Look at Spiderman’s shirt.
Amateur blogger Leora Zellman has announced on her blog that she is going to be selling ad spots on her body at tech conference.
But Eric, this is nothing like prostitution. True.
But is this similar to a stripper that profits from people staying at her body? Not really that close, but the principles are the same… people are not interested in your mind, but in your physique.
Sure, guys are pigs, tech dorks are very unsocial, and have a difficult time talking to girls (why do you think Geek Brief is so popular). And most importantly, I am all for taking advantage of business opportunities. So I do not blame Leora, and I actually think this is really smart…captive audience, newsworthy, and has great WOM attributes.
But if this proves to be very profitable, will every semi-attractive female start selling ad space?
I thought that woman who sold ad space on her pregnant belly at the super bowl was unbelievable. This isn’t that bad, but what’s next?
On a side note, I’ll get a tatoo of any startup across my chest, rip off my shirt at the next SF tech conference, and scream like the Incredible Hulk the .com, for a small fee of $10mm
Did you ever get criticized for something you tried that worked out? When we pioneered customer reviews, it was incredibly controversial. I got letters from publishers saying, “You don’t understand your business. You make money when you sell things. Take down those negative customer reviews.” We’ve never done anything of real value that wasn’t at least a little bit controversial when we did it. But if you want to be a pioneer, you have to be comfortable being misunderstood.
Here are Nassim Taleb’s top 10 life tips, all worthwhile, from this profile:
1. Skepticism is effortful and costly. It is better to be sceptical about matters of large consequences, and be imperfect, foolish and human in the small and the aesthetic.
2. Go to parties. You can’t even start to know what you may find on the envelope of serendipity. If you suffer from agoraphobia, send colleagues.
3. It’s not a good idea to take a forecast from someone wearing a tie. If possible, tease people who take themselves and their knowledge too seriously.
4. Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last recourse against randomness is how you act — if you can’t control outcomes, you can control the elegance of your behaviour. You will always have the last word.
5. Don’t disturb complicated systems that have been around for a very long time. We don’t understand their logic. Don’t pollute the planet. Leave it the way we found it, regardless of scientific ‘evidence’.
6. Learn to fail with pride — and do so fast and cleanly. Maximise trial and error — by mastering the error part.
7. Avoid losers. If you hear someone use the words ‘impossible’, ‘never’, ‘too difficult’ too often, drop him or her from your social network. Never take ‘no’ for an answer (conversely, take most ‘yeses’ as ‘most probably’).
8. Don’t read newspapers for the news (just for the gossip and, of course, profiles of authors). The best filter to know if the news matters is if you hear it in cafes, restaurants… or (again) parties.
9. Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker, a Nobel or a private jet.
10. Answer e-mails from junior people before more senior ones. Junior people have further to go and tend to remember who slighted them.
Front page of Espn.com today is about a boy who could not win the spelling bee…
So I am going to attempt to consistently use Twitter… damn it. I have enough distractions as it is.
Here is a cool idea that a friend recommended for Twitter… which is probably already being done. When people go out, they want to know not only where their friends are, but if the place they are heading to is “happening”. So he suggested creating a twitter group so people could rate the place in real-time.
For example, when I get to Slide tonight, I would twit “Long time outside… tons of dudes” or “Lots of people at Slide, good crowd” or “Super ghetto Asian”. And on top of that, I would rank it 1 out of 10, with some relevant tags such as “Sausage fest, Fratty, Empty, Long line or Ghetto”. This would save people millions of dollars in wasted taxi fairs.
Thoughts?
This isn’t a recent revelation, but I’ve noticed that I am much more productive at night than I am during the day… mainly because of distractions. It is not that I am surfing youtube, but my focus is split between managing people, answering emails, phone calls, chats, and the actually work I need to get done. Productivity is about momentum and if you can get on a work roll, you can get much more accomplished. So think of it as if you were to work on three different tasks vs. being completely focused on one task at a time.
So here is my proposed 3 step solution (to myself) for the next two days:
1) 55 minutes of focused work, 5 minutes of random work - I have emails and phone calls I need to attend to, but I am going to reserve the last 5 minutes of each hour to do that.
2) No email or phone for 55 minutes per hour - I went to a hear Iqbal Quadir speak at a LongNow.org event tonight; his last venture helped bring mobile phones to developing nations. Iqbal’s main point was that connectivity equals productivity. For me, that may not be necessarily true. Ryan Johnson asked me to develop an application that would turn off his internet and cell phone for a set amount of time, allowing him to focus on his work. Think about the gambler who goes to the casino and request to be blacklisted (not allowed to return). The next time he has the urge to gamble, he physically cannot.
3) Minute by minute goals - I am going to spend 15 minutes in the morning and map out my entire day in 10 minutes increments. The smaller the goal, the more focused and more motivated you are. I guess its like the NBA playoffs, its about winning the 1st quarter of the next game and not all 16 games… minus the flopping and horrendous refereeing.
Seems doable… I’ll let you know if it worked. If you need to reach me, find comfort in that fact that I will return your call, email, or ping within 55 minutes.
World’s Number 1 Best Flopper
