UNDERDOG of PERFECTION

There have been plenty of manifestos over the years, perhaps the most famous being Marx’s The Communist Manifesto. The manifesto that has defined the first decade of the 21st century, or at least the decade’s online component, is without a doubt The Cluetrain Manifesto.

Defining Success

I have always harbored almost a knee-jerk disdain for Cluetrain, quite possibly just because I think its title is stupid. It doesn’t help that the first of its Lutheresque “95 theses” is:

Markets are conversations.

I don’t really believe this. Markets are places where people try to sell you stuff. Luring you into conversation is just a sales tactic. Everything that follows in Cluetrain is dependent upon this one central illusion: make the market look like it is two people engaging in a meaningful interaction, instead of simply exchanging money for goods and services. Even Homer Simpson’s inner voice knows the value of a $20 bill, and not since Ayn Rand has capitalism so effectively masqueraded as philosophy.

This doesn’t make the market evil, it just exaggerates the human value of the quest for profit. Which brings me back to the Jason Fried interview I linked to in part one. Fried says:

It really bothers me that the definition of success has changed from profits to followers, friends, and feed count. This crap doesn’t mean anything. Kids are coming out of school thinking, I want to start the next YouTube or Facebook. If a restaurant served more food than everybody else but lost money on every diner, would it be successful? No. But on the Internet, for some reason, if you have more users than everyone else, you’re successful. No, you’re not.

Fried is absolutely right about the dangers in the Internet era of equating popularity with success. But the original equation is no less dangerous. Does profit equal success? That depends. Is profit your goal?

Meeting your goals equals success.

The problem is that following this axiom requires that you have goals, and sadly that often seems too much to ask.

I think most people have an innate desire to matter. We want to feel like our lives are important, or at the very least, that they mean something. That’s been the essence of religion for thousands of years. Fame is an easy thing to latch onto in this regard: if everyone knows who I am, then I must be important. Eventually, though, this quest for fame is going to result in dissatisfaction, regardless of the outcome. Either you fail to become famous, languish in obscurity, and lament your lack of success, or you achieve the fame you seek, realize it’s a hollow victory, and continue to seek out one new fix after another. But they’re all the same, and you always come down.

The Freedom to Be Productive

Unwarranted hallowing of “The Market” aside, both Cluetrain and Jason Fried’s philosophy represent a prevailing attitude of this decade: that breaking down the old, rigid structures of the 20th century corporate world will produce happier, more productive employees/citizens/people. I agree. But there’s a major problem: it’s just really hard for a calcified corporate hierarchy to adapt to this kind of flexibility. Lots of companies have tried it, to be sure. I’ve been there. But the efforts are usually hampered by lack of enthusiasm and buy-in by the employees, lack of focus and direction by management, or sheer inertia.

At best small pockets — rogue departments — can collectively “break the rules” and implement a more flexible structure, but they’re destined to remain on the fringe. Or, a few of the principles will be implemented company-wide, but they’ll be so mutilated by that point that they result in absurdities like once-a-month “denim days” where employees have to pay (in the form of a charitable donation) for the “privilege” of dressing comfortably.

There’s another problem that doesn’t get stated explicitly in Inc.’s article on Jason Fried’s Facebook-like recitation of the daily minutiae of his life. He gets up before 7 AM. He does some work while he’s getting ready. He arrives at work (or works from home) around 10 AM, and stays until 6 PM. Then after his regimen of Fox TV, he may put in a few more hours of work at night. In other words, his job is his life. It’s integrated with other things, to be sure. He fits in plenty of non-work activities during the day. But work is always there. It’s no surprise that he’s single, no kids. There may not be a causal connection, and if there is, one can’t determine from the article in which direction it points. But the simple fact remains that a life this focused on work cannot simultaneously accommodate a relationship, much less kids.

This was the problem I had at my last job before I went freelance. In many ways, it was the ideal place for someone of my geeky persuasion to work. And I often lament that I am not a part of that world anymore. But the arrangement was unsustainable for me: developers pulling “all-nighters,” crashing on couches in the lobby, getting pizza delivered in at 10 PM, these are all standard practice. It’s a culture of work that expects a level of availability that someone who’s also responsible for two young children simply cannot afford to provide. But it’s an inherent element of the kind of “flexible” work environment these philosophies inspire.

And so it was that I set out on my own. The environment I’m attempting to create for myself is, in many ways, not unlike that which I left, or which I’ve been criticizing in the preceding paragraphs. The major difference is in the amount of time I am expected to devote to work (that is, billable hours) versus the other aspects of my life which, to many an employer’s chagrin, continue to exist. But this true freedom comes at a price: less billable hours means… less money. And not being on someone else’s payroll means I’m shouldering all of the risk of the operation. The business is mine to make into a success or to allow to become a failure. But at least it’s mine.

Call to action: Find ways to work that work for you.

To be continued…

I’ve been thinking a lot lately. Or, not so much thinking, but thinking it would be nice to have more time to think. Or more time to do anything. I want to be more productive, even if I’m not sure what I want to produce. I haven’t had time to figure that out yet.

I’ve noticed a convergence of ideas lately, both inside my own head and in the larger world, a world I increasingly interact with primarily via the Internet, despite the fact that I am fully capable of going outside and interacting with it directly. These ideas are mostly circling around a disturbing premise: the tools that are allowing us to share these ideas are consuming our ability to produce them in the first place.

I’ve become something of a Facebook and Twitter addict over the course of the past year. I need the constant affirmation they provide in the form of comments from acquaintances and strangers alike on the random scraps of brainstuff I frequently distribute via this medium. Comments tell me people know I exist. They make me feel important. Increasingly, they serve as a sterilized substitute for genuine human interaction.

But there may just be some hope yet: I’m seeing encouraging signs that I’m not alone in… uh… being alone. Joshua Wentz (of SIDEDOWN) laments the vacuous experience of Facebook. Jason Fried (of 37signals) tells Inc. how popularity on social networking sites does not equal success. Nick Kallen (of Twitter, no less!) discusses how our brains buckle under the sheer mass of information in the modern world.

And so, I present my manifesto. My statement of beliefs about… something. I’m just not sure what.

Family > Work > Social Networking

I need to prioritize. We all need to. What’s really the most important to us, or, more accurately, who is? Our interactions with the people who really mean something to us, who are a part of our daily existence, must come first. These people are our “family,” whether we’re related by blood or not, whether our relationships are legally recognized by the government or not.

Work is next. Work is what we do that matters to us. It’s not necessarily what we get paid to do — though if we’re lucky, we can sometimes make that happen. It’s what drives us and fulfills us.

Social networking? Well, now we begin to see its real place in the hierarchy of things. These tools can help us to reconnect with the people we care about but with whom we no longer share physical space. They can help us meet and develop meaningful relationships with people whose interests we share, but whose physical space we never have (and likely never will). But much of the time they simply provide needless distractions, inundating us with useless details about the lives of people who don’t really mean that much to us. Just because information exists, doesn’t mean it’s important.

Call to action: Delete your social networking bookmarks.

To be continued…

I’ve been meaning to write about Verizon’s “There’s a map for that” commercials since I first saw them, but now that AT&T is suing, this seems like a good time to remedy my oversight.

The issue AT&T has with the maps in this commercial is, in my opinion, a legitimate one: Verizon’s entire network is 3G, so the gaps on the red map really are gaps. But AT&T maintains a large 2G (EDGE) network, in addition to its rather spotty 3G network. So the white parts of the AT&T map don’t necessarily represent dead zones for AT&T customers.

But there’s another issue with this map, and it’s the same problem I have with election result maps: the U.S. population is not evenly distributed across the physical landscape. It certainly looks bad that AT&T offers no 3G service anywhere in the four-state region of Montana, Wyoming and North and South Dakota. But the collective population of those states is under 3 million — representing about 1% of the total U.S. population — distributed over 393,000 square miles — representing 10.4% of total U.S. land area. That’s less people than in the St. Cloud/Twin Cities/Rochester blob of blue across east-central Minnesota in the map, and it’s far less than the over 4 million people in the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn — an area under 100 square miles.

So, as I’ve said before while studying election maps, the colored areas don’t really tell the true story. Maybe AT&T has a lot of gaps in its map, but there aren’t very many people in those gaps, either.

Now, this is not to go too far in defense of AT&T in this situation. I haven’t had any significant problems with AT&T’s 3G coverage in Minneapolis (although I have noticed my iPhone occasionally dropping down to the EDGE network — a situation that reminds me of Mitch Hedberg’s joke about escalators), but as the Engadget article notes, there are apparently major problems with their network in the most densely-populated areas of the country — San Francisco and New York.

Perhaps the most interesting thing for me in this article, though, is the following claim from AT&T:

Verizon’s misleading advertising tactics appear to be a response to AT&T’s strong leadership in smartphones. We have twice the number of smartphone customers… and we’ve beaten them two quarters in a row on net post-paid subscribers. We also had lower churn — a sign that customers are quite happy with the service they receive.

It’s no secret that much of AT&T’s recent success, especially where smartphones are concerned, is due solely to the iPhone. And it’s also no secret that it’s the iPhone hardware/software combo, not AT&T’s service, that iPhone owners are overwhelmingly satisfied with. Consider AT&T’s exclusive rights to the iPhone, and that pretty much negates any value in AT&T’s claim to customer satisfaction.

Technology has come a long way since the ’80s. I remember this commercial. I don’t remember it seeming so utterly stupid. Maybe that’s because I was only about 10 when it originally aired. Or maybe it’s because back then this was cutting-edge.

All I know is, the phrase “sneaker phone” sounds way more natural to me than it should. I guess this commercial embedded itself in my subconscious all those years ago, permanently tainting my worldview.

Source: Merlin Mann

Update: 1991? Holy crap. Yeah, I didn’t watch it far enough when I first posted this to hear the voice-over guy say, in a semi-lewd tone, “the revealing 1991 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue” (cue whistles). Since that comes out in February (or so I’m told), that would mean this commercial is most likely from 1990 or very early 1991, meaning I was 16 when it aired. You’d think by then I’d have been old enough, or at least jaded adolescent enough, to see how utterly stupid it was. Maybe.

Yes, it’s only been about 10 days since my last redesign, but I’m already at it again. I always knew that the current design was little more than a palate cleanser… or a rebound relationship.

Ultimately, what it came down to for me was that I just hadn’t put the kind of care and attention to detail into the design that I really want. With blogs it’s easy to put 99% of your design energy into the header, and then kind of just let the rest of it fall together in the default structure provided by the blog software. In other words, a long, undifferentiated stream of posts on the home page.

Well, I’m trying to give things more structure, as well as making the new design both more functional and more fun. And yes, I’m reusing every design trend from 2007. Is it too soon for the shiny floor effect to seem “retro”? Hopefully the sparkles convey an adequate level of irony. No, they won’t be animated.

Due to the level of attention I’m giving this design, I’m not going to be able to finish it in an evening like most of my past redesigns. But I’m too excited about it to hold back just a teaser (the screenshot detail shown here). Plus maybe this will keep the pressure on me to actually finish it.

Update: “Is this it?” Yes and no. I’ve gone ahead and rolled out the new look and feel with the old page structure. So it looks like the new site design, but it’s not. The changes that remain to be made are mostly on the home page, and involve significant modifications to the WordPress theme templates. It’s another level of tinkering under the hood than the superficial design changes I’ve rolled out up to this point. And I want to take the time to get it right. I’d also like to see if I can really implement Helvetica Neue Condensed Black as my headline font, without having to embed it. So, for now, it looks different but acts the same. More changes to come…