Quote:Here is a sum of what you can do starting today. It has more group

action—in case you didn’t feel like reading before.



1. Follow leaders—pay attention.



2. Use the Net for everything (forget privacy concerns—they’re

nonexistent and almost funny now, so go, click, and be merry),

because at any given time you can follow the thoughts of approximately

1.5 million random, just-as-fascinated people. A nice

number—and one I didn’t have to make up.



3. Collect data on areas that interest you. Hey, one thing that everyone

forgets—and I know I said it before, but I can’t stress it enough—

get a napkin and write it down. Even if you don’t ever look at the

page again, the brain works in oh-so-mysterious ways. I do this

with my always-neglected shopping lists that I don’t bother with

before I dial up the Chinese Delivery Guy.



4. Get on mailing lists about things that interest you. It’s so easy to do

that now. Gosh, in the old days you had to send SASEs (for the kids,

that’s self-addressed envelopes with stamps—or snail). Today you

just shoot an e-mail to someone or click a link. I mean, jeez, there’s

no excuse.



5. Use separate e-mail addresses just to collect separate information.

Get a Hotmail or Gmail account for spam. In these cases, e-mail is—

dare I say it—worthy.



6. Subscribe to trade publications. Man, you can get so many of

them gratis. In trade magazines you read passionate and often

interesting articles on things you had heretofore thought were dull.

Plus, you get to see others work hard to explain what you found

inexplicable.



7. Talk to experts—arrange to meet. I’ve said it before, and I will say it

again.



8. Don’t ignore indicators. In 1929, the only ones who made it through

the crash were those who read newspapers. And really read ’em. By

the way, myyahoo.com and mywashingtonpost.com—all that stuff

you think you want to know—are not good enough. Expand your

wings, broaden personal focus, all those other clichés . . .



9. Just do it over and over again. Nike had a point, albeit a repetitive

one.



10. It is indubitably a must to be informed. But come on, talking about

being interested in order to succeed is so obvious. If you don’t

know this, then close the book. Today, it’s more urgent than ever to

be interesting since that would put you in a class by yourself—people

tend to like you better because you are a hotbed of “hmm, cool

fact” in a society where people repeat the same one-liners daily. It

is better to be remembered for who you are than simply nodded at.



11. Stay awake. I like my lattes with lowfat.