Archive for the 'strategy' Category

Being the Tortoise

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

The way I see it, there are only two directions– up and down.
I used to say that it didn’t matter how fast you were going, as long as the direction you were going was up. Keep moving up, as slowly as you want, and you’ll get to a good place in your life. Don’t rush [...]

The Nature of the Graph

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Have you ever been asked to sign an NDA?
Non-Disclosure Agreements exist because of lack of trust between parties that need to discuss a subject– in fact, that’s the nature of any contract– to provide legal recourse in the case of non-compliance.
Here’s the thing though. You introduce a contract because there’s friction in a relationship. It’s [...]

Level It Up

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

If I was creating a website right now that was designed to become popular, it would be The Oatmeal. It’s utterly brilliant.
It combines interesting factoids with tons of illustrations. Each page is evergreen content, and will probably still be looked at years in the future.
Remember those Top 10 List sites a few years ago? Well, [...]

Digital Body Language

Monday, November 9th, 2009

Taylor Davidson called it “my phrase” at Tribecon, but it isn’t really mine– it’s been used many, many times before.
I started getting interested in it when I began doing Alexander Technique, which attempts to return your body to a natural, relaxed state through re-training (or “un”-training) you out of your bad posture habits.
But there’s more [...]

Being the Lead Goose

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

Have you guys noticed yet that I love birds?
I’ve just gotten back from a few trips, including NOLA for Tribecon and up North in Quebec for BitNorth. Both were really cool events.
It’s become pretty evident over the time I’ve spent at conferences that your level of achievement is intimately connected to your social circle. I’m [...]

Bags of Smoke

Monday, October 26th, 2009

Hype dies. The channel does not.
The problem with your 15 minutes is that it will end. Especially if you’re renting other people’s attention, it won’t last forever. You’ll become a has-been very quickly if this is all you do.
For a long time, I didn’t blog or podcast very much. I just worked on my own [...]

Platform Jumping

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

I give change to pretty much everyone that asks for it on the street. This includes street performers.
It’s a habit I’ve developed since briefly working for Homeless Nation, an organization that has gotten a lot of accolades over the years for its work in Canadian cities on behalf of their homeless population.
Today though, I want [...]

“Great Content Markets Itself”

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

God, this makes me mad.
So, there is this massive selection bias that happens amongst some influencers on the web where they feel that good content will be found on its own. Why do they feel this? The same reason rich people think they deserve their wealth, of course; if they’re on top, they feel that [...]

Becoming Child-Like

Monday, October 12th, 2009

Children are naturally adaptable because that is how humans are born– flexible and curious.
As we grow up though, we become inflexible and rigid in thought. Why isn’t it the opposite?
Here’s my thinking: We should provide a training regimen to keep our minds flexible. It’ll make us better business people and human beings, and will make [...]

Visible vs. Invisible Behaviour

Saturday, October 10th, 2009

You know, we didn’t always add strangers on Twitter or Facebook. After all, that isn’t the way most people communicate.
There’s always a little bit of apprehension when you join a new thing, but when we saw that this was the way powerful, alpha users started behaving (Scoble, etc), we started copying them. This is natural [...]