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Josh Allan Dykstra
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Josh Allan Dykstra
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LifeMay 6, 2009

Incorporate Yourself

I'm working on writing another book. It started as an idea for a project I had to create for my MBA program and has morphed into a giant opus that is consuming my life. OK, that last part isn't really true, but it does feel like a pretty daunting task sometimes. This morning I decided to set aside a couple hours to just write. As a completely freelance independent contractor, I'm trying to have more personal discipline with the things I do, starting by setting aside blocks of time to work on a specific thing: Finance Homework, 9a-noon; Book/Writing, noon-3p, that kind of thing. It doesn't always work (I'm not sure if you're aware but there are a LOT of interesting things on the internet), but I think the self-control of a regimen is really great. I'm all about viewing ourselves as a "brand," as an "enterprise." YOU are the business. Even if you get paid as an employee, think of yourself as a contractor: lending your talents to the project at hand. Incorporate yourself. The benefits to this way of thinking are astronomical. I'll explore this concept more in future posts, but in a nutshell it's simply more empowering. It's one thing to say, "This is what I do, and this how I can bring value to your company if we partner together." It's another thing altogether to be sending out resumes all day, getting, or feeling, rejected one after the other. (If you've ever been unemployed you know exactly what I'm talking about; it's literally inhumane.) It's not easy to think of ourselves in this new way, though. There's a lot of sociological baggage we've got to ditch (our culture focuses primarily on weaknesses over strengths, for example), and good time management is a really tough skill to learn. Also, we're taught that a 60 hour work week is what it takes to be successful. But some very prosperous people don't do that. We're told that we get out of something what we put into it. But due to things like the concept of leverage and the Pareto Principle (or 80/20 rule), we know that's not really true either. We'll talk more on that another day. There's usually a lot of re-training that has to happen before we can learn how to build a better personal leadership brand. For today, I think we start with simply questioning the assumptions. Does your work have to be done the way it's always been done? Do you have to live the way you've been living? There's a cool moment at the end of a film with two brothers sitting on the beach talking about recent frustrating circumstances, and one says to the other: "This is your life. Right now. It doesn't wait for you to get back on your feet." I'll leave you with some thoughts from the principles of Kaizen (Japanese for "improvement"):
  1. Get rid of old assumptions; ask “Why?” five times to get to the root cause.
  2. Don’t look for excuses, look for ways to make things happen.
  3. Say “NO” to the status quo.
  4. Don’t worry about being perfect—even if you only get it half right, start now.
  5. If something is wrong, fix it on the spot.
//
LeadershipMarch 6, 2009

Outliers

I finished reading Malcom Gladwell's latest book, Outliers, a few nights ago. I know what I have to say about this book is going to be completely esoteric, in the sense that you will likely have to read it before fully participating. Not that you're not brilliant people; I'm sure you can easily make sense out of my words. But my fear is that if you haven't read it, you may be tempted to take some of the things I say at face value, which is not how they're written -- they're written with the mental tapestry of Outliers as a background. I'm not sure of another way to do this, as I want to attempt to take the concepts Gladwell presents in Outliers one step further. You should probably view these initial paragraphs as much of a disclaimer as anything else, as I don't want to "give away" the book for you. Go read it and come on back! I enjoyed this read immensely, as I have all of Gladwell's works, and this is perhaps even my favorite. Where all his works provide plenty of abstract intellectual fodder for my mind to gleefully process for weeks, Outliers has a sharp edge of pragmatism that makes it special. It also contains tinges of the kind of social activism that really revs my engine, turns my crank, places my soapbox before a microphone... that kind of thing. Here's a few thoughts: 1. Education How can the educational system continue to ignore works like this? In Outliers, Gladwell presents a bevy of facts (not to mention crystal clear logic) for how and why the college admission process, for one thing, is mostly an outdated ludicrous absurdity. But he doesn't stop there; it turns out, the social constructs we've built around most organized projects (schools, sports, music, etc.) have become self-fulfilling prophecies, archetypal facades that have been built on so many layers of edifice that they can no longer even see where they began, and for what purpose. How does one even go about reforming these magnificent disasters of greed and perpetual fragmentation? Do we even try? I'm inclined to encourage the beginning of something else; to foster and support a brand new educational model, for example, that can hopefully someday replace the current system. (Gladly, some of this discussion has already begun: P21, KIPP, etc..) 2. Self-Made BS I love the idea that the "self-made man" is a total myth. I've suspected this to be true for awhile, intuitively, so it's nice to see some logical background for it. The truth is, nobody makes it on their own. EVER. This makes infinitely more sense to me. People don't live in a vacuum; we are constantly "made" by our social surroundings. That's not to say we have no control, but once we begin to realize that we need to change our surroundings and not just ourselves, I think we'll be a long way towards undersatnding how to better create the future. 3. Social Assessments How can we connect an understanding of the social construction component in success with studies of our own lives, past and future? This is the issue that intrigues me the most about the implications of Outliers: is there a way to somehow extrapolate a model from Gladwell's work to where we could analyze our own life story -- our own social constructs, our family backgrounds, the month and year in which we were born, and the particular moment of history we were born into -- and combine it with personal research into individual talents and strengths, and then multiply that knowledge by what we are passionate about, thereby providing a much more insigntful process into each person's unique "place in the world"...?? Seems like a an intense endeavor, to say the least, but just imagine the possibilities if we could! We've already made so much progress within individualized assessments (psychological, emotional, talent, etc.); why couldn't we develop systems to generate "social" or "contextual" assessments? //
LifeJanuary 27, 2009

What The Heck Is RSS!?

Perhaps you are on the cutting edge of technological innovation, are already harnessing the awesome syndicating power of RSS, and recognize it for what it is: a snapshot of what the web will become in the next few years. But if you're confused about what the heck RSS even IS (much less pondering its future ramifications), this post is for you. Now, I'm pretty nerdy. I get some serious jollies from techno-dorky articles, read blogs like Engadget fairly regularly, and sleep with my iPhone under my pillow so I can feel connected to the world (just kidding on that last one... most nights). But honestly -- can anything with the word SIMPLE in its title (RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication) be MORE confusing than RSS? Even with my techie proclivities, RSS was confusing at first. I've searched all over the web trying to find an article that will clearly explain what it is -- and more importantly, how the heck to use it productively. Trust me: everything out there sucks. (OK, I didn't read them ALL, but whatever.) So I decided it's time for me to give it a shot. Hopefully my explanation will suck less than the others. +++ RSS INFO STARTS HERE At its core, the idea of RSS is somewhat simple. All it IS is a single page called a "feed" that compiles and lists new articles that are posted to a specific site. That's it: one page that will list the new stuff that is put on a site. A blog is the probably the best example. The reason people visit blogs repeatedly is to see new content. Most blogs have RSS feeds because they are updated regularly. Or take a news site like CNN.com for example. They currently offer two different RSS "feeds:" one for Top Stories and one for Recent Stories. Remember: feed is the word typically used to describe that singular page that is continually updated. Each feed page will typically list the 10-20 most recently written articles. With me so far?? The "feed" is crucial because it is the piece that will actually make RSS helpful. +++ SUMMARY SO FAR So... so far we have a page that is updated by whomever is authoring the webpage. That page is called a feed, and is essentially what people are talking about when they say "RSS." But the other piece to this equation, that is sadly much less often discussed, is how the heck we make it USEFUL and/or why we should CARE about it! +++ WHY YOU SHOULD CARE I don't know if you feel this way, but one of my biggest challenges is staying updated with what's happening around the world while at the same time not being utterly overwhelmed by the staggering amount of information that's out there. Frankly, I don't even remotely care about all of the news out there, but there are some things (for me it's things like technology, entertainment, and economics) that I want to make sure I'm current with. This is where RSS actually makes my life easier. What you can do is take one of those RSS feed pages and "subscribe" to it. The benefit of subscribing to an RSS feed is that the news you want comes to you. You don't have to go looking for it, explore a bunch of different sites, or waste a bunch of time. +++ HOW TO SUBSCRIBE In order to subscribe, the first thing you need to know is how to recognize if a website is providing an RSS feed. If the site you're on provides RSS, up in your URL bar (where the website address is) you'll see an icon on the far right side that will probably look like one of these: If it's got one of these (or something similar), you're in business! They're providing an RSS feed and you can subscribe. (As you should be able to see, this blog site provides an RSS feed.) To subscribe, though, you need something that will "read" the feed. It's just like you need an Internet Explorer, Safari, or Firefox browser to "read" a website. Make sense? You could most likely use that same browser to read an RSS feed, but you're not really gaining much, as you still have to go to each site and you'll just be looking at a more boring version of the articles. (This will probably make more sense if you click on a few of the feed links I provided above.) RSS feeds aren't pretty, and they aren't meant to be a substitute for a webpage; they're actually built to be subscribed to! Remember, the trick is to make the news COME TO YOU. So the question, then, is what should I use to "read" these feeds, right? There are a few "online" readers -- Google and Yahoo both have them built into their account services. These would probably be useful if you have a Gmail or a MyYahoo account. But for the rest of us -- particularly if you use Outlook or Apple Mail -- I would suggest just using your email program as a reader! This is where it gets a bit tricky, as there isn't one way to subscribe to an RSS feed; it varies by browser and by email program. If you're using IE7 and Outlook 2007, this page looks like it would be helpful. If you're using Safari, just click on the RSS button in the right side of URL bar. (If it shows options, pick one and see if it lists the things you want. If it doesn't, try the others.) This opens the feed, and at the bottom of the menu list on the right you'll see an option that says: "Subscribe in Mail." Click it. It's that easy! The major benefit of using your email program as your reader is that not only do you get the benefits of RSS and the latest updated news will come straight to you, but If you're like me, you have your email open ALL THE TIME anyway! This way, if one of your news sources updates a feed, you'll get the new article right away, just like a new email! +++ BLOGS As mentioned, most blogs have an RSS feature built in, as well. For example, you can feel free to subscribe to my blog, if you like. Click here for my feed (or click the RSS icon above). +++ THE FUTURE RSS offers us a glimpse into the future of the internet -- technology like this gives us a way to manage something as vast and completely unmanageable as the internet (which is, of course, growing more gorged with every second that passes as people add more content to its servers). I'm convinced that we will see more and more applications like this as we are forced to find ways to make SENSE of the petabytes of information that will bombard us. We're probably not as far from this as we think: So, enjoy RSS for what is is. Because soon it will be scanning your retina. ;-) //