Thank you for 2008, and some hope for 2009

For many people, 2008 ended with no more sentiment than "good riddance."  For me, it was bittersweet.  The now-finished year treated me well - my first full year of marriage to my wonderful wife; a (largely free) trip to Colorado, where I learned to ski and didn't die trying; hiking around in the Swiss Alps and even popping into France for breakfast; buying a house in a wonderful neighborhood where we actually know (and like!) the neighbors; continuing to grow and learn professionally with great colleagues; and so much more that to mention it would risk driving you away from these posts forever.

It wasn't all perfect.  The Braves disappointed us all (again).  Small-government conservatism was thrown under a TARP by the Bush administration and a new administration will likely not help bring it back, which leaves it to those of us who still espouse true conservative principles to continue to claw our way back.

For 2009, I continue to be optimistic that the Obama administration won't be a complete disaster, though I'm less enthused for what could come out of Congress.  I'm also optimistic about the economy - but only if government can stop meddling long enough to allow Real People to make some decisions for themselves.

As is the tradition for anyone with a modest case of punditry, I'll venture a few predictions for where we'll be on Jan 1, 2010:

• Obama will have 65%+ approval ratings, bolstered by nearly 50% approval among Republicans but hurt by the disappointment of the fringe Left
  
• The Big Three automakers will be the Big Two
  
• The Dow will be back to 10,000 but not to 11,000 yet.
  
• The Yankees (ug) will win the World Series; the Braves will pull in a modest yet still disappointing 3rd place in the NL East
  

That's all I got.

To everyone who made 2008 great, thank you.  I look forward to live, work, and play with you in 2009.

Joys of Twitter

Curious about Twitter? The Wall Street Journal ran a nice article on the service the other day. People use Twitter for lots of things, from personal to professional to promotional. The article is also frank with the downfalls of Twitter, particularly the fact that if people don't use it then it's not really serving its purpose.

Do you Twitter? You know I do - you can see my most recent tweets over on the right. Several readers of the blog do, and several more - particularly dear friends of mine - are signed up but neglectful.

Make Twitter valuable for you - find two or three people who you care about knowing what they're up to and who would be interested in knowing what you're doing. Sign them up. Most importantly, register your phone with Twitter and get the alerts for your five favorite people on your phone. Send tweets from your phone. That funny thing that happened to you on the subway or at Subway will likely be appreciated by someone else - but if you don't tweet it now you'll probably forget it by the time you're back at your computer.

Effort

Being smart might be luck of the draw, but knowing stuff is the result of effort.

That's the best line from a really wonderful and challenging post from Seth Godin the other day. Read the whole thing.

On the DC streets

I just walked by Trent Lott on F Street in DC. I nodded and he nodded and we went on our ways. He was all by himself - that's what happens when you leave the Senate behind.

Oh, stop complaining

Do you find yourself complaining a lot? Our society embraces complaining, sometimes even requires it. It may relieve some steam, but is it improving anything? Or is your complaining just a gateway drug to gossip, mockery, and, eventually, people complaining about you?

I stumbled on an article by Martha Beck on CNN (yes, it was originally published for an Oprah magazine, but I'll let that slide) called, simply, "Why you should stop your complaining." The article advocates going on a "venting fast," but more than just suggesting you give up complaining, it analyzes why we complain, and where it gets us (which is generally nowhere).

If you think that a venting fast requires willpower, you're half right. After a few whine-free days, you'll find that it also requires courage -- possibly more than you've ever used. To understand why anyone would put themselves through a venting fast, it helps to know a little about the psychological dynamics of complaint.

And she goes into it, and I found it quite on-target.

There can be good venting - complaining about things you don't really want to change - but that's not overly common. Mostly, we're avoiding real change by complaining about the way things are.

A lot of what passes for political discourse today really is just intellectual complaining. Not enough effort is focused on finding real solutions. If I had my doctorate in political science, I would prescribe a venting fast to politicians - and their surrogates. Quit telling us where everyone else screwed up. Tell us what you're going to do.

I'm going to go on a vent diet for the rest of the week. I normally am not much of a complainer (or at least I fancy myself not to be). I try to stay level-headed, and I think that works out pretty well for me. But when I get going on complaining, I really can get going. This week, through Sunday at least, I'm not going to get going. If I start complaining, I'll stop, and starting pondering what exactly is making me mad, and what I can do to change it. And if there's nothing? I'll just let it go.

I'll report back in a week. Wish me luck.

Hard work

Seth Godin has a really great Labor Day post about what hard work really means today:

Richard Branson doesn't work more hours than you do. Neither does Steve Ballmer or Carly Fiorina. Robyn Waters, the woman who revolutionized what Target sells -- and helped the company trounce Kmart -- probably worked fewer hours than you do in an average week.

None of the people who are racking up amazing success stories and creating cool stuff are doing it just by working more hours than you are. And I hate to say it, but they're not smarter than you either. They're succeeding by doing hard work.

There's a new book out there that I thumbed through at the bookstore recently (and I'll put in the name when I remember it). I enjoyed a particular passage that argued that the biggest different between those in the middle class and those in upper class is that most of us in the middle class are risk-averse. We don't want to take big risks because, even though there could be pots of gold at the end, it's really hard to get to there. Most of us will give up before we get to the reward, which means most of us will fail, which means why bother in the first place.

I'm as guilty of this as anyone. I keep hoping for the "right" idea to come along, and I keep pushing off big ideas that aren't quite "right enough." I'm slowly waking up to the fact that it can't be "right enough" without a lot of effort.

Starting this blog was a risk that I easily could have not taken. I'm still not working hard enough on it to make it a product people really want to read regularly, but I've done the hard part, which was committing publicly to do something. If I'm going to own a domain name, I better keep putting new stuff up there. And (I think) it gets better over time, so even if it stinks now, I'm in a position to continually improve. Remember, even today's favorite swans started out ugly.

If you have a big idea you're hedging on, start with committing publicly. Get the idea out of your head and tell someone who can hold you accountable, "I'm going to do this." When you've told people that you're in the game, your incentive strongly biases success.

Focusing on the Customer

I was trying to poke around on Craigslist this evening, but then got a page that wouldn't load. I clicked on another page and got this message:

Craigslist and many other sites are having issues at the colo facility.
Please sit tight, and try again later.
We are aware of the situation, and the happy craigslist elves are scurrying to make it better, even now.

They could have said just said there was an error and left me to wonder if it would ever be fixed, if anyone even knew - just like sooooo many other companies would do.

But they let me know they were on it. We're cool. Everything's going to be fine.

They've got elves working on it.

If you know there is a problem with your product/service/candidate, acknowledge it. Let it be what it is - and, to the best you can, fix it.

Economics of cats

The wife has been pleading for us to get a cat for some time now, and when she brings it up I have continued to refuse, laugh it off, find, a compelling argument for limiting the number of creatures in our home, or find something very important to deal with on the bottom of my shoe.

Tyler Cowen over at Marginal Revolution seems to take her side, though, from a strictly economic point of view.