Living with 100 items. No, 50. No, only 15. Screw it, just get beautiful, useful things

I just found this rather extreme example of owning almost nothing:

Dan Patterson and his 15 items

The picture, and having just returned home from living in Zürich for four months, made me think (once again) about the stuff I own and seem to keep collecting.

The four things I missed the most while being away were (quite to my own surprise) my bed, my couch, my office chair and my vinyls.

I don’t listen to vinyl that often (might be less than once a month even), but I like the feeling they seem to embody of owning a piece of art and a performance. And living in a 12 m² room, rather than my own 50 m² apartment, made it apparent how much I like to have rooms for different purposes. One room to sleep in and one to be in. That was way more important than I imagined—and I missed my couch, bed and office chair because of that.

I love, and have mentioned many times before, Bruce Sterling’s “Last Viridian Note” (and his magnificent talk at Reboot) in which he puts things into the following categories:

  1. Beautiful things.
  2. Emotionally important things.
  3. Tools, devices, and appliances that efficiently perform a useful function.
  4. Everything else.

There are no numbers, no set rules for how much stuff you “must” own. I like the idea some have of only owning 100 things, or even just 50 things. But it’s only an idea. I couldn’t do it myself but I can, however, cut down on the stuff that I already own and don’t use.

DVDs go category no. 4. My espresso machine in no. 3. My couch, bed and chair in no. 3 as well. Half my clothes go in no. 4, and I need to buy after a pattern of no. 1 and 3 from now on.

Actually, I don’t think you can even buy after category no. 2 most of the time. That’s the kind of stuff that evolves over time. A picture of your parents when they were young. The album signed by your favorite band. The book you read four times last year.

Question yourself with everything you are about to buy; if there is a reasonable chance it will be placed in category no. 4 anytime soon, don’t buy it.

I already made it easy for myself by packing most of my stuff in boxes in my basement before moving, and there is nothing in them I’ve missed in the past month.

Next time you move (or do a real Spring cleaning), print this poster Morten made, and follow the guidelines for every single thing you own:

Sterling Machine

Read More (although I don’t agree with everything in these articles and blog posts, they’re all nice to read in their own way)

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First day at ZYB


A couple of months ago, the Danish mobile backup solution, ZYB bought another Danish startup, Imity. I wrote a couple of blog posts about it, since I found it very interesting what they were about to do.

Shortly thereafter, Morten Just (pictured above), one of the founders of Imity wrote me an email asking for clearance on some of the complaints I had with ZYB and how they could improve it. Then Vodafone came along and offered a big pile of money (cash, none the less) and that was very exciting news for me.

Fast forward to about a month ago where Morten wrote me an email, asking if I would be interested in having a talk with ZYB about a part-time job while I’m still studying. We had a chat and today I had my first day at the Copenhagen office.

I’ll be working a lot with Morten and the rest of the Product Development team, trying to make the user experience and interaction with both the website and what else will follow as enjoyable as possible.

This is exciting news, and I look forward to writing a lot more about the job in the following months.

(Oh, and I forgot to take a picture yesterday, so that’s the first one I’ve skipped – it took less than a week… *sigh*).

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Vodafone køber ZYB for 235 mio. kr.

For tre dage siden udsendte Vodafone en pressemeddelelse om at de har købt danske ZYB for €31.500.000,-. Lidt hurtig hovedregning giver 234.281.231,- kr.

Det er mange penge, og jeg skal ikke gøre mig klog pÃ¥ om ZYB er lige præcis den sum penge værd. Det mÃ¥ de jo alt andet lige være siden det er prisen der betalt (kontant, i øvrigt), og et eller andet sted synes jeg det virker som den rigtige pris – mÃ¥ske kan det endda betegnes som et rigtigt godt køb (i modsætning til Skype som jeg synes eBay overvurderede voldsomt).

Hvorfor mener jeg så det er et fantastisk køb for Vodafone? Jo, fordi det ZYB udvikler med Imity bliver det næste sort. Det skrev jeg om tidligere da førstnævnte købte sidstnævnte. Nu har ZYB/Imity så fået adgang til hjernen i det største teleselskab i verden (målt på omsætning, ifølge Wikipedia), så selvom de er kommet op med nogle fine tanker på egen hånd kan det altså kun tælle opad i det store regnskab at de nu har Vodafones udviklere i baghånden.

Jeg glæder mig i hvert fald til at få lov til at prøve hvad det end er de kommer op med som følge af både opkøbet af Imity, men også at de selv er blevet opkøbt. Hvis de får styr på den aktive adressebog og dropper flickr/twitter/facebook-tanken og overlader noise jihad universe til FriendFeed, så bliver det for alvor rigtigt spændende!

Links: Claus Dahl fra Imity. TechCrunch er på den igen. Det samme med Mashable. Computerworld er også med gange to. Version2 ligeså. Dorte Toft namedropper og fortæller mere om Morten Lunds rolle (han masse-investerer i alting der har perspektiver og scorer kassen på det).

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