Mind boggling, isn’t it?

So the question is, how can your message, product, or service break through the noise?

I found this great Social Media counter widget in Jim Long’s (AKA @NewMediaJim on Twitter) thoughtful post The End of Innocence – Why Social Media Is the New Corporate Media, where he writes:

As social media has matured, I get the sense that [...] now we’re back to where we once were. Brands just want access to us and the transaction remains the same.  Look, I understand that companies need to make money and that investors need to get returns [...]. But I’m struck by the rapacious speed with which social media, its adherents, and platforms are pursuing the buck. Ironic to me, considering that it was dissatisfaction with traditional media and “push” advertising that in many respects gave rise to social media.

So, what are your thoughts? Is Social Media already dying as a marketing strategy due to relentless overcrowding, in essence a form of the “Tragedy of the Commons” principle?

Are hyper-localization or micro-niches the only possible answer to this onslaught?

One of the few things that appears to still work reliably on a grander scale is deep Archetype Branding, of the kind that Apple, successful Hollywood movies, and even some New Media personalities (like Gary Vaynerchuck, Unmarketing, or iJustine) have in common.

Any other ideas?

Still working on modifying that habit to posting here instead… :)

Since we wouldn’t want you to miss anything important, these were the most recent offerings:

• Key excerpt: More proof that (c) copyrights are mostly only killing your ideas – these stats are shocking, the question is, will you heed their message and Move The Freeline?
• Excerpt: Smart take from Scoble on the coming #geo-location service wars – (Geo)-Location was all the rage at SXSWi this year, and will be for the rest of the year into the future. Are you staying on top of this?
• Key excerpt from: “Dear Google Buzz team..” + my footnotes – Google Buzz made a lot of mistakes on launch, so many that it may yet damn Buzz to obscurity. Here are some thoughts on what needs fixing YESTERDAY.
• Key excerpt from: “Twitter Ad Platform Imminent” – We didn’t get the much inticipated news on this from SXSWi, so the question of what it will look like is still the Elephant in the Room…
• My comment on: “15 Features Apple Must Build Into iPhone OS 4 -> An Amazing Mobile Ad System” – Everyone thinks a sort of gimmick will fix digital advertising (whether mobile or regular internet doesn’t really matter). The only thing that can work is…

Read and profit. Feel free to share.

Still working on modifying that habit to posting here instead… :)

Since we wouldn’t want you to miss anything important, these were the most recent offerings:

• Key excerpt on Google’s non-social DNA from: “Why Google won’t give Twitter or Facebook a buzz cut tomorrow” Google has been struggling with creating their own successful Social Media, and there is a reason…
• Scott Stratten demonstrates a potential Geo-Location Mishap in: “@Unmarketing’s 4 Point Social Media Future” Geo is only gaining in importance, but the potential pitfalls and even outright dangers should keep those companies on their toes.
• Key Twitter-relevant excerpt from Scoble’s: “Google’s two-front war with Apple and Facebook”
• Steve Moses..I mean Jobs..comes down from the mountain, and..the Tablet is busted?! Did Steve Jobs finally reach the limits of his presentation magic? Is the iPad “a bridge too far”?
• Key Moving The Freeline excerpt from: “5 Essential Blogging Tips from Confucius | Copyblogger” More validation for a concept that is the key to winning in the Attention Economy.

Read and profit. Feel free to share.

Since we wouldn’t want you to miss anything important, these were the most recent offerings:

• Key excerpt on Hyperlocal Advertising from: "2010 Predictions – ReadWriteWeb" Yet more reasons for Rupert Murdoch to shake in his boots…
• Key excerpt from: "What Matters Now" – Gary Vaynerchuck validates Moving the Freeline I preach the concept, nice to see it validated by a social media "big deal".
• Pretty Funny From A Frank Kern Email – FTC Christmas Cards… Half in jest, fully in earnest as they say… this topic will occupy us in 2010 more and for longer than a lot of people are realizing.
• Key excerpt from: "FTC trains government focus on..bloggers – HotAir.com" – gov’t overreach in action More on the FTC’s overreach. A whole new class of complaint will likely get added to our already over-developed litigation menu.
• Why would Twitter lie this blatantly about its broken "Retweets by others" UI? Strong words, but this post struck a nerve. Twitter has been acting a bit too Orwellian of late. The issue has been fixed since then, the PR black-eye remains…

Read and profit. Feel free to share.

We get into the subjectives of what makes natural-born blogger [NBB]. Here are some of the ideas.

1. An natural-born blogger doesn’t wait for permission.

2. A NBB explains things, even when they don’t understand. An NBB is often proved wrong, to which the NBB shrugs his or her shoulders and says something like ["So what"].

3. NBBs go first. If there’s an NBB around you don’t have to wait for a volunteer.

4. NBBs err on the side of saying too much. If you find yourself wishing someone would just [shut up already] you’re very likely looking at an NBB.

Note: Small edits for colorful language… :)

At first sight, it would appear that these points, while well taken, apply only to blogging. And almost in a too-obvious fashion at that.

Unless you have concerned yourself with all manner of business building and entrepreneurship mindset issues, like I tend to do, and take a second look.

Then it becomes clear to you that these are among the most important guide posts for all entrepreneurial activity, and by extension for success in life in a more general sense:

1. Successful people don’t wait for permission

They don’t wait for someone to appoint them to something important (which almost never happens anyway). They give themselves permission to go ahead, they self-appoint.

If you’re uncomfortable with that idea, then you have just identified an important mindset block that is very likely massively holding you back in your business building efforts or aspirations.

I guarantee that almost no one will ever appoint you the expert of your market niche, you have to give yourself permission to be that expert. Of course, you have to make sure you can back it up, else a self-proclamation will ring hollow over time. But the initial catalyst lies within you alone.

2. Successful people shrug off failure

Successful people shrug off failure as if it means nothing, because… well… it doesn’t. All you ever get is a result, all subsequent meaning of that result exists almost entirely in your head.

Any misstep means only that you must be getting closer to your goal than you were before (when you didn’t take any action at all). And of course hopefully you learned something in the process.

The only thing that truly IS tragic is not failure, but being caught in paralysis due to fear of failure. It keeps you suspended in an infinite "possibility loop", never wanting to find out the truth by either getting proof-of-concept, or not, and moving on to the next concept. It’s a form of addiction to and idea or ideas we have come to hold dear.

Best to find out this week, this month if that idea is only robbing you of precious psychic and other energy…

3. Successful people are ahead of the curve

In branding/positioning there is the well-proven concept of "first mover advantage", which tends to bestow disproportionate rewards on those that "show up early to the party".

While the inventor doesn’t always get financial rewards, the Category Leader, the person or business that can install themselves as first for that category in the minds of the consumer (to be taken in the broadest possible sense of a marketplace here), almost always does.

Hence we get Microsoft being more or less unassailable in the business and consumer desktop computing space, while Apple became nearly as dominant in new categories that it either early and decisively jumped on (the iPod), or more or less created (the iPhone).

Anyone else piling into those categories is fighting an uphill, near impossible battle.

And all of this applies to your small business, or solopreneurship as well: Be first, or at least VERY early in something. Ideally by creating a whole new category, which is otherwise known as innovating.

4. Successful People Move The Freeline

While Dave Winer does not explicitly state it here, the idea of erring on the side of saying too much implies the principle I like to call "Moving the Freeline":

You have to say AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE about what you are trying to get across to people, which means that you have to, in a sense, give your best ideas away!

You can’t hide them behind a Pay-Wall (and even $1 may be too much for people to begin to listen to what you have to say, what you have to offer).

You can’t operate in a way that says: "Once you pay, I’ll tell you something useful or important".

You can’t drop mere hints about what you have to offer, you have to give away A LOT of the real thing.

Most marketing copy gets this wrong when it merely focuses on trying to persuade, rather than just showing a lot of the goods.

You have to give every possible reason for the other party to do business with you by telling them (nearly) everything you know that could apply to them, free of the irrational fear of being ripped off or plagiarized somehow.

Only then do you have a real chance.

And in order to be able to do this, you have to apply a mindset that most successful people have, what Eben Pagan would call "feeling wealthy right now".

You see, unless you get to that point of feeling abundant in your ideas right now, you will hold yourself back from getting the business you deserve, because the other party cannot ascertain whether a transaction would be worth their risk.

Does Moving The Freeline Make You Nervous?

In case this kind of openness makes you nervous, you can calm yourself by understanding a few key truths:

The fear that someone wants to rip off your ideas is nearly always an illusion, usually you have the exact opposite problem, that of getting ANYONE to give a dear about you, your business, and your ideas.

Also, the so-called "Curse Of Knowledge" has you systematically underestimate how far you are leaving the non-expert audience behind as an expert in a given arena (see Heath & Heath, Made To Stick).

Even if they wanted to, almost no one would be in a position to replicate your deeper ideas from scratch, without incurring a very significant learning curve.

Of course, if they REALLY wanted to (which is a big if), they could catch up eventually. Which is where the "show up early" principle comes in.

But in the interim, you can, as a consultant say, tell a prospective business EVERYTHING you might do for them in great detail. And it still would be much more likely that they would hire you to work with them, rather than trying to turn around and execute all of these details themselves, cold, from scratch.

To finish up with an example, a prolific tech blogger like Robert Scoble is constantly giving his best ideas away. And certainly a lot of people would say that he can err on the side of saying too much. But that is also how he creates massive value up front, and keeps people engaged with his idea process.

Money and profit become side-effects of his massively "Moving The Freeline" in this way day in and day out. Do thou likewise…

Since we wouldn’t want you to miss anything important, these were the most recent offerings:

• Key excerpt from FEED 2009 Report: "Digital Primacy..connected consumers are the new mainstream". It looks as if "geeky" interests, tools, and toys are no longer geeky anymore, they are what everyone is using.
• My comment on: "Was the Twitter Retweet Feature Designed to Bring Value to Google & Bing Search?" Twitter has stirred up a hornets nest with its recent feature upgrade, the question is, are the gains worth messing with their archetype branding?
• Key excerpt from interview with Tech VC Peter Thiel: The U.S. debate on gov’t size has a mindset issue. Is everybody asking the wrong question?
• Must-read, & some of this worries me: "What Twitter’s New Geolocation Makes Possible – RWW". There goes what little of your privacy was left. Is the brave new world of geolocation going to be worth the sacrifice?
• My comment on: "Twitter to turn on advertising you will love -> SuperTweet – @Scobleizer" Twitter is about to finally monetize their service, could the new ads they’re invisioning be a game changer?

Read and profit. Feel free to share.

The attribution problem: In order to get rid of the attribution confusion, in your timeline we show the avatar and username of the original author of the tweet—with the person who retweeted it (whom you actually follow) in the metadata underneath. The decision is that this:

…is a better presentation than this:

No fault of @AleciaHuck’s but the first is simply easier to read, and it gives proper credit to @badbanana. Even if you know @AleciaHuck, there’s no benefit to having her picture in there.

 

So here is the big problem: That last half sentence (my BOLD highlight) shows complete ignorance of the way that Twitter works as a social engine and calculus.

Twitter users, whether consciously or not, are with each tweet putting a little bit of previously accrued social capital they have with their "followers" (Twitter users that are subscribed to them) on the line. So the act of forwarding another, often third party user’s tweet is significant in that it is a form of a micro-endorsement for this user that their followers are themselves typically not even subscribed to.

If the text of the forwarded tweet or (in many cases) the link to further content that it contains is ill received, the retweeting user in some sense is held accountable by their followers. At best, only a little bit of "social capital" is deducted, at worst, some will unfollow completely.

The user has put their stamp of approval on the retweeted content, and if it contained a link, it is largely expected that by extension the content at the end of that link was read and approved of as well.

(There are some exceptions to this when the news contained in a tweet is considered "breaking" enough so that the timeliness criterion overrides the need for checking out all of the content at the end of a link first. But, as most Twitter users have discovered before, the risk of forwarding something that turns out to be of questionable quality or outright bogus or even harmful goes up exponentially. "Blind" retweeting of links should be avoided.)

So, because of this micro-endorsement element, a Retweet has always gone well beyond a mere surfacing mechanism. Social media statistician Dan Zarrella in a prescient post a few months ago warned that the proposed RT formalization would do away with this form of social proof inherent in the RT convention ("Using the orig­i­nal poster’s pic & name in my time­line destroys any social proof the ReTweeter may have lent the Tweet.").

Known Avatar = Benefit

Back to the example given in the excerpt, there is in fact a GREAT benefit inherent in the picture/avatar of a user you have been following for any length of time: It is known to you, it is far less of a stranger all things being equal.

You have imbued it in your mind, by way of repetition (active Twitter users may be seeing the profile pictures/avatars of other active followed/friended users hundreds or even many thousands of times), with some trust and social capital.

It has been pointed out by multiple people that the surprise of seeing a "stranger’s" avatar in one’s Twitter inbound stream is downright shocking to some people, so strong is the identification with known people one has been following.

This has been one of the 1st rules of Twitter: You see only who you elect to see (i.e. follow).

If the avatar is now switched out to show that of the original author of the forwarded tweet, this trust is gone, unless the recipients (your followers) also happened to be following that same user. But even if they were, you, the Retweeter, are now cut out of the equation!

The social capital you put on the line is now not really rewarded anymore by having you be clearly associated with the surfacing of the information for the benefit of your followers. This can, especially over time, have several unintended consequences:

1) You might RT less because of this (largely unconscious) calculus, after all, why primarily boost the other person when you are taking most of the risk.

If the feature is used less, it would go the way of another Twitter feature that has withered on the vine, Twitter Favorites, which because of a lack of a meaningful social feedback cycle have languished as a form of a somewhat dysfunctional personal tweet bookmarking. Incidentally, the new feature could have been subsumed into and under the name of the old Favorites.

Paris Lemon of TechCrunch just wrote a post (see below) where he predicts that Twitter will have to allow people to turn off all inbound Retweets (per user shut-off is already supported) due to the "stranger shock" factor mentioned above.

He also thinks the feature if left to stand as is, will lead to a bifurcation of the use of Retweets into "old-school" and "new", with possibly unintended or of yet unforeseeable consequences. Which would certainly not be a desirable state of affairs for Twitter.

The control it hoped to gain from the Retweet implementation would largely be void if say half of all Retweets can’t be counted by their scheme.

2) You might retweet less carefully than before because you begin to think by way of 1) that your retweeting has become less meaningful to your followers in the sense of you having done the surfacing.

Other services like FriendFeed (FF) have had features that are similar to Twitter’s new offering for a while, e.g. on FF it is called a "Like". But the "Likes" there never quite had the social touch, mostly they’ve been used as just a surfacing mechanism, with the social element coming from FF comments.

It has also been pointed out by Robert Scoble and others that all Twitter had to do to avoid some of the angst surrounding the new feature roll-out, was to name it something different than "Retweet". Which makes sense, once a "brand name" of sorts is established in people’s minds, they are very loath to rearrange that in their mental real estate (lesson for all business great and small inherent here).

3) Context is clearly lost without the Retweeters avatar, and because the new Retweets presently cannot be annotated as you were/are free to do under the old "RT @username: …" convention.

This means you cannot express why you decided to forward the information if so desired. But intention and context go a long way in all social interactions (just think of the nuances inherent in most inside jokes, popular culture speak, sarcasm, asf.), and to cut it out is to misunderstand the social in social media.

The small annotations, even just 1 or 2 words, or a glyph or an acronym, can make all of the difference between sterile copying and the kind of mild embellishment or emphasis that we all use when telling each other stories or news in our social circles.

Are You A Good Little Retweet Automaton?

The new Twitter RT wants you to be a good, anti-septic, little forwarding automaton. Big mistake, think about what would it would be like if all of your social interactions used primarily direct quotes when relaying what a third party said.

TechCrunch’s Paris Lemon in a good, detailed post about the New Retweet conundrum titled "Simple Is As Simple Does: The Risk Of Retweet", echoes some of the points above:

The second point may actually be even more problematic for Twitter: Users want a way to include their own statements in Retweets. The new way of doing this does not allow for that. The fundamental principle behind this should be obvious: If you share something, there’s a natural desire to explain why you’re sharing it. That’s what a lot of people do with current retweets. Even if they just add “LOL,” it shows that they think the tweet they’re sharing is funny.

We’re also vain. Sometimes retweeting something is more about getting your say in rather than simply highlighting what someone else has said. Or, maybe you’re even retweeting something because you disagree with it. With the new Retweets, you can’t let that be known.

Social media had just given us all a voice, why would we want to give some of it up again to satisfy Twitter’s data management needs?

Lance Ulanoff wrote a great post on some of the awkwardly Orwellian language used by Twitter in the new Retweet implementation and in some of the explanatory PR that has gone along with it.

It appears as if the entire feature change is primarily cooked up for the benefit of Twitter’s ability to easily count Retweets and maybe make money off of the emergent surfacing derived from it. Strange, since they have already been doing something just like that IN FREE-FORM with Twitter "Trending Topics". Why the hand-cuffs now?

Williams (@ev on Twitter) claims the new feature’s goal is "helping you discover the information that matters most to you as quickly as possible." But the cognitive dissonance you may experience with this fundamental change will at best only slow things down for you.

All of these points taken together would explain the so far decidedly negative reception of Twitter’s new Retweet feature. By the way, the oft-repeated excuse that users will reflexively react negatively to any kind of change is a poor fig leaf here:

Twitter users so far have enthusiastically embraced the new Lists feature, a rather substantial change, since a few weeks ago. This obviously isn’t the case with this new RT feature.

And Twitter could have really seen all this from a mile off, since around August when the intentions for the new RTs were first announced. As already pointed out above, back then Dan Zarrella and others created some amount of buzz in the community for "saving" the established, user-borne, well-liked format, using among other things the ominously named "#SaveRetweets" tag.

Why not listen to your users, Twitter? They’re the reason for your success.

[Will social media services finally begin to understand that their very existence has changed the game? See what I wrote here:

Social Media Lessons: Controversy Erupts Surrounding Facebook’s “Twitterization” Redesign ]

Since we wouldn’t want you to miss anything important, these were the most recent offerings:

• Twitter Lists as a new form of linking – this could be huge Despite some flaws, the new feature is a potential game changer. Note: I am working on a longer, comprehensive post on the new Twitter Lists as well, stay tuned.
• Key excerpts from: "Behind Closed Doors: What’s On the Mind Of Chief Marketing Officers – Jeremiah Owyang" + my footnote The times they are a-changing when it comes to the relevance of social media for business, only Old Media remains defiant/in denial.
• Key excerpt from: "What Startups Are Really Like" – this applies to ANY business Guard yourself against pointless competitive/scarcity mentality thinking.
• Key excerpt from Robert Scoble’s Posterous about impacts of the new Twitter Lists + my footnote First impressions, and some glaring feature omissions are already apparent.
• Key excerpt from reader comment on: "Jason Pontin: How to Save Media" + my footnote A sharply worded reader comment sums up Old Media’s crisis in a great analogy.

Read and profit. Feel free to share.

It explains how some people appear to show "nerves of steel", even thrive on being the center of massive attention, while others can never seem to be able to get over their stage fright, public performance anxiety, or fear of public speaking ("the number one fear of many people, even more frightening than death"!):

They [...] showed the subjects fearful pictures to see if amygdala activation alone predicted anxiety. Interestingly, although the amygdala is active during fear, the people who were more anxious did not have higher levels of amygdala activation. Neither did the people who had lower anxiety have more activation in the vmPFC [ventro-medial prefrontal cortex, the risk processing center in the brain] [...]. The best predictor of anxiety was the strength of the connection between the two regions. Why might connection strength be more important than the amount of activation in either region alone?

The vmPFC assesses the risk a situation poses and can help decide whether or not you’re in an emergency condition. The vmPFC may calm the amygdala to help you feel more in control, but its ability to do so may depend on how well the two regions are wired. If the signal is strong, the vmPFC may shut down the fight-or-flight response and let you make more levelheaded, rational decisions.

People with stronger and heartier white matter pathways may have lower levels of anxiety because they’re able to calm down more effectively. This may be important for having the steely nerves it takes to go on stage in front of a live television audience or to speak up in class or in business meetings.

Even if you are someone who gets nervous before making phone calls, there’s hope in this finding that may give you pluck. It was formerly believed that the adult brain was static and that after the growth and pruning that takes place when we’re children and adolescents, we’re stuck with what we’ve got. What we’re finding now is that the brain is constantly in a state of revision. Not only can we develop new neurons, but perhaps more importantly we can also develop new connections or strengthen preexisting connections between neurons.

My BOLD highlights.

The last paragraph is completely key, even though the author states things rather meekly. Let me assist with that [grin]:

The white matter connections is the myelination (a form of electrical insulation around neurons), that will strengthen BASED ON USAGE. The research in this area is still relatively new (5-10+ years), because neuroscientists were always so enamored with the neurons and synapses between them. It wasn’t thought that the humble insulatory white matter could make such a difference.

Well, it turns out it makes almost all of the difference, because its buildup predicts the speed of processing and level of activation for nearly everything our brain does. And here is the kicker: Its growth is almost solely influenced by repeated activation, i.e. by use, practice, and training!

This is why I said in the title that you could train yourself to engage your risk processing center (vmPFC) more and more in anxiety or fear inducing situations. Whatever you have now, it is NOT how it needs to be forever. It can be changed. E.g. in my coaching practice I have successfully worked with a fair number of clients on fear of public speaking issues.

This is also the reason why, if you have children, you should do your utmost to train them from an early age to to process any fear or anxiety moments they have on the spot. Talk them through the event, ask them about what they’re worst case scenario fear about it is/was, why and how it’s likely all out of proportion, and what the reality and probabilities look like instead.

The point being that they are trained to engage the connection between the fear and risk processing centers as much as possible. The stronger the connection is built out over time, the less anxious they are likely to be later due to automatic strong engagement of the (rational) risk processing center to override the raw animal fear center.

I wrote a few weeks ago in more detail on how myelin works and how it is the key to establishing new habits (it goes even further, myelin may well be the missing link that is debunking the concept of innate talent, similar to what Malcolm Gladwell in "Outliers" has been arguing with his "10,000 hours" theory):

Why Creating A New Habit Is So Hard

4. Own your subject. You don’t need to be an expert at first. You should work hard to become one, but when you’re starting out, you should find the book other books and websites in your area reference. Read that book. As time goes on, pick up the books that book referenced.

Most non-fiction books tend to regurgitate what’s already out[,] ditto for websites, but by going to the core book and then going from there you will be ahead of the game.

A few things to consider:

1) The threshold to being able to help someone else with your expertise is often very low, because the other person is starting from scratch. In a sense, everybody can be an expert in the eyes of someone else at a given point in time.

2) In fact, due to the “Curse of Knowledge” (read Heath & Heath’s “Made To Stick”), you are likely severely overestimating the amount of detail someone you are in a position to help really needs. In other words, once you know a lot about something, it is difficult to put yourself back into the position of someone who doesn’t yet have that knowledge.

Most of the time you will just overwhelm them with information that they really didn’t need or could process at that moment. (Think just-in-time knowledge rather than just-in-case.)

3) Instead of merely piling additional detail, get to a level of depth that allows you to truly innovate. Offer a solution that is not merely 10% better, but 10 TIMES better.

(This is Guy Kawasaki’s formula for tech start-up success, but it really can be applied to just about all other areas of business as well.)

Offer something that reduces all of the detail, depth, and complexity for your customer or client by giving them something new. To get there, follow the advice from the quote above, and then reconnect the dots in a whole new way.

3. Do a 30-day Challenge. In my experience, it takes about 30 days to change a habit, if you’re focused and consistent. This is a round number and will vary from person to person and habit to habit.

Often you’ll read a magical “21 days” to change a habit, but this is a myth with no evidence. [...] A more recent study shows that 66 days [may be] a better number [...] But 30 days is a good number to get you started. Your challenge: stick with a habit every day for 30 days, and post your daily progress updates to a forum.

The reason why it takes at least around 30 days to form a new habit is a process in the brain called "myelination".

It’s the process of your mind forming a certain kind of sheathing around the neurons involved in a habitual thought or behavior, which acts in a way like electrical insulating tape: It makes the electrical impulses travel faster, thereby speeding up the functioning of the entire neural network involved.

Myelin is a whitish substance that actually gives the brain its typical color. Now before your eyes glaze over about this Brain Biology 101 stuff, think about why this is so important for all manner of changing old behaviors into new ones:

When a mental block of any kind is released, or on old way of doing things is unhinged, the new neural network connections that formed to make this happen are extremely tender at first. "Green shoots" are rock solid by comparison.

This is why a new behavior feels so difficult at first: It isn’t ingrained yet.

Due to the lack of the myelin the signals are traveling slowly and precariously. But if you keep at it and thereby keep tracing the new path, your mind will get the message and "grease the groove" of that neural network. Until the speeds are up to 200 times faster!

Only problem is, it takes at least 30 days to complete myelination to the extent that the new habit is really starting to become a habit. Anytime before then there is the danger of the new habit formation being abandoned. And of course, the myelination process may continue for quite some time after the first 30 days.

So to be successful, you absolutely need to tough out those first 30 days. Set yourself up to practice the new habit during that time, despite the fact that it will seem too hard.

One of the strategies for doing so is to create physical changes in your environment that make it nearly impossible to ignore the new situation, e.g. recently when I wanted to stop falling asleep on my favorite couch at night watching TV, I laid a chair on that couch to block it. Did the trick instantly.

I also quit caffeine cold turkey a few weeks ago (more on that in another post), and the first step to make that happen was getting rid of the coffee paraphernalia in my kitchen, and replacing them with great herbal teas I like, asf.

Also, your Unconscious Mind is typically most impressed with actual, physical changes in the environment. No amount of lists, affirmations, or even visualizations will have as much of an impact as the new thing staring you straight in the face.

Put it in your own way. Make it impossible to ignore.

Get over that first 30 day hump, and you are basically home free. It’s like a rocket launch, most of the fuel is burned up to reach escape velocity. After that you’re cruising.

Simply knowing that this is the case should increase your chances of success, because now you can plan for it. New habit formation resistance is to be expected.

Beat it to the punch. By understanding the myelin between your ears.

(UPDATE: Just found this fascinating and detailed discussion of myelination on Google Books Search: The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How. – Daniel Coyle.)

(Read my original post on why 100 Day countdowns are meaningful and actually work here.)

As you may have noticed, I’ve taken an extended hiatus from blogging this summer. This was large due to my Dad passing away a few months ago, and things being quite topsy-turvy and sometimes emotionally exhausting since.

But I am back, and determined to finish out the last 100 days of 2009 STRONG, which includes posting regularly again.

BTW, since the beginning of this year, I had experimented with capturing shorter, "Quick Hits" Business Mindhacks posts to my Posterous blog at

http://alexschleber.posterous.com

Bringing key excerpts along with quick comments and footnotes through Posterous to my Twitter followers has proved useful and popular (feel free to peruse the archive).

And it also helped me keep the "blogging flame" alive in the past few months, when I didn’t have the energy, or Tech/Business World events moved too rapidly, to work on the kind of longer, more integrative posts that had been the staple of this blog so far.

Combined with my other social media activities on Twitter and FriendFeed, my Posterous posts in some way closed a gap between "micro-blogging" and "long form". Call it mini-blogging.

But the experiment also has come with real drawbacks:

Because Google penalizes duplicate content, I didn’t want to simply forward my Posterous posts to this blog. And this over time has led to too few posts for Business Mindhacks, and too much of my content "held hostage" on a service I don’t control.

Now mind you I have been an early fan and evangelist of Posterous, and I still believe that it is a great service to get anyone started with blogging and/or what has been called "lifestreaming". And I congratulate Garry Tan and Sachin Agarwal on all of their success so far (they finally unveiled "themes" and customization in the last few days).

But the small team has taken longer to add functionality than would have been preferable in my view (in part holding themselves back by wanting to control everything a little too tightly), and in either event many issues around the ideal blogging/lifestreaming/curation platform still remain, as Robert Scoble rightly pointed out yesterday.

So, I’ve decided that as of next week, and after finally updating my blog from my custom/rogue Wordpress 2.3.3 version to the latest 2.8.4, I will create those Posterous style posts in my own blog instead, using Wordpress’ "Press This" bookmarklet to do so.

This will mean more frequent posting, and more raw, immediate, and shorter posts. Which, given the pace at which things are moving, should be a good thing:

One example, I have long promised the follow-up to my "Search Literacy" post, covering FriendFeed Search and Google Search in depth tricks and techniques.

While I was also side-tracked by personal events as mentioned above, things have changed so rapidly (FriendFeed was recently acquired by Facebook, mostly for its founders’ engineering talent, putting its continued long-term operation into some doubt), that some of the content I had already written became outdated before I could even publish it.

So, the lesson is:

Rapid, shorter posting = good.

Outsourcing it away from your self-hosted blog = likely bad.

(Of course I’ll still make time for the longer-form posts every week or two. And yes, the Search Literacy Post, Part 2 is coming as well.)

OK, back to the 100 Day Countdown and finishing the year out strong:

Decide right now what you want to accomplish until then in your business and/or personal life, and you’ll be doing yourself a much bigger favor than if you were waiting around to making those typically flimsy, rapidly forgotten New Year’s resolutions on December 31.

As SelfGrowth.com editor David Riklan recently wrote in a newsletter email:

What if I were to follow you with a camera crew for the next 100 days while you went for your goals? I bet 3 things would happen…

1) You would START doing the things you say you need to do.
2) You would STOP doing the things you know you shouldn’t be doing.
3) You would MAKE monumental performance gains and change your life.

Here’s to your finishing strong!

Best wishes

- Alex Schleber