When Austin Kleon advises us not to “turn into human spam” he is saying that we need to be productive contributors to the community we are in. We can’t just bombard others with our work and not offer up anything to them. We can’t do the opposite either though. We can’t simply comment on other people’s work without offering our own up. There needs to be a balance of give and take between you and the community you are interacting with. We can’t expect people to help us if we don’t help them.

I love this book. Thompson is constantly taking the stereotypes about our generation and turning them upside down. People aren’t usually kind to our generation when it comes to our use of technology, but Thompson is giving us a break and showing us that all our tweeting and texting might not be the worst thing to happen to the world.

These chapters confused me. Was I the only one? There is just so much going on and there are so many options; I'm bad with options. I'm also really indecisive, too many options and my head combusts. If I were self-publishing a book I would need somebody else to tell me which route to take because there are just too many for me to decide. I'm also terrible with computers, so the computer lingo used also confused me. If you can't tell, I'm confused. In the meantime, my InDesign is still loading...

Kleon’s idea that our work doesn’t speak for itself is something I find quite challenging. I always thought that people who speak about their work a lot are a bit into themselves if you know what I mean. I also never felt super confident about anything that I have ever created. The only real genius I see in myself is my wit, often on display in less than 140 characters. I understand Kleon’s idea and think it’s 100% true, but it is harder in practice than in theory.

One idea I found particularly compelling from these two sections of Kleon’s book is the idea of a scenius. He talks about not needing to be a genius, only needing to be willing to have and share ideas. He says, “being a valuable part of a scenius is not necessarily about how smart or talented you are, but what you have to contribute” (11). He goes on to talk about how readily amateurs should share their work and their excitement. I, like Abby, am an amateur traveler. I fall in love with places more readily than with people and have always thought that getting lost is a beautiful adventure. I’ve studied abroad three times and have spent numerous hours researching and planning exciting journeys. I think that traveling is a way to contribute to a really broad scenius.