Furniture shopping brings out the worst in me. I tend to revert back to my childhood when my sister and I would team up (by fighting of course) to make our parents miserable so that we could leave the furniture store sooner. Luckily, my fiancée loves going furniture shopping with me. She’s found that if she creates conditions for success (making sure that I’m in a good mood and have recently had a meal), I can actually act like a human being at places like Crate and Barrel. In case you’ve never been to a Crate and Barrel, it’s a giant furniture and housewares store that is essentially my worst nightmare. It all started with one store in downtown Chicago, but now Crate and Barrel is headquartered in Northbrook, IL and has more than 170 stores including CB2 and The Land of Nod locations.
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Illinois,
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I get a ton of PR pitches every day (I just got another one while I was writing this). They typically range from very bad to downright terrible, so I either ignore them or send a nasty reply asking the person to remove me from their list. I checked my e-mail archives, and I’ve never received a pitch from anyone at Sparkpr, but my guess based on their reputation is that they’d actually take the time to send me a decent pitch if it was appropriate. They’re a San Francisco, CA PR firm that was started in the late 90s “at the height of the Internet explosion in Silicon Valley.” They’ve maintained their close ties to the tech scene through the ups and downs, and they’ve won a ton of awards along the way.
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I do as much of my shopping online as possible, but that’s because I don’t really enjoy shopping. It’s all about minimizing my time doing something that I don’t want to do. For some people online shopping is great for the opposite reason–it allows them to spend even more time shopping (at work, on the train, walking down the street, on the couch, etc.). The big problem with online shopping is that the experience feels a bit homogenized–you’re typically buying from major retailers or e-commerce companies. Shoptiques is a New York, NY based company that is trying to make online shopping better by bringing boutiques to the web. Why boutiques? Boutiques offer the ultimate shopping experience: “beautiful hard-to-find hand-picked fashion and knowledgeable advice from the owners who know so much about style and how to make you look beautiful.” Boutiques are anything but homogenized, but their business models don’t translate well to the web–at least they didn’t until Shoptiques came along.
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fashion,
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style,
unpaid
Happy Mother’s Day! While the best gift that you could possibly give your mother is for you to get a job–flowers, brunch, or a card will have to do for now (not many people get hired over the weekend). I think flowers make a pretty awesome gift, but it sucks that they are eventually going to die. Why not give your mom a flower experience instead? Take her somewhere like the Queens Botanical Garden, which is a Flushing, NY based “urban oasis where people, plants and cultures are celebrated through inspiring gardens, innovative educational programs and demonstrations of environmental stewardship.” Could there be a better place to take your mother?
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plant science,
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I absolutely love playing sports and participating in other outdoor activities. Physical activities are great because they provide nearly immediate feedback. You have a great idea of how you’re performing and how hard you can push yourself. That’s why the National Ability Center in Park City, UT uses activities like “alpine and cross-country skiing, snowboarding, swimming, cycling, waterskiing, horseback riding, rafting,” and more to aid the “the development of lifetime skills for people of all ages and abilities.” By using specially designed equipment and well-trained instructors (many of whom are individuals with disabilities), The National Ability Center is able to bring these wonderful activities to people who may otherwise never have a chance to participate.
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sports,
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Utah
I know some people who research their purchases to death. They end up never buying anything because new versions of the products come out before they can make a decision. It’s a never-ending process. I’m all for doing my due diligence before buying something expensive, but I try to make it as quick as possible. FindTheBest is a site that makes comparing anything super easy. They’re a Santa Barbara, CA company that offers “a powerful tool for making quick and informed decisions.” Whether you’re looking for the best breed of dog for your lifestyle or the best financial advisor in your area, FindTheBest offers you just the facts “stripped of any marketing influence.”
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Every once in a while I get on a documentary kick. Sometimes it’s just because I come across one on tv, but I’ll also seek them out on Hulu or Netflix. Next time that I’m looking for a documentary, I’m definitely going to check out SnagFilms. They’re a Washington, DC based company that aims to “bring the world of independent film to broader audiences.” Their main property is SnagFilms.com, which “offers the broadest collection of great independent movies you can watch right now, on demand, for free, and share with others.” SnagFilms’ other major property is Indiewiere, which is “the web’s leading news, information and networking site for independent-minded filmmakers, the film industry and moviegoers.” Basically they’re doing everything that they can to make independent films available to the masses, for free.
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There are essentially two completely different jewelry businesses. There’s the high-end business that is centered around gold, platinum, diamonds, and other gemstones (I know all about that having recently bought an engagement ring). Then there’s the fashion focused business that is more about completing an outfit. The latter is where Chloe + Isabel is focusing. They are a New York, NY based startup that targets 18 to 28 year old women with jewelry in the $18 to $200 price range. That’s not all that unique. What is unique is that Chloe + Isabel is approaching this market by combining direct selling with web-based social technology. Essentially they’re bringing affiliate marketing to a group of people who may not even know what affiliate marketing is.
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style,
web development
Yesterday a friend let me tag along to the National Restaurant Association’s annual show because he had an extra pass. I spent the first half of the show chowing down on free samples, and the second half looking for cool companies to tell you about (while chowing down on free samples). While getting into conventions like this can be a bit pricey, they’re an amazing opportunity for internship seekers to see trends, learn about companies, and connect with people in their target industries. While I didn’t find a ton of companies with internships posted, I did see two major trends: frozen yogurt and web-based technologies. However, the coolest thing that I saw was a machine that allows you to design your own ice cream with a touchscreen. You pick a flavor, mix-ins, and more, and have a delicious cup of ice cream in 45 seconds. It took me a while to find the company behind the technology, but I’m almost certain that it’s MooBella, which is based in Taunton, MA.
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Massachusetts
These days it seems that just about everyone claims to be an expert on things like social media and SEO, but very few people have a track record that shows a repeated ability to deliver results. Why is that? Because online marketing is really hard. We see stupid things go viral and think that anyone can do it, but we overlook the fact that getting someone to look at something is very different from getting someone to buy something. Pop Labs is an interactive marketing agency in Houston, TX that is known for getting results. I’m not just talking about for their clients either. Pop Labs nearly tripled their revenue between 2007 and 2010, which shows that what they’re doing works for them as well as for their clients.
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software development,
Texas,
web development
I’m the last person that should be telling you anything about ballet. I can’t remember the last time I saw a ballet performance, but I guarantee you it was at something like a middle school talent show. Despite my knowing nothing about ballet, I can tell you that the New York City Ballet is a big deal. They train their own artists and produce their own works, and with 90 dancers, they are “the largest dance organization in America.” It all started with Lincoln Kirstein, who had a vision of “an American ballet where young native dancers could be trained and schooled under the guidance of the world’s greatest ballet masters to perform a new, modern repertory, rather than relying on touring groups of imported artists performing for American audiences.” He met a guy named George Balanchine in London in 1933 and invited him to help start the school. The rest is history.
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Yesterday I almost got highlighted. I was in a boat, on a river, fishing with my Dad and a guide. A thunderstorm came up behind us, and we decided to tuck the boat in a cove under a bunch of trees and take cover. It wasn’t the best spot, but there wasn’t anywhere else for us to go. When it started hailing, I got a little nervous. And then BANG! A bolt of lightning hit the water about three feet to my right. You and I are both lucky that you’re reading this today. This story has nothing to do with today’s company except for the fact that yesterday’s near death experience made me want to regress back to being a little kid–the kind that reads Highlights. If you’re not familiar, Highlights is a Columbus, OH company that develops products for children with a common theme: “Fun with a Purpose.” It’s all about “wholesome fun” that “is dedicated to helping children grow in basic skills and knowledge, in creativeness, in ability to think and reason, in sensitivity to others, in high ideals and worthy ways of living.”
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Ohio,
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I can’t tell you how many articles I’ve seen about dressing for interviews. Almost all of them can be summed up with three words: use common sense. If that’s not enough insight for you, how about this: look like you belong. There are way more important things to think about before your interview, but I do believe that most people perform better when they feel like they look good. If I had an interview coming up, my go to place to shop would be Bonobos. I’m not sure where I’d shop if I was female, but it looks like The Limited is a reasonable place to buy professional women’s clothing. The Limited is a Columbus, OH retailer of women’s clothing with a long and somewhat confusing history.
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When you’re a kid, you think that teachers have an easy job. They have good hours, lots of vacation with summers off, and they get to stand in front of a room and tell you what to do. As you get older, you start to realize that teaching also includes grading papers, planning lessons, communicating with parents, writing comments for report cards, and a whole lot more. A grade book just isn’t a good hub for managing all of this. Teachers need something industrial-strength, and that’s what Instructure provides with their Canvas Learning Management System. The Sandy, UT based company offers a suite of tools that enable teachers to spend way less time on administrative stuff, and more time teaching and working directly with students. They serve educators at all levels–from Kindergarten to some of the world’s top universities, which shows you just how flexible the Canvas platform is.
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Utah,
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writing
In college I studied Industrial and Labor Relations, which means that I spent four years focusing on the world of work. The curriculum covered everything from slavery and indentured servitude to unions and the movement of capital to find lower cost labor. The common theme was that the way that we define and think about work is constantly changing. Today’s trend is all about having a flexible workforce–people who can join on for a project form wherever they live and then move on to a new project with someone else. Work Market is a company that “give businesses access to an on-demand scalable work force along with tools to manage three categories of labor: employees, contractors and third parties.” Many businesses in this space focus on actually building the market where labor can find work, but Work Market takes it one step further and offers the software for businesses to build their own market.
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After mentioning high school yesterday, I had a high school exam dream last night. It was a history test, and oddly enough I think I performed pretty well (though I woke up before I got a grade). If it was a Physics test, I think it might have been more of a nightmare. As much as I enjoyed AP Physics, it was definitely one of the hardest courses that I took at any level. That probably explains why I’m not a member of the American Institute of Physics, which is a College Park, MD based non-profit membership organization that promotes “the advancement and diffusion of the knowledge of physics and its application to human welfare.” The group was founded in 1931 by “a group of American physical science societies joined forces to create an institute that would strengthen their response to the practical and philosophical uncertainties facing their field.”
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When I was in 9th grade I had to take a Health class. One day our teacher had us write letters to our future selves. She told us that she’d send them to us when we graduated high school. I never saw that letter again. I guess I’ll never know how I’m stacking up against the expectations of my 14 year old self. While many lessons from health class seem trite at the time, they can have life-long beneficial effects. Unfortunately, many public schools can’t afford to offer health education. This is a big problem because “teenagers today are engaging in risky behavior at alarming rates, harming their bodies and their futures.” Peer Health Exchange is a San Francisco, CA based non-profit organization (but they’re working across the country) that fixes this problem by recruiting, selecting, and training “college student volunteers to teach high school students a comprehensive health curriculum.” My sister is one of these volunteers, and she’s had a wonderful experience so far (which is why she has been bugging me to feature PHE).
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When I think of shopping malls, I instantly think of escalators, Auntie Anne’s pretzels, and overpriced gadget stores. Because I was never a teen/tween girl, my memories don’t include Claire’s. In case you’ve never heard of Claire’s, they are a retailer of “fashion trends, accessories and jewelry for young women.” They have more than 3,000 stores across the world and are in 95% of U.S. shopping malls. That’s a massive retail presence. While Claire’s is headquartered in Pembroke Pines, FL, they only have Customer Service and Investor Relations located there. Most of the action (and most of the jobs) seems to be at Claire’s Hoffman Estates, IL office.
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style
Local businesses are about as old school as you can get–many of them have continued to succeed doing the same thing that they’ve done for decades or even centuries. There have certainly been advances that have changed that–refrigeration, digital cash registers, and the Yellow Pages are just a few, but nothing even compares to the Internet–especially the mobile Internet. Local businesses are now able to reach and interact with customers and potential customers in a way that they only could have dreamed of a few years ago. CityGrid Media is a West Hollywood, CA based “leading media company connecting consumers and businesses everywhere local happens.” You’re probably familiar with at least one of their properties which include Citysearch, Insider Pages, and Urbanspoon.
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I’ve never been on a cruise ship, and I’m not looking to change that any time soon. I realize that cruises are the ultimate vacation for some people, but they’re just not for me (especially after hearing about food poisoning outbreaks and the Costa Concordia disaster). Still, I respect the brilliance of the cruise ship. Travelers can sample a variety of destinations without having to think about logistics or anything else really. When you can combine hospitality, transportation, and gambling all in one, you have pretty good foundation for a business. The second largest cruise company in the world is Royal Caribbean Cruises, which is based in Miami, FL and owns the following cruise lines: Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, Pullmantur Cruises, Azamara Club Cruises and CDF Croisières de France. Those all contribute to nearly $7 billion in annual revenue.
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legal,
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supply chain,
transportation,
travel,
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At some point you’ve probably participated in a fundraiser to help pay for someone’s medical costs. You may have organized a car wash, bought a candy bar, run in a race, or just made a simple donation. It’s one way that we take care of people in our communities when they’re in need. The problem with fundraisers is that they can be an organizational nightmare. GiveForward is a Chicago, IL based company that solves this problem by offering people online fundraising pages. I met Ethan Austin, one of the company’s founders, about three years ago, and since then I’ve watched GiveForward help people raise more than $13 million and grow as a company at the same time. Every time I see him again, it seems like there’s a new success.
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What have you done to improve your skills besides going to class? Nothing is not an acceptable answer. Self-improvement not only makes you immediately more employable, but it also signals to employers that you’re the kind of person that can grow in a company. There are plenty of ways to improve yourself as a candidate, but one of the easiest is computer training. In a short period of time you can significantly expand the number of jobs that you can apply for. TrainSignal is a Schaumburg, IL based company that offers video training for software from Microsoft, Cisco, Citrix, VMWare, CompTIA, and more. They provide both online video and physical media, and they serve both individuals and businesses of all sizes.
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training,
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writing
Earth Day is a contrived holiday. It was designed as a day of teach-ins across the country to educate students about environmental evils. April 22 was chosen as the date because it fit perfectly between spring break and final exams. If you want to maximize on-campus student activity, this is the time of year to do it. It’s worked. Earth Day now has more than 40 years of history behind it, and it continues to be a great way to rally people for environmental causes. Earth Day Network is a Washington, DC based non-profit organization that organizes Earth Day activities across the world while also focusing on environmental causes year round. In the past they’ve “executed successful environmental campaigns on issues ranging from climate change and drinking water to voter registration and saving the whale.”
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Washington DC
If I told you that I had 52 slaves working for me, you’d either think that I was making an offensive joke about unpaid internships or just being offensive. Unfortunately, it’s the truth. It’s nearly impossible for anyone living in our society not to benefit from modern slavery. So what do we do about it? Before you can take responsibility for your consumption, you have to understand your “slavery footprint.” Slavery Footprint is an Oakland, CA based non-profit organization that aims “to generate awareness and action for the issues of forced labor, slavery, and human trafficking.” They’ve done this through a film called Call + Response, a documentary with CNN, and an online survey that helps you calculate your slavery footprint based on what you consume and own.
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graphic design,
human rights,
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Lifting weights is one of the best things that you can do for physical fitness. Strength training can have amazing effects on its own, but you can get extraordinary results when you combine your training with proper nutrition. There’s a next step if you really want to get serious: supplementation. There seems to be a supplement for everything, from gaining muscle to improving brain function. And if there’s a name that you think of when you think of supplements, it has to be GNC. They’re a Pittsburgh, PA based worldwide retailer of health and nutrition products that include vitamins, supplements, minerals, herbs, and more. If you’re looking to get more out of your body, there’s something at GNC that will at least claim to help you do it.
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Pennsylvania,
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research
I don’t think that I’ve had a frozen dinner since I forced my mom to buy me Kid Cuisine in the early 90s. If I’m going to eat something unhealthy, it should at least taste good, right? Clearly I’m biased against frozen meals (maybe because I consider myself a pretty good cook), but I shouldn’t write them all off as unhealthy and unpalatable. That’s especially true because one the nation’s leading frozen food brands is all vegetarian and mostly organic. Amy’s Kitchen was founded in 1987 by a couple looking for a way to provide for a new baby. They started in their home with a vegetable pot pie, and since then the Petaluma, CA based business has grown to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
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You’re not going to like this. You’ve paid a lot of money for a fancy education, and now some of the best universities in the world are giving it away for free. You still have to pay to get the piece of paper, but if you’re just looking for the knowledge, then you need to check out Coursera. They’re a Mountain View, CA based startup that is “partnering with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free.” So far they’re working with Princeton, Stanford, Berkeley, Michigan, and UPenn. It doesn’t get much better than that. What makes Coursera unique from things like MIT’s OpenCourseWare is that these classes are specifically created to be consumed online.
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When I see my friends from Jelly Chicago (a co-working group), we often bounce ridiculous startup ideas off of each other. For some reason, many are centered around online dating. It’s a really fun space to think about because there’s a simple problem with limitless solutions–just look at all of the different dating sites out there. Most of them require your searching through profiles and contacting people (or waiting to be contacted). Others propose matches based on fancy algorithms. MeetMoi is a mobile dating company that uses push technology to help you meet new people, and it’s all based on where you are right now. MeetMoi is located in New York, NY, but you can use it anywhere (well anywhere that they have a critical mass of users). Basically, all you have to do is fill out a profile and get out of the house. MeetMoi will find people with similar interests and push messages to your phone when you’re near each other. You can initiate a chat and decide to meet immediately, another time or not at all. It’s a little creepy, but people said that about online dating not so long ago.
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community management,
dating,
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marketing,
New York,
online marketing,
product management
Many of the best businesses are built by targeting a smaller niche and then taking the lessons learned from serving that niche to expand into new markets. It’s also how many great careers are built. Metia is a digital marketing agency that got its start serving technology companies exclusively. This put them ahead of the curve and force them to take on digital while most marketing agencies were dragging their collective feet. Now digital is what it’s all about, and Metia has 20 years of industry experience. Not bad. While they’re based in London, they have U.S. offices in Kirkland, WA and New York, NY. This allows them to serve clients like Microsoft, Microsoft, and Microsoft. But seriously, while Microsoft is all over their portfolio, you’ll also see names like Dell, EA, Rough Guides, and SEAT.
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100 years ago today the Titanic sank. It wasn’t the world’s first transportation disaster, nor was it the last, but it’s the one that continues to captivate people. As a kid I was absolutely fascinated by the story of the Titanic–the unsinkable ship that sank. I had a few books on the topic that I read over and over again. I learned about Alvin, the deep sea submersible, and Jason Jr., the underwater robot, and how they were used to explore the Titanic once it was discovered in 1985 (by essentially dragging video cameras just above the ocean floor). The discovery and expeditions were partially done by teams from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which is a Woods Hole, MA based “non-profit research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of all aspects of marine science and engineering and to the education of marine researchers.” If it has to do with ocean science and exploration, there’s an extremely good chance that the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is on top of it.
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