This is story about a story that was made possible by NaNoWriMo. This is a THANK YOU post for NaNoWriMo and the wonderful people behind it.
First, some background. For those of you who have followed me for a long time, you know that I started my writing journey when my first book (a murder mystery) was published a while ago (read story here). I have been fascinated by fiction for a LONG time. My first four books were fiction (murder mysteries, spy thrillers etc.)
There was always this lingering thought that I should write some fiction one day. As you can imagine, that one day would never come because there are many interesting projects going on in life. There is always an excuse to not start on something that you love.
So, when I heard of NaNoWriMo, I was intrigued. NaNoWriMo is a worldwide phenomenon where people take on a seemingly impossible task of writing a novel in 30 days in the month of November. The minimum number of words is 50,000 to be one of the winners. You can read more about how it works on the NaNoWriMo site. But the simple technique is to write at least 1,1667 words per day every single day. So, in other words, you have to spend just one hour every night and you can create a novel. It may not be the best work but it is something to start.
So what makes NaNoWriMo work?
Here are a few things to start with:
1. There is a clear start date (Nov 1) and a clear deadline (Nov 30)
2. There is a specific outcome (at least 50K words)
3. There is a method to the madness ( 1,667 words per day at least)
4. There is a support structure ( total of 162,000+ people total, close to 1000 people in south bay)
5. Write-ins (where writers come together to have writing sprints)
2. Requested two close friends (names to be disclosed soon) to help me with completing the project (polishing, editing etc.) once the book is complete. So I am covered to make this a good book.
3. Created my own plan (20 day plan rather than a 30 day plan) – this involved 10 hours of writing in the weekends and 2 hours of writing every weekday night. I didn’t have the time to work on it during the week days.
5. Discussed my story idea with four friends to make sure that I was not (totally) crazy. Refined the story in my mind. Did not write a single word on paper (that is one of the rules)
During the 19 days
1. Things changed drastically during the 19 day period. I knew that things won’t go the way I had planned. I started exactly at 12.01am on November 1. I took a really big lead (completed more than 10,000 words in two days) at the start.
2. Things slipped multiple times but the early lead helped me to stick to the plan.
3. When things were almost slipping, I went to Write-In where I got back my motivation to write another five thousand words to get back into the plan.
4. Made a few new friends in-person and on Twitter and created a virtual support group.
5. Once I got past 40,000 words, there was no other option but to go all out last weekend to get to 50,000 words.
So, NaNoWriMo was what made it happen for me. My request to you is to think about your own project (it need not be writing a novel) and see if there is a support group and a community that you can participate and make that dream a reality NOW!!!
I have written about thoughtfulness on this blog (1, 2, 3, 4) before.
You don’t have to do groundbreaking things to be thoughtful – it can be little things but with a lot of care. Let me illustrate this with a simple example
I heard from Robert Scoble (@scobleizer) on Twitter that Loic LeMeur (CEO of Seesmic) was switching the Seesmic platfrom from Adobe Air to Microsoft Silverlight. Being a semi-geek, I was curious to know more – especially the reason for the decision to switch.
So, I sent a query to Robert to see if he could share more. Here is my tweet:
Robert responded back very quickly and here is tweet. I have met Robert several times (who has not??) and he never ceases to amaze me. May be it’s his thoughtfulness.
Take a look at the tweet from Robert. A few things to observe:
1. The dot in front of my twitter handle ensures that others in the follower stream will read this tweet.
2. Robert ensured that his response is whole and complete – meaning for his followers to understand what is going on, they don’t have to click through a series of tweets – saving them time.
3. I had mentioned Loic’s name but Robert changed that to Loic’s twitter handle – that way Loic gets a notification (if he is interested) about this conversation.
4. The name of Loic’s company was not included. Robert included that (Seesmic) so if someone was searching for Seesmic, they will see this conversation too.
5. Lastly Robert included the hashtag for the conference #pdc09 so even those that are searching for conference info will find this conversation.
Yes, it’s just one tweet and Robert has 26,000+ of those. But with care and thoughtfulness you can get a lot more leverage from that ONE tweet (for instance, this blog post)
Quick Note:
The meetup presentation on “Thought Leadership 2.0″ is tomorrow – Wednesday November 18, 2009. If you are in the bay area, I would love for you to attend. Details are below:
Note: Thanksgiving is coming soon but I wanted to share this way before that date. You will see why as you read the post.
Everyone knows that an attitude of gratitude is important to grow. In fact, you might remember your parents telling you to be thankful to people that help you.
Yes, I subscribe to the above views whole-heartedly.
You are where you are today because of MANY people who helped you get here. It is easy to forget the people that helped you. Sometimes you might think most of your success is because you are smart and of course you did some get a little help here and there. In most cases you are wrong. In reality, you are not so smart and you got a LOT of help to get to where you are today.
So, the first step is to recognize the real contribution of people around you and to go ahead and thank them.
There are many ways to thank people. Here are some:
Send them an email
Call them and thank them
Take them out for coffee or lunch
Send them a greeting card
Send them a gift card
Send them a gift
Send them money
Send them flowers
I can go on.. there are a thousands of ways to thank someone. Some are easy and some are difficult. Some cost nothing and some cost a fortune. Some are useless and some are meaningful.
If you spend a few minutes though, you can find some thoughtful AND powerful ways of thanking people.
Think about it.
The best way to thank someone is to help them with their project without adding additional cost to their lives. Do something that will enrich their lives.
People are always working on ONE or more projects both in their personal and professional lives ( for more on this, please read the introductory chapters of “Beyond Code” [foreword by Tom Peters] – Free download here) However powerful they are, they need help. They help others but they need help too. In the world of social media, it is not hard to see “what matters most” to the person that has helped you. You are smart and it is not hard to imagine how you can add value to one of more of this person’s projects in a meaningful way.
I can provide ideas but you can come up with your own. The key is to do something that enriches the life of the person that has enriched you. To make it even better, do something that will not introduce new costs in the life of this person.
Go ahead, thank that someone before the upcoming thanksgiving day and do it powerfully.
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Note 1: Here are links to the other 200 articles in the series
Marketplace is right most of the time. It will set the price for what you bring to the table – based on the supply and demand equations that exist (all the time)
Smart people sometimes hit a roadblock when they don’t get what they truly deserve. What they don’t realize is that in many cases they are the ones to blame for that situation.
Here is a typical scenario:
As you become an expert, it takes you less time to complete a task in your area of expertise. As they grow their expertise in the area, the time takes keeps shrinking.
Now, let us look at the external world. There are broadly two kinds of people there.
1. Those that measure value by output: These people will be delighted to have you on your side. They don’t care how long it takes to complete something. They are focused on the output or outcome. If you take less time, that does not make the work less valuable. In fact, they are willing to pay you a premium as they save a ton of time because they engaged with you.
2. Those that measure value by input: These people think that if something needs to be valuable, you have to put in a lot of effort. If you produce something quickly, you have put in less effort – meaning it MUST be less valuable.
If you are an expert, you will thrive when you are working with the first group of people. Similarly, you will be frustrated if you are working with the second group of people.
So, what do you do?
The quick thing to do is to observe and notice who you are working with. If you bring something valuable but are not valued, you may not know how to demonstrate the value or you may be working with people who value by the input. If you don’t know how to demonstrate the value, the responsibility is on you to educate yourself.
If the people who you are working with don’t want to see the value, you may be tempted to try and educate them. That would be a huge opportunity cost. People rarely change.
The better option for you is to dis-engage when your work is valued less. You will be better off finding people who value your work.
All the best!
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Note 1: Here are links to the other 200 articles in the series
If you are in the bay area on November 18, I would love to see you at this event where I will be speaking about how to build thought leadership without breaking your back.
A quick summary
Thought Leadership 2.0 Building thought leadership without breaking your back
Everyone knows the benefit of being established as a thought leader. For starters, there is an immediate trustworthiness associated with thought leaders that will increase your influence as you are perceived as someone who “knows” and who “cares.”
In the old world, tools to build thought leadership included writing books, speaking and getting the attention of the media. There was a physical limit on the number of spots available and the competition was intense. Social Media seemed to change that with everyone being able to create their own platform to establish thought leadership. However, this created its own problem. With more than 150 million blogs and more than 50 million people on Twitter, how do you ensure that you are heard?
In this talk, #THINKtweet series editor and successful entrepreneur Rajesh Setty will cover what it takes to build thought leadership in this new world.
Yesterday I was at the Hertz counter in Los Angeles and there were about half a dozen people in front of me in the line.
I was surprised (actually shocked) to see four of the six people in front of me choose the pre-paid gas option.
For those of you who don’t know what is pre-paid gas option, you pay for the entire tank of gas and you can return the car with an empty tank.
A quick side note: I know there are some nit-pickers who might be reading it. You can’t return a car with an EMPTY gas tank (you will need to get it towed, literally) so that is not the point of the blog post.
Now, the pre-paid option seems like a convenience option. But let us look at this in a bit more detail. You can drive about 300 miles with a full tank of gas. So if you want to make the most of the pre-paid option, you have to drive about that distance and return the car without filling the tank again. If you return the car with half a tank of gas, you literally paid twice the price per gallon on the gas. Pretty good for the car rental company.
After the first person chose the pre-paid option, I listened to the story with care. The story was well-crafted and staged:
There was a big board that showed two prices:
Average gas price in LA: $3.06 per gallon
Price with pre-paid gas option: $2.63 per gallon
There was another big board that said if you don’t take the pre-paid option, you would be paying a fee of $7.99 per gallon ( this included the re-fueling charge)
The agent would simply show the board and say that if the customer wanted to save money (?????) on gas, they might want to choose the pre-paid gas option.
It was simply brilliant piece of storytelling.
Really, there was no time to think. In a few seconds the customer has to decide whether he or she wants to take the pre-paid option and the entire story was staged in such a way that taking the pre-paid option made a lot of sense. The gas price was cheaper than the average gas price in LA.
The price shown was per gallon (around $2.63) but what was being charged was for a tank full of gas (around $45.00)
We can debate whether the car rental companies are using ethical practices in pitching the pre-paid gas option. Rather than worrying about them, it is best for us to be vigilant on the stories that we are being told to influence our decisions.
Rick stopped someone in the lobby and said – “I am from the office next door. Can you please lend me $1000?” The person flatly refused stating that he doesn’t know Rick well. With a confused look, Rick said – “That’s odd. My coworkers won’t lend me saying they know me too well.”
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Note:
1. A mini saga is a story told in exactly 50 words. Not 49 or 51 but exactly 50.
The day before I went for a long hike (long is relative BTW) I told my friend Arun that I was planning to go on a hike the next day. Arun asked me – “So where are you going?” And I proudly mentioned that it was “Rancho San Antonio,” he just laughed and said – “It is not a hike, it’s a walk.”
Of course, he would said that being an avid hiker. For me, being on the hiking trails for the first time, it was definitely a HIKE.
Why share the background?
Simply because I know there will be some other avid hikers out there who will dispute my claim that I went for a hike
I went to Rancho San Antonio Open Space Reserve with my friend Sanjai who I have known for 20 years or so. We took the Wildcat Loop Trail to go to the top of the mountain. It took us more than two hours to go to the top of the mountain and come back. The elevation was about 900 ft. While it was a gorgeous day, I would be lying if I didn’t say that I was sweating by the time we reached the top of the mountain.
The view from the top of the mountain made it all worth it.
What made the journey (and sweating) more meaningful was the discussions we had throughout the hike and back. The topics ranged from work, life, philosophy, simply catching up on our journey so far, some strategy, marketing ideas and what we both should really focus on in the coming years, what investments we need to make on ourselves in the coming year. Most importantly the key aspect was the brutal feedback that we both had for each other to grow and making more meaning in our lives.
This was a clear case where I was totally recharged by all the sweating that went into this hike.
I was reflecting back on the trip and this is what I think made it more meaningful for both of us:
We planned this hike a few days ago and from that day onwards, we kept exchanging emails on what we should be talking about during our hike. On the day of the hike, we could have talked about many things including movies and games but since there were a ton of subjects pending (based on the growing list) we didn’t have the time to digress on the topics. So the combination that evolved was
Hike (Fun) + Talk (Relevant and Timely) = Time Spent (Meaningful)
What also helped was that we both didn’t have major expectations from this little hike we were going on. So there was no pressure on treating this like a project or something to start with.
Now I am sure all of you are recharged for the upcoming week – so wish you a great week ahead!
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