Me and my fellow Sandboxers and Palomar-ians Sagarika, Jyoti and Eddie wrote a post about our first week at Palomar5. Read the full post here. A few favorite quotes posted below.

The Palomar5 experience began with a warm welcome to a chilly Berlin at the Malzfabrik, a former giant brewery that is being transformed into a creative hub. However, we are its first full-time inhabitants. The indoctrination began when we donned identical blue jumpsuits which were worn for the duration of the first weekend while we consolidated our collective consciousness. However, we were able to keep slivers of our individuality by deciding the placement of the logo–which cleverly represents both the 5 and “lo” of “Palomar5″.

n our first week we ventured into central Berlin twice. The inaugural Sunday, we were invited for a private tour at one of the city’s avant garde art galleries housed in a restored bunker from the WWII–Bunker Berlin, Boros collection, have also a look at this link. We then caught the sights and sounds of the city on a boat ride down the river Spree, finishing our day with excellent pizza at a famous cult-like restaurant run by punks.

While some soaked up the city on our trip, Max, upon returning home realized his memories of the city were sparse as he spent most of the time in the inner caverns of his mind plotting world domination with his fellow campers. It’s a gift and a curse.

…We know we’ve left them with a gift: a break in their routine to expose the hidden assumptions that chain these transit-goers to their habits and thus their lives, precisely the same affliction that shields oversized companies from realising the ways of working in the future. Have no fear, their eyes will soon be pried open— and if not, they will awaken from their decadent slumber to find that the next generation holds the reins to the world they once held in the palm of their hand.

From my profile on the Palomar5 Blog

‘I try to make what I do and what I am passionate about as close together as possible. I believe that should be one of everyone’s major goals in life. I think passion almost always manifests itself as a desire to change or improve something, whether it’s the entrepreneur who wants to change an industry, the writer who wants to change public opinion, the artist who wants to change collective consciousness or the musician who just wants to change how people feel in the present moment.’
Max Marmer

Max Marmer from the US likes to make big ideas happen. He’s obsessed with learning and conversing about frameworks that give insight into where humanity is headed and why humans do what they do. As both an entrepreneur and a big picture thinker Max tries to pinpoint the biggest problems and opportunities that he can affect. He tries to clearly understand both present circumstances and future scenarios worth inhabiting and then start shaping the future by approximating ideal outcomes through iterations of entrepreneurial projects.

He’s currently involved in founding a very ambitious startup working to weave together converging trends in education, entrepreneurship and the future of work. The startup is called Force For the Future and is beginning by providing decentralized, local support networks for entrepreneurs. But the larger vision for the project is to evolve into a liaison for “Real World University”, the best learning environment of all, where passion, learning and work are all fluid and intimately related. The world’s major institutions in the corporate and educational sectors are failing to develop the talent of the next generation. And we need our institutions to prepare people to work effectively in the 21st century, and support people in finding the problems they are passionate about solving. And that is perhaps the world’s biggest challenge and opportunity right now: getting a greater percentage of the world’s population working on solving humanity’s biggest problems. Max believes entrepreneurship is the most effective way attack these problems and that life approached in an entrepreneurial manner is one of the best ways to create a life of personal fulfillment and greater contribution.

Max is honored to have the opportunity to immerse himself in a creative environment with 29 other amazing people all trying to implement their visions for a better world. It looks to be an incredibly stimulating atmosphere where the seeds of big projects will be sewn and lasting friendships begun. He expects the Palomar5 Camp to be an incredibly stimulating experience that will help shape the nascent project described above through conversation, experimentation, iteration and implementation. He expects an overstimulated but happy brain, a warm heart and cold skin. He’s ready for early mornings, late nights and sweet dreams.

But frankly, this will be a first experience for all involved (the organizers included) and we don’t really know what to expect what will come out of this six week experience except the unexpected.

As you may have noticed the blog has been relatively quiet the month of September, but my life has been anything but. I have a lot I’d like share and look forward to writing some more comprehensive life updates and keeping in touch with everyone who has been in and out of my life. But respites are few and far between the next few weeks.

Here’s a quick rundown.

Throughout the month of August all my friends from high school packed up suitcases and hopped in cars and planes, scattering around the country. Then it was my twin sister’s turn to take a 1 way to Boston and begin her adventure at Tufts University. I’m very excited for her and I know she’s having an amazing time, but it marked the closing of a large chapter in our lives and was a sad day for the Marmer Family, indeed.

As August closed and September 2009 was born I was up in Black Rock City having an amazing first time at Burning Man. What a transformative experience. Understanding cannot be shared vicariously, though I might be able to offer a few tastes in a upcoming post.

The day I returned from Burning Man I turned 19. Reflection of the last year ensued and I couldn’t believe how much had changed. It was the best of year of my life by far. But I’m confident this year will top it. The stage is set for a wonderful gap year and for the first time in my life I am in control of my most precious resource: my time. Hopefully I’m setting a trend for the rest of my life where things keep getting better all the time. Yes, you can sing it.

Many of my entrepreneurial friends who are veteran Burners described the following weeks as the most productive of the year. I must agree. I returned high on life with all cylinders firing. I clocked 14 hour days for 7 days straight without feeling a hint of lethargy and sailed straight into Tech Crunch 50, in what turned out to be the most productive conference I’ve ever attended. I did the conference the way you’re supposed to. Skipping the most of the content, because it can be had later from the comforts of my desk and instead seizing the opportunity to talk with the plethora of people in attendance I’d been wanting (needing perhaps?) to meet with.

My company took a major leap forward due to large volume of connections made, partnerships forged and targeted feedback I gathered. And after another busy day following the conference, I crashed. I woke up with a fever and was out for over a week, spending most of the time in bed, managing to get an email off every now and then. It hurt. It was a knife straight through the surplus of progress acheived in the preceeding overtime workweek. When you’re scratching and clawing for everything you can muster, being stuck on the sidelines is just agonizing.

But as the cloud over my head was lifted and the mental haze melted away the sun came careening through. As I eased back into work after a week of fitful slumber I received the news that I had received one of the 30 residencies for the Palomar 5 camp. A huge smile swept across my face punctuated by 3 forceful first pumps. The theme of the camp —the future of work— could not be a better fit because it’s so well aligned with all that I’ve been thinking about and working on. What an opportunity. So I’ve been running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get everything done in the few remaining days I have on the west coast before I leave for Berlin for 6 weeks on October 9th.

Most people when they take a gap year decide to travel. I decided I had bigger fish to fry than to chase perspective. I wanted to create. I still planned to travel some, but was unsure how I was going to fit it in. But now I have the perfect opportunity to combine work and travel. While most of my time will be spent exploring my home base city of Berlin I hope to get in a few weekend trips traversing other magical cities nearby in Europe. London and Amsterdam top the list right now.

I welcome any suggestions or reccomendations of things to do, places to see or people to meet while I”m situated in Berlin until late November. Let me know.

Feel free to email me anytime.