Add To The Core, Don’t Delete it

Posted on November 9, 2010 by Scott Gould

One of the things that my pastor, Michael, taught me was that you “add truth to your truth”, in other words, when you find something to be true you don’t throw away what your previously knew to be true.

Perhaps the best example is in church life. If you’ve had a certain understanding of a passage in the Bible, but then someone presents a new way to understand, that doesn’t mean you delete what you previously knew. You just add this new truth to the existing truth. In the same way that if you have a computer programme, it has it’s core, you keep adding more modules to it whilst the core remains intact.

I think this is relevant because in our fast changing world (especially online), it’s easy to want to change our core and adopt the newest and most fashionable truth. For instance, whenever I watch a TED talk, I immediately want to do what that speaker does because they make it seem so incredible – already I’m ready to delete the core. But I’ve learnt instead that new experiences must instead be added to – not swapped in place of – previous experiences.

Your Leading Thoughts

I’m sure you’ve been a culprit of this before like I have. Why are we keen to throw away truth when we find new truth?
How have you learnt, practically, to add to the core?

Photo credit

Together

Posted on July 31, 2010 by Scott Gould

It’s a concern of mine that despite all our social media, people still don’t do things together.

Words like community, team, collaboration, relational, participatory, social – they are all over Twitter, but then when you share these links or comment on these posts, do you get a reply? When you ask people not what they say about social media, but if they are doing social media, how many are building connections and really collaborating?

The truth is that working together is hard.

It’s hard because we grow up today in a such a me-focussed world and live such me-focussed lives that the preference of others and putting others first that is required for team work doesn’t come easily.

Case in point: communication. Every Sunday at church, we have a team who handle the sound, the lighting and the audio/video content. They all link into each other, yet when Sunday comes and they are working together, I was rarely hearing them talk to each other, and as such, the whole Sunday experienced suffered.

Why was this? Because they were used to living in their own minds and focussing on their own angle, that they were almost unaware of the others around who needed their support and communication. Now that I’m teaching them communication and helping them see the need for the big picture and to give of themselves to each other, they are working far more powerfully as a team.

Malcolm Gladwell writes some very interesting stuff about this – particular in the area of focus – in his book Blink (affiliate link.) With focus, we tend to close off what’s going around and zoom in onto one thing. And I think that technology has heightened this ability within us – for good and for bad. Think about the hundreds of millions of knowledge workers who spend all day with computers, not uttering a world as they live inside their head and shift digital paper. What they are getting better at is having a tight focus. What they are getting worse at is looking up.

In order to get on together we need to look up. We need to prefer one another. Valuing the person in front of us. I’m shocked by how much ego I still see – people clamoring for the attention, to give their point of view, to ensure they are heard and that they get the credit. You know what I decided? I’m going to give the credit rather than get the credit.

Your Leading Thoughts

When did you learn to really work together? What was the time that switch you from being me-focussed to we-focussed?
If you could give one tip to people that would help them become team players, what would it be?

Photo courtesy of Jeff Bauche

If You Had To Start Again

Posted on July 16, 2010 by Scott Gould

I was having lunch with someone the other day who was asking about becoming an Active Authority – someone who uses social media to actively engage people in a particular subject by demonstrating their expertise and authority in said subject.

Think Olivier Blanchard. When Olivier talks about brand management and social media management, people stop talking and listen. When he’s finished talking, people start repeating adapting what he’e said. Why? Because he’s the authority on it.

Now I wrote sometime ago on 5 ways to use Twitter as an Active Authority, but a comment on Wednesday made me see this in a new light, and I’d like to open up the discussion.

On the discussion about the myth of the personal brand, Codi Spodnik commented:

I am re-entering this space after a 5 – 6 year stint as a stay-at-home-mom in a small metro area. I do want to start my own consultancy, sharing the experience I gained before motherhood, helping clients find the right fit for executing their products, helping them articulate their needs and strategize solutions….. still working on the details.

But I have found this space to be cluttered with this talk of “personal branding.” To me, it has the appearance of a cult of Self. After perusing my local “experts” and similar consultants all over the web, I am finding the same talk and catch phrases, regardless of their level of actual experience or competence. I was really struggling with finding a way to create my own genuine identity without engaging in this practice or having that appearance.

I totally feel where Codi is coming from, and so I wanted to get your feedback for her so that she can glean insights from the wealth.

What I want to know is this: If you had to start again, what would you do?

I know what I’d do: I’d create content on a focussed subject that provides people with very clear and practical takeaways, and then engage with anyone who interacted with me or the content at any level, and do my best to help them make the content work for them.

Your Leading Thoughts

How about you? If you had to start again, what would you do?

Photo courtesy of Emiliantha

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 →

Building the Kingdom: Number 1s and Number 2s

Posted on June 1, 2010 by Scott Gould

Over the last week, there’s been some great discussion from our community on the post “Are you a King or a King-Maker?” First of all – thank you. The depth of discussion has been exceptional and a very clear display of people who are all committed to being king-makers.

This post is in response to the comments and discussion, and presenting just a small truth that I learnt myself earlier this year.

To get you up to speed

The point we were making is that some people are kings and some people are king-makers. King makers are those who see the potential in people and work to make them the kings that they can be. In an age (particularly on Twitter) where everyone wants to be the king of their own personal brand, their own community and blog, complete with product and their own affiliate program, king-makers are increasingly rare.

Being a king and a king-maker are also not mutually exclusive – but the best kings are those who were king-makers first, and indeed continue to be so.

The liberation of it all

In the comments on the post, Randy Dunning said something that really humbled me and opened my eyes when he said:

Posts like this are very liberating in that they give people permission to do what is right.

Common thinking – even in relation to social media – is along the lines of “How can I leverage this to further my kingdom.”

I think he’s quite right. As I said above, there is this strong push for everyone to be a king of their own kingdom (no matter how small it is), and in turn, every social connection they have is seen as leverage to the advancement of said kingdom. This is what I’m probably going to call the Digital King Complex, because it’s what we are seeing everywhere. There is an immense pressure from every side, with bloggers telling other bloggers that they have to get a brand, get their product, get their affiliate program, get their feeds, and so on. Continue reading →