I had a very busy second week working with GLIDER. Between juggling the two projects I've had to work on that I described in my last blog post, Eli was in and out meeting with investors, on the phone with potential business clients, etc. (he even added over two more hours to his work day.) Meanwhile, Justin and Cameron are as busy as I've ever seen them. So I'm glad to be of any sort of help, and I'm learning a lot observing Eli managing this company.

The first project I worked on was helping Eli research and compile a list of businesses with over 100 employees that have been seeded by venture firms that Eli is connected with. I had to find out the names of their CEO, COO, VP of Sales, VP of BD, and their sales operations managers are (which wasn't easy, the information on linkedin often differed with the information on databases like crunchbase and on the company websites.) I think that next week either Eli or I will be reaching out to some of these people to try to pitch GLIDER to them so they can use it in their actual businesses, as an alternative to having to manage their contracts and sign deals the way they currently do.

The second project I've been working on has been helping Justin with content for his blog, The Future Of Work (http://futureofwork.glider.com/). The blog is meant to be a stand-alone project that discusses how "smart enterprise" tools are disrupting enterprise as usual. The premise is that, today, because of how seamless and successful consumer tools like Facebook and Twitter are, workers expect the same quality of performance from the tools they have to use at work. Often times, the IT departments of their work give workers tools that they'd prefer to substitute for technology they are more familiar with, so when workers bring in their own technology to be more efficient to work (BYOD = bring your own device), the IT departments and CIOs can be the last to know. Services like GLIDER that are making work much easier and far more efficient are disrupting entire industries. I spent the majority of last week working on a blog post that discussed this (it'll get published next week), with links to various articles and a big shout out to one of my all time favorite comedies, Office Space. I also helped on a running series called "The Business Setup" that showcases the different technologies that modern businesses use to be more efficient, like Github or Hipchat. I've learned a lot of interesting things by managing this blog, like the "Flesch-Kinkaid Readability Test," which uses a formula that involves ratios between words in a sentence and syllables in a word throughout the text to indicate how comprehensive and difficult the reading is. For example, on a 1-100 scale, a blog post should score above a 50 (fairly easy to read or skim). The text in blog posts can't be like text from Dickens or in Heart of Darkness, which would probably score close to 0, if not in the negatives.

Next week should be a little less busy. Besides the senior/first grade trip to the zoo, the GLIDER team is going down to San Francisco for another tech conference that would introduce them to more VCs and angel investors called "Under the Radar," so I'll be working from home those days. We also move into the new office in the Pearl next week, which I'm excited about (more food options for lunch), so I suppose I'm helping Eli move furniture on Monday.

A quick anecdote about the week: on the second floor of my building, there's a modeling agency and I always see the two women who scout potential models walking out of the building at the same time as me whenever I'm on my lunch break. So they invite me into their office one day after work to have my picture taken and meet their boss, and when I come in to see the open casting call, I literally see some of the cutest girls ever, who aren't even that much older than me. So I come in, everyone's all smiles, I'm making nice conversation with this blond girl on the couch waiting to have my picture taken, when they tell me that I'm too short. (Really hurt my pride with that one.) It's not like I've ever felt any desire to model, but I feel like it would be funny to have girls see my face going into an Abercrombie. Knowing me, the whole thing would be very ironic. Anyway, this story has made for some funny jokes in the GLIDER office, and hopefully I get into more funny encounters in the new building in the Pearl. 

Here's a video featuring GLIDER from the Wall Street Journal: http://live.wsj.com/video/what-does-it-take-to-be-the-next-hot-start-up/B800F8EB-BBAC-4262-A09C-8B9F7316F78F.html#!B800F8EB-BBAC-4262-A09C-8B9F7316F78F

Here's an article about GLIDER from Tech Crunch about GLIDER's launch at Disrupt in NY: http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/29/glider-launches-at-disrupt-ny-with-saas-that-automates-approving-and-signing-contracts-adds-intelligence-to-deal-flow/

In the picture below, Eli is writing something up on the whiteboard and Cameron looks super engaged.

Photo gallery: 

Hello there Catlin. I totally forgot about the whole blog thing, so here I am, typing away on the desktop computer at my house about my experiences last week.

Anyways, let’s get started.

So, in case you didn’t already know, I’m working with John-Henry Dale over at La Musica Studio. How do I reach this La Musica Studio, you may ask? Well, to find it, all you have to do is get on Belmont and drive all the way to SE 45th. There, you enter the Old Belmont Square (the front gate has been locked every single time I’ve gone so far, so I recommend you enter via the back door), and go down to the basement floor. There, you can easily find La Musica Studio since there’s a big sign that says “La Musica” (if memory serves me right) as well as a large Ableton poster (if memory serves me right again).

Now that I’ve gone over how to get to the studio, I’ll get to what I’m actually supposed to write about: what I did last week. Well, I spent the majority of my time there learning the basics of Ableton Live, and aspects of studio recording. For those who don’t know what Ableton Live is, Ableton Live is a music sequencer/workstation with a strong emphasis on live performance, as it contains several studio instruments as well as support for a large amount of Ableton-created instruments, including the brand-new Push (okay, not really brand-new since it came out in the past month or two). Since it’s a computer program that’s meant to be used as a live instrument, it’s primarily used by electronic musicians and DJs, with a lot of big-name artists using the product, ranging from industrial stalwarts Front 242 to post-rock outfit 65daysofstatic to dubstep poster boy Skrillex to everyone’s favorite robot helmet-wearing French house duo Daft Punk. I’ve always wanted to use it more, but I’ve never gotten used to its interface and have instead preferred Logic’s staff-based arrangement style, so I’ve found this project a good opportunity to learn how to use Live.

Personally, what I found most interesting was the composition style of electronic artists. A lot of electronic music doesn’t have the same melodic sensibilities as a lot of bands I listen to do, and I’ve always wondered how electronic artists come up with their interesting melodies and what kind of obscure music theory they employ, since whenever I write/make/compose/whateveryouwanttocallit a song, it always ends up sounding like Thursday, Sunny Day Real Estate or something from a Kingdom Hearts game. As it turns out, a lot of electronic musicians don’t really use any special kind of theory, as they instead go for a more rhythm-centric approach (as far as I know), employing grid-based instruments such as the aforementioned Push to come up with their melodies and harmonies with less emphasis on what note should go next. I’m thinking of trying out this method in the future, because perhaps my MIDI keyboard usage is shaping the way of how I write music.

Since the first meeting, I've been bringing my cello over to the studio because John-Henry is planning on making a cello/electronic EP or something along those lines. We already had a go at it by using a recording of me playing the main bassline to an American Football song and adding beats and synths to it, but I doubt it'll be used again in the future.

So yeah. That's my first week so far. Below is a picture of part of the workspace. That's Ableton Live on the computer, an analog synth (I believe) on the left, and the Push on the black table on the bottom. Woo.
 

This week I had chance to work with Brent Gunter at the Portland Youth Rock Orchestra (PYRO) at their head quarters. Brent Gunter (my mentor) had his office in the main room, and I was in the room next door.

My "office": I put my computer in front of the mixing equipment.

On my first day I was somewhat disappointed to hear that I would not be doing much work with Sandia Crest Entertainment, as the recording was not profitable, and they have a hard time booking acts. So, while I am surrounded by recording equipment, it seems unlikely I will be using any of it.

Instead, Brent has had me focus on working on increasing membership for PYRO. The first two days I helped Brent with his online presence, showing him how to more effectively use the Twitter, the Facebook, and the Youtube page. I have about a month's worth of posts mapped out in advance.

On Tuesday, the conductor, Anna, called in sick. This put us into "panic" mode, as we could not hold rehearsal that night without a conductor. Luckily Brent was able to call in back up, and we had a sub for that night.

In order to make sure that the sub could work, we went to the rehearsal space (West Sylvan Middle School). There I learned about the surprisingly complex world visiting a public school, which required us to check in at the office, get badges, and get stickers.

Once we made our way into the room, Brent set up the mixer board while I did some heavy lifting- moving the drums out of the closet and getting them set up. This included a full kit and the concert toms. Afterwards, I arranged all the chairs into lines, and made sure that each chair had music stand. Practice that night went successfully.

On Wednesday, Brent took me in his truck so that I could learn about canvasing. This involved "cold calling" businesses, by showing up and asking to hang posters. People online call it "guerilla marketing", but Brent made a point of calling it "polite guerilla marketing" as we only hung posters were we were given explicit permission. in some stores, we were lucky enough to find a community board, which would almost always let us hang up our promo materials. Places that didn't have a community board required us to do a "elevator speech" about why they should let us hang things up.

Thursday I made a large list of every Starbucks, Einstein Bros Bagels and Fred Meyer's in Portland, with the aid of the internet. The rest of the day I was sent out on my own to do canvasing at Catlin hotspots. By the end of the day I hit most of my favorite places, and even had a chance to hang up some things on campus.

Friday I spent almost the entire day on my own in Downtown Portland (around NW 21 and 23), hitting shops in the area. While I was generally successful, I encountered more competition for my canvasing here from other cultural groups (bands etc.) and political movements.

Overall, this week I got a solid introduction to the innerworkings of PYRO, and helped with the marketing.