Are you trying to sabotage your organization by reducing productivity? Are you trying to frustrate and dis-empower your co-workers? Do you have a laser-like focus on poor communication? If so, then you'll appreciate these six tips for how to run a meeting poorly:
Tag: communication
I have a lot of friends and colleagues who are rightly skeptical of the value that Twitter brings to the world, but who are also aware that there are things "happening" there that might be of interest. Often the perception is that they either have to break down and sign up for a Twitter account to use it full force, or that they have to miss out on those happenings altogether. Here I offer those folks (and perhaps you) a list of five ways you can use Twitter without actually being a Twitter user:
Continue reading "5 ways to use Twitter without being a Twitter user"
One of the downsides of working in a field where so much is beholden to the almighty billable hour is that my brain has started to re-wire itself to engage the day in terms of one-hour chunks. This model is reinforced by other phenomena in life - calendaring software like iCal and Google Calendar make it easy to parcel out the day in discrete bits of time, beeps, alarms and bells go off on the hour mark in many workplace and educational settings, and then there's the cultural convention that "all meetings take about an hour" unless otherwise noted. We're increasingly a people whose quality of life and measure of productivity has everything to do with the 24-hour clock.
I generally don't mind this standard when I'm in "work mode," but I've noticed a very undesirable side effect on the rest of my life: I've been slowly losing the ability to spend open-ended social time with people, without my brain trying to fit it in to some predetermined scheduling blocks. The end result is that I think I'm less open to the wonderful, serendipitous experiences and discoveries that one can make in the comfortable and unregulated presence of friends and loved ones.
I've written before about the cues we give and get for when a conversation is going to go deeper, and when it's probably not. To answer my own question about what kinds of states of being allows you to go deeper in conversation, I've been actively working on spending more open-ended time with people I care about and want to get to know better. I have a few thoughts about how it's going, and what approaches are working:
If you spend any amount of time following my online adventures - through my blog, Twitter, Facebook, or otherwise - then there are some things you need to know:
- Please don't assume that you know me because you read my posts or status updates. I'm not saying this because I think I'm mysterious or hard to know, I'm saying it because I believe reading someone's status updates does not constitute an engaged and genuine human relationship. I do use the Internet to express myself, but only one very particular slice of myself. I hope we can talk "in real life" or even via more direct online communication if we really want to get to know each other better. Continue reading "Things to know if you follow me online"
We try to keep Summersault LLC as "flat" as possible, with minimal hierarchy and focus on authority relationships, opting instead for collaborative roles and even aspirations of a tribal staffing model. But in my role as "Principal," I still end up taking on what would traditionally be called a "management" relationship with other staff.
Recently, as a part of getting ready for some staff training, I tried to write down 10 things that might be helpful for a new member of the team to know about how I approach this role. For better or worse, I now present them to you. I don’t necessarily expect you to think that they’re good practices; I offer them as self-reflection, not advice.
Continue reading "10 things about my approach to business management"
I love the Sonos multi-room music system. It's a ridiculous luxury to have and I could fill up another blog post apologizing for it, but it's too much a fulfillment of the dreams I had as a kid about what the households of the future could be like to pass it up. "Wait, you mean I can have N-Trance's Set U Free blaring in every room of the house at once, perfectly in sync? OMG!" I used to do this with FM transmitters, spaghetti audio wiring, and various mediocre gadgets - not any more.
But I'm not here to indulge in gadget lust, I'm here to tell you how Sonos, the company, is making great use of Twitter for its public relations and customer service efforts (and, by extension, how Twitter is turning out to be pretty useful for that stuff.)
Thomas Meyer (who is hopefully a real person) is the voice of Sonos on Twitter, and here's all the stuff he does right: Continue reading "Good PR via Twitter done right by Sonos"
One of the trends that disturbs me about social networking sites and perhaps even online conversations in general is that the experience of interacting in those virtual spaces is seen by some as a substitute for real world experiences and interactions. Or put another way, it's like we spend more of our time talking about how interesting and good we are at talking to each other, instead of actually talking about something. I don't say this to discount those who have meaningful online exchanges or who find authentic joy in their online relationships, but I wonder what kind of meaningful definition of humanity we're creating for future generations, when what it has historically meant to "experience the world together" is being replaced with "experiencing Facebook together."
I think I've raved here some before about the someecards website and how lovely I think it is. I have to stay away from drinking liquids when reading it lest I spray said liquid all over the screen in choking laughter. Many of the cards you can send are hilarious because they so concisely encapsulate some of the more crude or dark thoughts that pass through the human mind now and then, and in a way that somehow brilliantly echo my own sense of humor. That's maybe not such a good thing...some of them - okay, most of them - are outright offensive in their very existence, let alone if you were to actually to send them to another person, so I largely spend time browsing, and then refraining. Definitely NSFW.
Lately I've also taken up the habit of using the someecards motif to create my own cards, which often channel some dark thought or bit of sarcastic humor going through my own mind in moments of weakened self-discipline, but that I wouldn't really ever want to say out loud. It's fun because other people on the site will vote and comment on them, and sometimes even send them to their acquaintances (er, enemies?).
So, check 'em out, add your own, and send me a card. Or...maybe berate me for indulging? It's always interesting to see how it plays out for different senses of humor...how does that stuff strike you?
I've been thinking lately about the moments in a conversation when the people participating make a choice - conscious or not - about whether to let it go "deeper," or to keep it at a pleasant and polite level of chit-chat. I'm exploring that because (A) I really enjoy deconstructing how we communicate with each other, and (B) I want to take responsibility for my own part in the cases where more depth would have been a good thing, but was avoided. (I even kind of wrote a little poem about it a few years ago.)
I put "deeper" in quotes because it's one of those touchy-feely words that needs a little more definition to be useful here. When I think of a conversation reaching a new depth, I think of the people involved taking on topics that are significant or meaningful to them in ways that invites personal vulnerability or reflection, where you might have to take a stand, where the stakes are higher and there is something to gain or lose by going there. The topics that achieve this will of course vary widely by personality, community and culture.
So, what do those turning points look like? Here are a few I've noticed:
Continue reading "Choosing when to go deeper in conversation"
I really am sorry, but I can't help but share a few random things about my Twitter experiences lately. (This blog post will not have any socially redeeming value, and may need to be taken as a cry for help.)
- On Friday, I received an e-mail from Aaron Scamihorn at MediaSauce, who apparently saw one of my Twitter posts quoting a line from The Princess Bride (in Spanish, the translation for which I ripped off myself), and decided to create a bit of art because if it - see the image to the right. Quite nice, well done, wow, I'm honored.
- Two all-around interesting guys from Star Trek: The Next Generation (among other things) are on Twitter now - LeVar Burton and Wil Wheaton. Rumor has it that Brent Spiner might be next - sweet. There's something surreal and pleasant and twisted about now knowing when someone, who once played a character in a story on a show that I was thoroughly engrossed in from quite a distance, crosses the street or drinks some tea.
- I'm starting to get over Twitter, but remain intrigued by its immediacy, intimacy and global reach. It's the closest thing to a global chat room that can probably exist with today's slow hand/keyboard/monitor interfaces (and that may already be going farther than what's good for us). But it's just a bunch of people, all doing their thing, all thrown in the mix, and most of the time, it's just fascinating.
Okay, that's all, I'll stop now, carry on.