Learn how to start and run your own creative practice this Sunday!

Hey folks, I’m teaching a cool class this coming weekend and would love to see you there. If you’re a creative professional, or an aspiring creative professional, this class can help you understand how to build a sustainable practice. Signup here.

I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be joined by Doug Barnes, a brilliant attorney who will be discussing what contracts are, how they work and how to create them.

This class came out of a guest lecture I did on entrepreneurship at SVA’s IxD program. I tried to teach all the stuff I had to learn the hard way after leaving grad school. This is an experiment and part of a new startup called Skillshare. I think it’s a brilliant idea - teach anything, to anyone! I’m thrilled to be part of their beta launch. Please come or share this with folks you think would benefit from it - thanks!

What a cool year

We just passed our 20,000th Marco today! If you’re in New York, we’d love to see you at the next New York Tech Meetup. For the uninitiated, NYTM is turning into a tech/arena-rock event. We’ll be sure to bring our A-Game for ya, NYC!

Tuesday, Decmember 14th, 2010
New York Tech Meetup
New World Stages
340 W 50th St.
New York, NY 10019

Tickets and RSVP available here
PS we have one free ticket available. Wanna come? Email us.

Startup Xmas + Santa

For the second year in a row, Perpetually and Uncommon Projects are teaming up to organize the annual Startup Xmas - “The holiday party for startups too lean to have a holiday party”. We’ve also added a secret santa component, to intro everyone to each other. We have an awesome space lined up with wonderful sponsors. If you have a young startup based in New York and you haven’t heard from us, just get in touch - details here.

The last sentence in a novel, the last bite in a sandwich, the final scene in a film: A good closer leaves a lasting impression.

This summer’s lineup of Studio Lunches concluded with Michael Young, a four-year veteran of the The New York Times Company’s Research & Development Lab who is currently on a six month externship from the Times Company. He’s working at Betaworks to develop News.me, a social news service. With News.me making news lately, we were excited to hang out with Michael and hear what he had to say about innovation and the NYC tech scene, while savoring the delicious burgers at Bill’s.

[This will now be interrupted by Michael's mention of Pat LaFrieda, who grinds custom-blends of meat in NYC and hopefully will be supplying our burgers today.]

One of the themes explored in the Studio Lunches was how technologists arrive at their respective careers. As we learned, more often than not, careers are the result of non-logical, evolving and non-linear paths. Michael’s path started with structural engineering at Lewis and Clark in Portland, and then shifted to a computer science and math degree. He then ventured down to San Francisco just in time for the dot.com heyday while helping to lay the groundwork of interactive TV at then-startup Wink. Just before the dot-bomb of ‘01, Michael headed out to the east coast, eventually and serendipitously landing at NY Times Co. Research and Development lab in ‘04.

Reflecting on the NYC tech community back in those days as being more fragmented, the locals in the group had a moment of wonder at how much the tech scene has grown in the past year. While not yet the Valley, the rise in NYC’s technology profile has lured talent to startups from all corners of the globe (And may even even be poaching from Wall Street).

With that important bit out of the way, we ask the most coveted question asked of all innovators: Where do you find inspiration?

Michael Young and Albert Einstein have something in common here. While Einstein technically was in a bathtub, Michael has found a good use for his kid’s bath-time Chalk Markers: sketching out ideas on the shower tiles. His answer coincidentally dovetails with the recently-viral “Where Good Ideas Come From“ by Steven Johnson (jump to the :40 mark if you’re in a hurry), proving that innovation isn’t something that can be organized and planned for, instead it’ll catch you in the quiet moments of daily life.

Thanks Michael for a great visit!

On our recent flight out to help organize the Hackathon for TechCrunch, Marco Friend Locator was released to the App Store. Shortly thereafter we got a great writeup in the New York Times. And just yesterday we got another great review in Wired.

Isn’t it amazing that with all our advanced technology we can still have trouble locating one another? Business meetings in new neighborhoods, picnics in the park, tailgating at the game. Sometimes it really would be easier if we could just see each other on a map. Marco is designed to do just that. Marco makes it simple for you and a friend to share your locations - and your friend doesn’t even need the app! But don’t take our word for it, Download it free from the App Store.

We’re really excited about Marco. Many of you know we’ve been threatening to release Steps for months and are bullish on location services and mobile devices. (Stay tuned for more on this topic). Suffice it to say, we think there’s a lot of untapped opportunity in the last 100 yards of navigation. If all this sounds interesting, please follow us on Twitter, Like us on Facebook, Download the app and leave a review if you like it!

• Check out the Marco Product Site
• Download Marco and try it yourself
• Read about Marco in the Times
• Check out the Wired article
• Like Marco on Facebook
• Follow Marco on Twitter

Remember that? In September of 2006, Josh and I took a trip out west to participate in Yahoo’s first Open Hack Day at Daniel Raffel’s urging. Chad Dickerson organized the event, we won a prize, met some fantastic folks and Havi Hoffman told us she wanted to find us some work with Yahoo. So I see a little bit of poetry in the fact that Daniel and I are organizing a Hackathon for Disrupt on September 26th and Havi has organized a panel on Hack Days with Chad and myself at Web 2.0 on September 30th.

Why should you care about hacking? Apple, Microsoft and the Free Software Foundation were built by hackers. Hackers creatively integrate technologies in new and innovative ways. Hack Days tap into some of that culture, creating an intense but whimsical atmosphere with a tight deadline. Hack Days bring out the best and most creative instincts in folks and tap into a little bit of that history and fire.

So many good things came out of that experience for us - work, friendships, workshops, kits and the ybox 2.0! And the time is so ripe right now that presenters got funded right out of the last event we did- incredible! If you’re in SF this coming weekend and want to participate, sign up here. If you’d like to watch on Sunday, please come! And if you’re in NYC and want to attend Web 2.0, here’s a coupon code for 25% off: webny10fos

Oh, and we’re bringing another idea out West this time. It’s called Marco and you’ll be hearing back from us real soon about it. Stay tuned!

For our latest Studio Lunch, we visited game studio Area/Code. Vice President and Senior Producer Kati London was nice enough to talk to us about her work applying game mechanics to a wide range of client problems. We were also lucky enough to be joined by Kathleen Watkins, a great designer here in New York who’s working with us on our latest project.

Area/Code’s mission is embodied in its name; the work they do lives at the intersection of physical spaces and the digital realm. So while they’ve built games that live exclusively on the screen, and a couple that involve no technology at all, the majority of what they create bridges the two interests, and maps a virtual world of play onto a real, familiar locations.

Many companies are approaching social gaming as if it’s a new and unknown space to explore. But Kati reminded us that in the history of games, the lone player is the exception rather than the rule. Board games, card games, or sports; these activities almost always involve at least two participants. Computers have made single-player games possible (though the computer usually takes the role of the other players,) but when push comes to shove, these games can end up feeling hollow. Social games like Parking Wars are new in that they can involve thousands of players at a time. But there’s a good case to be made that they are in reality are closer to the games played hundreds of years ago than single-player video games. Fundamentally, this is at the heart of how Area/Code approaches games - they’re not only entertainment, but social instruments.

Some of the most interesting work Area/Code is engaged with currently deals with using games mechanics for behaviors that people might not immediately recognize as games. A sport that teaches financial skills, for example, or a “treasure hunt” of sorts that encourages people to step outside their familiar social groupings and work collaboratively to help businesses in their communities. These efforts have been successful in large part because game mechanics often connect with intrinsic human motivators. Foursquare (the product of a former Area/Code associate) makes that point clearly; many people aren’t sure what the ultimate point is, but that doesn’t keep them from battling for virtual mayorships and badges.

All in all, it was a great conversation, and before we knew it, we’d nearly made Kati late for her next meeting. Sorry about that, Kati, and thanks for another great Studio Lunch!

P.S. Congrats to Kati on being named an MIT Technology Review 2010 Young Innovator.

Last Friday we met with Erin Sparling, who leads the Design and Technology department at the Wall Street Journal. Technology is serious business to the Wall Street Journal. Erin discussed the underlying technologies and team that keep the newspaper and it’s subsidiary websites running smoothly. He also talked about some of the paper’s enterprising endeavors. Competitors like the New York Times have deep an interesting technology directives. But the Journal’s focus on new technology is not just innovation, the Journal wants to provide compelling features that their customers are willing to pay for. Their iPad application is a success story in this regard - it’s both a new technology product and it’s already profitable.

While giving a tour of the recent Wall Street Journal iPad app, Erin delineated how the team’s approach and process is informed by the temporal nature of the news. Due to updates and revisions that articles undergo after they’re initially published, as well as the increasing number of frames these articles need to fit into, much of the department’s focus is on building flexible, skinnable applications. Their iPad app manages to seamlessly merge the traditional layout of the print version of the Journal with enriched digital features such as dynamic updates to content and supplemental video clips. The secret to the Wall Street Journal’s innovation revolves around enhancing the news reading experience with digital tools while retaining the value of the physical version.

Thanks for the visit Erin!

Last week, we were able to meet up with Bre Pettis, founder of MakerBot and NYCResistor, for a talk about art, open-source, and business. We found the MakerBot headquarters buzzing with activity (despite the stifling heat) as the growing company worked hard to keep up with demand. Over lunch, we got to talking about how Bre had gone from schoolteacher to hardware hacker to CEO, and the lessons we could apply to our own paths.

Obvious as it might seem on the surface, it all starts with making things. Ideas are great, but execution, in some form, is essential. Bre encouraged us not to get caught up in the little details too early in the process. Over time, he’s learned to “Under-engineer it and get it working, test it, and if it works – ship it.” This philosophy allowed MakerBot to get into the market significantly early using off the shelf parts and tools at hand like the NYCResistor laser cutter.

Bre also encouraged us not to keep our projects too close to the chest. So much of success or failure, in any pursuit, is about getting the word out. Once we make something, we need to make sure to share it with the wider world. Specifically, he suggests picking a unique name for a project, create a post about it and let the world know.

Thanks, Bre, for sharing, and we’re looking forward to seeing what you and MakerBot are up to next.

We recently visited Paul Chan to learn more about his practice, his influences and his approach.  He talked about his project “Waiting for Godot in New Orleans“, which has recently evolved into both a published field guide and year long MoMa exhibition. Paul touched on the importance of distinguishing the intentions of one’s work from the labels applied to it by the outside world. I found resonance in Paul’s solution to this problem - which is to explore and explain his own work honestly, but to relinquish control for how it ultimately becomes classified.

Some critics might question Paul’s decision to bring Beckett’s play to post-Katrina New. For me, the profundity of the project came as much from his on-the-ground approach to realizing “Godot” as it did from likening it to the streets of New Orleans. Contributing to colleges as an adjunct professor and creating a grant fund for artists seemed to carry as much impact as the performances themselves. Thus, the beauty of “Waiting for Godot in New Orleans” comes from both its usefulness and its ironic/absurd subtext.

Thanks for a great studio visit Paul!

Tom Igoe from uncommon projects on Vimeo.

On Tuesday we dropped in on Tom Igoe, ITP instructor, Arduino team member, and the man who (with Dan O’Sullivan) literally wrote the book on physical computing. We found him busily preparing equipment to be sent to the central-american rain forest to test the feasibility of low cost, XBee-based mesh networks in Primatology field studies. “I’ve always wanted to work with monkeys,” Tom explained.

Once that was squared away, we headed out for burgers and chatted about the path that brought him to and kept him at ITP. Since many of our lunches are with startups, it was interesting to get his take on the benefits and pitfalls of approaching problems from an academic perspective. While academia can provide more flexibility to explore (and, in some cases, fail big,) the funding question, as ever, looms large. Tom said the trick is to determine the most funding you can get from a sponsor without ending up taking on all their institutional problems, and then making your project happen without exceeding it.

Even within academia, there can be significant differences in the kinds of projects undertaken and the funding required. Tom identified three basic categories of work in ‘design & technology’ (my wording) programs: expressive, instrumental and instructive.

Expressive work is created primarily to share the creator’s personal point of view; these are what might generally be called works of art, and budgets range widely but are usually flexible. Instrumental works are utilitarian; while they needn’t be as practical as a wrench, they generally exist to serve a need and frequently require more financial support to bring to fruition. Instructive works try to teach experientially, expanding the understanding of those who interact with them. With instructive works, budget limitations can have a great effect on the number of people that experience can be brought to.

Tom places ITP as tending more toward the expressive side, while MIT’s Media Lab concentrates primarily on the instrumental and instructive. I’m interested to see where the first year of thesis projects for my own program end up.

For now, we’ll let Tom get back to the monkeys, and look forward to the next Studio Lunch.