Incoherent Thought

I just came across this over at www.themoth.org/listen/ It’s a collection of some of the most odd as well as some of the most hilarious stories as told by the person who lived through the event.

From Dr. Ari Handel (Ph. D in Neuroscience in 2000) talking about the problems that arise when you fall in love with your monkey to an EMT talking about the time that he was shot, there are some crazy stories to be heard there. Another good one is from Richie DiSalvo talking about “Anthony The Hat.” Richie’s claim to fame is that he is credited as being the inventor of the Baby Calzone as well as the cheese-filled pizza crust. Genius……

So go have an early morning laugh by heading over to www.themoth.org and prepare yourself for story-time with some great storytellers…

image from the flickr collection of flickr.com/photos/gregor_y/

This was taken from a quote by China Miéville from The Believer. I feel that it is a perfect description of the active curiosity that is necessary for any serious Account Planner/Interaction Designer. It all boils down to that natural curious instinct that, at times, has the potential to give you an insight into someone else’s experience who has a completely different/random perspective on life that you. This is something that can’t be achieved by sitting in a round room brainstorming what type of person uses your product. From absorbing yourself in random magazines, books, even to the occasional user group meeting, interacting with people that are passionate about something (and it really can be just about anything) shows you the true nature of your consumer. Anyhow, here’s the quote:

What I love is passion. One of my fascinations is trade magazines. I love picking up specialists’ magazines about subjects I know nothing about. For instance, you pick up a magazine that is the house journal of tropical-fish keepers or model-train builders. I have no interest in model trains; I have no interest in tropical fish, but I love reading the magazines, because you get this insight into this world of debate and passion and argument, and then you get two competing magazines with different platforms who are dissing each other because this is a world where the people involved in it are absolutely in love with what they do. What geeks have, geeks in any field, be it a field like science fiction or a field like tropical fish, is that they are moved to do what they do because of a love and passion for the field above all else.

~ China Miéville

Yes, I am a geek. I have two blogs, am a constant news junkie, my RSS feeders are constantly overflowing, but for some reason….I love it. And half of the sites I subscribe to were found thanks to services like Stumbleupon.com, where it can transport you to a random website based on pre-determined categories…what I did was select just about all of them (there are around 90+ to choose from), so every-time I click on Stumble, I never quite know what I’m in store for.

Regardless, It’s a great tool, even if you’re not as information-obsessed as I might be. There are enough categories where I’m sure it could help you find new resources for whatever it is that YOU’RE into….so go check it out… or better yet…. what hobbies/obsessions do you harbor that others might call you a dork for? I’m interested…. if you want to remain anonymous feel free to use the Contact Me page instead of commenting… Links to related sites would also be appreciated.

[here's a close-up of the actual ad it didn't like]

As some of you may know, I live here in Atlanta, GA. The part of town I currently reside in is right between downtown and an area called Cabbagetown (I live in Inman Park). Well, if you’ve been paying attention to the news at all you would have learned that we had a tornado hit us last night…. well, it landed right on top of where I live. I’m ok, my actual complex did not sustain any noticeable damage, however I went out this morning with my camera and took a bunch of shots so that I could show the aftermath. The shot above was one of the first that I took, as it was a billboard that found itself about five blocks from where it use to be…..which leads me to believe that tornados hate advertising… either that or it never got to review the piece before it went into production… tornados HATE it when that happens.

The only reason for the delay in uploading the photos was the fact that my power was just turned back on (it is around 1:30pm EST), and has been out since 10PM last night. With a lot of businesses closed due to the tornado, including the Starbucks where I was hoping to have been able to use their wifi/power plugs, that didn’t give me many options. So now that I’m back online, I’ve quickly comprised a collection of photos and uploaded them to my photo gallery and flickr account. You can view them both here:

www.brentter.com/photos/
www.flickr.com/photos/brentter/

The worst hit were the Georgia Dome, which you can’t get anywhere near right now, and a loft complex just a few blocks away (close enough to view from my balcony). Here’s a side-view of the complex and the damage that the tornado did to it. By the way, what you can’t see is that it actually drilled straight down through the building and actually hit the basement. Luckily it was a building that was being remodeled so no one was currently living in it, however all of the other buildings next door were beaten down by the storm leaving Cabbagetown full of debris and downed trees. That and a lot of people woke-up to find their roof in their neighbors front yard.

Etsy.com, the online store that enables you to sell your homemade goods, just announced that they’ve accepted a $27 million dollar investment to further establish their online community.

taken from their site:
“What does this investment mean?
This means that we now have the resources to extend Etsy’s reach in this world, to enable so many more people to make a living making things. We want Etsy to exist for hundreds of years. Our goal is for Etsy to be an independent, publicly traded company, focused on all things handmade.”

They’ve seen a lot of growth since five friends started the site in 2005 to what they now claim to be a community with over 650,000 members, all purchasing wares from more than 120,000 registered vendors in 127 different countries. From their news post, they try to outline what the investment will be used for - multiple language translations of the site, a better checkout process (which is currently pretty low-fi for a site as large as etsy’s is), as well as being in a position to better service the vendors who rely on Etsy.com for their living. Ohh, and something else about wanting to give their employees dental benefits (pffffffffsh). 

Another venture they plan on trying is a cooperative advertising program where Etsy’s would take out print ads in various magazines/newspapers, and select vendors would be given the opportunity to showcase their “store” and one of their products. With enough vendors, Etsy’s promises to split the cost of the ad if the combined vendors come up with the rest. This idea is just being talked about now, but judging from the results, it looks like it is plausible in the very near future. 

To read more about their Marketing Plans for 2008, click here.

 At least not yet…. sorry i’ve been away for so long. I’ve been swamped with work in addition to various new side-projects, all of which will be revealed at some point on either this site or one of the other blogs that I have started. For now though, I want to thank those of you who have emailed me over the past 3 months asking if I was going to continue to post to Brentter.com and for those of you who have yet to unsubscribe from my RSS feed. I promise that it was not in vain! Here’s a snippet of what lies in store for 2008:

•  A fresh redesign to the brentter.com wordpress theme
• A new blog which focuses on the tech/development side of interactive advertising
• In addition to the tech blog, I plan on branching off a more personal weblog where my day-to-day observations/amusing will have a place to live that won’t interfere with the main focus of this website.
• More importantly - A group of us are currently involved in the creation of a community portal for the interactive industry where you’ll be able to showcase your work, collaborate with others on group projects, network with like-minded-folks, and much more… More on this will be revealed as the project itself progresses…

2008 will bring in a new era in brentter.com, and I’d like to thank you for being a part of it. <cue fireworks> 

image courtesy of Stuck in Customs