Modern Metropolis

Father's Day

Modern Day Alice in Wonderland

Vogue Korea

Via

Where can I find this wall?

Hilarious.

Like this saying.

Source

Glamorous

Jessica Alba at the Miu Miu show at Paris fashion week. 
Source: NY Mag

Fantasy Art of Hoang Nguyen

Hoang Nguyen

Thomas Kneubühler - Photography

Thomas Kneubühler - Photography

Steve Jobs

STEVE JOBS AT HOME IN 1982 — “This was a very typical time. I was single. All you needed was a cup of tea, a light, and your stereo, you know, and that’s what I had.” —Steve Jobs (Photographed by Diana Walker.)

Serene.

PAWEL FABJANSKI PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTFOLIO

Cute.

By fomato cards

Creepy Cool.

Source

Live.

Simple and sweet. By d li [neworleans 3/13-3/22. brb dearies♥]

The Coolest Fight.

Photo by danfigueroa.bdc75

Love the color combinaton.

{lifestyle photo: via coco+kelly at flickr}

Love the Alice in Wonderlandness to this.

Hanging teacup lamps via Web Ecoist

This Makes Me Laugh Every Time

Photo by Joe Mikos Photographers

Gorgeous necklace

Delicately beautiful.  By Becky Kelso.

A nod to vintage modern.

photo by Angela Boatwright

If I was a teacher...

..how I would love this brooch.

Happy Friday

Image via little blue girl

Hoping your weekend has this kind of loveliness in it.

Absolutely Love This.

"Over the course of the average lifetime you meet a lot of people. Some of them stick with you through thick and thin. Some weave their way through your life and disappear forever. But once in a while someone comes along who earns a permanent place in your heart. " 

- The Wonder Years
Via Una Bella Vita

What Can a Chesire Cat Teach This Alice?

I read this quote today and thought about just how true it is.

“ One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. “Which road do I take?” she asked. “Where do you want to go?” was his response. “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter."

We need to know where we're going before we start traveling down a path. 

Hello 2009. How you doing?

Well hello to you, another year..2009...we made it.  So how is this year going to be different?  What's in store?  Well, I can tell you this much.  You're gonna see some changes. We've partying our asses off for the past decade, haven't we?  It's time to buckle down.  Get serious...but have some fun.  As we grow and we change, we think about what's important in our lives...who we truly are..why we exist and how we can make a difference.

Just some things to think about.

Stepping Outside of Our Comfort Zone

I read this paragraph from a person who's giving advice about twitter and I thought this was applicable to so many things,

"While we all want to converse with people we have affinity with, that may not be immediately apparent on a micro, of-the-moment, tool such as twitter. While it's great to follow the key players in your industry, to truly get the most out of engagement and interaction on Twitter, listen and interact with people who bring diversity to your network.

You never know where you'll get a new insight, find a new kindred spirit, or pick up a different perspective.While there is nothing wrong with conversing with the same people each time you log on, it does limit the experience you'll have.

Part of the beauty of stepping outside of your echo chamber is the opportunities it will inevitably open you up to."

Stepping outside of our comfort zone, opening ourselves up to new experiences means letting new people in, for the good and the bad.

Changing it up.

I stumbled across a picture of these socks today and I thought to myself, "Why not?"  When did we lose our sense of self - when did we start thinking white and block socks were the only thing we, as adults, were allowed to wear?

Maybe you'll experience some shocked looks from confused bystanders but maybe..just maybe..you'll also brighten someone's day.

But then again, who cares?  If it makes you happy, if it makes you skip instead of walk, then why not?

How a simple statement can mean so much.

As I was looking through Yelp to find our afternoon lunch spot, I came across Chez Melange.  Read some great reviews about this place, hopped on over to their website and then came across this:

" We believe...

At the core we are a family business; and we’ve been practicing for today for 26 years.
That ingredients are more important than recipes, and that simpler usually means better.
That the farmer is essential, that local is our future, and that green is a beautiful color.
That friends and family who eat together stay together.
That just the right wine or cocktail at just the right time, can be surreal.
That community is powerful, and that happy employees mean happy customers.
We believe it is not just a meal - it is an experience."

What's so lovely about this statement is that just by that paragraph, this place has already made me feel welcome.  They've shown me what they value and how they want to treat their customers.

Can't wait to try their food.

Chip Conley, CEO of boutique hotel chain Joie de Vivre Hospitality.

MX 2008 | Chip Conley from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Just started watching this video but wanted to share it with you all.  When trying to start-up a business, it becomes increasingly clear that you need to figure out what the identity or personality of the company is going to be.  So your challenge - what are the 5 words that describe your company?

Long video so here's the breakdown from Adaptive Path:
2:20 - Chip starts his personal story
4:25 - His first hotel is in the Tenderloin, a seedy SF neighborhood
6:10 - “You are where you sleep” - it’s about identity refreshment
6:45 - Every JDV hotel is based upon a magazine
14:00 - What Southwest teaches service firms
15:00 - The 2001 downturn begins - the dot com bust
19:15 - Learns about Abraham Maslow
23:35 - “Even in a downturn… what’s most important is loyalty and differentiation.”
27:55 - Crafting a meaningful *employee* experience
29:20 - Industry has 70% annual turnover; Joie de Vivre has only 25%
30:40 - Why people leave companies, and why you must differentiate
34:30 - How do you create meaning for 1200 housekeepers who clean toilets for a living?
36:55 - Talks about the Customer Experience
44:00 - Apple and Harley-Davidson use Maslow

Banksy

Banksy is one of the most famous graffiti artists of our time.  What makes him so unique is that his art is culturally relevant - it's resonates with people because there's deeper meaning to it.  Some may think he's too much hype, dismissing him because he's gotten too popular.  But then, you read an interview and you realize that you can learn quite a bit from his experience.

"I think there’s a lot to be said for the fine line between secondguessing yourself and respecting a dialogue with people whose opinions you trust, or even people that are great because they don’t know shit about art and you get the most honest reaction from them. Because so many artists, they worry about what trends are happening in art and design and street art, they read too many magazines, and they are too wrapped up in everything; they’re paralyzed."

"I’m always trying to move on. You’re not supposed to get dumber as you get older. You’re not supposed to just do the same old thing. You’re supposed to find a new way through and carry on."

A time to stop and give thanks.

With Thanksgiving around the corner, it's nice to pause and think about what we're truly thankful for in our lives.

A life worth living.  A husband that I love more than life itself.  Sisters that I can call my best friends.  A niece and two nephews that all came into the world healthy and happy.  Parents-in-law more sweet and understanding than I could ever ask for.  A dream that I get to see lift off the ground.  Solid friendships that have been built over years of dinners and phone calls. 

Some Design Inspiration From Folks on the Selby

Love the grey chalkboard colored walls and this framed mirror.  Ryan Corbin is an interior designer in NY.  The colorful horse and the Chinese urn are great touches.

Digging the personality of this room.  Chase Cohl, a 21-year-old poetry student at the New School, has a simple theory about accumulation and décor: "If you pick up things that your personality is drawn to everywhere you go, you're bound to have an interesting space." A pair of painted papier-mâché lips hangs above her bed.

Blogs to check out

Whenever I find something useful or interesting, I like to use this blog as a place for me to store it and to share it with all of you.

David Armano is one of those marketing guys that I've been following for awhile now.  Check out Logic+Emotion and then check out some of the blogs he recommends.

Nussbaum on Design
Adaptive Path
Micro Persuasion
Web Strategist
Putting People First

Happy Saturday!

I'm Back!

I'm sorry to anyone who's been to this blog recently..I know I've neglected it somewhat. But I'm back!  And to those loyal enough to follow this blog, I hope to give you something more than just a quote here and there, I hope to give you some excitement!  And maybe even some focus.

Because for awhile now, I've been trying to figure out what my niche is.  What are my passions?  Why am I keeping this side blog?  And through these six months, I've found that this blog will now be focused on modern design with a sprinkling of personal stories.  Stories about how theMET is going...from the good and the bad to the goddamn ugly.  (Just pray there's no goddamn ugly...though I'm sure the blog will be a lot more interesting, then.)

So sit back, my friends, and relax. You're in for a bumpy ride!

Evolution vs Revolution

"Everybody is looking for breakthrough ideas and innovative solutions. But in most cases those ideas are evolution, not revolutions. Evolution solves problems to survive: minor adjustments for changing situations. In order to get revolutions, the approach to get breakthrough ideas should be different. To think ‘out of the box’ and ‘out of the comfort zone, people must be out of their box and out of their comfort zone. This is facilitated by The Idea Machine. Hoping that the results will lead to revolutions."

Behance

Like this from Bram Pitoyo

O N  M A S H U P S
&
A L C H E M I S T S
On Alchemists
I believe that that sparks, insights and idea cannot be generated in the separate spheres of any field of knowledge. They can only happen in the overlap between those fields of knowledge.

This calls for a type of people that I would call ‘Alchemists.’ Alchemists are people who, by their diversity of knowledge, are able to build better things.

For example, in the field of User Experience, Alchemists are those who knew not only Ethnography, Usability, Design and Programming, but also Baseball, Viniculture, the art of writing great Emails, and all sorts of human endeavors—that are able to engineer products with not only sound logic (Fitts’ Law et al.) and beautiful architecture (code), but also social instinctiveness (graceful gestures.)

On Mashups
Most people think that geeks, designers, and generally all the citizens of the Creative class are just interested in, well, geekery, design, and other creative things. This notion is partly true. Most geeks are in tune with their gadgetry, and most designer worships [insert a mid-century designer / architect / typographer here.]

But to truly succeed, we need to diversify. We must immerse themselves in things that other ‘normal people’ do. It helps when these ‘things’ are closely interrelated—my examples above are Ethnography, Usability, Design and Programming—but it needn’t always be that way; because in diversification, almost anything and everything helps to add to your success.

The point is, if we are to succeed, we need to:

• Understand the intimate connections between closely related fields of knowledge, and
• Be men and women of culture, who not only dabble in the things that are related to our fields, but all sorts of human endeavors.

Bram Pitoyo

The Changing Consumer Experience by Guy Kawasaki

As a small business owner, you need to understand how technology is changing the customer experience. The folks at Razorfish wrote a report called “FEED: The Razorfish Consumer Experience Report” to help people understand these change and to explore the coming trends.

According to Razorfish, “…today’s consumer is more technically adept, open for experimentation and—most importantly—active than ever before.” Its recommendations include:

1. “Act more like publishers, entertainment companies, or even party planners, than advertisers.”
2. “Create content that engages and ‘reaches’ consumers across channels, provide valuable services over mere advertising, and master an increasingly complicated and expansive content distribution model.”
3. “Rethink the way they create relationships (or conversations) with consumers before it’s too late.”

The report also examines the impact of widgets, RSS feeds, “advertising as a service,” Twitter, online video, iPhones, and new design standards. In short, this is something you should read to stay on top of Web technology and digital content.

Open Forum Blogs

Our Universal Needs

Blog post by David Armano and an excerpt I liked:

"James outlined that each of these may play a significant role based on current conditions. So for example, in a recession, comfort may be more important as a need. In boom times, it might be uniqueness that needs to be dialed up. But what I found MOST interesting was the way James describes the idea of convenience:

"People share a set of universal needs – satisfy those needs with convenience and you will win"

This particular statement stood out for me, because I see convenience as an often time overlooked value meaning that you can hit any and all of the above needs, but if you don't make it convenient for consumers, customers, users you'll be less likely to satisfy any of these universal needs. In other words, convenience is not a need itself, but a vehicle to satisfy a need. That's the basis behind "the convenience quotient". James says they will be blowing out this model and testing it over the years."

Guy Kawasaki - An Interview by the NY Times

A great interview that I wanted to remember, with an excerpt:

Q. You have strong opinions on what makes a successful pitch — for everything from writing a business plan to hiring the right people to closing a deal or giving a presentation. Give us some of your golden rules for pitching.

A. There are only two golden rules of pitching — whoever obeys these rules gets the gold. First, be able to explain in 30 seconds what your company does. Almost no one is capable of doing this. Second, when using PowerPoint, use 10 slides that you can cover in 20 minutes with fonts no smaller than 30 points. It’s called the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint. Almost no one does this either.

Q. You dedicate a few amusing chapters in “Reality Check” to lies told by entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, lawyers, engineers, business partners and C.E.O.’s. With all this rampant lying, are you suggesting that artful lying and lie-detecting are part of the game that entrepreneurs need to master?

A. If an entrepreneur’s lips are moving, she’s probably lying — though she may not know it. Part of being an entrepreneur is that you have to lie — first of all to yourself. You have to tell yourself that you can create something, people can build it, customers will buy it and you can collect the money.

If you cannot ignore the naysayers who tell you that it can’t be done, it shouldn’t be done, it isn’t necessary, you can’t be an entrepreneur. One of the best ways to ignore is to lie and deny.

The challenge is that once you do ship, you have to remove the lie-and-deny shields and listen to what your customers are telling you. Flipping this bit is one of the hardest things for an entrepreneur to do.

What Business Week Calls Innovation

"This year's "Voices of Innovation" series celebrates 10 individuals from very different worlds, including finance but also from medicine, digital networking and design, architecture, and technology. Each one embodies the optimistic spirit of innovation. All are in it for the long haul. These are innovators whose ideas are challenging received wisdom and the status quo. Their intellectual curiosity and confidence allow them to synthesize skills from other disciplines as well as from other individuals and organizations, an increasingly rare gift in a world of ever-narrower specialization. In short, these individuals get it. Even if they sometimes find themselves struggling along the way, their work represents a distilled form of innovation at its finest.

By its nature, innovation is not a frozen moment in time but ongoing. And while the discipline can be taught (or so the numerous consultants claim), there's no one-size-fits-all way to innovate. Frustratingly for bean counters and process devotees, successful innovation contains elements that are hard to quantify and impossible to buy. At its best, a spirit of innovation becomes embedded in a corporate culture, allowing both individuals and firms to thrive. That's why companies such as Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) are regularly cited as the World's Most Innovative (BusinessWeek, 4/17/08), not least by this magazine. And that's why it's seemingly so difficult for others to knock those firms from their lofty perch: Mere replication of individual processes is never enough. There are, however, lessons to be learned from looking at the experiences of those working passionately on their own agenda. Those profiled in this new BusinessWeek series represent the very finest thinkers of a generation."

Article

I'm Back! Going to try and write more frequently.

I haven't been back to this blog in awhile. Thought about it.  Wanted to figure out how I was going to exactly use this blog.  You see, I have the social network, My Modern Metropolis, I'm on twitter, facebook, yelp, plus another 20-30 social places all over the net.

I'm going to start using this blog as a place where I get to plan out my schedule.  A list, of sorts.  This will help me get more organized ('cause everyone needs that) and will serve as a place to share my mini rants and raves about the little things that affect my life.  So, I'm sorry if we get a little mundane at times.

I'll try and keep it somewhat exciting!!!  (Did the three exclamation points help at all?) 

What's the goal of theMET?

I got asked this yesterday and though I can turn it around over and over in my head, when it all comes down to it, the reason why I am investing my time and effort into theMET is because I truly believe that we can all learn from each other.  As we get older, we somehow lose that childlike innocence, we forget that one of the most important lessons in life is to share.

Why share?

Because we all have our own passions in life - we all have our own dreams - and we need each other to attain them.  We need our friends to tell us the truth about our work, we need to build on each other's creativity and achievements, to advance society, yes, but to go beyond what we're capable of, as an individual.

What have I learned in the last four months?  That we're all more similar than we think.  That we all go through self-doubt and anxiety, that in understanding this simple fact, we feel less alone.  Being vulnerable or uneasy isn't something to be ashamed of, it's something that you must feel in order to succeed.  Fear means you're stepping outside your comfort zone, it's necessary for personal growth.  How you deal with it, though, is up to you.

People who stick.

Had dinner last night with a new friend and we talked about a few things that I wanted to simmer on today.  The first was about people who stick.  I asked him if he thought that people came into your life for a reason and he said that people do in fact come into your life for a reason - but it's the people who actually "stick" around that are the ones that you were meant to be friends with.

Interesting thought.  As I think about that more today, I can begin to understand what he's saying.  People will come and go in your life all the time - passing fancies, random chance meetings - but it's the people that hold your attention, that you find some commonality with - that may be a part of your life's mater plan.

Perhaps.

Hang on by Raceytay

A beautiful picture by Raceytay.

An author I find fascinating: JR Moehringer

Read a great article in LA Magazine by this author J.R Moehringer. Then, read this interview about him on Barnes & Noble.com. 

"I'm blessed by friends. The ancient philosophers thought friendship the cornerstone of happiness, so I never miss an opportunity to give thanks for the people who make me laugh, kick me in the pants, and steer me clear of the jagged rocks with their sage advice. Without Sloan and Roger Barnett, Jim Newton, Emily Nunn, Amy Wallace, Bill Husted, et al., The Tender Bar wouldn't exist and my life would be many shades dimmer. To know me is to love them."

What was the book that most influenced your life or your career as a writer?
The Stories of John Cheever. I discovered Cheever when I was a teenager and it was a lovely shock to my system. Here was a writer who possessed all the best qualities of my two heroes. He combined Hemingway's carved sentences and deep regard for the "masculine" virtues with Fitzgerald's wistfulness and poeticism. Also, Cheever's characters lived in my world, the suburbs of Manhattan, and like no one else he evoked that world's romance and poignancy -- the epic drinking, the lonely trains, the heartbreaking autumns. I fell headfirst into his collection of stories. I read it over and over, and still reread it regularly, for comfort, for pleasure, for inspiration, for instruction.

What are your ten favorite books, and what makes them special to you?

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald -- The Greatest American Novel. Ethereal language, universal themes, vivid characters, a haunting sense of the past as the thing to which we're all relentlessly drawn -- it's as close to a perfect book as I've ever encountered.

A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr -- A novella that says in fewer than 150 pages what others try to say in five times that many. A story about art, love, and trauma, and the courage it takes to survive all three. Told in a voice of great dignity and kindness.

A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley -- A "fictional memoir" about drinking, rooting, tomcatting, and the insanity of trying to write a book. Despite its cult following, still an underrated classic. Exley was a tortured soul, but hammered his torment into rare gold. The language is rich, luscious, and both invites and defies imitation.

The Stories of John Cheever -- See above.

The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway (Finca Vigia Edition) -- I love The Sun Also Rises and A Moveable Feast, but I think Hemingway was at his magnificent best in the short stories. The economy, the compression, the toughness. Also, nearly all the writers these stories spawned and inspired, from Richard Yates to Raymond Carver, are on my personal Mount Rushmore.

Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, (1st and 2nd series) -- Instantly calming and uplifting. Can be read as philosophy, poetry, memoir, religion, self-help -- or prophecy. And I know of no book that's better at three o'clock in the morning.

A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter -- Some of the most perfect sentences and scenes ever written. With apologies to Henry James, Salter is The Master. (And he's forgotten more about sex than James ever knew.)

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov -- Brilliant, courageous, linguistically breathtaking -- and so damned funny. One of the greatest novels, in any language, of all time.

The Sweet Science by A. J. Liebling -- The greatest book ever written about boxing, by the second greatest writer ever to work at The New Yorker.

Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell -- Brilliant portraits, essays by the greatest writer ever to work at The New Yorker, including his two masterpieces about a shape-shifting homeless man named Professor Seagull, a.k.a. Joe Gould.

A Store I'd Like to Check Out in NY: Alessi

Alessi, winner of Travel+Leisure for best retail space.

Kevin Roberts: Ideas Are the Currency of the Future

Good video from CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi on the "ideas business."

Thanks Stephen Henault for showing me this video.

Audrey Kawasaki - One of the Best Artists of Our Time

Her website

Planning (and the Unexpected)

As I run through life, I have to consciously remind myself to stop and plan.  I read somewhere that one hour of planning will save you four works of work.  We spin our wheels, we rush from one task to the other but rarely do we sit down, stop and plan. 

I'm having trouble myself these days - trying to figure out which direction I need to move into next.  Setting up meetings, writing emails, sorting through newspapers and magazines, and then trying to stay focused toward a vision is difficult.  As your own boss you question if what you are doing is worth it.  You wonder if your time is best spent on one task or the other.  The mind never sleeps, the gears keep turning, there isn't a moment when you can stop.

But. 

Then, after all that planning, something unexpected will happen.  You'll cross paths with someone that you thought you could never meet.  You'll get an email or a nice comment from a person.  And then...you'll realize that it was all worth it.

Golden Age of Song CD

Just a really cool looking CD cover I saw today at Starbucks.  Excuse the crappy quality of this shot. (Taken on my iphone.)

Love these visuals from Brian Solis

Conversation Prism

"As conversations are increasingly distributed, everything begins with listening and observing. Doing so, will help you identify exactly where relevant discussions are taking place, as well as their scale and frequency. This dialog can be charted into a targeted social map that's unique to your brand. In the example below, I created a Social Map using MindJet to represent the communities where I either need to or currently contribute based on my initial research."



Website