Posts from the “tangents” Category
May 3, 2012 No comments

A personal pivot

After 15 years* working in the entertainment industry I’ve decided to pivot. It’s a big, scary call.

I’m 42 this year. ‘Old’ by a lot of people’s standards: young entrepreneurs who have the capacity for and/or absence of obligation that allows them to work 16 hour days while partying for the remaining eight; and investors who expect to see gigantic goals kicked by peeps my age.

Nonetheless I have been sitting on a process I devised in 2008 that is now of its time. If I don’t at least attempt to make this happen there will be regret.

The last time I looked at an industry from the outside, not knowing how it actually works, I felt excited, daunted and humbled. I feel the same way today, albeit tempered with a little wisdom.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

* I worked 15 years in the music biz, six concurrently in book publishing and two concurrently in online ‘new media’ publishing (as it was back then).
May 2, 2012

The problem with solving problems

I’m a problem solver. I see problems everywhere, and they have to be solved. I blame my parents :-)

But the problem with being a problem solver is that everything’s a problem, and that clearly is a problem …
April 21, 2012

Much speech leads inevitably to silence. Better to hold fast to the void.

— Lao Tzu

The following two images form part of a set of 36 photographs from The Atlantic commemorating World Water Day on March 22. The captions are The Atlantic’s.

Polluted Jianhe River in Luoyang, China.
A journalist takes a sample of polluted red water from the Jianhe River in Luoyang, Henan province, China, on December 13, 2011. According to local media, the sources of the pollution were two illegal chemical plants discharging their production wastewater into the rain sewer pipes. (Reuters/China Daily)

Polluted Jianhe River in Luoyang, China.
A worker looks at a photographer from the door of a factory that manufactures screws and nuts, next to a polluted river in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, China, on March 15, 2012. China failed to meet its own targets for cleaning its air and water in 2011. (Reuters/Stringer)

New York City Black and White

 

© 2012 “Obelix”, New York City Black and White.

Shout out to fellow Aussie Hugh Atkin @hmatkin, the genius behind this masterful mashup.
March 19, 2012

Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.

I knew there was a good reason for undertaking the seemingly insane goal of learning Russian this year. From the New York Times.
March 19, 2012

Mark Cuban debunks the passion myth

I hear it all the time from people. “I’m passionate about it.” “I’m not going to quit, it’s my passion”. Or I hear it as advice to students and others, “Follow your passion”.

What a bunch of BS. “Follow Your Passion” is easily the worst advice you could ever give or get.

Let me make this as clear as possible:

  1. When you work hard at something you become good at it.
  2. When you become good at doing something, you will enjoy it more.
  3. When you enjoy doing something, there is a very good chance you will become passionate or more passionate about it.
  4. When you are good at something, passionate and work even harder to excel and be the best at it, good things happen.

Don’t follow your passions, follow your effort.

Read it @Blog Maverick
March 19, 2012

Knowledge is no longer power

I was recently editing a client’s presentation notes in which she wrote the adage that “knowledge is power”. This is no longer true (as most knowledge can be found on the net or via net enabled social relationships, e.g. Quora).

What’s true now is that the distribution of knowledge is power.

One tweak by Google …
January 4, 2012 1 Comment

I’m calling it quits for a half-year on this blog. Back on July 1, maybe … Hit me up on Twitter @robertcollings if you want to connect or shoot the breeze. Ciao for now and keep well.