Cranky Buddhist

Fire Your Maid

Via Academite Becky’s Facebook status came “Benedict Us” from blog Our Great Adventure:

I work in a profession where many, if not most, of my tasks are cerebral. My hands and feet do the work of getting me to the chair and typing (or web surfing), but on a daily basis I use only a small fraction of their physical capacity. They are underused, subjected by my choice of profession to a certain enforced sloth, a subtle disobedience to the purposes for which they were created.

Refreshment of purpose, then, comes from the chores that I must do at home. Keeping a house and physical property requires that my hands and feet, and all of the seven hundred muscles in my body, use their gifts and talents. The projects do require thought and figuring, but the most redeeming part of them is the physical labor.

In work we discover that we need to pray. We humans are physical beings: our existence is wrapped up in our physicality. If we were not physical, we would not be who we are. Our thoughts, dreams, goals, perception of time, and understandings of God are led by the fact that we are beings in three-space. Labor, physical labor, by its nature requires us to engage three-space and therefore requires us to come to terms with who we are.

If you’re not just ready to wash the dishes, wash your clothes, or put up some shelving, then maybe you can play with your sewing machine and make something with fabric you’ve custom-designed.

Or git out the glue sticks and make a zine.  Or put some red meat on a grill.  Something, anything that doesn’t involve clicking here now.

Elsewhere On The Interwebz

For those of you who have not yet added ‘Anittah Patrick’ to your Google alerts (?!?), here’s your silver platter.

From 6/30’s “Bring Your Whole Self To Work (?)“:

In my experience in corporate America, it’s not just gay and lesbian professionals that oftentimes feel they need hide certain aspects of themselves from their coworkers; most people feared discovery in some shape or form, be it an interior monologue of “They’ll find out I’m not qualified for this job!” or “I never graduated from college.” [more]

From 6/24’s “The Recession’s Silver Lining?“:

Have you seen a shift in the worldview of those around you and/or within yourself? [more]

From 6/19’s “The Economy, Women, and Asset Allocation“:

I wonder if companies that show high short-term returns but have weak or questionable fundamental business strategies — such as, peddlers of financial derivative products — will be “punished” … [more]

From 6/16’s “Five (Really Really) Nice-To-Haves“:

I bought these in five colors.  No joke.  These fit great, are long enough to be office-appropriate, are high-waisted enough to be flattering, and must be vanity sized since I bought a size six (I am definitely a size eight). [more]

From 6/12’s “Give Yourself Permission To Be Rich“:

… we are often our own biggest obstacles to success … [more]

From 6/12’s “Why Do You Network?“:

Please don’t jam your business card down my throat.  Please, let’s have a conversation and get to know each other to see if we are temperamentally compatible.  The rest will follow. [more]

Your next serving will be, like, whenever. :)

Does Never Work For You?

I’m not sure what part of “I Suspect You Are Mediocre” the dude on the below right does not seem to understand, but five days after I blogged a hissy fit about his social media “skills” he tried to add me as a friend on Facebook.  ?!?!?!  Of course he has over four thousand so I suspect the bar is low for his friendship.

To all the “people” I have, weasel-like, mocked on my blog, I suggest you one-up me and find me in person. Maybe your online presence is but an ersatz version of you in the flesh. Maybe your charm and intelligence don’t translate well into bits and bytes.  Who knows, you could be like the spammer I yelled at (who I later met at a cocktail party)!

Game on, boys.  Yep, I’m talking to you, Clark Kokich.  And you, Chris Abraham.  And hey, while we’re at it, the genius behind Hollywood Fred’s online marketing efforts.

This Weekend: Be Creative And Win!

I recently pressured FabricOnDemand.com’s founder, Rysa Ferdon Pitner, into answering five questions about her fabulous Ye Not-Olde Build-A-Fabric WorkShoppe. FabricOnDemand breaks it down like this:

• You pick a layout for a design to be printed onto a fabric
• You pick your fabric
• You upload your design
• You get your very own custom-made fabric
• You turn that into a head-turning piece of awesome
• Fame, fortune, etc.

Survey says (bolding mine):

1. Interwebz 2.0 is filled with websites teeming with animated whatzits, widgets-up-the-wazoo, and “poke” functionality.  Not so at FabricOnDemand.com.  What do you know that others don’t?  Ancient Chinese secret?

I wouldn’t suggest we are on to some secret. We just made different decisions about where to invest our time. There are things we know, and things we think we know. With regard to our website – we know it’s there first and foremost to sell fabric. As we contemplate the current Web 2.0 reality, it’s easy to confuse website feature expansion with consumer utility. Just because something is possible does not mean it’s necessary. In our case, forgive the pun, we’ll stick to our knitting for the time being. We consider our product to be two-fold – 1) custom-printed fabric, and 2) Service in the production of custom printed fabric. We don’t need a lot of engineering overhead on our website to deliver those two products with excellence. One day we might; just not today.

2. Does this mean you won’t be adding any cool bells, whistles, or lasers to the website anytime soon?

If by bells and whistles you mean more fabric options to choose from and related services, yes – those are coming very soon. If you mean cool new technology frameworks that might make us worthy of a Webby award, those are not currently in our plans. We want to build a passionate and engaged audience because they love our product, and we don’t want to over-smart the experience just because the tools are available.

3. Launching a new business in these interesting times is a plucky move.  Poking around your website suggests that your company is employee-owned and operated. Are there no plans for outside investors to help safeguard your new business risk?  (I’m partly interested as I, too, have not sought outside investment.)

We do have investors; they’re on the inside – they are our employees. Clearly few companies have the wind at our back getting out of the gate in this market, but our employees’ investment each day in delivering unparalleled service and quality is the best foundation from which any company could launch. This is not to sound trite, but during the depression there was a mentality of toughness that helped pull this country through those difficult times. It feels as though much of that toughness and personal endurance has been lost today. We’ve gone back to basics with our business, and it feels good to be doing it yourself for a do-it-yourself audience. We feel really aligned with the customers we are connecting with. This feels like more of an opportunity and less like a risk to us. We have a team with a shared set of personal values, an elegant balance of complementary skills, and a common purpose. We believe those are the building blocks of an enduring success.

4. When I’m at a fabric store I need to fondle.  (Recently, I bought some shiny blue leather, and I definitely did some sniffing to boot.)  How does an Internet business solve for the element of “touch”?

Simple. We let our customers touch our fabrics. We freely ship our fabric swatches all over the world at our expense to invite customers into our personal store. There are several benefits to doing so including getting to know your prospects more intimately as well as putting an active reminder into the hands of your audience. When those fabric swatches show up, they provide the answer to the question “What does it feel like?”, and they create a connection between the customer and the product. For us it’s an investment – not a cost.

5.  In ten years, will fabric stores be a distant memory?

Fabric stores will go the way of books. Though both products can be delivered digitally, a la the Kindle for books, there is a relationship and a fulfillment that comes with discovering new fabrics and designs in a store that cannot be substituted. Fabric stores are for exploring, learning, and inspiring – they create community. Just as book stores evolved into coffee shops as they recognized that intimate connection with the content, fabric stores will find their place in the future. The digital on-demand and custom-design model will serve to make the fabric store aisles infinite by complementing the on-the-floor inventory with on-demand inspiration.

Yes. What I like about Rysa, aside from her ability to teach me things like how to get stuff done, is that she gets it, is immensely creative, and makes stuff with her hands.  Not only that, but her business is also in part an encouragement for all of us to make stuff with our hands.

Speaking of which, FabricOnDemand.com has conveniently given you something to do this holiday weekend — click here to submit your fabric design for their “Pimp These Old Chairs” reupholstery contest!  Maybe it’s a clever slogan (”The Hot Seat”); maybe it’s a fantastic tessellation.  Whatevs.  If your keister wants to sit on it, yours might be the winning design.

Good stuff all around.  Go forth and create, people.

Hardware!

5 Easy Steps To Facebook Down-Friending

From the mailbag:

How do I change my Facebook settings so that I can’t get updates from this one dude w/o defriending him?

Ah, yes.  The ole, “We’re still friends, but, um, you talk too much, and/or say things that ne m’interesse pas.”  (sp?  ‘tevs)

1. Hover your mouse over that one dude’s latest missive
2. Slide over to the right hand side; see how the “Hide” option appears?
3. Click the downward-facing triangle to the right of the “Hide” button
4. Roll your mouse over “Hide That One Dude”, where “That One Dude” equals the name of the person in question
5. Click!

I recommend that if you are one of my Facebook friends, you perform this function on me straightaway.

Williamsburgh Savings Bank Party Tiiiiime

According to Katherine Dykstra’s “Bank On It” in the June 25, 2009 New York Post, Magic Johnson and crew have tapped Jennifer Blumin, “whose Manhattan-based company converts old spaces into high-end event venues”, to manage One Hanson Place’s 15,000 square feet of event space.  From the article:

When One Hanson first approached Blumin, whose other venues include Skylight in West SoHo, where buzzy fashion parties and product launches regularly take place, she wasn’t sure about the project. But that changed when she saw the Fort Greene space. With 75-foot ceilings, marble floors, a mezzanine balcony and ornate wooden teller stations running the perimeter of the room, the site is majestic, to say the least.

“My jaw was on the floor when I saw it,” says Blumin.

Having attended the Whitney Art Party the other week at Blumin’s Skylight, I know that any event that she oversees here will be A+. But she’s not targeting Manhattan douchebags who’d prefer to throw something on the island but Capitale’s already booked; nope, she wants to book clients who believe the hype:

“We’re not making excuses for this space, like, oh, it’s only a 10-minute subway ride from Manhattan,” says Blumin. People will have events in Brooklyn, she adds, “because they want to be in Brooklyn.”

The day rate on the space is about $15,000, although Blumin says she gives preferential treatment to Brooklyn brides.

Hmm; time to move back to Clinton Hill?

From the 2009 Whitney Art Party

Silos Are Optimization Killers

From an interview at AdExchanger with all around good guy Tim Ogilvie (9Y7), CEO of AdBuyer.com, an online media buying platform that optimizes your campaigns while you eat fried chicken:

Successful online marketing is about building lots of 5% and 10% improvements into a commanding lead. Most marketers that we talk to are drowning in data, but can’t act on that data because they’re overwhelmed or the data lives in different silos. We’ve built a platform that puts all the data in one place, makes it easy to identify improvement opportunities and just as easy to act on them.

Yes.  I mean, maybe it’s communist when you’re talking about humans, but

f’(x) + g’(x)

is an inferior approach to marketing optimization versus

the optimized sum (f(x) + g(x)).

Or something like that.  (It’s been, like, sixteen years since I’ve had calculus and stuff.)

Go AdBuyer!

Into Bits And Bytes I Am Torn

From “Write More Good” by Wayne Geyer in the June 2009 ish of HOW:

As communicators, our job is to feed our audience information in bite-sized pieces — and in a particular order.

But I attended a lecture by Stephen L. Carter during my reunion, whose thesis was

democracy needs dialogue more than it needs bumper stickers.

I agree with both.  Help?

How To Keep On Tickin’

From Patricia Marx’s “Face Value” from The New Yorker’s May 25, 2009 ish:

… how did Timex, which was originally a Connecticut-based company called Waterbury Clock, weather the great Depression?  As Jenny McLaughlin, a Timex marketing executive, explained, “Mickey Mouse saved our ass.”  Through the nineteen-thirties, the company churned out millions of Mickey watches.  (They originally retailed at $1.50 and are now collector’s items, one fetching $6,160 in a 2005 auction, although you can pick up a new one for about $20 on amazon.com).

To which I say:

• Jenny McLaughlin is my hero (unseating the reigning champion)
• Who is YOUR Mickey Mouse?

Ask Me To Donate To Your Little Schmooze A Thon

While I have no interest in writing checks to support people getting sweaty in spandex for their pet charity, I am absolutely interested in writing checks in order to attend fundraiser-things with do-gooders and their yuppie friends!  So here’s a shout-out to some fabulous folks who help make that happen.

Pictured above are my friends Em, Nus, and Gene making it happen at a CARE fundraiser earlier this year. From Patrick Cole’s “Young Patrons Hit Web to Tap Yalies, Wall St. Pals for Charity” in Bloomberg:

When young Yale graduates need to hit up other alumni for charity, they tap the Old Boy and Girl Internetwork.

Eugene Bang, a credit trader, used Facebook to send invitations for his charity’s event to more than 300 friends in finance, law and media. Emily Bell and Yale Law grad Nusrat Choudhury, the organization’s co-directors, got the word out to 1,000 people by posting it on the group’s Facebook page and electronic mailing lists for Yale and Princeton.

The Yalies were looking to better the $16,000 they raised last year for Young Professionals for CARE, which supports the Atlanta-based humanitarian organization.

The May 1 event at Manhattan’s Pink Elephant Club drew 425 attendees and more than $45,000, almost double the group’s $25,000 target.

“I give to CARE because it serves desperate people who need help in their fight for survival, a need that is persistent regardless of where we are in the economic cycle,” said Bang, 31, of Xaraf Management LLC, a hedge fund in Greenwich, Connecticut, who donated more than the $55 ticket price to the organization.

Looking for the next fun donate-n-schmooze event to attend?  Here are some ideas:

• The Resilience Advocacy Project helps end intergenerational poverty by using legal education and advocacy to empower at-risk low-income youth.  Tomorrow they’re hosting a $25 cocktail hour.
• The Touch Foundation trains Tanzanian doctors, nurses, and other health professionals in the fight against AIDS.  On July 20th they’re hosting a $40 entry, cash bar rooftop fundraiser.
• Big Brothers Big Sisters’ October Ball will be held on October 3rd at the Museum of Modern Art.  Tickets start at $135.

Holla!