So happy to be in San Diego missing out on another snowstorm.
Only 4 days (and 20+ inches) to go.
Posted February 9, 2010 at 5:57pm
writing like a girl
zoya:
when Clay Shirky posted his rant about women, it was pretty much derided and quickly dismissed. but it reminded me of something I notice a lot: women don’t write like men (PDF), business is conducted via email, and we lose.
granted, both my high school and college were overwhelmingly female, but I have never seen women hesitate to raise their hand in class. there are more women in college than men, but college is not the workplace, and the workplace is not a meritocracy. so we write stellar academic papers and do well on tests, but we don’t learn how to push our agenda. guess the gender of this email:
I’m sorry to bother you, but I hope you have a couple of minutes to read this. Would it be possible for you or your company to donate, OR perhaps pass it along to anyone else who might be able to? I really really want to make a difference, and I’d appreciate it so much. Perhaps you could forward the link to your clients, or post it on your website if it’s not too much trouble? Thank you very much for your time and I hope to hear from you soon.
I never get emails like this from dudes. and yeah, we can talk about the persistence of gender roles and the “bitch” issue, but that’s just talk. I can’t quite write w/the confidence of a man either, but at least I try.
I might as well have written the sample paragraph above, it sounds like pretty much every email I’ve ever written professionally. Sad part is, before reading Zoya’s post it hadn’t really occurred to me that this way of writing might come across as less than confident, or even be hurting me professionally. The things they don’t tell you in business school ;) (Whoops… and there is another emoticon!) Anyway, I explore this a bit further in my wash post blog today, thanks to Zoya for making the point in the first place.
Posted February 8, 2010 at 11:38am
Love this Parkour Motion Reel (h/t Chris Dixon)
Posted February 6, 2010 at 1:34pm
My dog’s favorite thing in the whole wide world is to play fetch with that hamburger.
Posted February 4, 2010 at 10:13pm
not fun
I wrote today about the impact my life choices have had on my family. It was a topic I had been thinking about for sometime, but was not exactly sure how to address publicly. I think this is something that a lot of entrepreneurs and folks working at early stage companies (or artists, musicians and others who have embarked down a non traditional path) deal with, but its not very comfortable to talk about.
Posted February 4, 2010 at 5:21pm
This is the video from my blog post today on masters (http://bit.ly/aDbDiU). Both Suhaila and her violinist are improvising the entire time, its insaaaane. If you don’t have time to watch the whole thing, I recommend starting around 6:00, through the end. Someday I’ll write more on the mathematical underpinnings of her format because its genius. While it may look like movements are haphazardly executed, they are actual layered upon one another precisely, in accordance with multiple timings to the music. Trust me, its nuts. And awesome.
Posted February 3, 2010 at 2:09pm
Your favorite record labels
Thanks everyone for posting your favorite labels. For the record, here they are:
Ghostly (4), Warp (3), Drag City (2), Domino (7), Waaga, Western Vinyl, Arts & Crafts (4), Sub Pop (5), Drag City, Fat Cat, Dead Oceans (2), Boompa, Matador (3), Mexican Summer (2), Honeymoon, Marriage Records, Captured Tracks, Transparent, Italians Do It Better, Morr, XL (2), Kompakt, Merge (3), Mute, Freerange, Junior Boys Own, Def Jux, Anticon, Metalheadz, 3024, Tru-Thoughts, Dead Oceans, French Kicks, Ninjatune, ESL, ATO, Lost Highway, Output, Asthmatic Kitty, DFA, Dial, Stones Throw, Rawkus, Ostgut, Dystopian, Hotflush, Klangsucht, 4AD, Sincerly Yours, Secretly Canadian.
That’s a pretty damn great list.
Domino’s the winner.
cool list!! Hoping French kicks = French Kiss, since that was my submission along w/ Ninjatune :) For this week anyway…
