The Confluence Notes 1 - 8

READ  THE WHOLE ARTICLE HERE

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE HERE

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE HERE

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE HERE

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE HERE

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE HERE

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE HERE

Which Muppet are you? (fantastic 'borrowed' article)

 "Every once in a while, an idea comes along that changes the way we all look at ourselves forever. Before Descartes, nobody knew they were thinking. They all believed they were just mulling. Until Karl Marx, everyone totally hated one another but nobody knew quite why. And before Freud, nobody understood that all of humanity could be classified into one of two simple types: people who don’t yet know they want to sleep with their mothers, and people who already know they want to sleep with their mothers. These dialectics can change and shape who we are so profoundly, it’s hard to imagine life before the paradigm at all.

The same thing is true of Muppet Theory, a little-known, poorly understood philosophy that holds that every living human can be classified according to one simple metric: Every one of us is either a Chaos Muppet or an Order Muppet...."

Read on here....enlightening to say the least: Muppet Theory

Good things

www.confluence73.com

On the system, and why it's wrong (John Steel)

On running and thinking...

5.12.11

I started a list. From no-where. Half way through a half baked trot around the marina. On what I think might be awry with the world. Thought I'd share some....

1.  Listen. Moi?. No-one really seems to listen anymore. So neither do they hear. Listening used to be an art. The world we live in now, is a cacophony. The more we tune in, the less we listen, and the less we hear. And so its no wonder I guess that those who innovate to be heard, are thriving. 

2.  Conversation is yesterdays black. When did dialogue return to sharing symbols? The Yellow pages commercial of 1980 cleverly instructed us to “let your fingers do the talking (or was it walking?)”. Either way, little did they know they’d coined a troubling prophecy. We need to ‘talk’ more. To talk you have to listen. Better still, you have to listen and look at the same time. Which brought me to...

3.  ...the trouble with eyes. When did extended eye contact become a) weird b) threatening or c) flirtatious? I love the eyes. By far the most magical and beautiful part of our anatomy, yet I've noticed how few people really look at one another anymore when talking.  We'd rather stare at the perspex screen of our i-stuff, or into the shadows of our modern insecurities (ooh, topical!).

4.  The collapse of time. Physicists  suggest it actually could be. Is a minute now atomically shorter than a minute then? Intuitively we seem to be aware that it might, and so ferociously invent technology and apps and means and ways of cramming more and more into a minute. Stop multitasking and trying to combat the acceleration of existence! It doesn’t and will never matter how much you do in time. It’s about what you do with time that can really make a difference.

5. Where did Culture go? Words that end in ‘–ics’ have all but diluted the once powerfully enchanting cool aid of real culture.  So much so that we call culturally erudite people ‘vultures!’ It’s a cherishable irony that the men and women of this world, who remain most grounded in there love for the delicate sinews of our diversity, are reframed as carrion seeking monsters. I guess it’s accurate in a certain sense; deeply tragic in another.

I didn’t particularly enjoy this run.  

Steve Jobs. 1955 - 2011.

“No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don’t want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it’s quite true. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

— Steve Jobs (1955 - 2011)

Phoenix Rising

Out of nowhere, a decision has been made to begin ‘writing’ again.  I used to write a lot. But it got lost somewhere in the mist of too much thinking. And as is so often the case with the over-thinkers of the world, when there’s more to share, there’s less time to share it.

Actually, I believe everyone should write. Which is strange as I’ve taught myself over the years to abandon all expectations of people. Outside the accepted moral code, that is.  But on reflection I think an expectation of others to keep a narrative of their journey is a healthy one.  Writing about yourself, your life and all that play a part in your Epic, is hugely cathartic. There are no lies or embellishments in conversations with the self. It’s organic, brutal and delicate. Like sieving for gold in the soil of your existence.  And nothing bad can ever come of that.

So let the sieving begin. The highlights of which I will share up here on @Confluence.  A project that until now, I have had neither the courage nor the conviction to use in an honest and authentic way. I’ve jabbed and sparred a little with various directions, but nothing with any notable gravity. Just firing rubber bullets with other peoples’ names etched on the side. Fear of judgement and ridicule? Probably. Inverted vanity? Definitely. But, if I am ever to evolve into the benevolent and inspirational Protagonist I have been striving to become over the past few years, it’s high time one started to practice what one preaches. As the Chinese Proverb bleats: “Distant water can’t put out a fire close at hand”.

So welcome to Phoenix Rising.  I give my journals poignant and descriptive titles. I feel it gives reverence to the occasion, and collapses time should they fall into curious hands in  years to come.

Privately, it represents an important and honest record, of a truly incredible time of my life. Publicly, I hope it serves as a light hearted ‘Live’ exercise in learning how to transform real life experience and observations, into helpful and (occasionally) inspirational clues in the pursuit of your own plenitude. 

Be Well. & Good things.

CB

Desperately Seeking Self-Inspired Salvation?

I must be honest. I cannot recall when or where I read the meat of this post. Or who wrote it. Only that he/she/they inspired me enough to feel the need to pay them forward.


So for all you entrepreneurs out there, and anyone else Desperately Seeking Self-Inspired Salvation, the following 16 questions were written (by someone clearly with their finger pressed firmly on the aorta of life right now) as an alternative to getting clarity and conviction on any new business venture your might cooking up. 

1. Who are you trying to please?
2. Are you trying to make a living, make a difference, or leave a legacy?
3. How will the world be different when you've succeeded?
4. Is it more important to add new customers or to increase your interactions with existing ones?
5. Do you want a team? How big? (I know, that's two questions)
6. Would you rather have an open-ended project that's never done, or one where you hit natural end points? (How high is high enough?)
7. Are you prepared to actively sell your stuff, or are you expecting that buyers will walk in the door and ask for it?
8. Which: to invent a category or to be just like Bob/Sue, but better?
9. If you take someone else's investment, are you prepared to sell out to pay it back?
10. Are you done personally growing, or is this project going to force you to change and develop yourself?
11. Choose: teach and lead and challenge your customers, or do what they ask...
12. How long can you wait before it feels as though you're succeeding?
13. Is perfect important? (Do you feel the need to fail privately, not in public?)
14. Do you want your customers to know each other (a tribe) or is it better they be anonymous and separate?
15. How close to failure, wipe out and humiliation are you willing to fly? (And while we're on the topic, how open to criticism are you willing to be?)
16. What does busy look like?

Very cool. I for one, have them printed and posted up by my desk. They teach as well as shape. And avoid too much wanton sprinting into visceral and fad charged dead ends.

Be well. & Good things

CB

Selling the new cool. Great Article for a little right brain massaging...

Diggable Syntax #1

Like this. Feels right. Reads well. Sounds powerful.

Immutable Genius

Splitscreen. A Love Story. Brilliantly simple.

There is so much more behind the idea to this film,  than I reckon the Director got credit for. Very touching. 

Splitscreen: A Love Story from JW Griffiths on Vimeo.

The Art of Innovation Part 2...

Continued from previous post...Peter Druker inspired tips to keep your creativity flowing in the right direction:


6. Don't be afraid to polarize people: The Holy Grail of ideas, that means great things to all people, simply doesn't exist. And in seeking it you're almost guaranteeing mediocrity. Instead, create great things that make segments of people very happy. And don't worry if those things make others unhappy. Passionate reaction is the barometer of innovative success. Good or bad, the greater the better.


7. Break down barriers: Life isn't fair. Learn it and deal with it. The better your idea is, the more barriers the status quo will erect in your way. So don't get flustered if acceptance and traction comes slow. Embrace it. In fact the best way to break barriers is to get people to use, try and download whatever is you're creating. Listen. Learn. Tweak. Ship. 


8. "Let a hundred flowers blossom": (Stolen from Chairman Mao). Be flexible about how people use your ideas and products. The market may surprise you and find uses you never intended, or even thought about. (Did you know micro-blogging site Tumblr has become one of the largest free porn sites on the internet?) The lesson is to sow fields, not water boxes, and let those hundred flowers blossom.


9. Never ask people to do what you wouldn't do: Massive test for your company. And links back to points and 1 and 2 of Saturday's Part 1. Make it meaningful and practical. You wouldn't jump through hoops so don't expect customers to, either.


10. Don't let Doubters get you down: It's amazing how many people will tell you it's not worth doing, can't be done, shouldn't be done and isn't necessary. Sometimes its losers who are easy to ignore. Worse than that though are family and friends who hold some emotional equity over you. But the most dangerous of all are the rich, famous, and powerful: Because they are so successful, you may think they are right. They're not right. They are just successful on a previous curve so cannot comprehend, much bless embrace, the next curve that you are looking create, or at least redefine.

The Art of Innovation Part 1

...or maybe it's Rules. Either way, as the world economy continues to pull G's like a demented Switch Back, here's some Peter Drucker inspired tips to keep your innovative pursuits focussed and fruitful.


(Because like it or not, innovation creates wealth. Period.)


1. Build something that you want use/buy/have/see in the world: The idea that great innovation is the work of visionary entrepreneurs is, well, rubbish.  A more accurate theory is that people create things that they want to buy or use. It's not about being visionary. So if you want to be innovative, start with creating something you want to use.


2. Make meaning: Great innovations enable people to do old things better; do things they always wanted to do, and do things they never knew they wanted to do. Solve an existing problem, or better still, solve one that no-one knows exists yet. If it means 'something', it's got wings. 


3. Jump the next curve: If you're going up against a busy curve, chances are your enthusiasm, or cash flow, will run out before you see black numbers. True innovation plays out when you jump to the next curve - or better still, invent the next curve and ride it until the line gets to busy. Then jump to the next one. (Here's to my good friends at Virtuzone. They pole vaulted the curve and now lend countenance to countless others trying to do the same. And yes. It worked phenomenally)


4. Don't worry, be LTP: The first version of any new innovation is, by definition, work in progress and should, by unwritten law, have an element of an element of Less Than Perfect about it. If you wait for it to perfect, chances are the market will pass you by. 


5. Ship, evolve, reship: Staying LTP however, isn't cool. "Innovation is not an event, its a process": (Guy Kawasaki). Once you have shelf life; evolve, tweak, improve, update, expand. Welcome complaints and feedback from your stakeholders and customers. Yes,  it's always hard to field low blow's against your new born.  But one of the most powerful lessons for bootstrap innovators is to seek and welcome criticism...it's the fuel that keeps you curve jumping.


Part 2 to come....

Commuter Entropy in NYC

Great work. Observational creativity at its best...

3-Way Street from ronconcocacola on Vimeo.

A brief note on Faith

We don't test Faith. 
Faith tests us. 
From the inside out. 


To see if we're ready.


CB

The Opportunity is Now.

(I didn't write this. But it's brilliant. And quite possibly the most important and powerful articulation of the type of attitude needed to thrive as a professional, in these chaotic times.

With thanks again, to Seth Godin.

At the same time that our economic engines are faltering, something else is happening. Like all revolutions, it happens in fits and starts, without perfection, but it's clearly happening.

The mass market is being replaced by multiple micro markets and the long tail of choice.

Google is connecting buyers and sellers over vaster distances, more efficiently and more cheaply than ever before.

Manufacturing is more of a conceptual hurdle than a practical one.

The exchange of information creates ever more value, while commodity products are ever cheaper. It takes fewer employees to generate more value, make more noise and impact more people.

Most of all is this: every individual, self-employed or with a boss, is now more in charge of her destiny than ever before. The notion of a company town or a stagnant industry with little choice is fading fast.

Right before your eyes, a fundamentally different economy, with different players and different ways to add value is being built. What used to be an essential asset (for a person or for a company) is worth far less, while new attributes are both scarce and valuable.

Are there dislocations? There's no doubt about it. Pain and uncertainty and risk, for sure.

The opportunity, though, is the biggest of our generation (or the last one, for that matter). The opportunity is there for anyone (with or without a job) smart enough to take it--to develop a best in class skill, to tell a story, to spread the word, to be in demand, to satisfy real needs, to run from the mediocre middle and to change everything.

¡Note! Like all revolutions, this is an opportunity, not a solution, not a guarantee. It's an opportunity to poke and experiment and fail and discover dead ends on the way to making a difference. The old economy offered a guarantee--time plus education plus obedience = stability. The new one, not so much. The new one offers a chance for you to take a chance and make an impact.

Note! If you're looking for 'how', if you're looking for a map, for a way to industrialize the new era, you've totally missed the point and you will end up disappointed. The nature of the last era was that repetition and management of results increased profits. The nature of this one is the opposite: if someone can tell you precisely what to do, it's too late. Art and novelty and innovation cannot be reliably and successfully industrialized.

In 1924, Walt Disney wrote a letter to Ub Iwerks. Walt was already in Hollywood and he wanted his old friend Ubbe to leave Kansas City and come join him to build an animation studio. The last line of the letter said "PS I wouldn't live in KC now if you gave me the place—yep—you bet—Hooray for Hollywood." And, just above, in larger letters, he scrawled, "Don't hesitate—Do it now."

It's not 1924, and this isn't Hollywood, but it is a revolution, and there's a spot for you (and your boss if you push) if you realize you're capable of making a difference. Or you could be frustrated. Up to you.

Confluence Thoughts

I was clumsily trying to explain to my wife this morning, why this project inspires and annoys me in equal measures. I think the answer lies hidden somewhere amongst the barriers we place around our own moments of genius. Those illuminating ideas, thoughts and notions we tingle over in private, yet never see the light of day. Muffled by delusions of unworthiness. Dimmed by fear of success. Shackled by misguided expectations of failure. Judgement. Ridicule.


What if...we'd all given every idea we had, a chance? 


What if...we start today?


PS What he says is equally as inspiring as what he photographed.

Bust them by mobile

Definition of madness: "doing the same thing and expecting different results".


(Dear people in charge of minimizing bloodshed on UAE roads, read above.)


Idea: Busted by Mobile...www.nameandshame.com


How about setting up an online service that allows 'virtual citizen arrests', via mobile phone photographic evidence? We can't stop in our cars. And remembering number plates and telling tales won't cut it. But you know what they say, "a picture busts a stupid driver."


The photo of this moron (White Lexus plate #A4919) was taken in my car a few days back, by a  colleague. In fact the day after the 120 car pile up that killed 5 people! Case in point...at one point I could smell the drivers breath he was so close. 


Maybe if we all knew that evidence of such irresponsibility and blatant disregard for human life had a formal place to be sent, reviewed and potentially acted upon, a) we'd feel more empowered to protect ourselves, and b) maybe, just maybe, idiots like this might think twice about putting his own, and other people's lives at risk! 

Lexus Plate # A4919

The Socialization of Nature's Pests

(These are just thoughts, after all. But hey, they're there to be shared...)

Scrolling down through my Facebook wall the other morning, I found myself astonished at how much of themselves people are now willing to volunteer. Myself included.

Ideas, thoughts, emotions, suggestions, opinions, loves, hates, recommendations, cautions, do's, dont's, oohh's, ahh's and everything in between.

What's more, the nature and timing of many of the posts exhibit an ever shrinking period of 'consideration', between Creating and Sharing. As if we've reached a new level of spontaneity. A new level of comfort and confidence to share with instinct and altruism.

The social cynics may sneer and jape at this new level of transparency.com, but personally I think it poses a much more exciting question: Has our New Social Order started to bloom into the majesty that Nature intended it for?

Read me out...

On reflection, the only other candidate I can think of that demonstrates the same degree of innocent spontaneity is, well, Nature herself. In all aspects; good, bad, awesome and terrifying. But over the years, mankind's well documented history of fxxxing things up, slowly led to our unique isolation from this most precious of Nature's laws.

But as we all know, and are seeing with increasing frequency across the world, Nature takes and creates, and knows no limitation when needs must. And in our case, Needs have most certainly Must, for many, many years.

So perhaps, in Her own fantastic way, the inspiration and genius behind the creation of the Social Web phenomenon is another of Nature's tricks. A deliberate and timely gift that has allowed mankind to reestablish - on our own terms and in our own time - that level of interconnectivity, transparency and unification that once upon a time, made her, and us, the envy of the Universe.

Good things.

CB

PS PLEASE click the follow box to your right (if you like).

Turning left up Change Street

Sunday mornings are often quite low affairs (for those living and working in the Middle East, given that Sunday is, and has always been the new Monday).  The  mind, soothed by the fairness and freedom of the weekend, is abruptly spun into life by the deadlines and to do lists of the working week.

This morning was no exception.  Right up until I instinctively decided to take a different route to work. Instead of turning right onto the brutal highway of another week, this morning I swept left on to a much more soothing beach road, of another sun kissed morning.

The difference to the day that this small and seemingly insignificant change in behavior has made, has been quite remarkable. For the first time in a long time I've brought my A game to a Sunday (and everything that goes with it). And all it took was a left turn, that's been there all along.

My point? Too often in these manic times, our omni-wired-super-charged minds cheat us out of the power of simplicity. Sometimes, the things we need change to create the life we want, are right there in front of us. As simple as a left-turn.