We Are The Music Makers…

Last Friday was the first one in five years that I hadn’t sent out a newsletter or posted to my blog. Luckily, there was a good reason: the birth of my son! Owen Blank was born on Thursday morning at 7:25am.

Of course, the little fellow is already blogging. Feel free to say hello to him and leave a comment: http://OwenBlank.com

My wife and I have had an amazing few days with him so far, and every moment is 100% about the present, with an appreciation for what we are creating as a family. To say that everything has changed, and for the better, is an understatement. We couldn’t be happier.

And of course, me being me, I can’t help but take a moment and reflect on how this experience informs my view of publishing, media and how the web is reshaping how we learn and connect. It has been incredible to watch the process my wife went through in creating and birthing Owen. I have so much respect for her, I couldn’t possibily put it into words.

In our everyday lives, in our careers, with our passions, we are all trying to build something. Maybe you are working to change the course of your business to better leverage the web; maybe you are slowly, over the course of years, building a career that you have always dreamed of; maybe you are rethinking what is, and trying to create something entirely new for the market you serve. From startups to 100+ year old businesses, we are all builders and creators.

Recently, I have put such a strong focus in my life on how we learn, and how we grow meaningful communities. To build something that truly gives back, that is better for the many than for the few. That is alive. That reshapes relationships and communities, making them deeper and more powerful.

Watching my wife create and birth a child is without a doubt the most incredible experience of my life. I was involved as much as humanly possible, but as a friend said, even though I was very involved, I am still on the shore, and my wife is out in the ocean fully immersed in the experience.

As things settle down at home, and I begin looking back to publishing, media, and the web, I am filled with an overwhelming feeling: I don’t want to be on the shore. I want to be out in the ocean during the storm. I want to swim in the choppy waters, to experience this moment – this opportunity – 100%.

And there is so much opportunity right now to build the future of publishing, media, and education. I am jumping in with both feet and swimming toward the rough water. And I hope that I am out there next to you, working together to build something new, something incredible, something to be proud of.

The words of Arthur O’Shaughnessy seem appropriate here:

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world’s great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire’s glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song’s measure
Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world’s worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.