Unofficially, the theme for Gnomedex is “Open Everything.” The keynote by Robert Steele is all over the place on things we need to open up (spectrum, software, intelligence, etc). It’s passionate, all over the map, and exciting. But my theme for Gnomedex is different.
Seek Knowledge
I asked a simple question a bunch of times yesterday. In the asking, I learned to refine and rephrase. And by the end, I had the information I sought. The funny thing? It turns out I was really only off by just a little bit. I was missing a simple sentence at the mid-point of my conversation that changes the whole thing. Now I get it.
Find Storytellers
I met with Alex Castro of Pluggd. Midway into the meeting, Tajee and Schlomo Rabinowitz came in, too. We ended up having what *I* felt was better than a panel at a conference. It was thick with thought, ripe with crazy spirals and threads that turned into tapestries. Fascinating.
By the way, Alex showed us something that, were it adopted everywhere in Internet video, Madison Avenue would SHIT their pants. I can’t say it nicely. Sorry. It was MENTAL. Not who watches. What they do. Imagine if what you DID was the metric to certain types of video.
At that one table, Castro, Rabinowitz, and Tajima It was great! Find storytellers.
Turn Your Ideas Upside Down
The thing Robert Steele does well on stage this morning is tell me things I don’t think much about. They’re a little raw. I commented in Twitter is that it’s like ripping duct tape off your chest hair. And I’m not much of a “yeah! Let’s go storm the government!” But what I *do* get from all this are ideas I don’t normally think about. Steele says to buy a Cisco router, store all your own data there. Build networks outside *the* Internet. Etc. Fascinating.
Learn from disruptive people.
Disruption Redux
The blogosphere is still chewing on Jeff Pulver’s article on BusinessWeek about leaving LinkedIN for Facebook. There are tons of posts from various perspectives, and what I see on the whole? People didn’t get it.
Jeff wasn’t crapping on LinkedIN. He was calling for richer interactions in business social networks. Lots of people, especially the non-tech crowd, were mostly talking about “why leave all that work behind and start over?” Well, are you still on Prodigy?
Pay attention to disruptors. They might not have it ALL right, but they almost definitely have something for you to consider.
Learn. Learn More. Learn Fast
Truly, at the end of the day, you are your own best product. The more you put into yourself, the more opportunity you’ll have to be useful to the universe. But no matter what, DISRUPT your patterns, learn NEW not what you already know, break it open. Do it again. Do it new. Repeat nothing for too long. Move beyond it.
What have you learned new lately?