I read two things last night worth mentioning:

The first is a blog post on how to blog. Not often, but every once in a while someone emails me and asks how to get started blogging. The simple way is to go to Blogger, follow the instructions, and start typing. Beyond that, I’m really not the guy to ask because I’m not exactly the traditional blogger (every day, several times a day — blogging, I mean.)

For a more indepth answer and what is, I think, the golden path to good blogging, Tony Pierce wrote an article called, “How to blog.” You really should read this.

Despite lists of suggestions and rules and “shoulds” and “should nots,” sometimes not following the rules is the Way to Happiness. Escamoteurettes does not exactly fit into the set of suggestions Pierce lays out. That came to mind (again) when rereading Guy Kawasaki’s, “Rules for Revolutionaries.”

I am a fanboy of Kawasaki, no doubt about it. His book, “How to Drive Your Competition Crazy,” remains one of my favorites in the world of business. (I put it right next to my Harvey Mackay, Tom Peters, and Harry Beckwith books. Believe me, that’s saying a lot.)

Guy was the Apple Computer corp’s original Evangelist. When I hear the phrase, “Apple Mac” I think “Guy Kawasaki.” The reason why is found in that book, as well as “The Macintosh Way“ — another book worth reading if you find yourself in the business world.

“Rules for Revolutionaries“ reminds you that you don’t always have to follow the rules to succeed. One of the first of many great examples given is Japan’s Shinkansen.

The Shinkansen (what most call the bullet train) celebrated its 40th birthday last year. Its creation broke the rules and, in doing so, cut down to a bit over three hours what was a 62 hour trip from Osaka to Tokyo. Today, bullet trains serve one end of the island to the other.

What rules were broken? Little things like putting an engine on every car instead of one big engine pulling everything; and laying a flat, straight set of tracks rather than flowing tracks over and around existing terrain. Had the designers stuck to how things were always done, travel in 1964 would have continued to be exactly as travel had been in 1963, which is to say, slow.

If you’re in the business of entertaining, give some thought to whether or not you are doing things the way they’ve always been done. If so, ask yourself why. Then ask yourself what would be the result of throwing out the rules and making up a few of your own.