Nollind Whachell

In my last post, I mentioned that you need to be open to accepting inspiration from unlikely places (in that case from feedback). I think this mirrors my thoughts a while back when I said that doing at least one thing differently daily will help you see the world through different eyes which in turn can lead to new ideas and inspiration as well. Back then, I was talking about my discovery of permaculture. Today I’m talking about a book that I discovered by chance that basically confirms a lot of the thoughts that I’ve been having over the past few years.

Why I’m saying this happened by chance is that there’s a local community paper that I read basically once in a blue moon. Luckily I happened to glance at one of the captions on the cover the other day and I noticed a mention of Margaret J. Wheatley who wrote a book called Turning To One Another that I had read some years back. So interested in what she was up to now, I decided to grab the paper so I could read it later. Well in reading the article on her later that day, I basically sat there with my jaw dropping down the floor in amazement, as everything my intuition had been hinting at over the past few years was basically confirmed in a couple of pages of that single article.

What this article was entitled was Community: The Promise and Paradox which relates to her latest book entitled Finding Our Way: Leadership For an Uncertain Time. Of course, I immediately called the local bookstore near my place and asked if they had it. They did and so I grabbed it, returned home, and immediately started reading it. However, instead of starting from the front of the book, I skimmed the table of contents at the front and found a chapter entitled The Real Work of Knowledge Management. Again in that single chapter, almost everything I had been thinking and feeling about over the past few years was confirmed and even more so clarified for me.

To sum up, if you are interested in the Web (yes this includes Web 2.0 as well), organization, structure, knowledge, relationships, communities, culture, or anything along those lines, I’d highly recommend you read this book. Here’s one quote from it below that really stood out for me and mirrored my thoughts on what the culture of the Web would be like if it were a business (that being the dream “business” that we’d all like to work for).

It Is Natural for People to Create and Share Knowledge
We have forgotten many important truths about human motivation. Study after study confirms that people are motivated by work that provides growth, recognition, meaning, and good relationships. We want our lives to mean something; we want to contribute to others; we want to learn; we want to be together. And we need to be involved in decisions that affect us. If we believed these studies and created organizations that embodied them, then work would be far more productive and enjoyable. We would discover that people can be filled with positive energy. Organizations would be overwhelmed by new knowledge, innovative solutions, and great teamwork. It is essential that we begin to realize that human nature is the blessing, not the problem. As a species, we are actually very good to work with.

Other Recommended Books:

Randy S. Nelson: “We’ve made the leap from an idea-centered business to a people-centered business. Instead of developing ideas, we develop people. Instead of investing in ideas, we invest in people. We’re trying to create a culture of learning, filled with lifelong learners. It’s no trick for talented people to be interesting, but it’s a gift to be interested. We want an organization filled with interested people.”

Dave Seah sent me an email indicating that he had participated in the Four Things meme and was passing it on to me. Ever the rebel, never wanting to do things like others, I’ve decided that I won’t follow the meme exactly as indicated but instead rip it apart, analyze it, and rebuild it if you will. You know Six Million Dollar Man sort of thing.

Why do people do stuff like this? Easy. They want to know more about the people around them. The assumption is that people can often tell a lot about others by what they read, watch, and so on. A good example of this is Dick Hardt’s presentation about Identity 2.0 at OSCON 2005 in which he asks “Who am I?” and proceeds to basically tell us that I am where I live, what I watch, what I read, and so on.

So why do we have to ask for this information? Because a lot of people don’t put this stuff on their website. Sometimes it’s not the big things that people want to know about (i.e. What’s your life’s ambition?) but the little things (i.e. What do you usually eat for breakfast?), as all those little things connected together (aka Small Pieces Loosely Joined) give a more accurate representation of the person than the one big thing.

Should people be putting this stuff on their website? Hmm, well, I think it really depends upon the person. For example, if I indicate four places I’ve been in my life, I think that’s kind of pointless. Yes it gives you an idea of the places I like to go but it doesn’t really tell you why I wanted to go their in the first place. If on the other hand, I had a journal entry for each location I went to, giving a brief description of the ups and downs of each trip, then I’d think you’d get a more accurate idea of why that place interested me in the first place. In other words, what was the motivation for me wanting to go to that location. Same goes for reading books. I may list the lastest books I’ve read on my site but unless I give a brief description of what I like and disliked about the book, you aren’t going to know what motivated me to read this. For example, I may indicate I just finished reading a fantasy novel. Ok you think, he like fantasy books and you picture in your mind some D&D geek. Yet if I told you that novel made me realize the importance of friendship, community, and global cooperation, you’d probably be surprised that I even found that in a fantasy novel or was even looking for it in the first place. What I’m getting at here is that everyone sees the world through different eyes and thus while we both may be looking at the same thing, we probably aren’t seeing exactly the same thing.

So what am I going to to about this? Right now nothing, primarily because I don’t have the time. However, when I do get the time, I would like to add journal streams to my site that cover topics similar to what this meme talks about (to a degree anyways).

Jobs I’ve Had – An employment journal of where I’ve worked. Categorized, rated and with job descriptions. Unfiltered, it would be like a mini-resume of my past employment. Filtered by rating, it would be some of the best jobs I’ve had.

Favorite Movies – A movie journal of those I’ve watched. Categorized, rated, and reviewed. My top four rated movies would equate to the movies I could probably watch over and over again.

Places I’ve Been – A location journal of where I’ve lived. Categorized (by world location), rated, and with descriptions. In effect, a mini-travel review of the locations I’ve lived. The things that I loved (and possibly hated) about living in these places.

Favorite TV Shows – Not really sure I’d add this as I’m not that big of a TV watcher, as most TV shows are mindless to me. Hmm, although if I did displayed it then you might be surprised at what I did watch (i.e. documentaries, history channel, etc), so having it might actually be beneficial in relaying “who I am” and “what interests me”.

Websites I Visit Daily – Hmmm, this to me would just be a link list (ala del.icio.us) journal. The top four rated sites would probably be those that I visited daily (or at least more frequently than others).

Food I Love – Hmm, not sure about this. I could maybe see a restaurant review type journal instead. In effect, you discovered the food I loved by the places I eat.

Places I Want To Go – Again, not sure about this. I mean there isn’t any one place that sticks out in my mind right now. More than anything I like wandering from place to place off the beaten track. Gypsy boy that’s me. 🙂

Taggers I’m Blogging – A people journal of who I know and have interacted with. Categorized, rated by frequency of interaction, and with descriptions of the people. Filtered by “virtual buddies” and freqency of interaction (as Dave Seah calls them), you’d see a list of of the people I’m interacting with online the most.

Ok that’s all I can write. Back to work!

Dave Winer: “Look, the tech industry is and always will be fucked up. They still somehow manage to make a semi-usable product every once in a while. My Mac is slow as a dog, even though it has two CPUs and cost $5000, but I use it anyway because it’s prettier and slightly more fun than the crap Microsoft and Dell ship. But give me a reason to switch, even a small one, and I’m outta here.”

From the top of the first page
To the end of the last day
From the start in your own way
You just want somebody listening to what you say
It doesn’t matter who you are.

– Square One, X & Y, Coldplay

For some reason I keep buying books that relay things I already know. Not sure why but it may have something to do with just wanting some confirmation of my beliefs and intuition.

Technology doesn’t make me feel connected to the world. It is the words and actions of other people, being relayed by this technology, that does.

Dan Earle and Sue Hutchins: “Finally, we are concerned with use of immediately adjacent sites. This is likely to have great impact on design decisions because activities on them influence our site and what we do affects them.”

My head hurts from thinking too much. My heart hurts from feeling too little.

Charlie Chaplin: “We think too much and feel too little.”