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At the risk of looking ignorant to most people, but taking the chance to bond with other friends or family who might be in the same ignorant boat with me, I wanted to say that I recently (a relative term) figured out what the acronym DIY stood for.  I’ve seen it around in all kinds of places, and maybe I had figured out its meaning before, but it hadn’t sunk in enough for me to know it off the top of my head without seeing it used in context.  (Don’t people know they’re supposed to spell out an acronym when it’s first used in a document?  It’s just courteous.)

Anyway, it’s such a common concept these days that I guess most people figure that most other people know what it means.  And I don’t know if that is necessarily the case.  So for you fellow ignorants out there, it stands for Do It Yourself.  And there are all kinds of websites and different applications out there that apply the DIY concept (such as http://www.diynetwork.com/ and http://www.diyweddinginvitation.com/).

But I would like to promote a particular one today.  It’s called the Personal MBA (PMBA) and it is a do it yourself education based on the best and latest business books.  And even though I actually have an official MBA, I signed up for this one this year because I believe in the concept, I always like to continually learn new things, and I’m doing it with a group of people who will make it a top notch experience.

Here’s the rub.  The program contains a list of 77 of the best business books (based on multiple valid sources) including classics and recent releases, and you set up your own reading schedule to read the books and have online discussions about them with others.  You don’t have to read all the books and you can create your own schedule, but it does help if you do it with a group so you can learn together and support each other throughout the program.  You also create projects where you apply the things you learn. 

Isn’t that what education is all about?  Do you really need to spend thousands of dollars for  a university experience?  And if you’re on your own time table and studying topics that you are really interested in, doesn’t that provide a better motivation to accomplish true learning?  That is the position of the PMBA Program.  You can read the manifesto here.

The group that I am studying with is so incredibly awesome that we already have some authors of the books and other experts lined up to teach us.  How can you get better than that?  And I think all it took was to ask.  This is the true power of DIY.  We have set up our own Master’s program with relevant cutting edge business topics, using no budget (the only cost to us is the price of the books), and with participants from around the world networking with each other and the great minds of the latest business trends.  Our specific program may not be universally recognized (yet) but when you see the outcome – our knowledge, ability, and skill, – and the course content and instructors, it should be recognized as a valuable education.

Our plan consists of 25 books, reading a book each week, implementing the concepts, and working on our ‘Big Idea’. 

The opportunities are endless.  Where can you apply the DIY concept in areas that you may not have considered possible before?  A small group of people is a powerful thing.

One cool dynamic about blogs, if they’re done right, is that you’re not getting too much information at a time.  Each post only takes a few minutes or seconds to read and only contains one concept.  By itself, one post doesn’t really do much.

But if they keep coming,

every day,

over time,

they add up,

to a lot.

Like a drip of water, it doesn’t mean much, but a few drips combined together can make a trickle,which is more noticeable. 

A bunch of trickles together create a flood.

 A flood is something that is powerful and can change anything in its path.

Yet it’s made of the same thing as a drip.

You can make small changes in your life, or in the world,

that when done consistently,

over time,

can make a HUGE impact.

This was the idea that some of my friends wanted to spread, so they started a movement called

www.dripit.org 

Check it out.  And be a drip.  Create a flood.

Do you really want to learn something? 

Then the first step is to realize that you don’t know everything. That might be easy and obvious at an overall, general level, but let’s take it down to a specific level.  It means that you might not know what to do in a certain situation.  It means that you may not be right, that your way is not the only way.

That, my friend, is humility.

Many see this virtue as a weakness, void of power, but tell me who has true power with the people around them, a know-it-all who tells everyone what to do and has all the answers, or someone who is willing to listen to others and is open to being influenced, or in other words, learning something?  Who do people want to be around and will gladly assist or follow?

Humility will gather willing followers, and thus true power.

Can we say “I don’t understand” and really mean it, in a way that says we want to understand?  In other words, can we admit that we don’t know everything?  

When we can take that first step, only then can we begin to learn.

Of course resolutions should be done whenever you feel the need, but I guess the new year is the one point in time each year when it is universally accepted that everyone should be making some kind of resolution to do something they want to do but haven’t done yet.  The fact that is it such a widely accepted phenomenon and whole markets and industries are built upon it means that there is a common wide gap between most people’s actual behavior and how they would like to behave.

That gap creates progress.

If no one ever sought improvement, however it is defined, then no progress would be made – as individuals, as families, as societies.  The first step is recognizing the gap and attempting to close it.  And that should be an ongoing endeavor for everyone.  But since it can be difficult, and we need constant reminders, we might as well take advantage of this time of the year when “everybody is doing it.”  It can be like a group effort where we are all supporting each other to keep our resolutions, because in the end, if everyone gets a little better, the world might get a little better.  And that is progress.

So in order to help the world progress, my 2009 New Year’s Resolution is to write in my blog every day.

Then yours can be to read it every day.  And maybe, just maybe, we can help each other make other small differences in our lives which cause progress.  Progress in ourselves, our families, our communities, and due to the wide global reach of the internet, progress around the world. 

Who says it can’t happen?

It’s your choice.

I was going to tell you about one presentation on a site called slideshare.net , a place where people can share their presentation slides, but being curious, I found a whole bunch more that looked interesting, so I spent all my time watching cutting edge presentations instead of posting a blog entry.

But I couldn’t quit without accomplishing my goal – to add a new post no matter what.  So here it is. And here are the presentations you should checkout on www.slideshare.net . (NEWSFLASH: Power Point bullets are out, cool pictures are in.)  Check these out and change the way you give your next presentation.

Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us  by Seth Godin.  It’s really helpful to have the notes for this one (which means you need to create a slideshare account – easy, email and password)

Brain Rules: What all presenters need to know

Sample slides by Garr Reynolds

These are only 3 examples, but as you’ll see, they’ll suggest a bunch of related presentations, that if you’re curious, could keep you going for a long time.

Have fun and keep learning!

An interesting concept I learned from Clay Shirky’s “Here Comes Everybody” is how the internet now enables a ‘publish first, filter later’ mentality.  Which means that most people are launching new ideas, business models, websites, etc. all the time even though many of them never really take off.  But it’s kind of okay if they don’t work because it didn’t really cost anything to launch them in the first place.

In the olden days (a couple of years ago) you had to have everything exactly right before you launched a new initiative, or wrote a book, or created a video because you had some significant transaction costs associated with producing something.  So companies and individuals had limited opportunities for implementing changes based on funding.  But now, with low transaction costs, you can produce practically anything from your home office.

So that’s what people are doing.  And if it doesn’t work, big deal, I can produce something again tomorrow.  And whatever I produced that didn’t work, it just sits out there on the internet getting filtered by search engines.  There are millions of items out there that have probably never been seen by anyone. (Like this blog.)

This low cost of failure allows people and corporations to try more things and new ideas without the risk of sunk costs.  With no risk, the only thing stopping you is your belief that you can do it.

So believe, and produce.  Eventually, one of your ideas is going to be wildly successful.