Day #926:What Will You Ship in 2016?

One crucial tradition of new years is to have a list of resolutions. Things you promise yourself you would do during the year. The tragedy of course, is that every year, most of those things never get done. They never leave the note pad on which you wrote them on.

So having a list of resolutions (everyone has one these days) is not what really matters. What matters is what you are committed to acting on. What you are committed to ‘shipping’?.

Steve Jobs famously said ‘real artists ship’. It’s not about the idea, the plan, the insight. It’s about what you are willing to do and what you actually do. Make this your most important commitment for the year.

One key element of a successful artist: ship. Get it out the door. Make things happen.

The other: fail. Fail often. Dream big and don’t make it. Not every time, anyway.

Day #252: It Doesn’t Count If You Don’t Ship!

It’s great to have revolutionary ideas, it’s fine that you are really smart and you have great ideas on how things can become better and how change can happen. It really doesn’t matter how much you know about ‘The Tipping Point‘, ‘The Black Swan‘,’Purple Cow‘,’disruptive innovation‘, or some many other new ideas and strategies in business books.

What matters is shipping. Shipping is putting something out there. Creating something, designing that new app, writing that blog post and getting it out there. Putting it out in the hands of other people. Making that connection, opening yourself up for criticism. And that is scary.

Bottom line, no one really cares about all those good ideas you have written in your journal about how to improve education system, how companies can better improve customer service, that great blog that would connect people and help and other great ideas you have. The best way to make people care is to put something out there. And see what happens.