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I don’t think people enjoy, look forward to or remember ordinary and what everyone is doing. They are all zigging. They are all making games for social networks (yea I know). They all made widgets, they loved MySpace, Facebook, twitter, now friendfeed whatever.

I learned at the gorgeous Argentina Recoleta cemetery that to stand out you must Zag. If you have not been it is super large cemetery with some of the most famous people of Argentina. Some takeaways:

• Make it larger than everyone else. Or possibly even smaller.
• Make it more lavish or more frugal than ever done before.
• Put some random crap on your headstone that people will wonder what’s going on.

With so many things the same how is your business going to stand out?

Personal Finance: It’s funny how many people assume since I was a business and econ major that I know something about personal finance. I only learned cause my step-father was active in it and encouraged me to do the same. So many people face credit-card debt (or don’t have a credit card which infuriates me), aren’t sure what a Fico score is and multiple other core financial issues. It should be required to learn this to graduate high school.

Health: So many overweight people in America and we do hardly anything about it. We have PE which is running around a track and counting how many pull-ups you can do. Why not show the importance of showering everyday (is that important?)? How to cook for yourself, which foods to eat and why and the reasons to do different physical fitness.

Relationships: This includes personal and professional. How do you hold a conversation? How do you meet a life partner and treat them well? So many things that you experience in life that having a little practice with couldn’t hurt.

What else do you wish you learned in school?

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Let’s say you are on the beer diet, ie. you like drinking beer. You go out with friends and have a beer, oh the foam is so good and the Ale is delicious. Okay, 5 beers later (6 total) you are now out 720 calories. DAMN! I know. Guess what? Let’s go work that off at the gym, that’s about 1.25 hours of running to match that. Oh wait, you remember those late night munchies you had afterwards. Damn #2. That’s another 1000 calories from those tasty nachos that aren’t so tasty in your stomach this morning.

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What’s the point of this article? We spend way too much time changing pointless things when shifting small things can make large impacts. What’s easier: Running for 3.5 hours to match your 2 hours of fun the night before or just drinking less beer and eating an apple instead of the nachos?

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I guess you can have variations: Snicker’s Almond, Google’s iGoogle homepage and so forth.

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Then I really wonder. When is something good enough Not to change?

“Walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things”

Get inspired by his video.

Bottom line: Evaluate the things you spend time on during your day and where/what you really get value out of.

This has been a non-sponsored message by the time wasters at Sketchfu.com, draw it…FOO!

Bonus Productivity Tip: Don’t bring your power adapter home at night. I have been doing this lately and it limits my time to work and helps me focus on the essentials. Tim would call it Parkinson’s law.

I was talking with Chris one morning and we stumbled into an interesting discussion. What do you think of when you hear of some famous company names for the first time?

• Burger King and McDonalds – If you heard these two for the first time which would make you think ‘delicious’ and which would make you think tools or something?
• Maceys and Forbes – Would you know the difference between a clothing store and a business magazine? Using a last name tells me nothing about a company. Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club are awesome extensions of Sam Walton’s name.
• General Motors, Ford, Toyota – Hmm, I’d think General Motors is probably something to do with motors. Cars though? Perhaps. Ford and Toyota? No way.
• Safeway – First aid? Airbag manufacturer?
• Flickr – Something to do with light. A camera flash.
• meebo – Something about myself but I’d never think instant messaging.
• Pandora – Something bad, cluttered, uncontrollable. Wow, isn’t it all about the opposite?
• Google - I know everyone in elementary school was fascinated by the word ‘googolplex’ I’m sure I’d think of “a lot” and maybe math. Search, though? Never.
• OK Dork- Uh….

It’s amazing how many companies actually use family names. Check out the Fortune 100 list: Wells Fargo, Sears, McKesson, Morgan Stanley, Time Warner, Walgreens, Lockheed Martin, Lowes, Archer-Daniels-Midland, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Merrill Lynch, Walt Disney, etc.

So, when you’re spending hours coming up with a name for your new company, product, service or feature maybe it’s not worth your time. If it’s good the name will follow…

Feel free to prove me wrong…

The Toilet

The Bed

Burritos

Answer: The people in comments were close but no cigar. The real thing in common is that they are all things people do. Steve Jobs sleeps. Bill Gates poops on a toilet, albeit a really nice one (I know, I went to this house). Noah eats burritos. I think sometimes we don’t realize that ‘users’ and ‘celebrities’ are ordinary people with needs, feelings, desires, hopes, etc…

How does someone read a motivational story, get inspired and go do something? How do you not have the flame blip and then burn out.

What can people do when reading something to: absorb, adopt and continually use this new information. We can all put words on paper, we can all write but how can we all act upon what we read, hear, feel and believe?

What’s the point of this? The point is my problem with people calling themselves experts.

I worked at Facebook, created Community Next, bring people together with Entrepreneur27 and I like people. Where in this world did I become a social network / community expert? I am not saying I don’t understand it well but is there a rule book about when people can start labeling themselves “experts.”

The best part of this rant are the people who have never done ANYTHING and somehow they are now experts in a field. Have they every slept in a Kangaroo’s pouch? Have they ever created something from scratch? Does reading a lot of books about something make you an expert?

What makes someone an expert?