3by9

A Purpose Served

When I came up with the idea of 3by9 (yes for once I can honestly say that it was just me that came up with the idea…I know it’s a complicated idea that only brilliant minds like myself could think up) I knew that it wouldn’t have an extended period on the web. I was with two geniuses of the web and figured we all had something important to share with people. However, doing it over at the 9rules blog didn’t seem appropriate so I figured we could start another blog to share these ideas.

Since then over 200 entries have been published during the past 18 months and each of them showing how different our personalities are, but how similar our views of the world around us are. When I brought up the idea of 3by9 to Mike and Tyme I informed that every 3 months we would revisit the site to see if it was time to put it away. Well we did that the first 3 months and haven’t looked back since. However, we all agree that now is the time because we are moving in our own directions.

We are still very much a team when it comes to 9rules, but have started to diverge into our own projects and this has taken time away from the site. So instead of keeping a site dragging along it is time to put it to rest. It served its purpose and it was a relief knowing that we didn’t intend on making the world’s greatest blog, just a blog that was great to us.

If you are interested in what we are doing I suggest you subscribe to Flyosity and Tyme Said. Be sure to also follow us on Twitter: @scrivs, @tyme and @mike9r.

With all of that said thanks to everyone that reads the site and who has commented. It was a joy writing for a site with no restrictions, no concerns of traffic or worries about money. It was a blog that started the way blogging itself started, to share ideas and have our voices heard.

Jump

As crazy as this sounds (unless you know me) I’m not as spontaneous and crazy as I try to appear to be. If someone throws a curveball at me I can very easily swing and miss because I don’t deal with surprises very well. I like the status quo that is my life and venturing outside of that sometimes seems like too much of a challenge to even bother with.

This has prevented me from a number of great opportunities in my lifetime and as much as I like to think that I am going to change and 2009 is the year I truly go where the wind takes me, I know it takes a bit of effort. With every big jump there are a ton of excuses my brain will toss at me and usually if I can get reach two quality excuses then that is reason enough not to follow through. However, what if I ignored them because I realized this is just the part of my brain trying to prevent me from doing something new (that isn’t life threatening of course)?

They say nobody knows you better than you and the problem with that is nobody knows how to convince yourself not to do something better than you. Nobody knows what excuses will work best on you, but you. Nobody is keeping you in place better than you. So just like you don’t listen to your parents or girlfriend, sometimes you can’t listen to yourself and you have to see what is out there.

In this economic environment maybe it isn’t the time to take chances, but maybe it is. If you are already losing out, then maybe there isn’t much more to lose so going for it won’t hurt. You can’t always be logical with your decisions. You can’t always lay out a pro vs. con list to weigh the issues. If someone comes to you and says lets go to Switzerland and your first instinct is “hell yes” then maybe you should go for it.

So take a chance. Jump. Of course make sure you have a parachute. I’m not giving you free reign to be an idiot you jackass.

The Art of Knowing When to Shut Up

My Mom taught me that it is an art to knowing when to talk, and when to shut up. When I was younger I didn’t understand the importance of knowing the difference. In my adult life, I understand completely.

My significant other has artistic qualities so my half-painted three-toned bedroom grates on his last nerve. Not being able to stand it anymore he suggested we paint it. I tried to explain that, due to the size of the room, painting it is a challenge because there isn’t a place to put the furniture that is in the room. In the room there are:

• Two standard size beds pushed together.
• Three desks, one of them an extra large corner desk.
• A full size dresser (10 drawer) with a full size mirror.
• A matching chest.
• A matching make-up table.
• A sofa
• Entertainment center
• Various “things” around the edges of the room (like three monitors)

I can still ride a bike in the room. It’s not cluttered, just “filled”. Logically, one would think you could just push everything into the middle of the room but it is too much furniture, so it becomes a nightmare. I tried to explain this to him and I remembered the art of shutting up.

I dutifully went to Home Depot with him, picked up some paint (which I’m almost positive I have a similar color already but oh well), came back to the house, and watched his joy at finally being able to tackle my multi-colored room. One last time I tried to tell him about the furniture and he told me he had it all under control. Thinking I will become the master of shutting up, I asked if there was anything I could do? He said no, with such a satisfied smile on his face. I kissed him goodbye and went downstairs to cook.

And wait.

It didn’t take long. He came downstairs and I smiled. Eventually he said he understood what I meant. The pieces of furniture in that room are so large they can’t be put in another room. If you try to paint while keeping the furniture in the room it’s a pain of having to paint small sections, let it dry, and move big heavy pieces of furniture (for example, have to take the 10 drawers out of the dresser before moving because it’s a nice solid (big) dresser). Which he is going to do, but it is going to take much longer than he expected (and that is why the room is multi-colored to begin with). Then he realized he’s going to have to go back to Home Depot because there is a 2nd mural underneath four layers of wallpaper that need to be scraped (I had nothing to do with the mural or the wallpaper being on the walls but I bumped into that problem on another side of the room about 4 years earlier LOL).

My point is that he had to come to this realization on his own. I could have continued to try to explain it, to the point of perhaps arguing (because I knew I was right) but sometimes, it’s easier to let a person come into the knowledge at their own pace. In this case it was only an hour or so. For some things it can be months or years but realistically, some things cannot be rushed.

When I tell people about their blogs sometimes they can see where I am I coming from, sometimes they can’t. If I can’t properly navigate around their site that’s a problem, one that can be easily fixed. It’s up to them to step out of the “I love my blog” zone and see how a reader would be going through their site. If their multi-colored site is blinding to the eye, again…it’s great they like it but how would a reader feel about it? I’m not saying one should sacrifice what they like or enjoy on their blog BUT don’t complain about not having traffic. For every action there is a consequence. If someone brings up constructive criticism about your blog/project, look at it realistically. And for the person giving the criticism realize the person has to make their own decisions in their own time.

And it makes the process easier knowing the art of shutting up.

Failing Honestly

Last week Mike and I were having a conversation about a company (that I will avoid naming because what would follow would be too draining) that never seemed to be able to take failure like men (or women). When it comes to failure it is always a bitter pill to swallow, but in the end there are lessons to be learned so the same mistakes do not get repeated again. However, so many of us like to look at failure and make excuses for why it happened. It is almost as if the failure never happened because it was purely due to bad luck.

Bad luck is signing a VC deal only to have an asteroid destroy the people who are about to give you money. Bad luck is accidently deleting the hot girls number after a night of drinking wine coolers. Bad luck isn’t ignoring that something is wrong with your company and then when it becomes to time to fess up to you it, you are full of excuses.

How many relationships have you been in that went horribly wrong and instead of looking back at what you might have done wrong you are quick to blame the other person or maybe unusual circumstances? We met at the wrong time. Distance kept us apart. She didn’t kiss me in the morning. You can’t have better relationships in the future until you figure out what was wrong in the past.

Many companies are learning this the hard way. Facebook will learn it, but it will be too late. The signs are already there. Twitter needs to recognize it quickly because there is no arguing it is going to happen to them as well. These two companies are fortunate to have money pouring out their ears though to protect them, what do you have?

Looking back at my soccer career I can’t remember a game where when I think about it, my first thought is “the ref lost the game for us.” I hated when my team said that. I hated when my coaches said that. I hated when my parents said that. Refs will always make bad calls, but rarely do they prevent you scoring over and over again. You don’t like losing and think it’s the ref’s fault because you lost 2-1? Well you should’ve scored 3 more goals to put the game out of reach.

My sophomore year in college I got an F in Probability. Now this class is hard enough, but doubly hard when you don’t attend class as often as you should. My first excuse was that I couldn’t understand the professor. That means for four months I did nothing about a situation that I knew I was heading towards with the piss poor excuse that I couldn’t understand someone. I failed myself.

Now I understand not everything is your fault and not every disaster can be averted. Looking at 9rules and the millions of changes we have made over the years I can see things that we should have done better, but most of it is simply following what we believed was right and it didn’t work out. Maybe it was bad luck or maybe we are just idiots for believing that a certain idea would work. There was never an excuse for why it didn’t work though.

Your business is failing now because of the economy right? Must be easy to sit back and say such things, but why isn’t your company economy proof? In life the writing is always on the wall about what should be done, it is up to us to actually read it and follow it. Lean to be honest with yourself through your failings and you will find that you are not only making your company stronger, but yourself stronger as well.

Pushing your limits

2009 was the year where, coming from two crappy years (medically), I was determined to pick up life where I left it. Where it was sort of ripped away from me. It’s not the end of January but so far I’ve:

• Had a party I wasn’t expecting to have in Vegas. Met a bunch of new people and inadvertently increased my exposure.
• Reached Level 80 in World of Warcraft.
• Ran an instance and raid in World of Warcraft.
• Made a couple of dishes I swore would cause my oven to explode if I tried them.
• Resolved the “where do the missing socks go?” dilemma in my house.
• Did some break-dance moves and didn’t break anything.
• Started the process of having some customized Dunks and AF1s made. So slick…
• Finally decided a direction I wanted to go with my career that I am satisfied with (not that I won’t tweak it).
• Found three new programs to watch on TV. Expand my horizons.

That doesn’t include the goals I achieved with the munchkins. The odd thing, looking back, is that I didn’t say “let me see what I can do different today”. I just did it. I wouldn’t say I’ve changed because I’ve always been that way. I’m picking up where I left off. Now let’s look at another example…

My ex-guild leader created a guild called Hell. It had several hundred members in it. The guild leader had a dream that God would be mad because he created a guild name Hell. When he became ill the next day, he freaked out and disbanded the guild without telling anyone, clearing the bank, etc. Poof, the guild was gone. Next he joined a guild named Hate. Then changed his name to TotalLoser. Then made a one person guild named Worst Player Ever (or something like that). He went from straight PvP to PvE. As I am typing this I looked on my buddy list and he’s changed his name again to Ezeil and he’s in another guild. Last night it was TotalLoser. I told my friend (who was in the guild too) that something was up with the dude and he said I was nuts. He spent a lot of time with him in voice chat and the guild leader was cooler than ever. As a new person I saw things my friend didn’t see.

Then we all watched his public melt down puzzled at what the “real” reason that was pushing him in the direction he was going. Let me be clear, I never would have guessed he’d have a meltdown like he had. I could tell something was bothering him from the way he spoke and what he did. My friend felt bad because he didn’t see it coming. It looks like he’s re-invented himself, moving on from his meltdown. He’s back PvPing which is great because he was really really good. I wish him the best of luck.

My point is that we all fall down (make mistakes, have tough situations to over come, etc.) but what we do after we fall makes all the difference. You can pick yourself up, dust yourself off and continue on in life (what I did) or you can make the situation worse (what my guild leader did).

But to survive you have to dust yourself off and continue on. It’s not easy…recovering from what I went through while I having to be strong for my family was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’m sure Ezeil felt bad dismembering the guild, not distributing the guild bank and the guilt from that made things worse (it was so public).

In the end, it really doesn’t matter does it? The end result is the same: to survive you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and continue on with the hand that has been dealt to you.

When did I stop learning?

I was playing WoW this weekend and in guild chat this kid was working on some Calculus and posting the equations and people would argue over the solutions. I honestly had no idea how to go about solving them and yet I know for a fact that 10 years ago I would have been able to whip out the answers in seconds. That pissed me off. Then I start to think about all the other knowledge I acquired in high school and college and have now seemed to let dissolve into the nether reaches of space.

What the hell have I learned lately? When did I stop pushing my brain to limits that I thought were impossible to reach before? The brain is just like a muscle in the sense that if you don’t work it then it atrophies. I have not grown stupid, I just don’t have the brain power that I once had to accomplish simple mathematical tasks. Now is it possible to go back and refresh my mind on how to do Calculus? Of course it would be, but I have no real reason to learn Calculus now since I would never apply it.

However, I can start to learn and put my brain to work again. Part of the problem with blogging is there is no challenge behind it and you can tell when blogs start to fall apart because the author is no longer challenged. The successful blog owners fall under one of two categories: 1) they continue to push their content to levels that push their brains to work harder and harder or 2) they let their brains go numb and they become blogging robots.

Mike has been putting his mind to work developing an iPhone application while Tyme has been raising her WoW IQ. As for myself I tend to believe that I know everything in the world, but we all now that isn’t true. I only know half of the words in the Latin language.

In our lives there seems to be so many times where we stop pursuing. What I mean by that is maybe you get married and you stop pursuing new ways to express to your wife how you love her. You get a career and you stop looking for new ways to have fun in your life. All of a sudden one day we look back and we think what the hell have we been up to besides living life just to live it.

Hopefully you haven’t fallen into any of these traps. Hopefully you are reading this and laughing your ass off thinking to yourself what a sorry soul Scrivs is. Hopefully…meh, you get the idea.

Every action has a consequence

I’ve often said that any decision can change the direction of your life forever. I usually use the scenario of a hall of doors one can walk through or forks in a road one has to pick from. Every action has a consequence, good or bad. Success (maintaining it) is the result of many good decisions. Failure, decline, etc. is the result of bad choices. Like I said, I’ve said this many times so it was refreshing to find a video where someone makes the point in a way better than I ever did. His points start at 2:34 and 3:33 and the story which highlights his points begins after.

What about social media? Well, the same principles apply. For every decision there is a consequence. In social media it would be a disaster if there were no consequences. Someone that talks a lot about the consequences of start ups is Mike Arrington. This week he talked about the Facebook Burger King campaign drama. Burger King was giving out free sandwiches to Facebook users who dumped 10 friends - and the friends were notified they were being dumped, which goes against Facebook’s policy. Arrington said:

Facebook consistently tell users they can’t do things in the name of privacy, despite the fact that those users know full well what they are up to.

Now let’s go back a minute to what I said about actions having consequences. Burger King was the one who initiated the action of going against Facebook’s policies. If you don’t like the rules don’t play the game. In other words, don’t use Facebook. It’s really that simple. Since Burger King decided to ignore the rules Burger King should be willing to take the consequence - close the application until the friend notification part complies with Facebook’s rules.

If Facebook allowed Burger King to circumvent the rules, what is to stop other application developers from doing the same? One of the “promises” for Facebook users is that the friend will not be notified if he/she is removed. That’s a two way street. The person removing is free to remove people without the ex-friend being notified of the removal. The person being removed will never open their inbox and have that potential humiliating feeling that their “friend” removed them.

It’s a two-sided promise.

But I guess the receiver doesn’t matter, huh Arrington? No, of course not! Only the person sending the notice matters! Yes, that is sarcasm because it is nonsense.

People were willing to dump “friends” (most likely people they don’t know, don’t really care about but accepted to be nice but who knows?) for a sandwich. Self-pleasure for the win, right? As Swoozie’s video points out, every action has a consequence.

It would poetic justice (karma) if someone who dumped a friend ended up having to go for a job interview and the person they dumped as their friend makes the hiring decision. Or he/she falls in love and the best friend of the person he/she fell in love with is the person they dumped for a sandwich.

Because odds are, the person who dumped the friend (depending on the depth of the friendship) will forget who they dumped. The person dumped however, due to the way it happened, might not ever forget.

And up comes that forgotten consequence….

Uniqueness

It’s a new year. Are you ready for it? Getting back into the groove after the holidays can be challenging so I’m not going to attempt to do a serious post today. Instead, I want to show you a several videos. First, a World of Warcraft movie (you don’t have to play the game to understand what is going on). The best fight scene ever.

The Craft of War: BLIND.

The person that made this video was bored and decided to do something creative with his time. He made, hands down, the best fight scene in the World of Warcraft community. Everyone agrees, there isn’t a better fight scene than this. I don’t know how long it took for him to make this but he went from no one to someone in the WoW community the moment this was released - overnight.

I want to share another movie with you. It’s Wayne Sutton dancing as a kid mimicking MC Hammer. I’d embed it but he has that turned off. It’s epic. MC Hammer even commented on Wayne’s site. It’s epic because it shows a side of Wayne that doesn’t come out in social media. A side people can relate to even if they aren’t into social media. Everyone has a moment where they mimicked their favorite entertainer. Mine was Janet Jackson.

The third video I’m sharing is from Swoozie…telling a story about prom night and how he almost lost his virginity:

Common responses? People love the cartoons he made to enhance the story.

Why am I sharing these videos? Because each of these videos, in their own way, drew an emotion from the viewer. From “Wow, this is awesome” to “Go Hammer! Go Hammer!” to memories of their prom night. Three unique styles in creating content that viewers can relate to. There are many other ways to create interesting content.

Explore them.

Home

I did something new this holiday season. Usually my friends stop through some time during the day (before Christmas), especially if they are obligated for family time on Christmas. This year, we had the bright idea of having some fun while they wrapped Christmas gifts so my core group of friends came over my house. A little while ago I couldn’t believe my ears when I said, “Why don’t you guys stay over?”. My friend Yo snapped her head around then started to smile and she said, “Yeah, we can cook a big breakfast in the morning [Christmas] before everyone heads out to do their Christmas thing”.

Astonishingly, that went over with glee. Tis the season.

I pulled my laptop out to type an entry real quick (I won’t be in the mood on Friday and I’m not doing it on Christmas) and I looked around me. My house is a home. I’m creating memories in my home. I wondered about when I get into relationship or married would I be doing the same thing?

Probably…instead of my friends it would be our friends.

Because in the end, it’s about being around the people your care about and have a good time with. I’m looking around me as I type this. I know the kids are upstairs looking forward to Christmas morning (Christmas Eve is THE night they trip over themselves going to bed), the music is playing, eating, drinking, dancing and the beautiful sound of laughter. Happiness. Companionship. Love. Appreciation.

Home…and I look forward to creating a new one because I finally feel like I “get it”.

Have a wonderful and safe holiday season. See you on the flip side!

End of Year, Time to Rethink

For many of us the end of the year is a time for reflection and the belief that we now have another year in our lives to start over and make things better. Of course you don’t have to wait till the end of the year to make this happen, you can do it whenever you put the effort into it. However, as a whole when do industries start to sit back and rethink how they go about their business? Maybe the U.S. auto industry should have done it a while ago…

Online Advertising

I have always been cautious about letting online advertising be your only source income. Coming from a guy who runs a site that is 100% based on advertising I know that sounds silly, but you had to expect the bottom to fall out some time. With the economy being however it is you get the feeling most of the good advertising deals are being cutback. What else do sites have to fall on?

Now I understand that with many sites it is just easier to plaster up some ads and go about your business, but maybe is the time to rethink your revenue model. I am not saying cut advertising altogether, but instead of making it 100% of your revenue, maybe you can make it 90% over the next couple of months and continue to ease up on it. Just a thought.

Online Design

Design trends seem to go in cycles and I am not sure what cycle we are in, but there is still a lot of improvement that can be done with the major sites. If you want to see someone who always seems to be ahead of the curve then check out Mikey’s personal site and you will see a man…well you get the picture.

What if we took more chances with the design of our sites? Or maybe we took the lesser approach and scaled everything back to the point of pretending we are writing an advertisement for a business card? I have more elaborate thoughts on this as usual that I am reserving for another time and another place, but with the way the world is, there is no better time than to rethink your design strategy.

Online Interactivity

Twitter is great, but it still isn’t as big as everyone had thought it would be by now. FriendFeed was the next stop on the hype train and I am not sure it has ever left the station. I understand that these methods of communication are great for some people they obviously aren’t the solutions the world is waiting for so again maybe we have to sit down and think of another approach.

Sure you can fit in some quick thoughts in your Twitter feed, but maybe you do actually have more than 140 characters that you need to say. Put it on your blog right? That pushes people all over the place. Integrate Twitter with your blog right? You still have people that just might only care about your Twitter.

I didn’t even reach into the online video realm yet. YouTube has been such a great communication tool for people that the geek crowd that focuses on Twitter has missed that boat. I am telling you there is potential for some new player to make a statement with all of this. I am not sure what needs to be done, but with all of the technology we have in our hands I don’t understand how so much of the online space still feels as disjointed as when it was started back in the 90’s.

Maybe that is how it is supposed to be.

Your Brand

I don’t mean your company’s brand. I mean the brand that is you (yeah Maxine I’m working on it girl, don’t worry). Thinking beyond if you are happy with yourself think of the brand that is representing you and figure out if that is how you want it to stay moving forward or do you want it to change. The new year is a great time for reinvention because everyone is distracted and caught up in the late year shuffle.

I have been doing a lot of thinking with regards to my brand and I am still uncertain as to which direction I wish to take it. I should say directions because every time I sit down and believe I have figured out a strategy it leads down many paths.

Guess I just need to rethink some more.