Giving the Gift of Geek

Kids These Days

Sometimes I just sit and marvel about how great it must be to have a modern-day childhood. 10 year old me would have walked across a field of Lego barefoot just to lay hands on a smartphone, and goodness knows how much mischief I could have gotten into with a camera drone at my disposal.

Even educational toys blow anything from when I was growing up clear out of the water…in my day the Erector set was the gold standard for aspiring geniuses like me, but here in 2018 kids can design a lot more than toy rockets and military bases.With the Kano Computer Kit Touch, kids can the learn basic coding skills that will become essential in coming years, but that can deliver countless hours of fun today between making art and hacking Minecraft to create custom builds. There may have never been a better time to be a kid…heck, I kinda want to play around with one myself just to see what it can do.

Social Networking that Works

The 2018 fire season turned out to be the worst on record throughout California, and after my house burnt down last month the best information I received wasn’t through the news and it sure wasn’t through the government. Instead I got some of the most critical updates through an app known as Nextdoor.

Nextdoor is like a hyper-localized version of Facebook that communities can use to seek and share information about where they live, and if there’s an insurance agent reading this that is not signed up in their market, that’s something you need to fix right away. Just recently I referred a Nextdoor member in my area who I hadn’t yet met in person to a local agency…that´s social networking as it should be.

During the fires in Malibu the best information I received was not through the government but through an App called Nextdoor – it’s like a hyper local version of Facebook and you as insurance agents should be on it and involved – I recently referred a Nextdoor pal that I’ve never met to an agency in my area.
 

An Echo in Your Dreams

I´m not entirely sold on the idea of an Amazon Echo in our bedroom–Alexa is, in fact, always listening–but if you´re going to do it, better sleep is a pretty good reason to do it.

Among the many little conveniences promised by the Echo is the sleep and relaxation skill that allows it to do things like keep your room at the perfect temperature for slumber and drown out all those little disturbances that keep you awake with relaxing white noise.
 

´Tis Better to Give Tech

Still looking for the perfect gift for that office gift exchange or that nephew you never see? CNET has just what you need...this handy little roundup highlights the top tech gifts, providing options for well-intentioned cheapskates like me as well as lavishly generous individuals like you.
 

The Last Word

All right then, that should do it for this week! Thanks as always for making time in your schedule for another imaginative installment of ¨Brad´s Blog!¨ I´ll be back in your inbox in just a few days, which is more than enough time for you to start thinking about what to get me this year.

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