I have tremendous anxiety when going to a new place to get my hair done.  I usually let it go and go until I get agoraphobia.  I then dart to the hair salon and pray.

I am new to LA, I and can’t fly back to Indiana to “The Hairman” and get my hair cut from Heather.  I tweet’d for some recommendations on haircuttery (oh that’s that awful place in Chicago thx @koreanforrabbit).  The Paul Mitchell school in the Galleria seemed like a “great” idea, it would be cheap and was right around the corner from my “home”.  (Note to self: I don’t want a “cheap” haircut.)

The girl there was really sweet and gave a great head massage / shampoo.  The actual hair-cutting, not so much.  Overall, and to quote myself:

“Just finished with the longest and most interactive haircut of my life .. took so long my parking validation for 2hrs was exceeded .. lol”

I probably would never go back, but she did an adequate job.  $5 tip .. for encouragement.

She was excited ..

.. to have me leave.

Here you go, let me know what you think.

I came to LA for 4 days .. I stayed for a month
Thanks to my buddy @brooksbayne, I was invited to a week of tech events.  Lux hotel, Twiistup, Mashable, etc. What a eye opener.  “I started a company 8 years ago and I just sold it,” this communicates out here.  No resumes, no flashy watches, no entourage, I used to think I needed to acclimate to this definition of “successful.”  Well maybe it is success, but its never been in my book.

I find the LA tech community is about embracing, sharing, encouragement, openness, motivation, and creativity.  Find like minded people and share old and new interests?  This is what I have been looking for.  I’m not talking about academia either.  People here are not thinking, they are *acting*.  LA is growing its community.  A community of action and doing new and exciting things.

Lafayette lacks a community for innovation.  I don’t know the community in New York, I lived in Chicago and couldn’t find it there, and Toronto’s was pretentious and elitist.  Motivation for creativity, that is what the community of LA has given me.  Embracing differences and thriving in similarity.  This is the fabric of the social web.  Provide community and people network, create, motivate, build, and thrive.

I asked a guy recently at an event in LA, “hey, so what do you do?”

His reply, “I start companies.”

Oh, I get that.  I was like cool.  I love this place!  The community rocks.

Then I said,  “oh cool, what’s that mean though?”

He said, “i can’t tell you”

Huh?  Well it turns out he’s from the east coast .. No way?!

Digg on Academia
Lafayette has one of the best universities in the world, it’s not about lack of intelligence.  People come from all over the world to come study there.  It’s academia: The opposite of learning, sharing and community.  I’m not special, I’m just not a circus act.  You must create a community tolerant of n00bs. In my opinion, education should first be about encouragement, the rest will follow.  If you filter .. You lose .. Simply, Stop Filtering (thx @gregarious).  Sorry academia, but you’re broken and you’re not furthering humanity anymore.

I am putting my house on the market and moving here.  I love you LA and all the people that have embraced this n00b.

Avoid the people that “start companies and can’t talk about any of them.”  If they smell like fools .. Ask them to buy you a drink and walk away.

peace
@joesaid