Do What Works for You
Tonight, I found myself in a strange spot. I left a comment on a microblogging site called Plurk where I said that I didn’t much like the service for me. I don’t. The user interface doesn’t work well for me. It’s a little too slow, too disjointed, and doesn’t scale well. It works great if you have a hundred or two hundred people to follow, but beyond that, it gets messy fast.
People responded back that they were upset that I didn’t like it, or that I hadn’t given it much time, etc, etc, etc. All of their thoughts were valid. Except it didn’t matter to me. I’m not saying they shouldn’t like it. I’m not saying it’s not a good platform. All I said was that it wasn’t for me.
Do What Works for You
Welcome to the fishbowl. In here, we get a little bit too excited sometimes. We get zealous about the bleeding edge. We sometimes get tired of things before most of the rest of the Internet has even found it. And we often crave connections and meaning and value out of these shiny objects.
But don’t let people tell you that you’re wrong for not liking something. Not into blogging? Swell. Don’t like Twitter? Fine. Hate podcasts? Perfect. It’s okay not to need/want/love the whole landscape. There are lots of services that people love that don’t fit my personal needs. I appreciate the services, but I’m not using them much.
If you’re here for business, for entertainment, to meet new friends, great. Do what works for you. Don’t let everyone else call you wrong for not liking MySpace, or for liking MySpace. If you’re excited about Second Life, don’t let me tell you that you’re silly just because I’m not a big fan.
Learn what works. Try out lots of things. And then go with what you end up liking. No harm. No foul.
I’ll be over here trying out new things still, but also going with what works for me.
You?
Photo credit, lbonnett
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Inspirations and Origins
We are all derivatives of someone else. It can’t be helped. Musicians have roots in other musical traditions, even if it’s not obvious at first. Nirvana is heavily Beatles-influenced, for instance. Authors are unique-twist copies of other authors. It’s just the way of the world, and how humans evolve.
Recently, I saw a few posts from folks that felt a lot like my posts rewritten a little bit. Now, writing about something that I’m talking about and adding to the conversation is awesome. Rewriting something pretty closely to my own words on your site is probably a little less pleasant to run across. Coincidentally, it looks like David Armano might’ve felt that way, too today. (UPDATED David’s name because I somehow put Darren in a sleepy moment- thanks, Ike).
But it got me thinking about me. I’m inspired by others, and derive some of my skills and abilities from what I’ve learned from others, so instead of bitch about someone copying my stuff, I’m going to praise some people that I have learned from in developing my own presence. (None of this is to blow smoke up these people’s butts. I know most of them. I like most of them. This is about me, and about what goes into the media I make).
Inspirations
- Robert Scoble - I copied the idea of putting my cell number on my site from Robert. Flat out took it for my own, because Robert has proven that it’s a great way to reach out. Robert’s inspired me in other ways, but that’s the most obvious.
- Guy Kawasaki - Not Guy’s blog, but Guy. When I first saw him at a Boston Computer Society event talking about the release of the upcoming Apple Macintosh, I turned to my Dad and said that I wanted to be like Guy. (I seem to recall my Dad telling me that was a bad job idea, but maybe I’m making that up).
- Tom Peters - Not the blog, but Tom. I like his crazy energy and passion. I love his books. I believe a lot of what he says and I use it.
- Annie Proulx - author of The Shipping News. I love her terse style, and use it often in my writing.
- Jeremiah Owyang - I’ll be honest and say pre-Forrester Jeremiah was a little more fun to read, but I like what he’s doing now, too, and I won’t knock him for that. I guess I just admire his coverage of his space, and aspire to do more like that.
- Jon Swanson - From Jon, I get my thinking about storytelling reminders. Jon is a great storyteller. He has a wonderful way of framing things. I’m grateful to that for reminding ME to tell stories.
I could keep going. You could, too.
My big point: none of us are originals. It’s okay. And I’ve DEFINITELY done it myself, where I’ve thought something WAS my thought, only to find out that I was synthesizing something I read a few days back, or a conversation I had (Did that famously badly once, to a friend I love, and had to rescind).
But if you KNOW you’re going to riff off someone, give a little link love and be done with it. Fair?
