5-a-day: keeping one’s head in check

What are the 5 things I do on a good day to keep my head in check? 

I’ve been inspired by the challenge laid down by Andy, (a fellow free-ranger and former client) who is running an interesting project called Mindapples to gather up mental health hints from the blogosphere.

Here’s mine:

1. Stimulus and learning: Podcasts on way to work – Harvard Ideacast, BBC’s In Business; BusinessWeek cover stories
2. Giving and receiving positive strokes: Cuddles with and kids, reading bedtime stories, jamming at work with clients and colleagues
3. Colour and light: experiencing light, simple as getting out for a walk in the occasional winter sun inBrighton
4. Cooking and eating: for relaxation, creativity and being with my wife Sarah
5. Music: Playing Ukulele for learning and relaxation, particularly catching new chords and tabs from UkuleleHunt.com

Andy’s listed some useful resources to which and I’d add the following: Dr Paddy Lund’s Building the Happiness Centred Business and How to be Free by Tom Hodgkinson.

The challenge is passed on to friends and colleagues: Nilhan, Antony, Tamsin, Farhan and Pete.

Brand and culture: two sides of the same coin

I started this post with a purpose. To offer up my thoughts on where I’m at with my thinking. It was stimulated by some great feedback on this blog last night. My dad and my sister, both regular readers gave me some great insights. First up, from Punkdaddy: “too much stuff. I can’t find your thoughts”. Yep, fair enough. Since redesigning I’ve been using the blog as a personal platform, a space to gather my various online footprints such as magnolia links (stuff I find), last.fm (what I’m listening to), flickr (images I’ve captured), twitter (observations and snippets of thinking aloud) and moonri.se (feelings expressed visually or with quotes). My sister said that she’d grapsed this and had passed on some of the links to friends who found them interesting and useful which is pleasing in itself. Sharing is part of the wide angle. What follows is synthesis of some of the experiences off the last eighteen months and some reflections on innovation, one of key roles at work. It also explains the thinking behind the Social Spaces Framework, a strategic service I’ve co-created with Antony Mayfield and others at iCrossing.

Finding focus with a blog comes naturally to some, whilst for me it’s part of a broader journey of self-awareness and exploration. Much like my work in general. That’s the current purpose of this blog. Underlying all of this, I believe there are many aspects to life and work that are changing. This is a major culture change. Being myself first and foremost is my personal goal. Sharing with others comes naturally, hence writing a blog and working in the online sector. Freeranging is a style of living and working that I’ve adopted as a loose descriptor for my approach and motivations, based on the experience of spending time with dozens of individuals, teams and clients across a range of sectors and disciplines. So that’s the focus, gathering what emerges from experience and allowing it to grow naturally. I’ve learned that the growth requires me to synthesis my gatherings, observations and reflections into constructive perspectives. Topics and themes are the best way to zoom in on this broad interest in life and work.

Particular topics of interest include styles of working and living that allow individuals and groups to be themselves and create new benefits from sharing and collaboration. At iCrossing I’ve established three guiding principles to drive the innovation agenda. The first principle is smart collaboration. This gives individuals and teams a guiding sense of how we can interact to fulfill our aims and achieve our goals. The assumption underlying it is that connections and relationships can generate growth. Through collaboration we can create meaning and value, and can drive business and personal learning and success, which is a holistic perspective on growth. It’s been a real pleasure of late seeing this played out in some fantastic group sessions where teams are forming, norming and increasingly storming the rules and behaviours that may no longer be applicable to the wider economic, cultural and social context that we find ourselves in. My observations lead me to further believe that this is encouraging individuals and groups to make new connections with the confidence to take risks.

That gives rise to the second principle, dynamic specialisation, one of many concepts I’ve found roots in the work John’s Hagel and Seely-Brown. This guiding principle when understood by a smart team of collaborators facilitates a rapid means of creating new services or propositions that can immediately create value and generate benefits for a range of people with reason to connect. Some of the most interesting and exciting experiences of the last eighteen months have emerged because of the relationships fostered with individuals and groups: iCrossing colleagues and new partners in wider networks of shared interests. We all share a curious interest in learning on a journey where the old power and order structures are changing. Changing to what, is what we’re all seeking to find out.

The third principle is that of engagement. This has become a major area of interest to many working in the wider area of communications, be that design, marketing and advertising or technology, particularly those seeking to understand or create online social spaces. What are social spaces? My definiton is

“Places where individuals and groups hang out, get things done, pass the time, share ideas and information and create and maintain relationships with other individuals and groups.”

Comments on a more succinct version welcomed

Organisations are just groups of people with norms, behaviours, identities etc. and many manifest aspects of their values, principles, behaviours in the brands they introduce. I see the broader culture change going on as one where the perspectives and behaviour of individuals and groups inside organisations (company or organisational culture) are keys to understanding how to share the appropriate dimensions of that culture to share in the real brand perception within social spaces such as online social networks. This has the knock-on effects in real-world relationships manifest in power relations between corporations and individuals. So brand and culture are two-sides of the same coin. An example: I collaborated initially with Headshift a couple of years back and worked on some really innovative programs with one of their clients BP. Both used social software tools to create engagement with individuals and groups. One was an internally focused knowledge-sharing and collaboration initiative to celebrate individual success and leverage the great work going on inside the organisation. The other was an experiment in harnessing the passion of a group that took pride in owning cars. Doing both at the same time was what gave me insight into how brands and company culture need to reinforce each other. The key to this – remove friction in marketing and communications by working with the emerging forces changing the relationships between individuals and organisations. Engagement is the key to this. Not as a wooly marketing term, but genuine engagement based on creating the conditions for relationships to thrive.

It’s engagement that’s really driving the Social Spaces framework, a strategic toolset that I’ve been developing with Antony Mayfield, Scott Lawson, Simon Mustoe, Ben Bose, Jason Ryan and many others in the team at iCrossing in the UK and US. The framework provides a suite of tools to frame the context and purpose, principles, processes and platforms that individuals and groups inside an organisation need to consider in order to engage with the people that use social spaces such as blogs, forums, social networks and emerging tools for various forms of one-to-one/one-to-many/many-to-many communications and relationships. It also provides the means to learn from and evaluate success, taking an implicit view that marketing is about learning through interactions with what we call Engagement Metrics. So in summary what we’re trying to do is help groups and individuals make sense of and engage in the social web. That’s a zoom on one specific aspect of my work.

This has all been great learning on a personal level as I’ve found a new way of harnessing my theoretical and practical interests in communication, social theory and psychology. I’ve also created a lot of new relationships which go beyond pure work matters, because the principle of openness suits many who find the social web a natural place to express themselves or create something new and valuable.

Meetings: planning, jamming or sleeping?

see more crazy cat pics

Meetings are often tortuous affairs. How often I’ve been in a room with a bunch of people with no agenda, no chair, no theme, no notetaker, lots of distractions (worst being powerpoint, laptops and phones) and no concrete follow-up. Whilst I’m guilty as charged with contributing to some of these time-wasting events I’m very conscious of how demoralising they can be if they interupt the flow of creative people.

I’ve made it known to colleagues that I haven’t much patience to sit in a room where much of the above is going on. As a consequence I try to avoid meetings altogether unless they have a distinct outcome required (ie decisions). In contrast, when working with teams closely on a daily basis, we seldom need to get together for a meeting unless there’s a specific requirement – collaboratively devising a plan or strategy, reviewing progress against a plan or letting loose and jamming to create ideas.

Over the years I’ve found that bursts of highly focused activity with all necessary collaborators around a whiteboard are far more productive than process-driven meetings. For those relationships where conversations to discuss progress are required, quick 15 minute catch-ups by conference call suffice. My synopsis is that how you interact directly impacts your personal productivity, overall enjoyment and has a direct bearing on the quality of what you’re likely to produce.

Avoid falling asleep with more effective facilitation – toptips from 43Folders on more effective meetings.

Beckham’s flow and loose-coupling

I’m watching with interest how David Beckham adjusts to life in the US. Particularly to see if he can regain the flow state he’s been in since the early part of the year in regard to his form on the pitch. Having caught a bit of news this morning on the BBC’s Today programme about how he’ll not be impressed by the most recent performance of his new colleagues. Given that he’s also sufferiing from an ankle injury he’s got a challenge or two head of him.

Flow is something that I’ve experienced frequently. For me it’s when I’ve got an appropriate balance between affect (feelings), cognition (thoughts) and behaviour (actions). This triad is one of the many things I’ve learned about on the Counselling Skills course at Wealden Institute over the last weekend. The first weekend was fantastic – a great blend of theory and practise. I also learned how hard it is to actively listen and hear back appropriately – using skills of straight reflection, paraphrasing, summarising and using open questions. This is all set within Carl Rogers‘ necessary and sufficient context for counsellors using their capacity to demonstrate congruence, empathy and respect. I like his approach and the notion of unconditional positive regard in relation to others. Rogers’ also held the view that these skills were not the preserve of an elite but accessible to the layman. This simple philosophy also chimes with my view of communications advanced by the web and what it must continue to be – simple to use, accessible and available to all – with the user or client at the centre. So there we are – client or person-centred counselling and user-centred design – an interesting loose-coupling that I look forward to exploring more in theory and practice.

So good luck to David Beckham, a fine footballer and broader inspiration to his peers (possibly his sigificant contribution at Real Madrid). I hope he regains his flow quickly.

Reflection time

An alternative title for this post might have been acknowledging personal limits.

I’ve had a rest. Blimey I needed it. We all deal with things in different ways. With a family, a marriage and friendships to evolve, home and work responsibilities and lots of change to deal with, I’ve forced myself to pause for the last couple of weeks to establish a new basis for what I believe will allow for a more harmonious arrangement.

I push myself pretty hard a lot of the time. Sometimes without taking to time to observe, I over do it. Then I need a rest. During the recent rest I’ve had some great conversations that have helped me share and learn much. Since the turn of the year I’ve had a lot going on. At home we’ve embarked upon a new family situation with both parents working full-time. This is a decision that’s caused us a lot of stress. We live within our means. Neither of us has ever really been motivated materially and so we’ve lived. Having children opens up a wonderful new world that presents new challenges and as I’ve learned, needs a different type of commitment to that required by work. Aligning or balancing all the relationships and responsibilities together is tough, but thankfully we’ve had a lot of support and are making sound progress.

I’ve experienced stress. There – it’s written. Stress is a strange thing – a lot of people experience it and yet it’s got a bit of a taboo around it, as if it’s perceived as a weakness. I’ve caused myself to be in stressful situations. That’s something that I’m seeking to change. I’ve thought about it enough, relaxed, conversed and resolved to deal with it.

Looking up a definition of stress on Wikipedia returned some interesting results. I suspected that engineering and medicine would offer a definition but wondered how it would be defined in relation to people or individuals – on a more holistic, humane basis. Stress management has a link otherwise to

’stress (medical) medical or psychological stress; types of medical stress include:

• Chronic stress
• Eustress’

I’ve chosen to seek psychological theories for definitions for stress as I’m not convinced that I’d rather seek medical explanations. I haven’t looked, but I’m sure there’s mention of chemical imbalances etc.. which leave me cold. I’ve been reading about psychology and have found the person-centred approaches of many theorists/practitioners such as Carl Rogers, Fritz and Laura Perls and others chime with approaches I’ve discovered and experienced in design (user-centred design, participatory design, service design) and many other areas of my life that depend upon positive communication. So perhaps Wikipedia needs a definition of ‘personal stress’.

For me, personal stress is a feeling of being under inappropriate pressure which can result in worrying too much. I might feel qualified to offer a better definition in the future. I intend to make understanding of and the alleviation of conditions conducive to stress a focus of what I do. I know that relaxation and loss of worry is possible through the expression of creativity, practising yoga, listening to music, playing an instrument, enyoying my own and the company of family, friends, and colleagues.

I’ve also learned that listening and reflecting is very important. Over the years I’ve found that various forms of people-centred support such as mentoring, coaching and counselling to be very effective in re-establishing a more harmonious existence. With this learning I’m charting my work adventures along a path that makes use of communication as a concept to help personal and organisational growth. On a personal level, my most enriching and satisfying work experiences have been defined by personal growth, both in myself and in others. Having been a leader, mentor, catalyst and doer I’ve encountered a stack of different relationships. I’ve always enjoyed getting to know people. On an organisational level I’m really interested in cultures and how they form and evolve which is I guess is a next step – individuals getting to know each other in the form of a community.

To make something out of this I’ve resolved to seek greater congruence in my life and work.

Here’s some things I am aiming to do:

• to take myself less seriously – a light and relaxed perspective is important
• to give myself a break – I shall be booking holidays and doing yoga on a thursday evening
• to give myself time for creative expression – I am trading my mandolin for an easier to learn and play instrument, the Ukulele
• to learn about people-centred approaches in theory and practise – by undertaking a course at the Wealden Psychology Institute. It’s an introduction to counselling which I believe will help me and everyone I work with.
• to clarify and manage the scope of my work – I am now heading up some really exciting new opportunities at Spannerworks at a time of great change. I’m excited about this and in particular am looking forward to:

• continuing to work with one of my most valued friends and collatorators Antony Mayfield
• leading the establishment of a Design and Development team
• growing the role of Client Partner.

Observing your own behaviour is hard some times, as is being patient with yourself under a certain amount of inevitablepressure. It’s something I’m working on and hopefully, my aims will be true.

Bonus: Best track I’ve heard recently – Free Stress Test by Professor Murder.

How to work better

Lee at Headshift found this at the Tate Modern last year. It’s been on my desktop for a while and has helped me no end.

A history of technology we use – rather than invent

Really looking forward to the publication of the The Shock of the Old: Technology in Global History Since 1900 by David Edgerton, Hans Rausing Professor of History of Science and Technology, Imperial College. Hmmm.. wikipedia only has an entry for David Edgerton the Burger King franchise founder..

There’s a Demos event entitled Shock of the Old” to launch it next wednesday at their Tooley St HQ in London. From the description:

Standard histories of technology give accounts of when things were invented. Edgerton concentrates on what people actually use. So instead of the usual timeline of inventions we are faced with a patchwork of global use: rickshaws and bicycles alongside hybrid cars and aeroplanes; stealth bombers in a struggle against suicide bombers. The world we live in today is as reliant on corrugated iron and furniture as it is on the Pill and the supercomputer.

More interesting food for thought in relation to measures. Hmm.. getting closer to the post on design thinking and metrics and it’s wider applicability and benefits.

Great site for Demos developed by Headshift who I spent much of last summer working with.

Finding your mojo and why Flickr’s got it..

For those of us in the business of creating online strategies and spaces to connect and live out passions, Tara Hunt, one of my favourite bloggers sums up what it is that sites such as Flicker possess.

“There are some products and services that have it. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but they do.

Then there are others that don’t. And, on the surface, it looks like they are doing everything right, but it doesn’t feel right. It’s forced. It’s….gah…hard to explain.”

More on Finding your mojo.. and why Flickr’s got it.

Nice.

Diversity – difference and friction

I found a really interesting link about the productive value of diversity via John Hagel’s Edge Perspectives. As yesterday was Martin Luther King day, he reflected on Scott Page’s new book, The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies. John says: “it provides the most penetrating and systematic exploration yet available of various forms of diversity and precisely how diversity enhances both problem-solving and predictions.”

Sounds fantastic.. looking forward to reading that.

First blogging week

At the end of the first week of writing this blog, I’m delighted to have managed near on a dozen posts, started to feel comfortable with finding a voice, received a couple of encouraging comments on the site and seen traffic rise dramatically as inbound links start to emerge. I’m also realising the value and importance of writing headlines with search terms in mind and the need for brevity. There’s always that challenge!

I also managed to get my face on Yodel Anecdotal – the blog about Yahoo inside, as the company confirmed it’s purchase of MyBloglog. I happened to have been a recent visitor to some blog or other from which they screen-grabbed the ‘recent visior’ list. Thanks to friend and former client of mine, Farhan Lalji for pointing this out. MyBloglog by the way is a great concept of community – connecting readers of blogs, like a fan club.

This adventure will continue as I like most of all, the anticipation factor. I started off with the simple goal of committing to doing this and writing some stuff. However, having got some words down and as a bonus, having got a modest amount of views and a couple of real comments I’ve quickly realised that I’ve got the blogging bug and that now I’ll move forwards with a bit more focus and consideration for others who might actually be reading this.

Onwards!

Sorting things out and some blogs I read regularly

Over the course of the last year I’ve been sorting out many things to do with my work, my voracious appetite for reading, my broader interests and how I manage my time. Having a second baby around the place has effected many changes (more on this later) but amidst the turbulence there’s been a bunch of blogs that have given me immense inspiration, intellectual and spiritual stimulation and a few laughs along the way.

Having compiled the list it’s a fair reflection of many of my personal and professional interests – business and innovation, creativity, design, marketing, personal exploration/productivity and technology.

Here the regulars that I read most days or at least once or twice a week via RSS:

Boing Boing – Cory Doctorow, Xeni Jardin et al

Probably the first blog I ever read and still amongst the most enjoyable for it’s freerange mix of art, politics, culture, design, science, wacky products and whatever else tickles the authors’ fancies.

Crossroads Dispatches – Evelyn Rodriguez

A great source of personal inspiration – always asking life questions and giving some great perspectives and further sources for investigation.

Gapingvoid – Hugh Macleod

Probably one of the best blogs of all. On my first visit I read all of Hugh’s How to Be Creative and just about every other post. I also had the pleasure of sharing a bottle of scotch with him on a very long journey back from a social media conference in Cambridge last year. Nice bloke with immense talents.

Pink: General Blog – Dan Pink

The author of A Whole New Mind: How to thrive in the conceptual age doesn’t blog in great detail, but does follow up on the themes in his great book.

A VC – Fred Wilson

I think I arrived at Fred Wilson’s blog via Gapingvoid and have enjoyed the mix of insight into what’s hot in the US online world and Fred’s commentary on (mostly indie) music. Our taste is very similar.

Johnnie Moore’s Weblog – Johnnie Moore

Another blogger I met at the Our Social World conference in September 2005. Johnnie writes about interventions in business, marketing, branding and authenticity. We’ve subsequently met up and there’s many shared interests and perspectives, such as Brad Blanton’s Radical Honesty which we’d both just read when we met.

Doors of Perception Weblog – John Thackara

In the Bubble: Designing in a complex world was one of the most visionary books I read last year from arguably one of the most serious and sane designers on the planet. I love his polemics on international development amongst his wide and freerange interests. I must go to a Doors of Perception conference one day.

Signal vs. Noise – 37 Signals team

Getting Real was a highlight of last year. All about making stuff that needs to be made. These guys have inspired a generation of web2.0 types, me included. They’ve also made the leap from a bunch of service-focused web designers to that of a product company with lots of customers. Respect indeed.

Creating Passionate Users – Kathy Sierra

A writer with fantastic style and fluency on a wide range of topics around designing software products. Always interesting, humane and often provides splendid illustrations that summarise complex concepts. Amongst my favourites are her posts on Manager 2.0 and Neo-Marketing last year.

Open (minds, finds, conversations) – Antony Mayfield

I’ve been on the journey with my good friend and colleague Antony since he started writing Open. He’s a visionary in social media and I salute his commitment and insight and belief in the positive power of the medium.

How to Change the World – Guy Kawaski

I’ve also watched the emergence of this blog by one of my favourite business writers. He’s so succinct and remarkably generous with his insight. I think I’ve probably read most of his posts as he has wisdom in spades.

Edge Perspectives with John Hagel – John Hagel

As one of the authors of the now seminal Push to Pull paper, I’ve found his insight and clarity wonderfully authoritative on emerging trends as business strategies.

HorsePigCow:: Marketing Uncommon – Tara Hunt

I like the punchy style, honesty and openness of this blog. I always get the sense that Tara loves what she does.

43 Folders – Merlin Mann

A great source of life-hacks, including this recent recap on a previous gem – Getting Things Done: Recap for ‘07 – all about ways and means of putting into practice David Allen’s ideas from Getting Things Done:The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. Has many great productivity tips for Mac users too.

What’s Next Blog – Bl Ochman

Relatively new to this one, but full of great examples of social media in practise – good and bad.

TechCrunch – Michael Arrington

The source of hot and new web companies and applications.

Right, next step in the evolution of this blog is to create a blogroll with the above.

On learning and learning French slowly

For the last five years or so I’ve enjoyed the immense pleasure of the eclectic French radio station FIP. Lucky us in Brighton, we can get it on FM. In fact, a guy once knocked at the door doing market research for RADAR and asked about our listening habits. Much to my surprise FIP had been mentioned by numerous other people in our street.

Anyway, I’ve come to love the mix of jazz, indie, French pop, French classics with accordian and the fact that the music is back-to-back apart from a couple of minutes of news at ten to the hour. That’s the time when I focus on learning French. I can usually get the gist of the main stories, clock the football scores and occasionally grasp what’s on musically in and around Paris.

I like the idea of learning this way. Reminds me of 50Lessons, a company with a really simple approach to sharing wisdom. I had the pleasure of working with them for a short time last summer.

I was also interested to hear on the radio yesterday about the government’s personalised learning approach to education. Having had some exposure to the BBC’s Digital Curriculum project when working with Magic Lantern in 2005 and being well aware of Charlie Leadbeater’s influential writings on this topic, it will be interesting to see how this concept evolves. Must talk to teacher friends.. Incidentally I was both delighted and amused to be quoted in Charlie’s open work in progress We-think. Shame he referred to me as Frank. Nevermind