A reflection on 9/11 from The Happiest Place on Earth

My Aunt works at Disney MGM theme park in Security. So I knew that WDW was considered a prime terrorist target. So I said to my husband, Matt: “We need to get out of the Magic Kingdom. This could be hit next.”

As conversations on 9/11 often do, talk turned towards events of that day. Everyone has a story, and my “I was in Disney World” almost felt like an insult to New Yorkers. Until I read this piece from the HuffPo called “What Was It Like at Walt Disney World on 9/11.”

While it won’t compare to the terrors of other New Yorkers, reading that article made me comfortable sharing my own experiences.

How I ended up in Disney World during the first week of school

My dad hated waiting in lines.

We’d go to the AMC on Friday nights. It always had a line wrapped around the corner. He consistently walked to the line’s elbow near the ticket windows and cut. He knew none of the teenagers would say anything. “Lines are to keep stupid people waiting.”

Another prime example? We visited FAO Schwartz while I was in grade school. There was an hour-plus uncuttable line. My dad’s response was to find the exit located in the car dealership next door. He told me to fidget (not a challenging task for me now or then). We waited for 10 minutes, he approached the security guard who no doubt saw us waiting, and told them my mother was inside. We needed to page her. BOOM, in.

My dad knew the Disney World crowds. He returned time after time to torture himself in lines just to watch his kids freak out with happiness. Once, he booked a trip during the first week of school. There were no lines. After all, who pulls their kids from class right when school starts? My parents, that’s who. We were only going to Disney during the first week of school ever again. My dad, mom, brother Joe, cousin, and I flew down sometime after Labor Day.

We checked into the Swan Hotel. My dad worked mornings and joined us in the afternoons at the parks. We got on all the major rides with less than 5 minutes wait. My dad was joyful. Except for the newest ride, Test Track. That had over an hour wait. No worries, we would tackle it during our final morning.

September 11th

We were scheduled to depart that evening. With one final day on our multi-park passes, we had a game plan. Dad worked. We went to Epcot for Test Track, Magic Kingdom for rides and shopping, and the airport for home.

At 26, Joe had recently moved to NYC for a job at the Bank of New York. His office was located in the Financial District. Around 9:10, my brother’s phone rang. For the past 20 minutes or so, his friends frantically tried to get through and confirm he was okay. Standing outside Test Track, that’s how we learned planes had hit both World Trade Center Towers. Thankfully, Joe was with us. His building would eventually be severely damaged. Joe was spared much of the trauma his coworkers faced because of that day.

We went back to the hotel. My dad had on CNBC or CNN or some other news channel. They all repeated the same stories about acts of terror and general confusion. He said there was no point in sitting there listening to that. We may as well head to Magic Kingdom.

Joe and my mom wanted to shop while my cousin and I wanted to hit all the rides again. Our plans were to meet for lunch at Liberty Tavern then make our way back. We jogged to Tomorrowland and found the entrance to Space Mountain barred by Disney workers. After some intense private discussion, they let us through. We raced down the barren corridors, no lines to be found. At the loading area, something unexpected happen: the lights came on.

The Evacuation

Workers herded us towards the doors. They said “Due to unforeseen circumstances, the Magic Kingdom was closing.” Some people knew the reason, many did not. I read it described the atmosphere was calm. I disagree. Maybe people weren’t sprinting, but they were disquieted, uneasy, confused. As for us, we were separated.

We sprinted to Liberty Tavern. The area was empty. We ran towards Main Street where we witnessed a mass exodus of the park. I climbed benches and street lamps, hoping to catch a glimpse of Joe or my mom. We were small enough to run between people, but no luck. We were alone.

We exited the park and walked towards buses leaving for the Swan, figuring worst case we could find them at the hotel. In line for the buses, we found my mom and brother. My mom cried and we were all relieved. By now, everyone knew terrorists attacked New York, Washington, and something about Pennsylvania. People openly speculated about Disney being next. There was crying and some hysterics. People panicked, saying avoid the monorail, avoid the boats. They’re just bigger targets. Why else would Disney evacuate if they didn’t expect us to be hit next? Relief gave way to fright.

It was a tense ride back to the hotel. But no one attacked Disney that day and we arrived safely.

The Aftermath

That’s the meat of the story.

Flights were grounded. We were stuck in Disney, a dream for most kids. Hotels didn’t charge guests for extra nights, didn’t charge for food, and created activities for us. I vividly remember playing games in their arcade for hours while it rained. The parks re-opened. We didn’t go, but reportedly they were eery. My dad grounded his team, told them all to spend time with their families and be safe. My brother tried to get status updates on his coworkers and work in general. Cell phones were largely useless.

After a few days, we made the decision to drive home. We rented a car and I complained endlessly. I didn’t want to make a 20 hour drive and acted like a shithead. Talk about a total lack of awareness. We rented a huge Suburban. I pouted in the backseat, listening to Joe make fun of me, my mom smooth things out, and my dad get pissed. I pissed him off so much that when we pulled over for food, he deliberately went to Taco Bell because I hated it. I deserved that.

He drove the whole way and we made it back safely.

Mickey Mouse and terrorist attacks present quite a juxtaposition. That day and the following ones were surreal.

But that’s my experience, and that’s what I reflect on each year around this time.

Jim Hill, the HuffPo author, also collected more stories from Disney World here, here, here, and here. Browse away for more stories similar to mine.

How MakeSimply makes hardware doable [interview]

Alan Hyman is the co-founder of MakeSimply. In this interview, we cover how he started his company, why hardware’s time is now, his best advice, and yes, we talked body augmentation.

MakeSimply helps people bring their productions to reality. It’s idea to production simplified. They help with almost every phase of hardware: product development, outsourcing, manufacturing, and logistics. They’re a much-needed source of leadership and advisement for hardware startups.

How did MakeSimply come to be?

In 2009, a friend who wanted to create a tracking device approached me. The device was for small animals and used the iPhone. I used my connections at NYU to arrange some meetings. Everyone we talked to asked, “Where is your prototype? We want to see it working.” My friend wanted to approach a factory to ask them to build it.

I was simultaneously getting my master’s at NYU with my future co-founder to be Allen Shieh. One day, he gave a presentation on his family’s business. His family has been in manufacturing for over 30 year and has incredible relationships. They can’t do everything hardware companies need, but they could facilitate the relationships with partners who did. Those partners can do PCB, PCBA, metal machining, and injection plastic molding. They could do it at variable levels of scale and with inexpensive pricing.

I was floored. I needed this, so other people must need it too. I approached Allen about my friend’s product. He told me there was no chance a factory would build us a prototype. That’s okay. I decided to build it myself. I used a couple of Arduinos and a jailbroken iPhone and built it in two weeks.

Two people besides me were involved in the project. One person’s reaction was anger. I did something that she didn’t want me to do. But the other person was relieved. She was relieved because this could actually be built. She was secretly terrified it couldn’t be. That really drove the point home of how important prototypes were.

The project concluded. Allen and I connected again. We asked ourselves what’s going on in the community?

I was involved in hacker spaces. I was into the Open Hardware Summit, the Maker Faire had just begun. We looked around and the time seemed right. We came together, wrote a business plan, and decided to create MakeSimply to help hardware companies execute.

We both agree hardware is a really exciting place. But people have talked it up for years. Why do you think hardware’s time is now?

Moore’s Law. Moore’s Law is where processing power doubles every six months while prices drop. Realize this: the power in your iPhone would have taken up multiple large buildings in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Now it’s a small little chip. That’s incredible! That also has tons of ramifications.

The biggest is democratization. Now anyone can play with powerful chips. These chips don’t cost hundreds of dollars anymore. The chips from the Arduino and the Raspberry Pi are in the dollar figures. The cost of experimentation is significantly cheaper. I can get a lot of power at a cheap price and not be concerned about blowing the chip if I do something wrong.

These cheap components are what led to the Arduino in the first place. Arduino is an open source prototyping platform. It does complex things in simple ways. It’s electrical engineering with a community that builds libraries that in turn let resources spring up around the Arduino. If you want to see how you send a command in serial to the Arduino, Google it. Find the code, cut and paste, you’re done. It’s instant gratification. Or create your own code, post it online, get peer reviews, revise, and go forward. It lets you be creative. You need to know some basics, but it’s all well documented.

And think about this: the Arduino costs $29. In 2009, I was looking at other prototyping platforms that cost $10,000.

The cost for hobbyists and tinkerers to get started is now practically zero. Everyday people can get into hardware and play. Community gets built. There are places like SparkFun and Adafruit. LadyAda is amazing. Go to her website and get code to do anything with Raspberry Pi or Arduino. You can find out how a whole catalog of parts work and can be integrated into your product. What amazing resources people have created!

Hardware’s hard. You hear that phrase more than anything else. That said, where do people trip up most?

Mostly in manufacturing expectations. Manufacturing just is not that flexible. It has benefited from various technical advances, but as a startup you don’t have access to them. You can’t go to Foxconn and tap into their capabilities. You need a reality check on what resources are available to you.

Next, people don’t realize that when you’re prototyping you don’t have a manufacturable product. You need to have somebody to analyze the prototype to make sure it can be manufactured within your cost structure.

Besides cost, there are real world constraints. I’m working on an electric pen project right now. We have a sketch of it, but that’s not what the manufactured product will look like. The rendered piece is beautiful, but there are collaborations and trade offs that need to happen to bring it to reality.

It’s worth saying that while hardware includes software, hardware has a totally different knowledge base. People get software development. It’s well documented. Hardware? Not yet. Engineering is still an academic field. You learn it in college. It hasn’t been made less technical. I think that’s changing. The language will eventually become more mainstream.

From an investment standpoint, what do you think is the most interesting in Internet of Things?

I’m intrigued by fashion and technology. It’s all about the design, brands, and the marketing. Fashion can be designed to enable technology in very subtle ways. The user experience can be very well planned out.

We’re also coming towards the end of wearables. People have figured out what all these sensors do already. Are there any new sensors beyond heart rate and steps? If a startup tries to do steps, what differentiates them from every other tracker?

So the next logical step is body plus technology, like body augmentation.

Body augmentation is a loaded phrase. It can freak people out.

I wouldn’t label it augmentation. I’d call it body enhancements. But it’s much more than a wearable.

The medical applications are interesting. Companies are making attachments to the iPhone so you can detect various ailments by examining someone’s eyes. Google now has contact lens that measure glucose in your blood.

What’s your favorite connected device?

My phone. I carry it with me everywhere.

I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m wearing a very old style Casio watch. I collect digital watches. They’re geek sheek. I think they’re kind of fashionable again. Products like the Pebble are nice, but I think after a while they get annoying. I don’t need to be notified about everything that’s happening to my phone.

That’s a problem with wearables: there’s too much information. They release too many notifications. We need another level of computing power evolution, where we have things like Siri, Cortana, and Google Now to be that in between layer.

That’s my favorite connected device of the future. An assistant that can skim through anything I could be interested in reading and surface an article written by someone who I may not even know but it’s still relevant for me.

Contextual assistants that can surface long tail information for you.

Exactly.

What other advice do you have for potential hardware investors?

Make sure the company has a working prototype. It doesn’t need to be beautiful but it needs to work. Especially if you’re not an engineer, you can be sold on something that’s not physically possible.

I go to a lot of startup presentation events. I remember, at one of these events, an angel investor who judged a business plan competition. A company presented a product and portrayed it as simple solution that can change your life by accomplishing X, Y, Z. The angel, tells them flat out, “This sounds like an infomercial. Why don’t you tell me how you’re really going to do this? Your team has no one on it who can execute.” My advice to hardware startups is to make sure you have a balanced team, technical and business. The team is everything.

What advice do you have for would-be hardware founders?

If you want to do hardware, do it as a fulltime job. Don’t do it part time. You need to dive in and build your prototype. You’re going to have bumps. It’ll take you seven months, maybe even two years, to reach a manufacturing stage.

Know that beforehand, realize it takes that kind of dedication, and do it.

Free internet feels like it should be a basic human right

Except the Fairmont hotels disagree with me.

Why is it in my entire trip from New York to Boston the only place that wasn’t public transit not to offer free Wifi is the place I paid the most to be? My office space, the coffee shops I’ve been in, the diner I went to for breakfast, my dinner spot last night, and even the much maligned Amtrak gave it up for free.

But the Fairmont Battery Wharf, which I booked through Hotel Tonight at a steep discount from their normal $450+ rates, offered 24 hour access for $10. When New York City’s public parks offer free wifi and a super lux hotel only offers it to their President’s Clubs members (and even then often at a tiered rate), you know you have a problem. $10 isn’t breaking the bank. But I refused to purchase it on principle and had to put off some work until this morning.

It’s cheap bullshit and I won’t be staying in Fairmonts anymore.

My co-op’s luddite response to Airbnb and my solution

Technology revolt in action

Airbnb is on my mind (and not because of their new unintentionally graphic logo).  My co-op slipped a two-page letter under the door forbidding its tenants and shareholders from becoming Airbnb hosts. They refer to the company as “Airbnd.” I wouldn’t make fun of a typo. They actually have no idea what it’s called. I think that’s illustrative of the problem.

Language like “this building is our home and not meant to be treated as a hotel, B&B or weekend getaway for others” and “illegal subletting to strangers not only compromises the safety and environment of our building, it is unfair to fellow shareholders who follow the rules. Utilizing your apartment as a B&B cheats the corporation out of sublet fees that go toward building operating costs” and the resulting penalties make it clear: the board intends to govern with an iron fist. They are actively monitoring Airbnd to identify rule breakers.

Consequences

Get caught violating these rules and face serious consequences.

• $1,000 fine by the corporation
• $1,600-5,000 fine by the city, which they’ll contact directly to issue the violation
• For repeat offenders
  • Injunction by the board
  • Additional fines
  • Jail time for contempt of court (woof)
  • Eviction (double woof)
• If you’re a tenant and not an owner, immediate termination of lease and forfeiture of security deposit

I’m a tenant. I will not be put out on my ass. Therefore, I won’t ever be a host for Airbnb or a similar service.

The building’s response feels a bit draconian and reactionary. Maybe it’s time to think different. Look around. Airbnb has been illegal in New York since it began but that hasn’t stopped growth. It’s a wave you can either ride or be swept away by.

So what does it look like to ride the wave? How can any building take advantage of Airbnb from a cash flow, marketing, and safety perspective? Let us examine.

What is a guest

This building is our home and not meant to be treated as a hotel, B&B or weekend getaway for others.

This is partially legitimate. If the building constantly turns over it fundamentally alters its culture. Constant turnover is one reason many buildings maintain a maximum-rental-units policy, i.e. only a certain number of apartments can be occupied by renters and not owners. Ownership occupancy implies a minimum level of care. But that doesn’t mean our building isn’t infiltrated by guests daily.

If I’m in town, I can have multiple friends stay over for a night, week, or month and it’s acceptable. But if I’m out-of-town overnight, guests are no longer permissible and I don’t understand why. My presence won’t physically restrain them from making noise after hours. It also doesn’t change my responsibility and liability. If they make noise, I’m stuck with the consequences. Rightly so.

Must I know this guest personally? Our friend’s brother stayed overnight a few weeks ago. I don’t know him, but I trust him because I trust my friend. And must trust be earned through personal relationships? Or can it be earned and recorded on a public ledger instead? You know, like reviews from hosts garnered after multiple stays in their homes. Isn’t that prior behavior reassuring to the building?

Buildings allow these weekend-getaways when they allow guests of any kind to stay over. I don’t abdicate responsibility for my guests’ actions and should be held accountable. Is the smart thing to ban Airbnb guests altogether? Or is it smarter to reward tenants and shareholders who bring in good tenants to the building? And likewise, penalize those who behave badly. AKA, my guests are assholes and I can’t have guests stay over anymore.

Unfairness to the building OR we need to get paid

C.R.E.A.M. get the money, dolla dolla bills ya’ll

Illegal subletting to strangers not only compromises the safety and environment of our building, it is unfair to fellow shareholders who follow the rules. Utilizing your apartment as a B&B cheats the corporation out of sublet fees that go toward building operating costs.

Safety is convenient cover for wanting to get paid. We have doormen for a reason and we already hold responsibility for our guests.

Let’s get to money. I’m not sure if leasing your apartment results in additional fees to the co-op but sub-letting does. So let’s allow that the building misses out on revenue unfairly. That can be remedied.

If you want to become a host, apply to the building’s board.

As we discussed with maximum-rental-unit policies, for many buildings only a certain percentage of apartments can be rented out. Perhaps only a certain percentage of the building should be host-eligible. Once you determine that number, let eligibility be determined by lottery, rotation, or just let people apply for it. Charge them a fee anytime someone stays in their apartment at a level commensurate with fees charged for subletting. Charge them a fee just for applying. Why not?

Look, it’s good for you ya big dummy

Many of your shareholders, owners, tenants are going to use Airbnb or similar services. Does it really make sense to fight it?

If you’re concerned about who gets in, set guidelines and regulate it. Maybe only people who have successfully stayed X-number of times with a minimum review score of Y are allowed in. Maybe people can only do it for a maximum time period of Z.

If you’re concerned about money, and you are, why don’t you monetize it? Take this black market activity and bring it to the light. As a tenant, I’d be happy to rent my place for $200/night and fork over $50/night to the corporation. It gives me additional revenue to make rent, maintenance, or mortgage payments easier. It gives the corporation more money for improvements.

And lastly, think about the marketing potential. You have a new apartment for sale. The building has an elevator, part-time doormen, located in a beautiful neighborhood, and, oh, you’re allowed to put it up on Airbnb to supplement your income. Suddenly the line between investment and primary property becomes blurred and that property becomes even more popular. I can see that positively impacting prices in the whole building.

My message to my building and others like it is this: take advantage of the situation or don’t, it’s gonna happen anyways.

Africa & the Best Mobile Payments Platform I’ve Seen to Date

No fancy app here, nope. Not at all.

It’s been too long. The last two months of my life have been very hectic. We’ve planned a wedding, got married, had a parade down 6th Avenue to our reception (and made Instagram’s discover tab in the process), went to Africa for 3 weeks, and I just got back from Vegas after 1 week hanging with the Downtown Las Vegas Project people. Where to begin?

Meg and I are now married. The wedding was incredible. We were surrounded by friends and family. We’ve never had so much fun in our lives and wish we could relive it everyday. Thanks to everyone who supported us. We felt loved indeed.

We went on our honeymoon. Tanzania was otherworldly. I kept a written journal while we traveled (which.. I admit I must still finish). I’m no Hemingway, but it’s still my Green Hills of Africa. Moishe, Arusha, Karatu, Stone Town, Zanzibar Town, the national parks and conservatories, tribes, and wildlife are permanently seared in my memory. Pleasant weather and friendly Tanzanians greeted us wherever we traveled. That and poverty. Tanzania is poor. Dirt poor. Poorer than any community I’ve seen before. So imagine my surprise when I came across the best mobile payments system implementation I’ve seen so far.

I learned about M-Pesa before we traveled but that still didn’t prepare me. Born in Kenya, it’s spread across Africa. It’s numbers are impressive (19,671 active Kenyan users in 2007, to over 18mm in 10 countries and counting . M-Pesa has rolled out with telecom providers, like Safaricom and Vodacom, and works within the area’s technological constraints. Smartphones haven’t proliferated and I can’t imagine there’s LTE readily available. So they built the system on SMS.

The phone has a very simple menu (pictured up top), inviting you to do things like check your M-Pesa deposit balance. It acts as your mobile bank. You can send money to family or friends or pay bills. M-pesa just checks your account to ensure you have a balance and generates a unique code for your counterpart to deposit and immediately access the funds. I didn’t see the merchant on-boarding process, but it’s got to be a breeze. Tribal regions far removed from cities and towns had small pharmacies and bars with big signs stating “M-Pesa accepted here!” Funny enough, the signage typically covered by Coke advertisemnets. Tanzania has more Coke advertisements than gazelle. 

Competition is minimal. Zanzibar had an alternate version that looked to be a carbon copy of it, regrettably I can’t find its name. Fraud must exist, especially since merchant “banking” seems so easy to sign up for. The only requirements are a national ID card or passport. But these frauds haven’t been big enough to take down the system evidently. Mostly it’s phishing, but there must be criminal implications too. Here’s a Quartz article about exactly that. Incredibly, the unbanked are being banked.

This solution doesn’t work in the US. There are too many entrenched interests trying to come up with too many competing solutions. You’ve got your startups like Dwolla, banks and their proprietary/closed off systems like Chase and their lovely QuickPay, eBay’s PayPal, the telecom’s and their failed attempt with Isis (conveniently rebranded due to another more infamous ISIS). Yet somehow, these guys pulled it off with phones that are years behind ours in capability and people who wouldn’t have ever been eligible for banks before. It’s quite amazing.

And now, I’m home and back to work. it’s good to be back in the New York Groove.

Take ’em away Ace!

In Order: Family, Money, Time. Let’s Focus on Time.

Gary Vaynerchuk keynoted today’s Westchester Digital Summit. His self-described rant killed it. So here’s that, and other things from today.

Hansen came on stage and led with this. No lie. Oh, and he talked about his South Park cameo.

From 10am – 6pm, folks from digital properties like HuffPo, Mashable, ESPN, Fox Sports, Facebook, and LinkedIn gathered at the White Plains Ritz-Carlton  to talk about native advertising, fundraising, innovation, adtech, you name it. I’ve been to a few conferences lately and I normally walk away disappointed. WDS was topical, relevant, and most importantly, accessible. There’s something to be said for a 350-person conference, where speakers like David Kidder walk around ready to have conversation yet aren’t inundated with overzealous attendees. Oh, and Chris Hansen did 30 minutes on stage and opened with “Dave, why don’t you take a seat?” to his moderator.

Dessi, you did it.

I want to dig into Vaynerchuk’s talk. I haven’t followed Gary V quite like the obviously adoring fans in attendance. I sat next to a couple who came solely to hear him. Most of what I know is from retweets on Twitter. He came on to talk about living in today versus living in the past, especially from a marketing perspective. He’s damned good.

He gave his own version of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Family, Money, Time. That’s his personal priorities. I’ve agreed with that assessment for some time. I worked at a recruiting company for two months after college graduation. We talked about what motivates potential hires. Prestige, money, convenience, job satisfaction are all important but ultimately it was the candidate’s time. It’s nice to get paid, but it sucks to look back and realize you just wasted X-number of years on some less than worthwhile opportunity. Time and opportunity cost.

So how’s that factor into marketing right now? Instead of looking at the years of my life, look at the limited 24 hours of my day. How are marketers spending money? On local TV that gets DVR’d with commercials that get fast forwarded? On banner ads that teens have been trained since birth to ignore? On the same stale data and polls that people have relied upon since the birth of the internet? Billboards? On billboard specifically, Gary said Hell No. The car’s passenger (and probably driver) is obsessed with her phone and hardly ever looks up. No, people have been trained to ignore where marketers tread heavily. What used to work then, now falls flat.

I’ve looked into adtech more in the last six months, totally unintentionally. I wasn’t intrigued by the space, but I’m finding it more and more interesting. It’s a combination of big data and human behavior. How do people act and why? How can you grab their attention and turn it into a call to action? Things like impressions and click-throughs don’t tell the real story. How is a click-through rate of 0.07% a success story? It’s not, yet people will continue to invest their marketing dollars in comfortable ways. There must be a better path.

It’s worth pointing out what Gary said does work: big data and/or creativity. For instance, Facebook and MasterCard are partnering. If you bought a competitor’s soap, P&G will be able to see that and target you through that platform. It’s not an exciting product, but it’s relevant. And you’ll pay attention to truly relevant information. Then there’s creativity, which I believe ties into virality. It’s about the story. The perfect example, which was trumpeted multiple times today by the folks at GE and elsewhere, was GE’s 6 Second Science Fair on Vine, which generated true organic interest for people to both participate and view.

Oh, two off topic things. Gary predicted Walmart would fail thanks to Amazon and their eventually ability to do same day delivery. And Linda Boff from GE said they’re already looking at marketing in Oculus Rift. That’s forward thinking.

All in all, it was a great day. Thanks to Chris Dessi and the Silverback Social Team. My opportunity cost today was low. There’s not much else I’d rather have been doing.

Fancy Hands’ Terms Of Service Sucks

I was going to write about my Up24 fitness tracker today but I’m pissed off.

I signed up for Fancy Hands a few months back. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s a cool concept. It’s similar to Task Rabbit, except instead of hiring people on a per-job basis, you purchase a certain number of requests to be fulfilled digitally. For example, I asked Fancy Hands to research various photography classes. The answer I got back was very acceptable.

I got an email from them Monday that my original request-purchase would auto-renew next week. This is when I realized they hit me up for the past few months without my knowing. As a business owner, sweet! Money! I feel less than enthusiastic about it. I clearly need to read my email more closely.

I reached out to customer support asking to disable auto-renew. Their response:

Hi, Thanks for your message! Per our Terms of Service, all Fancy Hands subscriptions are automatically recurring, so there is not a way to turn off the “auto-renew.” If you’d like, you can cancel your subscription and then you can resubscribe when you’re ready to come back. Please let me know how you’d like to proceed! Take care, Lindsay F.

That’s kind of a shitty answer. But fine, you ONLY allow auto-renewing subscriptions. To be fair to Fancy Hands, this policy is laid out clearly in the purchase section online. So I’ll just cancel the subscriptions and use my remaining requests over time. Right? Wrong.

Hi, If you cancel, you will have your remaining requests to use until 5/11/14 at which point your tasks will expire. Please let me know if you have any other questions! Regards, Lindsay F.

Shittier answer.

C’mon. If Fancy Hands wants to use auto-renew, I won’t fault them. But to wipe out my remaining requests solely because I don’t want to buy anymore? That’s not treating your customer right.

Lindsay F., I don’t blame you. I just wish your management had better answers to my questions.

So now I have a dilemma. Do I take a $25 hit next week and get more requests that I’m free to use over time? Or do I tell them piss off and try to use what I can before Sunday?

And my internal debate rages.

 

New York City Ain’t No Walden Pond

Just because we live in New York City doesn’t mean we’re isolated from the great outdoors, so says good friend Sarah Knapp. Her upcoming festival Outdoorfest sets out to prove just that.

I met Sarah through Startup Rock Climbing (oh, by the way, we’re climbing again April 30th). Sarah is freaking awesome. Not only is she fun to grab a beer with, she’s the head of a new movement connecting people back to nature, without having to go full-Emerson and into hermitage. I asked Sarah about getting people outside New York City to climb. She asked me why I needed to leave? We got to talking and there are TONS of ways to connect with nature all within the five boroughs.

Did you know: there are nature hikes in Staten Island’s greenbelt, bike tours in Soho, Brooklyn exploration by surf and/or hiking, overnight camping in NYC, hiking over the GWB directly into nature, fishing in Central Park, sailing in the Hudson, boat building in the village? Well if you were on her last two newsletters, you’d have heard all about it.

Besides her incredible newsletters, Sarah’s building a 10-day festival (May 30th to June 8th) to bring everyone together. I already linked to it, but I’ll do it again: Outdoorfest! Get kayaking or go rock climbing in Central Park. Meet people with the same interests as you. Get outdoors.

Here’s Sarah;s Indiegogo campaign. I think she’s really onto something. First there was the fitness movement (Tough Mudder, healthy eating, all that). I think the logical next step is the back-to-nature movement (partially reactionary to our connected world, partially a reaction to increased urban density).

I’ve already supported it. If you like nature and you like New York City, you should support it too.

Best of luck Sarah!

I am Pavlov’s Dog + Other Thoughts on Connectedness

Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy

In a moment of self awareness, I realized I’ve been conditioned to respond to external stimuli. Specifically, anytime my phone goes off. Let us examine.

Meg and I watch Netflix, read books, plan a damned wedding, and more during many  of our weeknights. Sometimes we even get into disagreements. Whatever we’re doing, we’re great at staying in the moment. Until our devices interrupt. I see a text flash across my tablet, she hears a beep from her phone, or our phones vibrates from some app alert. I steel myself to maintain eye contact but catch myself glancing at the phone. Trying to read the message, wanting to grab and check my email, see who liked my Instagram photo. I feel anxious. It’s why I constantly maintain inbox zero. The mere sight of an unread message bothers me. Meg’s similar but isn’t as bad as I. We’re not the only ones.

This is merely an observation, not some broad sweeping theory on the state of humanity’s interactions with technology. I’m probably worse than average. I can’t separate from my devices. I compulsively play games on my phone while watching television, writing emails, and maybe reading on my Kindle app. I’ve been multi-tasking since I could talk. I argue I still stay in the moment, others would disagree with me. That’s got something to do with my ADD, but technology plays a strong role.

People like my brother decry these always-on times. I don’t yearn for a simpler age but I do find it interesting how people interact (and identify) with their devices. It’s only going to get more complex. Wearables (like my new Up24 by Jawbone!) are the new normal. It just vibrated because I’ve been inactive for twenty minutes. Google Glass, Oculus Rift, Samsung’s apparently ill-fated Gear are now or the near-future. Implantables are next. It appears we’re always connected but I don’t think we’re even close.

I’m currently reading Hemingway’s Green Hills of Africa. Excellent read. It’s got me excited to disconnect and experience something so different. When we head to Tanzania, I’m turning off my interwebs. As Meg and I sit on the island of Zanzibar, staring into the deep blue Indian Ocean, the only reason we’ll stare at my phone is when it switches from one Bob Marley “Live at the Rainbow Room” song to the next.

Every little thing will be alright.

Could we be in a tech (real estate) bubble?

The dirty little secret isn’t that we’re in a huge tech bubble. Could we be in a tech real estate bubble though?

This is a speculative post based on conversations I had recently about New York coworking. Last year Steve and I looked at office spaces for Pilot Mountain Ventures.We made the strategic decision to locate full time in a coworking space since no other venture firm had done so. We did research, made visits, and now reside at WeWork Soho. We believe in coworking.

The scene’s changed since then.

Here’s the Rise and the Future of NY Tech. Here’s the NYC Tech Economy report performed by New York Tech Meetup. New York Tech is booming and real estate along with it. This information’s now centralized in Tong Xiang’s Gotham Coworking. That’s a Fullstack Academy project based on Charles Bonnello’s data in Google docs. Great website, I recommend startups looking for space to head there.

But how much is too much? Much of Charles’ data wasn’t around when we looked. New spaces are constantly opening and existing spaces are expanding. As a consumer, this is great! We’re benefiting from the competition and lowered prices. But that, along with a rebound in commercial real estate, means companies must be getting squeezed. What’s this done to margins? Right now there’s waiting lists at many of the top spaces. What happens if their occupancy rates drop?

We’re in the coworking expansion phase. Eventually some (or many) companies will fail. So what to do? Differentiate yourself. Some will by price. Others by location. Still others by what the connections that space offers. Community is helpful but not sufficient for success. I believe connections + cost will be the winning combination. Cost is why places like Detroit are starting to flourish in tech. As for direct connections, simple intros to lawyers, advisors, contacts in industry, investors.Think of an accelerator without the equity charge or a demo day deadline. I’m interested in watching the space shake out.