Yearly Archives: 2013

Thoughts on Finishing Side Projects and the Benefits of Openly Sharing Ideas

Hi! Craig here. This is a crosspost from my blog. Every maker I know has a handful of side projects they’re thinking about building. More often than not, the projects don’t end up completed. Here’s a handful of the excuses I’ve heard and definitely used at times: It’s already been …

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Hazmat Suits And An East Harlem Bookstore: Behind The Making Of Our Web Series, Funded

Two down, eight to go. That’s our progress bar for shooting the web series we’re making with AOL about successfully crowdfunded businesses. A few weeks ago, we went up to East Harlem to visit Aurora Anaya-Cerda, owner of La Casa Azul Bookstore. It’s the only independent bookstore in East Harlem …

What, Don’t All Startups Spend A Week In The South Of France Within Their First Year?

Leaping precariously across the 18-inch gap between the dock and the untethered ramp to a party yacht rented by a 22 year old CEO and his delegation of American college students studying abroad; Nearly ordering iced coffee from the hotel bar before realizing that the price, 12 euros or nearly …

3 Days In Berlin: We Came To Arrange A Comedy Hack Day, We Stayed To Trespass On Private Property

Scoring a business trip to Europe then only staying for four days would be like winning the lottery and only buying a new pair of shoes. It wasn’t gonna happen. So not long after AOL agreed to bring us to France to represent our series Funded at the Cannes Lions …

How To #Unplug In 6 Steps (Hint: Don’t Be Afraid To Burn All Your Worldly Possessions)

We spent some time last week working with Tapestry to help us bring a little more fun and strangeness into the typical “How To _____ In ___ Steps” world. What came out of it is this guide to following Baratunde’s footsteps and unplugging from social media and email. Really, it’s …

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Can’t Read? Try listening to Baratunde’s #Unplug feature on SoundCloud

At Cultivated Wit, we believe in making things easy. Though I wrote a 4,000-plus-word feature for Fast Company about unplugging from digital social technologies, I believe in making that work accessible via as many digital social technologies as possible so have performed an audio edition of the piece along with …

Behind The Back Page Ep. 2: Baratunde Unplugs For Fast Company’s Cover Story

This is the second installment of our monthly video series wherein I chat with Baratunde about his monthly column in Fast Company. Only this time things are a little different because we’re not talking abou the back page, we’re talking about the cover. That is where Baratunde’s story (and face) …

The Cultivated Wit World Tour Has Begun

This officially marks day one of our two-week corporate jaunt. We begin in Cannes, France for several days of meetings, panels, and Craig getting sun burned. We couldn’t be more thrilled to be here working with AOL and talking about creativity, storytelling, technology, buzzwords, and more buzzwords. If you’re here …

Satirist Saman Arbabi Launches Art Project To Commemorate Iranian Elections

I first met Saman Arbabi the night before my opening keynote at SXSW 2012 in Austin, Texas. My friend Raina Kumra insisted I attend his talk, Iranian Outlaws: Satire vs. Censorship. I was so impressed and moved by his presentation that I asked to include some of his slides in …

Stranger Than Fiction: Meet Two MIT Grads Who Built The Onion’s Non-Fiction Dopplegänger

How do you satirize satire? If you’re asking Dan Schultz and Matt Stempeck, the answer is: “you make it true.” Both are graduates of the MIT Media Lab, and earlier this year they created The On1on. It may not be as funny as The Onion, but the catch is that …