One of my early childhood memories was wanting to be President of the United States. Then, I wanted to be President of NBC. Then a DJ. Then a center for the Atlanta Hawks. Somewhere along the way, I ended up going to college to study to be an engineer and ended up being an Air Force Acquisitions Officer, and then give that all up to become a DJ. Read More
Activity does not always equal productivity. Often, it is just an example of being busy that people confuse with being productive. Read More
Bear with me on this. I’ve been holding back a lot of Clinton/Trump frustration and popping off on this may keep me from popping off about our future American President. At least until one of them becomes the sitting American President.
NFL Quarterback Colin Kaepernick did something I think is stupid, and I do not fully understand why. I hear the words that are coming out of his mouth, but ‘meh.’ He says he will continue to do the same thing I think is stupid until…things change.
The things he would like to see changed may take a while. And Colin Kaepernick is getting hammered for doing that thing I think is stupid.
Like Colin Kaepernick, I felt compelled to point out a few things today. Any response of any type can be sent to jclevelandpayne@gmail.com, as I don’t have a billion dollar organization handling my PR.
Point #1: This is what it is, and it is as it should be. You have the right to an opinion, and a right to protest against actions of this country, assuming your protest brings no more than a workable inconvenience to others around you.
Point #2: People in uniform deal with it every day. They are often not very happy about it, but they deal with it. That is why the ‘You need me on that wall…” line from A Few Good Men is so powerful.
Point #3: I am not happy about it, and despite being lackluster, my military brat upbringing and my military career provided a perspective that can not be easily expressed from the pure study of history and free speech. In the United States, ideas and ideals can be unpopular, but no one is being rounded up and hunted down (in full view of the public) because of a belief. Legal, illegal, rational, or flat out evil.
Point #4: Colin Kaepernick was physically and mentally equipped to make it through college and play professional football. The opinion people in sports once herald him as the future of his sport, and now can not throw out the word ‘garbage’ enough. Colin Kaepernick still has a job (barely) in professional football, and still has a platform greater than most of us here on our social media. It doesn’t stop him from doing something moronic and using said platform as a motivation.
Point #5: You have a platform, and thanks to social media, your platform can be broadcast to an international audience…or a handful or people who haven’t gotten around to muting your profile. Some of that is due to Point #2, some of that just the weird world of today’s technology. Feel free to use your platform to promote whatever agenda you wish, short of laying a hand on my family and friends. If I choose to listen or ignore, it should make little difference. I spent a little over five years equipping people on missions to make sure you can keep on keeping on. I mostly drank bad coffee.
Point #6: The United States of America has lived through good and bad history, is living through some good and bad present, and will experience some good and bad future. But despite being coined by a Canadian Professional Wrestler, the fact remains that ‘Merica is far and away the best there is, the best there was, the best there ever will be as far as a country and government. Oh, we got problems, but we got millions of citizens within our borders working on solutions. We’ll get better.
Point #7: It’s spelled ‘KAEPERNICK.’
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J Cleveland Payne is a writer that wishes he was more famous. You can help him reach his desired level of fame by reading his writing on Medium, at the Your Better You Project, or more stuff at jclevelandpayne.net. Like everyone else on the internet, you can find him on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
I am a sort of a troll when it comes to people creating products and trying to become better entrepreneurs, on the internet or otherwise. If the price is right, I’ll often buy a book or course from a person who’s information just happens to flash across my monitor. I recently placed an order for designer chocolates from a friend of my wife’s, because, it was Tuesday?
About half the time I will make the effort to offer up reviews and referrals. Honestly, I buy so much random stuff that I see first-hand accounts of just how poorly produced much of the material released online is. Because it is simple and inexpensive to create a product, many simple minded and cheap people think they have a shot of making a quick buck, and will take a shot.
If this is you, as in taking a shot at a quick buck with shoddy material, well, then more power to you. If you can get away with it, and your conscience is cool with it, then who am I to convince you otherwise. If your moral compass is a little closer to pointing to truth, then I know you are as frustrated as I am that there is so much bad material out there. It’s hard enough to compete with being good enough to rank with the good stuff, but the fight for eyeballs and shelf space with the millions of subpar products out there is discouraging.
Can I offer any solace to your pain? No.
What can I offer? A sympathetic ear. A shoulder to lean. A potential business or accountability partner.
And maybe a person with a little spare time what used it to voice a thought floating around in your head.
Whatever I can offer, I hope I can help. And I’m still buying plenty of books, programs, and products. At my own risk.
When I was getting my start as an Air Force Acquisitions Officer, mission creep was a concept heavily drilled in training sessions. The dictionary definition of mission creep is, “a gradual shift in objectives during the course of a military campaign, often resulting in an unplanned long-term commitment.” As I was dealing with products and their life cycle, my job was to ensure that the products as presented from the finalized prototype did not become and over-budgeted, out of hand, final product.
How hard is it to keep a simple product from becoming a complicated mess? When I was the manager of a software platform, I sat in negotiations between the government engineer that had to sign off on the finished product and the contracted company that would do the work. A typical software release had 35-50 points to negotiate separately, and only on rare occasions, could both sides quickly agree with the workload necessary and skip to a new point. Many points took hours to negotiate.
Why? The government, trying to be a good steward of your money, doesn’t want to waste resources (at least since the late 80’s, and that was still debatable when it comes to large, flashy weapons systems). The contractor wants to get paid and is trying to put as much work for their people as possible without putting themselves on the line to many freebies.
Mission creep, just like all the good military terms and metaphors, has found its way into business speak as well. And it’s the same problem that befuddles many in the tech industry, especially for those building and maintaining apps. Look to Evernote as a prime example. Evernote is an app I love, but the builders and maintainers lost sight of what its core users loved, and began to focus on add-ons and related products that sort-of fit into the mission, and turned a simple application into a complicated mess. Once Evernote started shedding some of the dead weight and not-so-stellar other products, the company saw an instant upswing in use and popularity.
Don’t let mission creep become a problem that slows down your life. It is just as easy for that simple party you begin to plan to become an event worthy of a fairy-tale princess, with a budget that could bankrupt a minor fairy-tale kingdom. Your life is complicated enough without letting too many ‘good sounding ideas’ get in the mix and turn into nightmares.