Stuff

I am not Following or Leading, I am Discovering.

I am very interested in how you monetise online activity. Of course I am. So are most other people of working age at the moment. 

I think that online will drive the world of the future, it will be the norm and offline will be a welcome relief and have an elevated position. So in the future, online conferences will be the norm and the great real world conferences will be the aspirational environments. As long as they are TED like in quality and not mediocre of course. 

Real world experiences like wind surfing, driving and walking will continue to be part of our world- experience born out of necessity, desire or both. Many people will stay 'real-worlders' and there will be 'real-world movements'. Our current world experience will turn upside down. Parents will tell their children of times before phones, email and the internet as every generation has done before in its own way.

Back to money and the internet. I have recently signed up for The Third Tribe and Chris Guillebeau's online business guides. I have put my money where my mouth is. These are not cheap and they're not expensive, except in the face of 'free'. As a marketing person I want to understand how these monetised systems work and to be part of something new. I blog, am linked in, on facebook, twitter, on triiibes and other ning style networks and will continually play at the new world. I have an iPhone and buy iTunes and apps. I join in online conversations and Skype with people I have never met from countries I have never visited. 

I will be buying an iPad soon. Why? Because it's about to change us again. Murdoch wants us to pay for his content. The Times is going iPad. I want to see what they can do with news online in this format. I want to see what it feels like to read a book in this format. I may love it, I may not, but I will have a point of view. That's what is important to me. I am not following or leading. I am discovering. 

I am going to the London Linchpin Meet Up in June with over 100 other people that may be similar to me and yet, I hope, still with a unique finger print and experience. 

New age is here. I am discovering it, following, leading, discovering. I urge you to paddle at the edges, even if you don't want to get on a board and ride the waves...yet.

Director of Human Relationships?

Quality is a big subject. Quality costs millions of hours and millions of £'s, $'s or €'s. So when it comes to people why do we put up with low quality? Not just low quality service, work ethic, morals but low quality relationships. Where is the Director of Human Relationships in your organisation? 

Haven't we still got a long way to go to re-humanise our world? Relationships operate as both the actual connection and the style of interaction. I have been meeting many new people over the past two years. I also have many longstanding friendships. A few since my schooldays, which makes that now over 40 years. Gasp! I am considering what is the quality of these relationships?

In this new world of inter-relations low grade relationships will not survive. There is no need whatsoever to accept poor quality relationships in your friends, colleagues and online communities. So that means you are free to be who you are within the boundaries of common decency and courtesy. It also means, doesn't it, that the idea of loneliness described in The Lonely Society? will change? 

I have a lot of friendships offline, in and out of work, I have a lot of friendships online, in and out of work. I can find a place to go to be with others whenever I need it. 

So this makes me wonder about the state of our relationships today. Do we actually have to stop looking at others and look once again at ourselves. At our own abilities to relate to others? Perhaps the problems are not out there in the real world, in the cyber world, perhaps the real areas to develop are inside our own personal relationship worlds?

We're not stuck in a small town with small people now like our ancestors. We're not even stuck in the office or factory. So if you need better relationships, work on your own style and behaviours first. Am I being too harsh? We are not all equal, some are better in relationships than others.

Mix It Up More

Ted Baker is producing men's ties in the style of Nina Campbell, the interior designer. Keihls skincare is holding a Chelsea shop opening in aid of Chelsea Pensioners. They are also creating a unique product, Creme du Corps in support of Great Ormond Street Hospital. Margaret Howell, the clothes designer, is holding an exhibition of art by Peter Yates. Each one of these and the many more brands, businesses and organisations that are finding new ways of connecting with their customers and markets show us how mixing it up makes an impact and creates innovation. Innovation is the lifeblood of business and society. Are you mixing it up enough? 

Re:Vision - re:telling stories

A neophile is someone that loves the new. Loves new things. I am a neophile. Yet, this morning I am sad that the milkman has a new van rather than his old milk float. Actually, now I am thinking about it, I am a bit choosy about the 'new' I love. I'd rather have seen a really well designed, up to the moment electric milk float than a petrol van that has been customised to hold milk.

My idea of 'new' is either 'breakthrough' new - something that changes everything like the personal computer, iphone et al or 'revised' old.

'Revised' like they revised the Mini. Took all the best bits, mixed in up to the moment technology, engineering, design, style, colours, mood and created the new Mini. Like they have revised the Fiat 500 in a similar way. I love 'revisions' probably more than 'breakthroughs'. Revising feels very human, very intuitive, very artistic, very creative. In this context I prefer the word 'revise' to 're-invent'. 

To revise is to go over old knowledge, to learn, to take in and retell the story, in your own words and images. To revise has a quality that to re-invent lacks. Invention is invention. You invent something. It's a once only experience. You bring 'something' out of the 'nothing' and invent it. How do you 're-invent' it? 

So if your business, brand or personal style is getting dusty, just revise it, don't re-invent it. Go back to the origins and re:tell the story afresh. 

Where Do You Get Stuck?

Most of us get into a habit of starting projects or finishing projects - thinking outside boxes or ticking boxes. We may learn this through our parents, through school or our early working lives, but it seems that this fixed identity of being someone that processes or someone that creates endures.

Where do you fit into your organisation? Do you just spend most days getting the work done or do you spend most days finding new angles and new paths and spinning ideas? In today's over supplied and over stretched world the old idea of 'division of labour' is under pressure. We can't leave stuff up to others. If you're in a process style department you still have to think how to refresh your services, how to innovate and update. If you're at the front end of the pantomime horse working out new innovative products and services you still have to move things through to a point of reality and a set of processes or procedures, to get the thing to market.

Take a look at your own areas of strengths and look at the weakness buried within them. Then find a partner to help you move yourself on, move yourself to the next stage. 

Some of us love ideas and some of us love the finished article. If you can find partners, formal or informal that help you be more complete and innovative then you can find more of what you really love, which is success.

Going Social

The awful expression 'going postal' refers to a group of postal workers that killed their colleagues and other citizens. It was put down to extreme stress. So if we all 'go social' could that be an antidote to 'going postal'?

If we get overwhelmed by work, friends, families, illness how do we share the burden out? Some of us find friends we know who have the will, love and sometimes stamina to listen. Some find relief through soap operas or soapy magazines. Is aloneness the real issue? Is the sense that you are the only one suffering the difficulty really, the pressing problem?

If we find new ways to connect with people can we find a wider network to rely on and to support us?

'Going social' is an alternative to 'going postal' or indeed 'going it alone'.

On a similar note - the phrase 'an accident waiting to happen'...is all about something or someone that is bound on a perilous journey which could only end up bad. 

Is the alternative phrase 'a miracle waiting to happen' available? The idea that something or someone is bound on a journey towards events that can only turn out well'?

Bonne chance mes amis.

The Living Library

This is what I love, adore, superlative emotion, heart about the 21st Century. Just when we're all wearing computers as 24-7 accessories. Just when we thought society was broken only to be replaced by a 'bigger' version. Just when we could all be going to Hell in a hand basket, we invent something so strange and futuristic as the Living Library or the Human Library. 

Today I went to one in Brixton organised by the charity Crisis and Lambeth as part of Adult Learner's Week. I took out a book called Samuel. Samuel was a man in his forties with a story. The story was difficult and complicated. Sitting there listening was fascinating because it was like 'reading' a live book. A book I could ask questions. A plot I could discover in any which way I wanted to. We could jump ahead and go back in time to suit our conversation. 

Imagine if I could have met Einstein or Newton or any other great character?

Who would you take out from the Human Library? 

Why? 

What story would you be telling if you were a book in a Living Library?

A magical space to ponder. Thanks to Martin who works in Communities and was taking a day's holiday to do this. Thanks to Angela of Re:Think mental health. New things take time and imagination to create. Thanks to people like Martin and Angela we can live in a world of newness and freshness. Congratulations, I am a fan.

Social Media is not an Advertising Platform

In the past 24 hours I have been to two events and discussed social media. One was with advertising professionals who told me that brands were turning their backs on social media and the other was a social media café crowd meet up who could care less. 

I find people's varying relationship to social media in turn fascinating, frustrating and awe-inspiring. I don't understand any other reaction to social media other than 'wow'. The idea that because a big brand has decided to drop their 'fan' pages' somehow discredits the medium in some way is to entirely and utterly miss the point of social media. 

Social media is not an advertising channel. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Social media is a shared human technology experiment. 

While people find ways to put stuff on the net for free, while others find ways to access it, while people find ways to use cameras, moving images, computer generated images, telephony, instruments and any other way of expressing themselves, the medium will grow. This medium is not the same as television which has been funded entirely by advertising revenues from day one. This medium was born out of the idea that Tim Berners-Lee had in 1989 of shared knowledge. The context of this genesis means it is fundamentally different to television. 

We all tend to see things in our own image. So it is natural that advertising sees social media as advertising. But it is not. If brands and businesses want to engage in social media they have to 'get with the programme'. Just as the old saying goes the medium is the message.

See social media as learning and sharing. That's its birthright.

Mash It Up

I love the new world of the mash up. It's everywhere. Take the Elephant Parade in central London. A big charity trying to get attention for the plight of elephants, talks to a whole host of artists, creates unique and interesting symbolic elephants, puts them in different areas and has them adopted by businesses and then auctions them to raise money for the cause. Take the Cutty Sark and Don't Panic campaign where they use art to create new ideas and context for the whisky brand. Take Becks beer 'music inspires art' programme, again using creativity and engagement to drive interest and difference to the brand. 

In today's open world there are many more possibilities. Yet there are still minds to be opened. Opening your mind is the first step to discovering relationships, partnerships and connections that can re-invigorate and refresh what you do, what you sell, what you buy and how you work. 

Smile More

Whatever your personal or professional circumstances you will be better off with a smile. A genuine smile is a sign of perspective. It says that no matter what you're facing you know you have the ability, the strength and the desire to handle it. This has an effect. On you, the wearer of that signal, and on those you are facing. Don't mistake a genuine smile with a grimace like that of Gordon or a demonic stare, they're just scary. 

No a genuine smile has grace and wisdom and humility wrapped into enough presence of mind to know you can find a way. On the streets where you live a smile offers a sense of security to those you pass on your journey. It is a signal that you are no threat to their safety. It is a moment of shared experience. We may know nothing of one another and the trials and tribulations we face, yet at this very moment we share the same air and the same points of reference. Every smile is a sign of triumph. When we watch the news from areas in Africa or India facing extreme poverty we are always arrested by the images of the children playing and smiling. Their big toothy grins a testament to hope and strength of character. 

To wear a frown is to fail. To fail to find gratitude for the daily stuff we take for granted. To fail to find the humility to know that your burden, no matter how great, is but nothing to others both past and present. 

To say we're facing difficulties is an understatement. But which generation hasn't had difficulties? Would you swap with those who, by chance, lived through the two World Wars? How about those who faced up to Medieval Britain where fights and slavery was a normal way of life? It's rough and getting rougher but it's our rough, it's our time to show what we're capable of. The least we can do is smile.

Blogs That Work

Even the previously reticent people I know now say to me, 'I am thinking about starting a blog'. This is because the general media exposure of blogging has widened to show that having a blog is not something weird but rather something curious. From weird to curious is a good move. Weird evokes feelings of fear and loathing. Curious is much more engaging. Curiosity offers possibilities. Added to that, mainstream media increasingly shows the value of the top bloggers in terms of audience and respect and it's not surprising many more people are thinking, 'I could do that'. 

In reality I am not sure everyone will do that. Not everyone will make the time, nor will find the content to write. But the more people understand the flexibility of the medium, the lack of rules, the freedom of expression, the more people may experiment. 

Looking at the blogs that were highlighted by the Sunday Times last week as the ones that work there seems to be a combination of approaches. The first represented by Mashable is a one stop shop variety, a quick access for readers to be 'in the know'. Then there are the gossip blogs represented by Perez Hilton, great fun and entertaining, the knowledge ones such as the one from Niamh Shields for foodies, or Tech Crunch for techies, news ones such as The Huffington Post or the celebrity blog from David Byrne. 

Speaking of celebrity blogs P Diddy is just about to enter the fray take a look at his launch video shown on Mashable (see how it all interlinks). How bold is that? P Diddy presumably will have a team of writers just itching to give us access to his world. Which leads neatly into style.

Different people have different styles. Some personal and some stylised professional. 

To blog successfully you need to see what works and why it works and then figure out how you can express yourself as fully or with the same quality of focus. Then you will have to make time to do it. There is nothing as bad as an empty or old blog. It sits out there in space like driftwood, evidence of lack of follow through, lack of discipline, lack of interest. 

Blogs definitely don't work for everyone. Blogs definitely don't guarantee success. Blogs are a commitment to your belief in free expression, shared ideas, fun and learning. Out of that commitment some, like those noted above, will become significant channels in their own right, most will not. 

Which leads to my final question. Is an unread blog worth doing? If you don't get instant readership engaging with you and hanging on your every word should you quit? 

As a non-corporate blogger I'd say if it's worth blogging about then blog. As a brand specialist I'd say if it's worth blogging about then blog. As a private individual I'd say if it's worth blogging about then blog. 

Bloggers know who they are. If you aren't a blogger then don't. 

Do something else in social media that interests you. Create 'you tube' films, engage in big discussions online, create a special network on ning, twitter, flickr, make your own radio station on blip. Getting involved as a brand, as an individual in social media doesn't necessarily mean blogging. Explore the space, have fun, play. Social media is a playground of possibility. Don't panic, you've got all the time in the world, it's not going anywhere.

We're Starving

Today's Times has an article which links a child's popularity with their physical appearance.  It brought to mind an experiment I read about which also showed a link with popularity and eating. 

The experiment went like this. One child entered a room and was told to carry out a task. On the table was a plate of cakes. The adult said they would have to carry out the task without any help from friends. They were told this was because everyone had chosen to be their partner and so it was easier if no-one was. The child was told they could eat the cakes if they wanted, while carrying out the task.

They carried out the task alone. 

Another child entered another room and was told to carry out a similar task. Another plate of cakes was on the table. Again the child was told they would have to carry out the task without any help from friends. This time, however, they were told that this was because no-one had wanted to be their partner. The child was told they could eat the cakes if they wanted, while carrying out the task.

They carried out the task alone.

The major differences were that when the adult went back to the children, the first 'popular' child had eaten, on average, 2 cakes and completed the task easily and the second 'unpopular' child had eaten, on average, 4 cakes and had difficulty with the task.

Jamie Oliver is doing all he possibly can to awaken parents to the abuse they impose on their child's wellbeing when they allow them to overeat or to eat badly. 

This appears to be a vicious circle where children are becoming ousted from a happy social life and seeking comfort from food. 

How can we be intelligent when many of the world's children are suffering from food starvation and many more are in danger of being overfed and subject to friendship starvation?

Wake up. What can we do to change this nonsense?