Welcome to another edition of What We’re Reading, Marxent’s weekly series featuring staff members highlighting the best articles, videos, music and more they saw over the prior 7 days. This week, those finds included stories from Wired, LinkedIN, YouTube and many more. Up first, it’s …
The Best Thing We Read This Week …
This week, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled his most ambitious project yet: sending humans to Mars to colonize the Red Planet. Far from pie in the sky, SpaceX believes they have the plan that will get us there, and Musk is staking his own money and reputation on the project.
The Best Thing We Heard This Week …
Senior Unity Developer Brian Turner has been threatening to turn this column into his own personal radio show — a prospect we’re highly encouraging. This week, he’s spinning the COIN track, “Talk Too Much.” “It’s another upbeat song to top off your Friday. It’s a mix of rock and pop that’s reminiscent of Two Door Cinema Club or BØRNS,” Brian explains. “I can’t really say much about them since they don’t even have a wikipedia page, though you may recall their song “Run” from last year.”
Shout out to Marketing Creative Director Joe Johnson, who had his wisdom teeth pulled this week and his been soothing his pain with a steady diet of Beastie Boys jams. Get well soon, Joe!
The Best Thing We Wrote This Week …
Marxent CEO and co-founder Beck Besecker has always been an avid comic book fan. Beck’s experience with comic books is extensive, and it has come to inform how he thinks about storytelling with both employees at Marxent and with our customers. Hence his new piece for the Marxent @ Work series: “This is the story of how I tamed a giant octopus.” “Aquaman was busy talking to fish, learning to breathe underwater, and saving the day but he still had time to deliver a convincing narrative,” Beck writes. “When he told a story, he told it straight. So when I think of how to tell a story or how to get a narrative back on track, I always think of Aquaman and how he named his stories.”
But Wait, There’s More …
HR Administrator Sarah Pennington found an interesting podcast that she just had to share — the TED Radio Hour “Big Data Revolution,” which explores the way Big Data will transform the way we live. “While listening I kept thinking of how Marxent is a part of this Big Data Revolution, in that we’re changing the way people design their homes, market and purchase retail/merchandise and the increased confidence people have when it comes to making purchases,” she says. “We really are apart of something big!” Side note: Sarah also had a birthday this week. Happy Birthday, Sarah!
Who likes public WiFi? Do you like public WiFi? Face it: We ALL like free WiFi (especially the free kind), and Google is working on a plan to unify public hotspots under the Google banner. Merchants will be able to supply it for free or charge for access, and all the user will need is a functioning Google account to connect.
Quality Assurance Analyst Ang Boehmer checked out some new “Spectacles” this week, but these are no ordinary glasses. “Snapchat is launching something similar to Google Glass with Spectacles. It will be interesting to see if this version takes off. Obviously there is a trend to document our lives (via our statuses and check-ins on Facebook or images on Instagram), and filming your life from your view seems the obvious next step.”
Sales Director Jeff Morrow is ready for some WiFi enabled football, as are the New England Patriots, who are using WiFi technology to enhance the in-stadium fan experience.
And Finally …
Ang Boehmer also shared this clip, although she may have been more focused on the song that the reason it was playing. (RIP Jose Hernandez.) “I heard this rendition of Take Me Out to the Ball Game on my way to work this morning. You would never think this somewhat cheesy song could ever be moving, but slow it down as a trumpet solo and it becomes a beautiful and sweet melody.”
