However, I do think it is important to get the story right. As Bilton observes, creation myths matter. They don’t simply tell how things happened, they tell us who we are. Jack Dorsey clearly needs to believe that he’s not just clever (and lucky), but that he’s a rare breed of genius. It’s also probably important to Twitter’s employees and investors to believe this too.
TXTmob and Twitter: A Reply to Nick Bilton | Public Practice Studio
I often advise startups to create a creation myth and not that like all myths it’s a story based on a kernel of truth but it’s a storified version of reality that is simpler, more entertaining and makes a point. Reality doesn’t occur in such a straightforward manner.
All creation myths are similar. Just understand that the people in those myths are playing roles and that’s really them.
(via sawickipedia)
Not sure how I feel about Todd’s idea about creation myths but the lesson here is important.
So much of Web 2.0 was born out of technology built during the protests against the Iraq War and the 2004 RNC. That work was open source, open process, or open documentation so that new projects could be built on top of those that came before it.
One day, someone needs to tell all of those stories.
(via kenyatta)
Honestly, this whole thing just bums me out. Everyone pretends to be geniuses, no one actually tells people what happened, offers any real advice.
For example, I think the Twitter story is super interesting – Odeo and the death of their podcasting product because of Apple, and Ev’s methodical casting about for a new idea – company-wide hackathons and soliciting ideas from the employees and being bold and choosing one and fucking going for it and empowering the employees and making one of them the CEO and, eventually, messily, luckily, but amazingly salvaging that company and creating something huge.
From the outside, regardless of who “thought” of it, that whole process seems like an amazing story in management that i’d love to hear much, much more about than who thought of a thing. Seriously. How has there not been ONE interview with Ev that talks about his decisions in that time? They seem amazing to me, but don’t correspond to some stupid, boring myth about a dude saying a sentence on a playground.
(via rickwebb)
The start up world needs a Marc Maron like figure to get people talking and open up about the messy bits that can be uncomfortable to talk about. I think it would help resolve the cultural obsession with being seen as some kind of genius, and that being the only real way to success.
