When’s the last time you completed on an open-ended task with no true deadline?

That means:

No external human reinforcement — punishment or reward — coming from a boss, a client, a teacher, a parent, a family member, a community, or a friend.

No impending do-or-die imposed by the calendar (like a live event, a meeting, or a contractual obligation).

If you’re like most of the folks who create for a living, your answer is probably “Not recently.” or “Gee, I don’t remember.” Or maybe it’s even “Never.”

This is a problem.

This intrinsic goal-tending is one of the core skills you’ve just got to have in order to succeed at creation your own baconbiz.

Without this skill, you’ll never be able to:

• build a product on the side
• engage in ongoing marketing
• grow your feature set / product basket, except in response to customer demands…
• … determine your own future

You’ll always be waiting for something to force you. You’ll always be hunting for somebody to make you. You’ll always be looking for a boss.

So if you haven’t got experience defining, speccing, and finishing open-ended tasks without a true deadline, you better start now.

Pick a side project this week to build your intrinsic goal-tending skills.

Once again a beloved, free social startup has denied it is for sale, only to be immediately swallowed up by a company known for breaking its toys.

Posterous, 20 Days Ago:

We have absolutely no plans to sell, shut down or go anywhere anytime soon. We have a strong business model, private investors, and have plans to launch an optional paid subscription service in the future…

– Source

Posterous, Today:

Big news: Posterous has been acquired by Twitter!

The opportunities in front of Twitter are exciting, and we couldn’t be happier about bringing our team’s expertise to a product that reaches hundreds of millions of users around the globe.

– Source

The Social Startup Finger: Reading Between the Lines

It’s clear that this is a death knell for Posterous lovers, if you just read their post with a critical eye:

… we couldn’t be happier about bringing our team’s expertise to a product that reaches hundreds of millions of users around the globe.

We (“our team”) be working on Twitter, not on Posterous.

Plus, the people at Twitter are genuinely nice folks who share our vision for making sharing simpler.

If we were truly excited about this acquisition, we’d have something nicer to say than “nice.” Isn’t that nice.

We’ll give users ample notice if we make any changes to the service.

We will. We’re just not announcing it yet.

For users who would like to back up their content or move to another service, we’ll share clear instructions for doing so in the coming weeks.

We’ve brought up backing up and migrating to get you used to the idea. Posterous is going in the bye bye box. And Mommy is playing on the roof.

You can find more information answers to other questions you may have here.

Information and answers, you understand, in a metaphorical sense. As long as you don’t actually ask for more information or answers, we’ll promise to give them to you, y’see?

Finally, we’d like to offer thanks to all of our users, especially those who have been with Posterous since day one…

Bye bye!

The last four years have been an amazing journey.

And whaddaya know, it is the destination.

Your encouragement, praise and criticism have made us better. Thanks for that.

Kinda sorry about screwing you, but…

We look forward to building great things for you over at Twitter.

I’ll call you.

I do kinda feel bad for them.

Who sets out to spend years building something, only to discover it’s only useful monetarily as dog food — to be gobbled up, squeezed for nutrients, and shat out by a larger company? Nobody.

It must suck.

That’s why I encourage my students & readers to build a sustainable, profitable business first — then grow, if that’s what they want.

Posterous was losing to Tumblr in just about every way. That was the game they chose to play.

Posterous was loved; they probably could have become a business with a paid product. Their user base would have shrunk further, though, and that doubtless wouldn’t result in an outcome their investors wanted. Investors don’t actually want you to be profitable.

But if you play the social startup game, you’re playing winner-takes-all. And as it turns out, just everybody else — founders and users alike — loses.

Removed Gary Larson Far Side Cartoon:
"Wait! Wait! Just Listen to me! ... We don't HAVE to be just sheep!"

I was so pleased to be invited to The Cartoonival of Wisdom, a multi-blog comic spree all about what you can learn from your favorite comics, cartoons, or characters.

It took me about a decasecond to decide on The Far Side.

Everybody loves The Far Side. Except the people who hate it with a fiery passion. Hooray! And therein, my dears, lies the business lesson. Or, more accurately, lessons:

• Don’t be yourself — be more you than you
• Say what everyone else only thinks
• Twist the every day
• Brevity may not be the soul of wit but sometimes it’s the big toe of hilarity
• Screw conventions (not convents)
• And, most critical of all: Don’t be Family Circus

In fact, let’s start with that last one.

Don’t Be Family Circus

Family Circus is the exact opposite of The Far Side. Family Circus is, in a word, Nourishing Gruel: there’s no flavor or texture to it, ergo it is the world’s most palatable food-like substance. It’s so utterly unobjectionable that it’s devoid of life.

Which is why your ex’s housewife mother used to laugh at it, which drove you nuts, since it’s… well… about as hilarious as a suppurating wound. Oh, that Billy! Suppurating all the time! Hee hee! Pus!

God bless Nietzsche.

Moral of the Story: Family Circus is only funny when subverted. Preferrably by German nihilists.

Screw Conventions (Not Convents)

Comics used to be all about good, clean, family fun. In other words: mindless repetition. The Far Side changed all that.

Conventions may have their place, but wherever there’s a convention, there’s a whole passle of people just waiting for the best way to rebel against it. There’s good money in rebellion, cuz overlooked markets are passionate markets.

Outrageousness (and even outrage) is the very essence of a Purple Cow.

Removed Gary Larson Far Side Cartoon:
Wife gorilla grooming husband gorilla "Well, well - another blonde hair. ... Conducting a little more "research" with that Jane Goodall tramp?"

The Jane Goodall Institute … had their lawyers draft a letter to Larson and his distribution syndicate, in which they described the cartoon as an “atrocity”. They were stymied by Goodall herself, who revealed that she found the cartoon amusing. — Wikipedia

Until Gary Larson came along, who would’ve had the guts?

Moral of the Story: Outrageousness alone can get you noticed. Back it up with other qualities to keep the momentum.

But even Gary Larson knew better than to mess around too much with nuns. They’re deadly.

Brevity May Not Be the Soul of Wit…

But humor with all the dots connected for you is about as appetizing as pre-chewed food. We like to chew our own food, thankyouverymuch — and we like to feel like we’ve brought something to our experiences, whether it’s a comic strip or a bit of software or a book.

We want to feel like we came to the conclusion, like we took the journey. We want the AHA! to happen in our brains.

Removed Gary Larson Far Side Cartoon:
A dinosaur driving a car with the license plate "I 8 NY"

Removed Gary Larson Far Side Cartoon:
Pinocchio's body in the desert being picked over by woodpeckers

The Far Side is almost always just one panel. Some of the most artful (and beloved) panels don’t even have an explanatory caption. You’ve gotta do the work yourself, which means you get to enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done.

Moral of the Story: Don’t pre-chew your product. A little incompleteness is necessary for funnies, for learning, and decision-making. Leave room for your customer in your product. They’ll feel smart.

Twist the Every Day

Everybody likes a little twist, it’s practically neurobiological. As Daniel Gilbert wrote it in his excellent book Stumbling on Happiness:

As long as your brain’s guess about the next word turns out to be right, you cruise along happily, left to right, left to right, turning black squiggles into ideas, scenes, characters, and concepts, blissfully unaware that your nexting brain is predicting the future of the sentence at a fantastic rate. It is only when your brain predicts badly that you suddenly feel avocado.


That is, surprised. See?

Gary Larson is the unrivaled champion of avocado. That’s why The Far Side is impossible to ignore, even if it pisses you off.

Removed Gary Larson Farside Cartoon:
A conversation between two sheep hosting a cocktail party as a new guest arrives "Henry! Our party is complete chaos! No one know when to eat, where too stand, what to... Oh, thank God! Here comes a boarder collie"

Moral of the Story: Holy guacamole, product-makers! We’ll bring the chips, you bring the dip.

Say What Everyone Else Only Thinks

Most of us harbor a great many thoughts we’ll never let pass our lips — funny, nasty, rude, crude, hopeful, painful, pessimistic, and cynical thoughts. We’re too chicken (or too civilized) to say them ourselves, but we love it when others do it for us.

Removed Gary Larson Far Side Cartoon:
Two cows standing at the front door "Listen - just take one of our brochures and see what we're all about… In the meantime, you may wish to ask yourself 'Am I a happy cow?'"

We especially love it when those others give us a sly wink — that they know we’re thinking it too. (Ergo, we must be at least as smart as they are!)

Moral of the Story: People will pay to watch someone else voice their innermost-denied thoughts. Take a stand, write a manifesto, voice the unvoiced, garner the giggles, rake in the dough. Then maybe people will make a Flickr Reenactments pool just for you!

Don’t Be Yourself – Be More You than You

And, the ultimate lesson from The Far Side: don’t be yourself.

All evidence suggests that Gary Larson is, himself, a lovely guy. He loves animals. He donates to charity. He plays jazz guitar.

Does that come through The Far Side? Yes… maybe. Some of the strips have a tender and wise heart at center, but mostly they’re just good, cynical fun.

The rumors that he eats children are probably exaggerated.

Removed Gary Larson Far Side Cartoon:
Two spiders sit on a playground slide with a spider web stretched across the bottom, one spider says to the other "If we pull this off we'll eat like kings!"

Everybody says “Be yourself,” but nobody tells you that everyone’s whole self is, well, a little boring. If you want to achieve a cult of personality — and hey, who doesn’t? — curate your self. Choose your most interesting, entertaining, or useful bits, and then magnify the heck outta ‘em.

Moral of the Story: Put your best (or most interesting) foot forward. In a clown shoe.

More Cartoon Wisdom

• What you can learn from Bob the Angry Flower and his hammer
• What’s up, Doc? Timeless wisdom from Bugs Bunny
• What happens when Synergy (the holo-computer) resigns from Jem and the Holograms
• How we could all be a little more Bloo
• And, naturally, the Pinky & the Brain Guide to World Domination (the same thing we do every night, Pinky…)

And you definitely want to buy some The Far Side collections. That’s not an affiliate link, even. You should buy them for no other reason than that they’re brilliant and will provide you with years and years of joyful neuroses.