Just a few observations from our first day in the new office...

• If there is a soda vending machine anywhere in the building I'll be damned if I can find it. But, that's okay! We'll just hold our afternoon meetings from the street and sidewalk while we schlepp all the way over to 7-11 to get our chocolate or Diet Coke fixes around 3 pm. That will, at least, keep us productive and *collaborative* (not to mention allowing us to showcase our novel problem solving skills -- bonus!).
• The instant coffee available on every floor? To say it ain't Blue Bottle (or even Starbucks) is an understatement. The company will undoubtably save all the money they spend each year on coffee because no one will drink it if it tastes nothing at all like coffee. On the upside? We'll just get more creative in how we obtain caffeine so Yay! another move objective accomplished!
• By forbidding us to have a microwave on any floor other than the first (in the cafeteria... stacked together in a bank of ten, like TVs for sale in the windows of old school electronics emporiums) you will be helping us avoid productivity burnout by forcing us to bring our now-tepid cup of coffee all the way down to the first floor (after waiting forever for the elevator that will now stop on each floor before you get there), zap it in the bank of microwaves, go back, wait for the elevator that stops at each floor on the way to the 6th before getting back to my far-flung cubicle with my now tepid coffee. Lather, rinse, repeat.
• It's a good thing we aren't allowed to have live plants in our cube because my lack of anything close to a green thumb spells a sure death to even the hardiest plants. Shit, I kill fake plants somehow.
  

I just love Wordle, don't you?

These are the most common words written in blogs, news stories and discussions about this past week's Web 2.0 Summit. I love beautifully visualized themes and concepts and Wordle just takes all of the noise, chatter and chaos and distills it down to a simple, lovely picture. I think that's just sublime.

Sometimes, at work, I'll pull the copy from a really technical, dry, complicated email written by one of our engineers and run it through Wordle before sending it out to non-techie folks in my department so it can be understood quickly in more simple terms. It usually makes them laugh but I think we actually find it helpful, too. :)

Highlights from the Web 2.0 Summit

I wanted to share a link to the Bing demo I saw at the Web 2.0 Summit this week. It’s worth a watch if you’re interested in why there is so much buzz about them right now. I’m  most definitely *not* a Microsoft fan but this demo was really very cool.

The actual demo starts at the 9:10 marker. Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT2wqXrBQHI

BTW, you should also check some of the other notable demo videos from the conference. They’re all relatively short (15 – 25 minutes each, a bit like the TED Conferences format):

• Web 2.0 Summit 09: Brian Roberts (CEO of Comcast). Also Comcast's video on demand, on steroids. 
• Web 2.0 Summit 09: "Discussion: Humans As Sensors" 
• Web 2.0 Summit 09: Mary Meeker (Analyst from Morgan Stanley with some eye popping stats on the economy and future growth of the mobile industry)
• Web 2.0 Summit 09: Max Ventilla (Aardvark – “Scaling Humans and Social Nets to Answer Questions”. A “cloud/social network style Ask.com” service… hard to explain here but really really cool) 
•  Web 2.0 Summit 09: "High Order Ignite” (5 quick demos from emerging startups. In particular, check out the CellScope and Foursquare guys… absolutely amazing use of technology.)
• Web 2.0 Summit 09: Aaron Koblin (uses huge datasets to make stunning digital art)

Enjoy!