"In your mind, conjure an image of the Mona Lisa. Visualize that masterpiece's subtleties of hue and tone as clearly as you can.

Next, shift to the image of a paint-by-numbers Mona Lisa. Envision the flat, raw colors meeting hard-edged, one against the other.

For more than 50 years I worked on my paint-by-numbers creation. With uneven but persistent diligence, I dipped an emaciated paint-by-numbers brush into color No. 1 and painstakingly painted inside each little blue-bordered area marked 1...Today I wield a wider brush - pure ox-bristle. And I'm swooping it through the sensuous goo of Cadmium Yellow, Alizarin Crimson or Ultramarine Blue (not Nos. 4, 13 or 8) to create the biggest, brightest, funniest, fiercest damn dragon that I can. Because that has more to do with what's inside of me than some prescribed plagiarism of somebody else's tour de force.

You have a masterpiece inside you, too, you know. One unlike any that has ever been created, or ever will be.

And remember:

If you go to your grave

without painting

your masterpiece,

it will not

get painted.

No one else

can paint it.

Only you."

Gordon MacKenzie, wrote that, he worked at Hallmark Cards for thirty years. His book, Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace is a classic - a must read, highly recommended. Amazon info here.

He gets it: David McRaney, executive editor of the Student Printz, the University of Southern Mississippi student newspaper...

"There are two kinds of people in the newspaper business - people who love the news, and people who love paper. The people who love paper are going to go extinct.

But now, something that was once stagnant is being purified by new blood, and I want to be part of that new blood."

Read Rachel Leifer's interview with David here.

Uncle Dan Rather-ism - Election night edition: "If you ain't got the yolk, you can't emulsify the hollandaise" (Dan on Jon Stewart's Midterm Midtacular - thanks to Steve Sarafin and LR for the tip).

Paul Woolmington of Naked Communications writing in the November issue of MEDIA...

"You've got to immerse yourself in the latest and greatest innovations to keep up. If you're not curious, you're in the wrong business"

Bravo Paul - well said. In the same writing Paul passes on two very cool initiatives (fresh from his attending NextFest). Virtual "Sticky Notes" from Socialight.com and Watson, a "context-aware information system" created by students at Northwestern University. Thanks Paul.

Web 2.0 Summit: Valleywag liveblogging the session with Eric Schmidt here. Dan Farber offers up his take here. Congrats and cheers to John Battelle and Tim O'Reilly on another very cool gathering.

Barry Diller rocks (again): Speaking at Web 2.0 Barry says...

"Everyone would like to believe that their entrails are of great interest to everybody, but it's just probably not so."

Thanks to Martin LaMonica (Old media adjusts to maturing Web)