Thursday's LinkUP: EV Williams (re) IMAGINES The Article 3X and The "Happy" Writings of Kid Bombay on Medium, EV's Latest Invention

"It takes (re)IMAGINEERS like Williams and Weiner to keep pushing the world forward. For without their vision to imagine a future very different and easier and better in the way we do things tomorrow, there would be no progress."

Good Morning Folks,

The Internet is such a great invention. So many wonderful, useful things that can be applied to our greatest challenges and opportunities in unexpected ways. Things they don't teach you in Harvard Business School. Things just waiting to be discovered or to be pointed out by a friend... which brings me to why we do these LinkUp's on most Thursdays on MitchWeiner.com.

What ties today's stories together with FSO is the movement of (re)IMAGINATION that is taking place in every company of every industry today. Forced to innovate or capitulate in a technology-leveled playing field, (re)IMAGINE is something so simple as it is Revolutionary, showing clients how to look at their business from a completely new perspective, that of a blank canvas. Looking not at “What is” but “What can be”. 

We are doing it with outsourcing just the way EV Williams (our subject today) has done it with publishing: blogging, tweeting, direct conversations between makers and buyers without all of the intermediaries and costs that once stood in the way.

Today guest blogger has been writing on Medium.com, a new platform launched by Twitter co-founder and "blog" inventor, Evan Williams. Medium describes themselves as:

Medium is a new place on the Internet where people share ideas and stories that are longer than 140 characters and not just for friends. It’s designed for little stories that make your day better and manifestos that change the world. It’s used by everyone from professional journalists to amateur cooks. It’s simple, beautiful, collaborative, and it helps you find the right audience for whatever you have to say..

==> Williams Background via Wikipedia:

Williams grew up on a farm in Clarks, Nebraska, where he assisted with crop irrigation in summers. He attended the University of Nebraska–Lincoln for a year-and-a-half, but eventually left to pursue his career.After leaving school, Williams worked at various technology jobs and start-up firms in Florida, at Key West, and in Texas, at Dallas and Austin, before returning to his family farm in Nebraska. In 1996 Williams moved to Sebastopol, California in Sonoma County to work for the technology publishing company O'Reilly Media. He started at O'Reilly in a marketing position but eventually became an independent contractor writing computer code, which led to freelance opportunities with companies including Intel and Hewlett Packard.

Pyra Labs and Blogger
Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan co-founded Pyra Labs to make project management software. A note-taking feature spun off as Blogger, one of the first web applications for creating and managing weblogs. Williams invented the term "blogger" and was instrumental in the popularization of the term "blog". Pyra survived the departure of Hourihan and other employees, and was eventually acquired by Google on February 13, 2003. 

In 2003, Williams was named to the MIT Technology Review TR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35. In 2004, he was named one of PC Magazine's "People of the Year", along with Hourihan and Paul Bausch for their work on Blogger.

Odeo, Obvious and Twitter
Williams left Google in October 2004to co-found Odeo, a podcasting company.[Among Obvious Corp.'s projects was Twitter, a popular, free social networking and micro-blogging service. Twitter itself was spun out into a new company in April 2007, with Williams as co-founder, board member, and investor. In October 2008, Williams became CEO of Twitter, displacing Jack Dorsey who became chairman of the board.h 

By February 2009, Compete.com ranked Twitter the third most-used social network based on their count of 6 million unique monthly visitors and 55 million monthly visits. As of February 2013, Twitter had 200 million registered users. It gets 300,000 new users a day and receives 180 million unique visitors a month. 75% of its traffic comes from outside of Twitter.com. On 4 October 2010, Williams stepped down from the CEO position, explaining "I’ll be completely focused on product strategy", and appointed Dick Costolo as his replacement. 

Following the announcement of Twitter's initial public offering (IPO) in 2013, the company was valued at between US$14 billion and US$20 billion. One media report anticipated that Williams, with a 30 to 35 percent stake in the company, would see his personal wealth grow from US$2 billion to US$8 billion in the wake of Twitter's stock flotation. 

According to the October 2013 Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, his 12 percent stake in Twitter will be worth US$1.2 billion when the company goes public.[20]

Medium
On September 25, 2012, Williams and Stone created a publishing platform called Medium (at Medium.com). It was initially available only to early adopters, but was opened to the public in 2013. 

On April 5, 2013, Williams and Stone announced that they would be unwinding Obvious Corp as they focused on individual startups.

Over at Medium I found Kid Bombaby's wonderful missive on my favorite topic happiness. Yes that's the happy ending to this long story. 

From Pherrel's song Happy to the happy smiling cultures being reborn in companies all around us, the happy theme is here to stay and Kid writes so eloquently about it. Kid Bombay, is the stage name of Ketan Anjaria, who self-describes himself as "Designer, Writer and Startup Advisor. I like to create things."

Today he's created a simple recipe called How To Be Happy: Simple steps to lead a simple and content life. Kid has a wonderful silicon sense of life living in the Bay Area where life is slower and gentler and kinder.

Kid, over to you....

7. Stop checking email in the morning.
Seriously cut that garbage out. Your brain actually functions differently when you first wake up, spending that time doing the busy work of email is a terrible waste of neurons. Email has become a job for most people and if someone asked you to clean out their garbage first thing in the am, would you do it?

• Things to try when you first wake up:
• Just lie in bed and think about one thing you want to do better today.Go for a walk
• Make love. No kidding but sex stimulates more than your lower regions.
• Sketch, visual playtime is great.
• Play with your kids. School can wait.

6. Don’t compare your place in life to others.
It’s hard and almost everyone does it but this is one of the easiest ways to spiral into unhappiness. We are not cookie cutter material. Each of us has made different choices and arrived at different paths. While jealousy can be a motivator for some people, it’s a trait that never leads to positive outcome.

Things to try to compare yourself to:

• You, 3 months ago. How are you doing since then? 
• What can you improve? What got worse?
• A favorite character or religous story. 
• How would they handle your situation? 
• What can you learn from them?

5. Be grateful.
It’s really simple. What is one thing today you are really grateful for?

What is another? If you can list 3 things a day, you’ll see you have much more going for you than you thought. Soon your list will get so long you’ll be beaming with energy.

Things to be grateful for:

• Your health. You are alive, and sick or not, you are able to enjoy the wonder that is this world.
• Your friends. Whether one friend or a thousand, which friend of yours makes you smile when you think of them?
• Your family. Crazy or not, in what ways has your family been there for you? Even if it’s not recent, what’s one thing your mom or dad did that you have fond memory of?
• Yourself. You. Are. Awesome. No really, you right there. Your smile, your perseverance, your kindness, what things about yourself are you most grateful for?

4. Go outside.

• Ok put down your iThing and step away from the TV.
•  Humans have been blessed with the most beautiful planet this side of Alpha Centauri. 
• We live on a rare and giving world. Go enjoy it. 

Things to do outside:

• Take a walk. Even if it’s 5 minutes, walking is the best exercise and head clearer.
• Sit on a bench on a park with a good view. (I highly recommend Dolores Park if you are in San Francisco.)
• Take photos. It works for me at least and helps me see the beauty around me.
• Meet new people. Say hi to a stranger, you never know what could happen.

3. Give to someone else.
Whether it’s something simple like buying a coffee for a friend or doing charity work, the act of giving opens up your heart. The heart is a muscle and must be exercised. Giving outwards prepares you to give inward. If you can show someone else kindness, their smile will work its magic back to you.

Things to give to people:

• Your time. Lending an ear is the simplest gift.
• A meal. Share food with someone whether you made it or not.
• Compliments! Everyone loves a good compliment. Even if it’s as simple as you have a great smile. Light up the room when you walk in.

2. Write your thoughts down.
This may sound odd but many times we aren’t actually unhappy, but we just have a bazillion thoughts running around in our head. Writing is a simple act that can help clear your mind. You’d be surprised how great you feel once you clean out the cobwebs.

Things to write down:

• Your dreams. A notepad next to your bed will change your life.
• Places you want to go. Where do you want to travel to?
• Stories, songs, poems, whatever. 
• Get emo and creative. Don’t edit yourself, just let it flow.
• Problems you are having. 
• Make a pro/con list. 
• Be analytical and figure out how can you fix that problem.
• Funny quotes or things you hear that strike you. 
• I have a note file, 18 pages long with quotes. Great memories.
• The person you want to be. 
• Write down traits you want to have in yourself. 
• Do it everyday.

1. Give to yourself.
Dude, quit hating on yourself. Yes, you eat too much, drink too much, yell too much, whatever. We all make mistakes. We are all human as well and humans are not perfect creatures. When you learn to accept yourself, true happiness quickly arises.

Things to give to yourself:

• Forgiveness. 
• Yes you made a huge mistake, now learn from it and move on.
• Time. 
• Yes you may think you don’t have time, but you actually do.
• Knowledge. 
• Go learn something new. Or improve what you already know.
• Health. 
• Go take a walk. 
• Seriously, put this article down and go take a walk right now.

So for all my friends, whether close or casual, or just because. Everyone will go through some hard times at some point. Life isn't easy. Just something to think about...did you know the people that are the strongest are usually the most sensitive? Did you know the people who exhibit the most kindness are the first to get mistreated? Did you know the ones who take care of others all the time are usually the ones who need it the most? Did you know the three hardest things to say are I love you, I'm sorry, and Help me? Sometimes just because a person looks happy, you have to look past their smile and see how much pain they may be in. To all my friends who are going through some issues right now--let's start an intention avalanche. We all need positive intentions right now to give a moment of support to all those who have family problems, health struggles, job issues, worries of any kind and just need to know that someone cares. Do it for all of us, for nobody is immune. 

Now that you have seen what (re)IMAGINE has done for the communications you use in your own daily lives and the fact they didn't just appear, but were driven by passionate folks with fresh ideas about new and different ways of doing things, consider how we apply the (re)IMAGINE principle to the blank canvas of outsourcing:

Looking not at “What is” but “What can be”, that is what sets FSO apart from the other outsourcing companies and what has made us the fastest growing outsourcing company in the nation.

It is woven into the culture of who we are, it is part of everything we do. (re)IMAGINE allows us to uncover those hidden cost savings every company is looking for, identify innovative ways to improve their business, and inspire those who take care of them. 

By (re)IMGAINING our client’s business FSO becomes part of the fabric of their organization, permitting us to be a trusted advisor for all issues related to their administrative needs.

Founded by Outsourcing Pioneer & Thought Leader, Mitch Weiner ( a man who thinks outside the box much like Ev Williams) , FSO is collective of industry experts with decades of experience in the outsourcing marketing, our promise is simple:

·         Take Better Care of your people

·         Improve your service: It is an A+ FSO will make it an A++

·         Reduce & Control your costs: Guaranteed!

Finding the right onsite outsourcing partner is time consuming and difficult. There’s a lot on the line, not just for you but also for your company. Outsourcing to the wrong partner can be risky.

Our clients weren't looking for suppliers or contractors, but partners who would play a key hands-on role driving an evolution of everlasting change. Because brands who have stopped challenging their culture are destined to disappear.

Therefore cultural fit is key to success in outsourcing and is where we believe FSO adds the most value. If client and supplier are out of alignment with regards to shared goals or objectives, then the contract is doomed to failure. At FSO, with our (re)IMAGINE approach, we even take the lead when it comes to pioneering culture. But, an RFP alone will not always reveal these advantages nor result in the most productive and profitable relationship.

If your outsourcer is not keeping their commitments nor fulfilling the promise of all the advancements and new technology at its hand, I invite to you call me directly and I'll set up a time for you meet with a member of our (re)IMAGINE team and learn why of 250 companies have made the switch to FSO in the past 4 years.

TALK TO US. WITNESS US. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, EXPERIENCE US! 

Call me directly at 212.204.1193.

Have a GREAT day as I look forward to seeing all of you soon.

Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer

Learn more about what DIFFERENTIATES FSO here

Ted Tuesday: Larry Page Makes the Case for Electronic Medical Records

"When I look at electronic medical records, and say 'Wouldn't it be amazing if everyone's EMR would be available anonymously to research doctors, and when someone accesses your medical records you could see which doctor accessed it and why? You can maybe learn about what condition you have. I think if we just do that, we could save a hundred-thousand lives this year. "

Good Morning Folks,

Larry Page is the CEO and cofounder of Google, making him one of the ruling minds of the web.

Onstage at TED2014, Charlie Rose interviews Google CEO Larry Page about his far-off vision for the company.  Says Larry, "Like I state in my keynotes nowadays, 2015 will be the year of Google and Apple entering aggressively into the Health-arena."

See the whole interview with Larry (who lost his voice a while ago and is slowly getting it back). As of 13:30 he's talking about electronic medical records.

Google some years ago had a project called Google Health started in 2008, a Personal Health Record (PHR) which they discontinued June 2011. A decision i think was too early, because patient empowerment was very small back then, but everyone sensed it would grow over the next years. As a matter of fact, we at Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen are enrolling Hereismydata™ in exactly the way that Larry describes in this interview. 

Larry Page and Sergey Brin met in grad school at Stanford in the mid-'90s, and in 1996 started working on a search technology based on a new idea: that relevant results come from context. Their technology analyzed the number of times a given website was linked to by other sites — assuming that the more links, the more relevant the site — and ranked sites accordingly. In 1998, they opened Google in a garage-office in Menlo Park. In 1999 their software left beta and started its steady rise to web domination.

Beyond the company's ubiquitous search, including AdSense/AdWords, Google Maps, Google Earth and the mighty Gmail. In 2011, Page stepped back into his original role of chief executive officer. He now leads Google with high aims and big thinking, and finds time to devote to his projects like Google X, the idea lab for the out-there experiments that keep Google pushing the limits.

FSO has worked with organizations as varied as insurance companies and medical litigation-focused law firms to implement outsourced document and records management strategies" and to offer significant reductions in paper

Our Bobby Dillon should know. As Best Practices Experience Director, he brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise across all of FSO’s services from mail, logistics, copy, print and scan to document production – just to name a few.

At FSO Client Weitz & Luxenberg, Bobby got his MBA in Records Management during a massive 3 ½ year project, the largest and most successful document conversion in the New York market and surrounding areas - migrating over 35 million pages of paper to an electronic format at the famed barristers.

Bobby and his team achieved this by following rigorous checks and balances, quality control and document processing perfection. This is the type of success and model of perfection that Bobby leads across all of FSO’s client locations.

Because Weitz & Luxenberg deals with Asbestos cases, the law still requires paper records retained for 30 years, so 25-30K bankers boxes were sent offsite to low cost storage, freeing up an entire floor of premium Manhattan office space for lease to others or more profitable venture.

FSO can provide the full outsourcing of business processes, for example managing invoice processing, HR, finance and accounts and also IT outsourcing. 

Using a single provider offers the potential to deliver further cost savings, increase productivity and also enable tighter process and financial controls through better regulatory compliance.

If you’d like to explore how FSO can bring your records management into the digital age, contact me personally at 212-204-1193.

Have a GREAT day as I look forward to seeing all of you soon.

Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer

Learn more about what DIFFERENTIATES FSO here

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE. 

Ted Tuesday: Easily Learn 100 TED Talks Lessons In 5 Minutes Part Two of Two

You Can Easily Learn 100 TED Talks Lessons In 5 Minutes 

Which Most People Need 70 Hours to Absorb

Good Morning Folks,

The other week a friend watched 70 hours of TED talks; short, 18-minute talks given by inspirational leaders in the fields of Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED). He watched 296 talks in total, and he recently went through the list of what he watched, weeded out the crappy and boring talks, and created a list of the 100 best things he learned.

This article isn’t entirely about productivity, but I guarantee you’ll learn a thing or two. Here is the second and last post showcasing 100 incredible things my friend learned watching 70 hours of TED talks last week!

==> Race

55. Every day, homeless people are completely ignored, abused, and made to feel invisible.Take it from someone who used to be homeless.

56. According to data, women “systematically underestimate their own abilities”, particularly at work. According to Cheryl Sandberg, women need to sit at the table, make their partner a real partner, and not “leave before they leave” (step back from opportunities because of their family life).

57. Some of the best designs not only look great, but also accommodate your other four senses. They should also feel great, sound great, smell great, and even taste great.

58. We live in the one of the most peaceful times of humanity’s existence, even though it might not seem that way. This talk has the fascinating stats to back that up.

59, 60. Good design has the potential to make people incredibly happy. And some of the best designs are the ones that tell stories.

61. A little danger is good for both kids and grown-ups, and it makes you into a more versatile, well-rounded person.

62. If you want to help people in developing countries, you better have a deep understanding of the values of who you’re helping. Take it from a condom saleswoman in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

63. There may be another way to run a successful, modern economy: the Chinese way. Even if you disagree, this talk is fascinating (it’s given from a Chinese perspective).

64. The language you speak affects your ability to save money. Studies have shown that languages that are more future-oriented motivate people to save more money.

65. Hard work is sometimes degraded in society, but unjustifiably so. According to Mike Rowe (the host of Dirty Jobs), hard work is worth it.

66. The way we think about charity is dead-wrong. We reward charities for how little money they spend, instead of for the difference they actually make.

67. “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change”, and it’s one of the most powerful qualities you have.

68. 4 a.m. is the most mysterious hour of the day.

69. 30 is not the new 20. Some people see their 20′s as a throwaway decade, even though it’s one of the most formative decades of a person’s life.

70, 71. Additional choice can make people either happier or less happy. Choice can make someone happy when the choices legitimately suit their needs better, and it can make someone less happy when it makes them more paralyzed (which happens a lot more than you think).

A Year of Productivity is my full-time job for a whole year, and I have no ads on the site. If you find what I make valuable, please pitch in a few bucks! You don’t have to any means, and I hate asking for money, but it truly helps me build my site up and pay the bills. Here are 8 awesome reasons to pitch in!

==>Technology

72. It turns out you can use two slices of pizza as a slide clicker, make music with ketchup, and make a piano keyboard with a banana!

73. If your medical data could anonymously be used by any researcher seeking a hypothesis, there would be a “wave of healthcare innovation”.

74. Since more and more websites are trying to tailor their content to you, you may get caught up in a digital “filter bubble” and not get “exposed to information that could challenge or broaden [your] worldview”.

76. Google is working on a car that drives itself, and it actually works very well.

77. A trend to watch: 3D printing. The ability for you to be able to print 3D items at home isn’t that far away.

78. Incredible things happen when you create an open encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Here’s the story behind Wikipedia.

79. There are a lot of videos about cats and twerking, but web video is also an incredible tool for learning and global innovation.

80. Everywhere you go online, you’re tracked; a lot more than you might suspect. Web tracking isn’t 100% evil, but websites certainly track you a ton, so it’s worth informing yourself what they use that information for.

81. Every electronic device you own is incredibly complex, with parts sourced from all around the world, so rebuilding anything you own from scratch is nearly impossible, as one guy found out.

82. You might put in orders on Amazon without much thought, but after you place an order, an incredibly intricate, hidden world of box-packing churns away to deliver your order.

83. Computers keep getting smarter; so fast that they often seem to be approaching (and exceeding) how smart humans are. But although they may be getting faster, they’re not as clever or creative as humans are.

84. Electrical sockets used to be shaped like lightbulb holders, because that used to be the only thing we plugged in.

85, 86. You can make plastic out of mushrooms, and the process is very good for the environment. This is great, because plastic has huge, surprising consequences for the environment.

87. It’s possible to stream wireless data from a light bulb (though it requires a line-of-sight between your device and the light).

==> Earth (and beyond)

88. Fish are delicious, but the way we’re farming them is unsustainable, not to mention bad for Nemo. Luckily, there’s a revolutionary (and fascinating) fish farming system in Spain that solves this.

89. Some fish and other ocean critters are positively enchanting. Want to see what I mean? Here is 5.5 minutes of footage of fascinating underwater creatures, including fish that change colors, creatures that camouflage to fit their environment, and fish that light up in the black of the ocean.

==> Flower

90. 80-90% of undersea creatures light up.

91. In my opinion (after watching this TED talk), one of the most interesting underwater creatures is the octopus.

92. Bees have been around for 50 million years, but they recently started dying en masse because of “parasitic mites, viral and bacterial diseases, and exposure to pesticides and herbicides”.

93. Flowers play beautiful tricks to attract insects to spread their pollen.

94. How a fly flies is fascinating, and according to Michael Dickinson, “perhaps one of the greatest feats of evolution“.

95. An asteroid 6 miles wide could end civilization on Earth in an instant.

96. The scientific odds are not against, but incredibly in favor of alien life.

97. One of Saturn’s moons has a giant volcano that shoots out ice instead of lava. And that’s just one cool part about the planet.

98. You can run a program on your computer that helps the University of California, Berkeley analyze radio telescope data for aliens.

99. Curiosity-driven science pays for itself, and drives incredible innovation for years to come.

100. Embrace the mystery that exists in the world. J.J. Ahrams has a mystery box that he hasn’t opened in 35 years, because the potentialof what’s inside the box is unlimited. which is worth way more than what’s actually in the box.

Have a GREAT day, be happy and…

Love Life!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

*TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences -- the TED Conference on the West Coast each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer -- TED includes the award-winning TED Talks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.  More at Ted.com