“ The single easiest way to increase your fees (or ad revenue - Steve) is to get closer to the pain.
Seth
(the) Inevitable Corp.
“
The fast-growing company, which works hard to recruit people to join, says to its newest employees: “If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you’ve worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus.” Zappos actually bribes its new employees to quit!
Why? Because if you’re willing to take the company up on the offer, you obviously don’t have the sense of commitment they are looking for. It’s hard to describe the level of energy in the Zappos culture—which means, by definition, it’s not for everybody. Zappos wants to learn if there’s a bad fit between what makes the organization tick and what makes individual employees tick—and it’s willing to pay to learn sooner rather than later. (About ten percent of new call-center employees take the money and run.)
Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit—And You Should Too
Peer1 CDN (Content Delivery Network) Up
We got OSDir setup with Peer1’s CDN today & I’m really pleased with the performance gains I’m seeing while just surfing the site.
So far I can’t recommend these guys enough. The customer service while getting this going was outstanding.
I’m really curious to see how having a CDN affects the customer experience, bounce rates, our bandwidth costs, and… AND.. the wallet.
CDN via wikipedia: “CDN nodes are deployed in multiple locations, often over multiple backbones. These nodes cooperate with each other to satisfy requests for content by end users, transparently moving content behind the scenes to optimize the delivery process. Optimization can take the form of reducing bandwidth costs, improving end-user performance, or both.
The number of nodes and servers making up a CDN varies, depending on the architecture, some reaching thousands of nodes with tens of thousands of servers.
Requests for content are intelligently directed to nodes that are optimal in some way. When optimizing for performance, locations that can serve content quickly to the user may be chosen. This may be measured by choosing locations that are the fewest hops or fewest number of network seconds away from the requestor, so as to optimize delivery across local networks. When optimizing for cost, locations that are less expensive to serve from may be chosen instead. Often these two goals tend to align, as servers that are close to the end user sometimes have an advantage in serving costs, perhaps because they are located within the same network as the end user.”
ServerBeach's Ram Hates Us
Note to self & hopefully a quick tip for all y’all:
If your server at Serverbeach* is having spasms try replacing the ram.
For some reason the ram at Serverbeach hates we mortals & is faulty more often than a website linked to on the front page of digg.
*I remain a huge fan of ServerBeach.
More For Realz
We got our own internets installed & operational today, plus a water cooler.
With our wireless set up we could move of the cave office spaces & into the window area. Yay.
We’re more a “for realz” office than ever.
the view
luc’ster
More. I’m stuck in this office to be in range of our neighbor on whose wireless we’re piggybacking until ours is installed.
Office snaps. More before pics than after really.
“ … the level of productivity in France is above that of the
United States. But, this productivity advantage is eroded by
the effects of fewer working hours and lower labor force par-
ticipation rates, particularly among the working age popula-
tion. (Link)
United States. But, this productivity advantage is eroded by
the effects of fewer working hours and lower labor force par-
ticipation rates, particularly among the working age popula-
tion. (Link)
eroded?
While I still think “The Four Hour Weekweek” is selling a pipe dream I’ve been looking at how people can be more productive -and- live well.
I’m quite productive, have time to screw around, but not very “happy”. I’m one of those workaholics, meaning, I find things to worry about in my off time. Stupid, I know.
I was watching Sicko the other day and stumbled into this area of interest. Michael Moore (bias detected!) was interviewing some expat Americans in France. I’ve always thought that the French, even here in Atl. Canada, could teach we English how to live with more joie de vive. Anyway, it was mentioned in the movie that France is more ‘productive’ than the US. Canadians would lag behind the US.
Huh? More benefits, time off, joy, and more productive? Sounds like communism to me….. oh wait… they’re More productive. Sounds like something capilalists would want. This is indeed a strange thing.
I found this quote above.
How stupid and miserable to think that if you’re more productive you should also work more! …and then watch productivity sink.
So, I have a new project. To see if I can force myself to spend my off time being joyful in the name of not having anything to worry about IF I do so!
One caveat: I suspect the French are more joyful because their government is scared to death of them. We here are under the whip, I think. Slaves to massive debt, and financial obligations like taxes & really have nothing. The french may pay high taxes, but they have everything they need to live, and are still productive.
If you have any examples of high productivty & stress-free living/work, please email me: s t e v e at i n e v i t a b l e c o r p . c o m
inevitable.cc
.cc is the new .com
I just bought inevitable.cc
I also have had stevemallett.cc for a while now.
Neighbors
An old friend has the offices next door to the new digs - Razor CreativeWorst Office Spaces & New Office Space
http://valleywag.com/388566/the-10-worst-workspaces-in-tech
The above article is super as Inevitable got new digs just yesterday. Right now we’ve got a great shell (high ceilings, “funky” colour scheme, big windows), but it is an empty, echoing shell.
Our ‘start-up looking’ desks, which I liked in the old space, now look terrible.
On a good note I have room for one of those apparatuses that you hook your ankles into and rotate to hang upside down from. Not the S&M kind.
Anyway, how does one decorate tastefully, on a budget, to make a space that everyone loves being in, and not look like a douchebag.
Update: Well, as half a douchebag, I ordered some basic furniture from ikea. Two sofas, coffee table, side table, & a ‘buffet’ which should double nicely sans food, and an actual file cabinet. Shudder. Files.
Replacement desks might not be needed should this other gank liven the place up a bit. Next: one of those super fast coffee machines, mini fridge, comfy office chairs. Maybe later: conf desk & chairs for the sound proof room!
New Services I'm Trying
1) Apple Time Machine w 1TB Time Capsule. So far this is hell. It just takes way to long to do the initial backup over wireless. It may be going back.
2) FaxitNice. Very Nice! I hate actual fax machines. Ewwww!
3) Peer1 CDN. I’m just getting it setup now, but I’m insanely curious to see if my traffic increases from the new speed of page loading.