Life In Perpetual Beta

Sorry for the background fuzz, I used an external microphone instead of the built in focus mic or lav mic and it seems to have picked up NYC traffic from several stories above. note: I filmed this myself with a Panasonic HD camcorder.

 "There are people who are so professional that they can work on something they don’t care about, and I always feel somewhat unprofessional because I can’t do that."

 I’d never think to call someone professional who does a job they don’t care about, I’d call them delusional or something far worse, and I guess that’s why I’m a little taken by Jeffrey Zeldman’s way of speaking, I wish I could be that non judgmental about people who sell themselves short by doing something that they are dispassionate about. Indeed, I feel I am moving in that direction, towards loving these professional souls at top speed, although occasionally, I do reach my open palm out and whack one or two of them upside the head as I run past, at least now I’m holding my tongue.

[Added 7/10: I'm talking about a mindset here, not an absolute, I understand that people sometimes have to work at things they dislike to pay the bills]

It strikes me that now that we do live in an age where information is more accessible than ever, it should be easier to find things to make a living at that one does care about. Am I naive in this assumption, or as Zeldman says, a little elitist? Could he be right, that although we have all of these tools at our fingertips, most people are still apt to sit back and watch, going back to their boring unfulfilling professional jobs? I’m thinking very hard about this, because I thought I sensed that there was a shift taking place in the way people where thinking, that people were finding it easier to connect to what they are passionate about and pursue it, but could I be wrong? Could I be examining the same tiny percentage of people that would follow their hearts regardless of the tools as Avner Ronen of Boxee says, or is there really a shift occurring thanks to the worlds that have opened as a result of technology?

Also of note is that both Jeffrey Zeldman and Chris Saad alluded to world peace being brought about by the connections that technology enables, I wonder if people thought that about the telephone, the automobile, the plow, the printing press… I wonder if we will ever get there.

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This post is tagged "avner ronen", "chris saad", "happy cog", collaboration, entrepreneur, jeffrey zeldman, life in perpetual beta, melissa pierce, risk taking, web design, world peace