I hope my daughter is a hacker

I'm a huge believer in fostering an environment where being a "hacker" is something to aspire to. To be clear, I mean "hacker" in the greater sense of the word. For most folks (at least in the tech community) that's well understood to mean finding creative ways to remove barriers or to accomplish your goals through methods that are not obvious or standard operating procedure. When I see folks doing this I get excited because at least, for me, it's one of the great things that inspires me and that smaller, more agile organizations do so well.

It's an awesome time for this, with all the momentum around start-up culture and entrepreneurialism the DIY / hacker mentality is also on the rise. If you are new to this idea you need to checkout the legendary guys like Captain Crunch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Draper) and TMRC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tech_Model_Railroad_Club).

So when I learned about this picture that my 4 year old daughter made the other day I was thrilled to learn about how she decided to make it with her own hair ending up on the paper. She told me in a way that only a 4 year old can, that it was because the yellow marker was lost and she just thought that her hair would do a better job anyhow so with a pair of plastic kids safety scissors and some tape she hacked together a creative solution that makes her nerdy dad about as proud as he can be.

I wonder if each of us aren't all born with some seed of hacker in us and, if so, why so many of us tend to lose sight of its amazing potential and value.