A bit of morning inspiration

Posted on March 21, 2012 | Leave a comment

“Everyone takes pictures of that” said the old man soaking up the unexpected March sun when I pulled out my phone.  I understand why – this is just the little unexpected message I needed today.  I get so caught up in trying to be the better me, the perfectly organized me, that I forget to be, well, me.become who you are

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Posted in Experiences, graffiti, Places

Pinterest – legals and ethics pt 1 – Legal implications

Posted on March 19, 2012 | 1 comment

There’s been a lot of chatter about ethics and Pinterest recently.  While following the discussion, I learned some surprising things about the copyright rules and legality.

I’ve been following a long conversation about the ethical responsibilities of Pinterest – how to pin, how to credit, but I hadn’t really thought about the legal implications until I read this from DDKPortraits.  In short, Cold Brew Labs technically owns the copyright to anything you pin.  You can be held liable for anything you pin that you don’t have rights to and anything you do they can use. (if you want more legal details, definitely check out the link).

I find this particularly interesting since Pinterest is the new big thing for companies.  Everyone wants to be on Pinterest, being re-pinned over and over.  It makes sense – it’s really good, free publicity right now.  But for companies that are so  paranoid about intellectual property, it seems odd.  It epitomizes the issues that companies have sometimes with social media – they’re so desperate to be there and using it that they don’t think it all or even some of the way through. Notably, smaller places/individual artisans are thinking about these issues, so it’s even more of an oversight imho.

Pinterest is clearly aware of and interested in the use of it as a sales/influence tool with the release of Pinerly – a tool to track the influence and spread of pins. Pinterest also called DDKPortraits to get her suggestions after the linked post so it’s probably safe to assume that changes are to come.  (which is awesome since I’d hate to have to delete my own boards).

Pinterest ethics to come on Wednesday.  Until then, here’s some more links on the legal issues of Pinterest.

Pinterest calls DDKPortraits

Pinterest editing pins for (their) profit

Another take on the legality of pinning

And for a bit of self-pimping – my Pinterest boards

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Posted in Creativity, Social Media

Quick hit – branding in politics

Posted on March 13, 2012 | Leave a comment

Obama was, arguably, one of the best branded presidential candidates of all time.  The visuals, the message of hope and change, it was all one organized package.  So it’s surprising that this is almost the anti-branding campaign year, epitomized by this quote from today’s NYT:  “I voted for the more electable not-Romney,” In case you were wondering, that’s Santorum who should have enough brand identity of his own.  But particularly this year, it’s all who people aren’t, not who they are.  Romney is the not-Obama, Santorum and Gingrich are the not-Romneys.  I’m hoping that Obama returns to his brand and doesn’t follow this year’s pattern, otherwise this will be a particularly unfortunate mess of not-not-nots.

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Posted in People, Theory

Things I’ve been reading – lists

Posted on March 12, 2012 | 8 comments

I love lists – not only because they make me feel like the organized person I long to be, but I also think that they can teach you a lot about how people think and dream.

Top 101 goals in 1001 days – Most popular goal is to give blood – wonder if that’s because it’s so public and thus performative, or is that really one of the most common goals for people?

How I Became My Own Mentor – To this end, my strategic plan features all kinds of useful lists: work that’s in process, work I’d like to do in the near future, people I’d like to work with, kinds of work I realize I hate, kinds of work that really lights me up, skills I’d love to learn.  Brilliant!  I need to do this in my next coffee shop time!

List of Lists that People Make – Lists are the butterfly nets that catch my fleeting thoughts. Yes!  I have way too many ideas to keep all of them in my head at any one time.

Using Trello to Organize – Look at that page of lists!  So pretty!  I like paper though so I’m not sure how well it would work for me.

Pinterest Board of Creative Journaling –  Part of why I like paper so much – can doodle, paste things in, make it 3-d.

The Most Amazing Journal EVER – A picture is worth a 1000 words here – you should go check it out!  I ordered a moleskin and washi tape just to see if I could use this to add a little more organization to my life.

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Posted in Creativity, Goals, Lit Review

Creating Community, excitingly!

Posted on March 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

My blind proposal (as mentioned here) was successful and I’m in the whirlwind midst of a project on community on web boards.

I’ve always been fascinated by how people create identity, off-line of course, but online as well, where you have full control on how you are, how people see you.  You can be whoever you want to be and while there’s certainly a lot of that, the internet is full of people being, mainly, themselves.  Community seems like a natural offshoot of that, how people create genuine interactions and then relationships.  So excited about this project, plus I’m getting to help a non-profit and it feels like I’ll really be improving something.  Plus it’s great experience for my big project/business model thingie.

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Posted in People, Work

My organized evil twin is not me

Posted on February 28, 2012 | Leave a comment

I am obsessed with systems in an almost I long to be a left-brained person way. Linear, pragmatic, solution-based, I’ve convinced myself that systems can be created to crack the code on looking chic everyday, cooking dinner, staying fit, saving money, and producing good creative work. According to this as yet untested theory of mine, the only difficult part should be finding your system.  – Sarah from Pink of Perfection

I recently read the above and went YES THIS!  I crave being a orgnaized, systematic person.  Make a to-do list, cross it off, and have that glow of productivity and satisfaction every day, surrounded by my clean horizontal surfaces and things filed away.  Just find the one trick, the one system, or pen color, or type of box and BOOM!  Awesome killer adulty-type-person.  Sadly, no trick, pen, or box has kept me from often feeling like below :

Closer to reality

Closer to reality from Hyperbole and a Half

I know I’m not the only one, so I’m going to share a few things I have managed to figure out that do help me and hopefully will help you too.

  1. Everything counts!  Making the bed?  Counts!  Going downstairs and get the mail? Counts!  Put it all on the to-do list or, if you can’t handle the list of doom that might be, the “I did” list.
  2. The corollary of that – breaking down big projects really does help.  So much easier to start with draft email to contact than get new awesome job.  And remember, it all counts!
  3. Start with the 5-10 items (no more) that are always either missing (stamps) or present in way too many places (for me, hair things and lip gloss).  Come up with a place just for those items that’s easy.  I dump all my hair things and lip gloss into the same jar on my dressing table.    It’s so much easier to clean when half of it is sweep hair things and lip gloss into hand, walk to bedroom, dump in jar.
  4. It only has to make sense to you – don’t do something just because Martha does it, or your favorite blogger, or your mom.  For example, I keep postage stamps in my wallet.  Easy to find, have them whenever I need them.  Nearly everyone who has learned this thinks it’s weird; almost all of them were borrowing a stamp from me.  Organized point – Kat!

What about you?  What tricks and treats do you use to make things work for you?

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Posted in About Kat, Goals

Things I’ve been reading – worth using a few of your New York Times free articles on

Posted on February 25, 2012 | Leave a comment

The Freedom and Perils of Living Alone – I think I’ll need to be with someone who has lived alone. We can commiserate and help each other resocialize.  Feral people living alone?  I like it!  How much of our co-habitating behavior is socialization, how much is performative?  One big takeaway – marketing needs to focus on the one-person household, not just the traditional female HH shopping model.

How Companies Learn Your Secrets –  “But even if you’re following the law, you can do things where people get queasy.”  Take away lesson, quant is creepy!  Actually, I found the pushback to this article really interesting – it’s clear that most people aren’t aware of how much data is collected on them every single bit of every single day and how much effort is spent trying to manipulate their behavior.   Also of interest, how much of the article was on using the same science to hack your own behavior – in that way it’s almost a little bit of an advertisment for the writer’s book (speaking of incentivizing behavior).

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Posted in Knowledge, Theory

Quick hit – Wagreen’s Flagship store

Posted on February 24, 2012 | Leave a comment

I love vending machines so I had to check out the new Walgreen’s flagship that had not just sushi, a manicure bar, and the most wine I’ve ever seen outside a liquor store, but also several information kiosk-y type things.  My favorite was the virtual bartender – put in your base liquor, a few flavor preferences, and get a list of cocktails.  For your convenience, you can either email or print out the recipe, complete with shopping list (we went with the key lime creme pie martini).Vending machine

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Posted in Places, Vending Machine

Swallowing my heart in my throat and running with it

Posted on February 20, 2012 | 1 comment

I am a freelancer.

Specifically, I’m a freelancer who left her job in a crappy economy because it wasn’t right for her.

I know what you’re saying, shaking your head at me. Security is important, a regular pay check is important, being gainfully employed is important.  There may even be some mutterings on being spoiled, those Millennials and their…. expectations.  And those are all valid things to say when you don’t know the full story and maybe someday I’ll share.  But today, today is about the excitement of freelancing, of being my own boss.

Working for myself means that I can go with my gut, write to a stranger and pitch an idea or ask for some mentoring.  People are awesome and giving when you work for yourself, especially when it’s new and you’re so so excited and scared and it’s written all over your face.

I’m getting in some quality coffee shop time today – daydreaming and writing proposals and emails that will probably lead to nothing but may, oh may, lead to something cool and awesome.  I’m terrified and it’s the best feeling in my life, to face my fears and really reach for my goals.

P.s. I believe in sharing!  If there’s anything that I can do for you, any help or mentoring or anything, please contact me.  Good luck should always be shared!

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Posted in About Kat, Work

Jason Wu…. for me and you?

Posted on February 15, 2012 | Leave a comment

Last week, Jason Wu’s new line for Target came out and within hours, it sold out.  For Target and Jason Wu, a success, but it was a huge bummer for those who wanted to purchase, with resellers clearly picking up a lot of the merchandise, including nearly all of it in a store in Miami.  It’s a good deal for resellers – if they can’t sell at a profit on eBay, they have 8 weeks to return it to the store.  But who are the people who buy off eBay and, more importantly, what can Target do to take advantage of all that untapped desire.  After all, the resellers are the ones fully maximizing demand while raising ire at both them and Target

Buyers come into two types.  a) People who really want a particular item and b) people who are really excited about having something from a designer.  That second group is the one that I think Target can really gain more from.

Obviously, Target doesn’t want to make a lot of product, diluting either Jason Wu’s brand or the concept of Designer for Target.  But what if they made one item in larger numbers, say the cat t-shirt that while emblematic of Wu’s style doesn’t imitate the items he regularly sells.  Enough stock means that it’s less appealing to resellers* and that items stay in stock long enough for more fans to purchase; people who are excited about the line instead of a particular item get to purchase from Target.

I’m sure there’s a reason why Target does do it that way – designer pressure maybe – but it’d be interesting to see them try it out and see the fan reaction, which is currently not so high.

*  Looks like the demand price on eBay, two weeks out, is around $5 more than the set price, where most resellers seem to want around $15 more ($25 vs $35).  Price pressure for the bags seems to remain high

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Posted in Places