We're all to blame

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We've entered the second month of the oil gusher under the Gulf of Mexico spewing somewhere between 25,000 and 100,ooo barrels of oil per day into the water. And while there's plenty of blame to lay at the feet of BP, I fear we are losing site of the bigger picture of this disaster and what it really means.

Again, while there is plenty to blame on BP, we need to really understand what's going on here. In the same way that a drug addict will do anything to get their next fix, the United States of America is truly addicted to Oil.

Directing your anger at BP for this mess is akin to a cocaine addict getting mad at a straw for blowing out the bridge in their nose.

The hard truth is that we're all to blame. I'm to blame, you're to blame, and just like the drug war has done nothing to stop demand for drugs, punishing BP (while they should be punished) will do nothing to stop future disasters from occurring.

Is BP really more to blame for this mess than government subsidies that have been given to the oil industry, interfering with the free market and artificially driving down the cost of oil?

Is BP more to blame than the people in Nantucket who don't want wind energy farms being built off their cost?


Is BP more to blame than a nation of people that purchased SUV's that get 12 miles per gallon?

Is BP more to blame than the executive who could institute a work from home policy two days per week for any employee that works in a cubicle, saving huge amounts of energy, but doesn't because they refuse to embrace new technology?

No, they're not.

It feels good to blame BP because it means we don't need to blame ourselves. It means we're not at fault. And it means we don't have to change.

Here are the facts. The United States of America consumes about 20 million barrels of oil per day. The world consumes about 85 million barrels per day, which means about a quarter of that consumption comes from the United States. And it's estimated that the reservoir under the Gulf holds somewhere around 50 million barrels of oil.

This represents about 3 days worth of oil for the USA.

Think about that. We're willing to put an entire ecosystem at risk, drilling a hole 3.5 miles into the core of the earth, and a mile deep in the ocean, for what? For a three day hit on our addiction.

We should punish BP, but that's not going to fix anything. So every time you want to blame someone for this mess, say it's the fault of "BP and me". Because that's exactly who's fault it is.

This disaster must be our nation's rock bottom. We need to enter rehab, and we need to enter it now.



A little consolidation, some new services, and a redesign

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I just launched yesterday a completely new site for Ideal Project Group. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. The old site looked good visually to me - and a lot of people told me that they liked it - but it wasn't working any more.

First off, inquiries were nowhere near what they should have been considering the amount of traffic I get on the site. So from that standpoint, the website was literally not working correctly. The other problem is that the site no longer did a good job of representing what I do and what my company does, so a major update was needed. Lastly, some of the things I've been working on have caused my company's presence on the internet to be completely fragmented. This is okay - because I've been doing a lot of stuff - but it was time to do some clean up and consolidation.

For the new site, I had a few key objectives in mind.

1) I wanted one website to present all the services my company offers. This now includes project management services, website building, product development, and general tech type services. (More on the last two in a bit)

2) I wanted the site to include - not just link to - the products that I've created. This includes the Android application GoFind, and the free web application I released earlier called ThirtyDayProject.org.

3) I wanted to tie this blog into my company site much more tightly and also link to my podcast, twitter feed, and a few other things in a way that made sense.

The Consolidation

Previously I had the main Ideal Project Group site (old), which was all about the project management piece, a Version one for Everyone site that talked about building websites and providing tech services, and then there is still this blog. So, I combined the V1 site and the main IPG site, and also pull in this blog's 10 most recent posts via Feedburner. I may end up integrating this blog even more tightly at some point, but I still need to make a few other decisions with Duarlander and personal blogging before doing so. For now though, I was able to style the feed and it looks really nice inside the new site.

Showing off my products

The GoFind page still exists for now - though this is likely the next thing to be changed - and ThirtyDayProject.org is a stand alone web app. So, I created a product page where I give a quick blurb about what each of them are, and link to their respective sites where people can get more detail if they want. This is much better than simply providing a link.

Some new services

In the past, small businesses would call from time to time asking me if I could create a certain piece of software. I would explain that I focused exclusively on Project Management and could lead a team of theirs but that I didn't have developers of my own.

I'm no longer going to turn down this kind of business, and am in fact going to be eagerly seeking it out.

I pulled together a team to create an Android app that was built and launched in six weeks. I built and launched my first Rails app with help from a bunch of people in under two months. I have great relationships with a number of developers and there is simply no reason that I should shy away from providing custom development for small businesses.

I've always lead software projects, and that's what I'll still be doing. The only difference is that sometimes I'll be working with a client's developers, and sometimes I'll be working with developers that I pull together. More flexibility, more freedom, more speed, and more business. All good things.

Very lastly, I'll also be working to help get small businesses set up with all their little tech needs. Maybe a shopping cart solution, maybe just getting a website and email up, or maybe helping a brick and mortar business get online with a podcast. This won't be how I make most of my money (I don't think) but I've worked with a couple brand new businesses lately to get them set up online and it's really fun working with these people.

You know who wants to get stuff done and move quickly? Someone that just started a new business.

So that's the story behind the new site. All my services in one place, a page to highlight things I've made, and tighter integration with things like this blog and the podcast.

Check it out at www.idealprojectgroup.com and let me know what you think. I'd love some feedback.


The high dive

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You may or may not know this about me, but I was a springboard diver for about 10 years - from about the age of 12 until I graduated from the University of Iowa. I've been thinking lately about the sport and some of the lessons it taught me, most likely because my parents recently moved out of their house of 25 years and have steadily been giving me pictures and other things I left in the house.

In particular though, I've been thinking about how when we push ourselves to another level, it almost immediately makes us better at what we're currently doing. Obvious right? Maybe.

In the sport of diving, there are three levels of competition: the one meter springboard, the three meter springboard, and then the ten meter platform. I was almost exclusively a springboard diver, with an occasional exercise happening on the platform. One thing I recall very clearly is how much easier the one meter seemed once I started practicing on the three meter. Maybe easier isn't exactly the right word, but less scary for sure.

Smashing face first into the water or waxing out on your back isn't a joy on the one meter, but once you encounter that on the three meter it's really no big deal. Most importantly though you begin to overcome a lot of your fear, which in turn gives you a lot of confidence. And once you have less fear and more confidence, good things are bound to happen.

The problem I think we run into sometimes is that we mistakenly believe we shouldn't go to the next level - whatever that level may be - until we master what we're currently doing. Thinking things such as "I'm not going to write that novel until I've perfected my short stories", or "I'm not going to talk in front of 100 people until I've mastered speaking in front of ten", or "I'm not going to start my own business until I have another year of experience."

Here's the secret: you don't master any level until you push yourself at the next level.

Any great artist, great athlete, great thinker, or great worker is great at what they do now, because they found a way to push themselves at whatever their next level was.

DJ Phillips may not love every song he's writing in a 30 day period, and Cheryl Sterling may not like every self portrait she took for 30 days, but I guarantee that a year from now when they go to create something, it'll feel easier.

So whatever it is that you're working on, if you want to become better at it, look for the next level. It's okay if you don't master it. Just by practicing in that next space, you'll become much better at what you're already working on.

Go on, jump off the high dive!


Finding comfort in contradiction

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When you run a small business, it's easy to get caught up in other people's opinions. There are countless blogs, videos, books, podcasts and other things that entrepreneurs publish about what's worked for them, what ideas they think are good, and what they think is terrible.

But you don't need to look very far before you can find two people you respect that disagree with one another and have conflicting points of view. Seth Godin writes about the importance of failing often while Jason Fried says learning from failure is over rated.

Some people argue that you should focus on learning a skill while others believe that in an age of Mechanical Turk and off shore development that you should have others build your ideas.

My favorite contradiction is where 37signals contradicts themselves regarding what you should think about your competition. Here's what they wrote in Getting Real in 2006:

Keep Up With the Joneses

Subscribe to news feeds about your competitors.
Subscribe to news feeds about both your product and your competitors (it's always wise to know the ways of one's enemy). Use services like PubSub, Technorati, Feedster, and others to stay up to date (for keywords, use company names and product names). With RSS, this constantly changing info will be delivered right to you so you're always up to speed.

Now here's how they open an essay on competition in their latest book REWORK, which was just published in March:

Who cares what they're doing?

"In the end, it's not worth paying much attention to the competition anyway. Why not? Because worrying about your competition quickly turns into an obsession. What are they doing right now? Where are they going next? How should we react?"

And then later...

Focus on yourself instead. What's going on in here is way more important than what's going on out there. When you spend time worrying about someone else, you can't spend that time improving yourself.

They both sound like good pieces of advice to me.

Both of these books are fantastic by the way, and even if you don't work in technology you should get REWORK, because it will inspire you.

It doesn't bother me in the least bit that there's contradictory advice here, and that's the point. It's comforting. Because the truth is that pretty much anyone writing anything is doing so based on their unique perspective at that moment in time.

Things change us, and they change our perspectives, and we learn and we grow. Sometimes we change our mind. And sometimes both things can be true.

Read what other people have to say, let them inspire you, take the good advice. But remember, it might be wrong and it might change.

Or, it's coming from an expert and you should really pay attention to what they're saying.