…metaphorically speaking:
My girlfriend Irina sent me this delightful video a few days ago, and I remain mesmerized. I’ve watched it several times now – it never fails to crack me up (my favourite part starts after exactly one minute!).
You may rightfully wonder what this performance could have in common with life at our start-up. Well, for one, it’s the buzzing exuberance and enthusiasm we have for our vision of Mendeley and what it could become for the research community. When we’ve imagined, designed and specified a new feature, when there’s progress on our website, when something starts to work for the first time in our software, we go “WOW! How great is THAT! Imagine what a difference it could make if every researcher used this!”.
Then, everything happens at a breakneck pace. You’re trying to coordinate everything as best as you can and plan your next steps, but sometimes you’re still just goofily flailing your arms, juggling the myriad of tasks thrown at you all at the same time. Describe a new website functionality down to the last mouse-click and pixel placement, brainstorm about Mendeley’s strategy, design interfaces in Photoshop, find a new office, talk to beta testers, keep up with the latest research relevant to our technology, wrangle lawyers and legal affairs, find talented developers to hire, visit universities, hunt down the latest software bugs, and that’s just today before lunch.
Admittedly, I know the analogies are flimsy at best – mainly I was just looking for an excuse to smuggle this charming little video into our blog. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do. On a side-note, Irina and I have decided that we just have to learn to dance Charleston sometime.
Mendeley Blog 
HA… my dear Victor… you went public with the brilliant idea to support physical freak out, which we came up with just before… breakfast? (I call this “fast decision making” and I’m pretty good at this as long as nobody ultimately holds me accountable) You really know how to make a task out of a vague concept, don’t you? Anyway, see you on the dancefloor… I suggest the airport check in area, where I will be waiting for you… As you can imagine, I’ll be practising surrounded by a cheering crowd… (“Somebody send for the doctor, looks like this girl is… epileptic…” “No, let go of me, THAT was the “FLYING TURTLE”, I did it nearly properly…)