Just to let everybody know, we are doing some maintenance on the blog to give you a better Shoeblog experience. We’ll be updating to the latest version of WordPress, and this may cause the blog to look a little funky today. Bear with us; it should be back up and running later today! In the meantime, you can get your fix of the Shoeboxed team by checking out our Flickr account.
One great thing about being next to Duke University is that we get to sit in on a lot of national and international conferences about topics relevant to Shoeboxed. Today, I am sitting in on a conference about intellectual property and ecommerce, two things we are obviously interested in over here.
The people involved in the conference are:
Iain M. Cockburn, Professor of Finance and Economics and Everett W. Lord Distinguished Faculty Scholar in the School of Management at Boston University.
Wesley Cohen, Faculty Director, Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business.
Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger, the former Vice President of Technical Strategy and Innovation at IBM.
Lew Zaretzki, Vice President of Consulting Services at ThinkFire
Tony Tramontin, an Associate Principal in McKinsey & Company’s New York office.
James E. Malackowski, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Ocean Tomo, LLC, an integrated Intellectual Capital Merchant Banc firm.
They are talking pretty theoretically right now about what defines and determines markets. Will there be a more efficient and and pure market for intellectual property somewhere in the future? Right now, we are seeing a lot of “patent trolls” for example, that buy up a lot of IP, but do not use them right away, causing the market to be less efficient. Is this bad? Should it change? Will it?
More to come in the comments section…
We’ll I’m from Phoenix, which is about 4 hours from Las Vegas, but I’ve never been there. My parents aren’t really the Sin City type, so we never took any family roadtrips there or anything. So I was obviously insanely excited when Taylor told us that a bunch of us would be heading to Fabulous Las Vegas this weekend.
We’ll be attending a conference called Affiliate Summit, and trying to meet some other great people in the big wide world of affiliate marketing.
If you’re going to be there too, let us know. We’re excited to meetcha!
I’ll be blogging while we’re there, just to keep you all updated! And of course, here’s my receipt:
About a week ago, I got an email announcing that MTV’s The Real World would be casting in Durham today. After reading Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreak Work of Staggering Genius, in which he tells a tremendously entertaining account of his attempt to get on The Real World, I had always secretly wanted to try out.
I by no means fall into a specific stereotype that would be of any interest to MTV for this kind of show, but the casting was taking place literally across the street, so I decided to meander on over there and check it out.
Alex Klein, a Shoeboxed product development master, came with me to survey the scene and take some pictures. The process was kind of strange, but definitely worth it since it finally gave me the inside info on how Real World auditions work. I had to fill out a pretty generic form that asked questions like “What is your most embarassing moment?” and “What are you most passionate about?” but I managed to write Shoeboxed on it a few times, so hopefully it was worth it for marketing purposes at least. I hope some MTV intern looks at my application a month from now and then goes to Shoeboxed. That would definitely make my day.
Anyway, after filling out my application, I had a group interview with 9 other contestants and 2 casting directors. It was all very weird: they asked us about the upcoming presidential election and then encouraged us to tell us what we thought about cheating in a relationship. I was confused.
Needless to say, I’m not expecting a call back, but I’d be happy to be on the show! Hey MTV, want to come to the Shoeboxed office? We’d make a great story for ya!
To continue the blog updates about Shoeboxed mentions popping up pretty much everywhere, we’ve been featured in Southwest Airlines’ in-flight magazine for this month. So if you’re traveling with Southwest anytime this February, make sure to flip through the magazine and tell the stranger next to you all about us. I would probably wait to do this until the plane has started it’s descent, in case that stranger is, well, strange. We realize that this is a legitimate possibility, but this revolution isn’t going to happen without our fans spreading the Shoeboxed love anywhere and everywhere. Good luck!
I prefer the middle seat, so I can talk to both people in my row,
Dan
I just got word that I will be interviewed on David Johnson’s CEO Spotlight radio show on Monday! His program airs on Dallas radio KRLD 1080.
We’ll be talking about organizing all your email and paper receipts on our current free Shoeboxed.com site, featuring the Receipt Mail-In membership for people that mail in their receipts to us, and sharing our vision for revolutionizing shopping and bringing you a paperless retail experience.
Thank you to all our members for helping make Shoeboxed grow and remember to subscribe to our blog with RSS or email to receive updates from the team!
Also, if you have input for our soon-but-long-overdue blog redesign, please send all suggestions directly to me: taylor@team.shoeboxed.com!
-Taylor
PS: I finally signed up for Twitter. Follow me by going here!
Well, we’ve never been shy about our obsession with Duke University. Most of us are Duke graduates, and some of us are current students there. So it made a lot of sense that when we wanted to get some photos taken of the team that we turned to Duke students. I mean, it was without question that we’d find a talented photographer from the obscenely talented and involved Duke student body. We were very impressed with what we found. Chase Olivieri, a freshman at Duke, took us all around downtown Durham today and took some great shots of us.
To check out some more of our photos, check out our Flickr account. There are photos from pretty much our whole history, including our summer in Berlin and our team trip to Jordan.
I just wanted to let everyone know that we had a little problem with our email notification system today. Some of you got multiple copies of the same email, something we were obviously not planning on doing.
We have fixed the problem, and are working to make our email notification system flawless for future notifications, and we won’t try to send out emails until we get it all worked out.
Thanks everybody for your feedback and suggestions today! Organizing receipts has never been easier… we’re just trying to find the best way to tell everybody!
Dan
I just used Shoeboxed in a fantastic way, and because I am really proud of myself, I thought I’d share. What else is blogging for, anyway?
And so I continue. Cory, the fantastic author of this blog last spring and summer, is in charge of Innovation at Shoeboxed, meaning he works with lots of complicated features on the site that I don’t understand. He also happens to be my roommate.
So when he went home for a few days for the holidays, he left me to take care of his car, an oldie-but-goodie that just needs to be driven regularly to keep it working. I was obliging him, and driving it back and forth between our apartment and the Shoeboxed offices (about a 1 minute drive). As it turns out, though, I don’t pay too much attention to parking signs, and parked on the street longer than the signage allowed.
After finishing up my work one night, I was headed home, and found a parking ticket on his car. I was a little worried, because I didn’t want to seem irresponsible, or worse, have to pay a big fine. Luckily, since Durham is so awesome, the parking ticket was for 10 dollars, and I could easily pay it.
But how to tell Cory? Well, they let me pay my parking ticket online, and I Shoeboxed my receipt. Then I made a note on my receipt telling Cory what had happened, and forwarded it to Cory. The day has officially been saved…
Sorry Cory!
This summer in Berlin, we worked all the time. Days would go by when I didn’t leave our apartment/office. I usually worked straight from 11 a.m. to 4 a.m. Those precious hours of sleep were spent on an IKEA cot. Needless to say, I was tired for most of the summer.
Now with some pesky classes that weaseled their way into my daily schedule back at Duke, I seem to have less time that ever. Other people on the team are feeling the pinch too, and we’re looking for anything and everything to make the day longer and more productive.
I’m more of a traditional coffee and Pepsi fan for staying awake and alert. And it goes without saying that if you leave a Red Bull lying around the office, I’ll probably steal it.
But other people on the team are a little more desperate for feeling more alert. Matt, Tomas, and Justin are all trying a much-hyped sleeping schedule called polyphasic sleeping. This is where you get a couple of hours of “core” sleep at night, which usually lasts 2-3 hours. Then you take a 15-20 minute nap every 2 hours during the day. This series of short naps is supposed to make you feel really awake throughout the day.
The three of them have had a hard time in the beginning getting onto this insane schedule, but they all claim to feel amazing. They are writing a blog about their experience. Read it here.
And me? I think I’ll just go put on a pot of coffee.
What do we know about cinematography, acting, or lighting? Eh… not that much. But we know that we love TV and movies, and we figured we could do an alright job learning how to make some homemade videos.
And thus was born our online TV channel, shoeboxed.tv! Over the past couple of weeks we’ve put two videos online, and many more are coming soon. Right now, you can enjoy Shoeboxed Instant Classics like “CamelTalk” and “Taglines.” Soon we’ll have live video streaming and lots of new shows made just for your entertainment.
Any struggling actors out there looking for a gig, feel free to contact me at dan@team.shoeboxed.com, and I’ll do my best to give you the kind of exposure you’ve always wanted… the kind you can only get on shoeboxed.tv.
Enjoy the show!
The team has just returned from an amazing four-day trip to Amman, Jordan. We took a few friends and mixed fun with business — meeting with the members of the business community that invited us to Jordan and visiting some great tourist spots. It was everyone but Mo’s first time traveling to the Middle East, and the experience was outstanding.
Mo, one of the members of Shoeboxed’s marketing and strategy team, hails from Amman, Jordan, and was able to give us an authentic tour of some of the country’s great landmarks.
After having a delicious and very filling dinner the night we arrived, we headed out the next day to several religiously and historically significant sites in the Jordan Valley. We visited what is thought to be Jesus’ baptism site at the Jordan River (about 20 feet away from the West Bank), Moses’ death place on Mount Nebo, and the mosaic Madaba Map. Needless to say, these places were amazing to see. The religious and historical importance was almost a little hard to comprehend.
The next day we went to Petra, one of the newly named man-made Wonders of the World. It is an ancient city built in to the side of rock formations, and it is absolutely stunning. We walked for a few kilometers through a passageway in the rock formations until we arrived at the entrance to the city. It was unbelievable, especially when you think about how long ago it was built. The innovation and vision it took to decide to carve a 60-foot-high building into a rock face is pretty inspiring for a young entrepreneur.
We spent the next day in Amman, soaking up the capital city’s culture and racking up some great souvenirs.
I certainly had an amazing time, but I don’t want to try to sum up everybody’s experience myself, so I got everybody to tell me what their favorite part of the trip was.
Alexandra - “Seeing Jesus’ baptism site was very cool for me as a Catholic.”
Candace - “Having my luggage not make it back to Berlin. Oh wait…”
Cory - “Riding a camel at Petra. It’s a stepping stone to the Shooter’s bull.”
Dan (me) - “There were so many cool things, but I don’t think I will ever have better hummus.”
Etienne - “Floating in the Dead Sea. I’m not a big floater, but I didn’t have a choice.”
Julian - “Seeing a herd of wild camels when we were driving back from Petra.”
Taylor - “Interviewing a camel about shoeboxed.com (watch video)”
Tee - “Chilling on the Dead Sea beach baked in mud.”
Tomas - “Being able to see places mentioned in the Bible was a really cool experience.”
Who knows where the Shoeboxed team will be next? For now, we’re back in Berlin.
We’ve all headed to our respective homes for a couple weeks before making the big move to Berlin. Taylor is on car #3 and continues to make tracks across the country on his trans-American road trip. The stories are fantastic, and the pictures are even better.
At this point, we’re just excited to be reunited so that work can continue as usual. It tough to communicate when everyone is scattered across the country.
I hope you’re sitting down. The car… she’s…gone. The Tracer died a peaceful death on the streets of Delaware (which coincidently is where we’re incorporated!). She went to sleep and just never woke up. But it was for the best. With all the cars dying fiery deaths these days, we should be happy that it was quick and painless. I’m happy to report that Taylor and friends are still alive, and are currently riding a tow truck to Philly where they will say their goodbyes the shoeboxed car and continue on to New York.
Cue up the polka tunes, find me a pair of lederhosen, and buy me a bratwurst with sauerkraut – ‘cause the shoeboxed team is headed to
During the last week of May, we’ll begin our journey. I say “during the last week†because the trip could include close to seven days of travel. My current itinerary takes me from
Which reminds me, why is the airline industry going bankrupt? Because this is the cheapest way to get there.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
