3 Forces for the Magic of Insight

I posted about a book on Seeing What Others Don't.  The book focuses on developing insights.

The last paragraph in the book is

The magic of insights stems from the force for noticing connections, coincidences, and curiosities; the force for detecting contradictions; and the force of creativity unleashed by desperation.  That magic lives inside us, stirring restlessly.

There are too many words in this.  I like to think of this as.  

The three secrets for achieving the magic of insight are seeing patterns, recognizing anomalies, and tapping the source of trying what others haven't.

Do you Manage Your Trust?

Here is a Ted Video on what we don't understand about trust.  

This video is a good one to think about whether you manage your trust, and trust in your systems.

The three factors in trust discussed in this video is competent, honest, and reliable.

Onona asks it a different set of questions.

The part that resonates with so many problems in companies is this one.

Across the last few decades, we've tried to construct systems of accountability for all sorts of institutions and professionals and officials and so on that will make it easier for us to judge their trustworthiness. A lot of these systems have the converse effect. They don't work as they're supposed to. I remember I was talking with a midwife who said, "Well, you see, the problem is it takes longer to do the paperwork than to deliver the baby." And all over our public life, our institutional life, we find that problem, that the system of accountability that is meant to secure trustworthiness and evidence of trustworthiness is actually doing the opposite. It is distracting people who have to do difficult tasks, like midwives, from doing them by requiring them to tick the boxes, as we say. You can all give your own examples there.

Do you prefer Drawing or Talking?

Some people exist in a verbal world wanting to talk in person or on the phone.  Writing is too much work.  And Drawing is not even something they attempt.

But, think about this.

“I prefer drawing to talking.  Drawing is faster, and leaves less room for lies.”

- Le Corbusier

If you want the truth and less lies, you may want to draw more.  This is one reason why I have chosen Galaxy Note smartphones and tablets as my main devices.  Oh and a pad of paper.

Why Bloggers Fail, break the rules

I found this post on why bloggers fail, and the following are ways that I like to break all the rules the writer puts in his post.

There is no way I am like these type of bloggers.

What’s unfortunate is, in that group of people, I’m betting there’s someone just like you….

…Someone who believed pumping out good content will generate the leads and sales they need to run a profitable business.

…Someone who believed a journalist or Google would notice their hard work—and reward them with an endless supply of traffic that converts.

I am not a journalist, and spend little time pumping out content, and i don't try to make it good.  I try to make it interesting.  I think interesting content beats good content.

Traffic is not my goal.  In fact, I don't want to get too big, because it means I don't have targeted readers.

Most people who start blogs dream about their blog soaring to Everest-level subscriber numbers.

The results focus is shallow.

They’ll waste their first 3 months, and they’ll have NOTHING to show for it other than a bunch of social media logins, passwords, and the belief that “I’ll be ready to go, when I just finish this one thing…”

And here is the assumption that I disagree with.

They start their blog with good intentions, but fall off the beaten path because they waste time on pointless drivel that doesn’t deliver what they really want: more traffic… more leads… more sales.

I don't make any money on the traffic.  Well less than $1,000 a year in google adsense I don't consider money, it's loose change from not splurging at Starbucks.  I don't get any leads or sales.

So, why do I blog?  Writing my ideas down ingrains them in my memory.  My blog entries are all searchable.  The thing I didn't expect from this blog is many of my friends read regularly and we have fun chatting in person.

My main value from blogging is it enhances the conversations I have when I meet with my friends in person, talk on the phone, or exchange e-mail.

Name me a blogger who uses their blog to improve the quality of the communication with their friends.

See how Journalism works, where the money comes from influences the content

One of the things I've had an interesting time trying to understand how the media works.  I use to work on print publishing technologies at Apple and Microsoft, and print is a continuous slide.  Going from print to online has been a painful transition for many.  

Matthew Ingram on PaidContent has a post that points out the difficulty of online journalism is can't survive without a wealthy benefactor or cat GIFS (random entertainment).  The meat of his point is here.

News has always been subsidized somehow

In the good old days, the journalism business was subsidized by all of the other things a newspaper containedapart from the news. This included classified ads, obviously, but also horoscopes, gardening columns, the comic page and other add-ons that had little or nothing to do with news or journalism. Gradually the internet has taken most of these pillars away, and left newspapers with just the hard news — in other words, the only thing no one wants to pay for.

Matthew points out Jeff Bezos acquisition of the Washington Post and other trade pubs.

Until it was acquired by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the Washington Post was subsidized not just by the Graham family, but also by the Kaplan education business (until it began to fail as well). In Canada, the largest national paper — theGlobe and Mail — is owned by the Thomson family of Thomson Reuters fame, while the Toronto Star has been subsidized by both a family trust and the Harlequin romance business. The parent company of the Guardian in Britain subsidizes its journalism through a family trust but also through the ownership of the Auto Trader group of companies.

No different than understanding the background and history of a writer it is useful to understand what is subsidizing the news you are reading, because news in itself is not profitable.