I just got back from the wonderful Up to All of Us conference. The introductory exercise was to write down three things about yourself in a notebook, and then pass the notebook around the room and have everybody write a comment or a question on the page. It was fascinating to get that feedback from […]
Raising money for World Bicycle Relief
As my last post makes clear, I have been getting more into biking over the past couple years, and I now want to share my goal for 2015: finishing the Leadville 100 mountain bike century. I first heard of Leadville through the bike blogger, Elden Nelson (aka Fat Cyclist) as he has finished Leadville 17 […]
I love my bike
I’ve been riding my bike more to start training for the Death Ride in July (and because the weather is ludicrously nice in California – it got into the 80s this week). And I was thinking this morning that I love my bike. From 2011 to 2014, my main bike was a Surly Long Haul […]
Does Amanda Palmer’s model of asking scale?
A friend asked in response to my last post whether I thought Amanda Palmer’s model of asking could scale. Could everybody find success that way? Do you have to be a rock star public figure to make it work? Does the “doing your work for free and then asking people to give you money” model […]
The Art of Asking, by Amanda Palmer
Amazon link Given my last post was about charity, I thought it was appropriate to follow up with my long overdue review of Amanda Palmer’s book The Art of Asking. The book is an amplification of Palmer’s TED talk with the same title, discussing the connection between an artist and her fans. But it’s also […]
Dan Pallotta’s TED talk “The way we think about charities is dead wrong”
A friend of mine had recommended I watch this TED talk by Dan Pallotta, titled “The way we think about charity is dead wrong”. I finally got around to watching it last night and wrote up my notes in an email to my friend and then figured I might as well post them on the […]
Stewart Brand and Paul Saffo at the Interval
A couple weeks ago, I went to see Stewart Brand and Paul Saffo give a “salon talk” at the Interval (recap and audio of the talk here). It was a packed house – the talk had sold out in less than an hour, but I was lucky enough to be checking email when the tickets […]
One step at a time
I was helping an entrepreneur friend with his investor pitch last week, and something was bugging me – the pitch didn’t feel right, even though I think the idea is good. He is passionate about how to run a company, so he was describing his philosophy of management in the pitch. And I realized that […]
Setting the context
Sometimes I wonder about the value of what I do at Google[ref]To be clear, my manager values the work I do at Google – I just sometimes question myself[/ref]. In the search ads organization where I work, there are hundreds of people building new features and products. And then there’s me wandering around, looking at […]
2014 Year in Review
After 2013 was the Year of Yes for me, I would characterize 2014 as the Year of More. I didn’t start any new activities in 2014, and instead did a lot more of what I was already doing. Job: I am still in the same job as last year (Chief of Staff to Product VP […]
