tonygoodson

Cluetrain and Dreams Coming True

The one thing I forgot to ask Chris Locke about was Bricolage.  He wrote about it in his follow up book to Cluetrain, Gonzo Marketing.  I was reminded of that, because I bust a gut all day to get the interview I’d done with Chris, out.  Which meant adding some music.  And I’d been sitting on some music for over 2 years, Stereophile’s “That’s The Shit” I thought it was called Bass, oh well!

It’s great to collect something, and then use it 2 years later.  And I’ve had a dream to interview Chris Locke since podcasting started, so great to get it together and do it.  Who’s next?  I have a few on the list, and I added another person over the weekend, Neil Young (Man Citeh footballer).  Are you out there Neil Young?

What I’ve done over the last few months, is bring my big dreams forward.  Oh yeah, we’ve all learnt about goal setting and all that.  Have a dream and then put actions to achieve that dream.  Well it doesn’t quite work out, does it.  I’ll tell you why.  We keep doing all the short term stuff before we allow ourselves to do the big stuff we’d love to do.  Except there’s always small stuff that keeps on coming in.  So I switched things around.  I looked at what my big long term things are and made sure they’re the first on my list every day and every week.

In fact, I’ve not been very productive recently, but the big ones are happening. Someone told me recently that they can see a lot of the colour orange in my life.  So I used Orange as the main them for The 3 Moments website, and blow me down if the main colour for Cluetrain isn’t orange, and the RSS Feed logo is orange.

What are the big things you want to do in life?  That doesn’t necessarily mean a big house, Ferrari, and lots of money!! 

When you’ve cracked a big dream, it’s a bit like that time after the wedding, and all the guests have gone.  What now!  I dunno!!  Next guest to interview for a podcast.  Next project! Actually, come to think of it, there’s a few other shows I’ve been wanting to do, and now I have the platform. 

All Time Teams, I talk with people who name their all time sport teams based on how long they’ve followed their team.  I ran a pilot show in 2005 for an All Time Manchester United Team, so it’s a bit out of date now, but just have a listen, and if you’re a keen Man Yoo football fan it sounds great! Click here to download The All Time Manchester United Team 1968 to 2005.

Madman Across The Street, interview the people who are on our city streets.  Instead of stepping over them, find out what their story is, how they got there…3 Moments! 

Sustainability and Green stuff, still a subject we all know we should contribute to, but we can’t be bothered!  I have two pilot shows from the last 18 months that I must upload.

Thanks Cluetrain.

Guest Interviews - The 3 Moments

Ever since I was a kid watching Parky, then Russell Harty, and now Andrew Denton and Larry King, I’ve loved interviews.  Interesting people with interesting things to say.  Inspirations.  I like the Parky interview style.  The guests don’t have to be grilled or caught off their guard, or sensationalised.  Just conversations.  Interest and curiosity in the guest, and what they have to tell and teach us.

And not just the famous and the stars, but some of my favourites were Barbara Castle, Jonathan Miller, Peter Ustinov, Michael Caine, Bette Midler, and latterly, Paul McCartney talking about his ego.  That was Part 1.

Part 2 for me, came just before the start of podcasting, and in fact partly created podcasting.  The Chris Lydon interviews. Wonderful political and technological conversations published as mp3 files to download and listen to.  This coupled with Doug Kaye’s I.T Conversations, led to a world of mp3 downloads for me.  And still to this day, I manually download mp3s to listen to instead of using podcast software to automatically download to my laptop or mp3 player.

Since 2003 I’ve pondered who I’d like to interview.  I’ve never had the platform to interview anyone.  Sure I’ve podcast on The Productivity Show, dabbled, had some great guests, but I realise I want to go beyond productivity.  And I’ve feared and procrastinated for 5 years.  No longer.

It’s simple really. All I have to do is list the 100 people I’d most like to interview in the world, and invite them!!  Yeah sure, most won’t reply, or will say no, or it will become too difficult.  But you know what?  At least 5 will say yes, and it will be magnificent.

So I’m starting with a simple website, a banner, and name…The 3 Moments.  Why “The 3 Moments”?  Well, when I look at the people I’d like to interview, it’s about their journey, their highs, their lows, the ending of something and that “Oh Shit” moment, the Harrison Owen (Open Space Technology) writes about in his book Wave Rider, and how people deal with set-back and grief.  If you ask someone to draw a timeline of their life from birth to now, the chances are there will be two or three peaks/troughs, so let’s hear about those things, The Hero/Heroine’s Journey.

Build it and let them come.  So let’s see what happens. 

Cluetrain – No 69 Maybe You’re Impressing Your Investors

69.  Maybe you’re impressing your investors.  Maybe you’re impressing Wall Street. You’re not impressing us. (The Cluetrain 95 Theses - No69)

This is my blog entry for Cluetrain Thesis #69 for the Cluetrainplus10 commemoration of the 10th anniversary of The Cluetrain Manifesto.

In 2001, William Pilder sent me an email suggesting I might like this Cluetrain book thing.  I loved it.  Loved the 95 Theses, they spoke to me.  The book spoke to me.  I started following the guys.  Chris Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger (and who is Rick Levine!!)

I picked up this “weblog”/”blog” word on the Cluetrain email discussion list which ran on Topica.  What the hell was a blog?  Ahh, got it.  I’ve blogged ever since 2001.

So No 69.  10 years on.  Erm you did try to impress your investors.  You did try to impress Wall Street, and you almost succeeded, but it all came crashing down.  And not only did you not impress us, you took our money, and crashed your company, and your economy and the world economy.  Nice one. Thanks a lot.

But come on, why would you behave any differently?  Because it worked and you could get away with it.  Very few players came into your markets over the last 10 years, using Cluetrain principles, to give your arse a good kicking.  That’s been really disappointing.  The last 10 years has largely has been business as usual.  In fact you’ve often dressed up business as usual, as something different using this Internet thing, and you’ve mostly got away with it. 

We overestimate in the short term, and underestimate in the long term.  - Paul Saffo

I got that quote from Doc Searls, quoting Paul Saffo.  That’s what’s stuck with me the most in the last 10 years of Cluetrain. It hasn’t come true yet, but it will, and we probably won’t recognise it when it has changed, because it was always that way wasn’t it?  Some things have moved a lot over the last decade.  Think Apple.  Think Google (and YouTube).  Think Bandwidth.  Think online business and banking. Think mobile handsets and mobile computing.  The technology has moved rapidly, but that “conversation” still has a way to go.

I predicted the demise of Sun Microsystems.  I predicted the demise of Apple.  I predicted the demise of Google.  I’m not doing well with my predictions….yet.  Well once you’re a public company, you have to impress your investors, and you have to impress Wall Street, so by logic, you’re not impressing us!!  When you have to make quarterly and weekly and daily reports for your investors and Wall Street, it doesn’t bode well for the long term, if you follow and believe in Cluetrain No 69.

Great companies that survive the decades and centuries put their employees first, and I don’t mean the guys at the top. In the long term, how you treat your employees, is a reflection of how you treat your clients and customers, which in turn will impress Wall Street, or not.  We mostly try to impress Wall Street first until the money runs out.

It’s going to be very difficult to let go of this Wall Street dependency.  It’s worked reasonably well for centuries, but some of us believe there has to be a better way.  Yes, reward innovation and entrepreneurship.  Yes, find ways to seek large capital investment, yes reward stakeholders.  Aren’t we ready for a new way to build community and businesses?  I don’t have the answers, but In the short term we overestimate and in the long term we underestimate.

And finally, my favourite part of the Cluetrain book is near the end.

The Cluetrain Hit-One-Outta-the-Park Twelve-Step Program for Internet Business Success (p170)

1. Relax
2. Have a sense of humour.
3. Find your voice and use it.
4. Tell the truth.
5. Don’t panic.
6. Enjoy yourself.
7. Be brave.
8. Be curious.
9. Play More.
10. Dream Always.
11. Listen Up.
12. Rap On.

Does Time exist?

Having listened to In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg, and the episode The Physics of Time, I’m really struck by the question of, Does Time exist?

To us humans, of course it does.  It’s bleeding obvious.  And not only do we age in time, but so do physical objects.  So there, it’s proven, time does exist.

However, I can’t stop thinking, that at the sub-atomic level, particles exist, and continue to exist, irrespective of time, and therefore have no concept of aging, in fact their existence may create time, or does time create their existence!!

Mind you, if a black hole comes sweeping past these sub-atomic particles, they’ll soon learn what time is!  Or maybe not.  What happens to particles inside a black hole?  Does time exist inside a black hole?

Happy Festivus

Not happy with Christmas, but feel something is lacking?  Then give Festivus a go, and have a “Happy Festivus from the rest of us”

I’m not sure to what degree Festivus is celebrated in the world, beyond Seinfeld, it seems to be based on real events dating back to Feb ‘66.

Take part in;

• Airing of Grievances
• Feats of Strength
• Festivus Miracles
• Buy your Festivus Pole
• And the Festivus Dinner!

Movember

It’s Movember, so get growing those moustaches for Men’s Health.  I am!  All donations welcome, and I’ll keep you updated on how that weedy caterpillar is growing across my top lip.

Depression – Part 1

I just noticed that both Michael Specht and Daryl Cook have noted it was BlueDay on Oct 10th to raise the awareness of anxiety and depression.  I was so busy thinking about me, I completely missed the day!

But that’s part of the problem, when you’re thinking about you, when you’re in the hole, you narrow your horizons, just to survive.

I’ve faced a lot of depression in my family.  My Mum suffered from severe depression for two decades, and just as she was coming through the worst of it, my Dad went into depression, and it probably killed him. His brother suffered from depression, and it definitely killed him.  Others in my family have suffered and even been hospitalised with depression earlier in their life.  I’ve been surrounded by it from my early years.

Never felt it myself for any length of time until recently.  I think of depression in two forms.  Clinical/Chemical depression, and Circumstantial.  I once asked a doctor friend if I should be taking anything whilst feeling low, after the break-up of my first marriage, “No,” she replied, “you know why you’re feeling depressed!!  I prescribe anti-depressants when you don’t know why you’re feeling depressed!!”  Good point.  That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be taking anti-depressants when your anxiety and depression is circumstantial, but you probably have more choices to deal with the circumstances, than if you have a chemical imbalance in your body.

There are days when I’ve felt that chemical imbalance, but not for any length of time beyond that.  However, my circumstances have driven me to anxiety and depression in my 40s.  I’ve found the sheer financial load of having kids in my 40s a challenge sometimes beyond my means.  Nothing that $15m and lots of sunshine (with some snow),wouldn’t cure.

For me, getting physical and getting on my bike works.  But, I won’t always allow myself to have fun, and get physical if I haven’t done my homework.  But I can’t concentrate to do my homework. Like a rabbit frozen in the headlights.  And of course the regret for poor decisions made in the past, eating at me.  And talking of eating, lots of chocolate only gives short term respite, and probably carbs me up so I can’t think straight!!

I look back at my parent’s generation, many mothers suffering depression, not so apparent the fathers, and I look around me now, and this anxiety and depression is so well hidden in others.  I can smell it, lord knows I’ve been surrounded by it all my life, but there’s a lot of bravado, expensive cars and big holidays hiding it.  I can sense it, but I can’t touch it, only my own anxieties.  Is it just me?  Sometime I feel I’m from a different planet.  I look at other people, look at how other people treat other people, and I shake my head in disbelief.  Is it just me?

A simplistic definition of depression, is that it’s depressed/unexpressed anger.  And behind the anger is a need.  What is the need that fuels the anger and depression. 

For me, $15m dollars please!

The Secret of Sporting Success

I've followed and played sport all my life, and I'm fascinated by what makes individual and team success in sport, and can that translate to other walks of life.  An amazing article today on the BBC website, may hold the key. How GB Cycling Went from Tragic to Magic

So when BC's new performance director Peter Keen stood up at the sport's annual conference a year later and said he wanted to make Britain the world's top Olympic cycling nation, many in the room wondered where they had found this guy. Such ambition and enthusiasm. It was all so, well, un-British.

Fast forward a decade, the sport is the jewel in our Olympic crown and the envy of the cycling world. It's very, very good and it knows it. Such confidence and success. It was all so, well, un-British.

Ever wondered why Britain has had no Grand Slam success in tennis.  Why England is now the worst performing major football team now that Spain has won something?  Now we know.  It's a combination of investment and attitude, picking the right players and coaches.  Group success even if it's individual performances, feeding off each other.

I always go to Borg, Edberg, Wilander.  Ovett, Coe, Cram.  One freak comes along, and starts a dynasty.  Not by direct copying but by being in the presence of these guys and training with them, and believing you can do it.  It's not about setting up centres of excellence, if you fill them with the wrong people.  It's about being in the presence of greatness and some of it rubbing off.  So what's going on in Spain!!  What a year they've had, football, cycling, tennis.  Where has that magic come from, and can it be reproduced?  Is it luck, a chance happening, or is there something in the Spanish air, a self-belief?

Bobby Fischer, Kevin Keegan, and Sarah Green!

I'm getting powerful vibes from the 70s.  First Bobby Fischer.  Died on Thursday.  Kevin Keegan back at Newcastle United, and now my old school has a teacher suspended for making a raunchy advert, before she became a teacher!

I'm getting strong early 70s vibes from the Time Lords!  I grew up on chess.  My Dad taught me, and then I progressed, to a fairly good level.  So Bobby Fischer is a part of my psyche, he's a part of my pre and early teens.  So is Kevin Keegan, but not as someone I worshipped, in fact he was the enemy, unless playing for England!  I don't know Sarah Green, but she's what my school wasn't about then!!

It's funny, but when Bobby Fischer dies or Kevin Keegan walks back to Newcastle it takes up more of my thinking and emotional time, than it really should.  It's my curiosity that sends me on to the internet, to Wikipedia and beyond, but then again, in the late 60s and early 70s, I had my encyclopedias, football, and chess books to lurk in.

Cycling - The Good

I'm passionate about cycling right now.  Good weather, so I'm doing more and more, even whizzing into the city for meetings, where I don't need to wear a suit.  And I've found the bike path that goes unbroken from Port Melbourne into Melbourne, which means I'll tend to ride along the bay from Brighton to Port Melbourne, and then cut into the city.  Nice.

Also did Amy's Ride with Daryl Cook on Sunday, 65km circuit from Geelong along to Ocean Grove and then back round.  Absolutely beautiful view along the sea, and the ride was easier on the legs than I thought it would be, except at about 50km the cyclists from the 120km circuit overtook us, which meant they were 60km ahead of us!!  We had stopped for a coffee earlier, so that's our excuse.  In fact, I'd cycled 20km at sunrise to meet Daryl at Westgate Bridge, and of course I forced him to drop me off at Westgate Bridge after Amy's Ride, so I could cycle back and brag about the 100km I cycled in the day.  If it's not windy, I can cycle most things, but the final 20km were murder, into a strong wind.

Of course all this cycling enthusiasm means I've put the bags on the back of my bike to carry my laptop, so I don't get so hot, and uncomfortable carrying my stuff on a rucksack. It doesn't look as cool though!!

And just to keep the obsession up, I've got a bike computer to track my speed and distance, as well as my cadence, which is the beat rate at which I'm cycling.  A year ago, I dropped down to a lower front gear so that I'd increase my cadence.  The higher level cyclists tend to have a higher cadence.  You tend to be able to go further with less injuries on a high cadence.  This has been all the rage for a few years, because Lance Armstrong is known for having a high cadence average of 120 per minute.  To my joy, my cadence seems to be at about 100 on the whole, but let me tell you something, you can push it to 110 in short bursts, but you try even to get 120 per minute.  How the hell did he keep that up!!

And the bad news.  I'm sitting in a cafe in Middle Park.  Yes, you guessed it, another puncture!!  The count is now, no punctures in 10 years, and 6 punctures in less than a year.   What the hell is going on.  It might just be that the tyres that were replaced after 10 years were better at resisting punctures, or I'm cycling more, but I just don't get it.  I'm paranoid now, and perhaps it's time to learn to repair my own punctures.  I haven't needed to learn, until the last year, but just for peace of mind.

And finally, more good news.  Cycled 20km yesterday back to the doctors, and my blood pressure is down, so that's good. Oh, and I've cycled so much recently, I've run out of podcasts to listen to!!  I've caught up with my backlog, and I'm now wondering what the hell to listen to.