Category Archives: Personal

A frank discussion on the best place to build your startup as a young entrepreneur…

19 March 2011

4 Comments

We all have goals in life. Those of us in the startup community are particularly aspirational. We dream of building great products with millions of users. We dream of leading great companies filled with awesome people.  We dream of TechCrunch articles, keynote speeches, magazine covers, and the opportunity to create great wealth. We dream of beating the ridiculous odds that say we’re idiots for even trying, especially those of us still so young.

On Friday evening at #WhiskeyFriday, which was sadly under-represented this week (really? Boston can only find 5-10 people to grab drinks after work in Central Square?), I was involved in a discussion about whether, as a young entrepreneur, it made more sense to move to the Valley or try to build a company in Boston.

This wasn’t another b*tch session; this was two friends honestly and frankly talking about the facts at hand. We’ve both been around the block here, had our own and seen our friends’ experiences in this community and so we’re well aware of the situation here and we also have enough contact with the Valley to feel qualified to understand what’s there as well.

I’m not here to make this some magnificent, articulate post, so here’s just in simple bullet form, the Pros & Cons of our two ecosystems and how two young entrepreneurs think about it as we sit in the midst of a new tech bubble (which is what sparked this discussion in the first place):

{Disclaimer: If you’re “tired” of the Boston vs. SV discussion, this post is not for you. Please close your browser window and go back to putting your head in the sand. Don’t worry,the bubble will be over in a few years and you’ll barely have noticed…}

The Valley:

Advantage:

  • Massive access to money
  • Stronger culture of helping each other
  • Companies that can acquire you
  • More industry experienced people around
  • Early adopter culture
  • Great tech press

Disadvantages:

  • Finding & keeping engineering talent is VERY hard
    • Try competing with Godfather offers from Facebook, Zynga, Google, etc
  • Very small fish in a HUGE pond
  • If you move there, you’re basically starting over

Boston:

Advantages:

  • HUGE talent pool to recruit from
    • Universities and less competitive environment overall
  • Established network here

Disadvantages:

  • Underdeveloped mentoring
  • Very Weak acquisition market
    • How do Boston co’s exit? Seems “rarely” is the right term…
  • Weak funding climate
  • No press that gets users or national attention

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So with all of that…the question basically boiled down to:

Is it better to build a company in the Valley and try to return to Boston to recruit

OR

Build a company in Boston and travel a ton (literally and virtually) to NYC and the Valley to try to leverage the advantages there.

I don’t have the answer to that, but I think you can guess what side I’m betting on for now…

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Got comments? Let’s keep this discussion productive and please review the disclaimer at the top in case you missed it and are irritated by the comparison.

This is two individuals talking about what’s best for their careers not an ecosystem taken at a macro level…although in many ways it’s one in the same.

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Interested in more like this? You can follow me on Twitter by clicking here or find more of my blog posts at my site GreenhornConnect.com

What iPhone apps do I *have to have*?

28 February 2011

5 Comments

So now that I have an iphone, I need to know what I gotta download…

So far I’ve grabbed:

– Skype, Google, Twitter for iPhone, Bump, Where, Dropbox, Evernote, CamScanner, iGmail

What I’m looking for:

1) YOUR Recommendations-

What apps can you not do without!?! I don’t need angry birds, but I do need all the productivity hacks and sweet tricks that now that I’m one of the “cool kids” with a smart phone I need to have.

2) Support Boston Startups!

I love trying out local people’s startup stuff. I’ve particularly enjoyed Followup.cc and love that I got a bunch of others to try it. We don’t have enough early adopters around here, so hopefully I can do more of that.  I’d like to at least give every app a test drive!

3) A few things I’m looking for:

A) Is Twitter for iPhone the best Twitter app?

B) I want a tool that I can make a to do list as I work through the day and sync it to my computer. I think Evernote can do that, but I’m not sure.

C) Personal CRM- I want to be able to keep track of people I meet. Not everyone is a linked in connection, but i’d like to be able to recall their name and what we talked about. Something I can record their name and a quick comment on our interaction (time/date stamped, of course) would be awesome. Search would be essential, so I could look it up later.

Leave your suggestions in the comments below!

THANKS!

Yes…I finally have a SmartPhone and it’s an iPhone.

28 February 2011

2 Comments

Yes, this is the phone I had up until 5pm today....

So it finally happened. I caved. After holding out a solid 17 months in the startup community, I finally got a smart phone.  It was kind of amusing to see how shocked some people were and frankly, I can see why you might not expect it after I previously debated this and chose iPad + dumb phone.

So here’s what tipped the scales as key things I wanted:

 

1) Ability to save notes and contacts anytime

I have a horrendous memory and I feel like a total douche when I can’t remember people’s names. So one of the first things I intend to do is  start writing down everyone I meet in my phone each night. I can then also add notes for action items so I don’t have to just say “email me.”

2) Try other Startupers stuff

I have a lot of friends with smart phone apps, and I feel bad I can’t try them.

3) I’m tired of printing out google maps and calling friends when lost

I got lost last week trying to walk to Kabir’s house. I called him and he asked me, “what do you think I am? Google maps?”  He then told me how to get to his place, but there’s a lot of times I mooch off friends to get to the right place because of this.

4) The adoption curve is pushing me to the minority

When I saw where the adoption curve was going with smartphones (projected to surpass 50% in 2011), I realized I can’t be in the techscene and thinking about startups and not have one.

5) 40404 Tweeting gets old. Fast.

I tweeted a lot with 40404, but I can only do one account with my phone number that way which meant it was all Greenhorn.  Also, 3 letters to a key makes even a tweet a lengthy ordeal. Finally, working at a startup focused on twitter and thinking about the huge presence Twitter has in my life, being able to Tweet, is actually pretty important to me.

6) SXSW is coming…fast!

In the interest of not being the next RazrDude (ask Chris Keller about it…) and actually being able to reach people when I need to…this was the real impetus. I’m going down on behalf of oneforty and need to be able to meet up with Janet and Laura, and we’ll be most effective if we’re all free roaming, I think. I’ve also heard foursquare is hugely important and obviously a smartphone comes into play there.  I concluded I couldn’t be maximally effective there without a smart phone.

So there you have it…that’s why I have a Smart phone…finally!

New Year’s Resolutions

2 January 2011

Ah, like so many, yup…I’m doing resolutions…

But first a quick look back at last year…which will help guide this year’s and see how well I did last year.  I’ll give a simple Pass/Fail on them…because like Yoda said “Do or Do not; there is no try”

1) Improve my Punctuality

FAIL. I’m gonna fail myself on this one…I manage to do ok for hard deadlines like Airlines and Amtrak departures, but meetings, I’m still bad.  I really don’t want it to be a character achilles of mine, but we’ll see…

2) Improve Time Management

Pass. I’ve got a full time job at oneforty, still rocking Greenhorn Connect and manage to find time to work out, play some team sports and occasionally take a break.

3) Get Back to the Gym

Pass. See #2…successfully have placed physical fitness as a key part of my life and have reaped the benefits of increased energy and focus.

4) Get Back to Running

FAIL. I could never find a good routine, but I’m pleased I’ve instead found team sports like Ultimate Frisbee, Soccer and Dodgeball, which I feel is an okay replacement….but that wasn’t the resolution, so still a Fail.

5) Read a Book per Week

Pass. Ok, on a technicality here. I didn’t read 52 books this year, but I did read 25! See the right column for the list of books I covered, which it’s such a significant accomplishment (and probably more books than I’ve read in the last 10 years combined!) that I’m passing myself.

6) Post More Often

FAIL. So that hasn’t happened, but I have managed to blog every week for Greenhorn Connect, so it’s not like I’m not talking (I also blog on the oneforty blog from time to time).  Still, I am thinking about how I can take the ideas I do have and pump them out quickly as I’ve had quite a few posts come into my mind and never use…

7) Keep Learning

Pass. All those books and all the experiences at oneforty and with Greenhorn have been priceless. I feel like I’ve come a very long way in a year in my entrepreneur IQ. I definitely still feel like I know more that I don’t know than have actually gathered knowledge, but I’m moving in the right direction.

8.) Pay It Forward

Pass. I can’t always be as helpful as I’d like but I feel like I’m doing ok on this one. I started Greenhorn to try to help people and I definitely think it has.  One thing I do want to improve though is follow through; I often have asked people to “email me” to get me to follow through on an offer to help, which I think I should work to not make that a requirement to get help if we speak in person.

…so I went 5 for 8 last year…not bad.

So what does 2011 have in store for goals/resolutions:

1) Focus on Passion

Somewhere along the way in 2010, I think I lost my way a bit on pursuing my passions.  I’ve learned that doing things you are not passionate about require significantly more effort and energy to complete.  I feel I owe it to everyone, but especially myself then to focus on what I’m passionate about so that I can deliver the most value to everyone with my time.

2) Read 26 books in 2011

So in 2010 I read 25 books, which was huge in my learning and growth. I read a wide range of books which often were chosen based on what I had questions, interests or present challenges with.  Thanks to friends and the Social sphere I got some fantastic recommendations, so I feel like I really didn’t read any “dud” books.  I want to beat that total this year and keep the quality high…so please make recommendations of books I should read! I list what I’ve read on the right.

3) Improve my Punctuality

I always want to work on things until the last possible second and seem to have a misconception in my head that if I’m early, that’s lost time I could work.  I need to reframe that and really fix this issue…because I think it is my character achilles right now.

4) Build Greenhorn Connect to a Sustainable Level

In many ways I feel like Greenhorn Connect is already a sustainable platform as the community is so engaged, Pardees is killing it with our social media and I’ve managed to forge many great connections that put help and potential partners at our fingertips going forward.  At the same time though, we still have a lot of work to do to finish the site and some work to do to better monetize our efforts.  If you have ideas for Greenhorn Connect, I’d love to hear them!

5) Get more feedback

I’m definitely my own worst critic, but no matter how hard you are on yourself, there’s only so much you can recognize that way.  So, I’m hoping to engage more people to get their feedback so I can improve. Feel free to reach out to me privately if you have feedback….I can’t get better without hearing constructive feedback!

6) Make better use of Mentors

At oneforty, I have access to some awesome mentors for customer development, but I’m not very good at using them. I find I either don’t think about when I should talk to them or always worry I’m “not ready.”  I need to better figure out how to best engage smart people that can help instead of just forging ahead on my own. Any advice here is appreciated.

7) Be More Open at Events

The Boston Startup Community is my life. And because of this, the vast majority of my good friends are now also entrepreneurs. This is good, but it also means that at events, I can often spend the majority (or entire) time I’m at an event talking to my friends.  If my goal is to help new/first time entrepreneurs with Greenhorn Connect, I need to live up to that and talk to and welcome those new to our community.  So…I’ll work to make sure to devote some time when I’m at events to meet new people.

8.) Post More Often

I have a lot of ideas for posts that never seem to see the light of day after I think about them in my head enough that I could hammer out a post. I’m going to try to make sure to turn those ideas into short posts now.

So there you have it…8 new resolutions…with a few carrying over from the year before. Hopefully I can improve on last year’s success rate (5 for 8).

What are your resolutions?

How did you fare with last year’s resolutions?

American Holidays: Most Underrated, Most Overrated and Ignored

1 January 2011

3 Comments

So with so many holidays lately, it’s led to a lot of reflection on holidays in general…so here’s some random thoughts on holidays:

Part I: The 3 Most Over-Rated Holidays in American Culture:

3) Halloween

So I know already a bunch of guys are in shock! How could I possibly not love slutoween?!?!

For those not indoctrinated, at some point Halloween became mostly about how slutty a costume women can wear on the night of this celebration.  But I think the holiday may be going too far down Whore Alley when you have “Naughty Wizard” costumes for elementary school age girls.

Moving beyond the slutty costume aspect, I can see how it’s great for kids (CANDY!!!), but I really don’t understand why adults get so fired up? It’s a personal thing here, but I could never get into the whole “dress up in costume” thing. I think I’m just not excited to pretend to be someone else.

2) Valentine’s Day

People Valentine’s Day is annoying for:

  1. Single People – Aka- National ignore this or spend the night feeling sorry for yourself night. (Or laugh at all the suckers blowing money on dates!)
  2. New relationships – Just started seeing someone right before V-Day? Oh boy…now you get the awkward “do I have to do something for Vday/how much is too much” kinds of questions.
  3. Long term relationships – I’ve seen plenty of long term couples (married and dating) who go through the motions not because they care, but because they feel they have to or it means there’s something wrong with their relationship.
Oh man…that’s everyone!?!? Go greeting card industry!

1) New Year’s Eve

Ah, the grand-daddy of them all.  Every year it seems like a let down.  Everyone sets high expectations only to realize it’s just another day except you do a countdown at midnight and get hammered…but maybe that’s just Tuesday for some alcoholics out there.  Couples try to come up with some great way to spend it and single people run around looking for that midnight kiss.  I’ve done quite a number of different things on New Years both locally and travelling and think I’m about 1 for 8 in the various attempts.  The only one that rocked? A party with friends…which I don’t need a countdown for.  Enjoy standing in the cold watching a light bulb drop because of an “arbitrary Gregorian boundary condition!”

Part II: The 3 Most Under-Rated Holidays in America:

So to flip the coin and look at the holidays I think deserve *more* love…here’s holidays I think rock but don’t get the love they deserve if you asked people for their favorite holidays.

3) Thanksgiving

Ok, so admittedly, I think most people do think a bit about Thanksgiving, but I think it’s underrated because of it’s simplicity.  Get together with family/friends, have a great meal and relax for a day…and go shopping the day after and get great deals.  Where’s the drawback? There’s no pressure of buying gifts for people, no religious questions to worry about offending anyone who may/may not celebrate (more on that later) and other than travel costs to home, is a pretty inexpensive holiday.   Every holiday involves a big meal, so for Thanksgiving hosts, it’s nothing out of the ordinary as holidays go…

2) Veteran’s Day

Our nation’s fight for freedom and history of great servicemen and women is so grossly underrated. We’re only 200 and change years old and we’ve had quite a few major wars, most of which we’ve not just won, but been the critical piece (see WWI and WWII).  That’s something to be proud and grateful for. Especially for those that would never fight themselves either as “conscientious objectors”, or those medically unable, they should be particularly grateful  of the sacrifices soldiers have made and are making.

Regardless of how you feel about current missions our soldiers on, we should be recognizing and showing appreciation for all those that served in the past and appreciate the soldiers that are following orders today to keep us safe.  Think about their families and the sacrifices they make.

1) The Fourth of July

Sun. Barbeques. Fireworks. Big action movies. This holiday is all about America and it oozes America. Even in unfriendly climates like Boston it’s virtually always a great day on the 4th and it’s got fantastic back meaning thanks to our forefathers.

If I could pick only one holiday, this is definitely my go to holiday. No matter what I do that day, it seems like it’s always a good day. I still remember seeing Independence Day in theaters when I was a kid and I’ve been to more great barbeques than I can count.  And of course all of this is always topped off by fireworks, which who doesn’t like colorful explosions in the sky?

Part III: Ignored Holidays

Did you know there are holidays called Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa that just passed? If you watched the words people used in communication (Twitter, email, media) you would think they don’t exist, because it seems like everyone has been thrown into “Politically Correct” land where it’s better to recognize nothing than risk offending someone by recognizing something. I realized even I fell into it as rather than having the interesting conversation of  “what, if anything, do you celebrate this time of year” I usually used the weak, safe “Happy Holidays” comment.

America was formed by those coming to be able to celebrate their beliefs freely and long have immigrants come and continued to preserve their cultures. I’m more than a little concerned as we seemed to be moving to a homogeneity that hides any cultural meaning from everyone; it should be okay that we’re all a bit different in how we celebrate this season! Even on Christmas day, I found that most television stations still didn’t pass the message of “Merry Christmas” and I didn’t see any mention of Hanukkah this year, which seems foolish to ignore as well.

By celebrating and recognizing all the individual holidays you actually encourage diversity as you can then pick up on other people celebrating their culture (and in many cases, but not always, religion).   Because of this, I plan to next year be much more proactive and try to learn how people around me celebrate and give them a proper holiday greeting…and avoid the weak, blind “Happy Holidays” crutch that teaches you nothing.

So these are my thoughts on holidays. What holidays do you think are underrated and overrated? Do you think we’re hiding the December holidays under the generic “Happy Holidays” messaging?

Do you have an inner Pit Bull?

20 July 2010

1 Comment

I have one. Do You?

Not sure what it is? To me, it’s when I get really fired up about something. Much like a pit bull, it’s all about encroaching on my turf or otherwise threatening something important to me.  I can’t help but feel a fire inside that just charges me up to take on whatever challenge comes up.

Now unlike your average fool at the bar, this isn’t about someone bumping into me or looking at me funny; it’s more in actually the business environment.  Nothing quite fires me up like some good competition or healthy negotiation.

I also see a parallel to sports…look at Michael Jordan…he just criticized LeBron for going to Miami and I totally get it. Jordan was pushed his whole career because he always had people challenging him on other teams that forced him to get better.  Kobe has been the same way, working harder than anyone to be the best. Love or hate Kobe for his personality, you can’t argue with how unbelievable his shot was in the NBA Finals (when Ray wasn’t smothering him…).  That fire I think is essential to success in whatever you do, as long as you can keep it under control.

For every Jordan, Bryant, Jobs or Zuckerberg, there are tons of people that let their heads drive them to self-destruction.  So how do you channel your inner pit bull to feed the fire when you need it and not destroy yourself?  I’m not sure totally, but I’m trying to understand it better; in my past I’ve found the inner pit bull has gotten me in trouble a few times but in general has been a net benefit.

The extra fire has helped carry me through many a challenge and luckily, instead of being blinded in rage, it has actually helped me think harder on challenges. Some of my most resourceful and innovative ideas have come while in “pit bull” mode. I think this is because when in “pit bull” mode I’m incredibly focused; nothing else gets in…it’s just me and the threat/challenge in front of me.  With that opportunity of clarity, it’s almost “easier” to come up with solutions.

So do you have an “inner pit bull” or what would you call it?

…Consider this a very open-ended, partially thought out post.  It will be connected to a more thought out blog post on Greenhorn Wednesday.



The smart phone decision: an unexpected choice

6 July 2010

1 Comment

So after much deliberation, I’ve decided I won’t be getting a smart phone after all.  Instead, I’m going to get an iPad. Here’s why:

1) I don’t feel there’s enough missing in my life that a smart phone can do.

Yeah, I want to be one of the cool kids and have a new gadget to show off too, but in the end, after playing around with a few friend’s iphones, I just couldn’t justify it.  I didn’t feel like there were any “killer apps” that would change my life if I had it.

2) The Price

By my calculations, it was going to cost me about $800-$1,200 over the next year to have a smart phone.  Meanwhile, the iPad with 3G for a year would come in at the bottom of that, $800.  And the second year, when I’m not considering the cost of the item in it, it has a significant cost advantage at just $15 for data.

3) The iPad did have the killer apps

After about 15 minutes with the oneforty company iPad, I realized I wanted one.  It has this strange magic ability to fill a gap I didn’t know I had in my life; now I can’t wait to run through a bunch of saved blog posts on instapaper and it feels so much less intrusive to have an iPad in my living room while watching TV with roommates than it did having a full fledged laptop burning my lap.  The giant color screen is also really powerful for displaying everything from websites to simple one to one presentations.

4) The iPad is just an iPhone with a bigger screen

So evaluating things overall, and I see that the iPad can do any of those magical things that the iPhone can do, but with a much bigger screen. I personally cannot imagine using a 3.5 inch screen to read emails or blog posts, so I’m happy to have the advantages of the big screen and none of the stress of needed it to fail at making phone calls.

5) Dumb Phones are still the world’s majority

Want to make a killer app to serve the world? It’s going to be on dumb phones.  Smart phone proliferation is a luxury of the wealthy.  There are billions of people just getting any cellular technology and that will only be on “dumb phones” for some time.  As an entrepreneur, I think you’re at your best when you’re one of your own customers.  Therefore, to keep in mind some of the biggest opportunities, I’m keeping my dumb phone.  I couldn’t find any current statistics I found satisfying to put here, but if I find one that shows the cell phone breakdown of the world, I’ll definitely add it later.

So I doubt there are too many people that are going to be rolling with a LG VX8300 and an iPad, but hey…who doesn’t want to be a trendsetter?

Life I chose or the life that chose me…

5 July 2010

So tonight I got a text from a friend…actual exchange:

Friend: I have big news!

me: Yeah? What?

Friend: We got engaged!

me: With who?!?

Friend: Seriously? My now fiance Brandon

me: Sorry. havent seen u much the last 6 mos. congrats! heard youre headed to grad school too. when are you having a big nite in boston?

This sums up a lot of my life since being “greenhorn” become a part of it and really since I started grad school in sept. 2008.  I have chosen learning about entrepreneurship and building GHC over everything else.  Until I started working at oneforty, I attributed part of it to being broke; I was cobbling together odd jobs and living off savings. But now I have a great job with a healthy paycheck, and I still find myself almost always choosing startup life over things normal 25 year olds do.

In a way, tonight was a wake up. But in many ways, it’s just a blip on the radar.  I have zero regrets. I’m very proud and grateful for how far I’ve come thus far and still feel like there’s so much still to do, so much to learn and still behind where I need to be; I feel like every moment I work at oneforty and work on Greenhorn Connect, I’m learning so much, it’s sooo hard to want to put it down for any meaningful time.

I’m 25. It feels so old and yet so young. Mark Zuckerberg and LeBron James are less than a year older than me. They remind me to stay hungry and realize there are no limits; if they can do what they’ve done, than the trivial things I can do must be easy.

At the same time I realize that maybe I need to “enjoy” a bit more of my 20s; is the relentless pursuit of startup nirvana really how I should leave every moment of my life, or can I effectively pursue it and still be an average 25 year old every once in a while? I don’t know…but I’m going to try.

Why Barnes & Noble is going to go out of business and I don’t mind…

29 March 2010

25 Comments

Having finished the last of the books I had stock piled to read, I realized it was time to pick up some new reading material. Since I had a Barnes & Noble gift card sitting around from Christmas, I thought this was a great time to use it. I didn’t want to wait for shipping, so I ventured into the Barnes & Noble at the Prudential Center with the goal of picking up Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think and Jason Freid’s new ReWork. I thought it would be easy enough…go in, find ReWork in the business section and Krug in some type of web development/design section.  Not so much…

So after wandering all the way to the wrong side of the store, I finally found the business shelf…but couldn’t find ReWork. I stumbled across a kiosk, but despite it’s insistence the book was in the middle of the area I was in (note: the kiosk didn’t have the most up to date shelving set up…#fail), I couldn’t find ReWork.  I then figured I’d look for Don’t Make Me Think, but their web development and design sections are a mess of photography how to books and random coding languages jumbled.

I finally grabbed a B&N staff person after about 15 min of feeling like a blind man in a library and they took me to their main station.  Turns out they only give the best treatment to Jason Fried’s new book: ankle level on a special shelf halfway under a table about 2 feet from the help desk…obviously easy to find!  With ReWork in hand we then went searching for Don’t Make Me Think…unfortunately, much thinking was required as we searched the jumbled mess of web and design sections.  But alas…finally we found it.

Then I went to the check out:

Don’t Make Me Think: $40

ReWork: $22

Tax: $3.88

Total: $65.88***

Note: The cashier was kind enough to offer me the opportunity! to pay an additional $25 to become a B&N club member and save 15% on all purchases!!! What a deal! She reminded me, that I’d save $9 on my books today if I got the club membership…ignore that’s still a net extra of $14.

Now: Why Barnes & Noble is going to go out of business and I don’t mind…

If I go to Amazon.com…I can get both of those books with free shipping for: $38.50.  I can also immediately find the books by simply typing in the title or author. I can also see reviews to make sure I really want the books (luckily, both have already come strongly endorsed by my Tweeples).

So let’s see…save over 40% (much more than that awesome B&N membership!), find stuff instantly and deliver it to my doorstep? SOLD.

Sorry B&N…I’m going to use up my gift card $ and not only not come back, but ask my mom for Amazon.com gift cards next year.

Learning: Amassing Knowledge vs. Creating Understanding

14 March 2010

4 Comments

In my “New Year’s Resolution” post I promised to write more…that hasn’t really happened as most of my writing time is committed to Greenhorn Connect related content.  However, I’ve just had an inspiration for a post and so I’d like to share it here.

Since I really dove into entrepreneurship a few years ago, I’ve found I have an insatiable thirst for learning anything and everything related to the topic.  All this time though, I’ve been thinking about what that really means, “to learn.”  I think that in life there are many that seek to learn, but often it’s merely to amass knowledge; I know this fact or that statistic. I’m well-read on this subject.  That’s all well and good, but if they’re just facts and merely someone else’s ideas…how much has been gained?

My goal is not to just amass facts. I’m not looking to be an encyclopedia.  I want to understand. I have so many questions about so many things. And yes, studying and reading always helps, but I always consider it in the context of greater understanding. I think this analogy may help:

You have a farm. On this farm all kinds of fruits and vegetables grow.  Those that are merely amassing knowledge would look at what they have and say that they have hundreds of broccoli heads and thousands of ears of corn.  Those building understanding look deeper and understand how they can take the vegetables and make salads and juices and other unique dishes; each item grown on the farm represents an ingredient, not an end result. When they file this knowledge away of the farm and its produce, those with understanding are thinking of it from the perspective of how the different dishes were made from the farm, while those amassing knowledge only see it in the narrow verticals of each fruit or vegetable produced Those with understanding are also more easily able to transport the concepts created from the dishes from the farm into other areas; everything around them is a small piece to a bigger picture…one that is not necessarily completely clear, but is larger and better than before because of what’s been added.

I think that it’s as important what the question you’re asking is as the means to which you’re going about your learning. For example, I’ve recently become very interested in user experience.  The questions I have are related to better understanding people. I want to be able to better step out of what I think (and all the biases and preconceived notions distorting it) and be able to understand others.  My impressions when I come to a website are not the same as someone else’s.  To accomplish this, I could go straight to a bunch of UI/UX web books, but I think it’s important to go broader than that, so I’m going to try to cast a wider net to truly understand people.  Incidentally, as I work towards this goal, I believe I will be able to apply this new understanding to other areas of my life in human interaction.

How thoughtful are you with your learning? Are you amassing knowledge or creating understanding?