the fake that launched a thousand blogs
who among us has not suffered the multiple personality disorder that is the blogosphere? how many screen handles have you accumulated over the years? [if your lifespan as a user dates back to the Well, don't answer that question.]next question: how many outrageous/audacious/unlikely business plans have you blogged about and never seen past the R & D phase? how many boxes of business cards for ficitious companies/brands are sitting on your shelf? did you actually get to the point of having a prospectus printed?
were you one of the chosen few who actually went IPO with nothing actually for sale but vapor? [if so, dear reader, please know: i do not scorn you. after all, even the mighty engine of the winds that drives the sails of every merchant ship upon the seas of commerce, is itself fueled by vapor. not to mention hyperextended metaphors.]
wouldn't it be nice if our lives weren't so fear-based and addictive to dishonesty that we could actually roll up our sleeves and make something? a chair, a birdhouse, lawn art, a coffee mug?
instead, what do we do? we have spent our lives designing brilliant PowerPoint treasure maps to nonexistent pirate treasure buried in the backyards of our minds.
i propose something different. i propose that we go back into our cobwebbed warehouses, turn on the lights, look at what's rusting there, and ask ourselves: would i buy this? and if not: bring on the gasoline.
this internet thing is useless only insofar as talk is cheap. in other words: if all you've ever done is spew meaningless drivel and bogus rah-rah business philosophy, you're not going to make a dime more in this place than you already have.
however, if your conversation is scintillating - if you can tell a story that makes a room crackle with excitement, or even with bitter irony - then behold: your audience just got a whole hell of a lot bigger.
the tricky part is, which of us will be smart enough, or perhaps brilliantly dumb enough to actually exploit that fact?
