Are You Living A Life Of Purpose?

Posted on August 5, 2010 by Scott Gould

Ok, so perhaps this is deep and delving a bit too much into people’s salads, but the other night I was at a dinner party and when asking about their interests and passions, the person said to me that they weren’t really doing the things they felt were a fulfilment of their life and found they were in a rut. When I asked them what they did for others, it was the end of the conversation.

It seems everywhere I go, people are describing the same thing – that they are just going from work to home to the bar / pub / coffee shop, and that’s it.

And I’ll go out a limb here – it seems these people are squandering their life and living at a bass level with little fulfillment or working out of the talents and giftings that they have for our common good as people.

The reason why this gets me down? Because I believe no one should live a life that isn’t giving to others. And I believe that no one should live a life where they aren’t actually fulfilling their potential. When I see people like person I met the other night, I just can’t help but feel they are living like a chicken when they were meant to soar like an eagle.

I want to make clear that I’m not saying this is about wealth. Some of the poorest people I know are the most giving, but then also so are some of the richest I know. This isn’t about how financially rich you are, but how purposefully rich you are.

Nor am I saying that this is exclusive to our western mindset. People leaving in areas of extreme depravity still practice this idea of purpose and the common good – in fact, it seems our over-materialistic western world is the place that struggles with it.

The question I’m asking myself at the moment everyday at the moment, to test myself? What have I done that matters?

Your Leading Thoughts

Do you live for others? I think we should, so if you don’t, tell me why.
Why is there an epidemic of chicken living?
What are you doing that matters?

I Don’t Talk Down To You

Posted on July 28, 2010 by Scott Gould

I was chatting to Julian Summerhayes yesterday and noting how many blog posts out there talk down to you. I don’t know if you agree, but let my quickly paint the picture I have of it:

They write as if they are teaching you, and you need them to say everything for you to understand, rather than appreciating the wisdom of their readers.
They write very much as if what they say is the authority, without drawing from the authority of their readers.
They tell you what to do, rather than ask what their readers think could be done.
They broadcast out ideas, rather socially discuss ideas.
They tag on the social cop out, “what do you think?“, rather than really drawing out from you, “what do you think?”

I used to write very much like this. In fact the peice on Innovation Over Tradition had the same prose feel that I think goes along with the above. Normally here, we’re talking things through.

The trick to much of this is what I learnt from Robin Dickinson – “under bake the issue.” In fact, we had a great discussion about this a while ago.

What I Don’t Know

The thing is, Monday’s post was an interesting read that got quite a few retweets (as I get so few), and certainly, there is a place for explaining things and being an active authority. But I think that can still be done without talking down to someone. I’m not sure.

Your Leading Thoughts

Do you notice different tones of blogging? Can we categorise them a bit?
Which writing do you respond to? Are there some blogs that you notice this “talking down to” in?
Are there, conversely, some bloggers who you can’t respect because they don’t speak with enough authority.

Are You Guiding Or Governing?

Posted on July 20, 2010 by Scott Gould

I was having a leadership discussion yesterday and the dilemma came up of wanting to have organic growth, but at the same time control the organic growth with checks and balances to ensure the brand wasn’t tarnished.

It’s a discussion I’m sure many of you have had: whilst you respect your community or audience and want them to run with ideas and bring value to the table, you don’t trust them enough to give them full ownership, either because they might get it wrong, or they might not keep it up.

The reason why this discussion is important for us is because all of us are asking: how much do I govern it?

Guidance and Governance

I see two mindsets, at either end of an upside down triangle (much like this). On the left, we have guidance, which is a hands-off approach that says ‘go for it’, and at the extreme, will let anything happen. On the right, we have governance, which is a sign-off approach that says ‘hold on it’, and at the extreme, will let nothing happen.

In my head I’ve got these two terms pretty together. I know what I think they mean – something that I explained sometime ago in this post on where I see PR going this year.

For me, guidance is the new way of thinking. It says that with good leadership, I can guide people without needing to govern them. However, I’m beginning to rethink this, just a little.

You don’t need me to tell you that either mindset, at the extremes we have listed above, becomes a real problem. But in balance, each has important strengths that we need that often create the same goals. For instance:

Guidance creates unconferences that destroy the speaker/attendee divide and get us learning together in a de-centralised way
Governance creates a smooth conference feel that has many controls in preparation to deliver a powerful learning experience, in a centralised way

Or lets take Open Source Software. By definition, it is about guidance – an openly available code base that you can modify and do whatever with for free. Yet, there are some rather strict guidelines and learning curves that govern Open Source – meaning that the average person probably won’t get round to using much of it in their life.

Governance is also not a negative thing. Governance provides a safety that a guidance mindset can’t. It often provides structure that guidance can’t too – especially on a larger scale. As much as we bash schools and the education system, there is a certain problem with scalability of new learning methods.

You see where I’m going here.

Guiding and Governing

Here’s what I’m beginning to realise: there are somethings that have to be governed, as much as I want to make everything open. For instance, in church I’m always going to govern the doctrine. But I don’t govern the way that people live – I can only guide it.

If we go back to our starting example – organice growth has to come from guidance. You set a vision, you set the end goal, and then you let people move there and even beyond there. But what underpins this and maintains the ground that you have won organically is a governane mindset – setting policies, procedures, structure.

This means that we need to be guiding, and then we need to be governing.

Your Leading Thoughts

I think you can also say the same about innovation vs duplication, or even social vs broadcast. So, tough question, but do we err too much on the side of guidance, innovation and social without acknowledging how much broadcast, duplication and governance is really at work?

Photo credit

Three Things We Need To Give

Posted on July 17, 2010 by Scott Gould

Thinking on from our discussion last week on The Fight Our Youth Face, I wanted to share the three things that I believe we need to give to the young people around us. Working with interns everyday, these have been the basis of what I’ve been doing for 7 years.

1. Exposure

It’s vital that people know there is a world far larger than the one that they live in. When I am working with teenagers who live in poorer neighbourhoods, it’s always interesting to see the mindset that ‘there isn’t life beyond their street.’ Unless we expose people to more – they’ll never know what options they really have.

The way I like to expose people is to show them people who have more and people who have less. I’ll take them to areas of depravity, I’ll take to see people who have lot less than they do who have then become successful, I’ll show them people who have little but are happy, and I’ll show them people who have little and are sad. This can be done, of course, abroad (which does wonders for getting them out of their usual environment) – but I find it powerful to also show them people living in their own city who fit this description.

Then I’ll take them to places and people who have more. I’ll take them to luxury places, business meetings, to meet very successful people in a range of industries, etc.

And then finally, I’ll always strive to show them something new everyday.

All of this serves to shift their thinking, and also should help with humbling them a bit and realising how privileged they are, and also how hard they need to work if they want to be successful. (I say this, because humility and hard work seem to be two traits that are becoming rarer and rarer.)

2. Insight

If I had to list the important traits that I want someone to have, top of my list would probably be self-insight. To know yourself – to really know yourself – with depth and clarity, understanding your weaknesses and strengths, understanding how you work, what makes you tick – and not just in general, but with great precision and very specifically is an asset that will take you far.

Giving insight is hard work, especially because it requires cutting into someone in order to reveal themselves to themselves. By cutting I don’t mean I shout at them or demean them – of course not – it means knowing how to use a surgeons knife to make an incision that makes them see more clearly.

Sometimes this is not met with joy. Sometimes people are up for it, and then sometimes the same people have too much too deal with, and so you need to know when to pick your moments.

3. Giving

We have to show our young people how to give. More specifically, how to give:

Their time (their attention and effort into something or someone)
Their talent (their resources and skills)
Their treasure (their finances and investments)
Their tongue (their words, language and encouragement)

I strive to help learn how to give and then when to give and when not to give. You all know that I learned from Chris Brogan about focussing in on the person in front of you – there are also times of course when you should not give, and the danger is that if you teach people to be giving, you need to help them with the maturity to develop a very strong no. This creates focus.

Your Leading Thoughts

Those are my three top things that I think we need to give. I’d like to know what yours are – but more specifically;

What is the top thing that you think we need to give?
In your experience, what we do think we need to give, that young people actually already have?

The Myth of the Personal Digital Brand

Posted on July 14, 2010 by Scott Gould

I wrote on Saturday about The Fight Our Youth Face, discussing the problem that too much choice for our young people has a paralysing effect, and that there isn’t a strong focus on transferable skills.

We talked a while ago about ‘building the kingdom’ – looking at how a strong team is made up of individuals who strongly compliment one another. This is the type of thinking that I’m saying our youth aren’t getting so much of. It requires putting down your ego, and making others kings instead of yourself – being a kingmaker. Contrary to this, most young people want to be the king. Hey, I did, you probably did too.

My concern is, however, that the ‘be the king’ message is way out of hand, and I think it most subtly appears in the whole personal digital brand movement.

What I mean by this is that there is an inordinate emphasis on image and being ‘the social [insert area] guru‘, complete with logo, branded blog, branded avatar, slogan – and then complete lack of actual work. The idea of beefing yourself up is something that Jim Connolly is actually debating right now and is well worth getting in on the discussion.

Again, I’ve been here and made this mistake MANY times. For years I had the issue of having a better logo than actual business, and for years I made myself look bigger than I was. Thankfully, I’ve grown and balanced out somewhat through the mentoring of you guys and others.

But many young people lack this mentoring, and to be honest, we so focus on content online that it makes sense that it would be there starting point, rather than actually creating substance. It seems following is more important than delivering. Continue reading →

Gather what you Scatter

Posted on July 13, 2010 by Scott Gould

Note: this is a bit of conceptual peice today, based on things we’ve been discussing on this blog for a while. If you don’t quite get it, read the posts that I’ve linked to and you’ll get the full picture.

I’ve written a bit over the last months about spreadability being the way that people are marketing today. Spreadability vs Reach is in fact something I speak a lot about at events (you can see the slides here.)

One of the things we said in particular was that spreadability is like scattering seeds, in so much as every bit of your message that you put out, no matter how big or small, has a only a certain degree of predictability to it as far as a return on your investment goes.

Scattering is a volume game, and we play the volume game because we don’t know who is of value out there. We don’t know which relationships will end up returning the greatest to us, which tweets return the deals, which bits of marketing make the biggest difference – and trying to carefully plant our seeds rather than scatter them neglects all the potential relationships that we could have, that we’d never normally pick.

You can watch a video of me sharing a great recent example of that from Like Minds Conversation Helsinki.

What we can’t do is live in the volume game. This creates burnout, and means we have width but no depth, and it is in a deep, valuable relationship that we really begin building.

The conundrum is this: how do we go from a volume approach to a value approach? How do we filter all that we scatter, and know what relationships or opportunities to begin investing in with greater value?

The way that we go from the volume game to the value game is to go from scattering to gathering.

What do I mean? I mean that if I scatter my message by sending out a tweet, then those who are valuable to me are the ones that respond – they participate. I then begin the process of gathering those people to me at the level at which they are participating.

The best way that I can explain this is this: if a farmer scatters his seed, and some of that seed begins to yield fruit, then he doesn’t just leave the fruit out there – he gathers it.

If you want to read excellent insights into this, I advise you read this post on the subject last week, and in particular, the comments from Robin Dickinson on how he only follows those who he had a value-based relationship with. It is inspiring stuff.

Your Leading Thoughts

I’ve got a lot formed in my mind about this, but I want to get your feedback on it to balance it out.

Do you agree with scattering and then gathering? Can you see truth to this?
How do you go from volume to value?

What’s In A Name?

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Scott Gould

I love this blog. I love the comments that you, the participants, bring. Last week’s post on What I Learned From Chris Brogan contained some exceptional comments that were full of value and utility.

One particular thread was very insightful, along the lines of remembering people’s names. As I said, it’s something that Chris did really well, and I’m making sure I’m as good as I can be at. You can’t underestimate the power of knowing someone’s name. In fact, one person even said the most important word in the world to anyone is that person’s name.

I just wanted to pick out a few practical tips:

Malcolm Sleath wrote:

The technique is a variation of what Chris has described. I take a sheet of paper and draw a simple map of where everyone is sitting. As they introduce themselves, I pay attention and write their name in the right place on the plan, and then one or two words of what they have said. Like Chris, I look at the people when they are talking, and just focus on the content instead of making judgements about it.

Once I have my map, during the early part of the meeting, I let my eyes go round the room, saying the names of the people in my head as I look at them. In the first half an hour, I make sure I do this a few times. Then, I play a little game and look at people at random, to see if I can say their name in my head.

The result is that when I do speak, I can remember who has said what and relate my contribution to theirs so they feel included. I come across as a much better person than I really am (I’m just as self-obsessed as the next person.)

Chris Brogan wrote:

* I look directly into your eyes when getting your name… AND/OR
* if I’m meeting you in person for the first time, but know you from the web, I double-up on my memory of you by looking into your eyes and saying your name as I greet you.
* I I repeat your name a few times, and make sure that others around me have met you. This lets me repeat your name.
* I store the moment as best as I can by not allowing my head to be distracted with other details. I try to shut out all the “what next” bits.

Sy Taylor wrote:

One of the best techniques I ever found for remembering something is close deletions. So to remember that term I’d write “To remember things I use [...] deletions”

Then set that as a reminder for 3 days time. Just as you’re about to forget, something like that hitting your subconscious buries it in. Our brains are ‘use it or lose it’ lumps of elastic learning capability.

Alastair Banks wrote:

I’ve always focused on this too – remembering people’s names, their partners names and interests is incredibly important – as you say, it shows you care. Chris does this on a new level and has made a big impact on my life since meeting him at Likeminds earlier this year.

Me? I introduce the person I’ve just met to someone else. Saying their name out loud is better than saying it in your head, and I can then link your name to the memory I have of introducing you to someone too.

Your Leading Thoughts

What practical tips can you share with us that you use to remember people’s names?

Photo courtesy of bemky

The Fight Our Youth Face

Posted on July 10, 2010 by Scott Gould

The more and more time I spend with young people (having just graduated from that class when I turned 26 last year), the more and more I realise how big a fight there is that they face – and they don’t even know it yet.

Since when I got into working with youth in 2003 when I started the Feedback youth charity, to today when I have youth interns working with me all the time (as per the photo to the left), I have noticed how directionless our young people have become. The irony is that the blessings of our knowledge economy have created an abundance of choice and open treasure chest full of opportunity, travel and exploration to these young people, which in turn has paralyzed them. Let me explain:

Because we are in a knowledge economy, fewer and fewer people are learning trades and instead studying soft subjects. We focus on gap years, sandwich years, extended studying at college (or high school if you are American) even up to the age of 21 – studying without obtaining any Higher Education accreditation – and then facing, whether they take an undergraduate course or not, the problem of a considerable lack of experience.

Cue my 18 year old brother, Todd. He has just finished two years of Further Education media studies, which he now regrets and is considering taking another two years of FE study. Whilst the opportunity and diversity of subjects available is a good thing, the amount of choice that he faces paralysis him. It’s good that our young people have so much more to engage with and formally learn, yet the plethora of choice has two major problems:

It delays decision making
It does not identify transferable skills

These are two of the fights our young people face – let’s look and them, as well as add another. Continue reading →

The Value of a Value Approach

Posted on July 9, 2010 by Scott Gould

You all know that I am sold out on having a value-based approach to, well, just about everything.

A value based approach is about giving more of you to people and developing deeper relationships, rather than having your thumbs in 101 pies. By not giving lots of little, but less of more, you can build relationships that have a great yield – in pretty much whatever you do.

I wanted to show you some of the returns, the value if you will, of a value-based approach that I’ve experienced this week. I’ve had a shower of love and recognition from a range of people recently, all as a direct result of this value-based approach.

1. First of all, I received a much appreciated link from Like Minds Alum Joanne Jacobs writing about the trough of disillusionment for social media strategies. Joanne has spoken at the last two Like Minds events, and I was thrilled to hear from her that since her keynote in February, she has received continual work from people who have watched the video or referred someone based on watching it.

How I built value: This is an instance right here of me getting to know someone and actually help someone who is greatly respected and I’d never think would be in the need of my need. It’s my honour and privilege to be associated with her – and it’s all because of value.

2. Secondly, there was quite a humbly moment for me when I discovered on this post from James Gordon that I am among the UK’s Top Marketing Blogs. I’ve been blogging now for a year, and to get that kind of recognition was really, really humbling – mostly because I haven’t focussed on getting blog recognition.

How I built value: I don’t focus on retweets and traffic but just engaging you wonderful people who spend time regularly commenting here. Together, we make ideas reality, and that is what is being recognised. To regularly get an average of 15 comments per post for a blog that might occasionally hit 200 uniques a day is pretty good engagement – and I’m only keen for it to become more!

3. Thirdly, I had a bittersweet moment when my latest intern Jonny Rose left the Aaron+Gould flock to fly to London’s shores to focus on his Masters. Jonny wrote this very loving peice on the time he spent with me, poetically entitled As Good As Gould. He is a person of unquestionable character, of sincere and genuine motives, and of incredible comic genius. I’m glad to say he’ll be blogging with Like Minds, so you can enjoy his unique style there and on his blog.

How I built value: Jonny has worked with us for the last two months, and it has been my pleasure to impart some of my experiences and insights to him. Every day that he worked, we talked about what he was learning, the bigger lessons, and about nurturing his skill set.

4. Finally, a fall-of-my-seat moment happened for me on Wednesday when Molly Flatt, James Whatley and my other friends at 1000heads named me as one of their 10 WoM Thought Leaders. To be recognised by my friends Molly and James (and I do mean friends) is a wonderful thing in itself – but then to see who I was named next to was just a whole other deal. Right next to friends and heros like Joe Pine, Chris Brogan, Joanne Jacobs, John Bell (who I’ve all met now!), as well as James Gilmore and Emanuel Rosen – I was ecstatic.

How I built value: Well, the whole story is here actually. All I did was give exposure to people I believed in, however small the exposure that I could give was.

Your Leading Thoughts

I know you’re all building value relationships. I’m keen to know which ones. Tell me who you’re building value with.