Very wise words.... An Inconvenient Truth About Silicon Valley and Donald Trump

Probably the cleverest thing I have read about Trump so here it is... Not written by me. 

My own thoughts on Trump are not safe to write down....

An Inconvenient Truth About Silicon Valley and Donald Trump

The President-elect’s disruptive platform sounds awfully familiar to the valley’s leaders

I’ve come to believe that Donald Trump makes Silicon Valley’s founders uncomfortable precisely because they all have so much in common. Hear me out. They consider themselves the ultimate disruptors. Trump won the presidency (if not the popular vote) on the promise of being anti-establishment, and changing everything. This ethos has long defined the valley; it’s the idea from which tech’s founders take their sense of identity — and one that still reverberates through garages, startup accelerators, and shared office spaces from Palo Alto to San Francisco. Everything can always be reimagined so that it’s better than it is right now, and the best way to do it is to ignore the current constraints and systems and dream up new ones.

The problem, however, is that many of the valley’s most disruptive ideas have transformed into massive companies that have established themselves in our culture and economy as mainstream. Techies may think of themselves as disruptors, but they’ve emerged as the titans of industry — the kind of established power brokers that don’t take well to the chaos that comes with new disruption. And Trump? He is disruption embodied. Trump reminds them of the gap between their roots, and their current status. (Check out today’s piece on Uber in a Trump era.)

Often, when people set out to take down the establishment, they succeed in creating a more elite and calcified version of it. It’s classic. Earlier this week, I published a story about Peter Thiel’s eponymous fellowship program, which pays young people to forego college in favor of entrepreneurship. Intended to be a meritocratic way to help smart teens learn about entrepreneurship without going into debt, the Thiel Fellowship has become a prestigious entitlement bestowed on already successful young men (and just a few women), many of whom look and sound remarkably similar to Thiel himself. He set out to take down higher education— to prove that a pedigree didn’t have to matter. Instead, he just created an even more elite pedigree, bestowed to an even narrower cast of already established entrepreneurs.

In many ways, the fellowship’s trajectory reflects the recent history of Silicon Valley. Its charter members were renegades and contrarians — people who took issue with the status quo, and who had radical ideas about how to change the future. But their success in pushing those ideas forward came with a price: Those ideas moved the founders who had them from fringe to mainstream. In the United States and the beyond, everyone got a personal computer. Then an AOL account. Then Facebook. Then a smartphone, and on and on. And as technology crossed from nerdland to the center of our economy, the companies that introduced it grew from innovative tiny startups to the titans that now threaten nearly every industry. 

Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are five of the seven largest companies in the world. (Berkshire Hathaway and ExxonMobil are the other two.) In other words, the disruptors have become the establishment.

Which brings me back to Peter Thiel. He has become the de facto ambassador to the valley. He has grown up to become a member of the new establishment, without abandoning his roots. He is a self-made billionaire, having benefitted from the valley’s rise; he wrote Mark Zuckerberg his very first check for Facebook. But he’s also the kind of freethinking contrarian who positions himself as antiestablishment. 

He is always willing to bet against the status quo, to take a swing at the institution. I wrote about the fellowship in part because I wanted to understand Thiel better by learning about the people with whom he surrounds himself. In doing so, I re-read Zero to One, the best-selling book he wrote with Blake Masters on building startups. Even those people who take issue with Peter personally will often step back and acknowledge that it’s a very smart look at what makes valley companies successful.

 My favorite thought that he introduces is one that embraces the power of humans. He writes: 

“Other animals are instinctively driven to build things like dams or honeycombs, but we are the only ones that can invest in new things and better ways of making them.”

In classic Silicon Valley fashion, Thiel made a contrarian bet that the ideas Trump espoused — primarily, that many Americans weren’t being served by the current establishment, and a massive disruption could unleash the change they needed — would be embraced. 

He was right. The danger is that Thiel’s stab at remaking the administration under Trump will turn out as misguided as his attempt to build a program to replace college — instead of introducing the change that will make all of American great again, it will simply make a lot of rich white men (and a few women) even richer and more entrenched than they already are.

VERY VERY WISE WORDS INDEED. 

And sadly probably what's going to happen. The rich will get very quickly richer.

And for a more balanced and even clevererererer view - which is still kinda surprisingly pro trump - check this out. 

YOU ARE THE PROBLEM. AND THE SOLUTION.

It was interesting that last night at the Northern Soho event in Manchester at The Manchester Escalator. @McrEscalator

The event has been wonderfully Storified by @AnjleeB on https://storify.com/AnjleeB/northern-soho-startup-journeys

I spoke about this very thing. 

Maybe more to myself than the 30 or so creatives there.

That it is NOT the economy or the business you are in (when it's a startup.)

It's your mindset. Your happiness levels.

Your own abilities or lack of them that makes the difference.

It's harsh but true and beautifully put by Dave Ramsey here.

YOU ARE THE PROBLEM. AND THE SOLUTION.

“So the problem with my company then and now is me. The problem with your company is not the economy, it is not the lack of opportunity, it is not your team. The problem is you. That is the bad news. The good news is, if you’re the problem, you’re also the solution. 

You’re the one person you can change the easiest. You can decide to grow. Grow your abilities, your character, your education, and your capacity. You can decide who you want to be and get about the business of becoming that person.” 

~ Dave Ramsey from EntreLeadership

I have made a decision to grow and to change.

Doing the talk at Northern Soho is part of that process.

Not just talking and training people in start up thinking and marketing (I do that as a job) BUT in doing so from a deeper POV. Warts and all. Even bringing in politics (not like me at all....)

And doing so from the point of creating change.

Northern Soho is a great organisation in  Manchester which is all about changing things including yourself. Northern Soho was made as they believe, quite rightly, that there's too much talk and not enough action in parts of the creative industry.

You see with the creative industries especially in Manchester - people can talk a lot but not do much.

As they put it "The issues we've been facing over the last 10 years haven't really changed.  This movement aims to bring the creative industry together to take action and raise awareness of the great work that comes out of our region and show what we can do!"

You can join them on Meetup in a positive space to share ideas, tips, issues, raise the bar creatively.

Lets share our passion for what we do.

Not just the agency owners and senior management, but anyone who works in an agency or a freelancer - we all have the power to bring about change and learn and teach.

Amen to that - that's what we are all about at our new start up Follogro.  Working with PR agencies and creative digital agencies to not only grow Twitter audiences but make a difference with the power that comes with doing so.

 

Just leave me to do my work!

This blog from Seth Godin is so wise for me right now, as I have had myself 'working' on a project now but from the wrong angle.So I put it in entirety without comment so I can remember the lessons from it.

"Just leave me to do my work!"

I need a sales rep (or ten) to do the selling so I can do my work.

And investors to put up the money so I can do my work.

And an accounting staff so I won't have to think about inflows and outflows so I can do my work.

And an admin to process and answer all my email and my paperwork...

And employees who already know what to do so they won't ask me...

And an organization that not only doesn't make me go to meetings, but also instantly understands and adopts my best ideas...

And a coffee boy to bring me an espresso, a police escort so I don't get stuck in traffic and a publicist so every media outlet in the world communicates what I'm working on.

By now, you've probably realized:

This isn't going to happen. Not as completely or as flawlessly as we'd like to hope. We need the leverage that comes from working with other people, but that leverage also means that we're responsible. People who do great work also embrace the fact that this is their work too. It's not merely an interruption or a distraction, it's part of what they do.

There are no monasteries reserved for productive, successful artists who regularly ship inspiring work. 

Our culture responds to instigators and impresarios who figure out how to make a ruckus in a complicated world.

Years ago, you had to work with a quill or a manual typewriter. You needed to wait for the post office and you had no free and highly-leveraged outlet for your work to be seen by others. You had no access to a huge, instant and free library of the work that has come before... and yet, despite all of those missing elements, great work was created.

My guess is that the few people who find themselves isolated with nothing to do but what they believe is their work find a way to distract themselves with something anyway.

And people who have too many distractions to actually do any real work are in that bind because they haven't invested enough time, effort or risk in their organization and their process. 

Yes, there's a sweet spot.

As you obtain leverage, that leverage becomes part of what your work becomes.

We are leaving you to do your work. Go!

The amazing and thought provoking / leading career of Seth Godin

I put it here to remind myself (and maybe inspire others) that the road is long with much feedback.

And with many visionaries - they only really become famous after a 10 year struggle / investment.

Overnight successes are very rare and most probably an evil unto themselves.

For my part, and shame, I only started learning from the master himself after 1997.

After University when the real learning begins. 

By then he had done so much - and what amazes me is so much before his time i.e. pre web web stuff, pre processing graphics VR stuff.

A friend and I were laughing yesterday about how I do the same with my eco fashion idea (10 years to early) my public and private sector blend events (5 years to early) my augmented reality development (probably 3 years to early...) hopefully my next one - mobile gaming to do good will not be too early or too late for that matter ;)

My favourite part is "During this seven-year peak period of making over 100 books, my team and I got about a dozen rejection letters a week, or 500 a year, relentlessly, year after year." Amazing. 

But more importantly back to Seth and all his good work!

1984—Telarium, a huge project that started my path with a flourish. I was incredibly lucky to be given the resources to create something magical by David and Bill. A story for another day, but it took me a long time to again come close to an experience like this one.

1985—Tennis and golf on VCR, British video games on floppy disk and other Spinnaker projects.

1986—Business Rules of Thumb, my first book. Followed by 900 rejections in a row, 30 projects dead, including The Fortune Cookie Construction Set and How to Hypnotize Your Friends and Make Them Act Like Chickens.

1987—The Select Guide to Law Firms, an ad-supported directory of fancy law firms given to the most elite law students in the country. I learned an enormous amount about direct mail, rejection and lawyers from this project. It ran for three editions and kept me in business during several really lean years.

1988—Isaac Asimov's Robots, a VCR mystery game. Siskel and Ebert gave it two thumbs up... This one was a leap in complexity, involving Doubleday, Kodak, Asimov, game designers, packaging designers, an editor, a union cast, and yes, robots. Or at least people in robot costumes.

1989—Score More Points, a series of VCR tapes that taught kids how to cheat at Nintendo games. I was certainly waiting for the web to arrive, but it hadn't, yet.

1990—Guts, an online game for Prodigy, launched. It was one of the most popular online promotions of its time, and it contained thousands of hand-built trivia questions incorporated into several different editions of the game. This was a chance to see how much content added to technology, and how it could leverage and spread ideas.

1991—The Worlds of Power series. It took me more than three years to get all the licenses I needed to launch this series of novels, each based on a video game that was popular on Nintendo. We sold more than a million of them.

1992—One day, I saw that Cliffs Notes had published a list of their most popular notes. Using the 80/20 rule as a guide, I realized that the top 30 titles probably accounted for more than 95% of their sales. Hence: Quicklit, a book that should have been incredibly popular, but wasn't. Betting that high school students would plan ahead was a bad idea. I also had the delightful opportunity to work with a giant, Walter Dean Myers, in creating a series of novels for overlooked young adults. Walter died last week, and his impact on millions of kids can't possibly be overstated.

1993—In between multi-year, complex projects, we found time to do things a bit more lighthearted. The Smiley Dictionary started as a phone call with my friend and colleague Michael Cader, was sold the next week and finished a week after that. Without a doubt, my time would have been better spent building a search engine.

[During this seven-year peak period of making over 100 books, my team and I got about a dozen rejection letters a week, or 500 a year, relentlessly, year after year. They were rejections from people who reject things for a living. I wasn't spamming people, I was submitting proposals to people who wanted to get them. This is a useful lesson for project creators...]

1994—This one stretched my philosophy of scaling up to take on bigger book projects. The original Information Please Business Almanac was almost 800 pages of densely-packed facts, advice, resources and more. Five full-time editors worked together (in my attic) and we built a desktop publishing system to collate and manage all the data we organized and presented. Too bad the web made us obsolete, because we were the easiest way to find the phone number for the Honolulu Public Library (open late!). We did this at the same time we built The Guerrilla Marketing Handbook.

1995—For more than five years, I patiently courted Stanley Kaplan (the person) about turning his iconic brand into a series of test prep books. After an arduous development process, we finally launched with five titles (the best part were the cartoons from Bizarro)...

1996—At Yoyodyne, we built an organization that excelled at inventing and launching projects. We created the first million-dollar online sweepstakes, as well as a growing series of promotions from American Express, P&G and others.

1997—The Bootstrapper's Bible was a great idea, and after a few years, I got the rights back and decided to share an abridged edition online for free.

1998—This was a peak year for project craziness, with books and online projects coming out at a feverish pace. At one point, I did project presentations in three different states in one day. I finally (and painfully) realized that entrepreneurs were different from freelancers, sold my companies and shifted gears.

1999—Permission Marketing was, after creating and launching 120 books, seen as my first 'real' book, a solo effort that was marketed the way most books are. I also started writing columns for Fast Company, a monthly launch discipline that suited my need to invent and ship.

2000—Unleashing the Ideavirus was launched, no publisher, no bookstores, no revenue. I went on to quickly create and self-publish a hardcover which became a bestseller, proving to me that the world of projects was going to be different from now on.

2001—I spent ten hours a day, just about every day, researching and writing Survival is Not Enough.
2002—The CD patents were expiring, and Sony launched SACD but forgot to produce original music in that format. I launched Zoomtone records as an experiment with some passionate and talented musicians. Alas, the high-end stereo community wasn't interested.

2003—My first TED talk, Purple Cow in a milk carton and Really Bad Powerpoint all shipped.

2004—This is the year, a decade ago, when this blog really hit its stride, and when it became clear that connecting people online was a useful and powerful platform. I launched the Bull Market ebook as well as Free Prize Inside, a book about how to make a purple cow. The book came in a cereal box, which probably gilded the lily and certainly didn't make bookstores happy. Also! As a summer project, launched Changethis.com, which thrives to this day.

2005—All Marketers are Liars is published, a lousy title for a really important idea. We started Squidoo as a summer project.

2006—This is Broken, a talk I gave exactly once, took months to create. I'm glad Mark filmed it.

2007—The Dip, my shortest book, with the most impact per page by far, launches.

2008—Launched Tribes, a significant shift in my writing focus. If marketing is everything that an organization does that changes perceptions, then leadership is the most important marketing tool. Doing the right thing is at least as important as knowing what the right thing is.

2009—The six month MBA. What a project, one that continues to weave a web of friends, passion and change. We sat together in my office every day for six months, and it directly led to significant shifts in thinking for all of us. Also, unrelated, mini me went to the Minnesota State Fair.

2010—Linchpin was published. This might be my book project that has had the biggest impact. Followed it up with a self-organized event in NYC and then Chicago. Once again, the world says to the project creator... go ahead, pick yourself.

2011—Started as a summer project in 2010, 2011 was devoted to launching a dozen Domino Project books. Each was a bestseller, with special editions, letterpress and experiments in design, pricing and distribution. Publishing the master, Steve Pressfield, was one of my all-time career highlights. After a year of launches, the books remain, but new work goes elsewhere.

2012—The key project of the year was my Kickstarter project, launching four books at the same time (this is not recommended). I learned a lot in closing the circle and turning the reader into the middleman. Writing, designing, marketing and trafficking the four books required most of what I've learned in thirty years. If you're considering a Kickstarter (just one book, please), I hope you'll read this first...

2013—On time, The Icarus Deception, V is for Vulnerable, Watcha Gonna Do With that Duck and the behemoth shipped. The craft of a project is sometimes daring to write a short little book about Smileys and let someone else print it, ship it, promote it and keep it in print for a decade, and sometimes it's about touching every element of the project by hand, hauling boxes, renting storage units and making sure the box got to New Zealand... Thanks to Bernadette Jiwa and Alex Miles Younger for being critical elements of this insane plan. Also, as a bonus, I worked with a fabulous team to build and launch Krypton Community College. (Here's a curriculum on shipping, the heart of the project life).

2014—My Skillshare courses on Entrepreneurship and Marketing both launched and became Skillshare's most successful. The HugDug project launched, raising money for charity: water, Acumen, Save the Children and other worthy causes.

---------------

Truly amazing and a testimony to his work and perseverance.

I am off to watch This is Broken as never seen it... very excited.

What do you take from the last 30 years of his work? What lessons does this teach you?

How could use Disruptive Innovation to advance your thinking and your career?

A really nice blog from Jeff Shuey

Jeff is an expert in the Enterprise Content Management industry. He brings over 20 years of Channel Sales, Partner Marketing and Alliance expertise to audiences around the world in speaking engagements and via his writing. 

He has worked for Microsoft, Kodak, K2 and Gimmal. Follow him on Twitter @jshuey or on LinkedIn: in/JeffShuey

The blog is all about how could use Disruptive Innovation to advance your thinking and your career?

It's quite funny as without realising it - I have been doing this for years. Now it has a name - I will double my efforts by doing it consciously, see below ... 

"First, let’s think about what Disruptive Innovation (otherwise known as DI) means.

A disruptive innovation is an innovation that helps create a newmarket and value network ~via Wikipedia

Using DI thinking can certainly impact long held business models. A few business that have been impacted by Disruptive Innovations are listed below and followed by some of the businesses that stepped in to replace them.

• Tower Records –> Napster (now Pandora, Spotify, iTunes and many others)
• Blockbuster –> Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.
• Travel Agents / Agencies –> Expedia, Kayak, et al

In the first example the original disruptive innovator, Napster, has already been DI’d by new entrants. Which only proves the point that DI thinking is an effort that never ends. Very much like your career. You need to constantly be on the lookout for a different way to do something.

You could argue that Uber - the DI of the taxi industry is going to be DI'ed by Justaxi - the Manchester cheeky up start / start up. 

However, the same principles can be applied to your Career Development. For example:

• In education: Instead of 4 years for university –> Consider MOOC’s.
• (Which is what I did to learn about gamifaction with University of Penn) 
• Instead of climbing the corporate ladder –> Create your own ladder
• (Which is what I am going to do with my own mobile games company) 
• In lieu of solving the same old problems –> Develop new ways of thinking that focus on higher value customer needs
• (Again my plan for mobile games - that can become gifts for people....) 

First, seek to understand the business you are really in. Make no mistake… a career is a business. It’s the most important business you will ever invest your time and energy into and you’ll be doing it for a long time. So, make the most of it.

To understand your business and to think a little more sideways you should start by asking different questions, experimenting with new models, and looking for different ways to add value in ways that have not been considered.

For example, if you went to school to become an engineer:

• What are you actually creating?
• What benefit are you really delivering?
• Are there different ways you can deliver value to the customer?

These same questions can be applied to almost any career. Whether you studied accounting, drama or zoology.

Seek to Out Innovate Yourself

This may seem like an oxymoron, but when you think about it you need stay ahead of the competition. Where the competition is not necessarily the person in the cube next to you. The competition is yourself. 

You want to do more tomorrow. But, you don’t always need to work longer hours. The old cliché is true here… you want to Work Smarter, Not Harder. When you do your ability to brand yourself as an innovator will be preceded by your ability to think differently, ask tough questions and deliver stellar results."

Wise words Jeff - which is why I popped then up here... 

Here are 17 things the most extraordinary people do every day.

 "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit." - you know who said that? This quote is always attributed to Aristotle and yet it was never written by Aristotle. This quote is from Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy. But the point is still a jolly good one. Here are 17 more. 

Taken from "17 things the most extraordinary people do every day" by BILL MURPHY JR. who is a journalist, ghostwriter, and entrepreneur.

1. Examine long-term goals.

If you don't know where you want to go, you'll probably never arrive. So, it's crucial to spend a few minutes each day thinking about where you'd like to be one, five or even 20 years from now. Your goals will change, and that's a good thing. But it's easier to act strategically when you've thought about where you want your dreams to lead.

I have done this with my mentor and coach but it is time to get them on the walls of the office. 

2. Examine daily plans.

Whether you've written it down or not, you have a to-do list. Do the tasks you're accomplishing truly contribute to your long-term goals? Nobody is 100 percent productive, and that's OK. But if you're working your tail off each day to become better at something you don't even want to be doing, that's a sign it's time for a change.

Maybe understanding mobile app analytics in depth really isn't for me - has been on my to do list for 3 months now.  Or maybe I should just...

3. Ask for help.

Nobody does anything worthwhile alone, and asking for help, when done correctly, isn't a sign of weakness--it's a sign of respect. People enjoy being reminded that their knowledge and skills have value to others. Just ask politely, respectfully and on the other person's schedule. If the help leads to a positive outcome for you, make sure you express your gratitude.  

Time to re-engage in the community as a start up and not as a consultant me thinks.

4. Engage in mentorship.

Mentorship has two sides, so on any given day, do two things: Engage with a mentor, and also offer mentorship to someone else. Not every interaction has to be profound; that would be exhausting. However, if you take a few minutes, for example, to reply to someone seeking to enter your field, and later ask a more expert friend to help you refine your start up plan.

I will contact Phil J, Garry P, and Al M and help out a friend who wanted helping. 

5. Give yourself a break.

Extraordinary people recognize that they are just that--people. We're only human, and success (however it's defined) is never an overnight thing. Should you hold yourself to high standards? Sure, but every day, give yourself a pass on a few things you did wrong, and for missing a few items on this list. You're looking for a general, rising slope in all things in life--not an uninterrupted (and unrealistic) sprint to the top. 

Tomorrow is my day off with my daughter (as a Tuesday) so I will turn off my phone and turn on the rest. 

6. Write down what happened.

Life is a journey, so keep a journal. You don't need to be a polished writer or even devote a lot of time to this; even a small effort can pay huge dividends (as we'll see in item No. 7, below). A top military leader who was working 16-hour days in a time of crisis wanted to keep a journal. His solution? Every day he wrote a single haiku poem describing what happened that day and how he felt.

I have blogged about this and then never done it - I am going to create an app which reminds me to write one sentence a day. Should be simple enough. 

7. Build your confidence.

Everybody has crises of confidence; everyone has to learn to overcome fear of failure.

The best ways to win are twofold, and we've already covered the groundwork on this list. First, engage with mentors. People who've been through similar challenges and inspire you and show you the way. Second, remember the challenges you've overcome in the past--say, perhaps, the things you wrote about in your journal. You did it then; you can do it now.

My confidence is low about my body image after being on the TV and seeing how large I have got - see picture -  so it's time for a walk out with my daughter and to find somewhere, where I can do yoga. 

8. Give thanks and compliments.

Just as you sometimes have crises of confidence, so does everyone else around you. So, make it a point to compliment others, and to express your appreciation for what they do. If you end each day having sincerely uttered the words, "thank you" to a colleague, friend, family member and even people you only interact in passing, you'll find this habit pays you back tenfold. 

I will drop everyone a text (including family members) for everyone who 'liked' and / or shared that I was on the BBC over the weekend. As the reaction truly shocked me. 

9. Focus on others.

No matter that you do, you will leave a legacy. The question is whether you'll be remembered for something positive or something negative. So, keep in mind during all interactions, that this might be someone's lasting impression of you. If you want to hear a powerful example of this in action, read this story about actor Robert Downey Jr. I won't ruin it for you; just read it.

Just read it - and if I didn't love Robert Downey Jr. or the characters he plays enough - I do now. 

10. Get some physical exercise.

It doesn't have to be much--just a 20- or 30-minute workout each day can improve your outlook and change your life.

Find me the 20 minutes.... Ok I will make 20 minutes. Christ I blog for more than an hour! 

11. Quit something.

Coming up with a great idea isn't the hard part in life. Instead, it's eliminating 99 out of 100 great ideas, so you can focus on the few that really work. The only way to do that is to be willing to give up on things you've tried but aren't paying off--nevermind the sunk costs.

This is the one that has got to me more than the others combined. 

So I quote from the hyperlink. "It's escalation of commitment,when an entrepreneur has invested resources into a new business, they have difficulty letting go even when things go south or another opportunity arises." Today I quit something, handed my notice in emotionally, and tomorrow I am going to do the same with something else. 

12. Check small things.

Extraordinary people learn to delegate effectively. That can be scary, because it requires trust. You can't possibly check everything you've delegated, but you can check some small things, which in turn creates the possibility you'll check everything.

I don't know what to do about this one - which is probably why I am still blogging so much. Ok I will outsource 75% of the new work I have coming in. 
 

13. Laugh--especially at yourself.

Comedy is the flipside of tragedy. For all the passion with which they pursue their goals, truly extraordinary people keep perspective by recognizing that a well-led life is full of humor. Thus, the most important jokes you'll ever tell are the ones about yourself, even your failures. As H.G. Wells (the writer who gave us War of the Worlds, among many other works) put it, "The crisis of today is the joke of tomorrow."

Time to watch some comedy again - perhaps even listen to The Milk Run again - good stuff - a bit dark.

14. Sleep.

Seven to eight hours a night, at least. If not, you're killing your productivity and killing brain cells.

I will nap with Mia around 2 - 4pm - as been up all night blogging away....

15. Continue your education.

Lifelong learning is one of the keys to success. As my colleague Geoffrey James wrote, "[Approach] lifelong learning with a sense of fun that adds pleasure and energy to the tasks at hand. It means expanding your principles and practices so that they serve a greater purpose."

I have signed up for many coding courses.... in an attempt to... 

16. Cultivate outside interests.

All work and no play makes ... well, you know the rest. Let your mind wander every day, and feed it heartily. And, when you've stumbled upon something truly fantastic and worth telling others about...

 Wednesday

17. Share something great.

Did you hear the one about the SEO writer who walked into a bar ["best bars," "taverns" "pubs" "B&B joint," "where should I go tonight?"] (If you laughed, credit this great PR person; if you groaned, blame me.) Seriously, extraordinary people always have something to share, and something truly interesting to talk about--a joke, a story, a bit of good news. Follow their lead.

I share every day - tomorrow I will share some more :)  Perhaps you will share the original of this too?

The Power of Small. Bored at work, tired of your boss, want to do something amazing. Start your own business ... new research shows us even more reasons why.

 As I think about entering self employment again - some interesting stats - in case you are thinking it too... 

The Power of Small seeks to examine the large growth in the number of micro businesses, and what this phenomenon might mean for all of us. 

Here are 10 key take-aways from the first report from the RSA and Etsy.

#1 – Self-employment is rising at a remarkable pace

The UK is experiencing a boom in self-employment. the number of people who work for themselves is up by 30 per cent since 2000, meaning that 1 in 7 of the workforce is now self-employed. If these trends continue, the number of people who work for themselves will soon outnumber the public sector workforce (we estimate this could happen sometime around 2018).



#2 – Different types of people are turning to self-employment

The number of women in self-employment has grown at around twice the rate as men over recent years. Older people, too, are increasingly turning to self-employment. There has been a 140 per cent increase in the number of over 65s running their own business since 2000. 


#3 – Self-employment is becoming more important as a form of work outside of London



#4 – There are 3 myths about the growth in self-employment that are distorting public opinion

The first being that most of the newly self-employed are there through no choice of their own. While levels of unemployment and self-employment are positively linked, this is only one part of the story.
A second myth is that most of the newly self-employed are low-skilled odd-jobbers scratching around for work. But look closer at the data and we see that the biggest increases in self-employment since 2008 have actually been in professional occupations (one of the highest skilled groups).
Finally, there is the myth that the boom we are witnessing is a cyclical blip. The growth in self-employment can’t go on forever of course, but the ‘cyclical blip’ thesis ignores the fact that self-employment had been increasing long before the recession began in 2008 (see the first graph above).


#5 – There are deeper shifts occurring in our economy and society that are driving this trend

A gradual shift from ‘materialist’ to ‘post-materialist’ values means that greater numbers of people now prize the freedom and meaning that comes with self-employment. Moreover, the emergence of new technologies – which we often take for granted – have sent the cost of doing business into free-fall.


#6 – The self-employed are an incredibly heterogeneous group

So they used the data from the survey with Populus to segment the self-employed community into six tribes.
 
#7 – The self-employed are materially worse off than people in jobs (by about £74 a week)

The full-time self-employed earn around 20 per cent less than their counterparts in conventional jobs, and their earnings have also been falling – down by around 10 per cent in real terms since the turn of the century. Moreover, we know from data collected by the ONS that the self-employed work longer hours – twice the number spend over 50 hours a week at work as employees. And on top of this is the problem of isolation, with close to 40 per cent of our survey respondents agreeing that working for themselves leaves them feeling disconnected from the wider world.

#8 – But the self-employed appear to be more content at work and happier overall in their lives.



#9 – The rise in self-employment may indicate a new ‘creative compromise’ at work

Of those polled in our survey, 82 percent said the work they do is more meaningful than that found in a typical job, and 87 percent that they have more freedom to do the things they want.


This finding indicates that many of the self-employed see the work they do as an end in itself and an inherently enjoyable activity (a concept that – believe it or not – is still foreign to large parts of society).

#10 – It’s time we learned to live with self-employment

If this report tells us anything it is that high levels of self-employment are here to say, and that most of those who work for themselves (including the newly self-employed) actually enjoy what they do, despite the financial drawbacks.

Which sounds about where I am right now - I think it is time to relaunch EnterMobile.