Writing that doesn’t fit neatly into other categories.
“You are a coward and a impoverished reporter.”
This comment on my Prompts post was caught in the WordPress spam filter. It might be the best spam comment I’ve ever received. Not only is the grammar horrible but I wonder how much success they are getting with an author-insulting comment. I got a good laugh out of this one.
By the way, isn’t “impoverished reporter” redundant?
When I was younger I really hated this day. It’s a corporate shill game, I’d say, a way for Hallmark to sell more cards.
While I’m not certain that isn’t true, I’ve decided to start celebrating this day a different way. It’s a day for me to remember what an important role my family plays in the company I run, how I couldn’t do it without them. Their support and understanding, their ability to drag me away from the computer when I need it most, their desire to see this succeed, is just as important as every line of code I write and every sales call I make.
In the middle of the Super Bowl on Sunday, a story from old friends from my home town hit Facebook: Robert Wood has died.
I grew up in Kent, Ohio. For those of a certain age Kent is famous, the place of Kent State University and the place where state troopers killed protesting students during the Vietnam War. That year was 1970. I was born in 1973 and the town was still mourning that moment when I moved away in 1988.
Because of its history, Kent attracted a very eclectic group of people. And one of those people was Bob Wood.
Bob Wood, known as FU Bob because he would stand on street corners in downtown Kent and flick off passing cars, was a local artist who was considered brilliant and crazy all at the same time.
Of course we were just kids. Bob’s middle finger and fowl mouth (he was also known for dropping the f-bomb without warning) were much more interesting than his art. The fact that he would stand on a street corner and step off the curb, on the curb, off the curb, on the curb, over and over again was the stuff of ridicule.
But I had a personal connection, of sorts, with Bob, too. My stepdad, the good Catholic soul that he was, would buy Bob a beer at a local bar or have him come to the house to take a shower. His mother used to call the house looking for him. I don’t really remember talking to him, though. I was scared to death of the man with the scraggly beard and odd personality.
It is funny how hearing of his death takes me back to a different time and place. He was not a central feature of my life but for whatever reason Bob was part of the fabric of that time.
If for some unknown reason you are interested, here’s a tribute to Bob Wood from his social worker and a link to some of his art work.
Education in the US is going to have to change drastically in the next few years. Just like Medicare, Social Security and just about everything else with the US economy, the costs are just not sustainable, whether we are talking public school or private school, primary, secondary or college education. Something has to give.
Matt Miller pointed out earlier this week that the cost of a public school college education has gone from 12% of the median wage in 1980 to 26% today. By the time my kids go to college 12 years from now that bill will be even higher. And as we all know state and federal public school budgets are being slashed. School districts across the country are considering laying off teachers, shuttering school days and closing schools to keep the budget in check.
Like so many things in this country right now, we need to completely rethink the way we are providing education. The Obama administration announced a plan to get all students on digital textbooks in the next five years. Personally, I find this disappointing, incrementalist thinking. The administration claims it will save $600 per student per year but that strikes me as some pretty fishy math predicated on wishful thinking (lower drop out rate, for instance).
While changing textbooks is a start (and Noah Millman wrote a fascinating article on the topic here — thanks Fred Wilson!), it is not the end-all-be-all to a revamped system that can support 21st century students and can bring costs under control.
Fundamentally I believe we need to change the way we think about the student and the teacher and their relationship to each other. Traditionally the teacher has been the holder of all knowledge, imparting it on her young and impressionable students. Thus why we need small class sizes. But in order for the relationship to be sustainable moving forward, I believe we need to move to a model where teachers are guiding the students through the learning experience, using internal and external resources to do so. This especially can happen as the students move into middle and high school.
By changing our approach and treating teachers as educational guides I believe we can accomplish two things:
This second part is critical. As a nation we need to move back to a mentality where we can all succeed if we try and the government’s job is to give us all a chance to succeed. Teaching us how to be self-sufficient, teaching us how to be responsible for our lives and actions, should be part of the experience.
And as all of us who run start-ups know, there is nothing more liberating than feeling like we have some control over our destinies.
Happiness Takes (A Little) Magic
Great post from Brian Lam (through MG Siegler):
Happiness is the most important metric in personal tech. If it improves lives, it is important. I’ve always suspected that sitting around on the internet was a sort of rot, but I had no proof until I read this piece on the Stanford study. … People think I’m crazy for complaining about tech news and how stupid and boring the mass media internet has become, but I think they’re wrong. And I think most are writing about the wrong things.
If you are unfamiliar, Brian Lam was the Editorial Directory for gadget site Gizmodo before retiring mid-2011. He has tons of experience with this problem.
He’s right, of course. I have been guilty of this myself from time to time, caring more about my online reputation than the impact I’m having, and even wrote about it and made some significant personal changes last July.
I am 38 now with two young daughters (5 and 3). I have been watching a steady stream of my biggest influencers die over the past six years. The passage of time is only accelerating and it is time I can’t get back. So I made some decisions before the New Year.
I haven’t been happy with my health so I decided to do something about it. I have been going to the gym almost every day.
I have cut back on my hours working in front of the computer. By nature I am a work-aholic so put me in a start-up situation and I literally will work until I pass out, I’ll dream about work and then rest just long enough to start again. I can’t keep that pace up anymore and am working hard to be more efficient with my time so I can get my work done.
In connection I am giving myself more time to think about this business and the impact technology has on it, part of why I am writing more than ever before. I am also trying to stay focused on writing about the things I care about and things I think you should care about, things that might help your business, and caring less about finding new people to read my work.
I still read a lot but have cut down on the minutia of tech, trying to keep my reading focused on bigger and broader themes about the world, tech and business. I am reading less news — giving myself permission to skim — and reading more books.
And most important I am trying hard to take time for my daughters. We eat dinner as a family almost every night where we always discuss the days’ events. The weekend mornings are for me and my girls, too. We make breakfast together and talk a while and play a little. I hope this is a foundation I can keep in place as they get older. I have an open door policy here in my home office. The girls can come in and talk to me any time during the day and I often take breaks to check on them.
I know that this mentality doesn’t jive with starting (or re-starting) a business. But I’ve never believed in conventional wisdom anyway so I’m not about to start now. Here’s hoping I have the strength to keep with these much healthier practices.
Elia Insider 