The problem is, most students don’t want to go to the trouble of hauling stuff like this to a charity. I can understand that, having been a student – the last thing on your mind as you’re moving out or in is moving yet MORE stuff somewhere else.

I’d like your help in spreading a simple message to every college student, to everyone and anyone who has stuff in still usable condition. There’s a charity I support called the Vietnam Veterans of America that has a charity donation system that kicks ass. Here’s how it works: you visit ScheduleaPickup.com and pick what you’re giving away, and most importantly

WHEN A TRUCK FROM THE CHARITY CAN COME TO YOUR PLACE AND PICK IT UP

That’s right: no hauling. No moving. No schlepping. A truck magically appears on Wednesdays and takes your still perfectly good stuff away. They leave you a receipt for tax purposes, too.

If you live nearby some college students who are throwing away perfectly good stuff, please consider corralling it to your yard or doorstep and then calling in the charity air strike yourself. There’s absolutely no reason that this stuff needs to take up space in a landfill when someone else can get some good out of it.

Please spread the word LOUDLY about ScheduleaPickup.com and solve both a waste and charity problem at the same time AND with little to no effort on the donor’s part. Everyone wins.

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It was something we desired, something we sought after, something we aspired to.

Then someone’s marketing department got a hold of the word and corrupted it beyond recognition into this sad joke:

Once upon a time, there were a few select companies that were actually industry-leading. Now the marketing departments of the world have deemed everyone industry-leading:

As Syndrome says in The Incredibles, once everyone is special, then no one is special. Everyone is industry-leading to the point where it’s a meaningless term. Every food is gourmet, every wine is vintage, every company believes its customer service is the best, every consumer good is luxury, every event is exclusive, every customer status is elite, every product is innovative.

What’s the competent marketer to do when the incompetent marketers around him or her are corrupting words faster than he or she can use them meaningfully? At a certain point, the thesaurus runs out.

How do you handle the business of being remarkable when all the words to make remarks have been used up?

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- Jewel, A Life Uncommon

Tell me what you struggle against and I will know that it is powerful, because you spend energy, time, resources, money, and strength struggling against it. Sometimes, it’s a worthy opponent. Rape. Murder. Child slavery. Genocide. These are powerful dark forces that need the armies of light to be marshaled against them ceaselessly. These are enemies worthy of any crusader’s judgement and merciless verdict.

Sometimes, however, you admit your own fears and inadequacies when you only stand for what you fight against, rather than what you fight for. You grant your enemy, whatever it is, legitimacy in your struggle against them. Every time you rail against Barack Obama or Rush Limbaugh, you prove that they’re potent forces to be reckoned with, otherwise you’d not spend time and energy on them. Your battle validates them. Every time you protest a Muslim mosque’s construction or lack of a minority in technology, you reinforce your own position as one so lacking power that you cannot solve your problems any other way than by tearing someone else down.

Tell me instead what you stand for. What you fight for. Show me through your actions that if you emerge victorious from the struggle that you won’t immediately set your energy against tearing me down, because otherwise I’ll believe that you will. Instead of opposing a mosque, build a church or grow an existing one’s community and charity. Instead of opposing the other candidate, demonstrate your commitment to the people whose votes you seek that you are capable of good works with or without an opposing party. Instead of shouting me down, ascend past me so fast that I have no choice but to look up to you.

You have more access to power, to superhero-like powers than ever before in human history. You sit at your desk, basking in wireless networks that let you reach out and touch more of humanity than ever was possible. You can effect change and mobilize people on the other side of the planet with your capabilities. You have the superhero powers. Do you have the superhero’s courage to stand up for something, to do something, to make the world a better place?

… because in the world of superheroes, the person with great power who seeks only to tear others down and destroy?

That’s the evil villain.

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Most lighter fluid is an aliphatic petroleum distillate of some kind, similar if not identical to naphtha. While individual manufacturers don’t disclose the exact ingredients of their lighter fluids, it just takes a quick Google for the MSDS (material safety data sheets) for just about any consumer product to at least get an idea of what’s inside, if not exact composition.

So let’s look at some of the properties of this class of chemicals:

• Most boil in vapor below 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Most ignite below 500 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Most charcoal grills cook at temperatures from 500 – 800 degrees Fahrenheit.

Basic chemistry says that even if you dump an entire bottle of lighter fluid onto your grill, unless the food is on there while you’re pouring on the fluid (which is stupid for different reasons), there will be no trace of it left by the time you’re actually ready to cook. I can’t think of a single part of a charcoal grill interior that would be less than 200 degrees Fahrenheit, which is when these fluids would boil away.

The basic truth is this: lighter fluid, unless you’re pouring it on while the food is on the grill, simply boils up and burns away far too quickly for it to have any impact on the food you’re cooking.

Full disclosure: no one from the lighter fluid industry paid for this post. It’s just me getting cranky at misconceptions fueled [pun] by lack of science knowledge.

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Think about that for a second.

How silly would it look for the US Army to advertise for the position of Field Commander by saying:

Wanted: someone who can talk a lot, tweet, monitor the battlefield and comment about it, blog some, and help boost our overall reputation in the trenches.

Is it more likely that the US Army, if it advertised for a Field Commander, would have a job description that reads like:

Must be able to win battles with overwhelming force and create decisive victories.

What if you’re not sure what victory is in social media? You might be in trouble. A lot of trouble. Consider clarifying that before you hire someone.

Is social media strategy as clear cut as military strategy? It’d better be if you want to win anything.

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Now remember the most important visual marketing campaign you did this year so far. Maybe it was a flyer. Maybe it was an email campaign. Maybe it was a new web site design or redesign.

Draw it from memory on the page.

Now go back to your computer and compare your drawing to the actual campaign.

• Did you remember the calls to action?
• Did you remember the design?
• Did you remember the content?
• Did you remember nothing at all except vague ideas?

If you were the manager of Old Spice, would you be able to sketch out Isaiah Mustafa in the bathroom wearing a towel?

If you are the CEO of your company, were you able to draw at least the homepage of your web site and its main call to action?

If you didn’t remember anything, then go back and figure out what you need to do to make your campaign more memorable, because if you can’t remember it, for sure your customers and prospects can’t.

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You don’t own a thing in social media.

Not your Facebook Fan Page.
Not your Twitter profile.
Not your LinkedIn group.

You don’t own any of it, and your existence in social media is at the whim of the companies who provide those services. You can go from digital hero to zero in two clicks of a mouse. Your Klout score can vanish faster than you can say Delete My Account.

So what can you own?

Your blog, as long as you host it and pay for the hosting and domain name. It’s yours as long as your credit card remains functional and you back up your data.

Your mailing list, as long as you back it up.

Your database.

So how do you take back ownership of your database?

If you’re not in a position to have the backing of an email service provider like Blue Sky Factory, then the free option is Google Groups. Create an announcement-only group (which is effectively a mailing list) and slap a subscribe box on your web site or blog. Then start asking everyone and anyone who is a fan of yours to subscribe to your newsletter. Facebook fan page? Put an FBML tab up. Twitter profile? Stick it in your URL and tweet it every so often.

Every week or other regular interval, download your group data. Now you’ve got your database, and as long as you continue to provide value to your audience, you’ll continue to grow it.

Obviously, if you do have an ESP, use their subscription forms instead and features like Facebook Connect. I use cows to promote mine:

Whatever you do, own your database. When today’s Facebook becomes tomorrow’s MySpace, you’ll be glad you did.

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Funny, both characters are the same player behind the keyboard…

The problem with GearScore is that harder to obtain gear isn’t necessarily indicative of a more skilled player. At best, it’s a weak correlation. For example, a player that works primarily in a healing role can get a very high GearScore from wearing damage dealing equipment – but that player will be completely ineffective as a healer. A player can have one character that is supremely well equipped but might have a second character that he just created that will have an abysmally low GearScore. The player behind the character may be incredibly talented, but the equipment and thus the GearScore will not reflect this fact.

Why do Warcraft players looking to create groups rely on such a potentially unreliable scoring mechanism? Because in the absence of better metrics, it’s what they’ve got to work with for making snap decisions, and the weak correlation is still strong enough that on average, a group composed of high GearScore players is somewhat more likely to fare better against fire-breathing dragons than a group composed of low GearScore players.

So what does a geeky algorithm like GearScore have to do with anything? For years, companies, especially in financial services, have evaluated potential employees based on credit scores. Like GearScore, credit score may have some correlation to a future employee’s abilities to be effective, but given how tumultuous the economy has been in the last 3 years, any company relying on this number may lose perfectly good candidates.

Why would a company rely on such a mechanism? For the same reason the Warcraft folks do – it’s a metric that lets computers and/or HR clerks filter through piles of resumes very quickly. Set a minimum credit score of 700 and your job as an HR clerk is much easier, as you’ll throw away 80% of the resumes in your inbox immediately.

So what if you don’t work in financial services? What if you’re a social media person instead? Surely no one would try to boil down the complexities of managing mass human interactions into a single number. Well…

Is there more to you than this one-dimensional metric? Probably. Will people push this score or another like it just like the Warcraft folks push GearScore? Probably. Be prepared to address it if you’re a social media professional, because there’s an ever-growing chance that a decision-maker may hire or pass on you in an instant based on this one number.

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Every time you put your energy and resources into looking for the next big thing, you’re neglecting your ability to put those same resources in the current big thing you already have.

Here are three things that substitute quite well for game-changing extraordinary:

1. Be helpful. People remember far more the help you give them than the features you build that they’ll probably never use.

2. Be effective. People remember what you get wrong far more than what you get right. If you focus on effective execution, you’ll clear the air enough for them to see what you get right.

3. Be educational. People are, unfortunately, easily duped. That’s good if you’re a stage magician, bad if you’re a competitor of someone who is dishing out the sizzle. If you’re losing ground to someone else’s big sizzle, counteract with education about steak. Teach, share, mentor and you’ll earn the respect and business of people who want something to sink their teeth into.

Looking for the next big thing is important. Trendspotting and being ahead of the curve are important skills. As with all things, however, it’s a question of balance and returns. Look to powerlaw curves and 80/20 rules: I’d bet you that 80% of your current business, your current revenue, your current customers come from stuff you already have that they’d like you to be better at.

Would you rather improve the part of your business that delivers 80% of your revenue or 20% of your revenue?

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Systems discussed:

• 10-2-5 from 43 Folders
• Inbox Zero from Merlin Mann
• Getting Things Done from David Allen

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