Act Now

We need more people like Marc Benioff, willing to act now. A billion dollars is pittance for a government, but an amazing amount of money for a person. It’s more than you can spend in a life, your kids, perhaps even your grandkids. I’d argue that it’s more than one person deserves to spend on themselves or their desires, no matter how they earned it.

Mike Rowe Works

A nice open letter to ex-Governor Romney from Mike Rowe. Good to see people actually trying to help others get back to work.

The Response to the First Responders

A horribly tragedy last week in Aurora, a few miles from my home. People killed in a theater by a crazy man, and a shocked nation.

I didn't hear about it until the next morning, but in watching the news conference the next night, I was pleasantly surprised, and inspired to see our governor praise the first responders, and make allowances for any mistakes made. It was an impossible situation to predict or train for. Yet the praise for those involved, instead of seeking personal glory, or spreading blame, seemed to be a theme. Apart from our governor, I've seen numerous posts and notes that thanked all the police and emergency personnel.

Inspiring to see people come together.

Hustle

As long as we have people with this attitude, we are going places:

"If you hustle – all out, fully hustle – and you succeed, then you gain the satisfaction of a job well done. If you hustle and fail, you never have to worry about what might have been if you’d given everything.
If you slack off, you might get lucky and still succeed, but there’s little satisfaction other than the temporary thrill of escaping with your life. If you slack off and fail, you have to live forever with not knowing what you were truly capable of."

From Todd Henry

Karen Lopez, Crusader

She might not see herself as one, but I really love the efforts Karen puts into making the world a better place. I met her a couple years ago and have since seen her speak on a number of topics, both technical and career based, and I think this post of hers is wonderful.

This is Why I #WIT…And Why You Should. Too

She’s a great inspiration to women especially, but really to everyone.

PepsiCo Women’s Inspiration Award Winner – If I can do it, so can you…

An inspiring story. A hard one, and one that comes from someone with talent.

I like seeing stories like this, and I think they do give some inspiration to others. Here is someone that was dealt a hard hand in life, and turned it around, with perseverance and hard work.

However this is clearly an exceptional person. I wish we saw more stories from people that were average, or even just slightly above average making a change in their lives, and growing. It’s more realistic, and I think it would motivate more people to actually pursue their goals, rather than looking at someone like this and thinking “I’m not that talented” and I won’t have that level of success.

You should pursue your dreams, not be afraid of the hard work and setbacks, and roll with them..

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

It sucks getting older. There are any number of reminders of that fact on a regular basis as I move through my 40s. A kid in college, the aches and pains from moving my body too quickly, the paunch that I struggle to keep under control, and the most annoying might be having to get up most nights to go to the bathroom when I should be sleeping.
One of the saddest reminders, however, is the all too regular passing of someone we admire, someone we know, someone we love. I haven’t had much death in my life to this point, fortunately. I lost a friend, a former boss, while away at college. A good friend, only slightly older was killed earlier this year. And I lost someone I admired yesterday.
I never met Steve Jobs. Never saw him speak in person, never worked at Apple, and rarely used their computers. However Steve Jobs was one of the few people that I wanted on my “what three people I would invite to dinner” list. Apple has always been a “cool” company to me, one that transcended the engineering efficiency of so many technology companies to build something that you could use, but more importantly, you wanted to use.
The comparison that came to mind this morning as I lay in bed, thoughts churning about both my day and the loss of someone I admired was the same one that Dave Winer wrote about in his memorial post: Frank Lloyd Wright.
The design, the clean, clear lines, the lack of anything extra was both elegant and insanely frustrating at times. However also genius, and reminiscent of not a better way to do things, but of the future.
That’s what Steve Jobs brought with both design and form in the Macintosh, the NeXt, Toy Story, the iPod, the iPhone, the Air, and the iPad.
The future.