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I locked my keys in a room today, so I went to the front desk to ask if someone would be kind enough to let me in. The lady sitting there was sporting a “helping people is a sin” disposition, but I convinced her to finally look up from Bejeweled and lend me her key. “You better be back in 5 minutes.” (With contempt.) “I’ll be back in 3.” (With a smile.)

A minute later, I returned her key, thanked her, and wished her a nice day. Her farewell to me was noticeably nicer than her greeting.

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Today, the means of production = a laptop computer with internet connectivity. Three thousand dollars buys a worker an entire factory

-Seth Godin, Linchpin

All throughout his latest book, Seth Godin said some things that hit home. This one was more relevant to me than most. I was kind of taken aback when I read it.

I’ve done that.

Anything online is so cheap to get started that you don’t have any excuse not to get to work. You really don’t even need three thousand dollars. Blogs are cheap (or free), custom websites are only slightly more expensive, and getting your name out there just takes some research and hard work. But that’s the clincher. A linchpin is made because he ships. His work gets done on time, it get’s out the door, and other people find it. Because you can own the means of production, “I can’t do that” isn’t an option. You can only say “I’m not doing that.” Can you bring yourself to say that?

It’s all right there, you just need to do it.

Side note: if you’re dedicated to becoming a linchpin, your friends want to help you. Just ask.

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There’s a few pictures I want you to see

When I got to “and I dog-eared forty of the pages” I laughed. By the end it was more than that. Thanks.

You made it clear that not only do I need to press on and become an artist myself, but that I need to do whatever I can to encourage everyone around me to listen to their genius and become indispensable. Thanks for giving me some tools to start doing that. I’ve already got two friends who are eager to borrow my copy of your bright yellow book. I can’t right now, but in the future I’ll be buying more to give away.

I originally intended to write a review about this book but know I can’t to it justice with one piece. Instead of that, I’m going to base a series of posts on some of the bits that really struck me. You averaged about 1 per 5 pages. And that’s just on the first read. Thanks.

I’m glad you realize there’s no way I can repay you for this, but I sure wish there was.

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You need both. School, books, seminars all make you a more learned person. Experience is the only thing that can make you grow. Get out there and do something cool.

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You don’t have a use case for it

Duh. Of course you don’t. For the last thirty years, we’ve developed uses for the classic freestanding screen, physical keyboard, tracking device, USB, ethernet, WiFi, disc drive layout. You’ve tailored your life to revolve around using that setup efficiently and done a pretty good job.

Now you have a piece of hardware that abandons all of those traditions and moves you outside your comfort zone because you can’t do everything you did on your laptop on the iPad. If you are slamming the iPad because you don’t have a use for it, come out of your hole and be a little more creative.

You’re stuck on categorization

And unfortunately, Apple is playing into this one by trying to create the category between a smartphone and a notebook. The more you categorize something, the harder it is to think outside of the box. When something new comes out, you spend more time looking at the finger than where it’s pointing, as Joseph Jaffe likes to say. Like with Twitter, you’re more fascinated about the tool than how you can get value of it. I think it’s completely ridiculous when people ask “how should I use Twitter?” Wouldn’t you be better of learning it’s capabilities and then deciding for yourself how it can add value to your life instead of thinking about it as email meets SMS meets whatever?

Imagine a big box. Let’s call it a tool box. Now inside that tool box there are a hundred small boxes, each containing a specific tool. You need to figure out how to carry the tool box. How are you going to do that when you put yourself in one of the small boxes.

You’re overcome by Apple’s clout

This is the stupidest one. On both hater and fanboi sides there’s a lot of focus on “can they be wrong?” Well, yes they can, but if you’re figuring out whether the iPad will help or hurt Apple’s reputation, you’re not figuring out how you can gain from their product. Unless you’ve got a significant chunk of your savings riding on their stock price, stop looking at if it’ll be adopted and start looking at how you can use it in your life.

You think everyone’s the same

So many reviewers (reviews? it hasn’t even hit shelves yet) of the iPad tell you how it won’t fit into their life. Maybe they’re right. Maybe they won’t use it. Maybe it would be a waste of their money. Are they seriously so arrogant to think that every one of their readers has placed themselves in the small box just as they have? Unfortunately, a quick glance at the comments on this Gizmodo article shows that the majority have. Even when the author has his eyes open, most people still can’t think for themselves. Instead of playing into this, why don’t you start teaching people how to open their minds?

So please, stop arguing about its future and start figuring out if it can add value to your life.

Image by Apple

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There are two types of abstraction I am thinking about right now: in things we want and in things we see.

I want to build cars and run a race team. For who knows what reason, I want to believe that that’s my passion because racing is cool and cars are fun but my heart can’t convince my brain that I like those things in and of themselves. They are just things and it is silly to love an inanimate object. What’s not silly is what they represent. Racing is the best combination I’ve found of engineering, competition, dedication, immersion, beauty, emotion, and adrenaline. That’s the reason I love it, not because I love racing itself but because it embodies all of those traits.

When you see something, you see a front. I visualize this best using movies as an example. Movies are comprised of a story, music, technology, performance… What you see is a 2 hour long product and if you enjoy it, it’s not because simply the 2 hours was good but because all of what created the 2 hours was good. A good playwright knows how to work with emotion and psychology to create a great story, but you don’t have to know any of that in order to like it. In this way, everything you see can be abstracted to the skill and knowledge of those who produced it.

I believe this drives Web 2.0. I’ll explain why later.

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Check it out at genjuice.com

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More like a D or F, actually.

You’d be amazed how cocky you are. How many risks do you take every day when you could make a much safer decision and not come out any further behind?

Today was rainy. Then it was sunny. Then some more clouds. The forecast was for rain, but when I left for class it was pretty nice outside. I had room for an umbrella in my backpack and my rain jacket was hanging on a chair from earlier this morning. In my arrogance, I walked home soaked.

Header picture by Scott Butner

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When you make a decision, think about what the future you wants, document those assumptions, and when it comes time to execute, just do it.

Trust yourself.

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