Month: February 2012

That hand motion is also my reaction to FOX News. Shake it like you mean it, Rick Santorum!

Laura from Shopify samples some tea.

We get a lot of perks at Shopify: all the cereal we can eat, all the pop, filtered water and espresso we can drink, bagel Wednesday, free catered lunches, gym memberships and so on. It’s a damned fine place to work, chock-full of smart, ambitious, energetic people and business is going like gangbusters. If you’re in Toronto and interested in working at Shopify, you’ll want to catch me at the Ruby Job Fair taking place on Friday, February 10th at Unspace’s office.

Today was Fajita Friday, and as an added bonus, a representative from the local tea shop, The Tea Party showed up and gave a tea-brewing seminar followed by a big tea-tasting session. If you’re ever in the ByWard Market area and are looking for a good liquid pick-me-up, you should drop by the Tea Party: they’ve got an impressive selection of teas, their snacks are quite tasty as well and it’s a great place to sit back and relax.

Liana, Serena, Theresa and Laura pick out their teas.

Today’s the final day of TechReady 14, the 14th semi-annual internal training, briefing and information-sharing conference for Microsoft employees. The conference, which is typically attended by thousands of Microsofties from all over the world, swallows up the entire Washington State Convention Center and all the hotels in downtown Seattle. As you might expect, it’s mostly men.

My last TechReady was TechReady 12, which took place about this time last year. I think it will suffice to say that it was an eye-opening, life-changing experience.

A good number of friends and associates are at TechReady right now, and I’m sure they’ll understand when I say: “Have fun at the sausage party!”

In light of the recent controversy over the Susan G. Komen charity and its decision to cut breast-screening grants to Planned Parenthood and their recently revised and difficult-to-believe new explanation for said cuts, the impending release of the NFB documentary Pink Ribbons, Inc. couldn’t be better timed. The video above is the trailer for the film.

Here’s the description:

“We used to march in the streets; now we run for a cure.” Barbara Ehrenreich, author and social critic.

Breast cancer has become the poster child of corporate cause-related marketing campaigns. Countless women and men walk, bike, climb and shop for the cure. Each year, millions of dollars are raised in the name of breast cancer, but where does this money go and what does it actually achieve?

PINK RIBBONS, INC. is a feature documentary that shows how the devastating reality of breast cancer, which marketing experts have labeled a “dream cause,” has been hijacked by a shiny, pink story of success.

The film recently celebrated its World Premiere at TIFF, where it was named one of the TOP 10 Films. It opens in Canadian theatres on February 3, 2012.

Related to this topic: the folks at someecards have done it again with a topical greeting card:

My job often sends me to talk to university and college students; I really should hand out copies to the Jack Johnson wannabes that pollute those places. You wanna stand out as original, kiddo? Keyboard instruments are where it’s at, you hippie douches.

Perhaps you’re beginning to tire of the “Shit [some category of people] Say” videos, but Shit Asian Dads Say video cracked me up. If you have an Asian dad or know one, you’ll find it high-larious.

The most recent report released by Pew Internet Research, The Rise of In-Store Mobile Commerce, revealed that 50 percent of shoppers used their smartphones to research purchase decisions over the holidays. Of note were the following statistics:

• 38% of those surveyed used their smartphones to make a voice call while shopping in a store to ask about a product.
• 25% used their smartphones to do price comparisons; they were comparing the price of an item in stores to prices for the same item in online shops.
• 24% used their smartphones to research the products they were shopping for online. I do this all the time at shops. It’s how I picked out my current camera, the Canon ELPH 300HS.

“You can’t win the web without winning mobile,” I told my manager’s manager back when I was at Microsoft (and that’s how I became the Windows Phone Guy on Microsoft Canada’s Developer and Platform Evangelism team). Now that I’m at Shopify, I’m still waving the mobile flag: you can’t win at ecommerce without winning at mobile. And as of today, we’re a good deal closer to winning.

Shopify has just announced that it has acquired Select Start Studios, an award-winning mobile development company based in Ottawa with over 35 apps in Apple’s App Store and the Android Market. This acquisition brings over 20 new people and a helluva lot of mobile app skills and brainpower into the Shopifold.

[Update: Here’s TechCrunch’s coverage, and here’s Mashable’s.]

Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke has this to say: “The S3 acquisition brings in top talent that will rapidly deliver on our mobile strategy, and produce several new mobile product offerings this year.”

Tariq Zaid, Select Start’s cofounder and CEO, says “We’re thrilled to be joining Shopify to execute on the company’s mobile initiative. Their focus on mobile, deep understanding of technology, and overall culture make this a natural fit. We’re already cooking up some really exciting innovations that show just how game changing mcommerce will be.”

Welcome aboard, Select Start! I’m looking forward to working with you guys.

Select Start were in the process of building a mobile app for our friends at Toronto-based startup FreshBooks, so technically, they’re now clients of ours. In response they sent us this lovely “horse head in the bed cake” inspired by that classic scene from The Godfather. The message that came with the cake reads: “Nice selection for the start of 2012…you bastard!”

Here’s an interesting observation made by Adam McNamara: Shopify was once based at 185 Rideau Street in Ottawa, and that’s where Select Start were based until they joined us. That’s an office with killer startup karma. The question Adam asks is: “Who’s next"?”

This article also appears in Global Nerdy.