Category: Opinion

Got Drum, Going Tribal

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I’ve been reading more Seth Godin lately and I just closed the cover of Tribes.  And I’ve been thinking more about my earlier post, Uncubed.  I originally coined the term to capture that sense of liberation from an institutional way-of-life or way-of-thinking.  “Out of the box” thinking is now trapped in the box of institutional vernacular.  Uncubed is a state of mind and purpose achieved after having lived in The Matrix for a while.  It’s an affirmation of or commitment to positive, professional change.  And I think my next role will focus on helping companies, organizations and individuals become uncubed.  More on this later…

One of my favorite lines from Tribes is that “the art of leadership is understanding what you can’t compromise on.”  Re-read that one line and think about it for a second.  Rather than focus on a world of unlimited possibilities, understand first where you’re not going to give ground under ANY circumstances.

Tribes…great book…on to the next!

Just Follow The Yellow Brick Road…

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I just finished reading an article by Seth Godin, The Paralysis of Unlimited Opportunity, and I think it has an important lesson for entrepreneurs.  Since starting the Inbound Marketing practice at Walden back in early March, I notice most of my dialog with clients and partners is not about what’s possible.  Sure, we talk about timelines and budgets, and whether it’s realistic to double site traffic in less than a month.  But more often than not we’re sifting through all of the different ways we can accomplish what we want.

Want to enable eCommerce on a site or for your business?  There are a zillion different shopping carts and dozens of credible payment gateways.  Need to manage content more effectively?  Hundreds of CMS systems are a click away.  And tools for monitoring Social Media or SEO?  The ocean of options gets larger every day.  Have you tried to pick a cell phone lately?

In the 90’s we were preoccupied with what might be possible with Internet technology.  In 2010 we are overwhelmed with possibilities.  The Yellow Brick Road is gone and now we can get to Oz by bus, subway, train or plane.  And Seth’s guidance… artificially limit choices… is vital for entrepreneurial success.  There are too many choices.  The most successful business owners I know are expert at blocking out noise and just getting the work done.  It doesn’t matter whether you use a GPS, Google Maps, or that compass app for the iPhone.  All that matters is that you keep walking down your Yellow Brick Road.

Brilliant Design: A Blog Post Fit for the iPad

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My friend David Burmon (and partner here at Walden) purchased an iPad for his wife as a Mothers’ Day gift over the weekend.  This is not unusual for David.  I’m writing from my new MacBook Pro and I’ve read a few articles about the iPad (and held one in the Apple store before a lunch meeting) so I asked him how well the gift was received.  His reaction was very unusual for David; he raved about the thing….using a long string of explicatives (which is not uncommon for David….but usually reserved for important matters like his amazing collection of baseball memorabilia).  That great, eh?  Over lunch I did a bit more Google research and found a great blog post about the iPad by my friend Chuck Hollis.  Go ahead…read it.  It will only take a minute or two…

Why is Chuck’s post great?  Notice his conversational style and use of smaller, focused paragraphs.  And of all of the iPad hype, I don’t know anyone who has written a more effective title.  The post invites us to watch Chuck’s family as though it were an episode of Modern Family (which also features a bit about the iPad); it’s a great short-story in the making.

And here’s the interesting part, now that you’ve read his post.  We learn about the iPad, a consumer product with massive visibility.  We also learn a lot about Iomega, a subsidiary of EMC with a lot less press than the latest Apple brainchild.  By including Iomega in an iPad story the reader is subtly invited to consider doing the same;  I identify with Chuck’s story…and I consider an Iomega NAS device as part of my new Apple home reboot.

I haven’t asked Chuck if the Iomega mention was just part of the story or a more intensional tip-of-the-hat to his employer but it doesn’t really matter.  The sincere blend of personality and technology create an experience that is at once informative and enjoyable.  Nice job Chuck!

Uncubed

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I changed the tagline of my Google IM client to “Uncubed” yesterday, drawing questions and congratulations. I was a big fan of MTV Unplugged, of the way it promoted or destroyed artists with an apparently simply challenge; drop the electromagnetic hype and prove what you can do au natural; great bands…and I’m thinking about daring candidates like Nirvana…became greater in a way that was fresh with authenticity; they became real.

Despite the obvious contradiction of perspective (“Uncubed” implies that you’ve sacrificed perspective for flatland, no longer capable of filling volume and stuck occupying an area), the expression captures the dual sensation of falling into a cavernous challenge and of explosive energy release from the realization that your life  is no longer confined to a grey fabric box (literally or metaphorically).

So here’s to a life Uncubed!