Change Carnival

Here’s a thought: Most new technology companies which are started by techie boys and girls will make an important mistake.  They will have embedded in their minds that growing the complexity and “completeness” of their technology offering is a kind of success.  To them it will be the dominant focus of their thoughts.

Some of these companies will survive anyway — these are the lucky ones.  Some will succumb to the complexity they build INSTEAD of paying customer relationships.  Once upon a time I too measured my success by “Look how many web servers I have.” and “We’re just turned on our fourth network operations center”

Take away: Technology is powerful.  But like any drug take it only to improve the function and health of your core business.

Yes, I jump around a bit .  Just a little though.  Since I’ve taken to turning my passions, however temporary, into websites build around that passion I’ve been feeling a little conflicted.

When I’m dying to get everyone outside to see the natural beauty of the state I live in I might make a website like http://MDtrails.com.  When I’m excited about my new house I might partake in Raechelle’s website centered around that advernture http://5inacape.com.  Maybe I want to see more freecycling going on and I’m sick of the idiosyncracies of Freecycle.org so I make http://thinggo.org.

Half a year later I’m thinking “Gee, that idea never really took off.  I’ll drop the domain registration when it expires.”  What’s wrong with that?  Well, I’ll get back to my improved freecycle site again when the spirit moves me but THEN there’s nothing to work on!

Here’s the take away: Don’t try to erase your previous art.  Keep it.  If it is not beautiful so be it.  Maybe you’ll make it beautiful later.  At least you’ll have something to work on if you keep it around.  Disclaimer: This works with websites and big works of art.  It probably doesn’t apply to little things like pine cone bird feeders, pop bottle art, and pet rocks.  Use your judgement.

I’ve just re-registered thinggo.org.  Anything to give away?  I have an old gas stove from the 5inacape.com house  I’ll get it up there soon.

Remember the freedom DVR gave a lot of people? How about podcasts? TiVo? Email with its ability to transmit multimedia and ideas in seconds with the ability to “store and forward” so that it just makes sense to be offline, really producing and learning in and from the world to then return to it later on in the day or week and catch up on “new business” and respond to some old business.

Tim Ferris codified a way to focus on doing the work of life and responding to your electronic communications with greater longer durations of disconnect than were previously common. He recommended we use email as the new time shifiting for business communications.  Read his insightful book, “The Four Hour Workweek” To learn more.

The Mid 20^th century had a saying “Be there or be square” That sums up how network TV treated us. That’s how the 24 hour news cycle treats us. Facebook and Twitter are teaching us that’s how the online world wants it too. The mid 90s to mid 00′s gave us insight into how the web can help us. Let’s find out how to bring the best of those times together with the new social web WHILE RETAINING OUR TIME SHIFTING ABILITIES.

Let’s take back sovereignty over our time! Use email and blogging to share. Maybe Diaspora will make a less-immediate social web for us to participate in? I’m not advocating the old ways over the new. I just feel that the new social way of doing things has had the unexpected consequence of making our lives ABOUT online instead of aiding our communications with our readers, business relations, correspondents, and family.

Twitter; deleted. Facebook; deleted. Flickr; I still like you Flickr. Flickr has not over emphasized timeliness. They haven’t soared in popularity either. What is it that makes people attracted to technologies that enslave them!???

Please, dear readers, give us you insights. This is something for us to figure out so we may continue to evolve an online world that facilitates our lives and not takes from us.

Choosing to be authors simply means we put words in a meaningful order and make them available. There have always been people wishing to put words in meaningful order. There have always been a smaller number actually putting words in meaningful order. The largest group was always separated from its dream of “being published” by lacking the will to write it down and refine the words into a beautiful self consistent state. Sorry, the web won’t help you. Not unless you were deterred by a knowledge that getting those words published would be hard. Which you probably were. So maybe the web does help you.  Now the only obstacle to being published is you taking that step to “write it down and refine the words into a beautiful self consistent state”.

I think that just about sums it up but I’d like to codify the stumbling blocks on the road to independent authorship.

1. The understanding that independent authorship and independent publishing is valid
   1. The gatekeepers (publishers) simply reinforced specialization – you had to write a certain way and follow the correct pattern for your specialty.
2. Figuring out how to brand and market your work
   1. Search engines and word of mouth marketing are the strongest plays available to market your work.
   2. Big money can help the small brands get bigger but nothing maintains and grows like good organic ranking in search engines, word of mouth marketing, and of course fascination
   3. Fascination – Check out Sally Hogshead’s book “Fascinate” at http://sallyhogshead.com/books/. I’m fascinated with that book and idea.
3. Finally, you’ll need to believe that your work can buy you some kind of significance in society.  To that end you’ll need to have a plan to make some money from your writing.

I’ll have to flesh out these ideas more in a later blog post, someone else needs to use the electrical outlet here in the campground bathroom.

We’re all authors now. If we choose to be.

Are specialists killing society and the earth?

When we were all tending the land ourselves we were naturally respectful of the land – our livelyhood came directly from it. That was a natural turn off to damaging our own media of life – our auger.

This connection is important, but not the whole story. As we separate our livelyhood from the land, the environment, we take a step away from desiring to protect the environment. Where does the next level of destructive motivation come from then?

Specialization. As we specialize we loose our overview of life. We forget about birth and death. We get lost in a pursuit. This is an attachment and Jesus, Allah, and Buddah would all be ready to help us see the big picture again. While lost in our pursuit, we tune out the other variables that make life go and enjoyable. THIS is where our destructive motivation comes from.

Maybe all these specialists will work it out since they all know their domain so well? Maybe we’ll put together all the pieces? Maybe.

If you want to rely on science and technology to figure it out consider the views of particle physicists and ecologists?

Physicists want to know how matter works.  They’re attached to figuring it out.  To the particle physicist, it is MORE important to solve the problem of particle physics than protect an ecosystem.

The ecologist?  They seek insight to natural living systems.  It is so important for the ecologist to understand nature that they fly all over the world to study nature.  They live on antartica with a carbon footprint a mile across to “study the icecaps”.   Even they think, on their micro scale, that their specialty is more important than their impact.

They all believe progress is king.  There is a third point of view that is necessary.  Who’s bringing its light to our world?

Where is this planet?  Don’t ask NASA nor the IAU (International Astronomical Union).  Ask yourself: “Where do I go to spend money and I’m confident this place will be happier when I just hand over my money and walk out the door?”  You know that planet, don’t you ?

Too bad there is more than one.  In fact, this planet seems like a black hole! 

Given a tanked economy it causes all of us to go inward and ask ourselves what we really want.  I know it has made me ask that question.  I don’t want to be a number.  I don’t think anyone ever wanted to be no better than their position in queue.

I think we all, read that: we all in corporate America, got a little distracted with efficiency over the last fifty years.  Centralize, simplify, streamline, eliminate defects, and most of all — remove the soul.  Especially that last one.  I see it right here in my employee handbook on page 39 after the dress code:

“Soul shall be expressed on off hours and must not turn up in the drug test.”

I know people, yes even workers, like simple, streamlined, defect free work places.  I don’t know about centralized.  That’s another topic.

I think where we went wrong in the last 50 years was we focused on the INSIDE of our companies and systems.  We should have focused on the OUTSIDE.  What the customer sees.  You know, the ones who decide if our product or service is worth spending money on?

Duh.  Maybe a Napoleon Dynamite “G-hod” is more appropriate?  If we simplified from the outside we would eliminate paperwork, delays in answering calls, delays in solving problems, decrease defects, eliminate systems internally that slows down helping the customer.  HOWEVER, we never would have taken the humanity out of the work our employees are doing because we’d see that would NOT help the customer.  What we’ve built looks HIDEOUS from the outside.

No matter how hard I’ve tried in my life to make a living, I’ve not found a way to do it without customers; have you?

I’m in Harrisburg, PA at a Cable Conference http://www.pcta.com/news/events-view.php?id=31&page=1  (As in Cable TV).  I needed some time to think so I stopped by the gym, very nice Sheraton Harrisburg, and found an inviting elliptical machine.  I enjoyed an episode of “the moth” podcast and went about 2.8 miles.  You and I both know 2.8 miles on an elliptical is really reaching basecamp from Kathmandu on Everest.  Anyway, after a good workout and some clear thinking I started to walk back to my room, 214.

On my way back I saw this:

Yikes!  It’s almost as cold as the summit now!

Where do you draw the line?  How hard should a librarian or any other employee work to please their “customers”?  Thanks to Seth Godin who wrote Linchpin I’m coming to a clearer conclusion on this topic.

They don’t need to work harder.  “What?”, you say, “in your last post you said they don’t try hard enough to justify their value!”  Close.  I’m saying they should do the work it takes to make their craft indispensable to their communities.  If you’re a librarian ask yourself “If I don’t work harder but I need to be more valuable to patrons and the community what do I do?”  Work smarter, not harder.  Everything in business and government is getting squeezed tighter.  We all have to work to ensure we become invaluable.

When you come up with answers to that question above you’ll hopefully find answers that help you:

1. Eliminate things from your work day that DON’T make you indespensable
2. Use the new found time in your work day to pay attention to patrons to find ways to amaze them (see my previous post)
3. Help spread the insights up the ladder to your supervisors — they’ll help make your job easier to enjoy
4. When you like your work more you can do it like you want to — with your whole heart

Can I have my library card back now?