Monday, June 16, 2008

Lessons Learned, and those to thank (or blame)

Many things have changed for me in the past couple of years, much of it because of lessons I have learned from others. Below are a few folks I have learned from and want to thank for their enlightenment. Note that I won't mention what I learned from each, or even when (a few lessons may not have been intentional) because that doesn't really matter, I just want to say "Thank You" to them. In no particular order:

Chris Brogan- people will tell you that Chris is intelligent, articulate, friendly, helpful, insightful, sharing, and on and on. All the gushing over this guy might be a bit much- if it weren't all true.

Jennifer Leggio, aka Mediaphyter- I've only known Jennifer for about six months, and watching her work is amazing. Her ability to "connect the dots" on a dizzying array of levels is amazing and eye-opening.

Critt Jarvis- I have never "clicked" with someone at work the way I did while working with Critt. We often handed each other pieces of a puzzle before the other knew they needed it. Amazing, actually. Thanks, and get out of my head.

Martin McKeay- Content, Community, Identity. I could say a lot more about Martin, but I'll leave it at: he creates content and builds community, and he's Martin. Which is pretty cool.

Chris Hoff- Is really smart. "Stop it now, Hoff, my head's gonna explode" kind of smart. You can't help but learn from him, and he's a great guy to be around- but I can't imagine trying to keep up with him for any length of time.

The list is far from comprehensive, there are certainly others I have learned from and should thank- and many more I should have learned from, but didn't.

Maybe you can learn something from these folks, too. Or you can find your own people to learn from. Maybe you could even learn from my mistakes, there's plenty of material there.

Jack