‘Tis the Stuff Season!

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Which means it is an ideal time to grab a cup of tea and watch this: http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Many years ago I toyed with the idea of writing a paper about how flea markets and garage sales are forms of “resistance” to consumer culture. And in a way they are, as the sites of production do not benefit from the “resale” of goods through these avenues. But still, it perpetuates the very notion of happiness through consumption that leads us toward mass consumption of anti-depressants along with all the other stuff that can never fill the void of our disconnected materialist lives.

I don’t watch tv and I avoid ads on websites, sticking to a space on the internet unmarred by flashing lights. I still consume. I am not wholly free. But I can see some lights shining. One comes from giving–when we give or act as a gift to others–all the people (giver, receiver, and observers) experience positive chemical flow in their bodies. Self-made anti-depressants. Give and get happy!

Motivating Participation

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Recently I was asked how to increase attendance at a gathering. I came up with a few simple questions to consider. Look at three perspectives.

1. The participants–who are they? There may be several audiences, and for each one, figure out what they want to get or are getting from the gathering.

2. Your perspective–why are you inviting them? What do you want to get from their attendance and participation? List separately for each audience group.

3. Observer perspective–what will the outcome of the gathering be? What will the world be able to see, touch, taste, smell, or feel because of the participation?

Now, what do you do with that? Use #1 to develop your strategy of attraction of participants. Use #2 to identify the proportional blend you want to have of different audience groups. Do you need idea generators? Processors to move ideas along? Finishers to put ideas into action? And #3 is useful for attracting funding and sponsorship.

Incentives, and this is just a starter list, might be:
# association (other people to connect with–especially face to face if they know each other virtually)
# reputation (most active in the field or other recognition of effort is honored)
# growth (learn something)
# inspiration (this is usually why a well-regarded speaker works)
# challenge (opportunity to collaborate on something vital)
# recognition (building their own visibility–like getting acknowledged for doing a cool video etc)
# play (to laugh and be creative)
# delight (good food, good sensate experience)
# narrative (fits into their story of who they are and why they do what they do)
# contribution (opportunity to give to the group)
# influence (able to change others or environment)
# stuff (things people can take with them and help develop branding and identity)

I strongly encourage visual mapping to show the relationships between people and between motivations/incentives and people.

Once you are clear about who to invite and why (for them, for you, and for others), then develop your message to each audience considering the benefit they receive for attending and participating. Then, also, consider what that benefit gets for them. Does it save them time or money? Does it develop their reputation or acknowledge them? Consider Maslow’s hierarchy. What core need is met?

There is much more depth to this than I can address in a single blog post, but this gets us off to a good start. What would you add to the incentives? Are there other valuable perspectives to consider? Is there a good way to create a matrix for organizing the information? What visual techniques would reveal the most useful information?

All over the place and focus

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I suppose to some people my interests appear to be all over the place: philanthropy, currencies, technology, visualization, mapping, marketing, coaching, leadership, process arts, community development, art, creativity, and some other issues too like globalization, the bottom of the pyramid, social entrepreneurship, etc. And most of these areas I have enough understanding to listen and ask good questions…but not enough to debate academically on the finer points or the history. Coaching might be the exception. Maybe. I am not a specialist. And some say it is a world where we ought to be specialized. I don’t know about that. I think it is a world where we ought to connect and have engaging conversations.

Sometimes, in our lives, we find the varied paths we lead all connecting down the road somewhere. All this leads together…

How? Field building. I will post soon a longer explanation of field building, along with some tidbits of conversation and great links for those who are interested. For now, let me simply explain that field building is the conscious collective development of a network of purpose (both the nodes and the space between the nodes). And I see this as being critical for our evolution. We need to adapt to survive and for the planet to survive. We need to understand our world in more useful and appropriate ways. And all these interests of mine lead back to the many tools, processes, and systems that play a role in field building. An example–Social Network Analysis is an emerging field…It is defining itself, the practices, examining what distinctions are valuable and which are not. It changes how organizations work, and values human connection. It requires message management for maintaining a cohesive set of meaningful terms. It requires leadership to grow the edges and community to build the depths. It takes funding and marketing to keep thriving. It takes mapping and visualization to track and analyze itself. Other examples are Digital Media and Education, Currencies/Flows, and Thrivability (next evolution of sustainability). Sometimes fields are in transition too, like the work we are doing in Philanthropy to democratize giving, promote giving while living, encourage micro-philanthropy, etc.

We need to change our world, to understand it in new ways, to work in new ways. I see my work as building fields that help with that process. And why? It comes back to my core purpose–to help people transform their lives and live with passionate purpose.

Kimberly Olson and good copy for a writer’s website

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My cousin Kim, always an inspiration and mentor to me, put up a website recently. Beautiful, clean, great copy (of course). I really like her naming of pages and how she positions things so clearly.

I must find the time to read some of these articles…

Kimberly Olson.

I also love that she highlights that she is a 1% for the planet alliance member. Awesome Kim.

Now I better get mine revised!