“Yahoo claims that it is simply following local law and that it has no choice but to comply with legal requests from the Chinese government if it wants to keep doing business in that country.”
Nothing like putting your profit and business agenda over human rights. It somewhat sad considering that larger companies like these are the ones who have the ability to truly help change the world. Unfortunately it seems the bigger a company gets, the more likely the chance to lose its soul in the blinding pursuit of the almighty dollar.
Dave just mentioned he enjoyed watching some videos of Ira Glass talking about storytelling, so I decided to take a look at them myself. Dave’s right. The advice passed along in these videos is priceless and I’d recommend them to any creative individual, no matter what they do. I’ve included them below for your viewing pleasure, as I wanted to add my own comments afterwards relating to each video.
First Video: On The Basics
It’s interesting that he talks about two basic building blocks to a story. An anecdote and a moment of reflection. I find this approach has an almost mythical presence to it in that we’re talking about a cyclic motion here (i.e. the wheel of life, the seasons, the constellations). More importantly this cyclic pattern has a ying and yang balance to it like life itself (i.e. day/night, asleep/awake, etc).
Why I find this interesting is that it relates to me particularly in that I dislike the continuous momentum that everyone tells you must have in a blog. I disagree with this approach vehemently because it feels like I’m a dancer who has to keep dancing to stay alive. Instead I believe in an approach where downtime is critically important because, as Ira notes, it allows for these moments of reflection which give us a deeper understanding of the events/actions unfolding within our lives. Without these moments of reflection, it would be like a captain of a ship that never checks his position or heading during the voyage.
Second Video: On Finding Great Stories
Again I’m seeing a pattern here when he mentions that most of the work in producing a “decent story” doesn’t relate to the production of it but actually in finding the right story. This is exactly the same with web development. Most of the time the work you put in the discovery and planning stages should equal (or even be more) than the time it takes to produce the website. This also relates directly to creativity as well. Often times, you may spend hours researching or experimenting with something until everything clicks (again usually when you step away from it) and that creative energy is released creating something wonderful. Without that downtime or exploration though, the discovery or creation doesn’t reveal itself.
I also find his description of knowing when to kill a story very important in relationship to blogging. You hear people saying that you need to continually have content, even daily, to get the attention and interest of people. I disagree. To me, having meaningful content (my idea of a decent story) is what it’s all about. There needs to be an emotional connection in some way (which Ira describes as the “feeling you had about”). If it’s not there then its just feels empty somehow and you’re writing just ends up being “filler” with no real substance to it. I think it’s one reason why I like continually breaking things apart, so I can re-examine them, and then rebuild them from scratch in a different way to make something better.
When he stresses the importance of continually “propping up” your work, this to me is exactly what design is really about. It’s about constantly working at something daily to make it better than the day before (like life itself). Therefore these moments of reflection give us a deeper understanding of our lives or the design we’re working on, so that we can make changes constantly to evolve our life or our designs.
Luck is having the persistence to continually persevere through failure to finally achieve success. Therefore if you’re not failing often, then something’s wrong. It is failure that makes us question and reflect which in turn allows us to discover and achieve success. It’s funny though because even though various people have told me they enjoy what I’ve written on my site, I still find a lot of it mediocre. Yet this is what I was getting at before about having different types of writing areas. You need areas where you can just throw ideas into a sandbox and see what happens to them. These areas are critical because they allow you to keep your “flow”, otherwise you’d continually be worrying and spending hours trying to perfect everything before releasing it. You need areas to experiment, to let go, and to get dirty. When you do, that’s when you’ll find the raw gem hidden in the dirt that you can then start polishing.
Third Video: On Good Taste
Hahaha! So true about your good taste exceeding your craft (and I’ll raise my hand as well like Dave because I feel that way too). Again, as I mentioned above, he recommends the best way to get out of this phase is to do a lot of work which will allow you to continually experiment and hone your craft (with a strong emphasis on rejecting things that you feel aren’t up to par because it’s about quality not quantity when presenting it to others). Thus don’t expect things to change and improve overnight. Small changes daily make a big effect over time.
Fourth Video – On Two Common Pitfalls
Be yourself. So true and it’s the one golden rule I always mention to people who are interested in blogging. If you don’t feel like you’re talking naturally (say like how you would with
a friend) then others will probably pick up on it as well.
Now when he mentions people with “horrible personalities” who are only interested in talking about themselves, this really hit a chord with me because I’ve been thinking about this for a while due to a pattern I’ve been noticing in my own life. Basically when I’m focused inwards on myself, I don’t like what I create and things feel unnatural to me. However when I’m focused outwards on others and trying to help them with their problems, I feel really good and things seem to flow. Thus I’m at my best when thinking of others rather than thinking of myself.
And finally his mention of people interacting and providing different viewpoints to help create a good story is so true. Interaction or conflict between two people is what makes us stop and reflect on things because when life’s going smoothly, we rarely question things because everything we do seems perfect. That’s probably why the most enjoyable stories that I’ve read are the ones which involve a great conflict or struggle (either externally in the world or internally within the mind/soul) that usually lead to the discovery of a new perspective or outlook on life…
…as he says as he looks in the mirror and sees the story unfold another step.
Longfellow Deeds: “What puzzles me is why people seem to get so much pleasure out of hurting each other. Why don’t they try liking each other once in a while?”
A couple of days ago I was having trouble sleeping so I got up, lit a candle in the living room, and start jotting down some of the thoughts and frustrations flying through my head. Two words kept flowing through my mind, “natural” and “flow”. Therefore after jotting down a pageful of notes, here are two of the most important things I realized.
I design when I see and feel a natural connection or flow to things. If I don’t see this and I’m “forced” then things seem “unnnatural”.
The act of relaying my thoughts and feelings feels natural. How they are structured is what feels unnatural.
With this in mind, I’ve decide to unplug a bit. Yes to recharge (since I usually come back revitalized with a bucketful of ideas) but more importantly to figure out this “structure” thing. Those who’ve been following my blog know that this has been something that has been bothering me for a long time, as I’ve always hated the default blog structure and format. Hopefully with the time away to live life (thus following my own advice at the end of my last post), I’ll receive inspiration when I least likely expect it (which is usually how it works for me).
Till I return, feel free to dig through my archives if you haven’t had the chance to peruse some of my older entries. I’d recommend starting from the bottom, through the earliest entries, and checking out the titles that peak your interest.
Oh and I’ve unplugged my journal comments as well for the time being. You can still give me a shout via my contact page if you like though.
Catch ya laters!
William Gibson talks about going on media fasts, which is no information for five days, just going away — no phone, no TV, no radio, just your own stuff. People. It’s really weird. Try it. Try to stop watching television, listening to the radio, reading the newspaper, and go on an information fast. Do you know what happens to you? It’s like when you go away on a holiday and you’re out of touch: you relax. And you find out there are other things that are inside of you that are quite important.
While reading the “Twitter Debates” last week, something struck a chord in me that seemed to be of a greater issue but I wasn’t quite sure what it was at the time. Two quotes that jumped out at me though, one from Tara Hunt and the other from Kathy Sierra, both seemed to be focal points for what I was trying to uncover.
By not having enough time to post my blog, I was “losing” much of my thinking along the way. As my blog became more and more ‘professionally focused’, I was losing the personal things that matter to me.
I don’t want to be that connected. And I also have a huge appreciation for the art of keeping the mystery alive. I don’t want to know that much about so many people, and I sure don’t want people to know that much about me… mundane or otherwise.
Now it wasn’t until today that I remembered an Oct 2005 post from Keith Robinson entitled When I Make Something and when I did, all of the connections I was looking for started falling into place. Keith’s post was about what he goes through internally when he creates something.
I care what you think.
I enjoy myself.
I stress myself.
I wonder if my mom will find typos.
I feel self-conscious.
I lose my head.
I try too hard.
I want it to be cool (!!!!)
I cringe.
I start out honest but end up a liar.
I listen to music. Mostly cheesy music.
I ignore e-mails.
I try to think positive.
I have a love/hate feeling about criticism.
I wanna be adored.
I second-guess myself. Three times.
I ask myself where the period should go.
I estimate errors.
I want to help.
I’m begging for attention.
I want to impress my wife.
I obsess over pixel placement.
I demand a second opinion.
I compete.
I press “save” or “submit” with much more than a second thought.
I avoid regret.
I …
As you can see from the list above, Keith probably isn’t alone in feeling this way, as I’m sure all of us can check off more than a few of the items on that list when we do something. Now what I remember more particularly about this post though is what I asked Keith in the comments afterwards.
Now how many of these things do you think about when you are just having a conversations with someone that you bump into on the street (i.e. friend, aquaintence, family, etc)? Don’t you wish you could just be yourself on your blog without having to think about all of this stuff?
Of course Keith replied “Yes.” And in rereading that answer, everything I had been tossing around in my head for the past week finally came together and connected like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle revealing the greater issue I had been looking for. That being, why is it that when we do something work related (i.e. “professional”), we seem to want to “detach” our real selves from it? And yet at the same time, all I seem to hear from customers these days is that they’d like to learn more about the people behind the company, so that they can see there are real people there who are just like them.
For example, why did Tara stop posting more personal things on her blog (especially considering she has a business blog at Citizen Agency) and why does Kathy dislike revealing these personal things online? I mean everything I’ve read about Kathy seems like she’s loves human contact and interaction, particularly face to face. And yet when you’re face to face, that’s when people can see all of your peculiarities and nuances, things that we may see as being negative about ourselves, but what others see as making you a real person. Therefore, that which Kathy dislikes revealing online, I’m guessing she probably enjoys revealing face to face with others and it’s probably one of the main reasons people do want to meet her in person (such as myself but I can never afford to go to any of these cool events).
So why is it that we’re fine with revealing who we truly are when we’re face to face with someone (even a stranger), yet we’re uncomfortable doing this online (particularly when it relates to our work)? I mean isn’t that one of the things that everyone raves about regarding blogs, especially when looking to hire someone, is that we can get a good grasp of the person before hiring them so as to ensure they’re a good fit with our existing team from a personality perspective?
Also why are we so focused on trying to appear perfect all the time? I mean aren’t blogs a place where we can be more of ourselves and not have to worry about protocol so much. If so, why are we always worried about perfecting our posts before publishing them (i.e. taking days to structure and format them) instead of posting small pieces first that we join afterwards. I mean no wonder Tara finds Twitter so liberating, since there’s nothing stopping her thought flow when posting these small pieces of her life. Yet does Twitter have a patent on being liberating? What’s stopping people from being this liberating and real on their blogs?
That to me is what the real mystery of life is all about. It’s not so much not wanting to know about things but more that not everything can be explained or figured out, so don’t continually worry about it. In other words, stop spending so muc h time trying to figure out life by putting it into neat little boxes and spend more time living it and sharing it with others. And yes, I’m not perfect either. I need to follow my own advice. 🙂
Update: Ok, I guess I understand now Kathy not wanting to reveal even general day to day info about her life when you have wackos out there posting stuff like this about her. Hmm, almost makes you want to start a community like The WELL of yesterday, where new members are recommended by those already within it instead of it being open to everyone (and “anything” which is how I’ll describe those who wrote the sick and twisted stuff about her).
I was just reminded of a Half-Life teaser site I did for Sierra back in 1999. I remember when I made it, I wanted to create a centerpiece that look somewhat like an Oscar award, so I made the base using Caligari Truespace and fooled around with Photoshop to get an image of Gordon Freeman to look like he’d been touched by Goldfinger. Getting a bit nostalgic thinking about this, I decided to see if I could find it in the Internet Archive. Sure enough, I discovered the archive for the site shown below.
David Greiner of Freshview, the company behind the great email newsletter service Campaign Monitor, has posted up his thoughts regarding building a business around paid software/services after a lot of people at the Sydney Barcamp felt it was impossible to charge anymore.
People were giving examples of Flickr and YouTube, saying that everything had either been done already, was free or wasn’t worth paying for. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
The primary problem he noted was that so many of these people and startup companies were focused more on money or technology than on solving real problems for real people.
The web and software development community has a nasty habit of looking in on itself and forgetting about the other 99% of the online population. While everyone else out there is building for the early adopter crowd and going to bed dreaming of getting TechCrunched, why not look outside this circle and try to solve a real problem that real people are having.
Too many people I speak to are focused on technology instead of a solution. “It’s gonna be really cool, we’ve got RSS feeds, a neat tagging system and the whole thing runs on 3 lines of Rails code”. Now take a deep breath, and realise that none of that means a thing to your customers. They want to leave work 5 minutes early, they want it to take 2 steps instead of 5. They don’t want a tag cloud.
Of course all this focus on money and technology creates this drive to create something BIG, when in fact the opposite approach is the better path to take.
Instead of trying to build the next video sharing or social networking site, why not narrow your focus a little more. There are loads of simple problems out there that are waiting to be solved online.
BTW a beneficial side effect of focusing on real problems is that it helps to build a great culture for your company, as it shows you honestly care about the people you’re trying to help instead of focused on the almighty dollar. Yes, businesses need money to survive but they need a soul (or mojo) to thrive.
There’s an interesting article on NewScientist.com relating to Xiao-Gang Wen’s and Michael Levin’s theory that the universe is composed of a string-net liquid. What jumped out at me was the following quote.
“Wen and Levin’s theory is really beautiful stuff,” says Michael Freedman, 1986 winner of the Fields medal, the highest prize in mathematics, and a quantum computing specialist at Microsoft Station Q at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “I admire their approach, which is to be suspicious of anything – electrons, photons, Maxwell’s equations – that everyone else accepts as fundamental.“
While their theory still has to be fully proven, this is a great example of pioneering innovation. Basically the quality to ignore the fundamental known, question everything, and look at things from as many different viewpoints as possible. In other words, see beyond the paradigm shift.
I mean a few weeks back I was in a couple of conversations where people said what’s the point of someone coming out with another search engine or creating new content management software when Google “can’t be beat” and there are a lot of great CMS solutions to choose from. I chuckled to myself when I heard this. These are people who accept the fundamentals, that aren’t interested in seeing the “next step” in the evolution of these things. There’s nothing wrong with that, especially if these things meet your needs. It’s just that I don’t think you can say “it can’t possibly be evolved anymore”.
After all, life is in a constant state of change and evolution. What we know today, may be replaced by something else tomorrow or may only be a fraction of something larger. Actually if you read a lot of history on innovation and breakthroughs, you’ll find that many times the discoveries that change the way we think are often made by those with little or no experience in the particular field of study. It’s often an amateur with a passionate interest in something that has little knowledge of the complete fundamentals of the field of study. Thus they have no preconceived notions of these “fundamental” boundaries and instead experiment to discover the boundaries on their own which in turn leads to these new discoveries.
Therefore if something doesn’t feel quite right in your life, even though others may tell you it’s “normal”, question it and determine for yourself if it is right or wrong, useless or usable. You might be surprised at what you discover.
By not having enough time to post my blog, I was “losing” much of my thinking along the way. As my blog became more and more ‘professionally focused’, I was losing the personal things that matter to me.
I don’t want to be that connected. And I also have a huge appreciation for the art of keeping the mystery alive. I don’t want to know that much about so many people, and I sure don’t want people to know that much about me… mundane or otherwise.
Now how many of these things do you think about when you are just having a conversations with someone that you bump into on the street (i.e. friend, aquaintence, family, etc)? Don’t you wish you could just be yourself on your blog without having to think about all of this stuff?
