Silence and a Celebration of Failure

February 4th, 2010 by Andrew Swenson

FAIL

Last week Carlos Miceli again proved profundity can be carried in 140 characters when he wrote:

Reflection is the most painful and effective way to become wise.

I think it’s in this spirit that Jason Markow published an open call to celebrate failure in what he’s been calling #FAILweek. He’s called us to “help others prepare for success by letting them learn from your failure.”

While some who have posted (including Jason himself) have grand, and dare I say sexy, failure stories, mine rests in the solitude of silence…

A Defense of Grad School

February 2nd, 2010 by Andrew Swenson

Last month, a few other young professionals, namely Nicole Crimaldi, Matt Cheuvront, and (to some extent) Shane Mac suggested that the best education is self-education.

As one who loves a good debate, and as someone who’s always been sympathetic to the side of traditional education, I decided to interview Cali Harris (@caligater) who recently quit her job to pursue her Masters full-time. She’s the real deal. The video interview and a recap (with my 2 cents thrown in) are below:

Why “iPad” is a brilliant name

January 28th, 2010 by Andrew Swenson

Despite the obvious connection between a certain feminine hygienic product and “iPad,” I think the name is brilliant. In fact, I think that Apple may have done it on purpose.

Sure, everyone from CNN to Twitter (iTampon was a trending topic for nearly 8 hours), has been poking fun of Apple. Many, including Shereen Meraji of All Tech Considered, are wondering: “maybe there weren’t any women in the room when that got decided.”

Fail Fast, Fail Cheap applies to your career, too.

January 26th, 2010 by Andrew Swenson
work

image credit: Joe Loong

To be honest, this post has less to do with failure and more to do with personal innovation from within the corporate structure—the struggle to make change happen, to get your ideas implemented if you aren’t in a senior leadership position.

The Math of Fast and Cheap

In 2007, Doug Hall suggested that businesses should Fail Fast, Fail Cheap when it comes to innovation. Specifically he showed the business sense of failing quickly and cheaply:

A Defense of Blogging

January 20th, 2010 by Andrew Swenson
Keyboard

image credit: Andrew*

Yesterday Rebecca Thorman contested that “bloggers are not writers” and “blogging is not writing.”

I happen to disagree, but this not really about disagreement. This is about rethinking our basic understanding of writing.

This is about boiling down the underlying implications of Thorman’s ideas in an effort to hold them, to examine them, to test them.

I’m deeply indebted to Thorman’s post and presentation as the start of this conversation, so first: Thank you Rebecca. And now to our point of departure…

Guest Post: Writing as a way of thinking

January 19th, 2010 by Andrew Swenson

I had the opportunity to guest post over at Srinivas Rao’s personal development blog, The Skool of Life. Stay tuned too, because tomorrow my interview in the “Up and Coming Bloggers Podcast” airs on the same site. But to wet your appetite today, here’s a snippet from my post on The Skool of Life:

Rarely, if ever, do I start a blog post knowing exactly where it will end. Some have told me this is a weakness. I tell them it’s writing.

Help Haiti Blog Challenge

January 15th, 2010 by Andrew Swenson
Image Credit: United Nations Development Programme

Image Credit: United Nations Development Programme (uploaded 01/14/2010)

In watching the horrid events unfold in Haiti (and yes, those boxes in the photo above are coffins), I wasn’t just upset, I felt helpless. Other than donate money, what could I do?

When I peeked into Gretchen Jameson’s office this morning (@gmjameson), the answer became glaringly obvious.

Gretchen expressed how upset she was that many social media and communication through leaders had not turned their attention to the crisis. She wondered how can we go on blubbering about this and that case study, paying little deference to the devastation in Haiti.

The Economy of Collaboration 3.0

January 14th, 2010 by Andrew Swenson

Image Credit: Jill Clardy | Edits under CC: Andrew Swenson

Original Image: Jill Clardy

Recently, Carlos Miceli argued that the future of collaboration is not in win-win transactions, but in a pay-it-forward type of interaction where one gives for the sake of giving and not for the sake of winning. Miceli states:

The future of collaboration is ego-less….The real test comes when you have the opportunity to help someone with the previous knowledge that that person won’t be able to reciprocate. Paradoxically, the only way to do this consistently is to forget about the economic way of thinking.”

Seeing Collaboration 3.0 in Economic Terms

In economic terms, there are typically two types of exchange (Lapavistas, 2004):

On Twitter’s Flat-lined Growth

January 12th, 2010 by Andrew Swenson

Don't Panic

Image Credit: Jim Linwood

Twitter’s recent flatline has some Twitter-crazed marketers scrambling. After all, you spent all that time drafting and creating a Twitter strategy, and now we’re already looking for “next year’s Twitter” (which, incidentally, Pete Cashmore says is Foursquare).

This news neither alarms nor frightens me. We all knew this day was coming. Science tells us that exponential growth is unsustainable in cases of population and resource use, so should Twitter really be an exception?

I know it’s unthinkable, but some day we’ll most likely be having the same conversation about a Facebook flat-line.

To Gen-Y: Part of the reason your ideas are ignored

January 5th, 2010 by Andrew Swenson
image credit: Joey Gannon

image credit: Joey Gannon

Gen-Y will change the world. Right?

I mean, after all, we’re different. We’re the internet babies, we’re uber-connected and we’re ready to reinvent the system of business with blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Staction, and Yammer.

That is of course, if our ideas aren’t first crushed under the weight of 100 years of process-based enterprise thinking. Back in 2008, ZDNet asked if millennials would really reinvent IT. Larry Dignan’s answer: