Kent Fenwick

So I started a store

Tue, 03 Apr 2018 21:27:46 -0400

I started a store that sells quality ketones in Canada.

Have a look and tell me what you think.

tiltedlife: Don’t disturb. I’m ________ ing. via Instagram...

Fri, 23 Jan 2015 17:52:07 -0500

tiltedlife:

Don’t disturb. I’m ________ ing. via Instagram http://ift.tt/1D034Ot

Add value or die

Thu, 10 Apr 2014 12:50:53 -0400

Extreme? Maybe. True? You betcha!

Companies that win are the ones that understand that adding value is the only way to build a sustainable and profitable business.

Product

Your product by definition must add value or else you will find it hard to get and keep customers.

Marketing

Your brand needs to exude value. Forget about content marketing! That’s just a fad or a buzz word for things that great companies have been doing for decades.

Adding value in marketing is the simplest thing you can do. Just ask yourself one question.

Would you say “Thank you” or “F$@& you” if you got it? The test is pretty clear.

Company

Your company needs to add value to society. The easiest way to do that is to hire amazing people, invest in them and get out of their way. If you keep your employees happy and productive, they will keep their friends, loved ones and community happy too. Treat them well, better than you think. Pay them a little more, give a few Fridays off and watch them repay that in kind.

If you aren’t adding value on these levels than what are you really doing?

When to break free of the framework

Sun, 06 Apr 2014 21:57:04 -0400

What you must learn is that these rules are no different than rules of a computer system. Some of them can be bent, others can be broken. Understand?

I have been a Rails programmer since 2007. I have seen gems come and go, patterns gain and lose popularity and remember what Rails was like before Yehuda.

Here’s the crazy thing, I just recentely realized how applicable Morpheus’ quote is to Rails, Django, Play, Node, Flask, Bottle, Sinatra, Dancer, Prancer, Camping, Ramaze, Meteor or other web framework devs.

Web frameworks are amazing and powerful tools of abstraction. They make writing websites really easy and that has led to very positive results.

However, your framework can be a shackle. You get thinking a certain way. Looking for a gem, plugin or the right way before trying it yourself.

You need to know when you can break the rules. This takes time and comfort. But it’s necessary.

This will mean different things in different frameworks but the details don’t matter. Just start looking for opportunities to go off the beaten trail. Try new things. Get close to the metal. Don’t look for a solution. Read the docs, dive into an API. Break the rules.

Learn the rules then break the rules.

Simple.

The right direction kind of company

Tue, 18 Mar 2014 01:35:37 -0400

There are many companies out there that are backwards. They were built for the wrong reasons. They were built with only the end in mind. They were built without love and character. Over time, I believe that most of these companies will die a slow death. Some will get very lucky, much in part due to the talent and passion of their team, but overall, many will not survive.

This begs the question, what is the right way to build a company. That’s pretty simple. Ask yourself some basic questions:

1) Who will this help? 2) Why does this deserve to exist? 3) Will I become a better person, or help someone else become better while building it?

These are fundamental questions that strike at the core of any founder. Maybe I am wearing rose coloured glasses, but I love seeing the world with a slight hint of red. Red is passion. Red means something.

Who is your startup going to help? Why does it deserve to exist? How are you going to build it?

There are creators and then are destroyers. Everyone falls into one of those two categories. You either love seeing people, things, ideas grow; creators. Or, you love seeing them shrink, wither and die; destroyers.

Wait… all entrepreneurs are creators then? No. Wrong.

Creating a business is more than just about money, websites, apps, bits and bytes, bitcoins, dodgecoins, sitcoins, yeezusoins or whatever. Business are about relationships and trust and love and making people better when they walk in and out of your door.

You need to start there. Start with the mission, start at the bottom. Or maybe it’s the top? It doesn’t matter that much. What matters is that you decide that you are going to build something right and with meaning.

Please don’t make a business to make money. That sucks. It really does. Start a business to have fun with your friends, to make them better, to make yourself better, to learn something, to give back to the world, to give back to your family, to friends. Build a business for someone else and you will take care of yourself in the process.

I have built a few of them and even sold a couple. You know what? It was more fun when we hadn’t sold. When we all got together, got to laugh and joke with other. That amazing feeling when you all agree on an idea and you wonder how stupid you were for not seeing sooner, only you don’t realize that it didn’t exist sooner. You and your friends created it. You are creators. You build value. You make each other better. You are in each others wedding parties, you babysit their kids, you love them. You would die for them, you would stop blogging and sit on the phone with them for hours trying to help them through a tough life decision. This isn’t a business, it’s a transformation tool. You put 2 in and they put 2 in and 6 comes out the other end. A good business transforms the founders into better husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, friends, relatives, citizens and last, yes and definitely least, better business people.

Why do we work? Why do you work? If I gave you 50 million tomorrow what would you do? Would you come to work? Would you still try hard? Would you start something that matters? Would you buy a new car? An expensive trip? You can learn a lot about a person based on how they answer this question.

So lets assume that you are building a web or mobile app, for the only reason that I know a thing or two about those things. Whether you follow #lean or #fat or whatever process the beginning is the same.

Start with the why. Not because the internet told you so. Because it’s common sense. Why the f#@$ are you doing this? Why not go watch TV? Why not fall asleep. Sleeping is giving in, no matter what the time is. Sleeping is giving in, so lift those heavy eye lids. So grab some paper, or a computer or whatever and start telling the world why this thing should exist and why you are building it. If this process doesn’t feel natural then you need to stop. But before you do, I want to show you some suitable answers as they might not be obvious. Here are some good reasons to start a business.

1) I want to get better at making decisions 2) I want to help a troubled population get better access to health information in their native language. 3) I want to build an easy way for content marketers to feel empowered to create beautiful landing pages 4) I want to work with a friend who I love and respect 5) I want to get better at chasing the fear and finding out what the heck that means. 6) I want to show the world that I am able to turn nothing into something. 7) I want to take young students and transform them into positive, well adjusted, confident people when they leave my company 8) I don’t want to watch TV every night

And I could go on.

You don’t want money you want freedom. But that freedom will never come if you are chasing money. If you are chasing money and get money you are not free. Money will become your master and you will constantly need more and more. If you identity what you really want, you will 9 times of out 10 realize that money is simply a way to manifest what you want. Freedom, flexibility, love, happiness, a sense of fulfilment. These are truly priceless things for most of us. Money can buy you a bed, but it can’t buy you a good nights sleep. Remember that till the day your heart stops. The journey is so much more important than the end. So much so that we often forget the end so quickly. As soon as we arrive we set a new goal. It’s a sickness.

The point of life is to dance. If you need shoes, I am more than happy to tell you that I don’t have any in your size. So you better take off your dirty socks and dance anyway.

"We are both on fire. Come lie next to me so we can burn brighter."

Sun, 16 Mar 2014 23:44:27 -0400

“We are both on fire. Come lie next to me so we can burn brighter.”

Knowing when to pivot

Sun, 16 Mar 2014 23:07:00 -0400

When you are applying the lean methodology to your startup, one of the hardest and most crucial things is realizing when it is time to pivot.

From experience, I have often waited far too long and have wasted time, energy and internal confidence. It can be a recipe for disaster. To make it even worse, there is no easy formula to apply. It will be slightly different for each business.

This article is NOT designed to tell you when you should pivot. I don’t know you, your goals nor your business. This is an article that is trying to hammer home the fact that you must draw a line in the sand and decide to pivot. If you commit to that, then you will increase your chances of success.

Here are some common pivot points that I have encountered.

User growth is flat

If you are in the business of acquiring new users (and what business isn’t) then you need to watch your signup / growth rate very carefully. If you are not growing, then you need to evaluate some basic things.

Is your site broken?

Don’t laugh. I have talked to many founders and it has happened to me, whereby you think everything is terrible, only to find out that you have a glitch in your dashboard, or your signup or whatever.

If you are using growth as KPI then you need to make sure that your measurements of it are working properly and that you trust them.

Have you recently made a change?

If you are in the middle of an experiment then stick to the plan and let it run.

Have you stopped marketing?

Some businesses require constant gardening when it comes to acquisition. Ideally you will inject some form of invitation / referral mechanism but occasionally this isn’t possible. If that is the case and you have made a change in your marketing (ie. stopped) then wait it out before making a decision and watch 1. closely.

Bottom line.

If your user growth is flat and you haven’t changed anything and everything is working fine technically, you probably need to pivot.

Engagement is down

Engagement is one of those esoteric / unicorn kind of measures. However it shouldn’t be. For you and for your business it should be extremely clear. Your job is to determine what it means for a user to be engaged on your site is. Moreover, you need to be able to VERY quickly show an investor the following:

Definition of engagement
Number of engaged users users
Percentage of engaged users
Drop-off rate of engaged users
Activation rate of engaged users

If you can’t show / calculate that in a quick and clean way… well, stop reading and get back to work.

Here are some common examples of engagement metrics.

Number of creation events / week
Number of voyerism events / week
Number of consumption events / week
Number of logins / week
Number of invites / week
Time on site / week

These are common to all web applications and not by any stretch complete. You must spend time creating engagement metrics that are right for you. If you need help, tweet me, I stay up late. @kentf

Bottom line

If your engagement stats are dropping or staying flat for a solid 3-4 weeks… think about pivoting.

You start getting the same feedback / comments from your best users

This one is a little trickier since it’s more of a feeling than a measurable event. If you have a vocal group of early adopters that are loving and using your site and all of a sudden they start independently asking for something… you should take notice.

This doesn’t mean you have to necessarily do exactly what they ask for, but chances are they have found a new pain point. Typically, your software resonated with them enough to start using it since it addressed some kind of pain for them. They got relief by using your software only to find out that there was more pain hiding in the back.

One example of this came from a startup I sold last year called WinJunkie. The site is a simple contest hosting service that garnered a loyal following of around 35,000 users. Our original strategy was to go out and find vendors in Toronto who wanted some exposure and get them to run a contest, similar to a Group Buy. This worked for about 6 months but it was tough keeping the pipeline full with only 5 of us working. Then we started getting this kind of feedback from our most engaged users:

“Hey, your site is a lot of fun. I would love to enter more contests for things like gift cards or other prizes… can you do that?”

Well… we could. But we didn’t want to. Our mission was to help empower the local vendor and give them a less risky way to promote their business. However, these comments kept coming in. So… we did the math. We calculated how much Ad Revenue we could generate by hosting these kinds of contests and even went to vendors and asked them to sponsor the gift cards.

This was a huge pivot for us since it allowed us to take control over the contest content and didn’t rely on building up a steady pipeline of new vendors. If we had a slow week in the sales department, then we could ask a vendor to sponsor some gift cards. We didn’t need to pivot our technology, just our mindset. Ironically, these are often the hardest pivots to make. In the end it created a win-win scenario for us, vendors are users, and we saw our user base shoot up during this time.

Bottom line

Don’t pander to your users, but listen to them. If independent groups start saying the same thing… then you need to pivot.

Line in the sand

So you now know why you might want to pivot. The next step is to simply do it!

That’s it. You need to make a decision as a team that you will watch these indicators and be willing and ready to make a change.

Once you have identified one of the warning signs above, you need to get you and your co-founders in a room and get real. You can borrow this amazing script.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a problem. We are smart, well intentioned group of beautiful people who have built something that at least 1 person likes. The problem is that we expected more than 1 person to use it. We know its useful, since we have 1 person using it, however, if we all want to quit our jobs and dent the universe on our own terms, then we need more than 1 user. So, let’s all decide that if we don’t see X happen in Y days, that we will all reconvene and think about pivoting. How does that sound? I love you all.”

You can borrow that.

If you and your team commit to having these conversations and using real numbers for X and Y, then you are maximizing your chances of success.

If you have any questions let me know. @kentf

When the post is ready, the text will appear.

Thu, 09 Jan 2014 07:26:41 -0500

What do you do when you sit down to write a blog post?

Do you keep a list of posts and look for the ones that catch your eye?
Do you sit down at the same time everyday and squeeze one out?
Have you made some kind of masochistic resolution to write a post day? Do you do keyword research to see if there is even a market for your post?

Or, do you find the keys effortlessly flowing under your fingers?
Do you find yourself knowing which words you will select and simply commit the bio-chemical act of telling your fingers to move by your will?

I prefer the latter.

All of my popular blog posts have been written this way. Albeit I am no expert and I can count the “popular” ones (top of HN or Reddit) on my hand. I have a certain style. I love Godin but was told that I have hints of Gladwell in my pros. A compliment for sure, but who really cares. For me it’s about the feeling I have while I am writing.

I am working up to something here that is so simple it is almost laughable but I can’t believe how often I forget it. Here it is:

Ever notice that the things you are really good at and the things you love tend to be similar?

Why do we forget that? Work shouldn’t be work. Or better put, work doesn’t have to be work.

Writing for most of us is not our job, so when you sit down to write ,it certainly shouldn’t feel like work. If it does, then I think you are doing it wrong. If you are struggling to write about something then there is a good chance you either:

Don’t have much to say about that topic after all
Don’t feel confident about that topic (it might be a good topic but you just need to read / research it more)
Have something really important to say but it hasn’t quite crystallized yet (walk away and give it time, when the post is ready the text will appear)
You have something REALLY important to say but what you want to say is kind of scary therefore you find a reason to procrastinate and not post it.

When it doesn’t feel like work, you are onto something. Follow that feeling all the way to the publish button. Be loose with your edits and tight with your conviction.

With love

Only one desire… that’s left in me… I want the whole damn world… to come and dance with me.

The well of lost ideas

Tue, 07 Jan 2014 23:07:00 -0500

Did you invent it? Did you come up with it? Did you start it? Really?

Then where is it? Show it to me.

You can’t can you? Because that’s all you did. You thought, you talked, and you dreamed. These are all good things, all very, very important things but you forgot the most important step.

You forgot to build it.

In 2009, Charoo and I built Viewpointr. It was ahead of its time and today, Biz Stone and co, launched Jelly.co. They seem to have got it right… time will tell.

Am I mad? Hell no! We tried. We built it. We even got Ogawa to fund it. Does it hurt a little to see others succeed with an idea you had more than 5 years ago? Sure it does. It stings a little, but not as much as it would sting if we hadn’t tried. If we hadn’t of stuck our necks out there.

When other people ‘steal’ your ideas remember a few things.

They were never your ideas
Ideas are a dime a dozen, execution is where the dollars lie
Some of your ideas must be good. The next time one comes up, stop thinking, stop talking and start doing.

If not, it will find its way into the well of lost ideas and that my friends… is a cold and lonely place.

Have I told you lately… that I love you?

Why no one will read your thesis

Thu, 19 Dec 2013 13:30:39 -0500

I am re-posting this since I nearly lost it when Posterous shut down. Still holds true today.

August 18, 2009

Intro:

I wrote this post while in the final week of my Masters Thesis. It’s definitely a rant about how research isn’t as open and welcoming as it should be.

Body:

I am in the final stages of finishing my masters thesis under the supervision of Ron Baecker. Together, over the course of nearly two years, Ron and I, with the help of many others have created Friend Forecaster, a context-aware system designed to help you remember people’s names. I am very proud, relieved and excited to be finished my masters, however, as I sit here and finish the last two or three pages I can’t help but wonder who will ever read it.

I have come to the conclusion that people will read it, in fact, I have received feedback from a few people about the Work in Progress that we submitted the CHI 09 which is awesome, but I know that a lot of people won’t read it and I think I know why.

Research doesn’t make itself accessible to a broader audience nor does it care to.

I don’t understand why this is. The whole idea is to spread around knowledge, get people thinking and hopefully motivate them to help you, confirm your finding, prove you wrong or just use it as a starting point for a great discussion. Either way, primary literature doesn’t do this very well. Especially not a Masters thesis. I don’t know how mine stacks up to other’s but it’s weighing in at around 95 pages without appendices… not what I would call afternoon reading. Also, it’s written in a style that I do not enjoying writing in… it’s technical not personal, however my research is both technical and personal. I feel as though we are doing a disservice to the world by making research so dry and robotic. I feel that research should be written conversationally as well as well as technically, by the author, from the source.

Ron laughed when I handed in my first draft several months ago as it was very casual and not very scientific to be nice. In fact, Ron had some choice words about my writing style, which I actually took as a compliment since my intention is not to continue to write papers that only 1% of the population can learn from. Beleive me, I don’t want you to read my work, or even care about it because it might be for you, however, I am sure that there does exist research out there that would inspire you. That would stir up feelings of passion, motivation and desire to learn more. This is what research should be.

Many well established writers and scientific authors totally disagree and for good reason. Primary literature needs to be scientific and unambiguous so that results and claims can be judges objectively and repeated to be confirmed or refuted. This is the scientific machine at its results speak for themselves! Academic purists will argue that its the job of journalists, secondary literature authors, the media even bloggers to be the social filter that good research passes through. This will leave the academics more time to write papers and less time worrying about telling a good story.

Here’s what I propose.

Each academic paper, thesis, dissertation etc. should be written in two parts: One formal and one informal. The formal part will be exactly what it is today: a carefully crafted, concise collection of words. The informal piece should be any form of creative writing. Something inspirational, funny, down to earth or whatever suits your needs. I have been trying to sum up my thesis into a Limerick or Haiku poem… so far I haven’t done it, but I will and those words might be more lasting than my 95 page thesis.

There is a time and place for scientific writing, however, the more casual the words are, the more human the intention. Humanity and humility are powerful literary devices and could do a world of good for the colder academic community.

Thank you,

Kent

Context-aware computing is the next big thing

Wed, 27 Nov 2013 00:43:00 -0500

Back in my days at DGP we would look at research done at Parc by Bill Schilit and his colleagues. One of the most impressive experiments was the ParcTab.

Ideas like the ParcTab were ahead of their time. Context and the pervasiveness of computing simply wasn’t there. If we were to re-run the ParcTab experiments today, it would be equivalent to carrying aroung your cell phone and having your environment change around you. While this is possible, it’s not practical. In order to be pervasive, context must be decoupled from an active device. Context needs to be passive and pervasive.

Passive context is the missing link that we have been waiting for. Not personalization, but true real world context.
Who am I? Where am I? What do I like? What do I typically do, given the context that I am in.

Devices like the Nymi are the first steps towards passive context generators. The biggest competitor to these kinds of devices is the cell phone. Your phone is capable on generating the same context signals as the Nymi, but it’s not passive. You must pick up and interact with your cell phone in order to use it. It’s not a persistent and pervasive context generator. It might be one day, but not for a while. Until then, devices that provide context and decouple it from the user will win the day.

I have a feeling that a lot of old research from Parc and other Ubicomp trail blazers will start to see the light of day as devices like the Nymi make it into the mainstream. These are the devices that they were dreaming of back in the day, and now they are reality.

What an exciting time to be a developer!

Why Amazon should buy Square

Thu, 21 Nov 2013 02:53:06 -0500

I am only 2 chapters into The Everything Store but already I can see that Amazon should purchase Square.

Square is poised to take over small retail and commerce. I doubt that The Bay or Lululemon will start using Square in the near future in their retail stores since they are invested in those old, crappy IBM terminals for a little while longer. But that ice cream shop in your neighbourhood, or that vintage clothing store full of hipsters that you avoid like ketchup on a hotdog (I hate ketchup but love hot dogs).

That is small retail. But small retail is becoming big. Look at Etsy or the movement of shopping local. Local shopping means more opportunities for companies like Square to get business from business looking for quick, easy and painless point of sale.

I was at an art show this summer in my home town of Port Credit. It’s a beautiful town, but its small in the scheme of things, even so, about 30-40% of the artists accepted Square. That’s impressive! That’s penetration. If it’s happening in Port Credit, I can only guess it’s happening in The Mission or Soho or Bean town (Chicago? I don’t know).

Amazon is all about making shopping easy. Square has the same mission.

I feel like the only place where they see the world differently is that Amazon is extremely customer focused whereas Square is very vendor focused. Amazon has kind of monopoly whereby vendors want and need to be on their platform, Square, on the other hand needs those vendors! With competition from Shopify POS and PayPal’s card reader thing (crappier, but common it’s PayPal)… they need to win over the small vendors and get those penetration numbers up (sorry).

I think as we move into the next 5-10 years, there will be a lot more shopping done online, but there will also be a resurgence of the small retain / local shops given the mentality of consumers in urban cities and thanks to technology like Square. Seems like Amazon should jump in now and plant their feet into physical stores too.

What say you inter-webs?

The end of mediocrity

Wed, 13 Nov 2013 14:34:07 -0500

There are many credos, mantras, affirmations, culture speak, news speak and other forms of written communication all aimed at making you or the people around you better.

These devices work. Don’t stop using them.

Here is one to add to the list: Stop making crappy things.

Think of all the things that you do in a day and now consider how many of those things are meaningful, worthwhile, thoughtful, or remarkable. My guess (and I am an optimist) is very few.

I am guilty of this too. I try to create beautiful and useful things. Apps like Mixr and Cybrus. Emails that are meaningful and unpretentious. Blog posts that are short and the point. Yet I fail.

This kind of failure is OK, since it goes back to what Ira told us about taste. You know you are capable of amazing things right? You know it’s in you right? If no one has told you that before, then let me be the first to tell you: You have greatness in there, go let it out. Just don’t make anymore crap!

If we all agreed to stop making crappy things and focused instead on things that we are proud of. Things are beautiful and remarkable I think it would do more good than just about anything else I can think of.

So long mediocristan.

Why I still think Dropbox will launch email by year end

Sat, 14 Sep 2013 10:27:57 -0400

When Dropbox bought Mailbox I figured they were months away from launching an email service. Turns out that didn’t happen, but the gem of the idea must be there.

Dropbox is poised to revolutionize email by killing attachments.

If you don’t believe me, just do a search for dropbox.com if your email client and look at how many times you have pasted a link in there, or someone has sent you one.

I have over 500!

I am also a power Dropbox user. It was one of the most painless $50 / year I ever spent. I got it, I love it. I tell everyone to use it.

We use Google Drive at work but it doesn’t quite do it for me. I was hoping that the big G could deliver a true G-Drive the way I was promised they would. They didn’t. I love the big D (ya, I know).

So what are they waiting for? I have no idea to be honest. It’s not a marketing move, it’s likely a feature / integration / polish move.

This will be their first big software move outside of their core application since opening up the Dropbox API. Which, if you think of it, was very smart for them internally since they are no doubt using it to build their email client.

The client will run Mailbox software for sure and maybe do some things that we can’t even think of yet… probably not. I have some ideas for email, but no one seems able to do them. Let’s hope they surprise us.

The big question is privacy and inertia. I love Gmail and I hate Google sometimes. I will likely never part from Gmail. I know that the NSA… but truly I am cynical that any email service is truly protected from that. I choose Google for a lot of reasons. If Apple and iPhone dropped support for Gmail, I would become an Android user.

However, being an early adopter I would checkout Dropbox Mail. I would probably even love it, given the amount of time I spend sending and receiving Dropbox links. Are there enough people like me out there? Not sure. I jiust can’t help but think of Hotmail’s brilliant email signature that is credited for getting them all their users.

Dropbox’s could look like

+++ Hate attachments? We do too. Start emailing without attachments at getmydbox.com

The Ad campaign writes itself.

Buddha taught the world to drop attachments. We listened. DBox. The first email without attachments.

Email without attachments. Enlightened. via Dropbox.

Drop attachments. Pickup Dbox.

Something like that. @Drew, you can use that if you want. All I ask is that you send me a T-Shirt.

Peace and love.

Kent

I am not afraid of Cannibals and Nazis

Wed, 04 Sep 2013 08:00:00 -0400

Cannibals and Nazis didn’t make Kolya nervous, but the threat of embarrassment did—the possibility that a stranger might laugh at the lines he’d written.

Benioff is writing about the resistance here, the fear of posting, the fear of sending, the fear of finishing, the fear of doing, the fear of action, the fear of judgement, the fear.

Many would welcome death if it meant never being judged again. Words, looks, silence can be terrifying.

I have yet to find out what happens to our hero, but reading this passage, this beautiful manifestation of fear makes me want to finish.

Acknowledge the fear, it means well and is only trying to protect you. But there are no lions in the tall grass waiting for you, no cannibals around the corner. Just you, your words, and that haunting blue button.

Put the kettle on and hit publish on your way out.

What Bryan Cranston taught me about dreams at around 4:00am in the morning

Tue, 03 Sep 2013 09:27:35 -0400

“Grab that cord will you… it’s time to eat!”

Mark, the fat grip yelled at me as I starred blankly back. It was 3:30am on a Wednesday in October and snow was falling all around me. Well, it looked like snow but it certainly wasn’t. The texture was more like cotton and the flavour something like the coloured clip of a Bic clicky pencil. Plastic. Artificial. I am on a movie set and someone, Mark, the fat grip thinks I belong here.

“Common let’s go… prime rib.”

I have been coming here for the past two nights. Disney is filming a made for TV movie called Twas the Night starring Bryan Cranston a few doors down from me. It’s the year 2000, years before Walter White and Heisenberg. Bryan is still Hal from Malcolm in The Middle and to me, he’s Dr. Tim Whatley from Seinfeld. I love Seinfeld and want to know everything about it.

I pile into one of the trucks and head down to the church to eat with the crew. The more I look around, the more I realize that Mark must know I don’t really work here. I am the youngest person in the truck by 15 years (I am only 15 myself but quite tall for my age). I figure he is just letting me come along for the ride, letting me feel like I am working on a movie set… I like Mark.

The church basement is full of crew by the time we get there and the food is quite delicious. I don’t really eat though, I am fixated on Bryan sitting a few tables over. I am working up the nerve to sit beside him and chat but before I can, everyone starts getting up and we pile up back into the trucks to head back over to the Selley’s driveway.

The scene they are shooting is near the end of the movie, this one to be exact and I am struck by the sheer size and complexity of movie making. There are 20-30 crew members, 6 cast members, 6 stand-ins, fake snow, lights, a rigged car… and all of this for a made for TV movie that might be seen by 50,000 people at Christmas time in 2001. It takes them 3 hours to shoot the 5 mins. It’s boring as hell, but I can’t leave.

My chance finally comes. One of the gaffers yells that they are having a washing issue with one of the lights and in come the stand-ins and DP. Bryan retires to the snack tent just off the driveway and grabs a cookie. I seize the opportunity and strike up a conversation.

Bryan is one of the easiest people to take to. He asks me about school, asks me why I am here so late. Tells me how much he loves my neighbourhood and all the trees. Before I know it, we have been talking for 5 minutes and I haven’t asked him a single question. Finally, I jump in and say, “What was it like working with Seinfeld?” He laughs and says it was a great learning experience for him. He says that Jerry is exactly like he is on the show and one of the nicest people he has ever met, that Julia and Jason are the funniest on set and that Michael is actually very quiet and nothing like he imagined.

I tell him that I loved his character and wished he had of made it into the series finale. He told me that he did tape it, but in the end it ran long and there were too many good stories on the show that the converted Jewish dentist didn’t make the cut… we were both disappointed.

I asked him what he was going to do next? Was he trying to get into movies or did he like TV better? I have never forgotten what he told me, and while I wrote it down when I got home, I lost the original sometime during one of my moves. Here is what I remember him telling me.

“I really don’t know what I am going to do next and for once that doesn’t worry me. When I was your age, I was worried. I wanted to do this and do that, I had plans. I don’t think like that anymore. I am proud of my career. I like where I am at. I have dreams sure, but I don’t worry about them. I try and do good work and take things as they come. I love Malcolm in the Middle and am having fun. If we are canceled next year, I will find something else to do and if we go on for ten years, that would be great too. I kinda dodged the question didn’t I? I love my job, I get to talk to people like you, visit places like Canada and get paid to eat cookies.” He laughed.

I can’t remember what else we talked about after that. It was time for him to go and they were changing up one of his lines. He had to mention to milk and cookies now.

You can imagine my delight when I saw Breaking Bad. Bryan has said multiple times that Walter White is the role of his life.

So have dreams, for sure, yes, have them. But don’t worry about them. Do good work everyday and take things as they come and one day, you will find yourself in the role of your life too.

That Heroic Feeling

Thu, 15 Aug 2013 00:32:45 -0400

Chase the moments when you feel as though your life was penned by Benioff, Vonnegut, Campbell or Anderson.

The moments when you hope there is an audience watching, waiting for you to realize. To actualize.

Of course there isn’t.

When we get tested, pushed or are simply bored out of our minds we hope that this is all fiction. Some Truman show where the end will be revealed. It’s not (right?).

Heroism surely isn’t warfare but it is brave.

Bravery is knowing that you are here to do something uniquely you with the knowledge that no one is watching and everyone is waiting.

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there."

Tue, 13 Aug 2013 10:00:06 -0400

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”

- Rumi

Surely this isn't a review Mr. Feynman

Mon, 12 Aug 2013 09:00:27 -0400

I want to be Richard Feynman when I grow up.

I have been fascinated by him since first seeing this video on “the feeling” of magnets.

His energy, intellect and sense of humour captivated me.

His book is a memoir. Full of funny stories that seem too staged to be real, but coming from him I feel like they must be true.

His life as a physicist is touched on but its not the focus. This is not a book for people looking to learn about his Nobel, it’s a book to learn why he didn’t really care about it.

You can also tell that he either wrote or dictated the book. It feels authentic, more so than any other biography I have read. And funny! I laughed quietly and out loud many times. The chapters that focus on his time working at Los Alamos on the “bomb” are quite interesting for their voyerism and politics, but the stories of Vegas showgirls and refusing government money are the most entertaining.

If there is one word to sum up Feynman, its integrity. He was a man of integrity, both to himself and to the field of science. If you are an academic or plan to be one, please read this book. If you love science and physics, please read this book. If you love awkward and outlandish stories (think Curb or Seinfeld), please read this book.

Feynman is the kind of guy you wish your Dad was friends with growing up. Fun, a wicked wit, sharp intellect and a story for every situation.

Feynman has officially been added to my list of people to have dinner with in another life. Behind the Buddha but ahead of Voltaire.

What a beautiful idea for a movie. Its not hard to believe that...

Thu, 08 Aug 2013 01:44:41 -0400

What a beautiful idea for a movie. Its not hard to believe that stories like this will happen sometime in the future.

There is a lot of debate on the internet of whether this is meant to be a commentary on Apple’s Siri or Google Now. I don’t think so.

These are timeless themes, told with a new lens.

Do you have a soulmate? What is love?

I can’t wait to see it.

“The year is 2029. The machines will convince us that they are conscious, that they have their own agenda worthy of our respect. They’ll embody human qualities, they’ll claim to be human, and we’ll believe them.” - Ray Kurzweil AOSM