Hi BCforrester.

There are a lot of books about this topic, and yes passion is very important to excel.

I guess by klon you meant Köln, so I added a link of a picture for the people who have never seen the Dom.

http://www.washjeff.edu/German/dom-2.jpg

It would be nice to have a website about passion and how to discover this in yourself. I didn't check the internet if they are already available.
Tommy

"I would like to design a place that allows visitors to complete a survey and profile to help them to discover or focus on their passion. They might discover passion through reading others experiences. It would allow for goal setting, planning, soliciting help, and finding collaborators. People would find others that have similar passions and co-create ways to realize and live their passion."
...thats why am on CH... and trying to find other people of similar interest and work on my passion and vice versa (giving them nod on their IDEA too)...

NOw ar eyou desinging a website or a virtual palce like 2ndlife?

Tommy,

Thanks for the pic. I will load some of my pics on Flicker and post a link. However, my good footage is in HDV.

I have not done any background checking yet either, I just joined CH yesterday and wanted to learn by doing, so I posted an idea that has been in my head for a while. It is not until you write things down and try to get others to buy in do you realize that more thinking and help from others is required.

Bruce

Siagon,

What do you think would be better a site or a virtual world?

I see passion encompassing much more than just ideas (although I am passionate about ideas), nor does it necessarily have to anything to do with making money (although this is also good if the two can be mutually inclusive). It could be that someone is passionate about banana slugs or building solar panels that are affordable...

Any advice you can provide would be much appreciated.

Bruce

It's a nice idea, but large portions of the internet are already BUILT on people who are passionate about what they do/like/believe and want to share that with others. Can you think of a useful format and set of tools that will make it easier for people to express their passion, connect with others who share it and then turn it towards something constructive? If you can, then you could be on to something.

How about the following system?
* User creates a webpage dedicated to her/his passion - perhaps (s)he can start with an existing template or build a site from scratch, depending on experience.
* User advertises this to friends via blogs, myspace pages, whatever and word spreads.
* More users can join the community at different levels - as co-administrators or just as members.
* A mailing list system allows simple communication within the group. (This must be secure so that addresses aren't given out even to admins.)
* Communities are perhaps encouraged to do something with their passion by a central portion of the site showcasing events, collaborative projects, etc.

All of that was arrived at by combining several existing products (Usenet, Yahoo! groups, facebook groups, my university's student-run computing facilities for societies, etc...) but I don't know of anything yet that does the whole lot and is accessible to the general public.

Don't know what you make of all that - feel free to let me know!

PhillipH,

Thanks for your input. I agree that there are many sites run by passionate people, but these may be hard for people to find with all the noise out there. There is also many dead ends and sometimes shifting through a million or so hits returned from Google can be frustrating.

Further, not sure if people really know what their passions are - hence the site's help in this area. I would need to build a psychometric tool, similar to but less complicated than, the "career counseling tests" they give us in high school. These are designed to help plan what you want to do in life. There are some simple ways to get at people's interests and deeper into their passions.

I like the scaffolding idea (templates) and the ability for users to build their own environment. You're right, it would need to allow wiki functionality in order to be useful as more people joined any one particular passion.

From a business standpoint, I believe that this site could be a huge hit with advertisers and would not be annoying for the users. I have personally spent way too much money on the various passions during my lifetime thus far - sometimes having to search long and wide, for to fine what I was looking. Imagine a site that combined passionate users with carefully chosen advertising for paraphernalia related to the passion. Now one has eager consumers not annoyed surfers.

I had not really thought too much about how the word would spread and like your ideas there. Thanks.

Hi bcforrester,

Two things come to mind.

First, you could try setting up a "lens" on squidoo.com to test out ways of working with your concept. It would be a quick and easy trial run, no cost.

Second: Follow your bliss. Joseph Campbell. He is your spiritual father ;-)

I love the beauty of your sentiment and I hope you can make something great come of this.

As a money-maker, it would be like other content-driven sites, which I suppose doesn't narrow things down much, since there are good ones and there are bad ones! But I think you would be tapping into a great niche here and because of your sincerity I think you can do it with class.

Good luck.

Thanks Jill! I will check out the foundation.

Bruce

Nice site this squidoo.com.
Tommy

Maybe it's just me, but the first thing that came to mind when I read your pitch was that a site devoted to "passion" would have some sort of religious affiliation.

Noniesaft,

I am not personally affiliated with any religion but agree that there is a certain connotation with the word passion - love, religion, sex etc. But there are not many words that are as strong to indicate how people feel when the just love doing something immensely. Any that come to mind?

I don't mind "passion". An alternative would be "bliss", as in Joseph Campbell's famous advice to follow your bliss.

Honestly, I can't think of anything else. Something like "obsession" or "fervor" would be way worse. I think Passion is a good word, it is just the initial connotations I had with the word.

Jill,

I like bliss (perfect happiness,; great joy) however Passion (strong and barely controllable emotion; an intense desire or enthusiasm for something) seems to convey more than just happiness and joy - there is some purpose, meaning.

Bruce

This site basically sounds like facebook. Facebook groups are essentially people grouped into their passions. I know that you could help people find their passions, but that's not a site that would generate the needed traffic to support an advertising revenue model.

Techguy,

While I agree that Facebook could and probably is being used by some as a place to gather around one's passions it is not set up for that purpose. From the Facebook site: "Facebook isn't just one big site; it's made up of lots of separate networks based around things like schools, companies, and regions." So it is a place for people to reconnect with old acquaintances, keep in connection with coworkers and others.

On Connected_Passion users would connect with a purpose - sharing knowledge and excitement about their passion. They would find like-minded others who may have more or less experience within their passion. There would be tutorials, videos, forums, etc promoting and explaining their passion.

For example, say I loved bonsai. Connected_Passion would:
- help me connect to others interested in that;
- help me find references and links;
- provide user produced tutorials and how-tos on bonsai;
- allow dedicated bonsai shops to display their wares;
- allow software tools for the community to build anything else they needed to support their passion...

I fully expect the site to grow and branch off into many interconnected islands of passion guided by the experience and suggestions of the communities.

Any other thoughts?

very interesting... something that Friendster didnt capitalized much but other like sms.ac are good in connecting people...

connecting by interest and passion is something that offers a better bond than just possible romantic angle.

thumbs up!

I am working on a site that does this right now will be launching in September in the US. The site originated in Japanl

Quote:

"I do a lot of thinking about where passion comes from in life. I believe that it is the key to success in business, happiness in life, and greatness.

Yet where does it come from?

How is it sustained?"

This is a subject which is of great interest to me, "especially how is it sustained".

I know and have known many people who were deeply passionate
about various subjects.

Some went on to greatness.

Some just stopped............

With the help of some friends who are Psychologists, Hypnoterapists etc.
We have worked, using Hypnotic regression; with various subjects in
order to determine what caused the stop.......
and using Hypnotic Regression theraphy to try and reverse the "programming" which caused the stop........

Some causes were as simple as that the subject lived in a close community and had a subconcious fear that if he excelled past a certain level, it would cause him to leave his current comfort zone.

I would be interested in developing my research into this subject further,
you see it is a passion with me.