I was frustrated with the results, but it occurred to me that there was no solution as long as my job was trying to imitate someone else’s voice. The obvious solution was to find a situation where I was doing me, not someone else. The major obstacle to this is your deeply seated belief that “you” is not interesting.”

Charlie Kaufman: why I wrote Being John Malkovich

There’s only so much I can effectively contribute to a given topic in a brief interval, and I’ve worked with that constraint to cover many bite sized ideas over the past few years. Yet that’s only an ancillary agent to the shift here. The primary cause is that I simply don’t feel the same urgent need to share as much as I used to.

A switch in my mind has flipped, and I’m perfectly satisfied to quietly contemplate ideas without writing or posting them. Put another way, the pattern of blogging is intrinsic to how I think and my hunger for feedback has abated.

It’s not that I don’t find value in writing each morning, it’s been immensely beneficial to my thinking. Daily blogging has been a critical learning tool and method of meeting open minds far sharper than my own, in a variety of fields. With that in mind I’ve decided to write about ideas and events that I feel compelled to share, but only then.

Victus Spiritus begins a metamorphosis, what’s next?

I can’t predict exactly how often I’ll be writing, but I suspect there will be several posts a month. I would like to write more mini series which cover topics in further depth, but break down each topic into manageable segments for both me to write and visitors to read.

I’d also like to concentrate on topics which have a longer half life than popular web tech. In the few dozen web and graphic technologies I’ve reviewed here in the past, very few are relevant now, and fewer still (if any) will be relevant in a decade. The patterns and meta patterns of development are likely candidates for tech posts, along with general examples of implementations.

This morning my father picked me up on our planned fishing trip which embarked out of Port Jefferson harbor. The crisp early sea air was delightful as we made our voyage from one fishing spot to another aboard the Celtic Voyage IV. Overall it was a perfect day to be outdoors and out on the sound.

We were bottom fishing in hopes of catching porgies or sea bass, and my father was fortunate enough to reel one in. The closest I came to catching dinner were a few repeat nibbles which cleaned the clam bait from my rigging.

The calm sea provided an ideal background for a few hours of laid back conversations with my dad, who has always been and always will be the master of relaxation. I’ve always been pretty close with my pop, but as I grew up and out the time we spend together has contracted.

It was pretty awesome just hanging around with the guy who forged my philosophic foundation. You see my dad is much more than just a biological parent, he’s the seed of the easy going and open outlook both my brother and I share. That world view is balanced by my mom’s creative energy and spirit.

Few are as fortunate as those who recognize and appreciate life’s blessings.

Today I am a lucky man. And I fed a few fish.

The world keeps on spinning with our without us pushing. It’s natural to step away from the wheel to refresh a struggling perspective. Especially when life feels upside down.

Take a break and come on in, the water feels fine. Don’t forget to bring a friend.

Soak in some sun, but not too much. There’s a quality of sunlight that both refreshes and centers.

Look around for a paradise not far from home. My house is just a half hour away from the ocean, and in the summer it’s a great place to cool off and relax.

The sounds of the waves are calming, there are quiet stories in the breezes, and beacons along the shore.

Let yourself unwind. Even those with the most voracious appetites know how to relax.

Share your space with others. I’m continually astonished at how beautiful a place can become when filled with life.

Literally alter your perspective by moving to a different vantage. Just a couple of weeks ago we paddled along the surface of the Peconic river by kayak. Yesterday we viewed the same passage from high up above, revealing the riverside environment.

What did I miss while (mostly) offline?

• I didn’t catch which startups were funded, acquired and/or shutdown
• I haven’t heard about the most popular new services that launched
• I missed out on any interesting coding or tech posts that I normally catch in my inbound

thanks to DeWitt Clinton for the share.

Still on vacation, I’ll return to my regular blogging shortly.

The premise is simple, reactionary rules that are put into place don’t make the world a better place, they don’t improve businesses, and they don’t solve real problems.

I hope you appreciate it as much as I did.

Too focused

For a guy who’s attention drifts like a summer breeze, I had thought it impossible to be too focused. But I was wrong. While strolling in the southern outskirts of Tucson’s desert this morning and quietly listening to the chorus of birds and crickets, I could clearly see the drawbacks of getting lost in the details.

The idea for this morning’s riff was born in a place far from the quiet desert dawn, in the chaotic realm of startups. The concept coalesced as a pattern between technical founders and naive business plans, which I admit to observing in my own startup thinking. The recognition was triggered by Patrick McKenzie’s well thought and articulated analysis of customer acquisition channels. Fellow Hacker News regulars might recognize Mr. McKenzie’s handle there, he’s patio11. Here’s an excerpt from Patrick’s post which describes the naivete of technical founders when it comes to business strategy:

Taking A Hack From Tactic To Strategy
I think this isn’t exactly a new insight. There are lots of folks who, when asked for their marketing plan, will say “Oh, we’re going to get lots of search traffic” (indeed, that is probably second only to “it will grow virally” in terms of signaling “has probably not thought this through.”) What separates hopes and dreams of future success from very valuable businesses is a strategy which, with execution and refinement over time, will actually achieve the goals.

We often hear products described using something like “It’s like Facebook, except for dogs.” How about, instead, describing businesses like “It’s like Quicken, except Quicken sells primarily through boxed software channels and we’re going to sell primarily through banks which will deal with us for a cut of the sale price and the ability to deepen relations with small business customers, who consume lots of high margin services and stay locked in for decades at at time.” (That may or may not actually be true.)

We often accept previous experience or minimal proof-of-concept prototypes/MVPs in lieu of a functioning product when evaluating whether someone is capable of executing on building something. Why not do essentially the same for proving that one is likely to get customers? A previous background in revenue maximization through negotiating cross selling deals for banks, or evidence that you have enthusiasm from a few bankers who like the concept and want to hear more when you have something to show, demonstrates a certain likelihood that marketing challenges will be overcome like technical challenges will be overcome.

Similarly, for a startup hoping to make inroads for SEO, I’d be thinking less along the lines of “we’ll sprinkle some SEO on our website” and more along the lines of specific plans for scalable content generation, securing backlinks at scale, and winning the support of influencers either in the niche or in other addressable niches which your competition may not be aware are relevant to that facet of their business.

My take on this: as one’s perception bends more heavily towards technology, they are apt to see every problem solved by a technical solution. After reading that passage I shared feedback on the importance of learning from experimentation and discovering a signal of success, then left to go out on a walk wondering where my search for a MVP would take me.

By and large I’m thankful to have streaks of hyper focus where I get a lot of work done in a short period of time, but this extreme form of productivity comes at a cost.

It is eerie how concentration steals away moments. Time flows endlessly while we are in the zone. The rest of the world fades into the background as all attention zeroes in on a single task. Concerns outside of the zone of concentration are inconsequential, the universe becomes a solipsist existence of action. We become blind to broader perspectives. Tunnel vision leads to trivial solutions falling just outside the horizon of our perception.

Instead of focusing too tightly on a single task, a more stable and effective approach is to drift one’s attention about focus points. The pattern of that lens motion is a function of the observer’s expertise and style. By nutating our perception and balancing our understanding, we increase the likelihood of recognizing resilient multidisciplinary approaches.

How can an image transcend the totality of its discrete data? When it is a key of course, which unlocks memories of people, places and times long past. Our memories are apt to fade with a continuous conscious focus on the future, it is a natural cleansing of our experience buffer.

And yet when we glimpse at situations and smiles long gone through captured imagery, it reminds us of who we were in another time, and how we became the person we are today. Each image is a snapshot of a seamless story from past to present.

This morning I scanned through a scattered collection on flickr photos that would have little value or meaning to anyone but the people who were in the images, and to myself. Each picture was a reinforcement of fragile memories. I had forgotten in what year a few of the pictures were taken, but could remember the feelings I had at the time they were taken. That get’s to the heart of the power of image keys, they release emotional memories which transcend chronology.

Notes:

1. Perhaps my memory was never sharp. Such is the price of a fading memory, you never quite remember who it is that you used to be.

I can balance that lingering weariness with part time projects driven purely by my curiosity and interest. But even the energy and enthusiasm I draw from self directed side work only goes so far. There comes a time when I must take a break. 

Even while rapidly converging to this limit break this morning, two open questions struck me. Do folks who absolutely love their crafts need vacations? How do they recognize the signs that it’s time for a break?

This is a problem I’d like to have.
 
Craftsmanship can only go so far without the practitioner dreaming about the intricacies of their labor. Without an intense emotional commitment, our attention is liable to stray to simpler, more attractive tasks. The fine balance between challenge and reward is like scaling a twisted slippery glass stairwell without rails. Along the staircase amateurs become journeymen, journeymen become experts, and in rare moments experts ascend into masters. It’s easy to ignore that the base of the stairwell is thick in fallen souls when you only look up, and yet it’s not falling that’s so terrible, but the fear of it. 

Artisans experience immense joy from practicing their craft. It is this fascination and relentless drive which brings them back again and again to refactor a fine piece of work, and either destroy it or yield a masterpiece. Driven beyond all sane boundaries, when does a master recognize the need for a change of pace and direction?

Scorched Earth is an undeniable pattern in fields as diverse as 16th century sea exploration, blogging, company building, and client services directed by fire breathing Dinobots.

Why did Steve Rubel nuke a few of his blogs and wipe the slate clean? To declare a new flag ship for his thoughts. (blogging link above)

In military circles, a scorched earth policy – according to Wikipedia – is a strategy which involves destroying anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from a given theater of operations.

Perhaps its symbolic, but that’s exactly the approach I took to my digital presence this past Memorial Day weekend. I started a fresh new site on the future of media over on Tumblr. Then I promptly turned around and slashed both my TypePad-powered blog, which I ran from 2004 to 2009, and my Posterous blog, which I started with some fanfare back in 2009. With just two clicks of a mouse I rid the web of literally thousands of blog posts, some of which I am proud of – others less so – and redirected the URLs to the new site.

Let’s change gears from readers, to customers. Join me for a quick stroll down memory lane with Seth Godin circa 2006 on the topic of firing customers: (company building link above)

The answer might surprise you. It’s the unwritten rule 3 on Stew Leonard’s famous granite rock:
If the customer is wrong, they’re not your customer any more.

In other words, if it’s not worth making the customer right, fire her.

Successful organizations (and I include churches and political parties on the list) fire the 1% of their constituents that cause 95% of the pain.
Fire them?

Fire them. Politely decline to do business with them. Refer them to your arch competitors. Take them off the mailing list. Don’t make promises you can’t keep, don’t be rude, just move on.

If you’ve got something worth paying for, you gain power when you refuse to offer it to every single person who is willing to pay you.

A wise friend Fake Grimlok, with an uncanny sense of humor, wit and wisdom, paints the Scorched Earth client model, enriched by Denton Gentry’s colloquial unixism.

THERE COME TIME IN EVERY PROJECT WHERE REWARD OF FIX BAD CODE LOWER THAN REWARD OF KILL CLIENT AND BURN PROJECT TO GROUND.

June 5, 2011 5:41 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@FAKEGRIMLOCK

FAKEGRIMLOCK

@FAKEGRIMLOCK I call it the "rm -rf moment", the point where you seriously consider nuking it all and starting over.

June 5, 2011 5:45 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@dgentry

Denton Gentry

@dgentry @FAKEGRIMLOCK scorch the earth strategy :)

June 5, 2011 6:28 pm via Mobile WebReplyRetweetFavorite

@VictusFate

Mark Essel

@VictusFate @dgentry ME, GRIMLOCK, NEVER MEET EARTH THAT NOT LOOK UNDERCOOKED.

June 5, 2011 7:19 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@FAKEGRIMLOCK

FAKEGRIMLOCK

My 2 cents

The mental image of burning the ships is an indelible shadow etched into the walls of my subconscious ¹. It’s strength is such that whenever I see anything resembling no retreat, no surrender, I can’t resist being inspired by the boldness of the act.

Eliminating the path of retreat steels nerves and focuses attention forward. It eliminates fear induced distractions, such that our full cognitive and physical potential is liberated. For a man who seeks to experience unbounded freedom, I should pay heed to environments where retreat is an impossibility.

Words are such fragile constructs, yet they suffice to carry our hopes and dreams. Virtual objects such as this blog post are malleable and ephemeral by their nature. It takes very little energy to boil them back down into the primordial ooze of disorganized bits. On the other extreme it takes significant effort to build a reliable platform for self expression, mnemonic enhancement and critical discussion².

The strategy I take when building a reliable resource (this blog/a company) is to maintain a few ground rules. Above all else I try (but don’t always succeed) to maintain URLs so that the address to a specific article or product is stable. In addition public interfaces are sacred, and I’d bend over backwards to maintain old interfaces. An interface like a URL is a promise to the future that this resource will be available and reliable. Both reliability and availability ultimately depend on cost and revenue.

If a link to an old resource (discrete information bundle) is broken, it’s a lost opportunity. If a public interface is broken it’s a potentially lost client. I’d hate to inhibit or end a curiosity fueled, web browsing, link jam session. It’s been far too long since I’ve enjoyed one of those. Even worse would be to leave a customer stranded without additional developer support. You keep your promises, in the network economy reputation is more precious than gold.

Notes:

1. Last year I took a lifeline offered graciously at my day job, increasing my financial stability, but causing a rift between the world I desire (startups/web dev), and the world I live in (big c++ sims and apps) .

   At the time I was concerned my web development skills weren’t adequate to cover our living expenses (wife and I share a small home). Since that compromise I’ve had that fear confirmed by tasting a couple of rejections.

   Fortunately none were so bitter as to have the slightest affect on my stubborn determination to succeed as a tech entrepreneur. Patience and study are becoming welcome allies on the long road ahead.




2. I believe it was Seth G. who suggested his blog took on a life of its own around 1500 posts (I’ll verify the source once I’m back online). I have under a couple of years before I hit that mark, giving me plenty of time to refine my craft.

   I’ll need every entry to practice coalescing abstract concepts into cogent posts, on the diversity of topics that I feel strongly about.