Rebellious Thoughts #51 - 🤘 It is 1997 again

Hey Rebels!

As always, I promise to provoke you in less than 5 min once a week so that you can stay adaptable and on top of your game.

Let’s get into today’s (or check all the previous ones):

I want you to get into character.

Press rewind in your mind and go all the way back to May 1997.

Amazon has just gone public, eBay already existed, AOL dominated and Yahoo was a pretty solid search engine.

You barely understand the internet, you don’t really get what a website is or what it’s really for.

Some people are saying that eventually we will be doing banking online and you are completely perplexed by the concept.

You may have an email address - you probably access this email at uni or someone’s house… or maybe you do have a computer and modem and can get online?!

Actually wait - if you can’t rewind to 1997 cos you are too young keep reading!
It will make sense in the end haha!

Now imagine you walk to your mailbox and my newsletter has just arrived!

You sit down with a coffee or tea, open the envelope and it says:

“Hey!
If you have recently signed up for my newsletter please fill out the form enclosed and send it back in the envelope provided.
We will post the previous 50 newsletters for you to read.
We bind them into a little book so you will love them!
Ok, Let’s get started.
Yew!

(Stay in character it’s 1997 remember)

Time to discuss the internet!

I am sure many of you have at least heard of it on TV and some have been lucky enough to be shown how to get your PC online and jump on a website!
You are all probably wondering what are they for, feels crazy when you hear claims like “everyone will be online in the future” and apparently people in the US are buying linen on Amazon…linen?!

Anyway, it’s not that crazy, let me break it down for you.

We humans have accumulated a lot of knowledge and information and experience over the last say 10,000 years.
Most of that information is in written form stored in books in libraries, some of it is already in hard drives and floppy disks. But the information is fairly static - we humans are the connectors, the ones that access and put the information together to solve problems and create value.
Actually, we don’t even need to come together sometimes we can do it over the phone - some even have mobile phones!

But if we continue to digitise all the information we currently have into computers and we also then connect these computers to the internet and each other we can liberate value beyond ourselves - all of a sudden we are not the bottleneck anymore!

You probably wonder: Yeah but how do we access all this information when it’s on the internet?

Aha! That’s called the World Wide Web! We have a massive global web interconnected where all the information lives and we give different information-specific addresses - a place on the web - a site - a website!
Then we give the website an interface so you can get yourself around the info and boom!!!!

(Stay in character remember it’s 1997)

Now listen to me, shit is about to go crazy so you should all start learning how to build websites - what problems can you solve with them? Can you build good interfaces? What do you need to be online?
You get my point - start playing now because it’s going to move fast!
Tools are not that easy to come by, GeoSites.com apparently is good and it will help you have your own webpage - it’s all a bit clunky but trust me it’s worth it.

(Ok now fast forward to today!)

Go to squarespace.com or wix.com or any website builder, create an account and actually do it!!! For free!

In less than 20 years you went from “WTF is the internet” to “I can’t live without it”.

From barely being able to get online and navigate to a website, to having the tools of production available for free - via the internet.

Pause, that’s deep.

Will AI eventually help us understand AI?

We are in the same place right now with AI and 3D printing and blockchains and, and, and…

I actually won’t predict which one, cos no one knows but ideally, you should be playing with them all just in case.

So seriously, go build a website.

If anything, to learn a new skill but also explore the potential of solving problems in a different way - or to feel powerful and chuffed that the YOU in 1997 didn’t even know what a website was and the YOU now can actually make one and put it online!

I have been doing exactly this over the weekend building my new recently launched website!

DRUM ROLLS:
www.gusbalbontin.com

Hence the reason this newsletter is focused on it!

I am all in at the moment on web copy and function and experience.

I’m not going to lie, I had some experience so it’s not totally new, but I had to freshen up and relearn a lot.

Please help me and take my site for a spin!

It may give you some ideas of what you want to do but also it will help me if you give me feedback or find bugs!!!

No excuses, go fire up squarespace, or whatever you want I don’t care, decide what the website is going to be about.
Eg: a website of your CV, a website to sell crystals with your kids, a website of your wedding, a website of your family, a new website for your business or side hustle, whatever… build it, it’s not that hard.

Extra points if you actually publish it, and even more points if you use it to make money or get a job.

If you outsource your website to someone else don’t cheat!

You have to do it yourself!

If you already build websites and think “challenge completed, new level unlocked” think again!

Go and create a new AI bot that can replace your job (or at least a part of it)!

If you have already done that too maybe go ride a horse on the beach real fast - it’s super fun.

Can’t wait to see what you do!

Yew

Love

Gus

PS: side note, I would LOVE to actually post you one of my newsletters one day - old style, stamp, envelope, the lot. I would imagine it will linger in your house or kitchen bench for a few days!!!! There’s over 4000 of you now, so maybe a logistical nightmare - it will cost me like $2k - it would be awesome though! Retro vibes newsletter!!!

PSS: Don’t forget:

P.S.S.S. Wonder what I even do in “real life”?

1/ Co-founder and Director at Neu21.
We combine creativity, innovation and insight to create unstoppable organisations and products customers love. Book a Discovery call to learn how we can help your organisation

2/ I coach high-performing professionals and execs and help them take it to the next level. Book a 1-1 Coaching session with Gus

3/ Join our Career Rebellion Group 3 Waiting List!
A workshop of 4 sessions to bring a thoughtful revolution to your career and your life.

4/ This week I kicked off the first of the Rebellious Thought Sessions, a series of FREE monthly talks where I  free flow, provoke and share more of my ideas. If you haven’t signed up yet and want to be part of it SIGN UP HERE! 

Oh, I just listed 4 things I do in real life… well, here’s the 5th one.

I play in a band! And we are playing soon!!

Come and see The Essential Workers - woooo!  
(you have no idea how funny the faces I pull when I play the drums 😂)

All money raised will go to men’s mental health!

Recommendation 2:

AI for Leaders

A practical workshop that moves beyond the buzz to make AI work for your business.

Date: Wednesday, 18th September 2024
9am-5pm, In-Person Workshop, Melbourne CBD

Book your tickets here:

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