September 2011
15 posts
Not just a little better...
This guys has had his video viewed 11.6 million times. It’s because this video absolutely reorganizes everything I thought was possible. If you can figure out a way to blow away people’s expectations, you will be listened to.
Things I thought were cool this week
Each week I save things I think might be inspiring in an app called LittleSnapper.
Have you seen anything cool this week that you’d share in the comments below?
Find something you love & throw yourself at it
This graphic comes from the latest issue of Fast Company.
This chart is horrible news for people who just want to do their work and go home.
It shows that low skills jobs are growing slightly, and high skill jobs are booming, but medium skill jobs—kiss stability goodbye.
The best way to become highly skilled is to find something you love doing and throw yourself at it. Learn everything there is...
Avoid failure & Sieze the year!
This is a guest post from Jesse Phillips—I think his new calendar is a really smart tool that you should think about buying.
“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”
Planning is an after thought. It’s work we put off—so we forget stuff, we get lazy, we prioritize the urgent over the important, we often don’t think & plan something out.
So when it comes time to pay the bill, make the...
Creating high bandwidth communication lines
The importance of communication within a growing organization cannot be understated.
This quote is from an interview with Seth Sternberg, on the lessons he’s learned as the CEO of Meebo. This interview was very helpful as I’m thinking through very similar problems right now…
“A lot of this empowerment comes through information, which of course needs to be communicated...
What you can learn from 3 men who take on 15 lions
A small coordinated team of African hunters have the audacity to take on a pride of lions. Some would say they’re foolish—I think they know a secret.
Small teams that work as one can be incredibly effective
The hunters know exactly what they’re doing. They’ve planned, they’ve talked, they’ve swallowed fear, and they’ve decided—they are taking on a crazy...
A great commercial & an awful message
This commercial will sell a lot of Coke Zero. It creates a sense of longing for more and fulfills the need.
This is also the same message that absolutely destroys people’s hearts. The pursuit of more almost always leads to unhappiness. I recently had a conversation with a well known and quite wealthy person who’s got all of the more they could have wanted…
and they still...
It's Saturday—have a good laugh
Stop taking yourself so seriously—an essential piece of a good Sabbath day is a good laugh.
Apple Store's real genius—the prototype
If you’re interested in how Apple keeps hitting homeruns with each thing they do, then this excerpt is worth reading…
“One of the best pieces of advice Mickey ever gave us was to go rent a warehouse and build a prototype of a store, and not, you know, just design it, go build 20 of them, then discover it didn’t work,” says Jobs. In other words, design it as you...
Uncover the power of the prototype
Whether you’re starting a new website, business, or ministry—don’t pass the opportunity to prototype your idea.
These Doritos packages were designed by Peter Povlov, a Macedonian designer who had an idea for a new way to package food. Instead of type the idea out, just draw a picture, or even get a 3D rendering—he just made a prototype.
In web design a prototype is called a...
Wednesday Morning Run Down
We launched PastorMark.tv—I’m really impressed by the team I get to work with.
I spent Wednesday and Thursday in Anderson, South Carolina. Take-aways:
You can never underestimate the power of hospitality. Southern hospitality was amazing. At the hotel the front desk lady offered to drive a package to the UPS store, at the church I was at they had a volunteer who was with me the whole day...
Publishing—are you ready for the world to change?
Imagine what it would be like to be a professional baseball player—you’ve worked your way through the system for a couple decades, and after t-ball, little league, high school, college, then the farm system, you’ve finally hit the big leagues.
Then they change all of the rules.
Now high school kids and grandmas get their turn at bat. Hundreds of new leagues pop up around the world...
Finish strong & hit the tipping point
Any project that you start is about finishing well. When you have something great—it’s important to go big at launch.
How we went big
The above video is promo video that we created for the launch of Community—a new Re:lit book. The video team flew with Brad House to Detroit to film this video on RED cameras. This is way over the top—but it works. We have a really, really important message...
Wednesday Morning Run Down
There is a lot going on right now, and I’m taking a cue from Ben Arment to do a weekly run down of what I’ve been doing. Let me know if I should keep it up.
Last week I was in Orange county for a couple days meeting with our agent about how we take Re:lit to the next level.
In Orange county I got the great privilege to learn from the genius Steve Gladen he is a pastor at Saddleback...
Walt Disney thinks you should communicate with...
“Walt, in his drive to make the Disneyland experience feel authentic, had asked that the cab be suspended by leather straps as the early stage coaches had been. “‘Why don’t we just leave the leather straps off, Walt?’ John questioned. ‘The people are never going to appreciate all this close up detail.’ Walt turned, firmly planted his finger on John’s chest, and replied, ‘You’re being a...