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technacea

exploring technology's impact on our lives

Jeremiah Owyang is celebrating the third anniversary of his blog today and posted a handy little piece of advice: “Pay yourself first.” It’s good advice and we’ve all heard it before. What I found interesting though is in how he defines paying himself first:

“I put in a lot of passion, and read and blog nearly every morning (It’s 3:51am right now) before I check any email (which is paying someone else), have an editorial calendar, and am slowly writing drafts (there are 413 of them right now) each day as I collect little bits of information, or get ideas.”

My notice here is that his definition of paying himself first–blogging, is how I define his biggest contribution to the community. I don’t think it’s any accident that Jeremiah has risen to the blogger A-list over the last three years. To paraphrase something that Brian Klemmer said to me last week, “We define success as position, acquisition, and consumption and then wonder why well paid people don’t contribute and take responsibility.”

Congratulations Jeremiah on all you’ve accomplished and will continue to. Thanks for demonstrating a spirit of contribution!

Note: Jeremiah, Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, & Mark Silva are participating in an SFAMA panel discussion on small business, tech bloggers, and social media next Thursday n

Bluetrain 55/85 and the “Use” of ArtMay 6

Bluetrain 55/85

I’m very excited - this week I received my Bluetrain print from Hugh MacLeod of gapingvoid.com fame. Here is close up of the work from Hugh’s gallery site, gapingvoidgallery.com:

If you don’t know Hugh, I suggest that you take a few minutes and peruse his blog - paying particular attention to his original How to be Creative post that is coming out soon as a book titled Ignore Everybody, The Global Microbrand, and the Hughtrain

Are You Throwing Rocks or Cookies?February 25

A Tale of Two Neighbors

Last week, my girlfriend had to go out in the rain and get her dog, Pearl out of the back yard because Pearl was barking at the neighbor on the other side of the back fence. Pearl is a rescue dog and has a highly developed sense of “her” territory. It apparently extends to anything she can hear.

This neighbor, upon moving in several years ago got tired of Pearl’s barking at him every time he was in his own back yard. His solution was to throw rocks at Pearl. It was witnessed, and after being challenged, he stopped throwing rocks. But Pearl never forgave him. As a result, he has no peace in his own back yard unless my girlfriend is home to call Pearl into the house.

When a new neighbor moved into the house next door, Pearl of course began barking at him. His response? He came over, met Pearl and brought her a cookie. There after, anytime Pearl would bark, he would talk to her over the fence using her name and occasionally throw over a cookie. This neighbor is now Pearl’s new best friend of course, so she doesn’t bark at him anymore.

Which neighbor are you?

We are in a tough economy and when people feel threatened it tends to bring out their more primitive,

A Celebration of the NowJanuary 23

The significance and excitement of Tuesday (1/20/09) has been almost more than I can fully realize. Yes, there is great work to be done and immense problems to be solved, however; this is a rare time for me when the emotional bests the pragmatic in my own heart. I hear the calls not only from my own practical self but others to throw off the pageantry and simply get to work with the business of turning the country around, but my heart asks a basic defiant question.

Why shouldn’t we allow ourselves and our nation to celebrate the good for the same duration as we require ourselves to mourn the bad? Certainly we elected Barack Obama to lead the nation, we expect him to hit the ground running and by all indications this is exactly what he will do but I am compelled to stop and savor this moment by allowing it to sweep me up in feelings that I would typically brush aside as having little practical merit. I feel a sense of hope and optimism and I am resolved to allow myself to experience these emotions without regret, cynicism, guilt or embarrassment.

What follows is beyond my control, but what is fully within my control is my ability to enjoy the now without h

How Disillusioned Do You Want To Be?December 30 2008

Reading FriendFeed tonight and a particular comment stood out and got me to thinking more about disillusionment.

If 2008 goes down in history as nothing else, it will go down as a year when many realized that they were laboring under some very large illusions. The shock of those illusions falling away is evidenced daily in our headlines: the housing market, the stock market, and even personal tragedy as a result of the Madoff scandal.

We all have our illusions. And if you’re reading this, odds are that you’ve had a few of them shattered recently. I’ve certainly had my share of disillusionment and disappointment this year and frankly I don’t expect that 2009 is going to be much different.

Further more, I really don’t want it to be. By definition, to be disillusioned means to no longer be under an illusion. And how is that not a good thing?

As Stephen Covey put it so eloquently in