome People 2. Build an Experience, Not a Product 3. Learn Finance 4. Define a Big Goal and Take Small Steps

A remarkable CEO should be like the moon, illuminated by the reflected light of all the stars he or she has brought into orbit. Awesome people act as accelerants to whatever you’re doing. They push ideas forward, execute with aplomb and challenge you to new heights.”

Photo

Fri, 18 May 2012 14:55:20 -0400

Post-Unsolicited reflections of a rather sentimental persuasion

Thu, 17 May 2012 15:00:05 -0400

It was 6:28. We hadn’t poured the drinks, we had yet to slice the brie, and we were just starting to hang the Writer’s Bloq banner. We were anxious, excited, and running out of time. But time wouldn’t stop for us, and neither would Unsolicited.

Two minutes later, the doors opened. Editors, agents, and writers shuffled into the Rare Books Room at The Strand. Students and graduates of writing programs alike took their seats in preparation for the reading, vacating their spots only to replace an empty lager from Brooklyn Brewery, refresh their glass with a Voli cocktail, or greet a peer across the way. A clever group lingered by the Argo Tea tasting table and the curious readers peeked over at their framed illustrations and gift bags in front of the stage. Inside the bags? A surprise present of Moleskines, free beverage cards from Joe’s Coffee, pens, Writer’s Bloq stickers, a gift by Wave Books of Eileen Myles’ new poetry, and the honorary teal quill awarded to the top writers on the bloq.

When the first reader took the stage, the excited buzz died down, and the room listened quietly. The silence had substance somehow, as though there was more to it; as though if you listened carefully enough, you could hear the audience traveling down into and valleys and through the canyons and into the crevices of the words of the top writers on Writer’s Bloq.

The buzz returned as the readers finished sharing their work. The audience nodded at one another in understanding, each preparing to take a different perception of a shared experience home with them. We sealed the night with a raffle: two gift cards from The Strand, and our top prize from our generous sponsor - a stay at The Library Hotel in Midtown. The winner leapt from her seat to accept her loot, and giggled at our rather serious request to join her on her stay at the chic hotel.

As our attendees started to head out, our team was continually asked the same question. Which was our favorite moment of the evening? Ironically, the question baffled me. Surely, each of us took a different peak moment away from Unsolicited. Certainly, there was one moment of extreme high that stood out from the rest? I tried to choose: the moment our attendees began pouring into the room, or the chills I experienced three times in a row as a result of one of the pieces read on stage, or the cheery thank you’s we were offered as the evening came to a close, but I simply couldn’t choose.

Later that evening, after Unsolicited, after all the excitement died down, I glanced around the after-mingle and saw a group of writers sitting together in the corner of the candle-lit patio. This may seem like a trivial moment, but the essence is in the details. Because the writers sitting together hadn’t known each other before the mingle. They were New School MFAers, Columbia graduates, and NYU students. They were discussing each others’ work. They were offering suggestions, questioning inspirations, and sharing favorite writers. And there it was: they had just created it, our very first Parisian Parlor. And I couldn’t look away.

5 Lessons From OMGPOP's Huge 'Draw Something' Sale To Zynga

Wed, 16 May 2012 15:46:13 -0400

By: Dan Frommer

App Store Overnight Success Is Real (And Unpredictable)
You Can Fail 30 Times And Still Succeed
“Sell High” …

"People do not seem to realise that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their..."

Tue, 15 May 2012 14:40:19 -0400

““People do not seem to realise that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.””

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Not sure how Johnny Depp feels about this, but I’m on...

Mon, 14 May 2012 15:16:40 -0400

Not sure how Johnny Depp feels about this, but I’m on board!

Too good.

Sun, 13 May 2012 17:56:26 -0400

Too good.