When I was growing up, my grandmother would get the JC Penney Christmas Book in the mail and have us circle the things we wanted for Christmas. I always got excited for November when the book appeared on her coffee table, and I would spend hours circling the stuff I wanted.
The JC Penney tradition naturally faded away when I got old enough, although it probably carried on until I was way too old to be circling toys in a catalog. Since I can’t mark up the JC Penney book anymore, I’m starting my own Christmas list tradition with a new twist.
If you were to make your list based only on products emerging from Austin’s companies, what would it be? At first, I thought this would be a difficult list to assemble because I’m focusing mostly on tech and startups. I thought that there simply weren’t enough companies making “real” products in town. But the exercise of compiling the list was enlightening. You can make a pretty darn good Christmas list with the stuff coming out of our fine little city. Here goes!
Dell Adamo XPS – there’s just no way this couldn’t make it on the list. Even the regular Adamo would be sweet. And both are quite an upgrade over my current P.O.S.
A HomeAway vacation. Who doesn’t like getting a plane ticket and a brochure in their stocking?
A LifeSize video conferencing unit for the office. It’s a weird one for this list. But come on, everybody LOVES videoconferencing! Videoconferencing pretty much eliminates any chance of those “I thought I hit the mute button” blunders, too.
A CheapTweet shopping spree. Just get me one of everything that they tweet about for an hour.
A uControl-based security set-up for the house. Mostly just because a live video feed would solve the year-long mystery of which dog goes nosing through the trash every day. But security is cool, too.
A gift basket of stuff (read: fatty foods, beer and wine) from Whole Foods. Ok, so it’s not really tech-related, but a Christmas without good food and alcohol is not anything I ever want to know.
The SpawnLabs HD-720. Nothing would be more fun than dragon-punching Chun-Li remotely while sitting in your cube at the office.
A PocketPack for your iPhone. This is particularly helpful for people like me who have Costanza-like habits of keeping every receipt, coupon or random shred of paper in their wallets. In fact, it could probably be marketed as a medical device that relieves back pain.
A platinum pass to SXSW. I don’t think anyone can argue with this one.
That’s my list. What about you? Am I missing anything important?












How about:
A new job from Indeed.com
We're in Austin!
How about the Demy Recipe Reader? Designed and sold from right here in Austin.
The good news: great review on The Martha Stewart Showon Black Friday. Going onto the The Today Show on Tuesday as a “green” cookbook alternative. And will be featured on Ellen's 12 days of Christmas on December 16.
The bad news: we are almost sold out! Check Amazon, Costco, ,Neiman Marcus or mydemy.com.
It is a great gift for the cook who has everything, and puts all of your recipes at your fingertips in the kitchen.