A story within a story, also rendered story-within-a-story, is a literary device in which one narrative is presented during the action of another narrative. Mise en abyme is the French term for a similar literary device (also referring to the practice in heraldry of placing the image of a small shield on a larger shield).
In Wikipedia, it is written that a story within a story (“mise en abyme”) can be used in novels, short stories, plays, television programs, films, poems, songs, and philosophical essays. But I argue that such artistic devices may be used in our real fleshly lives as a means of discovery, innovation and evolution. And I propose that digital social accounts like Facebook contain nested stories, all of which are doorways into alternative experiences or possible existences…a living fabric of “mise en abyme” that you have assembled for any purpose under the sun…
The reality is that many products and services have a real human story at the root of their existence. Tapping into this story is what connects us to the heart of a product’s latent community, the living fabric with an orientation toward a specific service.
The existing corporate story related solely to sales should cease as the number one tale known to contemporary society. And this needs to happen now.
Humanity is tired of being “sold”. Humanity wants and needs the magic, the tactile sensibility of a story populated with sweat, flesh and the intricacies of a rich inner life. That’s where connection occurs.
The way out of anything is to go INTO it, so deeply into it that you find the core. The core is usually like a seed or a small infant, no matter what the outer aspects look like. Take that seed, that infant, in your hands, in your arms and it will offer up its need and desire to you. Fulfilling that need and desire at the core of any puzzle, any challenge, any hardened situation, usually results in a fresh flow of life-juice. Peace and Joy are the natural outcome of such love.
Right now our world has a connective digital tissue. It is called the Internet. The Internet has become like flesh now. It is sensitized because of the people who are constantly using digital networks to communicate. And this communication moves very swiftly around the planet. At the push of a one button in the smallest apartment, at an island home or on a farm by the sea, a message can be sent and arrive EVERYWHERE.
It seems there are so many puzzles that humans are trying to figure out at this time in history. And we have the tools at our fingertips.
1. IDENTIFY YOUR MISSION: Use a pen and paper to write it down.
3. FLESH OUT YOUR MESSAGE WITH TEXT, IMAGES, MOVIES, MUSIC AND MUCH MORE: Go to the World Wide Mind and study each type of major social property. Find content related to your mission in these properties by using the Search field. As you do this, you will be discovering a community of like-minded folks. Make a note of their profiles in an Excel spreadsheet. If you spend a whole day doing this, going around The World Wide Mind, you may have discovered hundreds of new friends. Oh, and mash up all of this great content you find, along with your own, to create the first coloring of your own network.
4. UPLOAD YOUR INITIAL CONTENT TO YOUR VARIOUS CLAIMED SOCIAL PROPERTIES.
5. BUILD YOUR COMMUNITY: Contact each of the individuals on your spreadsheet by sending them a personal note appreciating their content. Invite them to be a friend.
6. CONTINUE SPREADING YOUR MESSAGE AND DISCOVERING NEW FRIENDS.
7. STATE YOUR GOALS AND INVITE OTHERS TO JOIN YOU: Write simple short messages each day as tweets, Facebook posts, Flickr photo uploads, YouTube uploads, Twitpics, a song addd to Last.fm, a presentation placed on SlideShare. Socialize these messages to ALL of the social properties in which you are present.
8. TAKE ACTION: Now create an event using Meetup.com or EventBrite and invite people to come and interact. Find like-minded people in the digital networks and invite them. Meeting in the flesh is amazing, especially after having been kindred souls in the digital networks. Use a community like Challenge Post or Giveo to get your cause out there and get something done!
Its never too late to enter social networks. And there’s no right way to be social. After all, as the great mystic Ziauddin Sardar says, “There is more than one way to be a human being.” So go be yourself. Totally. Go where you want to go in social networks and you will find people just like you there!
The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention…. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words. ~ RACHEL NAOMI REMEN
When the tribe first sat down in a circle and agreed to allow only one person to speak at a time – that was the longest step forward in the history of law. ~ Judge Curtis Bok
”Council is the practice of speaking and listening from the heart. Through compassionate, heartfelt expression and empathic, non-judgmental listening, Council inspires a non-hierarchical form of deep communication that reveals a group’s vision and purpose.” ~Ojai Foundation leadership, (http://www.ojaifoundation.org/what-is-council)
The way of council circle is THE ethos for our current socially-networked world. This is where each voice has its time and listening is more important than a battle of voices. In council, our pride is in how well we have heard “the Other”. This is humanity’s only hope now.
The wisest being in the circle is invisible, created by the drumming, the silence, the tears, the laughter, the stories. In the men’s circle, we each spoke, wept, laughed, shouted and sang into the silence, into the center of the circle. Often, if I chose to remain silent, waiting until it felt right to speak, another would say something that captured what lived within me perfectly. The feedback after deep sharing and deep listening was appreciation for something other than what I shared. This lifted me up and out of my pain, my pride, my sorrow, my victory and put me back together again…lifting me up or humbling me through warmth, through friendship, through a feeling of brotherhood enwrapped in a profound spiritual sense of community.
I remember a circle 5 or 6 years ago. I sat down and began using the words Us, We and You. A long time circle brother gently stopped me. “Nathaniel,” he said, “I can’t see you when you use these words to describe experience. And I want to see you. Please only use I when you talk about your week and the lessons you’ve learned.”
This was a huge evening for me because I really felt in my body the truth of personal responsibility.
My experience of circle is that I gain incredible wisdom in sitting with others, really on a level rarely plumbed in other settings.
One of the cornerstones of Circle is teaching adults and children to appreciate one another in a manner that the recipient can truly feel the appreciation. I say what I really see inside the person, what I love, honor and respect about the person – not their story. I learn not to over appreciate because I know that some of us can only “hold” so much. I avoid speaking about their appearance but more about their essence. Avoid disguised advice in your appreciations like “ It’s important to take care of yourself”. I try not to use superlatives like greatest, best etc. I try to step out of myself and think only of giving the gift of appreciation in a way that the receiver will accept it with ease.
The principles of deep-listening in Council Circle gatherings are necessary for our now increasingly socially-networked world.
Deep Listening principles from the Council tradition are as follows:
1- Maintain eye contact with the person speaking.
2- Be relaxed but present.
3- Be still.
4- Listen from the heart.
5- Be non-judgmental.
6- Allow the story to unfold.
7- Listen carefully and the person speaking will always tell you what they need.
8- It’s not your job to “fix” the person who’s speaking.
9- Common mistakes to avoid:
a) DON’T give advice (unless asked for)
b) DON’T “swap stories” to reassure the person who’s speaking. You may
think your story is “the same” but its THAT PERSON’S moment, not yours.
c) DON’T interpret the meaning of his feelings
d) DON’T interrupt discharge of emotion (laughter, tears, etc.).
Let the emotions flow out into the circle and sit in attendance to
that emotion.
e) DON’T talk very much
f) DON’T ask questions for your own information.
g) DON’T think a lot about how to “help” the person speaking.
h) ONLY ask questions to lead the person deeper into feelings & his own re/solutions.
10- The most common mistake: Trying to show the person speaking what a good, understanding, perceptive, kind, helpful … person, counselor, leader … you are.
11- Listen, listen, listen! (That’s really what we all need).
The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention…. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words. ~ RACHEL NAOMI REMEN
The nature of a circle is equality and if we really want to heal the world through circles (whether digital or in-the-flesh), we must learn the way of circle, which was mastered many moons ago in the tribal cultures of the world. This is our only hope as humanity at this time. We do not have time for the dis-organized, tangled world of arguing as seen in the British Parliment. We NEVER have time for the killing off of other ethnicities and the horrible mess afterwards. We don’t have time for hate-speak and fighting.
If I take time, once a week, to sit with my brothers and sisters for 3-4 hours and only listen to their truth and only speak my truth, we will make light-speed progress through a weaving of hearts and minds. Try this today: sit with your friend, your spouse, your parent, your brother or sister, and simply listen to him/her for 30 minutes. Don’t offer advice, don’t interrupt, don’t identify. Just listen. That’s what our world needs right now to allow our collective intelligence true emergence.
Here’s just one of many takes on giving your gift to the world today!
1. GREAT CONTENT: The bottom line in marketing within the social networks is Quality Content WITHIN a Quality Context. @MarvinTowler
2. THERE IS NOTHING TOUGH OR NEW ABOUT IT: And that nothing has changed at all. The local veggie salesman often knows more about socializing than marketeers. Spend a day at the Farmer’s Market! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me1zCtzwDM0)
3. GOOD RELATIONSHIPS: It’s about relationships. And humanizing business process. http://www.peopleizers.com
Peter Ecomomides of FelixBNI tells a story of his neighborhood market to illustrate how everything has changed & nothing has changed. Peter talks about conceiving creative & human ways to interact with customers. Applying common sense marketing to social tools (Social Monitoring Tools) & social networks (The World Wide Mind). The importance of adapting social technologies to ways humans have always spent time is vital. We gossip, watch movies, check out photos, listen to music, check the news. The most successful social networks, apps and tools are digital software that serve timeless human actions. This is the beauty of what Mr. Economides recognizes in his statement about “getting back to social”. He acknowledges that social objects – tweets, status updates, photos posted to Flickr, video posted to YouTube, ARE the medium. Mr. Economides writes, “Twitter is not a medium. Your tweets are the medium. Your blog, your Facebook page, etc.”
AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH MR. PETER ECONOMIDES OF FELIXBNI
ON CHANGE: You’ve emphasized that “everything has changed and nothing has changed”. What are your thoughts on that today and why is this an important message for those getting into marketing via social networks?
Everyone in marketing was educated BDSM – Before the Development of Social Media. And the marketing we learned was focused on the Broadcast Economy. Mass media. Mass retailing. The consumer as a demographic number.
Social Media has given birth to the Conversation Economy. Massive media which do not broadcast. Messaging has become stream of micro conversations. The consumer now has a highly individual profile.
My point is that this is the way it has always been. Mass, if you think about it, is the aberration. It’s back to village, where conversation and word of mouth rule supreme. It’s just that this time the village is global. And the main road running through it is the internet and social media.
The irony is that the largest medium in the world has taken us back to a world filled with individuals, conversation and word of mouth. But as Gary Vaynerchuk says, it’s “word of mouth on steroids.”
Social media is influencing consumer behaviour way beyond the internet. And this is the most important thing for any marketer to bear in mind. Great marketing rests on powerful consumer insight. And if marketers don’t understand the 360º effect of social media on consumer behaviour, they’re in serious trouble.
I often illustrate this through my local butcher.
I believe that he has the best meat in Athens. Now, I am not an expert. I do not know this, but I believe it. Not because of what he says but because of how he behaves. He does not impress this on me. He expresses it in everything he says and everything he does.
He has not studied marketing. He knows nothing about social media. But he is an insightful human who understands what makes people tick. His reputation has been built entirely on word of mouth. He knows that. And he also knows that his reputation can be ruined by word of mouth. In a flash.
Smart people have always known this. And the best butcher in the village has always behaved like this. Ask your grandmother.
ON TECHNOLOGY AND CONVERSATION: Danny Brown writes, “Every single one of us is connected, from the tech savvy to the Luddite to the in-between. And if we’re all connected, it becomes easier to help. And if we all help each other, maybe there’s just a chance the world might be a better place.” Do you see social technologies as accelerators of helping each other and making the world a better place? What can humans do in the context of social technologies that is different than via telephone, fax machines, and the Pony Express? Is it only about speed or is there something more tactile about social technologies now?
Conversation is the key.
Good conversation is a dialogue that consists of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. In other words, it is dynamic. It moves somewhere. Social media facilitates synthesis in a way that the telephone, fax machine and the Pony Express never could. It’s immediate. It’s massive. And it’s open. It’s like a perpetual town hall debate.
Television? Just thesis. No antithesis. Certainly no synthesis.
ON TWITTER: What is Twitter and why do you use it?
Twitter’s a cocktail party where you are free to drop into a conversation, plant a seed, pick a fruit, shape a thought, learn, share, contribute … and move on to the next conversation. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.
Twitter is also the most immediate news source on the planet. I witnessed the Egyptian Revolution earlier this year by switching between Twitter and Al Jazeera on my iPad. I was in Tahrir Square through Twitter. Picking up news and personal drama. And I’d see the images a little later on Al Jazeera. No other medium could have done that for me.
The evening news? Forget about it!
ON FACEBOOK: Why have so many people flocked to Facebook?
A market is always built on a great product.
And I think Facebook is a great product.
Easy. Intuitive. Lots of ways to share. And, importantly, lots of reward through the Like button.
But there are a lot of great products out there which do not succeed ….
Facebook’s initial appeal was to the high school and college crowd. Important influencers of the older crowd. Facebook crossed the chasm into mainstream through kids. And once they had the critical mass, the network effect kicked in. One billion users by the end of 2011 … remarkable. But that;’s the network effect in action.
Facebook has played an important role as most people’s first step into social media. But it runs the risk of becoming the “low rent district” of the internet.
EXPLAINING SOCIAL TECHNOLOGY TO GRANDMA: How on earth do you explain social technologies and social networks to grandma? Or the crustiest of CEOs?
Back to the village! And back to my butcher story.
You’ve seen many approaches to marketing over the years. What are two of your favorite campaigns, in the past or now? What could social technology and social networks facilitate that maybe would have been tougher in the past?
I’d rather talk about great brands.
Because a campaign is just a stage in the life of a brand.
Every category has a protagonist brand.
And it should be the ambition of every brand to be the protagonist of its category.
Think of a soft drink. Coca-Cola?
The Coca-Cola of vodka?
The Absolut of computers?
The Apple of beer? The Heineken of sports shoes? The Nike of coffee shops?
Starbucks hardly advertises. But look at the quality of the conversation it has with its customers. In everything it says. And everything it does. Everything communicates.
Starbucks knows what its “Starbucksness” is all about. And so does every barista who works there. That’s the key to a great brand. Consistent behaviour throughout the organization. In everything it says and does.
Great brands have always understood the conversation. Great brands have always understood that they sell product to individuals and not to numbers. Great brands have always “got” what the social media experts are preaching. Nothing is new.
Naturally, social media open up new opportunities to connect with consumers through thesis, antithesis and synthesis. I wonder about the future of consumer research …..
ON GREECE: You have lived all over the world – in New York, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Johanessburg, Athens. You’ve marketed huge brands like Apple and Coca-Cola. You’ve been in leadership at major ad agencies like McCann and also done your own thing. Now you live in Athens, Greece. What is happening in Greece right now and how can OR are social networks play(ing) a part in this?
There’s a huge conversation going on on Twitter, revolving around current events in Greece. Also a number of great forums on Facebook. But I don’t see much traction. I am working on a public forum in the style of Quora which I hope to launch soon.
GREEK FAVORITES: Who is your favorite Greek musician? Film director? Playwright? Journalist?
“Wait a moment, here I have it. This: ‘Most men will not swim before they are able to.’ Is not that witty? Naturally, they won’t swim! They are born for the solid earth, not for the water. And naturally they won’t think. They are made for life, not for thought. Yes, and he who thinks, what’s more, he who makes thought his business, he may go far in it, but he has bartered the solid earth for the water all the same, and one day he will drown.” ~Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf
THOSE WHO KNOW HOW TO SWIM MUST TEACH: We live in times when mankind has bartered solid earth for water. Those who know how to swim, must swim and teach. And those that would survive must be willing to learn and adapt. Such is the case for those learning social networks. Social networks are an outer manifestation in the form of text, photos, video, news and music OF OUR inner lives. Whereas before we heard thoughts from another person over a telephone line or experienced a director’s vision on the television or silver screen, we now have an environment (social networks) where we live WITHIN a constant stream of thought, vision and communication. To speak plainly: those who can find business intelligence, set up on-the-fly networks and aggregate customers quickly WITHIN social networks provide value to traditional businesses seeking to enter these same networks.
THE MEDIUM HAS CHANGED: Sifting through this stream, filtering it, is the primary and initial task that those who work in social networks must do via social media monitoring and community management. And those who introduce corporations and brands to the use of social networks must simplify and translate all of the lexicon that has ballooned around social networks into an easy to grasp language. Many, like Peter Economides of FelixBNI, state firmly that nothing has changed EXCEPT the medium or channel. While this is very true, there is also the reality that a new medium often changes the user or participant. We communicate at the speed of thought now and our “PCs, the Internet, mobile phones, GPS have come together to enable a vast distributed data network of collective memory…a collective stream of intelligence” (PeopleBrowsr). To speak plainly: social networks now provide a new, faster means to create connections, sales and business relationships.
CONVINCING DUTCH UNCLES: So how does one convince a businessman in his 60′s who is used to using the telephone and maybe a fax machine to communicate…how does one convince such a man to use Facebook to see photos and read stories of his grandchildren, to see Twitter as a scope into powerful business intelligence, to view photos of family and peers at Flickr and video of family at YouTube? How does one convince him to look for the breaking news at Reddit or discover the latest market trends at StumbleUpon? How does one convince him to read what his competitors’ team is presenting at Slideshare or Scrib’d? How does one convince him to catch up with his granddaughter’s music at her Last.fm channel or to create his own radio station at Pandora and listen to this on the drive to work? How does one reveal that vital conversations related to the brands he founded are taking place within Disqus communities (communities built around the comment-threads from blogs)? How does one convince him that Wikipedia is a faster route to information on many subjects than Britannica? How does one convince him that Yelp will “save the night” in a new town if that top restaurant is fully booked? To speak plainly: there is a network for every market and many networks contain a slice devoted to specific markets. Use these free venues for connection to your customer and for making sales!
SELLING CRONIES ON SOCIAL NETWORKS: Selling the crustiest, saltiest critics on the power and speed of social networks is rooted in psychology. Changing anyone’s mind, accessing a heart, really depends upon getting to know that person. What motivates him or her? What goals does he or she have? Doing a little homework USING social networks PRIOR to such meetings is one route to engaging in a convincing conversation. When I know what 10 competitors to a brand are doing RIGHT NOW (social monitoring tools) and six months from now (Recorded Future), that can be a great conversation starter. When I know where 50 new clients/customers for a product or service are located and what they are saying, this can lead to some exciting plans for the corporation. When I can show what events led to a shift in consumer behavior that either helped or hurt a brand, that can lead to some important adjustments to the supply chain and perhaps product identity. When I create a simple infographic that visualizes EXACTLY where that gentleman’s customers are conversing in social networks, what they are saying, when they are saying it and to whom they are talking, well, we hope he will see pools of new business opportunity. Will this businessman want his regional sales teams to know about new businesses expected to enter an area during the next 3 years? How would the CEO of a major automaker like to see alliances, business relations, company affiliates or joint ventures related to top global automakers? To speak plainly: When normal business processes are augmented or enhanced by social network data, we can make informed and calculated decisions on where, to whom, when and how to sell online. More effectively, with less expense and faster response time!
TEACHING LEVERAGE: But the next part is sticky, in more ways than one. Because after this classic businessman has paid for market intelligence and a plan to access these pools of customers, his first action is often incorrect. He wants to blast these customers with the digital equivalent of direct-marketing mail pieces from a neighborhood souvlaki joint. He wants to buy TV ads and slap a Facebook icon at the end. He wants to get on the bullhorn and round ‘em up to the lot for those shiny new vehicles. And so now we have to show him examples of how brands have leveraged the inexpensive and free social networks to harness the collective strength of employees and customers alike. We have to show him how Best Buy raised up its entire staff via TwelpForce and solved thousands of customer service issues via Twitter. We have to show him how NewEgg put up lots of videos to teach customers how to fix or use electronics purchased at their stores. We have to show him how Starbucks gave their customers a chance to change anything about the stores or products or service through My Starbucks Idea. And even if we heard about these great methods of leveraging social networks years ago at conferences or through friends running those social communities, we have to keep telling the story because it is still so new to so many. Especially the crusty cronies. To speak plainly: Do not assume when selling social network ideas to CEOs that he/she has seen or “gets” what you are talking about. Spell it out WITH examples that include simple math and clear lists of benefits.
SELLING COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT AND CONTENT-MARKETING TO MARKETING MANAGERS: Another tough sell is convincing the Marketing Manager and the General Manager that a new position of Community Manager or Social Media Manager WITHIN the corporation is essential. And that this person will be creating LOTS of regular content and engaging in relationship with the customers and stakeholders of the brand. As Jeremiah Owyang, of Altimeter Group, says, “Agencies should teach their clients how to ‘fish’ rather than do it for them as strategic advisors.” Or as Steve Woodruff writes, “The companies who advance with real personality in their social media endeavors will likely do best.” Content and relationship that works in social networks is born from customers who are passionate about the brand and a Community Manager or Social Media Manager who takes this content and distributes it throughout the social networks to the advantage of BOTH the customer and the brand. Read more on Great Community Management in this interview with Eleftherios Hatziioannou, former Social Media Manager at Mercedes-Benz Global and current Social Media Director at s.Oliver.
It all goes back to psychology and knowing what each person WITHIN the organization wants, what they need, and what the company is ready for now. And then showing how some simple first steps involving Listening, Planning and Executing can lead to great things. As Peter Economides of FelixBNI writes, “It’s about social psychology, not economics.”
A FEW GREAT TWEETS TO CONSIDER:
“You need someone who can read into the data and say “this is telling me…” ” richmeyer
There are way too many analytic solutions out there & not enough people to analyze the data and turn it into actionable data. richmeyer
Organizations need individuals/teams within to leverage analytics into actionable items that can help meet brand objectives. richmeyer
A “spot-on” CSV of 100 Key Influencers w/social links + a summation of these Influencers’ latest messages + a graph of who follows them. Nat_Hansen
(Author’s note: The following piece is born out of my deep love of mythology and the belief that rituals embodying these mythologies can transform cultures deadened by modernity and the love of money. ~Nathaniel Hansen, M.A. Mythological Studies, Pacifica Graduate Institute, April 18, 2011. Athens, Greece).
All cultures … have grown out of myths. They are founded on myths. What these myths have given has been inspiration for aspiration. The economic interpretation of history is for the birds. Economics is itself a function of aspiration. It’s what people aspire to that creates the field in which economics works. ~Joseph Campbell
We’re in a freefall into the future. We don’t know where we’re going. Things are changing so fast, and always when you’re going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. And all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. It’s a very interesting shift of perspective and that’s all it is… joyful participation in the sorrows and everything changes. ~Joseph Campbell
Heresy is the life of a mythology, and orthodoxy is the death. ~Joseph Campbell
Deities find power in the cultures that adore and nurture them. Bringing a deity back to life involves igniting a flame of desire within the populace whose ancestors once served and worshipped it. The truth is that the deity itself has not died…the people only need remember what their ancestors felt and saw and smelled. Re-igniting a culture with its root metaphor, with the essence that animated its founders, IS a path to enlivening its people. A nation in crisis can find inspiration AND momentum via a root metaphor.
WHAT IS A ROOT METAPHOR: A root metaphor is much more than a figure of speech or an image. A root metaphor is the god, the mythology, which births a culture. Author Sandra Barnes writes, “Root metaphor names things that are likened to one another…once a root metaphor is named it becomes a protected category within which many ways of replicating, restating, or reformulating an idea can be tried out. The greater its ability to incorporate and adapt to new experience, the more powerful it becomes.” Archibald MacLeish writes, “A world ends when its metaphor has died.” The pain in the West is not of a people yearning for the arrival of a savior but of a people chained from honoring the natural world surrounding them. The importance of a people re-discovering the root metaphor of the earliest cultures from whence their ancestors came cannot be understated. Experience of a root metaphor is experience of a deity.
Ritual sustains the relationship between a deity and a culture. Ritual is the embodiment of myth. Ritual is the swiftest route to invoking gods from long ago. The best books on ritual are the following:
Helping a culture remember its gods has the potential to awaken within its core, its depth, a renewed vigor and vitality. The literature on the effect of political power games masked as beneficent acts by religious organizations is manifold. And the literature on violent wars based upon the same is also manifold. No wonder people want to forget gods that were part of an era in which their ancestors were violently attacked and killed! We now live within yet another period of history where such violence between people groups has resulted in countless deaths (ie.-Bosnia or Rwanda).
So why would a culture want to remember gods that might awaken previous conflicts with other cultures?
The reasons for remembering an ancient deity are manifold. The central value I seek to identify is simple: Power grows within the culture that touches the hand of its ancient gods. When a people are animated by the gods that gave birth to their nation, amazing things can happen. It’s one thing to move from the love of money to loving people. It’s even more powerful to come together with those loved ones and worship a deity, or a pantheon of deities.
Watch anyone discuss religion, politics or sexuality and you will see a person animated by a god. The passion these three topics engenders has more to do with the unseen than the seen. And the realm of the unseen is the realm of the gods.
A PATH TO DISCOVERING POTENT RITUAL: So how does one bring a god back to life? How does one ignite the cultural memory of a people?
1. Identify the external artifacts (architecture, music, daily schedule) that match ancient forms. Map and describe these. 2. Listen to the conversations of the people in social networks and identify where these same external artifacts locate in the fabric of the Internet. What symbols in the physical plane are mirrored in cyberspace and in the social networks? Draw connections. Make maps on your wall of these. Or use mapping software online. 3. Create campaigns, films, music, community programs, public cultural events, private gatherings of influencers and multiple small gatherings (circles) that bring people together in the flesh. When a revolution that starts in social networks move to the realm of flesh, great emotion, attraction and synergy occurs. This is the power of going from a Facebook wall to a Facebook event to a lover’s bed, of going from an Eventbrite conference to a local meetup to the office of an organization that matches your skillet perfectly, of going from an online game to a concert with other fans of a great band to the band’s hotel suite! 4. Install “avatars” into the mix of #3 who embody the energy of the gods/goddesses you wish to help the culture remember. Empower these avatars to inject the energy of the gods/goddesses directly into the imagination and emotional body of the culture. Watch how quickly the messaging from these avatars spreads through the social networks and Internet media channels (like YouTube). 5. Immersion: As the members of a culture are immersed in the power of the medium and the avatars, watch how author and reader, performer and audience, begin to merge and weave the flavor of the god into the flesh of the culture. 6. Choosing the right content is critical. As was once said, the difference between the right and wrong word IS the difference between a lightning bug AND lightning! You WANT the members of the culture ALL humming that god’s tune on their lips. That’s what brings change…and quickly! 7. Location: The most powerful location into which an avatar can speak powerful words is ritual. Return to the excellent books on ritual above and make this study part of your work. Then re-create the original rituals from ancient times as the meeting point between a current generation and its ancestral gods. 8. Health: Once the avatar sparks the culture, keep him/her healthy as the vitalization of content leads to heady situations where the avatar MUST keep his/her cool and not implode or explode. Good healthy habits are in order!! 9. PR: Deal with critics by having pre-scripted guidelines in place for the typical critics of such a deity. And ALWAYS remember that Critics are there to drive Creatives to higher heights and deeper depths! The most powerful answer to a Critic can sound like this: “There will always be more than one way to be a human!”
The nations of the world are ripe for remembering ancestral deities. Lots of them! And the time to act is NOW!!
HEART AND SOUL ARE GREECE’S PRIMARY EXPORT: Greece has vast exports of the heart that world citizens desire. There’s nothing new about this AND there’s a whole new generation of Greeks who deserve to experience a return on their culture’s seemingly endless ability to tap soul and human-ness. There’s a tactile aspect to relationship here found nowhere else on the planet. People everywhere want this experience AND want to know how to get it.
THE TIME OF THE GREEK HAS COME ONCE AGAIN: Due to increasing weaving of heart and tech via social networks, the time has never been better for Greek “heart-exporters” to get busy. Walk into a night club in NYC or LA and watch what happens to the crowd when DJ Vassilis Tsillichristos takes control. There is an intuitive understanding within the Greek psyche of interior landscapes and this plays out in Greek music especially. The music effortlessly carries one swiftly to the center of physical sensations related to relationship, self-exploration and identity.
SOCIAL NETWORKS BORN FROM GREEK PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITION: PhD student Theresa Sauter, from the Queensland University of Technology, is examining how social-networking websites help people form their own identity.
“Social-networking sites, blogs, online discussion forums and online journals represent modern arenas for individuals to write themselves into being,” the Courier Mail quotes Sauter as saying.
“A lot of people see social networking as a new way for people to interact but I’m interested in examining it as a way to form an identity and understand ourselves,” she adds.
“The ancient Greek philosophers used a reflective notebook to write down what they had read and their thoughts on it,” she said.
EVIDENCE FOUND IN THE GREEK COFFEE RITUAL:We see in Sauter’s quotes the strength of the Greek identity. Living in Greece, one REALLY experiences that force in real-time. It is a passion for creativity that is shaped by the presence of a harsh critical eye. This typifies the internal Greek landscape, its psychic tension. One part of the Greek psyche acts like a chisel upon marble, carving towards essence. How could an export of Greek sensibility and passion play out?
Here’s just one way: There is an increasing movement via Augmented Reality, Transmedia and the externalizing of social network experience that needs Greek input. As we begin wearing computers, touching QR codes and interacting “in-the-flesh” with social networks, humanity has the potential to extract from imagination a deeper experience via relationship. And Greeks have mastered this. One only need sit at coffee in Greece to know what is meant by this. Every possibility is explored over coffee, every avenue of relationship, every business idea, every position on anything at all. And it is this, this precision of relationship, that Greeks bring to the global human community. If I were to ask someone to lead the branding of external social hardware, I would pick a Greek BECAUSE of the precise and complex social analysis he/she creates.
PRECISION OF RELATIONSHIP IN GREECE: What do I mean by “precision of relationship” in Greek culture? This is related to insight. I’ve learned a lot about insight since spending time in Greece, both in the professional sense and the personal sense. Devin Coldewey writes, “Insight is the result of recombination, hybridizing ideas, internal accidents, emergent properties of ideas we never even knew were related.” To return to Greek “coffee time”, here we experience a seemingly inexhaustible exploration and re-exploration of what was said, who said, when it was said, why it was said, what it could have meant, what should we do about it. And it is in this analysis that one finds laughter, depth, decision. When you look into the eye of a Greek, you really feel like some part inside your chest or brain has been touched by that eye. And whether this is true or not, whether the observer really does “feel” you immediately, is not the point. The point is what YOU feel in that moment. Because Greeks will reflect to you what you are very quickly, if only by staring back at you a few seconds longer than other nationalities.
HOLLOWED BY SORROW, FILLED BY JOY: If externalized social hardware is to lead humanity to some kind of evolutionary step, it will necessarily lead one into depth of experience of others and the world (as digital social networks have done). James Hillman writes, “Until the culture recognizes the legitimacy of growing down, each person in the culture struggles blindly to make sense of the darkness that the soul requires to deepen into life.” It is natural to desire transcendence, to want escape, to experience “another place”. And the pleasures of transcendence are multiplied when one has experienced depth and pain. A cup hollowed by sorrow can hold more joy. No nation has experienced such depth of heartache than Greece, not only because of the nature of its travesties but ALSO because Greeks truly do feel emotion in their bodies with an intensity one has to see to experience. A fight between Greek lovers is truly something to behold!
FROM CITY TO ISLAND: But what really draws one into the Greek experience (and why Greek sensibility ought to have a strong influence upon the externalizing of social networks through social hardware and wearable computers), is the bent towards simplicity. The journey from the endlessly complicated chaos of Athens to a Greek island captures what humans really long for deep down. Cosmologist Brian Swimme captures this journey when he writes, “The fundamental worldview of industrial society is that Earth is like a gravel pit or a lumberyard — just a resource for human use. We live disconnected from the evolving earth community, but our deepest allurement is a rich, intimate participation in the sacred powers of life, of nature, of soul, the ongoing adventure of the Universe and the ways that each one of us can reinvent ourselves.” Tens of thousands of Greeks experience the ritual of departing from an industrial mindset to pure physical and social immersion every August. Our future as a species should be characterized by this type of pilgrimage for it is the healing we need.
SOCIAL GRAPH = ATHENS, INTEREST GRAPH = THE ISLANDS: Externalized social tech at its best will follow Occam’s Razor. Leonardo da Vinci captured the Razor in his own elegant language: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” And few environments could be more simple than a Greek island in the summer. As one of Greece’s greatest writers, Nikos Kazanstakis writes, “How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. . . . All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.” He goes on to write, “You have your brush, you have your colors, you paint the paradise, then in you go.” Think of the social graphs (Facebook) as Athens, many types all melded together. Think of the interest graph (Twitter) as the islands: each island has its purpose. Santorini for lovers, Mykonos for parties, Tinos for Mother Mary, etc.
GREECE IS THE PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION OF AN IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE: The immersive quality of social networks matches the immersive experience of Greek culture. If you walk down the street in Athens, in any Greek city, you’ll see how over and over each person IS a kingdom unto themselves, ready at any moment to react or seduce, to envelop you in his/her ethos. A Greek may seem quiet on the surface but I will tell you that below this surface is a great molten center ready at any time to burst forth. And in this fire there exists the same Promethean tendency to distribute the magic of the gods to one’s parea, one’s tribe. The magic of the parea is the at the center of Greek culture. This subjective nature of the parea and its interests is captured in The Art of Immersion by Frank Rose:
“That was then. In the months and years ahead, professional storytellers of every persuasion—people in movies, in television, in video games, and in marketing—will need to function in a world in which distinctions that were clear throughout the past century are becoming increasingly blurred:
The blurring of author and audience: Whose story is it?
The blurring of story and game: How do you engage with it?
The blurring of entertainment and marketing: What function does it serve?
The blurring of fiction and reality: Where does one end and the other begin?” (http://www.artofimmersion.com)
THE PAREA: In a country like Greece, influence and connection is of particular importance to success and career momentum. The Greek is a FANTASTIC mix of being a very social animal AND being very private about matters to do with money and ownership. And that ‘s a nice mixture! But the social side seems to always win in the end and that’s a very important factor in understanding Facebook’s acceleration in the Greek social eco-system. Through Facebook, one may discover the tribe, the lover, and the career best suited to one’s interests: in short, Facebook is the ultimate digital Parea-producing engine.
As I understand it, a Parea in Greek culture is a circle of friends who gather and share their stories about life, their philosophies, values and ideas. The Parea is a venue for the growth of the human spirit, the development of friendship and the exploration of philosophies to enrich one’s quality of life that is all too brief in time. In Greece, the Parea is a long-lasting circle and cycle of life nourished by its members. And that’s exactly what social networks are engendering in the human family: a finely woven fabric of connection and communication resulting in unlimited new possibility found first internally, in the psyche, and then actuated externally.
Social Media transfers invisible contents onto the “stages” provided in Social Networks. These contents may then be turned into all manner of relationship, content and business material. Humanity seems to have entered a zenith of probability and opportunity. Have we transcended our planet via this new medium?
To be clear: One way of seeing social networks and the Internet is as a training ground. Next up, in this respect: making these connections with one another via our minds, our thoughts, our flesh. The relative freedom of these digital networks points away from our previous material limitations toward the vastness of spirit and all the possibilities that realm holds.
To expand on this: Social experience in digital networks has far more to do with spiritual development than anything else. We are learning to navigate vastness, to find our way through our own and others’ psychologies, to create worlds and cast these into the mystery beyond what is known via limited human transparencies.
Everyone has destinations AND concepts of journeys to those destinations in Body, Heart and Mind. Body, Heart and Mind divide the lead, developing Context and Content. ~Nathaniel Hansen
With useage of social networks surging and relationship connections occuring at the speed of firing brain neurons, individuals face the freedom of search windows and countless rabbit holes of discovery. We are all in study hall these days, analyzing and synthesizing conversations, images, videos, music and ideas. The individual AND group mind is evolving at light-speed, particularly for those tapped into the global mind called THE SOCIAL FABRIC OF THE INTERNET.
Humanity now needs the power of ancient wisdom to inform the WHY of its collective and individual search. The phenomenon of quotes, scriptures, fables, wise sayings, anecdotes and fantastic new theories circulating at the speed of light from one mind to another EVIDENCES that this is, in fact, occuring. Humanity IS weaving ancient wisdom into this tapestry we are all weaving together. And there is no doubt that this is affecting the quality of our interaction with one another.
Is it possible humans are actually becoming better, wiser and more benevolent THROUGH the rapid dissemination of ancient wisdom through social networks. As our bodies, hearts and minds divide the experience of this truly etheric environment, a tactile spiritual sensibility MUST be growing among its participants. We are all interacting with intangible, highly subjective environments, driven by emotion, thought and image. And this REQUIRES the development of skills like “felt-sense”, intuition and discernment. Again, the social fabric of the internet becomes tactile as one develops narrative and nurtures its growth through a succession of writing, photos and video.
How do you experience social networking: physically, emotionally, intellectually….which dominates for you?
“Transmedia is a fancy word for a simple concept: telling stories across multiple platforms.” ~”Heroes” Creator Tim Kring
A criticism of Transmedia really has a psychological/cultural issue at its core that involves fear AND requires a balance of compassion and harsh evolutionary movement/instruction. It is an issue that requires, as the motto of The Economist (a world champion of globalization) states, humanity “…to take part in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress.” Monotheistic cultures often experience fear upon encountering polytheistic, trans-cultural, pluralistic perspectives and eco-systems. The fear of multiplicity within the psyches of monos is normal – like a child entering a large city alone. Again, the analogy is of a person from a small WASPy town in the MidWest entering New York, London, Paris, or San Francisco for the first time…or the Burning Man Festival. Or the complex and beautiful tapestry of a nation like India. A “Roman Fever” of sorts sets in for the mono.
THE GLOBAL UNIVERSITY
Writers like Pico Iyer (Nowhere Man) and thinkers like the transmodernistZiauddin Sardar (Mad World) understand very well the juxtaposition of mono and trans cultures. The fundamental principle of Sardar’s thought is that ‘there is more than one way to be human’. He goes on to emphasize the importance of “keep(ing) the future open to all potentials, alternatives and dissenting possibilities,” stating that, “…it is necessary to envisage alternative futures from different civilizational and cultural perspectives. Pico Iyer writes, “We don’t have a home, we have a hundred homes. And we can mix and match as the situation demands.”
The NOW of TV
How does all of this relate to media, to the marketing world, to entertainment, to the socialization of business and the enterprise?
In the February 2010 “Red Papers” document entitled Socialize the Business (handed out to Ogilvy staff), John Bell writes, “Word of mouth trumps most other forms of communication in its influence on purchase decisions and opinions.” Simon Clift, former CMO of Unilever is quoted in the document saying, “We may be ahead of our competitors, but we’re most definitely behind consumers.” Transmedia gives humanity truly fantastic, multiple channels for a blossoming of expression, interaction and monetization – all! We live in the age of the Polymath – all humanity is involved in rapid education of mind and spirit through the internet.
Much has been said about the transition the internet has taken from web and browser-based interaction with content to apps, gigantic communities like Facebook and MySpace, and alternative communication modalities like Skype and Facebooking vs. emailing. The evolution of the internet from the open web accessed via the browser INTO complex hanging gardens, walled sanctuaries and massive gated labyrinths reflects humanity’s boundless imagination and is an image of our collective psyche that cannot help but produce and re-produce.
Transmedia works horizontally through ALL of these environments. Tools like Avaaz, The Rosetta Project and The Conversation Prism all reflect the truth of a world that is truly transcultural, “trans-app-tual” and therefore in need of MORE transmedia content, apps and communities. The days of the rainbow are HERE NOW. Accordingly, the message to critics of transmedia, transculture and transmodernism is BE HERE NOW!
A SIMPLE DEFINITION OF TRANSMEDIA: “Transmedia,” “Heroes” Creator Tim Kring says, is a “fancy word for a simple concept: telling stories across multiple platforms.” (Source)
If more Marketing Managers at Fortune 500 companies/major media companies truly understood the potential of future media delivery channels like GoogleTVPAIRED WITH“content-informing-intelligence”, there would be a mass re-organization of dinosaur-age ad/marketing agencies whose teams have yet to even train in social monitoring/intelligence tools AND have none of the talent-identification capabilities that a CAA or William Morris has. Those same Marketing Managers would then turn to social business agencies for the following process:
(a) pre-product dev intelligence gathering/listening,
(b) demographic-savvy content/product design RELATED TO what is discovered/analyzed from conversations in the social fabric of the internet,
(c) Relationship Architecting with related Social Strategy to identify ideal Key Influencers (and their content), thus paving the way for seamless and swift introduction of said content into the fabric of communities hungry for it,
(d) on-going listening that creates a virtuous cycle of this process.
The future leaders of transmedia will use the process above as just one of their approaches in expanding possibility for those who interact with media, advertisers, media/content producers AND communications entities. Transmedia and the associated processes that will bring this fabulous new way of interactive relationship to programming IS the future of CONTENT IDENTIFICATION AND PRODUCTION.
Colin Donald of FUTURESCAPE.TV says it best in the following comment on an article entitled Struggling for control: The humble channel-zapper is evolving in ways that will shape television’s futurein a recent edition of The Economist magazine:
“Internet-connected TVs lead to massively increased choice and require next-generation EPGs to help viewers navigate the wealth of content.
One solution backed by many in the industry, like Rovi, is to develop social EPGs that let friends recommend TV shows and videos to each other, via social networks or via systems which use data from social networks.
However, the implications are even more radical than your article suggests.
When Futurescape.TV recently researched this nascent social TV sector, we concluded that Facebook and Twitter are already battling for key roles in the TV industry as Internet-connected televisions transform TV into a social medium.
The two social networks have an actual or potential commercial role across the entire TV value chain.
For instance:
Global pay-TV, estimated at $250bn in 2014, needs social recommendation and discovery services because these encourage viewers to subscribe to more expensive packages and buy more video-on-demand – Facebook and Twitter are both major providers of social data.
Facebook in particular has a highly developed social graph of people’s relationship with entertainment content, from the ubiquitous Like button, integrated into many broadcasters’ Web sites. Both it and Twitter own considerable, detailed data about people’s behaviour, such as discussing TV shows and sharing links to videos.
As your article described, set-top box middleware and EPG providers similarly need social network data for recommendation and discovery – the European EPG market alone will be worth $555m by 2014.
TV manufacturers’ strategy to provide video-on-demand direct to viewers also requires social recommendation, while their connected TV apps enable viewers to interact with Facebook and Twitter on home TV sets. Facebook aims to tap the $180bn worldwide TV ad market, competing with broadcasters for brand advertising – Google TV and similar Web-on-TV systems will put Facebook and Twitter targeted ads on TV screens.
Facebook and Twitter buzz affects TV ratings, while broadcasters that use the social networks for viewer engagement are effectively sharing their audiences with them.
The social networks know in real time how people react to TV programming – this is an essential supplement to Nielsen-type viewing data.
Integrating social networks with EPGs is only one manifestation of a profound and permanent change in the television industry, a change through which Facebook and Twitter are positioning themselves as major industry players.”
The teams working on Oprah’s new cable channel and on eBook sales strategy at Bertelsmann’s Random House are contending with issues related to the new possibilities in transmedia and how to make content delivery platforms lucrative for their shareholders WHILE giving users the most flexibility in interacting with their portfolios of content. Those media publishers who acknowledge the value in being customer-centric vs. product-centric in their offering AND develop platforms that allow maximum interactivity WILL win!
To quote Ali Valdez, a senior Microsoft sales leader, “Their customers will be their marketers. Their customers’ social network friends will be their new customers. Full transparency, good and bad, will drive innovation and competitive pricing. The consumer will win. Those brands that enable consumer victory will share in the bounty.”
TO SUM UP: Combining research from tools like Recorded Future, the world’s first temporal analytics engine (a video intro to Recorded Future here), and Radian6, a leading social media/network monitoring solution, media companies now have the opportunity to LISTEN to audiences that have OPTED OUT of traditional marketing channels and are OPTING INTO new, socially chosen/recommended channels. They then are able to match valuable information from conversations within the social fabric of the internet WITH market trends and probable future events to create product/service/content offerings with previously un-paralleled precision. Existing portfolios of content may be re-purposed into countless monetizable and USER-GENERATED interactive communities.
“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly.”- Lao Tzu
Some of the best strategic alliances are between a Critic and a Creative. The Critic drives the Creative to higher heights, the Creative gives the Critic his content for analysis and, really, the healing of a personal, and often collective, wound. In business, a culture’s wounds offer the largest sources for financial reward AND a positive giving-back: the essence of cause-related marketing.
It is said that the Creative invented the airplane, while the Critic invented the parachute. There are seasons for transcendence and seasons for grounding. In both actions, one needs the Critic and the Creative. Both are relentless beings made of the same stuff in important slices of their personalities. There is an old proverb about men sharpening one another like iron on iron.
Humanity has NO time left for people to figure out how profitable HUMANITY-SAVING VENTURES will be for their own Parea (Tribe) AND then shop those around. That is WHY we are seeing so much giving happening. Time is perceived by many as being short BUT for those who have found their tribe and their gift, these are the BEST DAYS to be alive. Everything is becoming visible before our eyes, everything is opening in the transparent eco-system of social networks.
And yet, as all of this revealing is going on, there seems to be a realization by many of what Carl Jung meant by the unconscious taking up far more of human experience than consciousness. Humanity is currently mapping its consciousness through the building of countless social networks and circles. This consciousness is a jumping off point for diving into the depths of the psyche…into the unconscious itself. And it is the complexes, archetypes and currents within an individual, communal and the collective unconscious that animate human thought, speech and action.
Identifying one’s archetypes and listening to the needs of those archetypes is just a first step in facilitating the design and assembly of useful social communities and tools. The next step involves a kind of deep sea exploration of what has not been spoken of and NEEDS speaking of in times such as these: the unconscious motivators/animators that, once brought into the light, no longer rule us and can be used by humans for solving the problems these self-same animators caused.
Look within to find the reason for what is without.
We begin with respectful gratitude to you, our parents and grandparents, for conceiving and birthing the bodies and world we thrive and live within. We respectfully honor all of the incredible advances in every discipline that have led to better lives for every one of us on this planet. We attribute our own creativity, knowledge and burgeoning wisdom to the truly incredible education system built and paid for by you, our predecessors. We honor the way you have defended us against violence and opened new possibilities for peace heretofore unrealized.
At the same time, we announce to you our wholesale rejection of your conflicts, prejudices and entrenched interests. Our current experience of the negative results to our eco-system, communities and economics from these shadow aspects of your generation’s psyche require us for the sake of our children and your grandchildren to now step forward and alter certain paths elected by you and The Traditionalists since the major world wars in the early 20th century.
Now that a majority of you are reaching retirement age and what the Hindu system calls “the forest-dweller stage”, we as The Central Householders on this planet require a set of fresh perspectives in the major disciplines and verticals, such as politics, economics and environmental policy, so that our planet, communities, food sources and children are protected.
Due to the severity of events in several significant theaters of action, particularily finance, political-process and ecological preservation, we respectfully ask that you join us to hear some fabulous ideas from the forward thinking leaders of our generation. We want you there because you gave us the foundation for this thought and invention to come about. We want to show you, Mom and Pop, Grandpa and Grandma, Uncle and Aunt, Mentor and Teacher, what we have come up with as part of our assignment to make a better world. We hope you’ll come and we think you’ll like what we have in mind.
Our goal is a healthier, wiser and more effective human family, well-equipped to heal, guide and protect our children and your grandchildren into a fabulous and exciting future that will contain astounding technologies, well-woven/integrated communities and children motivated to live and thrive. As we see it, this is truly possible and we have seen a glimpse of it through the rapidly expanding communities of thought, invention and innovation in our online and offline worlds. These worlds are increasingly being woven together globally through the social fabric of the internet, through technologies in multiple verticals and through our innate drive to survive as humans.
We characterize this drive to survive in our generation primarily through meaning. The social fabric of the internet, our primary vehicle for communication, is driven by a search for meaning. In fact, studies show that The Millennials, the latest generation on this planet to hold credit cards and turn in resumes, are characterized as the generation in search of Meaning. These torch-bearers of humanity want work, communities and activities that amount to something more than accumulation of wealth and property. Their definition of wealth is spiritual, emotional and communal.
Understand that we have no choice at this time but to ask you to step down from those aspects of your leadership that involve the wholesale raping of this planet and one another FOR THE EXPRESS INTEREST OF OUR MUTUALLY SHARED CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN. Understand also, that for those of you who cannot or choose not to hear us due to greed, entrenched interests and general allegience to an out-dated paradigm of consumeristic accumulation, we may need to remove you by force. We honor your courage and vigor in building the worlds you have built…these edifices are truly monumental. But now, in this time, we require that you re-orient toward the survival of the planet, its species and the beautifully woven cultures of the world.
It is in the space between inner and outer world, which is also the space between people–the transitional space–that intimate relationships and creativity occur. ~ Winnicott
I suggest that social networks ARE this transitional space for humanity. During this time of paradox and liminality, individuals get to explore the connections between themselves and others, between worlds hitherto seen as separate, between one’s deepest beliefs and trending topics. Liminal space has been defined as “…a space in which alternate realities meet, in which the past and future are open to us” by Starhawk, a leading teacher of human circle-gathering. Liminal space implies permeability and a kind of communication/discovery which has, up until now, been known by the very few.
Social networks have changed all of this. In fact, the very fact that boundaries are seemingly more permeable due to swift accessibility in social networks makes discovery of truth both more practical AND more questionable. The kinds of questions emerging out of our burgeoning social networks contain a specificity not seen 20 years ago. An example of this is the explosion of infographics available now to bring previously unseen phenomenon into view (http://bit.ly/infographic_blog_resource).
What is one TO DO amidst this increasing complexity AND swift migration of the human spirit/mind/heart from earth to virtual worlds, virtual economies and, quite honestly, whole new planets (formed and lived within the collective human psyche)?
Brian Solis has produced a fabulous graphic along with JESS3 (http://bit.ly/heart_based_marketing) that suggests the most effective roles humans can play in the social fabric of the internet. He invites us to be Problem Solvers, Producers, Curators and Conversationalists vs. being Marketeers, offering Too Much Information (TMI), being Complainers or Self-Promoters.
In keeping with this are Paulo Freire’s fabulous steps for solving problems and making progress. Find below the steps, along with social tools for aiding you in resolving just about any problem currently facing you in your life. By the way, prior to getting into this, I must add that having courage and belief in yourself is a BIG piece of the puzzle!
STEP 1: IDENTIFY THE PROBLEMS through getting acquainted with the participants in the issue/eco-system/sub-culture/conflict. – Do this using social listening and scanning tools (http://bit.ly/audience_counts) AND flesh-matching tools like http://www.meetup.com. Study focus group agencies and their methodologies: http://bit.ly/egg_strategy_blog
STEP 2: PRODUCE THE CODES – (a) Employ a graphic artist who is intuitive to help you create an infographic + a single symbol to hold the essence of that information OR (b) upload CSV files full of data to a tool like Many Eyes or another data visualization tool: http://bit.ly/many_eyes_tool. The infographic functions as a kind of map of a vicinity within a niche sub-culture or slice of the greater social eco-system AND the single symbol is a kind of talisman or avatar that holds the power of that niche and quickly communicates this in the greater social fabric of the internet.
STEP 4: JUDGE THE SITUATION – Read Chinese military classics like these: http://bit.ly/chinese_military_classics. Military leaders are some of the best diviners of truth, out of necessity. It has been un-fashionable and politically incorrect for too long in therapeutic settings to make outright judgements but we live in times when good judgement is more important than ever.
STEP 5: TAKE ACTION TO CHANGE THE SITUATION – Pro-active beings are the ones who make the world go round AND have the most fun in life. Here are some fabulous tools from Behance to aid you in getting IT done, whatever IT is: http://www.behance.com/Products.
Getsuan said to this students: `Keichu, the first wheel-maker of China, made two wheels of fifty spokes each. Now, suppose you removed the nave uniting the spokes. What would become of the wheel? And had Keichu done this could he be called the master wheel-maker?’
Μερικές φορές χρειάζεται κάποιος άλλος να σου πει πόσο σπουδαίος είσαι για να το καταλάβεις. Αυτό το κείμενο με έκανε να ξαναγαπήσω την Ελλάδα. Thank you, Nathaniel Hansen!
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