Posted by Marc Shiman on March 11, 2006
Over the course of the next week, I’m going to devote several entries to a book I picked up a few months ago called The Way of the Traveller, by Joseph Dispenza. The sub-title of the book is Making Every Trip a Journey of Self-Discovery.
Dispenza really struck a cord with me on this book. Not that he got it all right – in fact, he missed it… badly. But the book really got me thinking on a number of issues.
He likens the “journey” to the adventures within Greek and Roman mythology. His five stages of the journey
- The Call to Journey
- The Preparation
- The Encounter
- The Homecoming
- Recounting the Tale
The guy does a simply outstanding job of taking a new model… completely new…. Yet…
I think he’s the one that drove me in the direction, but I feel the book completely misguided in the way it interchanges the words “Journey” and “Travel”. It suggests that any travel is a journey. Yet I would argue that not all travel is a journey, and journeys are made of a much larger number of activities than getting on an airplane and going somewhere.
I’ve stuggled with what the boundaries are for a journey, but let me offer a few characteristics: Journeys involve going somewhere or doing something new; they involve discovery (they better or this doesn’t belong in this blog); they have a beginning and an end (The Homecoming and Recounting the Tale).
On Dec 2, 2005, I ran a half Marathon. For someone who has been as out of shape as I have been over the past 20 years, this was a journey indeed. The journey did not begin at race day, but the day I signed up to run it. Immediately, I grabbed magazines, books, and visited websites. I went training and running. I bought supplies. I spoke to people.
I never got on an airplane, and I never packed a suitcase. The journey began a few steps from my front door. But see a “journey” in this light, and Dispenza’s book has considerably more meaning.
Posted in Discovery | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Marc Shiman on March 7, 2006
In my last post, I decried the lack of creativeness in the wiki segment of the Web 2.0. I may be completely wrong that the authors of these various sites are the 20 somethings of years past, but I don’t think I’m wrong.
I equated the fact that these guys seemed to have chained themselves behind their desks was partially to cause for the lack of creativity.
I once read (and my apologies to the author i don’t remember the source) that creativity is not coming up with new thoughts out of the blue. Its the marriage between two experiences, or thoughts, or ideas in a way that its never been done before.
Therefore, the people with the most diverse sets of experiences are those likely to have the most revolutionary ideas.
So… if you graduate from High School, go to MIT or Stanford, see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, upon graduation go into a new venture firm, sit in front of a computer and code….
What experiences are you going to put together that would be entirely new?
Those years after graduating are for DISCOVERY, not running a race to get cash fast. Every single one of those people that waste their 20’s in front of a computer screen are going to regret it, rich or not.
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Posted by Marc Shiman on March 7, 2006
I really don’t want to kill all of these enterprising young people in pursuit of their holy grail of fame, fortune, pretty husbands and wives, and whatever else, but there is a very distinct lack of creativity in the new web applications that are springing up left and right all over the place.
My latest adventure, helping NASAGA put up a game wiki so that members can contribute to building a database of games, has taken me into the world of Wiki software. Some of it hosted, some you put on your own server. Some of its php and perl coded so it can run on an internet server and some is javascript so it runs locally on your home computer (I actually know what this means!) Some of it is free, some of it you pay to have it hosted (and you can’t have the software for your own host).
But, jeez guys – I mean its all minor variations on the same idea. Yes, some of it is distinctly better than others, some is more distinctly free than others. Most of it isn’t user friendly, but that’s changing. Clearly the one advancement over the past 10 years has been to shorten the development cycle so this stuff goes out in months rather than years.
But now to the Inspiring Discovery part – where is the discovery in the evolutionary process of incremental improvement? I have no idea if these are caffeine-addicted, type A personality silicon valley types that were so heavily stereotyped around the turn of the century (wow, like that phrase?) or just average Joes and Jills going to work 9-5, but it would seem that the people really invested in this process are missing out on a very important time in their lives to explore the world. The complete absence of creativity in these designs is your primary indicator of this.
The competition, accelerated product development cycles, and first-to-market mentalities are definitely fueiling improved applications (although still much more technology-driven than demand-driven), but I can’t help but think spending my 20’s stuck in front of a PC coding for a software package that is better today but overtaken tomorrow would be a tragic loss.
Technorati Tags: wiki, NASAGA
Posted in Careers, Path | 2 Comments »
Posted by Marc Shiman on March 5, 2006
Over the weekend I got an idea for writing a book. The book is called “Ideas” and the concept is basically how to get an idea nowhere into a solution with its own life.
I’ve always been good at coming up with ideas – in fact, this past week I’ve had a flurry of them. But I tend to work them out, even write about them, but soon it dies. It would seem to me that every idea has a life-cycle; or at least a structure that you can put them through the various stages of development.
So, my friend asked me “why you want to write this book” (paraphrased) and my answer was
“Because I want to read it”.
I was reading a book called “Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as a Cartographer” and the author, Peter Turchi, likened the process of writing with the process of exploration. I KNOW that there is a process for bringing an idea to fruition, I think I know what stages there are, but until I actually sit down and write the damn thing, I don’t know what that process is. If someone else has already written this then fine – I guess I should go read this.
But I like to do the discovery myself sometimes.
Technorati Tags: ideas, writing
Posted in Discovery | 1 Comment »
Posted by Marc Shiman on March 2, 2006
Teacher: Harold, what do you call a person who keeps on talking when people are no longer interested?
Harold: A teacher
Posted in Communications | 1 Comment »
Posted by Marc Shiman on March 2, 2006
This isn’t a post about writing something about your boss and getting fired – this is about the addiction that can be blogging and the dysfunctional behavior that comes pursuing the wrong goals.
Why write a blog? From a professional standpoint, it exposes potential employers and/or customers to who you are, what you believe, and what drives you. I think its infinitely better than a resume to get someone’s insight into you. If this is your motivation, then the stories of your kitten and the dandelion yesterday really don’t add much value.
On the other hand, this may be an online diary – that you want everyone to read? Maybe. Its easy to write stuff on a blog, the software (I use the Performancing plug-in for Firefox) makes it easier and easier to write down some thoughts and throw them up on the web. I think for my marcshiman.com site, I’m writing to write – if anyone sees it, thats fine. For this blog, I would like to be able to point people to it if they want to know more about me.
But then comes the allure of traffic – how do I generate hits? An actual productive output of hits is valuable comments on my posts (they are intended to inspire discussion). But now I’m finding myself doing things that I wouldn’t normally do just to drive traffic there.
Why? Maybe its an ego thing. A long time ago I had a newsletter which grew pretty fast in popularity. It led to some sort of celebrity status for me (which publicly I showed distain for but privately enjoyed).
Its an evil thing though. Instead of writing to what is important, I write to what will drive traffic. Yuck.
The other thing I worry about is the work-in-progress that is up on the blog. Like this crappy post. The best way to do it is to write it… take a break… and then re-write it. The re-write is where the quality comes from. Its just so easy to hit that “publish” button on the bottom and be shut of it.
I’d like to have a place where I can do my creative work in private and post it when I’m ready. A vault of ideas. Actually, there are plenty of possibilities ranging from a notebook and index cards, to some sort of PIM, to tiddlywiki and writely online; even Performancing has a notebook feature.
My perfect Notes Vault is
- online so I can get at it from different machines
- allows me to upload via email
- allows me to write wysiwyg text
- allows me to write in outline format
- allows me to mindmap (!)
- Maybe works with a tablet PC???
- Allows me to tag my notes so I can organize them
- ummm…. any thing else?
Posted in Journaling | 1 Comment »
Posted by Marc Shiman on March 1, 2006
You like that headline? Its a bit of a stretch from this article:
Online Colleges Receive a Boost From Congress – New York Times
Essentially what is happening here is that our government is willing to let tradition go a little bit in the name of learning. The emphasis is, of course, on on-line learning. But how many other ways are there to learn than over the internet? Plenty. Let’s see how far schools are willing to think out of the box in their quest to educate our future leaders.
Posted in E-Learning | 3 Comments »
Posted by Marc Shiman on March 1, 2006
One of my real pet peeves in life is a presenter that doesn’t manage his/her time properly. Imagine what happens when a presenter realizes he/she only has 10 minutes left to present 25 minutes of material
- They go really really fast and cover all the material so that they can stuff it in and feel like they have accomplished their goal even though by this point nobody can understand a word they are saying and everything gets lost…. ok, you get the point
- They recognize they are running out of time, and they state “moving quickly now”, and then they proceed to cover all 25 minutes in… 25 minutes. Books are closed, pencils are down, one buttock cheek per person is off the chair, but on and on the presenter goes; tossing in an occasional “bear with me”
- At the end of the 10 minutes they cut off the presentation – THWAP! and well, if there was anything important in the missing end, read the book.
Please, I’m begging you – know how much time you have to present, and where you are (on time? ahead? behind?) NOT just at the end, but also halfway, 2/3, and 3/4 of the way through. If you are behind SKIP some slides that don’t matter. Remember what you want to achieve.
Technorati Tags: Presentations, PowerPoint
Posted in PowerPoint | 1 Comment »
Posted by Marc Shiman on February 28, 2006
I don’t want to go on about this for too long, but there was a post (with a reference to an article by a philosopher) on giving. I don’t want to go on about it too long because I wrote some fairly lengthy comments on the message board. They can be seen at the link below.
But one thing comes to mind – when you give cash to someone, when you send a check or give your credit card number to a charity, we speak of sacrifice. We sacrifice a nice meal at a restaurant, a new tv, or a smaller car in exchange for sending out some money. We are pleased with ourselves for the sacrifice we made and we understand that it will bring us good Karma.
But you ask ANYONE that has helped someone less fortunate – not with money but by teaching them something or helping them physically – and the word “sacrifice” will never once be uttered from their mouths. In fact, the word “opportunity” will be heard. Bottom line is that it is infinitely more satisfying to change someone’s life than it is to change their financial status.
For the last 10 years of my life I’ve worked in developing nations and hopefully I’ve made a difference in some lives. In every one of those days I’ve been doing this, there hasn’t been a single sacrifice on my part.
Life Coaches Blog » Blog Archive » Your Solution to the World
Technorati Tags: charity, sacrifice, poverty
Posted in Taoism | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Marc Shiman on February 28, 2006
I’m going to start posting some of the more amusing stories while I was travelling, but not on this blog. I have more of a home page/blog at www.marcshiman.com. I just posted one about a unique travelling companion.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
