Taking 100% responsibility one step further
Sandy Hamilton (one of the key execs at Newsgator) did a nice follow-up post to the note I wrote about taking 100% responsibility. In it he talks about what that actually means – how we present ourselves and the importance of taking responsibility not just for what you are saying, but also for what other people are hearing. What a powerful concept. Thanks Sandy for taking this to the next level. In case the link above isn’t working, here’s the full URL of his post: http://sandyhamilton.blogs.com/sandy_hamilton/2005/04/did_i_say_that.html
May 1, 2005· 1 min read
One more reason to like Freakonomics
I forgot to mention this in my post on Freakonomics a couple of day ago. Hold on while I climb onto my soap box [clump] [clump] As if I needed another reason to really like this book, I was happy to note that the authors – Steven Levitt and Steven Dubner – correctly use the word data (as a plural, rather than singular noun). It’s used all over the book and their correct use of the word truly enhanced my reading enjoyment. …
May 1, 2005· 1 min read
Freakonomics
I picked up a copy of Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything last night before jumping on a plane. I pretty much devoured it on my flight. While I don’t often write here about books (in fact this may be my first entry on the subject), if you liked Blink or The Tipping Point or are just curious about how the world works, I’d strongly suggest you check this one out. The basic idea of Freakonomics is to use statistical analysis to explore relationships and answer some pretty interestin questions about our world (are swimming pools more dangerous than guns; why do drug dealers live with their mothers; how can we tell if sumo wrestlers cheat; etc). I eat this stuff up (for me its in part the mix of my two college majors – economics and psychology). And, while you may not find every topic explored in the book riveting, I think the broader premise is an important one – by thinking about problems a little differently one can come up with interesting ways of testing theories that would otherwise seem untestable. Perhaps by turning problems slightly askew you can gain a perspective into something that you didn’t think was possible.
April 29, 2005· 1 min read
Your on-line world
Remember The Brain? It was a cool technology for people to map out linkages in their universe. Companies could use it to map out enterprise relationships; individuals could use it to keep track of who knew whom in their universe (a precursor to the social networking concept); they even had some search capabilities that allowed you to view your search results in terms of how they mapped to each other (they call this the WebBrain). Interesting stuff. …
April 29, 2005· 1 min read
What Is Love?
I’ve been asked a bunch what I’ve found most surprising about being a new dad. My wife, Greeley, and I have talked about this a lot as well. I’m thinking about it right now – on a flight and looking through some family pictures on my laptop – and the answer is actually really easy (and I think shared by a lot of parents – at least I know that both Greeley and I feel this way). The love you feel for your child is completely overwhelming – and for me the intensity of it was unexpected. Seriously – it’s totally different from anything I’ve ever experienced. I love my wife very much and in a way that is different from and more intense than I feel about anyone else. But the love you feel for your child is truly transformational. …
April 29, 2005· 2 min read
Catching Up
Nothing like a long, trans-continental flight to give me some time to think and write. I’m having a long travel week (first part of the week in CA and now a trip to Boston for a couple of days), but it’s a productive one. Apologies for being silent for a while – there’s been quite a bit going on. Here’s a quick round-up: Newsgator closed its Series C financing round led by Masthead Venture Partners. David Beisel from Masthead wrote a great post on it here. Here’s also a link to Brad’s post on the subject, which gives a nice background of how this round came together (which I won’t repeat here). Feedburner is growing like crazy (hit the 50,000 feed mark) and recently announced a partnership with 20six (a European blog hosting company) and is in the process of releasing enhanced stats to their site (I’ve been using these for several weeks – they are fantastic). …
April 29, 2005· 2 min read
Becoming a verb
You’re on the right track when your company becomes a verb. Just add a “d” to your name and you’ve got an idea what I’m talking about. Google is the best example of this – as in “Have you Googled that?” A couple of the companies I work with are on their way (at least in the markets they play in). I take it as a good sign that they are becoming important enough with their customers as to actually enter their lexicon (as in “Have you Quova’d this IP address?”).
April 18, 2005· 1 min read
Making the RSS world a more user friendly place
I’ve been thinking about the ways that I interface with feeds that I read. Specifically, how I parse through information, how I figure out what I want to read and subscribe to and how I’d like view different types of information. I see a couple of problems with the proliferation of information brought upon by the explosion of RSS. Specifically, with so much noise, how does one cut through all the chatter to focus on what you really want to hear? The issue is not just how do I figure out what blogs or news feeds to subscribe to (that’s actually pretty easy) – it’s the broader question of how do I manage those feeds; how do I capture information on topics I care about that are published in feeds I don’t care about; and how can I organize my information capture so I spend more time reading what I want to read vs. figuring out what I want to read. …
April 18, 2005· 4 min read
21
I was talking to a friend of mine recently who was telling me about the weekly meeting that he used to have with his boss in which he was asked to talk about his top 21 priorities. 21 priorities – seriously. Talk about getting defocused. . . .
April 12, 2005· 1 min read
Taking 100% responsibility
I have a concept about relationships that I really like (even if I sometimes forget to follow its teachings): In any meaningful relationship (business, personal or otherwise) each person should be 100% responsible for that relationship. I used to think that a relationship involved each of the parties to be responsible for 50% (i.e., and therefore the total 100% would be taken care of). I guess that works in theory, but if you think about it, your relationships will be much more meaningful (and fulfilling) if you take 100% responsibility for them. This plays well into my recent post on communication. If each person in a relationship is taking 100% responsibility for the communication in a relationship that communication is likely to be much more frequent and meaningful than if each person is waiting for it to happen ½ of the time (which is, of course, what happens if each person only takes 50% responsibility). …
April 11, 2005· 2 min read