Writing blog entries is a lot like drawing on business cards or, if particularly gushy, postcards, I suppose. But sometimes methinks you need a larger canvas for truly radical ideas that threaten one's cozy cocoon of homeostatis. (Of course, I've been known to blather on for well over 1000 words in a post...I'm just not sure anyone reads those posts.)
I look at the More Space book project (FAQ) spearheaded by Todd Satterson as the canvas I've been craving. Basically More Space grants 10 bloggers a larger canvas - 10,000 words to be exact - and compiles our essays into a good old-fashioned book. (I'm one of the nine selected writers and there's an open slot for one more business blog writer...contact Todd at todd -at- apennyfor {dot} com.)
What would I write about? Hmmm. Rather than link to dozens and dozens of posts, perhaps I should mention that two of my first blog categories were "Customer Empathy" and "The Greater Hunger".
I'd like to weave in research that I've uncovered in the last quarter but was too extensive, counter-intuitive and requires more attention and contemplation than skimming an RSS feed allows for. My greatest challenge is to not allow it to be a dry academic analytical thesis but rather pull the reader through flowing narrative and compelling characters.
I'll heavy-handedly hint at the topic below and will write much more as to how you can be involved in the process in the ensuing month or two.
Marketing people talk about emotion. They present charts and diagrams, even raise their voices and wave their arms, but fundamentally they treat emotion as...out-there, felt by someone else and able to be manipulated. Analyzing other people's emotions and refusing to acknowledge our own dumps us in the same old rut. What a waste. - Kevin Roberts, Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands
[S]ay you have a book whose front cover is blue and whose back cover is orange. Show the book, front and back, to a five-year-old child. Then hold the book between you and the child. You are looking at the orange cover, and the child is looking at blue. Ask the child what color he is seeing, and he will correctly say blue. Ask the child what color you are seeing, and he will say blue. A seven-year-old will say orange.
In other words, the five-year-old cannot put himself in your shoes and take your point of view. He does not have the cognitive capacity to step out of his own skin and inhabit yours for a while. And therefore he will never really understand your perspective, will never really understand you. There will never be a mutual recognition. Nor can he therefore truly, genuinely, care for your point of view, however much he may emotionally love you. - Ken Wilber, Boomeritis
Sometimes it seems as if there is nothing sadder than feeling as if others cannot relate to you; and most business interaction, especially between a company and its customers, seems to exacerbate this gnawing feeling of aloneness. However, this ability to relate and shift perspective isn't cast in stone when you're born. It's a kind of dynamic intelligence, that while it can't exactly be taught, it can be learned. And while there are days I am thoroughly lapsing into being that five-year-old child, I do have the capacity to grow and stretch the boundaries of my perspective permanently.
"The more you grow, the more you grow beyond you." - Ken Wilber.
The importance of the empathic worldview for business success is concisely related by Seth Godin on the vitally important art of projecting:
...the art of projecting. Of getting inside the heads of the people who do care deeply about this product and making them something they'll love and want to share. Marketers and designers who do it can put themselves into other people's shoes and imagine what they'd want. In the long run, learning this knack is actually much more profitable than being able to make stuff for only yourself. Learning this knack gives you more flexibility. There are marketers who can create Purple Cows [remarkable products] for only a tiny audience -- an audience just like the marketers themselves. They make decisions based on gut instinct, and (for a while) this works. If you follow this path, though, sooner or later your gut will let you down. If you haven't developed the humility that comes from being able to project to multiple audiences, you're likely to panic when you can't connect to your chosen group any longer. - Seth Godin, The Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable
If you have any personal accounts or third-hand anecdotes or scintillating ideas that these musings have triggered, please contact me and/or comment and I look forward to the dialogue and impact that the More Space project catalyzes.
excuse my ignorance, but wouldn't a wiki provide much of the same thing as More Space? I have only viewed wiki's, but it seems to be a similar concept....a broad canvas to expound upon a topic...and, it can allow for collaborative inputs from interested/informed(hopefully) people.
I have very little idea of the character space allowed, but wiki's seem fairly large scale. If I have totally missed the mark, please excuse this post.
Posted by: jbr | Jan 10, 2005 at 04:44 PM
Good point! Actually I intend to write the essay first in a wiki. My JotSpot wiki is up, but it'll be a few weeks until they upgrade me so that "guest" (i.e. public read/write) access is available (right now, only "named" accounts allowed).
I guess I neglected to mention is that the other intent of More Space is to expose this set of writers to a larger audience that may not be reading blogs at this time; and hopefully spur interest in the idea for blog reading skeptics that unknown writers - much of what the blogosphere represents - have worthwhile and useful things to consider.
Posted by: Evelyn Rodriguez | Jan 10, 2005 at 05:16 PM
Thanks. Please let us know once the upgrade is complete. I would be interested in viewing the wiki.
Also, what are you thoughts on this post from Tom Peters about losing his powerpoint presentation? Look at his post "A worrisome reminder"...your opinion would be interesting. I left him a comment with a challenge.
http://www.tompeters.com/
Posted by: jbr | Jan 10, 2005 at 05:23 PM
Blogging is to now what CB radio was to the masses in the 1970's. Thousands and thousands of people all talking at once. Bewildering for the individual trying to take it all in. Within five years there will be a new hot communications medium and we will be left wondering what all this blogging fuss was all about.
Posted by: Forest Green | Jan 11, 2005 at 02:38 AM
Having been around long enough to experience the CB "craze", I have perspective on both. Rather than type a lengthy comment here, come over to my blog - http://bigchieftablet.blogspot.com/ - if anyone wants my two cents.
By the way, Forest, I disagree with most of your opinion. There will be evolution in the medium, but we will not forget what blogging has been.
Posted by: jbr | Jan 11, 2005 at 09:05 AM
As Marshall McLuhan pointed out, the medium IS the message. Sooner rather than later, given the pace of technology, this medium will be yesterday's news. And like yesterday's news, or CB radios, it will be discarded for the newer medium. What is really needed is a tool that allows the individual to filter to himself the imformation that he needs and wants, above the din of all else. Such a tool would be good for today's medium and tomorrow's, as well.
Posted by: Forest Green | Jan 11, 2005 at 10:13 AM
Hello Evelyn. Reading your post, I was thinking of Carl Rogers' contribution to educational practice. I have an aged (1976) book at home and because it is in french, I can't easily quote or refer to the title--for your and your readers anyway. The original text was taken from a published paper in Humanizing Education (1967).
Carl Rogers' suggested there were essential and fundememental qualities for faciliating learning:
- Realness in the facilitator of learning.
Perhaps the most basic of these essential attitudes is realness or genuineness. When the facilitator is a real person, being what she is, entering into a relationship with the learner without presenting a front or a façade, she is much more likely to be effective. This means that the feelings that she is experiencing are available to her, available to her awareness, that she is able to live these feelings, be them, and able to communicate if appropriate. It means coming into a direct personal encounter with the learner, meeting her on a person-to-person basis. It means that she is being herself, not denying herself.
- Prizing, acceptance, trust.
There is another attitude that stands out in those who are successful in facilitating learning. I think of it as prizing the learner, prizing her feelings, her opinions, her person. It is a caring for the learner, but a non-possessive caring. It is an acceptance of this other individual as a separate person, having worth in her own right. It is a basic trust--a belief that this other person is somehow fundamentally trustworthy. What we are describing is a prizing of the learner as an imperfect human being with many feelings, many potentialities. The facilitator's prizing or acceptance of the learner is an operational expression of her essential confidence and trust in the capacity of the human organism.
- Empathetic understanding.
A further element that establishes a climate for self-initiated experiential learning is emphatic understanding. When the teacher has the ability to understand the student’s reactions from the inside, has a sensitive awareness of the way the process of education and learning seems to the student, then again the likelihood of significant learning is increased. Students feel deeply appreciative] when they are simply understood--not evaluated, not judged, simply understood from their own point of view, not the teacher's.
The following address links to a summary of Rogers' reflexion on the interpersonal relationship in the facilitation of learning:
http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-rogers.htm
Posted by: Julien Vallieres | Jan 11, 2005 at 10:08 PM
Hello Evelyn. Reading your post, I was thinking of Carl Rogers' contribution to educational practice. I have an aged (1976) book at home and because it is in french, I can't easily quote or refer to the title--for your and your readers anyway. The original text was taken from a published paper in Humanizing Education (1967).
Carl Rogers' suggested there were essential and fundememental qualities for faciliating learning:
- Realness in the facilitator of learning.
Perhaps the most basic of these essential attitudes is realness or genuineness. When the facilitator is a real person, being what she is, entering into a relationship with the learner without presenting a front or a façade, she is much more likely to be effective. This means that the feelings that she is experiencing are available to her, available to her awareness, that she is able to live these feelings, be them, and able to communicate if appropriate. It means coming into a direct personal encounter with the learner, meeting her on a person-to-person basis. It means that she is being herself, not denying herself.
- Prizing, acceptance, trust.
There is another attitude that stands out in those who are successful in facilitating learning. I think of it as prizing the learner, prizing her feelings, her opinions, her person. It is a caring for the learner, but a non-possessive caring. It is an acceptance of this other individual as a separate person, having worth in her own right. It is a basic trust--a belief that this other person is somehow fundamentally trustworthy. What we are describing is a prizing of the learner as an imperfect human being with many feelings, many potentialities. The facilitator's prizing or acceptance of the learner is an operational expression of her essential confidence and trust in the capacity of the human organism.
- Empathetic understanding.
A further element that establishes a climate for self-initiated experiential learning is emphatic understanding. When the teacher has the ability to understand the student’s reactions from the inside, has a sensitive awareness of the way the process of education and learning seems to the student, then again the likelihood of significant learning is increased. Students feel deeply appreciative] when they are simply understood--not evaluated, not judged, simply understood from their own point of view, not the teacher's.
The following address links to a summary of Rogers' reflexion on the interpersonal relationship in the facilitation of learning:
http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-rogers.htm
Posted by: Julien Vallieres | Jan 11, 2005 at 10:08 PM