New Comm Biz

Two great posts surfaced between last night and early this morning about People. Not any kind of people but those people that keep us moving, act as our sounding boards and kick us in the ass when we need it.

Fist of is Michael Loop and his great Rand in Repose blog. Michael doesn’t write very often but you know when he writes he’s writing for the very group he wrote about today. Rand calls these Your People and every Geek needs them.

When I’m talking about Your People, I am not thinking of your best friend. Sure, your best friend might be Your People, but I’m talking about a larger population who aren’t necessarily your friends and who isn’t your family. These are a strange lot of people you’ve discovered in a motley array of places because you were searching for them.

This morning Tom Peters followed up with a post about the “Berserk Standard.” WTF is the Berserk Standard? This is the standard that truly great and disruptive ideas are held to. Think Craigslist. In order to reach the Berserk Standard you have to reach out to what Tom calls SWP – Seriously Weird People.

Among other things, every (!!!) time you start a project, no matter how small, reach out to several SWP—seriously weird people—for their views about what you are undertaking. Keep reaching until you find a couple of people who are so far out that they more or less speak gibberish.

So, my question for you is; Who are Your Seriously Weird People? Who are the people you go to with your crazy ideas?

I have a long list of Weird People I go to with my ideas. Some of them are great for raw ideas. Some are better for more thought out ideas. If someone thinks all your ideas are great, they’re not the right Weird person for you. Find the Weird people who think you’re an idiot (but an idiot with an occasional good idea). These are the truly valuable weird people.

[Full disclosure: I’m a Seriously Weird People.] I’m in the office right now at 7:14 writing this because at 8:00 I’m meeting with Jen Price, WE Studio D’s business manager, (who hold a PhD in Medieval History, *weird/cool*). She asked to run some ideas by me on how we might better run some business processes. Me+Business Processes=Not a natural fit. But I’m Weird.

How do you be Weird?

• No idea is a stupid idea. Unless it’s just a stupid idea.
• 2+2 does not always equal 4. Unless we’re just talking math.
• Weird people don’t fit stereotypes. They are the exceptions that prove and/or break the rules.
• Weird people LOVE ideas. There is nothing more beautiful than a pure idea. The idea was invented because it was the only thing more beautiful than a blank page.

So. uh, how do you be Weird? I don’t know exactly. But I do know you have to start with being endlessly curious. How do I know that? Kids are Weird. Kids are consistently curious.

BTW if you liked this post you might like my Posterous site /tacanderson. Posterous ends up being a repository for all the things I find interesting. Most don’t make it to this blog but today’s post was inspired by two items that ended up there first.

Are You A SWP? – /tacanderson
Successful Geeks Need Their People – /tacanderson

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