The impulse to teach is a powerful one. For me, it provides me with my Joseph Cambell “bliss.”

It’s not just me, of course, who has this compulsion to share what I know. My kids (ages 6 and 8) recently set up an elaborate instructional day for my wife and me. They made signs and schedules for the classes each was going to teach; Annabelle taught dance, Henry: arts and crafts.

They delighted in sharing information about something they felt they had expertise in.

I talk a lot about how the key to marketing is shifting the burden of promotion from the band/brand to the fan/customer. This truly is a requirement if you’re ever going to experience real growth. However, it’s easier said than done.

One way to shift this burden is to think of your fans/customers as teachers in waiting.

For a product/service/band to cross the chasm from early supporters to a larger group (early majority) the product/etc. must either improve one’s life without requiring the user to learn new skills, or – if it does require new skills to be learned – improve a customer’s life in a very substantial way. The DVD player crossed the chasm because of the former — it improved users’ lives without forcing new skills to be learned; it’s a VCR, but better. The iPod crossed because of the latter — it radically improved peoples’ lives, even though requiring new skills to be learned.

There’s an interesting relationship between products that do require new skills to be learned and teaching.

Think about it: if a new product/service/band requires the user to learn new skills, it means, axiomatically, that people have to invest time in understanding/appreciating the product. Once this time has been invested, and they are rewarded for their effort — i.e. the product really does improve their life; again, the iPod being a good example: hard to understand at first, but once grasped, impossible to imagine living without — the customer has a true knowledge surplus that is looking for an escape valve. That escape valve manifests in the form of teaching.

Those who mastered the iPod early on were the ones who taught others. They did this directly and by blogging, etc.

The same is true for pretty much every product/service/band that isn’t just an iterative approach that slightly improves upon a predecessor.

Whether it’s a new fitness fad (think about all the Cross Training or Tough Mudder “experts” out there right now) or bands (I was an R.E.M. “teacher” back when people were interested in deciphering what Stipe was going on about in “Laughing”; I had done the research, etc., and was eager to share. Phish, Rush, The Grateful Dead, At The Drive In, etc. all have experts who guide the “newbies.”) or wine, or technology, or cars.

Anything that has a steep learning curve that rewards those who make the climb, tends to result in compelling some percentage of those who took the time to understand the benefits of the product/service/band to help others understand. They become sherpas; guides who make the climb more navigable, and, thus, flatten the learning curve for others.

The key is that those who make the climb now have this knowledge surplus, and tend to actively look for people to foist this upon. Ever been around someone who has lost a bunch of weight because of a new diet? Ever been around someone who has recently started training for a marathon/taken up Yoga, etc.? They can’t shut up about it.

Same deal when someone has “cut the chord on cable.” They will expound relentlessly on how they’ve done this to anyone who will listen about the relative merits of the AppleTV versus Boxee.

Don’t get trapped around someone who has just “seen the light” about Thomas Pynchon or DFW, or had an epiphany regarding John Cage, or tasted their first Domaine de la Romanée-Conti.

When something goes from esoteric to understandable, people have…well…something resembling a religious experience. (Of course, you really don’t want to be trapped around someone who has just had an actual religious revelation.)

Religious or otherwise, these people who have put work into something, and seen the light/benefit all become the same things: evangelizing teachers.

This is the best possible thing that can happen to a product/service/brand.

No longer does the company/band have to explain the (clearly, difficult to explain) benefits of their product/service/music, their customers/fans do it for them.

This is the truest “burden shift” in terms of having your customers promote your work that can possibly occur.

It’s imperative therefore, whether you’re a band or brand, that you encourage those who self-identify as potential evangelists with the tools to become teachers.

Think about how certain restaurants have “hidden” menus.

Think about how artists, such as Kristin Hersh provide access/benefit to super-fans.

Think about how Yoga studios offer Teacher Training certificate classes, knowing that many/most of those who attend will never become official Yoga teachers.

Think about how certain restaurants offer customers the opportunity to cook with the chef.

Think about Avon (certainly MLM is frequently an unsavory example of this concept, but when it works…).

Think of how many tech companies “promote” certain members of their forums to the role of moderator

Video games.

Easter eggs in DVDs, etc.

up up down down left right left right B A

In each of the cases above, a certain group of people are more in-the-know than others, and therefore take the lead in exposing new people. They have knowledge about something they are passionate about, and are driven to seek out others for whom they can equalize this information asymmetry via their teaching.

There’s tremendous opportunity for most bands/brands to cultivate an environment — an architecture of participation — where their most passionate users become teachers. In so doing, they not only reward those who have put forth the effort to understand the benefit of the product/music, but also provide them with an outlet to share their knowledge, and, in so doing, attract new customers, some of whom will also become teachers, spreading the knowledge even further.

We are all teachers. A company/band who provides their customers/fans with the ability/permission to educate others about their company/band is creating bliss. Bliss sells.

This is a pain. So much easier to find downloaded files by clicking right within Chrome than opening a new Finder window and navigating to downloads, which is likely over-populated with files with unfamiliar names, and then you sorting by recent to determine which file you downloaded.

In any case, here’s a fix:

Open the Terminal App and type/cut & paste the following:

$ sudo killall -KILL appleeventsd

Hit return, enter your password, and you should be all set.

In yoga a Drishti is a focused gaze. You set your vision on something solid and stable in front of you, and, in so doing, are able to maintain your balance much more effectively than if your gaze is not focused; looking from thing to thing.

It’s amazing how effective this is. A pose that is almost impossible to hold while your vision is unfocused becomes do-able when you focus on something stable in front of you.

This is true in business too, of course.

I can’t recall any time in my business career when there wasn’t a swirling miasma of distraction around me; pulling at my focus and intention.

Whatever these things are that distract us they add no value with respect to our ability to keep our focus on the defined objective.

It’s incredibly easy to allow our business gaze to follow whatever shiny distraction enters our peripheral vision — the latest technological “tool” or management “approach” or simply the steady stream of “information.” Knowing when and how to ignore these distractions, and stay centered on the goal is everything.

For me, it’s helpful to think of my Drishti as my “Purpose.” I ask why I bothered to dive into this job/project in the first place. Then I strip away all of the things that are distracting me from moving that purpose forward. What I’m left with is my Drishti, and this is what I try to focus on. Doing so keeps me more balanced.

I was talking to some people with whom I work yesterday, and there was a lot of sneezing and coughing, and general flu-ish-ness.

I said, “Here’s what you do…” and rattled off the magic potion that works for me; I’ve avoided the flu (knock wood, even amidst my kids and wife both getting it twice). I got a few emails after the conference call from my colleagues asking for the “recipe.”

Here’s what I sent. YMMV.

Curative Remedy
To a large glass add:

1/4 c of Braggs apple cider vinegar
2 T raw honey
1 t cayenne pepper
1 T chopped ginger
2 t minced garlic

Fill with water. Stir like crazy. Drink as much as you can.

Preventative Remedy
For when you feel even a hint of a sore throat coming on.

Fill a large glass with:
1-2 t cayenne pepper
1 t kosher salt
warm water

Stir. Gargle with this mixture several times a day until sore throat goes away.

The cayenne in both recipes can be a bit rough, but is really effective.

As always, my desire for tech is that it as transparent as possible so that productivity is accelerated.

To this end, here’s what I’m using:

1. I cannot stress enough that if you have a pre-Flash based MacBook, you should immediately, swap out your old Solid State hard disk for a Flash drive. It sounds hard, but it’s not, and this hack alone will boost your productivity by leaps and bounds. I detail the process here: Weekend Project: New Mac for ~$200 — Upgrade from HDD to SSD

2. Alfred. I still do miss my beloved Quicksilver, but it’s really gone unsupported in any meaningful way for so long now that (for me at least), it’s just not stable. Alfred fills the void nicely (if not freely when you add the sort-of-necessary Power Pack), and allows you to customize its functionality fairly well (the new Workflows in the Beta version show a lot of promise). Even if you don’t ever customize it to any degree, having an app launcher, calculator, iTunes controller, etc. all at your fingertips does save time.

3. 1Password. We’re bogged down with passwords. Wired recently ran a story about how we need to kill the password, and I couldn’t agree more. Until we get there, however, we’re stuck with the boogers. Therefore, having a great app that not only stores your passwords (across your devices), but also generates random passwords when you have to create new ones, comes in super handy. I use 1Password every day, and it saves me time and stress.

4. Google Drive. Sort of crazy to me that I have to even mention this, but I run into enough people who still aren’t familiar with how great and efficient this tool is that it merits inclusion. Google’s play at dethroning MSFT is at its most articulated in their apps. As companies move from an Outlook-based email solution to a Gmail solution, it stands to reason that the bloated, unreliable MSFT apps are next to fall, and the Google apps are ready to fill the void nicely. Combine the web-based Google apps with the Google drive on your phone/tablet, and you’re pretty well set in terms of content creation/sharing.

5. Speaking of content creation, as we move to more tablet-based content creation, having the right case/input method is crucial. As for me and my iPad, we’ll stick with the Touchtype iPad case (which I reviewed in detail for Paste) and an Apple bluetooth keyboard. Increasingly, I leave the laptop at home.

6. Cobook. With respect to software, Apple seems to be going the way of Microsoft. Apple’s Mail app sucks (replace it, of course, with gmail both on your desktop/laptop and your mobile devices), and so too does their Contacts/Address Book. Unusable, unreliable. Nightmare. Cobook is the first innovation in contacts since…ever. It pulls your social contacts in as well as your contacts from Google, Apple’s iCloud, etc. Their iPhone app is great, too.

7. Tweetbot. One of the biggest issues we face in a world of many screens is synchronization. Viewing Twitter on your home device, and then having to scroll through a bunch of tweets you’ve already seen when you check on your mobile device is a waste. Tweetbot, in addition to its many other great features, keeps your Twitter feed in synch irrespective of whatever screen you happen to be on at any given time.

8. Evernote. Everyone knows and loves Evernote, but it just gets better and better. You MUST install the Chrome Extension in order to really enjoy its full power. Clipping images, web articles, etc., pretty much eliminates the need for bookmarking. Of course, its mobile apps are killer too. Its Skitch integration was a bit rough at first, but the two now seem to play nicely, which makes grabbing and notating screen grabs (with Skitch) as easy as archiving them (with Evernote).

9. Reeder. I still enjoy RSS feeds, though, admittedly, my usage has gone down. In terms of best of breed, there’s no single choice for both laptop/desktop and mobile. While people love Flipbook, it’s never done it for me. On my iPad I use Mr. Reader, on my MacBook I use Reeder, and on my phone, I use the Google RSS reader. I’m hopeful that a more unified solution will emerge (Reeder does have mobile apps, but I haven’t felt compelled to switch). In the mean time, this solution works in so far as that – like Tweetbot – each does synchronize with your Google Reader streams, and therefore marks items as read universally.

10. Notational Velocity and Simplenote. Notational Velocity is, hands down, the simplest, fastest way to take quick notes, and keep them easily organized on the desktop/laptop. It synchs (relatively) seemlessly with the Simplenote app for mobile. I use them both multiple times a day.

The above aside, I had, until recently, only been sort of curiously impressed by Dropbox. It was there when I needed it; though I didn’t use it much. I knew it had its fanatical users and evangelists, and I really love the design/aesthetic. However, like Instagram, and many of these types of services, I was less-than-convinced of the ongoing underlying business model.

Dropbox ruled out the obvious “business model” when they rebuked Jobs’ offer; i.e. exit via acquisition. For Instagram and many beloved companies — those with fiercely loyal users, but no real revenue model — this is the obvious/only way out. Not that it’s a bad thing…if you can pull it off; as I tweeted back in April, this “Mark to Mystery” accounting struck me as a sign of a bubble.

I fully understand that Dropbox — like Instagram, Evernote, and other companies that, again, fit the description of beloved, but with no real business model — has a premium tier that does indeed generate revenue. Without being privy to Dropbox’s financials, if I had to guess, the revenue from this paid tier doesn’t nearly cover their run cost.

In fact, if this premium tier revenue did cover costs, they wouldn’t have made the move that they just made.

The move they just made, like much else that Dropbox has done, is elegant and very smart.

You may have noticed that the new version of Dropbox allows for effortless/frictionless upload of photos from your computer or phone:

By adding this functionality, Dropbox will, I believe, convert MANY casual users of their service (such as myself), who never ran the risk of maxing out their free Dropbox account into customers who — with some speed — exceed their free limit, and thus must become paying members.

What’s brilliant about the approach, is the way in which Dropbox has created this revenue model, which, in lesser hands, would’ve been seen as terribly mercenary. Again, I have to reference Instagram’s/Facebook’s recent gaffe with respect to trying to monetize Instagram.

Here’s why customers haven’t and won’t react to Dropbox’s move in the way they did to Instagram’s:

Compare the above elements with how Instagram handled their recent change, and Instagram’s relationship (or lack thereof) with their customers.

For many, the Internet really is just a photo sharing/viewing tool. Facebook knows this (it’s why they bought Instagram in the first place). Dropbox’s management recognizes this too, but, unlike Instagram’s/Facebook’s management, should be congratulated for not only putting in place a revenue model — utilizing this tenet of the internet: people’s attachment to photos — that will likely change their fortunes (and continue to allow them to fend off pesky suitors like…uh…Apple), but has done so in a way that will not cause mass abandonement of or frustration in customers.

All managers must take their cue from Dropbox when considering the delicate balacne between driving revenue and retaining/gaining customers.

Here’s an excerpt from my article that attempts to give an example of what I mean with respect to artists applying LS principles:

Access to quick market feedback begets the idea of the ‘minimum viable product’ (MVP), a key concept for Ries. A product or service should take the least amount of money and time to develop, but it must be viable, i.e. at the very least it must be of a quality level that allows for actionable feedback.

Consider, for example, the ease with which an artist could create two songs, put them up on Bandcamp or other website, and immediately begin the collection of feedback. An artist, of course, can elect to do whatever they want with the information. However, even the mere act of gathering download and streaming quants or collecting qualitative comments should be enough to break a habit of ‘random acts of improvement’ — actions which, while not bad in and of themselves, do not adhere to any type of concerted, measured plan. The goal is to move towards a more thorough and tested approach.

Read the entire article in The Music Business Journal.

Speaking of Eric Ries, do check out this talk from Eric Ries, from the invaluable A Total Disruption Site, discussing another important concept from the book: The Pivot.

Now, I don’t blame Apple. I’ve gotten a good three or so years out of this machine, and that’s about the best you’re going to get.

So, you have two choices.

You either:
(A) Shell out for a new machine (and, anyone who knows me knows how susceptible I am to new Apple products, and the current Airs, MBP with Retina, and the soon-to-be-announced 13″ MBP with Retina, look darn good)

(B) Replace the Hard Drive with a Solid State Drive

Any of us who have iPhones or iPads have become accustomed to apps opening instantly, and generally being super-responsive. This is because rather than using old-school hard drives (HDD) that spin, they instead use solid state drives (SSD) that have no moving parts, and, therefore, perform much faster.

These solid state drives, due to Moore’s Law, have – over the past few years – become increasingly inexpensive, and able to store large amounts of stuff. Therefore, a 256G SSD drive, while once obscenely expensive in comparison to the same size HDD, is now affordable (remember, iPhones and iPads have relatively small storage space (the new iPhone5 tops out at 64G).

Most of the new macs are shipped with SSDs, but for most people (i.e. those who didn’t order a custom Mac or an Air) who bought their Macs prior to 2011, they still – like I do – have HDDs. The performance of these HDDs degrades over time to a point where the machine becomes unusable. At this point, most people buy a new machine (perhaps it’s planned obsolescence on Apple’s part – perhaps not).

Buying a new machine is, of course, a fine (if expensive option). However, aside from the Retina displays (which are great), if you’ve bought a Mac in the last three years or so there haven’t been too many changes to either form or function.

Taken together, option B, above, becomes a no-brainer.

Except…

It means opening up your machine and fooling with the guts. For most people this is a non-starter, and so they buy a new machine.

Having, just this morning (in under 30 minutes), swapped out my HDD for a SSD, and now, feeling like I’m running the fastest computer on earth, I really must encourage you to try replacing your HDD with a SSD before you shell out for a new machine.

Here’s how:

1. Order what you need:
a. SSD drive: Samsung 830 256GB SATA Internal Solid State Drive (you could go with more storage space, but the price goes from $189 for 256GB to $508 for 512GB; if you’ve got more than 256GB of stuff on your machine, I’d suggest moving some of it (photos, movies) to an external drive).

b. Cable to connect your new drive to the USB on your computer so you can clone your HDD to your new SSD (more on this below). This cable does the trick. The accompanying disc that makes this a “Harddrive Upgrade Kit” is worthless; you won’t use it.

c. A tiny screwdriver. This one has all the bits you need, and is nicely magnetic.

d. Hard Disk Caddy (OPTIONAL, but recommended). This is so that you can move your HDD to the space that is currently occupied by your optical (ie DVD drive). This will give you more space to store files, BUT you will no longer be able to put DVDs or CDs into your computer. Also, if your HDD is really shot this makes no sense. If, on the other hand, your HDD is working, but sluggish, it’s a great way to double your storage space (move all your photos, movies, etc. to this HDD, but leave your apps, etc., on your new SSD).

2. Download Carbon Copy Cloner. This piece of software (free 30 day trial) will make an EXACT copy of your machine on your new SSD. This means that it’s bootable; i.e. you can start your machine up from the copy of your machine. This is VERY different than, for instance, a Time Machine back up, which backs up your files, but does not do so in a way that you can boot from (you have to put them back in the right place, deal with permissions, etc. Nightmare).

3. Format your new SSD. Plug the cable you got from the list above into your new SSD and run Disk Utility on your Mac. Erase the SSD, and rename it (I called mine, “George’s SSD”). This reformats it in a manner that allows your Mac to talk to it.

4. Make a clone of your HDD onto your SSD. With the SSD still plugged into your cable, run Carbon Copy Cloner. It’ll ask you if you want it to create a recovery partition. You do. After this is done, clone your disk. Depending on how much stuff you have on your HDD, this could take a while. It took about five hours for me to clone around 120GB.

5. Check to make sure the Cloning worked. With the new SSD still plugged in via your cable, shut down your mac, and then restart while holding the Option key down. Once the machine starts up you should see options for which disk you want to boot from. Boot from the SSD. Don’t be disheartened if it takes a few minutes (remember, you’re transferring information over USB – not fast). Open some apps, and docs, and make sure everything is working OK. Assuming it is, shut down your Mac.

Now comes the fun/scary part.

6. Replace your HDD with your SSD. Unplug your Mac, turn it on its back, and pull up the little lever that opens the battery/HD cover. Using your little screwdriver unscrew the screws around your HDD, and then pull the little piece of tape that pops it out. Pop in the new SSD, making sure to connect the male to the female parts of the interface, and screw it back in.

If you’re not replacing your optical (i.e. CD/DVD drive) with your old HDD, you’re done. Just pop the battery cover on, and reboot your machine (normally, i.e. without holding down “option”), and enjoy your new mac. You should also make sure Trim is enabled on your new drive. Download THIS app (free), and run it.

If you are, continue…

7. Take the entire back of the mac off. Unscrew all of the other screws around the cover so that the entire back of your machine comes off. Make sure you remember which screw goes in which hole.

8. Remove the Optical drive. Unscrew JUST the screws around the optical drive (being careful not to unscrew the onces connected to the fans). Pop it out, and decouple the male from female connector.

9. Put the HDD into the Disk Caddy. Only tricky part here is changing out the Phillips screw driver bit for an Allen-style bit, and unscrewing the sides of the HDD so that it will fit into the caddy.

10. Put the HDD caddy into the Optical Space. It takes a little jiggling, and if the connector unhooks, you MUST press it back together (you’ll see what I mean). There’s really only one way it can go in, so you just have to massage it into place.

Screw everything back together, plug your machine in, and reboot normally.

Now, your machine should scream with speed (remember to enable Trim), and you have extra space via your HDD, which is sitting in your Optical drive’s old space. You can completely wipe this HDD (using disk utility), and then put whatever you want on it. Again, DON’T put your apps or system files on this HDD. You want those on your SSD, as they are giving you all the speed. Instead, put your docs, photos, music, etc. there.

This makes sense. You start companies with your friends/acquaintances, and, axiomatically, these people tend to share your values. This is good.

What’s not so good is that too often these same friends share your skill set.

Just like a band wouldn’t come together with multiple bass players – even if all the bass players share the same values with respect to music – companies shouldn’t form when there are redundant skill sets amongst the partners.

This tends to be made visible when you talk to a startup about who, for instance, will be handling development. They will tell you that so-and-so is the “marketing person,” and so-and-so is the “sales” person, etc. While I’m frequently skeptical about what qualifies so-and-so to do his/her job (and what the difference is between, for instance, “marketing” and “sales”), what almost always is lacking when it comes to roles being filled is the development/tech role. Typically, this is “answered” with “we’ll hire someone/outsource it.”

Good luck with that.

Ever wonder why so many successful companies have as one of their partners a “coder?” Put another way, “Ever wonder why so many coders are original partners of successful companies?”

See where I’m going?

In any case, when considering whom to partner with make certain that your values overlap, but that your skills compliment each other, and are not redundant.

In other words, make sure that you think each of your partners are doing “The Hard Stuff.”