• Think through …
• Tell someone …
• Write down …
• Illustrate …

an idea, it improves!

This week I am focused on explaining my plans to as many people as will look, listen, or imagine with me & by the end of my week I’ll be farther along my voyage.

Work with your ideas in different ways & consume the ideas of others; both help you in different ways.

1. Google+ has a post up that is a good example of what one can do with some creativity
2. Google+ is asking for feedback & that is alwasy notable

The post:

That is from the Google+ official account.

This use of Google+

The first interesting thing about this is that they are looking for feedback from readers in a very controled way. I have seen other groups use events, with making Yes, as voting Yes, and No as voting No.

What they did was:
1. make a post
2. make some comments to the post (the options)3. lock the post so that there was no more comments
4. acctually lock the post so that there is no sharing

Each account can only vote in the posative.
Each account can only vote once per item.

It’s a brilliant use of Google+.

BTW: Google+ is looking for feedback

This is the next big thing – they are asking for feedback for their page, but in turn it effects the direction of G+ … so go +1 your top thing you would like more of.

I want more Google+ product updates & tips, as anyone following that page would desire …. but I really want more hangouts with Google Employees.

A +1 for that one is a message to encourage more interactions between Googlers and non-Googlers.

I hope you go +1 some stuff.

What about you?

Have you used Google+ in a creative way?

Everything is sales. We don’t have any sales people at 37signals, but everything we are doing is sales.

Sales isn’t so much gimmicky pricing ending in 9′s or copy writing, or ad placement – It is about communicating the value of your product.

I used to sell shoes, and we had reps come in and teach us about shoes. A rep would come in and talk about ethyl vinyl acetate, which is a foam that goes into shoes to help absorb shock. He’d be all pumped about EVA, and this technology, as if it really mattered. When customers come in they look at some shoes. They pick it up and flip it around a bit. Then you ask to try on a pair. People are looking for design, comfort and affordability. Nobody cares about EVA foam.

You have to understand in your product that you need to talk about what matters to the customer, because they don’t care about the tech.

Jason Fried has written many wonderful things over the years, and this quotation came from set of questions in one post. Some of the other questions include:

• What is your perspective on being a student?
• What are your thoughts on a flat management structure, and how it has served you at 37signals?
• Tips for trying to keep a close relationship remotely?
  
• In Rework there is a chapter about being a workaholic. What is the line between being inspired and being a workaholic?
  
• How do you determine pricing on something like a web app?
• How do you deal with other players in the market?

What impacts you the most in Samuel R Solomon’s post about Jason Fried’s thoughts?

What ended up happening is 4 of the 5 people who were involved in this hour-long conversation just had a big black box.

It was ok, but taking these simple steps to share a picture, even of some random scenery, would make the whole conversation better.

How To Control Your Picture on Google+ Hangout

Step 1. Have a pix up in a program running in the background.

I typically use irfanview ( http://www.irfanview.com/ ) on my windows box, but any browser, like Chrome or Firefox, will do the same thing. The key is to have something running that just sits there with the pix up.

Step 2. Log into the Hangout

This can be done first, but whatever.

Step 3. Select “Screenshare” then the program or browser showing the image.

DONE

If you want to change the image, then change the image in the program.

This result is so much better than a bunch of black boxes & allows people to visually know who is talking too.

One book had a profound effect on my workflow and life.

The Ultimate Sales Machine

I don’t know why, but the title of this book did not appeal to me.

After several people recommending it, I picked it up on Audible a while back, and it was sitting on my phone. The first chapter has been well worth the investment of time and money. The idea is to focus on your top six items for the day.

This provides two important things:
- Flexibility
- Focus

Choice makes us rich. When we have options, and the ability to make a choice we are rich and we all desire to be rich. The other extremes are a list of one, and a massive list of anything and everything.

Your Top 6

The Ultimate Sales Machine encourages a focused list of 6 items per day, giving you a combination of flexibility & focus on what is really important to you. Don’t automatically add more when you finish items. You can have another list of stuff, but stick to the 6 & finish the 6.

My to do list for yesterday was:

1. Email people I meet while traveling
2. Listen to some great audio & take notes
3. Watch a football game
4. Meet up with a regular group of people
5. Rest
6. Time with Children

For me, on that Sunday, those were the most important things I could do because after a week of travel. I really needed rest, but also felt the pressure to br productive towards my dreams.

Today is slightly different:

1. Interview Business Owners in an area I want to help
2. Call a specific person about a project
3. Email at three specific people who I would like to interview
4. Taking care of children (my primary job in life)
5. Take a vehicle to mechanic
6. Spend time with family that are in town

At the end of today I’ll be happy accomplishing all those & I’ll have a record of what I did. Keeping that record helps me realize the progress I am making.

Those 6 items today also account for at least 5 hours of my day. Four hours if you consider I’ll be able to do other stuff while at the mechanic. More hours if you consider my primary job is taking care of my children & that is and of itself is a full-time job.

One Last Key

Make sure you know what your vision for your world is. The better you understand where you are trying to go, the better you will make a list of six items that really are the most important things for your day.

Consider picking up a copy of The Ultimate Sales Machine as either text or audiobook.

One desire of most artists is to thank the people who supported them as they pursued creating something great. Sometimes the artist even wants to personally thank every person by name, but how do you do this in an effective way when you have 21,207+ backers?

The game studio behind Castle Story has announced their solution in this video:

This got me thinking about other styles of art.

Musicians could write a song with just the names of the backers …. or lots of songs …
Graphic Artists could use the names as building blocks for an image.

If you are creating any products, names could be incorporated in the naming of the products.

One more lesson from Castle Story, you can indicate your desire to credit backers, but you also want to leave yourself (as the artist) some flexibility. Don’t handcuff yourself to one particular way of crediting people before you know how many you need to credit. If you are inventing miniatures, expecting 50 people to back your campaign & suddenly you have 3,000 people … well, that causes you to have to make a whole lot of additional miniatures.

You don’t want to have success cause failure, so leave yourself options. You can even not mention the “thank you” in your initial campaign, then with seven days left you announce it. That’s what the guys with Castle Story did.

Being creative & using your craft to thank people can be very meaningful for people who already like the art you make.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

[text & image found at Archive.gov]

A little about Kickstarter Campaigns

It’s a great system where talent based projects can seek funding by basically pre-selling items. It works on a donation & reqard pledge drive system. Basically the artist starts a campaign to raise $X number of dollars. Individuals make pledges. If the goal is reached, the money is delivered, if the goal is not reached – no money ever comes out of anyone’s bank account.

After some time, people who have pledged & contributed to successful campaigns are generally given rewards.

So, it’s not exactly preordering, but many use it like that. In the end the Artists retain intelectual property & the supporters have both help made something happen & recieve something they wanted.

Ending Soon (less then 32 hours)

The Olympic City – http://kck.st/KxGmoH -  7 hours left – Interesting visual project where they go back and look at past Olympic cities today.

KONE Coffee Filter + Brewing System – http://kck.st/LAvi9v – 32 hours left & have reached their goal. This has the best intro video I’ve seen. Not only that, the product is in the third generation of production. They had an idea, shipped it, keep improving, shipped version 2, and now is basically pre-selling version 3 and have currently reached 2914% of their goal.

Ending within next 8 days

Dead State: The Zombie Survival RPG – http://kck.st/KCIRHA – This video game has reached it’s goal & is in a “strech goal” phase that many projects are doing now. They are extras they will throw in, work on, etc if they reach a higher level of contrabutions.

Ground Branch – http://kck.st/LUiPhC – Realistic focused FPS video game. 7 days left, not reached their goal. An interesting thing that they have done is reworked their intro video and other media.

Retrovirus, a six axis shooter – http://kck.st/JSdBPn – Playstyle of this video game seems to be one of space, but the setting is similar to a city. 7 days left, not reached their goal yet.

One morning I went to log into Faebook, one of my standard places to check up on friends, family, associates … oh and do a little virtual work in a silly little game I play involving harvesting & building stuff. I am met with this screen:

At Some Point – You will See this; what will you do to be prepaired?

If it had been Twitter the image would be called fail whale, Google + has a Broken robot. Practically every big communication system now has a default “it’s not you it’s me” message for when something is not working on their end, because it happens.

The key thing is to make sure you are prepared for these instances. Something could happen to Facebook and it go down for days. Hard to believe, they have had pretty rock steady service for years, but it can happen & you should have other methods for connecting with people.

Here are some ideas:

1. Personal Website

JonathanNation.com is my personal website. You can do it for about $10 per year if you want to go super cheap and point it to WordPress.com , or for just $8 per month more you could use either a Self-Hosted WordPress install on a webhost like BlueHost, or even SquareSpace. JonathanNation.com is a Self-Hosted WordPress based site.

No matter if MySpace or FriendFeed is still around or not, people can find me at my personal site.

2. Google +

This is one of the two closest alternatives to Facebook. Being connected with people on both Facebook & Google+ allows you a great backup plan for if Facebook is down, but if you start using it I do have two suggestions:

• really use it – put out information that is unique. The Google+ Android & iOS apps have some great features like backing up your pictures from your phone, making it easy to do posts & G+ makes it easy to post only to the group of people you want to post to.
• understand it takes time to build a unique audience on Google+

3. LinkedIn

Primarily thought of as a network for professionals, that is probably the primary need you will have if Facebook goes down – I need to contact Jim …. what was his current email address? If you’ve linked to him in LinkedIn, you can message him.

4. Other

Other systems depend on what others use. I chat with many people through Gtalk, Twitter, Skype, and other IM or messaging services … and there is always just having someone’s email address.

The big thing is to diversify the ways you can contact people or be contacted. Two questions to ask yourself:

When Facebook, or your primary communications method was interrupted:
- How would you contact people you need to?
- How would people find you?