The Must Read List: The Top Five Posts for 2011

Last year around this time I dedicated myself to try and write everyday for 2011.  While I wasn't able to reach that goal - I feel very good about what I was able to accomplish.  I want to thank every single one of you who visited the site and read anything - even once!  It is humbling to think that anyone would read anything I am writing so thank you!

Here are the top five posts on laurent-courtines.com for 2011:

5. New York City is Awesome When.... February 17th, 2011
A list of the reasons I love my home town.

4. Reflections on Five Years at AOL. July 17th, 2011

My views on AOL and the great people I worked with.

3. Facebook is in trouble and here's why. May 27th, 2011

After Facebook made a change I summed up some issues I think they have.  I may rue the day I wrote this down.

2. My Hometown: East Harlem New York.  It has problems. March 12th, 2011
Living in and growing up in Manhattans last ghetto, I list it's problems. This one gets picked up my search. Read this one, I'm proud of it.

1. How I manage over 100 Facebook Fan Pages. April 8th, 2011.

A service piece I did explaining how managed the entire AOL Games social presence.

Thanks everyone,  all four-thousand plus who visited the site this year.  I'll keep trying to write and bring what I can to the table.

Get bored... get really bored. It's important.

I haven't been writing much.  I haven't been doing much of anything else but working.  I get up,  I take the train, I work, I go home - the cycle continues.  That's most peoples days, sure.  For me,  I have been spending every waking minute thinking, pondering, wondering about my new job.  It's very exciting and I am loving it.  The difficulty,  the expectations, the responsibility has been exhilarating.  There is one problem.  I have no time to be bored.

Being bored is important.  Being bored is the state in which we have to find something to occupy our brains or we go bananas.  When I am bored I look for new things to learn.  When I am bored I call friends.  When I am bored I can be creative to you know? Not be bored!  My new job isn't allowing me to be bored.  That's a good thing but I miss being bored.

I never thought I would miss being bored but I do.  Boredom is awesome.  

A sign of the times - Talking out of one's ass is exploding.

Just read a wonderful article titled I Don't Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore by Dan Parlotta.  While reading it I smiled from ear to ear.  We are in the midst of an bullshit explosion of epic proportions. (Maybe we always have been but I might be just paying attention)   I do not absolve myself of the problem. I talk bullshit with the rest of them.  What is happening is people don't know how to speak straight and to the point.  

Here is an example of the bullshit that's going on from Dan Parlotta:

"You should meet this guy with the SIO. He's sort of this kind of social entrepreneur thinking outside of the box in the sustainability space and working on these ideas around sort of web-based social media, and he's in a round two capital raise in the VP space with the people at SVNP." 

WHAT? Oookaaay.

What we need is to get back to calling people out on what they are saying.  When people say "Like" all the time, ask them... Like what?  What is this thing you are saying like?  Literally is it like that?  Explain it to me please.  If someone says "let's hit this out of the ball park" Ask, what if I am singles hitter, who can steal bases?  Do I have to hit with power?  Just mess with people.  We need to get back to a more natural language of people meaning what they say and saying what they mean.

Just read the article and enjoy.  And if you are a bullshit talker,  try just a little bit harder to reduce your bullshit. I know I will.

Steal this idea: Pogo for dudes.

Pitch:  Take Mochi Games and Armor game and add them together.
Put a paywall up on the top 10 Armor games.  
Rotate the games in and out of the pay system. Subscribers would get.perks, status etc.  All the fancy stuff memberships provide.

Yes,  its Pogo for dudes, but so what? Why wouldn't people pay for an awesome curated flash game experience?