I’m a hard worker. I concentrate on my work very hard. So, you know, it’s easy. And I don’t do anything but write my fiction when I write.
INTERVIEWER
How is your typical workday structured?
MURAKAMI
When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at four a.m. and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for ten kilometers or swim for fifteen hundred meters (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at nine p.m. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind. But to hold to such repetition for so long—six months to a year—requires a good amount of mental and physical strength. In that sense, writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity.
"Judge me for my own merits, or lack of them, but do not look upon me as a mere appendage to this great general or that great scholar, this star that shines at the court of France or that famed author. I am in my own right a whole person, responsible to myself alone for all that I am, all that I say, all that I do. it may be that there are metaphysicians and philosophers whose learning is greater than mine, although I have not met them. Yet, they are but frail humans, too, and have their faults; so, when I add the sum total of my graces, I confess I am inferior to no one."
The only organization capable of unprejudiced growth, or unguided learning, is a network. All other topologies limit what can happen.
A network swarm is all edges and therefore open ended any way you come at it. Indeed, the network is the least structured organization that can be said to have any structure at all. It is capable of infinite rearrangements, and of growing in any direction without altering the basic shape of the thing, which is really no outward shape at all. Craig Reynolds, the synthetic flocking inventor, points out the remarkable ability of networks to absorb the new without disruption: "There is no evidence that the complexity of natural flocks is bounded in any way. Flocks do not become 'full' or 'overloaded' as new birds join. When herring migrate toward their spawning grounds, they run in schools extending as long as 17 miles and containing millions of fish." How big a telephone network could we make? How many nodes can one even theoretically add to a network and still have it work? The question has hardly even been asked.
There are a variety of swarm topologies, but the only organization that holds a genuine plurality of shapes is the grand mesh. In fact, a plurality of truly divergent components can only remain coherent in a network. No other arrangement -- chain, pyramid, tree, circle, hub -- can contain true diversity working as a whole. This is why the network is nearly synonymous with democracy or the market.
A dynamic network is one of the few structures that incorporates the dimension of time. It honors internal change. We should expect to see networks wherever we see constant irregular change, and we do.
A distributed, decentralized network is more a process than a thing. In the logic of the Net there is a shift from nouns to verbs. Economists now reckon that commercial products are best treated as though they were services. It's not what you sell a customer, its what you do for them. It's not what something is, it's what it is connected to, what it does. Flows become more important than resources. Behavior counts.
Network logic is counterintuitive. Say you need to lay a telephone cable that will connect a bunch of cities; let's make that three for illustration: Kansas City, San Diego, and Seattle. The total length of the lines connecting those three cities is 3,000 miles. Common sense says that if you add a fourth city to your telephone network, the total length of your cable will have to increase. But that's not how network logic works. By adding a fourth city as a hub (let's make that Salt Lake City) and running the lines from each of the three cities through Salt Lake City, we can decrease the total mileage of cable to 2,850 or 5 percent less than the original 3,000 miles. Therefore the total unraveled length of a network can be shortened by adding nodes to it! Yet there is a limit to this effect. Frank Hwang and Ding Zhu Du, working at Bell Laboratories in 1990, proved that the best savings a system might enjoy from introducing new points into a network would peak at about 13 percent. More is different.
On the other hand, in 1968 Dietrich Braess, a German operations researcher, discovered that adding routes to an already congested network will only slow it down. Now called Braess's Paradox, scientists have found many examples of how adding capacity to a crowded network reduces its overall production. In the late 1960s the city planners of Stuttgart tried to ease downtown traffic by adding a street. When they did, traffic got worse; then they blocked it off and traffic improved. In 1992, New York City closed congested 42nd Street on Earth Day, fearing the worst, but traffic actually improved that day.
Then again, in 1990, three scientists working on networks of brain neurons reported that increasing the gain -- the responsivity -- of individual neurons did not increase their individual signal detection performance, but it did increase the performance of the whole network to detect signals.
Nets have their own logic, one that is out-of-kilter to our expectations. And this logic will quickly mold the culture of humans living in a networked world. What we get from heavy-duty communication networks, and the networks of parallel computing, and the networks of distributed appliances and distributed being is Network Culture.
Alan Kay, a visionary who had much to do with inventing personal computers, says that the personally owned book was one of the chief shapers of the Renaissance notion of the individual, and that pervasively networked computers will be the main shaper of humans in the future. It's not just individual books we are leaving behind, either. Global opinion polling in real-time 24 hours a day, seven days a week, ubiquitous telephones, asynchronous e-mail, 500 TV channels, video on demand: all these add up to the matrix for a glorious network culture, a remarkable hivelike being.
Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.
An you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.
And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about." — Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)
1. the core offering is something that can be shared, within a community, market, or value chain. 2. Advanced web and mobile data networks are used to track goods and aggregate usage, customer, and product information. 3. The focus is on shareable physical goods, including materials used, which makes local delivery of services and products, and their money, valuable and relevant. 4. Offers, news, and recommendations are transmitted largely through word of mouth, and augmented by social services networks.
A mesh describes a type of network that allows any node to link in any direction with any other nodes in the system. Every part is connected to every other part, and they move in tandem.
Mesh businesses profit by streamlining access to physical goods and services. They are easy to start. They leverage available information infrastructure, they employ horizontal business to business services ( Fed Ex, Paypal). Mesh businesses all rely on the basic premise that when information about goods is shared, the value of the goods increases, for the business, for the individual, and for the community.
Mesh businesses are well positioned to constantly improve their customers experience by refining the overall experience and give long term savings - think items seldom used, high priced, high insurance ( cars, RV's, tools)
learn - test - play - engage - repeat
produce beta editions and modify in response
The challenge is to leverage an infrastructure for real time personalization
Mesh businesses are taking what we have learned collectively about what works in the web businesses and they are applying it to the sharing of physical products.
Mesh requires durable, flexible, reparable, and sustainable.
The era of disposal products is gone. Things need to be built to last, the goal is to create products and then spread the cost of the life of them over several transactions and over many people.
The mesh encourages open and agreed upon design standards.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms."
"We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts."
"Gulls wheel through spokes of sunlight over gracious roofs and dowdy thatch, snatching entrails at the marketplace and escaping over cloistered gardens, spike-topped walls, and triple-bolted doors. Gulls alight on whitewashed gables, creaking pagodas, and dung-ripe stables; circle over towers and cavernous bells and over hidden squares where urns of urine sit by covered wells, watched by mule drivers, mules, and wolf-snouted dogs, ignored by hunchbacked makers of clogs; gather speed up the stoned-in Nakashima River and fly beneath the arches of its bridges, glimpsed from kitchen doors, watched by farmers walking high, stony ridges. Gulls fly through clouds of steam from laundries' vats; over kites unthreading corpses of cats; over scholars glimpsing truth in fragile patterns; over bathhouse adulterers; heartbroken slatterns; fishwives dismembering lobsters and crabs; their husbands gutting mackerel on slabs; woodcutters' sons sharpening axes; candlemakers rolling waxes; flint-eyed officials milking taxes; etiolated lacquerers; mottled-skinned dyers; imprecise soothsayers; unblinking liars; weavers of mats; cutters of rushes; ink-lipped calligraphers dipping brushes; booksellers ruined by unsold books; ladies-in-waiting; tasters; dressers; filching page boys; runny-nosed cooks; sunless attic nooks where seamstresses prick calloused fingers; limping malingerers; swineherds; swindlers; lip-chewed debtors rich in excuses; heard-it-all creditors tightening nooses; prisoners haunted by happier lives and aging rakes by other men's wives; skeletal tutors goaded to fits; firemen-turned-looters when occasion permits; tongue-tied witnesses; purchased judges; mothers-in-law nurturing briars and grudges; apothecaries grinding powders with mortars; palanquins carrying not-yet-wed daughters; silent nuns; nine-year-old whores; the once-were-beautiful gnawed by sores; statues of Jizo anointed with posies; syphilitics sneezing through rotted-off noses; potters; barbers; hawkers of oil; tanners; cutlers; carters of night soil; gatekeepers; beekeepers; blacksmiths and drapers; torturers; wet-nurses; perjurers; cutpurses; the newborn; the growing; the strong-willed and pliant; the ailing; the dying; the weak and defiant; over the roof of a painter withdrawn first from the world, then his family, and down into a masterpiece that has, in the end, withdrawn from its creator; and around again, where their flight began, over the balcony of the Room of the Last Chrysanthemum, where a puddle from last night's rain is evaporating; a puddle in which Magistrate Shiroyama observes the blurred reflections of gulls wheeling through spokes of sunlight. This world, he thinks, contains just one masterpiece, and that is itself." — David Mitchell (The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet)
Income autopilot Notes -Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss
Some people ask why this blog, and also why this format and the short answer is actually pretty simple, this is where I put notes on processes and interesting people that I find so that I can refer to them where ever I may be via the internet. I decided to leave as a open blog so that may be someone else might be interested, and my notes, which are sometimes cryptic, may help someone out.
I find Tim Ferriss interesting in that his book, although a mix of several ideas from other books, does show his way of thinking, and he has a knack of looking at things in a slightly new way.
His website is good and worth reading. http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/
Notes;
Finding a product ( ignore service businesses for now, products will require less upkeep and get you to your monetary goal much quicker.)
the man who grasps principles can successfully select his methods. the man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble. - Emerson
The plan is to do smart testing, smart positioning, and equally smart distribution.
MRI before selling their product created a book on the subject and sold through an ad in a men's health magazine to see demand, and once understood through the book orders, the priced high and sold through only one channel to insure there was no competition from other distributors to drive the prices down.
1. The more competing resellers, the faster you lose pricing. 2. If you offer a manufacturer or distributor exclusive rights, you can negotiate better margins. 3. The more middlemen, the higher the margins must be to maintain profitability for all the links in the supply chain.
Don't create a product and then find out if there is a market or a demand - Find a market - define your customers - and then find or develop a product for them.
Look for niche markets, small but not too small that will have lower media costs and less competition.
Pick two markets that you know and review the magazines for that group, and insure there are more than 15,000 readers.
The main benefit should be explainable in one sentence or phrase.
The product should cost the customer $50 to $200 - look for a 8 to 10 x markup.
The product should take no more than 3 to 4 weeks to manufacture, and ideal time line is one to two weeks
Look at costs, talk to contract manufacturers to see costing to see if markup is feasible and then work up production cost per unit for 100, 1000, and 5000 units.
You could resell a product, it is the easiest and fastest way to start but also by far the least profitable unless you have exclusive rights.
You can license a product but it is difficult and intensive to work up deals.
The ideal route is to create a product, which is not complicated. If you can find a generic stock product from a contract manufacturer that can be repurposed for a new market, that is a easy route.
Keep setup costs, per unit costs, and order minimums in mind.
Best kind of product to create is a Information Product, which is a low cost, fast to manufacture, and hard for others to duplicate.
Create content yourself by paraphrasing several books on a subject Repurpose content that is in the public domain and is not subject to copyright law License content or compensate an expert
Aim for a combination of formats that will lend itself to $50 to $200 pricing, such as two CD's, a 40 page transcript, and a quick start guide.
To find out whether people will buy your product, don't ask them if the would, ask them to buy.
Do micro testing by using small and inexpensive ads to see response before manufacture. ( Google adwords)
Look at competition and try and improve on their web site and marketing
Test offer with Google adwords campaigns
Run with the winners and cut losses
Create a 1 page ( 300 to 600 words) website with testimonials and pictures
Look for specific terms that have higher conversion rates and lower cost per click
Use Google analytical to check responses.
You can use ads to check guarantees, product names, and domain names
Start with automation as your goal and start with an end in mind, and make sure the architecture is scalable
Do most the of the work yourself initially to document so that you can create a FAQ
The more options you offer customers, the more indecision you cause, and the fewer orders you get.
Offer one or two purchase options
Do not offer multiple shipping options, choose one
No expedited shipping
Eliminate phone orders and have them all do online ordering
Every once and a while we are lucky enough to come across a book that changes the way we live and the way we think. It seems to me that we are often searching for something, and synchronicity then steps in and throws that something to us, sometimes by us browsing in a book store, sometimes it is when someone lends us a book, or we are just plain lucky enough that the book or knowledge finds us.
The Black Swan - Nissim Nicholas Taleb
I had to read this in short bursts, as I would stop, make some notes, reread to make sure I understand, and then realize what I thought before I read this book was wrong. He writes of random events, those that change everything, and how we cannot predict them and how anyone who thinks they are predicting them is wrong. Basically we are predicting in a box with imperfect data. When I was getting my MBA, it used to bother when we would use forecasting models like Black-Scholes, and everyone acted as if it was fact, but it was so diluted and so many things were excluded that it was obvious to me that it was a model that functioned only in a vacuum. We don't live in a vacuum. This book made me realize I wasn't wrong. I will post some notes on this work later, but the short of it is, read it and think.
Out of Control - Kevin Kelly
This book is brilliant and hits artificial intelligence and life, networks, insects, swarms, you name it. and it has left me so that I see the world today as a series of networks making collections of networks all run by a few lines of rules or code. I see companies and its groups as connected network hubs, and when you realize that artificial life can be summed up in a few simple rules, you realize everything can be reduced to a simple form. You make the rules, and let the network run. The game is to find the rules.
The Four Hour Workweek - Tim Ferriss
This book did it and I didn't expect it at all. Sold as a productivity book, it really just takes some old business books, like Dan Kennedy's and Gerber's, and then takes Pareto's and Parkinson's law and updates them. It is good but not that unique. What threw me was the way he deconstructs everything, which is brilliant. He takes complicated scenarios or events and using Pareto's law and some grounded intelligence, and some basic good logic ( does anyone take logic anymore? Most useful class I ever took) and then finds a way to make it happen. He made me disbelieve the 10,000 hour rule. He also said something that made me change my career. We are all raised to think there is something out there we are supposed to be. "What are you going to be when you grow up?" is stated over and over, and most us don't ever really know, and as we get older we think we somehow missed it. He states what we do for money isn't the goal for our life, and we should minimize the intrusion, and then we live the rest of our life.
Walden - Henry David Thoreau
Read this twice as a High School student and at least twice as a college student, and then read it during the summer as a lark and now that I am older and I realize that I had just read the book before, but now I understand it and what he means. Thoreau understood simple basic true rules of life;
Own things, don't let them own you, most men let the world own them
Take care of the world, its our home
The world is just as fascinating in the mile from your house as it is one thousand miles away.
And there are more, many more.
It takes a few pages to get used to the way he writes but once you are in sync he is brilliant.
Enter the Steam - edited by Samuel Bercholz and Sherab Chodzin Kohn
A book of essays on Buddhism I picked up while in Las Vegas during one of those years when little goes right, and most things made no sense. It opened a new world for me.Not the best book I ever read on the subject, but the one that got me started.
To be clear right off, it is not a religion to me, and I don't believe Buddha was one of a thousand Buddhas or that light came out, that he levitated, or that nirvana is an actual place. He was just a man but that is what makes him special. he is just a very smart man who found a better way to live, and if he can do it, so can we.
I believe he was a brilliant man, who ignored the cultural binds of his time. Who understood that we are not stable consistent beings, and that we are all interconnected, and that we all strive to keep an ever changing world in stasis. And that makes us struggle and unhappy.
I will write more on the subject, but simply said, there is more to the world than the hours upon hours I have spent studying Western Philosophy and literature. The story about fish swimming about not knowing they are in water, they think that water is all there is, and that is exactly us, we forget how much our culture limits our world.
All five authors did the same thing, they showed the world was more than I thought, and they each showed the limit of my education and of the way my culture dictated my view of the world.
After each, it became a new paradigm, a new world.
“We all are learning, modifying, or destroying ideas all the time. Rapid destruction of your ideas when the time is right is one of the most valuable qualities you can acquire. You must force yourself to consider arguments on the other side.
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