//hear

It’s been a whirlwind year.

On Conan the other night Aaron Paul relayed a night with his girlfriend in New York in which he spotted Conan at a play and stood outside reeling about wanting to go up and introduce himself. It was pouring rain and he and his girl were awestruck enough to wimp out on approaching Conan. They stood outside and watched him get in his car and start to drive away.

The car pulled up, stopped, and Conan jumped out like a crazy  person, running through the rain to introduce himself to Aaron. Conan told him Breaking Bad was one of the best shows that’s ever been produced on television.

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I’ve always had this weird relationship with the idea of celebrity. I’ve always been opposed to it, actually.

When I was dating Kate we talked about it a lot…when we met celebrity was this thing, this otherworldly thing that carried with it a magic and an inaccessibility that put people like Brad Pitt or Bono or multinational CEOs in a class that wasn’t of the world normal people existed in.

I fought that sentiment. I fought it because I’d played soccer and gone to college with a lot of celebrities and that veil had been pierced. My ego probably played  a role there too; I won’t deny that.

I still meet and know people who have a similar view of celebrity, and it still doesn’t sit well with me.

When I look back, though, I know I had heroes too. I know I looked at people who inspired me as if they knew something I didn’t…as if they were a chosen class of people that didn’t include people who grew up in the suburbs and went to college and still knew all their friends from highschool.

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My heroes were people building tech companies. Founders of shit like Napster, Facebook, MySpace, and lots of other web shit you’ve probably never heard of. These were people I felt like I’d always be watching…people I’d watch get into fancy cars while standing in a downpour.

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One thing this whirlwind of two years has shown me is that people doing amazing things are just people too. They work their asses off and they’re inspired by all kinds of people just like everyone else is.

Your heroes have heroes.

Often the people living your dream life want to help you get there. They want to mentor, collaborate, or offer insight into how they’ve gotten what they have.

They’re not really interested in being fawned over.

They’re usually interested in how they’ve inspired other people.

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A wise friend of mine, Mack, put it well.

“I eat my heroes. I’ve eaten a bunch of them and I have a new set of heroes that I’m going to eat as well.”

“They start out up here [hand in the air] but eventually I’ll eat them and find a new plateau to go conquer.”

//

I still have heroes, and I still watch them and work off of the inspiration they offer me.

When I wonder about how they’ve done what they’ve done, I ask them.

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Are you eating your heroes?

This blog was started on August 15th, 2006.

It’s sort of our five year anniversary around here.

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Before that I was writing an anonymous blog called PsychoticNormalcy. I got that website online in 2002 and I was using Moveable Type (which was a bitch, honestly).

I began writing online because I was reading these bloggers who were telling stories about their lives, and they wrote so beautifully.

This was pretty new at the time, writing about your life online – Blogger & LiveJournal were three years old.

But these people wrote with incredible courage and clarity. There were many, but the ones that seem to pop into my head when I think back to those times include Tony Pierce, Raymi, Tankboy, Gwen Bell, Chris Messina, Ryan McGee, TinkDarkness, AntiDis and xTx. I’m forgetting many.

They inspired me to write, and to keep writing.

I sucked at first…I wrote like a teenager. I wrote arrogantly as if my perspective mattered and as if my life was legend. I wrote “as if”.

Often, I’d try to figure out what whomever was reading would want me to say, and I’d write that.

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I haven’t written here in three months.

It’s been an interesting experience. I’ll explain why it happened in a different post, but I found myself facing the deletion of all of my websites one day. It was unexpected, and as you can probably imagine it created a bit of a hassle if I was going to fix everything.

After about two weeks, and heavily influenced by Gwen Bell’s Blank Slate and Digital Sabbatical, I decided to sit with the downtime.

To lean into it and to contemplate the clean slate as an opportunity as opposed to a dramatic problem.

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I’ve moved things around on this site as a result of the reflection that the downtime afforded me.

I’ve moved them around in an effort to align this site with what I’m doing, thinking, and experiencing.

If you’re reading this in a feed, you might want to click over here to poke around and get acquainted. There’s even a page to see what I’m seeing each day.

//

I’ll explain more later.

For now, it’s nice to be back behind the keyboard writing.

How have you been?

One of Bill’s best articles. I’ve been curious to see how the Tiger phenomenon would play out in people’s hearts, and I think it’s starting to play out.

If my son needs a role model, and he will, that person should be me. I dont need Tiger to teach my child how to behave. I need him to teach my son that its fun to watch golf. Yesterday was the first lesson. There was a putt, and a roar, and a fist pump, and then my son screaming “Again!” Only Tiger Woods could have made it happen. Its a gift.

via Bill Simmons: The inspiration and the gift of Tiger Woods – ESPN.

I’m really impressed at Jason for coming out and saying this, especially because he’s always paid so much attention to building great products and simple interfaces. Seriously…put up or shut up…make something or go home.

Where the heck were you when the fucking page was blank?

The above quote by legendary copywriter, Paul Butterworth, was cited frequently during critique sessions when I was in school. Looking at the end product it’s impossible to know the journey that the designer took, to appreciate what went into it. You don’t know about the constraints, the compromises, or external forces that shaped the design before you. Certainly the end user is not going to be privy to those details either, but as a designer critquing the work of another designer you should know there is more to it. No one is trying to make shitty software. They’re doing the best they can with the constraints they’re given and the talent they have. Not everyone is a maestro. Maybe these folks are just beginners. Is that how we welcome them into the fold? The point is, they’re making something. That’s awesome.

via There is no place for just shitting all over other peoples work – 37signals.

I agree with almost all of Steve Blank’s points in this recent interview.

#geekcred: I wrote a case study on Fairchild Semiconductor in 1997, and just this weekend emailed my father and uncles about our new tech paradigm and the certainty of Microsoft’s restructuring at some point in the very near future.

The LinkedIn IPO “absolutely” marks the beginning of a bubble — and he thinks its going to be great. He likens it to the Netscape IPO in August 1995 that kicked off four years of boom times, but notes that this time VCs actually know how to build real companies with real revenue and profit.

Crazy investors — not geeks — are what makes Silicon Valley unique. Without the “crazy” financiers willing to take big risks in hopes of chasing “obscene” returns, the valley would just be “a bunch of smart scientists and entrepreneurs sitting in their labs and their garages.”

Microsoft will start to fail within six quarters. Blank put a timeline on Microsoft suffering the kind of huge loss that drove IBM to restructure itself back in 1993: six quarters from now. He thinks Steve Ballmer is a “miserable failure” and that the board should be blamed for not replacing him. He also suggests that buying Nokia and installing Stephen Elop as CEO might be a solution.

But Larry Page is doing the right thing at Google. By letting the geeks run the show, Page is following in the footsteps of one of the earliest Silicon Valley pioneers: Fairchild Semiconductor in the 1950s.

via Silicon Valley Guru Steve Blank Welcomes The New Bubble And Says Microsoft Is Doomed.

A great post I just dug up from a VERY long time ago, from StackOverflow’s CTO on how they run (ran?) their company. Still a great read for anyone thinking about building things.

Chrome was a completely respectable browser in V1 and V2. The entire project has moved forward so fast that it now is, at least in my humble opinion, the best browser on the planet. Google went from nothing, no web browser at all, to best-of-breed in under two years. Meanwhile, Internet Explorer took longer than the entire development period of Chrome to go from version 7 to version 8. And by the time Internet Explorer 9 ships — even though it’s actually looking like Microsoft’s best, most competent technical upgrade of the browser yet — it will be completely outclassed at launch by both Firefox and Chrome.

via Coding Horror: Go That Way, Really Fast.

I’m incredibly fortunate to be a member of a small Facebook group of thought leading “Community Builders“.

In my opinion, that term deserves quotation marks simply because it’s widely thrown around, and at this point it’s largely undefined.

I actually hate Facebook less because of this group of “Community Builders“.

It’s a group that basically comprises thoughts and questions about being a “Community Builder” or “Manager”.

It’s a discussion about managing people’s expectations, loyalty and happiness as a day job, in the context of the transparency and access that the web provides. It’s a group that’s small and intimate by design, and it’s fortunate to include people managing some of the internet’s largest communities. I would namedrop if it was appropriate but obviously it’s not.

Anyway, the subject of Community Building came up a short while ago and I wanted to repost it because it’s interestingly literal; at it’s core is a question about “Communities”…from someone who I know and respect in his approach to and respect for the “space” (another word that simply deserves quotations because it’s so awful). He’s an unsung hero of Community.

This was his question to the group:

When you’re first starting off building your community (literally a handful of people), how do you demonstrate the value you envision the community eventually creating for members?

How do you community build?

The first response was from Ryan Paugh, who embodies the undefined concept of “Community Builder” better than any written definition I’ve ever seen:

I think that trust is most important. After that, passion. After that, it’s all about fulfilling your promise so people keep coming back for more.

Which got me thinking and keeps me thinking, but this was my response:

I agree with Ryan on passion; if you’re an early member of something you’re passionate about, show it. But…there is no value to defend. A community doesn’t have value until the community decides so. That’s the misperception of community building…it’s not sales. It’s bringing people together and figuring out what they are together, and where the value is as a result of the community they appear to be building. In an early community you’re just a community member…you’re not orchestrating. You’re listening, and celebrating. As a member, you’re sharing your vision of the value that’s happening, but you’re doing that to inspire input, because in the end you don’t own the community.

What do you think?

Because I’m thinking there isn’t an answer right now.

How do you do community building?

I think my answer is that doing community building is building something new for people.

You think they’ll like it.

What’s important to the field and tools and people working at it is how you do that successfully.

Being successful and delivering incredible value for the people you’ve brought together (on and offline) is about listening to them, and letting them be who they want to be. Letting them show you what makes them happy…and then working hard to keep making them happy.

The best people I see working in “Community” are incredibly humble and dedicated to the delight and inspiration of others.

A number of them are in quiet, thankless early stages of their communities. A growing number are at the top, well known, and deliberating trying to define what it means to be great at being responsible for communities. Deliberately trying to raise the bar on the role someone plays when they’re fortunate enough to become responsible for a great community.

The best people I see working in “Community” are still debating how to do “Community”.

I like that.

I like that because I think that means that the best minds in “Community” realize that it’s not about them.

*all emphasis is mine

The stuff we use the most becomes humanized, and Apple caught on to that a long time ago…

Apple refers to its products grammatically as persons and not as objects.  If Steve Jobs is talking about an iPod, an iPhone or an iPad, he will say “iPhone does this” or “iPad does that”, instead of “the iPhone does this” and “the iPhone does that.” You would use the former version to refer to a person, and the latter to an object.Its extremely smart because its so subtle. Well bet most people havent noticed it. And yet its exactly the kind of thing that works. It sends a bunch of powerful subliminal messages about Apple. Our products are unique and very valuable. Perhaps as importantly: We dont speak about our products in the same way as our competitors.

via The Secret to Apples Success: Bad Grammar | The Atlantic Wire.

I’m not sure what this is.

I think I was pondering what became my About page and I realized I wanted someone else to write it.

So I asked them to.

A few months back I sent an email to a group of people I feel lucky to know. People from my past and present who have shaped me. People who inspire me, and people who are my foundation. People who make me laugh, people I’ve worked with…people I’ve dated.

Not everyone I emailed replied, which I expected, because when you read the email I sent them I’d imagine that a few were kind of confused or uncomfortable…

…how often do you ask people what they think of you?

It’s a raw thing to do.

The email:

I thought it’d be fun to set up a piece of my blog to represent the people I really dig, and their thoughts on my projects and writing. It’s narcissism on the surface, for sure, but it’s also my attempt to represent the breath of community I feel when I walk around various cities and spend time on the web. Some of you are bloggers, IRL friends, colleagues, or partners. I sent this to a list of people I respect and really treasure knowing.

Every person on this email is someone I’ve watched do something I’m impressed by.

Feel free to ignore.

D

They knew I might post what they sent me, so on some level this stuff is ‘best behavior’ kind of stuff when it comes to Who I Am; I know being a friend, family, colleague or lover to me isn’t always easy.

It’s not easy, actually.

Nevertheless, here it is, and it’s now my About Me Too page.

Below is a sample…check out this for more.

“Oh goodness where do I begin. I guess 21 years ago when I met you. Over the years you’ve been a constant source of love and amusement, a sounding board for my thoughts and questions, a politics/technology/social media bantering partner-in-good-fun and a run-the-streets-get-in-trouble-music-loving partner-in-crime. You are always the first to support and encourage your friends to live their best life and now you are living yours. You are very, very smart. Smarter than I think you let most people know…even me. You are a great dancer…I think one time some peeps mistook us for a professional dance troupe as we grooved our way into 2am. You are brave for so many reasons and I admire you. Our memories run deep and my love for you even deeper. You are my brother and my friend and our spirits will always dance.”

- Chalise, a garden fox and emotional genius, who is a best friend, sounding board, and spiritual sister -http://www.gardenfoxdesign.com/

“Dshan, I have so much love for you. You’ve got this ease about you, this way of putting your whole self and heart into the world, digitally and offline. I enjoy your laugh and your warmth. Thank you for sharing it as you do.”

- Gwen Bell – thought leader and author of Digital Warriors, who is in many ways a digital sherpa for me - http://www.gwenbell.com/

“I started reading Derek’s blog before I even really knew what a blog was. Years have gone by, and I still anxiously await each of his posts. His writing style is simple and moving; he writes at the heart of life. One of the sharpest ideafreaks I’ve ever met, Derek is a continual source of inspiration for me.”

- Nicole Antoinette, blogger and owner Shatterboxx Media, who is such a stupidly great writer and thinker that it makes me jealous often - http://nicoleisbetter.com - http://shatterboxx.com

There is more. Click here.

Working on a web startup teaches you how to live deliberately.

It’s about making decisions quickly and taking action as a default, rather than the other way around.

It’s uncomfortable at first, in that it’s a deliberate way of being and until you live deliberately, you just don’t know what it’s like to do so.

You see the world differently in that you see it as one possibility after another, and you begin to challenge your own assumptions because you’re spending so much of your time trying to challenge the expectations of other people.

When you don’t take anything for granted and you decide to decide, you stop letting fear be an excuse to put the world off.

It doesn’t mean you’re not afraid to be wrong but it does mean you stop being afraid to fail.

Failing is actually something you realize everyone is doing, all the time, in small and big ways…and not only are you not judging them for it but you notice that the happiest people you know fail hard and fail often. The most successful people you know fail hard and fail often.

The people deepest in love fail hard and fail often, together.

When you stop being afraid to fail, and you decide to make deciding and doing your default, you also quickly realize that a lot of people are stuck.

They’re in a relationship they won’t decide about.

They’re in a job or career they won’t decide about.

They’re internally undecided about who they are.

Which becomes who they are.

You need to realize you’ll probably be wrong, but you won’t know until you decide and do. You need to know that waiting isn’t going to change things…and the things that do change while we wait are happening to us.

Letting things happen to you is very different than making thing happen to you. Making things happen to you is…well…

…well, it’s just better.

It makes you confident, and comfortable with a world you can’t predict. It makes it easier to know who you are, and to be who you are.

It becomes easy to talk about who you are, how you’re feeling, and what you’re doing.

It’s hard, too, so I get why so many people can’t break through the skin of their comfort zone to move forward. They can’t get into the habit of making a decision and taking some action, however big or small it may be, knowing that failure and missteps aren’t just unavoidable; they should be sought out.

That those missteps will be exactly what will make them happy or successful in the end.

I’m not on a pedestal.

I get stuck. I catch myself not deciding sometimes.

When I do catch myself though…I decide to decide and to do something.

You should too.

Image mine, bracelet & note courtesy of Emma, @maurer‘s daughter.