A few books arrived at my doorstep today. One of which I ordered because of an interview with the author, Steven Pressfield, I had listened to at Accidental Creative (worth your time).
Appearing to be somewhat of a compact read I began what I hope will be the studying of The War of Art over a few day’s span. My anticipation was met by one of the first pages, which I’ll share with you:
I know most of you are Seth Godin subscribers already, but for those of you who aren’t, I wanted to point out this post…
“May I help you?” is almost a useless thing to say.
If you want to end a conversation with a teenager, just ask, ‘How was school today?’
If you want to end a conversation with a customer, just ask if you can help. Instead, ask, ‘can I get you a hot drink?’ or ‘what’s the worst thing about your insurance company?’ or ‘one slice or two?’
We all know it’s a bull shit thing to ask, so why do people still say it? Habit? How do you open it up to customers?
This is a nice freebie follow-up to my previous post on podcasting. This series is an essential primer for performing, producing, and promoting your podcast. It’s a three segment tutorial featuring experts in each area and is worth the 75 or so minutes in it’s full length.
You’ll have to register for this on-demand Apple Event, but no worries, it’s free and only takes a couple of minutes.
To watch the videos when you wish, login or register here, and you’ll be good to go.
…When you have it under control it is a beautiful thing… and when you don’t have it under control *judo death blow!*
I imagine the scene at the Digg offices last week looked a lot like one of the final scenes in the matrix trilogy movie where the Soldiers of Zion are defending the dock area from the millions of sentinels swarming in.
Running a Web 2.0 site means your members are the life blood of your community. They create the content. They create the value. This is a lot of power to put into the hands of strangers.
A humorous post from Stanleybing.com (without 50 bullshit pages of clicking) author of 100 Bullshit Jobs … and How to Get Them.
1. Advertising executive
Create perceived need/value for inherently generic or worthless products
$$: Ground-level workers with writing ability move quickly to the top, immediately snagging low to mid-six figures; those who can spin mythological concepts surrounding quotidian household objects can command up to seven figures.
The upside: Great expense account living, see your handiwork everywhere, the wonderful feeling of being creative and corporate at the same time.
The downside: Must take meetings with the AFLAC duck.
The dark side: You’re considered a dinosaur at forty.
I was able to get my hands on a Joost invitation after a bit of begging. It’ll still be a few more days until they open registration to the public. Vinod was nice enough to share one with me, which means I can now invite as many people as I wish.
If you’d like an invite post your e-mail address in the comments and I’ll send one over.
First impressions: This will change the way we watch television. Chat with friends watching the same channel, on-demand viewing of segments, accessible from any mac or pc. This is huge.
Each generation of technology seems to enable us to edge closer to using what the pros do for a smidgen of the cost. What used to require an Avid studio and monstrous computers ($$$$$) can now be done in Final Cut Pro on a Macbook ($$). Same for audio as well.
If you’re like me, you probably bought a headphone/microphone combo at some point to upgrade from the dollar store mic included with most computers. Today, I want to take a look at a kit that’s several levels above that, and won’t set you back too much.
So I was browsing my latest issue of Inc. Magazine (The Handbook of the American Entrepreneur) when I came across an 8-page spread in the back with the tag “Special Advertising Section” at the top. While this advertising section looked like most others you’d find in the back of a magazine… this advertising section amazed me (In a bad way). The ads looked liked they had been thrown together from the kind of crappy banner images you might find advertising on cheap sites. Some of the ads were so stretched and pixelated that the domain names were nearly illegible.
See the AD below for the Yale MBA… How well is their domain shown??
Notice that the text in the ad above is clear.
This is either what happens when you spend too much time analyzing the competition, or if your April Fool’s prank is a few weeks behind schedule.
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| Yahoo’s original | AOL’s clone |
Digg could take what Calacanis did with Netscape as a compliment, but this is just asking for a lawsuit.