So much of doing something is, for me, thinking I can do something. I’m more likely to make a bold move at work if I convince myself that I can take the time and assign myself the initiative to start doing it. A workout involving a particular skill is more successful if I’ve drilled on the rudiments of that skill and surprised myself by exceeding my expectations around that skill.

Conversely, thinking I can’t do something is utterly deflating. I was doing box jumps in a workout this week. A couple of times I’ve stumbled, not quite jumping up to the height of the 20“ box. Those few times are blazing in my head, my lizard brain overwhelming everything else. I ended up dropping down to a 12” box so I could level my confidence back up. I traded pride for pushing through the workout.

Oddly enough, performing on stage is the thing I do where none of this applies. I don’t worry about things that have gone poorly in the past, or things I think I can do. My guess is that performance is when I’m at my most intuitive, working almost entirely outside of my head. Only afterwards do I start thinking and making value judgements about what I did or did not do.

One’s mind is a strange place.

Making the news

This profile of Rachel Maddow reads like the pitch for Aaron Sorkin’s The Newroom:

This is Maddow’s battle with television: to try to bring a different, more objective model of inquiry to a world of political talking points. Later that week, conferring with her staff, Maddow recounts what had actually flickered across her mind in that instant with Castellanos. “I wanted to say, ‘Are you saying I’m cute when I’m angry?’” she recalls. “But I didn’t, because when you’re a woman on television, you can’t even say the word angry.”

I don’t watch Maddow, but I’m pretty intrigued by the dramatization of how the sausage is made that is The Newroom. I’ve never watched a Sorkin show before so I’m oblivious to all the clichés, but not so blind to miss the monologues-as-editorial. Bottom line: somewhere between Sorkin’s platonic ideal of how a news show should work, Maddow’s aim, and The Daily Show’s approach to entertainment is where I hope more news outlets will dare to go.

Communities, how do they work?

Derek Powazek on social networks:

Every community-based site in the history of the web has essentially been a stab at creating a social network. Most of them fail as businesses, with the rare exception of small, lucky communities that become self-sufficient but not exactly prosperous. What if that’s just the way it is?

Increasingly, I think he’s right. Setting the goal posts for success at a million or more users is like an NFL place kicker trying to kick a field goal from outside the stadium. It’s just not likely he is physically able to do it.

The crux of the problem with critical mass social networks is they have to reach critical mass three times. First, they have to get users in the door. Then, they have to get advertisers in the door. Then, they have to find a profitable equilibrium. I propose we start calling this the sky crane plan for profit, viability, and enjoyment.

Better to reach critical mass once. Build a community. If that community wants to keep existing, ask it to pay for itself. If it doesn’t, then don’t shut it down suddenly. A community should be more like the ebb and flow of a nice party than the here today, gone tomorrow of a carnival.

My new exemplar of a perfect song

I defy you to find a single song so perfect in tone, composition, and appeal as “Good Vibrations”. I further challenge you to deny that this particular performance is delightful and yet sadly touching

Brian Wilson, officially the most brilliant musician whose talent went wasted because of the unfortunate events of his life. What I love here is how much his genius in composition is obvious. So many intriguing parts and unique instrumentation. I mean, a bass flute? Is this Stravinsky or pop music?

Watching him perform now is equal parts sadness and pure joy. It’s easy to see there are moments where Wilson isn’t 100% in the performance. But outside those moments, it seems like he’s purely delighted to share his music, on his terms, with everyone and everyone in the room is full of joy because of it.

You may have missed it

Every once in a while, an idea pops into my head. I work through it a bit and then go sit down to write it. I type it out all in one session, getting the complete idea out in one sitting. The thought holds together as a piece of writing. I usually sit on it for a few hours just in case it’s not as great as I thought it was. But that every once in a while, it’s as great as I thought it was and I publish it largely unchanged.

Often that once in a while, the idea also has something to do with Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was an important show in my formative years, but that’s for another time.

This week, that once in a while was a short essay tying the notions of features in software and financial futures, using *Star Trek as a backdrop. I’m delighted that, after a few years of wrapping my head around economics and finance, I’m starting to get benefits of tying it together with things I don’t pursue as a dilettante.

Did I miss something, or someone, awesome this week? Let me know!

Your pal, Adam Keys