Tony Bacigalupo's Blog

[alexgodinwritesablog]

You can close more business in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you. - Dale Carnegie

[alexgodinwritesablog]

Members of the startup community misinterpret the hardworking “hustle” ethos that’s become a part of startup culture and become...

[enemygatedown]

When I look at most of my life and work at this point in time, most of it can be traced back to two primary forces; the New York Tech Meetup, and Tony Bacigalupo.

I first started frequenting NYTM about 4 years ago, when I was still working in the service industry, and decided that tech was...

[msg]

Last night Jonah @Peretti dropped some knowledge on the twitter

[marksbirch]

As others scramble to fill the void left behind, some will inevitably figure out how to do the best job of offering up the best platform for sharing facilities. It will be dry, and it will make good money. And there will always be a struggle among competitors over securing the most market share. But someone out there will figure out how to make a platform that truly embraces the fact that sharing space is about the people and not the facilities.

“What LooseCubes’ Shutdown Means for Coworking” by Tony Bacigalupo

I was sad to see Loosecubes shutdown as I liked the people and the idea was hitting upon an important trend.  Coworking is not some fad, it is the future of working.  Tony is correct that there will be plenty of others entering the space that will make money.  However coworking is about people first and the company that realizes that will do very well.

(via marksbirch)

[letsfixthestupidjobcrisis]

“You have to craft your own career. It’s really career management, which is part of what we teach… You’re an entrepreneur.”

Judith Watson, associate dean of CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism

(via letsfixthestupidjobcrisis)

[letsfixthestupidjobcrisis]

I find it interesting he’s decided to become a freelancer. Comic books have always been good about reflecting the mood of the public. I see Kent’s move as showing the broader dissatisfaction with traditional employment and the appeal of the control and flexibility of being self-employed. After all, if anyone needs work flexibility it’s Kent, who often has to run off and save the world.

Steve King, on Superman going freelance. (via letsfixthestupidjobcrisis)

[letsfixthestupidjobcrisis]

“I would argue that the entrepreneurial sector is as powerful a job creation engine as ever. The cause of the discrepancy between the 1999 numbers and the 2011 numbers, above, isn’t an indicator of the declining hiring power of start-ups. Rather, the discrepancy comes from how we define a “job.” For too long, we’ve stuck to the old definition of job: a full-time hire with a steady paycheck, benefits, and a W-2. That metric worked in the industrial- and information-based economy that dominated most of the 20th century. But as we sit at the dawn of the innovation economy that will dominate the next century, that definition will become less and less useful. Here’s one of my favorite stats, courtesy of Intuit’s 2020 Report: by 2020, 40% of the American workforce will be freelancers, independent contractors, or other specialists-for-hire.”

Jeremy Neuner, CEO of NextSpace, in their newsletter (via letsfixthestupidjobcrisis)

[letsfixthestupidjobcrisis]

Let's fix the stupid job crisis ourselves.

Join the conversation! Get email updates here.

Made by Tony Bacigalupo of New Work City and the Community Builders Masterclass.

References here.

[superamit]

One year ago today my doctor called me in the afternoon.

I was in bed. He cleared his throat a couple times and then he told me the reason I’d been feeling weak, seeing weird blindingly bright spots in my vision, and had a fever that wouldn’t go away was because my blood was full of ineffective, malformed white blood cells.

I had AML leukemia. If I did nothing, I’d die in a few weeks.

A few hours later, I had a flight to the East Coast booked for early the next morning. I spent the night in a San Francisco hospital getting blood transfusions and antibiotics to allow me to fly.

I landed in NYC, my parents picked me up, and we drove to Yale’s Smilow Cancer Hospital. When they started pumping cell-killing poison into my bloodstream, the hospital became my home and my prison for the next few months.

I cried. I felt sorry for myself. I didn’t believe it was true.

Friends banded together and started drives across the country, then across the globe. I did interview after interview. Newspapers, TV, and radio helped spread the word. Facebook, twitter, and tumblr got people to drives. I couldn’t leave the hospital, and sometimes I was throwing up too much or too weak to talk. We kept going.

We organized online, and my prison became our stem cell drive campaign headquarters.

Friends donated time, money, connections. Strangers sent mail, hundreds of photos, and organized drives. Celebrities made videos. Tens of thousands registered to be stem cell donors. (Matches for others in need continue to come out of those drives.)

The nurses and doctors continued to pump poison into my blood, eliminating cancerous cells and healthy cells alike. They hoped to hold the leukemia at bay until a donor could be found.

A few months later, we found a donor! Friends and strangers had banded together to save my life.

I had my transplant in late January. And then began the year-long recovery process I’m currently in:

15-20 pills a day, on-and-off steroids to combat Graft vs Host Disease, nausea, weakness, muscle atrophy, scopes down my throat, probes up my nose until they hit my throat. Weekly, then bi-monthly blood tests, immunosuppressants - which keep my immune system from attacking my organs, but also make me susceptible to disease. Needles, needles, needles, so many needles, fevers, infections, severe mucositis, so much pain they gave me a button to press to give myself morphine whenever I wanted, anti-nausea drugs that resulted in weeks of lost memories, blood clots, followed by months of blood thinners, teeth issues, corneal damage, a slate of other issues a little too graphic to write about, crazy painful out-of-nowhere hand and leg cramps…

…all bumps along the road.

My counts are up. There’s no sign of recurrence yet. If I’m lucky, there never will be. I feel more normal with each passing week.

I was able to leave the hospital, and then able to leave my parents’ home.

I got to spend the summer in NYC, reconnecting with old friends, and returning to work at Photojojo part-time. I just saw my brother get married, saw a live volcano in Hawaii, saw the sun set above the clouds and the clearest night sky in the world. I visited Portland for the first time, and spent a week in SF working and seeing friends. Now we’re planning a road trip to move back West. We leave in a few weeks… on motorcycles.

A year ago I was on a plane from SF to CT because I was dying.

Today I’m on a plane from SF to CT, and I feel more alive than I have in a very long time.

[tonybgoode]

[tonybgoode]

Might make a nice women's tee shirt.

Made with Paper

[superamit]

Many of you have asked, so here’s what’s going on with me.

WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE

8/1979: Born. Grew up in CT, built a killer eraser collection, fell in love with computers.

Left college to start a company. Fell hard. Fled to India for 3 months.

Started 2nd company. Learned to be an adult. Fell in love with NYC.

Moved to SF, discovered burritos & some of my fave people on Earth.

9/2011: Got diagnosed with Leukemia!

Cried. Went through 3 cycles of chemo. Hurt. Thought hard about what I want out of life. Grew up a second time.

TODAY

… After over 100 drives organized by friends, family, and strangers, celebrity call-outs, a bazillion reblogs (7000+!), tweets, and Facebook posts, press, fundraising and international drives organized by tireless friends, and a couple painful false starts, I’ve got a 10/10 matched donor!

You all literally helped save my life. (And the lives of many others.)

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

Tomorrow, I’ll be admitted to Dana Farber in Boston for 4-5 weeks.

First I’ll get a second Hickman line to allow direct access to my heart (for meds and for nutrients if I’m not able to eat). Over the next week, the docs blast my body with a stiff chemo cocktail to try and eradicate all traces of cancer cells. In the process, the immune system I was born with, and my body’s ability to make blood, are destroyed.

Next Friday, I get my donor’s stem cells by IV. I start on immunosuppressants to prevent my body from rejecting them (I’ll be on them for 12-18 months). For these weeks I’ve no immune system, so I’m severely vulnerable to viruses and bacteria. My hospital room and hallway become my world.

Meanwhile, the stem cells make their way to my bone marrow and, with some luck, start producing platelets, red blood cells, and white blood cells. At this point, my blood type changes to the blood type of my donor. And my blood will now have my donor’s DNA, not my own.

This is science fiction stuff. I can hardly believe it’s even possible, and there’s lots of chances for things to go wrong. It’s frightening.

AFTER THE TRANSPLANT

Recovery to a new state of “normal” takes about a year, but there’s a few storm clouds hovering:

My immune system is new, like a baby’s. I’m prone to getting sick.

Just as with any organ transplant, there’s a chance of rejection. Except in this case, it’s my blood that’s the foreign body, and it touches every organ. They call it graft-vs-host-disease and it can cause health issues and organ complications for the rest of my life.

Successful transplant or not, Leukemia can relapse. Stubborn mofo.

Overall, 75% of AML transplant patients survive year one, 50% make it through year five. My odds are a little better since I’m young.

THE GREAT NEWS

I’ve got a long road ahead. But I’ve got a donor & amazing family & friends. A few months ago I didn’t have many options. Today I have a plan.

I am alive. I start tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Thank you.

[tonybgoode]

HUGE. GO AMIT!!!

[nmook-deactivated20161003]

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Chapter 7 (via nmook)

[tonybgoode]

Let's Help Amit Defeat Leukemia!

Originally posted here: http://u.nwc.co/4amit

Update: The best thing you can do is get anyone you know of South Asian descent to take a very simple, free, painless test and spread the word to their friends. You can take the test at our party on October 14th or register online to receive a kit! There is a cost associated with each test, but the person taking the test is not required to pay it. We are, however, trying to raise as much money as we can to support the test costs. Send any dollar amount to [email protected] on Paypal to help!

Update #2: In the comments, Ziv points out the following things:

(1) Registering and getting the swab kit, is free. (2) The transplant is not done through a needle in the back, in most cases. It's done via a blood-transfusion-like machine, and is totally painless.

I'm not an expert at any of this, though I am learning fast! Best bet if you have any questions is to check the official sources, like marrow.org.

Update #3: By "South Asian" I am told that means (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, or Sri Lanka).

Update #4: A page that is chock full of resources and details can be found here: http://u.nwc.co/4amitdoc

Yesterday, we lost one of the great luminaries of our time to cancer.

Today, we have an opportunity to help others in their fight. In particular, one of the most special people I know: Amit Gupta.

Amit is the founder of the endlessly wonderful DIY photography site Photojojo. He's the cofounder of Jelly, a casual coworking community which started in New York in 2006 and spread to over 60 cities worldwide, acting as the starting point for countless coworking communities. The original Jelly in New York was my first coworking experience, and my firsthand inspiration to dedicate myself to what would become New Work City.

Jelly was formed at House 2.0, a place Amit co-founded after college as a den of geeky happiness. House 2.0 was a big beautiful loft space in midtown, where creative art projects and the markered scrawlings of visitors adorned the walls everywhere, and where something as crazy as Jelly could live. I moved into House 2.0 when Amit moved out in 2007; it was my first home in New York City since I was a baby.

Amit has changed the world with his actions and through the people he has inspired. Anyone who knows him will tell you that he is one of the most special people they know, and they are right. Rarely will you find an individual with such a combination of warmth, charm, and tenacity.

Amit has leukemia. He was diagnosed only two weeks ago, but already so much has happened. He's undergoing chemotherapy now at Connecticut’s Smilow Cancer Center in Yale-New Haven Hospital, near his family.

To aid him in his fight, Amit is going to need a bone marrow transfusion. Unlike blood transfusions, finding a genetic match for bone marrow that his body will accept is no easy task. The national bone marrow registry has 9.5 million records on file, yet the chances of someone from South Asian descent of finding a match are only 1 in 20,000.

This is where we come in. We're going to destroy those odds.

How? By finding and registering as many people of South Asian descent as we possibly can.

Tests are easy-- a simple swab of the cheek. If someone is determined to be a match, that person would have to be willing to undergo an outpatient procedure in which marrow is extracted from bones in the back by a special needle. It's not a fun procedure, but it's not dangerous either. And doing it could save a life.

That's why, starting now, we are encouraging anyone of South Asian descent between the ages of 18 to 60 to take a test to see if you're a match. 

You can register online for your test, or, if you're in New York, you can join us Friday, October 14th, for a special party we are throwing to rally support.

We'll have test kits on hand at the party, as well as music, booze, and maybe even a photo booth. It will, for the first time, combine a House 2.0-style party with a New Work City-style party, and if you've ever been to either, you know they are always something special.

Even if you can't attend or get tested, you can still help.

While you are not required to pay to be tested, the bone marrow tests do cost money. We want to do our part to pay for the tests we will be sending in, so you can donate using the below registration form to help! Donate whatever you can do [email protected] - the money will go directly to the cost of the tests.

You can also help by reaching out to any South Asian friends you know and asking them to spread the word to their friends and relatives.

Minorities are severely underrepresented in the bone marrow registry, so getting more people to register could help save many other lives as well.

Despite all of his challenges, Amit has maintained an unstoppable attitude of positivity and energy. Let's do the same and help him defeat this thing, so he can continue to inspire us with his awesomeness for many years to come.

Direct link to the party: http://brownbones.eventbrite.com

Help spread the word on Facebook: http://facebook.com/event.php?eid=268285533204616

Original Article

[tonybgoode]

The Rising Importance of Technical Literacy

New Work City is hosting a series of classes on web site development for non-technical independents using WordPress, including setting up a hosted WordPress site and mastering the dashboard. 

Only a few hundred years ago, the ability to read and write was considered a special skill reserved only for an elite few. Over time, however, literacy went from being elite to expected, to the point now that anyone who can't read or write is considered at a huge disadvantage.

Now, the explosion of new technology has provided a litany of new ways for people to communicate. Entire new interactions are being integrated into our lives so fast that we can hardly keep up; simply watch some videos of babies using iPads if you want your mind blown.

With these new methods of communication come new languages to match.

Enter: Programming Languages

Programming languages, historically speaking, are still extremely new. Spoken and written languages have existed since the dawn of mankind, though they have evolved and diversified drastically along the way. Alternative languages, such as mathematics, emerged later on, each giving us new ways to share information and ideas with each other.

Now, however, our new computer-based languages already drive so much of what we do every single day. HTML, PHP, MySQL, C, Assembly, TCP/IP and countless other languages and protocols, for example, make it possible for you to read this right now.

In my own experience as a project manager for a web development firm, I specialized in being someone who could translate between clients and programmers who were not particularly good at talking to one another. From the perspective of the clients, the programmers spoke a complicated language that they couldn't purport to understand. They needed someone else (me) to even be able to communicate properly what it is they wanted built. Some didn't respect the value of such literacy, but most revered these people for their much-envied proficiency.

As the pervasiveness of this technology continues to rise, the value of being able to understand and speak these new languages rises accordingly. People who can program went from being derided as "geeks" and "nerds" in the 90's to being revered and sought after today. People who understand these mystical new programming languages, in many ways, enjoy a new elite designation.

The difference between the literate elites and programmers, however, is that technical literacy is available to anyone with access to a computer.

A New Opportunity

In the world of employment in the US, there is a fascinating contrast at play. Despite millions of unemployed, underemployed, and suckemployed workers, there remain tons of lucrative technical positions that employers that exasperated employers can't seem to fill no matter how hard they try.

For the people who have been unemployed for months or even years, even a little technical expertise could go a very long way in helping them get work that they couldn't have otherwise.

Awareness of this fact is just now starting to become more widely known. It's why new programs like one I helped to start and run, Girl Develop It, have been such a huge hit. When we surveyed our students, I was surprised to see just how many women are taking programming classes not because they intend to pursue technical careers, but because they want to be able to better understand and communicate with their more tech-savvy coworkers. In other words, they seek a basic technical literacy.

From Elite to Necessary?

In his book Program or Be Programmed, Doug Rushkoff goes so far as to suggest that technical literacy is rising to a level of importance comparable with conventional literacy in reading and writing itself. While it may seem like an extreme comparison on the surface, the similarities are striking.

If reading and writing were once reserved for the elite but then eventually became common knowledge, who's to say the same won't be true of proficiency in the ability to communicate using new technical languages?

At the very least, learning even just a little about these new technologies could go a long way. I would love one day to read a story of someone who was unemployed for 2+ years, decided to teach themselves how to code, and landed an amazing job not long thereafter. I'm sure the stories are already out there, but I believe there are many more yet to be told.

The four R's: Reading, (w)riting, 'rithmetic, and (p)'rogramming

Hey, the original 3 R's was pretty ugly already.

Original Article

[tonybgoode]

[tonyinasia]

[tonybgoode]

I'll be using this other Tumblr to post a bunch of stuff from my Asia trip. Follow me there if you're interested!

http://tonyinasia.tumblr.com