One of my favorite take-aways from SXSW was something Ze Frank mentioned at Noah Kagan’s awesome Mixergy event at Elysium on Friday 3/10. It’s at about 37:40 in the video.  The transcript is:

Ze: If they want to be more creative… on FaceBook, it’s a stupid fucking simple challenge, but challenge yourself. Do a weekly challenge with yourself to try to ask a question of the people that you know and try to beat your score in terms of number of responses to that question each week. I literally think it is the best entry into the core premises of social media at its core. Because you start having to ask yourself if you really try to beat your number every week, you’re like, “Oh, maybe I should ask a kind of insidious question that I know would piss some people off and there would be controversy.” The other thing is challenge another person to this kind of activity. I have learned so much from this kind of activity.

You start second guessing yourself and coming up with all of these things. Then you surprise by asking something like super, like simple and honest. I think it’s a really, really wonderful start.

I think this will be more fun for me on Twitter, especially now that I’ve got a new beta of ThinkUp installed on my server. So far, I’ve just started looking through my tweets to see which ones get the most replies, retweets, etc. And, by pure chance, I broke my record today when I asked about examples of “gaming the system”.

Does anyone want to do this with me? The goal is to see if you can break your record every week. It’s not to get the most replies, but just to break your record the highest percentage of weeks since starting.  You should probably install ThinkUp if you can (because it is awesome), or else figure out another way to track this… I think I can allow people to register on my installation of ThinkUp too… yeah, so feel free to do that here if you want.

One killer feature

When working with startups, Ferriss sees one problem popping up over and over. “The biggest weakness I see is companies getting focused on implementing new features,” he says. “That’s the biggest waste of time that I see. They have a viable product that people are paying for and instead of identifying their cheapest avenue for acquiring profitable customers or focusing on polishing the product they already have, they focus on adding ten new features.

via Tim Ferriss on tolerable mediocrity, false idols, diversifying your identity, and the advice he gives startups – (37signals).

I’m hearing this at a very good moment.  I could work on Health Month features all day long… but honestly, I think the game is already off to a great start, and finding new players is 90% of the battle in the near term.

Prompt: Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why? (Author: Alice Bradley)

I’m actually in a multi-year letting go process of some soured relationships from the past.  It’s proving more difficult than I thought.  I don’t think about this person for weeks or maybe months at a time, and yet when I do all of the previous mindsets come back. I guess the brain is good at that… freezing mindsets related to relationships and then unfreezing them when necessary.  It’s why I can visit a friend I haven’t seen in 10 years and feel like nothing has changed.  And so maybe that bodes poorly for my ability to “heal” or even to forgive and forget regardless of the amount of time that passes.

And yet, I do feel like I’m letting go on some nano-scale.  Like maybe how the body replaces one cell at a time until the whole body is new cells every 7 years.  Nothing faster or more productive than that, though.

Hmm… looks like I’m going to be doing as many of these as I can, but probably not all of them.

Quick responses for the couple I missed.

Day 2 (“What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?”)

Everything contributes to writing (particularly private writing).  If it doesn’t, then I write it out until it does.

Day 3 (“Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail.”)

That would have to be Kellianne’s labor and the birth of our son, Niko, of course.  I did write it up in vivid detail already, but I think Kellianne’s version is a lot better.

Day 4 (“How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year?”)

Venturing into the unknown is really the only way to cultivate a sense of wonder.  Wonder is the process of processing something new and beautiful and unique.  It’s only prerequisite is having the confidence to leave your familiar territory, and to go and seek something out in the uncharted territory of life.  Einstein said, “I don’t any special talent. I am just passionately curious.”  Of course, passionate curiosity is a talent.  We are born with it but it will whither on the vine unless we support it and exercise it over the years.  I would say that I probably score high on the curiosity factor compared to others, but I think most of it has to do with lack of fear.  We are all curious, but we are all also scared.  I feel like a series of really difficult experiences in my life (father’s death, divorce, closing a business, almost going bankrupt) has taught me that difficulty is not the problem.  The only way to truly fail is to abandon your sense of self, your family, and your friends.  Always behaving with good intentions, on the other hand, may lead to sadness, loss, and poverty, but the experiences gained will be worth more than those things that were lost.

Knowing that, it’s possible to double down on wonder, the unknown, and to really go after things that you think are valuable.  To make fewer compromises, at least when it comes to the big picture and your intentions.  This applies to both starting a family and starting a new business, as well as maintaining and growing relationships and friendships.

Anyway, so my answer.  I cultivate a sense of wonder by systematically reducing fear.  Pushing back at “the resistance“.  A great book that I’ve mentioned many times before, The War of Art, had a definite impact on my mindset this year.

I’m doing this. Gwen Bell, the organizer, came up to Seattle a bit ago and we really melded minds.  So I helped her put some of the form stuff together for this.  I really want to reflect on this year.  It just so happens that I’m feeling a little crazy right now, and feel like I don’t have any time to do anything, other than stress and spin in circles, but I think some of it might just be too much going on that hasn’t been sorted out in my head.

Prompt: One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

2010 – I came up with a couple cheesy words… and cheesy word that I like best to encapsulate 2010 is “roots”.

This year, with the birth of Niko, I had a series of flashbacks/personal reflections on my own childhood, my parents, etc.  I thought a lot about how I became who I am, and how I can give Niko that same opportunity that I had to really be supported and loved for who I was.  Not a lot of people had that, I realize, and it’s an amazing thing to have had.

I even went so far as to contemplate deeper topics like the origin of life, and the universe, and everything.  Watching pregnancy and childbirth is a mystical experience… it’s like realizing that you’re in a much stranger movie than you originally thought.  The universe is WEIRD and we’re all a part of it… our roots are in the fantastically strange.

And, of course, work wise, I’ve had a long career-crisis of sorts that has lead me to re-think (for the dozenth time maybe) what I really want and need out of work.  Why do I feel so compelled to work on the things I do?  Why do I have this optimism that it will all work itself out?  Am I ignoring some hidden truth that is right in front of me about our own doomedness, or can the opportunities in front of me really be as amazing as I think?  I’ve always wondered if I’m in some giant self-created deception of myself.  And I’ve always talked myself out of it (except for once, in high school, but that’s another story).  I really do believe the root instinct in me is true… that by working on what I love, and having good intentions, and always course-correcting when I get off track on some distraction, that one can work themselves into a situation that can’t fail.  One where doing the work, regardless of how it unfolds, is the reward in itself.

2011 – When I think about being a year from now and reflecting on the year, I think the word I want to choose to represent the year is “leap”.  Of course, I probably always want to leap way ahead each year.  There’s so much to do.  Raise Niko.  Teach him how to walk, talk, explore the world.  Build a company around Health Month.  Raise money.  Hire.  Build a culture.  Find a better home for the family.  Move.  Stabilize our living situation.  Calm down. Get healthier. Stay sane.  In other words, a giant leap from where we are today.  Luckily, my legs are feeling pretty spring-y.

My brain has continued to be rocked on a page by page basis as I read through Punished by Rewards.  It’s leading me down some very weird and potentially interesting thought paths.

Some general impressions.  Intrinsic motivation, as defined by the book, seems to be a synonym for “self-driven interest”.  An honest interest and desire to seek out a certain activity, experience, etc.  Like the book Drive which I read before, intrinsic motivation seems to be very closely tied with autonomy.  Basically, the only way to really enjoy something for itself is to enjoy it on your own terms, with your own intentions, with the least amount of outside control exerted on you as possible.

In fact, as I start learning more about it, extrinsic rewards are really just a form of control.  Control is, if you think about it, enforced consequences.  If you do this, then this will happen.  If that control is coming from outside yourself, it is most likely taking the form of rewards and punishments.  Therefore, rewards and punishments are ways to offset the balance of power, and control, to benefit the rewarder, or the punisher.

Most rewards and punishments, I’m realizing, are given by someone who for some reason or another 1) has some level of control over me, and 2) is using that reward/punishment as a means to maintain that power.  Rewards and punishments help keep the powers-that-be in power.  They are the puppet strings.  They live higher up the cause and effect ladder than we do, and therefore they are closer to the source of all control.

That is, unless you strive to be self-driven, self-determined, and self-motivating.  To be your own boss.

And of course it makes sense. Teachers need to stay in control of their students, and the classroom.  Managers need to stay in control of their employees, and the jobs that need to get done.  We willingly opt in to these hierarchies of power in order to work better as a group.  So chaos and anarchy don’t reign.

Only problem is that, when we are operating within a power dynamic, we behave differently.  We are highly attuned to leadership, authority, etc, and our brains behave differently when we are being watched, or controlled.  Notice how your driving changes when you see a cop in your rear view mirror.  Do you drive more safely?  Not necessarily.  You drive more “invisibly”.  You attempt to stand out less, be less likely to be singled-out for transgression.  Same goes when a teacher walks down your aisle looking at what people are working on.  Or your boss comes over.  Or you’re at a client dinner.  Our brains shift into a more narrow mode where we attempt to comply.  Which is entirely different from the creative thinking that you might do on your own, when nothing is on the line, when you have nobody to answer to and nothing to lose.  When you’re with peers there is not as much fear of standing out… in fact, it’s desirable to differentiate yourself somehow, to be memorable.

Those times when I’m thinking creatively, ignorant of any authority over me, are the times that I do my best work (or, at least the most fulfilling kind).  And it seems that the science also says that this is true… that we work best when we feel autonomous, when we are driven by our own interests, and are able to enjoy the results of our work because they are ours, and not necessarily because we were awarded it by someone else.

How can something like a company, which is basically a power hierarchy, design for autonomy.  To not even safe-guard its own control?  Can something like that even exist?  Or is the unprotected power structure quickly dismantled?  Can the controller ever be okay with the tools used to dismantle itself?

Yesterday I learned about a site that I feel is sort of a kindred spirit to Health Month.  It’s called Social Workout, is based in NYC, and seems to be interested in a lot of the same ideas that I’m interested in.  Basically, bringing the social and game element to health-improvement and behavior-change.

Today I talked with Oliver Ryan about what he’s doing, and we were definitely on the same page about ALL of our ideas.  It’s interesting to run into a business that in many ways is a competitor, but to have nothing but good will for the success of the business.

The way I see it, the world of health + social + games is going to be huge.  Nobody has yet gained traction on the idea though.  It’s a very unique place to be.  It’s like sitting in a canoe in a small pond with a few other canoes, knowing that a glacier is melting right around the corner, and would be filling the entire valley surrounding us with gushing, clear, beautiful water.  In the meantime, we’re building bigger boats.

I’m going to be in NYC for 1 day next month and can’t wait to meet the Social Workout team.  Best of luck to you guys and let’s keep working on this fascinating problem.

Check out their site!

The behaviorist’s conception of humans as passive beings whose behavior must be elicited by external motivation in the form of incentives is, by any measure, outdated. Although the work done by some modern psychologists continues to rely implicitly on this assumption, more and more researchers have come to recognize that we are beings who possess natural curiosity about ourselves and our environment, who search for and overcome challenges, who try to master skills and attain competence, and who seek to reach new levels of complexity in what we learn and do. This is more true of some people than others, of course, and in the presence of a threatening or deadening environment, any of us may retreat to a strategy of damage control and minimal effort. But in general we act on the environment as much as we are acted on by it, and we do not do so simply in order to receive a reward. — Punished by Rewards, pg 25

This book has more insight per sentence than the average pop psychology or nonfiction book.  It’s pretty much blowing my mind on every page.

Google Buzz

Facebook login misunderstanding

Tumblr stealing the pitchfork account

The last thing Sarah Palin said

Whatever you want

I think this post from Ryan at the Barbarian Group, The Buzzkillers, does a great job of stating the phenomenon in clear terms.  People on the Internet are becoming more and more outraged by the day.  The things to be outraged about has not increased over the last year (I would argue that they have gone way down, thanks to another target of some outrage, and the general leveling of the universe to sanity), but the tools of outrage are clearly blossoming.  Twitter.  Hi.

Even John Stewart felt compelled to comment on the matter.

I feel like we’ve been exercising the outrage muscle for the last few years.  I suppose George W. Bush got us hooked.  And the media likes outrage because… well the media likes what it likes.

Just like the best way to lose weight is to eat right and exercise frequently, the truth in this case is less than interesting.  Truth is boring.  Most of the things that we’re getting outraged about don’t deserve the outrage, and one of these days the boy who outraged about the wolf is gonna learn his lesson.  But it’s not going to be for a long time, and it’s going to be boring when it happens.

How can I explain the never-ending irrationality of human behavior?

We say we want one thing, then we do another. We say we want to be successful but we sabotage the job interview. We say we want a product to come to market, but we sandbag the shipping schedule. We say we want to be thin but we eat too much. We say we want to be smart but we skip class or don’t read that book the boss lent us.The contradictions never end. When someone shows up and acts without contradiction, we’re amazed. When an athlete just does the sport, or when a writer just writes the words, we can’t help but watch, astonished at the purity of their actions. Why is it so difficult to do what we say we’re going to do?

The lizard brain.

via Seth’s Blog: Quieting the lizard brain.

I’m in total agreement with Seth and Merlin Mann in regards to the quiet, mysterious, and often counter-productive power of the lizard brain.

I like how Seth has given the power a name: The Resistance.  The Resistance is what makes you do things other than what you really want to do.  The Resistance works through almost every aspect of our reasoning and emotions, from fear to really good excuses.

I just bought The War of Art that both Seth and Merlin recommended in their recent podcast. Reading books is something that The Resistance loves to do, as it serves as a form of procrastination.  Well I did it anyway.

One point for The Resistance.

I got 12 out of 17 of my predictions right.

What I got right:

1. It’ll be called the iPad
2. It’ll have a 10? screen (9.7, close enough)
3. It will run a new version of the iPhone OS, and come with a new SDK
4. It’ll have a new version of iTunes on it
5. It’ll sell books, magazine subscriptions, TV shows, and movies through iTunes
6. The App Store will offer a selection of iPhone apps (I assume we’ll need to re-submit our apps to be compatible with the Tablet before they show up)
7. No webcam
8. Yes geo-location
9. Some new multi-touch gestures to wow us
10. It will have a screen keyboard and an option for a bluetooth keyboard (actually, was a keyboard dock, but close enough)
11. It won’t have Bing as the default search engine
12. It will be available for pre-order, but won’t ship until at least March (no pre-order yet, but I’m assuming soon)

What I got wrong:

1. It’ll be something like $999 and have some way for a phone company to subsidize it if you sell your soul to them (was actually cheaper than I thought, so didn’t need the phone company subsidy)
2. There will be multiple carriers offering 3G connectivity, not just AT&T (I heard something about it being unlocked, so there’s hope)
3. The same will be available for iPhone users
4. It’ll have some drawing on the screen, or handwriting on the screen, capability
5. It will support Flash (I assume not, since they didn’t explicitly show it, but could be wrong)

Not bad, really.

I did get really excited about the possibility of creating a new “web content store” for people to sell subscriptions and issues of their own content… but that’s seems to have been an innovation entirely owed to the creative brain-turnings of Apple fans.  It’s interesting to think about how innovation can happen when we try to guess other peoples’ innovations.

Anyway, back to work everyone!

I might as well write them down because I think it’ll be funny to compare predictions to reality tomorrow.

1. It’ll be called the iPad
2. It’ll have a 10″ screen
3. It’ll be something like $999 and have some way for a phone company to subsidize it if you sell your soul to them.
4. There will be multiple carriers offering 3G connectivity, not just AT&T
5. The same will be available for iPhone users
6. It will run a new version of the iPhone OS, and come with a new SDK
7. It’ll have some drawing on the screen, or handwriting on the screen, capability
8. It’ll have a new version of iTunes on it
9. It’ll sell books, magazine subscriptions, TV shows, and movies through iTunes
10. The App Store will offer a selection of iPhone apps (I assume we’ll need to re-submit our apps to be compatible with the Tablet before they show up)
11. No webcam
12. Yes geo-location
13. Some new multi-touch gestures to wow us
14. It will have a screen keyboard and an option for a bluetooth keyboard
15. It will support Flash
16. It won’t have Bing as the default search engine
17. It will be available for pre-order, but won’t ship until at least March

Those are my guesses!  Totally uneducated, as they are all based entirely on rumors, hear-say, hopes, dreams, hype, and out of this world expectations.

I also fully hope that there’s something that is cooler and more amazing than all of those predictions put together, because as I can currently imagine it, it’s still not something that I would necessarily buy right away.  And I want it to be something that changes the world (more than the Segway).

We’ll see, nerds!

The Regressive Imagery Dictionary is totally amazing.  It’s a set of 3,000 or so words separated into 3 main categories: Primary, Emotional, and Secondary.  It suffers from bad labeling.

From what I can tell, the Primary category is for very physical, basic, almost animalistic concepts, sensations, instincts, and passions.  The Emotional category is for the emotions of course, but more like the moods that we go through throughout the day rather than the initial reactions to everything.  And Secondary is all about rationality, thought, cognition, abstract thinking, etc.

It takes a text file of any sort and parses out the words to figure out which categories (and the magic comes from the subcategories, like Icarian Imagery), the text is heaviest in.

You end up with percentages of the top level Primary, Emotional, and Secondary categories, but you also get a lot of information about how the text scored in all of the subcategories.

A few of my favorite subcategories include:

• Primary -> Need -> Sex
• Primary -> Rare Knowledge -> Timelessness
• Primary -> Rare Knowledge -> Icarian Imagery
• Secondary -> Moral Imperative
• Emotion -> Anxiety
• Emotion -> Glory

Someone was even helpful enough to port the script to Ruby. I’ve got a plan to put this into use on 750words.com in the next couple days.  It’s gonna be pretty awesome, I think.

“Stars are not important. There’s nothing interesting about stars. Street lamps are very important because they’re very so rare. As far as we know there are only a few million of them in the universe. And they were built by monkeys!” – Terry Pratchett on religion

Wow, and just realized that the complete collection of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos is available for instant play on Netflix!

I like this point.

We’re living in a stylistic tropics. There’s a whole generation of people able to access almost anything from almost anywhere, and they don’t have the same localised stylistic sense that my generation grew up with. It’s all alive, all “now,” in an ever-expanding present, be it Hildegard of Bingen or a Bollywood soundtrack. The idea that something is uncool because it’s old or foreign has left the collective consciousness.

I think this is good news. As people become increasingly comfortable with drawing their culture from a rich range of sources—cherry-picking whatever makes sense to them—it becomes more natural to do the same thing with their social, political and other cultural ideas. The sharing of art is a precursor to the sharing of other human experiences, for what is pleasurable in art becomes thinkable in life.

From The death of uncool, by Brian Eno (via Rick Webb)

It is weird to notice this change because it is happening right under our feet. It’s difficult to tell if it’s simply because we’re in the present right now that all styles seem to exist in the present, or if our sense of time and style and aesthetic has actually moved from being something that moves and changes to something that simply gets wider and wider.