What's Next

Two graduate degrees under my belt, and I'm back out in the real world. I enjoy learning, but maybe just not within the confines of academia...


I've been fortunate enough to piece my dream job together, and have started working on a new venture here in Cambridge. Sure, I'm far from home, but I would choose to do this over anything. I want to do something meaningful.

Sometimes it bothers me to hear other people talk about starting a company. More than half the time, it's just talk and fantasy of a life they think is cool/easy. Luck always plays a factor, but I can be sure to say opportunity arises with those who are committed. I think it's often the difference maker, we don't fall into dream jobs and we don't start companies by accident.

Pac-Man Battle Royale

Design with Intent

The design with intent toolkit is nearly everything one wants to know about designing for behavior. Dan Lockton, the author of the toolkit, created it as part of his 'Design for Sustainable Behaviour' doctorate. The toolkit consist of 101 simple cards, each illustrating a particular ‘gambit‘ for influencing people’s interactions with products, services, environments, and each other. Dan simply describes it as:

The intention is that the cards are useful at the idea generation stage of the design process, helping designers, clients and – perhaps most importantly – potential users themselves explore behaviour change concepts from a number of disciplines, and think about how they might relate to the problem at hand.

Download Design with Intent

Breakbot - Baby I'm Yours

Ratatat - LP4

I idolize this guy.

Silence

Freshman year of college at Johns Hopkins, Gary and I were complete jackasses.


I don't remember the exact count, but I remember we hid 40 something ice cream bars in our super baggy pants leaving the dining area one night. And somehow, between the two us we ate them all in the next 2-3 days.

There was also a week where we lived inside our room and did nothing but play Shenmue on the Dreamcast. We made it a point to finish the game without fully realizing/caring Ryo Hazuki's journey was 50+ hours long. We literally spent the week playing as soon as we got up and until it was time to go back to bed.

Gary and I also had two other suitemates, Jason and Jeff. I'm pretty sure they hated us for blasting music every other night. I think Gary spent more time getting to know them, but I can't be for sure. Maybe Jeff, but Jason wasn't exactly the most popular dude in the suite. He was pretty straight edge, Christian and everything, but he was definitely more mature than Gary and I.