#wtpbook

Today was a pretty cool day. I had two important presentations to give, and then I got to meet Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit. Not bad for a Tuesday.

The first presentation was in my graduate-level class called Critical Making, subtitled "Material Protocols and Culture". Kind of dificult to explain, but you could say it's about making, hacking, studio culture, and technology of the future. We read some articles to go over in class today that would get us in the mindset as we go into the rest of the semester/our first provocation (aka group project). Four of us were chosen to present for 10 minutes each, and the article I spoke on is called Uncomfortable User Experiences. I would definitely recommend reading it - it's really interesting, and a different way to look at interaction design.

The second presentation was in Berkeley Innovation, the human-centered design club on campus that I am President of. We had an infosession to provide information for prospective members. I was kind of scared at first, because I had heard the old presidents speak at previous infosessions, and they had such a good job. I also can get pretty nervous about speaking at times - it's pretty random, but I think it has to do with weather something is being graded or not. Because during this presentation I didn't feel that nervous heart-pounding at all! I actually got into a pretty good flow. Hopefully we have a lot of great applicants, but unfortunately we won't be able to accept everyone - there were over 50 people at the infosession, after all!

And now for meeting Alexis Ohanian! So amazing, so wonderful. I went to his talk for his new book, Without Their Permission, about how the internet is changing the rules of the game. What game? Every game. Entrepreneurship, startups, who can become famous, who can become successful, who can access information, etc. His talk was great! He even included a variety of memes (including my favorite, Grumpy Cat). Some of my favorite quotes of his from the night: "Ideas don't matter. Execution does." "Don't just settle for wantrepreneurship." "If anyone thinks they have it all figured out, they're either lyring or delusional." Also, the Reddit co-founder's thoughts on Digg: "Here was a competitor who clearly knows how to use CSS." (In the very beginning, YC stages, reddit was lacking...more than a bit.)

I also met Alexis afterward, and he was great to talk to! Definitely a really interesting, inspiring guy. He's got some more universities lined up on his book tour, and that information can be found at withouttheirpermission.