April 2022: Miami, Spaces, Curation
What I Did This Month
Went to Miami, my favourite parts were working out on the beach, the Upstream CIC event, and visiting Books and Books. After I travelled to the Bahamas, felt like a place for old people who like to eat seafood and tan all day, relaxing though.
Continued to work on my piece on the future of BC “Smart Young BC,” and processed a bunch of feedback. Will hopefully publish it this month.
Published Spatial Communities and “You Should Create A Developer Swipe File” for Codex.
Worked on Mocha Match. Got feedback, and bought a URL for it. Working on the ability for users to set interests.
Thoughts
Miami’s advantage is that it is really nice there, is pro-building and entrepreneurship, and has a connection to Latin America. I could understand how a lot of deals get done there by people interacting a lot, but I wouldn’t want to work much because it is so nice outside. Also, Miami and Miami Beach are two very different places, it is like saying LA is Disneyland.
The personal CRM is a tough nut to crack. There have been so many attempts, but one hasn’t taken off. I’ve tried a few, but nothing has stuck. It is an incentive problem Sales CRMs are all about “customer relationships,” and money is a very good incentive. The incentives with “friends” and “acquaintances” are vague and longer-term. You should just message people you find interesting more.
Being able to walk around outside and drink a beer is very nice. You can do it in the Bahamas, but not in Miami (or the rest of North America). When I do it, I seriously question the reasons why I can’t do it in Canada. Many European cities have a thriving ecosystem of bottle collectors because of it too.
Online courses are like deep onboarding for communities. It is a shame that many course creators don’t see them this way. A lot of energy is spent building context and then washed away when members aren’t given ways to interact with each other.
You should be in a rush to do things. When you are inspired to do something, you should do it as soon as possible. Your desire to do it will decrease over time, and you will have new desires popping up constantly. If you keep waiting, you’ll do nothing.
Recommendations
The Startupy beta launched, and I was featured as a curator here. Vienna Hypertext is cool, planning to republish my Spatial Communities piece there. If you are a Twitter list user, you should check out Tweetscape, and DM Nick Torba
You either get busy living or you get busy dying, Sam Altman edition. Also, his career mission statements are very interesting and make me think about my own.
Best of Twitter: “The message isn’t as critical as the volume,” “The culture war is a symptom of culture shortage,” abundance mindset, and an important reminder that people aren’t real.
I have been enjoying Against Method by Paul Feyerabend. Many ideas and much progress have been lost because they don’t fit into current standards of thinking. Ideas are chaotic and come from weird places, we should embrace this.
It is fascinating the length superfans will go to support their favourite artists. As an example, fans of Brazilian musician Anitta specifically gamed “plays” on the platform to move her to the top of the charts. This wasn’t easy either, they had to set up playlists, VPNs, different accounts, and more.
China’s version of email marketing (direct messaging customers) is a look into the future. People like interacting and buying things from people. This is a more community-driven future.
If you want something, you can ask for it. This is a “head of snorkeling” situation. You never know unless you try and the worse thing they can say is no.
Kevin Kelly’s advice remains great.
Upcoming
Publish Smart Young BC, and more (on Testing Everything)
Continue to work on Mocha Match, grow usage, and add new features.
Continue to work on Community Data project.
Visiting Montreal (if you have any recommendations, let me know).