imagineering.mavening.coaching
you
can find me on ... 
I'm reading right now:
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Strengths Based Leadership by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie
The Open Table by Donald Miller
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
My long read for 2009 is:
Creativity by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
7 May 2009
In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell lists the seven-five most wealthy people in human history.
This list includes the likes of Cleopatra, William II, and Elizabeth I, together with Henry Ford, Bill Gates, and Ingvar Kamprad. (If you wonder who the last person is, any time you buy something at Ikea you are making this person wealthier!)
Gladwell then points to the unusual thing about this list of 75: 14 of them are Americans born within nine years of each other (1831-1840). What Gladwell is pointing to is ...
crea**vity
1 May 2009
Crea**vity.
David Bayles and Ted Orland explain why they don’t include the word CREATIVITY in their book Art and Fear in the following note: Readers may wish to note that nowhere in this book does the dreaded C-word appear. Why should it? Do only some people have ideas, confront problems, dream, live in the real world and breathe air?
They leave it out for the same reason I keep putting it in. Every human is made to be creative: that’s my belief and that’s my hope. A belief because to be human is to be creative, and hope because I want as many as possible to find this out.
Just as I finished reading Art and Fear I began reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers (highly recommended after just reading the first 70 pages). Gladwell begins to unpack the different reasons behind people being successful. What he discovers is ...
more special people than you think
27 April 2009
In their really helpful little book Art and Fear, David Bayles and Ted Orland begin a chapter with this little quote:
When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college - that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, “You mean they ...
so what does it all mean?
20 April 2009
I was recently sent this youtube link. I love the video (read some of my blogs on Clay Shirky's book to see why).
The big question comes at the end ...
she did what she could do ...
10 April 2009
(I have rewritten the following from yesterday's post.)
I came across a story recently that really caught my attention when it comes to certain environments are more encouraging of creativity than others.
I spotted the story in Mark’s record of the human life of Jesus.
This is how the story unfolds. Jesus is sharing in a dinner party that he’s been invited to. Mark tells how a woman breaks into the body of the guests and ...
greater environments
8 April 2009
Welcome to the conversation.
I’ve been inviting a number of people I know to look at the International Mentoring Network event due to happen in the UK (Sheffield) in October this year, as I think this would be something they’d really find empowering. A number have asked me about what it entails, including how it differs from other leadership mentoring and development experiences that are already available.
In reply, I have been sharing how extraordinary I have personally found the whole thing to be: the ideas ...
better than demographics
2 April 2009
(I have been thinking some more about what I put in this blog yesterday, and so have added a few more thoughts.)
I am wondering if demographics are as always as necessary as we sometimes think they are. The organisation I am a part of will go to great lengths auditing the needs in a community and matching them with what it feels it is able to provide. But, what if the “needs” don’t want to be met? What if there are “needs” out there that would like to be met, but didn’t know they could and are maybe off the radar?
This sounded better as an idea before I started to write it down, but, what got me thinking about this was a comment from Clay Shirky: Though it seems funny for a service business, Meetup actually does best by not trying to do things on behalf of its users, but by providing a platform for one another. […] In a midsize city the potential combinations among people interested in Meetup groups are overwhelming. The only sensible way to solve this problem is to ...
super-connectors
31 March 2009
Welcome to the conversation.
I’ve been getting my head around Clay Shirky’s explanations about “bonding capital” and “bridging capital” as I’ve been reading Here Comes Everybody today.
To put this into some kind of context, Shirky shares how the Six Degrees of Separation works, how it’s not about everybody knowing lots of people, but about some people knowing lots of people. It’s more about clusters of people who are connected by some of their members to others clusters of people: what are called Small Worlds network.
Within these clusters its “bonding capital” that is evidenced, but between the clusters it’s “bridging capital” is seen. Now to the really interesting things out of this for me today. ...
coordinating is the new planning
25 March 2009
Clay Shirky begins a section in Here Comes Everybody with the heading: Replacing Planning with Coordination
As he considers the kind of changes being effected by new social technologies, one of the simple illustrations he uses is the mobile phone replacing planning - “Let’s arrange to meet outside the Art Gallery on Princes Street at one” - with coordination - “I’ll give you a call when I get into the city and check where you are.”
Does the future belong to coordinators rather than planners?
the end of institutionalism?
19 March 2009
I have mentioned before how I see the internet and new social technologies as being like the Roman road system and common Greek language of the first century.
Yes, I joke and moan about the size of my email inbox, but in truth we are seeing a revolution of life and have to wonder where it might take us; if we only see these as an extension of post and telephone then we may well miss out on the opportunities.
Our social tools are turning love into a renewable building material. When people care enough, they can come together and accomplish things of a scope and longevity that were previously impossible; they can do big things for love (Clay Shirky, in Here Comes Everybody). ...
time to do nothing
18 March 2009
I am fooling around not doing anything, which probably means I it is a creative period, although of course you don’t know until afterward. I think it is very important to be idle. I mean, they always say that Shakespeare was idle between plays. I am not comparing myself to Shakespeare, but people who keep themselves busy all pf the time are generally not creative. So I am not ashamed of being idle. (Physicist Freeman Dyson, quoted in Creativity)
I was intrigued to read this because I’d recently had a number of conversations with people exploring their Strengths in which they ...
conversations with purpose.com
12 March 2009
We all recognise what software usability expert Merlin Mann is describing when he writes:
Email is such a funny thing. People hand you these single little messages that are no heavier than a river pebble. But it doesn’t take long until you have acquired a pile of pebbles that’s taller than you and heavier than you could ever hope to move […]. But for the person who took the time to hand you their pebble, it seems quite outrageous that you can’t handle that one tiny thing. “What pile? It’s just a pebble!” (quoted in Here Comes Everybody).
Clay Shirky uses this illustration as he points out that although new social technology promises complete interaction between people ...
12
11 March 2009
It is even true of the weblog world in general - dozens of weblogs have an audience of a million or more, and millions have an audience of a dozen or less. It’s easy to see this as a kind of failure. Who would want to be a publisher with only a dozen readers? (Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody)
Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
Perhaps, if you are thinking that this is the number that Jesus focused on when he was opening up the human-life-in-all-its-fullness for everyone.
Now there is a lot more to what Shirky is saying about weblogs, and I recommend the book very much, but here is what “12″ has kicked off for me as it turned into a metaphor whilst I was out running this morning.
I am going to allow “12″ to shape my dreams, hopes, and activities for 2009-10:
the green deal
10 March 2009
I have included the following message from Avaaz. You may want to follow the link:
Dear friends,
This week, European regulators will start setting new efficiency standards
for fridges, TVs, and other products. Strong rules could massively cut
Europe's climate pollution, but industrial lobbyists are pushing to weaken
the proposals.
We've received an unusual message: a video sent back in time from the
future ... by a talking fridge named "Coldy." Click
to watch the video and take action now.
Green technology already exists that would dramatically improve the
fridges, TVs, washing machines, and other products that each of us use.
Strong green standards, according to expert studies, could have a huge
climate impact--greater than taking two thirds of Europe's cars off the
road. And these standards would reduce our energy bills by tens of
billions of Euros per year.
But the most-polluting companies want to sell dirty products cheaply, and
avoid green investment. It's up to us to make sure EU negotiators hear
the clear voice of thousands of citizens across Europe -- and not just the
voices of industry lobbyists. Click below to watch the video and sign
the petition -- it will be delivered to negotiators this Thursday.
The cityofdreams experience is now open to you:
-
a way of following Christ
-
a virtual community of people dreaming wide awake
-
a coaching experience
-
a way of exploring your strengths
HERE IS WHAT ONE PERSON HAS TO DAY ABOUT THE CITYOFDREAMS:
'the whole process has been so valuable this year, but especially recently as I try to work out what my direction should be. [...] it's given me the confidence and faith to try something I wouldn't otherwise have had the courage to do, and I'm sure the process can have just as much impact on other people's lives.'
Articles exploring alignment with:
God
Self and Others
a new kind of democracy
the brilliance of self-organisation
awake to new community
The World
green alignment