We are asking JET Program participants past and present, as well as other friends of the program to speak out and petition the Japanese government to reconsider the cuts.  Please sign this petition in support of the grassroots cultural exchange the JET Program has fostered and write directly to the Japanese government explaining the positive impact the Program has made in your life and that of your adopted Japanese community.

For more background on this issue, please refer to “JET Program on the Chopping Block” by Jim Gannon on jetwit.com.

Keynote speech by playwright and JET alum Randall David Cook

Loving the new Purpose office, where Chinatown meets Little Italy (Ni hao you doin’?).   Our building was formerly known as Odd Fellows Hall.  A fitting name indeed. 

More about Odd Fellows Hall.

Odd Fellows Hall by epicharmus, on Flickr

Clay on the 2008 US Beef Protests in South Korea

Clay on lolcats

Clay on the Gneezy and Rustichini Haifa day care center study

Clay on the Grobanites for Charity

Cognitive Surplus on Amazon

Follow @cshirky on Twitter

My new musical hobby – learning to play the ukulele

Can a company really deliver happiness?  That is a question that Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh tries to answer in his new book, Delivering Happiness (out today!). He certainly delivered happiness to me as a blogger when I received a free review copy of the book a couple months ago.  With that disclosure taken care of, let me go into what I hope will be a fair review.

Delivering Happiness was a quick and easy read.  Hsieh writes in a casual conversational style and claims in the introduction that he did not employ a ghostwriter.  I finished the book the night I got in the mail.  Despite his own self-deprecation about his writing ability, I appreciate the conversational tone and the authenticity of his personal voice.  As far as books written by CEOs of successful companies go, Delivering Happiness is definitely not douchey.  I have to admit, I don’t usually read business management books, nor have I ever shopped at Zappos, but I was intrigued by the offer of a free book.

Hsieh delivers sage business advice in a simple and earnest way while interweaving it with his own personal narrative. As a brief aside, in the spirit of Hsieh’s personal narrative style, I’ll interweave some of my own personal narrative into this review.  Hsieh and I have a lot in common.  We are both the sons of Taiwanese immigrants who grew up in suburbia.  Both of our last names start with H.  And speaking of the letter “H”, to drop the H-bomb, we both went to Harvard. We were both forced (um, I mean, strongly encouraged) by our parents to learn piano and some sort of string instrument growing up (in Hsieh’s case the violin, in mine, the cello).  I have to admit, as someone who didn’t grow up with many Asian-American role models outside of my own family, these kinds of commonalities made me really identify with Hsieh’s story and personal journey.

Hsieh emphasizes the importance of building a strong and distinctive corporate culture as the path to business success.  He has done this at Zappos by maintaining transparency and a personal touch in management, and hiring and training employees in a way that infuses Zappos with its distinctive culture.  For example, Hsieh talks about how prospective employees are asked questions like “how weird are you?” and how Zappos offers new employees $2000 to quit after their training period just to make sure they are getting people who are really committed.

Just so I don’t come across as a total fanboy, the last paragraph will be critical. There were a few awkward bits in the book.  One is just a slightly typography technicality, but my designer side can’t help it.  There are several fonts used in the book, but the one used for quoting the Zappos Core Values Document (page 159), was a bit hard to read for such a long excerpt (maybe they have changed that for the final publication version though).  In terms of content, the part about Hsieh’s first experience with rave culture could have been shorter, and might have been a bit self-indulgent, but once again, I appreciate the personal, almost naive candor and honesty, and very much jive with Hsieh’s persona as a “hip, iconoclastic CEO” (I got that one from the book cover).  At the same time, the side note about how much Hsieh loves Red Bull was just plain weird (tacky product plug, or just an over-enthusiastic fanboy?).  Then again, if I ever get the chance to write a book about myself, I would welcome gladly the sponsorship of any of my uppers of choice (any matcha or yerba mate producers out there reading this?).

Don’t take my word for it though.  Delivering Happiness is a breezy entertaining read for anyone interested in building different kind of corporate culture, that optimizes both financial success and, well, happiness.  I’m happy I read the book and happy that you made it all the way through my review.  Have a nice day!

Delivering Happiness Official Homepage

Buy Delivering Happiness on Amazon

Donate to LIVESTRONG and receive a FREE copy of Delivering Happiness

Follow Delivering Happiness on Twitter

Above: Ted Ullrich introduces DoTank

Composting 101

First drill air holes in a plastic bin. Add raw plant-based kitchen scraps and strips of newspaper.

Add worms, feed them more kitchen scraps over a few weeks, aerate, moisturize and otherwise keep the worms happy so they do their thing.

And finally harvest the compost and separate out the worms.  “Cure” the compost by letting it dry out a bit before adding to plants.

Recommended reading:
Easy Compost: The Secret to Great Soil and Spectacular Plants
Worms Eat My Garbage: How to Set Up & Maintain a Worm Composting System

Seed Bombing

Image via DoTank:Brooklyn. We didn’t have enough knives to go around at the skillshare, so I just shaped the clay into a thin wrapper with my hands, just like kneading a gyoza wrapper.  Also check out this video from the Guardian demonstrating how to make seed bombs.

Windowfarms

Windowfarms are vertical, hydroponic, modular, low-energy, high-yield edible window gardens built using low-impact or recycled local materials.

Get detailed instructions on how to build your own Windowfarms and join the Windowfarms community for additional help and support.

My friend and former ITP classmate, Carolina Vallejo’s project, Design for the First World needs help with funding on Kickstarter and with spreading the word around the internets. In Carolina’s own words:

My ITP thesis project Design for the First World, is a competition with a motto: The Rest Saving the West.

I’m proposing to flip the traditional equation of the first world helping the “third” by calling artists, designers and thinkers of developing and emerging economies to propose ideas to solve 4 first world problems: obesity, consumerism, integration of immigration and low birth rate and aging population.

The call is open until July 1st, and there’s a 1000 dollars prize along with a catalog and an exhibit coming in the fall. I’m still looking for great contestants so if you know awesome people from and living in a developing country send them my way!

Also, I’m raising money through Kickstarter and i’m 84% funded (5 days to go!) so please consider donating if you can, tweeting and posting on facebook are also of GREAT help!!

Thanks much!

Carolina

Sue-Shi, former vocalist/percussionist for Hepnova/The Ronald Raygun just published a werewolf-themed erotic novel, Pack of Lies.  Now available as an ebook for only $4.99.  Check it out!

While on the topic of Sue-Shi, check out some of her greatest hits!
Sex Power
Money (That’s What I Want) – Cover
Sexy Friends

Catherine showed me around her old stomping grounds in London last week.  We walked around, ate surprisingly good food (despite the British stereotype), and hit the requisite tourist sites – Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Notting Hill, etc.  I also had the chance to meet up with Venu, and old friend from my Swedish class at Harvard, and Steph and Olie, a couple of British friends I met in Japan.

Eat! Above: Ploughman’s Lunch at The Spaniard’s Inn, Hampstead

Below: Fish & Chips.  Ok, these are from Giraffe, a chain in Heathrow before my flight back, but it was actually pretty good I had to get my mushy peas fix before leaving the UK

Drink! Below: Summer in England = Pimm’s, of course! @ the Scarsdale Tavern, Kensington

Above: Some photos from the Elephant Parade 2010

Elephant Parade is a conservation campaign that shines a multi-coloured spotlight on the urgent crisis faced by the endangered Asian elephant. Brought to you by www.elephantfamily.org, the event sees over 250 brightly painted life-size elephants located over central London this summer.

Stay: Travelodge Marylebone – inexpensive and centrally located

Panda Eyes at the Design Museum London

More London photos and video on Flickr.

Networked coffee mugs provide an update to the old 10th-cup-free punch-card customer loyalty program. Our highly modular system allows any coffee shop to use one of our mug readers, link it to their name and physical location, and get started immediately with the program. Shops will sell RFID-enabled stickers at a low cost to customers who provide their own reusable coffee mug. Once the sticker is applied to a mug, that mug can be scanned at any participating coffee shop’s reader to log refills anywhere the customer goes.

The BetaCup (we liked the name, so we went with it!) reader – the in-store device that reads each mug’s sticker – provides haptic feedback in the form of a light thud to let the customer know that the mug was indeed scanned. The customer will feel the vibration through the cup. It also provides visual feedback with low powered LED lights when a 10-cup milestone is reached, so that baristas and servers will know when to issue a free refill. Each scan is followed by an appropriate timeout so customers will be unable to take advantage of the system. Optionally, businesses can use our API, or new services that are created with our API, to create real-time displays to show BetaCup usage at their shop.

Read more and vote for BetaCup on Jovoto!

More press for I RIDE FOR LIVESTRONG, an online interactive experience I worked on at Purpose:

TechPresident: Avaaz Co-Founders Seek Purpose Driven Consumer Life

Huffington Post: Julia Moulden on How to Use Technology to Change the World

Cool Hunting: This Week’s Picks

PSFK: Online Game I RIDE FOR LIVESTRONG Raises Funds, Awareness, and Social Empowerment

Previous post: I RIDE FOR LIVESTRONG in the NY Times

I went on an impromptu trip out to Montauk, Long Island last weekend with Catherine.  Photo essay and travel tips below.

STAY at The Panoramic View – simple luxury, right on the beach

EAT fish and chips at Gurney’s Inn, right next door to The Panoramic View

DRINK at Nick’s, a beach bar right in town with live music

WATCH the sunset at the Montauket

EAT lobsters at Duryea’s.  Rustic and delicious.  My lobster was pregnant! Yum.

ADOPT a sock monkey and shop for other kitsch Americana at a shop on the main street in town (don’t remember the name)

More photos on Flickr.

Ni Hao You Doin’? – A new Hepnova shirt on Zazzle in collaboration with Joey G.

We were hanging out in Little Italy/Chinatown tonight and Joe came up with this brilliant bilingual pun that celebrates the confluence of cultures in a pizza/scallion pancake slice of Lower Manhattan with classic New York wit and attitude.  Here’s to pasta and to potstickers and to Sino-Italian-American friendship! Ni hao you doin’?

Buy the Ni Hao You Doin’ shirt on Zazzle

Ni Hao You Doin’? by Hepnova in collaboration with Joey G

I RIDE FOR LIVESTRONG by Purpose in the NY Times Media Decoder Blog!
I was in charge of the music and audio and also worked on animation and visual/interaction design.

Stuart Elliot reports:

A new agency whose name, Purpose, signals the kind of campaigns it hopes to produce is creating for Livestrong, the Lance Armstrong initiative that fights cancer, a virtual version of an annual bicycle race.

The effort is in the form of a game called I Ride for Livestrong. The online race began on Wednesday and continues through May 23, which is the end date for the actual race it mirrors, the 2010 Amgen Tour of California.

I’ve just been featured as one of “100 Passionate People” of Taiwanese-America on TaiwaneseAmerican.org! View my profile here.

About the 100 Passionate People Project:

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, and the 2nd week of the month is Taiwanese American Heritage Week. TaiwaneseAmerican.org is pleased to present the profiles of a wide cross-section of everyday Taiwanese Americans who many of you have told us that you find personally inspiring or passionate about what they do. Each day this month, we’ll present about three people, of all ages, generations, and careers until we reach 100 people.

Make no mistake, this is NOT the 100 “most passionate” people, because we know there are many more folks to connect with or hear about who also fit this criteria and deserve to be highlighted, too. With your help, we will find them. This project is just the beginning.

For now, this is a glimpse into the diversity of our community and a collection of their stories and opinions. In the future, we’ll be planning other “100 people” projects based on various themes (i.e. tech, community leaders, moms, etc.) and eventually grow our project into a historical archive chronicling the stories of Americans of Taiwanese heritage.

If you know of someone who you think should be profiled this month or in one of our future projects, please send this link to them: http://bit.ly/cSZvf4

Estrella Intersects The Plane by Matthew Richard

Significant Other by Diego Rioja

The Life Dress by Elizabeth Fuller

ITP Thesis Presentation: SokoSquare from lee-sean on Vimeo.

Download PDF of my SokoSquare thesis paper

And here is the back channel chat log from Chatterous:

maddparker@… sent an instant message at (05/05/10 13:19):
i have a friend who’s nickname is soko
tom.igoe@… sent an instant message at (05/05/10 13:19):
good.
tom.igoe@… sent an instant message at (05/05/10 13:19):
everyone should know about it, Gordie
Gordie posted from a guest at (05/05/10 13:20):
Lee-Sean leading the dapper award for the day
ruferto posted from a guest at (05/05/10 13:20):
like the white suit
maddparker@… sent an instant message at (05/05/10 13:20):
Pete Leonard!
maddparker@… sent an instant message at (05/05/10 13:20):
I could make so many Vassar CS jokes no one else would get…
Roy Vanegas posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:20):
try us
maddparker@… sent an instant message at (05/05/10 13:21):
nah, maybe offline
clmensch@… sent an instant message at (05/05/10 13:21):
he just did
Roy Vanegas posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:21):
lee-sean.presentation = smooth;
Xiaoyang Feng posted from a guest at (05/05/10 13:22):
Juri Imamura: http://itp.nyu.edu/thesis/spring2010_archives/Juri%20Imamura_ITP%20Thesis%202010_Large.mp4
Roy Vanegas posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:22):
benjamins
Sarah Dahnke posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:22):
lee sean gets street in his presentation
Roy Vanegas posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:22):
how often do you hear that in a master’s thesis presentation?
Roy Vanegas posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:23):
amen
pl posted from a guest at (05/05/10 13:24):
slowly backing away.. enjoy presentations, and have fun.
Sarah Dahnke posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:24):
“conduit” is the word of the week
ckundo posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:24):
badgers
tom.igoe@… sent an instant message at (05/05/10 13:25):
I thought the word was “bear”
ckundo posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:26):
chicken & egg would be a contender
ckundo posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:26):
2 words tho
ckundo posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:26):
and a punctuation dealy
jorge posted from a guest at (05/05/10 13:26):
ampersand
ckundo posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:26):
bless you
jorge posted from a guest at (05/05/10 13:26):
thanks
andrewstyer@… sent an instant message at (05/05/10 13:26):
the lee-sean camera view (the upper-right thumbnail) is pretty awesome
tom.igoe@… sent an instant message at (05/05/10 13:27):
that’s awesome.
jorge posted from a guest at (05/05/10 13:27):
he traded that house for an ipad 3g
tom.igoe@… sent an instant message at (05/05/10 13:28):
I’d give three red paperclips for an apartment in Brooklyn
Sarah Dahnke posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:28):
did tom just hate on brooklyn?
tom.igoe@… sent an instant message at (05/05/10 13:28):
no, I live there. I love it there.
Marianne posted from a guest at (05/05/10 13:28):
No.
Roy Vanegas posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:29):
www.soko.com is taken
Sarah Dahnke posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:29):
my rent in brooklyn is due
Sarah Dahnke posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:29):
maybe I can pay with paperclips
Sarah Dahnke posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:29):
or maybe leesean can find something for me to barter
Roy Vanegas posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:29):
100,000 paper clips
jorge posted from a guest at (05/05/10 13:30):
roy: http://sokosquare.com/
paulparadiso posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:30):
Can you not pay them in dance?
Marianne posted from a guest at (05/05/10 13:30):
(Roy – I bet you can barter rustproofing if you want.)
Sarah Dahnke posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:31):
paul, I bet you could get me out of at least a month’s rent with your merce cunningham impression
tom.igoe@… sent an instant message at (05/05/10 13:31):
now that’s a specific impression!
paulparadiso posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:31):
deal
Sarah Dahnke posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:31):
tom, you should see it
Sarah Dahnke posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:32):
maybe paul could do it on the break
tom.igoe@… sent an instant message at (05/05/10 13:32):
I should.
Roy Vanegas posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:32):
rustproofing?
Marianne posted from a guest at (05/05/10 13:32):
(did you read the link you sent?)
jorge posted from a guest at (05/05/10 13:32):
i do an impression of merce cunningham in the composition and choreography phase. mainly i just roll dice.
Roy Vanegas posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:33):
now i did
Roy Vanegas posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:33):
i prefer engines
Sarah Dahnke posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:33):
jorge, win
Roy Vanegas posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:33):
clap, clap, clap
ckundo posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:34):
stern hiss
Roy Vanegas posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:34):
oohhh, me
jorge posted from a guest at (05/05/10 13:35):
http://blog.sokosquare.com/ needs some updatin’
Roy Vanegas posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:35):
will program for food
andrewstyer@… sent an instant message at (05/05/10 13:35):
what can i trade him for his jacket?
Sarah Dahnke posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:35):
if I programmed for food, I’d never eat again
paulparadiso posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:35):
a velcro jacket
mustafa bagdatli posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:35):
your weird thing with velcro
Roy Vanegas posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:35):
if i danced for food, i’d get hit w/tomatoes
tymm posted from a guest at (05/05/10 13:36):
i gave up eating a long time ago.
ckundo posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:36):
tomatoes nom
ckundo posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:37):
I can decorate Peters house..with beer cans
Roy Vanegas posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:37):
that’s a great idea
Roy Vanegas posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:37):
clpa, clap
tehaynes posted from a guest at (05/05/10 13:37):
just have to throw it in there. the bell reminds of spelling bees
Roy Vanegas posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:38):
delay( 120000 );
ckundo posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:38):
I spelled “cloud” wrong in a spelling bee
ckundo posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:38):
humiliating
ckundo posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:39):
I was 14
Roy Vanegas posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:39):
i still can’t spell buroucraecey
ckundo posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:39):
beurocarcy
ckundo posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:39):
bureaocracy
Roy Vanegas posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:40):
buracracy?
jelanijohn@… sent an instant message at (05/05/10 13:40):
barrackacy
Roy Vanegas posted from the web at (05/05/10 13:41):
that’s it!
jelanijohn@… sent an instant message at (05/05/10 13:42):
ok, 20 mins to get to school before next presenter
jelanijohn@… sent an instant message at (05/05/10 13:42):
gotta pwrwalk
Xiaoyang Feng posted from a guest at (05/05/10 13:55):
Lee-Sean huang: http://itp.nyu.edu/thesis/spring2010_archives/Lee-Sean%20Huang_ITP%20Thesis%202010_Large.mp4

With my ITP thesis ready to go, I finally got a chance to do some creative cooking again.  Tonight I made a fried soft shell crab salad with a curry aïoli dressing.  I improvised through this one (like most things I cook), so no exact measurements.  I got the soft shell crabs (which are currently in season) from FreshDirect, and they were already cleaned, which saved me the scary task of cutting off the eyes of live crabs as demonstrated here by Mark Bittman of the NY Times.

Start with the aïoli dressing.  Put in a blender:
1 raw egg (without the shell, silly!)
1 clove of garlic
2 chopped up cornichons
1 generous spoonful of Dijon mustard
1 shake of curry powder
1 dash of soy sauce
1 dash of Tabasco
1 heaping teaspoon of apricot jam (the sweetness offsets the intensity of the other flavors)
2-3 teaspoons of vinegar (I used a combo apple cider and rice wine vinegar that has been infused with jalapeños. I like to live a little on the wild side, so I chucked in a couple slices of the pickled jalapeños too
2-3 generous glugs (I know, this is hardly scientific) of grapeseed or other neutral oil

Blend everything together and season to taste. It should come out more like a thick salad dressing and less like a mayonnaise. If it’s too thick, add some water or more vinegar to taste.  This makes a lot of dressing, so these measurements would be enough for 4-6 servings.

Now for the crab. Clean the crab if it didn’t come cleaned already. Rinse in some cold water and pat dry with some paper towels. Make a tempura-style batter by mixing flour, ice cold water, freshly ground black pepper, Tabasco, and fish sauce (plain old salt would work here too). The batter should be really cold and rather thin. Don’t over mix.  Dip the crab in the batter and deep fry.  It takes 2-3 minutes per side. When done, drain on some paper towels.

Tonight I served the crab on some heirloom tomatoes and Boston lettuce with the dressing drizzled on top.  I had a glass of vinho verde to go with my delicious dinner, but an off-dry Riesling or Gewurztraminer would also probably work well with the curry flavor.

I took this photo in Williamsburg on my way to Joel’s dinner party last week.

ZEE Immersive Audiovisual Environment by Kurt Hentschlager  I’m in the testimonial video!