end of year
The move to New York was about as smooth as such things go. I’m sharing a loft in SoHo until the end of January, so it’s back to craigslist in a couple of weeks to find my next resting place. It’s been nice having only a 6-minute walk to the studio—I doubt I’ll be as lucky this next time around. I love living in New York, though. It feels like where I’m supposed to be right now.
We’ve been busy at Urbanscale over the past four or five weeks. It’s been a long time since I’ve regularly shared a physical space with the people I’m working with, and the constant back-and-forth has been exhilarating. We built a rough HTML-based demo of several Urbanflow Chicago use cases in a two-week sprint, and the experience has addicted us to having something new to show everyone every few hours. Two weeks is enough time to build something non-trivial but short enough that we can rapidly respond to changing priorities. And shipping is fun (even if you’re only sharing with your studio mates). Shipping gives everyone the sense of forward motion that is so often lacking in the absence of a specific client.
Leah and I have been working on building an Urbanflow Chicago demo on the iPad while Mayo and Jeff have been hammering away on the new Urbanscale web site. Collaborating with Leah has been a lot of fun. I’ve never collaborated closely with anyone before—usually, I just go off and do my own thing and end up meeting with my team somewhere in the middle. True collaboration acts as an amplifier, and I’m looking forward to seeing where that leads us.
I’m in Nashville until January 2, then it’s back to New York. It’s going to be an interesting next few months.