Hello from snowy Amsterdam!
I got out for some sled & mtb skate action. Of course, I was riding. ; )
And, also of course, I hit the deck with one slam in particular but it wasn't so bad. And on that note, let's dive in:
There’s nothing wrong with hoping for the best. But the best-case scenario is rarely the one that comes to pass. Being realistic about what is likely to happen positions you for a range of possible outcomes and gives you peace of mind. – Shane at fs.blog
We're into our 2nd month of 2021 & it's barely discernable from 2020. Or is that sentiment player out? Either way, when you look back over history, we rarely find the best-case outcomes, and expecting the needle to move at midnight back on Dec 31st was hopeful at best & naive at worst. ("Tell you something I don't know".. I hear you thinking, I know, I know...)
Here are Shane's key points:
- Our expectations matter. "Anticipating a range of outcomes can make us feel better. If we expect the best and it happens, we’re merely satisfied. If we expect less and something better happens, we’re delighted."
- Embrace the worst-case. "Sometimes, too, when the worst-case scenario happens, it’s actually a huge relief. We realize it’s not all bad, we didn’t die, and we can manage if it happens again."
- Failure to prepare is preparing to fail. "Preparation and knowing you can handle a wide spectrum of possible challenges is how you get the peace of mind to be unsurprised by anything in between the worst and the best."
I take this to heart on the bike every time I ride and especially on the mega bikepacking endeavors I embark upon but I think adopting it in my daily work-life and even my personal life is where the magic happens. What do you think?
as always, thank you for reading (and the replies each week!),
Jon
p.s. share the stoke & please pass the newsletter on to your friends & colleagues via a tweet, a post on LinkedIn, or a share on FB.
p.p.s. subject line emojis were some deemed as the worst emoji by Mashable.
Cycling
Watch Onboard the Transcontinental Race
Bas from Wheelrunner and I hoped to screen this in Amsterdam last year.
Then Corona happened. Now you can view online! Enjoy! : )
p.s. TransCon, in my opinion, may be the perfect kind of race for the Fara F/AR.
The Spoke Easy Workshop
There is a new bikeshop in our office!
Heidi is specializing in in custom adventure, gravel, and randonneur gear, repairs, and consulting.
The people wanted Lego bike lanes, and Lego is finally listening
A regional councilor from the Netherlands has embarked on a multi-year quest to get Lego to make a little space for bikes in its city sets. After many rejections, his idea is finally starting to gain a little momentum.
And, in other news LEGO has launched a ‘white noise’ playlist consisting of the soothing sounds of LEGO blocks colliding or clicking together
Work
Customer-Centricity for Business
Twotone trivia time! When I got the company off the ground in late 2014 thru 2016 or so, a lot of our work was lead generation & sales consulting for startups. i also was a part of Growth Tribe at its inception. Click the youtube above for a flashback of that!
Well, the team at Growth Tribe recently reached out about doing some of that again and getting in touch with people about their Customer-Centricity for Business course. (more info in their brochure) If this sounds interesting to you, let me know!
How Atlanta’s Calendly turned a scheduling nightmare into a $3B startup
I first met Tope Awotona way back when I did sales for Highgroove Studios in Atlanta (their merger with Big Nerd Ranch is what brought me to Amsterdam) and back when Tope was keen to build Calendly, he contacted Highgroove. We had a policy to no build apps that competed with existing services or something like that. Essentially, we turned down building his MVP and look at Calendly now!
Mega props to the Calendly team and several former Highgroove colleagues have worked there over the years too. Wild how it all works out. Happy for you, Tope!
Chasing the cool kids
Seth Godin always nails it:
Statistically, whatever you build online isn’t going to get a lot of traffic. There are no magic shortcuts in open systems, because the short head depends on scarcity.
By the time you show up to chase the cool kids, it’s probably too late to guarantee a sinecure.
What’s the alternative?
Publish. Consistently. With patience. Own your assets. Don’t let a middleman be your landlord.
of course, he's referencing all the buzz around Clubhouse. Personally, I liked Steve O'Hear Clubhouse Arrest take on it. (and yes, I joined too – Thanks Joachim! ...lemme know if someone would like an invite!) p.s. more about how Clubhosue is doing in Europe.
Friends
Adeline O'Moreau's Microcargo Project!
• In England, 60% of 1-2 miles (1 to 3km) journeys are made by car (1). 16% of London is covered in parking spaces. Two million people – including more than 400,000 children – are living in areas that exceed legal limits for air pollution. (2)
• Moving away from private car use in cities, will of course slash emissions.
• But it would also free up space for housing, public green spaces, and shared mobility and active travel infrastructure. After all, cities should be for humans not for transit.
With microcargo, Adeline wanted to provide an alternative to toy cars, embedding active travel and sustainable transport into play, and share her love of making things! Awesome stuff!
We Need A New Work Culture
Ok, this coulda been in the 'work' column but both the Calendly & Growth Tribe links coulda been in the 'friends' column. Here's the think: we can’t wait for more enlightened management to show up or grow up & often, your colleagues are your friends. So let's lookout for each other!
"Just as we no longer allow companies to exploit child labor, or to do whatever they like with the land that they own — which led to pollution, overuse of resources leading to ecological decline, and the subsequent degrading of adjacent land, as well — just so we should not allow companies to be managed however the owners want, or whatever they can get away with."
De Waanzinnige Fietser Soft Opening tommorrow!
And another new shop a stone's throw from Twotone HQ! De Waanzinnige Fietser is a brand new sports bike shop one minute ride from Central Station opened by my bud Fish!
Radness
Smarter Playlists: automate your music discovery, playlist strategy, and library organisation
"Smarter Playlists is still the best way to ‘automagically’ create and update playlists on Spotify. The tool, made by Paul Lamere of music data firm The Echo Nest (now Spotify), provides you with countless ways to source music, combine it, filter it, sort it and turn it into playlists."
This is way too cool not to share but too complicated to share an example of how I've used it yet! I'm always looking for new music!
p.s. also from Steve O'Hear, Spotify Group Session UX teardown: The fails and their fixes