Bill Rice

Tagged: inspiration RSS

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  Bill Rice 1:19 pm on November 23, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: blogs (2), chris brogan (2), dave winer (5), inspiration, jason fried, joel spolsky (3), Matt Mullenweg, Philosophy, rss (4)   

  People and Blogs I Get Inspiration From 

  Dave Winer (Scripting.com)-I tune into Dave’s thoughts everyday. This can be challenging at times since our politics are so far apart. When a cross-post to Huffington Posts hits Scripting.com I often want to hit the unsubscribe button on my RSS reader.

  I don’t because that would only make me dumb.

  I most admire his simplicity. His writing style, his projects, and his thoughts are always a quest for simple clarity and elegance. I frequently point our engineers to his blog posts for guidance.

  Favorite Winer ideas: Outliners, Rebooting the News, Editorial tools, Future-safe archives, 2, 3.

  Jason Fried (37signals.com/svn)-Jason has always been a virtual mentor to me. His company is a super successful Micro-ISV.

  I admire his demonstration of scale using the magic of keeping it simple. I guess I like simple, huh? I also like the fact that he writes all his own Web copy.

  Favorite Fried ideas: UI design and feature minimalism

  Matt Mullenweg (Ma.tt)-How could you not pay attention to Matt? His platform and software jujitsu literally seems to power the Internet.

  Favorite Mullenweg ideas: Community building, How he works/managing a virtual company

  Chris Brogan (ChrisBrogan.com)-Chris is another one that I tune into daily. There are lots of things to like about Chris, but mostly he is just a genuine, nice guy (I have met him in person a couple of times).

  I most admire Chris’ way of asking questions and generating open thinking. His power as a community leader is impressive. This is what draws me to read him for inspiration. I often get more value from the discussion he generates than his own daily post(s).

  Favorite Brogan ideas: Trust Agents, Fish Where the Fish Are, Giving Ideas Handles (I am specifically working on getting better at this)

  Joel Spolsky (JoelOnSoftware.com)-Joel is someone I first plugged into via his book (Joel on Software), not his blog. Although, his blog preceded the book by about four years. I subscribed to his software management philosophy long before I bought his software, Fogbugz.

  We have used it at Kaleidico from day one.

  Favorite Spolsky ideas: How to write specs, Paper prototyping, UI Designing, 2

  Interestingly enough there are no sales gurus here. Why? Simple, few sales gurus are as successful as these guys. Sales is only one facet of a much larger business success strategy.

  The point is when you are looking for business ideas and inspiration look for examples, not advice. Each of these people have common trend to their core philosophies–an intense focused on people (users).

  Who inspires you? Who do you follow daily?

  

   

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  Bill Rice 5:05 am on April 21, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: bethany hamilton, inspiration, lou holz, motivation, patrick henry hughes, randy wheeler, tony dungy   

  Enjoy the Game 

  This Sunday I was inspired by a sermon my pastor (Randy Wheeler, Twin Oaks ) gave–”Playing with Gratitude.” As he opened his sermon, he immediately changed the title to “Enjoy the Game,” which is the title I took for this post. Then he opened with a brief clip of Lou Gehrig’s farewell speech to his fans.
  
  How often do we get wrapped into the “score” of the game and forget the enjoyment of playing it. I bet this is what was going through the mind of Lou Gehrig in his farewell speech when he said:
  

  “Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Yet today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

  
  Lou Gehrig was reminding us it was not about the score and the championships. It was about the people and doing something you love. I wrote once before about putting love in the game, based on Lou Holtz’s comment, “It is not about the love of the game, but the love in the game.”
  
  Adversity will happen, it is what you do with the adversity that makes great things. As Randy said, “Focus your attention on what you have left, not on what you’ve lost.”
  
  So, in hopes of you enjoying the game more I am leaving you with a few inspiring words from those who play with gratitude:
  
  

  “Hard work and togetherness. They go hand in hand. You need the hard work because it’s such a tough atmosphere… to win week in and week out. You need togetherness because you don’t always win, and you gotta hang though together.” -Tony Dungy
  

  “Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I’ll show you someone who has overcome adversity.” -Lou Holtz
  
  “Courage doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid. Courage means you don’t let fear stop you.” -Bethany Hamilton (13 year old surfer and Shark attack survivor)
  
  “I mean, God made me blind and didn’t give me the ability to walk. I mean, big deal. He gave me the talent to play piano and trumpet and all that good stuff.” -Patrick Henry Hughes (Blind, wheelchair bound musician)
  
  

  Enjoy the game, whatever bounce the ball may take, and let the score take care of itself.

   
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  Bill Rice 9:17 am on April 11, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: bill rice (5), chris brogan (2), dave winer (5), inspiration, joel spolsky (3), seth godin (2), stowe boyd (2), twitter (10)   

  Who Inspires You? 

  I have been running hard this week. Early wake-ups and late shut-downs. Running out of gas…

  So, I popped open my RSS feedreader looking for inspiration (I suppose).

  And, I found it in Chris Brogan’s “Inspiration and Origins“:

  My big point: none of us are originals. It’s okay. And I’ve DEFINITELY done it myself, where I’ve thought something WAS my thought, only to find out that I was synthesizing something I read a few days back, or a conversation I had (Did that famously badly once, to a friend I love, and had to rescind). But if you KNOW you’re going to riff off someone, give a little link love and be done with it. Fair?

  This is who inspires me:

  • Dave Winer: I hate his politics. I often hate the way he treats past or non-friends. But, he has an amazing genius to him. I read every word. I love his pictures on Flickr. He seeds thought and software. He gets user-first design. I wish I knew him better.
  • Stowe Boyd: I love his brevity. Master of 140 character poetry.
  • Seth Godin: A storyteller. Creates simple, short stories that if absorbed yield big results.
  • Joel Spolsky: Hero of the ISV (Independent Software Vendor). Master of effective software development methodology.
  • Twitter: I find more who inspire me everyday.

  Who inspires you?