March 23, 2006

Belief and Education

Belief is becoming something of a theme at the moment. Connected to Education and Story telling is a powerful hook for me and drives a lot of passion. Mix it with a bit of religion and you could be in for a powder keg. However Philip Pullman and Rowan Williams conversation at the National Theatre highlighted a lot of interesting ideas about religion and its place in the world. Several wonderful ideas not least the most fundamental question we should be asking ourselves are what it means to be human.

On a slightly different note Pullman responds to a question on how to develop spiritualism in children by suggesting views of education. I would suggest that you can also transpose this to life, business, training and anything else that has a human element.

But I think it depends on your view of education: whether you think that the true end and purpose of education is to help children grow up, compete and face the economic challenges of a global environment that we're going to face in the 21st century, or whether you think it's to do with helping them see that they are the true heirs and inheritors of the riches - the philosophical, the artistic, the scientific, the literary riches - of the whole world. If you believe in setting children's minds alive and ablaze with excitement and passion or whether it's a matter of filling them with facts and testing on them. It depends on your vision of education - and I know which one I'd go for

So do I. And I am a successful product of the fact learning vision and I believe it to be fundamentally a failure. When I look at my children I see how their passion and excitement are often squashed. I'll digg out a story to illustrate this later but for the time being go and read the conversation.

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March 18, 2006

links for 2006-03-18

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March 17, 2006

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March 14, 2006

The Power of Belief (Redux)

I wrote about my sea change in presenting a pitch solely based on the things I believe here. I promised an update and wonderfully those people who I was pitching to bought my vision of the world. Well, at least they bought me as a person and therefore I have a new role starting in mid April. I'll talk more about it when the time is right but suffice it to say it is looking after a company's online brand. So in one fell swoop I get to focus on the things that interest me and hopefully implement the ideas I believe in.

I am now very excited by the prospect and a little annoyed that I can't get going on it straight away - (I have to see out the notice period on my contract).

One thing I do want to mention is that without blogging I would not have got to where I wanted to be as I have had a lot of advice, ideas and friendship from people online (and in real life) to help me with this. I put it together and did the deed however a quick pointer to the people whose ideas I used (and referenced) hopefully not too gushing and in no particular order:

Johnnie Moore for ideas regarding improv, sound advice and some dessert rather than desert and of course Beyond Branding (well his part of it and the blog).
Curt Rosengren - whose passion catalyst website and books slowly inspired me to use belief
Hugh McLeod - the power of something to believe in is infinte, carttons and of couse Stormhoek wine as a case study
James Cherkoff - whose Open Source Marketing and Open Sauce with Johnnie got me firmly hooked on this way of thinking
Stuart Smith - who first introduced me to complexity theory and keeps wanting to work with me (strange fellow :) )
Tomi Ahonen and Alan Moore for Communities Dominate Brands which just puts it in the right way for me.

And my lovely wife, who grounds me and allows me to soar.

Talk to all of these people and you start to get a view of the world that makes more sense than it does for most business and work now.

Blimey... how do I follow that as a post? Answers as always on the metaphorical postcard. By the way, did I mention I was happy :) ?

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March 10, 2006

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March 07, 2006

Content or Customer is King?

BBC NEWS | Technology | Digital media 'empowering users'

The BBC reports on the FT Digital Media Conference:

Consumers are exercising more control, said Microsoft's Neil Holloway, Already in the US, 70% of personal video recorder users are skipping adverts, he noted.

"People want to connect to information and connect to their friends," he said. "The focus will be on highly personalised experiences."

Suggesting that advertisers might be missing a trick, he added: ""Today only about 5% of global advertising is online, yet 20% of media is consumed online. This is an amazing opportunity for advertisers."

Advertisers are missing a trick? More like losing the plot. Its not advertising but community that will deliver the goods. Surprisingly the rest of the article does make that point (well the various speakers do). Its a shame they didn't ask people like Tomi Ahonen & Alan Moore to speak on Communities Dominate brands - might have been an interesting conversation. Alan certainly makes the point about newspapers recently

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March 06, 2006

Happiness

Positive Sharing » The story so far

Alex kindly posted a comment on my previous post about belief. Just thought I would point at his story about doing what he believed in - creating happiness at work. The link above takes you to his blog and outlines what he set about doing over the last few years. Quite an inspiring story, not least because he did this for free and he used open source principles.

Thanks for sharing Alex!

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March 02, 2006

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March 01, 2006

Listening to Thick as Thieves from Snap by the Jam.


Listening to Thick as Thieves from Snap by the Jam.
Originally uploaded by Betaroad.


Thick as Thieves always reminds me of being at school (in Woking) with two great friends: Gareth and Richard. Both now live in North America on the west coast: San Francisco and Vancouver respectively. Some things really anchor you to a place and time - music does it everytime for me.

We are no longer as thick as thieves...

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