TheExecutive has this thing about not meeting your idols. If that doesn't make sense to you yet, it's just something to think about.

It's really easy to let people embody the ideas you believe in and I think it might be because it sets you up with escape clause you can always invoke. It's much harder to accept that the responsibility, and even the belief, exists entirely within yourself.

It's easy to let another person's passion for an idea embody the strength of it itself and become hopelessly disillusioned if the two ever get muddled. It's even easier to let the attention of others be the barometer of how you feel about yourself, forgetting that you're staying the same, only the notice fluctuates.

The only thing that will never let you down are ideas and yourself. Just something to keep in mind.

In the last two days, I saw one of the companies I work for cede the chance to pioneer legal precedent to a third-rate competitor and lose every bit of their leverage that had been designed to take a stake in a decently well-known startup. Their lawyers and staff spent too much time worrying and planning and holding meetings and then back to back headlines made it all irrelevant.

My attitude the whole time had pretty much been "I think you should just say fuck it, do it and see what happens."

The fundamental rule of the internet is essentially this: Just doing it is cheaper than deciding about doing it. Or, it's better to try stuff and get it wrong, then talk about it first and get it 100% right.

What good internet theorists are realizing (I like Shirky and Robb) is that web economics don't necessarily change how businesses succeed but have more impact in how they fail. A site that allows groups to form is revolutionary in the sense that it drastically lowers the costs of attempting to start and group and failing. In decentralized terrorism, it's that executing an attack and missing most of the time is actually more efficient than planning them thoroughly and always getting it right. In other words, the way people have grown up thinking about things is wrong - it's just way too slow and it inflates the costs of mistakes.

It's all very interesting, right? but I think there is an even bigger picture. If you apply this life as a whole, it means to stop deliberating and start making decisions.

When you're looking for a parking space for example, take the first one you see instead of driving around for a closer one. By the time one opens up, you could have walked most of the way there. The cost of being wrong is very low, the benefits of ending up with a better spot aren't very high. My assistant (who is great) drives me insane because he asks these extra questions to find out exactly what I want instead of trying and getting it wrong. Instincts, as he's thankfully starting to realize, don't come from explanations. They come from positive and negative reinforcement. And that, comes from doing.

Think about the resources you'd free up for solutions if you didn't plan your actions under the cloud of knowing you'd always have to justify your decisions after the fact. I'm guessing you'd make gutsier decisions. You can give that freedom to yourself. I'm lucky because people have given me that luxury. Now, the economics are starting to pull that weight too.

In a conversation with a friend, someone I've never liked much came up and before I could verbalize that, they proceeded to tell me something very nice that person had said about me. Here was someone I've never liked, a fact that's always colored my interaction with them, treating me with respect I couldn't even afford to them.

We both faced the same situation: I went one way, he went the other. But which path, if you cut away, would you prefer people to assume you took?

If we had no faults, we should not take so much pleasure in noting those of others. - de la Rochefoucauld

Natural History, Volume III, Books 8-11 by Pliny the Elder (8-11 are the books about zoology and animals. it is the funniest book I have read in a long time. good anecdotes on Roman bloodsports. it's online)
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt (he has the amazing ability to write in the present, even about events that are 50 years old)
The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout (not as good as Gift of Fear but something you should read)
Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin (meh)
Love, War and Circuses: The Age-Old Relationship Between Elephants and Humans by Eric Scigliano (love elephants)

This lecture on Marcus Aurelius is one of the best lectures I've seen in my life. His take is that Marcus is a "standing reproach to our self-indulgence." You should watch it.
What Are Your Flaws? (I don't think I'm mature enough yet to answer this question but I am thinking about. )
Voices from the Suburban Blogosphere New York Times (I think this is going to be a very important trend)

Here's the dirty secret about reporters: they steal from Wikipedia. Shamelessly, in fact. How do I know? Because I see things I wrote for articles magically paraphrased in all sorts of press - collections of facts that did not exist before I collected them.

Bloggers do for their posts. People do it for their opinions. Investors do it for their trading strategies. Reporters do it for their stories. Wikipedia, for all its inaccuracies, is the jumping off point for things we'd never question trusting. And yet, what company do you know that has ever meaningful contributed to community that has the ability to define them?

When you think about influence, think about where it comes from. In other words, it's not the trendsetting magazines that are important but the places where they find out about trends. That's where you go because the rest is just too inefficient.

But remember, that's a very substantial power. Abuse makes it meaningless.

(Also, if I wasn't physically unable to fit one more thing in my day, I would jump on this opportunity just for fun)

I have this very intense fear of being regular. Of becoming normal. Of being just like everyone else. I have no idea where it comes from or why it colors the way I think about things. But it does.

I think it's a desire not to be tied down. A deep paranoia of that "quiet desperation." Not liking what you do, living vicariously through others. To wake up one day and realize that if you really had something to say, there'd be no way you could tell anyone. You know, that day where you reach for your revolver.

Whatever. It'd be real easy to get caught up in that. That being different is better. And if you're different then you're better. Here's the thing I'm starting to realize: It says way more about me than it does about everybody else. It comes from a place of deep insecurity. If it creates anxiousness, it's probably not coming from self-comfort or assuredness.

It's not something to be proud of or hold up against other people, because frankly, it has nothing to do with other people. Some amorphous, reactionary fear over something that not only have complete control over but have the ability to define as well is not exactly an improvement.

Like most things, it's internal and that's where I need to direct the attention.

Here's the thing about me: I don't really have many special skills. I can't code, never trained in marketing, no financial background, and I certainly don't have 'years in the business' behind me. But I'm doing alright working in precisely those fields.

I think in one sense, specializing in any of those areas is often disadvantage because it subverts your priorities and how you look at the world.

Think about the phrase "making connections." A lot of people confuse it with seeing connections. Any idiot can see a connection. Making them is a totally different animal. It's constructive process. It's creative process. It's taking two unrelated things and forging a relationship that wasn't there before you found it.

Or think about networking. It seems safe to translate it as "meeting people" but how is that a network? A network is interconnected of nodes who share and receive information. In other words, job fairs and Linkedin are completely worthless. Networking, then, is about more than yourself - it's current that you tap into and simultaneously power.

Most people lack a very basic but fundamental skill - the ability to look at things beyond the most obvious level. I think calling it a skill is generous, it's more of a way of thinking or how you carry yourself. They can spot connections and have a huge Rolodex of contacts, but they couldn't connect two unrelated things you if needed it and none of the nodes in their network have ever actually transfered packets of information.

Most people will never know what it's like to get so excited that you have to pace to contain yourself. It's all logical to them - spend to earn, 'a lot of people are doing this,' wait for approval, 'that seems like a bad idea,' 'it's the weekend, I'll get to it Monday,' whatever. And in the process, they cripple themselves irrelevant.

They forget that it's all a hustle. They forget all the operative words: make, build, design, discover. Those aren't business cliches. They are verbs, actions, processes. You don't do any of that behind your desk waiting for emails. It doesn't stop when you leave the office. It doesn't stop ever.

I don't know about you I'd just as soon stay poor than have that be the culmination of the my multiplatinum music career.

I know we're also supposed to believe that Sean Combs is massively successful businessman, but if he was, do you think he'd be slocking acne creme on late television for what is proportionally, pennies? And he probably wouldn't be humiliating himself for the worst fast food chain on the planet. (besides Arby's)

Here's the thing: Most people are liars, they're miserable and that don't have principles where it matters.

You don't have to be like that.

"Helen Woodward, an influential copywriter in the 1920's, famously warned her co-workers that "if you are advertising any product, never see the factory in which it is made...Don't watch the people at work...because, you see, when you know the truth about anything, the real inner truth - it is very hard to write the surface fluff which sell its." No Logo Naomi Klein

In my copy I wrote "FUCK THAT." Doing the opposite of what Helen is trying to get at is pretty much the guiding principle for how I make my decisions and run my operations online. I only work on stuff that I like.

It's not idealism either. When you work on subjects you've had a long term interest in you make connections faster, relate to the community better and work harder. In short - you're able to actually do your job.

As we've see over and over again - with Fanlib and BlueCollar most recently - you cannot fake it. You can get lucky for a little while but eventually it all comes crashing down. It's a suicide rap.

When Tom (and that other guy) started Myspace, one of the first things they did was set Tila Tequila up with an account because she'd be having problems with Friendster. The rest, we know, is history. But how did they know to do that? Because they spent enough time there to know the ins and outs of the social scene and they saw how important marquee users were. They turned personal into business, not the other way around.

There's this delusion that marketing is about strategy or connectors or whatever. But before any of that its about knowledge of the terrain. Maybe it's possible for you, but for me, I can't drag myself to learn about shit I don't care about. In other words, you can only leverage new media in areas that aren't new at all - the ones you know backwards and forwards because they're not business to you, they're your life.

So new media isn't about flickr or twitter or mixx or anything of those things. It's about you. That might mean baseball or gossip or creepy goth people. It could and should be anything.

In terms of practical advice, what they basically means is this: Spend your time learning as much as you possibly can about what you like. The business and the social and the technological opportunities will come from that base. In fact, it's the only place they ever have and ever will come from.

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn (writers live interesting lives)
Hating Women: America's Hostile Campaign Against the Fairer Sex by Shmuley Boteach (this book was so offensive and stupid I can't even link to it)

The Elephant in the Greek and Roman World (Aspects of Greek and Roman life) by H. H. Scullard (awesome. I am desperately trying to find a copy of this cheaply. I had one lined up but it fell through. I can't believe I should have to pay $100 for a book about elephants just because the publisher is stupid. if anyone can find one, we'll work something out)

The Cluetrain Manifesto by Christopher Locke, others. (bought it to have a copy and flipped through. regardless of the hype, the authors are genuinely bad writers)
Buying In: The Secret Dialog Between What We Buy and Who We Are by Rob Walker (dismissed a lot of marketing/web 2.0 bullshit)
The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism by J Michael Bailey (this book is really good and honest. attacks the foundations of modern social sciences. there was a great article about in the New York Times about it. )

Where Wild Things Are the Perks of Power (NYT) (I've read Belozerskaya's book which is pretty good. Still I don't think there has been a book that really captures the fascination and joy the subject inherently has. It's something I have been trying to wrap my head around lately. Ideas?)

Why Communities Run on Love/Passion/Personality and Not Organization or Math
This is really cool and creepy

I don't know enough about football to comment on the Brett Farve situation but let's pretend for a minute that it's as clear cut as it looks to an uninformed observer. It's a good example of something a lot of people don't want to admit - that not everything that feels right is healthy and just because you want it, doesn't mean you should have it.

If you ever walk through Runyon Canyon, you'll know what I'm talking about. Girls, bone thin, walking up a mountain in sweatshirts and pants when it's a 100 degrees outside. They let Muhammad Ali box himself retarded. Nobody really questions a family destroying itself for no god damned good reason. Somebody's whose personal life is in ruins doesn't bother to stop and think about whether they should stop evangelizing the choices that got her there. We all have our own way of doing it.

Cognitive dissonance, the narrative fallacy , confirmation bias, rationalization, the resistance, defense mechanisms, evolutionary strategies, repression - a good chunk of what we want, what we're pulled to, what 'feels right' is motivated by things other than us. So it takes a lot of hard work and hard questions to examine your life through a critical and detached lens. To break the cycle of impulse and indulgence. To become someone who's in control of themselves, the direction that they go and the choices that they make.

"Our decisions should be made on the basis of what's most healthy, not what will satisfy me the quickest. Live with integrity and a clear sense of right and wrong. Consider consequences. Listen to the inner voice of your instinct as carefully as a doctor checks your heartbeat." Dr. Drew Pinsky Cracked: Putting Broken Lives Together Again

Terry McBride thought he could lie. Two Valleywag posts,a investigative piece on Silicon Alley Insider, the front page of digg and twenty or twenty five thousand people later, he's not exactly getting away with it. And it all stems from the fact that I noticed the discrepancy - that not only were his assumptions wrong but he'd been dishonest about the conclusions - and emailed it to the right people.

Just a few years ago, it was totally possible for an executive to ignorantly pontificate to the press without anyone but the people around him knowing the truth. I don't think that's true anymore. In this case, he first inflated the number of video views Avril had, incorporated ones that count for the label not the artist, multiplied it by an implausible CPM, assumed 100% inventory fill, and then claimed to be waiting a check that he knew wasn't coming. He thought it would go unnoticed. Now, I promise you this incident will get played back to me by a third party.

Which is amazing, frankly. Even though I'm factually right and am basing my opinion off the data I assembled for way bigger acts, who am I? If Terry McBride showed up for a meeting where I worked, I'd do all the research but I wouldn't have been allowed in. Or if I was, because someone insisted that I be there, he'd ignore everything I said.

Think about it this way: Yesterday, for less than $4, some guy managed to make a total mockery of the business strategy of Colombia Records and they have no idea what to do about it. And he did it from a tiny blog. Try to reverse, how much would they have to spend and waste and stress about to have to respond?

THAT is the sort of power you can leverage if you use new media correctly.

How You Do It:

Forget Ego
I could have written it here and a couple people would have seen it. Instead, I gave the scoop to someone else, stoked the flames and let it go where it could. And with the exception of this post, I'm not getting any of the credit.

Work on the stuff you like (not what you're supposed to like)
I only know the YouTube partner channels backwards and forwards because I thought they were interesting and taught myself everything I could. I learned most of it by representing a kid (for free) who's video I really liked. I don't just randomly go around correcting mistakes and emailing people - I do it for stuff that gets me excited. That's enough.

Know who to talk to
As you read authors and discover new sites, you should try to get a sense of what appeals to each writer. I knew that Valleywag was the right place to start - that they like to call people out - and that I'd have to reveal too much about myself and my sources for a site like Techcrunch or Matt Ingram. Plus, I like Valleywag and was looking for an excuse to email them anyway. In other words, lay the groundwork.

Understand luck
More than anything, it's a crap shoot. I can't tell you how many times I've had bigger scoops, cooler angles and better sources but seen it go nowhere. You have no idea how your email is going to catch someone or what kind of newsday your up against. That means you have to be doing this all the time, try to be clever and hope to get lucky.

If you think of a new media presence as something like a bank account - assets that include your profiles, contacts, track record, fans, resources - then this is just one way to make a deposit. It's something you can keep and use again later. I don't want to say that it's easy, but think about it, with one email about a post that showed up in my RSS reader, I managed to call out one of the biggest managers in music, in front of everybody. And I didn't do it with anything that you don't have access to.

"One day, I met with a researcher in a coffee shop. Language was a problem but he spoke more English than I did Japanese. I had just been to the bookstore and was lugging a stack of books on highly advanced computer-science topics. It was all Greek to me but I figured something might rub off. Suddenly the guy asks me "Who gives you permission to read those books?"

I was stunned. Bowled over. Did his puzzlement reflect some sort of cultural difference? I didn't think so. It struck me that this fellow was just being more honest and direct than an American might be. He was articulating what many people in today's world seem to assume: that official authorization is required to learn new things. I thought about this deeply and I'm thinking about it still.

Who gives us permission to explore our world? The question implies that the world in fact belongs to someone else. Who gives us permission to communicate what we've experienced, what we believe, what we've discovered of that for ourselves? Right then and there, in that chance encounter in some random Tokyo coffee shop, I gave myself blanket permission: to be curious, to learn, to speak, to write." The Cluetrain Manifesto, Christopher Locke

Seneca had this thing where once a month he would practice poverty. He'd scale down his diet, sleep on the floor and stay away from business. Like a solider who performs maneuvers in times of peace, he said, you should practice misfortune in times of fortune. The idea being that fear is mostly bred from unfamiliarity and unfamiliarity is easily fixed.

Think about your reaction to getting fired right now, unexpectedly. It's one of those nervous, churning feelings that pump through your system. Back up 10 minutes and you witness something horrifying and quit on the spot out of principle. How different are those feelings? But it's the essentially the same result: you not working there anymore.

Let's not kidd ourselves, there is more to good and bad than just perception. It's not honest to pretend like you have total control over your emotions. We scientifically do not. You do, however, have the ability to create perspective. Almost nothing takes away your ability to inject that into the situation. So use it.

If you're someone who is inside their head a lot like me, it's really easy to forget that everything almost always ends up okay. It's depressing and an anxious way to live. It sucks. If you can realize - try and picture - that the very worse thing that could possibly happen is _____ and be fine with it, then the pressure disappears.

The Fear is something that you opt-in to. Seneca's lesson is just one way to opt out.

Here are two examples of exactly how NOT to think about new media:
Violet Blue files restraining order on Wikipedia Vandal
BlueCollarorDie.com Goes out Business (with a staff of 15 people)

If you take Tyler Cowen's parking ticket parable totally of context, it makes sense here. He said that government diplomats (when they had blanket immunity) from countries with illegitimate governments received exponentially more parking violations than their colleagues from democracies and republics. The thinking is that if you got your position from somebody who killed their predecessor, you don't really have all that much respect for "the rules."

All this is pretty typical for how people think (and fail) online: They don't legitimize "context creators" enough to bother learning how they work. Stuck in a distribution paradigm, they assume the burden of discovery is on the customer. Lastly, they can't keep overhead low enough to compete with people who do it for fun. Why? Because their whole careers have been about exploiting distribution monopolies and exclusive access to the press.

That's exactly how NOT to think about new media. Regardless of how you go where you are (or how you plan on getting there), the people that made "the rules" now have an enormous amount of influence. And you don't have any leverage over them. Wikipedia is the number 1 place for finding information about bands, above Myspace and their own homepages. You better fucking learn the rules.

BlueCollar didn't do it. "What could be so hard about making a website?" So they hired 15 people, filled it with the stuff not good enough for TV and figured people would like it. To their credit, that's a working strategy in the rest of the entertainment industry. When distribution is a limited, 90% of success to getting distributed. But it's like they didn't even both to realize that NO OTHER site has that kind of payroll. It's actually even more embarrassing for Violent Blue. She doesn't have a generation of tradition to hide behind.

It's way easier to figure out the rules and their loopholes than to get mad and act like your above them. That's what Seth was saying, the web doesn't care.

The wrong way to think about new media is "how can I get it to do what I want?" The right way, just like Alinsky was saying, is to think "How can I work within the system to accomplish what I want to accomplish?"

That gives you one crucial task: Figure out how the system works.