Tonight, along with some great company, I’m celebrating New Year’s Eve with the Avett Brothers. A fitting end to the year as the Avett Brothers this year provided what has become one of the most inspiring refrains of the year for me – “Decide what to be, and go be it.” This simple statement, along with the influence of Steve Jobs’ legacy have inspired me to streamline my pursuit – to prioritize and identify the most important dream to pursue next – and to focus solely on that pursuit until I’ve acheived an acceptable level of, well, greatness. Over this past year, I’ve experienced more clarity about what I want to be than I’ve ever had. Now, it’s time to go be it. 2012, here I come.

I remember the day I got that iPod – in fact I think it took at least six apartment/house moves before I finally threw away the box. I remember opening it and just being amazed at how much thought must have gone into the packaging and the experience of unpacking it. And I remember the iconic five words that still grace the packaging of their products today – “Designed by Apple in California”. Words in white text on a black background so simply stated, yet so thoughtful and meaningful.

“Designed”. Not made, not crafted, not derived. Not based on something similar but drastically different in some magically marketable way. No, this product was designed, as an original idea, carefully poked, prodded and perfected to the best of our most reasonable sensibilities, experience and technological capabilities. This product will, at first glance, seem like something familiar to you – you will know what you are supposed to do with it, but you have never interacted with a product like the one you are about to encounter.

“by Apple”. Not by our OEM partner. This is not based on a reference design procured by another company. We did this. You know who we are, and you know what we do. We believe our name speaks for itself. And although this may be your first experience with one of our products, from now on, you will know what to expect from every other product of ours that you buy.

“in California”. It could say “in America” and it would hit that patriotic nerve in all of us. And it would only be half as effective as it is. Because everyone knows that California is in America. But everyone also knows that California means so much more than this product is an American product. California is the land of the gold rush, the ultimate destination of the great westward expansion, and Hollywood. California is the land where products and ideas are dreamt and where those dreams come true.

This product could only have been dreamt – could only have been designed – by this company in this place. This product is unique. And there are millions of them everywhere.

I don’t know if Steve Jobs wrote those five words. But I’ve read some of the things he’s written, and I know that the thoughtful simplicity are hallmarks of his messages and how he chooses to deliver them. He may not have written the words, but they were written by him – by the way he led, by the team he assembled, by the company he helped create.

Steve Jobs will be remembered for innumerable contributions to our way of life. Some of them may be deserved and some of them may be overstated. But the thing that I will always carry with me is the thoughtful simplicity that characterized every directive, every idea, every vision, and, I can only assume, every day of his life. Thanks, Steve. You will be missed.

I’m coming off a 2 week binge of deadline madness and while there are certainly still a couple more on the horizon, I’m feeling a lot more like myself. I really wanted to caffeine detox this weekend, but it didn’t exactly happen. It’d be interesting to see if there’s just a little more normal under all that wound up, pressure pulled coffee dependency.

Or am I wrong?

About a month ago I read an article about a study at Rice University that now gives me pause every time I open the deluge of daily deal emails that flood my inbox. On the surface this is an article questioning the long term viability of the Groupon business model. And this analysis is not alone. But dig a little deeper, find a story or two about a small business owner’s experience in offering deals through Groupon and the outlook (and possibly even your perception of the process itself) gets dimmer. It’s easy for us to think that all a business owner wants is to get people in the door – and for the most part that’s fundamentally true – but just getting people in the door doesn’t magically pay the bills even if everyone that walks through the door buys something. And especially if everyone who walks through the door buys something at a discount.

It’s not all Groupon’s fault. In fact, very little of it is. Groupon is just a microcosm of the type of consumers that we have become – the type of consumers that marketing, globalization, and Wal-Mart have conditioned us to be: always seeking the best deal, always pushing the terms of those deals to the absolute limit and beyond, and always expecting perfection out of a system built by imperfect people – ourselves.

I call this the Daily Deal Dilemma because, as I see it, there is no black and white response. I’m not going to stand up and proclaim that I’ll never buy another Groupon or Living Social deal again. That would be foolish and dishonest. Remember, I called myself an addict and I haven’t been able to find any twelve step programs to battle daily deal addiction yet. What I will do is try to be a better consumer. If it’s a place I’ve never been before but am interested in trying, I’ll Groupon-it-up and go in and spend (and tip) generously but reasonably within my means. If it’s a place I visit once or twice a month anyway, I’ll abstain. And just to throw a weird exception in there, if it’s a place that has my credit card burned into the card reader, I’m buying max Groupons because, hey, I’ve practically put their kids through college anyway. And finally, if my Groupon is expired, or I’m not adhering to the stated/printed terms of the Groupon, I’m paying full price. The terms for these things are ridiculous sometimes, but no one’s pointing a gun to my head making me buy them and it’s my responsibility to make sure I read them carefully before I commit. Plain and simple.

The point is, we have to stop being so selfish as consumers. We have to start really thinking about the long term consequences of our actions and our overall behavior. We truly believe that money makes the world go round and it makes us evaluate everything we do in quantitative terms. We are so focused on transactions rather than interactions that we’ve lost sight of what really drives our existence – our relationships. We call it social deal making but in reality it’s actually more like social – and economic – suicide.

I actually have this strange history with sandwiches. Until that fateful day at Potbelly’s, I never really ate them that much. Not because I didn’t like them, but more because I seemed to always feel compelled to have a hot meal. Cold cuts were, well, cold; and hot sandwiches were expensive and, at least according to my feeble young mind, just a lame attempt at replacing a hamburger. But I can’t honestly say that it was all Potbelly’s that turned me on to sandwiches. They were more like the sandwich shop that was in the right place at the right time – I was in my twenties, working so I had more disposable income, my tastes were evolving, and I was starting to be a little more conscious of healthier eating (though I concede that pretty much anyone’s italian sandwich can go toe to toe calorie-wise with a hamburger). I could have walked into any dump of a sandwich shop at the time and it probably would have had the same effect on my psyche. I was primed for change. But Potbelly’s was there, and for that they forever hold a place in my digestive heart as the matchmaker for me and the sandwich.

Unfortunately, the pedestal that time, distance, and nostalgia led me to place Potbelly’s on also has opened them up to vicious attacks from the unenlightened. “Went to Potbelly’s last week, and it is no different than Quiznos,” a friend boldly states, cowardly hiding behind 394 miles of internet-plated armor. Conceptually he’s right. They’re both purveyors of (primarily) hot sandwiches, employing a similar assembly line then oven then assembly line format for customizing your meal with various accoutrements. But that’s like saying that his beloved Jimmy John’s is the same thing as going to Subway. Jimmy John’s and Subway both cut their teeth on the classic cold cut sandwich, although Subway, for reasons outside of the scope of this conversation, has had to vary their product a little more since then. In fact, I’d argue that Jimmy John’s and Potbelly’s are more similar than their vastly different sandwich products would otherwise imply.

I’ll put it to you this way, you walk into a Potbelly’s or a Jimmy John’s, and you’re met with the same hasty approach to taking your order. “What are you having, what do you want on it, and why aren’t you telling me faster?”. Their menus are relatively simple, lacking diversity which isn’t needed for their niche market (they’re a niche, they are the diversity!). They don’t really make similar sandwiches, but compare them to their lower-end sandwich counterparts (Quiznos and Subway, respectively) and the breads are better, the meats are better, and probably the prices are higher (all subjective except for the price bit).

Regardless of your preference, there is clearly a class barrier that separates these groups of sandwich shops. Quiznos isn’t trying to serve the same market as Potbelly’s, at least not in the same way. In the case of me and my antagonist, his proclomation that a Quiznos sandwich is as good or better than a similar sandwich from Potbelly’s is clearly biased as a reaction against the aforementioned exalted status I’ve given to Potbelly’s rather than a rational food critique. I understand the point, as it’s a perfectly reasonable admonition of my own history of reacting strongly against extreme passion for one’s favorite band, book or movie. But the comment is reckless, rash, and misdirected and I cannot and will not allow a personal vendetta to bring down one of the greatest heros of our time.

The more providential Jeffersonian version of the story triumphed in the history books, as Adams knew it would, helped along by one final act of fate that everyone, then and now, regarded as the unmistakable voice of God. On the evening of July 3, 1826, Jefferson fell into a coma. His last discernible words, uttered to the physician and family gathered around the bedside, indicated he was hoping to time his exit in dramatic fashion: “Is it the Fourth?” It was not, but he lingered in a semiconscious condition until shortly after noon on the magic day. That same morning, Adams collapsed in his favorite reading chair. He lapsed into unconsciousness at almost the exact moment Jefferson died. The end came quickly, at about five-thirty that afternoon. He wakened for a brief moment, indicated that nothing more should be done to prolong the inevitable, then, with obvious effort, gave a final salute to his old friend with his last words: “Thomas Jefferson survives,” or, by another account, “Thomas Jefferson still lives.” Whatever the version, he was wrong for the moment but right for the ages.
Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis

I’m not a history buff, but I have always held in high regard those great men who led us through the revolution to our independence and helped construct a nation that could sustain it for hundreds of years and counting. I recently read Ellis’ book, Founding Brothers and highly recommend it as a reminder of what this great nation was, and still is, destined for. The Founding Brothers, as Ellis insightfully refers to them, had their fair share of disagreements – but they worked to overcome them (or in some cases, postpone them) in order to stand together for a common cause. The cause was not just independence, but also to establish a democracy to stand the test of time against the enemies of democracy: rival nations and, worst of all, the faults of man. As we celebrate today, let us not forget that independence is not just about freedom for you and me, but freedom for all of us, and that the path to freedom for all is not paved with personal gain, but personal sacrifice. Let us not be a generation characterized by what we have gained, but instead what we have sacrificed to ensure the continued success of our great nation for many years to come.