day 1335: Altitude Awareness

"Haughtiness goes before destruction; humility precedes honor."

I know a company that is hitting the ball out of the park day after day.  The growth is impressive and all things point up and to the right. It becomes easy for this company, and others to come down with, if they are not careful, a case of altitude sickness.  When we reach heights that we are not used to, all kinds of weird things can happen and if we are not careful, the higher we go, the sicker we can become, all the way to death.  We've seen it many times in companies where they think they have manifest destiny only too soon to be crashed back to earth.  Does MySpace come to mind?  Or AOL?  Being "altitude aware" is what allows us to fly high but still not lose our bearings or get ahead of ourselves. Any time we feel that we are succeeding, let's be sure and stay aware of where we are as we climb.

As followers of Jesus, we must always keep our egos in check and remain aware of where we are at all times. The minute we begin to think that we are above others, then we have lost the way of the Father.  God humbled Himself beyond our comprehension when He sent us Jesus.  For us to not live and work in that same humility is to miss the opportunity to walk in the footsteps of God.

Reference:  Proverbs 18:12 (New Living Translation)

day 853: The Interest Graph

"I love all who love me. Those who search will surely find me."

It's been at least two years ago now when Bill Gurley, a venture capitalist from Benchmark Capital, and Max Levchkin, one of the founders of Pay Pal, sat on a panel together and defined the "next big thing" as the "Interest Graph". What we have known to date has been the "Social Graph". This was MySpace and now is Facebook, LinkedIn, Tagged, Google+, etc.; the connection of our "friends" and the ability to share, publish and converse across a network. Certainly this is compelling enough to have created all of the companies above. But what happens when we have connected with everyone who matters and there aren't any more old high school, college and lost work acquaintances that would be meaningfully additive to our lives if we were to reconnedt? Then what? That's where we have gotten to and thus the rise of the "interest graph". Pinterest has successfully blown up because it doesn't run on the social graph, but cuts across interests. And Pinterest is not alone as we are seeing new interest graph services arriving weekly. We'd be well served to understand and follow this next trend as each of our businesses and services fit into someone's interest graph and finding the intersection between what we provide and what our consumers are passionate and interested in, opens up an all new way to connect with them.

This is simple, but complex; Jesus rolled together for us in Himself the ultimate search engine, social network and interest graph. Stay with me. He said to us, "Seek first the Kingdom of God". He said to us, "Go into the world and share the Good News". He said, "No man comes to the Father but through me". See! Search/Seek, Share/Social Network, I am the Way/your interest! As believers we have found Him. He then expects us to share His Word and message to all, especially those closest to us as our neighbors. And, he asks us to make Him our first and foremost interest and then to fellowship with those who share the same interest in Him. I am constantly amazed at how we can find all that we work, live and do, right back in the messages and the life of Jesus. Let us finish this week strong knowing that our interest graph is alive, well and aligned!

Reference: Proverbs 8:17 (New Living Testament)