Learning is Change

Usually I know what to expect when I head into a meeting. Usually I can see what is coming and figure out any problems that are in the offing. I don’t merely assume the best, but I do have an expectation of human to human interaction, with a measure of empathy on all sides.

I screwed up today on this front.

I completely underestimated the amount of animosity that can be creating while troubleshooting technical issues. I was unable to foresee an adversarial relationship between “partners.” I couldn’t fathom the ways in which power could be adopted to make me feel impotent and trivial.

I shouldn’t have been shocked but I was.

I pursued connection and found brick walls. I pursued value and I found shifting responsibility. I sought relationships and I found accusations.

In short, I was taken aback.

The lessons learned:
1. Do not keep sharing your screen when you are professing your lack of understanding or frustration at the way a conversation is going.
2. Do not try to troubleshoot someone else’s firewall.
3. Seek out people that you trust to add sanity to a call that has gone off the rails.
4. Treasure every relationship that doesn’t make you feel like a failure.
5. If you have to remove yourself from a situation to stop from damaging a relationship that is important to others, do so.
6. Feel empowered to say no.
7. Don’t assume that the foot in your mouth is your own. Others can place theirs in there just as easily.
8. Set expectations as early as you can. (i.e., don’t get on a call unless you know who is on the other line.)
9. Have an amazing collaborative experience as soon after a soul sucking one as possible.
10. Be honest about what you are and are not willing to do for others. No one should be able to back you into agreeing to what is against your better judgement.

That’s it. That’s what I learned today.

It used to be that you couldn’t map an idea, that you couldn’t plot its trajectory. It used to be that you couldn’t identify the connectors and the mavens. It was an obscure talent that it took to spot trends. It took skill. Now, it takes a search bar.

There is nothing so easy as finding the topic of the moment. They are all around us. They are the Justin Biebers and the iPads. They are the subtle references that become the stock and trade of entire industries. And you can see it happen. Even if we can’t see it coming, we can sure see how it went.

But it isn’t enough just to be able to spot trends. The points on a line aren’t all that interesting unless you are placing them. The upward slope isn’t special unless you are the one making it happen. And wildfires spread with abandon, but someone is always behind them. There is always an arsonist that reveals the secret weeks or months afterwards. It it always a shock as to how it happened, but nonetheless, the fire did start.

The problem is that I can’t tell someone else to start a fire. I have to instigate and agitate. I have to suggest it to others and see what happens. As it turns out, I never have the right kindling or materials for sustained flames. I can fan them just fine, but it always takes someone else to strike the match and tend the embers.

And after our first fire, none of us are the same. We all have lost eyebrows and we all glowing from staring at what we have done for so long. The stories we tell are the ones of pushing the fire into the right places, creating back burns to drive the flame deeper into the areas that need a cleansing fire.

And the fires start with an @ symbol now. I fan the flames with an RT.

We set up meetups to ensure we all have the best techniques getting it to burn brighter and longer.

We bookmark our good ideas and start putting together arsonist kits for others.

We take pictures and document just how we are getting such a great burn rate.

And we sit back and watch as everything that we have worked for is enveloped in flames.

We watch, knowing that it is all because of us that we see the dancing orange and flickering blues.

We cheer it on as others start setting fires of their own.

(As you may have guessed, this post is purely metaphorical. I am not actually advocating arson or any form of eco-terrorism.)

Every holiday season, I am flabbergasted by the number of commercials that involve surprising a loved one with a car. They put bows on them, reveal them from behind enormous stockings, and often there are blindfolds involved. Each time the surprised husband or wife looks at the car, I get a little sick to my stomach.

It makes me wonder just what kinds of relationships would afford going out and purchasing a car without even mentioning it to your other half. These moments are crude approximations of love, requited through gifts that are major life decisions to almost everyone.

Under no circumstances would I enjoy choosing a huge debt without sharing the responsibility with my wife. There is nothing so arrogant as thinking you know what piece of machinery your significant other would like to send in monthly checks for.

I like getting books. I could even go as far as purchasing a phone or a nice bag. The overindulgence and complete disregard of fiscal responsibility of purchasing a car for someone else and surprising them with it. It isn’t okay to do this. While it makes for a dramatic commercial, it is inappropriate to suggest it as common or something that we should aspire to.

We should want to work with our loved ones and build a life with them that does not exclude them from the decision making process. Otherwise, what is the point?

I am the type of person that likes getting to a movie at least thirty minutes before it is scheduled to start. I do this in order to make absolutely sure that I will not miss the coming attractions before the feature film. Previews get me more excited for watching movies than I would otherwise be having just rushed in to the theater and finding a seat at the last minute. I become giddy with anticipation for the next installment of the Harry Potter series or for the next film with Ethan Hawke or Ellen Paige. I know that most of the previews will make the films out to be better than they really are, but I don’t so much care for the two minutes that they have me careening off of the sides of buildings or explaining how apacolyptic the world has just become. There is something about the moments between the introduction of an idea and the realization of that idea that are so satisfying.

I think that is why I love the space bar so much on a mac. Whenever I select a file on my hard drive, I press the space bar and I am treated to a preview of whatever that file is. I listen to snippets of songs, take a quick glance at presentations, or just see a few images that have no title information. I get to see them before having to do anything other than pressing the biggest key on my keyboard. It is a small pleasure, but these previews save me huge amounts of time and frustration as I am trying to either be productive (or unproductive in the case of renaming movie and music files).

Previews are visual. They are ways for me to see through a wall, to know what is on the other side without having to scale it. They let me judge things quickly and organize them in my head. Previews allow me to make decisions. I don’t have to know everything to see what is important. I don’t have to waste my time with the things that don’t matter. I can see what works and what is broken.

Everything that I have collected at some point becomes obsolete, but there has never been a very good way for me to purge information, files, links and memorabilia. I usually have to set aside huge chunks of time to go through each item, whether that is a physical piece of paper or link to a website I bookmarked 5 years ago. Because I have collected it all, all of it is subject to obsolescence. And that is why I need a preview for all of it. I need to be able to look at a box and see which of the contents are actually worth keeping around. In essence, I want a space bar for my stuff. I want a coming attractions for all of the things that need sequels in my life.

A new service that I am using, Zootool, is doing this for all of my links. Since my import of all of my bookmarks (from Delicious), this tool has been generating a preview for each of my 2500 links. It has been doing the work of trying to find out what is important and what isn’t, what is broken and what works. Now, at a glance I can look at all of my links and see which ones have returned as an screenshot error. I can also see whether the categories that I had originally labeled them with still measure up. This may not be a revolution, but it is the preview that I have needed for years.

Lists are incredibly handy. They are efficient and they are purposeful. They allow me to collect and maintain the things that are important. But, they can never alert me to obsolescence or to being broken. Only through previews can I actually “see” what is going on. Only by making the things I have collected more visual am I able to organize things according to anything other than topic. I can sort them by reusability, theme, or even color.

Previews are valuable because they let us see what we saw in our collections originally. They bring back everything that we used to know about these things we once held dear. They remind us of were we are going, and what we should be excited about.

They are worth getting somewhere early just to see them.

Related articles

• Zootool is a Visual, Social Bookmarking Tool [Bookmarking Tools] (lifehacker.com)
• Zootool: Visit your Wild Bookmarks In The Zoo (maketecheasier.com)

I feel like I am wearing a fleshy overcoat.

My belly that has never been a problem for me is now hanging uncomfortably over my belt. I see myself in the mirror and I wonder who where the 30 inch waist I had in college went to. And then I remember, I no longer stand up and walk around the room all day and talk with students as my job. I remember that having children is not as much of a workout as actually working out. I remember that sitting down in a chair and writing for an hour doesn’t really have the same sweat producing power that a run in the park.

Behind me is a treadmill and a TV that I could use at any time in the day now that I work from this chair much of the time. I have incredible flexibility to be active. I have the ability to take meetings from anywhere and produce ideas as I think of them, in mid-stride.

The problem is, I haven’t committed myself to it. I haven’t dedicated 365 days to being healthy. Somehow, I have persisted in the myth that eventually I will just stop being quite as hungry for the things that I have eaten with relish since I gave up vegetarianism in 2006. At some point I think that my interest in exercise is going to pick up back to the point it was when I walked with my wife every afternoon. This isn’t based upon any evidence, but merely the wish for me to stop sitting here at some point and feel like moving my feat faster than a jog for more than time it takes me to run across a parking lot.

The love handles and pot belly are not grotesque and they do not make it so I cannot do any of the things I want to do. They do, unfortunately, make me feel old and not in a good way. They make me feel like I did in middle school before I decided that running a mile a day would be the easiest way for me to feel in control of something other than my computer.

I tell myself that it is a lack of time, but I make time for everything that I care about. I tell myself it is a lack of interest, but I like the reflective aspect of exercise. I even tell myself that I have only changed 2 waist sizes in 6 years, but I know that is a pretty hollow victory.

We should exercise when we know that we will get something out of it other than a few sore muscles. We should do it when the commitment is as tangible as the ones we make to our families to always be there for them. We should do it when the alternative is avoiding the reality of getting older and perpetuating a belief in invincibility that we have held since we were teenagers.

I have run out of excuses and I’m ready to take off this overcoat.

For some an inheritance of recipes is the most tangible transfer of knowledge from one generation to another. These are the recipes that are whispered in hushed tones when others are around. They are the ones that get made every year for special occasions, the signature dishes that are given as gifts or only made for a particular event. They are the ones that are written down once and used until the piece of paper with the ingredients on it disintegrates into almost nothing in the cupboard. And they are never, never told to those outside of the family. Those outsiders can taste but never know the secret. They can covet the product, but never be in on the process.

And frankly, this process is becoming more and more ludicrous. It is the last vestige of a information scarce society. With the ability to simply call up shopping lists for creating gourmet meals, the entire aspect of keeping a good recipe secret is improbable. Still, the tradition persists. Even with 14 different versions of pudding cookies at the click of a button, the one that was given to my wife is the only one we will ever use. We make it for others, but others do no make it for themselves.

It makes me think that there is something to holding on to these tiny secrets. Like we are protecting something bigger than the small lines of code deciphered by adept cooks in the family kitchen. It is as if we are working on crafting a form of commerce that is more important than the flood of information that we can get on the internet. We are holding on to secret recipes not because information is scarce anymore but because the relationship between the two transferring parties is more important than the information being shared. The value isn’t in the recipe, but in keeping a secret. This act requires two or more willing parties and if anyone breaks the silence, all of the relational data of the secret (who got it from whom) is completely lost.

The social networks that we are a part of have mostly lost this aspect of secret keeping. They have taken the relationship and made it so it is only a connection for the purpose of sharing information. There is no secret in the act of “friending” or in “following.” The best recipes are not shared on a wall post. It isn’t that it lacks exclusivity. You can always be choosier in who you follow or friend, but that doesn’t mean that it feels safe enough to transfer the kind of value that a secret recipe commands.

That is why I think we need secret spaces. We need private spots for “need to know” information, and we need to be able to create them on the fly. We need to be able to share institutional data as a part of a relationship and not as a part of a broadcast. I am not describing email here, either. Email can be forwarded and bcc’d. It is only as closed as the long tail of quoted text can be.

Here is what I want in order to keep secret recipes:

• I want a space that lets me create messages that actually self destruct. I want the contents to be available once and then be deleted (really deleted, not archived for later use).
• I want to be able to share a document that can only be opened by printing it (2d or 3d). I understand how counterintuitive it is (and how the environment would suffer if this happened a lot. But, I want to be able to share something virtually that is actually a physical object and it can only be accessed as such.
• I want a space where the membership is entirely fluid. I want everyone that is invited to renew their commitment to the relationship of everyone else in the group. I want the space to ask each member to share personal reflection and stories before gaining access to the “information” of the space, much in the way that any family gathering requires sharing before receiving.

I don’t think it should be too hard to make those things happen. Sharing secret recipes is important, if only for continuing to make sure that I get pudding cookies every year.

Conference calls are nightmares.

The bond between caller and callee is totally broken when everyone dials in to a third party. In reality, it is no one’s call. We are all held hostage by the lack of body language and overabundance of ambient noise. The phone is a technology that we all understand, almost intuitively. But, we somehow lose all sense of etiquette when more than one person is on the other line.

We talk over one another and we interrupt. We sit back and have no contributions until we are specifically addressed. We lurk on a telephone call, something that we could never pull off if we were asked to pull our own weight on one side of a conversation. It is as if everything we say is being converted into a mass media tool on the spot and brainstorming is rarely the same thing as broadcasting.

Without the aid of copious notes, there is really very little piecing together of cause and affect or even what should come next. We all end up sitting in a vaccum with one end of a can with strings tied to four other cans, and we only catch every other word said through the other cans. So, we can piece together a partial picture of what is going on but never the entire thing.

Conference calls are never about getting things done, they are about status updates and grandstanding. They are about veiled insults and odd turns of phrase that leave everyone wondering about intentions. They are the workarounds of working together.

And yet, they are essential. We cannot even pretend to get on the same page without hearing one another’s voice every once in a while. We can’t wait until they are over, but we know that if they got canceled we would all be missing a part of the dialogue. We would all have only the single moments with one another and we would never just check in and ask how each of us is doing. Without everyone talking at one time, we would never really know that we are all really passionate about making things great. It is the fact that we want to convey as much information about what we are working on that lets us know we are all working hard. We want to hear about the successes of other parts of the team and we want to know how things are going at home.

We don’t do this on our own.

When one person talks at a time, relationships are built and strengthened.

When more that one person talks at a time, we test those relationships.

When only one person is speaking, the bias is disguised.

When we all speak, our instincts are laid bare.

When a single person holds a single conversation, it can be about nothing.

When we all join in a conversation, no matter how dysfunctional, it is always to the point (without nuance and finesse). We are always afraid of wasting one another’s time. We want to prove our worth continually since the last call.

And we do prove it by opening our mouths. All. At. Once.

My entire family has booming footsteps.

The first time that my wife stayed over at my parents house during the holidays, she thought that a band of warrior giants had taken over the entire first floor. She believed that there was something drastically wrong with my family. I explained that we all just walk with purpose (not that there wasn’t something drastically wrong, though.)

Such purpose cannot be achieved without the intense pounding of feet on the floor when walking from one destination to another. The exact sound should be something in-between a gunshot with every footfall and a pounding on the front door with every step. I don’t know when I developed this need to walk with purpose or why my entire family has figured out the same source of pleasure from waking everyone up with nothing but moving forward, but I don’t want to ever walk another way. I don’t want to tip toe or roll my steps to avoid the inevitable.

I want to know where I am walking and why I have chosen this path to get there. I want to always hear myself coming and going, to know that I have taken these steps in my own shoes and under my own power. Whether it sounds like a stampede or a shelling of a modern city, I want each small step for mankind to be mine.

It is a countdown to whatever comes next. I don’t want to walk backwards or skip steps that I should be taking.

I once played the Big Bad Wolf in the musical Into The Woods. I had a number of Wolf-ettes that danced around me as I sang the one and only song I had in the show. Their steps were graceful and mine were ravenous. Their jumps were elegant and mine were bounding, hoping to devour something with each one. I wasn’t going to give up that sweet reward to anyone because I knew how the high notes felt in my feet, and I knew how to stand and support the low and rumbling notes. I remember giving the preview to the whole school because we were the one song that was polished long before the others. The whole show heard us coming. We figured out the steps and we did them without hesitation.

Walking loudly requires a certain amount of confidence and a certain amount of denial. We are confident in that we will not fall when we plan our foot down and we are in denial of just how disruptive we can be. We deny that our footsteps will wake up our children. We deny that they are more purposeful than they need to be. We deny that they are going to get us in trouble. And it is through this denial that we come through so easily. We are traveling in the pursuit of being heard.

Hear us. Hear us walk.