We couldn’t agree more with the thoughts in this week’s featured article on being linked out and overdone with continual connectedness. As we have written before, unfortunately today’s youth is so distracted with all the technology and associated b.s. that they quite often miss opportunities right in front of them. While most of us would certainly welcome discovering the next big thing and the resulting riches, the reality is that success is most often realized by following basic business principles and building businesses from the ground up. Sounds pretty simple, but we believe Thomas Edison had it right, “there is no substitute for hard work.”
I have been thinking about the explosion of startups, not only in San Diego, but in a dozen cities from Seattle to Boston to Ann Arbor. At times, I cannot tell the difference between one social media application and the next one. The onslaught of ideas masquerading as “companies” seems to have a feel of “me too-ism” along with an easily transparent, hungry look for a quick flip, for the easy road, for a hope that someone will buy it.
And so as we enter the new year, allow me to offer Rule No. 381:1 – It is as hard to build a small company as it is to build a big one. There are no shortcuts. Or said another way, I would like to challenge the young entrepreneur in 2012 to reach for the bigger idea, to try to solve the more difficult problem, to address the complexity of a puzzle, and not just look for an angry bird.
Every entrepreneurial adventure has a myriad of bumps and bruises, and you will be consumed by the effort required. What I am suggesting is to pause for a moment and make sure that the project has some gravitas, some heft, some reason for being, beyond just trying to make money. Rule No. 112 – You better enjoy the journey, because the only thing left to do when you get to the hotel is to check out.
Admitting that I can be a bit of a curmudgeon at times, nonetheless, have we reached a point of continual connectedness where we are becoming disconnected from reality? I do not want to know what you ate for breakfast, where you are standing at this very moment, whether you liked the burger or didn’t. I don’t want to see any more out-of-focus pictures of your dog or your child who looks like a dog. Less sharing, less linking. I’m linked out.
We have become a nation so consumed with sharing and tweeting and “Facebooking” that soon there will be no one left to download your offering because we will all be too busy uploading our own. And in that case, who is left to do the feeling?
So what I ask this new generation of innovators is that they take on the hard problems, take the AP class, be willing to fail in a bigger cause. And to find that cause, you need to allow for a bit of silence, a moment of disconnectedness.
People are now paying $2,000 a week to go to a Benedictine monastery where they are forced to disconnect and experience six days without the Internet. Imagine the withdrawal, the shaking, the palpitations, the dry heaves, the dripping sweat. Disconnected. And paying to do it. The addicts are running the asylum.
I hear the junkie down the hall, “Jam the needle into my USB port and turn the drip on, baby. I need it baby, I need it badly.”
In searching for the next big thing, the game changer, the “world will be better because of this,” I offer the words of Mother Teresa, who was definitely not a geek, but she certainly understood a higher calling. She said, “We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness.”
