Tag: narrative

Story + Narrative, The Curious Will Inherit The World1 Comment

I am no longer sure of the question, but I am certain of the answer: YES!

ThisMuchWeKnow

Sometimes, it feels the world is moving in a particular direction. Ideas coalesce, people enter your life, opportunities occur, or mutate. Things happen, if you can be open (enough) to that change, those moments. Via Seth Godin: “I am no longer sure of the question, but I am certain of the answer: YES!” – Leonard Bernstein. Happy New Year everyone! ←This Much We Know.→ Continue reading I am no longer sure of the question, but I am certain of the answer: YES!

Story + Narrative, The Curious Will Inherit The World3 Comments

When I Grow Up I Want To Be A Flâneur

ThisMuchWeKnow

How could it be that this word, this idea, this approach to life has passed me by all these years?! Fuck fireman, astronaut or Prime Minister, a flâneur is who I want to be, it’s a flâneur’s life for me. Of course, wikipedia has all the details. It is long, sumptuous, beguiling: a literary type from 19th century France…[i]t carried a set of rich associations: the man of leisure, the idler, the urban explorer, the connoisseur of the street. Susan Sontag describes the photographer / flâneur as an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers … Continue reading When I Grow Up I Want To Be A Flâneur

Personal Branding, Story + Narrative1 Comment

Dissecting Your Personal Brand: Synthesizing Your AwesomeSauce

ThisMuchWeKnow

This is where the hard work begins, and the pay-off too. You have a ton of data, and several interesting ideas to play with. Perhaps your brand has a theme to it. You have a beautiful BrandBoard to share! Now what? Well, now we synthesize. This means distilling down all the brand content into 2-3 core ideas around which you can build a story. Although you brand might skew in a particular direction – mine is a heavily head brand – it does not mean you have no skills in the other Head-Heart-Hand elements. When you meet people, generally you … Continue reading Dissecting Your Personal Brand: Synthesizing Your AwesomeSauce

Personal BrandingLeave a comment

Dissecting Your Personal Brand: 180 Degree Peer Review

ThisMuchWeKnow

I have received a 360 degree peer review – a very interesting process of understand the good, bad and ugly about myself. Illuminating. Personal branding is not 360 feedback. It is 180 degree feedback – it looks forward into the marketplace; it does not (generally) look behind the curtains at the malignancy and maleficence within us all. Save that for the psychologist’s couch, please. No, we want input from your cohort about how great you are, to drive your brand to new heights and to either agree or challenge your own thinking about how you show up. Seeing Eye To Eye. Generally, I … Continue reading Dissecting Your Personal Brand: 180 Degree Peer Review

Personal BrandingLeave a comment

How BrandBoards Help You Say: “This Is How I Make The Difference.”

ThisMuchWeKnow

We are always tinkering with the personal branding process at TMWK, trying to work out how to leverage cool inputs (“Snakes!”) and unexpected syntheses (“Heart brand!”) to drive epiphanies that make people more successful in their lives. My instinct is to limit the focus to our professional lives, but my experience is different. Talking with my wife about my BrandBoard was a most illuminating conversation about how she sees me; and uncovered things she didn’t know about me, given the work-home divide that occurs when you have two kids demanding your attention at the end of the day. The BrandBoard … Continue reading How BrandBoards Help You Say: “This Is How I Make The Difference.”

Social Business, Story + Narrative, The Future of WorkLeave a comment

#RelentlessHumanity: Take 3

ThisMuchWeKnow

I am working out loud on this blog. This means the content and much of the thinking is a work in progress. The work is the learning, and the learning is the work, as Harold Jarche says. One concept I am trying to better articulate for myself is how to have better conversations about the connected enterprise, and the (social) technology that drives us towards the future of work. Currently, these conversations are too technocratic: which service does what, how cool every piece of tech is, how a vendor can deliver a perfect intranet of things, even. Wrong approach. Where … Continue reading #RelentlessHumanity: Take 3

Story + Narrative, The Future of Work3 Comments

Farewell Guru, Hello Awesome.

ThisMuchWeKnow

When someone calls themselves a social media guru / ninja etc. I puke up in my mouth a little. Just sayin’. The great Guru boom is over pic.twitter.com/mmb7dQg0wj — Benedict Evans (@benedictevans) November 27, 2013 So I liked seeing this graphic on the death knell of the guru in job postings. Thank you, and good night, gurus everywhere. But what is this? Instead, the rise of the AWESOME! Oh, dear. As an Englishman, I used to use terms such as brilliant, wonderful, excellent. Now, living in N. America I use awesome, which, as my trusty source reference Urban Dictionary confirms, … Continue reading Farewell Guru, Hello Awesome.

The Curious Will Inherit The World, The Future of WorkLeave a comment

Curious Kids: What Does The Future Hold?

ThisMuchWeKnow

Sitting at the dinner table, browser open, Change Agents Worldwide social network status update asking me “What are you working on?” My 5-year old daughter Lola asked me me “What’s that?” and I explained that the group think about the future of work. Then I asked her: “What comes to mind when you think about the future?” She typed: “trees snow  flowers dirt animals people nature” and clicked SHARE. Often, I am trying to imagine the future anew; and to synthesize an approach to get there, for me and for others. But, sometimes the future can be the most literal … Continue reading Curious Kids: What Does The Future Hold?

Personal Branding, Story + Narrative, The Curious Will Inherit The World2 Comments

Sturgeon’s Law: 90% Of Everything Is Crap. Yes.

ThisMuchWeKnow

We read more than we have ever done. And there is more stuff to read than every before – exponentially more. According to some random blog (ok, a WIRED blog, but who cares, I’m amplifying something I read online and you are reading it): The science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon famously said something like, “Ninety percent of everything is crap,” … I couldn’t agree more with Sturgeon’s Law, but nor could I be happier. That law allows me – nay, it practically invites me – to write. Stuff, crap stuff maybe 90% of the time, but stuff I am interested in, … Continue reading Sturgeon’s Law: 90% Of Everything Is Crap. Yes.

Social Business, Story + Narrative5 Comments

Hiring Advice From Dee Hock (Or, Why Experience Is Unimportant)

ThisMuchWeKnow

Which of these personal attributes is most important in someone you are hiring? Capacity Experience Integrity Knowledge Motivation Understanding I asked 25 students this question this week. Three answered ‘Integrity.’ This is the ‘right’ answer, according to Dee Hock – a leader before his time. Founding CEO of Visa, Hock has some great words of wisdom on many topics. Stumble upon more about these words here. I made a prezi to walk through this (see right – unfortunately and erroneously deleted). However, the gist of it goes like this… On hiring associates, Hock opines: “Hire and promote first on the basis … Continue reading Hiring Advice From Dee Hock (Or, Why Experience Is Unimportant)