Robert Paterson's Weblog

More BS needed in Ottawa

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To all those "But what are the actions steps? folks" - Conversation is the best action

Earlier in the same day I was at an open space meeting for an organisation coming to grips with a recent merger. It was the first time they had come together in their new form and so had much to talk about. Which they did. They had rich and varied conversations, if albeit somewhat predictable (which is often the case in a one-day open space event).

Still, some people complained at the end that nothing happened except talk. “Without tangible actions the day would be a waste.” Since when did engaging in conversations about what’s important to a business classify as nothing? Since when did building relationships with new colleagues and strengthening existing ones be seen as a waste of time?

By this measure, Stephen Fry did nothing. Was a waste of time.

That’s not how I see it. I see people so busy proving how busy they are that they forget the substance of human connection – conversations and relationships. Organisations and businesses often talk about being resilient and responsive. If that’s what they really want, they should take better care to value the time and energy it actually takes to build and nurture relationships, both within and outside of the business, that will weather the good and bad times.

Having a conversation is doing something – something important, necessary and nourishing.

via vivmcwaters.com.au

Most people act before they know what is really going on - You may get very busy doing the wrong thing.

Many people want to act before the larger group is ready. Off you go alone because the larger group is not with you.

Have you not been surprised if you have talked over time abut a complex problem - how new aspects seem to emerge that you had no idea about before? What if you had just rushed in to action before you knew as much as you do now?

Have you not found that when you really converse with each other, at a deep level, how you feel closer and more trusting about the other folks on the team. How does this trust and closeness affect the action when you finally come to take it?

Who are the people who are so strident about action? What is their track record for effectiveness?

I think that we don't talk enough. I think that the cause of our constant inability to make progress on the complex challenges that confront is is that we act too soon.

More exploration and more trust is needed. - So there I have spoken!

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Boingo - The Power of Strong Ties

What would it be like if your business had a sales, marketing and support force that was 1.3 million strong that you did not have to pay for? What if you could source this leverage with a tiny central force? Sounds impossible? Do you have any idea of how this could work?

Now that everyone is using Social Media – what I am seeing mainly are people who using the new tool in the old way – trying to shout above the noise – “Look at ME!” “Aren’t I cool!” “Aren’t we good!”. I am seeing a Dilbert approach – “Let’s have a Facebook site” “Let’s get on Twitter”.

Most do what most do when a new technology arrives – they apply it in the old way and so get nothing in response.

So what then is the power and leverage that you can harness by using social media well?

Boingo are on their way to finding out how to do this. Oh yes and I am one of the people that are part of this and oh yes I am not being paid and nor do I in any way work for them. I am living the theory.

So how might this work and so how might you do this too?

Boingo have a class of people that are deeply committed to the enterprise that Baochi calls her “Super fans”. They and why they are connected to Boingo and each other is the core of the leverage potential. We will meet 4 of them in this post who agreed enthusiastically to be interviewed by me. As you will see, these Super Fans are attracted first of all to Boingo by the obvious:

• The service – easy one stop access to Wifi in Airports and Hotels – is now no longer a nice to have for travellers but an essential
• The support for the service is outstanding – got a problem – you get instant personal help

But a great product is not enough. Nor is good service. What is the differentiator for Boingo is the human nature of the relationship that Boingo has with its customers. Most organizations do not allow their people to be human. Service people are often ciphers working from a script. Boingo have set up an environment where their key point of contact is a real person who is allowed to be herself.

She has a name and a face and we are all in awe and a bit in love with her. We all feel her presence watching over us. It is way more than getting her help when we can’t sign on. She watches out for us. Have a problem – A quick tweet. In minutes she is there. She is like the guy who runs the old corner store who holds your keys when you go away, keeps an eye on your kids in the street, helps you find a new roommate.

As Nuno Montegro, a customer in Portugal says – It is not what she says but how she says things that is the difference.

Nuno is like me, a customer who actively refers others to the service.

Most of Social media is all about Weak Ties – They are very useful but Weak Ties don’t get people to do much – or risk much – or commit much – that is why they are Weak – they are easy.

If you want to do something – Civil Rights in the US – you need Strong Ties. (Nice new piece by Malcolm Gladwell that explores Weak and Strong Ties in depth)

The key to attracting Strong Ties is being human. It is NOT PIMPING your product. It is instead to show that you really do care about ME. It is instead to show that you can indeed be trusted.

How do you show this? Nuno makes the point that every service and product fails at times. The key is to offer the best possible response to the inevitability of a problem. The best possible response is to know from experience that if there is a problem, you can reach a real person quickly and that they will go the distance to help you get it fixed. “I felt as if I was the only customer in the entire world when she was helping me” Bruno told me. I had the same experience.

Attracting Strong Ties is all about “Giving”.

Aaron Strout is the CMO at social media agency, Powered Inc. and is also Super Fan. “Boingo is proactive and they don’t expect a direct return – they are not selling all day – so if they want an inch, I go the mile back. It’s Karmic! I know if I have a problem that they will look after me. If people are good and do good, then good comes back. Not necessarily directly but good gets attracted back. We talk about a wide range of things that affect me not just the product – which is great too – have to have that – they listen.”

What Aaron is talking about here is a very old model for an economy that was the centre of all tribal economies – the Gift Economy. In the Gift Economy, the Big Guy is not the man who has the most stuff but the person who gives the most.

This is the power in networks – this is how Open Source Works too.

Cliff Bremmer is a programmer who works for a company called Carley Corporation that bids on government contracts to develop instructional CD base/computer based training for the US military.  ”In my spare time I help companies understand and navigate the social media spectrum in a professional yet interactive way.  The company I’m currently helping is the one my father works for called the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel“.

The Gift?

Not only is he a fan but in interacting with Boingo he has learned a lot about how to use SM media well. “If there is anything I’m proud of lately it’s that I helped the Pegasus Hotel promote their brand with the help and support of @Boingo and other companies to become one of the most popular brands in Jamaica.” Boingo is  not only helping him with his travel and Wifi but is talking with him and helping him help his dad in his business with advice and Tweet Up prizes such as free access and bag tags. The Gift in action!

He can see the flaws of how most use SM – “They are stuck in self promotion versus communication. I can see through it all – it’s all about them.”

In the Gift Economy that drives Trust and so Strong Ties, the starting point is YOU. In the non network economy the starting point is ME. No small difference!

Shelby Rogers is a flight attendant, a serving soldier (in the active reserve) and the wife of a serving soldier. Travel is her life. When she is not working, she travels. Access to Wifi has made her travel better – “I now know more than the Gate Agent does about my flights!” and it has taken away much of the loneliness that travel brings with it. Who has not been alone eating room service and watching TV in our room? “I can stay in touch with my husband on Skype and every city seems to have a friend in it.”

For Shelby, Boingo is a service that truly meets her needs. But it is how Boingo is connected to her that has transformed a pleased customer into a Super fan.

How often has your service provider taken you out to dinner? “We have even had dinner recently. I am now a walking billboard for Boingo with winking bag tags!”

So what does this mean? What are the lesson for both Boingo and for you?

• Baochi is no accident – the Boingo senior leadership have created the role and given it the space to enable someone who is naturally humane to be herself inside it. This new way of using Strong Ties to be the centre of a network is all about culture. In most cases senior leadership is too scared to let go. But if you do let go and create this safe place then the power of the network effect can be yours
• A really powerful network has to have an inner core bound by Strong Ties. This is where the leverage is. One staff person like Baochi can without too much trouble have close ties with 34 people. That gives her an outer network of 1.3 million. If she can handle the Dunbar limit of 144 that creates an opportunity of 400 million! You can see that with the right person, you can have a vast reach – provided you realize that your goal is not to have thousands of relationships but a few Strong Ones
• The secret is the math of social leverage. Many of you know about the “Dunbar Number”. Some of you know about “Magic numbers – the hierarchy of trust in human groups. If you don’t here is a quick primer.

So what now?

I think that the next stage would be this:

• At the moment all the Super Fans have a strong relationship with Baochi – I think that the best next step might be to find a way to connect them to each other
• At the  moment most of the dialogue is still about the obvious and excellent service that Boingo provides – I think that some of the work that the Super Fans could do might be to deepen the conversation – Shelby touched on this in her interview with me – What is it that being easily connected while travelling does? In her case it helped her deal with isolation and loneliness – it helped her do her job better – it kept her in touch with her husband – these are deep issues that I think connect all of us who travel a lot

As I think about networks, I think about the laws of physics. All systems have order and attractors. Some force is needed to keep systems coherent.

Think of the Sun in our own local system. It has mass that provides a gravity that holds all the planets and asteroids and stuff in a pattern. It has energy that creates life in the system. I think that any healthy human social system has to have gravity and light.

At the very centre is the “Right Space” a Trusted Space created by the leadership. In this Space, the Right Person – Right being a person who as part of her natural persona truly cares about others. Connected to her is the fuel and the mass that makes up the Sun – the Super Fans. The closer they are to the centre and the closer they are to each other – the more mass and the more energy. The more mass and energy, the larger and more healthy the network of Weak Ties that form up around the Sun.

What gets in the way is our fear about losing control.

At Disney the surface of the Brand Icon never changes but inside the mask is a person who changes all the time and so is never allowed to speak.

But in the new world we have to take off the costume and let the person inside have conversations with the public – HARD to do.

via fastforwardblog.com

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How to end the obesity epidemic

Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.

This video shows the roots of the epidemic - policy - cheap food - school as a focus of cheap food - the focus on the car which has shut out any other form of getting around and also a focus at school on the classroom alone.

The most difficult battleground - the school cafeteria!!!!!

So if policy was the cause, then policy can be the cure. More on this soon

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We need more Sunshine and less Sunscreen - The paleo way

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Exercise less & differently - the Paleo Way

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Do you have a brain or a cabbage? - The Paleo Food Test

Georgia farmer sued for growing too many vegetables | Grist

This puppy doesn’t think it’s possible to have too many vegetables. Photo: snugglepup via Flickr

In these times of economic crisis, rising poverty, and diet-related health problems, you'd think local governments would have bigger priorities than counting the number of squash and broccoli plants on people's lawns. Unfortunately that's not the case for Georgia resident Steve Miller, a landscaper by profession and organic farmer by heart, who's been caught tomato-red-handed growing a downright offensive number of vegetable plants on his property outside of Atlanta. (The exact number of criminal plants unknown.)

Dubbed "Cabbage-Gate" by friends and neighbors of Miller, officials in Dekalb County, Georgia, are suing him for $5,000 in fines for not having his land properly zoned to grow such an apparently ridiculous number of vegetables -- even after he stopped growing them and got rezoned.

If the county is suing this long-time hobby farmer for growing too many vegetables, how many are "acceptable" anyway? Twenty? Eleven? As many as you want as long as that doesn't include cabbage?

via grist.org

Just when I thought life could not get more silly - this!

This weekend I will be talking more about our disconnect with food and the natural world.

My context - Jane Jacobs said that Dark Ages arrive when people forget. When they forget because of a cultural bias how to do important things.

Such as today - how to raise a child - what an education is - how to grow and cook food. All of these things are of course connected in one meta thing that we have forgotten - that we are part of nature and how nature herself works.

We have disconnected from nature and so we have got completely lost.

This weekend I will offer up a few stories of how others are finding their way home - stories that any of us can emulate. For the way home is available - we can remember.

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Why I am so concerned about Immigration & the Media

About Homeland

America has always been a nation of immigrants. Throughout our history, there have been times where immigration has been perceived as a national threat to our way of life—we live today in one of those times.

The purpose of Homeland initiative is to help people define how we as a country and a community should best deal with immigration.  We will explore the complexity of immigration issues faced by our society. The goals of Homeland:

• Create a safe place for America to talk about one of the most sensitive issues facing our country in the 21st century
• Connect people to the issues, resources and each other
• Give people a voice to confront the question, “are we as a country still a beacon to immigrants?”

The issues faced in Missouri are a microcosm of the larger national debate raging on immigration.  We’re exploring the issues that make up the complicated national narrative of immigration through a collaborative process that will live in a multi-platform environment designed to engage participation and action:

• Local and statewide facilitated conversations with community members
• Guided citizen media creation
• Purpose-driven, original digital media creationa national, prime-time, four-hour television series
• A robust online space for people to participate and connect to issues and to each other.

The bulk of our engagement will occur in 2010 with broadcast series delivery in mid-2011.

Why Immigration?

There is no savior coming on a white horse with all of the answers to our nation’s immigration woes.  Immigration remains a dominantly divisive issue in America and the issues faced in Missouri are a microcosm of the larger national debate on immigration. Confusion, fear, and uncertainty have reduced the issue of immigration to meaningless and repetitive sound bites hindering our ability to engage with the issues and find thoughtful positions and actions in keeping with our national identity and beliefs.

Why immigration? By 2050, the Census Bureau predicts, the United States will have a new minority: whites. Already, non-Hispanic whites are the minority in California, Texas, New Mexico and Hawaii, and about one in 10 U.S. counties.  Missouri currently has no county like that — but that’s likely to change in the next decade and the results of the 2010 Census may paint a different picture of who makes up American communities.

The Homeland initiative is really about the community and that’s where this idea started.  It started with dialogue with people across our community—attending countless meetings where people were looking for answers on the future of our region.  What we heard countless times was that in order for our region to prosper and thrive, we need population growth and in order to achieve population growth—we must embrace immigration.

The term immigration is innocuous enough—or so we thought.  What we we’re learning from talking to lots of people in our community is this: When you talk about immigration, most people are really talking about illegal immigration. “Legal immigration—that’s fine.  People who come here illegally—that’s not okay,” is what we’ve heard countless times as we’ve talked with over one thousand people across our community.

What we’ve learned is—it’s complicated. Immigration is a complex web of chicken and egg issues and we alone don’t have the answers. Most media paint a dichotomy of solutions—it’s black or white, this or that, one side or the other.  There is no in between—you must choose a side or you don’t fit.  All the important issues faced by communities across the country are complicated. But what if we connected lots of people with each other? What if people in our community found a way to reduce the complexity around the issues of immigration? What if they had more and better information to help them decide what’s right for them and for where they live? What if you didn’t have to choose a side?  Could this work on immigration help communities take on other complicated issues—issues that are stuck because of polarization? This is what public media can do better than anyone and this is why we’re taking on this work.

via explorehomeland.org

Here is a summary of what KETC - my client - is trying to do. I speak for myself here.

The challenges that America and most of the world face are complex and dangerous. If we cannot find a path, they have the power to weaken or even destroy us. But the way that the media works today that feeds into our political system makes it impossible to act responsibly.

Our current media system reduces everything to a binary shouting match - I'm right and you are not only wrong but evil! The result ever great polarization and gridlock. The result, we watch "Political Theatre" as millions face a future with no jobs - while the clock ticks on Peak Oil - while our education system and our infrastructure crumbles.

The impressive civic discourse and can do aspect of American life that de Tocqueville so admired has been replaced by arguments about dogma similar to the early Christian debates about how many angels could stand on the head of a pin.

As Markets do indeed shift to being Conversations - Politics and Media have become Gladiator Shows.

My wonderful client - KETC - has been on 4 year journey of discovery to find out if a local public TV station could find out how to bring back that great American tradition - the "Safe Town Hall" where citizens could be heard and get connected to solve the problems that faced them. Where the intention is to find a way of working with each other to do what is best for our community.

Are you tired of all the bullshit? Do you long for a place where good people can commit to each other to help make where they live a better place?

If you do then please have a look at what we are doing - we are at the baby steps now - and need your advice and support.

For what we are doing is so old that we have all but forgotten how to do this - but we have the wonder that is the web on our side. We are just a bunch of regular folk who are struggling up the Missouri River as Lewis and Clark did. We have an aim as you can see that is clear - we know some things but like all voyages of discovery - we cannot know that is around the next river bend or over the next range of mountains.

Like Lewis and Clark - we need the advice and the help of the natives along the way - for without this they and we could never complete the journey.

By helping us - you help yourselves and your children. For if we can find a way to create the environment for a discourse in a topic that is as messy as immigration, then we can do this for all the issues that currently confound us.

The real new media 2.0 are not the tools. The new politics 2.0 is not your senator on Facebook. America 2.0 is a nation that has got its mojo back - a nation of people from many places that can get together and work out how to get through the great challenges that confront us in the 21st century

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G20 - Money and choices

Billed as a legacy gift to the city, its cost and that of many others are revealed for the first time as Canadians get a close look as to how the hosting tab for the back-to-back G8/G20 summits climbed to $1-billion.

That green wall inside the Direct Energy Centre? $246,000. Other odds and sods on the list include a $26,661 tab for electronic mosquito traps, $31,390 on flag polls and $14,049 for glow sticks.

via theglobeandmail.com

Don't ever accept as an answer from a politician that "We don't have the money!" As we can see from this - there is always the money - the real issue is one of choice.

I am finding that my test of a politician and a government is made on not what they did but on what they chose - where is their focus and does it line up with what I think is right.

So what do you think about choices that favour - more security - more prisons - looser gun control - looser regulation - more support for corporations and for the established energy and food system? Ask how this helps Canada. Ask who benefits. Ask who loses. Ask does this get at the complex forces that are working on our stability and future as a country?

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