Keeping Up…”I Haven’t Died Yet.”

The quote, from Michael Arrington, is a bit sobering. Part of An interesting article from The New York Times…In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop…it really drove the point home to me about what to avoid in the “new media” world.

As much as I struggle to keep up with the vast amounts of information available at the click of a mouse, those generating it can struggle even more. The article points out the same thing that I recall Bill Gates mentioning in an interview, you worry every minute that someone will beat you to introducing something new.

I often worry about what is the next post going to be about? What can we create that will push our business to the next level? How many people have the same idea? This question alone is usually answered by a quick Google…roughly a bazillion. As I’ve mentioned here before, I invented Pandora…a mere 2 years after it was introduced. Who knew?

How do you keep up? The answer is…for most of us…you don’t. Look there will always be someone, many someones, who really get a rush out of the first to invent, the first to introduce, the first report. They think it’s fun! These people love doing it and there is no reason you should not love letting them. Especially when you can be the one that can help explain what that “first” means to the other 99.5% of the world. The fact is that if you’re reading this blog…any blog…you are already ahead of many in the world. Once you get into “the internet thing” it’s very easy to forget that for those over 25 or 30 (and that’s a lot of people) are not scratching the surface of it.

Can’t keep up with it all? Don’t try so hard. Find what you love and follow that. Use the technology open to you to do it efficiently if you’d like, but love it. Hang with others who have some similar interests, but more that are different. Count on them to expose you to new things. Maybe take a day or two a week to “search” for the latest…but don’t just sit in front of the computer or TV working on that special blue tint to your skin. Get out there and tell the world what you know. You might be surprised that you are the first…and maybe the best.