blog

Alright, so this is my first post on our prestigious blog. Get excited.

For those of you out there that have no idea who I am, I will let you in on a few details about myself. 1) I’m hilarious, 2) I love music, and 3) I’m not a cocky jerk, I promise.

There is enough web-expertise on this blog, so I think I’ll use my time here in a different way. I have decided to be your personal Music Guru. I’m a dedicated, vinyl freak. I’m viciously opinionated and always honest. And lucky for you, I’ll be here to let you know exactly how I feel about new releases, and maybe some oldies/classics too (and yes, I’l probably let you know about most of my vinyl purchases as I make them).

For those of you in Columbus, Ohio, I’ve got a gem for you. Used Kids Records. At 1980 N. High Street just south of Buckeye Donuts, you’ll find a small black and white sign pointing into a strange entrance. Passing through the door you find steps leading to the gold mine upstairs: thousands of new and used records, CDs, and cassettes. Personally, I use it for the vinyl. I’m kind of in love with the 12″ album art, the warm sound, and the physical satisfaction I get from a vinyl LP. So seriously, get down there and do it old school.

So now that you know what you’re in for, and where to get some of the goods, I’ll hit you with my first set of recommendations.

1) The Shepherd’s Dog - Iron & Wine (or any of their albums, really)
I recently saw Iron & Wine live here in Columbus (at the Newport Theater, one of my favorite venues ever), and I was blown away. Sam and Sarah Beam’s vocal harmonies are so well-done and completely enveloping. The Shepherd’s Dog introduced a full backing-band to the mix. Honestly I was a little worried about this, the Iron & Wine feel is traditionally very acoustic and raw. But after seeing him perform new and old songs with the band, all my concerns disappeared. The same heart and honesty that made his early music popular is still going strong and fueling some surprisingly funky jams (I might be an old Phish-head). Anyway, go out and buy some Iron & Wine, you won’t regret it. Other Notable Release from Iron & Wine:  The Sea and Rhythm EP (2003), Our Endless Numbered Days (2004), Woman King EP (2005), In The Reins w|Calexico EP (2005).

2) The Autumn of the Seraphs - Pinback
I’m new to this band, but their latest release took very little time to win me over. The interplay of the twangy bass and acoustic and electric guitars on this album is warm and precise. The riffs the two principal members have created here are complicated at times, but also catchy.. it’s like a brain exercise (the good kind). Add a drum machine, a piano, and occasional synth sounds as a backdrop and you’ve got music that some would categorize as pop, but with one fundamental difference from mainstream pop: it has substance. Other notable releases from Pinback: Blue Screen Life (2001), Offcell EP (2003), Summer in Abaddon (2004).

One side-note in closing, if I get a comments on these posts asking why I haven’t mentioned Miley Cyrus, [insert disney-generated crap here], Good Charlotte, Fallout Boy, or any other no-talent clown(s) out there, I will be thoroughly upset and probably lose all faith in humanity. So please.. spare me?

Peace.

Better late than never right? Yes, Startup Drinks Columbus was last Wednesday night, but I’ve been meaning to post about it and damnit, I’m going to.

The event took place at Surly Girl Saloon in the Short North. Bobby and I both went and had a great time. Didn’t really know what to expect heading in, other than things to do with startups, right? The night brought some good beer(I had a Harpoon UFO - reminded me of being out in Providence with my sister - and a couple of Eliot Nesses), some great conversation, some faces to put with names and twitter handles and some new acquaintances. Many of the people there will also be attending Startup Weekend Columbus July 18-20 (which dynamIt is sponsoring), but Startup Drinks aren’t only for SU Weekend goers. The idea is that people interested in startups, entrepreneurship and business conversation get together and interact. In attendance were individuals with ideas for startups, developers, designers, local journalists and media people, marketing types, business types, lawyers, consultants and people I didn’t get to talk to that do something really cool that I might not even know about. Chris Anderson of TechColumbus was there as well, which I think is important. While a big part of what TC does is facilitating funding for companies who have at least solidified an idea, the seeds for those ideas, I believe, are more prevalent here in Columbus that many people are aware.

I’m hoping that SU drinks continue to grow here in Columbus. While I’m not planning on a splinter company anytime soon (dynamIt was our startup!), the interaction with other designers, developers, creatives, marketers and entrepreneurial-minded people is stimulating. Needless to say, I don’t get enough of it in my life. While in school I knew and worked with many people heavily involved with the Miami University Page Center for Entrepreneurship. (I took a few classes, but could never engage as deeply as I would have liked because of this little thing called dynamIt). Little known fact - Ohio is home to 3 of the top 25 Entrepreneurship programs in the country.

*Note I’ve received word from Dr. Jay Kayne with the Page Center for Entrepreneurship at Miami University that the MU program will again be ranked in the top 25 undergraduate programs in the US out of over 700 schools. The official rankings come out in October in Entrepreneur Magazine

The energy, passion, creativity and cerebral environment surrounding startups in general has the ability to fuel everyday activities, work-tasks and life in general. It’s refreshing, especially the courage, and I think professionals bogged down in their day-to-day would benefit greatly from a night with some people who think differently.

Big thanks to Brian Jones of Jones Insight and Ashley Routson of Young Isaac/The Beer Wench for organizing the night.

A few other posts re: Startup Drinks Columbus -

• the270
  
• Greatest City of All
• wyliemac’s pics

one.

nick

So I think there’s a certain rung in the ladder than you can decidedly say you’ve reached when you have deserts and sweets being stamped out (and/or being baked with love… Jess ) in your likeness. It was to our surprise today when Matt walked in after lunch with a tray full of cookies. Ya, we like our snacks, but don’t generally eat a lot in the office. He had a smile on his face and couldn’t wait to show us what this tupperware treasure chest contained.

Upon opening:

Ya, that’s right… those are indeed cookies in the shape of the dynamIt Integral (our logo). Needless to say Jess scored major points today. Oh, and by the way, they were delicious.

Thanks Jess!

one.

nick

So I’m not an impulse buyer. In fact, my mom always called me a miser. I hate going to the mall because I never want to spend money/buy anything. However, when I was at Easton the other day with my good friend Annie (returning something from Christmas… on June 22 - see I told you I hate shopping) I was walking quickly past Foot Locker when a pair of shoes caught my eye. I’ve needed some new shoes for a while. I’ve had many cool funky shoes in my time, but currently the only ones in my closet besides dress shoes are 2 pairs of New Balance 574s and some running shoes (all 3 at least 4 years old). While I do love my Top Siders, I need something to knock around in.

I saw these guys and told Annie I had to take a look:

One big problem… they didn’t have 12s or 13s for me to try on. I wanted these shoes! Long story short - I tried on a pair at Tuttle on Monday while I was there for a meeting, made sure I had the right size, and when I was back out at Easton again yesterday for another meeting, had the Foot Locker guy order them (because of course while they had my size at Tuttle, they didn’t have the color). 3-5 business days he said. Fine by me. Then, today at 12:30 UPS drops my new kicks at the office and I’m pumped.

dynamIt vice you ask? Yes. The above is an example of a vice we all have. We LOVE our shoes. Phil is overly anxious right now because a new pair of Steve Maddens that were supposed to be here yesterday aren’t. Bobby’s been rocking his new Pumas all week and Steve will only wear his new Pumas every third Tuesday of odd numbered months because he wants to keep them perfect. Matt is a bit more reserved in his footwear taste but keeps an impressive stock of dress shoes (you’ve all seen them) and has most recently invested in a stylish pair of Nike Shox with some of that sick new grunge pattern going on. Dan, the intern, has been loyal to his boat shoes for the past few weeks. Maybe he’ll throw a curve ball our way after reading this??? (By the way we all know that while Bobby and Steve have multiple pairs of Pumas, my one pair is the best - they are green and metallic silver and purchased in Athens, Greece) It’s peculiar and I can’t place my finger on the exact reason, but we all love our shoes. So the next time you’re in a meeting with us, take a look at our feet… we might be sporting the “appropriate” square-toe black shoes with the suit OR, if you’re lucky, you’ll see some the beloveds from one of our collections.

Oh and as for speedy delivery - literally placed the order on Tuesday at about 11:30am and they were in my hands Wednesday at 12:20. Not to shabby for what was supposed to take 3-5 business days. Props to Foot Locker and UPS.

What about you? Who’s got the best kicks in your office? What are your favorite shoes? Leave us a comment and a link or email the pic to blog [at] dynamit dot us and we’ll post the best/most interesting/flat out sweetest kicks we see.

one.

nick

In preparation for our first ever dynamIt Newsletter (which should release sometime around July 1) Dan Sauter asked me today for a brief on couple of web 2.0 applications that I actually use personally. One app that fits this bill and fits it well is Wikipedia. I am a huge fan, in fact, my browser’s built-in search bar is currently defaulted to Wikipedia (not Google, not Yahoo, and certainly not Live.com).

So, when more negative publicity hit the blogosphere again today, with the topic already fresh in mind, I began to reevaluate how I use Wikipedia. The article to which I am referring appeared this morning on one of my favorite tech blogs, ReadWriteWeb, titled Our Kids Are Failing - And It’s All Wikipedia’s Fault.

This gist of the article is this: kids in schools today rely too heavily on sources such as Wikipedia and Google and do not know how to do real research. The article goes on to explain the common conception that because Wikipedia can be edited by anyone and isn’t compiled by verified researchers its articles are often inaccurate.

Long story short, I still think that Wikipedia is great, but with the distinction that it is a great starting point. Cleary, if you are attempting some real research you should NEVER use just a single source, and you should not center your research around Wikipedia. Also, it is important to remember that any source you choose is subject to some level of bias and factual inaccuracy. And, given its user-generated nature, you do run a much greater risk with Wikipedia than with most mainstream sources.

However, Wikipedia can still be friend to the researcher. Access to Wikipedia is instant, it is right there waiting for us to use it. And, just because it may be more prone to flaws than other reference materials does not mean that the information provided is totally bogus. Remember that Wikipedia has some pretty strict rules for posting (such as citing published sources) and their moderators are quick to take down bits that do not follow these rules.

Moreover, I am suggesting that Wikipedia is a great way to fuel the research fire. Suppose you must write an academic paper on the African nation of Mali. Why not read the Wikipedia article on Mali, see what you find interesting, then use traditional means of research or more trustworthy internet databases to pursue those topics?

Beyond that, there is the curious mind. Often, this is me. I do not need to write academic papers anymore, but from time to time I get wind of a topic that I would like to know more about. I achieve this by reading a Wikipedia article or two. I have confidence in the general accuracy and correctness of Wikipedia. Even in the case that what I read is not 100% accurate, I still know a great deal more than I previously did and my curiosity is satisfied.

Also check out Freebase (http://www.freebase.com), “an open, shared database of all the world’s knowledge.” It is similar to Wikipedia, except all of their data is very highly structured. This fact actually comes into play from a technical standpoint. Supposedly, they have a pretty good API that allows us to query their data from any site we develop. Then, there is Powerset (http://www.powerset.com). Powerset lets you search both Wikipedia and Freebase using very natural language and then begins interpreting the results for you.

Wikipedia, Freebase, Powerset, these are all wonderful tools that place a smörgåsbord of information right under your nose. And, I say use them.

We have always talked about getting dynamIt t-shirts around the office, and now they are on the way! It took awhile to get a design that we all liked and were willing to rock, but we finally decided on one. Check out the t-shirt variations in my dynamIt sandbox, and let us know what you think of them. The shirt that we all agreed upon is featured below, and it’s nasty. We are going to be wearing these shirts everywhere, and handing them out to the dynamIt vip list.

The shirts are going to be printed through Edun Live, a company striving to sustain socioeconomic development in Africa. Put simply, that means that when you buy one shirt, you help them to employ people in Africa who might otherwise be unemployed. The company teaches the trade skills to people who lack specialized training and education, gives jobs to the jobless, and supports the communities in Africa, all in order to facilitate the entrance of the third world country into the global market. Edun Live also cares about the environment, featuring 100% certified organic t-shirts, and they also make efforts to transition traditional cotton farmers to produce organic cotton through a development program.

A couple of the guys from the dynamIt team have purchased Edun Live shirts in the past and praise the overall quality of the shirts. If you want to learn more about Edun Live you can check out their website here. It’s a pretty cool website, very cutting edge with the typography and grunge style (stuff that I appreciate). Keep an eye out for the dynamIt shirts, we will be rockin’ them soon!