One of my favorite sayings around political elections is definitely “We’d all vote for the best candidate, if only he was running.”

Back when I worked in radio daily, I had an unbearable supervisor. Having won award after award, he let it go to his head. His way or the highway. Reeking of self-importance, he drove everyone in the office insane. Either you fell in line with what he thought was best or he belittled you until you didn’t care to fight anymore. He was the only hard working person in the office, and if you didn’t believe it, he’d tell you.

When our ratings came back and we had our best quarter ever, he was so proud of all the work he had done. Patting himself on the back, he looked down on everyone else. So, when he was destroyed in a staff meeting shortly thereafter, he couldn’t understand why we didn’t appreciate his work and shortly left the station for another job.

When our ratings came back the next quarter, without him, we still checked in our best set of ratings yet.

I have a photographer friend who is determined to be the most well known photographer on the face of the globe. He is underselling workshops and speaking at as many conventions as he can. He is getting his name out there with abundance. He’s been turning down actual photography work to speak about his photography.

The problem is, his photography is mediocre at best. Where he shines is the experience his studio offers. While he is fighting to show how great he is and how much he can help others, he’s killing his own studio. By no longer walking the walk, he’s become an annoying bastard that must likes to talk about how great he can make your studio. His priorities are shot, and if he’s not careful, it will kill his business.

Instead of being the best, he’s trying to show he’s the best.

These people are too concerned with being king. One day, they’ll realize being king isn’t what’s important. It’s about making a kingdom worth being king of, not making yourself king.

Today, are you too busy trying to be king or too busy building a kingdom?

There, I said it. Something I’ve learned over the years in creative professions (Graphic Design, Photography, and Studio Management for me) is that a surplus of ideas is as dangerous as a drought.

Notice how they are called ideas? No adjective. Not good, great, revolutionary, magical, terrible, awful. Why?

At conferences, on calls, over Twitter, we’re all guilty of saying, “I’ve got this great idea…” I bring it up all too often. An idea for a blog, a company, a book, a workshop.

People aren’t willing to support you when all you are doing is talking about your idea. But people will fight to make a mediocre product great if you give them the chance. Throw yourself into action, figure out your plan as you go. Even if your idea ends up being a terrible action, at least you’ll know.

Problem is, you can never tell how good or bad an idea is until you DO IT. Once you put something into action, you can tell if the blog will take off or drown in the internet’s white noise. You’ll see what you need to change, cut or curate. You can’t pass intelligent judgement on an idea until it’s become more than that.

So, do it. If an idea is created, but never applied as a solution to a problem, it’s worthless. Even a bad idea applied has more worth than an idea hiding in your Moleskin, unused.

What ideas are you going to apply today?

Full disclosure, I love the iPad. After a great house warming gift from a friend, I’m typing this on a 64GB 3G iPad, rumbling down the highway going 70mph. (Don’t worry, someone else is driving.)

This device has all but replaced my iMac. I only fire my old love up for heavy tasks, such as photo editing, layout and design. All my emailing, Tweeting, surfing, researching, TV show watching and most of my writing happens all on here.

Today though, while bored riding along, I discovered the future of this device for me. Photography.

Chase Jarvis, a great commercial photographer, has been talking for the past few years about how the best camera you have is the one with you. From that thought spawned a photo iPhone app, a book and an online ecosystem.

Today, I’m going to come out and say it. The best computer you have is the one that’s with you. And no folks, your laptops don’t count. Anything that takes too much time that it can be considered a task ruins it. This is something you should be able to do between layovers in airports.

While outside of Temple, Texas at a Shell station, I started taking pictures for fun. It’s been a while since I just played with my camera. The results are the start of a revolution in how I look at photography and, hopefully, how you do too.

43 photos later, I got back in the car. The camera adapter for the iPad had finally arrived and I wanted to test it out. Plugged it in, selected 20 shots, imported and sorted down to ten shots I liked in about five minutes.

Just for the hell of it, I opened up Best Camera, Chase Jarvis’ iPhone app. Within five to eight minutes, I was done. Ten images that I was happy with, just like that. Are they the best images I’ve taken? Of course not. Best images I’ve edited? Hell no. But that’s not the point.

Within 30 minutes, I had taken, sorted, edited and posted photos while driving down the interstate to Austin. Imagine with me for a second the possibilities.

Let’s say that Apple releases an iPad version of Aperture. You’ll have a few brushes, your synced presets from your desktop, your library of photos at your hand. And you’ll physically be editing your photos! I can start selecting and uploading pictures from a wedding while my assistant drives us home. The barriers of communication are falling, the time it takes for you to get information to coworkers and clients is dropping and you have to be ready.

Posting this is just a start, a beta test. I edited the images on an iPhone app and posted this blog using Squarespace’s great iPhone app. But, the results and speed in which I could do it was alarming and phenomenal.

Yes, I’m beta testing. But I’m beta testing the future. What are you testing?

There are few places I like more than this cabin. I’ve been coming here with family and friends since I was 11. Ten years later, it’s still one of the few places that I can still relax. Here’s the cabin at night, and the surrounding areas. More from this week-end later.

It’s been almost six week since I have posted anything. Usually I get quiet when I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do. I fell into myself and am just now getting around to getting out of that. But don’t worry. I’m not getting out slowly.

I’m exploding.

Exploding with excitement and opportunity, love and tingly feelings. It took a five hour drive to Seattle with the windows down, a $200 flight from Seattle to DC, a book, a bag of skittles, a bad glass of white wine, getting retained by TSA, a pretty girl, and some dance club music for me to get to this point. I’ll explain every single one of those in depth in the coming weeks.

From Seattle to the edge of Nebraska, my brain has been playing ping pong with what’s next. Finally, I pulled out my trusty Gowalla Field Notes book and just started writing. 10 pages later, I have nothing left except passion, excitement and determination to make those ten pages a reality in 2010.

Enough rambling. I need to walk around this flight. The guy next to me has terrible body odor and is reading New Moon. Enough said.

Sorting through old images and when I looked through Kayla‘s session again, turns out there were more photos I liked. It’s amazing what new eyes and new editing will do for some images. Now I have to look through all of my images all over again and find other ones I like. Good day. I’m posting the last two after I write, because they aren’t portrait photos, just photos I like. I don’t know why.

I’m flying to Austin, Texas right now to take a class at the Wizard Academy, take some photos and plan out 2010. The flight from Salt Lake City to Austin is 2 hours and 20 minutes. I’m bored.

So I decided to make a photoblog. I took all the images with my iPhone’s camera, edited them with Chase Jarvis’ Best Camera app, and compiled it and wrote this to you with Squarespace’s new iPhone app.

Are these my best images? Of course not. But I’m still excited none-the-less. Look at where we have come from and imagine where we are going! Today, I can take and edit photos and post them to my website from my phone, while flying at 30,000 ft. Technology is moving so fast and we’re just hanging on. Creativity is starting younger and younger, the use of technology is going hand in hand with it.

Imagine what you’ll be able to do when you’re flying somewhere to plan out 2011. I’m ready for it. I’m excited for it. Hang on tight.