Digital Digressions

The Pain of Self-Censorship or How to Write a Blog Post You Can be Bothered to Read?

In English there is this brilliant saying about 'creating a rod for one's own back'. This is how I have become to view blogging since attempting it (more or less consistently) since June 2005.

In my humble opinion there are two radically opposing forces at work, neither one too daunting to deal with when viewed separately and in isolation, but however - when both are seen together and in context of one another, they create the explosion of (not necessarily good) content in the blogosphere.

Force 1: The Need for Frequency
Blogs are great. Invariably they have successfully identified a niche to talk to and they do so at a frequency, which daunts anyone with a full-time job other than blogging. It's a self-fulfilling prophesy in a way - in order to get greater frequency of traffic and higher rankings in Google (based on numbers of links) and in Technorati for that matter (thanks to the Authority figure) one has to keep posting at the speed of a four-handed typist, and be continuously relevant, pandering to one's audience and be offering something new and different that people are willing to come looking for.

So how do people do this? Some employ robots to scavenge the web and report any and every tidbit of relevance on said blog, others blog about everything and the kitchen sink (read: quantity doesn't necessarily equal quality), others like my great idol Guy Kawasaki are clever and do a combo of interviews, postings and musings which are invariably good, but also diverse and different enough to keep people coming back and linking to him. However, I still think if it is a one-man (woman) enterprise, it can take up a lot of your time (easily!) and the more ambitious you are in terms of climbing in rankings, the more time you have to devote to providing content. Just see Guy agonising about trying to get to the top of the Technorati list!

Then you have laypeople like me who get swamped with work for about four weeks and disappear from the blogosphere altogether to tend to whatever (work) emergency needs fixing and see a slump in my visitor numbers and Technorati authority figure straight away... there is no mercy at all. And tons of work also hit you from another angle: you are simply too knackered to think up some delightful blog post on a deep subject, which means it becomes all too easy to procrastinate and post-pone it to yet another day.

Force 2: The Need for High Quality
So why do people come to blogs? I would argue they come, because a topic grabs their interest and they feel the post may have something to offer in terms of amusement, insight, advice, consolation, ideas or entertainment. Do they find it consistently, to a high level? They come back. If they don't? They come once, never to return. So to describe the rod I have made for my own back it must be my own sense of inability to keep posting insightful, relevant posts in a timely manner to the diverse audience that reads my blog (consistently). It also means that due to everything being traceable you never get away with anything, no slack quoting, no miss-spellings, no copy-pasting, no incoherent thinking... it's done a lot for my posting skills, but it has equally created a high threshold for me to get over -  Is the post good enough, is it useful, will people read it ?- I agonise every time.

So looking at it - Force 1: the need to keep posting frequently and its diametrically opposite Force, Force number  Two: the need to maintain a consistently high quality - these two are continuously at war with each other, at least inside my own head. For the risk of sounding terribly trite: I have to wait for inspiration - there are days when I can wax lyrical about almost any topic and there are other days when I keep putting my foot in my mouth, so I give up and you see yet another week of no postings, which must be equally frustrating. So is there a way out of the prison of my own making?

How to Write a Blog Post You Can be Bothered to Read?
A little caveat here: writing a post YOU can be bothered to read.. that's the test! Can YOU yourself go back in a few days or months' time and read the post you have written again and enjoy it? Does it remind you of something you had almost forgotten, hadn't you jotted it down in the blog, the trail of thought would have been lost on you forever? If you answer yes to the question above, chances are you are using your blog not only to learn and grow yourself, but so are your readers. If you say no, it sounds like you are filling your blog with stuff just for the sake of making or creating a noise (registering on Google/Technorati). In all honesty, time is a great judge - going back over my blog archives there is a lot that I have deleted, that were relevant at the time, but didn't survive to become 'timeless' in their insights.

So what's more important - the intrinsic motivation of being able to understand your own thoughts better, learn from them, share with others and collectively grow or the extrinsic motivation of what ranking you have on Technorati? Some clever individual might say that Technorati is a reflection of the usefulness or relevance to others of your postings too, but bearing in mind that the figures can be influenced and that you, as so many others have only limited time and resources at your hands, you may want to gain other more satisfying rewards from it rather than forever feeling like you are never outputting enough content/linking  to the right people/getting enough traffic to raise your standings in the ranking system. That alone can't keep inspiring people to keep blogging for ages, can it?

4 Things Managers Do To Demotivate People

Whether we like it or not, industrialisation, globalisation and business development in general has seen the birth of a new breed of professional, the manager. Unless you are blissfully caught up in a one-man enterprise of sorts and can call yourself your own manager, chances are that somewhere, sometime your life is influenced by one.

Note that managers are different from leaders and in my perception there seems to be far more managers around than leaders, to the point I'm willing to postulate that businesses these days are over-managed and under-led to the point that more and more people are disillusioned with their jobs, frustrated by the office politics and generally not enjoying their work as much as they could be. Why is it? Surely what managers do is good, necessary and important and without them we would be at a loss? Or is it that the nature of management and the behaviours associated with management is in fact responsible for causing more agony than necessary? Let's pick this apart a little:

Management Behaviour 1: Trying to Turn Everything into A Win-Win
In itself this is not a bad thing, to think that people are more likely to do something if they think they will get something out of it too, rather than lose out. Common sense actually, but it can create its own set of problems. By focusing on procedure of how a decision should be made (the process) as opposed to what decision needs to be taken, the managers conveniently distract people from thinking about what they might potentially lose out on if the decision that is taken is not to their advantage. Once people commit to the process of how the decision will be made, they will have to support the outcome as they were involved in formulating the decision-making rules. This will make them accept their losses, believing that next time they will win. Needless to say that over time this will simply end up demotivating people.

Management Behaviour 2: Being Vague is Easier than Being Crystal-Clear
Managers have a habit of communicating with their sub-ordinates indirectly, using vague language, 'signals' rather than clear 'messages'. A signal can be interpreted in any number of ways, while a message clearly states a position. A signal doesn't put your head on the line, because you can always later blame that your signals were 'misinterpreted' by your staff, whereas messages put your head firmly on the line, stating 'this is what I stand for'. From another angle it also means that with messages there is the direct consequence that some people may indeed not like what they hear, but in any case messages create emotional responses (good or bad) in people and makes managers eager to preserve the status quo (see below) anxious. With signals, the question of who wins and who loses often becomes obscure, but equally the person who communicates in signals as opposed to messages, is perceived as not having a clear position, but instead spineless and perhaps not capable of sticking up for his people, should the need arise. Again a massive demotivator.

Management Behaviour 3: Playing for Time
Sometimes it's better to sleep on things, rather than trying to make a decision then and there. Many managers have literally taken this to their heart, counting on the fact that if delaying major (difficult) decisions, compromises have time to emerge that take the sting out of win-lose situations and the original issue will be superseded by more pressing matters, again serving the purpose of diverting people's attention. Over time this has a tendency to create more and more confusion as some major decisions never get made, due to the endless playing for time and thus the risk of work being duplicated or even in some cases redundant, enters the picture. This of course another massive demotivator as nobody wants to be stuck working on something which will be deemed irrelevant 6 months down the line.

Management Behaviour 4: Preserving the Status-Quo
Last but not least managers often tend to see themselves as conservators or regulators of an existing order of things, the Status Quo, with which they personally identify and which provides them with rewards and a sense of who they are. The stronger the institutions and hierarchies that support a manager, the greater their self-worth, thus why change it? Thus to get things done AND preserve Status Quo it becomes a matter of tactics. Tactics of course involve both costs and benefits; they make organisations more bureaucratic and political on the expense of direct, hard work and close human bonds and relationships. This makes people feel like they are there not to do things in the best, most effective and rational way, but to prop up the ever-expanding system of individuals who reap greater benefits from the Status Quo than they do.

A great article written by Abraham Zaleznik for Harvard Business Review in 1992, titled Managers and Leaders - Are They Different? sheds a lot of light on this topic and at its time caused a furore in business schools up and down the country for suggesting that business leaders have much more in common with artists than they do with managers, but more on that soon!

Success is a Mindset

Why is it that some individuals become geniuses, others retire as millionaires, business empires get built seemingly from scratch and in other cases talented individuals never rise beyond mediocrity, regardless of their field or profession? Some attribute this to luck, others claim it is down to what talent we are born with or that we are either smart or not, but in all cases people are wrong. Success is not down to what you are born with, it's about what you make of the things you are born with. In other words, it's down to whether you have a fixed or a growth mindset.

A fascinating series of studies by Stanford Professor Carol S. Dweck have been collected in a newly released book titled Mindset - The New Psychology of Success   capturing the intricate, but crucial differences in how people with these mindsets look at the world and what effect that subsequently has on their lives, their chances to succeed and ultimately their happiness.

The Fixed Mindset
Believing that your qualities are carved in stone - the fixed mindset - creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. So many people are stuck with this all-consuming goal of proving themselves - in the classroom, in their careers, and in their relationships: every situation calls for a confirmation of their intelligence, personality or character: Will I succeed or fail? Will I look smart or dumb? Will I be accepted or rejected? Will I feel like a winner or a loser? These aren't just things we pick up as we enter adulthood, but Dweck delicately points out that as a parent, you can have a profound impact on whether your child falls into the fixed or growth mindset, same in schools - in fact society at large seems to have conditioned us to think that talented people always get ahead and those smart enough don't have to work hard - they just do it. The truth is no one just does it - but how can learning even be fun when your whole being is at stake every time there is a test, a competition or a deadline?

The Growth Mindset
The people with a growth mindset have a far more open way of looking at the world and themselves in it - traits are not simply a hand you have been dealt and have to learn to live with, always trying to convince yourself and others that you have a royal flush when you are secretly worried it is a pair of tens. In the growth mindset, the hand you are dealt is just the starting point for development. It is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way - in their initial talents, and aptitudes, interests and temperaments - everyone can change and grow through application and experience.

Do people in this mindset believe that anyone can be anything, that anyone with proper motivation or education can become Einstein or Beethoven? No, but they believe that a person's true potential is unknown (and unknowable); that it is impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, toil and training.

Did you know that Darwin and Tolstoy were considered ordinary children? That Ben Hogan, one of the greatest golfers of all time, was completely uncoordinated and graceless as a child? That the photographer Cindy Sherman, who has been on virtually every list of the most important artists of the twentieth century - failed her first photography course? That Geraldine Page, a great actress was advised to give it up for lack of talent?

You can see how the belief that cherished qualities can be developed creates a passion for learning. Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better? Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them? Why look for friends or partners who will just shore up your self-esteem instead of ones who will also challenge you to grow? And why seek out the tried and true, instead of experiences that will stretch you? The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it is not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.

Who has accurate views of their assets and limitations?
Interestingly, studies show that people are terrible at estimating their abilities. Professor Dweck and her students recently did a study to find out who most likely to have inflated views of their abilities and try for things they are not capable of? It turns out that those with the fixed mindset accounted for almost all the inaccuracy. The people with the growth mindset were amazingly accurate.

When you think about it, this makes sense. If, like those with the growth mindset, you believe you can develop yourself, then you are open to accurate information about your current abilities, even if it is unflattering. What's more, if you are oriented toward learning, you need accurate information about your current abilities in order to learn effectively. However, if everything is either good news or bad news about your precious traits - as it is with fixed-mindset people - distortion almost inevitably enters the picture. Some outcomes are magnified, others are explained away, and before you know it you don't know yourself at all. Howard Gardner, in his book Extraordinary Minds, concluded that exceptional individuals have 'a special talent for identifying their own strengths and weaknesses'. It's interesting that those with the growth mindset seem to have that talent.

The book
Rather than merely going over the differences between the two mindsets, Professor Dweck does an excellent job of also explaining the background to these mindsets, that we may in fact be riddled with both of them, but in different areas or parts of our lives. She further takes a very hands-on approach to explaining how to spot when you are in fixed mindset thinking and then how to move yourself in to the growth mindset thinking instead. The book is littered with case studies of people from all walks of life, explaining how people have conquered their fears of failure to become successful individuals. Despite Professor Dweck being an academic, the book is surprisingly straight-forward, even chatty in places, but ultimately a very approachable book and one of the most useful I have read in a long time. Not only do you learn to examine yourself and your own behaviour as a result of reading this, you also learn to be supportive to your friends, loved ones and partner, and moreover, how to turn your workplace into a positive environment where people thrive. I find my coaching skills have improved dramatically too - highly recommend reading this book!

Culture or Conditioning: How Many of Our Problems are Self-made?

Reading the excellent book by James Surowiecki on the Wisdom of Crowds (see side panel for link), one of his examples when talking about the power of convention: seating in public places, got me thinking about the role of convention and norm in determining the shape and feel of our lives, jobs and even destinies to some extent. Let me backtrack slightly: in this chapter Surowiecki talks about how powerful conventions are in making society run smoothly, they maintain order and stability in addition to reducing the amount of cognitive work you have to put in to get through the day. Quoting:

Conventions allow us to deal with certain situations without thinking much about them... and they allow groups of disparate, unconnected people to organise themselves with relative ease and an absence of conflict.

So let's think more deeply about this - how much of our lives is actually made up of conventions? How many things do we actually do and put up with, not because that's the most logical way to approach a situation or solve a problem, but because it has always been that way or we have always done it in a certain way? Let's take this example by Surowiecki:

Consider a practice that's so basic that we don't even think about it as a convetion: first-come, first-served seating in public places. Whether on the subway or on a bus or in a movie theathre, we assume that the appropriate way to distribute seats is according to when people arrive. A seat belongs, in some sense to the person occupying it. This is not necessarily the best way to distribute seats. It takes no account, for instance, of how much a person wants to sit down, It doesn't ensure that people who would like to sit together would be allowed to. And it makes no allowances - in its hard and fast form - for mitigating factors like age or illness (in practice of course people do make allowances for these factors, but only in some places. People will give up a seat on the subway to an elderly person, but they are unlikely to do the same with a choice seat in a movie theatre, or with a nice spot on the beach).. so why do we do it? To begin with, it's easy and it allows people to concentrate on some presumably more important things. The rule doesn't need coercion to work, either. And since people get on and off the train randomly, everyone has a good chance of finding a set as anyone else.

Still if sitting down matters to you, there is no law preventing you from trying to circumvent the convention by, for instance, asking someone to give up his seat. So in the 1980s, the social psychologist Stanley Milgram decided to find out what would happen if you did just that. Milgram suggested to a class of graduate students that they ride the subway and simply ask people, in a courteous but direct manner, if they could have their seats. The students laughed the suggestion away, saying things like "A person could get killed that way". But one student agreed to be the guinea pig. Remarkably, he found that half of the people he asked gave up their seats, even though he provided no reason for his request.

This was so surprising that a whole team of students fanned out on the subway and Milgram himself joined in. They all reported similar results: about half the time, just asking convinced people to give up their seat. But they also discovered something else: the hard part of the process wasn't convincing the people, it was mustering the courage to ask them in the first place. The graduate students said that when they were standing in front of a subject, "they felt anxious, tense and embarrassed". Much of the time they couldn't even bring themselves to ask the question and they just moved on. Milgram himself described the whole experience as "wrenching". The norm of first-come, first-served was so ingrained that violating it required real labour. The point of Milgram's experiment, in a sense, was that the most successful norms are not just externally established and maintained. The most successful norms are internalised.

This leads me to the title of this post - how many of our perceived problems exist because we have begun perceiving them as 'convention',  and trying to fight them literally fills us with anxiety, tension or embarrassment? This happened to me too, not that I realised it necessarily at the time. In my case our team had been together for a few years and we unwittingly became became victims of some presumptions by our boss at the time, he had made his mind up regarding each of our strengths and weaknesses and forever treated us according to these stereotypes and never would let us prove him wrong by doing something different. After a while you almost begin to believe it yourself, when you find that you are arguing a point to deaf ears. Although you persist, it is easy to gradually give up as the embarrassment of asking and labouring a point simply becomes too great and before you know it you have been conditioned to put up with it.

Someone a while ago illustrated this very well, when explaining how fleas are trained for the flea circus. This is a true story! To get fleas to jump a specific (premeditated height) what you do is you stick them in a tall tube, the height of which you would like to train your flea to jump and stick a lid on the tube. In the beginning the flea will jump as high as he likes, but hit his head/body in the lid of the tube. He will do this a few times until he learns (mainly from the pain!) that this is not a good move. Eventually he learns to jump just so high that he won't hit his head in the lid of the tube anymore. Take him out of the tube and he will still only jump as high as the height of the tube he was in.

How much are are we victims of the same thing? How much could we in fact change what happens to us by daring to pipe up, speak our minds or even just as a difficult question? True, this will demand more labour on our behalf, but may in fact lead us to happier lives, new opportunities and allowing us to grow beyond our perceived limitations.

What drives you: Extrinsic or Intrinsic motivation?

What drives us is not just a key to the sustainability of our happiness, it also defines us as people more than we think.

What is extrinsic and intrinsic motivation? Extrinsic motivation is all that external stuff that tells us we have made it. People's praise, a fat pay-check, a big watch, a nice car, a big house.. all those things have gained such importance in our lives these days, probably because of the advertising and marketing industry's triumph in convincing us we are all losers, unless we have these symbols of success. These symbols have become very much what people measure themselves up against, signs of achievement and in fact rabbits, that whippet-like youngsters mindlessly chase around a track for, not because they necessarily want it, but because a lack of self-reflection and awareness has made it possible for the world to substitute individual values with collective definitions of what one SHOULD do, have or seen to be doing.

Intrinsic motivation is the opposite. It is about finding satisfaction from inner values, learning, growth as an individual, helping others, the sense of doing something useful, taking on a social cause and so on. Being driven by intrinsic motivation is also an opportunity to be authentic - think of your life as a house. Can you knock down the walls between the rooms and be the same person in each of them - if you did, would you like being the same person in all the rooms. Would that person reflect what you are all about? If you said yes to all the questions above, chances are you are an intrinsically motivated person. You have a Strong sense of values and it is very important for you not to be in conflict with those values - any job that offered you tons of money to be in conflict with those values you would feel bad about accepting, because you would feel like you are going against yourself. Maybe these things are not as clear in your mind that you could rationally explain why you said no to a tempting offer, maybe you need to remind yourself in case you are feeling foolish when friends rolls their eyes and tell you they don't get your decision.

The extrinsic motivation is easy to get hooked on initially - the path of accumulating material wealth is clearly laid out. You know how to measure it and ironically, if you don't pursue it people wonder what is wrong with you. The only way to avoid getting caught up in materialism is to understand where your happiness and fulfilment comes from.

The thing is that even though we are not in touch with our values, our drive can ensure our success for a while, but we will be unable to sustain it. Why? Because however we want to look at it, extrinsic motivation, although strong, will never be as strong as intrinsic motivation. As we age, we will find that something is missing in our lives and that we are holding back from being the person we want to be. We need the courage and honesty with ourselves to open up and examine our lives and ask ourselves the hard questions. As we do so we become more humane and vulnerable, but also more authentic as people. It also becomes easier to cope with times when things don't go as planned, or the long-awaited promotion eludes us. We persist, because we are bigger than that.

Interestingly, it seems that at the heart of many successful companies lies the very notion of motivation too.  Built to Last  talks at length about what it is that makes companies great and it seems it is that inner sense of purpose, which is higher than merely the desire to be in profit. As the chairman of Hewlett Packard said on many occasions; "profit is what allows us to be here, but profit is not the reason for us to be here". Those are examples of intrinsically motivated companies and they seem to be able to stand the test of time much better than their more extrinsically motivated competitors.

I suppose serving the test of time is what all of us earn for ultimately - fashion, fads, hairstyles all change, our jobs change, even our lifestyles - but who we are, well, if that rests on a more solid foundation than simply with the size of our car and the trappings of our latest salary package, means we also have the fortitude to last through the hard times.

How the Power of Imagination can Alter Your Brain

Many years ago as a kid I was confronted with a particularly grumpy old lady, whose grumpiness was not merely a set of behaviours, but had etched itself deep into to the lines of her face, her posture and general demeanour. Afterwards I told my mum '... that lady should think more happy thoughts!' and we laughed together about this. Little did I know how profound this statement was until now, almost 25 years later.

What caught my eye was an experiment explained in a recent issue of TIME magazine (February 12, 2007), devoted to exploring all sorts of topics pertaining to the brain and its' functionality. Let me quote:

It was a fairly modest experiment, as these things go, with volunteers trooping into the the lab at Harvard Medical School to learn and practise a little five-finger piano exercises. Neuroscientist Alvaro Pascual-Leone instructed the members of one group to play as fluidly as they could, trying to keep to the metronome's 60 beats per minute. Every day fro five days, the volunteers practised for two hours. Then they took a test.

At the end of each day's practise session, they sat beneath a coil of wire that sent a brief magnetic pulse into the motor cortex of their brain, located in a strip running from the crown of the head toward each ear. The so-called transcranial-magnetic-stimulation (TMS) test allows scientists to infer the functions of neurons just beneath the coil. In the piano players, the TMS mapped how much the motor cortex controlled the finger movements needed for the piano exercise. What the scientists found was that after a week of practise. the stretch of motor cortex devoted to these finger movements took over surrounding areas like dandelions on a suburban lawn.

The finding was in line with a growing number of discoveries at the time showing that greater use of a particular muscle causes the brain to devote more cortical real estate to it. But Pascual-Leone did not stop there. He extended the experiment by having another group of volunteers merely think about practising the piano exercise. They played the simple piece of music in their head, holding their hands still while imagining how they would move their fingers. Then they too sat beneath the TMS coil.

When the scientists compared the TMS data on the two groups - those who actually tickled the ivories and those who only imagined doing so - they glimpsed a revolutionary idea about the brain: the ability of mere thought to alter the physical structure and function of our gray matter. For what the TMS revealed was that the region of motor cortex that controls the piano-playing fingers also expanded in volunteers who imagined playing the music - just as it had in those who actually played it.

"Mental practise resulted in a similar reorganisation of the brain", Pascual-Leone later wrote. If his results hold for other forms of movement (and there is no reason to think they don't), then mentally practising a movement, a golf swing or a swim turn could lead to mastery with less physical practise. Even more profound, the discovery showed that mental training had the power to change the physical structure of the brain.

Where does this leave us? Well, it does highlight the profoundness of statements like Be mindful of your thought's, because according to this we, ourselves, are very much in charge and can influence how our brains will perform, by either allowing a set of thoughts to take place or consciously working to direct thinking and thus mental practise in another direction.

To bring back the grumpy lady from the beginning - it seems that many factors that contribute to this lady's grumpiness are things that are out of her control. Fair enough, but what is in her control is how she chooses to see those things. If she indeed allows herself to become grumpy, then next time something, however small, happens, she will get grumpy that much faster than before. Why? Because that connection in her mind is now stronger than the path where she tries to look on the bright side of the problem, for instance. By continuing to allow this to happen over time, over and over again, she would eventually become grumpy and indeed stay grumpy, all the time. Her health, demeanour, physique, all of it would be affected by the fact that in the beginning - a bout of intellectual laziness meant that she preferred to think the grumpy thought and remain in that frame of mind, rather than making a conscious effort to train her mind to think in a different way.

So is the truth then that we become our thoughts? To a large extent you could say yes, but that message contains hope, because being conscious and self-aware of one's own behaviour and thought patterns means one can also influence those. So we should indeed strive to become better by imagining ourselves not as we are, but as we would like to be and devote time to thinking about this and acting on it, rather than try to lull ourselves into some false belief that the world and our reality is what happens to us and we have no influence over it. Far from it. We may not have influence on the physical factors of this, but we certainly have a large influence over how our brains deal with and process that information and how we behave subsequently. And those behaviours may very well influence what happens afterwards, or as people like to joke 'if it didn't kill you, it'll make you stronger'.

Music Community 2.0 - Garageband.com

No, I don't mean Apple's lovely music-making software, but a community site called GarageBand, my latest addiction introduced to me by a friend only days ago. My music-making has seen a break recently, mainly because of other distractions, but also because when you are making your own tunes just for the fun of it, there's only so much you can shower your friends with and if they don't get what you are trying to do, your inspiration can take a dip. Not so say I only do tunes to get a pat on the back, it's more that when you are making music you really appreciate the feedback from fellow musicians.

That is also the beauty of this site - GarageBand excels where so many others have failed. It builds a community around independent music, people who haven't even got signed up yet, and the act of reviewing other people's songs before you even are allowed to upload songs yourself. Ahh, easy you say - but no, comments like 'this sucks' or ' your mother was a hamster' don't cut it on this site, as before your reviews go anywhere they have to be reviewed by other users who give you points on how well you articulate your points and how useful the review was to them.

True democracy - this helps not only the good stuff to trickle up to the top in the charts running on Garageband.com, but also all the bands to get useful feedback from their peers and not just some random comments or people trying to suck up to them. You have to complete 30 reviews, before you get to post your first song so this does take a bit of time to do, but again that is the beauty of it - good things come to those who wait. Too many sites instantly give away all their goodness to the extent that you lose interest in about a week, where other sites, like this one, grow on you.

So there you are, trying to be your most verbatim best, giving useful pointers and descriptions of stuff thrown at you (yes you can choose genres! I'm sure I wouldn't give very good ratings to the Country & Western lot, not because of malice - just because it isn't my thing) and having reviewed tracks in the Jazz, Electronic and Electronica genres I must say I'm particularly impressed with the quality of Jazz on Garageband.com.

A sad discovery, however, is that this site, a little weighted to the American audience, still doesn't have a genre called Drum&Bass, which does exist in America too, usually under the name 'Jungle' and a little too aggressive in my liking - but the really good stuff you'll find under the sub-genres of Jazz-step and Intelligent Drum & Bass - the output of which mainly comes from Europe. So once I'm as far as ready to upload my own tracks onto Garageband - I shall have to decide whether my Drum&Bass numbers should be classed as 'Electronic', 'Electronica', 'Dance', or 'Techno' to comply with Garageband's collection of genres.

Not sure what I'm on about? Go check out Beatport or TrackItDown for some great examples of what Drum & Bass can offer. Needless to say - this stuff is not mainstream in the sense that if you expect to hear it on Top 40 countdowns - forget it. That is also the beauty of Garageband.com - the real stuff, coming straight to you without some record company exec deciding what you should be listening to - for the people by the people, brought to you by web 2.0 put to the service of building a great community. Amen.

A Million Penguins - The First Ever Wiki Novel

"Everybody has a novel in them, so they say. Wouldn't it be better, though, for a million people to club together to write one? This is the theory behind an initiative launched this weekend by Penguin Books, in collaboration with students at De Montfort University in Leicester. They plan to create the world's first 'wiki' novel, fiction that will be concocted online by millions of contributors across the globe. Until the end of the month anyone can join in to help write the novel, which has the provisional title of A Million Penguins.

The site is A Million Penguins and, so far, just a few days into the experiment, the novel is into its seventh chapter. The project has been designed as part of a study module at the university. Students involved are based across the world and include the director of Booktrust, Chris Meade. The term 'wiki novel' has been coined for an online book from the internet term 'wiki' which is the name of a website that allows the visitors to add to and edit content, often without the need for registration.

Previous attempts to throw open the editorial process using the web have not had a smooth track record, however; chaos ensued when the Los Angeles Times threw open its editorial processes to internet readers. But Penguin is optimistic. The company's digital publisher, Jeremy Ettinghausen, said the contribution of the students on the university course had already been hugely helpful in shaping the launch of the novel." ( Vanessa Thorpe, arts and media correspondent, Sunday February 4, 2007, The Observer)

What I want to know is, is it any good? Listening to authors speak about their novels it is usually a complex affair, many interlocking threads are kept initially apart to entice the reader to gradually piece things together, then things get turned on their head and eventually the novel ends in a surprising way, which makes all the pieces fall in place and make sense again. Well, of course not all novels are like that - but to cite an example for the purpose of discussing: can those intricate turns and twists of a plot realistically be delivered by people who don't know each other, don't work together necessarily even to the same goal? I decided to take a peek and this is what greeted me in the prologue:

The Emperor gazed ponderously over the city of London. Although he had long grown bored of the invisible control he and his ancestors had exercised over the human race, since abdicating three hundred years ago he had become increasingly remorseful at his decision to set them free. For over three hundred years now the human race had been left to do what it wanted, severing the intricate planning of generations of past Emperors. They had proved themselves to be absolutely useless, relentlessly engaging in a nonsensical frottage of sex, violence and gimcrackery that they attempted to pass off as art and politics. And now the planet was melting. It was a mess.

For the past fifty years The Emperor had been patiently executing a plan to regain control. His plot was at a critical phase, one that could, if he could pull it off, re-establish coherency in the world. In his current guise as the director of Penguin Books, hiding his appearance with a hard hologram that enveloped his portly black and white body in that of a gregarious businessman, he was in a position of immense psychological power.

Just then came a knock at the door. He turned from his office window overlooking the Thames as Jeremy entered, the head of Penguin online. The Emperor had been judiciously manipulating Jeremy to develop a tool with which he intended to get the human race back on course and regain the benign, paternalistic control that was so badly needed – A Million Penguins. Outwardly A Million Penguins was an optimistic creative writing experiment. But in the depths of its structure lay the most powerful psychological weapon that had ever been invented.

Sounds like this could be fun. I like the little jibes at Penguin and the digital publisher, Jeremy Ettinghausen in all this - there is a taste of the beginning of a Batman movie hidden in there somewhere, or maybe it is just the reference to penguins that is setting my mind off. Also, let's presume this becomes a runaway success - how many more of these kinds of stunts can be done until people (rightly so) start demanding a share of the proceeds? Truly quality material needs to be matched with some reward or perhaps getting your name in print is enough? And what is it about Penguins - we had the March of the Penguins, then Happy Feet, now a Million of them... is the world obsessed with Penguins or ...?

Predict the World in 2007 Challenge

Back again, after a long work-induced break, this blog is hopefully once again up and running with more frequent posts than recently. 2007 has got off to a flying start for many of us, and wintery landscapes are finally reminding us Northern Europeans that it is in fact, still Winter - and what a great time to pull ourselves up in our armchairs with a hot cup of something and muse about the year ahead of us. What will be the big changes coming to our attention in 2007, how are our lives changing, or are they in fact changing at all?

Having delved into extensive research into trends and various fields related to my work, I feel like I have finally come up to the surface to breathe again after having been immersed in fact-finding for so long. The notion of mapping trends is actually very difficult and what I struggled with most was the notion that every day seemed to bring something new to my findings, sometimes even turning things completely upside down from how I had been looking at them before. One thing is of course finding examples of what is going on, but more importantly, the challenge is to try to make connections between different things and even attempt to explain why they are happening.

 

The Big Surprise for 2007
In my mind the most revolutionising develop­ment of 2007 is likely to come from a very un­expected quarter: Africa. Despite the philanthropic efforts of Microsoft and others, computers have failed to penetrate much beyond the urban middle class in east Africa. Laptops are targeted by thieves, desk­tops are stymied by power cuts and a lack of broadband access. This in itself makes the concept of OLPC *One Laptop Per Child, an effort by Nicholas Negroponte to get computers into the developing world potentially a red herring, but may in fact turn out to be the killer of products like LeapPad for kids, where the laptop has more mileage and is a better investment than the closed electronic platforms of children’s learning toys, but who knows?

Speculation aside, the truth is that mobile-phone operators in Africa are bullish. Except in restrictive Ethiopia and Eritrea, the market has taken off in the region, and 2007 will see the first high-speed access Internet access through mobiles. Some com­panies, such as South Africa’s Breakdesign, a developer of software for phones, predict that mobiles will become east Africa’s primary portal to the Internet.

The humble SMS will have an even greater effect on east Africa in 2007. Innovative use of SMS will allow people to move money by text message, to receive information on, say, maize prices, along with tips on planting, and to receive medical advice, a particular benefit to those living with tuberculosis or AIDS. (Source: the Economist, December 2006, ‘The World in 2007’.)

 
Connected Communities
Another big one, which is not really new for 2007, but growing explosively, is the phenomenon of connected communities. Over 1 billion people are now online as of June 2006 *see Internet World Stats  and the biggest growth in internet usage is coming from Africa, followed by the Middle East, Latin America and Asia. The sites receiving the biggest traffic are sites involving direct human interaction – sites like MySpace, Orkut, Bebo, but also blogging, Youtube and the like. People connect around contexts, things they have in common and their desire for knowledge, for communication and a sense of belonging – coupled with virtual and physical communities beginning to blend into one through the advent of internet-ready phones, Google maps and GPS, makes it possible to connect to people you have met online on Mesh Tennis offline – for a great game. The passion is what unites you. The internet is the enabler. Niches find their audiences, talented moviemakers their fans, bloggers their readers, geographically widely spread apart, but huge in numbers. Connected communities make it possible for word to travel fast, for good news or bad news to spread quickly, for brands to emerge one day and almost be buried the next, as employees equipped with cameraphones decide to publicise their gripe about a topic, as happened with the Starbucks employees highlighting the rat infestation at a Starbucks premise on Youtube. The transparency can become tyranny at the flick of a switch.

 
The rise of Homegrown Media
Sitcoms are in terminal decline and the only growth area is still reality TV - which, interesting­ly, shares a low-cost aesthetic and people-like us authenticity with much of web video. Indeed, the only thing keeping TV programmers off the sills of their skyscrapers is that the source of their income, marketers, have not embraced web video as quickly as have their viewers.

In 2007 TV will have its first ‘music mo­ment’ - the realisation that a core audience (the 18-34-year old male) has moved on-line, pos­sibly for good. The rise of Youtube and an army of other free video-hosting services has created a phenomenon of short user-created videos. These clips are creating a new kind of watching experience, on more about ‘snacking’ than half-hour sitcoms. They spread virally, by e-mail and blogs, rather than via billboards and prime-time scheduling. And most worryingly for the net­works, they are not accompanied by 30 second advertising spots, or any other advertising at all. This is television, but not as we’ve known it.

Few even care to comment on the absurdity of traditional TV business models (to say nothing of the risible model of interruption-based TV advertising itself; annoying 90% of the audience for the sake of reaching 10% who might care about your product) makes sense only when you’ve got a captive audience, which is no longer true.

If anyone figures out a way to combine Google-style advertising matched to the con­tent people choose to watch with the undenia­ble power of video commercials, then the house of cards that is the economics of the broadcast TV industry will come crashing down. (Source: The Economist: The World in 2007)

This time last year, Mashable was reporting on del.icio.us clones - where are they now? Jots? SpinSpy? These sites have died a slow death, since the low of cost of hosting means they can stay online forever, despite having no users. Jookster and Wink were forced to change their models, meanwhile, to include video and social networking. Likewise, all the unnecessary RSS readers either gave up or got consumed by a larger entity this year: Mashable expects the same to happen in the video space, with lots of consolidation in 2007.

YouTube Becomes Bigger Than MySpace
This is a ridiculous prediction to make, since YouTube is trailing MySpace by a long way, and MySpace Video is doing pretty well. It’s also extremely hard to measure this stuff, since all the stat providers disagree (in fact, Alexa actually reported that YouTube had overtaken MySpace earlier this year, despite the fact that it’s still a fraction of the size by most measures - as mentioned previously, Alexa has some problems). Another issue is that YouTube involves spending a few minutes on each page, while MySpace users can rack up at least 20 pageviews in 5 minutes. So this is a wild card to some extent.

For more of brilliant insights from Mashup follow the link:Mashable Predictions  

Fuel for thought
To move out from the online domain – the other really big thing is energy. The world uses a cubic mile of oil a year, cost­ing almost $2 trillion. Oil and cars are the world’s biggest and most entrenched industries. Yet, an inexorable half-century transition beyond oil has begun, squeezing oil between efficient use and alternative supplies. In 2007 Toyota will emerge as the leader in super-efficient plug-in hybrid cars: electric for short commutes, petrol-hybrid for long trips. This could double the already doubled petrol efficiency of a Prius. Next, make that car ultra light and its petrol efficiency redoubles. Biofuel it and you quadruple petrol efficiency again, to 30 times today’s norm. Oil prices will drop - but efficiency will remain cheaper still. Getting of oil- abating 42% of global carbon-dioxide emissions will be led by business for profit. That transition already shapes competi­tive strategy. Wal-Mart’s new heavy trucks will be a quarter more efficient in 2007 than in 2006.

By 2015 they will be twice as efficient, sav­ing over $300m a year. Next will come trebled efficiency, which yields a 60% internal rate of return. In 2007 Boeing’s 20%-more-efficient but same price 787 will take flight. Ford’s new chief executive, Alan Mulally, whose efficiency-based Boeing strategy is beating Airbus, will bring to Ford Boeing’s focus on ultralight materials (the 787 is 50% advanced composites), systems inte­gration and breakthrough design.

In Washington, DC, a surprisingly strong voice in 2007 for getting off oil will be the world’s biggest buyer both of oil and of renew­able energy - the Pentagon. The risk and cost of vulnerable fuel convoys, easy prey to roadside bombs, will persuade military leaders that only super-efficient platforms dragging dramatically slimmer fuel logistics tails, or none, can fight persistent, dispersed, affordable wars. This strategic shift will not just save hun­dreds of lives and tens of billions of dollars a year. It will also speed key technologies, like ul­tralight materials, that can triple the efficiency of civilian cars, trucks and planes - just as military R&D created the Internet, GPS, the jet and chip industries. Thus the Pentagon will start to lead America, and the world, off oil so nobody need fight over it.

But even if work begins in all these directions, as well as improving energy efficiency in industry and homes and the use of various small-scale alternative sources of energy, we cannot forget that the economies of developing countries will continue to grow, meaning there will not be any reduction in en­ergy prices in the near and medium term. The year ahead will show which strategy the devel­oped countries are going to choose to work their way out of their looming energy crisis.

1. Re-industrialisation based on a ‘new compet­itiveness’ deriving from an energy-efficient advantage over the industry of China and other developing countries.
2. New colonial wars - this time for energy re­sources
3. New leadership: abandonment of the model of increasing material consumption in favour of improvement in the quality of life, and increase in the intellectual component of the consumer basket.

Strategically speaking only the third way holds promise for the future. (Source: the Economist: The World in 2007)

More Predictions?
This is by no means an exhaustive list. What do you think are going to be the big ones for 2007? Add your comments below and let’s see how close to the mark we get a year from now.

The Lessons of Great Followership

Followership? Doesn't have that sexy ring to it like leadership has. I'm ready to bet there are more blogs and posts out there (including on mine) devoted to what constitutes great leadership, than there is celebrating and pinpointing what makes good followership. Why could this be? Perhaps it is, because leading is what many people aspire to? It is also usually a surefire way to get paid more for potentially knowing less, as you rely on specialists in your team to deliver the stuff you don't know yourself. Not to say leaders don't know anything, it is more to say that there tends to be more established routes for career progression and rewards for leaders than there are for assessing specialists and quantifying their expertise and thus rewarding them accordingly. Just an observation, but an interesting one nevertheless and perhaps something worth delving into in a subsequent post..

Back to followership. Perhaps rather than focus on the term followership, it is worth focusing on what makes a team work really well. Followership has some negative connotations to it such as the notion of sheep, a herd, not thinking for yourself, being dependent on others, not taking initiative and so on. Those, albeit unfortunate elements of crowd mentality should not be confused with what makes a team function well. A well-functioning team needs a good or several good leaders. In fact team members themselves need to be as well versed in the skills of great leadership (see post on the lessons of great leadership) as these skills are called upon not just by the leader, but should be ones that the team adhere to, when taking initiative. Moreover, in addition to great leadership, the team needs to function well as a team, which means sharing a set of values or behaviours that make it easy for team members to work with one another, be lead effectively by the leader and support each other in getting the job done. It is those qualities that are the focus of this post.

Humphrey Walters, a great leadership coach, has assembled this list of lessons for Followership, which work very well in conjunction with a leader that follows the lessons of great leadership (see link above). Thus the two compliment one another and the team itself accomplishes something greater than the sum of its parts. What are those lessons? Here we go:

1. Behaving in a Team
Low performing teams tend to have passive team members who rely on the leadership for their energy, excitement and commitment. High performing teams realise that it is their duty to support the leadership with a clear code of ethics and behaviours. They see it as a two-way street. This is something Tom Bailey alludes to in his comment to my post on Great Leadership - it is very important that this point is clear and it made everyone's responsibility, because otherwise the team will become competitive and feel like not everyone is pulling their weight.

2. Punctuality
Lateness for any meeting or event is deemed as unacceptable. Realising that most relationships are built on trust and reliability and understanding that punctuality is one of the main indicators of trust. Understanding that it is difficult to trust someone who can't even be bothered to turn up on time.

3. Courtesy
Having an ethos of good manners and general courtesy. Recognising people for their help and effort, and not taking them for granted.

4. Apologising
Learning to apologise early, and having the courage and good grace to accept responsibility, even though it may not be entirely your fault.

5. Second Effort
Having the attitude of doing more than you think you should do to help the performance of the team. Going the extra mile and not leaving it to others with an attitude that "it's not my problem".

6. Bullying
Not putting people in situations that they can't handle. Refraining from saying "It's easy" when clearly for someone new to the task it definitely is not easy. Not allowing people to make a fool of themselves needlessly.

This to me is a good list, but in terms of making followership smooth, I would also like to add a few bits from the great leadership lessons list to further bolster this one, because to be a great follower/team member you also have to be a leader - even if you only lead yourself! Thus:

• Be interested in people, get to know your colleagues and team mates - build empathy.
• If you are not sure what you should be doing, ask and take responsibility for finding out rather than floating!
• Be bold, help decision making by figuring out what the options are yourself, list the pros and cons and recommend the best one.
• Don't blame others. If there is something you can do about the problem, do it and if you don't, you can blame yourself. Blaming others will not solve the problem.
• Have the balls to clear out your own mess and clear up things with people face to face, griping about stuff to others and moaning about people behind their back doesn't do anything for the situation and least of all you.

Welcome to the new Wikiality!

The truth is ever the elusive subject. Always the enemy of the totalitarian state, this fragile basis for any successful democracy is under threat from many directions these days. Things are indeed odd when it is completely possible for Tony Blair to appear on Al Jazeera and answer David Frost that the efforts in Iraq are a disaster, only to have a spokesperson appear only hours later to contradict the statement and claim that it was taken out of context and that the Prime Minister did not admit to any disasters in Iraq. Similar events are quite the norm and it seems that the spin has gone so far that leaders like Blair and Bush believe their own hype - the only way they can still remain in power.

Equally, the truth is under threat from another completely different phenomenon - Wikipedia. While I think Wikipedia is a marvellous initiative and would like to support it in every way I can, it also exposes some less pleasant facts about how we as people relate to the notion of truth. The truth is no longer neutral, or objective, but in Wikipedia it has to undergo public scrutiny and become a compromise agreement between many parties who fight battles over the wording of text.

There used to be a time when we blamed the United Nations for this. An institution marred by the conflicting interests of nations who refuse to agree on anything and who regularly amend texts and truths to appear in a more favourable light on the international arena. We used to say this is the reason why things like the food-for-oil programme could exist despite the apparent corruption, why UN troops have regularly been embroiled in scandals and so forth. It is, because no one guards the hairy, uncomfortable truth and everything is open to spin, even reality.

So enter Wikiality - the reality as defined collectively in Wikipedia, not actually necessarily what happened. What are the complex interests that are served here? Wikipedia being open to all, this is increasingly hard to keep track of and be aware of. As the saying goes - don't believe everything you read.

The Lessons of Great Leadership

There used to be a time when I was suspecting that I had a problem with authority. I didn't have much respect for my boss at the time, and in general I was feeling very disillusioned. This is not a nice frame of mind to be in so one invariably begins wondering why things are the way they are - is it because of me? Is it because of the other person? Is it a combination of both?

I've come to the conclusion that I'm just not very good at putting up with what I call the 'Mushroom Management Method' or M3 for short... What's that you may wonder and it is a joke which someone once mentioned, but it stuck with me, because it summarised so well all things I felt really sucked with the situation this person was putting me in. The Mushroom method plain and simple is to be kept in the dark and covered with Sh*t. Your leader likes to keep you in the dark (never telling you the bigger picture or the reasons why decisions are made the way they are - so invariably you are faced with two options: a) there is no bigger picture, because no one has a clue or b) people aren't actually making these decisions for the greater good of the company, but to serve their own ends and thus one cannot state this openly) and cover you with Sh*t (i.e if you do ask questions you get a random combination of Bull Shiitake in reply such as, 'you are a great, talented blah blah and don't you worry about these things.. or.. we've got it under control.. or this a decision by higher management, and doesn't have to be justified to people like you..(what so now you are saying they don't have a clue?) and so on and so forth).

Anyway - you get my drift. All this is incredibly corrosive to a team and very demotivating to individuals, because yes, you do stop respecting your leader pretty much instantly when you get treated like this and secondly: you never learn to get better either, which results in the same mistakes being repeated over and over again. Again very discouraging and nothing makes you feel more stuck in a job than not having any opportunities to learn.

There is hope though - for every bad leader there are many good ones out there. I am blessed with one at the moment and I have realised that no, I have absolutely no problem with authority as long as it is vested in someone I have a lot of respect for. In fact: I welcome it!  Trying to pick apart what makes a great leader, someone stuck this list under my nose the other day, but sadly it is devoid of the credits of the original author! Thus my request to all of you - if you recognise this list, please let me know who to credit, because credit needs to be given where credit is due and this: my friends is a pretty exhaustive list, which defines in my opinion so well what makes a great leader. Here we go:

1. Clear Strategic Intent
The ability of the leadership to set and continually reinforce the vision for the Organisation. Having the courage to outline what is possible to achieve and getting the people to understand the exciting future. Getting motivation through continually reminding people of the importance of taking the Organisation forward and giving inspiration on achieving extraordinary results.

2. Assembling the Team

• Get to know each other: Understanding how important it is to know what the team members are like. Knowing what their attitudes, opinions and objectives are as well as their style of working. Realising it is important to devote time to 'the team' as opposed to 'the task'.
• Job allocation: Having clear roles and responsibilities and encouraging each team member to become an expert in their field. Having the trust that each team member knows what they are doing and ensuring that their contribution is valued.
• Information: High performing teams rely on plenty of information. They want to know what is happening and how their contributions affect the performance of the team as a whole.
• Goal Setting: Having a clear process for setting and monitoring short-term and long-term goals. Ensuring that these goals are reviewed and adjusted dependant on the performance of the team, and making sure they are challenging without being impossible.
• Boldness and Decisiveness: Having the inspiration to make decisions even though there may not be complete information available. Not playing it safe, which is usually too late. Having the courage to admit to a poor decision, and adapting quickly without huge recriminations and postmortems
• Follower or Pioneer? Being  prepared to take a risk and being a pioneer. There are times when good 'Followship' is essential. However, most winning teams have to take a chance and pioneer at times.

3. Running the Team

• Clear Briefing: Spending time briefing the team clearly on a specific task, or project, before it is started. Not relying on 'seat of the pants' management. Ensuring that most actions are worked out before the task is attempted rather than playing it by the ear as it goes along.
• Performance Review: Reviewing performance regularly to see where improvements should be made. Having an ethos that the team themselves review performance as a matter of discipline, and not relying on the leadership to suggest this happens.
• Avoid 'Blame Culture': The attitude of learning from mistakes, but not having a witch hunt. 'Leaving it on the wave behind' rather than indulging in personal witch hunts to find out not whether it was right or wrong, but rather whose fault it was.
• Empathy: Having an ethos of genuine caring for the well-being of others. Helping the less experienced or skilled in the team so that they feel they have people who they are able to look to for help.
• Scuttlebutt: Making sure there is no malicious gossip. Having the culture that says clearly that gossip is unacceptable and if the person has a gripe with another team member then their duty is to sort it out face to face, or keep quiet.

4. Maintaining the team

• Not all are heroes: Understand that not all team members are in the limelight. Finding people who support the performance of the team and realise that some of the less noticeable actions contribute hugely to the overall performance. Finding these unsung heroes and giving them the recognition they deserve.
• Continuous improvement: Making sure there is an ethos of looking for ways to improve performance and that these ideas are encouraged and recognised.
• Coaching: Making sure that team members realise that they are expected to learn new skills and are relied upon to keep themselves up-to-date. Also to realise that teaching and coaching others is the responsibility of all, and that they must spend time helping others to improve their skill levels.
• Quiet word: Spending time giving words of encouragement and congratulation to team members. The ability to notice the little things that people contribute and acknowledging this contribution by having a quiet word.
• Formal Briefings: Giving time to organise formal briefings which run efficiently with a proper agenda and clear starting and finishing times. Making sure that these times are kept to and no waffle is allowed.

Here we go. Next on the agenda is what are the Lessons of Great Followership... stay tuned!

The Politics of Christmas

Here it is, the silly season - once again time just went too quickly and before I even knew it, it is time to run around stressing about what to get various friends and family members for Christmas. This year I have been in denial, simply too many things going on for me to even get in the mood for it. It's more like an awkward interruption to a lot of work that needs to get done and with Christmas in between one is left with that certain sense of floating insecurity as to whether things will happen still. On the other hand I'm in desperate need of holiday, so any excuse to take two weeks off is welcome - and between these two extreme ways of looking at it, I still haven't consolidated myself.

Christmas is an odd phenomenon if you think about it - in ancient times religion and celebration was more or less inseparable and holidays invariably meant a lot of dancing and partying where the whole community would be involved. You'd paint your face, don a costume, have a feast and generally share the fun with the whole town or tribe. And we still do on occasion - whether it is for a carnival or a sports event, supporting our own teams, but not so for Christmas.

So when did it all go boring - where we feel obliged to camp out in Wal-Mart to get hold of the limited release of the TMX Elmo or attempt to kill each other over Playstation 3, drag home our bounty and then spend Christmas with close family by eating large quantities of food, drink too much and generally retreat to our own little homes and shut out the rest of the world?

Maybe it all started with the dawn of the industrial revolution when 'work ethic' replaced so much of our culture - making it the norm to work all hours of the day, six days a week and on the seventh one was supposed to remain sedentary and praise the Lord. Is that when the separation from our communities began and it slowly became acceptable to put your worries at work ahead of the needs of your neighbours? Eventually not even bother to get to know them - certainly the industrial revolution sped up urbanisation and the two are inextricably linked in terms of an exponential increase in productivity equalling a similar increase in alienation. So did Christmas become a holiday indirectly celebrating the increase in productivity, by making it the norm that everyone should signal their increase in material wealth by acquiring more presents and ever more lavish gifts to those in one's direct circle of family and friends? Certainly seems that way these days. Anyone who celebrates Christmas in a different way from the 'norm', by doing away with presents or a big meal or any other of the set Christmas traditions is looked upon with curiosity or as a skinflint or potentially both - the herd mentality has got us hooked.

Then we get to the politics of the entire affair of Christmas. Countless people, including myself further worry about the logistics or 'fairness' of where to spend Christmas - for me, like for so many others there is a delicate peace to be maintained by balancing expectations of my family in Finland who invariably think every Christmas should be spent with them otherwise it will not be Christmas, and my partner's family who are a lot more flexible and relaxed about the matter and forgive us for darting off to Finland on occasion, but to whom we still feel indebted and certainly me: I feel guilty about not seeing them for Christmas. So in fact Christmas, although supposedly a season of happiness and goodwill is more of a season to balance expectations, maintain peace, be where you are supposed to be, not let anyone down, God forbid forgetting to buy a present for someone who has bought you one, trying to get hold of people's addresses to send them Christmas cards when normally we only text, phone or email each other, and so on and so forth.

It is really sad that this is what Christmas has become for many of us - a closed set of rituals involving only our close relatives and loved ones. For those who are single or on their own, Christmas is often the most lonely time of the year as very little happens these days to bring together communities and celebrate on a grand scale, everyone together. We huddle together in our homes, happy that we have people to huddle up with, but surely that is not what the spirit of Christmas is all about?

For fear of sounding downbeat about Christmas to all those of you who think this is the best time of the year by far - I have a little treat for you: Why not Elf Yourself and spread some laughter and happiness to your friends and colleagues? (and get out of writing Christmas cards... this is far funnier!)

Hidden Talents: Are You a Connector?

Somebody came to me the other day and told me they had been told to speak to me, because of my uncanny talent of connecting people and forging links between people with problems and people with solutions. This has me dumbstruck for a few seconds as I had never thought of myself as such. Nor is this a skill people often quote in either job adverts, or even on their CVs, but I have come to realise it is an essential skill particularly when working in big organisations.

Surely enough, after listening for a moment to this person's account of their skills, abilities and interests I could recommend about 5 people to speak to, whose problems would either be solved by speaking to this person in front of me, or who could advice on steps going forward. I did this without even thinking about it, because again, it is not something I'm conscious of. Someone listening in pointed this out to me later on and I've tried to think more deeply about this to try and explain what is happening.

1. Are you curious and interested in people?
Are you fascinated by people, how they tackle the challenges ahead of them, the problems they come across, how people relate to one another and so on? Someone told me recently I do a lot of active listening, again something I wasn't aware of, but this is an essential skill in being able to get to the heart of the matter as people invariably, often even subconsciously, tell you more openly about what's on their mind if they feel you are truly listening and interested in what they have to say, rather than having that look on your face, which suggests that you are actually right now only thinking about what you will say to this person as soon as they have stopped talking. This is essential in getting people to open up, but also to trust you and the truth is: you can't fake it. If you really couldn't care less, no amount of acting will convince the person in front of you otherwise and you will never get to the bottom of things.

2. Are you open-minded?
This goes hand in hand with the previous point. I'm not saying you have to be entirely happy-go-lucky without a care in the world of what's happening or where life is taking you, but that you are able to put those ambitions and single-minded drive to one side and not let them cloud your judgement or prevent you from seeing opportunities in front of you or even other people. Many problems or indeed situations can only be solved by a very lateral view of the context where the problem exists and only if you are open minded are you able to see those links and connections. It is an interesting phenomenon and essentially it is about a fluidity of being able to switch from your point of view to another person's point of view, look at things from their perspective and maybe even a few more people's perspectives, but essentially being comfortable doing it without a fear of loss of self. I suppose a pre-requisite is self-confidence and an intrinsic understanding of yourself, so you can do it without feeling threatened or even worry that you will lose your own perspective by looking at things from another person's. But being open-minded enough to be able to do it, means you will also see things you probably hadn't seen when just looking at things from your own view and those are the opportunities, which are golden.

3. Are you generous with your time, thoughts and ideas?
I often see people holding back on compliments, connections or even ideas - not wanting to share them with friends, colleagues or even relative strangers, because of..well, I can only call it jealousy or a fear that giving away too much means they will get ahead of you in some way. This is a very small-minded approach, because people often forget that being generous with advice, ideas, contacts whatever is about sharing good karma, that is something you will be remembered for and the word will travel in the most unusual of ways to come back to support you later, whereas small-minded pettiness will only do one thing: make sure your time was completely wasted.

Also many conflicts exist because people focus in on one thing which really annoys them about another person, and soon cannot see the forest for the trees in the sense that all the other skills or abilities or good sides of people go unnoticed, because that one irritating thing. In the past I have spent a lot of time listening to people complain about one another, but again from very single-minded points of view and myself in turn, having spent time explaining the sides of the person that are not so bad or indeed have even gone unnoticed. A lot of conflicts can simply be solved by encouraging people to identify good qualities in the people they have difficulties with and doing the same with the person causing the conflict and subsequently watching a change in behaviour as both parties suddenly snap out of a locked situation, because they become aware of the mutual respect created by both recognising each others' qualities. Not rocket science but again, easily forgotten. And by the way - there is no such thing as a perfect human being so no point trying to pretend you are one. Instead approach the world with appreciation and respect and you yourself will experience the same towards you.

4. Do you like surprises?
I'm frequently delighted by the connections I'm able to think up and the ideas that come from that and by sharing them, the true surprise comes from what happens thereafter. Helping people by listening to them, giving some unbiased advice, introducing them to other people, you name it - those are good things to be doing, because you yourself feel good having done them, but equally positive surprises come your way, things that you never planned or even predicted, but things that could only have happened as a result of you initial kind effort. I love surprises.

5. Does solving problems give you a buzz?
Problems can exist on many levels: practical, social, psychological or a combination of all three. Some people can only deal with practical problems and shy away from problems that people have, others like to listen to people and their troubles, but don't want to their hands dirty in anything practical and again others like to think of all the answers themselves. Problem-solving is a combination of being practical, understanding that you can't possibly have all the answers yourself, being creative and lateral in your approach of who you need to speak to and also being creative in thinking of alternatives. You either view solving problems as a delightful challenge or you are daunted by them. Many problems can indeed be daunting, but do they paralyse you or do you just stare at them for a while and then start chipping away determinedly until you get to the heart of the matter? That is also the test of your effectiveness as a connector, because your creativity in approaching a problem will take you to talk to a lot of people, investigate different options and ultimately the buzz of solving the problem will make you want to solve another one soon.

6. Are you humble?
Humility is a great thing - humility means you can talk to anyone, regardless of rank and connect with them. Humility means you respect the person in front of you, not because they might be someone very important, but because they are human. We are all human, and being respectful to one another means we eliminate so many of the friction points that cause connections to be lost, and the reasons people often hesitate to help, because they worry their kindness will be abused. If you are humble, those concerns don't even enter people's minds, regardless of your rank.

How Can Your Rights be Protected by Giving Them Up?

One thing which has puzzled me ever since the world started a war on a noun (terror), is the argument of how we need to protect our 'freedom' (civil liberties) by making some sacrifices (give up our human rights). How can you protect something you are willing to give up - surely once you give it up there isn't anything left protecting?

The horror of the 20th century tyrannies were the ones that helped catalyse international treaties such as the Convention on Human Rights, as these democracies had witnessed the desecration of a principle that they had accepted as the foundation of their civilisation. The tyrannies were fascist states that claimed to know 'what's best for the people', encouraged people to turn each other in and spent considerable effort on spying on their own citizens and in some cases eliminating parts of the population that were in some degree or other deemed 'unwanted'.

Somehow today's discussion has become to resemble this behaviour once again - but this time championed by 'democratically elected' governments, behaving like fascist regimes, claiming it is all for the good of the people. I can't remember voting to kill or jail people for their political opinions, torture them for information, deport aliens who may be innocent to countries where they might be tortured and killed or for that matter use evidence in court obtained through torture by another government? No, but this is what is happening, right here, right now 2006 Anno Domini and somehow it has become OK to take a democratic mandate (the people elected us) to mean that 'people want us to behave like fascists'.. and by the way - 'it must be right since we are a democracy'.

Ronald Dworkin of the Financial Times (09/10/2006) makes an excellent point when he says "The politicians say that the dangers to security are too great to continue to respect established rights. Is the danger really so great? Religious fanatics bent on murder are not the only enemies of society. We face serial killers, drug dealers, muggers, industrial polluters, train operators who skimp on safety and white collar criminals who destroy lives. It is unclear that the dangers these people pose to our security is any less than the danger if terrorism. But no one advocates jailing suspected pension fund embezzlers for 90 days without charge while their hard drives are scoured for encrypted evidence."

Shimon Peres recently made a striking point when he said that the war on terrorism is more like fighting crime than it is about fighting a war - the solutions to crime are more about eliminating the opportunities for crime and taking away the reasons to commit crime rather than wiping out an entire population, some of who may be at one point inclined to commit a crime. Personally, I just hope the world would wake up to all this BS and stop sticking its head in the sand while we continue down the path of desecrating those precious rights that are the cornerstones of the society we so avidly defend. If there aren't any human rights left, what are we defending? Our right to oppress?

Like it or Lump it - Vote on the most random blog comment ever!

Part of the interest and richness of blogs is the discussions and if I could assign any kind of reward to the effort involved in coming up with interesting topics, it would be the mixture of curiosity and also interest that one has for viewing the latest comments to a post. Now I've been blogging for over a year now and my topics are random to say the least, but one of the all time hit posts on this blog has to be my definitive collections of bumper stickers in the posts Life Observations in a nutshell: Best Bumper Stickers Part I and as there are a few in my collection: I also followed it up with Part II.

Now there are 28 comments to the first of the Bumper Sticker postings and recently I have come across a dilemma - a new comment was posted shortly after I changed the approval method for comment postings from me approving each one to a system whereby you enter the letters shown in a graphic to stop robots trying to do link-dumps.

And then this arrived. The random comment. It was obviously not a robot, but a person. A little IP search revealed this person is situated in California, US if the search is anything to go by. I'm not sure what to make of it to be honest. I'm pretty critical of most things, but I worry about some of the statements made in this comment, or to be precise: I struggle to understand how this person makes some of the conclusions he/she makes.

Let me quote:

...There are many more examples throughout 20th century life of how they ramped up claims/instilled distractions into society so people wouldn't find their way and ascend, a way to justify excluding those whose family history of evil makes them undesirable:::radio, sports, movies, popular music, television, video games, the internet and MP3 (must pay for new format each time). They all suggest a very telling conclusion::this is Earth's end stage, and there are clues tectonic plate subduction would be the method of disposal:::Earth’s axis will shift breaking continental plates free and initiating mass subduction. Much as Italy's boot and the United States shaped like a workhorse are clues, so is the planet Uranus a clue, it's axis rotated on its side.
...

The United States of America is red white and blue, a theme and a clue:::. 

The monarchical system of the Old World closley replicates the hierarchical system of the Cousel/Management Team/ruling species. The USA deceives people into thinking they have control, and the perception of "freedom" misleads them at least into the wrong way of thinking. The United States is a cancer, a dumping ground for the disfavored around the world and why the quality of life is so much lower::gun violence, widespead social ills, health care (medication poisons the body and ensures you don't go. You are sick because you have disfavor.). Over time its citizens interbreed ensuring a severed connection to the motherland.

....

They have tried to sell people on all kinds of theories, from clones to wholesale population replacement with clones. This didin't happen and is not realistic.
I am afraid people are decieved into thinking they too are clones and cooperate and engage in evil. Clones are made, people are born. If you didn't experience the one week they suggest it takes to go from fertilized egg in the laboratory to full grown adult then you are not a clone. If you didin't experience the week of conditioning they give to (evil?) clones to ensure loyalty then you shoudln't comply with evil.
I believe people who go sometimes are replaced with clones. Clones who are replaced are simply new candidates who have a chance if they do the right thing. Don't expect you are a clone. They sent people warnings in the 20th century life would change, and they subsequenlty began to alter people's DNA, make them gargantuan, alter their appearance, do extreme behavioral issues, etc.
They get their friends out as soon as possible to protect them from the evil and subsequent high claim rates incurred by living life on earth, and in some cases replace them with clones, occasionally fake a death, real death with a clone instead, etc. It's the peasant whose brain is beemed out and put into a clone host, for they say those who do not go with the body given to them are on the clock....

And so on. I get a headache everytime I try to read the full comment. Maybe I'm a clone? There are parts to this comment that are really philosophical and there are other parts that just don't make sense to me at all. So what to do? I would like to hear your opinion on what to do with it, by you having your say in my nifty poll below. And dear commenter, whoever you are, thank you for your input. All comments are highly valued on this blog.

Read the full comment

What a Difference a CEO Makes..

I don't often praise people unreservedly on this blog, in fact I often do the very opposite and take veiled punches at business practises or culture that really winds me up and that I believe does nothing to encourage productivity or even happiness in a company for that matter. A while ago I wrote about How to be a CEO and remain human, this I confess was a deliberate attempt to pick apart what our CEO at LEGO, Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, does so well in the company and what a profound effect it is having on all who meet him, regardless of rank or role or even whether they are an employee or a fan.

In many ways this shouldn't really be rocket science, but what is sad is that this behaviour is so very rare - the opposite is in fact far more common: a command-and-control approach where a CEO surrounds him/herself with people who echo the views he/she wants to hear. Or circulating in the upper echelons of the company without ever communicating directly with staff lower down. Or caring at all for that matter. I believe staff smell this a mile away and CEOs and managers alike struggle to get the credibility they need to really achieve change. Credibility isn't something you can apply as an after thought. It is either with you from the start because you avidly believe in values higher than self-interest and how those values can benefit the company, or you will never get it.

There is a wonderful quote by Colin Powell, the former US secretary of defence, which goes something like this ' the day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you stop being their leader. They stop because either they have lost their faith in your ability to solve these problems or they think you just don't care. '  This quote summarises so well what the problem seems to be in so many companies: the further company bosses are from the real consumers or people executing the company strategy on a day-to-day basis, the further they are from reality and the easier it is to entertain completely flawed views of reality. When asked recently what the values are that our CEO lives by, he replied in his blog simply:

• integrity (sticking to what you say, being truthful, honest and reliable; putting your money where you mouth is,walking the talk; acting rather than talking, most important self identity, knowing who you are and what you stand for)
• execution (delivering on promises, getting things done, with urgency/speed, doing first things first)
• innovation (creativity; creating new "meaning" out of previously uncombined well known things)
• inspiration (fun, surprising, uplifting, broadening perspective, urging to action)
• collaboration (demonstrating that winning in business is a team sport, not an individual sport, knowing how to get different people, with different qualities, to work together to create synergies between people, teams and organisations (partners)).

I couldn't agree more. He further says "The five leadership values first and foremost stress the importance of vigor, determination and strong resolve in leading a business - rather than a thinking that knowing what to do, and how to do it, is all that you need. A lot of managers believe that as long as you know where to go and how to get there, the rest will take of itself. Anyone who has ever lead a large team or organization should know otherwise. It is like suggesting that just because people know that it is healthy to be fit and that they can get fit by exercising, then they will automatically start being fit."

What a difference a CEO makes. Really.

Lives in-between and the importance of Flow

Recently my life as become to resemble what I call my life in-between, rather than life proper. What do I mean? Life in-between is what happens between all the work, deadlines, travel and to-dos, which is also aggravated by the fact that my partner is in exactly the same situation. We meet at home in the evening, both tired and exhausted by the various things preoccupying our minds and life in general seems to be on hold. This weekend is a prime example. Both of us are trying to squeeze life in between all the work we have to do as well.

So what are the consequences? A sense of 'floating', a disconnect, a desire to grab hold of things and make meaning out of them as a reaction to the things neither one of us are in control of. Talk about life balance, currently it seems that we just rush from one deliverable to the next. It is surreal in many ways, and I've noticed I tend to counter this avalanche of expectations by obsessively immersing myself in things I do have some level of control over, such as cycling, fettling with the set-up of my bike or other technical interests. It's really a knee-jerk reaction to a sense of frustration of not being able to grasp hold of the things that influence my life. In fact, fettling with my bike is really a deliberate quest for Flow.

What is Flow? Flow is a phenomenon first described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, which refers to the notion of ideal experiences, a sense of self-absorption where one is deeply engaged in an activity where one is learning, exercising one's creativity and altering one's sense of time. These are the moments in life that give us our fondest memories, where we truly find meaning and a sense of progression as individuals and when Flow is missing from our lives, we feel out-of-sync, frustrated and have a sense of our lives lacking meaning. Csikszentmihalyi lists a set of characteristics that define flow as follows:

1. There is a height