May 25, 2022
What is success and what is failure on LinkedIn? In business? In life?
When I was at PwC, the practice I was in won a £139m project — and it was the beginning of the end for us.
I got up early to write this, as usual, and cradled my coffee as I pored over my writing prompts.
What would be a suitable follow-up to Monday’s very successful post on ‘the problem of classification and nebulosity’?
Will today’s post be a relative flop, like the one (that was very important to me) on ‘meta-rationality’? Or a stonking success, like my recent one on the APPortunity conference?
I was easy bait to be nerdsniped, distracted, and blown off course by an intriguing tweet from Venkatesh Rao, talking about his ‘failure’ to bring the art of twitter shitposting to LinkedIn.
“Little did I know LinkedIn earnestposting is secretly the epitome of of pure shitposting”, he said.
https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1529287516838187008
And though it’s possible the LinkedIn algorithm will crush this post for use of a naughty word, shitposting is actually something really interesting. It’s earnestness wearing a mask, it’s getting in under the radar with truly subversive thinking.
So, four quotations from music/poetry which are truly subversive are below. Each from a piece of work which is worthy of listening to in full!
Is it a success to make billions and destroy the planet?
Is it a failure to be sincere in a world that sneers at anything but irony?
Are you a failure or a success? Are you sure?
I’ve heard you say many times
That you’re better than no one
And no one is better than you
If you really believe that
You know you have
Nothing to win and nothing to lose
To Ramona, Bob Dylan
practice, practice makes perfect
Perfect is a fault, in fault lies change
I Believe, R.E.M.
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If, by Rudyard Kipling (‘Brother Square-Toes’ — Rewards and Fairies)
(CC BY-SA 2.0)
In the dime stores and bus stations
People talk of situations
Read books, repeat quotations
Draw conclusions on the wall
Some speak of the future
My love she speaks softly
She knows there’s no success like failure
And that failure’s no success at all
Love Minus Zero/No Limit — Bob Dylan
