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Re: Where the words come from | Broadcasting Brain

bob ashley — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:56:08 -0000

A lot of poets, especially, but other artists have described the source of their inspiration more along the lines of Townsend. Wordsworth called himself a "midwife", merely the mechanical means through which his art became manifest.

I think it's like this because the worst forms of art are invariably the "motivated" ones. They're characterized by the forced nature of their creation. So, for example, imagine yourself saying, " Okay, right now I'm going to sit down and write the most heart-rending love sonnet ever written." We know the result before pen hits paper: stilted, clumsy, phoney.

The "calling" is something of different, but related animal to the Muse. It's metaphorical, of course, which is something Mick Jagger didn't really understand apparently. The calling is more related to vocation than art, but it still speaks to the unmotivated force impelling ones action. The calling merely stands in for this meaning by situating the voice, the caller, outside of oneself. Obviously, you don't call to yourself, but your mother downstairs will call you upstairs to say "Supper's ready!".

So, the calling's best examples go with people like Ghandi or Mother Theresa. Human need, external to these people appeared to call them directly, and they answered the voice, not unlike the way you'd answer your mom, "I'm coming".

So, like motivated crappy poetry, a "designed" career is probably going to miss the mark. You'll probably be miserable. Probably because it's so self-centred, so private and individualistic. Fulfillment, I think most people will agree, most strike a harmonious balance between public and private lives. You can't force yourself on the public. That won't work. You've got to hear the calling, that external voice which seems to be calling just you.

So you get this uber-helpful guys like Chris Brogan, a guy who obviously understands that success or fulfillment in social media can't be strickly self-motivated. He listens. He has a calling and it comes from "out there", or "down there" in the case of mom.

This stuff is all literary, going back to Greek drama with the likes of the Oracle of Delphi, or the Bible, as in the Burning Bush, and throughout English literature. In this respect a guy like Chris is the Moses of Social Media, leading the rest of us from bondage to the promised land.

My two cents.

Thanks for provoking thought!

bob

Re: Where the words come from | Broadcasting Brain

bob ashley — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:22:12 -0000

Thanks Mark. You wrote a post inspiring thought! Further to the calling, I'd ask anyone to think about it, imagine theirs. I'll bet you're staring off into space towards something far away and definitely external. That's because you're listening for the voice/concept/idea/inspiration to emerge from "out there". Townsend can call it "divine", others something else, but it doesn't matter, you're definitely NOT looking into your solar plexus, searching your "inner" being.

I guess my point here is that we so often forget the metaphorical basis of our thinking and sublime logic (or beauty) it can communicate. One NEVER calls out to oneself, literally, for the simple reason that you're right here. The calling is only necessary, physically, literally speaking when the caller is at a distance, a far distance. For the same reason if someone is calling to you within your circle of personal space, you might say, "Stop shouting at me! I'm right here for cripes sakes!"

So those who follow their calling, by this logic, are drawn, not pushed. To answer the call one must move towards the call's origin. In short, to answer a calling, one must step out and beyond constrictures and confines of one's own self. Notice, too, that the word "vocation" has the Latin "voice" as its root. It means literally something (like a career) which has been invoked or impelled by a voice.

Again, another metaphor. We're dead without them. We can't think without them.

And to get in my ideological two cents, I eschew the popular notion that content is everything. Content is nothing without form. Unless one masters the formal properties of communication, content is merely dumpster full of gems. Form is what makes the ring, the crown, the neckless precious. I guess this also speaks to design and it's inescapable importance in shaping content.

The great bloggers possess a formal genius, even if it's unconscious. The most boring, lifeless blogs are often the most content rich. But who wants to read the phone book, the epitomy of content!

Evidently, you've pushed one of my buttons! In the nicest way. Thanks.

bob

bob

Re: Kaplan-Myrth Consulting - Government Representatives on Twitter

bob ashley — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 21:25:45 -0000

All of the national political party leaders are tweeting @LiberalTour, @pmharper, @jacklayton, @elizabethmay. Or should I say their teams are doing it for them. I'm the CAO for the Town of Berwick in Nova Scotia, trying (and failing) to germinte a twitter network of professional peers. I might be the only CAO-tweeter in Canada! Which means of course, that it's useless from that perspective. Compensating, though, I've made some good connections with twitterers from the UK, NZ, Australia and the States.

I'm curious about ident.ca but wondering what the uptake is like.

Re: Get Through the Fluff with Twitter

bob ashley — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:35:39 -0000

Nice post. I agree...mainly. But there's something to be said for the long, slow, undulating conversation. It has a place. And it eschews Fordian "efficiency" in favor of the slow ripening.

We gotta know how to shift gears, from the accelerando of Twitter to the ritardando slow, patient talk to really get to know someone. But this is just so much fluff I puff! Enjoy the energy in your writing.

Re: 7 Habits of Highly Effective Twitterers: Kris Colvin

bob ashley — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 06:26:19 -0000

Usually, I don't like lists, but I really like this one. Lists are often the blogger's "landfill" where any and every idea gets dumped. The results are predictably threadbare and predictable. But Kristi has obviously given carefully crafted thought to which items belong of don't belong on her list. Introducing ideas like Mission, Mind-Sharpening, and Synergy provoked some thought for me, meaning, the list had meaning for me.

Good job. Good writing.

bob

Re: 2008/11/12/renaming-government-2/

bob ashley — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 23:47:28 -0000

I agree with Taylor. Gov2.0 has gained significant truck, enjoying widespread uptake, and appears to telegraph a distinct semantic field. I think we need to watch our own lust for the new like we would an untrustworthy dog. If all we're going to do is substitute one buzz phrase for another, we'll tire of that soon enough too, no matter what. In any case, this sort of craving to control the lexicon is completely beyond anyone's control, always has been. Nobody in the times of Middle English said, "You know what? Calling the flesh of fruit "meat" is really dumb. We oughta stop it!" It dies of its own accord.

Funny, no one says, "Aren't you sick of the metaphors that says the sun "rises" and "sets". The sun does nothing of the kind, yet it sticks. These things have settled into our consciousness as literal, not figurative.

I neither like nor dislike the term gov2.0. People in our communicative community seems to share a good deal about what that phrase means, so it's still useful. If all the quest is about is the new kewl, then we're just fad chasers anyhoo. "Quantum" is certainly kewl, but like a new tattoo. The shine would fade in a week because it has absolutely no semantic relation to the web, nor does it communicate the notion of incremental advancement the way 2.0 does.

My vote is to let gov2.0 die a natural death.

bob

Re: Growing New Crops

bob ashley — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 23:56:55 -0000

Thoughts about "incubating" in the newer media environment is a topic I think has been underexplored. Tons of presentations, articles on such extolling the millions interacting this web2.0 way and the millions doing it that way. Practically nothing on atomic beginnings. The chronicles of infancy of networks are absent. We need an archeological angle.

It's germane to me, for whom the Twitter network in my profession as a municipal administrator in my local (Nova Scotia) does not yet exist. I am one sperm in a wiggle-search for my first egg. I'm "pre-incubation".

Great stuff, Chris, really, ah, well, errrm, "fertile".

bob ashley, cao
Town of Berwick, Nova Scotia Canada
@bashley

Re: Growing New Crops

bob ashley — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:26:12 -0000

I agree with Jason, except I'd offer "organizational culture" may have broader relevance than "corporate culture". Both the private and public sectors share a pathology (psychosis?) of stultifying bureaucracy. Daniel Boone, the individual, blazes trails in the wide open frontier, but his organized followers build fiefdoms and fortresses. Preparedness for change is a survival mechanism for Daniel Boone, just as its polar opposite--resistance to change--marks the organization's preservation instinct. Empires, private or public, depend on an unmoving gravitational center. That's why I work for a small town--we manage to retain a residue of the guerilla's flexibility.

Re: Five Ways to Connect and Add Value

bob ashley — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 08:55:40 -0000

Perhaps the people principles are old news, but Chris's angle on them from a web2.0 perch are still on-the-vine fresh (e.g. searching someone on Flickr before an event). That point one is great suggestion and I wish I had tried it out before a convention I recently attended.

Pushing virtues like generosity and thoughtfulness are always worth a million iterations or more.

bob

Re: Advice for People Attending Conferences

bob ashley — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 22:48:03 -0000

Timely post Chris. I'm in the middle of the annual convention of the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities. A couple hundred local politicians and 50 or so exec staff like me. (Chief Administrative Officers). These people aren't shy.

Perhaps against the grain, I never go to these things with an agenda. Strategic agendas is what I do every day at the office. No, I'm there to chat with people, build eye-contacts, listen to, and tell local stories, have fun, relax, laugh. It's unmotivated immersion.

The "poli" in politics means "people". And people are the sine qua non of any socialmedia, including a convention. This is just to vault simple relationship building to a lofty principle. A gathering like that is just Twitter unplugged.

Today I had lunch with the former Premier of Nova Scotia. And that's all it was. We had a good laugh. And that's enough.

bob

Re: Two Important Speaking Tips

bob ashley — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:52:06 -0000

I'm the bad ole' weirdo, I guess. I think most presentations are already overly structure-bound, most leaving little room for spontaneous anything. I like digression, interaction, repartees, tangents, questions, irreverence, asides. That's got way more drama, especially with a good speaker, good on his/her feet. I figure this is how Shakespeare would've done it.

And I don't crave action items. It's just a little too patent. Anything worth doing, I figure is worth THINKING about before I act. I'm wacko, but I think we, most of us, are action-obsessed, at great expense. I'd be refreshed by a speaker who left me with "points to ponder", leaving actions to my own wherewithalls. And the lecture/seminar/essay are still not dead, all of these posing more questions for thought than they answer in action items.

Sooooo....you can please all of the people some of the time and you can please....well, you know the rest.

For all that, though, striking an ironic pose, I'll heed your advice, knowing I'm a black sheep minority.

bob

Re: Social Media Just Killed Your Non-Profit’s Mission Statement (and that’s a good thing)

bob ashley — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:50:02 -0000

Just tweeted to @remarkablogger who linked to your article that I think we should retire the Mission Statement. It's such a threadbare throwback to western culture's relentless history of missionary zeal. Embedded in the term's etymology is the quest for religious salvation.

I think you've got the chronology of the Mission Statement's sad pathology right on! Once the fervor is digested, the sound of the typical mission statement takes on a stale tone and hue of flatulence.

We can do better. Such as simply and always bringing one's best to the project, to the task at hand, always driving from core values, consistent principles, and positive exuberance in action to do better.

If we must persist with the MS, Committees ought to pick the best and most creative poet in the room and delegate the task. Proof positive is the inescapable fact that the best writing is also offspring of individuals. God forbid Hamlet had been written by the Elizabethan Drama Committee! Can you beat Hamlet's:

"The play's the thing/ wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king!"

bob

Re: Social Media Just Killed Your Non-Profit’s Mission Statement (and that’s a good thing)

bob ashley — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 19:29:34 -0000

Thanks Michael! I guess that phrase just kinda, well, you know, like...it just slipped out.

Or, the mission statement as concept is also kinda like an old snapshot, discolored, fading away.

I think the notion of the mission still works excellently in the sphere of the military. But that's command-and-control stuff, and we sm-types favor a decentralized, cloud-like, approach. We don't "attack" problems, our communities "swaddle" them.

bob

bob