Tony Bacigalupo's Blog

Alex Godin Writes a Blog: Stop Hustling, Start Listening

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:29:23 -0400

Alex Godin Writes a Blog: Stop Hustling, Start Listening:

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

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

Enemy Gate Down: Tony B. and the NYTM Board Election

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 16:49:13 -0500

Enemy Gate Down: Tony B. and the NYTM Board Election:

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...

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 09:51:15 -0500

msg:

Last night Jonah @Peretti dropped some knowledge on the twitter

"As others scramble to fill the void left behind, some will inevitably figure out how to do the best..."

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 10:15:08 -0500

“

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)

"You have to craft your own career. It’s really career management, which is part of what we teach…..."

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 14:09:06 -0400

““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)

"I find it interesting he’s decided to become a freelancer. Comic books have always been good about..."

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 14:11:02 -0400

“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)

"“I would argue that the entrepreneurial sector is as powerful a job creation engine as ever. The..."

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 10:55:11 -0400

“

“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)

Let's fix the stupid job crisis ourselves.

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:39:19 -0400

letsfixthestupidjobcrisis:

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...

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 18:13:13 -0400

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.

SoCaNoCha - NYC's hottest new neighborhood

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 09:55:00 -0400

SoCaNoCha - NYC's hottest new neighborhood:

Might make a nice women’s tee shirt. Made with Paper

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 08:44:00 -0400

Might make a nice women’s tee shirt.

Made with Paper

HUGE. GO AMIT!!! superamit: Many of you have asked, so here’s...

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:21:34 -0500

HUGE. GO AMIT!!!

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.

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every..."

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:53:39 -0400

“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)

Let's Help Amit Defeat Leukemia!

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 07:58:00 -0400

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

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 15:31:48 -0400

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

Photo

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 05:33:06 -0400

I’ll be using this other Tumblr to post a bunch of stuff...

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 03:25:37 -0400

I'm up I'm up

You can make out the fork of Long Island

Lovely breakfast, only had the eggs :-/

The bar Robert told me to stop at!

The beer Rober told me to try!

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

"Just as cats have evolved to imitate the cries of newborn babies to insinuate their way into our..."

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 13:47:23 -0400

“Just as cats have evolved to imitate the cries of newborn babies to insinuate their way into our homes, so corporations have learned to affect the trappings of personhood to reach deeper into our social lives and conversations”

- A comment from Matt Edgar on a recent Google+ post (via eddology)

Creating the Future

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 08:00:27 -0400

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

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 07:30:34 -0400

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

8:00: Alarm.

9:00: Stop hitting the snooze button.

9:00:03: Check email.

9:02: Check twitter.

9:03: Click on an enticing looking blog post.

10:15: Realize I just spent over an hour reading about how the iPad is influencing the French elections, and that I was planning on already having gotten to New Work City by now.

10:16: Jump out of bed.

10:18: Shower / cleanup / dress / leave.

10:25: Pick up breakfast.

10:30: Eat breakfast on the train to save time, filling the car with the smell of bacon and likely ruining everyone’s morning. As I eat, I email myself notes about the things I really need to accomplish today.

11:00: Arrive at NWC, long after I intended to.

11:05: Sit down and check my email again, and immediately start working on whatever grabs my attention first. Probably not any of the things I had just emailed myself.

7:30pm-ish: Look up, bleary eyed, and realize that for the past eight hours, I have done some combination of meetings, email, Real Business Stuff, talking to members, eating, talking on the phone, and reading Twitter while trying not to read Twitter. And I’ve made almost no progress on the things I deemed important when I started my day.

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