R.I.P. HP Touchpad. I barely knew ya. It’s all about hits, hits, hits. Getting them out, scoring big, then pumping all of that money back into the machine. The designers, the programmers, the artists – it keeps them all employed, but barely. All the while, it’s the industry that makes the money. I’m skeptical anyone is going to be touching Apple in the tablet market for awhile to come. It’s Apple’s game, and it’s their market to lose, and unlike cell phones, there are no issues with carriers, plans, contracts, and any of that gobbledy-gook gunk that gets in the way of it all. But, seriously, a month? Bad movies now have shelf lives longer than bad products.

And the … Read more...

I was always told to dream big. In my household, good enough meant only the best. By the time I was 18, I was certain I was destined to be the next Trump. And, I suppose, insofar as being obnoxious and delusional went, that part I had down pat. The rest, not so much. But, hey, I did manage to get to New York in the end, right? Dream big – that’s what I was told, and that’s what I did. After all, you only hit what you aim for, right? Instead, I just felt like a failure. For wanting the wrong things and going the wrong places.

I tend to think that delusion begets more delusion. It turns everything … Read more...

There are those days where you wake up, and you can feel the surge of energy. Where you’re on the move and unstoppable. There are months like that, too. Even years. If you’ve had that for years, this is not for you. This is for the rest of us. For the times where yesterday was the same as today, where not even the coffee gives you the kick you need, and where you can’t wait for lunch to come around or, better yet, for the day to end. It’s for those days when 4:30 hits, and you’re finally caught up on your emails and ready to do some real work. But why bother? It’s 4:30. So you just turn to … Read more...

If you haven’t seen The Five Obstructions, go see it. It’s an amazing testament to the power of creativity and what people can accomplish under severe limitations. In it, a director is challenged to recreate a short film five times, each time with a set of very specific conditions. The solutions are genius.

People don’t need much to flourish, but the more you have, the more you rely on having more. It’s natural to take the path of least resistance, both physically and mentally. But a problem solved is a problem done, and that means a lot of people never revisit their original decisions. They just build on them, layer after layer, until it forms an ecosystem of habits and … Read more...

It’s pretty easy to do a lot that amounts to not. In fact, I consider myself a master of the art. I have more lists than you’d believe, a massive library of books and magazines that I can barely keep up with, and a whole inbox of notes to re-read. But here’s one thing that’s made a huge difference for me this year. The secret to making it come together? Follow-through and not biting off more than you can chew. Too easy? Hardly. The correlation between the two and the results have been anything but insignificant.

Having too many initiatives and too much to do is demotivating. It slows you down, you feel overwhelmed, and you never get to anything. … Read more...