What are you working on?

A short but powerful post from Seth Godin.

----

If someone asks you that, are you excited to tell them the answer?

I hope so. If not, you're wasting away.

No matter what your job is, no matter where you work, there's a way to create a project (on your own, on weekends if necessary), where the excitement is palpable, where something that might make a difference is right around the corner.

Hurry, go do that.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/ifwOQerr0P4/what-are-you-working-on.html

Sent with MobileRSS for iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

Prophet (peace be upon him)’s Love – Hajj Lectures

(Mina, 8th zul-Hijjah 1431, after Asr prayers) Sheikh Zafar gave a speech about how the Prophet (peace be upon him) used to love his people (ummah) and how his companions used to love him (therefore we should love him (s.a.w) too. Here are the highlights:

• Obeying the Prophet out of love (itaa’at) is obligatory on every Muslim.
• Seyyidna Umar Farooq (r.a.)’s conversation with the Prophet (s.a.w.) about his love for the prophet.
• The Meraj; how Seyyidna Abu Bakr confirmed this incident just be knowing that it was the Prophet who says that this had happened. This gave him the title of As-Siddeeq.
• The Cave of Thawr (Sor) – How Seyyidna Abu Bakr prepared the cave for the Prophet (s.a.w.) and then protected him from a snake-hole. The story of snake; it was waiting for 600 years to see the Prophet (s.a.w.)
• Beautiful conduct of the Prophet (s.a.w.) to his wives.
• The Prophet (s.a.w.) going to Al-Baqee cemetery in the middle of the night to supplicate for his ummah.
• At the time of his death, Prophet (s.a.w.) told Izraeel (a.s.), the angel of death, to give him the pains of death and spare the people in his ummah.

Why Worship Allah – Hajj Lectures

(Mina, 8th zul-Hijjah 1431, after Zohr prayers) Sheikh Riad gave a lecture on the topic of why do/should we worship Allah swt. Here are the highlights:

Who is Allah

• Reference to Aayet el-Kursi – Never sleeps, nor takes a briefest absence as in shallow sleep.
• Gives all bounties to us.
• Only worthy of worship due to His immense attributes, Immense bounties, Immense mercy.

Why do we worship

• Because it is His right upon us, due to the bounties He has given us. Gratitude, therefore, is the essence of worship.
• We need to please Him so that we get Paradise.
• And finally, it is the sustenance to our soul. Our hearts find peace in His worship. It is like food for our spirit.

You will be misunderstood

If you want to drive yourself crazy, read the live twitter comments of an audience after you give a talk, even if it's just to ten people.

You didn't say what they said you said.

You didn't mean what they said you meant.

Or read the comments on just about any blog post or video online. People who saw what you just saw or read what you just read completely misunderstood it. (Or else you did.)

We think direct written and verbal communication is clear and accurate and efficient. It is none of those. If the data rate of an HDMI cable is 340MHz, I'm guessing that the data rate of a speech is far, far lower. Yes, there's a huge amount of information communicated via your affect, your style and your confidence, but no, I don't think humans are so good at getting all the details.

Plan on being misunderstood. Repeat yourself. When in doubt, repeat yourself.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/Q00nnYb7bEc/you-will-be-misunderstood.html

Sent with MobileRSS for iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

Christmas 2.0

Very funny :D
(helps if you know the original story)

Lesley Hazleton - Paradise in Quran

Especially loved her musing on how Quran is to be 'felt' rather than merely analyzed.

I spread your idea because...

I'll spread /your/ idea if you give me at least one of the following reasons.

-----

Ideas spread when people choose to spread them. Here are some reasons why:

1. I spread your idea because it makes me feel generous.
2. ...because I feel smart alerting others to what I discovered.
3. ...because I care about the outcome and want you (the creator of the idea) to succeed.
4. ...because I have no choice. Every time I use your product, I spread the idea (Hotmail, iPad, a tattoo).
5. ...because there's a financial benefit directly to me (Amazon affiliates, mlm).
6. ...because it's funny and laughing alone is no fun.
7. ...because I'm lonely and sharing an idea solves that problem, at least for a while.
8. ...because I'm angry and I want to enlist others in my outrage (or in shutting you down).
9. ...because both my friend and I will benefit if I share the idea (Groupon).
10. ...because you asked me to, and it's hard to say no to you.
11. ...because I can use the idea to introduce people to one another, and making a match is both fun in the short run and community-building.
12. ...because your service works better if all my friends use it (email, Facebook).
13. ...because if everyone knew this idea, I'd be happier.
14. ...because your idea says something that I have trouble saying directly (AA, a blog post, a book).
15. ...because I care about someone and this idea will make them happier or healthier.
16. ...because it's fun to make another teen snicker about prurient stuff we're not supposed to see.
17. ...because the tribe needs to know about this if we're going to avoid an external threat.
18. ...because the tribe needs to know about this if we're going to maintain internal order.
19. ...because it's my job.
20. I spread your idea because I'm in awe of your art and the only way I can repay you is to share that art with others.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/dvgvxZ_PAaM/ideas-spread-when.html

Sent with MobileRSS for iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

How media changes politics

"Mass media is dying, and it appears that mass politicians are endangered as well."

------

If you want to get elected in the US, you need media.

When TV was king, the secret to media was money. If you have money, you can reach the masses. The best way to get money is to make powerful interests happy, so they'll give you money you can use to reach the masses and get re-elected.

Now, though...When attention is scarce and there are many choices, media costs something other than money. It costs interesting. If you are angry or remarkable or an outlier, you're interesting, and your idea can spread. People who are dull and merely aligned with powerful interests have a harder time earning attention, because money isn't sufficient.

Thus, as media moves from TV-driven to attention-driven, we're going to see more outliers, more renegades and more angry people driving agendas and getting elected. I figure this will continue until other voices earn enough permission from the electorate to coordinate getting out the vote, communicating through private channels like email and creating tribes of people to spread the word. (And they need to learn not to waste this permission hassling their supporters for money).

Mass media is dying, and it appears that mass politicians are endangered as well.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/Q08ySC-bIXI/how-media-changes-politics.html

Sent with MobileRSS for iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

Change and its constituents (there are two, and both are a problem)

People who fear they will be hurt by a change speak up immediately, loudly and without regard for the odds or reality.

People who will benefit from a change don't believe it (until it happens), so they sit quietly.

And that's why change in an organization is difficult.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/A2jTx6NY4j8/change-and-its-constituents-there-are-two-and-both-are-a-problem.html

Sent with MobileRSS for iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

Two problems with whining

The first is that it doesn't work. You can whine about the government or your friends or your job or your family, but nothing will happen except that you'll waste time.

Worse... far worse... is that whining is a reverse placebo. When you get good at whining, you start noticing evidence that makes your whining more true. So you amplify that and immerse yourself in it, thus creating more evidence, more stuff worth complaining about.

If you spent the same time prattling on about how optimistic you are, you'd have to work hard to make that true...

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/Y6FJd1MbkKc/two-problems-with-whining.html

Sent with MobileRSS for iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

Deliberately uninformed, relentlessly so [a rant]

Excellent piece.

-----

Many people in the United States purchase one or fewer books every year.

Many of those people have seen every single episode of American Idol. There is clearly a correlation here.

Access to knowledge, for the first time in history, is largely unimpeded for the middle class. Without effort or expense, it's possible to become informed if you choose. For less than your cable TV bill, you can buy and read an important book every week. Share the buying with six friends and it costs far less than coffee.

Or you can watch TV.

The thing is, watching TV has its benefits. It excuses you from the responsibility of having an informed opinion about things that matter. It gives you shallow opinions or false 'facts' that you can easily parrot to others that watch what you watch. It rarely unsettles our carefully self-induced calm and isolation from the world.

I got a note from someone the other day, in which she made it clear that she doesn't read non-fiction books or blogs related to her industry. And she seemed proud of this.

I was roped into an argument with someone who was sure that ear candling was a useful treatment. Had he read any medical articles on the topic? No. But he knew. Or said he did.

You see a lot of ostensibly smart people in airports, and it always surprises me how few of them use this downtime to actually become more informed. It's clearly a deliberate act--in our infoculture, it takes work not to expose yourself to interesting ideas, facts, news and points of view. Hal Varian at Google reports that the average person online spends seventy seconds a day reading online news. Ouch.

Not all books are correct or useful. Not all accepted science is correct. The conventional wisdom might just be wrong. But ignoring all of it because the truth is now fashionably situational and in the eye of the beholder is a lame alternative.

I know this rant is nothing new. In fact, people have been complaining about widespread willful ignorance since Brutus or Caesar or whoever invented the salad... the difference now is this: more people than ever are creators. More people than ever go to work to use their minds, not just their hands. And more people than ever have a platform to share their point of view. I think that raises the bar for our understanding of how the world works.

Let's assert for the moment that you get paid to create, manipulate or spread ideas. That you don't get paid to lift bricks or hammer steel. If you're in the idea business, what's going to improve your career, get you a better job, more respect or a happier day? Forgive me for suggesting (to those not curious enough to read this blog and others) that it might be reading blogs, books or even watching TED talks.

As for the deliberately uninformed, we can ignore them or we can reach out to them and hopefully start a pattern of people thinking for themselves...

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/TrDLwzMYjyQ/deliberately-uninformed-relentlessly-so.html

Sent with MobileRSS for iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

The fear tax

"We pay the fear tax every time we spend time or money seeking reassurance. We pay it twice when the act of seeking that reassurance actually makes us more anxious, not less."

-------

Here's what happens as a result of security theater at the Orlando airport:

• You wait in line at least twenty minutes
• There's a scrum of pushing and shoving
• The staff are unhappy and not afraid to share it
• An unreasonable workload leads to fatigue and errors
• People miss their flights

Here's what doesn't happen:

• Security is not increased
• Peace of mind is not enhanced

In other words, we're paying a significant tax (time and money) and getting nothing in return. In fact, we get worse than nothing. We could call it an anxiety program, instead of a tax. (After all, when you pay a luxury tax, you get some hard-won luxury as part of the deal).

The reason the TSA keeps changing the rules is not because the rules work, but because changing the rules creates more anxiety (for bad guys, they say, but for us too).

Another example: the MBA. A lot of entrepreneurs get an MBA because they are afraid to go out into world without one. They are seeking the reassurance a credential will bring them, even though the cost is huge and there's no data to indicate that they'll be more successful as an entrepreneur as a result.

We pay the fear tax every time we spend time or money seeking reassurance. We pay it twice when the act of seeking that reassurance actually makes us more anxious, not less.

We pay the tax when we cover our butt instead of doing the right thing, and we pay the tax when we take away someone's dignity because we're afraid.

We should quantify the tax. The government should publish how much of our money they're spending to create fear and then spending to (apparently) address fear. Corporations should add to their annual reports how much they spent just-in-case. Once we know how much it costs, we can figure out if it's worth it.

Instead of seeking out gatekeepers and critics and others that demand we get the broom of the wicked witch, perhaps we should just publish our work. The tax is too high.

Instead of forgetting about the wasted anxiety after the fact, perhaps we ought to keep a log of how often we needlessly pay the fear tax.

Instead of over-staffing, over-planning, over-meeting and over-analyzing, perhaps organizations should take lower-cost steps and actually ship.

Think about how much you could get done if you didn't have to pay a tax to amplify or mollify your fear...

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/mzy04cqy6iU/the-fear-tax.html

Sent with MobileRSS for iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

Hacking education

"You teach kids how to succeed when they successfully foil the educational system."

Arlo Guthrie

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/GN-fmbJomOg/hacking-education.html

Sent with MobileRSS for iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

MQM tables land reforms bill in NA

Finally...

------

ISLAMABAD: Muttahida Qaumi Movement leader Farooq Sattar on Tuesday said the ratification of the land reforms bill, submitted in the National Assembly, would deprive many landlords of their sleep.

Earlier today, the MQM had submitted the bill in the National Assembly secretariat.

Farooq Sattar submitted the bill in the presence of 25 National Assembly members and five senators in the NA secretariat.

"The ownership of agriculture land should be limited to 36 acres," the bill stated.

"We feel proud after submitting the land reforms bill as 98 per cent people of the country awaited it," Sattar said.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dawn/news/pakistan/~3/cUW16tveshA/04-na-landreforms-bill-qs-06

Sent with MobileRSS for iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

Do you need a permit?

Excellent. 

------

Where, precisely, do you go in order to get permission to make a dent in the universe?

The accepted state is to be a cog. The preferred career is to follow the well-worn path, to read the instructions, to do what we're told. It's safer that way. Less responsibility. More people to blame.

When someone comes along and says, "not me, I'm going down a different path," we flinch. We're not organized to encourage and celebrate the unproven striver. It's safer to tear them down (with their best interests at heart, of course). Better, we think, to let them down easy, to encourage them to take a safer path, to be realistic, to hear it from us rather than the marketplace.

Perhaps, years ago, this was good advice. Today, it's clearly not. In fact, it's disrespectful, ill-advised and short sighted. How dare we cheer when a bold changemaker stumbles? Our obligation today isn't to spare the feelings of our peers from future disappointment. It's to establish an expectation that of course they're going to do something that matters.

If you think there's a chance you can make a dent, GO.

Now.

Hurry.

You have my permission. Not that you needed it.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/TlAGo3dTZ3o/do-you-need-a-permit.html

Sent with MobileRSS for iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

A galaxy of your own

Last December, we wrote about our immersive Google Earth environment, Liquid Galaxy: eight 55-inch LCD screens showing Google Earth in a unified, surround view.

Liquid Galaxy at TED 2010

Since then, we've taken it to a lot of conferences, built Liquid Galaxies in Google offices all over the world and even put one in the Tech Museum in San Jose, Calif. We love watching people try it for the first time. Almost everybody wants to see their own house first; but then they start to explore, and we can never guess where they'll choose to go next.

But we just couldn't bring it to enough people—we could only go to so many conferences, and only friends and family of Googlers could try out the Liquid Galaxies in our offices.

So we decided to put the features that make Liquid Galaxy possible into the latest release of Google Earth, and open-source all the supporting work, from our Ubuntu sysadmin scripts to the mechanical design of our custom frames.


Not everyone will have the know-how to network computers together and get view synchronization working, but we tried to make it as easy as possible. If you think you're up to the challenge, check out our Quick Start page. You can also contact our supplier End Point if you'd rather buy than build (or just need some professional assistance). Here's a video they made that shows Liquid Galaxy in action:



Liquid Galaxies don't have to be made from eight big LCD screens; the view sync features scale just fine from two to dozens of screens. And they can run more than just Google Earth; we've had success playing video in sync in our Liquid Galaxies, and even modified a Free Software video game for after-hours fun. We've daydreamed about making panoramic movies, head tracking or even real-time video from distant panoramic cameras. Read more on the Liquid Galaxy page at earth.google.com, and show off your creations in the liquid-galaxy discussion group. We're excited to see what you come up with!

Posted by Jason Holt, Software Engineer, Liquid Galaxy 20% Team

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/fUR0ybNR10E/galaxy-of-your-own.html

Sent with MobileRSS for iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

Generous gifts vs. free samples

Free isn't always generous. Free can be a legitimate marketing strategy, an ultimately selfish way to increase sales. Once you spread your ideas (and free is the best way to do that), there are all sorts of ways to profit. But don't be confused. Free samples and free ideas and free bonuses are not necessarily generous acts.

A generous gift comes with no transaction foreseen or anticipated. A gift is a gift, not the beginning of a transaction. When you see a Picasso painting at the Met, Picasso doesn't get anything (he's dead). Even his heirs don't get anything. His art is a gift to anyone who sees it.

Giving gifts is a fairly alien endeavor. In most families, even the holidays are more about present exchange than the selfless act of actually giving a gift.

The cool part, the punchline, is that giving a gift for no reason and with no transaction contemplated is actually incredibly powerful. It changes your approach to the market, it changes your relationship with the recipient and yes, it changes you.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/Ex8LFd-aVbg/generous-gifts-vs-free-samples.html

Sent with MobileRSS for iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

Custom shoes made possible with custom AdWords campaigns

An example of how people take business ideas from anywhere. 

(Cross-posted from the Google Small Business Blog)

Mike Knapp and Michael Fox had always dreamed of founding a start-up. Jodie Fox (Michael's wife) had always loved custom-made shoes. When her friends started asking her to design shoes for them and to bring these handmade shoes back from her travels, she, Mike and Michael saw a business opportunity. The trio founded their online custom shoe design company Shoes of Prey to share the design experience with the rest of the world.



The business first took flight in Australia, where the founders live and their company headquarters. Their first customers were trusted friends, who tested the online creation tool and proudly wore their personalized designs. The ability to create custom shoes quickly went viral. It seemed that with each step they took, the initial testers received questions about where they found their fabulous footwear. Soon strangers began making purchases, and when the website spread to overseas locations, the team began offering different currencies to allow for international sales.

The team had already created an AdWords account to promote Shoes of Prey to online customers in Australia. As they expanded internationally, they created new AdWords campaigns targeted at English-speaking countries with currencies they could process. They used AdWords location-targeting to show ads in new locations: Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. Michael says, "Despite being based in Australia, it took only a matter of days for our first orders to start coming in from the other side of the world. It was exciting to see!"


Currently, about 10 percent of Shoes of Prey's shoe sales come from AdWords customers—and about 40 percent of those sales are from international buyers. One of the main reasons they've been successful in reaching international audiences is the ease with which they can edit ad texts for each location. "Gift certificates have been really popular on our site," Michael says. "So we use AdWords to promote our gift certificates. Key events for us are Mother's Day, Valentine's Day and Christmas."

Michael then uses Google Insights for Search to identify each country's peak search traffic dates for these occasions. "We time specific AdWords campaigns to target each of these events. Mother's Day is on a different day in different countries, so AdWords lets us run ads at different times of the year for the various countries, and edit the ads so they speak to users in those countries. For example, we'll mention the price of our shoes in euro in Ireland and in dollars in the U.S."


After only a year of operation, the founders have hired three new employees and have formed partnerships with local firms in Japan and Russia to localize their offering in those markets. "Early on in the life of our business, AdWords showed us the potential our business has for growth outside Australia, so we now offer Japanese and Russian versions of our website, complete with local marketing and customer support in those markets," says Michael.

With AdWords, Michael, Jodie and Mike have been able to share their passion for custom shoes with international customers who share their love for customization. Their next step is to inspire all shoe lovers to design their own footwear. Michael tells us: "We're starting to experiment with the Google Display Network to help us find those first customers while they're browsing the web." And they'll continue to use AdWords location targeting and ad text customization to reach new international customers who might not know just how much fun designing shoes can be!

Posted by Maren Bean, Sr. Associate, Ads Communications

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/26ThtCqh63A/custom-shoes-made-possible-with-custom.html

Sent with MobileRSS for iPhone

Sent from my iPhone