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24 Feb 17:50

Life & Business: Jaime Derringer of Design Milk

by Sabrina Smelko

Life & Business: Jaime Derringer of Design Milk

Design Milk was one of the first blogs I subscribed to and bookmarked, before I even really knew what a blog was. That was years and years ago, and it’s still one of my go-to resources today for all things design, from art and architecture to furniture, fashion and technology. So, needless to say, I had a bit of a moment when emailing back and forth with Jaime Derringer, the Founder and Executive Editor of Design Milk and Dog Milk (*insert party hat emoji here*). Despite her busy schedule — she’s in the middle of launching Adorn Milk, an online shop dedicated to modern wearables — Jaime was kind enough to share a bit behind her life and business, from happy mistakes and saying no, to knowing what to pay attention to and the importance of people who know more than you. Thanks, Jaime! —x, Sabrina

Portrait photography by Noa Azoulay


Why did you decide to start your own business?

I was at a job that had quite a bit of downtime and I was shopping for sofas and other items for a townhouse I had just purchased. I started using a blog as a way to bookmark things I loved, but also share them. It was a bit of an accident that it all turned into a business! But, no regrets!

When you first decided to start your own business, how did you define what your business would be?

Blogging wasn’t really a legit kind of business back when I started, so I just played it by ear. I watched what others were doing and talked with them, seeking advice. Actually, Grace was one of the first people in the “design blog” community who I met and I still enjoy sharing ideas with her today.

Defining your business isn’t always as clear as starting out with a business plan and lots of strategy, a roadmap, etc. In fact, for the first few years or so I was really just doing things on the fly. Today, I spend a lot more time thinking about the upcoming year, planning out new projects and putting together an editorial calendar that makes sense. I always look to historical data and information to help me create a map for the future, in addition to consulting with peers. Also, being in an Internet business, it’s really critical to pay attention to the entire landscape of the Internet, such as the way people are consuming content, interacting with devices and so on. I try to make sure that wherever my readers are, they can access Design Milk content.

Life & Business: Jaime Derringer of Design Milk

What was the best piece of business advice you were given when you were starting off?

Oh gosh, that’s hard. I think maybe the importance of saying “no.” It’s become increasingly easier to say “no” as the years go on. “No” isn’t always a bad thing because you’re saying “yes” to something else that’s more important — like another project — or, even something simple like a nap, a walk, or time with family.

What was the most difficult part of starting your business?

Knowing absolutely nothing about tech, blogging, social media, accounting, business, marketing, advertising or any of the things that I do every day. I tried to learn as much as I could about every aspect of my business because as a blogger, especially a new blogger, you pretty much do all the work. I was self-hosted, so I even became a server administrator and a website designer there for a while…! You have to learn to wear many hats. Then, as you grow, you can hand off some hats to people who are better at wearing them. It’s important to know what you’re good at, but more important to know what you’re not good at. Then, go find someone who is!

Can you name the biggest lesson you’ve learned in running a business?

Don’t undervalue or underestimate yourself. It’s important to know your value as a human, as a person, as a business owner. Never make excuses or assume other people either can’t afford your rates or won’t pay you what you’re worth.

Can you name a moment of failure in your business experiences?

Oh boy. I’ve had a few. I’ve hired the wrong people and had disastrous results, invested money in projects that were a flop, said the wrong thing to the wrong people… I’ve probably made all the mistakes there are to make!

Life & Business: Jaime Derringer of Design Milk
What has been the biggest sacrifice you’ve made in starting your business?

My free time. In the beginning, I worked a full-time job for three years while running my website and, at first, it wasn’t a big deal but when I started to take it more seriously, I became a workaholic. I don’t think my husband saw me much for two whole years! It was tough. But in the end, totally worth it. I still work more than 40 hours a week, but I do a better job of being flexible and maintaining balance.

Can you name your greatest success in your business experiences?

I think I’m most proud of being able to help other people. Design Milk has become a great place for other people to connect. For example, a designer might share his products and get picked up by a manufacturer or a retailer. Or, someone will see an interior designer featured on my site and hire them. We’ve even helped launch a few design careers! I am grateful to be the platform for this, and feel like that’s as successful as you can get!

What business books/resources (if any) would you recommend to someone starting a creative business of their own?

Oooh there are tons of these out there! Obviously the Biz Ladies column [now Life & Business] is awesome, but I primarily know more about the blogging world than general business resources. If you’re interested in starting with blogging, I’d recommend:
– Joy Cho’s book: Blog, Inc.
– Holly Becker’s course: Blogging Your Way eCourse series
– Altitude Design Summit meetings
– Social Media Expo meeting
– SXSW Interactive

The Small Business Administration is actually a very helpful resource, too.

Regardless of your industry, there are meetings, online groups, and other helpful associations, whether it’s on Facebook, Etsy, or a government agency. There’s a lot of help out there!

In your opinion, what are the top three things someone should consider before starting their own business?

1. What kind of time commitment do you have?
2. Do you have a support system/team — wife/husband, family, friends, etc. who understand your mission?
3. What are your goals? Make an outline with milestones and dates and work toward them. I find that writing things down and checking things off works for me.
4. BONUS! Is there really a need for this business, and if there are similar companies already out there, how can you be different?








26 May 19:56

A Guide for Young People: What to Do With Your Life

by zenhabits
By Leo Babauta

I had a 15-year-old write to me and ask about figuring out what do do with her life.

She writes:

‘As a high-school student I’m constantly being reminded to figure out what to do with my life, what career I would like to have and so on. I definitely feel huge amounts of pressure when my teachers and parents tell me to figure out something now. I’m young and I don’t want to make a mistake and ruin my future. I know what I like and what my interests are but when I read about a job related to those interests I always feel as if I wouldn’t enjoy it and I don’t know why.’

What an extremely tough thing to figure out: what to do with your future! Now, I can’t really tell this young woman what to do, as her parents might not like that very much, but I can share what I’ve learned looking back on my life, and what I would tell my kids (oldest is 21 and still figuring things out, but I also have 17- and 16-year-old boys and a 14-year-old girl).

Here’s what I’d say.

You can’t figure out the future. Even young people who have a plan (be a doctor, lawyer, research scientist, singer) don’t really know what will happen. If they have any certainty at all, they’re a bit deluded. Life doesn’t go according to plan, and while a few people might do exactly what they set out to do, you never know if you’re one of those. Other things come along to change you, to change your opportunities, to change the world. The jobs of working at Google, Amazon or Twitter, for example, didn’t exist when I was a teen-ager. Neither did the job of Zen Habits blogger.

So if you can’t figure out the future, what do you do? Don’t focus on the future. Focus on what you can do right now that will be good no matter what the future brings. Make stuff. Build stuff. Learn skills. Go on adventures. Make friends. These things will help in any future.

Learn to be good with discomfort. One of the most important skills you can develop is being OK with some discomfort. The best things in life are often hard, and if you shy away from difficulty and discomfort, you’ll miss out. You’ll live a life of safety.

Learning is hard. Building something great is hard. Writing a book is hard. A marriage is hard. Running an ultramarathon is hard. All are amazing.

If you get good at this, you can do anything. You can start a business, which you couldn’t if you’re afraid of discomfort, because starting a business is hard and uncomfortable.

How do you get good at this? Do things now that are uncomfortable and hard, on purpose. But start with small doses. Try exercising for a little bit, even if it’s hard, but just start with a few minutes of it, and increase a minute every few days or so. Try writing a blog or meditating every day. When you find yourself avoiding discomfort, push yourself just a little bit more (within limits of reason and safety of course).

Learn to be good with uncertainty. A related skill is thriving in uncertainty. Starting a business, for example, is an amazing thing to do … but if you’re afraid of uncertainty, you’ll skip it. You can’t know how things will turn out, and so if you need to know how things will turn out, you’ll avoid great projects, businesses, opportunities.

But if you can be OK with not knowing, you’ll be open to many more possibilities. Read more on uncertainty.

If you’re good at discomfort and uncertainty, you could do all kinds of things: travel the world and live cheaply while blogging about it, write a book, start a business, live in a foreign country and teach English, learn to program and create your own software, take a job with a startup, create an online magazine with other good young writers, and much more. All of those would be awesome, but you have to be OK with discomfort and uncertainty.

If any opportunities like these come along, you’ll be ready if you’ve practiced these skills.

Overcome distraction and procrastination. All of this is useless if you can’t overcome the universal problems of distraction and procrastination. You might seize an opportunity because you’re good at uncertainty and discomfort, but then not make the most of it because you’re too busy on social media and watching TV.

Actually, distraction and procrastination are just ways of avoiding discomfort, so if you get good at discomfort you’re way ahead of most people. But there are some things you can practice — read more here.

Learn about your mind. Most people don’t realize that fear controls them. They don’t notice when they run to distraction, or rationalize doing things they told themselves they wouldn’t do. It’s hard to change mental habits because you don’t always see what’s going on in your head.

Learn about how your mind works, and you’ll be much better at all of this. The best ways: meditation and blogging. With meditation (read how to do it) you watch your mind jumping around, running from discomfort, rationalizing. With blogging, you are forced to reflect on what you’ve been doing in life and what you’ve learned from it. It’s a great tool for self-growth, and I recommend it to every young person.

Make some money. I don’t think money is that important, but making money is difficult. You have to make someone believe in you enough to hire you or buy your products/service, which means you have to figure out why you’re worthy of someone believing in you. You have to become worthy. And you have to learn to communicate that to people so they’ll want to buy or hire you. Whether you’re selling cookies door-to-door or an app in the Apple store or trying to get a job as a cashier, you have to do this.

And you get better with practice.

I worked as a clerk at a bank and then a freelance sports writer when I was in high school, and those were valuable experiences for me.

Protip: save an emergency fund, then start investing your earnings in an index fund and watch it grow over your lifetime.

Build something small. Most people fritter their time away on things that don’t matter, like TV, video games, social media, reading news. A year of that and you have nothing to show for it. But if you did a sketch every day, or started writing web app, or created a blog or a video channel that you update regularly, or started building a cookie business … at the end of a year you’ll have something great. And some new skills. Something you can point to and say, “I built that.” Which most people can’t do.

Start small, and build it every day if possible. It’s like putting your money in investments: it grows in value over time.

Become trustworthy. When someone hires a young person, the biggest fear is that the young person is not trustworthy. That they’ll come in late and lie about it and miss deadlines. Someone who has established a reputation over the years might be much more trusted, and more likely to be hired. Learn to be trustworthy by showing up on time, doing your best on every task, being honest, admitting mistakes but fixing them, trying your best to meet deadlines, being a good person.

If you do that, you’ll build a reputation and people will recommend you to others, which is the best way to get a job or investor.

Be ready for opportunities. If you do all of the above, or at least most of it, you’ll be amazing. You’ll be way, way ahead of pretty much every other person your age. And opportunities will come your way, if you have your eyes open: job opportunities, a chance to build something with someone, an idea for a startup that you can build yourself, a new thing to learn and turn into a business, the chance to submit your new screenplay.

These opportunities might come along, and you have to be ready to seize them. Take risks — that’s one of the advantages of being young. And if none come along, create your own.

Finally: The idea behind all of this is that you can’t know what you’re going to do with your life right now, because you don’t know who you’re going to be, what you’ll be able to do, what you’ll be passionate about, who you’ll meet, what opportunities will come up, or what the world will be like. But you do know this: if you are prepared, you can do anything you want.

Prepare yourself by learning about your mind, becoming trustworthy, building things, overcoming procrastination, getting good at discomfort and uncertainty.

You can put all this off and live a life of safety and boringness. Or you can start today, and see what life has to offer you.

Lastly, what do you do when your parents and teachers pressure you to figure things out? Tell them you’re going to be an entrepreneur, start your own business, and take over the world. If you prepare for that, you’ll actually be prepared for any career.

03 Apr 16:51

Vivre dans une yourte ou entre amis : nouveau mode d’emploi

by Emilie Brouze
La loi Alur reconnaît enfin l'habitat alternatif. Chacun dans sa caravane ou à plusieurs dans une coopérative d'habitants, ceux qui ont choisi de vivre autrement sont enfin reconnus.






25 Nov 20:47

Sables bitumineux : pétrole ou environnement ? A vous de décider… en jouant

L'exploitation des sables bitumineux, au Canada, dans la province d'Alberta, est un des désastres écologiques de la planète, mais peu connu du grand public. C'est sous la forme du jeu que le réalisateur David Dufresnes pense sensibiliser ses concitoyens, au moyen d'un ambitieux web-documentaire ludique réalisé avec la chaîne Arte.


« Qu'est-ce qu'on fait du pétrole ? Et qu'est-ce qu'on fait de la terre qui est entre nos mains ? » Voilà des questions essentielles… Plutôt que d'y répondre à notre place, le journaliste David Dufresne a choisi de les poser directement au public et de le laisser répondre au travers d'une démarche narrative totalement novatrice : le jeu documentaire.
Après « Prison valley ", un web-documentaire sur l'industrie pénitentiaire américaine acclamé par la critique, il s'attaque cette fois aux sables bitumineux du Canada avec « FortMcMoney ».
Dans ce jeu-web-documentaire les internautes sont invités à prendre le contrôle du double numérique de Fort McMurray, ville-champignon du nord de l'Alberta au cœur de l'exploitation de ces hydrocarbures non-conventionnels.

C'est là-bas que depuis un peu de dix ans se joue une révolution énergétique aux conséquences planétaires : extrait à grand renfort d'énergie (un baril nécessaire pour en produire deux) et d'eau (quatre barils d'eau pour un de pétrole) ce bitume ultra-visqueux a propulsé le Canada au rang de pétro-Etat en lui offrant les troisièmes réserves mondiales de brut (derrière l'Arabie Saoudite et le Venezuela) tout en pulvérisant ses engagements de réduction de gaz à effet de serre.

Qualifié de « pétrole le plus sale au monde » par les écologistes, vingt et un prix Nobel ont jugé son « impact désastreux sur les changements climatiques », mais pour le gouvernement canadien et sa population à la recherche d'emploi et d'argent, c'est une opportunité économique sans équivalent.

A la manière d'un livre dont vous êtes le héros, l'internaute se promène dans Fort McMurray, collecte des indices et choisit de rencontrer et d'écouter différents personnages. Il y a les travailleurs attirés par des salaires atteignant les 10 000 $ CAD par mois (7 500 euros) que l'on découvre endurant des températures de -45 °C dans des campings, car le logement est partout hors de prix. Il y a la mairesse qui se dit paradoxalement de sensibilité écolo alors que sa commune est entièrement aux mains de l'industrie pétrolière. Il y a ces SDF réfugiés dans l'alcool et la drogue, le patron de boîte de strip-tease, le chef d'une tribu autochtone, les policiers, les militants écolos et les représentants de l'industrie pétrolière. Au total une cinquantaine de personnages qui racontent tous une histoire différente, leur histoire, et vous guident vers d'autres lieux et rencontres.

Mais il ne s'agit pas que d'une balade interactive dans vingt-deux lieux de la ville, grâce aux témoignages recueillis le joueur façonne sa compréhension des problématiques de Fort McMurray puis est amené à influer sur le devenir de la commune. A la manière de Sim City, on peut faire des choix en termes de développement économique, social, politique, organiser des évènements collectifs (manifs, forums) et par-dessus tout, convaincre les autres participants de la pertinence de ses choix via des sondages et des référendums.

Vous pouvez favoriser l'économie mais devrez en payer le prix environnemental. Et si vous choisissez de préserver ce qu'il reste de nature, cela ne sera pas sans conséquences économiques et sociales… Dans cet endroit où la neige est maculée de rejets pétroliers, il est inutile de chercher le blanc ou le noir : tout est gris.
« C'est un jeu mais pas du divertissement », a résumé l'auteur David Dufresne avec un mélange d'excitation et d'anxiété lors de la conférence de presse de présentation du jeu, à Paris : « Nous voulons intéresser des gens par la forme pour les faire venir sur le fond ». Le public visé ? « Ceux qui suivent les questions énergétiques, les relations internationales, les « gamers » (joueurs, ndlr) et tous ceux qui se passionnent pour les nouvelles formes narratives ». Mais il reconnaît que « c'est un pari : on est dans la Recherche et Développement de documentaire ».

Les producteurs de l'Office National des Films du Canada, de Toxa et d'Arte ne veulent pas s'appesantir sur le budget (« dans la fourchette haute des documentaires » selon leur termes) mais le montant de 620 000 euros circule sur le web. Le cap de la réussite : 10 000 joueurs sur les trois langues proposées (anglais, français et allemand) qui devraient être conduits sur le site via des partenariats avec des médias (Le Monde, Radio-Canada, The Globe and Mail et Süddeutsche Zeitung). Ces médias vont aussi alimenter les débats grâce à leurs archives et leurs articles sur les sables bitumineux qui seront intégrés au jeu.

Celui-ci se déroule en trois séquences distinctes, la première partie débutant ce lundi, la deuxième le 20 janvier 2014 et la troisième le 24 février. A l'issue des trois phases de jeu, un documentaire linéaire prenant en compte les choix et les débats des internautes pourrait voir le jour et être diffusé sur Arte.

Stephen Harper, premier ministre du Canada (conservateur et très pro-pétrole) avait comparé le développement de l'industrie des sables bitumineux à la construction des pyramides d'Egypte et à celle de la Grande Muraille de Chine, une démesure à laquelle n'échappe pas l'entreprise de David Dufresne avec ses deux ans d'enquêtes, ses deux mois de tournage, ses cinq mois de montage et 1940 heures de développement. Le joueur aura face à lui 515 choix de dialogues et plusieurs centaines de parcours possibles, à l'issue desquels il pourra faire triompher sa vision du monde.

En donnant ainsi au public la possibilité de faire des choix éclairés, David Dufresne va aussi paradoxalement mettre en lumière à quel point cette dimension participative et démocratique au cœur du Fort McMoney virtuel fait totalement défaut dans la réalité. Ici s'applique « la première loi de la pétro-politique » définie Thomas Friedman : le prix du pétrole et les libertés individuelles suivent des courbes opposées. Plus il y a d'or noir, moins il y a de démocratie. Fort McMurray est la ville où l'on vote le moins au Canada ; le lobby pétrolier et ses relais politiques de Calgary à Ottawa ont un plan simple pour la région : y exploiter l'or noir jusqu'à la dernière goutte.


Source : Louis Benoit pour Reporterre.

Photos : Fort McMoney.

Ecouter aussi : Quel est l'état de l'environnement en Alberta, qui exploite les sables bitumineux ?.


Pour une information libre sur l'écologie, soutenez Reporterre :

04 Aug 19:31

*The Great Escape*

by Tyler Cowen

The author is Angus Deaton and the subtitle is Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality.  It is a very good book, as you might expect.  Here are two bits I found especially interesting:

In Sweden in 1751 — well before the modern mortality decline — it was riskier to be a newborn than to be an 80-year old.

And, somewhat more recently:

…until around 1900, adult life expectancy in Britain was actually higher than life expectancy at birth.  In spite of having lived for 15 years, those teenagers could expect a longer future than when they were born.

The book’s home page is here.