Yet another week has passed and it’s time to look at what has happened. On Monday I’ll share with you a summary of what happened here at Jarkko Laine dot com during the insanely interesting month of September, so today we’re going with links.

No specific theme. Just interesting thoughts and ideas that I have come across during the week.

Enjoy, and share yours!

1. Dream big – maybe you too can fly! Shirley made her dream come true and flew. And she has posted a video of it. Go check it out for some serious inspiration.
2. Twenty-five Things to Do With Old Jeans: At Wise Bread, Myscha Theriault has posted a clever and ecological list of 25 alternatives for just throwing your old jeans in trash. She seems to have a series going on here. Check out also Potato Ideas that Pop and Ten Things to Do With Sale – Priced Ham.
3. Splitting Hydrogen and Oxygen with Sunlight: Interesting news from the hydrogen fuel front. If this works, the future will again look a bit brighter. What do you think?
4. How to Take a Compliment: Taking a compliment is something most Finns at least have trouble with. It’s nice to hear that we’re not the only ones with the problem. Dustin Wax from Lifehack.org tells us how it should be done properly.
5. There Are Alternatives To Homework: Be A Good Dad has an interesting take on homework, and some new ideas for school work in general. It’s interesting how the same problems that we have in the corporate world actually are present also at school: You bring work home, and have to be as efficient as possible in learning hard values needed for making money.
6. How To Wake Up Early: This is not a blog post but a full blog dedicated to waking up early. Being an early riser myself I find this blog exciting and recommend everyone to check it out.

Have a relaxing weekend!

My wife and I are big fans of the Finnish Idol show (It’s actually called Idols, but the format is exactly the same as in American Idol). Unlike many watchers we enjoy the good performances much more than the lousy ones – it’s just so great when you see someone use their talents and rock the audience.

The next season of Idols won’t start until next year but this weekend we have another reason to turn on the TV. On Sunday, the Finnish version of America’s Got Talent starts on Nelonen, one of our TV channels.

In case you’re wondering, it’s the show that brought us Paul Potts:

This time you’re already late from the auditions but I’ll still give you some tips in case you’d like to try entering next time.How do you survive the show without becoming one of the poor people that are used to make the show funnier?Find your talentsPaul Potts didn’t go for pop, he sang opera.

He doesn’t look like a pop star so if he’d gone with pop he had been laughed out from the stage. But he chose his passion, his talent. And won the whole thing.

Find your own talent. Don’t just try to copy a winning formula.

Practice

So you have found your talent. But hold it! Don’t go to the auditions just yet: in order to be the best at something you need to practice.

Use your talent a lot. Use it with one goal in mind: to be so good in this thing that people will vote for me when I go and show it in America’s Got Talent.

If your thing is joggling, you need to learn how to use the balls like a pro. And to become a pro you need to practice every day.

Find your own style

If you suck, people will laugh out of the competition.

If you’re really good but your performance doesn’t have personality you won’t be shown in TV at all.

To be on TV and get good comments from the jury you need to not only master your talent but also put your heart and soul in the process.

When you are practicing, be open for ideas. Think about your own style. Try to do something a bit crazy that others haven’t done before. Something that will make people care about you and your performance.

And then

they

w

i

l

l

vote for you.

Good luck, and if you’re in Finland, don’t forget to turn on your TV at 8 PM on Sunday!

September 7th: “Denys Turner is a tough guy! www.juoni.net”, on a back of a bicycle.

August 26th: “What’s wrong with curls? www.juoni.net”, in a grocery store in Oulu.

August 23rd: “THANK YOU. www.juoni.net”, in a train.

Something interesting is going on all around Finland. People are finding mysterious messages in their every day environments, accompanied with a cryptic web address (juoni means a cunning plan in Finnish). Some people are saying that at first they were even afraid to check the site, but in the end they had to.

If you saw a message like that on the back of your bicycle or the windshield of your car, what would you do?

Let’s ask one of the creative minds behind the idea. Say hi to Kaisa Kortekallio from Juoni.net.

So, Kaisa, what is this Juoni thing all about?

Kaisa: About freedom, I think. Juoni is a Finnish web zine with a mission – to produce entertainment for people who think. That is, inspired articles and columns about people, cultural phenomena, music… The topics depend on the writers, and at least I hope that Juoni could expand to include e.g. politics and sports as well. What links the articles together is the monthly theme, which can be anything from beauty and faith to waste and stereotypes.

Juoni is also about building a community. Both between the people who make Juoni happen, and also between our readers. We want Juoni to become a place, a state of mind, where people can discuss, have fun and do things in the real world too – that’s why we often introduce our readers to phenomena that have inspired us, like hitch-hiking, circus, sailing, old people that laugh a lot… We don’t really want people to just sit inside and read Juoni, we want them to go out and live!

In English the word “Juoni” means a scheme or a plot, or a cunning plan.

How does your sneaky note marketing work? Who writes the notes, and how do you choose the places where to leave them?

Kaisa: Note marketing consists of a few short steps:

1. Get a pen and a pile of small pieces of paper. Or big, if you prefer big. Coloured ones are the best.
2. Write anything you want on those pieces. Anything at all.
3. Write the address on every one of them: www.juoni.net
4. Carry the notes with you everywhere you go. Hide them in places where they will, when found, puzzle and confuse the finder into asking questions.
5. If you’re into spying and stalking, hide somewhere near and observe the reactions. Tell about your experiences to Juoni.

Anyone can write the notes, but usually it’s naturally the people who write Juoni and some people who read Juoni.

I’ve been writing a journal on these little pieces of paper, sentence by sentence. Some people make up total nonsense, some people draw. The only thing that the notes have in common is the address – www.juoni.net.

Basically, the notes go where we go. Trains, buses, parking lots, bike parks, libraries, grocery stores, waiting rooms, restaurants… We hide them between magazines, pin them on bike racks, stick them to cracks in the wall, drop them to open bags… Anything sneaky and personal will do.

So, what has been the most special place where you have left a note so far?

Kaisa: Maybe the edge of a cliff next to the sea in the middle of nowhere – Paldiski, Estonia. I went there with some friends and we found an old broken table clock. We put the clock on the ledge and the note under it. It said “I’m coming home soon”. It’s extremely unlikely that anyone ever found AND understood that, but it was fun!

The idea sounds great! How did you come up with it?

Kaisa: There isn’t really a story here. I was visiting my boyfriend sometime in the winter and came up with this, without really thinking. I was excited about the idea right away, and told it to the others. Back then we tried to limit the notes to contain only a few predefined sentences, but soon we realized that free expression makes all the difference.

You seem to have gotten quite a bit of feedback from people finding the notes as well. What has been the most memorable comment you’ve received?

Kaisa: Someone told Heidi that a weird note had saved his day. He had been really mad to his fellow students, and as he went out he found on the rack of his bike a pink note that said something like: “Explode like a gas tank in the heat of love”. He had to laugh. When telling this to Heidi, he had no idea that Heidi had anything to do with Juoni.

What do you think is the major learning from this campaign?

Kaisa: There are so many… That you can make people happy with small things! Or puzzled. I love surprising people, making them ask questions! I also think that the major advantage in this campaign is the personal approach. If you found a hand-written note in your shopping bag, wouldn’t you want to know who put it there and why?

It’s also refreshing to have people commit to this campaign with their own notes and be excited about it. We are doing something new, and anyone can come and join us in that. We are not doing this for the financial profit, we just want to make good things happen with good people – and the note campaign does just that. Advertising doesn’t always have to involve money.

Thanks for the interview and keep up the good work!

What about you? What do you think of this idea? Does it get your mind boggling with new ideas? It sure does that to me.

There is no question about it: Leo Babauta is one of the rising celebrities of the blogosphere.

Technorati ranks his blog, ZenHabits in the top 100, and his subscriber count is getting close to 180,000. That’s a great achievement. And what makes it even more stunning is that he only started blogging in the beginning of this year.

But that’s not what I’m talking about today.

To me what makes Leo interesting isn’t so much his blog. but his online presence.

He is everywhere.

Leo has mastered the art of freelance writing on the web, and now whenever I read a well written post on simplifying your life or improving your habits, it’s written by Leo. He sure has made a name for himself.

And that’s what we’re going to be talking about today. If you want to do the same, and become the next Leo Babauta, here are some observations to guide you:

1. Write powerful content: Leo is a great writer. And if you want to make a name for yourself you need to be great as well. If you want to be a writer, you need to practice your writing skills. If it’s painting you’re after, you’d better start painting right now. And if being a magician is the greatest profession you can image, why aren’t you looking for a rabbit and a hat already?
2. Write a lot: The more you write, the faster your writing will improve. But getting practice isn’t the only reason why you need to write a lot. It’s also the best way of making yourself visible on the web. The more you write on different sites, the more your name will pop up. So if you want to be a Leo Babauta, you need to write more than that one or two posts per week you might be doing now. Again, this applies to everything: if you’re a musician, you need to play lots of gigs. If you’re a speaker, you need to find ways to use your voice.
3. Simplify: My guess is that if I would go and ask Leo for tips this one would be at the top of the list. A big part of his writing is about simplifying your home, your work, your work space. At Problogger Leo tells us that these days he does all his blogging for Zen Habits on one day (actually half a day). This way he gets the rest of the week for other things such as writing for others, writing a book and spending time with his family. Reading that made me realize that it makes no sense to say that I’m too busy to write a successful blog: if you have one morning or afternoon to spare, you can write the five to seven posts that will keep your blog alive and growing for the next week. It’s all about how you organize your work.
4. Find the right connections: And make friends. Find people who share your passion and can help you get to where you’re aiming to get. Leo has for example partnered with Collis Ta’eed on FreelanceSwitch and NorthxEast as well as the non-profit Blog Action Day initiative. On these blogs Leo is writing on a continuous basis so that readers are starting to associate him with them. A regular Joe would be satisfied with this, but not Leo. He also keeps writing to all kinds of different blogs and e-zines to make more friends and make his work better and better known. That’s what you need to do as well.
5. Wake up early: This is self-explanatory. Leo wakes up at 4:30 which helps him get a lot of work done already before the rest of his family joins him for breakfast. But not only that, Leo also tells us that he’s often the last one in his family to go to bed. When you have all this inspiring work to do, there is no time for sleep.
6. Be yourself: There are lots of successful bloggers whose blogs might be well known but the writers behind them stay almost anonymous. Leo is different. He has a unique personal voice, he shares thoughts about his family and himself that makes you like him. People like to hear about other people. We want to become fans. But to become your fans we need to know something personal about you: what your normal day is like, why do you wake up early, how many kids you have. Leo is real, and that makes him likeable. And being likeable helps a lot when you’re on your way to becoming a celebrity.

Good luck on your way to becoming the next Leo Babauta in your own niche. Be it writing, art, programming or public speaking, these six tips should help you along the way.

Let me know how the adventure begins to unfold!

A few weeks ago I got the idea that I should do interviews with people from different topics. I had never talked to these people before, but I decided to send them e-mail asking if they would be interested in answering a few questions.

They all said yes.

Then I asked Collis Ta’eed if I could write a guest post on NorthxEast.

The next day he sent me a note saying yes. I wrote “Curiosity Killed the Cat but it Helped the Blogger“.

Inspired by Collis’ friendly reply I moved on and asked about guest blogging from an even bigger blog.

I’m starting to write that post this week.

I ask. They say yes.

A few months ago Graham Lutz wrote me about switching posts. I promptly replied: “Of course!”

He wrote the post “A Product of Your Environment” to my blog. I wrote “How To Stand Up For Your Values and Make Fans” for his.

They ask. I say yes.

Of course I have also sent out questions that never got any replies. Not because people wouldn’t want to say yes but because my questions didn’t deserve to be answered.

People are helpful and interested in each others. Even the complete strangers. They want to say yes to your questions, so don’t be afraid to ask. The worst that could happen is a “no”.

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. (Matthew 7:7)

Once again this has been an exciting week for me. My post on always carrying a notebook with you got posted to StumbleUpon and brought a huge crowd of new visitors to my blog (at least on my scale) as well as many new RSS subscribers. Thanks and welcome for all the new readers!

In the blogging world every week is full of interesting posts and topics. This one was no exception, so here are my picks for this week:

1. Falling for Notebooks: Craigh Childs from LifeHack.org has noticed that there is an addiction towards notebooks spreading all over the world. More and more people are falling in love with their notebooks and starting to learn to use pen and paper once again.
2. Moleskine is the classic notebook and the one that seems to create the most buzz among creative people. Moleskinerie is a fan blog for the notebook and it’s bringing me closer of buying one of these notebooks every day. Some highlights from their latest posts: Moleskine Morph, GoogleMole?, DIY Portable Art Kit.
3. Build a Facebook Profile You Can Be Proud Of: It’s fun to see how the themes on different people’s blogs compliment each other. If you start by reading my question, “Can you become a people person?” and decide to get on Facebook, Neil Patel from Quick Sprout can share some tips that will help you make the most out of Facebook.
4. Seven LEGAL ways to steal…and they’re good for you: “It’s good to steal.” What more can I say? Jay White from Dumb Little Man shows us that there are some things that are meant to be stolen: stealing them not only feels good but is also legal.
5. Improve Your Blog By Reading a Magazine – An Exercise for Bloggers: I don’t usually post about blogging, but this post from ProBlogger was so close to something I wrote in August that I just had to share it.

Some highlights from next week include a guest post from Ravi Vora, a blogger with powerful inspirational posts and a great attitude, and a chat with Joona Nuutinen about a clever marketing campaign he and his friends have been doing to market their new online magazine, Juoni.net.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned to see how the story will continue next week.

Over at his blog Ravi Vora is asking the question, “What is your big dream?”

To me it’s a day filled with things I enjoy: a day spent writing, being with my family and reading. Of course I’d also like to travel more, spend some days only lying on my bed reading great books, and finally have enough time to get started with Sam & Max Season 1.

But here’s a brief breakdown of what a great working day could be like:

5:00 Wake up. Finish the sourdough bread dough from yesterday and leave it to raise.

5:30 Grab a cup of coffee and start writing a blog post for my personal blog.

6:30 Blog post done. Make breakfast and wake up Mari and Oiva.

7:00 Check e-mail, Facebook and blog comments. Reply to people writing to me, and try to think of people who would be happy to hear from me today.

8:00 Go through the RSS feeds in my feed reader to see what’s happening in the blogging world. Comment on one or two posts and send e-mail to people whose posts touched me this morning.

9:00 Back to writing: This time work on something that pays the bills, like freelance writing for magazines and bigger blogs.

12:00 Lunch time. Cooking real, home-made food takes a while, but it’s worth the effort. Eat together with Mari and Oiva.

13:00 Second round of e-mail.

13:30 Back to writing again. This could also be the time for web design or some small programming tasks depending on what I need to do, but on the perfect day I would be working on a novel.

15:00 Stop working. By this time I have been working already more than eight hours and my family wants to spend some more time with me. So I would play with Oiva, go for a walk (or shopping) with Mari and just do whatever we would like to do that day.

17:00 Bake the bread and make a starter for the next day’s dough.

19:00 Check my blog to see if there are new comments (in real life I would probably be doing this all the time as I’m doing now. But in theory doing it once or twice in a day should be just enough). Reply to comments and e-mail messages.

20:00 Get ready for sleep: take a shower, put on my pajamas, and feed Oiva.

21:00 Go to bed with a good book. Read for a while, then chat with Mari for a few more moments, and get to sleep around 22:00.

How does it sound to you?

Of course a day can never be quite as clearly formatted. Anyone who has children knows that there’s no way you can plan that “I will play with my son from 15:00 to 17:00. Then take a break and play some more from 18:00 to 20:00″ or “I will feed him at 20:00 and then put him to sleep.”

So yeah, this is a simplified version. But it shows pretty well how I would like to mix my daily household routines with my working time and have as much time with my family as I can.

How does your dream day look like? Share it here, or even better, describe your big dream to Ravi.

I hope you’ll have a great day today!

In his book, The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell brings up a group of people that he calls Connectors. What these people have in common with each other is that they are collectors of acquaintances, people interested in people.

He simply likes people, in a genuine and powerful way, and he finds the patterns of acquaintanceship and interaction in which people arrange themselves to be endlessly fascinating. — He keeps on his computer a roster of 1,600 names and addresses, an on each entry is a note describing the circumstances under which he met the person.

That’s not how most of us act when it comes to people. In my Facebook friends list I have a list of about 40 people. This guy has a list of 1,600! And his list keeps growing faster and faster.

This got me thinking: Is being a people collector something hard wired in some people or is it a skill that we can improve by well planned practice?

Maybe it’s a bit of both.

Gladwell seems to think that these things come naturally from people like the one portrayed in the example. But it doesn’t have to mean that it couldn’t be learned by practice. Maybe if we start doing the same things they do we can earn our share of their skills as well.

I don’t know what will happen but I will start experimenting, and I invite you to do the same. Here’s my plan:

1. Keep in touch with your acquaintances: In the era of Internet and e-mail it’s easier than ever. Get the e-mail addresses of the people you meet, ask them to be your friends at Facebook, and then send them notes from time to time. Connectors go still one step further: Get their birthdays, mark them in your calendar, and send a small hand written note to show that you remember.
2. Get to know people: If you have commented on my blog and I haven’t sent you e-mail yet, you’ll hear from me soon. My plan is to e-mail everyone to hear a bit more about who are reading my writings. You can do the same: When you find a blog with interesting posts, leave a comment or take an extra step and send a short e-mail message to the blogger.
3. Keep a people file: When the number of friends grows it gets harder to keep up with all of them. To make it easier, you can create a simple Excel file with the basic information, and some information about each person’s interests. Then when you find something interesting (for example a link), or meet a new person you can check who in your friends list would be interested in hearing about it.
4. Introduce your friends to each other: When you meet someone new, go through your list of friends to see if there is someone who doesn’t know this person yet, but would likely be friends with her. Then go ahead and introduce them.
5. Share information with your friends: Sign up to StumbleUpon, and start adding your friends as contacts at that site as well. Then whenever you find an interesting link you think your friends would enjoy, share it with them.

These are my first simple steps to get started. What do you think: can you and I become connectors, people persons?

Let’s get connected!

If you know me or would like to know me, add me to your Facebook friends or send me e-mail. If these approaches seem too extreme, you can start by commenting to this post and sharing your own tips for practicing approachability and becoming more people-oriented.

Do you want your life to be about work?

Or would you rather make your work to be about life?

Do you spend your days locked up in a clumsy, cluttered office. Sitting next to a uniform desk in a uniform settings. Feeling like your life is passing you by and you are missing all the fun happening outside the office walls.

Here you have eight alternative working places to get you started: Check them out, see which ones you like, and try them out if your boss lets you. If you have the power to choose your working environment, you could even try all of them!

1. Coffee shop

This is the classic home base for coffee drinking web workers. The noise level in a coffee shop is usually quite high, the desks aren’t that well designed for working, and the novelty of the idea has long since vanished.

But if you enjoy a fresh cup of coffee and like to have people around you, it’s still worth giving a shot.

2. Library

As a more quiet variation of the coffee shop approach, a library is a nearly perfect working environment.

Just ask any student you know: there are books all around you if you happen to need more information, the desks are usually pretty good for working, and it’s quiet. Choose a library with a lot of history: old books, old paintings and so on, and I can guarantee you that the atmosphere will be inspiring. You’ll be missing the action, and you won’t be outdoors, but otherwise this is a really good option if you want to get something done.

3. Parking hall

Want something more edgy?

Try a parking lot, or better yet, a parking hall. The sound of car engines all around you will keep you alert, the air is cool (but full of dangerous fumes) and the light is not too bright. This option is for the adventurous people, but imagining the reactions of your friends when you tell them that you work in a parking hall probably it worth a try.

4. Boat

There aren’t many things more relaxing than to sit in it in the middle of a lake, listening to the sound of rain falling on the roof of a small boat. Or watching the sun rise from the horizon while hearing birds singing in the background.

A boat is a calm place to work. But not for someone afraid of water.

5. Summer cottage

Just like a boat, this is for the worker who enjoys solitude and being near the nature.

In a summer cottage you can smell the rain, feel the wind and almost be part of the nature without the fear of drowning. But you’ll have to make your own coffee.

6. Your home

Working at home is one of the biggest reasons why people choose to become self employed.

When you work at home, you get to be near your family and spend time with your kids when they come back from school or daycare. You can even work in your pajamas if you want to.

But that’s also the flip side: you get interrupted often, it can be hard to concentrate, and before you notice you spend the whole day doing household tasks. So, this working environment isn’t for everyone either. But if you are a family person disciplined enough to separate work and family time, it might be perfect for you.

7. Trailer

If you want to work at home, but are distracted by the other people living with you, you can consider moving your office outdoors. On a sunny day working on your porch or balcony can be a great option. But it’s not always sunny.

In a case of a rainy day having a real office is important. Kathy Sierra has solved this problem by having a vintage trailer on her front yard. Now she can stay outdoors, but still have an actual office.

8. Beach

Feel the salty breeze of wind on your face and hear the sound of waves hitting the shore.

If you want to be near water but don’t own a boat this might be a good option for you. Just don’t forget to work: beaches are full of things to do and see, and when the sun is shining, closing your eyes and relaxing on the sand can be tempting.

What about you, do you have a favorite place where you like to work? Or a dream of a place where work would not feel like working anymore, and you would really be living? Share your thoughts in the comments and let’s see how well our dreams match.

This month we’re celebrating Insanely Interesting September. Check out the announcement and participate in the group writing project: What do you find interesting today? What makes this September the most interesting so far? Why are you insanely interested in something? Share your thoughts and see what others have written.

Writing is the basis of all wealth - Jeffrey Gitomer

About six months ago I read this quote from an article written by Scott Ginsberg in which he recommends writing everything down. Inspired by the idea I decided to start writing as much as possible: I started planning this blog, journaling my thoughts every morning, and carrying a small notebook with me everywhere I go.

That small notebook made all the difference.

Deciding to carry a notebook with you sounds like a small change, but it has a huge effect. So big that I can’t imagine leaving the house without my notebook anymore.

1. You never know when you will need pen and paper: It happens all the time. You meet a new person and need to write down his phone number. Someone calls you and tells you an address where to go. You go shopping and need to write a list of things to buy. Usually this involves furiously looking for paper. And when the paper is found, there is no pen in sight.
2. Ideas come, ideas go, be quick to write them down: I have noticed that usually the best ideas come when you are away from your desk: out on a walk, riding a bus, driving your car. I used to think that if I don’t remember the idea the next day it probably wasn’t any good in the first place. Lately I have come to understand that it’s the nature of ideas that if you don’t write them down, you will lose them.
3. Reading your ideas helps you when you need inspiration: This morning I was about to panic as I didn’t have much time to write and was still missing an idea for a blog post. I took my notebook, browsed it a bit and noticed that on August 26th I had written a small note: “Things learned by carrying a notebook everywhere you go”.
4. Journaling takes time: I kept a diary for about a month, but it soon dried out. I just didn’t have the time to write my thoughts down after working, blogging and family time. Luckily carrying a small notebook with me all the time gives me some of the benefits of journaling in a more efficient way. Some day when I have more time I will start journaling again, but for now this is better than not writing at all.
5. It feels good when you can help someone else: Having a pen with you all the time means that whenever you see someone in a need of a writing device, you have one to share. I usually don’t share my notebook (except I let my wife write shopping lists in it) but the pen is something that I lend all the time. It makes people happy, and it’s a good opportunity to tell them to carry one with them as well.

I suggest you give it a try.

Buy a cheap small notebook and put it in your pocket. You’ll be surprised how soon you will be attached to it.

This month we’re celebrating Insanely Interesting September. Check out the announcement and participate in the group writing project: What do you find interesting today? What makes this September the most interesting so far? Why are you insanely interested in something? Share your thoughts and see what others have written.