A lot of smart people will tell you that the way to accomplish a daunting task you have set your mind on, be it writing a book, finishing a redesign of your website, running a marathon or changing some aspect of your life, is to keep your eyes on the goal and take it one step at the time.
Humans are driven by emotions, and the feeling that nothing is being accomplished is one of the nastiest moral-breakers of all. Especially if you look ahead at something that requires months or years of effort. The trick of getting around this is to split the humongous task we have before us into smaller tasks and take it one step at the time.
This is nothing new, all project management tecniques work with some sort of a milestone system, very smart people like Tom Peters make a great case about how milestones can be used.
However, the best example I have ever seen of how milestones can be a life-saver, literally, is the movie Touching the Void, as Imdb puts it “The true story of two climbers and their perilous journey up the west face of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in 1985″. Besides the amazing story and will of the two look at the movie from the point of view of milestones. One of them measured his milestones in meters, as he inched down from the mountain.
Same happens in a marathon, you set your mind to get to the next bend, one more kilometer, a few more steps. If you think that you still have 30km to go, you have the real chance of your moral letting you down. In the same time, you need to know why you are running one more kilometer, and that is to be closer to the finish.
For me the story in Touching the Void is the best, real-life example of milestones used to get an unthinkably difficult task finished.
Have you ever watched a friend or family member work frantically, almost in panic to do some task, while you inexplicably seemed to want to just get out of the way and do as little as possible, although you know you should be helping? Have you ever asked yourself why you might be doing this?
I am convinced there is a strong tendency, in every social group, be it family members, freinds, a project team at work, the local reading club, to keep an acceptable level of excitement or placidity, acceptable by all. No one likes people dancing on the tables at the book club or people reading a book, sitting quietly in a corner at a night club. That part of our brain that wants only safety does not like extremes.
You can call it acceptable behavior or whatever you like, I will call it the Excitment vs Placidity Index (EVPI). All is well while the EVPI stays glued to the commonly accepted level. However, life has is not as predictable as some fantasize and sometimes things don’t go as planned.
And so you get the family meetings when the self-labeled black-sheep defends an idea that is completely opposite to what everybody else think they believe in, a group of coworkers in which one person depicts with such energy and fury some idea that the rest seem to shrink in their chairs. Or the reverse. A group of friends at a concert, excited and jumping, and the one guy who seems more bored of attending concerts that a cow is of chewing grass.
What goes wrong here? What’s with this differences? And what happens when the group is faced with this discrepancies. As I see it there are two outcomes:
- conflict
- equilibrium
You either get somebody stand up, usually a power figure in the group, and say ‘Geroge, just sit down and stop making a fool of yourslef’ or, the group works toward adjusting the EVPI to the usual value or a new level of acceptability for this EVPI is considered, at least temporarily. Big words for simple things. If somebody starts dancig on the tables the rest will wither make that person feel emarassed and come down, they’ll follow the example or they’ll get into a fight and put the wild dancer outside the boundaries of the group. Check out this guy (it gets interesting after around 1 minute):
Read Seth’s comments about this clip, written from the perspective of his book Tribes.
I believe there is a very strong social force, in every group, that fights to preserve the usual acceptable level of the EVPI. Not too much excitment, not too much placidity, just enough to make you be part of your group. A Rock concert is heavy on the excitement, a bus ticket line is high on placidity.
Next time when somebody, maybe from your friends, family or coworkers seems to be more than usually excited and you seem to be sitting in you chair and beeing more quiet that usual ask yourself, what are you doing? are fighting to keep the acceptable level of Excitment vs Placidity? And if yes, why? And should you?
The same force is one of the reasons it’s so difficult to move a group of people with a very well established level of acceptable excitement vs placidity entwined into the very fabric of the group. I believe that understanding this is hugely important if you want to bring change inside a group.
My first thought when I heard about Google TV yesterday was – are they for real? But then I kept watching and I saw, together with the rest of thousands of people watching the Google I/O conference that these guys were serious about it. When Eric Schmidt lined up 6-7 CEO’s from big companies on stage it became very apparent how much they are pushing this.
So we know Google is serious and it seems like a cool product and everything and you might ask why was I so surprised when I heard about it. It’s simple, the thing ain’t new and it’s not solving anything unsolvable.
For some time now I’ve been planning to buy me a NAS with a media server on it, hook it up to the TV, hook my PS3 to the TV and take a cable from the router and put it in my PS3 so I can stream movies directly from the laptop without any problems. Oh, yeah, and figure out and easy way to output my laptop screen to the TV (not that hard at all, as most laptops come with and HDMI output, these days).
What that would give is not very far from what Google wants with the G TV thingy. I already have tons of hardware lying around, do I really need a TV that is essentially a specialized computer?
But while walking home, after watching the Google I/O conference at Bucharest Hubb (than’s Petrica for setting things up), I thought to listen to an audiobook, so out comes my iPod and with it a revelation. It’s not about me! It’s not about the geeks who know what a NAS is and how to set up a media server and who have a box of wires under their bed (I do) to connect everything up. It’s about the rest of the world, consisting of people who barely know how to use their remote. TV is a 4 Billion users industry! There are a lot of people who want to do it easier.
And the Google approach makes it easy to have web + apps + video + tv all in one, like the iPod made possible to have ‘1000 songs in your pocket’ hassle free. Same goes here. Watch out Apple, Google is after your ass. But they don’t need me to tell them that. Plus Apple already made an attempt with Apple TV.
After this revelation everything seems to have more chances of success, but I’m still skeptical. In 1.5 years we’ll know if the G TV thing will fly or fall. What’s your take on it?
What’s it about? The authors Craig Stull, Phil Myers, David Meerman Scott talk about how to make products that are succesful. Or ‘resonate’, as they call it. I can’t help but find similarities with Seth’sPurple Cow book, or Free Prize Inside book.
Is it any good? Yes, it makes you think, it tells things that you probably already heard or read in other places but it does it in an entertaining way and it’s always good to hear interesting ideas from a different point of view. The three authors seem to know what they are talking about.
What are the main takeaways?
1. Your opinion, although interesting, is not important. This is a phrase you will hear a lot in the book and it’s something you need to understand, no matter what you do. If you don’t have valid data to support your claims, you are just stating an opinion, no matter what you are talking about: the background of your new website, the packaging, the color. Same idea, from a different point of view I’ve read in a web-design book (can’t recall the name). The guy was saying that changing endlessly the color from green to red to blue to whatever is just a matter of opinion and taste, the whole package counts, not your opinion, so you should stop thinking about the color and start thinking about the whole thing. Simple and powerful. Try it, it works!
2. Your slogans and missions statements should show your distinct competencies, the things you do that solve a users problem. The already famous iPod tag line ‘1000 songs in your pocket’ is a perfect example. Don’t make missions statements that talk about what you want to do, talk about what your customers need to solve.
3. When you build a product don’t talk to your existing customers who will just want a better / more colorful / bigger  mouse trap, talk to your potential customers to figure out what they’re problems are (getting rid of rodents) and how to do it. Incremental changes don’t make resonators / purple cows / remarkable products (depending on the author).
Overall? Read it, it’s worth your time. Read also Seth’s books, they are very good, if not better, in some ways. These kind of books make you think and that’s an excellent reason to pick them up.
In the movie Patton, from 1970, there is a scene where the convoy of the whole 3rd Army is held up by a couple of donkeys stuck on a bridge, not wanting to move. Patton gets out of his jeep, takes out his ivory-plated gun and shoots the animals, pushing them in the river. Problem solved. This animal-cruelty story is based on real events.
Later on Patton said that he didn’t like killing the poor beasts but compared to the alternative of his army getting massacred by an air raid, while crossing the bridge, he preferred to do that. Sensible choice, if you think about it. Tough choice, something he didn’t like to do, but he did it, he had to.
We have to shoot our own donkeys every day, we have to take choices we are not necessarily found of but which can save our army. It takes guts and it takes brains to do it.
This story is so powerful because it’s simple – killing a poor creature to save a great number of people. In real life it’s not that simple, is it? Work a couple of hours on a weekend or spend them with your family. Quit your job or linger on. Buy a new car or invest the money. What is the donkey? In every case you have to decide for yourself, but once you find it, shoot the long-eared thing.
This story is also inspired by the book Tuned In, where they speak of the “Shoot the Donkey” series by Expert Access
Have you noticed how close the words start-up and up-start are? Is there a link between them? If not, it should.
Some of the greatest start-up of the past decades have been up-starts. Think Starbucks, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple and so on. What do you think? Is there a link between them?
I got the idea by listening to Tuned In, a good book with some interesting ideas. They were taking about the up-start Starbucks.
Scopului postului este sa prezint o idee mai veche (adica matura) si sa o inscriu la concursul baietilor de la BroHouse.ro.
Acum doi ani lumea mea s-a schimbat cand a venit pe lume nepoata mea, Clara. Am inceput sa am o noua perspectiva si sa ma gandesc la lucruri pe care le abandonasem de ceva ani, precum povestile.
Inarmat cu noua perspectiva, cu ajutorul lui Catalin, a aparut idea unui site care sa fie de folos parintililor atunci cand trebuie sa-si culce pruncul. Acum cateva zile a venit si idea numelui perfect – MosEne (.ro). Da, domeniul este al meu si nu e nimic pus inca pe el .
Intrebarea este urmatoarea: Ce faci atunci cand iti pregatestii copilul de culcare (excluzand situatiile cand il legani pana iti pica mainile):
- ii citesti o poveste, daca este mai marisor
- ii canti un cantecel sau ii pui sa asculte un cantecel, daca n-ai voce deloc
- daca este foarte mic poate ii pui sa asculte sunete albe, vezi aici
Plecand de la cele trei puncte ne gandeam sa facem 4 sectiuni ale site-ului, cam in ordinea asta:
1) Povesti personalizate – sa dam posibilitatea parintilor se personalizeze povestile prin inlocuirea numelor personajelor cu numele copiilor, parintililor, bunicilor. Idea este similara cu cea ce vor sa faca cei de la Story Something (vezi prezentarea de la TC50). 2) Povesti cititie – Aici parinti si copii sa aiba posibilitatea sa urce povesti citite sau scrise si citite de ei. 3) Cantecele pentru copii – Aici parinti si copii sa aiba posibilitatea sa urce cantecele de leagan si pentru copii cantate sau scrise si cantate de ei. 4) Sunete albe – Aici sa fie puse sunete albe ce pot fi descarcate rapid, atunci cand e nevoie.
Posibile intrebari si probleme:
a) Drepturile de autor ale povestior si cantecelelor. Daca este vorba de povesti gen Andersen, atunci operele lor fac parte din domeniul public. Exista o lege care reglementeaza durata de viata a dreptului de autor ai aceasta este cam 90 de ani, daca nu ma insel. In aceasta situatie cel care citeste cartea are drept de autor pe interpretare. Bineinteles, carti gen Harry Potter nu pot fi citite si facute publice decat cu acordul autorului. La fel si la cantecele.
b) Moderarea continutului: Ca site-ul sa aiba relevanta este nevoie sa fie moderat tot continutul urcat ca sa nu existe situatii cand cineva urca povestea Capra cu trei iezi ft. Freddy Kruger, cu tot ca versiunea originala nu e prea departe .
c) Sectiunea cu sunete albe e probabil cea mai grea de realizat pentru ca e nevoie sa fie inregistrate sunetele respective.
Cam aceasta e idea. Ca echipa suntem doi programatori (eu si Catalin) si inca doua persoane care ne vor ajuta cu continutul.
Daca te intereseaza idea noastra si vrei sa dai o mana de ajutor, sau ai vre-o recomandare, obiectie, injuratura, incurajare, lasa un comentariu, da un e-mail, sau apeleaza la orice alt mod de comunicare. Suntem interesati!
The web was built as a way for scientists to communicate and not for running ads. However John Quelch hits the bulls eye by pointing out in this Harvard Business School article that the top most common activities on the web (searching for information, reading news, paying bills, watching a video, researching a product) are in one way or the other supported by advertising. And it’s hard, if not impossible, to argue against this.
So the question is – how much money is the web worth? I came across a few attempts of quantifying the web
Quelch mentions 3 in his article (the values are for the U.S. per year):
1. Employment value – look at how many work with something that has to do with the web =>$300 billion
2. Payment value – value of payments made across the web => $444 billion
3. Time Value – how much the time spent on the net is worth => $680 billion
Another interesting idea was that of Kevin Kelly who made an estimation of how much it costed to build the web as it is today. He made a calculation starting from the number of pages indexed by Google – 1 trillion and estimated that for every page a certain amount of programming and content creation is needed. The result is number 4 on our list
4. Take into account all the work from the last 6000 days, which is the rough age of the web, for the creation of the Internet as we know it => 1 trillion pages => ~ $5 trillion.
Yet a wilder estimation was made by Jason Kottke from Kottke.com who calculated the value of a tiny portion of the web, which is Facebook, in burgers, starting from a Burger King campaign. Read the details here. The result is number 5 on our list.
5. Value of Facebook = $12/user X 150M users = $1.8 billion valuation for Facebook.
That’s what I’ve come across until now, do YOU have anything else to add to the list?
Posted on September 2, 2009 by Liviu in Geek Stuff, Web
Twitter, FriendFeed or any other real time stream is like taking a walk in your neighborhood. You have a lot of neighbors, with some you talk, some you’ve just seen a couple of times. When you take a walk down the street you get to see what your neighbours are doing – one is walking the dog, some are chatting, some have been shopping, another guy is cleaning the yard and so on. Maybe you stop and say hi to a few of them. In the same time those neighbours see what you are doing: you are walking the dog, going shopping, washing the car.
That’s how Twitter is, you build your neighborhood (that’s those people that you follow) and take walks from time to time to see what’s new, because you can’t be up all day walking all over the place. And for sure you want to keep those spammers out!
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