Recently I watched a lecture How to get your ideas to spread by
Seth Godin. I suggest watching the lecture before reading on.
Mr. Godin talked about otaku and the importance of otaku for
the success of a project. When I think of some successful ideas I can clearly
see the large user base behind the idea. A good example is Linux; I am amazed
by the level of dedication, commitment, and fervor of Linux fan boys. I mean
Apache is an open source platform present on over half of the top servers in
the world[1].
How amazing that people would dedicate their own free time to a project that
will net them no financial gain? These people have jobs and yet they spend
thier free time working with strangers all in the name of progress. This isn’t
just for Linux, and this applies for all Open Source projects. And to be honest
this doesn’t surprise me because I think we have an instinct to contribute to
the general knowledge. I work tirelessly on a project that I have no intention
of getting money from, but I believe in the project and I think it will allow
me to contribute to the grand pool of human knowledge, and I would gladly do
this for free over a thousand times.
As I continue my work on the Delta Project and the Graph
Engine I look forward to the point where I can release it on some open source
site for others to begin collaborating with me.
Eventually the project might reach some satisfactory state
where I would be happy to release it fully, and at this point I have been
thinking on how to get acceptance. That lecture interested me because I have
always wondered how popular ideas got to be so popular. I mean there are plenty
of good ideas that are proven to work, and yet have not been fully accepted.
How do you share an idea? How do you get acceptance? How do ideas spread?
These are all fascinating questions I had coming in. I
didn’t have all of them answered but I was happy with what I learned.
My favorite moment was his discussion of otaku. It was great
because I realized that my involvement in the Delta Project arose from otaku. I
think if someone shows their passion for idea it makes acceptance a lot easier.
When someone is pouring their heart out, you listen and empathize with them and
the human body is amazing at mimicking emotions; so when someone is very happy
you will also mirror those emotions. Also I think it’s much easier to relate to
people who are passionate because we have all had the experience of loving
something with all our being.
When I first talked to Professor Alpha about Concept
Modeling I had no knowledge about Knowledge Representation, Natural Language
Processing, or Computer Theory. I got hooked initially because I could tell he
was passionate and the ideas were interesting. Granted I am naturally curious
and I liked the idea because it touched on fields of study that interested me,
and there were plenty of other factors, but I doubt I would have accepted the
project if he hadn’t put his heart in it.
My passion for C# arose from my interactions with Prof.
Kappa. He was so knowledgeable and passionate about C# and the language details
that I just wanted mirror that knowledge and passion. I mean this guy knew
practically everything about the language and he loved to talk about it. Check him out. I
know…anonymity broken…but I don’t really care I just want to protect them, so
don’t mention how you found them.
When I think about it more I realize all my passions arose from
others who properly conveyed their passion and I sort of just followed along. I think there is a class of people that feed off of passion.
So what is the take away?
Otaku
is important for the survival of an idea.
Find
your own otaku whatever it maybe. Bonus points if it contributes to human
knowledge.
Consider Open Source Projects (I
will explain in the future).
Your Friend,
Abdulmajid Alnouri
P.S: Don’t care about the gap between posts. I will try to
post on a regular basis now that I have found the image I want to create for
this blog.
