What's standing in your way? What would help you start and ship and create something of value?
Access to ideas is easier than ever before. You can see over the shoulders of the great leaders in every industry, instantly and for free.
Access to tools is easier too. Every digital tool in the world is easily available, often for free.
Access to markets? The internet brings every market segment into clear view and lowers the cost of reaching it.
Access to capital? It's never been easier to find funding for an idea that's enabled by the efficiencies the web creates.
Alas, the only access that's harder than ever is access to the part of your brain that's willing to take advantage of all of this. Precisely because it's easier and faster than ever before, it's easy to be afraid to reach out, to connect and to commit. No one can help you with that but you.
January 17, 2012
"Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
And a few more thoughts, from one of the greatest men of my lifetime:
“On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.”
. . .
“We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
. . .
“The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority.”
January 16, 2012
One of the tropes of broadcast sports is the partnership of the guy describing what's happening on the field (an artifact from radio) and the guy doing color commentary, riffing on the why of what happened and predicting what might happen next (heavy on the cliches).
Most of us have both of those voices in our head.
If your play by play announcer is doing a poor job of accurately describing the world as it is, it's worth taking a hard look at how often that's happening and whether it's pushing you to make poor decisions.
The color commentary is a bigger issue: Is the constant whining/bragging/doom and gloom or blaming the voice does helping you do better work? It's suprising to me that you can watch a successful person at work and not realize that her inner voice is congratulating her all day (or cutting her down). That voice likes to take credit for being accurate and important, but it rarely is.
If the voice isn't affecting your work, then it's a waste of time, a distraction, and worthy of extinguishing. On the other hand, if it's helping you do better, bring it on.
January 15, 2012
Whenever you start a project, you should have a plan for finishing it.
One outcome is to declare victory, to find that moment when you have satisfied your objectives and reached a goal.
The other outcome, which feels like a downer but is almost as good, is to declare failure, to realize that you've run out of useful string and it's time to move on. I think the intentional act of declaring becomes an essential moment of learning, a spot in time where you consider inputs and outputs and adjust your strategy for next time.
If you are unable to declare, then you're going to slog, and instead of starting new projects based on what you've learned, you'll merely end up trapped. I'm not suggesting that you flit. A project might last a decade or a generation, but if it is to be a project, it must have an end.
One of the challenges of an open-ended war or the Occupy movement is that they are projects where failure or victory wasn't understood at the beginning. While you may be tempted to be situational about this, to know it when you see it, to decide as you go, it's far more powerful and effective to define victory or failure in advance.
Declare one or the other, but declare.
January 14, 2012
- Be interested.
- Be generous.
- Be interesting.
- Connect.
In that order. If all you can do is repeat cocktail party banalities about yourself, don't come. If all you're hoping for is to get more than you give, the annual event is not worth your time. If you're not confident enough to share what you're afraid of and what's not working, you're cheating yourself (and us).
These aren't just principles for TED, of course. They're valid guidelines for any time you choose to stop hiding and step out into the world. It would be fabulous if people who were willing to commit to these four simple ideas had a special hat or a pin they could wear. Then we wouldn't have to waste our time while looking for those who care about their work and those around them.
[TED is a conference that started small, got big and then spawned more than a thousand local versions. Mostly, it's a culture of connecting interesting ideas and the people who have the guts to share them. Sometimes people at TED even follow these imperatives].
January 13, 2012
It's extremely difficult to read a speech and sound as if you mean it.
For most of us, when reading, posture changes, the throat tightens and people can tell. Reading is different from speaking, and a different sort of attention is paid.
Before you give a speech, then, you must do one of two things if your goal is to persuade:
Learn to read the same way you speak (unlikely)
or, learn to speak without reading. Learn your message well enough that you can communicate it without reading it. We want your humanity.
If you can't do that, don't bother giving a speech. Just send everyone a memo and save time and stress for all concerned.
Let me guess: check the incoming. Check email or traffic stats or messages from your boss. Check the tweets you follow or the FB status of friends.
You've just surrendered not only a block of time but your freshest, best chance to start something new.
If you're a tech company or a marketer, your goal is to be the first thing people do when they start their day. If you're an artist, a leader or someone seeking to make a difference, the first thing you do should be to lay tracks to accomplish your goals, not to hear how others have reacted/responded/insisted to what happened yesterday.
January 12, 2012
Some things are bought–like bottled water, airplane tickets and chewing gum. The vendor sets up shop and then waits, patiently, for someone to come along and decide to buy.
Other things are sold–like cars, placement of advertising in magazines and life insurance. If no salesperson is present, if no pitch is made, nothing happens.
Both are important. Both require a budget and a schedule and a commitment.
Confusion sets in when you're not sure if your product or service is bought or sold, or worse, if you are a salesperson just waiting for people to buy.
January 11, 2012
Another is to be the sort of person who is missed when you're not.
The first involves making noise. The second involves making a difference.
January 10, 2012
That's where artists do their work.
Not in the safe places, but out there, in a place where they might fail, where it might end badly, where connections might be lost, sensibilities might be offended, jokes might not be gotten.
If you work with artists, don't saw off the limb. Don't waste a lot of time explaining how dangerous it is, either. No, your job is to quietly support the limb at the same time you egg your team on, pushing them ever further out there.
January 9, 2012
