Save With Stories is a community-driven fundraiser on Instagram. It features authors and others reading their books for kids on camera, all to raise money for @savethechildren and @nokidhungry.
Yesterday, they posted me reading V is For Vulnerable. You can find the video here.
It’s a book for adults, but it’s okay to share it with your kids as well.
This book was beautifully illustrated by the extraordinary @hughcards.
I hope it resonates. I still remember how powerful story time can be. And thanks for what you’re doing to contribute.
April 26, 2020
[Here’s a simple communications hack for small teams and organizations:]
When times are changing and you’re adjusting on the fly, it’s tempting to send another alert.
The rules at the farmer’s market, the latest schedule for a changing event, the status of a server…
When I was growing up in Buffalo, they used to announce school closings on the radio. Twice an hour, we’d huddle around and listen to an endless list of schools (mine started with a W), wasting everyone’s time and emotional energy.
The problem with alerts is that they don’t scale. They create noise. Every time you poke everyone with a bulletin, you’ve taken attention away with no hope of giving it back.
The alternative is the bulletin board.
Want to know how you did on the exam? Go look at the bulletin board. The grades will be posted when they’re ready.
Want to know the latest situation before you head out? Go look at the bulletin board.
Social media got everyone into the bulletin habit, but we left behind bulletin boards too quickly.
And in our digital world, you don’t need to be a computer programmer to have one. Simply create a shared Google doc. It’s free and it doesn’t crash and it’s low tech. (And yes, there are many alternatives that don’t come from big companies).
Give people the link to view the doc. Include it in your Facebook post or your last email on the topic. “Click here to see the latest updates.” Don’t worry about whether your tweet or post (a bulletin) moves down the screen, because everyone who cares already has the link to your bulletin board and you’ve trained them to check it when they want to know the status of your event or situation. It’s not a great choice for a high-traffic site, but if you’re trying to coordinate a few hundred people, it’s a lot easier than trusting social media.
And you can even share editing privileges with your core team, so there’s no bottleneck for updates. You don’t need to get a programmer out of bed in the middle of the night to update the school closing list. It’s a simple thing to update the bulletin board, to keep making it more up to date and complete as your situation changes.
Information on demand is way more useful than information that demands our attention at moments when we’re not interested.
What brings out the worst?
One more question: Is it possible to adjust your life so that you show up more often in situations that bring out the best? Can you have an agenda, a rider or an itinerary that makes it more likely that the world around you is what you need it to be?
Because if you can’t, there’s one other option: Can you change your posture so that the situations you’re in a lot bring out your best instead of your worst?
Ideal situations are often rare—now more so than ever. But we can redefine ‘ideal situation’ if we choose.
April 25, 2020
The easiest way to get a contribution, advice or feedback is to present something that’s 90% done.
If you ask too early in the process, if you’re hoping for conceptual insights, you’ll probably be disappointed.
Human nature pushes the inexperienced feedback giver to wait until you’re almost done and then to offer feedback on little things. Tactics, not strategy. Colors, not shapes.
Which means that you either need to teach your team to be strategic professionals, able to give big advice early…
Or create enough room in your (private) internal schedule for redoing the work after someone has ‘tweaked a few things.’
April 24, 2020
Here’s what you had to do to go to a conference in Toronto:
Get a passport • Register for the event • Pack • Figure out how to get to the airport on time • Navigate the TSA • Find a hotel • Get to the event • (I left out about a hundred steps).
Here’s what you had to do go to a meeting in your office:
Own a car • Maintain it • Deal with public transport • Risk your life driving to the office • Make sure the dry cleaning was picked up • Navigate evil Bob in reception • (I left out another 100 steps).
And here’s what you have to do to be a positive contribution on a Zoom call.
The difference is that the first two are expensive, complicated and difficult processes that we’re already used to, so they don’t count.
Part of the challenge of a worldwide shift is that all of us have to engage in new effort that we’re not used to. It’s nothing we asked for, and the old effort disappearing doesn’t feel like much of a benefit.
But, if new effort is required, we have the chance to do what we’ve always done, which is figure out what works and to commit to it.
April 23, 2020
If you want to know how to work with new or limited resources, find a population that’s used to not having many alternatives.
Of course Harvard and the others are terrible at distance learning. They’ve had four hundred years of in-person lectures, tenure, accreditation and a waiting list to lean on. Our tiny team at Akimbo has run circles around them online precisely because we didn’t have the advantages they do.
It’s no surprise that American car companies had trouble shifting to fuel-efficient small cars, because their DNA was about wide roads, cheap gas and growing markets. The Japanese had to make do with none of that.
And a home cook who’s used to the unlimited aisles of the modern supermarket isn’t sure what to do when there’s not much to choose from. An Italian grandmother is a better guide in that moment.
When we have alternatives, we compromise instead of commit.
Find someone who has already optimized for the reality you’re about to enter and learn from them.
[The Fremen are the (possibly) fictional natives of the desert planet of Arrakis, who live with very little water.]
April 22, 2020
The times are nothing remotely like that any of us would have predicted just a few months ago. And many of the institutions and jobs we depended on have changed, perhaps for a long time to come. It’s going to be a slog.
And as always, there will be the other side of the slog.
Where will the solutions be found? How do each of us choose to contribute?
Into this void, it’s possible to show up with something new, something you start, something that solves a problem.
One of the most powerful things you can do is build a useful business. An enterprise of value, doing work of substance, filling a need and finding independence.
And to do it without raising money from a bank or waiting in line for a venture capitalist to smile at you is where freedom can be found.
You’re not a bootstrapper because you are thinking small. You’re a bootstrapper because it offers a chance to chart your own course and to serve your customers without conflict.
Innovation almost always comes from individuals who see a chance to make things better. Instead of waiting, they go first.
We’re relaunching The Bootstrapper’s Workshop today. We are connecting entrepreneurs seeking to make a difference, and doing it in a proven format that opens doors and helps you think even bigger. Something that matters for the long haul, not just a week or a month. Follow the link and look for the purple circle to save some money on enrollment. It’s at maximum value today.
I hope you can join us.
April 21, 2020
If your career depends on detection and selection, it’s a helpful fiction to imagine that you’re doing something more than random guessing.
College admissions.
Greenlighting a movie.
Picking stocks.
Publishing a book.
The data makes it clear, though: while it’s possible to be worse than average at most of these selection tasks, it’s almost impossible to do consistently better than the average.
As William Goldman said, nobody knows anything.
It’s so much more honest (and efficient) for a selective college to send a letter to the people who meet basic criteria and say, “you’re good enough, but there aren’t enough slots, so we’re going to pick randomly.” Because the truth is that a randomly selected class of qualified people is going to be just as high achieving as any other combination they could create.
And if you’re the one who wasn’t picked, don’t sweat it. They don’t know better. They can’t.
April 20, 2020
There are things you’re going to do just once. Get your tonsils out. Pick a caterer for your wedding. Raise money from a venture capitalist. Apply to college.
In these situations, the institutions and professionals you’re dealing with have significantly more experience than you do. Not only that, but they know that you’ll be gone soon and they’ll still be around.
In these asymmetric situations, it’s unlikely that you’re going to outsmart the experienced folks who have seen it all before. It’s unlikely that you’ll outlast them either.
When you have to walk into one of these events, it pays to hire a local guide. Someone who knows as much as the other folks do, but who works for you instead.
Students come and go, but deans last for generations.
April 19, 2020
Two things:
We do it all the time. Constantly.
We’re terrible at it.
We spend our days guessing how an action will impact the future, and we’re often wrong.
And we spend the rest of our days hoping we were right or worried that we weren’t. We try to control the future by telekinesis and anxiety in equal measure.
When the future doesn’t cooperate, we spend even more time trying to change the next bit of future so that it ends up more closely matching the future we were hoping for.
What if, instead, just for a little while, we simply did our best?
And let the future take care of itself.
Because even if we don’t fret, the future is still going to take care of itself.
All that’s on us is to do our best work. Paying attention to models and the community and the people we serve.
April 18, 2020
