Poi, Fire = Fun

Why Change? (yourself)

My mom asked me today why I have changed so much from when I was a child. She teaches and coaches about personalities, and how to use that understanding to become more effective personally and professionally.

Call it your high school coach, only for life, not football.

I used to be shy, reserved, unmotivated. I was comfortable having the few friends I had, and was a specific personality, called high "S". But I knew about the other personalities from her teaching our family.

So why change?
I saw the benefits of the other personalities, and I wanted those benefits. But plenty of people say they want something, but do nothing. The change came from two factors. My mom, and the things our family learned from her studying personalities, and reading Stephen Coveys "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People".

If you like self help books, great. If you don't, you are either doing all the things in your life you want, do not like reading, or are not in a painful enough situation to change what you are currently doing.

Anyways, good book.

So mom and personalities. By learning about personalities, I saw that if I had big dreams for my life, I was going to have to get out of my comfort zone, and learn some new skills. To be CEO of Christopher Inc. I would have to try things that were not comfortable.

First Step
Learn what other successful people have done. What do they do on a daily basis? Why are they successful? So I read books about them.

Second Step
Try it. Fail miserably! If they were good networkers (Keith Ferrazi, Dale Carnege), they talked to people. They learned the art of small talk, and meeting strangers. So I did that, and sucked at it for a while. Now, I am not as sucky! The point of this is, just do it. Put yourself it uncomfortable circumstances, and learn the skills you want to have, to be the person you want to be.

Third Step
Learn some more, then try it, fail, then not be as bad as before.
This is where the reading books part comes in.

I used to know everything. I did not need self help books. I could hear their sales pitch before they said it. But I was not living what they suggested. It took getting over myself, and realizing that everyone has something they can teach me. I intuitively understand some things, but I can always learn and grow.

Now, I am addicted to learning new things, getting out of my comfort zone, and growing. It is a cycle for me now. Learn something new, try it, fail, try again, get better, then go learn something else new. Good times, good times.

Another interesting book

I recently had a great conversation with a local inventor. Full disclosure, I was being interviewed for a position in her company. Nevertheless, a good conversation.

Out of that good conversation, came a good book recommendation. I interviewed on Friday, went from the office to the bookstore to pick it up, and now Sunday night am two thirds of the way through. Enough with the suspense, what is the name of the book! Not so fast(I do realize you could easily scroll down to the part where I tell you the name, but it would be more fun if you don't just yet, honest).

A book of mystery and intrigue.... nope.
What some would call "fun" reading.... nope.

It is about Starfish (that was a hint, google that if you dare, but still not enough to go on yet!)

But seriously, it was about organizations, and how really good ones have thrived without a figurehead at the helm. It is helping me to understand how Linux has come about, and what I want to do when I grow up. The subtext of the title states (nother hint coming) "The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations".

Now I disagree with the that subtext to some extent. The authors go on to clarify the roles that people play in these organizations, and there are leaders, they just do not look like the typical leader one would think of (one being a mythical person that thinks exactly what the majority thinks, or something silly like that) when one thinks of a leader.

Instead of leader, the authors look at one position in these groups that they studied, that they call the catalyst person. The catalyst helps the organization to adapt and change, is comfortable with ambiguity, make loose connections between people and ideas, and other interesting things. The one interesting thing, is that the hierarchical organization this person is in, does not always like the way the catalyst is stirring things up. I remember hearing of a Gorilla Award at the wheelchair manufacturing company Quickie. They gave the gorilla award to someone who was always advocating for positive change, and who was a pain to work with, or always rocked the boat, but absolutely necessary for the organization.

I have wanted to be a Gorilla for a while, but have not been able to articulate what it looked like, or why a company should have me. Who wants things to get stirred up, changed, the boat rocked (besides me).

Well, now that I have almost read all of...... gasp...


"The Starfish and the Spider" *releases breath that I have been holding the whole time*
I have a better understanding of what I believe are my natural talents. Making things messy, asking tough questions, pushing organizations, tools, resources to their furthest limit, and loving every second of it. I have written about it in the past, and I think I may have to devote a whole blog to chronicling people in recent and ancient past (before cellphones and beyond) that had these catalytic traits.

The Book, the book, get back to the book *voice in my head telling me what to do*
Ok... Fine... It is good. If you wondered why the Apache Indians, or the Apache servers did so well, back in the day, check it out. Even if you have never thought about those separate but similar stories, the book parallels many old organizations with current incarnations of "Leaderless Organizations" (think AA or Abolitionists for old, and Wikipedia or Napster for new).

Marketing Websites using Blogs

Blog Carnivals are an interesting idea I stumbled upon recently. The following quote talks about what they are, but I really see them as a way to interact with the online community that is interested in that specific topic they have organized around, and a way to increase awareness of blogs and websites people may have on a particular subject.

clipped from blog.coldtobi.de A blog carnival is a type of blog event. It is similar to a magazine, in that it is dedicated to a particular topic, and is published on a regular schedule, often weekly or monthly. Each edition of a blog carnival is in the form of a blog article that contains permalinks links to other blog articles on the particular topic. There are many variations, but typically, someone who wants to organize a carnival posts details of the theme or topic to their blog, and asks readers to submit relevant articles for inclusion in an upcoming edition. The host then collects links to these submissions, edits and annotates them (often in very creative ways), and publishes the resulting round-up to his or her blog. Many carnivals have a home page or principal organizer, who lines up guest bloggers to host each edition. This means that the carnival travels, appearing on a different blog each time. (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Non Profit Idea

I love not having to recreate the wheel. I have been searching for what kind of business to start, that would have an impact on the community, but would also allow me to do the things I have a passion for doing (being around like minded people, playing on computers).

The answer to my dilema? Free Geek

In case you were curious, I am using Bitty Browser link to embed the web page of Free Geek into my blog.

So they take computers, use volunteers to take the donated computers apart, get the working parts out, recycle the bad parts, and all get to hang out and get better at computers.

There are individual value propositions that I could get into, but most anyone can see that it is a cool idea, with lots of benefits. Now the only problems will be getting the space to use, and setting up the non-profit organization. My goal is to partner with a club on campus called SIFE (Students In Free Enterprise) to market, organize, and ensure a large impact on the community (while making it a sustainable concept).

College Business Web Consultants

You are a web guru, and want to build a profile, but you need projects, what do you do?

You are a graphics designer, need things to try out new graphics programs, and build your portfolio, what do you design?

You are an Entrepreneurship student, need graphics designers and website designers, but do not have the money to pay people, but need guys that know their stuff to give you advice, and create cool sites for you, what do you do?

Well, bring these groups together of course!!

I think it would be great to setup a "business" bringing these separate groups together for added benefit to all. The web and graphics guys get to see the business side of starting a company, whilst creating cool stuff for their portfolio, and the entrepreneurship students get a free website design, with the caveat of paying for the services rendered if they choose to launch their venture.

There is a greater benefit than just website development. The entrepreneurship students may need technical advice for their projects, or "experts" to go with them to meetings with advisers or potential investors to explain how some technology would work, or the time/cost commitment needed for x project.

Non-Profit Meets For-Profit, Cool!

I want to change the world, but I want to make money also (provide for my family, have influence to do cool stuff). How do you create a socially responsible company, that really provides benefit, yet also becomes profitable?

Answer:

If you are familiar with what has been happening in the Linux world (I skim the surface of this with my rss reader), then you have heard of Ubuntu. There are plenty of sites that talk about Ubuntu, but I am looking at it from the way they have chosen to structure their company.

So from my understanding of it, there is a commercial side, Canonical, and a non-profit side, Ubuntu and others(Kbuntu, Edbuntu, Xbuntu).

Another cool company that has a similar business model, but kind of opposite, is SpikeSource. So it is good to see that there are companies out there that can use open source as a foundation of their business model (either building on it, or building it).

Social Networking

Fortune cookie promotes social networking
Originally uploaded by BigBlue.

Social Networking

How Can we fit popular sites like Myspace and Facebook into the teaching curricula, and culture of school? I think the idea here is of a digital self. Online there are many aspects that define who your are perceived. On myspace you are the drunk college kid, flicker you are the artistic photographer, and Monster.com you are the perfect employee who lives to work. There is a kind of balance in "real life" how much information you give people access to, and how much you tell someone at one time. I think this same concept applies to a persons online digital self.
In business, a common form of communication is the business card. It has some information, but not everything. You could research more with that info, but it would take time. The same can be applied to the digital identity of a person or business. A business can have a my space page, and use that as a medium to communicate about their goals, vision, and the such. Or it could be brief with lots of flash but little content, begging the viewer to find another aspect of that businesses digital existence. Just like in real life, these are decisions students and teachers should be aware of, but will have to apply differently to each circumstance.

As these new technologies and means of communication, there will come a standard of what information is commonly provided, and in what way, just like the company, title, cell and email address, printed on that specific sized business card (who in the world thought of that size business card anyway?)

Building an "Online" company

How do you build an "online" company? One where most of the workers call Starbucks, the office?

How do you have meetings?
What do you do if a laptop gets stolen?
Do you need face time?

I may or may not answer all of these questions. But they are interesting. Lets approach these backwards. From a brick and mortar company.

What would starbucks look like as an online company(more integrated into new tools, not digital cups of coffee). Their star partners(employees for those of you not up on the lingo) would blog about what it was like to work there. They would write comments about their favorite customers. It could be a door into deepining that 1 min a day conversation with those interesting artistic (or whatever) folks.

Maybe they would have a wiki for secret shopping excursions, and have people who know alot about coffee go in and do their snapshots (secret shoping) for the company, in exchange for a free cup of joe (you economists can ponder the principal agent problems of this, but it could work).

The key here is that it is user generated content, and categorization (more on the categorization in my tags post, and future folksonomies posts) of that content. It has the potential of a huge network of information, and a kind of grass roots marketing, while building the lifetime value of a customer by deepening the connections with those customers. It would also make recent new additions to the neighborhood (metephorical social "neighborhood", or whatever..... you know what I mean).

Internally there could be wikis for all kinds of stuff. Best practices of the coffee masters for how to make the best french press, repairmen sharing the latest problems and bootstrap solutions to fixing the latest brewer. By having the people "in the trenches" create and update the info, you always have current info. Sure there are problems, pr issues and whatnot, but that is where the corporate wiki could champion the good contributors, and discourage the bad ones (not sure what this all looks like yet, but who does?)

So none of those questions got answered, but I think going from what currently could work is a good start. How do you know what is on the other side of that mountain, unless you start writing erp, crm, charts and graphs of the best possible route..... I mean try and put two feet forward to climb that mountain?

Interesting Wiki Info

I have thought about the time to adoption of wikis quite a bit recently (all those sleepless nights now have meaning). How long does a good idea take to be implemented by a large group of people? Or at least a sub group of people in say, one company?

There are many questions that pop into my head. How is the technology or tool modeled?(both by the upper management, and by direct reports of each level in the company) Is it (the tool, wiki, hammer, toy) really as user friendly as everybody says it is(ma by user friendly needs to ask the question, who is the intended user?). So these are good questions, but I found a website that is trying to answer some of these.

I frequent the blog Wikinomics, and they featured a site(If you have not guessed yet, it is the screen shot above).

The site is called Wikipatterns and it is exactly the kind of website I am finding useful these days. I am hoping it answers some of the questions about implementing a wiki, but even if it is not helpfull for me, at least it can serve as a sort of knowledge repository for me to refer people to(I love not having to reinvent the wheele, or wiki, or sliced something or other).

Text Book spawns Ideas

I was reading in my management book ("Strategic Management, A Dynamic Perspective" Case 2) about a marketing director named David Ogilvy. I want to share a little about who he was, why he interested me, and several ideas that came to me from learning about him.

What interested me about David Ogilvy are how different he was from my understanding of his contemporaries. The book states that he was "Quirky".

He took pride in his agencies "Streak of orthodoxy". He once advised a young account executive, "develop your eccentricities early, and no one will think you are going senile later in life".
.... He also exhorted his staff to achieve brilliance through "obsessive curiosity, guts under pressure, inspiring enthusiasm, and resilience in adversity."

As I read these sections, I wanted to call him up and say "I will work for you at any price, just let me show you what I can do." I felt like he was describing my insatiable curiosity, and was admonishing things that I am striving to achieve and aspire to learn when given the opportunity(I don't feel like I have the resilience in adversity, or the guts, but definitely the eccentricities and obsessive curiosity).

I mentioned he was different from his contemporaries. I don't think this is the route that interests me, but here is where I would go if it did. What are the similarities between David and other CEO's? What is the personality makeup of a good marketing CEO?

Back to what is interesting (a.k.a. interests me).

Because of his creativity(and recognizing that as a strength and exploiting it, and disciplining it, and searching it out in others), he was able to change with the dynamic marketplace. He was also a catalyst of positive change in his organization. He cast a unifying vision for the future of his company through his strength of creativity, and eccentricities(e.x. the quotes above and New York times add below).

(possible character traits I am extrapolating from limited information and attributing to him, ok so that also describes some of what I wrote in the previous paragraph, but I just thought of it so I am putting it here)
I believe as a leader, it is important to be consistent(more explain later). Although eccentric, he was consistent in that. I guess the idea I had about this point is, know your strengths, exploit them, and communicate them to others(and why you believe they are strengths). Know your weaknesses, avoid situations that would require their use, but have others who know that is your weakness, and who are strong in those areas you are weak.
(this article is not meant as a proof of these ideas. It will take more research to prove them, but I think the inklings for making my case are present in the outward manifestations of this man's philosophies)

Knowledge Worker

I have been hit recently by how recently things have changed. It is a modern concept to have so many freedoms, and abilities. I am sure I am not the first to see this trend, but I would like to comment on it, if you will allow me (given my new sense of freedom!!!).

Stephen Covey, in his book entitled "The Eighth Habit, from Greatness to Significance", talks about the "knowledge worker". From my understanding of his idea, there will be opportunity in this decade to recognize and reward the individual contribution workers give while at work. This recognition and rewarding thing is not that special, it is why they will be recognized and rewarded.

I have many interests. How on earth could one company take into account all of my skills and abilities, and pay me the sum of what I am worth? (in December this will start to be a valid question when I graduate from College). This equation of worth must add up a workers creative abilities, side hobbies that lend to understanding in diverse fields, basically, workers that continually learn and grow, and apply that knowledge and passion back into work.

What does this look like? I have no clue. I have ideas, dreams, plans for what I would want it to be, but lets face it, I can not see the future (not yet anyways! I may or may not let you know when and if I ever can).

So that disclaimer aside, what might it look like, from my/our current standpoint? An example may be open source software. If you have ever used software written by people not paid to do it, it feels different. More dynamic, more alive, granted more buggy since sometimes adding a new feature is more exciting than fixing those pesky phylum (bugs).

Another example? Lets go hypothetical. Lets say you hire Leonardo DaVinchi. At first you say to me "Awesome!!! I get this highly creative guy on my team, made all those cool things, painted, drew, other stuff....." I have to interrupt you after several minuets because you keep blabering.

He writes backwards and has his own code, no good at sharing notes. He had the most unfinished works of any master (came from a book, will cite this sometime, believe me till then). Juggled in his spare time, and always scribbling in his journals. He would have been awful to have in the office. Like MacGuyver always pulling out his pocket knife to fix the broken fax machine, Leonardo would have ditched his assignments and done flight experiments with his attempt at a wooden helicopter.

Ok, so he might not have been that bad, but he would not have fit in. He had too many talents. How can companies fit this type of character into their companies, and keep them interested?
Lets use some corporate lingo-
1. Break the walls of interdepartmental knowledge barriers
2. Allow creative problem solvers to solve creative problems wherever they arise
3. Find a way to encourage learning and creativity, even if it is not directly related (ie juggling, art, ambidexterity...... you can get a little creative here, it is ok by me).
4. Pay people according to the value added activities they provide the company (figure out how to measure(better yet, let them tell the company how to measure) their value added activities, and pay people proportionate to how much of it they get done).
5. Build in time to allow people to increase their capacity to learn/work/increase creativity/give back/whatever.

Some companies get some of these concepts, but there is a ways to go. People like Google, Apple, Ideo, and others are starting to understand work sucks if you feel like a cog in a wheel in a machine. Work can be fun if you can contribute, add personal touches, do what interests you. Lets hope more get the point by the time I graduate! (otherwise consider this public notice that I will be starting a business that does as many of these things as possible, and we will take over the world!)

(For those of you who care to continue reading this gargantuan post, I do not think Leonardo would have done that badly, just not used to his full potential. Imagine Einstein at McDonalds, he would have been awful, staring off into space imagining gravity and light and singularities. Or more likely, the inefficiencies he saw around him, how he should write to corporate to speed this up, change this, do that. Corporate would have hated him! Unless they brought him up to a level where he could have seen the problems from a broader perspective, then he would have been a Genius!)

Resistance to Change

I am always surprised by someones resistance to change. I have chosen to continually grow and learn in my life, but I realize that not everyone has done this.

I only become aware of any difference when I talk about a great new "technology" or idea, like tags. If you are on the web at all, you are probably familar with using tags and how great they are. People that have not used them do not feel the same way.

"Why would anyone do something extra like typing in relivant keywords just so other people can search something better?" Well, I started to draw out supply and demand charts from my early econ days, then I thought about the effects of a public good or positive externalities, but all of these danced around the point.

Do unto others as you would do unto them. I now sound like I am preaching about technology. I think the point boils down to this, if you make something and you want people to see it, where will you put it? Lets say it is pottery. Would you put it in a closet? Or would you put it in a window? Even if that window was a litter farther away?

Tags are wonderful. I wish I could use them for real life objects, and organize my life by knowing what things I will need for school on a given day, and tagging them "school" and they magically fly into my backpack. That would be awesome!!!

But alas, that does not happen (yet!). Until then my digital life will remain dynamically organized by category and priority, while my room lies in dismal ruins (or organized by level of proximity from door to bed to floor, aka equally and evenly distributed between all three points in space).

Recent Aspiration

So you say you want to start a business?

So I says to the guy, "yea, I do!"
Then he says to me, What makes you think you will make some money eh?

So then I say "You see, when a market opportunity exists that has the potential to change the way business does business, is in its early stages of implementation, and there is one company that is doing it well and making good money, I say sign me up."

So what is it you ask?

I want to be a consultant, helping businesses integrate new collaborative technology into their companies. These simple tools, like email in the 90's, can revolutionize the way business operate, and they are giving the software away! That's right, there is good free stuff out there, but small and large companies don't know what to do with it yet.



Here is where I come in. I have heard it said, all the world looks a nail when you are holding a hammer. I do not believe world hunger can be solved by a wiki(well actually if you got enough people involved all finding the domain of their agreement on the issues at hand....), it might, but not yet. I think the greatest application will be to change the way groups work together, the way information is exchanged, like what email did to the paper inter office memo (only email made the annoyance, pain, and arduously non-relevant flow of information much faster, not necessarily decreased the redundancies, inefficiencies, or other silly things that happen in offices).

Do I think wikis are the savior of the information age? They will not perform any miracles. Nor will they give forth any metaphorical wine(or would it be digital wine?). But there will be a revolution. And I want to help in the unfettering of the digichains that currently bind our information to the jail cell walls of old world, old software constructs (tell me you have never saved a document, and unknowingly placed it in the unsearchable miry depths and quagmires in the heart of your computer, with no hope of rescue? The grave sin of not maintaining an anal retentive filing system, shame on you).

Beautifull Photo

Originally uploaded by Little Jon1.

This just looks amazing to me. It is so great what can be done with so little, all you need is a $5,000 camera, a $7,000 computer, a few hundred dollars of software, and a few hundred hours of playing around with the exposure settings to get amazing pictures like this.

If I could, this would be the top of the list, from my 30 hobbies.

Flowers HDR

Flowers HDR
Originally uploaded by curlykrakow.

So I was trying to remember what technique it is called when the photographer is gathering more wavelength light than the human eye can see, and I stumbled upon the name, and this picture at the same time. This kind of thing always happens to me. I think of one thing, and it leads to another amazing discovery(to me anyway!)

Changed Formatting

Ok,

So I have changed the formattting to be a little simpler. I am not the Techie genious that I sometimes think I am. I have also learned I am a starter, not a finisher. Anyways, this will hopefully turn less introspective, more observational and provide people with usefull information. That is the goal anyways.

Wish me luck.