The trees the trolls the loons and the lake

There's a lake in Canada's Algonquin Park that's quite special to me. Just about all of them are beautiful - ethereal and silent, capable of both anger and grace. But one of them is also quite magical - to my family and I anyway.

This one particular lake, deep within the park's wilderness is home to loons and trolls and wind and the trees that do their bidding. It's a long involved story that goes on for generations and I won't go into, for if you haven't been there you won't truly appreciate it. Paddling this lake though, seeing and smelling and feeling it - where the hills climb sharply from the water's edge and the forest has eyes reflecting off the lake that watch you as you glide atop it's deep waters, you know the place you are in is solemn and the stories must be true.

It's a rare place that instills quiet in your soul, and allows you to sense dimensions that aren't obvious most anywhere else. I won't share the location or name of this place, for fear it'll be found and spoiled. For while the loons and trolls and trees have been there for a long long time, people haven't and our privilege of witnessing this isn't a right, its a gift.

My wish is that each of us has such a place that we can literally visit, and use as a source of internal peace when we need it.

The Long View

As the Rolling Stones put it (to music) - we can't always get what we want. Being neither as musical or lip-endowed as the Stones, I wanted to try to tackle the questions of what to do with disappointing news in this context instead.

The temptation as taught through many old movies growing up was to find a bar and bury your heart in the bottom of a bottle. Fair enough, though the picture painted was rarely as ugly as that is in real life. Drunks are neither pretty or entertaining unless said drunk happens to be you. The result afterward? (without the intervention of the Hollywood fairy) the same problem, and a hangover.

Ruling that out then, when you find you didn't get that job, promotion, date or other significantly hoped-for result, what's a good response ? I decided a few years ago with some guidance from some folks whom I respect, that I wanted to try to emulate what I would say to one of my kids in the same situation.

We all acknowledge that we learn more from our failures than we do from our successes, so the first reaction I try to make is to assess what can be learned when the situation doesn't end in the desired outcome. (Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me). The most pressing thing to determine is to how to avoid the exact same outcome - in other words what needs to change if the situation were to present itself again. Not all situations require this to be determined quickly, but some are.

The next step and very important perspective to embrace is the long view. The long view is the big picture perspective beyond this immediate interaction. If you are trying to get a date with someone you like and they say "no", take the long view and keep up the efforts to make a positive personal connection. That's the long view. When you don't get that promotion, work extra smartly and hard and ensure your efforts are noted - that's the long view. Any situation really can get a long view - it's a determination to keep trying to achieve your desired outcome without quitting. It speaks to perseverance, determination and a willingness to go that extra mile. All good stuff.

The long view is the key to me - it turns negative outcomes into bumps in the road. It helps us see past our need for immediate gratification that we're trained to expect and instead understand that sometimes things are worth working hard to get.

Adam Smith vs Arthur C Clarke

Think of it as literary wrestling or the class struggle of ideas and fictional idealism.

Smith famously wrote Wealth of Nations (the actual title is longer as was the norm in the mid 1700's) and this book laid the groundwork in political economics and is our foundation of modern economics arguably. Concepts such as the invisible hand, self interested competition and early ideas around opportunity costs were all introduced by this gentleman who had brilliant insights.

So how does an 18th century political economist and general thinker end up at odds with a 20th century science fiction writer ?

Arthur C Clarke is amongst the most talented, and creative minds of the last century (He's died two years ago, living in Sri Lanka), and gave the world tangible science - he contributed to the development of radar systems in WWII and later is credited with the core ideas behind satellite technology, geostationary orbits and space flight. But it's the creative side that has made his name more well known. Famously the creator behind such works as 2001: Space Odyssey and other foundational elements of science fiction writing, Clarke imagined worlds and superimposed the human condition upon them in a way many could relate to.

One of his books was required reading for me in school - a piece of fiction known as Childhood's End brought into the curriculum by a teacher who understood the need to make literature and reading enjoyable. In this book, a world is imagined where humanity evolves through a helping hand (not Smith's invisible hand) and it proposes a world where production is handled automatically and offered freely by the state. People have no need to work to survive, rather work is done out of the joy of doing so, or to gain extra material possessions. There's a particular line or two that has stuck with for over 30 years, and it goes like this - "....was considerably less of a burden than the providing for the armies of ticket collectors, shop assistants, bank clerks, stock brokers and so forth, whose main function, when one took the global point of view, was to transfer items from one ledger to another." I love that small piece of writing as it sums up our entire political economic system and dismisses it elegantly and simply. Witnessing these two great thinkers and being present as they might have discussed ideal "systems" would be a wondrous thing. It may have even gotten physical.

Overqualified

This is a term used in job searches primarily and means "having more education, training, or experience than is required for a job or position".

It does have negative qualities about it though and I might suggest these are undeserved, for they are one-sided at best.

For the employer, having an employee who is over-qualified might lead to that employee's boredom or distaste for a given job that they might perceive was beneath them. Realistically the employer gets a staff member who should be well capable of performing the role in question given that they probably offer significant experience and qualifications.

Importantly, it's the employee's choice to accept a role for which they are perceived to be over-qualified. But, it is their risk, and the downside is really all theirs. When would an individual choose to take on such a role..? When they want to mentor, (and can't get a job at a Biz school!) or when they want to blow away a known set of goals and love an industry. Or perhaps, it could be that they really admire the company in question, and just want to be along for the ride.

Dear Daughter..

All too often milestones in our lives go unnoticed and unappreciated. This wasn't one of those times, and that probably made it more difficult, as it was a clear, defined change in your direction and how things will be in the future.

As a parent, my role has been to prepare you and to ensure you're able to stand on your own two feet and be a happy, productive member of society. As your Dad my job has been to protect you, care for you, provide for you and ensure that you know you are loved. As you have gone through this change in your own life, it's also time to assess where I stand, and to determine how I did as well, on both the parental and paternal fronts.

As I can't live your next days for you, and in fact I can't even be there to watch you (which is difficult), let me address the change from my own perspective and observations only.

You are intelligent and able to be employed. Case in point, you have held a job for years and were a promoted individual and your skills and abilities were independently recognized by others at the ripe old age of 16. You have succeeded in virtually every role you have tried, and throw your passion and energy into tasks that you take on this way. Outside of formal employment, you have a wide and deep circle of people you socialize with, being appreciated for your sense of humour and the ability to organize friends - a thankless task relating to teenagers everywhere. So, are you a productive and happy member of society at large, and have you demonstrated the potential to keep this going into the future ? The answer is definitively yes - so much so that different countries should be soliciting you to be their citizen.

On the more personal front, I think we did pretty well. You never came to harm outside of normal kid stuff, and despite your trim figure, were never at a loss for things to eat, or a roof overhead. You experienced exposure to other cultures, and have even enjoyed a few accents already in your own life. You seem happy - that's very changeable understandably - but you are rarely at a loss for a smile or the ability to pass along a small kindness. Children and dogs like you which is always a sure sign of good things. So, with your state of being, I'm pretty happy and comfortable.

Which brings me back to the impact that big milestones have in our lives - and this is a big one. We can prepare, but won't know if were really ready until we can look back at the experience. Hindsight alone is 20/20. We can learn to bear down and do what it takes to succeed when faced with new obstacles, and I see you doing that - using your experience and knowledge that has guided you well in the past. That's no guarantee of success of course, but one of the last lessons I'll offer is that there isn't ever a guarantee of success. We do what we think we need to do to successfully move though life's stages - and you've already demonstrated wisdom in how you're approaching this change.

I'm proud of you, and for what it's worth, I reserve the right to continue to do the Dad stuff. But know this - I've no fear that this change will be too much for you, or that it will be too difficult. You are ready for this.

Dad xo

Status

This word has come to be important to many young people lately. Conceptually it's been around a long time of course, but young people being who they are, didn't actually have an easy, simple descriptor for it. I'm referring to Facebook, and the relationship status that displays on one's profile.

For a young person, it's perhaps the most important element on the page, as it speaks to who you are involved with, peacocking this a little and mutual consent all at once.

The choices offered (above left) are interesting too - the obvious ones and the perhaps less obvious ones.

While we've always been interested in this kind of information about our fellow person, Facebook has brought it to a new level I'll suggest by bringing it out so very clearly. Don't believe me or buy into that..? Adjust your status and see how many comments you get. You'll be surprised.

The Ugly Underbelly of Mass Collaboration

Mass collaboration is a form of activity that occurs when large numbers of people work independently on a single project, and as a concept it's come into its own in light of social and other sharing platforms on the internet. It's a clever, wondrous idea and one whose time is upon us. You can see it at work in the twitter-sphere, and it has been leveraged and used for numerous advances in high profile endeavors such as the human genome project. It's also a popular *new* theme for business books from various intellectuals and business boffins telling us that the future has arrived, and here's what we can expect. It's 'all the rage' as we said in the old days.

Twitter passed 106.5M users in May 2010 according to their developer conference entitled Chirp (pauses and smiles for cuteness) and at that point, there were an average of 55M tweets a day. The top 10 in terms of who is being followed make up more the 44M people, though it's probably fair to say that it may be the same 5.8M people that follow Brittany Spears, that are following the other quasi-celebs that make up the top-10. All this to say, we're talking about a sizable audience, and one clearly that has the technical means to speak and be heard which simplistically = money.

All this popularity has an ugly side too though, and one that I'll admit I don't like. Even more to the point, this less attractive attribute is not being acknowledged as such, and we're doing ourselves a disservice that could undermine the overall perceptions we have about mass collaboration.

There have been some anecdotal examples of crowd-sourcing (I consider this an informal version of mass collaboration as consent to participate isn't overt, but rather volunteered) specifically utilizing Twitter that have tended to be about a given problem or issue affecting a single individual. While there have been times that satisfying these issues is altruistic, all to often they are simple complaints and collaboration as a result turns into mass whining.

Whether it's Dooce complaining about her washing machine, Dave Carroll's broken guitar thanks to United Airlines, or this week's broken wheelchair for little Tanner with muscular dystrophy, the outcome is the same - a new phrase which I wish I'd had the foresight to trademark that I fear you'll see repeatedly in the future "Twitter Outrage".

What is twitter outrage ? This is when the bandwagon is jumped on by many people, following some aggrevious act by some company. Often, it's nothing worse than the normal lack of service any of us encounter, but those with a large following or the ability to create a sensational story can create a twitter outrage and hold some poor company hostage. When mainstream media catches on, it's a hurricane in a teacup - sans the teacup.

Is it right to do this, is this perhaps the way that the 'little guy' finally gets heard and the mistakes that companies make are for once held up to them for accountability..? Perhaps. But let's also consider the other people that have been screwed by Maytag, had destroyed baggage by United, or had a disservice done to them on Air Canada..those without Twitter or Facebook or YouTube. These 'other people' are yesterday, today's and probably tomorrow's customers and they are still going to get the same levels of poor service, as before. What they won't get is people bending over backwards for them, as the PR machines at these companies focus on the squeaky twitter wheel - the ugly underbelly of mass collaboration. We are slowing feeding ourselves this porridge of satisfying bad behavior - we are rewarding inappropriate activity, and that is wrong.

I think the onus is on the people with a large following not to whine, and not to use their interested bases for service vengeance when they need to simply get in touch with customer service. Why do I think this...? I think that while poor customer service will sort itself out with traditional market forces, over time misusing the crowd-source will compromise the very idea of mass collaboration if we let it denigrate into whinging. And that...that would be a far larger shame than a broken guitar or washing machine.

Hindsight

A few bigger projects and initiatives that had very long development times are done now. It's almost anticlimactic, and a little sad. One or two remain and work remains on them, but in thinking about the few that are complete I'm pondering what might have been done differently or better. The rationale to do this is to that hindsight is 20:20 and foresight never is.

Being a firm believer that we rarely learn as much from our successes (we must have been correct, it was a success after-all), hindsight also grants us the chance to see perspectives and dimensions otherwise invisible to us at the time. It creates an opportunity to learn and therefore do things differently (and better) next time.

As a proponent and passionate believer that we should all be pushing for the 10% advantage, or improvment, hindsight is an essential tool as we move forward from challenge to challenge.

Moving

You should move, we all should, regularly.

It provides a few things that are all worthwhile..

1. You get a chance to revisit all that junk buried in closets and drawers that has been gathering dust since the last time you moved it. This brief trip down memory lane allows you to smile and reminisce at the past, and in parallel wonder why you kept these things from the last time you looked at them. Cue more puzzled smiles.
   
2. It allows you to "throw out", which I relate to the way that the human body functions, and is a good thing. We can't be additive forever, sometimes we need to cleanse. There are some well known guidelines for this that I won't trouble you with here, but its easy to find them if you want some 3rd party guidance as to what to keep, and what to toss out.

A forced review of what is important in our lives (if only the file structure in our respective desks) is a good thing to do from time to time. You will be more productive and in touch with your priorities afterwords.