Friday, July 29, 2011
Is it time to Earn or Learn?
This week I've been lucky enough to spot a tweet by Mark Suster, resurfacing an older article he published at www.cloudave.com - Is it Time for You to Earn or to Learn?
Working on my own project over the past few months, I've often asked myself this question. Seems like my answer is painfully easy - right now I have a burning desire to solve this problem (online identity theft, if you must know), and being that I'm consumed by it to the point of loosing sleep thinking about it, I guess I have no alternative.
It is time for me to just do it.
When I'm trying to recruit companions to this great undertaking, I'm often puzzled by their approach.
They all LOVE the idea, the model etc. and ALSO want a secure job, good salary and benefits, equal equity share, no vesting, no investment required on their account, big titles, no commitment until serious funding comes in, etc. etc.
I wish I could just give anyone whatever they wanted and see this project come through.
I also wish people would make up their mind.
Do they want to see the problem solved? Do they want to be a part of the solution?
Do they want to learn or earn?
BTW (if you have no time to read the article)
- in the cited article, earn roughly relates to joining a startup early, while learn relates to joining late when there's less risk and also less reward potential.
Working on my own project over the past few months, I've often asked myself this question. Seems like my answer is painfully easy - right now I have a burning desire to solve this problem (online identity theft, if you must know), and being that I'm consumed by it to the point of loosing sleep thinking about it, I guess I have no alternative.
It is time for me to just do it.
When I'm trying to recruit companions to this great undertaking, I'm often puzzled by their approach.
They all LOVE the idea, the model etc. and ALSO want a secure job, good salary and benefits, equal equity share, no vesting, no investment required on their account, big titles, no commitment until serious funding comes in, etc. etc.
I wish I could just give anyone whatever they wanted and see this project come through.
I also wish people would make up their mind.
Do they want to see the problem solved? Do they want to be a part of the solution?
Do they want to learn or earn?
BTW (if you have no time to read the article)
- in the cited article, earn roughly relates to joining a startup early, while learn relates to joining late when there's less risk and also less reward potential.
Friday, July 15, 2011
"Why wasn't I informed?"
In his great post "Why wasn't I informed?" Seth Godin starts with a distinction between innocent ignorance and darn thoughtlessness (my terminology in both cases).
He concludes with "The rules are now clear: no one is going to inform you, but it's easier than ever to inform yourself. Before you spend the money, the time or the attention of your friends, look it up."
We could argue that it's not that easy. We are swamped with too much information.
(Organizations have many a tools to alleviate this issue. Also a new term: Big Data, to help market these tools.)
In any case, it still is your responsibility to do your best to be informed before taking action, so if you do want to make information useful, you need to stand up, look around, see what's going on.
If it still is worth a shot - set course and dive back in - do the actual work.
All this is fine (and trendy, motivating etc.), but there are times when we DO want the information to find us. When we are in some sort of danger, disadvantage, or distress. When our privacy is threatened, our perspective compromised.
We want that whoever holds the relevant piece of the puzzle will have a sense of morality/responsibility to use it for our benefit.
Hoarding every aspect of every thing we do must come with some sort of liability.
Cheating Coaxing people into buying more is a nice excuse, but the right to take advantage of tracking and analytics should be earned.
Right now, (virtually) nothing stands in the way a big data aggregator from becoming a self serving ministry of truth.
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| http://www.flickr.com/photos/visionshare/ |
He concludes with "The rules are now clear: no one is going to inform you, but it's easier than ever to inform yourself. Before you spend the money, the time or the attention of your friends, look it up."
We could argue that it's not that easy. We are swamped with too much information.
(Organizations have many a tools to alleviate this issue. Also a new term: Big Data, to help market these tools.)
 |
| © Copyright Rodney Burton |
If it still is worth a shot - set course and dive back in - do the actual work.
All this is fine (and trendy, motivating etc.), but there are times when we DO want the information to find us. When we are in some sort of danger, disadvantage, or distress. When our privacy is threatened, our perspective compromised.
We want that whoever holds the relevant piece of the puzzle will have a sense of morality/responsibility to use it for our benefit.
Hoarding every aspect of every thing we do must come with some sort of liability.
Right now, (virtually) nothing stands in the way a big data aggregator from becoming a self serving ministry of truth.
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