Create your very own newspaper

Now this is interesting. www.paper.li takes your twitter feed and creates a newspaper out of it based on the people you follow.

Here's mine: http://paper.li/scottconverse

It's just 3 things...

Hit me in the shower this morning.

It's just 3 things.

That's really all that's important.

We're not talking 3 specific things... it's different for each of us. But it's still just 3 things.

It seems to me that we're made to really focus, best, on 3 things. More than 3 and you start to get scattered in your approach, less than 3, too easy for the human mind.

Of course, there are generally about 30 important things that need your attention at any given time. Can you focus on those 30 things? Nope. You're brain just isn't wired for it. It's aware of them, but it can't focus on all of them. Too many things.

What makes for a highly effective person is the ability to determine, from those 30 important things, which 3 are important right now. Which 3 they should be working on (or making sure others are working on if they're managing people).

Anyone can 'track' 30 things,but only executive thinkers can really see, almost immediately, which 3 of those 30 things they should be focused on. If you're in a big company that's the difference between being an individual contributor or a manager. A director or VP... on up the line.

In a startup company, it's the difference between being the PHP program monkey working on the support forum or the company Architect. The product manager or the CEO. It makes a big difference.

The next 300 things are what really trip us up. We're all dealing with, overall, about 300ish details, just by being alive. Homeless or CEO, the numbers are about the same.

The people that can determine, out of those 300 things, which 30 are important, and which 3 should be the one's they're focused on...

Those guys... they run the place.

So, it's not really about being able to manage dozens of things as many of us believe and, often, what makes our lives so hectic and at times overwhelming.

It's about being able to tell what 3 things should be the primary focus, and not worrying about those important 30 things or those 300 in the back of your mind.. gotta deal with em things...

It's just 3 things.

Are the best start up founders sociopaths?

I've been thinking about this lately and I've concluded that it takes a sort of criminal mindset (disregarding 'the rules') to be a startup founder / Entrepreneur.

This isn't necessarily bad. you can have a criminal mindset and have a positive effect on society (left side of the chart). Of course, most are negative (Right side of the chart).

Maybe it's a case of just a little bit of something that's bad when taken in high quantity (like, say, Caffine) can be a good thing.

Another term you could use in the place of Criminal Mindset might be Sociopath.

Some definitions from Profile of a Sociopath

Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility

Manipulative and Conning

Grandiose Sense of Self

Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt

Need for Stimulation

Callousness/Lack of Empathy

Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature

Any of this sound familiar? Ever seen any high profile tech founders exhibit some level of these behaviors? (Think: Jobs, Gates, Zuckerburg, Ellison)

I"m not saying the 'extreme' edge of sociopathic behavior is good. I am saying that some sociopathic behavior and being an Entrepreneur tend to go hand in hand.

Now, having been a startup founder, I can't say that I'm a sociopath, but, I do have a healthy disregard for the traditional 'rules' and some would say that makes me an outlier when it comes to fitting in.

And to that I say, ok, so be it.

Been a while

Well folks, it's been a while. Almost an entire year, actually, since I blogged. You might have noticed a new URL for this blog (www.scottconverse.com). Apparently Blogger lost my scottconverse.org linkage and all those links back to this blog are now gone. So, starting over.

Check back on occasion if you're so inclined. I'll be writing again now that things are working (reasonably) correctly.

The Many Faces...

something....anything

Frakking DO something

New Found WWII footage.

Some newly found/never before seen WWII footage discovered in Denver recently. It's Black and White.. no sound, but still interesting. I've always loved old movie reels and this feels like the raw material before it's cut down to 3 minutes for the reel they used to show before feature films in theatres (before that new fangled thing had come into being... TV). It's a little like having one of those old C dish's (10 feet across) that got the full raw news feeds from around the world.. but over half a century ago.



My Dad was in WWII (barely... he was 17 when he joined and it was the last year of the war) and he's got some pretty interesting stories about Japan after the surrender. I think this was the last time the world, as a whole, had to sacrifice and work together.