Simon Brief

Taken with Instagram at Colbeh

First night of Hanukah! Celebrated with @ejbrief finger candles. (Taken with instagram)

made during Thanksgiving of course…

From the moment I heard of Mixel I was excited. Before trying it I felt that conceptually it was for me. After using it, I’m even more blown away.

I’m not a designer. I’m nowhere near a proficient photoshop user. I’m a hacky skitch-powerpoint user for design. And yet I like to think I have some design sense. There aren’t many simple, intuitive tools that make it easy for me to make something without getting caught up in the ‘how-what-where’ of the application. In my limited experience I’ve found that there is traditionally a trade off between the complexity of software and the ability to create something unique/awesome (more on this later). This makes sense – aesthetic expression and creation is complex and difficult, an especially a painstaking process digitally.

It is rare for me to find a digital tool to express abstract creativity (don’t say instagram here, while it’s great its not the same) or an idea or let my mind wander visually.

After spending some time thinking about how much I enjoy Mixel, I would love to use something like this for music! Wow…

one of my mixels remixed from others work…

So why is Mixel awesome?

Fun: I enjoy using Mixel. I don’t need to think about it. Its like the app gets out of the way so you can make your stream of consciousness collage beauty. I became a kid with scissors, glue and stack of magazines – without the mess and with every image ever at my disposal. One of the main reasons this is true is because of…

Intelligent limitations: I can’t cut and paste, restamp shapes into new images or color fill/draw/type. It’s all like Twitter’s 140 character limitation. The product limitations define the medium and force you to operate within it.

All public: This is the most defining ‘limitation’. If I add an image, anyone can use it in their mixel. There is no concept of private images or mixels. I’m sure this was a tough decision to make while designing the app. I’d be curious to hear how Khoi and co came to this decision because it’s genius and must’ve come about via an ‘accident’ or lots of trial and error. Nobody has images or tools that others don’t have, which is the…

Democratization of art: I’m freakin’ creating and (indirectly) collaborating with Khoi Vinh (app creator & former design director at the NYTimes) – using the same tools, pictures, shapes. Remixing his work. I can remix anything! Curious about someone else’s work? I can dig in and tinker literally.

Pushes the limits of copyright: Not inherently a good thing per say, but its absolutely incredible to treat every image in this world as remixable.

made by Khoi…

Mixels with a Purpose
As an experiment, I used Mixel to make some kind of banner or logo for this site. I opened Mixel with a specific idea of what I wanted to make: text from images. I tried all kinds of images with varying purposes – color, texture and meaning (I wanted the images to represent my interests and personality). I tried different crops of letters and layering images, colors and meanings. Most of which turned out too be too small for the positioning of the Tumblr theme I’m using. I iterated (publically), though I probably could have screenshot’d my work. These are my results:

Here are some intelligent things Anil Dash has to say about the app and the process of how it was made.

Good timing.

Dear Spotify,

This is a love note. You’ve been sexy from the start. You’re foreign and I wanted you before you even came to this country. It’s obvious why Facebook loves you too - you’re fucking hot. Too hot just for one social network. Did I mention you make me smile like iTunes never could.

I purchased you before even knowing you well. I wanted you on mobile, anywhere I could have you. You rekindled my love of music by bringing my library together with the cloud.

All the music I could ever want at my finger tips. Beyond that you’re my friends’ music too - deliciously awesome proposition. So much so I’m willing to overlook your PDAing ways - broadcasting to all my facebook friend about our constant romance.

You’re amazing and my friends and I want to make you better. Not just for you, for us. Here are some things we’ve discussed.

In prioritized order here is what you need to do:

Real time notifications when users listen to your songs & playlists.
I spend time making playlists and curating my music. My buddies do too. I want to know when people are enjoying my taste and style and I want friends to know when I am enjoying theirs. This will have the exact opposite affect of facebook publicizing ‘stalker’ - it will further commit users to the platform and reinforce their love. Shared musical experience brings people together and friends listening to my curated music is one of the highest compliments they can pay and vice versa. Show the love Spotify.

Simplification of curating your friends via Facebook & adding other social graphs.
I totally get why you’re sync’d up with Facebook. Social graph goodness, virality of the application. Good for Spotify, good for me - more friends get involved. Its so good I’m even willing to overlook my privacy! (I know I can listen to music privately too.) But sweet Jesus make it easier for me to curate who is feature amongst my friends. I dont give a shit about the music tastes of 90% of the people I am friends with on FB - make it easy for me to remove them from my app! I know this is possible, its just a pain in the ass and given all of the FB data it should be better. Plus, would be nice if I could OAuth in with Twitter too as my twitter social graph is more closely aligned with my interests and music taste.

Better discovery a la music genome project & Genius.
I love exploring my friends’ music taste - its truly awesome - its like digging through a modern day record store for each of my buddies. Spotify, you know so damn much about what each of us like. You’re hot, but not smart enough yet! Tell me what I should be listening too. Like iTunes’s Genius you could use my starred songs, most listened songs AND closest friends habits you’d have something special. I would also love to see you do some sort of partnership with Pandora or get access to the music genome project (patterning of music as opposed to consumption) - I know that might be heresy or crazy talk or what have you, but please… do it for me (:

Ability to annotate playlists and tracks publicly.
Chatting/responding without sending a track.
Sharing playlists and songs is awesome, especially the ability to push to FB and Twitter. Let’s face it Spotify - you’re kinda your own social network too. Commenting on playlists and songs within Spotify for all to see is important. I have a more focused group of ‘music friends’ sharing on Spotify than I do anywhere else. Plus when someone sends me a track, I want to be able to comment without sending a track back always - I want to comment. Public, private whatever.

Native spotify remote for Mac.
http://themacbox.co.uk/smr/
(couldnt get this one to work, though I wish it did)
Can you help me? I just want to be close to you!

Better collaborative playlists experience.
Sometimes you’re confusing. I couldn’t even figure this out - how can I make a playlist collaborative without sharing it? Maybe I send it, but it doesnt appear on my public profile. Sorry girl, but this is not legit. You shared this on Twitter - http://www.spartify.com/ - I will try it with buddies.

Visualizations for music.
You might say I’m just being picky with this one, but I want you looking good girl. Show me something. No music visualization service surpassed my experience with WinAmp! Music is for the senses - all senses. Let’s get some heady visualizations. I’ll pay something for it. Please, just blow my mind.

Concurrent broadcast/silent disco.
This is my pipe dream, hail mary, whatever you want to call it. Let me broadcast what I am listening track for track, pause for pause with all my friends even mobile-ly. Silent disco everywhere - make it 3g so I could dance in the desert, or in a forest or anywhere. This is my cherry on top. Perhaps a 5 yr anniversary present?

Never leave me.

Yours,
Simon
‘elsiguy’ on spotify

PS. For anyone that’s reading this with playlists on other platforms, http://playlistify.org/ is a great service for converting them to Spotify.

Last Sunday I wore the costume above (my beautiful wife is on the left) for Purim, the ‘Jewish Halloween’ whose underlying message is the concealment of the divine presence (your true self?) in earthly actions.

This past Thursday I wore a suit to work. It was the middle of my third week. My suit caused a (very) minor stir at the betaworks office. “New guy is wearing a suit! Is he looking for a job already?” “No, he’s going to court?” Colleagues joked. Actually, I was going to a friends wedding afterward, but in the startup world nobody wears suits. Definitely not even interviews. Startup people don’t trust guys in suits… you’ve got too much to prove.

On Friday I went to the Stern EEX summit. It was great. Awesome speakers. Great conversations. I was surprised when I saw some attendees wearing suits. Dressed up.

Chris Dixon was the closing speaker of the conference. He dressed casually. Spoke casually. He made a case to mbas to work at startups over wall street. He fielded lots of questions about how to differentiate yourself as entrepreneur. For me his main take away was something I’ve heard before: keep a blog. Build your brand. A message I’ve heard and one that always rings true, but is always harder than it sounds.

I noticed in his public Q&A and overhearing conversations others had with him over beers that he was answering lots of questions that he’d already thorough explored on his blog/publicly in other forums. For ex: what kinds of companies do you invest into? …surface level stuff you can get by reading his ‘about me’ page. Chris didn’t get frustrated. He was kind and just referenced his site or his blogposts explicitly.

When I introduced myself to him afterward I wondered aloud to him how many people in the audience had actually read his stuff. I mentioned how I liked an old post of his that affected my thinking on Google. He explained that his blogposts were like ideas that served as footnotes to his thoughts, concise ideas that might be simple or obvious to a close friend, but interesting to a wider audience. As we spoke I felt like I had met him before. (And I was comforted in hearing that writing concise posts wasn’t easy for him either.)

What’s amazing, and potentially most challenging, about today’s world is that a first impression is more than a suit or your appearance. It’s common points of reference. It’s built on what you’ve exposed to the world about your thinking. It’s also how curious you are about what others read, write, comment and choose to expose about themselves.

Your thinking, analysis and creativity is an open book in the open web.

The call to share, the possibility of being more than a first impression, to be engaged in open conversation, is a call to ‘social arms’. What do you think? What do you care about? Why do you care? What are you going to do about it? Are you even telling the truth?

We are all challenged to answer these questions, publicly for all to see, to establish deeper more meaningful connections, to clarify our thoughts, to accomplish more together… and to preclude us from the necessity of a first impression wearing a suit.

With my nephew, sis-in-law and wife making some dadaist car decorations (Taken with Instagram at Make)

Mexican done raw. (Taken with Instagram at Quintessence)

My experience at the Abraham Joshua Heschel School shaped me tremendously. One of the most unique aspects of the school was its fervent and seemingly religious celebration of Martin Luther King Day. I have powerful memories of our school assemblies and the songs we would sing like If I had a Hammer, Blowin’ in the Wind.

Below is one of the images that our school would prominently display… (courtesy of Susannah Heschel’s faculty page at Dartmouth) As a child it seemed obvious that Rabbi Heschel was doing the ‘right thing’. As an adult, I recognize how much harder it is to be conscious of injustice and fight it actively and creatively, let alone make time for it in our lives.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Susannah Heschel’s father, participated in the Selma Civil Rights March: March 21, 1965. The march led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in July 1965. From far left: U.S. Representative John Lewis (D-GA), who had been severely beaten on March 7, 1965, while leading the “Bloody Sunday” march; an unidentified nun; Ralph Abernathy; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Ralph Bunche, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; Rabbi Heschel; the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth.

I made time for “I have a Dream” today to reinvigorate my spirit and reconnect with my child-like sense of justice.

If you’re impatient to get the chills, go to minute 12…

Can they really make this claim? (Taken with Instagram at Daylife HQ)

Loving the ITP winter show. Especially BYTELiGHT (Taken with Instagram at ITP)

Hanging out with @Sinohe at @etsy (Taken with Instagram at Etsy)

My wife with a buddha hand! (citrus fruit) (Taken with instagram at Whole Foods Market)

Coconut-lime smoothie with macadamia nut meat salad. Heady. (Taken with instagram at Bonobo’s)

A watermelon blended raw, better than a milkshake. (Taken with instagram)

Second coconut of the day (Taken with instagram)