Learning is Change

Question 87 of 365: What looks like planning (but isn't)?

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In many ways, the working world around me is in a shambles. People have left or are leaving, transitions and uncertainty abound. I hear daily that things will get better soon, but I see many institutions with which I associate, that this is clearly not the case. The further fragmentation and agenda hunting is clear and ongoing. I see newcomers and hangers on as having basically the same core attribute, and that is for being incredibly distrustful (of what is here now, of what has come before, and of anyone who is trying to create change that they didn’t think of themselves).

And I have come to the conclusion that many of these institutions are engaging in activities that look like planning, but actually give the exact opposite effect to anyone else who is watching I would like to take a moment to explore a few examples of what I am talking about.

Powerpoint presentations– These are a really good way for a given individual, or better yet, a branded institution to look like they are in the throws of intense organizational restructuring and action. The bullet points that are coming across the screen seem to hint at a greater depth if one were only permitted to ask a few key questions. The intentionally business-only themes chosen aim directly at just how serious everyone is taking the current economic situation. The fact that these presentations are given at a break-neck pace also gives the illusion that there is just too much going on to slow down and talk through the details.

While a good presentation lets us see how carefully crafted words and images can persuade an audience to rally around an idea, these presentations seem to only be about conveying information that could have been put into an e-mail, or even more likely, a single tweet.

Putting Draft on Everything– I have seen this on so many documents recently that it makes me think that I’m beta testing a single piece of paper just to find out that the only revision that is happening is the removal of the “draft” watermark. I have seen the full page DRAFT background recently so as to not confuse folks that anything on the page is worthwhile. I have seen the upper-corner lowercase “draft” label and it seems to be casually motioning to the horrific display of “tables as content.” This kind of drafting is someone’s way of sending out an idea that has been touched by no more than three people but is going to be made into binding language for hundreds or thousands. It is done because version control is too abstract and collaboration too difficult to muster. It is a way for the illusion of planning to really take root, but in reality, it is simply pursuing the easiest path to the finish line, never mind the consequences of backlash or loss of buy-in.

Holding lots of meetings (or holding none at all because you are too busy)– The two sides of the coin to this particular issue are equally terrible for trying to show people that planning and action is taking place. When people hold lots of meetings, many of which are scheduled at the last minute, it is incredibly rare for anything of importance to be said. It is much more likely, for someone to call the meeting convener on the fact that the meeting is ill-planned. More likely still, the originator of the meeting will lose all credibility with the participants because they feel as though their time is being wasted. The participants will most likely be back-channeling about how bad the meeting is being run, which will further deteriorate any support that the leader is trying to instill in a given project.

If no meetings are being held because the stakeholders are just too busy, this is also the illusion of planning for the future. By appearing busy but having no work products or communication to show for it, you look like you have been squandering valuable time. It also looks like you lack passion and a direction for all of the work that you have done. It looks like you are replaceable. Being busy means that you schedule things in advance and stick to those appointments. It means that ongoing meetings don’t work, but purposeful e-mail exchanges do. It means sending updates and new ideas out to people and letting them think about it while you work on something else. Planning and action are not the product of an empty schedule with nothing but “work time.”

Arbitrary Deadlines– I have seen a rash of deadlines that are tied to almost nothing. There is a hint of importance in creating a deadline, but only if that deadline has a real purpose. It only makes sense when there is something really driving that date to have meaning. The deadlines that make sense are ones that come from laying down a series of dominoes and nocking them over. The ones that don’t are a single event that could affect a future event, but only if the stars align correctly.

We all feel an impetus to get something done, but there must be consequences both good and bad for doing those things. The deadlines that are self-imposed seem to require more planning than a lot of the arbitrary ones that float around in times of “almost planning.”

And while there are many other examples of other things that look like planning, I don’t think that beleaguering the point will do any good. Suffice it to say that I am looking forward to the day when planning and getting things done are one in the same and when all stakeholders are consulted for the future. I also look forward to the day when collaboration makes sense for everyone and not just as a cherry on the top, and when transparency isn’t an excuse to do things half-cocked.

Planning should be a part of the art of creation instead of the art of obfuscation.

(This came off as more condescending than I had meant it to. I should state for the record that I have been guilty of all of these except putting “DRAFT” on things. I get why people do it, but I just can’t bring myself to put the word on a Google Doc.)

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Question 86 of 365: What is on the internet?

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I remember looking at the TV guide when I was a kid. I used to take it out of the Sunday paper and put it into the remote basked after I looked at the summaries for Home Improvement and Boy Meets World for the week. I would scan across the 8 O’ clock hour and see exactly what was a possibility for my entertainment during “prime time”. There was something special about having a time slot to hold sacred and plan for. Now, some people would mourn the death of appointment television, but I don’t. I love my DVR. The thing that I mourn is the death of the TV guide.

The question of “What’s on TV” is mostly irrelevant now that we can watch the best shows and movies on-demand. Now that we can even program recordings in advance, there is none of the excitement of setting up a VHS to record at the right time and on the right channel. There was always a chance that you were never going to see that episode again, that there was something special about even reruns being random at best.

There was a simple choice in the days of “what’s on TV”. You either watched what was on, or you turned it off. There was no capacity to make what you wanted come on, no lack of control over just how much content you were going to consume. And that is why I miss the TV guide. When there was one source of truth for content, I could actually be “in the know”. Now, I have no chance.

If someone were to ask you what was on the internet, what could you possibly say?

Each social network is like its own country and there are entire continents of the internet that I have never explored. Because of my interests, there are connections I cannot possibly put together. Because of the infinite nature of online video (and all other media), I will never be able to see all of any one thing. I will never know every perspective or be able to fashion what is going on in any given minute, let alone an hour of the internet.

And yet, we are still trying to get ourselves back to the TV guide days. We are trying to fashion channels on our new TV boxes (Boxee, Apple TV, etc.). We are trying to make things completely searchable, but easily understandable. We build portals for ourselves in the hopes of constructing an Internet Guide. Through the pulse of Twitter, the summary of major blogs, and even ready-made alerts all make sure that we can stay on top of any general sentiment being created, but it isn’t a guide for the future, not even one week the way the TV guide used to do for us.

So, the only option is to make it more personal. What’s on “my internet”?

Here is what I would like to see:

I would like to be able to tell a web-based service exactly how much time I have for entertainment this week and I would like to find a perfectly tailored schedule of web videos, interesting blog posts, and engaging Twitter conversations. I would like to see a prime time schedule one week out for what is on “my internet.” While I like the ability to move around and focus on any aspect of the web I like, I am finding it harder and harder to get excited about spending time with any sort of content. Three just isn’t anything to look forward to without a TV guide. When I can watch and interact with something whenever I want, it doesn’t matter if I watch because I alway “could” take part if I wanted to.

Until an “Internet Guide” really nails this, we will always have a hugely high-level view of what is ON. Until something really gets that people want to be escorted to engaging content on a regular basis without losing all of the mystery and excitement of a story arch or season schedule, I don’t think that we will have truly made it to the best of what the web has to offer us in the way of entertainment or engagement. We need to blend new with old, and right now, we are aren’t. We are simultaneously throwing away all old paradigms as no longer working, while still holding on to the notion that everything will somehow look the same in the future. As someone recently told me, we are in the internet’s awkward adolescence. I think think that not knowing “what is on the internet” is just one symptom of that awkwardness.

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Question 85 of 365: How can Guerrilla ads make themselves?

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In general, advertising is incredibly derivative. Promotion forever copies the next new thing in the hopes of creating buzz or catching the latest wave of popular opinion. Guerrilla Ads are ones that are, by definition, completely unique. They work by breaking through everyday noise and recreating the mundane into something completely discontinuous.

Here are some of my favorite examples from the above link:

dfd

Guerrilla Markeing

Guerrilla Marketing

And yet, these ads are ones that take an incredible amount of thought and execution. They require just the right person to use just the right space to create the powerful message that is required to break through the noise. Because they are looking to establish something that makes you think and sticks with you, they can’t be done all of the time. They have to be created, spend their time in the limelight and then fade away. Otherwise, they just become more noise.

Even with all of their drawbacks, this kind of advertising is what I a most drawn to, other than word of mouth and networked recommendation. It is the kind of work that makes me think that there is hope for the art of persuasion in every day life. Each example of this type of advertising takes a real place and then introduces something authentic, experimental, and transformational out of it. It asks that our spaces be more than what they were designed for. It asks us to mix real life and fiction in a way that only great pieces of art can do. And that is what I would consider many of these ads: great public art.

And yet, I want Guerrilla marketing to make itself. I want it to grow organically out of the spaces that exist in our world. I want this kind of art to be the collaboration of thousands of people descending on public places and reworking the objects that have so much potential. And I want the ads to be about more than products too. I want them to be about ideas.

I want education to have guerilla advertising. I want kids to be running out of brick buildings. I want the words “School” posted on every public space so that we know that learning can happen anywhere. I want teachers depicted as writing shakespeare graffiti on walls. I want the stuff that goes on inside of our learning institutions to be incredibly visible everywhere.

I want thought to be displayed as virtue. I want idea bubbles to pop out of subway stops. I want moving walkways to have story starters on them. I want ears to be on walls, ready to listen to whatever people have to say.

I want guerilla ads for collaboration. I want large scale puzzles being put together with parking lot spaces. I want pictures of people helping one another climb up steps. I want hands reaching out from walls ready to shake and share information (and for that matter, I want contact kiosks where you can get information sent to your phone from anyone who decided to “bump” their phone into the kiosk or input their information and share their interests).

And that is just me. If we stopped taking for granted that we can only draw in designated areas or make statements on our own, then we all become guerrilla advertisers. I believe it is time that we stop letting products make the best statements in our society. Large companies can’t be the only ones to break through the noise. Little ideas and collections of people need to be able to do that too. Right?

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Question 84 of 365: Should we want to be darlings?

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Techcrunch the cartoon
Image by ciaranj75 via Flickr

I realize that it is often a very specific push that gets you on your way. The folks doing that pushing are ussually called rainmakers or some other similarly flattering name. They are the ones with the capacity to tell everyone else just what to focus their attention on. They can start trends and change public opinion. And those that get thrust into the spotlight with graceful pushes are sometimes referred to as darlings. Whether they are darlings of business or just media darlings, these are the lucky wunderkinds that seem to have the ability to outsmart all of their competitors merely because they were chosen to be that way. And everywhere I look, there are more people claiming to be rainmakers and yet more seeking to be their darlings. With blogs such as Techcrunch or services like Digg so prevalent, it is little wonder that the effect of this almost coronation-like process has become the way in which you “make it” in the world of technology or innovation.

But, should we want to be crowned or bestowed with that label of Social Media Darling? The Digg effect is powerful, but is it where we need to be devoting our thought process. Is being picked up by the fountainhead of virality the path to creating something worthwhile?

I would like to make the case that we should not strive for this kind of “darlinghood.” I would like to state, for the record, that being an industry’s new pet project is counterproductive. While it may lead to more users or to more people looking at what it is that you have started, in the end, I think that worthiness of buzz does not come from a single review in Techcrunch.

We should strive to be darlings of thought, darlings of wonderment, and darlings of need. While these are not industries that can hold us up and say that we represent all that is good about their market, these values can be held well outside of any niche.

Being a darling of thought means that conversation is not complete when TechCrunch picks you up. It means you are sticky enough for people to hate you and love you and write about how interesting your ideas are. It means that you are a lightning rod for more than just geeks (from whatever corner of the universe you decide is important, there are always geeks). It means that writing you off isn’t a pastime for many who come in contact with you. A darling of thought means that you are a platform with more than just one purpose. You are actively encouraging others to try untested things with your ideas.

Being a darling of wonderment means that you don’t have a quick category to be stuffed in. While many people may write about you, there is an indescribable quality that others who want to do what you have cannot possibly match. Wonderment allows people to contemplate your significance in terms of other great phenomenon. It gives a context for where you have been, a story for how you could possibly have been so creative and a thrust for what is yet to come. It allows people to hold on to you for no reason that they can possibly convey. It gives license to fanaticism and parody. It is a cup that is always being refilled with something new to sip and ponder.

Being a darling of need is simply being heralded as having solved a concrete problem. Too often we are all searching for new problems to tackle or ideas to untangle, but you have solved something that was preexisting, something that we all thought was going to plague us forever. As a darling of need, you conquer those issues that free us of some shackle that had previously held us back. While not pretending it was easy, you have shown everyone else that it is possible to undo what has been unbearably done and reinvent what was tortuously invented. Everyone knows that you have value because they can see it, clearly in the full transparency of your ideas and execution.

So, be darlings but not media darlings. Allow yourself to seek out rainmakers, but only if you are worthy of rain. Be needed and thoughtful and wonder all of the time. It is my hope that it is in this that I will be honored for my work, and not for simply falling across the desk of a bored editor looking for the next big thing or a single Digg user who has found a viral quality within my ideas. If it happens, great. If not, I think that being a darling in the ways I have described will be enough to get me through even the leanest of times.

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Question 83 of 365: What does it mean to be device free?

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A Motorola DynaTAC 8000X from 1984. This phone...
Image via Wikipedia

We are dependent upon our computers for our livelihoods and our entertainment. We are dependent upon our cell phones for communication and connection. We are dependent upon dozens of technologies in our daily lives but if we were more accurate with this dependency, we are dependent upon specific devices. The computer that you use is yours, it is an extension of you to a great extent. So it isn’t just a computer, but rather YOUR computer. And the cell phone, is your blackberry or iPhone or Android device. You have tricked these things out just the way you like them, and it matters that you have done this because it makes you feel ownership over them. It makes them feel like they have been watched over and cultivated for your personal use rather than just anyone who can pick them up.

If you lost those particular devices, you might feel a sense of loss that is strange and compelling. It might feel like your right arm is gone or that you have lost a part of your history because of what was on that device. It is this weird notion that we are that connected to our technology, but I would like to make the case that this type of attachment may be ending.

Even as we are heading into the world of amazingly tactile electronics and personal experiences with those devices, I believe that our goal should be to achieve total device freedom. We should stop seeing our devices as the personalized entities that are capable of bringing us joy and agony through the process of creating with those tools. It is my belief that we need to be looking for any way that we can to achieve a total lack of ownership from any given device that we may have purchased or been gifted.

I come to this conclusion out of necessity, I suppose. Yesterday, my computer crashed. It was an absolute failure, not something that could be fixed by any amount of hacking or troubleshooting. The operating system just refused to move beyond the first 30 lines of operation in the command line view. It is what you might call a dead computer.

And I felt nothing. While I wasn’t super thrilled about having to use a different machine while this one goes into the shop, I really didn’t feel that I had lost anything too important. In fact, I felt free. I felt as though anything that I could get in my hands would allow me to continue the work that I had started that morning when my computer was working just fine.

I realized in that moment that there is literally nothing I can’t do in the cloud.

My photos are on Flickr. My movies are on Youtube. My files are on Google Docs. My contacts are in Gmail and Gist. My audio and image editing are on Aviary. My ideas are in WordPress. My music is on Last.fm. My community is in Twitter. My bookmarks are on Delicious.

Hyperlinks are my hard-drive.

While some would claim that this isn’t good, that I am just asking for one of these services to go under and then I would feel the loss that I should have felt without my computer, but I believe that these services too are inconsequential. I can move from one to another without thinking twice. I can import and export. I can backup and restore. But, true freedom is in knowing that no single device holds “me” within it.

In fact, the only thing that holds all of these services together is my identity. And that isn’t wrapped up in any single device. While I like my Macbook Pro, I don’t need it to have my identity with me. While gmail is my happy home for most of my official communication, I could filter and funnel and work around any slippage of that service.

There was a time when my devices owned me, but that is no longer the case. It is thanks to the cloud, a better understanding of how to store things for better access and simply knowing myself well enough to believe recreating the world around me every day is possible.

So, I think that we should strive for this type of freedom. We should be free to have things break, free to lose huge chunks of data from those formerly important devices, and free to reimagine how we interact with those things that we interact with.

I am not my computer, and that is kind of nice.

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Question 82 of 365: Who should we have in our buildings?

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I enjoy talking about space a whole lot. It doesn’t matter whether it is online or physical, the concept intrigues me to no end. I could debate what should be a part of a space the create the best environment for collaboration for hours and not be tired of thinking through just how to ensure the people that exist in that space will be able to do the things that they need. And yet, I struggle with the people part of spaces.

I feel as though I have a good handle on how to structure the spaces in order to adapt to people, but the people in the space are what make it useful and interesting. They are the ones who will transform my initial vision into something that works. Otherwise, it is just an empty room or another distraction on the web.

The part that I have found problematic is who I should ask to come into my spaces and inhabit them. I have found a good way of asking everyone and then allowing those people who are interested to self-select into the space. However, this yeilds some pretty mixed results. Usually, I get the same people wanting to come in or some variation on those people so that what I inevitably have from the self-selected group are people with enough time to inhabit the space or enough relationship to me to feel compelled to join. As it turns out, this means that my spaces end up looking eerily similar to the way in which I first set them up. My rooms look the same as do my web apps and online classes.

This is not what I want for my future spaces. I want people who are diverse, even radically different from me. I want people who are not unconnected to me (at least as first) to participate and become partners within the space. I want people that I have worked hard to earn their trust and their respect, not the people that are grandfathered in because I have known them. Most of all, I want people who are willing to work to change my idea of what the space should be. I want them to challenge the very nature of what makes the space important.

So, going along with this idea, I would like to throw out a concrete example of what I believe is possible.

I will ignore for the moment, the physical part of a physical space and instead concentrate on the people part. Here are the people I would develop partnerships with in order to create the most engaging and revolutionary space I can think of. While these people are from organizations that currently exist, it is my belief that this is a type of person rather than a single organization that has created these people:

  • The people at Etsy. I would like to have people who are working on real objects all around me. I would like to be bombarded with people who care about hand-crafting things and buying from creators and not manufacturers. They are incredible at creating community and buy-in from everyone in the buying experience. They run workshops regularly on thinking through objects and brands and ideas. These people are awesome.
  • The people at Foodzie. While this is a lot like Etsy in their business model, I believe it is a different kind of person that is interested in real food. I want the people in my space to love all kinds of food and to be constantly bringing new things in to try out and get me excited about one of the most rudimentary parts of my existence.
  • The people at Quirky. These people crowdsource the process of creation, and they do it extremely well. I want people around me who are thinking through all stages of the creative process. I want people who are committed to follow through. Once a project has the steam to progress, it gets done. That is awesome.
  • The people at Ficly and Storybird. I want people who are really trying to get others to tell stories to be around all of the time. I want them to always be pushing me to tell my story. Storybird uses beautiful artwork to inspire users and I want to be that inspired every day.
  • The people at Taking It Global. These folks are dedicated to creating change everywhere that they see an injustice. They are a resource for non-profits. I want to be around people all day that are resources for creating change. I want to see the benefits of those change agents everywhere I go in my physical space. I want to see planning and work products toward that change and I want to feel as though I am a part of a network that respect the truth that they are pursuing.
  • The People at SLA and Outward Bound. I want to be surrounded by learning all day. I want access to kids who aren’t jaded by inauthentic education and who are looking to experience new things everyday. I am looking for people who see the value of a team and in working together toward a common goal. I want these people to engage in all of the other spaces too, in fact, I want the version of school that they create to permeate to the other people that exist in the space.
  • The people at Aviary. These people are so dedicated to making media editing available for everyone that they have created some of the most interesting ongoing projects with a dedication to user experience and distributing the process of creation. I want people who want to play with the math, science and programming of creation as well. They let me see how any problem can be solved, even if you have to turn previous models on their head (closed creativity like photoshop).
  • The people at Bitnami. I want people who are trying to simplify incredibly complex things for everyone else to be always available. Bitnami allows us to install complex web applications anywhere, giving us access to things the only techies would have been able to do previously. That is the kind of access I would like to pursue in my spaces.
  • The people at Footnote. History is amazing for its ability to creating context for everything we do. I want people within the space who are working toward uncovering all relevant context. I want them to use research and primary documents to help inform my decisions, my direction and my passion.

So, those are the people I want in my building. I think if I can create partnerships with all of those kinds of people and they buy into the premise of working together to create the space for all those involved, I feel like that would be nothing short of a radical working, thinking and (best of all) learning. It will be a creative force to reckon with and a model to be emulated the world over. Now, we I just have to start working on those relationships.

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Question 81 of 365: What can we reverse engineer?

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I would love to be able to talk about the reverse engineering of DVD encryption or iPhone firmware intelligently, but mostly I would be quoting from wikipedia entries on the topics. I love the fact that people can take a look at an object or technology and see just how it was put together. It makes me hopeful that anything we create could be undone. That is a very safe and satisfying feeling, knowing that people are working on undoing all of the problems that technology presents for us in the hopes of figuring out just what benefit was there in the first place. Yet, I can’t speak with any authority on any of it because I am not a part of those communities.

The best I can do is approximate.

I can compare their reverse engineering with my own. And I reverse engineer ideas. More accurately, I reverse engineer the stuff between ideas. Let me explain.

It is my belief that in-between any two ideas there is a machine that connect the two and makes the first one the “input” and the second into the “output”. It is a technology so highly advanced that no manual exists and therefor it must be reverse engineered in order to achieve the insight that both ideas represent.

Concretely, the idea of our schools as they exist now and the idea of our schools as they exist in the future or as they might be are ones that are both fairly easily juxtaposed. You can hold the two of them in your head quite easily. And yet, going from input to output is a massive problem for anyone who endeavors to be the machine in the middle. They are trying to exist where a mechanism is clearly supposed to go. The machine is something that is more complex than one person or even a single group of people. It must be reverse engineered, just like DVD encryption to figure out just what it takes to get from one to the other. Simply plugging in already made mechanisms for change, simply doesn’t work. You must understand every single circuit and ghost within that machine.

Other machines that require reverse engineering are between the ideas of collaboration and time management, community and creation, and data and decisions.

Because these machines are so complex, they require many people to work on figuring out how they work. There must be huge teams of people who are doing nothing but taking them apart and putting them back together. We need people courageously braking through the barriers intentionally put there by the machine’s manufacturer. We need people to talk about and promote every step of the process. The in-between machines don’t want us to know everything that they have to offer. They are interested in being intentionally obtuse and confusing, which is why we have to share all of the information that we have gathered as widely as possible, so that someone who is coming at the issue from a different angle take take up where we left off.

Another problem that I face in my work for Reverse Engineering is that many people do not believe that these machines exist. They believe that you have to create the go-between for big ideas and goals. They are okay to achieve part of the machine and then stop there because they have established at least part of the conduit from one idea to the next. Only some people can travel through their machines because they are kludgy and can’t perceive the whole problem. These half-baked machines are never enough to really place the two ideas next to one another. There are always intermediate steps that can either lead closer or further away from what it is that we really need.

I reject this premise, however. I believe that there exists a certain technology, community, and innovation that will allow us to place chaos in the middle east and peace in the middle east next to one another. We just have to figure out what that is. Let’s assume it is possible. Let’s assume that we aren’t just going to byte off a tiny bit of what we have promised. Let’s assume that we just have reverse engineer our way to understanding.

So, while I can’t reverse engineer my computer, I am doing it for ideas. The next one I want to tackle can be expressed like this:

Me [machine] funding for my ideas.

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Question 80 of 365: How can we ask for radical use?

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Three toothbrushes, photo taken in Sweden
Image via Wikipedia

“Use as directed” is a command that is losing all of its value*. I use almost everything for multiple purposes now. My garbage bags hold clothes going to Goodwill, my toothbrush is a drum for my son, and my keys are boxcutters. The things that were meant for one thing, so easily become a part of something else’s story. And it is even more complex with things that inherently have multiple purposes. The iPhone has always been something will a million uses, and yet it has always come with a terms of service which outlines the uses that was meant for.

I would like to make the case that directed uses should give way, at least in part, to radical uses. I believe that we should stop being held hostage by what other people (or companies) think that we should do with their products. We should be looking to squeeze every possibility out of a “solution” and not give in to the ways that they were first envisioned.

And, the reason?

The reason we should ask for people’s radical uses of our ideas, products, and work is that it is the only way we will truly understand what we have. Only if we see just what a plastic bag can do can we really understand what a plastic bag is. Only when we see that an iPhone can be used to track a stolen vehicle or watch a live nasa launch can we really understand what an iPhone is. Unless there are people exploring every aspect, we can never really see the right direction to go.

Which is why I think that people should tell me I am wrong. They should refer to the things that I believe as silly or naive. They should tell me that my use of technology or theory or even my time is ludicrous. But they should also tell me how they would do it differently.

And that is how we should ask… We should look for any story that gives the details of the most radical uses of what we hold dear. We should listen for anything that will give us a glimpse into the perversions of our vision, while still holding true to the tenets. Talking them through and challenging our “radicals” to back up their uses should be a daily habit.

That is why I believe in what StickyBits is doing with their StickyWiki. They are telling their users to come up with the uses for their product, and not the other way around. And yet, they haven’t gone far enough. They are only asking for everyday uses. They are not asking for radical uses. They are not pushing their users to explore the boundaries of the platform.

I want teachers to ask kids what their most radical and purposeful form of math is.

I want employees to tell the story of their most radical and purposeful use of an e-mail thread is.

I want everyone to tell their stories about the things that they don’t “use as directed,” the things that they find interesting, poignant, and radical within their lives.

Because at the end of the day, I don’t care about how you integrate technology or develop software or manage systems. I care about your ability to revolutionize, iterate, and pivot on every piece of evidence you have. I care about your ability to tell the whole story about any given idea. I care about your ability to listen for an opportunity and then pursue it with passion.

So, I will be listening to the stories about toothbrushes, iPhones, and Open Spokes. If only because I feel as though the future lies within those stories.

* (Let it be known that I am still very much in favor of using medicine as directed.)

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Question 79 of 365: How do you monitor your periphery?

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I do a decent job of staying in touch with my friends and co-workers. I answer e-mail, IM or Skype, call, and even occasionally talk to them in person. I can do that without much effort because these people are well known to me. They are the ones that make the most sense to contact on a regular basis because they start conversations as well as engage in them. They are the ones that share the same space with me, whether physically or not. I don’t worry about not following up because I know that they will call me on it. They will get up in my face (physically or not) and force me to take part. That is a good thing.

I do worry about the people who are content to let opportunities pass them by. I worry about everyone who mentions me on twitter but expects little in return. I worry about the people I meet at meetings and after work events who are engaging enough to talk with, but not so much that I will remember them the next time I see them These are the folks on my periphery.

I am pretty terrible at following up, and continuing to follow up with those people. I am terrible at taking notes about who certain people are and what they may have to offer any given conversation I am having. I just default to the people directly around me whenever I have a new idea, rather than going out and really thinking through who the best people are to comment on it. This is not a good thing.

I should be able to see into my periphery as much as I can see those people at an arms length. But, I can’t.

First, I am terrible with names. Even worse, I am terrible with faces. Worst of all, I don’t have any idea what most people’s names are or what their faces really look like because Twitter and other account names obscure this information exceedingly well.

I don’t have any way to take notes on who people are, nor do I have a way of keeping track of who I should follow up on and when. There is a universe of products that aim to help with this problem. But, whether it is sophisticated CRM software or a new social startup called Gist, there really isn’t anything that allows me to truly visualize who I have talked to or who is most interesting (the Gist People page is the best version of this to date, but it still needs to be better).

Even if I can get alerts on who to contact or create a network of information around me to help access everyone I need, I still struggle with the idea that my friends are easy, my contacts are hard.

I don’t want checklists or tagged items. I don’t want tasks or customer service workflows. I simply want a way to monitor the activity that I should be monitoring. I want what a Face Book used to be, a single source for pictures and connections that are most important to the work that I am doing right now. I want different volumes of this book for every type of need I have. I want my periphery to come close and huddle around the task at hand when it is required, and then I want them to go back to being on the outside of my network because I don’t have the energy or the time to maintain friendships with all of them.

The question is, who are in these books? What do I write in the margins to give me more information about them? How can I come back to the sticky notes I leave on a regular basis?

I feel like this is the future of the contact. If anyone figures out how we can really keep all of our information about people at arms length without putting in a lot of effort, they will have solved the problem of the connected world. I could see a future version of the iPad or smart phone doing this well, but as of yet, our friends are as good as we are going to do. That is okay, but I’m not sure that will be okay forever.

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Question 78 of 365: Should your brand be a person?

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The is no lack of branding going on in the twittersphere or on any of the social networks that have built huge organization promotion services (Yelp, FourSquare, Facebook). Once a company or non-profit has seen potential to get more eyeballs on their product, they have launched head first into the arena. It is just unfortunate that so many of them have no idea what they are doing.

It has become an expectation on any webpage to see your affiliate Facebook or twitter presence mentioned. It has become even more of an expectation that people will be talking about your brand on those services. So, the logic goes that if you put up a twitter account, a blog or a facebook page, you have secured your right to guide the conversation and (hopefully) the people to your corner of the internet.

And yet, I see mostly this:

Bob Mickus (delizios) on Twitter
Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

When, I should be seeing mostly this:

Smashburger Boulder (SmashburgerBLD) on Twitter
Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

The Difference I see is that restaurant highlighted in the first image opened without a person behind the brand (2299 W. Littleton Blvd, Littleton, Co by the way… awesome coffee shop and wine bar) and the second opened with huge fanfare from the twitterati of Boulder, Co. There were nothing but people (and burgers, I suppose) behind this brand. They give away food because of twitter, they have conversations with others because of twitter. They have even gotten other people to take photos and post them on twitter, just because they have engaged the audience with people, instead of merely products.

It just isn’t enough to have a Facebook page or Twitter account, you actually have to have a real person behind it. There needs to be a man (or woman) behind the curtain if you are going to be the great and powerful Wizard. And you need to go out and have a conversation if you want people to start talking about yourself. Go out and get early adopters who talk about your stuff. Follow people who matter in the community. Start commenting on their ideas. Be a person in a community, not a brand among other brands. (Offering free stuff, access, or learning is never a bad thing as well).

While this post is most focused on companies who do a bad job of promoting their brand on social media, I believe that all organizations need to be doing a better job of placing people on the front lines of defending their brands. Non-profits should not let the conversation out of their sight just because they have always promoted with traditional methods. Schools should not just be pushing out information from their online presence, they should be using it to listen and to engage everyone. And for all of those organizations who can’t find the time or the personnel to manage a Twitter or Facebook account. Here is the easiest way to create a good conversation:

  1. Sign up for a twitter account using someone’s gmail address, but instead of putting the regular gmail account use the + sign, like this: orgname+twitter@gmail.com. This will allow you to filter all incoming mail from that address and forward it to as many different people that are managing the account as you want.
  2. Set up those filters immediately after setting up the account.
  3. Go to http://tweepsearch.com/ and search for some folks with similar interests. Follow them.
  4. Go to http://tweepi.com/ and look up some of those folks that you just followed and then follow their follower that look interesting (you can follow everyone on a page in a single click, which is awesome)
  5. Have everyone on your team sign up at http://hootsuite.com and have them add the twitter account to their Hootsuite.
  6. Have everyone monitor the account, post interesting stuff, and start to talk with the people that have already been followed.
  7. Set up a few twitterfeeds so that your account is always posting something interesting (Go to http://delicious.com and search for something in your brand’s area of interest. Grab that rss feed and put it into an auto-tweet system like http://twitterfeed.com so that any time that someone posts a really good link to delicious in your topic, you automatically post it to twitter and gain followers by having relevant information about your topic).

All of this can be done in an afternoon. As long as you care enough to have the conversation about your issues and passions, people will be there to have the conversation with you. While I am not a marketing guru, I do know when I am talking to a real person. I know when they are trying to engage me in a conversation, and I know when they are trying to sell me something.

I will state this as plainly as possible: I want more people on Twitter and less brands.

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