We’ve now been using Yammer at Photojojo for three months, and it’s been a really useful tool for ambient office communication.
For those of you who don’t know, Yammer’s basically a private, company-specific version of Twitter. Even in a real office (we’re usually sitting just a few feet away from each other) and with a small team (we’re just three people — p.s. we’re hiring) it’s been really cool to know what people are working on, what they’re noticing, etc. There’s a lot of things that just don’t merit a verbal or email interruption but are still worth putting out there. Yammer fits the bill.
In addition to sending a quick note about we’re working on, we also end up using yammer as a semi-live chat space… the Air app is usually open on each of our laptops, and it’s taken the place of IM.
As a side note, I’ve noticed myself twittering a lot less since we started using Yammer in September. I’m averaging 10-12 yammer messages a day, but only 2-3 twitter messages.
p.s. I also talked briefly about our Yammer usage on a PSFK panel last month.
I have a Linksys WRT54GL wireless router running the latest Linksys firmware and an Airport Express (g, no n) running firmware 6.3
The Airport Express used to sit in my bedroom hooked up to some speakers, and the Linksys in my living room. By the time the Linksys’ signal reached my bedroom, it was spotty on my MacBook Pro, and streaming music dropped our frequently. (As did Skype, iChat video, etc.)
The Airport Express can be configured to extend a wireless connection (as opposed to joining it) using WDS, but there’s a lot of conflicting and outdated info on whether or how the it will work with non-Apple wireless routers.
After fiddling for a half hour or so, I got it to work. Here’s how…
Photojojo’s putting on a series of events over the next couple months in NYC and SF. They’re called Photo Safaris and the idea is simple: anyone with a camera is welcome, we find a fun event, location, or organize a tour, you have fun shooting for an hour or two, then we go to a bar, show off everyone’s photos, and give away some prizes from our sponsors.
The first one is this Saturday, October 25th in DUMBO, Brooklyn. Hope you can make it.
One of the rooms in my apartment just opened up, and we’re looking to fill it by November 1st or sooner. We’ll start interviewing this week.
The apartment is a three bedroom in San Francisco that I share with two other people, and one of them (Jenny) started grad school and moved into school housing*.
The room is small (12′ x 13′), has a window, a large closet, and is quiet. The rent is very cheap ($550/month + utilities) and the lease is month-to-month.
In Duboce Triangle (seriously great, super walkable neighborhood with tree-lined streets, and lots of places to eat.) A quick walk to the Lower Haight or Castro. 2 blocks from Duboce Park (swell dog park — and the apt itself is dog-friendly.)
Within 3 blocks, you’ll find burritos, burgers, vietnamese and chinese, bars, a gym, and a 24-hour Safeway (grocery store)
Washer and Dryer in unit.
Bike parking in back.
Shared Kitchen + living room + bathroom
2 blocks from the Church St. MUNI (K,M,T) and N-Judah, J-Church, F-Market, and 22.
Available 11/1 or sooner.
$550/month. (Yes, really. It’s rent controlled because my other roommate has been here for a while.)
We might be picky, but if you are awesome and are interested, email me. And if you know someone who might be interested, pass it on. Thanks!
* Jenny was going to move out a few months ago but she decided she didn’t want to give up the room and stayed on a bit longer. In the end, paying for a room she wasn’t using didn’t seem like the best idea, so now we’re looking again!
We have a really cool new full-time position open at Photojojo, working with me, Susan, and Kelly in our San Francisco office in SOMA.
Briefly, we’re looking for someone entrepreneurial, smart, and savvy to take charge of our online store business. We started the store two years ago and have seen impressive growth despite it being a sideline until now. We’re aiming to put a lot more time into the store, and we’re looking for a perfect someone to take over buying, marketing, promotions, and overall direction. You’ll have a good deal of responsibility, lots of flexibility to be creative, and the opportunity to learn and grow a ton.
Please pass it on to your photo-happy San Francisco friends!
I’ll be in NYC this weekend (August 16th through the 18th) to attend NYIGF for Photojojo. If you wanna meet up know of something great going on, let me know!
My pal Joe Gebbia’s got a really cool site called AirBed & Breakfast… it’s sort of like an up-market version of Couchsurfing. It lets users rent their apartment to people traveling to their city, and travelers get a cheaper stay than a hotel, and some local flavor.
Their marketing strategy for the site, by the way, is spot-on. Instead of trying to attack the entire world at once (and spreading themselves too thin, with cities upon cities with no listings) or concentrating on one city at a time (slow), they’re latching onto popular events and conferences.
By creating campaigns around design and political conferences and major events, they make it temporal, and relevant. In one stroke, the site is worth talking about and blogging about for anyone who’s talking or blogging about that event. Smart.
Allow people to review, fave, or star individual menu items.
Here in San Francisco, Yelp is indispensable. In NYC, I used Menupages all the time. Both are great for simple, honest, user-generated feedback of places to eat.
Often, I’m visiting the page for a restaurant I’ve already tried, just to skim through the reviews and decide what to order. Case in point, my favorite sammy shop in the whole wide world, Ike’s Place, has a ton of amazing vegetarian sandwiches on the menu. My favorite is their “Going Home For Thanksgiving” sandwich, but sometimes I want to try something new.
Wouldn’t it be neat-o if you could just look at the menu and see reviews for each item? Maybe even sort by popularity or rating? I think it would.
I’ve been noticing something happening to me more and more often recently: serendipitous social connections being made between me and old friends, strangers, or even between two people I barely know, as a result of some data I put up publicly on the net.
Here’s three examples over just the past few days:
I twittered a meeting I was having earlier week with Lisa Congdon at Rare Device, who I met through my pal Kate Bingaman-Burt, and as a result, someone I don’t even know named Beth, was reconnected with Lisa. Beth and I don’t know each other, Lisa and I just met this week, and Kate and I have only communicated through digital means… we’ve never met in person.
I posted a photo of a dollar bill I had that reminded me of a side project of a guy that used to work for me… seven years ago. As a result, I got an email from him the next day.
I posted this photo of a special bottle of Dr. Pepper I bought back in February. Yesterday, I got this emailthrough Facebook from a gal I don’t know looking for the soda in the Bay Area for a friend who’s obsessed with the drink and has a birthday coming up.
Of course, none of these events are truly serendipitous, they’re all indicative of the incredibly interconnected fabric of social connection we’re weaving online with every piece of information we put out there. The more we open ourselves up, the more we’re weaved into the social fabric, with each piece of information we release becoming a possible point of connection (or re-connection) with old and new friends.
One of the rooms in my apartment just opened up, and I’m considering either finding a new roommate or making the room available as a share for people who visit SF often and would prefer to have a furnished room in SF that they can use a few days to a week a month for less than they’d spend on one night in a hotel room.
If that’s of interest, or if you know someone looking for an apartment, read on…
If you or an equally awesome friend is looking for an apartment in San Francisco (starting mid August to Sept 1), a room is about to open up in my apartment. It’s a three bedroom in San Francisco that I share with two other people, and one of them (Jenny) is starting grad school and moving into school housing.
In Duboce Triangle (seriously great, super walkable neighborhood with tree-lined streets, and lots of places to eat.) A quick walk to the Lower Haight or Castro. 2 blocks from Duboce Park (swell dog park — and the apt itself is dog-friendly.) Within 3 blocks, you’ll find burritos, burgers, vietnamese and chinese, bars, a gym, and a 24-hour Safeway (grocery store)
Washer and Dryer in unit.
Shared Kitchen + living room + bathroom
2 blocks from the Church St. MUNI (K,M,T) and N-Judah, J-Church, F-Market, and 22.
$550/month. (Yes this is the insane part. It’s rent controlled because my other roommate has been there for a while.)
p.s. If you’re interested in the share idea, drop me a line. I have one person interested so far, and it’d be around $100-200/month.
His latest project is Photojojo. If you like photography, you will like Photojojo.
Before Photojojo, he was a founder of The Daily Jolt, an online community on 100 college campuses, helped create a non-profit called ChangeThis with Seth Godin, and brought the technology un-conference BarCamp to NYC. He also started a weekly casual coworking session called Jelly.
And he's consulted for companies such as Pearson, Apple, and Creative Good and co-authored The Big Moo, a WSJ best-seller, with Seth Godin, Malcolm Gladwell, Guy Kawasaki, Tom Peters, and others.
I’ll be on a panel tomorrow morning in NYC for PSFK called “Good Ideas in Collaboration” where I’ll be talking about 
We have a really cool new full-time position open at 
My pal Joe Gebbia’s got a really cool site called 
