Paul Graham, who knows a thing or two about finding your purpose and doing what you love, on how to write well – a fine addition to our ongoing archive of writing advice. Pair with this reading list of famous writers’ collected wisdom on writing. (via explore-blog)
(Source: , via explore-blog)
Aww memories.
Scribbled during entrepreneurial design class, our initial ideas on “Sticky Thoughts” - sticky notes geared specifically towards designers.
(Source: stickyjots)
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You, too? Thought I was the only one.’” - C. S. Lewis
It is natural for people to gravitate towards people that are similar. It is hypothesized that we pick our friends based on their similarities of genes, traits, shared values, and interests. Genes and interests alone cannot explain the attraction we have towards certain people. Aristotle suggests, “Friends must enjoy each other’s company, they must be useful to one another, and they must share a common commitment to the good”. My thesis explores the possibilities of changing those patterns of being drawn to similarities and questions what happens when we engage with different types of people.
So after a long, arduous, circuitous, brain exploding, difficult road, Meghana, Rae, and I managed to create a place where people can explore the complexities of identities. This pretty much sums up our process:
The idea of Mixus is that people can record stories prompted by questions of their identity. The app will then analyze the words in each story and match it to other stories that have the same key words. For now its just extracting the content but later we want it to incorporate tone, accent, inflections, rhythm, etc. from the recorder’s voice. The point is that you can see how you’re connected to other people from all over the world based on how you view yourself. It’s about opening a larger spectrum of people you thought you could relate to and changing your perceptions of stereotypes and labels. Watch our video below to find out more!
Things I learned about myself:
Part of Sticky Jots’ strategy in getting exposure is to talk to as many designers as possible. Rae and I started to interview designers in our immediate circle about their design process and their thoughts on design in general. We’ve approached our coaches and teachers to participate in our interviews and received positive responses. So far it’s been a really great experience not only because we get the opportunity to meet new people but also receive user feedback for our products.
One of our interviewees was Josh Musick and we asked if we could meet other Frog designers. He was kind enough to let us come by Frog and introduce us to Turi McKinley and Brandy Bora, two Frog designers. They were more than happy to let us interview them and afterwards gave us feedback about our kits.
We will definitely continue this on through the summer in hopes of getting people in all fields to tell us about their processes.
Rae and I hired someone from Task Rabbit to do our marketing and outreach to blogs. Before I was a little wary but am glad she was recommended through Anke and Meghana. She seemed to have done a great job for them both. Reaching out to her went fairly smoothly but I guess for next time we should be more explicit in what we want her to do.
When I was looking for possible for internships for the summer, I came across One Earth Designs through a Forbes article. I was really excited about the work they were doing and wanted to be a part of it. Coincidentally, my sister knew the CEO, Scot Frank, and tried to put me in touch with him. I thought that getting in contact with him was going to be easy. Turns out he was traveling during that time which also happened to be Chinese New Years, so reaching him was kind of impossible.
After many failed email attempts from myself and my sister, I was poking around their site to see if I could get in touch with someone else. There was a chat widget on their site and to my surprise Scot started to chat with me. I told him I was interested in speaking with him and he told me to email him. After a few days I got a response and set up a time to speak with him on the phone. The following week I had a nice chat with him and the possibilities of collaborating together. Weeks later we met in person and extended the conversation. I hope this summer we do get to work together.
