I promised a friend I would send him this one.. Thought it was worth sharing with all my friends as it is powerpacked! “What we need to do is re-adjust our way of thinking.”
Enjoy!!
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The first step in a Tango dance is called the Salida, Spanish for “Exit”. Traditionally, this is because the two dancers enter the dancefloor with an agreement that they are the perfect match for that moment. The connection of torso-to-torso balanced in imperfect discovery of the other is far more intimate an activity than we may admit. Both partners listening so deeply that they reach a mutual state of meditative bliss that combines with the music to make a powerful in-the-moment exchange of a unique language belonging only to them and only to that dance. It is common to find dancers’ eyes closed in the process. It is in their listening that they are expressing the meaning of Community. Business and community is the art of knowledge-based Tango. It is identifying the potential from each interaction that allows the exceptional leader to propel a new innovation forward. The ideal community leader finds the good and serves them to become great. Often this means rallying their own constituents behind the efforts of another in order to bring everyone up in the process. As Derek Sivers puts it, “..when you find a lone nut doing something great,have the guts to be the first one to stand up and join in.” This one leadership strategy.. it has, at its core, the most fundamental part of radical change: listening for future possibilities! As a Coach of Soccer and Ultimate Frisbee, I have selected entire teams based primarily on potential rather than actualized talent. The strategy matches one I followed in the 2002 Oakland A’s draft strategy to find the best talent by focusing on players with promise (all but 3 of their draft choices that year were college recruits, which was unprecedented at the time). Everyone likes to be the underdog and win, but that means you have to practice being the underdog which requires a tremendous amount of failure in the process. I am always looking for ways to risk failure in order to produce a better result with my teams!
Its similar to the challenges I faced this season with the TEDxAsheville production. We put a tremendous amount of time in the first half of the year to build systems that would allow for key players in leadership positions to hear the needs from each different type of people involved. It is only through this hearing that we were able to respond with agility and make the changes necessary to satisfy the vision for the engaging event. With a year of experience together (three years for some of us) we are poised to refine these systems so we can better hear the community and respond for the coming 2012 season! This is where the magic happens.. in the growth of an organization. This is a production of community innovation!!
This morning when I arrived at the Dripolator, I was embraced by a friend who told me that later last night when he was talking with a friend there was a thread of conversation that connected to all the talks in some way. He said, “We talk about this stuff all the time. Now, I a whole new perspective to share.” Another friend asked me, “What are the ideas in the minds of all the UAI kids?” A great question and one I hope we can answer this year! In 2008, I was 4 years out of college and ready to put my academic study to work! I made a decision on the Winter Solstice to dive into every event on the production side that I could see an alignment with my skills and interests. I wanted to be a player in the game, rather than a consumer, where the maximum opportunity for engagement was present. Ever since, my interaction with the city of Asheville has been colored by these partnerships, friendships and productions. I listen to audio all the time: podcasts, audiobooks, new music… and I am a little disappointed in Google when I search for a string there is no option to specifically search for sounds, music or recordings. Images, Videos, even Blogs are listed but no audio. You are missing the wave Google!! About 2 months ago now, I dove into a research project that has proven to be one of the most interesting obsessions turned art. I have been looking for some of the funkies, danciest, dirtiest beats in the electronica music scene.
Even at this moment, I am reviewing sounds for what I would spin as a DJ when the opportunity finally comes my way. I want the dancefloor to pump up, for the beat to hit so hard that even the onlookin’, nodancin’, stiffleggeds can’t resist moving with it!! And as I’m listening, I get Gramatik’s intro cut with the spoken words of Eric Thomas saying, “If you want to be successful, you’ve got to be willing to give up some sleep!” And I dig a little deeper to find the original speech by Eric Thomas.. he ends this segment with this powerful punch, “You’ll never be successful until I don’t have to give you a dime to do what you do!!” And this, my readers, is preciesly why I listen with my whole spirit to sounds around me. It didn’t take long for SoundCloud to become a favorite landing pad for me to consume new sounds after the Burning discovery. Now with the Droid app I can record my own sounds with the widget that uploads and becomes instantly sharable. Comments can be logged right on top of the waveform. This opens a whole new world of opportunity for listener engagement and potential collaboration. Below is one from Fred Wilson with an awesome soundbite that producers might use… though Mr. Wilson has not made that sound available for download yet. Next stop: union square at Subway by fredwilson Its something I am launching into as I realize the visual netspace is becoming captured by all kinds of fantastic designwork. And only a little deeper and I find elegant words that capture my attention from the SoundCloud CEO and founder Alexander Ljung. He says “…the ultimate goal of building the best sound sharing and creation experience that spans the we.” With this kind of mission, I can immediately be inspired to put my focus on engagement into what will compel those around me to become active in the audiosphere. Teaching High School Students to be Entrepreneurs by Brett A McCall But there is plenty of noise already out there, interactive transcripts (such as those in TED talks), wavelength comments, and more are still coming. A local radio host called me late last week with a game idea around audio tracks.. one that I think SoundCloud may embrace when we flesh out the details on the structure.
“Today is a day of Inspiration” reads the chalkboard next to the door of our house. I started the day smirking at this concept and quickly surprised myself with an unexpected double payment from a new client, a dialog about TEDxAsheville that took an amazing turn and a day of positive productivity. But that is not what I am writing about here… |
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The most important part of communication is listening. But listening is not passive, it happens when the responses, questions and engagement is rich with awareness and purpose! In some cases, the listening is internal, its between the wise old sage and the curious playful child both inside the brain of a single person! In other cases, it is resonating with the complaint of a constituent or the idea of a colleague. Regardless it is the communicator’s responsibility to set up an environment where the voices can be heard! It is the leader in this dance that introduces new rules and invents a whole new language based on the parties involved and the situation at hand.
In my first season as an Ultimate Player, I was brought onto a team of mostly new players in Dallas, a city rich with old talent. I remember each game as a stepping stone to the tournament we played, how each player exhibited new skills and abilities even within the scope of a single game. When we excelled through the elimination rounds and made it to the final match, I remember our growth throughout the journey. It was the shared trauma of meeting a challenge, and because we were mostly new, taking bold risk that caused us to fail at times but eventually exceed the expectations of everyone. This failure and trauma resulted in an awareness and agility that allowed us to shift weight and redirect faster than our opposing teams, no matter what they threw at us.
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