LaLunaBlanca

I struggle to convey how inspiration is a great part of my life.  I’m surrounded by it and attempt to recognize it wherever I can in people and what they share. Find the inspiration in everyone (even though it’s not always positive… people can inspire you not to do also).

Though I’m far from cracking the code on inspiration, I’m compelled to share this actual example which recounts some origins on BarCamp Memphis, TechCamp Memphis, and {GEEKmemphis}

Back in 2007, I was inspired by my wife to go to a conference in Seattle about Facebook called Community Building in the Age of Facebook. The inspiration I gleaned from that conference changed my professional inclinations forever. It was like the breakfast club of the social media revolution with folks like Jeremiah Owyang, Connie Bensen, Jake McKee, Nick O’Neil, Dave McClure, Baratunde Thurston, and more awesome people that I still talk with today. The conference was also my first exposure to an “unconference” where (pre-facebook fame) Mari Smith and I pitched a session on Facebook for B2B Business and it was picked! The same conference is also where I was inspired by Eric Weaver to attend my first SxSw four months later (and I’ve been every year since).

I was so engaged with the whole unconference concept, that when Dave Delaney mentioned PodCamp Nashville (2008), my wife and I went. I was very inspired by how Dave Delaney and Marcus Whitney pulled together local subject matter experts to share, mix, and exchange ideas with attendees in a casual setting. That experience is what inspired me to start BarCamp Memphis.

Fast forward past eight Memphis camps that I chaired with local support & inspiration and having attended and/or spoken at more unconference camps in Austin, Seattle, Mountain View, Birmingham, Chattanooga, Jonesboro, and Nashville, I’ve developed an addiction of sorts.  But, I’ve discovered inspiration at all those events from interacting with the people at them.  People who, for the most part are recognized as being a quieter introverted lot (they have the most awesome ideas & concepts to share).

Add the most recent inspiration at SxSW 2012 (and the drive back with Steve Phipps) to start GEEKMemphis with awesome founders and position myself to be out of the lead seat in a year so that there’s freshness and distributed responsibility/fun with organizing/inspiring, and we get to “why” I initially started this post in the first place: TechCamp Memphis.

In proof, illustrating the value of a board, Liz Jostes (who is the lead with Joe Spake on the Marketing/PR/Media committee for what yesterday was termed “ContentCamp Memphis”) was hashing through some preliminary work on lighting a fire under getting the word out with Joe, Beth Sanders, and myself. During a series of many Facebook group posts, Liz wanted to consolidate websites and URL’s to make it easier to setup these unconference camps twice a year. We wound-up talking on the phone to hash through things before I had to mow. We checked out TechCampMemphis.com and it was available and we snagged it.  While mowing and listening to a SxSW session podcast by Bryan Person the notion of a one titled conference with two themes jumped into my mind. I floated the idea back by Liz, Beth, and Joe. Poof and now that’s what we’re doing.

If you’re ever talking with me and I seem to “glaze over”, you probably just said something that triggered my imagination to some expeditionary tangent. I have a tough time calling some things my own ideas when really they’re the products of so many different people and experiences.

More often than not, I connect tons of dots (inspirational concepts/notions) and add a little sauce. None of these ideas I come up with would be worth anything without great execution. To gain the confidence of enthusiastic and inspiring people that contribute and “execute” is one of the greatest treasures I’ve ever been dealt. It’s where collaboration makes an addictive magic, and I’m hooked.

Joe Spake tweeted a Mashable post earlier this evening.  It asked the question, “Is Social Media Actually Making Us Less Connected?” “Us” is a huge word! If you consider Mashable’s reader-base (the “Us”) to be principally those who have a professional interest in Social Media, then maybe we are less connected than before. I say this because there is increasing pressure for those attempting a presence with their professional sphere to do so via broadcast tools that increase efficiency, but decrease dialogue. In 2009, I wrote about Broadcasting an Illusion of Participation. That whole phenomena is even more widespread now, and for few good reasons:
-People are spending less time on an increasing variety of networks.
-Practitioners are seeing and increase in business and have less time to connect socially than before.
-Search Engines are looking increasingly at social network interactions in determining relevancy / rankings.

Earlier this evening, I took a look at the source of the posts showing up on my facebook wall. Only 41 of the 68 posts were from people who were actually “on facebook” (see the chart to the right). The remainder of the status updates were piped in from some external application either by someone who was actually there or via a scheduled update. I’m not bashing the practice (any longer), though I personally don’t care for it. So, as a whole, the answer is “Yes, it’s making people that use social mediums professionally less connected to each other. It is making more of their readers feeling more connected to them (the pros). However, it’s not making the broadcasting pro feel any closer to most of their readers. I say most because when there’s a dialogue of comments, a mutual connection (even if small) is achieved… but, most don’t comment.

Best definition I’ve found about the concept of an Echo Chamber: an informal communication space where everyone agrees with the information and outside perspective/information is abnormal.

Where I am going is that it’s more important than ever to physically get outside of our Echo Chambers and transfuse with other thought. I don’t mean attending presentations, watching YouTube videos, or reading blog posts (right! like this one).  I’m referring to conversing F2F (Face to Face) and opening up your blinders and tuning into your peers that live a different day-to-day professional experience. Then, reciprocate and share yours. If your perspective doesn’t align with theirs, then you’ll get something out of the discussion; that’s the point. If you just want to stroke each other’s egos with affirmation, go for it! That’s the echo chamber, just don’t expect to walk away any smarter than when you got there.

Secondly, if you’re a business leader, your people and enterprise will benefit from you encouraging and facilitating their participation. Naturally, that’s worrisome! Convey your expectations about company confidential trade secrets, and client confidentiality if necessary.

(Side note: Not only will your business benefit, but if the businesses in your local economy can adopt this attitude, that ecosystem will benefit as well. And YES! if that attitude expands out regionally… of course. Go ahead and let the Star Spangled Banner play in your mind though I’m playing Van Halen at the moment… yes again.)

Have I always felt this way? No way!  I’ve been an isolated protectionist for most of my professional life. My realization came as a result of me getting out of my own Echo Chamber many many times. Try it. You’ll see the benefit and then the potential for doing/facilitating the same thing for your people.

I’m not referring to classic professional organizations. Those serve a different purpose, (but they are a great place to harvest some peers).

If you’re drawing blanks on this, let me know. I’ll be glad to provide whatever additional insight I can even if it’s just over the phone.

Consider This – Your industry may be changing way to fast for anybody to keep up with it and simultaneously be a practitioner. The ONLY hope to keep up, is through peer grouping: sharing “best of” and “worst of” experiences. Some may call this “curating” your industry experiences with others in the industry.

It was great to take a quick moment to stop by GiveCampMemphis today.  Volunteers, matched with a non-profit, develop applications or components for that organization’s benefit. The applications are built in an extreme process of live, all persons involved are together for the weekend, focused on the project. The experience is completely different from a classic development track. That’s very cool for the project, the volunteers, and the organization.  But the real home-run of GiveCamp is the people volunteering for their community’s non-profit. I’m always for a situation of this type addressing a non-profit’s need instead of a tax paid solution. Big hat tips organizer Brian Swanson, and the few volunteers/participants I knew: Beth Sanders, Mark Dinstuhl, Phillip Black, and James Ruffer, plus all those I didn’t. Thanks for being so awesome!

I felt compelled to identify the parts of the mission I agree with.  There are some points that I do not agree with. Below is the Occupy Wall Street / General Assembly Mission and I’ve red-bolded concepts I believe in.

In a nutshell, having been directly exposed to some of the red-bolded items in a previous career, I left that situation and started my own company. I don’t agree with the sweeping generalization seemingly implied of all corporations.

I do not like unions after having once experienced the paralysis of trying to be productive in a union environment.  I don’t like that many auto-skeptics are calling this a partisan issue. My concerns are the concepts themselves, and not who’s side of the fence they root in.

Here’s that mission statement:

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts corporations to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts. *
To the people of the world,
We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.