Shooting Range with Friends
– April 26, 2012Posted in: friends
Latest Stories
Google’s Self-Driving Car
– March 30, 2012Posted in: education, entrepreneur
During my first few years of driving my dad would always say, “drive carefully, there’s a bunch of [irresponsible drivers] on the road.” While it’s perhaps not Google’s main intention, they have taken the first step to solving this problem. If you have not seen Google’s latest innovation, the self-driving car, then you definitively need to spend the next three minutes watching this video (recently posted by Larry Page via Google+). In this video Google entertains us by putting a legally blind man in the driver’s seat for a computer-led trip to Taco Bell.
Related to Google’s self-driving car I wanted to also share a new venture called Udacity. Udacity is reinventing higher education by offering free online classes taught by prominent instructors. Today’s higher education requires two-thirds of 4-year undergraduate students to incur loans averaging over $23,000. Udacity wants to address our imbalance of education and CS 373 -- Programming a Robotic Car is one of their latest free courses being offered in this endeavor. The course is taught by, Sebastian Thrun, a Stanford Research Professor and Google VP who has worked specifically with the self-driving car mentioned above. (He also presented the Google car @ TED 2011). My first Udacity course starts next month!
Steelcase Turns 100
It’s Steelcase’s 100th birthday today and you cannot celebrate a birthday without the infamous jingle and cake – we didn’t. It’s kind of crazy how much a company can evolve from manufacturing a steel wastebasket. While I’ve only worked here five years, it’s been exciting to be a part of a company that’s gaining more recognition for being one of the “Top Technology Innovators”.
Steelcase Wii Bowling Competition
Each year Steelcase employees undertake the objective to raise money for United Way. It’s actually quite a fun time of the year because several (sometimes crazy) fundraisers are created in this effort. This year a few of us decided to hold a Wii Bowling Tournament and to our surprise it was a big hit! The skill levels were varied – we even had some people playing Wii for the first time ever. To make it even better, the Wii Tournament was accompanied by the sale of root beer floats.
Art Prize
– October 25, 2011Posted in: Main
This was the third year for Art Prize in Grand Rapids and like the last two years, I’m amazed at the amount of people drawn downtown. I personally think last year presented the best art, but there were still several pieces making it worth the trip. I particularly liked the White Birch oil painting. It was displayed at the Bob, so it was a win-win. 
It was neat to see the exhausted people rest on the Steelcase furniture strategically placed throughout the GRAM. I’d have to say the most bizarre piece was by Tony Orrico. Checkout the video if you missed it here: http://m.artprize.org/artists/public-profile/93678
Rent a Desk
– October 7, 2011Posted in: entrepreneur
Working in the furniture industry I’m regularly reminded about all of the changes rapidly occurring in what we know as ‘office space’. It’s apparent the ”Dilbert-like” offices will soon become a thing of the past. This week I came across another article on the subject of collaborative environments and without surprise the residents were technology start-ups. I truly believe that having a fun place to work and surrounding yourself with passionate, driven people is the best thing that you can do for your company, so I always enjoy reading the success stories found in these articles. (Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, also preaches on this importance of culture in his book Delivering Happiness).
While some start-ups are attracted to this shared office model for the convenience of plug-n-play space and cheaper rent, the biggest advantage typically ends up being the collaboration between entrepreneurs. I think that’s part of the reason the particular leasing model in the article is invitation only. While invitation only might slow the process of filling a space, as a landlord you are much more likely to have happy longterm tenants (genius!).
Actual article: http://on.wsj.com/nwLr00