March 11th, 2010

30 Days is Nothing

I’m on day 12/30 right now of trying a new diet.

When I returned from Cuba I got inspired by Andrew Hyde and made a 30-day commitment to avoid grains, sugar, flour, dairy, and a few other things. It’s not that I feel fat at all– I just wanted to lean up a bit and see how it affected my mood and well-being, especially considering I’ve got the exercise thing down (they say 80% of health is from diet, and only 20% is from exercise).

Right away I was shocked at my adaptability. Dropping sugar and cream out of my coffee was very easy, and not eating any grain is too. I get one cheat meal a week, which gives me a way to enjoy my favourite foods, and the 30-day aspect means that I know I can return to my old ways if I want to.

I’m also using Stickk to keep me on the straight and narrow. I have a referee that checks in and encourages me, and if I fail any of the weeks, I get billed on my credit card– and $50 gets sent to an anti-abortion charity. I’m not kidding. Trust me, it works.

What’s my point here? That I’m not special, I guess. That there are things you’ve been wanting to do for years and that you’ve been sitting on, thinking you just can’t.

Oh yeah, and my point is also to show you this video.

Also of interest: a bit sick right now

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March 9th, 2010

Why Things Need Twitter

So, as I asked yesterday, what happens if every object has a status message?

The status message can be expanded to every object in our world. It is natural and in fact inevitable that this will happen. It has no privacy concerns and is far more useful to know where an object is than to know random snippets from a person.

It might even be possible that we needed people to create the status message, but that the amount of interest in objects’ status will eventually supersede that interest in people.

This may seem like a stretch, but it’s natural. We don’t need to hear where Jim is on Twitter when we can ping his location instead.* I’m already finding that logging into foursquare is sometimes more useful to let people know where I am than sending them a text message.

Do you see the same thing?

* Merlene reminds us that locative metadata is great for avoiding people, too. ;)

Also of interest: Automatic Twitter friend adder… awesome :P

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March 8th, 2010

Introducing PO

Happy Monday. :)

I would like to use today’s blog post to introduce you to a thinking tool created by Edward de Bono– the word PO. Here is the basic idea (here’s a great book review if you need more):

NO is a tool of logic. You use it to refute and prove things false and to clarify murky subjects.

YES is a tool of belief. You use it when you’re looking to confirm something.

The problem with YES and NO as the only two options is that they present a closed worldview in which every discussion leads to either confirmation or denial of a supposition/hypothesis. A conversation around “is this a good idea” tends to lead to either a YES or NO conclusion.

So far I’m sure you’re with me. Now here’s a third one that we’ll introduce for usage on this blog (and in your life):

PO is a tool of creativity.

PO is neither YES nor NO. Think of PO as being a combination between “consider this,” “what if?” and “let’s follow this train of thought, even though it might make no sense.” We can also combine two different things that might normally not go together at all, then use PO to force us to combine the two in a creative way. This leads to new kinds of thinking and, over time, to a general attitude of openness to new stuff. And openness is the key to success.

Basically, the point of this word tool is to expand discussion, to remind us to stay open, and to lead us to new possibilities to understand or create the future. A new word forces us into that mode when we hear it. It’s shorthand for an open, creative “what if.”

All I wanted to do was introduce this today, but I’d also like to give you guys an example that shows both how to use PO and that you can use as an exercise (leave your response to the PO in the comments below).

PO: In the future, everything can send out status messages (like people do with Twitter now). All social objects/metadata are status messages, including location, mood, “busy-ness” level, “on/off-ness” of objects, and more. For example, the oven sends you a status message when it is left on.

Where does this lead?

Also of interest: Meet: Collectik.net

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March 5th, 2010

Here There Be Dragons

Jehovah’s Witnesses came to my door for the first time the other day.

They started on their “Kingdom of Heaven” stuff and I was like, “ok, you can go.” They left.

I thought about it for a long time after that– how can people wake you up, come into your house and annoy the hell out of you and everyone else they come across? How can they do it to one person after another, day in and day out? How emotionally stunted do these people have to be to not understand the impact they have?

Look, only the naive and the obscenely polite will let you into their house and let you berate them in this way. They should know this better than anyone– they do it all day long.

What this and a number of other practices suggest is that there are a significant portion of the population for which common sense and logic are not basic faculties of everyday use. It’s shocking.

What’s even more shocking is that you are one of them.

Not with everything, of course. You’re generally a pretty smart individual. But examine your behaviour for a second– I bet you there are holes in your logic, in your habits, that make absolutely no sense. There definitely are in mine.

The truth is, everyone is like this. We are largely smart, capable people that make a lot of sense. But then you’ll meet a PhD candidate who believes in astrology and it throws everything out of whack. You realize that everyone has them, and they’ve had them because they’ve given up on that part of the map.

“Here there be dragons” is a common phrase you see in old fantasy books that had maps on the front pages. They showed the main kingdoms and cities, the roads, the oceans… and then, a hinterland– a dangerous territory labelled in this way, on the edge of civilization, that had been given up on.

Your inner maps have these places too. Do you know where?

Also of interest: 5 things you didn’t know about Julien

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March 4th, 2010

Incentive vs. Character

The fine for smoking at the New York Marriott Marquis is $250. Feel free to do it; they’ll just charge your card.

Smoke in your friend’s house, however, and he just won’t let you back in.

These two examples display the difference between two kinds of repercussions– financial and social. If you don’t smoke in the Marriott, it’s because you don’t want to be fined. They have to fine you, because the relationship is transactional and they’ll never see you again. But if you don’t smoke in your friend’s house, it’s not because he’ll fine you; it’s because you will see him again (and you’re not an asshole).

One requires incentive– the other is just character.

You can tell good character by actions that are performed when no one’s watching– when there are no repercussions (such as fining someone for smoking) or benefits (such as buying somebody lunch). That’s the main difference between doing something for incentive, and doing it because it’s just the right thing to do and it feels good. If someone sees the good you’re doing, it can actually devalue it– anonymous donations are a good example of this.

I read a long time ago that Buddhist monks have a history of giving unconditionally to anyone, whether they agree or disagree with the reason for giving. This is supposed to promote a kindness and generosity of spirit that carries forward into the rest of your life.

Maybe we should do the same with building kindness and empathy– doing it in order to get better at it. Flex the muscles and it should grow… right?

Also of interest: What if you were invisible?

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March 2nd, 2010

Thinking about Cuba

I just came back from a beautiful vacation in Havana, Cuba. Awesome city.

Have you ever been to the developing world? It’s amazing how you can revert to a simpler time, technologically, and be totally fine within a few days. Your lifestyle adjusts. You can actually relax, if you let yourself.

By the end of the week I wasn’t really noticing that my iPhone kept staying behind. It was normal that people couldn’t contact each other when they were out of the house. You accepted it.

The city is filled with propagandist graffiti everywhere that talk about the revolution as if people in the city actually believed in it. It’s amazing to see such a discrepancy between the official stance and the view of the people.

It just goes to show how easy it is for a revolutionary attitude to become a kind of empty sloganeering that covers up what people in power really think. It’s so easy to begin your life as a rebellious youth and then turn conservative as soon as you’re in power, it’s practically a cliche by this point.

J. Krishnamurti, a pretty famous Indian sage that I’ve pointed out here before influenced my thinking a lot on this subject; he dissolved his own Order of the Star in 1929 after a great deal of consideration, basically saying “You should not follow anyone, even me.”

Here’s a great story he told about the Devil and a man walking down the street:

“You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, ‘What did that man pick up?’ ‘He picked up a piece of the truth,’ said the devil. ‘That is a very bad business for you, then,’ said his friend. ‘Oh, not at all,’ the devil replied, ‘I am going to help him organize it.’ I maintain that truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or coerce people along a particular path.”

This in contrast to most people in power, who get comfy and change their attitudes to keep themselves in power as long as possible. It seems almost expected at this point, doesn’t it? But who did the right thing? Which one would you want to be?

Also of interest: 30 Days is Nothing

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February 24th, 2010

Reminder: Risk = Reward

If you are afraid of the new, then you are afraid of success.

Seems obvious to us that we can’t follow the career path our parents did, right? We feel so smart when we say that it’s soooo evident, people change careers all the time, you can’t have one employer your whole life, etc. etc. Everythone thinks they’re a total genius when they say this.

The principle behind the statement is true. We just won’t profit using old models. However, we don’t seem to understand how much we rely on old models ourselves.

We still believe in:

- Rising to the top via the usual corporate ladder.

- Becoming self-employed using the same BS methods everyone else uses.

- Following the same relationship ladder as everyone else.

- Taking the popular trips everybody else takes.

Some of these things still work ok, and others don’t. But allow me to make this as plain as I can for you:

The paths in your head are your enemy.

They are paths because they have been taken before by other people, and because they were taken, they are no longer profitable. Someone else found that route. They picked up the pot of gold at the end of that rainbow before you did, and it’s gone now. Get it?

The Tragedy of the Commons means that everything that’s done before is not as good as it once was.

Someone else had that experience you wanted, and you didn’t. It was great then, and now it sucks. Guess what? That’s how things go. That is why I talk about scars.

Some people want you to believe that it’s easy, but it isn’t.

You’ll have to suffer.

You’ll have to break your own programming again and again.

You’ll have to fight everything in your past with every ounce of your being in order to become someone new.

Risk = Reward. There is no other way.

Also of interest: Remind Me

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February 22nd, 2010

With all the money in the world

My father was a career counselor that studied with Richard N. Bolles many years ago.

As a result of this background, he always taught me a bunch of stuff about life direction, how to do the work that matters to you, etc. I was brought up with this stuff; it was normal to me.

One thing he said to me was: “I ask people what they would like to do if they had everything taken care of, all the money they need, forever.”

One guy said he wanted to open a grocery store. He had spent all this time in one when he was younger and it brought him a lot of joy to spend time in that kind of place. So he opened one, and loved it.

When I was young, he asked me too. I said: “I’d take care of trees.” (Not even really sure what that means.)

What would you do? Would you focus on your family, or try to change the world? Would you do something for yourself? Where would your priorities be?

The interesting thing is that we really don’t need as much money as we think we do. So much of it is superfluous and doesn’t really make us happy, so these things are far closer within reach than we think they are.

So what would you do? Think about it for a sec, and write the first thing that comes to mind below.

Also of interest:

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February 19th, 2010

I know nothing about art, but…

I’ve been spending time with working artists and reading about art all week.

First, I put up one of Wil’s paintings that he loaned me, and hung out with Justin Stephens last night. Donald Browne, a friend and gallery owner, lent me the great book 7 Days in the Art World too.

So I’m feeling kind of immersed and, as a result, I think I’m figuring a few things out. Probably all wrong but whatever.

1. Art is extremely meta– it’s about so much more than the work itself. It’s about the context around which something has been created. So when I think of a painting and what it means, I have to consider all the time that went into it and the suffering that the artist went through to create it, not to mention what he’s inspired by and thinking about at the time. We lose so much if we just look at it and don’t think of what it’s (metaphysically) surrounded by, the lineage it comes from, etc.

2. Everything I do is commerce right now. It’s pretty disgusting. I need to start doing things which are about something else than business– it was never the person I intended to be. I dropped out of art school in 2000 or so (who knows what would have come of me then), and I need to start working on that side of me more. Very important.

3. All this stuff is so political. It’s all about networking and meeting/being seen with the right people, just like it is with us at TED and SXSW. I think many artists probably renounce it officially but are masters at it behind closed doors. (Like content producers on the web, they have to be in order to survive.)

4. As a result of #3, artists need to become good at the web very badly. Hugh Macleod has become pretty famous as a result of the work he’s done online, as have a few other artists (1000 paintings comes to mind) but man, there are so many people that need these skills that so many people on social web takes for granted. It’s amazing what would happen if we all decided to do something useful with our lives instead of being social media experts.

About point #4: We’ve said this so many times in the past but it bears repeating. Dilbert creator Scott Adams said “Cross two things together that you’re good at, and you’ll have a great career.” We need to take the skills we’ve learned here in this space and bring them elsewhere. Only then can we be remarkable.

Also of interest: No related posts

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February 18th, 2010

If you believe in the web

If you are taking part in this experiment, you are one of us.

We are people who believe in individual liberty and the ability to determine our own fates. We are people who want to carve our names into history, even if only a small corner of it. We want the right to create meaningful work that helps us and our communities grow.

If you believe in the web, then you believe in freedom.

The web liberates us. It allows us to be who we want to be, independent of our social circles, our geography, our family history– hell, independent even of who we currently are. The real world is about who we are now. The web liberates us to think about who we want to be.

We may not all agree on everything, but we agree on this: The web frees us to talk the way we want to, to think our own thoughts, and to become the people we were born to become.

This place is an endless frontier where everyone can claim their own space. Because the Earth has limited space, not everyone can have everything. But on the web, space is infinite, so everyone can have something to call their own.

Hyperlinks flatten hierarchies, pushing people of authority back down to a human level where they are once again accountable. It brings people with no power together, so they can build something greater than themselves. Through this, bureaucracies are broken down and antiquated authorities are wiped out.

Do you believe in this?

If you believe in all of this for yourself, there is one more thing: You must believe in it for all other people, everywhere, and forever.

And if you would work on it for yourself, you must work on it for everyone.

Also of interest: No related posts

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