Goal Mafia Blog

The official blog of GoalMafia.com.

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The Purpose-Driven Social Network

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Reid Hoffman is quoted in an interesting TechCrunch post today, which asks, "What follows the social networks like Facebook?"

Hoffman also said that he doesn’t think social goes away 10 years from now. “We are social animals,” he said. He thinks that instead it will be about the evolution of social. Right now it’s largely about surfing, but soon it will be more purpose-driven, he believes.

“Social is the foundation on which things are built,” Hoffman said.

I couldn't agree more. Right now social networking is mostly about surfing. Right now social games are mostly about Clicking Cows.

That is going to change - soon. The purpose-driven social network (dare I say the goal-driven social network) is coming. 

In fact, it's already here.

Can ANYTHING be measured? And if so, is that a good thing?

"Anything can be measured. If a thing can be observed in any way at all, it lends itself to some type of measurement method. No matter how ‘‘fuzzy’’ the measurement is, it’s still a measurement if it told you more than you knew before. And those very things most likely to be seen as immeasurable are, virtually always, solved by relatively simple measurement methods."
 (via Kevin Kelly's Quantified Self)

Can anything be measured?

I don't know, but it certainly is a productive way of looking at the world. 

Personally, I'm a huge believer in the concepts of the Quantified Self. As soon as you start measuring something, it starts improving. I've seen this happen enough in my own life to believe that it's true. I guess you could say I have faith in this concept. 

(Could you measure this faith that I have? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I believe in the concept enough to have written 1 blog post about it... just saying.)

I can see a lot of people having a problem with this. "No, that's not right! There are some things that simply aren't measurable and in fact they should *not* be measured! Like, I don't know, love."

I guess I don't know exactly where I stand on this discussion yet. I think both points have merit. I do think there is an element of spirit/soul/vision/whatever you want to call it that at times defies measurement. (Or at least seems to.)

What do YOU think?

(And regardless of which side you're on, if these sorts of questions interest you, I highly recommend checking out the full pdf here.)

Jordy

Announcing the Goal Mafia blog... "we have ways of making you succeed"

Greetings mafiosi, and welcome to the official blog of GoalMafia.com.

In case you haven't heard, Goal Mafia is the most dangerously effective way to motivate yourself since, well, the real mafia. And, unlike the real mafia, we achieve this persuasive success without resorting to intimidation and violence. (Ok, maybe a little intimidation here and there. We might break your virtual kneecaps, but that's about as bad as it gets.)

I'll be using this blog to share my nefarious vision for how Goal Mafia is going to disrupt the self improvement industry. I'll also recount some of the crazy stories that have already entered into Goal Mafia lore... (yes, there is an upcoming post about the infamous mafia photo shoot in Hunters Point where we almost got shot by the SFPD SWAT team).

Finally, I will be hosting a weekly advice column here, taking any and all questions that you, loyal readers, may have on the important topics of goals, success, failure, self-improvement, and how to beat your dad at chess. You can think of it as a mafia don's version of "Dear Abby".

The question I have for you is... What should I call this advice column?

Please, take a moment to leave a vote in the poll below.  The mafia never forgets a favor...

Grazie,

Jordy "The Don" Mont-Reynaud