小眼睛的健康世界

 Salmagundi on offer is not the shortcut it appears to be

If you could eat the kitchen sink, that's what you'd get when you order Salmagundi. "Salmagundi is a salad dish, originating in the early 17th century in England, comprising cooked meats, seafood, vegetables, fruit, leaves, nuts and flowers and dressed with oil, vinegar and spices."

Here's the thing: there are very few people willing to cross the street, spread the word or pay extra for "all of the above."

Better to pick just one thing you can be proud of, rather than offering just about everything in an attempt to please just about everyone (and thus no one).

Fear the fear, feel the fear

Most of the things we avoid are avoided because we're afraid of being afraid.

Too meta?

Sorry, but it's true. The negative outcomes that could actually occur due to speaking up in class, caring about our work product, interacting with the boss--there's not a lot of measurable risk. But the fear... the fear can be debilitating, or at the very least, distasteful. So it's easier to just avoid it altogether.

On the other hand, artists and leaders seek out that feeling. They push themselves to the edge, to the place where the fear lives. By feeling it, by exposing themselves to the resistance, they become more alive and do work that they're most proud of.

The fear doesn't care, either way. The choice is to spend our time avoiding that fear or embracing it.

Not a gift

Here are attributes many of us value in co-workers, bosses, employees, friends and vendors:

Honest
Punctual
Curious
Proactive
Flexible
Thoughtful
Generous
Fun
Committed
Respectful
Organized
Interested
Creative
Likable
Positive
you get the idea. These are things that turn someone from ordinary into a star. They are even attributes we now assign to our favorite brands, treating them like trusted or respected friends.

Someone who is likable, honest, curious and thoughtful is easy to think of as gifted. This natural charisma and care is worth seeking out in the people we choose to work with.

The thing is, it's a copout to call these things gifts. You might be born with a headstart in one area or another, you might be raised in a culture or with parents that reinforce some of these things, but these are attitudes, and attitudes can be taught, and they can be learned.

The question, then, is do you care enough to take them on? It's not fair to say, "I'm not respectful" or "I'm not creative." It is honest and clear to say, "I choose not to be honest," or "I don't want to do the work to be organized."

We can own these things. What a privilege. (HT Zig).

When free collides with powerful

One of the lessons that Microsoft taught Apple and Google is that ubiquity can be incredibly profitable.

By changing file formats, Microsoft forces every person in an organization to upgrade Word to the current state, because one of the reasons to use Word is that everyone else uses it. This isn't often true for products in the real world--cars and whiskey and apartment buildings inevitably gain variation, whereas software tools are pushed toward a common standard--a new form of monopoly.

The strategy at Microsoft was always to put in power user enhancements, though, so that the power user (the weird one, the one on the edge, the one choosing to care) would hear about the upgrade and insist that everyone else on her team would upgrade as well.

Free, though, turbocharges the movement toward ubiquity at the same time it sabotages the power user. When the 'upgrade' is free, when the new version requires everyone to upgrade and is free as well, that's sort of irresistible. The problem is that free destroys markets even faster than monopoly does, because it's incredibly difficult for competitors without the other income streams to find a reason to compete.

And so, the new version of Pages from Apple is widely reviled by those that want a powerful tool. And the new version of Keynote, a program I use eight hours a day, is on the same path. It has the same one-way path for data structure (the new version forces all old users to upgrade if they want to collaborate) but it abandons a focus on professionals. Features and the goal of building for a craftsman are exchanged for the cross-platform ease and gimcracks that will please a crowd happy enough with free.

There are few deadends in the software business. When a platform gets dumb, the power users push for someone else to come along and make a better one. And when the monopolist gets greedy (as every dominant word processor vendor has) then the people who care take a leap and move to another tool.

In the meantime, the users who made the platform work in the first place spend a lot of time cursing the darkness that used to be light. Too often, power tools in software turn into entertainment platforms instead. There's more money in it.

The generous skeptic

If you've got a big idea, there's no doubt that you will run into skeptics along the way.

Many skeptics are afraid for you, embrace the status quo, and in their twisted but well-intentioned way, will work to persuade you to give up your dream. This sort of skeptic should be ignored, certainly. It doesn't really pay to argue with them, because your impassioned restatement of your view of reality will do little to persuade them that you're not doing something crazy risky.

The other kind of skeptic, though, should be treated totally differently.

The generous skeptic has insight into your field, your strengths and weaknesses. She wants you to succeed, but maybe, just maybe, sees something you don't.

When the generous skeptic speaks up, she's taking a risk. If you respond to her generosity by arguing, by shutting down, by avoiding eye contact or becoming defensive, you've blown it. You've taken a gift and wasted it, and disrespected the gift giver at the same time.

The alternative is to emotionally stand up and sit down on her side of the table. Egg her on. Imagine the world the way she sees it. Take her tactical skepticism and amplify it, pushing it to its logical conclusion. Instead of defending the flickering flame of your idea as if it might soon be extinguished, dump as much of this sort of skepticism on the idea as you can.

Not only are you honoring the generous skeptic when you do this, you're learning how to see the way she sees. Your job isn't to persuade her she's wrong, your job is to learn from this and buttress your project in a way that when it collides with the market, you're ready.

"Tell me more about that," is the useful and productive response, not, "no, you're wrong, you don't understand."

There's always time to ignore this feedback later. Right now, dive into it, with an eager, open mind. It's a gift you're not often offered.