There are two basic kinds of secrets – secrets of information and secrets of experience. Secrets of information are data points. The ingredients in Coca Cola. The Colonel’s 11 herbs and spices. These secrets are valuable until the information becomes commonplace or available enough that competitors can use them to their advantage and your disadvantage.…
There is no such thing as free unless the thing in question is without value. When you write a blog post you give away to the world on your blog, it is not free. You spent time, energy, effort, and knowledge writing it, time that could have been spent doing something else. When you share…
Every conference these days has a hashtag and attendees are (unless explicitly prohibited) tweeting, live-blogging, streaming audio and video. If you wanted to, from your desk, you could attend nearly every conference in the world, and for free as opposed to paying $50-$5000 to attend. In terms of content, you’d probably get anywhere from 80%…
There’s a popular expression, a cliche, that says time is money. However, time isn’t money. Why? There is no such way to intermediate time. There is no coinage for time, no way to purchase time back that you have spent. If time were actually money, you could buy back that missed softball game or child’s…
Sensei is an interesting term in Japanese culture and the martial arts. Traditionally, most people translate it as “teacher”, and the term is applied as an honorific to doctors, lawyers, teachers, and others of high esteem. If you dissect its meaning and characters, it literally translates as “before born” in the sense of someone having…
There’s a peculiar expression that accompanies World of Warcraft that needs to make its way into social media, and quickly: Bring the player, not the class. In Warcraft, there are different classes of players – mages, paladins, shamans, etc. Each of the classes has different traits suited to different kinds of players and playing styles.…
How many of you know what a neighborhood watch is? It’s an old school idea – neighbors keep an eye out in the neighborhood for suspicious activity and report it to the police. It’s especially effective when neighbors know each other and are happy to look out for each others’ interests. How many people know…
