Jeff Bussgang as put together the best slide I have seen that defines my universe:

(Taken from Jeff Bussgang’s talk on Product-Market Fit)

Out of all of those… I will say that I am weakest on the process/detail-oriented part. I think it is a Poet v Librarian issue…

100k ride complete! Here I am in the cold weather get-up.

I have always liked biking. This fall I stepped it up a notch and started doing quite a bit more riding to work during the week with some longer rides on the weekend. Since I started my riding late in the season, I wanted to accomplish something big before the snow set in. I originally thought that I would try and conquer 100 miles… but then I learned about the concept of a “metric century” which is 100k (62 miles). That seemed doable.

On November 6th, I headed out in 28 degree F weather and accomplished my goal. I used the Garmin site to map out a route that took me just over the New Hampshire border and back. It is cool to say that you road to another state and back! The ride was not that difficult. It took four and a half hours, and I sure was sore afterwards, but it was a ton of fun. The roads were quiet… the weather was sunny and crisp. The whole experience was somewhat meditative. 

I never started road biking to do crazy amounts of miles. I started so that I had an excuse to get more active and to enjoy exploring the roads and hills around my house. I am still planning to do a 100 mile ride, but that will have to wait until next year. The weather is getting cold around here! 

Last week I participated in a Ruckus Run! It was a three mile obstacle course held at the Marshfield Fair Grounds outside of Boston. The photo above is me along with David Larrabee who I ran with. 

It was a lot easier than I thought it would be and I was happy to find out I am in pretty good shape after all the biking and running I have been doing lately. My favorite obstacles were right at the beginning where there were huge pits of mud and water that you have to thrash through. Some people were taking it easy, but David and I just rallied it hard, coming away muddy and soaked head to toe. 

My kids also got in on the action doing the Ruckus Mini! Anyone 2 and over could participate so even my son Jack did a little bit of mud running! 

Being active is fun! I am signing everyone up for the next event this summer.

What is Future Perfect about?

Steven Johnson’s Future Perfect makes the case that a new model of political change is on the rise, transforming everything from local governments to classrooms, from protest movements to health care. Johnson paints a compelling portrait of this new political worldview — influenced by the success and interconnectedness of the Internet, but not dependent on high-tech solutions — that breaks with the conventional categories of liberal or conservative thinking.

This new political movement Steven is calling “Peer Progressive”. I understand where he is headed with it. I’m not sure I quite understand why we need to call it a new political party of sorts. 

This book is a decent collection of stories and ideas about how our world is changing (or has changed?). No longer are the only organizational structures top-down or bottom-up, but now we can also communicate side-to-side in a peer-to-peer fashion that opens up all kinds of new models of sharing and innovation. The standard examples are here like Wikipedia, but also newer (and I think more exciting) examples like Kickstarter. 

Truth be told, I had to force myself to finish this book. I would have liked it to focus less on the examples of peer networks and more on how the tenets of peer progressivism fuse into a new political ideology that can shape policy in a meaningful way. 

This has been on my reading list for quite some time. I tend to move back and forth between fiction and non-fiction. After finishing Cloud Atlas (which I also need to post about!) I was due for some non-fiction… so here we are. 

In short this book can be summed up in two words: Work Hard

Gladwell works to convince the reader that when it comes to nature vs. nurture, forget your genes… they don’t matter… what instead matters is the opportunities we are given, when we are given them, and how hard we work to take full advantage. His belief is that we are not engineered for success, but are the product of success built on the shoulders of our ancestors, our luck, our circumstance, and our work ethic. 

Like any Gladwell book I found it to be anecdotal yet compelling and thought provoking. The book caused me to examine my own parenting and the opportunities I am making available to my children. It caused me to examine my own work ethic and the opportunities I have been given. And it caused me to reflect deeply on my own success and the circumstances that brought me to it. Maybe it will do that for you too.