My new blog & a twitter username swap

In a move that I’m sure will please my higher ed readers, I’ve created a spinoff blog called Startup Failure and you can get there via 307ceo.com or ronbronson.com

The idea here was to create a place where I could really dig deeper into issues that affect solo startups or people who are just getting started, as well as those who’ve been in “the game” a while.

This blog will try to gradually bend itself back towards higher ed more, though to be honest a lot of my insights are focused largely on how much we shoot ourselves in the foot in the higher ed world and how we make it harder for people to really succeed. So I’ll be focusing on the success stories and the interesting things I see in the field. Maybe I’ll branch out in other ways, too. I have some ideas, but I won’t give them all away.

Save for the backposting I did when I first started the blog, this blog is really only a year old this month. So I’m proud of where it’s gone in that time span and what it’s been able to do for me. Had I started it three years ago, who knows where I’d be now.

So I’m excited for what’s next and I do hope if you’re interested, you’ll check out the other blog too or pass it on to someone else who might be.

I changed my twitter user name from omnivoredotus to 307ceo. I have a love/hate relationship with the public timeline, but it’s public so people can find me for now. I’ve been pondering shortening the name for a while, I created the original one when I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with Twitter and just went with something I could get. With the new domain/blog, it just made more sense.

So there you go. Chock full of updates.

Momentum

I’m kinda crazy.

For people who know me well, they understand that once I get on an idea, I tend to work like heck to make it work. It’s just a function of what I like to refer to us as fireflies in the jar. That sucker isn’t going to live forever. So I run around like mad to show him to as many folks as possible, before the light goes out.

What I’ve been picking up over the past few weeks, though, is this sense of how great it can be when you can connect the dots on an idea. Not just the beginning of it, but the middle and end too. How projects you started years ago start to pay off.

Something that work just can’t do for me, that my own ideas can, is provide me with sustenance. When I’m in the zone, I don’t get up. I can sit in the same spot for hours until I get done what I want to get done and it’s like clockwork.

The past year has been astounding in terms of the connections I’ve been able to make using the web, the sorts of folks I’ve been able to “meet” this way and how much it’s paid off in other ways.

I think a lot of us end up in a similar place in our mid-twenties and early 30s where we feel like we’re behind, where we’re not keeping up with our friends who are doing ‘x’ and start to feel like our abnormal existence are leaving us behind the curve.

Here are a few thoughts on that:

1. Just because your parents don’t it, doesn’t mean you’re wrong. We want them to be happy for us and even the most confident among us turn into little kids when you’re able to explain something to mom and dad and have them actually get it. But that’s not always possible. Keep trudging anyway, eventually it’ll either make sense and even if it doesn’t, they’re still proud of you. I’m obviously talking about living off the beaten path and pursuing what you’re passionate about, short of being illegal or harmful to yourself and those around you. Just saying…

2. Do it while it’s on your mind…. It’s almost a running joke that the minute you stop working on something that used to be important, someone else has taken a similar concept further than you thought possible. The answer here is knowing when to quit, but also understanding why you’re quitting when you do and having a landing path for the next thing you’re going to do. Because there’s nothing worse than doing nothing.

3. Adaptability isn’t the same as change Being adaptable isn’t the same as “always changing your mind.” The way you respond to new information is either to maintain your current posture or to make new decisions that reflect the reality the new circumstances. I think being adaptable is way better than standing pat, when the situation calls for it and knowing how to be that way can get you very far.

I think it’s astounding when you reach a point where you just throw off the gloves and say “enough” and seize control of the situation. The sort of momentum that drives you in the midst of that can really take you far. It’s just when you realize that you’re not as powerless as you believe yourself to be, is when you’re able to kick it up a notch.