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 4amit@nwc.co 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 4amit@nwc.co - 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

The Rising Importance of 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

Creating the Future

Okay, everyone, here’s the deal. As it turns out, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and a lot of talking about the incredible future that awaits us, but I haven’t done much writing about it. I started this blog in part to start sharing some of the thoughts I’ve had in a way that can be shared and discussed over time, so let’s get down to business.

I am deeply curious about finding ways to cultivate true happiness in the world. But not just any kind of happiness. Angry Birds makes people happy, but only on a very superficial level. I’m talking about the good stuff.

Fulfillment. Self actualization. Truly embracing the fact that happiness is found in the pursuit of a better self.

We’re moving from knowledge work to creative work. That means there is more and more opportunity for people to make a living doing something about which they are truly passionate. Coworking communities are petri dishes for these new, creative, highly autonomous and independent people. They are just a glimpse of where the world is going, and the early things we’re observing are really exciting. Because in this early phase, we’re seeing people collaborating. Sharing. Creating. Building great things. Helping one another. They are engaged. They are, as a population, collectively closer to a state of fulfillment than any other that I’ve encountered.

And the ranks are growing fast. A handful of coworking communities only five years ago is now hundreds. And the thousands of people who count themselves among this new population is growing every day at an accelerating rate.

But it’s early. We’ve only just begun to build new things to accommodate the unique needs of these independent workers. Only a few years ago, these people didn’t even have a place to gather. Now, as they approach a critical mass, they are increasingly gathering in one place, united by their shared interests and values. But aside from getting everyone in the same room together, we haven’t gone much further than that yet. Surely these people need more than just a place to gather. They need, for example, to replace much of the structure and accountability that previous work structures provided.

Working 9 to 5 and commuting to an office may suck for many, but a total lack of externally applied structure is no good either. Doing away with the old structures is a great first step, but the next step is to rebuild them in a way that fits our new needs.

I want to explore these things deeply. If we can replace the old with the new and make it easier for more people to pursue independent, passionate, creative careers, then more people will have an opportunity to achieve a true fulfillment. More people will be building real, useful, beautiful things, and that’s a healthy thing for all of us, not to mention an ailing economy in need of some fresh success.

The future is ours to build. I want to build a future in which true personal fulfillment is achievable by anyone who seeks it.

New Work City is a foundation for building this future. Let’s talk about what we can do with that.

Are you in?

Original Article

Fixing the structure vacuum

Snapshot of a not so unusual day in the life of Tony, circa May 2011:

I’m bleary-eyed, mentally exhausted, and frustrated. Defeated, I go out or go home, promising myself that tomorrow I’ll focus on getting the important stuff done.

I aim to be in bed by 1:00. I actually go to bed at 2:30.

This sucks.

I’ve spent far more days like this than I’d care to admit. It isn’t fun, and I don’t think it’s all that unusual either. When I worked in an office, I still experienced some of these things, but they were contained. I still pretty much showed up and left around the same time, took a lunch break, and got weekends off.

Now, though, I have nothing but my own personal discipline to keep me in order. As you might have guessed, relying entirely on that is just not going to cut it for me. I’ve been a big believer in independent careers for a long time now, but managing all this stuff effectively is no obvious task. If I don’t change something, this working for myself thing is going to kill me.

Time to devise a solution.

So how do I do something about it? I could, of course, get a job.

…

Okay, enough of that talk. A job would give me the structure and accountability that I needed, but it would come at the expense of the freedom I had fought to earn. I’ll assume this to be a last resort.

So what if I were able to substitute the good parts of having a job, without actually getting a job? I have a thriving community of independent people all around me. I’m sure most of them are better at managing this stuff than I am, so maybe I can learn from them. Along the way, maybe they can learn from each other too! It is time to start experimenting with that.

Also. Beer Belly.

While we’re at it, I’m out of shape. Not grossly so, but enough that I can feel it. And sometime between “post-college” and “pre-30” my body started telling me it was time to start taking better care of myself. If I’m going to be working on my brain, maybe along the way I can find a way to work on my body too.

It’s time to run a tighter ship. I’m not going to do it alone, so I’m recruiting help.

Do you hit the structure vacuum sometimes? What do you do to try and fix this problem?

Original Article

Asia Trip!

After turning down years of invitations in favor of focusing on work, I will finally be joining my dad on a business trip to Asia! My itinerary is as follows:

August 2-5: Tokyo

August 5-9: Shanghai

August 10-14: Hong Kong

I’ve never been anywhere near any of these places, so the trip will be a huge cultural experience. I can’t wait to see what it’s like to be immersed in a completely different world.

Right now, my agenda is wide open. If you or someone you know is in one of these three cities and we should meet, let’s talk! I have three interests while abroad:

1. Talking coworking and related future-of-work goodness

If you’re building or running a coworking community or something similar, I’d love to meet up and learn how things work where you are. I’m currently working on a Meetup in Hong Kong; more details on that soon!

2. Raising interest in Girl Develop It

If you’re in one of these cities and want to start a chapter of Girl Develop It, which offers low-cost classes geared toward giving women a friendly environment to learn software development, let me know!

3. Sightseeing & learning the culture

When it comes to being a tourist, I’m more interested in something a little more “Three Sheets” than “Rick Steves.” So while seeing the sights would be great, I’d also love to get off the beaten path, away from the touristy areas, and get immersed in some real local culture.

4. Japan’s recovery

We’ve all been touched by what’s happened in Japan, and Tokyo is not far from the epicenter. I’m hoping to learn more about the effects of the disaster on the ground in Japan, as well as how we can be of help back at home.

This trip is a unique chance to explore a whole new world. I hope to be able to bring what I’ve learned here in NY with me, and hope to come back having learned and experienced some amazing things in exchange.

Let me know if you want to meet up!

Original Article