So I've been nominated.

Here's why you shouldn't vote for me:

• Damien's current layout has been around for a long long time, and still, it's cutting edge. He manages to fit so much onto his pages, without it looking crappy, it's scary. Besides, he built everything that runs his blog himself. Respect.
• Gideon's background is superb, and he pulls the frame thing off; no small feat, as it's usually dismissed as a no-no in the CSS world.
• Mark's vibrant colour scheme just wows me. Maybe it's because I have a thing for green pastures... Either way, wow.
• Olivia's site is XHTML strict. Yikes! She's also much prettier than me, quite yummy in fact (hah, didn't think I'd say that, did you?!) - unfortunately for me, she likes cowboys, and I don't even own a hat.

Yeah, go do it.

There's this theory that one of the best strategies business can have is to not worry about strategy as much as it should supposedly be worried about. Instead, get the right people on board, and strategy will take care of itself.

Here's my take:

Businesses are run by people - actually, businesses ARE people, if you're doing it right.

Some businesses can, however, get along without paying much attention to individuals (at ground level, at least). Look at large parts of the retail industry as an example - they can treat their ground level employees as commodities, not because they're evil corporates, but because the reality is that these employees are commodities. Nothing discriminatory, just the reality that the average packer, checkout till operator, cleaner, shop attendant or door guard doesn't have particularly special skills, vision or intelligence which makes them indispensible. In essence, there are a thousand possible replacements for every shop attendant out there, so paying meticulous attention to who you're hiring is not too big an issue (bear in mind that I'm simplifying for the sake of what I'm trying to bring across).

In our industry, however, we're not that lucky. Because we sell mid to high-end services, I guess you could say we're pretty high up in the food chain when it comes to skill consumption; and thus we just simply can't get along without pretty sharp (and thus rare) people. If we don't hire just the right people, we pay dearly.

We need smart people on board to make things happen. More importantly, we need this thing called "the attitude".

Now, the attitude is not easily explainable. Partly, it's responsibility. Partly, it's a production mentality. But most importantly, it's that something you can't always pinpoint: A deep-seated desire to achieve. Not just on the surface, but fundamentally. It's about kicking ass, about being focused, about digging the big picture.

Even though we have a plan, and a bigger vision, worries about strategy and "where we're going" are constantly in the back of my mind. I think they should be - if they weren't, we wouldn't be a very good business (our goals are pretty lofty, in case you were wondering). The thing is: This "get the attitude on board" theory is pretty compelling. From a long-term, step back and look at things perspective, it makes good sense.

Goal no 1: Attract the attitude.

(Credit to Rich…! For sparking "the attitude thing" some time back, and to Joel for a reminder of how it applies in the software world)

Of course the two are sides of a coin, the essence of balance. They form the basis of economics - without consumption, production is pointless, and vice versa.

Here's the thing, however: I believe that, in general, it's possible to classify people as either producers or consumers. Naturally, everyone both produces and consumes, but I believe that most individuals tend to lean predominantly to one side. My hypothesis is that you need only look at what someone enjoys more to determine which side they fall to. When I say "enjoy", I don't mean in the standard fill-in-questionnaire "what do you enjoy?" sense, I mean in the "what truly makes you happy?" sense…

A few examples:

• When cycling or running, the producer enjoys the push to the top of the hill, the consumer enjoys the ride down the other side.
• In money, the producer enjoys creating wealth, the consumer enjoys the fruits of wealth.
• In labour, the producer enjoys the effort which makes the holiday possible, the consumer enjoys the holiday itself.
• In troubleshooting, the producer enjoys getting to the root of the problem, the consumer enjoys it when the problem is solved.

Simplified (because most would argue that both sides are equal - I disagree, and emphasize the "enjoy more" part), and very unsubstantiated, I know, but that's partly how I see it.

Which side do you see yourself on?

There comes a time when it becomes clear that enough is enough.

Enough of worrying about capital. Enough of having to explain why I earn a third of what I could be if I worked for someone. Enough needing to make excuses for not being interested in get-togethers. Enough of failing to reach what most regard to be ridiculously impossible goals. Enough knowing every time that I do, that I could've done more to achieve them.

Enough is enough actually implies "Not enough", which can only be remedied by one thing. More.

I have decided that I am up to here with this shit of not having enough. It's time for more. More hard work, more dedication, more focus. More abandonment of whatever's not crucial to achieving my goals, more refinement of those goals, more capacity to achieve. More disregard of averages, more vision, more thinking big. More knowledge, more leveraging of what I already know, more strategy. More balls-to-the-wall, more risk, more productivity.

Practically, I'd like to apologise in advance to everyone who knows me for what's going to seem like utter selfishness for what I'm guessing will be the next 3-5 years. I'm not doing anymore favours, unless I can benefit tangibly from them, and then it's still up to me. I'm not attending any social gatherings, unless they're crucial to business, or birthdays of immediate family members. I'm not available for these things unless I choose to be, and still then I can control for how long I'm available, regardless of whether you or anyone else thinks I have an obligation or not.

What am I doing? I'm creating more. More productive achievement, one of the only things that makes me deeply happy. That's what it's about, and I will not put that aside any longer.

More me.

It's SA BlogAwards time again - go check it out and vote for your favourite local writers. Nominations only at this stage, but I'm sure we'll have a few good choices to pick from by February 17th...

Knock yourselves out!

Responsibility.

People talk about it all the time, but I don't think they always understand it. I remember my mom giving me these talks when I was at school - she told me that "responsibility is the most important part of growing up, you'll appreciate that when you're older". Back then, I heard what she said, but I'm only now realising how important those words actually were…

You see, I grew up with a lot of freedom. My parents trusted me implicitly, mainly because I (with a few very rare exceptions I think) never gave them reason not to trust me. My freedom was enabled by my bike. I rode it everywhere, all the time. I'm not kidding when I say that; in high school, I'm guessing I averaged around 60kms a day on my bike, between training, riding to shopping centres to buy stuff, visiting friends to illegally copy games (those were the days ), and just exploring Pretoria. I rode a lot. The important thing is that they needed to trust me, because I basically left the house after school, and came back just before dark. Never were any questions asked, it was just assumed that I hadn't done anything stupid. And I mostly didn't, because there wasn't any need to - I appreciated that I was trusted, and returned the courtesy.

As I grow up (I'm not there yet, not even by a mile), I'm becoming even more independent, with even more responsibilities. I'm slowly realising how important independence is - not in the way people generally refer to it, but in the way that it's fundamental to my beliefs; which are based, not on some higher power, but on man's ability to think for himself, with his own competence and ability to reason and act on this reasoning as the cornerstones of his life.

Suffice it to say that independence is pretty important to me, although my defininition of independence itself is a story for another day. Responsibility, however, I'd like to get into. You see, I'm realising more and more that my perception (and I venture to say, understanding) of responsibility is radically different to that of most other people. I'm not talking about doing reckless stuff like driving when drunk, although that's implicitly included. I'm talking about the more fundamental, often-overlooked stuff that people don't think about. Financial matters are a good example:

Recently, we've had to charge an individual interest for money that he owes us. This person (not a client, BTW, let's call him X) owes us this money for goods purchased from us - we kindly agreed to let him pay in installments over a period of time, just because we're nice. At some point, we transferred the payments onto debit order, simply because it's easier to administer. X for some reason provided incorrect banking details, so the debit order bounced. Not once, but twice. Naturally, we added the bounce-charge (it's small, but has to be paid to the debit order provider, it's time wasted after all) onto the next month's payment, and let X know about this. Amazingly, he got upset, claiming that we're trying to rip him off. Upon explaining the technicalities to him, one of my partners had to endure quite a bit of abuse. "How dare we charge him interest on the backlog payments?" was one of the questions. "Why are we trying to be nasty?" was another. Also, X wished that he could settle the amount in full, just so he'd have us off his back.

I listened to the conversation, and for a moment I couldn't really believe what I was hearing (although in hindsight, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised). Then it struck me how X was reminding me of a fundamental societal problem...

People don't like responsibility.

They like freedom, but not the responsibility that comes with it. They want to live lives where they can do what they want, whenever they want, but they don't like to bear the absolute, full consequences of their actions. Think I'm making a sweeping generalisation? Think again.

• The average person is very quick to buy on credit, but not so quick to repay debt. Which is why there's a little thing called interest, which the average person either doesn't understand, or hates. Mainly because he's on its negative side most of the time.
• The average person is quick to say "Hey, if I can't repay my debts, what can they do? I'm not worth anything, they'll be wasting their time coming after me".
• The average person hides behind the business he works for. If he messes up, it doesn't matter, because nobody's going to come after him - he just works there.
• The average person easily spends money that belongs to the owners of the business he works for, whether it's on taking friends to restaurants, wasted bandwidth, or travel allowances used for personal gain. After all, the company can afford it.
• The average person insures, and claims from insurance quite often, getting nice new stuff out of the deal most of the time. After all, if you don't claim at some stage, what's the point of paying all that money? Insurers are greedy and make enough profit, after all.
• The average person values a career within a large, reputable organisation. After all, he doesn't have to work himself to the bone to earn a good living that way, and being part of a reputable team means that he's reputable, right?
• The average person looks forward to something called "pay-day", because then he can go out and enjoy himself again, without stressing too much about things like food.
  
• The average person outwardly hates working for a boss, but in reality couldn't ever do without guidance. After all, if things go wrong, he shouldn't have to take the fall for a business which doesn't pay him nearly enough.
• The average person doesn't look at the cost of what he's ordering when someone else is paying. After all, the other person is spoiling them, aren't they?
• The average person believes that it's his need for something that determines how much he deserves it, not his ability to earn it.

The average person doesn't understand responsibility. He can't get close to truly speaking or standing for himself, even though he has dreams of doing so, or might even be under the impression that he already does.

I can't think like the average person. With everything I do, with every choice I make, I take full and absolute responsibility. Every time I spend money, I think of the value involved, and adjust my spending accordingly, regardless of whose money it is. When I owe money, I understand that it's absolutely, positively up to me to make sure that it's repaid according to the terms agreed on. When I sell services to clients, I understand that I'm 100% responsible for delivering on time, even though someone I've hired might cause a delay. I have to take the knock, because I committed - that's just the way it works. It's part of the unwritten contract that guides every productive person who has helped to build the great economies of the world.

Responsibility's difficult, most of the time. That's probably why it's missing, most of the time. Luckily, the world as we know it wasn't built by the average man. It was built by people who value responsibility.