I keep hoping to reignite my blogging routine. I will. Apparently it will take more time.
I’m juggling other priorities right now.
Let me pause, though, to propose a toast.
To great role models and the valuable time we have with them.
Cheers.
2012.01.01
Blevis’ hierarchy of development (a work in progress)
I’ve never been a fan of new year’s resolutions — or as Andrea humourously referred to them last night, “reservations.” A few years ago I focused on goals I was hoping to achieve in the coming year. Last year I joined the my three words movement and selected three words intended to put focus on my personal and professional activities for 2011: create, connect and learn.
I had planned to benchmark myself against those words periodically during the year. I didn’t. As it turns out, though, I did pretty well subconsciously. It was easy. In many ways I’ve spent most of the last decade living by those words. I suppose you could say I cheated by selecting them.
Yet, you have to remain true to who you are.
So much so, that I’ve decided rather than reinvent myself with a new set of three words, I should use the original three as the foundation of my… well… development (for lack of a better phrase). If who I am personally and professionally is a bit of work in progress, so should be the model I build of myself.
The thought occurred to me yesterday as I considered the impact of my three words in the last year: I need to create a hierarchy of development. This means building on my progress rather than tearing it out and starting anew.
I wasn’t sure how to best pull it together. So I quickly drew something on my whiteboard. In the process I added a single new word, rather than three, above what I believe to be my foundation layer. (click the image for a larger view)
So, 2012 is the year I add EXPERIENCE both as a verb and noun: effectively applying experience and actively seeking to earn and gain from new experience to my hierarchy. This applies both personally and professional. It builds on my existing and ongoing creative work, connections and learning. By the way, the cluster of words on the right (understand, be understood, transform) is the structure I apply to my work in public affairs. Oddly, I sketched that as a top-down.
Thanks to Dan Roam for helping think about things visually.
Here’s to layering on experience to my hierarchy.
2011.12.31
Thank you 2011 and my 2011 “alpha” professional network
It’s hard to believe we’re heading in to the final evening of 2011. It’s been an amazingly full year. In many respects, I’m surprised so much activity filled such a short period of time.
For me, 2011 meant launching my own company, becoming immersed in analysis of digital and social media on politics and public affairs campaigns, becoming a sought-after resource for the media, discovering central Canada on Via’s fabled The Canadian (train), traveling through and around southern Alberta, getting reacquainted with some of our children’s book friends, and more.
And, that’s just a small sample of all of the amazing things I’ve experienced. I’ll leave the more difficult times out of this post.
I could not close out the year without acknowledging a few people I consider important mentors; each of whom offered me honest feedback and advice over the year as I blazed new trails for myself. To be clear, i value all of my relationships and mentors, personal and professional (and there are many). Most of us have a few people who played a more significant role for us in 2011.
Without getting into the details of the role each played or the impact they had on me, I’m privileged to have been given time, insight and/or opportunities by Joe Thornley, Keelan Green, Michael von Herff, Paul Monlezun, Dietwald Claus, John Sparks, Monte Solberg, Dave Johnson, Erin Lannan, Don Martin, Rob Russo, Evan Solomon, Gavin Lumsden and Sandra Blaikie.
Thank you!
2011.11.02
Centralized vs. de-centralized information management
About a year ago we took our daughters to a wave pool. It was a Friday night.
Andrea (my wife) had gone to the City of Ottawa website that afternoon and found that only one wave pool was open in the area (in the far reaches of the east end of the city) while others underwent renovations. When we arrived we were told the pump on the pool had broken 24 hours earlier. That information was not on the City’s website, nor in its Twitter stream.
There was a long line of people all expressing the same frustration to the staff, some more colourfully than others.
The staff at the pool knew about the pump failure. Managers in the recreation department at City Hall knew about the pump failure. However, the centralized management of online information (as it was described to me at the time) had a process which featured a delay of about 2-3 business days. It was Friday. The pump was scheduled for repair on Monday. The broken pump announcement was already injected into the system meaning that message would reach the website and Twitter stream the day the pool was repaired. Or the day after.
Many organizations still face this kind of problem. Centralized message control and established processes add complexity in getting necessary information to the public over modern channels in a timely manner. If the staff had the necessary privileges to post notices to the City’s recreation page and Twitter stream, a lot of people would have had a better Friday evening. In fact, if you consider the cost of the information process on both ends of the pump repair, complaint handling and the morale of staff that Friday night, you realize the monetary cost of the City’s policies were probably greater than those associated with de-centralizing online information management.
The way people get their information from and interact with producers and service providers has changed significantly. And the nature of those interactions continues to evolve. How agile is your organization?
2011.10.29
Facilitating creativity
There just isn’t enough space in my brain to make sense of all of my creative projects including those for my clients and my own hobby pursuits. I made that realization during a brainstorming session with Andrea Friday afternoon. We were in a Bridgehead coffee shop coming up with creative ways to help a client with messaging for their consumer service. There was a stranger just inches from us while we were trying to be uninhibited in our creativity. And so ended our freedom to create.
The conversation quickly turned to ways we can brainstorm and the tools that may be missing. We realized that one of the tools we miss from working for someone else is a flip chart. White boards are great, yet the information they capture is understood to be transient. We love the flip chart. And, who’s to say large offices can have them and small ones can’t.
So, we bought a flip chart. And, we’re in the process of making some changes to reinvent the way we think of our main floor as a creative space — one that hopefully doesn’t show the telltale signs of creativity in the forms of piles and scattered papers
It’s been less than 24 hours and my mind is already more free to explore the ideas I have. I keep fresh stacks of flip chart paper on the stand and have been using it not only to capture my own ideas, but to include the family in capturing thoughts through word/idea association to which we can contribute whenever we feel inspired.
How do you facilitate creativity in your living space?
Stay in touch
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