Category: Thought of the Day

Drawing the Line with Corn

Despite (or because of) growing up among fields and fields of it I’m not a big fan corn. It’s alright in pancakes (especially from Maria’s) and Red Hot Blues, just not on the cob, frozen, or in a can, or in my food as a sweetener. I’m not the only one. Mexico’s sugar industry has a lot to lose from imported US high fructose corn syrup and a number of studies have declared HFCS dangerous to our health.

So, I was pretty disappointed to see HFCS as the third ingredient (before dried apples) in Great Harvest’s otherwise healthy and ever delicious Apple Crunch.

I’d like to take all the corn out of my food and put more of it in my gasoline especially in places like Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

Looks like Senator Mark Dayton has similar view, at least on ethanol:

“We need to take whatever actions necessary to increase the use of alternative fuels such as ethanol. Right now in Minnesota, E-85 fuel which is 85% ethanol costs 22 to 25 cents a gallon less than regular unleaded, but many consumers cannot use it because they don’t have a vehicle with a flexible fuel engine.”

A Business Model for Abundance

Heretofore, most business were founded on the idea of scarcity. Being the One and Only as Seth Godin describes.

If you’re the only vendor offering something, it used to be easy to make money. Just convince people you’re the only one that can solve their problem. Then surround yourself with huge barriers to entry while locking your customers in with fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

Today, the only things remotely scarce are time and money.

Everything else, like mosquitos in August, are irritatingly abundant; news, exotic fruits, stylish furniture, spam, and reality television. Given the constraints of time and money, what you’re ignoring is as important (if not more so) as what you’re paying attention to. I’ve talked about this before in What Price Garbage Avoidance. I’m going to repeat something I originally wrote there:

“This filtering-out is why Tivo can charge a monthly subscription and why AOL is marketing themselves on virus, spam, and pop-up protection.”

As I’ve been refining Working Pathways’ purpose, ‘filtering out’ is a recurring theme.

Complete eradication (spam filtering) is one avenue. This approach keeps out anything that isn’t already known. Fine for short term, yet completely worthless for staying relevant. As I’ve written before, this is why podcasting was such a huge win for iPod listeners. It brings the unknown into a closed environment. Tivo’s recommendation engine, despite its drawbacks is a more interesting model – filter out things I don’t like, and continually and intelligently offer things I might like.

Today’s media environment is bigger than newspapers, radio, television, and magazines. It includes weblogs, video logs, podcasts, email, video games, satellite radio, DVDs, and SMS. No one can track everything that affects them all the time. Therefore, all of the messages we receive each day are worthless if they don’t answer 1 question:

  1. Why should I pay attention to this right now?

In a hotel concierge study I conducted a few years back, I learned the goal of a good concierge was to fulfill a guest’s need the moment before the guest acknowledged the need. We need more businesses founded on delivering the right information to the right people just before it’s needed.

What else isn’t a crime?

On the 40 acres of rural Wisconsin farmland I grew up on, I build a skateboard mini-ramp. Southern California skateboard and BMX stunt culture was injected into my world of cows and cornfields on a monthly basis via the USPS and magazines like Thrasher, Slap, Freestylin’.

Throughout those magazines was the Skateboarding is not a crime vibe. Bumper stickers, t-shirts, all the propaganda you need. Not that I was ever going to be hassled for skating in my backyard, there was something compelling about that mantra. That despite the vandalism skateboarding can cause, it’s just like basketball or tennis. You know, not a crime.

I spent this afternoon reviewing content for a client. In it, “a speeding ticket is not a crime.” It made me compare the 2 statements. Both are dangerous, both can damage property – personal and public. Yet, one is spoken as a persuasive argument and one is a statement of legal fact.

What if the sentiments were swapped?

What is Failure?

The other day, I was talking with a software engineer about a potential project. During the conversation, he asked if I was ever on a project that failed.

“Failed?”

I’ve worked on thousands of projects and given that more than 50% of project fail. I asked for a definition.

“The project didn’t launch,” he responded.

Given the complexity of even the simplest project, software or otherwise, it still seems like an odd question. The gestation of any project requires a commitment of time and effort – at any point, some external force could (and frequently does) warrant an end to the project. An engineer at Edward’s Air Force base even declared this a phenomenon a law.

All this assumes the project was a good idea to begin with. I’ve been on projects where it became very clear the project was doomed. Bad idea from the outset. It just took a little while to figure out exactly why.

Is this failure? I don’t think so. Especially if “failure” was found quickly. In the long run, stopping a project mid-stream saves time, effort, and probably a reputation or two. The trouble comes in when, despite all the red flags, the project continues onward. Unstoppable, yet acutely aware of the impending demise.

Measuring a success by whether or not a project saw the light of day is like judging how good your day was based on the thermostat reading. It’s just one of many factors.

I think a more interesting question would be, “Have you ever been on a project that succeeded.”

ELSEWHERE 28 Dec 2007:

Testing leads to failure, and failure leads to understanding.” – Burt Rutan

Learning from the 24 Hour Comic Challenge

Yesterday, I attempted to create a 24 page comic in 24 hours. Here is what I learned from my first attempt.

  1. Have the story finished.
    I knew how the story started, that got me 6 pages along. Half way into page 7, I was stuck. Seven characters moving, a handful of relationships established, and nowhere to go. It’d be better to have a complete story ready and use the 24 hours to illustrate it.
  2. Like a marathon, training is required.
    The act of illustrating was stressful for both my brain and my hand. Numerous times throughout the 6 1/2 pages I completed, both refused to cooperate. Maybe there’s a Couch-to-5K plan for illustrators.
  3. Start early.
    I was reviewing student graphic design portfolios during the day, so the first time I put pen-to-paper was 6 hours into the 24. I should have gotten the students to help with the story.

Congrats to all those that participated and completed the challenge.

For the rest of us, next year will also have an April 23rd.

What Price Garbage Avoidance

We’ve got a Rainbow Foods just south of us and a Cub Foods just north of us. Both are just on the border of walking-distance away (that’s a different story). At both stores, I’m struck by how much of we don’t see, how many aisles we don’t walk down, and how much crap we don’t buy. The other day, looking for a change, we picked up a few things at the local Whole Foods store. Though there were still huge sections we avoided, I felt the high fructose corn syrup content of the store was a factor of 10 lower. Refreshing.

The price difference between the Rainbow and the Whole Foods made me wonder:

In the age of scarcity, price is the value of receiving something wanted.
In the age of plenty, price is the value of filtering out something unwanted.

This filtering-out is why Tivo can charge a monthly subscription and why AOL is marketing themselves on virus, spam, and pop-up protection.

I was listening to my backlog of SXSW ( ) music tonight when Rob McColley’s TeeVee came through my iPod. He sings, appropriately:

’cause the free stuff you get these days
I’d pay to keep away from me.

How long does it take to build a website?

A year or so ago, I had this ‘Website-in-a-Weekend’ idea. Walk a group of people from nothing to a nice looking, easy-to-update, custom website in a weekend using WordPress.

Something like this;

  • Day 1: Install WordPress ( ), define categories, pages, generally get everything in place. Add some images and text.
  • Day 2: Edit the layout and CSS. Launch.

WordPress’ Themes are so much more mature in v1.5, so Website-in-a-Weekend is even more do-able.

Digging around the triple-dub this evening, I found some folks that, in the spirit of Scott McCloud‘s 24 hour comic, have raised the bar: Write an entire webapp in 24 hours, including Photoshop comps, CSS, & Javascript.

Considering the months- and years-long projects I’ve been involved in, this makes me wonder: How long does it take to build a useful website?

One Foot Forward, Repeat.

Last winter, I biked at least 10 miles everyday. From the home office to coffee shops and client meetings. Only missed 2 days due to awful weather. This winter, traveling to my clients wasn’t as convenient. Both my road and mountain bikes gathered dust all winter. This week, just in time for spring, I got out on the bike and made that ride downtown.

A couple summers back, Milo, Bob and I spent a week canoeing through the Boundary Waters. As you may have gathered from my Weekend in the Northwoods post, lack of mobile phone service makes me uneasy.

In the middle of a lake, exhausted from paddling all day, with the closest shore a few hundred yards away and still portages away from our day’s target, I came to the simplest of conclusions:

If you stop paddling, you stop moving, and you’ll never get there.

This afternoon, halfway through the ride home, I was winded. Done. Rusty from not riding for 3 months, my legs had enough. At that moment, 4 miles from home, near nothing, I remembered the simplicity of canoeing through the Boundary Waters and thought:

If you stop pedaling, you stop moving, and you’ll never get home.

Cars, buses, and the momentum of our working day often make arriving at our destinations inevitable. Out of our direct control. It’s unfortunate. There’s something refreshing when the only way to move forward is to put one foot forward and repeat.