Nollind Whachell

I have to totally agree with Rance Crain of Advertising Age when he states the biggest problem with ads today.

Somehow, somewhere, marketers have gotten completely off the track. They lurch from outlandish to patriotic (it’s your duty to buy from us). What they don’t do is give us any good reasons to buy their products.

Is that because there aren’t any?

It’s one of the main reasons why I don’t watch very much television anymore. I can’t stand the negative emptiness of ads today that pitch pointless products with endless hype that treat me like I’m some mindless idiot whose life will be saved when I buy their product. Get real…and then let’s talk.

It only takes a single pebble to start an avalanche of change. Therefore, if you want to change the world around you, don’t think you have to change millions of people’s lives overnight. A simple smile to a single person is all it takes.

It appears that María Adriana Arzola González, a retail owner in Monterrey, Mexico, has already paid back her Kiva loan that I assisted with last year. This means I can now turn around and reuse these repaid funds to help someone else now. Looking over some of the recent people in need of entrepreneurial aid, I’ve decided to help out Elsira Izaguirre, a grocery store owner in Choluteca, Honduras, who needs a small loan to help expand her inventory.

If you’re interested in helping out people around the world in an innovative way, definitely check out Kiva.org for more details. 

I find it quite funny how some blog authors pose a question in their posts but when their readers respond to their question, the author doesn’t respond at all in turn (not even once). I mean are you just trying to build an audience or do you actually want to create a community? If you want a community, engage them!

BTW I think one of the best blogs I’ve ever participated in that truly engaged me to the point of feeling like I was a community member of it was The Gaming Chair back in 2005 because the authors of the site truly engaged their community members in deep discussion and made them feel valued for their contributions. A particular post relating to Girls in Gaming by Maggie is a perfect example of this and you’ll even note the other site authors themselves being heavily engaged in the discussion, even before other community members joined in.

Tara Hunt has a enlightening post about the fallacies of communities, pointing out two in particular.

So, Community Fallacy #1: healthy communities are happy communities.

And then, Community Fallacy #2: healthy communities are democratic.

As I mentioned the other day, creating a community is like growing a garden. And like a garden, you don’t just plant the seeds, sit back, and wait for things to magically appear. Instead you’re going to have to do a lot of work tending the garden, digging up weeds, and running out ‘wascally wabbits’ coming into it.

It’s no different with a community (or any good relationship for that matter). Everything will not be perfect because life isn’t perfect. Therefore, expect the unexpected and be prepared for those who want to mess up your community. Having said that though, you shouldn’t be kicking out people just because they are vocally upset about something. If anything, it’s usually the people that are the most vocal, that care about the community the most. Therefore, listen to what they have to say and dig deep to find out the root of the problem they are encountering because it may not be evident just based upon what they have to say but more upon what they are experiencing.

And yes, communities most definitely should not be democracies. So true and nice to hear this from someone else who agrees with this viewpoint. The reason for this, as Tara noted, is that you will get mired in the ongoing process of consensus which can literally cripple a community and create more friction than good. So what should be done instead? I’m not sure of the best way to describe it but I often use the king/queen and his/her counsel approach as a metaphor. Those in charge of the community are like the king and the people within the community are like the counsel. Therefore, just like a king listens to his counsel, acknowledging and respecting what they have to say, the final decision and direction to take is still always made by the king himself.

Now wait a minute, you might be saying, that means the king can do whatever he feels like then, people be damned? Not true at all. As I’ve repeatedly noted before, culture is the foundation of any good community and it should be defined as early as possible, even in the community’s inception if it can. The reason for this is that it not only lets those interested in joining the community know exactly what type of community they are getting into from the very start but it also sets the standard that the community founders must live up to in their actions as the leaders of the community as well. Therefore, the more earlier and clearly you can define your community’s culture or vision, the less likely you’ll encounter problems that can fracture your community and destroy it because everyone should be fully aware of the community’s goals and principles as a whole.

BTW to see a good example of a community’s culture or principles clearly defined, see the We Know bylaws which is a guild created by Joi Ito in the World of Warcraft. Just take note that they don’t have to be that elaborate though. For example, when I was part of a Counter-Strike clan some years back, we had only five simple community rules that were clearly displayed and vigorously enforced. Doing so, we were able to create a wonderful community environment that often reminded me of the Cheers bar (i.e. Norm!), as everyone within it was very open, sharing, and caring in wanting to help each other out.

You don’t “engineer” a community. It’s not something you pull out of a box and construct with a wrench then smile and pat yourself on the back when it’s done.

Every community has it’s own unique climate and environment. Therefore you need to grow it like a garden, nurturing and tending it constantly with the same natural feelings and values that are a part of any good relationship. Ignore it though and it will wither and die.

Evan Solomon’s March 1998 interview with the NODE has to be one of my favorite interviews of all time because so many issues that he speaks about resonate with me and are still very relevant today, if not more so. Take the following quote for example, from the latter part of the interview, where he speaks about valuing ignorance.

You’re the editor of a happening magazine, you’re a writer, you’re the host of a television show. How do you cope with information overload?

I value ignorance. I unplug my phone, I unplug my e-mail, I’m notoriously difficult to get a hold of, and purposely so. Because I happen to be at the centre of a lot of information, that’s my job, and so one of the ways I protect the value of my job is that I have to retain my core competency, and my core competency is trying to discern good information from bad information. My core competency is actually learning, not talking; what gives me value is knowledge and not spewing knowledge. So the less time I spend talking to people and the more time I spend listening to people, the better.

As many of us are aware of today, small is the new big. With this in mind, it’s important to realize that it’s not the quantity of things you interact with daily that matters but the quality of them. In other words, do these things actually add meaning to your life, in a way that matters to you and your passions?

Technology has made my day inefficient because it’s opened me up…..it’s like having refrigerator that I keep on a busy street so I never have food in it because everyone can access it. No, I like to keep it locked up. So what I do is I try to really keep down the amount of information and I try to think, “Well, what information is really valuable for me to know? What helps Evan and not”…..you know, most people are trying to sell you information because it helps them and they’re convincing you that their information will help you. Well, it’s really your job to figure it out. Do you really want to know if Leon’s is having a don’t-pay-a-cent event? Well you probably know it. It takes up brain space. I hate that stuff. That’s not knowledge I need in my head. It clutters me. It’s information junk. I realize that being ignorant of certain information is more valuable to me because it allows me to value the information that I really need. I know what I need.

It seems like I see so many people out there searching for something to make them feel truly complete, yet it is often the searching through all of this “noise” that makes them feel so disconnected. Strangely enough if they just block out that noise and stop searching, that’s when they’ll realize that what they are searching for is already within them. They just need to stop, tune into themselves, and listen long enough to hear it.

William Gibson talks about going on media fasts, which is no information for five days, just going away — no phone, no TV, no radio, just your own stuff. People. It’s really weird (laughs). Try it. Try to stop watching television, listening to the radio, reading the newspaper, and go on an information fast. Do you know what happens to you? It’s like when you go away on a holiday and you’re out of touch: you relax. And you find out there are other things that are inside of you that are quite important. I think more and more people are going to go like they lose weight — they’ll go lose knowledge.

Therefore, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, and disconnected, avoid the need to go frantically looking for something to add to your life that will make it better. Instead unplug yourself completely to discover what’s already within you that makes you truly complete (as well as unique).

Adaptive Path is looking for an experienced visual designer. What caught my eye though is their focus on promoting a “live/work balance” within their company.

Adaptive Path is the people who work here. We’ve created a work environment that respects the individual—their needs, dreams and pipe dreams. We promote a live/work balance including five weeks of vacation per year.

Holy crap! Five weeks of vacation a year! Now that is my kind of work environment! They obviously recognize the importance of having time to recharge your batteries after working hard. Now if I was only a visual designer and I actually lived in San Francisco.  Hehe!  🙂

Actually when I’ve been offered jobs with companies in the past, I’d often see if I could get more weeks of vacation each year (like two or three instead of just one) in exchange for a reduced salary. I’d rather be happy, rested, and moderately well paid instead of exhausted and wealthy. In other words, I’d rather work to live instead of living to work.

While reading some blogs today, I was reminded of a great little story from the book Zen In The Martial Arts. The short story that I remembered in particular was centered around Joe Hyams, the author of the book, back when he was initially being taught by Ed Parker many years ago. At the time, Joe wasn’t that experienced or knowledgeable, so to make up for it he tried using “deceptive, tricky moves” but they were easily countered. After the match, Joe’s frustration was readily apparent and Ed picked up on it, asking him what was wrong.

“Why are you so upset?” he asked.

“Because I couldn’t score.”

Parker got up from behind the desk and with a piece of chalk drew a line on the floor about five feet long.

“How can you make this line shorter?” he asked.

I studied the line and gave him several answers, including cutting the line in many pieces.

He shook his head and drew a second line, longer than the first. “Now how does the first line look?”

“Shorter,” I said.

Parker nodded. “It is always better to improve and strengthen your own line or knowledge than to try and cut your opponent’s line.” He accompanied me to the door and added, “Think about what I have just said.”

And just one more quick thing to note in relation to this. Just because you may perceive yourself to be better than your opponent, never underestimate them. Respect them. Skillful opponents will usually use their disadvantages to their advantage (i.e. smaller means more agile), often circumventing their opponents instead of striking at them directly. Thus instead of dancing to your rhythm, they’ll dance to their own.

Guy Kawasaki interviews Chip and Dan Heath about their book Made To Stick.

And that brings us to the villain of our book: The Curse of Knowledge. Lots of research in economics and psychology shows that when we know something, it becomes hard for us to imagine not knowing it. As a result, we become lousy communicators. Think of a lawyer who can’t give you a straight, comprehensible answer to a legal question. His vast knowledge and experience renders him unable to fathom how little you know. So when he talks to you, he talks in abstractions that you can’t follow. And we’re all like the lawyer in our own domain of expertise.

So very true! And actually in a discussion with someone last night, I realized I may have been doing this very same thing. It’s almost as though I have this vision in my head of what I want to achieve and since I haven’t achieved it yet, I may be overlaying complexity when describing my vision so that it appears more complex to others than it really may be. Thus this gives me an “excuse” for not achieving my vision because it makes it look like it is a very difficult and complex one to achieve. Yet in reality, it may not be that difficult at all, it’s just that I haven’t looked at the problem from the right angle or perspective.

I mean how many times have we all struggled with a problem over and over again in frustration, only to finally solve it and slap our foreheads saying “Doh! It’s so simple.” Again, we just weren’t looking at the problem from the right point of view. Instead of opening our minds and looking at things from a different perspective, we stayed focused on a particular approach to the problem and continually hit our heads against the wall. At the point of giving up though, when we finally let go of all expectations, that is usually when we finally see the problem from a different viewpoint and achieve our eureka moment.

It’s funny. I’ve always said if you want to communicate an idea clearly, it should be simple enough for a child to understand. Well it looks like I need to start following my own advice in this regards.  🙂