Saying No To Customers

Last weekend, I had a few guests in town, so I decided to take them to my favorite brunch place in San Francisco (and probably the world): Red Door Cafe. I’ve been to Red Door Cafe exactly two times, and each time was phenomenal. What makes Red Door Cafe the best brunch place, is not necessarily the food (although it’s good food), but the atmosphere…

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Standing Desk Review: Work Should Be One Big Dance Party

So a few weeks ago, I switched to a standing desk. I’ve read that it’s supposed to be much healthier than sitting all day. Well, not exactly. Everything is good in moderation. If you sit or stand all day without change, it’s pretty bad for you. With a standing desk, I was excited to have that option of easily switching between sitting and standing all day – there are standing desk chairs believe it or not! Just don’t get this one, it’s horrible. Anyway, here are some of my takeaways from having a standing desk:

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TimeDoctor Review: Creepy But Productive

I have mixed feelings about TimeDoctor. For those of you who are not familiar, TimeDoctor times everything you’re working on, alerts you when you’re looking at Facebook during work, and even takes screenshots of your screen. If you’re thinking this is pretty creepy, you’re not alone.

That’s exactly what I thought about TimeDoctor when I first heard about it. I would HATE to work at a place that took screenshots of my work and made me time every single thing I did…

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Please Don’t Make Me Call You

A few days ago, I was reviewing a startup Retrofit for one of my other blogs because they just raised $2.7 MILLION in funding. For those of you who don’t know about Retrofit (which is probably most of you), it’s basically a cool Weight Watchers competitor, where you get some higher-tech weight loss instruments that help track your weight loss success along with help from a team of experts.

I was interested in finding out how much this program costs for my article, so I went to their “Join Now” page. I was annoyed to see that not only did they not include the pricing on that page, but that I also had to CALL to find out. And, believe it or not, that wasn’t even the worse part of the whole process. When I called, I was greeted by one of those automated voices that told me to select from a number of option, then I had to wait through a message about their program, and then I was forwarded to the VOICEMAIL of the sales department!!!

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Hey 2tor, Here’s Another Headline For You

Yesterday, as I was researching online education startups, I took a look at 2tor.com, and this is what showed up:

Keep in mind that at that point, I had absolutely no idea what 2tor does…

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Focus, Focus, Focus!

The few loyal followers that I have here at reorg have probably noticed that I haven’t been writing much lately. The reason is that I have chosen to focus all of my energy into a start-up I’m working on, holler.com. Holler co-founder Nick O’Neill, a well-respected entrepreneur, once told me “it is one thing to be an employee when the company makes it big, it is another to be the reason they made it big”. This is something that really stayed with me over the last couple of months, something I have taken to heart. I want to be part of the reason Holler makes it big, and the only way I can do that is by focusing everything I have into Holler.

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Project Management According To Patti Chan

I was really excited to interview Patti Chan about her experience as a project manager, mostly because of all her interests outside of work, including her love for cooking and organizing Ignite San Francisco, as well as her background of continuous learning and working hard to create a successful start-up in Baltimore before joining Intridea, where she currently works as a project manager. Patti didn’t disappoint me as she shared some great knowledge and advice over some tea and delicious appetizers at Samovar Tea Lounge. Here is what I learned from Patti:

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Forget Management, Let Customers Run Your Company

One of the things I’ve noticed from working with developers and designers recently, is that they have no problem going to outside sources for help. If a developer is stuck on solving a bug that he can’t figure out using Google, he can go post a question about it on StackOverflow, his Facebook page, or his Twitter feed – designers have similar resources. This is not something that is done in bigger corporations, especially in departments unrelated to development and design (e.g. marketing, hr, finance, etc.). If you have a serious problem or need help with a presentation you’re working on, you should talk to your other co-workers or your supervisor. Think of how much help and information and ideas corporations are missing out on!

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Why Tweets Need To Replace Cover Letters

University of Iowa Tippie School of Management is now accepting tweets answering the question ”what makes you an exceptional Tippie MBA candidate and full-time MBA hire? Creativity encouraged!” instead of a full admission essay and Columbia Business School is following suit by now asking for 200 character admission essays. If it works for the universities, can it work for the workplace? What if instead of a cover letter, applicants could just tweet about your company?

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Getting Lucky In Recruiting

A few days ago, I was talking to Kasper Hulthin, co-founder of Podio, and he told me an interesting story about a guy he knew who wanted to hire only lucky people. This guy would take all the submitted resumes, put them into one stack, divide the stack in half, and throw out one of the new stacks (half the resumes). Presumably, the stack of resumes that was left contained lucky people. I’m not sure I agree with this guys hiring methodology, but it is definitely one legitimate way of dealing with the pain involved in the hiring process…

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