Innovation thru the eyes of others

Let's take the last story post to othe aspects of business tonight.

Sometimes a new perspective, a new way to see old ways of doing things, is needed in order to get change to happen. We get stuck in our old ways of doing things and lose sight of potential opportunities for change because "that's how things are".

It takes an outsider to shake up our view of the world.

This week saw two great examples of this in the medical space.
First, the TEDMed presentation by Thomas Goetz. He speaks on involving patients more in decisions about their care by giving them information about their health in a digestable format.

"It took Wired less than $10,000 to do this. Why is Wired doing this?"

Second is the story of a UK engineer faced with a frightening diagnosis. He saw flaws in the device doctors wanted to implant in his heart and set out to develop an alternative. Two years of modeling and rapid prototyping later, he had the device implanted and it's now being used for other patients with Marfan syndrome.

Two stories of outsiders looking at the status quo and saying "This can be better". V cool.

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Seeing through another's eyes

When I was building the career map that led me to "story", I was trying to understand what theme ran underneath my varied interests.
Why Oliver Sacks, Caro & Jeunet, creole literature, and indie music?
The answer I came up with is "perspective". I love seeing the world through someone else's eyes.

This is an important element of story. Hearing and telling the tales of others gives you perspective on what life is like for others. How they deal in times of crisis. How different life can be.

They broaden horizons, letting you witness and process experiences that will never happen to you in life. Living in a waterless cabin in Alaska ( ; ) Hi, Kriss!), performing an operation with Tourettes (sp?), fighting for your life against people who hate you for who your family is.

They inspire and activate you to make connections, right wrongs, change the way you treat people.

Stories are personal. They help us understand our lives. They connect us to our past. And they connect us to each other by opening our eyes.

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3 words for 2011

(Btw, this is the picture that I couldn't get where I wanted it the other day.)

(This is my first full post from my phone, as I'm have a dispute w the desktop's monitor@ the mo. Plz forgive spacing errors& other typos)

3 words to set the tone for 2011. I like this idea better than resolutions. I've always been one for themes above discrete concepts.

Funny that it's 3. So many things are in 3s. 3 points in a callout list. 3's in fables (pigs, bears, & whatnot). Tries for the prize. And the 3s that permeate so many classic stories. Why do we gravitate so to 3?

Anyway. Mine are:
- Creativity- In blogs, work, crafts, food, home. I'm always excited at the thought. I intend to theme each month around a type of craft or specific project - besides ongoing other stuff. Since january is a break from crafts, creativity will come in handiwork on the tub (wahoo!) And organizing my study.

- Confidence.- I'm changing a bunch of stuff up this year. Treading where I have not yet put footprints in the snow. I can rock it. I just need to keep remembering that.

- Energy.- To feed the rest. To break down that wall my scale has raised before me. To be someone who stirs excitement in others thru her own enthusiasm. I refuse to let nonsense bog me down any more. Done!

What are your 3?

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New perspective

(grr the photo I wanted is not cooperating, skipping it)
If you read RoelleKids or follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you know already that I've started a new job. I've left Kodak and joined a small, young, but fast growing market research supplier called KJT Group. As always, what I post is my opinion alone and should not reflect on my work.

I spent the first few days at the new job absorbing. Trying to get a feel for the projects and clients underway. The style of KJT storytelling/ reporting. Market research is in my blood, so that won't be a big adjustment.

I also tried to start my brainstorm engine of a brain on thoughts on how I could grow the business - in what new directions I could take it. I struggled a bit because my brain kept going to things to make instead of questions to ask, but hey, I've been on the job all of 3 days - and ideas are starting to form.

What should be cool is that, minus certain stressors that left me headachey, tormented, with a sour stomach the last few falls, I'm thinking I'll be able to do a lot more here. Watch for it. Consider this a transition post - I'm kicking the game up a level starting now.

More soon! Next up - my 3 words for 2011 - only a week behind!

Ringing the death knell? Try another path.

Think about personal gaming and what defines the space. Think about Nintendo. How long do you think they've been around? Since the 80's, maybe? Make that the 1880's and you'll be right. Nintendo was formed as a personal gaming company in 1889. They sold:

... playing cards. (Image: ShinyShiny)

The company struggled a bit in the 1960's, branching into love hotels, taxis, TV networks, and noodles, prior to stumbling upon light guns and developing their first home gaming console in the 70's.

Now, I originally meant to post this last night, before news of poor performance/ weak results came out today. Still, I like the transformation/ refocus story. (and apparently I like "/", too) The company was faced with a shift in the definition of personal gaming and found another path to success.

So often, we see posts nowadays exhorting readers to "just get going", and I so agree. It's easy to see obstacles. But instead of spending a bulk of time talking about the existence of the wall, let's find a way around it. X is an issue, get over it, figure out how to move on - something I'd like to think is a mantra of mine.

Another spin on this is covered in The Art of Possibility.

Downward spiral talk is based on the fear that we will be stopped in our tracks and fall short in the race, and it is wholly reactive to circumstances, circumstances that appear to be wrong, problematic, and in need of fixing. [...] Focusing on the abstraction of scarcity, downward spiral talk creates an unassailable story about the limits to what is possible and tells us compellingly how things are going from bad to worse.

Gloom and doom. It's pretty easy to get mired in it and the misery just becomes exponential.

Shine attention on obstacles and problems and they multiply lavishly.

The solution? Step back and look at the facts of the situation. They'll show the problem area, but they'll also show other paths and opportunities. Think different. And go!

It's a challenge. But I'd like to think that some really cool possibilities can come out of this.

Define "real work"

Last night, J and I went to a lecture at RIT by Matthew Crawford, author of Shop Class as Soulcraft. I read the back of the book when J bought it and was not sold. J was excited, though, so I went as a skeptic, trying to keep a relatively open mind.

First, the things that I DID buy.
- People have different skills, interests, and brains work different ways. We should not build an even remotely elitist system that might prevent people from pursuing careers they are passionate about. Vocational training can be as valid as a college degree.

- It's better for all around if you can land in a job that sparks your passion and helps you feel that you are doing something worthwhile.

Beyond that, I was insulted. J saw the points differently than I and I'll try to share his views here, but I'm really hoping he comments (nudge nudge) to spur discussion. There are 4 areas (2 major, 2 minor) that I totally disagree with and the enthusiasm of the packed room disturbed me a bit.

1. Those of us who do not care to take apart washing machines, cars, or TVs when they break live in a state of "learned helplessness" - bereft of individual agency. Crawford also used "lack of responsibility" and, my favorite, "idiocy". To be a productive member of society, you should know every part of every device you own and how it works. - NOT ME! Sorry, I don't have an affinity for machinery and I would rather spend brain cells on other things that have a positive impact on my life and the world. It's just like those differences that send some to college and some to the trades...
   
   As a secondary argument to this, he cites the surge of interest in urban farming and craft as a search for compensating "self-reliance" or, as Crawford put it the "home-economics of Grandma". - NO. It's about creating and taking joy in that, not about being less dependent on others.



2. Office work is not real work - only the trades are real work. Crawford would back away from this, saying that some office jobs are OK, then return to that dreadful phrase. - I do REAL WORK. My job may be frustrating at times, but I do cool stuff and creatively solve problems for our users and work to make their lives better, ultimately. Just because I sit at a computer or in meetings, don't assume I'm a drudge! You're just as biased against non-tradespeeps as you claim society is against the trades...
   
   At one point in the Q&A, after saying that college is fine if you have 4 years and the money to throw away, he urged a father to NOT let his son attend business school - "you'll never learn anything worthwhile there". Applause in the room as I repressed a bit of Hulk. Maybe B-school isn't valuable to everyone, but I am grateful for my time there - I had some great teachers and teammates who pushed me to my analytical and dot-connecting approach today.

J tends to take a broader perspective. That Crawford's main message is the one about fulfilling/ rewarding work. He feels that the principle can be applied to office workers just as much as to tradespeeps. I'd like to agree, but Crawford's turns of phrase were too negative, kept bringing it back.

What do you think? Is work done with your hands as part of a trade like plumbing, electrical, or mechanics more REAL than product development, marketing, social media? Has anyone read the whole book?

Punching holes in the walls that surround us

I recently watched a talk by novelist Elif Shafak on TEDGlobal 2010. She talked about her background growing up in a diplomatic life, about the expectation critics have that her books reflect Turkish issues, even when she's writing novels in English set in Boston.

She described the circles we build around ourselves, the walls we use to enclose our groups of friends who tend to live lives so similar to our own. How associating with others like ourselves can blind us to the way other people live, and the stories that they have from their own point-of-view.

One way of transcending these cultural ghettos is through the art of storytelling. Stories cannot demolish frontiers, but they can punch holes in our mental walls and through those holes we can get a glimpse of the other and sometimes even like what we see.

This is one reason why my bookshelf, Google Reader, and Twitter friends are so diverse (at least I think so, hope so). I love seeing the world thru different eyes, getting a perspective on lives so different from my pretty sheltered Western NY existence. Being obsessed with stories and language as I am, it's not just about the subject material, but how the stories are told - the language people use, the tone and meter of their prose. For more on the benefits of following a diverse Twitter crowd, see Twitter Strangers on The Frontal Cortex.

Now, Shafak is adamant that her work is "JUST A STORY" and doesn't have any underlying meaning other than what the story intends to say - no hidden messages. I don't think that holds true across all stories.

Explore, open your eyes, punch holes in your walls - see what life can be like beyond the circle of those just like you. And let me know what you find.