Quotables from XOXO
I want you to move here and make me things.
Disruption’s a great word, it’s just been co-opted by a bunch of douchebags.
There’s a field across the street full of goats, and now it’s full of drones as well. Welcome to Portland.
Aww daddy. We probably need to get a goat.”
– @carissa
Knowing what you’re doing is not nearly as important as knowing your values.”
Only rich people have the luxury of not talking about money.
If you live a life by your own lights, and follow your principles, maybe once in a while someone will come and bring you a basket of donuts. And it’s okay to eat the donuts! They’re delicious!
It’s good to honour examples of success, but we shouldn’t worship them.
Art, first and foremost, is for the development of the artist.
You don’t have to quit your job and go all in on your art. If it’s about healing self discovery you can do it lifelong
Don’t work for large companies for free.
If the information superhighway just leads to a convenience store…
– @ev
Boing Boing’s the closest thing to an anarchist collective I’ve ever worked for.
Only with fewer meetings.
Jack Conte (above) was my favorite speaker. As such, I did not capture any pithy bits from his talk, enraptured as I was the entire time. Above, he stands in front of a slide depicting the (what would turn out to be slightly maddening) contruction of the set for this video:
I didn’t want to be ‘sad dad’ with unfulfilled dreams…Happiness is the only metric you need for judging your success. It’s your boss.
XOXO is the distillation of everything that’s right about indie and maker culture. You can’t possibly be interested in what’s going on in those communities and come away not ready to dedicate (or re-dedicate) yourself to them. XOXO is a perfect place to be who you are, who you want to be, who you are becoming.
…but indie culture at large (and I count myself as part of that culture) needs to be able to have open conversations about the risks, consequences and costs of pursuing your dreams… and failing. Not just business failure, not just financial failure, but personal and emotional failure as well. The decisions our dreams inspire have consequences
There were a lot of #xoxofest talks mentioning personal mental health, right? Didn’t expect it but enjoyed the raw vulnerability of it all.