Chris Guillebeau makes a great point here.
Embrace the Wow.
A lot of that anger and cynicism that people give to people doing good work usually exists because people are scared. We have to discount it because there is that underlying fear that makes us feel like we can’t do that.
A perfect post for a Monday. Enjoy. And remember that snarkiness is the opposition of progress.
In game 5 of the NBA Finals America saw 2 spectacular things. First, LeBron James, for better or worse, won a finals MVP. We saw a NBA playoffs where the most gifted basketball player since Wilt Chamberlain finally put his mental demons to rest. Make no mistake, the LeBron James the country saw has finally taken himself out of the “should be” top 5 into the eventual top 5. Second, we saw a team become dynasty ready.
But I am not talking about the Miami Heat.
A case study into the ethos of the Oklahoma City Thunder would show that humility (Kevin Durant), pride (Russell Westbrook), and hard work (James Harden) exists in this team’s blueprint, as exemplified in their star players. This team, with its sub 30 win season a few short years ago, has shown several signs of growth in terms of maturity and win percentage.
With this growth happening right in front of our eyes, led by the humble Durant, the Thunder quickly became media darlings. The quotes streaming out of their camp had been a perfect. It doesn’t get any better than “We didn’t see it as losing, but learning how to win.” They also have a rabid fan base, reminiscent of Sacramento’s Arco Arena of the 2000’s. Very active, very loud, and very in tune to the game, creating some of the best In-Arena basketball a home team can play in. They have fed into the team, and since every game has been sold out, win or loss, good or bad, this team has gotten a confidence boost.
This team has been fun to watch. We saw them build from that scrappy young upstart, pushing the Lakers in 2010. They went head to head with the Mavericks in 2011, and in 2012, beat the San Antonio Spurs, as well as the aforementioned Mavericks and Lakers on the way to the finals. In a way, they were showing us that we were underdogs no longer.
What they didn’t have, was a loss that would leave that lump in their chest. Even though they lost to those teams in 2010 and 2011, they were seen as underdogs. They were never the main draw. The media coddled them a bit, and each loss was a little easier to swallow because we were looking to the future, what needed to come.
This year, we expected the best out of them. They came into the year saddled with expectations in a year that worked better in their favor. They were still young. They had a tight schedule. They also had a deep team build around young role players and a great blueprint. This is the first year the NBA expected them to act like champions. They didn’t disappoint, but when running into this Miami Heat team, a team that figured it out, they just couldn’t handle it. To be fair, the heat, with LeBron finally taking a lead role, would be tough to anyone to beat, but I would wage it to be a team that cannot sustain itself for a long time.
For all the pomp and circumstance that surrounded this team coming into the Finals (Many in the sports media crowned them before a game was played), they didn’t have a crushing loss that took the wind out of them. That broke them down. Watching Durant and his team cry was powerful. It showed the Oklahoma City Thunder finally got the loss they needed to push them into great team status. They are kids no longer.
“A whisper in a quiet room is all you need. There’s so little noise, so few distractions, that the energy of the whisper is enough to make a dent.
On the other hand, it’s basically impossible to have a conversation (at any volume) in a nightclub.
Signal to noise ratio is a measurement of the relationship between the stuff you want to hear and the stuff you don’t. And here’s the thing: Twitter and email and Facebook all have a bad ratio, and it’s getting worse.
The clickthrough rates on tweets is getting closer and closer to zero. Not because there aren’t links worth clicking on, but because there’s so much junk you don’t have the attention or time to sort it all out.
Spam (and worse, spamlike messages from organizations and people that ought to treasure your attention and permission) are turning a medium (email) that used to be incredibly rich into one that’s becoming very noisy as well.
And you really can’t do much to fix these media and still use them the way you’re used to using them.
The alternative, which is well worth it, is to find new channels you can trust. An RSS feed with only bloggers who respect your time. Relentless editing of who you follow and who you listen to and what gets on the top of the pile.
Until you remove the noise, you’re going to miss a lot of signal.”
Sometimes you have to give,and there are two ways to do so.
Money – This is the easier of the two. Should be used when you decide that the services are not going to help you towards your final goal.
Time – This is the tougher one. Should be used when you feel that the experience will create growth towards your final goal.
Both have thier uses, but when you are able to distinguish between the two, that is when you can find some measure of success.
If you’re scouting for a first baseman, you should keep your eyes open for someone with good twitch skills. Insanely fast reflexes, the ability to snatch a ball out of the air, someone who might not be able to run a marathon but is insanely quick with no notice.
Twitch skills used to be rarely needed in the business world. There were certainly people on trading desks or in air traffic control towers who had to have the ability to shoot first and ask questions later, but generally, we rewarded those that could find and stick to the long line.
Not sure if you’ve noticed, but in the last twelve months, the social internet is emphasizing twitch more than ever before. All that smart phone checking and checking in and name checking and instant rejoindering is amplifying the work of those that are just a little quicker than everyone else.
Twitch is very satisfying. You can go home knowing that you volleyed everything there was to volley that day, that you played the digital cards you were dealt beautifully, that you gained a few followers and a little respect. Twitch is a constant adrenaline rush, during which you have to plan very little and take responsibility for less. Turn inbound into outbound…
Here’s the thing: While twitch may pay off in any ten minute cycle, I’m not sure if it gets you very far in the long run, where the long run might be as short as two weeks.
“Real Time with Bill Maher” was quite interesting this week. One of the topics on board was the Trayvon Martin Case1, which has had the country’s attention for many reasons, including race in America. In the conversation, the conservatives on the panel brought of subjects that had nothing to do with the case. Bill Maher tried to steer the conversation back to what it should have been, but one thing was frightening clear. Race is being ignored.
The right doesn’t want to discuss the elephant in the room. This does nothing to shake off the coat of racism that has grown on the party. Figures like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Riley, and Sean Hannity have long used race to bait and build audiences. The left isn’t innocent in this either, which is why I am a fan of Maher. He tries to keep things righteous, at least in his own mind. Things that that could open the conversation are pushed under the rug. Unlike the monster under the bed, this won’t quite go away.
Enjoy.
1 Check The Last Post. Summed up Nicely.
2 Bringing up things like car accidents and Casey Anthony, way to dodge the issue.
For many of us, the Trayvon Martin story has been hard to swallow. For the uninformed, the story consists of George Zimmerman, the captain of the neighborhood watch in Sanford, Florida shooting an unarmed Trayvon Martin the night of February 26th, 20121. He remains free for this act.
Free, you ask? He did it under the auspices of the Stand Your Ground2 law, a piece of legislation that allows those who are feeling threatened to “use whatever force necessary” in order to end the situation. This includes deadly force; effectively giving those who haven’t been trained in its discretion the choice in if someone lives or dies.
In order to make sure people aren’t killing each other in the streets, there is a clause in the law for those who do shoot to prove their life is in danger. However, it has been noted in the state of Florida that just doesn’t happen3, with people usually walking after a slap on the wrist, after people saying they were “attacked”. The lack of Jurisprudence and with due diligence, mixed with the growth of social media as less useless chatter and more social justice device4 has led us down this road where a case would get the nation’s attention.
That case happened to arrive when Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin for being suspicious. Like most cases like this, there was a high probability that after a few days, this would be swept under the rug. However, unlike most stories, social media allowed us to put a face with a name. You saw his eyes, the eyes of a child. How could he be suspicious?
It began to get worse as details developed about Trayvon from that night. He was there because his father lived down the street, running an errand for his little brother. Who he was started to emerge as well, an honor roll student who majored in cheeriness5. He was becoming less dead black suspicious teenager to dead teenager.
It got bad when the story on Zimmerman appeared. He was an overzealous neighborhood watch captain whose arrest record had been purged7. He had a history of anger8. His 911 call was laced with anger and racial epithets9.
It got uglier when we learned of the handling of the case by the Sanford police. They took Zimmerman’s statements as fact. They didn’t drug test him after the shooting. They denied a detective who called for manslaughter and quelled evidence. All of this didn’t help when it is wrapped up with a culture of racism hanging around the offices of the police station10.
This created a perfect storm when mixed with a constant presence of Twitter and Facebook for calls of justice, culminating with rallies in major cities with those of all races in hoodies seeking awareness and calling for the arrest of Zimmerman. This caused the Federal Government to step in, bring in the FBI to research both Zimmerman and the police department, and threaten to hand down violations of civil rights11.
With even President Obama handing down a statement12, there was a clarion call for justice. Everything was perfect, so perfect; even right wing commentators were staying away from Zimmerman and his right to carry. Except one thing could have thrown the case on its side and created a firestorm of doubt.
Pictures of Trayvon Martin started to surface. They were images of him with gold teeth. People claimed to have a Twitter where the word “nigga” was in his twitter name. Reports of him smoking weed came out. All of a sudden, he was less angel and more “thug”. He started fitting into the mold that post racist America wanted him to be, that is, just enough for him to sweep him under the rug.
With perfection shattered, you started to notice a change in support. People started to take the hoodie pictures down. You noticed the less sharing done on social networks. The tension seemed to slow down as people started to retweet those pictures viewed as bad, prepping statements on how he could have posed a threat that night. Everything started to become questioned. People forgetting that it was Zimmerman in the car with the gun, the police fudged up the evidence or that Zimmerman had nearly 100 pounds on Trayvon.
Shame, as those pictures reportedly came from Stormfront. Interesting how far people will reach in order to create some sanity in their own heads.
This would have been a perfect litmus test to see how far we have come. The truth of the matter is no matter what pictures, drugs, or conjecture you can create, there is no such thing as “come shoot me clothes” 13. In an odd way, we really missed an opportunity to truly explore race in this country when the lines are a bit more muddled. Things get a lot more “complicated” when things are less Michael Jordan and more Allen Iverson, but presentation didn’t change the fact they were both dominant basketball players, and if we are truly moving towards this post racial America, then presentation shouldn’t change the fact that Trayvon was murdered that night.
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Trayvon_Martin
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand-your-ground_law
4 Google Arab Spring. Twitter and Facebook can do more than you think
5 http://thinkprogress.org/progress-report/the-tragedy-of-trayvon-martin/?mobile=nc
6 http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/28/4372660/michael-smerconish-analyzing-911.html
7 http://rollingout.com/culture/george-zimmerman-son-of-a-retired-judge-has-3-closed-arrests/
8 http://rollingout.com/culture/george-zimmerman-son-of-a-retired-judge-has-3-closed-arrests/ !!!!
9 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNI5CA5jijw
10 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-florida-racismbre82r0sn-20120328,0,4024180.story
11 Reminiscent of the 1960’s. Interesting, the more things change, the more things stay the same.
12 http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/22/2712531/at-rally-this-couldve-been-my.html
13 Thanks Charles M Blow for this nugget @CharlesMBlow
Pre-order the late Patrice O’Neal’s new album on iTunes.
All proceeds go to his family.
Increase Your Edge in Negotiation
Negotiation: A skill than we use so often that we end up taking it for granted. Who knew matching it up with a little bit of math could make us domineering in any field we choose.
It is better to give than receive. This is why we need to take the time to nurture them, and create the best environment for them to flourish.
This is why we are featuring the 99%’s holiday book list. These are some of the books we enjoy, and you can expect some of our thoughts in the next month (in case you wanted some insight). If you just want to take our word for it (and everything here is a great read) take the list and disperse as needed.
