Abbey Ryan ’03 may be a genius, according to Seth Godin’s definition in his new bestseller Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? She’s certainly both capitalist and worker, according to his new book.

In a video recently produced by Vook.com for Seth Godin’s current bestseller, Linchpin, Ryan describes how she uses the Internet to market her daily paintings directly to consumers—while doing what she loves. “I had no idea that it was going to happen. All I set out to do was figure out a way to paint every day,” says Ryan, an alum and a fulltime visiting Assistant Professor at Arcadia.

Forget the factories and machines, the labor and management, writes Godin. “Today the means of production = a laptop computer with Internet connectivity. Three thousand dollars buys a worker an entire factory. This is a fundamental shift in power and control.”

So how does Ryan fit Godin’s classification as a genius? She owns her own means of production. Ryan is not only a alumna and an Adjunct Professor of Art at Arcadia University, she’s also the originator of a profitable enterprise: Abbey Ryan: A Painting a Day, found at ryanstudio.blogspot.com.