alexknows...stuff

“ Bad culture happens as well. Trying to unlearn the bad habits of two years in a public company with a lot of high level control is difficult. Basically, it’s the same no matter how you do it: force yourself into good habits. Encourage those in others. Enable your employees. But throw the mission statement document in the fire.

— You don’t create a culture - (37signals) - John Athayde Commentary

“ They call it “creative” because they want a wide enough range of industries to show economic impact. They put “economy” on the end so they can justify the city spending money on it. Or at least that’s my perspective.

— Matthew Fisher, regarding the so-called “creative economy”

“ At my wedding, I’m going to have 200 guests. Not 200 users.

— drew olanoff dot com. - Ok, that’s it. The next time I hear the word “User”…

“ Planned economies have as many unintended consequences as the free-for-all we have in the United States.

“ On the one hand, the event struck me as an effort by the city-funded Innovation Philadelphia organization to make a case for why the Nutter administration should provide funding for it. Currently, the city budget contains no money for the agency, which was created during Mayor Street’s first term.

— Philly.com

“ We decided to lose all regard for professionalism in Philadelphia. We were three hours late for an interview after struggling with Manhattan traffic. I conducted the interview in a backwards San Francisco Giants hat and a muscle tight Uppercut Boxing T-shirt. Alex Hillman, founder of Independents Hall, didn’t seem to mind.

Independents Hall is like a gym for entrepreneurs. Young business people normally working from home can come together to feed off the entrepreneurial energy bouncing around in the building.

The two story building is only a few blocks away from the real Independence Hall. The bottom floor is home to about ten scruffy males in their twenties sipping coffee and intensely staring at computer screens. We headed upstairs to the loft for a bird’s eye view of the computer lab before sitting on a hand-me-down couch for an interview with Alex.

Alex is twenty-four years old and fits in nicely with the demographic of customers attracted to Independents Hall. He sports a look that suggests he hasn’t shaven in a few days. The t-shirt he wore says “Viddler,” advertising the newest video sharing website he was into.

The most interesting response in the interview was what Alex would say to his twenty-two year old self.

“Embrace chaos. I don’t know if I didn’t do it then, but I didn’t consciously do it then,” Alex thoughtfully said. “Now, it’s like every day I know something crazy is going to happen and there’s nothing I can do about it. How can I capture that energy and spin it someplace positive?”

The piece of advice was perfect for where I was at that point in the journey. I had gotten a taste of what embracing chaos was like in New York, but could the craziness actually be spun into someplace positive on the road from Philadelphia back to Phoenix?

— Brett Farmiole-Pursue the Passion

“ most of my successes in life are the result of a series of well planned accidents.

— me, of course

“ I believe the best software is written by small groups of people who have both passion and vision. Passion is easy to define; you care so deeply about something that it wounds you if it’s done poorly. Vision can mean different things, but I mean the ability to not just come up with new ideas, but to actually be able to see how they would integrate with people’s lives. Vision without passion gives you a guy who sitting on couch saying, ‘Flying cars! Wave of the future! Mark my word, the guy who invents that’s going to be rich… pass the chips.’ Passion without vision gives you America’s current political situation, where we allow huge companies to destroy the world but pass laws to make sure nobody marries a turtle.

— Wil Shipley, via evhead

“ Tara Hunt: “Marketing is the price you pay for creating mediocre products.

—

found on Tapio by Alex de Carvalho, from the

Self Replicating Awesomeness: The Marketing of No Marketing panel at SXSW

“ I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Alex Hillman of Phildelphia coworking space, IndyHall, about finding your niche as an owner of coworking space and than reaching that niche. Coworking spaces vary greatly in their audience. While coworking is about openness and community, each space has its own character and appeals to different groups. Alex wisely pointed out that each space has to build its community in order to be successful.

— Face Time: Building the coworking community « Coworking Community Blog