Colin Wright's Blog, page 44

Things Remembered

I remember exactly how I felt when my first business went under.

It was over 7 years ago, but the disbelief followed by sadness and angst and more than a little anger at myself and my own ineptitude is still a very clear memory. It’s sharp like the tangy taste of metal or the lingering scent of a pungent spice. To have such failure follow such success was almost more than I could bear at the time, and to this day I cringe a little any time I think about it.

I remember what it was like the first...

Success & Society

It’s often posited that affluent people owe their success to the myriad other less-wealthy people they encounter throughout their lives.

While I think this is true in some respects — no person creates value in a vacuum — I also think repeating such mantras is an ineffective way of approaching cross-class communication. And we need to keep our chatter friendly if we’re going to survive and thrive as a society in the new, worldwide economic environment.

Having experienced both lifestyles — succes...

Negative Drawing

If you want to draw something, generally you’ll find a piece of paper, pick up a pencil, charcoal, or other marking implement, and go at it. The white space becomes darker as you cover it with your carbon, and those lines, crosshatches, dots, and gradients become an image. A representation of something imaginary or real.

When I was in art school, I grew quite fond of a style called ‘negative drawing.’ It was a method that flipped the traditional drawing process on its head: you would cover a s...

Normalcy

The word ‘normal’ means something different to everyone. One person’s standard is another’s atypical.

This can be a somewhat uncomfortable realization considering how often we strive to be normal, only accidentally — and seldom as possible — crossing over into the realm of ‘different’ or ‘extreme’ or ‘weird.’

My normal might be your weird, but the same is true of your normal to me. From my perspective, you’re working really hard to maintain steadfast strangeness.

That’s not necessarily a bad thi...

Extreme Support

Picture an overweight kid. He’s just slightly over-plump for his age, but because of his eating habits, he’s on the fast-track to middle-aged heart disease.

Popular culture would have us believe there are only two ways to approach this topic with the child in question. The first is to take a page from the book of schoolyard bullies and ridicule them into feeling embarrassed, hoping a little tough love sets them on the right track. The second is to hug them close and tell them it’s all right, a...

Know Why You Buy

Why do you go to a bar?

This isn’t a rhetorical question. The answer most people would give — to drink — is only correct some of the time.

Drinking at a bar is an excuse to have a shared experience. It’s an activity that a person can do in public among other people. People go to bars to be in public. To be social. To be with people.

There are exceptions, certainly, but think about it this way: if you want to drink, there are far superior ways to do so. It’s cheaper to drink at home. Home is also...

Worthless Philosophies

There are as many valid philosophies in the world as there are people to have them.

But for a philosophy to be truly useful — to be more than just another element on your Facebook profile or team logo to wear on your sweater — it has to be practiced.

You have to live your philosophy, or it’s not your philosophy. You can’t just admire it from a safe distance, unwilling to put in the effort required to change your actions to fit your theories, or unable to muster the courage to face the potential...

Skill and Capability

Some of the most driven people in the world spend their lives honing the skills they possess. Sharpening and sharpening until those skills become truly useful tools that can change the world around them for the better.

Even more useful than skills, however, is general capability. Being capable means that one is able to make things work. It means that if something needs to be done, it gets done, regardless of whether the person responsible for it has the necessary skill to do so at first. That...

Talking Animals

It’s recently come to light that both whales and elephants may be trying to talk to us.

The evidence at this point is incredibly anecdotal, and the publicity could very well be the effort of some interest group or another, but the concept alone raises an interesting point.

What if we learned — today — that some species of non-human animals were capable of sentient thought? That they were trying to talk to us?

It’s a difficult question, and one that may not be answered the way most people think....

Empty Brands

You can tell an empty brand from a full one by looking at the intersection of who or what they say they are, and what they actually do.

A restaurant can make use of the colors, marketing, hiring practices, and prices of a healthy, all natural, ground-to-plate endeavor, but in practice their food can be unhealthy, their suppliers inhumane, and their sanitation suspect.

A politician can be declared a man of the people, a champion of local businesses, and a righter of wrongs, despite having always...