Founder Collective is something I’d love to work/start/emulate: angel investors that are more business partners than investors.

Founder Collective offers an average of less than $200,000. In exchange, it takes less equity. But it provides more in the way of personal support to the entrepreneurs than a VC would.

The future belongs to people who make stuff. If you want to grow in the future, always be producing. Make interesting stuff. Make mistakes, but for God’s sake, be making stuff.

Generally good advice regarding churning out (any) ideas. Always be producing.

If I had my wits about me when I was younger, I would have focused my energy and education towards working in the user experience field. For me it has a great balance of creativity and need for technical skills. Charlie O’Donnell has listed out the critical functions of what a user experience team or person does:

Usability practices – Making sure the service is understandable and users can accomplish what they set out to with minimal confusion, time wasted, etc.

information architecture – Does the layout, categorizations, data input, etc correspond with the way users think about dealing with this kind of service or content?

information design – What kinds of feedback, statistics, statuses are you showing them and how are you showing it to them? 

copywriting – What does your service say?  Are instructions and descriptions clear?  To the point?

design process management – When changes are made, who keeps track of what other aspects of the site they my influence?  Who makes sure that proper versioning is maintained?

editing and curation – Making qualitative judgements about what the user should see and be able to consume

interaction design – What are the functional mechanisms by which users enter or consume information and services, the layout, etc

visual design – Colors, logos, spacing, fonts, layout

There’s a name for what type of wine drinker I am, a wine poseur.

Mr. Kendall, 43, described himself as a bit of a wine poseur. He has vacationed in Italy and Napa Valley and has a cellar at home, but he cannot remember a label from meal to meal.

This is an amazing idea: CAPTCHA advertising. Basically, it’s replacing those annoying and hard-to-read words you have to type when registering for a user name with advertisements and slogan’s (i.e., ads).

“Ads are just getting bigger and louder as attention online is getting so scarce,” said Solve Media CEO and founder, Ari Jacoby. “So we’re fishing where the fish are,” he said, referring to this untapped space where users are forced to spend time. (via Kottke)

I think this is the best reason for why people love the internet.

When we’re online — not just online, but participating in social media — we’re meeting some of our most basic human needs. [...] Needs like creative expression. The need to connect with other people. The need to be part of a community. [...] It’s the very fact that the Internet can meet so many fundamental needs, significantly if not completely, that gets people nervous.

The Social Network is set to hit theaters October 1. I’m pretty excited to see it. With the release upcoming, two of the founders of Facebook have been profiled. Sean Parker was covered by Vanity Fair and Mark Zuckerberg was profiled by the New Yorker. Great reads. I found the one on Parker to be more interesting as I didn’t know much about him.

Digital strategy seeks to bridge the gaps between technology, the creative idea, the target as user, business objectives and the brand – and brings grounded creativity to technology

Great definition of digital strategy (a/k/a what I do).

“Being bored is a precious thing, a state of mind we should pursue. Once boredom sets in, our minds begin to wander, looking for something exciting, something interesting to land on. And that’s where creativity arises.

My best ideas come to me when I am unproductive. When I am running but not listening to my iPod. When I am sitting, doing nothing, waiting for someone. When I am lying in bed as my mind wanders before falling to sleep. These “wasted” moments, moments not filled with anything in particular, are vital.

They are the moments in which we, often unconsciously, organize our minds, make sense of our lives, and connect the dots. They’re the moments in which we talk to ourselves. And listen.

To lose those moments, to replace them with tasks and efficiency, is a mistake. What’s worse is that we don’t just lose them. We actively throw them away.”

Peter Bregman – “Why I returned my iPad”. Now, if only Apple/AT&T hadn’t effed up my iPhone 4 ordering process I’d own an iPhone and an iPad. IF ONLY.

To anyone that has heard me state what my ideal computer is, please speak up now for verification that I’m not just basing this off the rumors we’ve been hearing coming from Apple.

I’ve been dying for the following setup for 5+ years. My fingers are crossed that Apple meets (or exceeds) all of my criteria. I’ll go with it bullet-style to keep it quick.

Before I jump in, it may make sense to read the Smart Home | Kitchen post. Now, on to the “requirements”.

• 9.5″ x 7″ x 1.5″ dimensions. Basically I want it the size of The Book of Basketball or netbook-sized. Thicker than what most people probably want, but I want a keyboard option. I want something sturdy and that I can carry similarly to a book. Additionally, I’m hoping the thicker setup will allow for a more powerful battery.
• Clam opening option. Similar to the other tablet computers out there (ones with the pen – but I DON’T want a pen). I want the option to be able to sit and quickly type out a few emails.
• Screen will be multi-use. I can have it like a typical laptop or in a Kindle manner where I can read while sitting. I also want a touch screen keyboard like the iPhone for thumbing out websites, etc. The utility of a screen that folds both ways seems like the game changer. I can watch TV on the subway or type emails at a coffee shop.
• Software will remain very similar to any Macbook. I want most all of it. Maybe not some of the hardcore software I use – I do plan to have this setup as a portable (what I believe is the key word in this equation) option to my home computing, so all my files, settings and light-weight programs will travel with me.

Lastly, my view of the home computing system will be a smart home like server that will control media, electricity, etc where all portable computers link up to the server and sync all the way down to our mobiles. Daring Fireball has the best description of what I want so I’ll just close with that.

Put another way, let’s say instead of a MacBook and an iPhone, you’ve got an iMac and an iPhone, but you also want a portable secondary computer. Today, that portable from Apple (portable as opposed to the iPhone’s mobile) is a MacBook. With The Tablet, you’ll have the option of a device that will more closely resemble the iPhone than the iMac in terms of concept and the degree of technical abstraction.