All Posts By

Jon Gatrell

Spammed! Abusing an address book

Good morning!  I spammed my whole address book today – no really I did.  The good news is I’ve already rationalized myself beyond the [tag]spam[/tag] issue.  The philosophical [tag]rationalization[/tag] I’ve conjured up is – “If you ACTUALLY know them – is it really spam?”. So I got that going for me….

Spam topic:[tag]CulinaryPrep[/tag]

September 1, 2007 by
(1)

It takes a little fun and a network

So a couple of weeks ago I got the opportunity to catch up with a friend who I hadn’t seen in like 5 years, Chris and meet a voice from the phone, Mark. Both of these guys are currently out in the desert at Burning Man letting off a little steam with 1000’s of other creatives. Chris has been unsuccessfully coaxing me to go since 2001, one of those it just doesn’t work things with my life – so far.

Chris isn’t the only one, so has my friend Rick – these people are polar opposites and both rave about the week every time they get back. So there has to be something to it.

Then I realized is it about letting off steam of getting creative? Burning man is this week long event which is a little hard to explain, in fact even for the organizers:

Trying to explain what Burning Man is to someone who has never been to the event is a bit like trying to explain what a particular color looks like to someone who is blind.

While I’m not sure it’s that difficult to explain – I do think that the dynamics of relationships and people are that hard to discern which is a core component of burning man experience. This event is as much about your current friends as it is about the friends you haven’t met yet and value they can add.

[tag]Burning man[/tag] is effectively a [tag]social network[/tag] for creative expression which leverages an informal barter economy exclusively during the duration. A goal for the event is sustainability through preparation and social interaction in 100+ degree heat in the middle of nowhere with art.

I’m not quite sure the reason for this post, but this observation was conjured up when I spoke to another friend about the weekend, since I completely lost track of the date and was thinking the 2 BBQ options I have aren’t so cool. He and his wife are making it down to Charleston for the weekend. When I asked what he was doing this weekend he only said “Nothing, just catching up with Bolt for the weekend”. He paused and said “take that back, I’m going to relax and catch up on life”

Enjoy the holiday weekend, perhaps a [tag]BBQ[/tag] or two is a good thing.

… continual hard labor deadens the energies of the soul, and benumbs the faculties of the mind; the ideas become confined, the mind barren, and, like the scorching sands of Arabia, produces nothing; or, like the uncultivated soil, brings forth thorns and thistles. – Maria Stewart (1803–1879)

August 31, 2007 by
(0)

Stuck in the Middle: The Amoeba

It takes all kinds of leadership styles and ameoba is generally a kind, well intention and fairly good manager with limited creativity.  To just baseline on the core object which is the metaphor for this leader:

a•moe•ba also a•me•ba n. Any of various one-celled aquatic or parasitic protozoans of the genus [tag]Amoeba[/tag] or related genera, having no definite form and consisting of a mass of protoplasm containing one or more nuclei surrounded by a flexible outer membrane. It moves by means of pseudopods.

So it also is important to understand pseudopods:

pseu•do•pod (sōō’də-pŏd’) n. A temporary projection of the cytoplasm of certain cells, such as phagocytes, or of certain unicellular organisms, especially amoebas, that serves in locomotion and [tag]phagocytosis[/tag].

So the metaphor is a simplistic non-committal group thinker who just kinda hovers as a key activity. When experiencing an ameba event, typically it involve a fairly large group of folks from extended groups, your not sure why he/she is there, but you can’t miss ‘em because they took a seat at the middle of the table.

The other characteristic which is a little odd, this person schedule no meetings, in fact you probably can’t even remember the last meeting or email you received of from this person outside of the dog pile congratulations email streams which happen over a minor accomplishment.

So we have an effective non-entity. This person will wildly support any decision which has a clear majority and remain silent with anything below 70/30. (fair weather golfer)  Once the momentum is clear in a discussion, this person will emphatically agree! The amoeba will also be the last person to comment in a discussion. This person actually allows other functional to drive innovation into their own group which provides an exclamation to their passive reality. Bad Leaders Hover!

So how do you deal with this archetype? Just remember the amoeba is a survivor, in fact that’s all they ever do (embrace the metaphor).  Another key point to remember is when dealing with an amoeba is no one likes the mean kid and the bar for mean with this leader is low.

So if you can’t go head to head with this simplistic leader, use a mirror. Embrace the ameba’s view of the world and partner to develop an understanding of the processes and key metrics to deliver increased visibility through your own hovering in their group. Come up with improvement ideas and general observations to help improve the effectiveness of the group. The cool thing is if they invite you in – then you can do anything, so add some value!

August 29, 2007 by
(0)