Like all good books, I can’t wait to finish Seth Godin’s “Linchpin”, but I don’t want it to end.

There’s a great quote near the end of the chapter “There Is No Map”:

“Here’s the truth you have to wrestle with: the reason that art (writing, engaging, leading, all of it) is valuable is precisely why I can’t tell you how to do it. If there were a map, there’d be no art, because art is the act of navigating without a map.”

Central to being a linchpin is the ability to “see things as they truly are” or what the Buddhist might call “prajna”.

Prajna and the ability to untangle the objective truth of a situation are key traits of a “linchpin”.

Great quotes from this chapter:

• “The ability to see the world as it is begins with an understanding that perhaps it’s not your job to change what can’t be changed. Particularly if the act of working on that change harms you and your goals in the process.”
• “Successful people are able to see the threads of the past and the threads of the future and untangle them into something manageable.”

You can find information about “Linchpin” and more insights from Seth Godin at his blog here.

You can pre-order at Amazon and other places. “Linchpin” looks to be out by the end of the month.

I’m about 3/4 the way through Seth Godin’s latest book “Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?”.

I love it.

Seth’s “linchpins” are unique and creative people who contribute in a highly valuable way to their organizations.

He makes a compelling case for “bring your art to work” and the concept of making a real difference through emotional labor.

“Linchpin” also includes the most practical and in depth discussions of breaking through “resistance” I’ve seen.

Like most of Seth’s work, “Linchpin” is full of quotable quotes. Here are a few:

“The Law of Linchpin Leverage: The more value you create in your job, the fewer clock minutes you actually spend creating that value.”

“Art is a personal gift that changes the recipient.”

“Art is the product of emotional labor. If it’s risk free and easy, it’s unlikely that it’s art.”

“Anxiety is about practicing failure in advance.”

You can find information about “Linchpin” and more insights from Seth Godin at his blog here.

You can pre-order at Amazon and other places. “Linchpin” looks to be out by the end of the month.

Jeff Bezos shares everything he knows.

1. You Need to Obsess Over Customers – Put customers first. Given the choice of obsessing over competitors or obsessing over customers, always obsess over customers. Get your energy and motivation from obsessing on your customers. Pay attention to what competitors do, but obsess on your customers.

2. Invent – It’s important to invent. Any time there is a problem, never accept an either/or thinking. Figure out a solution that gets both things. You can invent your way out of any box if you think you can. You need invent on behalf of your customers.

3. Think Long Term – Any company that wants to focus on customers and put customers first, any company that wants to invent on behalf of on customers, must think long term. It’s harder than you might think. The ability to think in 5 and 7 year time frames requires and allows a willingness to be misunderstood. Don’t buckle to standard pressures that come on and force short term thinking. It’s a huge competitive advantage to be able to think long term and you get to serve customers much better.

4. It’s Always Day 1 – There’s always more invention in the future, always more customer innovation and new ways to obsess over customers.

You can watch Jeff Bezos here.

On the element that rings true for all the different jobs he’s had

“I believe in management, I really believe that give people the things that you want them to do, judge them on what you want them to accomplish, make sure you’re really bottom line on everything, they will recognize you have a heart and that you’re really trying to help them by giving them all that rigor,then they’re going to call you later.”

Hope

“If you don’t have hope you’re never going to do anything, and you’ll never accomplish anything.”

The Right Culture

“It’s all about the people. If you have the right people, then you’re going to end up with the right culture.”

“When you hire mediocre people and let them do mediocre things, it brings everybody down. You save to be absolutely fanatic about getting rid of people who can’t contribute or have bad attitudes. “”

“I’ve fired more people for attitude and behavior than I ever have for performance.”

“You’ve got to have people who really care about the outcome, the total outcome of the team.”

Working with misbehaving superstars

“The superstars have got to make sure that they are behaving.”

What he tells misbehaving superstars: “As great as you are, I can’t accommodate the dissonance. Either you’re going to work with everybody here, or you can’t work here. I don’t care how great you are.”

You can watch the video interview here.

“Too many minds”

That was the advice to Tom Cruise’s character in “The Last Samurai” as he kept getting beaten while training with wooden swords against other samurai.

His failure was caused by his internal conflict – too many thoughts and emotions – he was fighting himself and his opponent at the same time.

I played a lot of the top selling games (Xbox, PS3, Wii) games during the holiday.

I was surprised that some were not as good as I expected and how one of those in particular felt over designed. It had the core game idea and then was overloaded with too many “so so” features.

Instantly made me think “too many minds”.

This kind of design pattern is usually a symptom of too many people (designers, team members, managers, company executives) directing the design and mandating features.  The game fights with itself for simple clarity.

With FarmVille, we followed the philosophy of a single strong voice to guide the game. It works well.

If your design ever feels flat, confused or uninspired, check in on whether there are “too many minds”. Reducing to one creative voice might make things better quickly.

Snowflakes falling,  waves breaking on the shore, bubbles floating through the air, spiders weaving webs and birds flocking in the air.

“Natural Attractors” – that’s my term for these events or elements which seem to introduce a natural fascination in people all over the world.

Each is a combination of “order” and “randomness” which naturally captures our mind as we have that innate urge to watch, just for a moment.

Sometimes these natural attractors can be relaxing, like waves crashing on the shore. Other times they are wrapped in fun, like children blowing bubbles in the park.

I think the core of the attraction is the apparent orderly unfolding of similar yet random elements. The net result being that we intently look for “how things turn out”.

“Natural Attractors” are an “easy way in” to the human brain.

Build a game with one or more “Natural Attractors”, and you’ll probably find people playing because “it’s fun”, even when they can’t put their finger on why.

Ever been fascinated by a time lapse movie of a plant growing? How about fish swimming around a fish tank?

I keep a mental list of “Natural Attractors”. Have any new ones you want to share?

A little over a year ago, a friend suggested I check out a start up company called Zynga because they were looking for people with traditional game experience.

After meeting some of the smartest people I know, I signed up for the adventure.

Today marks my 1 year anniversary at Zynga and it’s fun to take  a moment and look back.

When I started at Zynga, they had just grown from 50 people to 200 in a matter of months. My first assignment was to work with the Guild of Heroes team. After an early test release of the game, I moved on to help with Mafia Wars, Street Racing and Vampires. Those teams significantly grew their daily unique player count dramatically during that quarter. From there, I started a new team and we created FarmVille.

(I’m now VP of Product Development at Zynga, helping new and existing product teams by sharing my experience at creating FarmVille and my background in creating hit games in the traditional game business.)

Personally, I’ve seen some amazing things while working at Zynga.  In the traditional game business, the games I developed sold 16.5mm copies at retail over 15 years.  In 1 year in social games at Zynga, over 60 million people have played one of the games I’ve created (FarmVille). Quite a change.

It’s also the reason I tell people “run, don’t walk” to check out the open positions at Zynga. The place is ripe with opportunities for ambitious, smart and high energy people interested in being part of the birth of a new segment of the gaming industry.

Beyond, all the fun I’ve had working with folks at Zynga, it’s amazing to see how the social games industry has grown, both in terms of the quality of the games created but also maturity as a business. In the last 9 months, the industry has seen the launch of over a dozen games which each now have over a million people playing a day. Zynga alone has launched 4 of them in the last 6 months. FarmVille alone delivered an industry wide impact and has definitively proven that social games can go mainstream.

John Doerr came by Zynga a few weeks ago for a lunch meeting. During that meeting, he shared how Zynga reminded him of the start of other now great companies he’s seen during his time. He also suggested that we cherish the experience while we’re in the middle of it.

After 1 year at Zynga, I thought it might be time to spend a minute doing just that. There’s more stories and experience to share, but I’ll save them for another time.

“Confidence doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s a result of something…hours and days and weeks and years of constant work and dedication.” – Roger Staubach

(This quote comes from a friend whose father used to play for the Dallas Cowboys.)

A few years ago, I was talking with a friend about my readiness to tackle a new big important challenge in my career.

He suggested that I was better suited for a “Put a man on the moon in 10 years” type of challenge rather than a “Fix Social Security” type of challenge.

Thinking about it for a moment, I agreed. A “Put a man on the moon in 10 years” type of challenge excites and energizes me. It always has.

On the other hand, the thought of tackling a challenge like “Fixing Social Security” can have the opposite affect.

Now years since our conversation, I still benefit from my friend’s wisdom.

I’m sharing it so others might benefit too.

They key question for you: What type of challenge energizes you?

I appreciate the clarity and logical discussion Andrew Chen brings to the issue of “offers” on Facebook.

Read more on his blog here.