But what I like best about this company is that they come out and admit where they’ve fallen short in their products. It was refreshing to see the Products that Bombed section of their company history (scroll down a half page). Nice touch.

Passion is caring enough about your art that you will do almost anything to give it away, to make it a gift, to change people.

Part of the passion is having the persistence and resilience to change both your art and the way you deliver it. Passion for your art also means having a passion for spreading your art. This means being willing to surrender elements that you are in love with in order to help the other parts thrive and spread. And at the same time, passion means having enough connection to your art that you’re not willing to surrender the parts that truly matter.

It’s a paradox, of course. In order to be true to your art, you must sacrifice the part of it that hinders the spread of your art. Deciding what to leave out and what to insist on is part of your art. And if the ideas don’t spread, if no gift is received, then there is no art, only effort. When an artist stops work before his art is received, his work is unfulfilled.

In a comment follow-up to his blog entry, Matt Linderman posted: “It’s not that all planning is always bad. It’s just we give it disproportionate value compared to what it’s actually worth. And often, we use it as an excuse because it’s easier to talk about stuff and write stuff down than it is to actually build something.

This is absolutely true. Many people value planning more than it’s worth. But it doesn’t follow that therefore plans are worthless.

Fixating on a plan as a guaranteed solution is a mistake. But assuming that there are human beings over the age of 12 who think a plan is a minute-by-minute blueprint of the future is ludicrous.

Like it or not, 37signals plans just like everybody else. Once upon a time, someone at 37signals decided, “We’re going to build a simple project management tool.” That’s not very detailed, but like it or not, it’s a plan. It redirected the status quo and changed the future. That’s what plans do.

How many world-class athletes do you know that have never used a periodized training schedule and diet plan? How many world-class musicians do you know who didn’t cut their teeth on twinkle-twinkle and then follow a typical progression from there to mastery?

Whether you call them plans, intentions, direction or progression is irrelevant. Looking at where you are today, imagining where you want to be — and then deciding on the first step in between — is a plan.

I suspect that my type-A fascination with improvement is frustrating to my family and co-workers, perhaps nauseating, curious at best. I feel it too. Sometimes I feel like I can’t escape my OCD-esque brain.

But I am intrigued by making straight lines straighter. Even a laser beam has a margin of error. Continuous improvement is the gravity that attracts me to the activities and tools that I love: business, climbing and technology.

Which is why I am always surprised when I meet someone who does not want to change, does not want to improve. Typically, I am shocked into silence.

And it’s especially confusing when that same person craves change in the outside world, but doesn’t want to commit any of their own resources to the cause.

Then again, why would they? That would be uncomfortable.

Craving change, improvement or a better life, but not being willing to get outside of your comfort zone is the equivalent of wanting to be a millionaire, but not wanting to work. Or wanting to be fit, but not wanting to exercise. Or wanting to be a Formula One racer, but being fixated on using a Model T.

It just ain’t gonna happen.

The cost of change is temporary discomfort. The cost of status quo is not being successful, not being fit, not being fast. Worse yet, when viewed relative to the modern world that moves so blissfully fast, status quo puts you in a declining state. Forever.

Isn’t a little discomfort today (maybe even every day) worth all of the rewards that improvement will bring?

The biggest lesson learned is actually something I was introduced to in 1984 at the age of 6 by a guy you probably know, Mr. Miyagi. The Karate Kid had an impact on my young life at the time and this year I was reminded of the importance of Mr. Miyagi’s cornerstone lesson; ‘wax on, wax off’.

Before Mr. Miyagi’s karate protégé, Daniel, could actually get a chance to block a kick or throw a punch he had to perform what seemed to be endless chores for Mr. Miyagi around the house. Painting the fence, sanding the deck and waxing the cars in Daniel’s mind were a waste of time and energy and were getting him nowhere closer to his goal of kicking ass.

I found myself doing the chores of daily life and grumbling about how it wasn’t leading me in the right direction and how I can’t believe that this is what I’m doing with myself. But that’s when I heard Mr. Miyagi’s voice and it made me realize that if I don’t master the actions and intentions of my daily, routine tasks then I will never kick ass at anything. Waxing on and waxing off perfectly with both hands taught Daniel the exact actions he needed to block a kick when it matters most.

Perfect execution of the not-so-important tasks is what teaches us the characteristics of perfect execution in general. So that has literally brought me back to Ambler, a place where people really enjoy doing things right. I have started sanding the deck and painting some of the fence and I know that it is leading me as an individual and Ambler as a company to becoming masters at what we do.

For the past month or so, I’ve been investigating a potential new business, one that would be entirely web-based. (Years ago two paths diverged in a wood, and I chose to live in my car and climb full-time rather than learning HTML…)

The details are irrelevant to Ambler, but what I’ve learned about the Internet in the past few weeks is hugely relevant if Ambler wants to thrive in the future: People entrenched in the web world (even those that have never met each other) can know a whole lot more about each other than the rest of us do. And one day the rest of the world is (hopefully) going to catch up.

I’ve been going through the usual process of interviews, reference checks, and other unactionable-tasks-that-drive-my-type-A-personality-crazy — i.e. everything Due Diligence demands. I’ve met some great, talented people, and I’ve learned a lot. Part of my process has been adding some atypical methods to the typical: reading the blogs of potential partners, scanning Twitter accounts and message boards, and subscribing to RSS feeds.

Why? Because I’ve learned (too slowly it seems…) that who I work with is as important as what they can do. And the Internet is currently the best, quickest way to learn about the people that participate in it.

Unfortunately, our (outdoor) industry is not up to speed. Consumers and retailers are forced to make innocent, shallow judgments of the companies they work with, and the products they buy, based on the logos, advertisements and “athletes” that grace the pages of our popular magazines.

Blech.

I don’t want Ambler to do that. It may mean sacrificing some business if we’re not in the latest, teeny-bopper, cool-dude, pants-really-need-a-belt, snowboard magazine, but… pants falling off butts drive me crazy anyway.

Brands are no longer a function of witty ad campaigns created in boardrooms by people you’ll never meet. Access to customers – and access to businesses – has been flattened. Brands are, more and more and more, about the people that go to work there everyday. No longer do you need 100 magazines and 10 million dollars in print ads to reach out and touch someone. A cell phone and two fast thumbs will do just fine.

In the near future, our website, our blog and our Twitter account are going to get a lot more personal. If so inclined, you’re going to learn more about the team at Ambler:

• You’ll start to learn what I think is good business, and what I think sucks. You may even learn why I never touch PIN pads with anything but the second knuckle of my first finger on my right hand.
• You’ll learn what is important to Holly Ambler (co-owner and our designer), what two colors you should never combine, and (most likely…) what ideas of mine she doesn’t like.
• From Irene Tos (our Office Manager), you’ll learn what is good accounting, the importance of detail, and (maybe) important keys to parenting two teenage daughters.
• From Lucas Ambler, our 5-year-old Chief Visionary Officer, you’ll learn about the hierarchy of Transformers, how to spot a Jedi that will turn to the dark side, and why sharing new toys is so damn hard.

You may like what you read. You may not. Either is fine. Regardless, it’ll be who we are and important for you to know.

If you want to do business with us or buy our products, it’s important that you know who you’re dealing with — that we’re not a big company pretending to be small like a coule of our competitors, for example — what we believe in, and how we work. Then you can decide if you wanna play on our team.

Honestly, I hope you do.

The texting teens, tweeting twits and pimply-faced nerd stereotypes will soon be upgraded to mansion-owners and Ferrari-drivers when more of those same folks become Presidents, PhDs and CEOs. And those that still use fax machines are going to be left in the dust.

The “nerds” — a positive term, I think, for a group of which I proudly consider myself a neophyte member — are winning because of three distinct advantages: asynchronous communication; the productive, personal nature of text; and most importantly, knowing when to use what.

Asynchronous Communication

A hour-long meeting with three people is one hour long. But it costs three person-hours. And because it’s face to face, our socialization compels us to hi-how-are-you niceties that produce nothing. And personal agendas can redirect meetings, or needs-to-be-heard about something irrelevant can waste more time still. So let’s bump up the cost of that hour-long meeting to, realistically, nine person-hours. Still wanna get together?

But anyone who has genuine control over their time, their email and their keyboard is kicking ass in a serious way just by successfully using asynchronous communication — essentially leaving messages for people to reply to when it’s convenient and most productive for them. It’s not only productive, it’s a hell of a lot more respectful than knocking on someone’s door and knocking them out of their “zone”.

As a result, nerds aren’t having one meeting after another, but 10s and hundreds of meetings at a time. And rather than wasting nine person-hours, they’re wrapping things up in nine minutes. Total. All communicating participants combined.

Text is Productive, Text is Personal

People transitioning from socialized methods of communication into text-based email will over-use “hi” and “regards”, etc. But once a relationship has truly become close, personal and productive, that waste is gone. Emails are without niceties and include only actionable information. The true test of a good work relationship can be measured by how much you don’t say.

On the other hand, things like blogs and Twitter are also text-based, but you get to know someone in ways that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to, even if you had lunch with them everyday for a week.

Spend an hour with me and you’ll know very little. Spend an hour on my blog and you’ll learn much more. (In my case, probably more than you want to.)

Knowing When to Use What

People that rely entirely on face-to-face (or voice-to-voice) communication are at a distinct disadvantage in the speed of their work and the success of their career. “Talking” is simply too slow. And if you’re competing with 100,000,000 nerds typing at 60 wpm — and, like it or not, you are competing with them and you will be more and more — it’s not difficult to figure out who’s going to win, improve, succeed, and get the job done.

So, please use…

• Email for productive exchanges of information, NOT for hi-how-are-you or to broadcast your first trip to Asia;
• Intranets for inside-company messages and announcements;
• Project management programs for, well, project management;
• Wikis for broad, collaborative efforts;
• Twitter as a personal or corporate mini-blog;
• Blogs for personal or corporate commentary, description and announcements;
• Phone when all else fails, the email would be too long, you’re just “meeting” someone for the first time, or what is unfortunately the case with most phone calls, you have no idea what this article is talking about; and
• Meetings for…

Corporate Culture

Is it important? You bet. More important than skills and experience.

Corporate culture is make-it-or-break-it for great companies. But improvements in corporate culture come from two sources, and neither of them have anything to do with boardroom tables or email.

First, do your job superbly well. Become a crucial member of the team by exceeding the need. In contrast, if you constantly let your team down, even if you tell great jokes, they won’t want to hang out with you for long.

Second, have a meeting.

But don’t pretend it’s about work. Go for lunch, spend the day rock climbing. Jump out of airplanes together. Whatever.

You know. Have fun. Spend time like meetings were intended to: important and honestly unproductive.

Sooner or later, something fundamental in your business world will change.

We live in an age in which the pace of technological change is pulsating ever faster, causing waves that spread outward toward all industries. This increased rate of change will have an impact on you, no matter what you do for a living. It will bring new competition from new ways of doing things, from corners that you don’t expect.

It doesn’t matter where you live. Long distances used to be a moat that both insulated and isolated people from workers on the other side of the world. But every day, technology narrows that moat inch by inch. Every person in the world is on the verge of becoming both a coworker and a competitor to every one of us, much the same as our colleagues down the hall of the same office building are. Technological change is going to reach out and sooner or later change something fundamental in your business world.

— Andrew S. Grove, former President & CEO of Intel, from his book Only the Paranoid Survive (preface)