Becoming more productive

This is a short post for a quote I just love from Richard Branson:
Q: "How do you become more productive?"
A: "Work out."

Advertising is dead

It's kind of embarrassing when you think of traditional advertising. This splatter broad brush kid with a crayon approach for selling stuff to people. After more reading of the book the long tail it comes to my realisation how dead this industry (in the traditional sense of the word) is.In today's world we are bombarded by advertising is it effective anymore? Are we really going to buy a coke because we pass a coke sign on the way to work? Does this really affect us "subliminally (whatever the fuck that is)"? Or is that really a load of kodswallop.
The future in marketing relies on what Amazon and other sites like Netflix have been doing for a while now. Recommendation engines or more generically termed filter engines. What these do is tailor something with a more personal and yet aggregated touch to you. Bulk and splatter advertising approaches of the 80s and 90s of a bombarding and "shock and awe nature" are over. What's replacing them is the rating engines that get smarter and work out what you like based on what others like you have rated. While every person is different who would you prefer trying to sell to you someone with opinions closer to you and who liked the same stuff or some sleazy clown in a suit.

Being a toxic twin and faking it to you make it

As I said in my last blog. I used to play in bands when I was younger. And so have always loved reading about musicians that have made it. The parallels between musicians and entrepreneurs are many. I've been reading the latest steven tyler book Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?: A Rock 'n' Roll Memoir and he talks a lot about what I see/hear time and again. Fake it till you make it. His personality certainly comes through the prose and this book is certainly captivating for the audience. His early days were full of stories of pretending to be like mick jagger or pretending to actually be him.

The other parallel I see with the tech world is finding a partner he talks about finding his "mutant twin." Look at tech history and most big stories are started with 2 guys: google, twitter, microsoft, youtube, apple and so it goes on. Steve Tyler found his mutant or toxic twin Joe Perry (the guitarist.) I'll update later with what other interesting parallels I find. But a refreshing break from straight out entrepreneur books.

Amateur Producer

When I was younger I played in bands. To record our music we'd set up a tape deck and play things through a microphone. The sound was pretty terrible but at least we could listen back at ourselves and criticize our work. We had no medium to distribute this other than copying and giving to friends.
This has all changed with the evolution of computers and the internet. Chris Anderson talks about this in the long tail with what he describes as "democratizing the tools of production." Being a mac user I now have access "free" to garageband. This gives me a tool to record and create my own music. I can also do this with video production as well. I have a HD kodak playsport to record my adventures on my iSUP or surf board. Now I can also publish these movies, music too through sites like youtube. And of course there is this blog for publishing the written word. Which I pay nothing for the service and can effectively reach out to an audience most places in the world. As Chris Anderson states ".. we are shifting from being passive consumers to active producers."
Because these tools are "free." The reason for doing things isn't primarily a profit motive. The real reason is to create something, experiment or learn. And one can move from the bottom of the information production pile to the top "if it strikes a chord." I no longer sit in front of the TV and consume content but actively consume and produce at the same time.

Goodbye to 80/20 rule now its more like 98%

I'd heard of the 80/20 principle and having read it recently thought it felt kind of dated. After reading the first chapter of the longer long tail its official. So the premise of what I've read so far that the 70s and 80s saw the times of "the hits." Popular music top 20, popular tv shows etc. Well in the internet age this no longer applies there is infinite information out there. Infinite music and tv shows. We are no longer bound by what radios or the tv plays. We can torrent tv shows and movies as well as music. And so with greater accessibility demand is now also infinite. The tail that used to apply of 80% of people would buy 20% of the music is now being replaced with a much longer gradual tail as niches are still popular. And a developing market. We are living in the age of mini-connoisseurs "with a thousand little indulgences that set us apart from others." 

So far this is pretty interesting reading so will update on this later. But it has been noted by the author that his article in Wired become the most cited article the magazine has ever run. 

Family and risk taking

So I've been reading Losing My Virginity about Richard Branson's life. One of the interesting areas that is brought up is the whole risk taking mindset. This is particularly interesting as he takes a lot of personal risks with his adventure challenges as well as his standard business risks. In a lot of ways its a lot easier to to take business and personal risk when you're younger before you have a family. He mentions how he'd be horrified if he was to die in one of his adventures and leave his wife and kids a widow and fatherless. So why keep doing it when the stakes are so much higher.
I think this comes down to:

1. Having the opportunity.  He can bankroll it.
2. And most importantly what he describes as "I love to experience as much as I can of life." 

I think this is quite inspiring and food for thought with risk taking in the business and adventure worlds.  It definitely raises some interesting questions on where the boundaries are and thinking through what the risks really are. But in Branson's world I think its a tenacity in being driven into the doing part rather than the being overly analytical. I think with the masses of information we are bombarded with its easy to just not take the plunge and take no risks.

surf, super affiliate and 1%

Ok so I've been surfing in New Zealand for a while now. It's interesting what happens when you start surfing the internet and where you end up.
Anyway as an adamant internet explorer I ended up on tim f's blog. This lead me to the project 1%
from here I subscribed and watched the webinar. I got a few things out of it but today I'm going
to mention one of them super affiliates.
I've heard of affiliate programmes before hey I think the first affiliate was someone from NZ.
So I started up a browser hit up google and low and behold the first search to come up was the
super affiliate's handbook by Rosalind Gardner. Well the cost of the book deterred me as well as the cheesey name I'll put it on the backburner for thinking later.
With the 4 hour work week principles of $'s per hour and effort there is an obvious appeal to the world of super affiliates. And also not actually selling your own products but advertising others appeals.
From here I went deeper and found the idea around getting paid for blogging. Again a kiwi is up there with this but there is a need to really get involved with writing content more than once a day which I don't have time for.

Anyway back to the super affiliates book maybe I'll fork out for it will see how it goes.
It's pretty old school advice now dating back to 2003. I'm sure some of it is still relevant but will see.

I guess I'm too late to this party..

Upcoming I'll get into Richard Branson's book and some others that I've read recently.

4 hour work week

Ok so after hearing about this a few years ago I finally decided to read up on the book. I think overall I did really get into this book and afterwards have subscribed to his blog here.

In general it is about being as productive as possible with your work time and limiting it as much as possible. The author had his own internet business that he grew tired of and so found a way of travelling the world and limiting his time running this business to 4 hours a week. There are other case studies in the book for those that have normal 9-5 jobs.

He asks a lot of good questions about how is it possible that every job in the world could take up from 9-5. And with changing your lifestyle from a 9-5 wage slave to a globe trotting member of the "new rich" is whats holding you back. Always be asking yourself the question whats the worst that could happen?

The idea of mini retirements and not postponing life and lifestyle design are gold.

After researching a bit I doubt this guy is working 4 hour weeks with whats on his plate. However I'm sure it is about living life to the fullest like Mr Branson.
I've enjoyed his talks on TED as well.