Dopp Juice Archive

Robert Scoble has a blog. Robert Scoble’s blog is kinda famous. Robert is kinda famous for his blog.

And by “kinda famous” I mean “very famous.”

Famous people tend to get sucked into the realm of “needing to stay famous.” Sometimes that means getting self-conscious and changing their style. And sometimes doing that is a mistake.

His post yesterday was brilliant:

“If you aren’t willing to look like an idiot in public (or, even, prove that you ARE one) you won’t be a really great blogger.

Lately I’ve found that I’ve started worrying about LOOKING like an idiot to all of you and it’s stilted my writing. I started worrying about getting a better “rank” (whatever the heck THAT means). And all the hubris-filled-bullpucky that goes along with this stuff.

If you asked me whether I wanted to be invited to an Apple or Google press conference I’d drool on the floor and say “yes, yes, yes.” Now that I’ve been? I really can’t understand why I thought that at one point. It was a major flaw in my thinking.

But I’ve been reading a lot of blogs lately. Who are the guys who I’d rather hang out with?

People who prove they are human.

Human beings make mistakes.

Human beings aren’t always smart. Even the smartest ones…”

He goes on, and ends with:

“In the meantime, if you worry about looking like an idiot you’ll never take risks and you’ll never explore yourself. More idiocy ahead! “

Robert Scoble, thank you for keeping it real.

When I was nineteen, I never expected I’d ever live in China. The thought didn’t even cross my mind when I set foot on the plane to Beijing — I was just going for a 5-week study abroad trip, that was all. Three months later, when I was happily settled into a Chinese apartment and teaching English, I never expected I’d ever live anywhere other than China. Another month later, I was back in the U.S.

I dream dreams, I set goals, I make plans, I form expectations, and I get attached to them. Then time moves forward, things happen that I can’t control, and the scene changes. I blink, bug-eyed incredulous that this is my life, and then I shake out the cobwebs and go back to the whiteboard: dream new dreams, set new goals, make new plans, form new expectations, and get attached to them all over again.

The dreams, the goals, and the plans are important — even if they change, they still guide my decisions. (“If you’re not working toward your own goals, you’re working toward somebody else’s.”)

But the expectations lead to mistakes, and the attachments cause pain. And the most I can do is get used to those changing and relax when they make me uncertain — they’re not gonna go away.

Tonight I am sitting down with a blank canvas, trying to carve out my dreams again, and it’s hard work. It’s a process of finding the intersections between “What do I love?” and “What do I want?” and neither of those questions are easy to answer when I’m asking myself to be specific. I look for the shortcuts to these answers, thinking back to last time, to past dreams, to the constant threads in my life, the themes, the values, the ideals. If I can keep the big picture abstract, it starts to forms a story that make sense.

Everything is a project — it’s all about being able to make the projects happen.

It’s all about the words.

It’s all about creativity, creating, and creating opportunities so that others to create.

It’s all about the people.

But if I get any more specific than that, the details become almost arbitrary — a list of ideas that are taken seriously. A painting that will never be real. An exercise in belief and impermanence. A direction to look when I wake up in the morning, because I’d rather walk toward a mirage than stay in bed.

It’s not about obtaining what I’m looking at.

Building a life for myself in China was the best thing I could have done that summer — I needed the freedom, the responsibility, the home, and the perspective shift. I needed to believe I would be there for the rest of my life. The fact that I left in October didn’t negate the importance of that intention — it just prompted a new phase for the dream. And I got everything that I needed.

Dreams don’t get met. They get honored.

I came back from four days of data-fasting to find a very entertaining lil’ webtoy…

Bullshitr: The Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator

See, you just press a button and…

Hmmm… AJAX-enabled podcasts… Would that be like a drag-and-drop interface for creating audio mashups from a library of creative commons user-generated music and interviews? HMMM…..

(Thanks to Doc Searls for the link.)

I also went looking for interesting tech news today, only to find tools, tools, and more tools. There are a heckuvalot of tools out there! And we’re still excited about making new ones.

Want to keep track of your expenses on the go? Use Buxfer. Want to do it through Twitter? Use Xpenser. Want to be coached while you do it? Use Banzai. Don’t like any of those? Keep looking, there’s more.

And I think it’s wonderful. The web-based tools market has reached the point of genuine competition. Most of the slots for “First Web-Based Tool to Handle ____ for You” are taken, and now it’s a matter of who has the best interface, who’s making the customer feel most comfortable, and who’s keeping their promises.

We’re past the point of announcement marketing — web surfers have all heard the rhetoric. They roll their eyes and groan now when they hear the phrase “Web 2.0” — we can AJAXify it, incentivize it, and podcast it all we want. And no amount of Trebuchet MS font, pastel colors, or block-style design is going to convince them to give us their email address and favorite password before we prove our value. They’re past that.

This is where it gets interesting. This is where the winners become the ones who listen.

Even if our tools are free to use, our users are still our customers. They have a limited quantity of time to spend, and if we want that time spent with us, we have to prove our value. These customers want the same thing customers have always wanted — to be heard, to be helped, and to be treated like human beings. They’re not interested in “beta-tested rss-capable value*.”

There’s a lot of bullshitting going on out there. Don’t be that guy. Be the one who still remembers how to speak in plain English and address real needs.

*this phrase also courtesy of Bullshitr.