ABlogAbout: David Bowie

Lately I have been listening to a lot of David Bowie. Last time I was this “into” a particular artist, I lasted almost a year listening to that one specific artist. Luckily, they have an extensive catalog and so many layers to each song that I really could listen for weeks without hearing the same thing twice. Now, I am on week four of Bowie. I actually have another super secret blog for my thoughts about music, so I won’t say too much here. In fact, I may not say anything else about the whys and wherefores of Bowie. Maybe that will be obvious.

I have wrestled with the whole “what the f*** do I have to say?” aspect of blogging. I believe strongly in the act of blogging, for a purpose such as information sharing on a work related topic. Maybe I will start to do that again too. Generally though, I am pretty sure people don’t give a rat’s crap about the inner workings of my brain.

But the reason I think I will start this blog again is because honestly, I can barely hold a pencil anymore. I have journaled for my entire life. But now thanks to the wonders of technology, my arm/hand are so bad that after about two pages, it is difficult to hold a pencil. My regular computer offers much the same experience. But my trusty iPad, thus far, doesn’t have that effect. So for my own sanity, I blog. So, diving right in……

What I am bad at is change. For all of my passion to be creative, to lead change and encourage innovative thinking, when it comes down to pondering my own changes I get indecisive. I don’t know if it is laziness, fear, or some bleeding optimism that change is good. I bleed rainbows of hope.

I laugh at that thought for many reasons. First it is totally corny. Also, kind of bullshit.

Am I on a path toward reinvention? Or am I still wearing the glitter, waiting for someone to tell me that glam’s been dead for a long time, and I need to move on?

Bowie never waited. He drove his own transformation and just made everyone follow along behind him, changing their whole perspective about him, music, fashion, art, and on and on and on.

But then, Bowie is a genius. It isn’t really fair to judge oneself on the brilliant machinations of one of the greatest artists of all time.

Listen to: Bring Me the Disco King

May or may not have anything to do with is topic, but it is a damned fine piece of music.

A Blog About: What’s here, and what’s missing

Just a quick note tonight. It seems like a person should stop and drop a thought or two about the passing of another year. I have often suffered a sort of birthday melancholia. I’m not one of those “It’s MY day” people. In fact I’m one of those “this probably isn’t the best time for it, but just by the way I was born today and all” people.

Today was better. I don’t feel particularly tense about getting older anymore. I welcome this sort of ripening feeling I have inside, as if I’m hitting my stride. I figure all things considered, I’m doing well for a 45 year old woman. Perhaps not being in the acting game helps keep that whole ego thing in check.

More importantly, as I age, I place much less emphasis on whether anyone will notice (or care) that it’s my birthday. I am grateful for any well wishes I receive, and feel honored that people take time out of their day to stop and say hello, call and sing Hippo Birdy Two Ewes, or put post after post after post on my Facebook wall. What a wonderful thing it is that we can connect in this way!

My life is filled with blessings. Put on some spiritual/metaphysical/higher level scale, it weighs heavily on the positive side.  Dear, dear friends, good health, safety, security, an incredible husband, stepkids, animals I adore. It is a lengthy list, filled with abundance I never dreamed of.

I’m tired, and I’m still recovering from a root canal and not at all thinking or writing eloquently. So I will keep it short.

All blessings aside, I still feel broken hearted that as of this year, my mother no longer remembers it’s my birthday.

ABlogAbout: Posts with no titles

I could sit here trying to think of some catchy title. In my head I’ve written this post at least 15 times. It usually starts out with a fabulous lead line, and progresses into a detailed, poignant account of the past two months.

Other times the entire post reads:  Alzheimer’s Sucks.

I am new to this whole Alzheimer’s thing. It is like coming to a party late. Everything I can say about Alzheimer’s has surely been said before. People for eon’s before me have dealt with this. I’ve also had plenty of experience caring for an elderly parent. My father was ill for quite a while, and for the last few years of his life I (along with my brother and my fantastically supportive husband) took care of him.

So yes, it’s all been said before. What’s that phrase – “There’s nothing new under the sun.” I don’t care about that. This is MY story of coming to terms with this horrible disease. Right now I don’t have a support group lined up yet. I need someplace to process my fear, my anger, my panic, my despair, my experience. I’m too impatient to write in my trusty old journal. And so my mythical ether-friend, here I am, ready to talk.

My mother has Alzheimer’s. My mother has Alzheimer’s. My mother has Alzheimer’s.

Shit.

ABlogAbout: My Personal Clouds

I mentioned Digital Identity a while back. Personal identity has been something of a hobby for me, I suppose. I harbor this hope that if I can figure myself out, I’ll stop getting in the way of my own ability to contribute to humanity. Maybe it is because I need to plumb my own depths in order to create characters. Or, it could be because I can’t figure anyone else out so why not start with myself?

Another reason it’s important – probably the most important reason – is because I work in teams. I work in global virtual teams – I work in teams as an actor. The whole world is built on collaboration these days, and I think it’s important to understand your own styles and how others operate in order to work well with others. We do a variety of personality-type tests as part of our team building exercises, and we do assessments as part of our own Career Development program.

The assessment that I’ve found most provocative recently is something called Strengths Finder. I am not an expert in this area, so I can’t do it justice. But the upshot is that this is – we grow and develop better when we focus on maximizing our strengths rather than coming from a “gap-fixing” mindset. I can try for years to fix my lack of passion for html code, OR I can put my skills as a team facilitator to use. In theatre terms – I can go on kicking myself because I can’t design sets, OR I can focus on being the best actor I can be, and help out in other ways. It’s a different mindset and is more optimal for growth. 

Another tool we’ve used is the Meyers-Briggs assessment. I’ve taken this one probably 20 times since my days as a Psych major in the Dark Ages (college). At school, working for the college, here in the corporate world, just looking at my own inner being…. the result has always been exactly the same: I am an INFJ. Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. were/are all INFJs. Hefty company. Once again, that’s a lengthy explanation and I can’t do it justice in a short blog.

Which brings me to my point – there is a lot to these assessments, and that can make it hard to understand the patterns, the similarities between them. It’s hard to remember what my results mean individually, much less when I try to identify trends across all of these tools.

So here’s what I’ve started to do – take an assessment report or description of the “type” and make word clouds. It’s completely unscientific of course. But, here are the first couple that I’ve done.

This first one is the result of my StrengthsFinder assessment. My Top 5  Strengths are: Strategic, Input, Achiever, Communication, Intellection.

This next one is the INFJ Cloud. There are hundreds of descriptive texts I could have used for the cloud. I chose one prepared by Sandra Krebs Hirsch and Jean Kummerow.

And now, I can start to see what types of similarities exist. So far, the only one that really stands out is the word “PEOPLE.” Granted, the text could be using the word “people” in a lot of ways. “People who are INFJ’s have great depth of feeling” is very different from “An INFJ has a strong instinct to help people.” I’ve not done that sort of analysis yet. I think I’ll try a few more and see what comes of it.

FYI – should you stumble upon this little blog – I used Wordle to create the clouds.

More on that anon. For now my lunch has been eaten and it’s back to work.

ABlogAbout: Digital Identity

It is easy enough to spread the seeds of digital identity. My recipe: create 7 different blogs, have 6 different email addresses, join 5 social/professional networking sites, and toss in a few dozen tweets.

I feel a little like Sybil, and I now need to integrate my multiple personalities – or at least centralize them a bit. What to keep…. what to keep…. And for that matter, how will I even clean up the mess I’ve made?

June 26, 2009: And now, I have an answer!  http://jaycross.posterous.com/to-fork-or-not-to-fork

ABlogAbout: Competition

I have never particularly liked competition. I have some sort of anxiety disorder that kicks in. When I was walking to school as a kid, I got this weird anxiety when I’d hear the school bus come up behind me – like I was suddenly in a race with the bus and if it went past me…. well, I don’t know. I mean it *always* went past me. it’s not like I was out running the bus. I didn’t die when it passed by. It didn’t “get” me. I mention this just to point out that I was a weird kid.

This peculiarity manifested itself in Junior High when I was on the track team for one year. I ran the 440 (as it was known back then in the dark ages). No one told me that the 440 was NOT a sprint. Or, if they did I was too busy talking to Tina to notice. So, first track meet comes – the gun goes off and I start sprinting. Now it’s not the bus chasing me, it’s 7 other 13-yr-old girls. So I’m sprinting, of course. And of course, the other girls are not. I won by quite a bit. I celebrated by throwing up from the exersion.

Next race (and every race after) I did the same thing. And on and on throughout the season. At the finals, when it somehow meant something, I stopped sprinting. I came in 3rd or 4th. I did not run track in 8th grade.

I was also a drummer in the school band. I was a good drummer. Playing in band, you are in perpetual competition, because there is always a “first chair” position. I spent a lot of time in first chair, and every week someone would challenge me. Challenging meant you went behind a screen and played some designated part out of everyone’s sight, and then the band voted on who played better. I generally won.  Every week, I would dread the day that we did challenges. I usually felt physically ill. Finally at some point in my senior year of high school I just decided I’d had enough. So next time I had a challenge and I won, I immediately stepped out from behind the screen and declared the other person the winner. He was shocked, but said nothing. I did not challenge other drummers. Not sure if I ever went back to first chair again.

I don’t like competition is what I’m saying. It frightens me, even as an adult.

And yet this is a clear sign that I am very competitive. Always comparing myself to some standard or another. Or worse yet, to a person.  I hate pissing contests and yet I get angry when someone “steps on my toes.” Such is my situation now. Someone has been putting their Army boots on and stomping around near my feet.

This little piggy went to market
This little piggy stayed home
This little piggy got her toes stepped on and is really f**king pissed off about it but won’t do anything about it because she’s too much of a wimp.

ABlogAbout: Horse

Two nights ago, I had what I think may be the only dream I’ve ever had about a horse. Or at least one where the horse had a starring role. I mean, I love horses. I’ve only been on a horse a handful of times in my life.  I never really do well, because I don’t feel that I have any control at all over the powerful horse. Apparently I’m not very good at exercising power, or rather ordering around animals (just ask my moose-dog). So the horse tends to go where it’s gonna go and I politely suggest that perhaps we could take a left rather than a right, or maybe NOT overtake all of the other horses on the trail.  You get the idea. 

So it was odd in the dream, when I was at one with this horse. Riding atop the horse bareback and perfectly comfortable. Of course we were riding in Coos Bay, down the streets I used to walk to school. There was not much to it, besides the incredible feeling of being nearly united with the horse in body and spirit.

Got to thinking about it and thought perhaps the Medicine Cards would give me some insight to Horse and its meaning. Here is what I’ve found:

In understanding the power of Horse, you may see how to strive for a balanced medicine shield. True power is wisdom found in remembering your total journey. Wisdom comes from remembering pathways you have walked in another person’s moccaasins. Compassion, caring, teaching, loving and sharing your gifts, talents, and abilities are the gateways to power.

Hmm….. looking at the Contrary Horse:

If your ego has gotten in the way, you may have failed to notice the lack of respect you have been receiving from others. You may, on the other hand, be struggling with others who are abusing their power. …. Remember the times in your own life when you have fallen out of grace with Great Spirit… In allowing all pathways to have equal validity, you will see the power and glory of the unified family of humanity…. Apply this knowledge and reclaim the power you have given away by forgetting to come from compassion. Untangle yourself from the present situation and understand that every human being must follow this pathway to power before galloping upon the winds of destiny.

Now the horse and I were riding right-side-up and not upside-down. So you might think we’d be more in line with the first one. Sharing my gifts and talents, blah blah. But no, what hits me here is the Contrary. Have I done this? Let my ego get in the way of things? Thinking that I am right and not seeing all pathways as equal?

Okay, two totally opposite ideas – either I have not been claiming my power, owning my talents and using them well, OR I’ve been an egotistical pig and pretending to have power when I have none at all. There is a lot to ponder there. I am certainly feeling a change coming. There is clearly a change at work – a very real, practical change. I did not get a job that I thought I wanted, and I am now in limbo waiting for my department to figure out what to do with me. Whatever it is will no doubt be different. So perhaps I need to “roll with it” and just believe that all paths are equal, and any path I am on could be the right path.

ABlogAbout: Be Impeccable With Your Word

Currently Listening Speak for Yourself By Imogen Heap see related     This week, I was looking at my mini-version of The Four Agreements. I used to be a hard-core woo-woo. Now, as I’ve gotten older and probably more jaded (or just more tied to the practical, tangible, day-to-day crap that leads me around by the nose), I’m sort of a half-hearted woo-woo. But some things stick. Anyway, bear in mind that I’m not endorsing any One Path as The Way. Just sending this out as food for thought and a way to reflect back on my own struggles. I’ll include a reference to the official don Miguel Ruiz site. Get more info here if you want. Also there are a few different bloggers I’ve found that reflect on T.F.A. Those are listed at the bottom. So here is agreement #1: 1. Be Impeccable With Your Word Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love. I think overall I am pretty aware of the “speaking against others” part. Though I do not always succeed (particularly in traffic ), I really try to be aware of what I’m saying and how I’m saying it. Is it constructive? Is it something I can be proud of? Would I be ashamed if that person heard me say it (assuming they are not there)? I feel nauseous around mean people and name-calling makes me sick. Hmm… “Say only what you mean.” – okay…. mean people piss me off. There’s just no excuse for it. What gives you the right – why do you think you are so much better than others that you can spout of some nasty, bile-soaked diatribe against someone you deem lesser than you? YOU (mean person) are someone I feel very mean towards. At a certain point, I feel unable to “love” you into kindness. Is that in the direction of “truth and love”? I’m totally unsure. I do NOT think being impeccble with my word means that I can’t express an opinion. I’m not some wet-noodle doormat, and speaking with truth and love to me means speaking with conviction and integrity just as much as it means speaking with kindness. Okay, but back to the other point. “Avoid using the word to speak against yourself…” Against YOURSELF. See, now that’s a problem. That one is tough for me. A long time ago, for reasons I won’t go into – I stopped allowing myself to get angry directly to (at) others. Now, my anger is pretty well centered against myself. So when I am not at my best emotionally, there is a tape in the back of my mind telling me that I am – old, ugly, fat, not living up to my potential, a bad person, a bad “mother” to my kitties, terrible at keeping a clean house…. See – now I’m not only using the word against myself in the back of my head, I have put it out there in PRINT! That can’t be good – it is less likely to dissipate and evaporate. This week, I am going to try to be more aware of using the word against myself. And just to balance things out a little bit – I am okay – I am me, and even when I struggle I am a good person. I am not defined by a clean house, or by a small waist or flabby arms. I am blessed with a good life. I resolve not to walk (wallow) in the shallow waters as often as I have this year. Blah Blah Blah Blessed Be. Namaste P.S. Two other Bloggers on The Four Agreements: Knowledge Jolt Good Morning Thinkers

ABlogAbout: Pecha Kucha

Recently at the Learning 2007 Conference, I had the opportunity to try out the presentation style called Pecha Kucha. A few notes about it, courtesy of the fine contributors on Wikipedia:

Pecha Kucha (ペチャクチャ, ^?) or Pecha Kucha Night is a presentation format in which (mostly creative) work can be easily and informally shown.

The name derives from a Japanese term for the sound of conversation (“chit-chat”).

The idea behind Pecha Kucha is to keep presentations concise, the interest level up and to have many presenters sharing their ideas within the course of one night. Therefore the 20×20 Pecha Kucha format was created: each presenter is allowed a slideshow of 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each. This results in a total presentation time of 6 minutes 40 seconds on a stage before the next presenter is up.

The 20×20 format of Pecha Kucha is now also being adopted in the business world, with some company internal business presentations being run in a strict 6 minutes 40 seconds, with all discussion and questions held to the end of the presentation. This is primarily a device to help timebox presentations, force presenters to be more focused in their message, allow them to flow uninterrupted, and ultimately to avoid the “death by powerpoint” syndrome, of sitting through long and often tedious powerpoint presentations.

My experience was nerve-wracking. I don’t usually get terribly nervous doing presentations. I do them fairly often – some better than others, of course. But trying this new format out really shook me up. I did not have a “deep” topic to discuss, as did other participants. What I did, instead, was titled “20 random images by Allison Anderson.” I think the title pretty much sums it up. Each slide contained an image that I had available on my laptop. Things I liked, images I thought were compelling or worthy of 20 seconds individually. But meaningful? Not so much.

Other presenters were much more on top of things. Images that were touching (living through a natural disaster), topical images (learning for non-profits), images that were thought-provoking (three religions co-existing in Jerusalem). Mine? Well, I leave you to try to find the story line in my slides. I did come up with one, but it was a stretch.

 At any rate, the actual presentation went very well, due mostly in part to my experience as a performer. I was funny where I could not be deep. In the end, I was quite excited about the possibilities.

First-timers should know a few things:

1. 20 seconds is longer than you think if you don’t know what you are talking about.
2. 20 seconds is shorter than you think if you are very excited about the topic.
3. images are powerful and memorable – choose wisely.
4. you can tell a very detailed story in 20 slides with 20 images.
5. at 6:40 you can keep the attention of your audience – again, use your time wisely, for they will be paying attention.
6. remember to breathe
7. the beer helps

Thinking about how to adapt it to the corporate environment, I’ve decided the best introductory use is the ever-popular ice-breaker/warm-up activity. In any given team, you are likely to have people that hate talking, and those that will talk for an hour if you’ll let them. Pecha Kucha levels the playing field. It takes some of the pressure off the shy ones and puts some pressure on the wind bags that like to hear themselves talk.

I’m usually a big fan of open presentations with lots of discussion. In fact, like to interrupt presentations for questions myself, and I expect the same when I present out. However, it’s very easy to get too wrapped up in slide 5, when the meat of the discussion needs to be on slide 15. PK is a great method for getting the whole message out, and then coming back around for discussion.

I also agree with the point on Wikipedia about the “death by powerpoint” syndrome. PK is lively, it moves along, AND, it is simple. 20 images. Images only. Tell the story. I don’t need another slide with 18 bullet points on it.

I can even imagine this working in a canned format, as a way to structure a short module, or as your first pass for a longer presentation. Put your 20 topics up there visually, and see where it is impossible to tell the story in 20 seconds. Is that because you are rambling? Is the messge not succinct? Or is this an area that truly needs a deeper dive?

If anyone out there has used PK in a corporate setting, leave a comment and tell me how you used it, and whether it worked!

ABlogAbout: Participation

What is the key to participation? I recently attended the Learning 2007 Conference (this is sort of an understatement, more on that another time), and I asked this question many times. I ask it of myself as well. Like the experts and practitioners I asked in Orlando, I have no answers.

Here is the nut I need to crack:

I have a vision of corporate learning. I see a learning culture embedded to a point that often times the learning is invisible to the learner. It is called “doing your job.” I see a time when employees, experts, learning professionals, managers, leaders all connect, contribute and communicate. It takes relatively little time for the newest employee to be connected to the content, the people, and the opportunities he/she needs in order to be a vital member of the business. We collaborate naturally, we share information and ideas regularly. My knowledge combined with your questions brings us to a new level of productivity, or an innovation neither of us could have imagined.

Connections. Collaborations. Participation.

We hear (and I believe the data) that new employees have certain expectations. They expect to be able to connect to other new employees on the other side of the world. The expect that they can share stories, frustrations, questions with each other using a common method – something that includes relevance (content ratings, for example) and context.  They expect that work and life bleed into each other, and there’s a place for being friendly even though you’ve got deadlines and projects. They to use something that they can organize themselves – something they have control over.

They expect Facebook. They expect MySpace. They expect Widgets and windows (not Windows(tm), but windows into the content pool).

It’s interesting to me – I am on Facebook now. As with MySpace, I still haven’t figured the tool functionality out, and it changes every day. There is a HUGE network of employees from Intel out there. Thousands of people – mostly RCG’s (recent college grads) but also some 2.0 evangelists and other employees getting their feet wet (or checking on their children). Inside? Not so much.

We have other tools – we have a strong blogging community and we have a robust wiki. We have multiple tools that we use to connect individual groups across the corporation. We don’t have Facebook, and to hear the CEO talk, it sounds pretty unlikely that we’ll get Facebook anytime soon.

 Okay – so that’s the environment. We’ve got some tools, we have pockets of heavy engagement, we have a strong vision, we have some disparate pieces that *could* come together to create a powerful ecosystem. It could be a cobbled-together approach – hey this is the age of informal, it could totally work. The question is – how do we get people to USE it? How do we impact our decentralized, GLOBAL population so that people are connected and *engaged* in the larger learning ecosystem. How do you encourage participation? I’ve seen some studies that say 5-10% participation is actually pretty good. Is that really sufficient? 

And -what does participation look like, anyway? Is participation consumption or is it consumption AND contribution?  I say it is the latter. I think for some, consumption of the information is fine. But to create a true LEARNING environment, the employee must engage in more than simple information retreival. That’s just Web 2.0 stuff. This is beyond that.

Should you happen upon this post – let me know what you think. And if I find the answer, I’ll be sure to let you know.