- lot of amazing ideas today, but how do we get paid for it?! a lot of people are trying to resuscitate old models but we need to understand a lot of them are truly dead.

- i’d like to put forward the concept of micropatronage.

- my friend @edwardharran raising cash for san fran, $1100 for flights from 41 people in seven countries.

- not new, but cool and fast. what if he did that every week though?

- micropatronage is the combination of the concept of the patron with connectedness.

“Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another.”

- simple web platforms make amazing things happen. i believe the tools to support this are already here. you share your thoughts and events on a blog, you share photos on flickr, videos on vimeo, live mobile streams on qik, you take subscription payments through paypal subscriptions. and you link together the notification stream on twitter.

- there is a progression of engagement just like any other activity:

view > share > comment > create your own content > become a micropatron > micropatron yourself

- you’re actually working for the micropatrons but at the same time they’re attracted to you because they like what you describe.

- it’s important to remember that this doesn’t happen overnight. start simple. start with 1 micropatron.

- 500 micropatrons at $20/month is over $100k a year.

- i would support eddie right now if he did this. who might you support? are they in this room?

What have you seen, what have you done? What is interesting?

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What have you got? What does it mean? How often do you change?

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What happens when the country’s foremost creatives, entrepreneurs and innovators descend on one place? That place explodes. Which is precisely what we plan for Omaha.In the end, you’ll take away a network and an energy that will propel those new connections to greatness. For you. For your business. For your community. Come to the heart of the Midwest. And let’s rebuild this country from the inside out.

Jason Fried – Founder of 37 Signals

Gary Vaynerchuk – CEO at WineLibrary

And to finish off.. an answer to “Omaha – WTF?!”

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From Martin Seligman in the Princeton Alumni Weekly: 

“There are three levels to happiness: pleasure, the delight you get from chocolate, fast cards, and sex; engagement, the feeling of “flow” you get when you’re doing something you’re good at; and meaning, the fulfillment you get from being engaged in an effort greater than yourself. Pleasure is ephemeral and contributes very little to real happiness… but meaningful engagement brings lasting contentment.

For classmates who are headed towards retirement, Seligman offers the following tip: “Material objects have almost no role in positive emotion. As you organize your retirement, spend it on meaningful engagement. Don’t squander your savings on boats and houses.”

It’s pretty simple, actually. Figure out what you’re good at. And then apply your strengths to a greater purpose. And don’t forget to cultivate optimism along the way.”

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I thought I would share this excerpt from Susan with you: 

In regard to the nature of “flow” state… it is the modality of experience which is well known and commonly experienced by artists and many people who display excellence in their chosen field… great innovators, scientists, musicians, surgeons, sports people, actors, entrepreneurs etc

It is the experience of a heightened state of awareness through which the persons identity is suspended and their actions and responses are generated from a high state of consciousness. They are fully conscious but their experience of reality has altered to a state of heightened awareness which can be equated with a meditative or trance like state. This state of presence creates the experience of a timelessness, a oneness with the observer and her subjective intention.

As in the case of life drawing, what normally happens is… the observers’ focus is on the subject, the mind is active and consciously noisy… the more the artist can focus her visual focus on the subject, the noise of the mind will lessen and the experience goes beyond the senses. After a while (and with practice) the observer will experience a stillness of mind and experience the essence of the subject as if it was her reality… time collapses, she becomes like a clear vessel from which to interpret the experience. The essence of the subject is experienced by the observer and interpreted through her lines.

This is not a step by step experience but more an experiential process which can be applied to anything to achieve answer/solutions and excellence in performance and solutions. It is the process which is important as the application will be different for many people but is relevant to all.

The process of allowing flow state (by Susan Ryan) 

These aren’t defined steps that must be followed, but are aspects you might notice as you progress. 

What helps you access the flow state? 

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Let’s get started. The person with the most followers doesn’t win. It is not a race. 

I wrote my first tweet in October 2006 when twttr was just kicking off. After going through the usual adoption progression (what’s this twitter thing, this is boring, oh there are people here now, addiction) I got into the groove and started following people using the common process of:

1. Finding somebody/getting a follow email
2. Making sure they are at least semi-relevant
3. Hitting the Follow button

I must say this method works great, until you end up following 1,200 people. I spend a fair amount of time online but I still can’t keep tabs on 1,200 people. Sorry guys. I’m human. 

In October 2008 I was at an STUB at The Beresford Hotel where I was talking with Elias and he asked how I kept track of so many people when I realised it was time to get my twittering back under control. 

There was only minor setback (How do you unfollow 1200 people without spending a full day clicking? Twitter Karma my friends! Irony eh?) and the experiment was underway. I had 1861 followers and my following had just gone from 1200 to 0. 

I expected a few angry tweets about it but nothing like what happened.. Let’s just clear this up quickly and let me say that Qwitter is the devil. I can understand getting email notifications when people follow you (although I have them turned off now) but why do you want to see when people unfollow you? Seriously! What I found amusing was that the majority of people who complained had never sent me an @reply before that – so the typical ‘conversation’ line didn’t work too well :) At least some people get it. 

Results of the experiment

There sure was a lot of conversation – about followers and following and reputation and what’s ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and all that. I lost about 50 followers overnight. I didn’t mind. I hope we came to an understanding that following isn’t the only way to subscribe to a person’s thoughts and that there are a lot of reasons why you may or may not follow somebody.

There were a lot of people trying to tell me how to use twitter and that I’m doing it wrong. I’ll agree with Seth here and reiterate that the internet doesn’t care about your rules.

It’s nothing personal. I don’t mind if you follow me or unfollow me or go for the halfway point and subscribe to a search stream like this – which ultimately may be much more valuable. It’s up to you.

There was a nice thread of conversation about getting value from twitter and the fact that you can get consulting gigs from it. At the time @jjprojects had just announced that he was going to be working with @eskimo_sparky – so the amusing thing is that the only reason I actually met those guys at STUB was because I was on a consulting gig I got through twitter :)

Some people mentioned the fact that they can’t DM me back now – that’s no big deal guys. Email me at ross@rosshill.com.au and I’ll see your message just as fast. 

Forget the masses. Some of the most interesting tweets come from people that tweet once every few days. Who to follow is personal opinion and if you think a certain 20 people are the best then you should follow them and ignore the naysayers. Ignore everybody! 

I’m following about 50 people right now and it has been fantastic. My stream is full of people I know really well and sprinkled with @replies from a bunch of really interesting people. Sometimes it gets a bit quiet and I wish there was more, but I assume people must be DOing things and it reminds me that I should be DOing the same! 

Let’s get this straight. This is no rumored strategy to get more followers. Forget the leaderboard mentality and realise that me following a thousand people is simply not practical. If your goal in life is to have a huge follower count there’s no big secret – all you have to do is follow lots of people and write lots of replies.. I have no doubt I would have more followers if I followed everyone back and followed lots of random strangers (I’m currently sitting at 2,010) but that’s not my goal here. 

How do I follow people now?

After playing around with a variety of search methods to fish for thoughts on Twitter I decided to refollow some people based on Lea Woodward‘s excellent lifestyle design framework. This is working out well. 

This is how I use Twitter – it might not be how you use Twitter. The End.

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Once you have done your One Thing there are always a number of other lesser Things to do and it is like looking at a menu in a Thai restaurant – where the hell do you start?

Now Do This (from Jakob Lodwick of Vimeo fame) solves that problem. You give it your unordered todo list and then it tells you what to do next. You can’t argue with it and you certainly can’t change the order! Your only option is to hit the ‘done’ button, and don’t even think about cheating!

The green “all done!” that you see at the end is so very satisfying :)

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Another study by the Australian Medical Association found that Australians drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year. This means, on average, Australians get about 41 miles to the gallon.

Kind of makes you proud to be an Australian…

(Photo from my recent trip to the Little Creatures Dining Hall in Melbourne)

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What do I want from the social web in 2009? The same thing I wanted yesterday!

More making, more sharing, more value. Less web commentary, more real stories.  

Last week Steve was telling me about his most recent Rentoid story. A guy from California was on a surfing holiday to Australia and was traveling down to Bells Beach, which is just down the road from us.

This guy found Steve’s surfboard listed on the Rentoid website and he rented it for $100 for the 3 days he was going to be there, along with a $100 bond. This surfer was absolutely thrilled because he couldn’t bring his own board with him on this leg of the trip and he didn’t want to rent the typical crappy learners foam board that you would find at the shops near the beach. 

With every transaction you get to meet the person you are dealing with when you hand over the item, so this guy also got the heads up on all of the good local surfing spots from a local surfer and Steve now has a friend in California he can go surfing with next year. 

The Rentoid website played a major part in fulfilling one of this guy’s lifetime dreams!

Craigslist is another great example – it is undoubtedly ugly and deceptively simple, but it is very usable and useworthy. Craig was being served by a girl in a local coffee shop who, when she found out who Craig was, said “You make my whole life work. I got my first apartment, this job, last job, my first sublet, and my boyfriend from craigslist!” 

As humans we are social beings, and we relate to each other through stories. They give us reasons to believe and spread ideas. You don’t need an expensive website with all the bells and whistles to create value, it just needs to be Usable and Useworthy. This is the reason many simple websites work so well. 

Simple web platforms make amazing things happen. 

We need to give people a platform to create : 

More making, more sharing, more value. Less web commentary, more real stories. 

If you have a good story, please share it in the comments below. 

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I will do one thing today. thing: ___________________.

The pads are available from the Pretty Bitter store, but they only seem to ship to the USA. If you live there please send me one!

What one thing are you doing today? 

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