The tape-deck that is my brain seems to record them. Sometimes I like to roam the archives, replaying the tracks in my life like a playlist of favorites.
One of the first I remember is from being a kid. I remember waking up on school mornings and just lying in bed and hearing the sound of my mom taking out dishes for breakfast. I loved that sound. It was like a musical alarm clock announcing that everything about the day was normal and safe and that there was someone out there thinking about me long before I even woke up. Even as I got older, I used to love coming home from college just to hear the morning symphony of silverware.
Some of my favorite tracks come from my wife and kids. The "I will" said just to me. The beautiful horrible gasps of pain that preceded those first sweet cries from my two biological kids. The sound of the African rain against the roof of a beat-up taxi as we drove back from picking up my two adopted kids from their orphanage. You won't find those sounds on iTunes, but I can hear them more clearly than any song on my iPhone.
Lately I've got a new favorite. And this one I bet you've heard too. It's not a catchy tune – but I could listen to it every day and not get tired of it.
It's the sound of the garage door.
I think I first noticed it this summer. My wife took my kids on a trip for a couple days and I had to stay home and work. I'm generally not a worrying type of guy, but for some reason that trip I was keenly aware of how my life had the potential to be completely turned upside down in a moment. A forgotten turn signal, a bartender that doesn't take away some guy's keys - and in the blink of an eye - the soundtrack of my life could get a lot more silent.
So I'm waiting on the day they're coming home and it's so amazingly quiet in the house. And then suddenly, piercing that silence is that sound I've heard a million times before that took on fresh meaning.
So now it's nearly February and sometime in this next month you'll probably buy some flowers or some chocolate or a new tie for someone that's important to you. And while it's great to to have a day that makes us stop and remember and express love to those we care about – we gotta make sure that happens a lot more than on Valentine's Day. And for me - I’m going to try and remind myself daily – to say what needs to be said, to cherish the moments, to thank God for the gifts.
Posted by Daniel St.Pierre on Tue Jan 24, 2012 9:01 AM EST
Powerful post, thanks Dan. I do love the sounds of my old BMW V8, which I seldom get to drive working from home, or riding my bike to the studio across the runway...
Posted by Marcy Theobald on Tue Jan 24, 2012 12:32 PM EST
I've been trying to find a place to post/send feedback and this is the only place I've found on the website...so sorry if this is in the wrong place!
I just wanted to say how much I LOVE SignUpGenius! I run the science lab at Whitlow Elementary in Cumming, GA. I have a team of 14 parent volunteers who I manage on a monthly basis to keep the lab running smoothly.
Before SignUpGenius, I sent out an email calendar with assigned days for each volunteer, some of which would change their day, some would have recurring 'can't volunteer' days, etc. It was a nightmare to keep track of.
I started using SignUpGenius in November and, really, this website is genius. My workload is now lightened by atleast a few hours a month because scheduling is no longer part of my job -- it's now the volunteers' job to schedule themselves when they want. They love it as much as I do.
So, in a nutshell, thanks for making such a great tool.
Best Regards, Marcy Theobald
Posted by Dan Rutledge on Wed Jan 25, 2012 8:46 AM EST
Thanks Marcy! We appreciate you taking the time to write in with the kind words! We do need to have a better page for testimonials and when we get that up, we'll move your comment there. Thanks again and so glad we could be of help!
Here at SignUpGenius, we love to shine the spotlight on people who are making their corner of the world a better place. That’s why our recent "Real Life St. Nick Contest" was such an inspiration to all of us and hopefully to many of you as well. With so many encouraging entries about the ways that every day people are influencing others with their extraordinary generosity, we had a tough time deciding on just a few to receive prizes. Congratulations to our "Real Life St. Nick Contest" winners!
1st Place: A $100 Visa gift card for Kimm Cray and one for her real life St. Nick daughter, Lauren.
“I nominate Lauren Cray. Four years ago, Lauren began helping raise funds for an orphanage in Kenya with 20 children in a rented facility and in constant worry about their next meal. In August, Lauren took a leave of absence from her job to help more. She has purchased a van and a small farm for them to grow food. She is a hero to these kids on the other side of the world!”
2nd place prize: A $50 Visa gift card for Maxcine Howell and one for her real life St. Nick mom!
“My mom is 82 yrs old and is still sewing gifts for people all year long. She remembers birthdays for 8 children (1 deceased), 22 grands, 15 greats, and a million adopted ones. She remembers to pray for everyone and will give her (and my dad's) last dime to help someone. She's the greatest.”
3rd place prize: A $25 Visa gift card for Margaret Konczal and one for her real life St. Nick friends, Bob and Jo!
“My ‘parents’ are nice people I met when I started going to church when I was having a difficult divorce. My ‘parents’ helped me get back on my feet to take care of my then 3 small children. They are generous to the church and community also and my ‘dad’ even bought the next town over a fire truck when theirs broke down and they couldn't afford a new one.”
When asked about her response to winning the contest for her generosity to kids in Kenya, Lauren Cray responded, “I was so surprised to find out that my mom had entered me into this contest, and even more surprised that I had won! I told my friend that I wanted the gift card to go to Belwop Rescue Center for the two new children who just arrived on our doorstep at Christmastime.”
Lauren shared with us a little about the Belwop Rescue Center in Kenya. “I have been involved with Belwop for four years, since I was a junior in college. My work at the orphanage for the last five months has included creating fundraising to purchase a small income organic farm as well as a passenger van, teaching art, planting a home garden, painting and selling pictures. In addition there have been so many great personal experiences: hosting a Christmas pageant where leaders in the community could come and watch the kids sing carols and at the same time bring them gifts, or just playing with the children and tickling ten little munchkins until we were all crying with laughter! The best day of the trip was my last day there: I got to see all the kids open up their very first Christmas presents, wrapped in shiny paper with their names on it-- the girls screaming with joy over their first ever baby dolls (each unique to them) and the boys jumping up and down over their soccer jersey or toy car. I am going back next summer to help build a new home for the children of Belwop, hopefully with a large team, to see this dream continue on.”
Thanks to Lauren and all of our real life St. Nick's for their efforts to make a difference in the lives of others! To read some of the inspiring entries, click here.
COMMENTS:
Posted by Kimm Cray on Thu Jan 12, 2012 12:14 PM EST
Thank you SignUp Genius for this generous gift. I am grateful that our school volunteers use SignUp Genius for all kinds of things like sports snack bar duty and teacher luncheons. That's how I heard of your St. Nick contest. Thanks again!
Posted by Leslie Edmonds(secretstojewelrymaking) on Sat Jan 14, 2012 8:39 PM EST
Leslie deserves to win. Thank you for all these real-life heroes. They are such an inspiration.
As we flip the calendar to 2012, we’re so thankful for the many volunteers that gave of themselves to help others last year. Whether you signed up to bring meals to a frazzled new mom, pray for a hurting friend with cancer, read to a group of eager first-graders, or bring snacks to some tired soccer players – you are a part of a movement of people that are changing our world, one volunteer position at a time. It is a movement of people that are not looking for money or glory – but who sacrifice of themselves out of compassion for the young, the hurting, the needy, and the defenseless.
We are honored to get to be a part of the good works being done by individuals, churches, temples, schools, sports leagues, and organizations all around the country. It’s humbling to see the incredible things that can be accomplished when good people join together to make a difference. While no statistics can ever measure the eternal impact of your collective work – we wanted to give you a picture of the scope of effort made by our users last year.
In 2011 at SignUpGenius, over 3.25 million volunteer responsibilities were
signed up for by over 1.25 million people on over 150,000 sign up pages.
WOW!!! From all of us here at SignUpGenius, thanks for your generous volunteer work in 2011. We look forward to being a part of your efforts in 2012. We take our role very seriously and we are absolutely committed to the continual improvement of our site and service. We want to make sure that in 2012, our site will make revolutionizing your little corner of our world… even easier.
I got an email the other day from a friend who is a full-time missionary. As a unique way to raise funds, he was asking for people to commit to a $5 donation per month -- and he actually urged people NOT to give more than that. His thinking was that with a small commitment from many people, his support would be more stable than it is when people commit to large sums and then back out.
My wife and I like what he is doing and signed up. Maybe you've been asked for something similar, as the trend of "crowdfunding" has exploded recently. I had another friend that published a book using Kickstarter.com, a popular crowdfunding site. And of course, President Obama famously used crowdfunding to revolutionize campaign fundraising in the 2008 election.
For some reason, though, as I thought more about my friend's $5 campaign, it started to bother me. I began wondering whether the "crowd-everything" trend was a good one. I was reading a book the other day by Richard Swenson. Swenson is a futurist that spends his time tracking trends. He was showing statistics related to the unprecedented pace of progress in the last twenty years and how the graphs are reaching a staggering point on the curve that looks mathematically unsustainable. This escalation trend spans almost every area of life from the number of hours we work each week to the amount of media generated each year. A simple consumer-goods example is that twenty years ago you went into a grocery store to buy coffee and there were a couple simple brands to choose from. Now, there is an entire aisle of choices and options and flavors and price points… and at some point the curve of the graph reaches a mathematical breaking point. That is, there are only so many options you can have for coffee before the whole coffee industry becomes unsustainable and has to consolidate or we all break down in tears in the coffee aisle from decision overload and we just go buy some milk instead. And that breaking point looks to be coming in hundreds of escalating areas of our society.
As I thought about it, there are two primary reasons why crowdfunding and crowdsourcing are increasing right now.
First - technology is enabling this. A $5 campaign never would have worked in the past… because you'd be mailing letters and sending out monthly reminders and getting checks in the mail and depositing them… and you'd end up spending so much time and effort that it wouldn’t be worth it. Email and auto-withdrawal and the internet make it all possible. It many ways, it's a great time to be alive.
But the second reason this is happening is because of an increasing lack of commitment from people brought on by their escalating pace of life. There are now so many ways to spend your money and so many things to support… that my friend was finding that no one will commit any longer to giving $50 a month consistently. Because we're all dealing with so much "stuff" - the only way to get things done is to ask for very small amounts of time or money from lots and lots people.
The thing that really bothered me was where this trend is leading. There is a breaking point coming. Sure, it's great that I have one friend that does this $5 idea… but soon I will have 2… then 5… then 100. Before long I'll have hundreds of people asking me for $5 a month to the point that it's going to be overload every time I open my mailbox. What will be next? Some kind of donation technology where you donate a penny on top of every single purchase you make? Think it won’t happen? Just wait. I’m happy to support my friend, but I'm exhausted already for where this is headed.
The reason these trends fascinate and concern me, of course, is because SignUpGenius is at the core a crowdsourcing utility. Instead of funds, SignUpGenius breaks down tasks and divides the work amongst lots of people. And I actually founded it because the escalation of volunteering requests is already reaching a mathematical breaking point. Families in my stage of life are experiencing "death by paper-cut" with an overwhelming number of tiny commitments that are nearly impossible to organize and maintain.
Thirty years ago, when I was growing up, there was not as much need for SignUpGenius. When I went to church… my Sunday School teacher Mrs. Irish was there every week and she had committed to that responsibility for nearly ten years. No one needed to organize that. But now, people have so many responsibilities that a church needs to schedule a different volunteer every week and people will only make a commitment of once a month for six months. It's maddening to coordinate that without some kind of electronic tool like SignUpGenius.
So what does this all mean for SignUpGenius? It means first of all, that this tool is INCREASINGLY needed to try and simplify a life of crowdsourcing. We can't stop the freight train of culture and therefore we have to be able to manage it. That's the good part of what SignUpGenius does – and it does it very well. But the danger is that it could also enable further crowdsourcing escalation. The more our site grows, the more I am convinced that it is an important responsibility for each person that uses our tool to think about what they are doing. As much as we're glad to have new users, we don't want to run this site if it just contributes to bombarding people with hundreds of more responsibilities.
School, church, nonprofit, sports leaders… you need to start asking yourself:
Is this event really valuable? Is everything I'm asking for really needed? Is my task something so critical that an entire group of people needs to band together immediately and make it happen? For example, if your child's 3rd grade classroom doesn't have “Friday study snacks” brought by a different parent each week, is anybody really damaged? Is that something that could just be cut? Definitely raise supplies for that orphanage in Africa. And organize meals for that friend that has cancer. But we all have a little bit of responsibility to throttle the crowdsourcing/crowdfunding trend. Please think. Don't just use our tool to overwhelm people and create more busyness.
Otherwise, I'm just going to break down and cry… and go drink some milk.
Posted by Jeanette Flood on Fri Dec 2, 2011 12:29 PM EST
Sometimes we HAVE committed to larger amounts and we want to and do remain faithful to those commitments. Yet... we also want to give to so many other worthwhile needs and so end up giving small amounts to lots of other causes.
Posted by Dan Rutledge on Fri Dec 2, 2011 1:15 PM EST
That's a great point - the good part of crowdsourcing/funding is it allows you to be involved even if you can't be involved in a major way because of other commitments. Thanks for commenting as I didn't mean to imply that no one makes large commitments anymore or that crowdfunding is completely bad. I'm just concerned in a general way about the trend.
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Posted by Dan Rutledge on Fri Dec 9, 2011 8:31 AM EST
As a follow up to the article... I was making a purchase online recently and the store asked if I'd like to "round up for charity" and donate two cents to a charity. Apparently... that's already being done!
Posted by Truth About Abs Truth About Abs on Fri Dec 9, 2011 5:22 PM EST
Its actual reality indeed.By the way interesting post.But you can donate if you want.
Posted by Dave Williamson on Wed Dec 14, 2011 4:05 PM EST
I'm sure many of us would be interested in getting a link to Richard Swenson's work. Is that available? If so, please post it here. Thanks alot!
Posted by Dan Rutledge on Wed Dec 14, 2011 4:07 PM EST
Sure thing Dave. The book of his I read recently is entitled "In Search of Balance: Keys to a Stable Life" and it is a follow up to his best seller "Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives." Both are easily findable on Amazon or elsewhere and I recommend them both. As a very simplified explanation... Margin deals with reducing the amount of things we pack into our time... and Balance goes a step further and makes sure we have chosen to do the most important things with our time. I got the chance to hear Dr. Swenson speak last year, which was a treat!
Posted by Katherine (jewelry making whiz) Wagner on Thu Dec 15, 2011 9:09 AM EST
"Crowd funding (sometimes called crowd financing, crowd sourced capital, or street performer protocol) describes the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money and other resources together, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. Crowd funding occurs for any variety of purposes"..So, it's quite fine to whether donate large amount or just donate a little as long as your money or resource goes to a trusted purpose. Commitment is always there. No matter what the amount is.
Happy Thanksgiving! We're so thankful for our loyal users that today we're rolling out some new items in time for the holidays!
iCalendar Integration
Having all your volunteer activities organized online by SignUpGenius and receiving the email reminders is great. But wouldn't it also be nice to quickly add those sign up items to your computer's calendar or smart phone? Now you can.
Anytime you sign up for an item on SignUpGenius.com, you will now have the option to email yourself an iCalendar (.ics) file. Click on the attached .ics file from your home computer to add the event to your MS Outlook calendar or Mac calendar. Open the email on your phone and click the .ics file to add the event to your mobile calendar! You can also access iCalendar files from your MyAccount page at any time to download them to any device. Click. Scheduled. Done. Nice!
New Christmas Themes We've added 10 new Christmas themes and a few other requested themes to our list of over 275 professionally designed themes. Now there are even MORE great looks to choose from when you create your holiday sign ups. Check out the new themes below and then get your holiday organizing started!
Posted by Regina Lemp on Tue Nov 29, 2011 3:37 PM EST
I use Sign Up Genius alot and enjoy the reminders I get via email and text and recommend that the automatic text message should read "remember" instead of "don't forget". It is much more positive to incorporate the word remember as opposed to don't forget.
Thanks for reading.
Posted by Dan Rutledge on Fri Dec 2, 2011 2:07 PM EST
Thanks for that suggestion Regina. That makes a lot of sense! I'll make sure we get that into our revisions cue.
Posted by Mary Segall on Mon Jan 9, 2012 11:40 PM EST
First, I love the ease of the Sign Up Genius!! I have a question. Is there a way to keep people from being able to "delete" from the sign up when it gets close to the actual date? i.e. remove the "delete" option? It is scary that they can just drop out with a day or two before their "shift" even if it is voluntary.
Posted by Dan Rutledge on Wed Jan 11, 2012 9:00 AM EST
Hi Mary. Thanks for the kind words! We do not currently have that functionality, although it is on our upgrade list. Keep in mind, though, that you get emailed any time that someone modifies the sign up... so there's no way someone can drop out without you knowing. For now, the best thing to do is to list your requirements on your sign up and manually deal with those that don't follow your rules. Sorry we don't have the perfect solution for that... yet!
As most of you know, our sign up service is absolutely FREE. We support our business through the advertising on the site. However, we do periodically get asked by various organizations if there is a way to use the service without any advertising.
Now there is!
In November we will be launching a low-cost subscription service that will allow you to pay a monthly fee in exchange for the removal of advertising from your sign up sheets. We know that many of the nonprofit groups and ministries we work with don't have a lot of money, so we've decided to keep the cost low and we will have flexible billing options including recurring billing and discounts for those that pre-pay for multiple months. We will be announcing the exact prices publically when we officially unveil the service.
In order to ensure a smooth roll-out, we will be soft-launching the subscription service to a limited number of users before making the service available to the entire site. If you would like to be one of the first users to try our no-ads sign ups, please contact me personally for details.
Just to be clear - this new subscription service will be completely optional. Our site will remain absolutely free and will work exactly the same as it does now for those that don't mind the advertising!
Six years ago in March, we moved to the suburbs of Charlotte from a little condo next to a highway in Los Angeles. I remember walking outside at night and standing in the street and being amazed that I couldn’t hear any traffic. It was glorious.
What I didn’t know is that paradise comes with a price. Lurking in the shadow like a cougar ready to pounce… was spring. And as April blossomed, I got my first taste of an epic battle between good and evil that has raged war against suburban men for decades. This age old struggle has chewed up and spit out even the toughest of men – leaving only shattered shells of failure.
It is the quest for the perfect lawn.
When we bought the house, I didn’t think much about the grass. All you have to do is mow, right? Apparently not in the Carolinas. It didn’t take long to see that without purposeful effort, the lawn quickly digresses to a patchy weed garden.
Being a type-A first child – I determined that no weed would conquer my land. I marched into the local Home Depot and bought my ammunition. And I waged my war - hand-spraying weed killer, sometimes several times a week. But the weeds kept coming and I battled that entire first season, and it made hardly any difference.
So the next year, I decided to get even more serious. When I saw crabgrass sprouting, I bought some Round-Up (which basically kills anything that grows) and I started in the back and sprayed any weed I saw. And yes… that finally killed the weeds! Unfortunately…it also killed pretty much all the grass. I had sprayed right before we hit a draught and subsequently the entire back yard turned into a big patch of red clay! That summer, the kids left red footprints anytime they walked through the house.
I was a broken man - cruelly humbled by the bladed beast…and I finally stooped to do what all men do in desperate times. I talked to my dad.
And like a wisened sage of the turf, my dad shared with me a little secret that turned my battle plan on its head. Three words that reversed my thinking.
DON’T WEED. FEED.
My dad encouraged me to quit focusing on the weeds and instead turn my attention to the good grass. True well-bred grass thrives when watered, fed, and given good ground to grow. It will actually grow up strong and force out the weeds.
So the next couple years I completely flipped my plan. I fertilized and aerated and we even had a sprinkler system installed. I was all about the good grass. Now… nurturing good grass is not a fast process. It took multiple years of feeding and seeding and patching bad spots to slowly take back the dirt field I had created. But each season it got easier until finally - this year - the real grass is thriving and the turf is thick and the weeds are becoming few and far between.
So I was mowing the other day and enjoying the fact that the mower was finally filling the bag instead of blowing dust everywhere… and it suddenly hit me.
Isn’t this the same error that I make in my life all the time?
Whenever I have a problem, I try to solve it by attacking the negative item. If I’m getting overweight, I diet and try to weed out the bad food. If I’m busy and stressed, I try to evaluate and weed out items from my schedule. If I’m having trouble being a great father or husband, I try to crack down on myself and weed out anger or impatience. But these techniques almost never work in any of these situations.
What creates real life change… is feeding. Investment in positive growth is far more effective than attacking the negative. If you’re overweight, start a new exercise program and you’ll find that your body naturally wants better food. If you’re stressed, force yourself to add time in your schedule for reading and taking a walk with your family, and watch how you’ll naturally eliminate other items. If you want to be a great father and husband, try saturating your mind in scripture and prayer, and watch how growth comes from the inside out.
Browse the news and you’ll see lots of examples of weeding. Recently a big executive started a campaign to stop funding politicians in order to try and root out corruption. On Wall Street, jobless workers are currently protesting to try and force changes in business ethics. Even if the goals are admirable, in my mind, all this is going to do is create more dirt. If you really want to see change – in your own life or the world around you –
Posted by Edith Ramos on Fri Oct 28, 2011 9:25 AM EST
I sooooo needed this today! Thank you.
Posted by Dan Rutledge on Mon Oct 31, 2011 8:24 AM EST
Thanks Edith! Hope you have a great week!
Posted by Tammy Fareed on Tue Nov 15, 2011 8:47 AM EST
Read a book called Whale Done. It's a little self-help thing written from the point of view of training orcas at Sea World. The trainers point out that you can't train a killer whale by punishing failure..... Some time outs to regroup, redirecting toward good behavior, and rewarding any little success builds relationships with the whales that result in those extraordinary performances. And every whale has its bad day, which is just normal, and those days are set aside, then the whole positive reinforcement process picks up again. I wish I could live like that every minute of every day. Your weed story is awesome and offers me that positive reinforcement that myself need and don't get very often!
Posted by Dan Rutledge on Tue Nov 15, 2011 10:36 AM EST
Hey Tammy - thanks for the encouraging note and the book recommendation. Sounds like a very interesting one! I hope you have a fantastic day!
Fall events are in full swing and we've got some brand new themes to add some extra pizazz to your sign ups! Why settle for a plain looking sign up? Now with over 275 professionally-designed themes to choose from - you can find that perfect look for almost any event!
Click on the thumbnails below for a preview of our new themes! Or use one of our previous themes and get your event organized today!
Posted by Lynn Jenn on Tue Oct 18, 2011 3:51 PM EST
Great new themes! I've been waiting for a Figure Skatin gone...but I have to say those are the weirdest figure skates I have ever seen. I think if I tried to use that for our figure skating club signups...we'd get laughed at!!!
Posted by James Beane on Fri Nov 4, 2011 3:32 PM EST
Any chance you can do a law enforcement theme? We use your site to let officers signup in a fair manner for any extra duty jobs that they may be hired to complete.
Posted by Dan Rutledge on Mon Nov 7, 2011 8:46 AM EST
Hi James. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll make a note of this for when we do our next batch. Have a great day!
It started on a baking hot summer day in 1977. I was 5. My dad had this group of fraternity brothers from his engineering school that would get together with their families and camp. We’d spend the days at the beach and all the kids would play while the adults caught up.
It just so happened that on that particular weekend in 1977, the campground decided to throw a sand castle building contest. The grand prize? Some popsicles. But that was enough for the competitive, creative and project-focused thirty-something engineering buddies to kick into high gear. Really high gear. What resulted was an impressive prize-winning castle with an extensive system of roads and surrounding communities that covered a good portion of the beach. And the kids? We helped. And of course… got to eat the popsicles.
For the 34 years since, for one weekend each summer, sand castle making has become a bit of an obsession for this little group of families. I missed quite a few years after I got married and moved away from the Midwest, but the last couple years I’ve been able to take my own kids back and join in the sand fun.
A 2011 castle my dad carved. Behind it is a sculpture from the movie "Cars 2" that I worked on with two others.
The 2011 sand castle crew.
It’s great to revisit a part of my childhood and catch up with old friends, but I also realize now that there was a lot more going on than I understood as a kid. In the midst of the sun and sand – my dad and his college buddies were putting on a clinic for their kids and everyone else on the beach… all about hard work. Thirty plus years later, I realize that a great deal of the core philosophies I carry with me everyday as I punch the clock developed their roots on the beaches of Pokagon State Park… in Sand Castle University. Here are a few that come to mind.
Be a builder.
One year after we had spent numerous hours completing our castle, we ended up seeing some kids stomping all over it. It was a horrifying moment, but my dad pulled us aside and made sure we understood: “Anyone can destroy things. In our family… we build.” Now, after putting in years in the work world, I’ve realized that there are always people that take great joy in being a critic and ripping things apart. The real difference-makers, however, are the people that get their hands dirty and create solutions.
A two day project for me and two friends.
A job well done is its own reward.
We got popsicles that first year. But there were no prizes or payments after that for long hard hours spent working in the sun. In fact, sometimes within an hour of completion, part of the castle or sculpture would cave in and all the work would be ruined. Working with sand teaches you to find the joy in the work itself over the end result. Recently, I helped design an elaborate Internet application for a client. Unfortunately, the leadership of the company changed and it never ended up getting used to its full potential. I had no regrets - because I felt satisfied in having built the best product I could produce.
You’ll be surprised at what you can do if you try and don’t give up.
It’s funny, but each year someone will ask us if we are “professional sand artists.” We have to laugh because the truth is, none of us really know what we’re doing. It’s really all a matter
My brother-in-law and I working on Iron Man in 2010.
of going out and continuing to try and not stopping when it doesn’t work the first time. Last year, my brother-in-law and I were supposed to carve a sculpture of “Iron Man.” Neither of us had a clue where to start. We packed, carved, tried again.., studied a picture and just kept at it. About an hour in… you always want to quit. But if you believe it can be done and stick to it… eventually some sand starts coming together. If you just keep going, eventually people on the beach stop and start taking pictures and whispering to each other who it is… and then you know that it’s working.
Creativity always trumps resources.
When you get to a beach, there’s not much to work with. Just sand. And water. And every kid and his brother are making a castle. To create something of any kind of artistic value that stands out… you gotta bring something special to it. You have to dig down deep and CREATE. The same holds true in almost every project I’ve been involved in since. I never seem to find myself with enough resources or hours or talent to do a job. In the web world I work in, there are so many sites and so many companies with big payrolls… competing seems impossible. The only chance I have to succeed is to dig down deep… and out-think and out-create the competition.
Never be satisfied.
One of the most amazing things to me is that in 34 years of castle building, I don’t think my dad and his buddies have ever stopped trying to improve. Every year has to be better than the last. What started with some kiddy shovels has grown to involve custom designed tools, hand-built sand molds, packing techniques and philosophies, team assignments, roped-off designated areas, and more and more complex sculptures and structures. It’s something that is engrained in me as now, years later, I analyze every step of every web page I create and ask… how could this be better?
My dad, the professor, in his classroom.
Pass it on.
It’s not enough to know things if you don’t pass it on to the next generation. One of the best parts of our sand castle weekends… is that our group now holds our own sand castle contest each year for everyone else on the beach. All over the sand, kids of all ages are inspired to get to work and learn the value of creating something well. If you’re ever in Indiana in August, stop by Sand Castle University. My dad and his buddies are still there. And class is still in session.
The busy fall planning season is coming soon and we've been "bulking up" to handle the load. This past weekend we upgraded our web servers and moved to a new cloud-hosting setup. This significant upgrade in our infrastructure will provide:
Increased site performance/speed
Redundant web servers to maximize uptime
Easy scalability so that resources can be added easily as growth continues
With this new system in place, we're looking forward to a smooth fall... so bring on the sign ups!
Posted by Tina Veal on Thu Aug 11, 2011 8:57 AM EST
Love this! Any chance of it becoming an app for iPad?
Posted by Dan Rutledge on Mon Aug 15, 2011 8:19 AM EST
Hi Tina. We do plan on rolling out a mobile phone version. Right now we've got some other upgrades that are priority, but lots on the plate for the future. Appreciate you writing in as it is good to know what users are interested in most! Have a great week!
Posted by Allyson Tarnowski on Wed Sep 7, 2011 11:16 AM EST
I love this too! Another thought: in exploring the features of each security level, I couldn't tell if people were going to have to "create an account". That would be a nice feature to include with each option in the "Help me decide" section.
Posted by Dan Rutledge on Wed Sep 7, 2011 2:46 PM EST
Thanks for the feedback, Allyson. We'll keep trying to improve our text to make things more clear!
ABOUT THIS BLOG
Like you need another blog to read, right? Well this one is completely different than anything you've ever read before!! Um... not really. But you can read it if you want to keep up on the latest SignUpGenius news and the off-beat thoughts of our co-founder Dan Rutledge.
I think I first noticed it this summer. My wife took my kids on a trip for a couple days and I had to stay home and work. I'm generally not a worrying type of guy, but for some reason that trip I was keenly aware of how my life had the potential to be completely turned upside down in a moment. A forgotten turn signal, a bartender that doesn't take away some guy's keys - and in the blink of an eye - the soundtrack of my life could get a lot more silent.
Lauren shared with us a little about the Belwop Rescue Center in Kenya. “I have been involved with Belwop for four years, since I was a junior in college. My work at the orphanage for the last five months has included creating fundraising to purchase a small income organic farm as well as a passenger van, teaching art, planting a home garden, painting and selling pictures. In addition there have been so many great personal experiences: hosting a Christmas pageant where leaders in the community could come and watch the kids sing carols and at the same time bring them gifts, or just playing with the children and tickling ten little munchkins until we were all crying with laughter! The best day of the trip was my last day there: I got to see all the kids open up their very first Christmas presents, wrapped in shiny paper with their names on it-- the girls screaming with joy over their first ever baby dolls (each unique to them) and the boys jumping up and down over their soccer jersey or toy car. I am going back next summer to help build a new home for the children of Belwop, hopefully with a large team, to see this dream continue on.”
As we flip the calendar to 2012, we’re so thankful for the many volunteers that gave of themselves to help others last year. Whether you signed up to bring meals to a frazzled new mom, pray for a hurting friend with cancer, read to a group of eager first-graders, or bring snacks to some tired soccer players – you are a part of a movement of people that are changing our world, one volunteer position at a time. It is a movement of people that are not looking for money or glory – but who sacrifice of themselves out of compassion for the young, the hurting, the needy, and the defenseless.
For some reason, though, as I thought more about my friend's $5 campaign, it started to bother me. I began wondering whether the "crowd-everything" trend was a good one. I was reading a book the other day by Richard Swenson. Swenson is a futurist that spends his time tracking trends. He was showing statistics related to the unprecedented pace of progress in the last twenty years and how the graphs are reaching a staggering point on the curve that looks mathematically unsustainable. This escalation trend spans almost every area of life from the number of hours we work each week to the amount of media generated each year. A simple consumer-goods example is that twenty years ago you went into a grocery store to buy coffee and there were a couple simple brands to choose from. Now, there is an entire aisle of choices and options and flavors and price points… and at some point the curve of the graph reaches a mathematical breaking point. That is, there are only so many options you can have for coffee before the whole coffee industry becomes unsustainable and has to consolidate or we all break down in tears in the coffee aisle from decision overload and we just go buy some milk instead. And that breaking point looks to be coming in hundreds of escalating areas of our society.
Six years ago in March, we moved to the suburbs of Charlotte from a little condo next to a highway in Los Angeles. I remember walking outside at night and standing in the street and being amazed that I couldn’t hear any traffic. It was glorious.
A job well done is its own reward.
there are so many sites and so many companies with big payrolls… competing seems impossible. The only chance I have to succeed is to dig down deep… and out-think and out-create the competition.
