Iterate Weekly - Issue 3
Welcome to Issue 3 of the Iterate weekly newsletter! My name is Chris Jennings. If you really have no idea who I am and why you’re receiving this e-mail, take a look at the about page for a reminder.
You’ll see that the content here is broken down into 4 categories.
Tech - This will be the main focus of the newsletter. I’m dedicated to helping people improve their relationships with technology.
Learning - I consider myself an autodidact and like to examine the concept of learning how to be a more productive learner.
Health - None of these other topics are important if you’re not healthy enough to enjoy them.
Grab Bag - This could be something personal, something silly, something fun that doesn’t quite fit the other categories.
Finally, we’ll wrap things up with a quote of the week and a piece of content that I recommend you check out.
Yes, there may be the occasional affiliate link to a product I recommend, but no one is paying for placement in this newsletter. Thank you so much for reading, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment and let me know what you think of this format.
Tech
The Tydbyt Retro Display
I am a huge fan of Kickstarter. Every few months I back a product that maybe I don’t necessarily need, but I want to support the amazing idea that the creator had. Many of these products fall into the world of tech. One that I came across recently is called Tydbyt.
The founders consider it to be a “retro display from the future”. I love that description. Currently, we have a Google Hub display in our kitchen and it’s been great. Having a rotating digital picture frame to see shots of our daughter and pets adds some fun to boring kitchen time throughout the day. But Tydbyt just looks so much more my speed.
It’ll show you things like weather, stock quotes, calendar reminders, etc. These are many of the same helpful things that displays from Google or Amazon show you. But Tydbyt is a lot more developer-friendly. Essentially, if you can fit it into 64x32 pixels, Tydbyt can display it.
But functionality aside, this thing just looks beautiful. The retro display gives off a Lite Brite vibe for the children of the 80s who know what I’m talking about. The wood housing makes it look like something your dad could have put together in his woodshop. When was the last time you said that about a piece of technology in your house?
I’m really passionate about finding technology that enhances our lives rather than detracts from it. Hopefully, if you’re reading this you feel the same way. I can’t think of a better example of this than Tydbyt. Please check it out for yourself.
Learning
The Sounds of Productivity
Recently, I wrote an article for the fantastic Rock ’nHeavy publication about the types of sounds that help us focus. It really boils down to 5 different audio focus profiles
Total Silence
Brain.fm/Binaural Beats
Classical Music/Jazz/No lyrics
Music you like/know/With lyrics
Ambient Noise/Coffee shop
I’m sure you can relate to one of these profiles. What are you doing this week to help maximize your focus and productivity?
Health
Gyroscope
As I dive deeper and deeper into the world of the quantified self, I’m often asking myself how do I use all this data? I’ve been tracking my sleep for years but what can I do with it? There are backlogs of GPS data from runs that I’ve taken for well over a decade, how do I use that to inform future workouts?
The company Gyroscope is on a mission to answer these questions. These guys came across my radar a few years back, but they’ve recently created some interesting new products and more clearly defined their value proposition. They look at it through 3 different lenses
OS - This is their operating system that tracks all of your quantified self metrics
AI - This is their artificial intelligence that analyzes your raw data and provides insights
X - This is their 1-on-1 coaching platform with real humans to give you real-world advice
By no means is this a pitch for their services. They haven’t paid me to write about them, and I haven’t tried all of these products for myself. But, I appreciate the way that they’ve distilled their different offerings to help people who are serious about tracking their data.
Grab Bag
Patagonia Getting Out of Corporate Branding
This story fits into the worlds of fashion, sustainability, and branding. The perfect nexus of 3 areas of my interest. Recently, Patagonia has made the decision to stop creating corporate-branded pieces of clothing.
The decision aims to help eliminate the huge amount of branded swag that gets thrown in the garbage each year. Have you been in that predicament of not knowing what to do with an old hoodie that has a defunct company logo on it? Well it typically ends up in a landfill. And Patagonia no longer wants to encourage that behavior. As Patagoina explains on its website:
“What we’ve learned is that adding an additional non-removable logo reduces the lifespan of a garment, often by a lot, for trivial reasons”
I applaud this move and hope that other companies follow suit. Logo creep is bad enough as it is, let’s not let that be the reason we can’t re-use our otherwise perfectly acceptable garments.
Quote of the Week
“Success leaves clues” - Tony Robbins
Content Recommendation
WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn
This week my wife and I watched a documentary on the rise and fall of WeWork
I was super excited for this one. The WeWork story is a fascinating cautionary tale for fast-growing startups. Although, I’m not sure there is anything else right now that fits into WeWork’s strange category of real estate/tech.
The film is an entertaining trip into the mind of the CEO and his unrelenting belief in his company. But maybe more importantly, it looks at the way that belief influenced his employees. By no means is it perfect. The ending fell a bit flat in my opinion. But if you ever did any work in a WeWork space (and it was hard not to) you’ll want to check this out.
You made it to the end of my newsletter, nicely done! If you enjoyed this and know of someone else who may enjoy it, please share it with them.