Sometimes you have to let it happen

When I got up this morning, I still wasn't really sure which way the day was going to go. Good? Bad? Or one of those forgettable, middle of the road days where you look back two weeks later and can't remember anything remarkable about it, not even what you had for lunch.

So I walked in to the coffee shop yesterday afternoon, craving my vanilla latte (I am such an addict!) It was going to be my special treat, a little indulgence that I could have even now, when money is tight and time even tighter. I had already ordered when I saw the handwritten sign taped to the cash register that said "Sorry, credit card machine is down. Cash only."

Stifling my interior whiner (and she can be SO loud) I stopped the clerk before she started fixing my drinks, apologized and said I'd have to skip the drinks as I didn't have any cash with me. One of the drawbacks about blogging for a living is that my cash, what there is, is almost always spoken for. Groceries, major utility bills, unexpected and yet somehow regular emergencies, etc. When I buy a treat it is often funded by my PayPal MasterCard where my blogging money goes. There's almost never much there after bills are paid, but it's my secret stash - sometimes only $2, sometimes as much as $10, that I can dip into now and again.

I turned to go when a woman just ahead of me in line picking up her order stopped me. "Let me buy your drinks today," she said pulling out a $20. I was... I don't know what I was. I stammered something about no, it was ok, really, I'd just come back later, the coffees weren't a big deal - which I think she and I both knew was a lie, the coffees were a very big deal at that moment. I'd been looking forward to this one stupid little thing all day as I worked, and scrimped and generally muddled through, and now I felt it slipping away again, I'd just have to do without - when she did the most amazing thing.

She put a hand on my arm and said "Let someone else be good to YOU for a change. Accept a random act of kindness." It took a moment to sink in, and suddenly I realized I was being a martyr. I was also not being selfless, I was being selfish; depriving this person of the opportunity to do something good for someone else... and feel good about HERSELF for the rest of the day. I accepted and thanked her (I hope graciously - I was still so stunned by the whole thing) and as she climbed into her white SUV and drove away I realized I didn't even know her name.

Neither, it turned out, did the barista. "Not a regular," she said. She had slipped a package of chocolate covered coffee beans in my unknown benefactor's bag, and she too seemed surprised and touched by the act. I took my latte outside, climbed in the car, sipped my drink and thought - thank you God, thank you universe, and thank you to the unknown woman who saw somehow that i needed that moment, driving right now on some highway in her white SUV.  Thank you - for all those little random acts of kindness.

The online information economy

I just read an interesting top ten list that lists "10 new ways to make money online." I enjoyed the article since the author references a few of the things I do, but I was surprised that they didn't make the leap to discussing the overall picture - in my mind, the switch from a product based to an information based online economy.

In almost every example what the author is talking about is placing value on the information you generate. Whether it's a blog post that you write from a unique perspective, a photograph of your family dog, or helping someone troubleshoot their open source software, in every case what's being bought and sold here is only information, not a physical product. In the original online commerce boom, everyone was selling a tangible asset - using eBay to sell junk from their attic, setting up Amazon affiliate stores, and so on. In the 'new' virtual job search, people are finding ways to monetize the stuff they keep between their ears - lifetimes of unique experiences which can filter the massive amount of information available.

In short, the person who does a good job converting DATA into INFORMATION is the person who's going to be successful making money online today. The downside? It's pretty tough to scale that - I couldn't possibly write for fifty blogs, it's all I can do to keep up with two! But maybe that's just as well... in the long term I think we'll all be better off with a more diverse blogosphere anyway :)