I was talking to an American friend about his health insurance. It now costs $1,700 a month. This includea a $7,000 deductible. This is up from $1,000 5 years ago. This is a house payment. I asked him when he thought it would reach $2,500 a month and what would happen then. "At this rate in maybe 2 years and I just won't be able to afford it"
If you think this is bad, and you live in Canada, don't be too smug. In less than 3 years Canada's smallest province, PEI will have total health care costs that exceed its tax receipts. In 7 years time, health care costs will be double the tax receipts. This trend will apply to all provinces in time.
By 2030, Alzheimers alone will cost Medicare the entire budget. The Health Care system that we know - get a pill for each ill when you are ill is going to crash and burn. It has already in places like Greece that does not have the funds to pay anymore. Source NPR
"There have been changes in the health sector across Europe. For example, raising copayments for medicine and doctors' visits are now more common. But the cutbacks in Greece have been the most drastic so far.
The effects of these cuts are obvious at the Hellenikon Metropolitan Social Clinic outside Athens, located near an abandoned U.S. Air Force base.
Olga Baklatzi is one of the many volunteers at what they call the underground clinic, created 13 months ago to serve those no longer covered by health insurance. She describes the kind of people who come to the clinic.
"Middle-class, simple people, working people, they just lost their jobs, builders, people who worked in shops, they are well-dressed, not scruffy or dirty," Baklatzi says.
Medicines are donated by families of patients who don't need them any more and by pharmacies.
In just over a year, 4,500 patients have visited this clinic, which provides everything from dental to cancer care.
A well-dressed, 56-year-old woman waits in line at the reception desk. She prefers not to give her name for privacy reasons. She has come for free medicines for her breast cancer. She hasn't had health coverage since 2008, when her family recording company went bankrupt.
She is angry. Her three grown children have university degrees, speak several languages and have all lost their jobs. She holds back tears. Her bitterness, she says, is the cause of her cancer.
One of the founders of the underground clinic is cardiologist Giorgios Vichas. With three years of austerity cuts, he says, life expectancy is dropping, while infant mortality has grown by 4 percent — shocking statistics in peacetime in the Western world.
The clinic, Vichas says, offers more than doctors and medicines.
"We also give them back the hope and dignity that has been taken away from them," he says."
I don't think we can count on this system anymore. And with all this cost, what do we all get? Are we as a society getting more healthy or less? You know the answer.
So the nest question is, What are you going to do?
One of the things you can do is to read my new book - out in March - You Don't Need Medicine to Get Healthy. Should be ready in March.
There is a real reveolution in health taking place where how to live to be healthy and to get healthy is becoming more and more clear. This book will offer you a guide to diet, your body and your social world. It is both personal and also rooted in the new science.
Back in 2005/6 NPR and its stations went through an Imagining Process (Called New Realities) where all the leadership in the entire system and 200 plus staff, the executive and the board of NPR - worked from this slide to imagine what life would be like in 2009/10.
Of course we have all been overwhelmed by the politcal aspects of NPR recently but how have they done in solving the paradox set for them above? How is NPR doing in both expanding its traditional audience and also being a factor on the web?
"Amid all that creative destruction, there was a one large traditional news organization that added audience, reporters and revenue. That unlikely juggernaut was NPR.
According to the State of the Media report, NPR’s overall audience grew 3 percent in 2010, to 27.2 million weekly listeners, up 58 percent overall since 2000. In the last year, total staff grew 8 percent, and its Web site, npr.org, drew an average of 15.7 million unique monthly visitors, up more than five million visitors. Its foreign bureaus and global footprint continue to grow while other broadcasters slink home.
And while NPR receives a small portion of its operating budget through government money, millions of people also think that its journalism is worthy enough to pay for through contributions, a trick that the rest of news media have had trouble figuring out, to say the least."
As we expected the web was goingto the the place to win or lose in by 2009. NPR are there and also stand out in the Social Media aspect.
"In a survey of more than 10,000 respondents, NPR found that its Twitter followers are younger, more connected to the social web, and more likely to access content through digital platforms such as NPR’s website, podcasts, mobile apps and more.
NPR has more than one Twitter account; its survey found that most respondents followed between two and five NPR accounts, including topical account, show-specific accounts and on-air staff accounts.
The data on age is hardly surprising. The median age of an NPR Twitter follower is 35 — around 15 years younger than the average NPR radio listener. This lines up with data we recently found about other traditional news media; the average Facebook user reading and “liking” content on a news website is two decades younger than the average print newspaper subscriber.
Not to put too fine a point on it, the future of news media lies in successful integration of social media to get the attention (and click-throughs) of a younger generation — a generation whose news needs are vastly different than those of the generations that preceded it.
Of NPR’s Twitter followers, the majority (67%) still do listen to NPR on the radio. But the other ways they access NPR’s content are indicative of a growing trend:"
Here is the relative position:
This is surely a strong base?
When we did the groundwork back in 2005/6 that created the conditions for this shift, we did all talk about the "Elephant in the Room" - the relationship between NPR and the Stations.
As the folks from the 300 stations went through the process - one thing became clear. They could not continue merely to be a repeater for the big magazines. They had to discover a local value that was distinct from relying on NPR.
In the public TV world, KETC has been working assiduously to do this. KETC is defining for many what "Putting the Public into Public TV" will be as NPR is doing for radio.
BUT have the bulk of the stations done the same in the last 5 years? Have they also made the break in culture and in operations to offer their community vital value?
You judge?
My intuition tells me that the public funding that the local stations rely on will be cut. There is so much momentum.
I think that NPR will in the end be fine - because they have built the direct bridge. They have realized the dream of the New Realities process - NPR have created the "Have it Your Way" reality.
They had to do this and all the stations have known this. The "Secret Plan" has been no secret. (Here are some station folks singing "Have it your way" in front of Ken Stern in St Louis in 2006.)
The tools that we could not have imagined back in 2005/6 that can aggregate and curate content from the public are all here now. Look at how the events in North Africa and Japan are being covered using these tools!
Time for the local stations to think about how this approach, these tools, and this culture can radically change their role, impact and costs.
These people want to destroy you. You don’t get to decide whether you have political enemies or not. Your enemies have that power. But you can decide how to respond to them. The default setting is a series of political defeats. It permits a trickster to take down your CEO. #
6. And what did the NPR board “win” for itself by handing James O’Keefe the public wreckage that his culture war methods require to succeed? Vivian Schiller, commenting on her resignation: “I’m hopeful that my departure from NPR will have the intended effect of easing the defunding pressure on public broadcasting.” #
Pat Butler, chief executive of the Association of Public Television Stations, which lobbies for federal money, commenting on Vivian Schiller’s resignation: “As far as I can see, no one has changed his or her mind. The people who were for us are still for us, and the people who were against us are still against us.” #
There is no one I respect more in the media space than Jay Rosen - He goes on in this seminal post to offer sound advice to NPR and to the system.
Sadly - this is not the first time he has said what he says today - there may only be this one chance to take it.
"The Voice From Nowhere - Delenda Est"
And for those who did have a classical education - This was the Battle Cry of Rome after their defeat by the Carthaginians "Carthago Delenda Est" Carthage must be destroyed.
The Voice from Nowhere is a cancer that is killing you. You must cut it out.
Those that wish to defund us do not see us as neutral. They see us as the enemy.
They could not care about how little we cost. They care not what we do that is good. They see only that we are the heretic.
To plead relevance and value in the face of this hatred is naive in the extreme. It is to be a Jew in Germany in 1932 who thinks that simply because you had the Iron Cross in the last war and had been German for hundreds of years was going to save you. We will not win this by facts, good arguments or by appeasement.
This is a fight to the death. We have to be clever at how we fight. Plan to fight a guerilla war. A war that we can win.
We look to me now like the Brits and the French in 1939 and 1940. We have won the previous engagments so we think we can coast along, bomb with leaflets and we will win this one. I don't think so.
I think that France will fall and we will be grievously wonded. We must also be prepared to be hurt and to find a way of being effective and of serving the community even if we are wounded badly.
There is no time to be lost in taking out much of our own costs.
What Andy has done in global news is an example of how even with tiny resources but with the brand we can have power.
We have to plan to fight back. No with ranting but how all successful popular wars are won. We must do the one thing we can do that they never can or will - we must serve the people.
Our future is not in showing Nova.
Our future is in mobilizing people to solve their own problems. Who else can help people find their way to a new economy? Who else can find another way we can be healthy that does not rely on the system? Who else can help us get to grips with the mess that is our education? Who else can take on Big Food or Big Pharma and all the other "Bigs"?
Please have faith in your selves. This is one fight where the good can win.
You have real power. Use it. Get Real. Get on the right side of history.
The picture above is of Horatius defending Rome with two companions while the bridge was cut down behind them - thus saving Rome from a massive force. MacAulay writes this is how Horatius took up the challenge:
Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the Gate: "To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his gods
On the surface the attack on Pub Media is based on the idea that the state should not be in the broadcasting business and that this is especially true if the broadcaster is aligned to one point of view.
There is a point to this. Imagine my fellow Pub Media fans if Fox was to now get government funding - you too might go nuts!
But I think that the reason for this attack now is deeper than that.
And I think that the attack is based on the most human of responses. When something new and true and so dangerous arrives on the scene - we laugh at it. But as the new and the true and so the threat to the status quo gets its feet, the power people in the status quo get an insight.
They can tell at a cellular level that this new thing could be their doom. And their response?
Please let me explain what I think that THEY see and why THEY have started the Inquisition to root out Pub Media.
In the last 5 years, Public Radio and Public TV have started to find a new role for themselves and it is this new role that scares THEM.
This role of course is a Public Service Media organization that gives people who have no voice a voice in the issues that concern them.
CPB is funding a number of experiments that are having results in this key area of informing more than the news cycle and giving people a say. None of this is done in commercial media.
All of this is largely web based - so the stations are also learning how to expand their horizon beyond the "air" and broadcasting.
There are 12 stations involved and the point is to find out how best to do this - to become a rich centre of information outside the news cycle that can be both local and a national resource. Where the public can find the best information and the best conversation about things that concern them. AND SO be truly informed and SO have a real say.
The new is full of music labels complaining. Not only about piracy but of the tight grip just a few large outlets have on what gets played and the costs of getting air. Well guess which media outlet gives the Indie labels the best opportunity for air at the least cost? NPR Music!Here is how the Hollywood Reporter ran this story. This idea came directly out of the work done back in 2005/6 by all the stations to find a starting point for offering the music audience a place based on their taste and their time rather than simply playing what the station wanted. The music audience and the musician's interests are well served here. Both sides win. This does not happen on commercial media where the interests of the station those that own it rule.
CPB has also backed TV stations like KETC in St Louis who have been exploring how to put the public onto TV and how to offer the public a safe place to have the conversations that are otherwise impossible in America today.
Now known as the Nine Network for Public Media, KETC has a media school, the Nine Academy, that is turning out hundreds of citizen videographers,. Giving the people the tools to have a voice of their own.
In 2009 KETC hosted a national project involving more than 30 markets worst hit by the housing crisis to learn how each local TV and Radio stations could work together to offer people help that they could trust. In each market the stations worked to bring together w ide ranges of resources into local networks of trusted help. This is all but impossible for a commercial station.
In 2010 KETC has been experimenting in how to host a year long "Conversation" about an explosive topic that normally collapses into rhetoric - Immigration. Most of the content is local and much of it made by grads of KETC's school. KETC is learning how to offer people a civil place to hod string views and how to switch the power from the station to the people. Impossible for a commercial station.
This year KETC is co managing a project that will also be nation and is highly controversial - On how we might improve our schools.
What THEY fear the most is that this kind of new role for Public Radio and TV may end up with
You being better informed - you will have escaped the sound bite world and in music the play list that THEY want
You will be better engaged - because you will have the real opportunity to have your voice heard and you will have learned the skills to do this well
You and your local community will have more power to change things
THIS is what THEY fear.
We may feel that we could and should have made more progress - but THEY can see it.
They care not about Morning Edition, Car Talk or Masterpiece Theatre.
They do care that you may become more informed and more empowered. Public Media is on track to pull this of and so must be stopped.
I don't see this as a Left or Right Issue. It is do you want to be part of the solution or be passive?
Harold nails this for me. I have been struggling to understand the blockage that keeps so many from understanding.
Might it be that we are so used to dealing with "problems" that have known and rational "answers"? That is what school is. "Robert" 2 x 2 what is the answer?" This is how we learned what a "Problem" was. We also knew that there was a Known answer or a Known Algorithm that would produce the answer, We also knew that the best people knew the answers and the algorithms. They were at the top of the class and now are at the top of the organizations. They "Know".
But as we all explore the shift from machine to network, we may know the theory but actually how this plays out in practice cannot be known in advance. Just as Columbus could "Know" that if he sailed west he would find land but he could not know when or what it would be like or how to get there in detail.
Columbus had to explore and feel his way there.
Crossing America in 1805 was to truly explore. Off go Lewis and Clark into the truly unknown and unknowable. They could only explore and use trial and error. They did know that the Pacific was west, as Columbus knew that some kind of land was west. But that was all. They did know to take the "right" people with them. They selected the best back woods men. They also had a special person - "Sacagawea". She was an Indian woman with a baby.
What did she bring? They knew that they would be in Indian country all the way. She had two powerful things to add to the strength of the party. She knew many languages and the culture - she could connect the explorers to the locals and vice versa.
But maybe even more important, she was a woman and she had a baby.
This sent out a signal to the system that this party was NOT a war party. For without that, even if they had had a male Indian who could be the cultural connector, they would have all been killed before the meeting!
So what do traditional organizations need to "cross the chasm"?
I think that they need to stop thinking that is is a problem that can be resolved by finding a known answer. That the top person can know.
The top person can give herself a break. She cannot know but she can fund the expedition as Queen Isabella did.
So there is the theory - here are some examples from recent history that I know a lot about because I have lived them.
When I worked with NPR back in 2005 the question was "How will social media affect us and what should we do?"
The great thing then was that No One could know the answer to that question. And if by chance one of us did, no one else would just accept that answer.
So what we did was to set up a process of discovery where it was agreed at the outset that no one knew.
We then set off, nearly 1,000 people, on a number of test journeys where groups "Played" with creating stories about what the future might be.
After 6 months a number of pictures of the future emerged that were consistent. All that you now see as being normal for the new media was nailed by these people back in 2006. It was all novel then and no one had done any of this. But this 1,000 people had invented the key principles and had invented stories about how this all worked in the day to day lives of people. They had discovered the world of social media as it might apply to radio.
I thought, wrongly, that most would then rush off and enact them. But this did not happen. Fear still held many back.
But ALL now had a common picture of what was important. A picture that ALL had co created. So while fear may have stopped many from changing, no one doubted the principles of what they had discovered.
The results? There is no doubt in my mind that, while NPR may now have the political fight of its life on its hands, it knows better than any other traditional media organization how to use Social Media. It has also delivered on them as no other media organization has.
Why? In the project we included over 250 NPR staff so the sense of having discovered the truth was well spread. Most of the key facilitators for the project were the senior executives and members of the board too - so there was no need to "sell" up or down. The majority of NPR had done the exploring themselves and could trust their own experience.
The other organization that has really "got it" is KETC - Now the Nine Network for Social Media - Jack Galmiche, the President was an active player in the NPR project and when he got his new job running KETC in St Louis, he also had the experience of creating the future and so the courage to go for it in TV.
KETC has been through many voyages of discovery. All the staff now have experienced the new. Many are now highly adept. They have discovered this for themselves. No one taught them!
KETC is now the acknowledged leader in the use if social media to augment TV.
KETC is now also a viral infector of the public system.
As KETC trail-blazes, it has worked with other stations. In the Facing the Mortgage Crisis project with about 60 across the nation. They too "experienced the new". The best of them then went for it too and now a critical mass of stations have enough practical exploration under their belt to go for it.
They are about to launch a new nation wide project that will cause the infection to spread further.
I think that this idea of a voyage of discovery is much more helpful that the idea of problem solving.
So selfishly how do you do this? Is there a book or a formula? Is there a snappy consultant who will show you how to do this?
No, I think that what has been shown to work best is to hire a "Sacawagea".
The issue is culture and fear of the unknown. There are no snappy answers. As John Seely Brown says in Harolds post - you have to "Marinate" in the situation.
So if you want to be successful, please think of hiring someone who knows the other native people out there and the new culture. Who is a native of the world that you aspire to go to. Who is less of a guide than a trusted friend. Who you can talk to quietly in the evening around the fire and have her hear you out. Someone who risks as much as you do on the journey - or even more than you. Someone who is safe and who helps you feel safe as you take risks.
Social business is about a shift in how we do work, moving from hierarchies to networks. The highest value work today is the more complex stuff, or the type of work that cannot be automated or outsourced. It’s work that requires creativity and passion. Doing complex work in networks means that information, knowledge and power no longer flow up and down. They flow in all directions. As John Seely Brown said, you can only understand complex systems by marinating in them. This requires social learning. Complex work is not linear. Social business is giving up centralized control and harnessing the power of networks. It is as radical as was Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management in 1911.
The potential of social business is organizational survival. Enterprises must be able to share knowledge quicker than before. This requires a shift toward something like a starfish framework that not only allows for independent action but also distributes knowledge through all the parts. Social learning is how organizational knowledge gets distributed. Social businesses can learn quicker.
The main barriers to social business are cultural. People in charge of most organizations today got there by doing things the traditional way of the MBA mindset. They feel they do not need to change and few are willing to give up power and authority, even if it is for the good of the organization.
He is trying to ski by thinking. He is thinking so hard that he cannot "hear" the hill or his body. He is thinking so much that he might miss a fallen skier or a tree - for he is thinking so hard that he cannot see. His fear also causes him to miss the key risk and control factor. Fearing falling or going too fast, he leans back instead of down the hill.
He is thinking so much that he cannot have a conversation with his own body or with the world that surrounds him.
He is thinking so much that he gets exhausted very quickly because he is fighting himself, the hill and the universe. And just thinking so hard uses up so much energy.
He is not having a "Deep Conversation". He is relying on his rational mind to guide him in a novel and complex situation. This is what most of us do at work and in our personal lives.
The most important conversation that we need to have is within ourselves. This is the core lesson of having Deeper Conversation. That to have a deeper conversation with others and with the univers, we must be able to have such a conversation inside us. This is the topic of this our last of 4 parts of my 4 part series that synthesizes a longer series of talks I have had with the brilliant Johnnie Moore. (Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3)
It's the classic psych drama. We have got so used to giving our rational mind primacy that we allow it to fill our consciousness with its chatter and worries. Mothers worry about what the book says about their kids. Managers seek control. You wake up in the middle of the night consumed by a fear and if you can surpress it, find another one right behind it. At school this part of our mind is the only part that counts.
Yes the new skier has to "know" the theory of skiing - well maybe not... Adults have a huge problem learning to ski - I did at 40 - but kids know no theory. Their rational mind has not yet taken over. No one told them the theory of walking or language, they just got on with it and did what FELT right.
Kids use their full range of channels. They listen to their body and they feel their way into novelty. They learn to walk and to talk and to stand upright. They learn so much before they go to school!
But we adults, who know better because we have been to school, wait to be told by a higher authority. In this universe, all the other parts of our mind are closed down and the Ego is given precedence.
So how do we get the rest of our mind back. How do we tune into all the channels in our body so that we can feel the hill or our way though a novel and a complex situation? For as all adult ski learners know, we have had this ability whacked out of us at school and at work.
Johnnie reminded me that it's all about habits. We have lost the habits that help us access this power to use our whole mind, so it helps to set up new habits to bring the whole mind back and to put the Ego into his place - a minor character!
Sit as often as you can in a circle. This brings the field into its best quality. Access the Field.
Before you get down to business check in as to how you all are. This might be how you feel - what you are feeling about the task at hand in your body. This type of sharing brings up the common humanity of you all. The leader may be feeling anxious in her stomach about the result. Hearing this, we can all relax more. Any good consultant has such a go around at the beginning of a meeting so that the Field can be awaked. I know to many this may sound very new age - but my question to you is do you want to ski like me or like my son?
Surely no one wants to ski like me? That is what is at stake here. Real results - getting all the wisdom from all the minds into play and in getting more cohesion in the team are what is at stake here.
Beware of "Action" as a demanded result.
You know what has happened here don't you? Trying too hard leads to a failure and then to bad feelings and then a habit of trying too hard and so on. The point of good sex is not the erection but the communication and the shared love. Bringing your rational mind into the bedroom is a disaster. So it is in meetings.
The key result is to have the team both together and open. Then the "Whole Mind of the Team is brought into play. THEN you can start to see your way through the paradoxes that make up any complex situation.
Let me give you 2 examples - one a corporate one that Johhnie and I worked on with NPR and 300 stations and the other a new problem that confronts me and all of us in middle age.
This was the complex problem that we used to have a Deeper Conversation inside NPR where all the senior management, the board and over 200 staff participated along with the leadership of 300 stations. At the outset NO ONE could know the answer. That is the definition of a Complex problem - the answer cannot be predicted rationally it can only emerge as a result of lots of trial and error. What we did was to set up many many meetings where the groups "Played" with this problem - we in effect set up a process of iteration that could enable answers over time to emerge.
The challenge was this - We assumed, now rightly, that in 2009, the web would be ubiquitous. NPR and the Stations were then in 2005 at a high point with their listeners on terrestrial radio but at ground zero with the web. How were they going to grow the web side and not lose the listeners? How was NPR to do this and not lose the stations? What were the stations going to do? For one thing was clear, and that was by 2009, the world would be very different.
To set up the larger field where all could participate - we used "Play". I have found that if you think of complex problems that might involve you losing your current power in role, the job of protecting your status quo is paramount. This is why when we ask the Usual Suspects to think of the future of their field, say health, they act to preserve the status quo. They cannot go beyond this. A rational role based discusion about novelty has to fail. For our ego will force us to lean back and try and protect what we know and our current power.
So we made this exploration into a game. I won't go into the details but to say that to wrestle with complex problems demands that you give up your role. Back to kids again - they learn all the vital lessons of life via play.
The results come through emergence which comes from trial and error. In complex situations you CANNOT know the answer up front. It is impossible. Remembering this is very helpful. No senior NPOR person presumed to know. All were equals in ignorance. This opened up the field. At the end of each session, each group had to put on a play - they had to express what they thought the future would be - and you know they were right - they found it.
Does this work? Each of the many independent sessions came to this conclusion - that the power of choice of what to listen too had to shift to the listener. Now we all know this right? No we only know this as lip service. You have to have wrestled with this and seen the alternatives and felt that this is true to accept it. We all "Know" that we have to lean DOWN the hill to get control - BUT this is not what we do as learners for though we know it to be true - we CAN"T do it - it is too scary and too counter our old reality.
Does this work? Well what media organization is best equipped for dealing with he online world right now? I would say NPR. So what was the result of our work with NPR? It was not the plan that came out of the process. It was that 300 people in NPR had wrestled with the problem and had felt their way into the future, so that when a new leader arrived with the mandate and the attitude to go for it, there was a mass aha! Not the normal resistance that you get when a big change is dropped in the organization from on high.
Meetings that start with a demand for action and results - are often code for a desire to lean up the hill. Let's stay in the rut where I can control what is going on because I feel safe there. When you demand results or action - what do you mean? Most of the time it means a focus on the minutiae - like the skier focusing on thinking his way into the turn - forcing himself to turn rather that letting the hill and his body do it all for him. When we work on the surface we force the whole team into this posture. It is our fear that keeps us from skiing. It is the fear that stops many still in radio and the media from allowing the gravity of the Hill of the New Web to help them get a new control.
The ongoing result that all teams need in complex times is to be so comfortable with each other that they play intuitively like a basketball team on fire. Look at this player - he is not thinking - he KNOWS where the pass will go. We have to really know each other. We have to bring our Whole Mind into play.
If you work on the key result being a well functioning team, THEY will do the heavy work. The real ACTION is to get the team using all their whole mind as individuals and as a team. Like a good skier, there is no time to "Think" on the court. You have to be able to sense what is going on.
So let's extend this a bit and look at an issue that affects us all - our health. My task - to find a question that engages anyone. From a personal point of view.
Here is one for me and for you that I hope illustrates this principle. I am looking at the health costs for PEI. An important question but very abstract and with many people with hard views. So how to use a question to break the logjam? This is my starting question that only invites each of us as people into the realm of the question. I start as Johnnie suggest with a question that gets us to react by feeling it out.
See the red line. That is how men on PEI age and deteriorate. The average age of death is 75. But by 65 the average man is in such bad health as to be helpless and dependent. From this stage more than half his lifetime cost to the health system will be spent. These are real data points.
Now see the black line. This is my goal for my own life. Aging as we know it is not natural. The black line is the natural aging process. In nature aging hits a threshold and then the deterioration stops - if you make 85 and are fit and not demented you will likely stay the same until you die - and that might be 95 - 100 - or 105. You will die - but you wont deteriorate more. There is a ton of evidence and work behind this - just trust on this right now there are books and books to be written and I can only point this out to you in this post.
The research suggests that I and you can push this point of stability back to 55 or 60 - my current age. I can be at choice. I can choose to change nothing and I will get ill and degrade. Or I can choose to change my life and have a good chance that I will die healthy and a contributor. Now I can choose either one - newspapers chose degradation - but it is a choice.
But choosing life is not enough. Knowing where to go is not enough. Like NPR I have to find out how to live differently. I will have to learn how to change the habits of a lifetime. This is hard.
How hard? This involves my giving up modern food. All processed food as a start. All grains and all dairy too. It means that I have instead to eat what people did in our hunter gatherer period. I also have to do many other things to get a better fit with my deep biology. Sleep more. Be outside more. Walk more. Have a mission in life that is bigger than me and so on - I will be posting tons on this later.
So here is the point. I know this. You can know it too. You know that when you ski you must lean down the hill. But knowing and doing are 2 different things. Changing the habits of a lifetime is very very very hard. Doing something that NONE of your peers are doing is as hard. This is the landscape of real change - being out of step with the mainstream - not knowing what to do - being pulled back all the time by your old habits.
Like Beowulf and Grendel - you have to have the energy to kill the old inner you.
But if you have asked the right question, we can wrestle with it. You can feel enough to kill off the old you who will fight to keep you stuck.
Thought is not enough. You must have emotional power that comes from how you feel about a situation. Here is my feeling test about my health that is raised by the Question I posed.
Do I want to become feeble at 65? What will this mean to my family? No I don't want that - I would feel as if I betrayed them because I know what I know now - that had the choice and chose pizza over them
Can I afford to be feeble? I worry about my savings and if I will have enough - can I afford to be feeble? I don't have the money and I doubt the state will have it either - I will be fucked if I stay as I am.
How do I feel now? How do I look? How capable am I now? Would I like to feel, look and be better soon? Of course I want to look and feel beter - I have noticed how weak and inflexible I am and wish I was fitter.
I know I am weak of will and that changing all these things will be hard - so what feedback and what support can I tap into to help me? I know I cannot do this on my own? In the few times I have made other major changes, it was the support I had that made all the difference - I know that I am weak!
Are there good tips that I can use to help me? I need reinforcement to get over the early hump - I know that other people's experience will help me
I have a rational argument but my feeling argument has more power over my behaviour - The Rational is the Volts - the Feeling is the Amps. It's the Feedback that encourages us and shows us the path:
I have lost 15 pounds and most importantly my 6 months pregnant belly is nearly flat - this is very reinforcing
I am never hungry - and the signal that I get when I am full kicks in immediately - that helps me not overeat.
When I fall off the wagon and have bread and cheese I feel like shit - not guilty I l feel bloated and sick
I look forward to my walks with the dogs - I want to do it more than they do now - it helps me think and do better work too
My wife is completely onside and my friends who have not seen me in some time comment on how well I am - important people are encouraging me
So I could not have a plan from the question but the question gets at the heart of the matter FOR ME.
We all have to feel our way into change. The mind is not enough. The body has to power us into the new. We have to be able to hear what our body says. We have to be like kids again and play our way into the future.
So what is the biggest lesson of all?
We come back to Johnnie's key lesson. We have to calm the mind so that we can hear the rest of the conversation in our body. Our mind can show the way but the getting there is all bout the rest of us. This goes for teams too. If we can create enough personal trust we can access the Whole Mind of the group. THEN we can win any game set for us.
Your work and mine is to put him in his place - shut him up - so that we can hear the full you and me.
Most organizations know that the web is important today – even the most dinosauric. But for most, the web is an up and coming “channel” and most still don’t have a clue about social media – they do it because they have to and they do it without much understanding about how it works and how different it is from their old “Normal”.
The final arrival of the Beatles on the web - mainly as we see boosted by social media - shows the new reality. That the web amplified by good use of social media is now the primary way of connecting what you have to the public.
Billboard magazine reports that The Beatles sold more than two million individual songs worldwide and in excess of 450,000 albums in its first week on Apple’s iTunes Music Store. (The Beatles’ catalog was added to iTunes on November 16th.)
According to Experian Hitwise, it was social media — not search — that drove a lot of the online interest and, more importantly, the online traffic surrounding The Beatles addition to iTunes. Consider this stat: On November 16, the first day Beatles songs were available on iTunes, 26% of UK traffic to Apple.com came from social media, about double the amount that came from search.
This nail in the coffin of old marketing is what NPR discovered. When I worked for NPR back in 2005 - attracting a younger audience was thought to be vital. But at the time this meant that somehow the content should be changed. But what they found was that if you changed the medium for connection to Social Media - the young came - they loved the content - they just will not access it in the old way.
In a survey of more than 10,000 respondents, NPR found that its Twitter followers are younger, more connected to the social web, and more likely to access content through digital platforms such as NPR’s website, podcasts, mobile apps and more.
NPR has more than one Twitter account; its survey found that most respondents followed between two and five NPR accounts, including topical account, show-specific accounts and on-air staff accounts.
The data on age is hardly surprising. The median age of an NPR Twitter follower is 35 — around 15 years younger than the average NPR radio listener. This lines up with data we recently found about other traditional news media; the average Facebook user reading and “liking” content on a news website is two decades younger than the average print newspaper subscriber.
Isn't this what has happened to the Beatles? Good content is good. If you have a product or a service or cintent that is good and is not available on the web via social media - you are punishing your business.
So what does this mean? The jury is no longer out. If you are not using the web and social media well - you are no longer cautious but stupid. You are refusing to see the world as it is. Now I know why you won't move. Because this is all new and you are not any good at it. It's like me taking up skiing in my forties. What had held me back was how awkward and stupid I would look and feel. But you know - no one cared about how awkward I was and learning to ski then allowed me to spend 10 winters with my kids having a hell of a time. I am 60. I started blogging back in 2002. I was utterly pathetic at it. But over time, I got ok. You can be too.
The real question is do you want your TV station, store, business to survive? It's still not too late but it is getting close.
Who can help you? Well there are a lot of shysters out there. "Self proclaimed" Social Media Experts who have been involved for a year or so. So here are a few questions to ask to ensure that you are getting someone who can help for real:
Tell us about who you have worked for in the past that you have helped make the shift in mindset? They must have been able to help another make this shift in POV
Tell us who your friends and network are? The shysters know shysters, the real folks know others who know their stuff and their network is as valuable as anything that they know.
Show us what you have written that moves the cheese! Shysters pound on about Facebook etc, the real deal is part of a larger deeper conversation about what all of this means.
Show us how knowing what you do has helped you in your own life? Most Shysters still live in the 1.0 world themselves. The real deal don't - living this life has changed them radically - they have been made different by this and you will know this when you compare the 2 types. PS relentless self promotion is a give away!
Some advice about process:
There is no formula/cookie cutter - it is not about using Facebook next week - it is about changing your own mindset. So start with lots of conversation about what is going on and where you can start - you cannot know where you will end up right now - don't try and go there.
Our mindset is changed not by will but by new habits - try a few smallish experiments and label them as such - look at at others who have done well and see how this may give you a start - Have a look here at how Boingo have used listening or look here about how Kotex have used a deep question. These are powerful places to start to help you be different for in the 1.0 world we don't listen, we shout. In the 1.0 world we don't ask tough questions, we live instead in a clean, fun, smooth fantasy world where periods are the best part of the month.
Hire one or two great young folks. Andy Carvin - just one person has done more for NPR than an army of consultants. Same with Baochi at Boingo who enjoys the confidence of the CEO.
Persevere!!! This is really really hard to execute - the tools are simple - it is the shift in mindset that is so painful. I have found that as much as I and others know the direction the day to day part of the journey is stressful. Think of Christopher Columbus on his first voyage. He "knew" that there would be land if he sailed long enough west. But his crew did not. They also had to deal with storms etc, When they arrived, it was land but not the Indies - the destination was different. People got upset. When you do this - all of the trials of Columbus will come your way - Doubt, fear mutiny, disappointment - the lot. But there is no going back - you just have to push through.
Last point - anyone who tells you that this is easy and they can show you a step by step formula is a Shyster
So stand up for our species. Be a Sapiens and not a Sap and good luck to you.
If you are to see deeper beneath the Logjam of difference. If you are to ask the question that unlocks the Unspoken. Then you have to sense the hidden meaning. You have to have all your listening faculties available. Your ears are only a tiny part of these faculties. You have to be able to listen to all the channels in the Field.
A reason why we seem to fail both as individuals and as organizations to make any headway right now is that we have cut ourselves off from the innate tools we need to guide us through the social complexity that is all about being human. We rely almost completely on our rational mind that uses only the surface to see and to process and so miss the meaning that is always there. We are like the 3 Apes who miss it all. Would you like to see more? If so read on..
For words and the surface literal observations are only a small part of how we communicate. Look at the couple below. Do they need to talk? Words fail this couple. Most of what is being communicated is within the "Field". Each of them is filled with feelings so powerful that they hurt. The air between them crackles. Words are in fact useless. I hope that you have felt this.
How about this? How can you console with words? Words are useless in these situations.
Love and grief demand Deeper Conversations - they rely on us reactivating the tuner deep within us that connects us to the "Field".
In this the third part of our 4 part series on Deeper Conversations, where I synthesize our conversation about Deeper Conversation. (Part 1 here - Part 2 here), we talk about the larger context for a conversation - the Energy Field that embodies us and that is where we find the truth for ourselves in the surface and rational world.
The Field is real.
Have you ever fallen in love at first sight? Have you met a person and felt revulsion? Have you been in a situation where on the surface it looked OK but you just "Knew" that you must leave immediately? Have you been in a meeting and felt something in your body that told you that this was bullshit or that the other person was lying? Have you entered a room where your parents were arguing and felt the tension. Have you been in a theatre and felt swept up by the performance? Have you been in a mob and done things that you would never have done alone?
If you had shown the iPhone to someone 100 years ago they would have thought it was magic. You know it is not. It is based on our growing understanding of the electro magnetic field. We live in one too. This field is real and is no more a New Age Fantasy that say the field that runs this device.
Like the iPhone, The Field, connects us to many things and also even over long distance. Like the iPhone it has things that you need to know how to tune into. If you don't have a tuner, all you get is noise or nothing. But you have a tuner and deep down you know how to use it. You just may have had the kind of habits that have switched it off. So let us remind you of the amazing tools that you have to tap into this field. "This is an innate ability that we all have in us".
Here is Johnnie facilitating an Open Space meeting in DC back in 2006 for NPR and the leaders of Pub Radio. The structure of the room is designed to tune the people into the group energy. For all of human existence, we have communicated best in a circle. It surely came from our early use of fire. We all face each other. The power moves to the centre. The maximum bandwidth is available.
Eye contact is very important. We are able to look many people in the eye. In open space eye contact is a hugely powerful tool for opening. You recall the picture of Johnnie staring at a participant. He also scans the room to find out who is staring at him - they have energy to use. A sign that even the most shut down of us can read well is when the person we are talking with averts their eyes.
One of the powerful tools that Johnnie also uses to bring the energy into being is SILENCE! Yes silence speaks volumes. As we move into an topic, Johnnie will sometimes just stop. Seconds, minutes go by. Each later minute can feel like an hour. It hurts after a while until someone speaks and what they say tends to be real - it has come from the energy in the room. Some one has been compelled to speak. They speak from the feeling they have and not as a skilled retort in an argument. Because they speak from the heart, others can then follow up the same way- the room tunes into the channel.
For in most meetings - even between just 2 people - we are more focused on the point that we want to make. We are so focused on our next sally that we are not listening. Not listening to the words or to the energy of the other. We are stuck in us alone. Masturbating in public! It's all about me and not about us. There is very little conversation. Talking too much is as much of a sign as averting the eye. Too much talk is hiding something important.
Talking about silence, Johnnie mentioned how nice it was to sit in a room on Sunday with a few pals and just read the papers. Done that? Stuff is going on all the time. Feels very cosy. Small grunts can say a lot. Look across a restaurant and a couple that have been with each other a long time. They are tuned in so much that most of what gets said is in the silence.
What makes up this field? Well some of it is pure electrical energy.
If you had no electrical field, you would be dead. Try this. Hold your hand up in front of another person. Gradually push them closer. You will feel the field kick in. Try this with your body. When you feel odd - you have found the boundaries of your personal space - your field at rest. What happens when you make love? Part of it is physical, but it is also a blending of two fields - two fields become one especially at orgasm when the conscious mind shuts off completely.
When we travel in a confined space like a plane or a bus with a lot of people - it is tiring. Part of the experience is Field Overload. In defence, we often shut down our tuner. The more we do that the less good our tuner gets at picking up faint signals. We miss important meaning because we have broken the aerial. This is a reason why I live in a small community.
I suspect that much of the field is electrical. But there are other parts to the field and several ways of tuning in.
A lot of it is smell! Most of our partner selection comes down to finding the right smell in your partner. This is not just about smelling nice but smelling RIGHT.
Huge amounts of information are transmitted by smells we can't consciously smell. Makes me question deodorants. We might be picking the wrong partner! Smell also tells us about fear and nerves. A lot of what is below the surface is discovered in smell. This is not a channel that is connected to our conscious brain at all. But it helps to know it is there. For you will react to the unknown smell. You will sense Attraction; Repulsion; Fear; Lying; Truth. If you tune into how you are feeling - you will be processing this channel.
Eye dilation sends equally powerful signals. What is on her mind?
Police use eyes a lot in their work. Is he going to pull a gun? Is she lying? Good cops get good at this. Blink. Will she sleep with me? Again, like smell, this channel does not access your conscious mind. But it will activate a feeling in your body. You will sense real danger. Lying. Attraction. Love even. Not understanding. The information is there is you can be sensitive to feeling it.
Ever wondered why babies sleep so much? One of the reasons is that they are learning so much. Our wiring for life is set in the first 3 years. This uses a huge amount of energy and also the brain needs to proces what is going on. Ever gone to bed with a problem and woke up the next day with the solution? Our unconscious mind is able to process vast amounts of meaning and is much better at coping with complexity that our conscious brain. But of course this is heresy to the Corporate Mind that is overwhelmingly rational.
But to use this tool you need to sleep a lot. How much sleep do you get? The average is very small. Remember when you were a teen and you slept a lot? Remember that place between sleep and awake? Find it again - it is where so much shit gets worked out.
If you have tough problems, sleep on them. If you have an idea that you can't see though, sleep on it.
Touch is a modern no no. But touch is one of the most powerful channels that we have in the field. I don't exaggerate. You surely know the story about the Romanian Orphanages? Babies that had been fed and cleaned but not touched enough died from lack of touch. We don't use touch enough as adults.
Touch is the best way to tune into another person. They can tell so much. When a friend is dying what can you say? But if you hold their hand, all will be said. But in the corporate world we don't touch. And we NEVER touch at school! We have sexualized touch too much and so cut ourselves off from its power to communicate. Its power to help us tune into an other person.
Want to know where a person is in themselves when they are with you? Touch them. Have a tough thing to say to another - touch them and see if that is enough.
"I never said that!" is something we all hear spoken back when we get angry at another. What we are reacting to is usually their tone of voice.
Tone says so much more than the words. Here is Marie Therese Keller singing the Pie Jesu from Duruffle's Requiem - It's all about tone - she is more that performing she lets us into her soul and the deep grief of loss - you don't have to know Latin to get the meaning.
Tone says everything really in interpersonal terms. Ever been with people who don't speak your language? I have found if alcohol is present, that after an hour or so, it is possible to make a connection - by tone!
Most of us in the corporate world have a Corporate Tone Voice. can you hear it? If you can't it is because you are so in it that you can't. I assure you that it is real and distinct.
It's a voice that has most emotion stripped out of it. It's that "I'm clever, on the ball, in charge, confident" Voice that has no doubt and so invites no attraction. It pushes away. It prevents listening. It's usually lying too because deep inside we are all filled with doubt and fear. The lie is embedded in the Corporate Voice and so it cannot be trusted. This is why when I first started blogging I wrote crap - because I only knew that voice. This is the lie of so many so called social media experts. The only way to be heard is to get rid of that tone. Many now use this voice all the time - even with their mates and kids.
What might that mean?
Try your office voice on your dog! He won't be able to hear you. For him it's all tone and touch and smell. He is real, you may not be.
This dog is doing it all - using his sense of smell, taste, touch and eyes.
Industrial Man is Emotionless - Literal - Fact Based - Surface Confined. When we are this way we are Zombies.
Slow - stupid - focused only on brains - unaware - easy to kill.
I say all of this having been a Zombie myself for most of my adult life. The great news is that you can come back to life - if you want to.
In the last post Johnnie and I will share some exercises that we have used on ourselves to help us come back to life.
We will also talk about a few personal and organizational situations that will help you see some practical steps you can take to change your habits so that the tuner that you have can be switched back on again and you as a human can tap into the field again.
What's wrong with this skier? 
Sit as often as you can in a circle. This brings the field into its best quality. 
You know what has happened here don't you? Trying too hard leads to a failure and then to bad feelings and then a habit of trying too hard and so on. The point of good sex is not the erection but the communication and the shared love. Bringing your rational mind into the bedroom is a disaster. So it is in meetings.
The
How about this? How can you console with words? Words are useless in these situations. 
Like the iPhone, The Field, connects us to many things and also even over long distance. Like the iPhone it has things that you need to know how to tune into. If you don't have a tuner, all you get is noise or nothing. But you have a tuner and deep down you know how to use it. You just may have had the kind of habits that have switched it off. So let us remind you of the amazing tools that you have to tap into this field. "This is an innate ability that we all have in us".
Here is Johnnie facilitating an 
If you had no electrical field, you would be dead. Try this. Hold your hand up in front of another person. Gradually push them closer. You will feel the field kick in. Try this with your body. When you feel odd - you have found the boundaries of your personal space - your field at rest. What happens when you make love? Part of it is physical, but it is also a blending of two fields - two fields become one especially at orgasm when the conscious mind shuts off completely.
Huge amounts of information are transmitted by smells we can't consciously smell. Makes me question deodorants. We might be picking the wrong partner! Smell also tells us about fear and nerves. A lot of what is below the surface is discovered in smell. This is not a channel that is connected to our conscious brain at all. But it helps to know it is there. For you will react to the unknown smell. You will sense Attraction; Repulsion; Fear; Lying; Truth. If you tune into how you are feeling - you will be processing this channel.
Police use eyes a lot in their work. Is he going to pull a gun? Is she lying? Good cops get good at this. 
Ever wondered why babies sleep so much? One of the reasons is that they are learning so much. Our wiring for life is set in the first 3 years. This uses a huge amount of energy and also the brain needs to proces what is going on. Ever gone to bed with a problem and woke up the next day with the solution? Our unconscious mind is able to process vast amounts of meaning and is much better at coping with complexity that our conscious brain. But of course this is heresy to the Corporate Mind that is overwhelmingly rational.
Touch is the best way to tune into another person. They can tell so much. When a friend is dying what can you say? But if you hold their hand, all will be said. But in the corporate world we don't touch. And we NEVER touch at school! We have sexualized touch too much and so cut ourselves off from its power to communicate. Its power to help us tune into an other person. 
This dog is doing it all - using his sense of smell, taste, touch and eyes. 
Slow - stupid - focused only on brains - unaware - easy to kill.
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