Journal: Know the Place for the First Time

Wednesday location:  Seven     ||     7:40 am – 8:10 pm

• Product Design:  Matt O’Keefe has been working on a new Ride Studio Cafe community table.  We’ve been working on making it out of repurposed materials:  the legs are from an old lathe we had and the top is from a spare workbench.  It weighs a few hundred pounds so we have to put it on wheels.  Working on an unusual setup for that.
• Process Improvement:  We’ve been having some interesting discussions at Seven Cycles about water bottle placement.  Super exciting, I know.  But it is really engaging to me – but probably not really to anyone else.  One of the reasons it’s worth mentioning is because it’s a perfect example of the tension between solutions that are technology driven vs. solved with simple-technology.  In this case it’s about a software solution vs. a hardware solution.  I rarely choose software.  Nearly everyone with which I work – and all consultants – prefer software answers.  This water bottle challenge is great because we’re actually going to do a hybrid of both.  Sacrilege for me.

• Consulting:  I went to the TechStars investor demo this evening.  Here’s an overview of the 13 start-ups that were looking to raise funding.  The group with which I’ve worked was one of the 13; they presented and did a great job.  I have no doubt they’ll raise the money they want.  They were one of only two product companies; the rest were software companies.  Hardware yay.

Post title:

We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.

– T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding