Quick review of Seth Godin’s The Dip.
The book is short and sweet, but could’ve been a blog post instead. I found myself thinking “Okay, I get it!” about a quarter of the way through. Here’s my summary…
And all the “best in the world” stuff didn’t really help. It’s still worth the read.
I’m Going To Scale My Foot Up Your Ass – Ted Dziuba
“Scalability is not your problem, getting people to give a shit is.”
Yup.
Can’t recall where I grabbed this quote, but it depresses the hell out of me.
Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. — H. Jackson Brown
I’m the guy who will spend the entire goddamned weekend reorganizing my tagging system because I didn’t like the tone or the tense of my previous tagging system.
Ya. Me too.
I love Twitter. It’s extremely valuable and has become an important part of my daily flow. There’s a ton of value in following a whole bunch (not too many!) of the brightest people I know. It’s amazing. Lately, however, I’ve been noticing a few recurring themes which have not contributed to this value. In an effort to keep Twitter a service that’s suited to my specific needs, I present to you 5 things you should not Twitter.
That’s all I can think of right now. I’ve seen examples of each of them already this morning. Yes, I’ve done all of the above myself, but that doesn’t make it right. Carry on.
PS This is just for fun. Let’s all keep our undies firmly unbunched.
Clay Shirky video. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. Some quotes (from memory)…
“Sharing has become a platform for collaboration rather than vice versa”
“Every URL is a latent community”
“It’s exactly the point that technology gets boring when its social aspects become interesting”
Fascinating. I’d read his companion book, but it’s not available on the Kindle.
I’m busy. I have too much to do. I work as much or more than anyone I know much of the time. And it’s all my fault.
Having too much to do in too short a time is nothing more than bad planning. I’m convinced that working 12-hour days trying to catch up is not the answer. Not even in the short term. I don’t know what the answer is, but I’ll be sure to let you know as soon as I figure it out. In the meantime, read this terrific, balanced piece about the fallacy of 12-hour work days: How to work an 8-hour day | Philosophical Geek
I am saying that just because you have a lot of work is not a valid reason to work 12 hour days.
Unless you enjoy it…in which case you’re reading the wrong article. If you’re a workaholic, sacrificing your health, family, and free time to get ahead, knock yourself out. You can stop reading now.
I find myself agreeing (mostly) with Jason Fried’s post, Urgency is poisonous
“One thing I’ve come to realize is that urgency is overrated. In fact, I’ve come to believe urgency is poisonous. Urgency may get things done a few days sooner, but what does it cost in morale? Few things burn morale like urgency. Urgency is acidic.”
(Via Signal vs. Noise.)
Ryan Tomayko: The Thing About Git
The thing about Git is that it’s oddly liberal with how and when you use it. Version control systems have traditionally required a lot of up-front planning followed by constant interaction to get changes to the right place at the right time and in the right order. And woe unto thee if a rule is broken somewhere along the way, or you change your mind about something, or you just want to fix this one thing real quick before having to commit all the other crap in your working copy.
Git is quite different in this regard. You can work on five separate logical changes in your working copy – without interacting with the VCS at all – and then build up a series of commits in one fell swoop. Or, you can take the opposite extreme and commit really frequently and mindlessly, returning later to rearrange commits, annotate log messages, squash commits together, tease them apart, or rip stuff out completely. It’s up to you, really. Git doesn’t”
Absolut Vodka ad released in Mexico has me feeling all defensive, for honestly no good reason.
(Via strange maps.)