Wherever you are, you could celebrate Thanksgiving today.
Not the Thanksgiving of a bountiful harvest before the long winter, the holiday of pilgrims and pie. That's a holiday of scarcity averted. I'm imagining something else…
A modern Thanksgiving would celebrate two things:
The people in our lives who give us the support and love we need to make a difference, and…
The opportunity to build something bigger than ourselves, something worth contributing. The ability to make connections, to lend a hand, to invent and create.
There are more of both now than there have ever been before. For me, for you, for just about all of us.
Thanks for joining me every day, thanks for your support, but most of all, by a longshot, thanks for doing the work, work that matters.
November 25, 2010
- Ideas don't come from watching television
- Ideas sometimes come from listening to a lecture
- Ideas often come while reading a book
- Good ideas come from bad ideas, but only if there are enough of them
- Ideas hate conference rooms, particularly conference rooms where there is a history of criticism, personal attacks or boredom
- Ideas occur when dissimilar universes collide
- Ideas often strive to meet expectations. If people expect them to appear, they do
- Ideas fear experts, but they adore beginner's mind. A little awareness is a good thing
- Ideas come in spurts, until you get frightened. Willie Nelson wrote three of his biggest hits in one week
- Ideas come from trouble
- Ideas come from our ego, and they do their best when they're generous and selfless
- Ideas come from nature
- Sometimes ideas come from fear (usually in movies) but often they come from confidence
- Useful ideas come from being awake, alert enough to actually notice
- Though sometimes ideas sneak in when we're asleep and too numb to be afraid
- Ideas come out of the corner of the eye, or in the shower, when we're not trying
- Mediocre ideas enjoy copying what happens to be working right this minute
- Bigger ideas leapfrog the mediocre ones
- Ideas don't need a passport, and often cross borders (of all kinds) with impunity
- An idea must come from somewhere, because if it merely stays where it is and doesn't join us here, it's hidden. And hidden ideas don't ship, have no influence, no intersection with the market. They die, alone.
November 24, 2010
[I'm told this sold out already. Perhaps I'll do another one soon. Sorry to disappoint… ].
Book publishing is in the throes of serious change, from format to content to marketing. Since my first book in 1986, I've been thinking about this–as a writer, a self-publisher, an ebook creator and as a marketer. I've probably had my hands on 200 books or booklike projects over the last twenty-five years, and I've learned a lot.
For the first time, I'm running a seminar to talk about it. This is a day, at the fabulous Helen Mills Theater in New York City, to understand how effective book publishing works starting now. I'll talk about what's worked and what hasn't, describe my vision for how an asset can be built going forward, and most of all, interact with you about your projects and opportunities.
Because everyone in the room has a similar agenda, we'll be able to focus really closely on how the new marketing and the changes in our world are going to impact our industry.
The day is created with writers, editors, agents and publishers in mind. I believe now more than ever that a book has a significant impact, that it can change minds and that it can be part of a useful business model as well.
If you'd like to come, please sign up as soon as you can, because there are fewer than 100 seats. Use discount code "pilgrim" to save 25% if you get in before this Thursday.
November 23, 2010
- For the money
- To be challenged
- For the pleasure/calling of doing the work
- For the impact it makes on the world
- For the reputation you build in the community
- To solve interesting problems
- To be part of a group and to experience the mission
- To be appreciated
Why do we always focus on the first? Why do we advertise jobs or promotions as being generic on items 2 through 8 and differentiated only by #1?
In fact, unless you're a drug kingpin or a Wall Street trader, my guess is that the other factors are at work every time you think about your work. (PS Happy Birthday Corey.)
Last June, 980 of you organized Linchpin meetups in cities around the world, and more than 6,000 people signed up to attend.
By popular request, we’re doing it again, this time on December 7, 2010. You can sign up (to start one or to attend one) here, or you can see the nearest one in the works below.
There was nothing but great news from the last one, with people discovering others that they can work with, hire, work for, connect with or otherwise hang out. Have fun.
November 22, 2010
Perhaps this can be our new rallying cry.
If it's a new problem, perhaps it demands a new approach. If it's an old problem, it certainly does.
When it comes to art, to human work that changes people, the mass market is a fool. A dolt. Stupid.
If you wait for the market to tell you that you're great, you'll merely end up wasting time. Or perhaps instead you will persuade yourself to ship the merely good, and settle for the tepid embrace of the uninvolved.
Great work is always shunned at first.
Would we (the market) benefit from more pandering by marketers churning out average stuff that gets a quick glance, or would we all be better off with passionate renegades on a mission to fulfill their vision?
November 21, 2010
There's plenty of controversy about the new full body scanners that the TSA is installing at airports, and plenty more about the way some TSA agents are handling those that choose to opt out.
The heart of the matter comes from the fact that the TSA often doesn't understand that it is in show business, not security business. A rational look at the threats facing travelers would indicate that intense scrutiny of a four ounce jar of mouthwash or aggressive frisking of a child is a misplaced use of resources. If the goal is to find dangerous items in cargo or track down Stinger missiles, this isn't going to help.
Instead, the mission appears to be twofold:
1. Reassure the public that the government is really trying and
2. Keep random bad actors off guard by frequently raising the bar on getting caught
The challenge with #1 is that if people believe they're going to get groped, or get cancer, or have to wait in line even longer on Thanksgiving, they cease to be on your side. Particularly once they realize how irrational it is to try to stop a threat after it's already been perpetrated. (Imagine the havoc if someone had a brassiere-based weapon…)
And the challenge of #2 is that the cost of raising the bar gets higher and higher.
Smart marketers know how to pivot. I think it's time to do that. Start marketing the idea that flying is safe, like driving, but it's not perfect, like driving. If someone is crazy enough to hurt themselves or spend their life in jail, we're not going to stop them, and even if we did, they'd just cause havoc somewhere else. So instead of spending billions of dollars a year in time and money pretending, let's just get back to work.
The current model doesn't scale.
November 20, 2010
It's another to do something about it.
Is there anything at all for which this isn't true?
Knowing the facts, the opportunity or even the process is merely a first step.
Every project (product, play, event, company, venture, non profit) has a million tasks that need to be done, thousands of decisions, predictions, bits of effort, conversations and plans.
Got that.
But what's the hard part?
The CEO spends ten minutes discussing the layout of the office with the office manager. Why? Was that a difficult task that could only be done by her? Unlikely.
The founder of a restaurant spends hours at the cash register, taking orders and hurrying the line along… important, vital, emotional, but hard? Not if we think of hard as the chasm, the dividing line between success and failure. No, the hard part is raising two million dollars to build more stores. Hard is hiring someone better than you to do this part of the job.
Hard is not about sweat or time, hard is about finishing the rare, valuable, risky task that few complete.
Don't tell me you want to launch a line of spices but don't want to make sales calls to supermarket buyers. That's the hard part.
Don't tell me you are a great chef but can't deal with cranky customers. That's the hard part.
Don't tell me you have a good heart but don't want to raise money. That's the hard part.
Identifying which part of your project is hard is, paradoxically, not so easy, because we work to hide the hard parts. They frighten us.
November 19, 2010
