(Bill)
Joy’s
Law,
“No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for
someone else.”
What
if overcoming Joy’s Law is
the new baseline for succeeding?
Chris
Anderson’s Makers
showcases
how Joy’s Law has already changed the front end of our economy.
If
you’ve convinced yourself you’re not affected, God bless. My
experience is that every time I have been unusually successful, we
get out where no man has gone before, and start looking for signals
for how to keep the party going.
If
you noticed 2009 and 2010 were snafu,
That
2011 and 2012 were fubar, and
Makers
gives some excellent ideas and case studies about why the old ways of
working and organizing have have run their course, become
uncompetitive, and how some are being successful in a number of
industries. Showing up is no longer an acceptable baseline. Winners
are going to have to attract the people who are really passionate and
creative, the top tier for whatever they need done.
Chris
Anderson is the guy to write Makers.
The first time I met him, he was defending copyright by day as editor
in chief of Wired magazine, and pushing the limits of copyright and
Joy’s Law by night running the open source project for radio
controlled flying vehicles (includes drones).
Yes,
he’s a reporter, but he’s also writing about what he has learned
making, starting, running,
investing, and guiding more than a dozen companies. During his decade
at Wired, they grew spectacularly. Consider what’s been happening
to the rest of print media during that time.
What
Chris has seen, done, realized, and written is that we are in a new
paradigm. Limits sinking formerly well run companies have to be
overcome and are being overcome.
We’ve
learned a lot with open source software. Development is faster and
more efficient, less error-prone, costs are lower, and open source
has revolutionized the space formerly served by enterprise software.
Anderson’s message is that “atoms are the new bits,” that
technology has advanced enough to give the same increases in
efficiency, opening new markets, that has already happened in
software.
Read
the book. Find your own models for moving forward. Move forward.
As
Werner used to say, “Joy is when you have a new possibility.”
Happy
New Year!
Kick
off the New Year Right at Talk
Your Business - How to make more and better sales right away!
Wednesday
Jan 30,
11:45 - 1:00 at the Arlington
Chamber Small Business Roundtable
Posts
Though some of us have execellent ideas, we are afraid of the loss of income so work for others that claim the fame.
ReplyDeleteEntrepreneurship has lead this country forward but without the backing of our government it has fallen short. This movement needs to rise again without JV vultures asking for 75% of the idea.
Just my thoughts. I could be wrong....
Randy
Hi Randy!
ReplyDeleteThank you for commenting...all year! *grin*
I really appreciate your continuing support.
I think we are going to have to say that the idea doesn't have much value until it is actualized (made real through action) and I'm seeing that the idea maker has to do the work.
The good news is especially in software, the barriers to entry are now "ankle high," and the point of the book was that making things is moving in that direction.
If someone else does it, they get all the value.
Dick:
ReplyDeleteFor the past 30 years, until recently, when a seed fell out of your pocket - an entire garden would grow.
AND we'd claim to be the 'leader' who made it happen.
During the past 6 years or so, things have gone from ugh, to ugly to awful' and we're at a lost about what to do to fix it - as Chris points out, it just don't work now!
Drop the seed now and an angry bird swoops in and snatches it away. Dig a hole, drop in the seed, add some plant food, cover lightly, and water sparingly AND a squirrel becomes by to dig it up for lunch.
We go home and tell Mommy it's too hard now and we can't do it - "it isn't fair!"
Guess we're not prepared for the real world, since we were just delivering seed before, not operating a garden.
Great post!