Tag: brief moments of genius

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Want to Know The Secret to the Perfect NCAA Bracket? Pick By Storyline.

It’s that time of year when everyone’s breaking out their brackets. And everyone’s got their methods. Some pick based on reputation. Some turn to the computers for advice. Some pick based on the cuteness of a school’s mascot.

I’ve got a new system this year, and I think it’s a winner:

I pick by storyline.

That’s right. Forget the percentages or the seedings. Who’s got the best story?

Because that’s what it’s been about the last few years. Look at last year’s bracket. We had four great stories in the Final Four:

1. Kemba Walker’s amazing one-man run through the tournament
2. John Calipari — the villain of college basketball — tries to win it all with a team of guns-for-hire
3. Shaka and 11th-seeded VCU shocks the world
4. Butler’s unbelievable repeat Final Four trip

We love great stories in the tournament. Jimmy V’s Wolfpack were a great story. Juan Dixon’s Terps were a great story. George Mason’s Final Four team was a great story.

This year, I’ve made it my motto: If I can’t envision the movie being made about a team’s performance in the NCAA Tournament, I won’t pick them.

So, yeah, I’m picking Missouri. They were left for dead back in the fall, defied all odds, somehow worked their way into a 2-seed, and in the Final Four, they might have to go through Kentucky — future SEC foe — and Kansas — the once-and-forever rival. I’d watch that movie about the underdog Tigers gunning for their first title.

I’m also picking Harvard. The Ivy League team that can actually play? Denzel’s already lining up for his role as Harvard coach Tommy Amaker in this one. Harvard’s been seeded in the East, and that region’s road to the Final Four runs through Boston. I’d pay to see the Spike Lee joint about Harvard, fair Harvard, suddenly playing for keeps in front of a rowdy hometown crowd[1. Spoiler alert for the film: Jeremy Lin comes back to give the team the inspirational speech before their Elite Eight game.].

Or maybe I should pick Purdue. They’ve got Robbie Hummel, a sixth-year senior. Two ACL surgeries later, he’s finally back in the Big Dance. He’s “Rudy” crossed with “Rocky” — a movie just waiting to happen.

Or what about New Mexico? They’ve got Demetrius Walker, who’s already got one hell of a story out about him in print already. Or South Dakota State, the underdog tale of a tiny school in a tiny state taking on a Monstars-sized Baylor team? Or Gonzaga, the former Cinderella who’s become a giant of college hoops?

I’m looking at my bracket, and all I see are great stories: Stories about underdogs, about dreams, about greatness.

The kind of stories that just might help me win an office pool.

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I Cannot Codify Entrepreneurship, And Neither Can You, And Here’s Why.

337.365 - December 3, 2010

There was a point not all that long ago when I was pretty sure I could codify entrepreneurship. I’d heard plenty of stories, and talked to plenty of entrepreneurs, and I was seeing a lot of the same themes repeat. I thought that if I could just ID specific points along the way, I could explain how to master this thing.

Then I discovered that this isn’t a board game. There aren’t logical, sequential steps. There are common themes, but there isn’t any sense to how this works. Entrepreneurship is a cross between a Choose Your Own Adventure book and Mad-Libs — it’s weird, and deeply personal, and subject to both non-sequitors and randomness.

I read this fantastic quote from KissMetrics’ Hiten Shah that reminded me of just why that is. It’s in a post about how to find the right mentors. He writes:

“That’s the thing about mentoring that people need to understand: It’s about the strength of the individual to weather the unrelenting storm that is entrepreneurship, not acquiesce to some rigid timeline of entrepreneurial life milestones.”

Spot on. Entrepreneurship is this mix of all the stuff I love about life — it’s risk, and chance, and success, and failure, and this quest to be unrelentingly awesome — just condensed into something tangible. It’s the venue through which I’ve chosen to explore the world, and nobody’s going to be able to tell me what the right path is, or where the milestones are.

The only path is the one I choose, and the people I surround myself with have to be capable of helping me answer the questions I need to answer along the way. I need to find lots of people who can challenge me, and who I can listen to. But ultimately, they’re not going to be able to tell me if I’m doing this thing the right way.

The only way to figure that out is to do it and see what happens.

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(A Unified Vision Statement For All Current and Future Endeavours Into and) For the Creation of Awesomeness.

Not too long ago, I added a little note to the top of this very blog: “Dan is the creator of awesome stuff.” That’s not just some bro jargon I’m co-opting; I really mean that. I love creating stuff that’s both, A.) Cool, and B.) Useful, and when those two get together, the result is usually awesome. With everything I do, I’m shooting for awesome.

But I decided I needed a few more rules to help me in the creation process. I needed some rules to help me get from idea to awesome a little more quickly. And I needed rules to keep me from working on stuff that’s decidedly, you know… blah.

So I made a list. And here’s what’s on it for 2012:

1. Doing > trying.
2. So do shit.
3. Go fast.
4. Fail often.
5. Be curious.
6. Listen always.
7. Try impossible.
8. Build with love.
9. Serve people.
10. Don’t suck.

In 2012, that’s what I’ve got to live up to. 10 rules. Infinite challenges ahead.

Onto the next.

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These Are Some Really Smart Thoughts On Leadership in Newsrooms. I Stole Them From Other People, and You Should Steal Them From Me.

I spent the weekend at NewsFoo, this unconference out in Phoenix. It’s a strange affair: The organizers — O’Reilly Media, the Knight Foundation and Google — handpick about 150 people involved in all corners of news, and they throw them in a building together for a weekend. There aren’t any sessions planned out in advance. People just show up, and what happens happens. The thing gets made up as it goes along.[1. In fact, the photo at top is of the official conference schedule that was made up Friday night, a few hours into the event.]

It was a remarkable weekend, and I had to remind myself to look up every once in a while from taking notes to remind myself that, yes, I was in this room, too. It was impossible not to enjoy the energy that everyone seemed to bring to the weekend.

I showed up at NewsFoo hoping to keep my mouth shut and steal some great ideas, but one session got my especially energized: A session about leadership, innovation, and how the two can come into play when merging the worlds of traditional news and startups. I’m not sure exactly what the session was called; Lead, Follow or the Get the Fuck Out of the Way would have been a decent title, I suppose.

But here’s what I heard that I think is worth repeating[2. Everything here is roughly paraphrased, FWIW.]:

The first step to success is defining what success means. What the editorial people think success is is often different from what the revenue people think. It’s tough to chase success if you don’t agree on what it is. — Raju Narisetti

Talk about what you’re really doing with a particular project. When you can’t agree on the size of the opportunity, it’s tough to figure out how big an investment (time/money/people) should be made to seize it. — Gregg Lindahl

When you try to apply old news operation standards to startups — where things are inherently messy — you’re going to struggle. To thrive, traditional operations must be able to tolerate risk. — David Cohn

Use human language when operating within a news organization. Avoid jargon. And when you’re trying to create organization-wide change, start at the top and work down. Once you enable the upper management to think differently, it makes it easier for lower-level employees to want to change. — Julie Starr

Break down points of resistance. Reduce friction. — Miguel Paz

If you’re chasing something really big, then prepare for it to play out slowly. But don’t say that out loud. Once you tell people things are going to happen slowly, then that’s the pace they’ll go. — Raju Narisetti

I especially loved a thing that Javaun Moradi from NPR said. He works with APIs at NPR, and he talked about NPR’s Serendipity Days. These are designated periods when the tech guys at NPR stop everything they’re working on for 48 hours, form teams and work on anything they want. They put up a board in the office and make a list of big problems. And then they get to work at solving them.

You’ve probably heard of similar corporate examples, like Google’s 20 percent time, or maybe FedEx Day.[3. I also recently stumbled upon a web development company that created a side organization to foster and promote these ideas/projects that come from outside the normal workflow.]

But what Javaun said I found especially insightful. He said it’s events like Serendipity Days that help create grassroots serendipity, and that’s where the great stuff happens. Once you empower people to do, they’ll start making/building/breaking things. That’s a huge leap towards change.

And being at NewsFoo this weekend, just bullshitting about ideas and listening to so many smart people, it was tough not to feel like I was in the midst of a pretty amazing weekend proving exactly his point. What happens now is up to us, and damn if that isn’t an empowering feeling.

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Life Lessons Learned From Three Chicks in an RV.

Every once in a while, I get to meet someone who just knocks me over. Someone doing something inspiring and risky and ambitious and epic. Someone who’s doing something incredible.

And last night, I met three ladies who are traveling America in an RV, doing good deeds and inspiring others to chase big dreams. I couldn’t help but be bowled over by the Girls Gone Moto. They started talking about their stories — how they embraced the fear, how they found a dream to chase — and I started thinking of my own story.

See, I remember when I was leaving San Antonio and headed to Biloxi to start Stry. I remember how terrified I was. I remember thinking that there were a million steps ahead of me. I remember thinking, What if it all works? What if it succeeds? What if it turns into a real business? What if I hire employees? What if people start depending on me? What then?

I’d never done any of that, and it all seemed overwhelming. The thought of success seemed overwhelming. So I let the fear in a little bit, and then the questions started changing. I stopped thinking about all the baby steps ahead of me, and started thinking, Well, what if I can’t do this? What if I shouldn’t?

But I know now: There’s a part of the brain that loves to sabotage dreams. It’s the naysayer within your subconscious. And I know now: Sometimes, you have to embrace that fear and blow right past it.

I did, and I can’t begin to describe the sensation of knocking fear back on its ass. It’s an amazing feeling.

And no, the fear doesn’t ever just go away. But once you’ve conquered it once, you’ll always know that you can conquer it again.

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My Sister, the Graduate.

My little sister graduated from college this week. We went down to celebrate graduation with her. We filed into the school’s basketball arena on Thursday. We sat and watch the processional. An orchestra played. A Dean spoke. Hands clapped, and parents ‘Woo-Hoo!’-ed, and mostly, we just sat, unbelievably proud of my little sister.

Now, she didn’t think much of her graduation. We’re Jewish kids from the suburbs who get to go on week-long ski trips — we’re not exactly the kind of college graduates who’ve had to overcome long odds. I said it when I graduated, and my sister said the same thing after hers.

But I remember a conversation we had three years ago. My sister called me, in tears. She was having a tough semester. She’d felt resistance — from her classes, from her peers. She felt isolated and lost, and she called asking for help.

I remember feeling a tremendous responsibility. I’d been called upon for brotherly support, and I remember reaching back to a place I didn’t know I could go to give her the only advice I think I’ve ever really believed:

Go out and find the things you love and the people you love, and be with them as much as you can.

Fast forward to the close of the graduation ceremony on Thursday. I was holding the camera, and my sister started dragging me through the crowd. She wanted a photo with this friend, and that friend, and this family. Hugs and kisses. Some English, and some Spanish, and even a bit of Swahili. Enough moments to put a Kodak executive’s family through college.

My mother looked at me — my mother, the lady who knows everyone, the lady who can, has and will start conversations with complete strangers in the bathroom — and said, “Your sister knows everyone.”

I was about as proud as a brother could be. We started hearing stories about how my sister had met all these people. Turns out my sister had thrown herself into everything — clubs and sports and classes, and she’d made some incredible friends.

She’d figured out college.

Because there’s a little secret about undergraduate life. They don’t tell you this when you’re reaching for the Ivies, or when you’re cramming for SATs, or when you’re being schooled in the differences between early action and early decision.

College isn’t about the classes. If you’re lucky, for four years, it’s a place to try. College is four years to try things that you won’t have time to try once you’re old, four years to experiment, four years to grow. Four years to find the stuff you love and the people you love.

You’re right, El. We don’t have the Hollywood story. You’re right: we expected you to graduate from college.

But you found something else at college, El. And for finding it, we couldn’t be prouder.

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Introducing The Roadside Journalism Assistance Network.

There is a fad coming. The buzz inside journalism circles is that great reporting needs to be supported by multiple revenue streams. Walmart won’t support the Beijing bureau anymore, and a paywall might not either. Something else needs to fill in the funding gaps.

Smaller news organizations are looking for their extra sources of revenue, too. Some are encouraged by a chain of joint hyperlocal sites/coffee shops launched[1. And recently closed] in Germany. But I’ve got another idea.

See, I’ve been spending a lot of time at Starbucks lately. That’s what freelance reporters tend to do: find a coffee shop and park themselves there. But my friends and family seem to know this too.

And they’ve been taking advantage of it.

Now that they know I’m around — “and since you’re only typing, Dan,” they’ll say — they’ve made me their go-to emergency contact. This past week, I’ve been the guy they call when their car needs a jump start, or when their cover letter needs a last-minute edit, or when they’re hoping for a ride to the thing in the place that’s only half an hour away, and, Sorry, Dan, but it’ll be during rush hour.

So I’ve been running these errands free of charge. But I think there’s a larger network of coffee shop-based reporters just like me, and I think it’s time we cash in.

With RoJAN.

That’s the Roadside Journalism Assistance Network, as I’ve taken to calling it. Here’s how it’ll work. We’re going to build a network of reporters across the country. When they arrive at their nearby coffee shop, they’ll log into our system. They’ll pop up as “live” on our national map of available reporters. Then, thanks to our handy mobile app, anyone looking for immediate assistance can check to see where the nearest RoJAN reporter is based and contact him/her.

Meanwhile, our reporters will be waiting. They’ll respond to any call — Need a tow? Need an edit? Need a fantasy football dispute settled? — and then they’ll accept payment.[2. Via Square, of course.] Unlike AAA, which costs hundreds of dollars each year, RoJAN will make its money by being speedy, efficient, multi-talented and price-effective.

In other words: it’ll be cheap, it’ll be quick, and its employees will be more versatile than a Swiss Army knife. RoJAN: the roadside emergency service for any problem.

And here’s the best part: once the reporter has finished serving the client, that familiar seat at the Starbucks will be waiting.

Fellow reporters: your alternate source of funding has arrived.

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An Open Letter to the PR Firm That Represents AT&T Regarding Potential Dunk Tank Promotional Opportunities.

Dear Fleishman-Hillard,

You’re the PR agency that represents AT&T. They’re one of your biggest clients. They’re also one of the largest companies on the planet, and for the last few years, I have been among the millions of AT&T customers who have come to decide that they are totally screwing me over.

I pay AT&T for both my cellular and Internet service, and I dislike both. Every time my phone loses service, and every time the wireless router at my apartment has a random, unexplained outage, I find myself quietly coveting Verizon, the AT&T competitor who may be just as evil.

I try not to take out my frustrations on AT&T’s customer care representatives. It’s tough to get mad at a kid in a call center on another continent. Sanjay, for anything I’ve said before: I didn’t mean it.

But I would like to vent to someone. And for you, the PR team behind AT&T: I think I’ve got a way for you to offer customer catharsis and win the Internet for a day.

Two words: dunk tank.

Go rent a park, say, the one next to the Golden Gate Bridge. Fly out 10 of your most dissatisfied customers. The ones who’ve said things to Sanjay that they cannot merely repent for on Yom Kippur. The ones who blame AT&T for running their business or their marriage or their lives. The ones who’d rather lick an oil-soaked pelican than say something nice about their iPhone service.

Find those guys. Fly them out to the park, and line them up in front of a dunk tank. Get the AT&T board of directors, and have them sit their turns in it. Let the angry customers finally get our collective revenge on someone within the AT&T family.

Consider the dunk tank a peace offering from AT&T to all of us who feel wronged. The rest of us will thank you for it.

And if you’re looking for someone to cast the first ball, let me know. I might have some dropped-call issues to work out.

Thanks,
Dan

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A Eureka! Moment: Why I Only Have Good Ideas When Tiny Scraps of Paper Are Around.

The revelation came to me in the moments before sleep, and I went searching for something to scribble it down on. All I could find was a small envelope on my kitchen table.

But what else could I be expected to write on in such a moment?

What hit me last night, what pulled me out of bed and sent me searching for any scrap of paper, was a simple truth: I only have good ideas when there’s barely anything around to write on.

I have owned dry erase boards that I’ve never used, oversized notepads that stayed blank and binders that held nothing.

But I’ve captured eureka! moments on cocktail napkins, scribbled genius ideas in the margins of newspaper columns and on business cards. I’ve rarely had success carrying around a notebook, with one exception: in the summer of 2008, when I had this bound, 3” x 2” pad that I covered every inch of with tiny thought bursts during my travels in China.

The more I consider it, the more the words jotted down last night on the back side of that envelope ring true: “The profundity of an idea varies in inverse proportion to the size of the paper it’s written on.”

eurekamomentsgraphed

Or, in words: the smaller (and stranger) the thing I’m writing on, the greater the eureka being written. [1. This may explain why I’ve jotted down great ideas on the inside of a paper towel roll but never on an actual, oversized paper towel.]

I’ve always kept these big legal pads around for the moments in which I’d need to fully flesh out an idea. But maybe it’s that a confined space — forced brevity! — is the key to innovation.

Shouldn’t the best ideas should be jotted down in their most basic form first before being carefully considered and expanded upon? Isn’t it only fair to let a spark turn into a slow burn, to let brief moments of genius turn into something of scale?

This is the kind of revelation that could force a change in lifestyle. I’ve started thinking about getting rid of all the big legal pads around my apartment. With the money saved, I could head to a local paper store instead and buy a stack of customized cocktail napkins. (“From the Desk of Dan Oshinsky,” they’ll read.)

That’s just one idea; I still haven’t decided what the next step is. But I’m not too worried. I picked up a tiny green receipt from a parking garage the other day. It couldn’t be more than an inch tall and two inches wide. I guess I’ll just have to keep it around and wait for inspiration to strike.

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