Questions Are MUCH More Important Than Answers. Damn It!

My partner Lori is a saint, natch. Though she has every right to do so, daily, she rarely complains. Woe be hers, rarely. However, when she does, I ALWAYS have an answer at hand. Isn’t she the lucky one?! In recent times, lifelong learner that I am, I have tried to bite my tongue. When someone is offloading, they rarely need or want the answer. They want someone to listen, to comfort, to ask a good clarifying question. Not my number one strength. As a worker and colleague, same goes. Answers are easy. Everyone has an answer. But who has … Continue reading Questions Are MUCH More Important Than Answers. Damn It!

A Presentation Stitched Together From Existing Online Content #WorkOutLoud

This is the presentation I gave yesterday to some Vancouver communicators. It showcases the power of working out loud, that content can be repurposed and reshared and rebranded. All content is tweets I Sent in previous 4 weeks… ←This Much We Know.→ The Curious Shall Inherit //     Storify by Jonathan Anthony Sun, Mar 02 2014 15:39:45     The Curious Shall Inherit Jonathan Anthony: Corporate Disorganizer, Creative Intrapreneur. @ThisMuchWeKnow | ThisMuchWeKnow.net | linkedin.com/ThisMuchWeKnow     About.Me /JonathanAnthony   A4: have fun = critical #OLCchat pic.twitter.com/he1ruiMhps   Jonathan Anthony@ThisMuchWeKnow · Tue, Jan 28 2014 12:35:34 ReplyRetweetFavorite     About.You … Continue reading A Presentation Stitched Together From Existing Online Content #WorkOutLoud

Using My Online Personal Brand To Discuss Personal Branding

I was recently asked to share some thoughts with young communicators in Vancouver on kick starting your career. The event is today. Upon gathering my notes / ideas together, a core one of which is working out loud, I realised that I might have already articulated my thoughts. In other words, if I work out loud, I probably have the content online, in the open, already. So, I perused just 4-5 weeks of tweets and voila! there it all was, in plain sight. This is called walking the talk. Phew. An hour in Storify later and I had a flow … Continue reading Using My Online Personal Brand To Discuss Personal Branding

There Are Change Agents, And There Are Change Agents. It’s #FutureOfWork Checklist Time! #CAWW

Fellow CAWWer Catherine Shinners has a good review of recent thinking on what organizations need for breakthrough performance via the Conference Executive Board: read her article for some detail. I will suffice here with listing the CEB checklist of differentiating competencies for high performance: prioritization, teamwork, organizational awareness, problem solving, self-awareness, proactivity, influence, decision-making, learning agility and technical expertise. I like! All of these are in reach of all of us. Attitude, and forward momentum is all that is required to get us on this road… Shinners also shared a Future Work Skills 2020 study that sees successful trends to be: sense-making, … Continue reading There Are Change Agents, And There Are Change Agents. It’s #FutureOfWork Checklist Time! #CAWW

#Unsquirrel 8: Linguistic Semiotician

I once attending film school – or video and TV production school to be precise. I met many people just like me – searching for a creative breakthrough. I was trying to determine how easy access video production and editing tools (aka Apple products)  could kick start a career change. Zapher Iqbal was probably trying to do something similar, but he had a way with him that was both intoxicating and bewildering at the same time. All you need to know about him is contained on his business card: Linguistic Semiotician “Media Specialist”   Oh, and: Scriptwriter Actor Director/Producer Around … Continue reading #Unsquirrel 8: Linguistic Semiotician

#Unsquirrel 7: We Leave Home But We Never Really Move On.

Speaking of travel, “As Freud saw it, we basically spend our lives unconsciously replaying a tired old script memorized in childhood through endless rehearsals with our parents and siblings. We leave home but we never really move on. We just take the show on the road, casting everyone we meet in supporting roles…” I ain’t no analyst, y’all, so I’ll stick to what I do know. I got stuck in my life. I have been down many a knowledge and skills cul-de-sac. I have rehashed my knowledge – and my issues and insecurities – in an endless series of screechy … Continue reading #Unsquirrel 7: We Leave Home But We Never Really Move On.

#Unsquirrel 6: I Come Back Sounding Strange Even To Myself

Travel remains a journey into whatever we can’t explain, or explain away…I know in my own case that a trip has really been successful if I come back sounding strange even to myself; if, in some sense, I never come back at all, but remain up at night unsettled by what I’ve seen. –          Pico Iyer, “The Place Across The Mountains” in Sun After Dark. I am not sure of the ratio, but let’s say it is 1000:1. One thousand pieces of data and knowledge wash over me; but one of those pieces changes something. Maybe not everything – though … Continue reading #Unsquirrel 6: I Come Back Sounding Strange Even To Myself

#Unsquirrel 3: Morphing Is The Canadian M.O.

“Canada is a land of multiple borderlines, psychic, social, and geographic. Canadians live at the interface where opposites clash. We have, therefore, no recognizable identity, and are suspicious of those who think they have.” –          Marshall McLuhan Morphing is [Canada’s] modus operandi…states the anonymous article. Hear, hear. In an age of constant change, such a situation – perhaps, once, a weakness – is a +1. Those with an identifiable identity will increasingly scurry to update their status and bemoan the[ir] stupidity of youth. Newer nations, unencumbered by layer after layer of history – like Canada –  will be ahead of … Continue reading #Unsquirrel 3: Morphing Is The Canadian M.O.

#Unsquirrel 2: The Fruits Of Idleness

Dang! I should unsquirrel to myself a bit more often. Here I was, on the last day of 2013, writing about flanerie: How could it be that this word, this idea, this approach to life has passed me by all these years?!… it’s a flâneur’s life for me. And yet, all along, squirreled away, hidden, I had this nugget from printed publication unknown, from the German Marxist commentator Walter Benjamin (from The Arcades Project): Basic to flanerie, among other things, is the idea that the fruits of idleness are more precious than the fruits of labour. Amidst the existential angst of … Continue reading #Unsquirrel 2: The Fruits Of Idleness

#Unsquirrel 1: Concerning Owls

From The Natural History of Iceland (1758):  The entirety of Chapter XLII, “Concerning Owls.” There are no owls of any kind in the whole island. Sometimes, we need to waste a little energy to move forward. Not everything we share MUST add value. This is a huge get over it! requirement for 80%(?) of us. The very act of sharing, of working out loud, of considering “Maybe, just maybe, someone out there in my community might find value from my knowledge, data, content” – this is the critical transition from ‘Who knows?” to “Who knew!” ←This Much We Know.→ Continue reading #Unsquirrel 1: Concerning Owls

Explicit! I Have A Need To Share… #Unsquirrel

It is maybe not as exciting as it sounds – apologies – but there is a de facto expectation in the new world order of networks and social business that we make explicit our knowledge, that we unsquirrel our thoughts and understanding, that we attempt to reach and join new communities of learning. So, I have been looking through old papers, at scraps of data I saved for some reason – unknown at the time, but meaningful enough to squirrel away – to physically tear out and put in a folder (very c.20, I know). Over the next few days … Continue reading Explicit! I Have A Need To Share… #Unsquirrel