The attitude of the average 9-to-5′er goes like this: If I do this boring job long enough and well enough, I’ll be promoted to the job that’s fast-paced and exciting. That’s the job I really want.

The problem is, showing people you can only do boring work will only consist in more boring work.

When I was very young, I spent a lot of time on touch typing programs, and learned how to type over 100 words per minute. Proud of myself, I would tell my bosses this over the years. What would they inevitably do? Give me the most boring jobs ever, of course.

There has to be a path for those who want the fast-paced exciting job NOW. A different way to prove themselves. What do you think?

Is it just me, or are newspapers becoming kind of quaint?

I was on the bus this morning looking over at the headline on one of those free dailies they hand out in subways. It said “Coup in Honduras!”

I was like, well no shit. I found out about this while it was actually happening. Where were you then???

Simultaneously over the past five days I’ve been receiving text messages and emails from people all over going “Michael Jackson is dead OMG” and “Billy Mays is dead WHOAHHHH,” and I’m like, uh… yeah.

Those of us on the extremes of information spreading mechanisms are used to this. I found out about all three of the events above through Twitter and Reddit, where there’s very little friction. And I spent minutes a day on those sites. The same could’ve happened if I were on CNN, though.

Thing is, I know I’m not the average. Neither are you if you’re reading this. But this feeling of ours is increasingly normal. Twitter is everywhere and recommendation sites like Reddit are known to most, even if we don’t visit them.

Information is spreading with less friction than ever. Have you ever wondered how much faster can it get?

… hold on, I just got a text message– maybe it’s someone else telling me yesterday’s news. ;)

Personal media is splintering.

Why?

First of all, disclosure: A lot of people find this meme funny. Despite its kind of offensive nature, I think I’m becoming one of them, and so are a lot of people (look at the Youtube comments). My question is whether that’s good and, if not, what to do about it.

We’re watching things online more and more, with no social consequences from laughing, by yourself, at something that a lot of people find offensive. But what happens when we do it so much that we start to think it’s funny to other people, and start talking about it aloud?

Are we alienating ourselves from normal people by interacting online with those with strong, extreme opinions? What does this do to us as people?

Or is it the opposite? Should we let ourselves be pulled into whatever tribe we most connect with, and forget about mainstream opinion? After all, we might be happier, right?

It’s amazing what we can get used to.

We seem to think that adopting some new technique, strategy, or tactic will help us. Sometimes, we think getting on the next bandwagon will help. Sometimes it does.

We all have a tendency to go after the New and the Big. It isn’t even our fault. When we see that everyone is heading towards something, and we want it too, sometimes without even considering if it’s right or not.

Getting the New and the Big may not even be that bad. The worst, I think, may be the Now.

Getting the New can be great. Start fresh with a new approach, something that hasn’t been done before; that can be awesome. But New doesn’t go with Big– it goes better with the Small.

The Big is what you do when you put all your energy into something.

The Now is what happens when you decide that your New and your Big aren’t good enough. The Now splinters your attention in 10 different directions. You get nothing done. All your Old gets dumped for your Now, no matter its importance, because of the immediate, short-term importance of the Now.

Like they say in web design– you can have two of the following things: good, fast, and cheap. But not three.

Likewise, choose carefully between New, Big, and Now. It will change what you do, and once you’re off, you may not find the time to look back.

A few months ago I got together with David Segal of Davids tea, a chain of tea shops around Canada. They’re opening up stores all over the place these days– tea is the new coffee, I’m told.

We talked about what they were doing on the web, got along well. I came and did a consultation with them about how to improve web sales and augment word-of-mouth. I didn’t see David again, though we continue to drink the tea he gave me to try out (it’s actually very good).

Fast forward to the other day, where I saw David is opening a location on Mont-Royal street– right next to Starbucks– nice job, giving Sbux clients an alternative. :)

So here’s the thing.

Let’s say you’re a decently-funded company (one that can open a nice retail store or chain, say). I think it’s almost worth it to engage with, and maybe hire, any social media person that is in the environment they’re in. Not to bring them out to lunch and “pick their brain,” but to say, “I will pay you for this advice.” That way it’s clean.

So if you’re in Montreal, hire everyone locally that does that kind of work, even if it’s just one hour. Montreal is actually great, because it’s such a cheap city, but it could be done anywhere.

That cost will give you good advice, but more importantly, a relationship with every one of them, all sneezers to a certain degree. They may blog it, they may not. They may love your tea, or hate it. But they’ve tried it, and you’ve created an intimacy with them by being in business with them.

It’s a shotgun approach, but I think it would still be effective. What do you think? It’s got to be more effective than “blogger outreach.”

So I was over at my family’s house yesterday, and decided to pass along the book we wrote to my dad. He was thinking about building a site and wanted my advice, so I figured we’d start there and see how it went.

Over supper we started discussing a bunch of stuff and I started peppering the conversation with jargon (social capital, social proof, etc.) without realizing and I saw that, in some cases, some additional reading might be required to really get him on the same level.

That’s why I wrote this list.

You don’t need to read any of these to understand the book we wrote, of course. But if you like to read the way I do, you love getting those Aha! moments in which you really grasp a concept fully. Reading the books on this list will help you do that. Plus they’re all good are worthy of a read anyway, just on their own.

1. Influence by Robert Cialdini.

Let’s start simple: Understanding human behaviour is at the core of everything we do online. Cialdini is the social psychologist who will help you do this. From social proof to unconscious herd behaviour, this book will guide you through different ways in which persuasion works, and why. Also check out 50 Scientifically-Proven Ways to be Persuasive, a summary his most recent one of the same name. They’re both full of great info. (Thanks to Kottke for reminding me about this one.)

2. The Little Teal Book of Trust by Jeffrey Gitomer.

There are a lot of books on trust I don’t recommend. The Speed of Trust is one of those; I feel like it just went on and on. Gitomer’s book is the opposite. It’s different from ours because it talks primarily about trust in a sales environment, but I have to say that I was really surprised at how great it was. Gitomer is amazing at distilling complex principles into phrases that are catchy and memorable.

3. The Whuffie Factor by Tara Hunt.

You already know what I’m about to tell you, but I’ll say it anyway: Social capital is something to pay attention to. We talk about it in our book, and ways to gain it, but for a comprehensive, web-savvy assessment Tara’s book does the job. I had done a TON of research on social capital when we were writing the book, but Tara has done more and it shows. Read it.

4. Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely.

I was introduced to Ariely by Mitch Joel, and spoke to him on the phone a bit as we were writing the book. Honestly, his book is so great I should have made it number one. I read it at the same time I was reading Influence, and I was starting to become overwhelmed with how much people don’t understand their own behaviour, and why they make the decisions they do, both individually and in groups. This one should not be missed.

5. Ignore Everybody by Hugh MacLeod

You know what’s in this, and so do I. But Ignore Everybody, which comes out tomorrow, is as classic a book as Twyla Tharp’s Creative Habit — it will teach you to step out of your usual habits and create what you need for your own life. In the end, that’s what we wrote is really about: trying something new that can make something great happen for you.

You know what, there are probably more of these– give me some suggestions, I’d love to know what you think. Hey, and once you’re done those, go grab ours! :)

(via Kottke)

I don’t think people actually want to be “social media experts.”

I think Twitter users see the success of people who are working independently online, they see that they’re doing social media work (because that’s what’s hot and working right now), and they go, “I can do this, too.” And some of them can.

I also don’t believe that social media is a passion.

I believe that social media is something that people with great communication skills are naturally good at. As a result of it, they rise to the top of the heap. Some of that is skill, but some of it is luck, too.

What people sometimes miss is that, those people who were there at the beginning, those are the ones that are successful. You assume they’re still here because they’re “passionate about social media,” but in reality, it’s also that they made it work.

Some don’t remember the ones that have dropped off the map along the way. But I do. They were working just as hard, and they loved it just as much.

I think that what people really want is the recognition of their peers and a bit more freedom.

Let’s remember that there are other ways to get there, too.

There’s something incredible about working really hard for a really long time on a project, with little or no reward, and then finally seeing something real show up, that was made and that you can hold. Of course, we had a nice turnout, so all that lasted only a short time before it was time to sign them all away.

That’s something that’s amazing about what we do, all of us, here on the web. We try to work hard, we have faith that it will have an impact, but we largely never hold something real in our hands. So it’s incredible to see something that people will not only see in bookstores, but hold in their bags and keep on their bookshelves.

I remember one rainy morning a while ago I was giving a girlfriend a few presents for her birthday. I woke up early and painted little cartoons on the wrapping paper. She liked the presents, sure, but somehow the wrapping paper made a huge difference.

It really is about the details, about things you will remember later because they’re real. Simple emotional stuff blurs over time, but actual objects, they can really bring you back.

It’s amazing looking at statistics on various URL shortening services.

We bloggers have always realized that there was a rough 80/20 (90/10?) ratio between those who comment and those who read, but services like tr.im really put it into perspective.

Example: The other night I was tweeting about random old 4chan memes (Rich Raven, Courage Wolf) and I got over 100 clickthroughs, even though no one said anything.

This brings me to the point of this post.

We all have moments when we feel appreciated, when someone tells us they like something we did or something else about us. I’m thinking there’s a ratio there too. So when someone comes up and says “I like your tweets” or any other compliment, there are likely a few more that think the same, but that don’t say anything.

It’s people’s natural tendency to say nothing (likely why most married people don’t feel appreciated enough), but this doesn’t mean they’re feeling nothing. I’m thinking they are, and they’re thinking about you. ;)

The word waffle is pretty interesting.

First of all, it’s negative. It says, “this guy is changing his mind,” and probably over and over again. And sometimes waffling can be bad, but not always.

If you don’t change your mind, by definition, you’re accepting the decision made by a younger, stupider version of yourself.

Some religious people are like this. They decided a while ago that [X] was true and now they’re not going to change their mind, no matter what. Same thing with politics, sometimes, or any complex issue for that matter.

As time goes on, we learn more. Rules change, and we change. We should be ok with changing our minds.

I’ve always tended to hang out with older people, and I’m glad about that. I’m spending time with people that have more life experience than me. That doesn’t mean they’re always smart, but hey, it does give it a higher likelihood. :)

We sure travel a lot in social media. Conferences, business meetings, long distance relationships… along the way, we meet a lot of great people that do really exciting stuff all over the world.

But we can’t ignore our local talent, either. Last night, I was hanging out with two good friends, also great people, and I realized something: There are great people everywhere.

And I think a lot of us, on the local side, are really missing out.

A lot of my day ends up being spent chatting with smart people all over the US and Canada, but they’re far away, and there are tons of locals doing great stuff, too. You probably know some of them.

I know body modification professionals, Zen monks and experimental musicians. You might know other kinds of people I wouldn’t dream of meeting.

So here’s the challenge I’m putting to my friends: Introduce me to the coolest people you know, and I’ll do the same for you. They don’t have to be related to the internet (in fact, maybe they shouldn’t be) and should be the kind of people we wouldn’t normally meet.

Here’s another challenge for those that know me less well, or that are far away: Do this yourself. See what happens. I dare you.

Reading books regularly is the best thing I think you can do for yourself. You read on the web all the time but I’m betting this will be more fulfilling. Try it– here are some tips.

If you want to do this, the system is pretty simple: put it into your schedule, as early in the day as possible. Read a set number of pages per day (40-50 is a good rule of thumb) and you’ll see the books fly by. Sometimes you finish early, so you can get a bit of a head start on other weeks.

Instead of typing in all the books I read, though, here’s a picture of some of my favourites.*

* As I was taking this picture, I realized that half the books in my “completed” list are not in my bookcase. Strange. I don’t remember lending them to anyone.

Having just spent a month in Japan and a week in New York, I was pretty surprised to see these Bixi bikes right by my breakfast place this morning. I had seen them in Paris but never used them, so I figured what the hell.

You may never have seen something like this before, so if you’re unfamiliar, the service allows you to rent a bike with a credit card from any station in the city for SUPER CHEAP. The basics:

• Allows you to pick up a bike at any station and drop it off at any other station (ie, you don’t have to bike back there).
• First half hour with a bike is FREE, so a short trip costs nothing.
• Further half hours cost as little as $1.50.
• This system incentivizes biking (no looking for parking) and reduces traffic jams and pollution, not to mention being one additional great thing that will encourage tourism to the city.

Basically this is perfect for me. I don’t have a bike because I sometimes just don’t feel like biking BACK from wherever I’m going, which discourages me from biking in the first place. I end up taking lots of buses and cabs as a result.

Here’s how it went down today though. (Sorry about the point form but it’s easier.)

1. Saw the bike station by my breakfast place, realized I’d never need to take the bus after breakfast ever again. Nice.
2. Went to grab one after breakfast. There are 50 pages of Terms of Service but I ignored them (probably at my own peril).
3. Put in my CC. It gave me a code to unlock one of the four bikes, but it didn’t work. :P
4. Tried the same CC again. It says I can’t, so I try another one. Second CC gives me another code to try.
5. I try the other code on this same bike. It fails. I call customer service.
6. CS is quick to pick up. Nice girl lets me know that one of the bikes is defective, and if I use my code on the defective bike (which is not labelled), it deactivates the code. FAIL.
7. She directs me to another station, which is 5 blocks away, letting me know there’s 1 bike left (info available on this page). I walk there.
8. I grab a bike and go!

I know it sounds like a bit of a trial, but it was actually ok. The customer service people seem to really want to solve problems and have two stations near my house and tons of them downtown and in other areas I visit, so this thing is totally worth it. Plus, when I wanted to get rid of it, I called the number again to ask for the nearest station. Super easy.

Biking burns around 400 or more calories per hour, so for a lot of city people, this might be a great option. I’m totally looking for ways to make my lifestyle more active, so I’m really looking forward to using this every day. Well done Montreal.

So I was in Japan for a month. In a Zen temple, doing a lot of sitting meditation, and meeting a lot of people. My first real break from the internet, except for occasional email, in the past 10 years.

The world didn’t collapse.

It’s hard to discuss “what I got out of it” in this attention-deficit prone format. But I’ll tell you what, there’s a lot of stuff out in the world that isn’t available online.

I’m glad to be back with you guys though. :)