As “checking into rehab” has become short-hand for “I got caught doing something,” I’m going to have to turn to some of my in-house celebrity news-hounds to figure out what Keith Urban did. Seriously, however, I guess it’s pretty disheartening to wake up one morning and discover that being super-rich, internationally famous and married to Nicole Kidman isn’t enough to make you happy.

Technorati Tags: nashville

If you’re one of the thousand people attending the Folio Show in New York next week, look me up. I speak on Tuesday afternoon and will probably be lurking about all that day. Paul Conley just posted on his blog that he is on a panel earlier in the day called, “Blogs, RSS and More: Editorial in the E-Media Age.” I’ve offered to pay him to mention me during his remarks. (Note to the humor-challenged: That was a joke.)

Technorati Tags: folio show, magazines

Actually, there is no secret. It’s as old as the punch line of the old joke about the tourist asking the New York cab driver how to get to Carnegie Hall: “Practice, practice, practice.” Pulling together evidence of the obvioius, Fortune’s Geoffrey Colvin provides some required reading on the current research on the topic. I think most of us would prefer to believe that success is random, or reserved only for some super-talented genius or gifted artist or thinker, or, better yet, luck. However, this quote from the article about sums it up:

“You are not a born CEO or investor or chess grandmaster. You will achieve greatness only through an enormous amount of hard work over many years. And not just any hard work, but work of a particular type that’s demanding and painful.”

Update: Ironically, I just ran across a survey of 200 U.S. entrepreneurs (link to PDF of survey results) that says they believe an “innate drive” is the basis of their entrepreneurial bent. I guess that’s like having it both ways: Working hard, practicing, determination are the keys to success. But one has to be born with an “innate drive” to do those things. This is why I don’t like surveys. You send out a survey to 200 entrepreneurs and ask, “to what do you attribute your entrepreneurial bent?” Of course, they will say they were born with it. Just because the majority of respondents have no clue why they do the things they do, does that make their answer correct? Unless they’ve been through years of psychoanalysis, chances are the survey takers have no idea why they are motivated to do what they do, so of course they say it is innate. Sorry for the rant. Don’t know what got into me this afternoon. I suppose I just had an innate drive to post it.

Technorati Tags: success

As those of us who are fans of the book know, it’s been online and free for about seven years, however, this link is getting lots of del.icio.us love today and is nearing the top of the “hot” list. I emailed Doc Searls yesterday to ask if there is something “new” about the book “now” being available on line.

Here’s his response:

Heh. It’s been up for years.
So “now” is right, technically.
ds

As of now, 128 people have “del.icio.us”‘d the book (I’m 129). I think sending it to the top of the “hot list” would be a good Friday afternoon activity.

Technorati Tags: cluetrain, marketing

If I were industrious, I could search back on the rexblog to show this MediaPost items about celebrity magazines being the success story of 2006 is an annual story, down to the quote from my friend, Samir Husni. The articles always begin with the cliche-insight that certain magazines are growing “as some of the biggest magazine genres struggle with declining readership…”

Last Friday, I happened to see an advertisement for Life magazine from the mid-1950s that proclaimed, “Every week, 5,700,000 buy Life magazine.” Twenty years later, nobody bought it. Today, a couple of iterations later, the brand is used on a magazine that is distributed for free.

Hard lesson: Magazines are launched, magazines die. It’s the same with all media. It’s the circle of Life, I mean, life.

Technorati Tags: magazines

Tell me this is some kind of inside joke, perhaps a stab at satire. On Tuesday, someone at Gartner reissued what had to be a 20-year old report suggesting Apple should quit hardware business. The report suggested the company’s “best bet for long-term success is to quit the hardware business and license the Mac to Dell.” Wait. Is this a promotion for the upcoming movie Deja Vu?

Technorati Tags: apple