Measuring Mindshare

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

My friend, Jerry Michalski, recently tweeted a question about collaboratively authoring documents using GitHub. I didn’t see his original tweet, but I saw a followup exchange between him and Howard Rheingold, and so I pointed both of them to Ward Cunningham’s Smallest Federated Wiki. I’ve seen some followup exchanges, and I’m happy that the pointer may have triggered something interesting.

I also realized that, despite admiring Ward’s project from afar for years now, I have never blogged or tweeted about it.  I’ve mentioned it to folks, but not to Ward directly, and I even wanted to incorporate it into a client project last year that I didn’t end up doing. I don’t know that Ward knows how interesting or important I think his explorations have been. Hopefully, he does now.

It got me thinking about how hard it is to measure mindshare, especially in this day and age. I’ve been thinking about this a lot in regard to my own work, recently. For the past few years, I haven’t spent much time thinking about who reads this blog or any of my other writings, but every once in a while, I’d get some signal that people are paying attention. Sometimes, it would be from people I knew, who would often allude to something I wrote face-to-face. Other times, it would be from completely random people.

I’m thinking more consciously about mindshare again, partially because I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do next, and I’m being a bit more transparent about it here than I’m probably comfortable. But I’m also doing it because I wonder how much of an impact my thinking and my writing is making in the world.

My numbers tell me that a tiny corner of the universe is paying attention. It’s smaller than when I first started the blog and when I last seriously paid attention to this sort of thing, but it’s still there. Still, it’s hard to really interpret what those numbers mean and what part of the story they’re not reflecting.

With Changemaker Bootcamp, I’ve gotten many more signals, and they’ve surprised, moved, and motivated me. When I started my first pilot five months ago, I posted a call of participants here, not expecting anyone to respond. Not only did a handful of people respond, they included some I hadn’t heard from in a long time, and two people I didn’t know at all, including Anna Castro, who became my first bootcamper.

My “official” launch a few weeks ago triggered more signals. I’ve heard directly from interesting folks I didn’t know before, and I’ve discovered a bunch of new folks from my newsletter signups.

Thinking back to my reflection about Ward, I’m now wondering what kind of mindshare I have beyond the signals I’ve received. I know that much of it is latent and invisible, but knowing that it’s out there is a source of encouragement.

One of the challenges with working online is our lack of literacy around feedback mechanisms. There are actually more feedback mechanisms online than there are face-to-face, but we don’t necessarily understand or pay attention to them. Regardless, it’s important to remember that those feedback mechanisms only tell part of the story, that mindshare is immeasurable, and that it’s important to keep sharing in ways that others can benefit.

It’s also a good reminder that we all have the ability to give feedback without requiring any special tools. It’s so simple, it’s easy to think it’s not important enough to do. That’s too bad. It can be very meaningful, and the world would be a better place if we all took the time to do it more often.

Leaving Trails and Serendipity

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

This morning, I’ve been doing some time travel. I’ve been doing a lot of writing and reflecting this weekend. Some of it has been for clients, some of it has been for this blog and the Groupaya blog, and some of it has been on internal wikis. I do a decent job of leaving trails, and tools like blogs and wikis have nice features that encourage serendipitous connections. That’s resulted in some interesting stuff I’ve written in the past rising to the surface.

Here are two previous blog posts that turned up serendipitously because of stuff that I wrote this weekend (including this post):

About five years ago, I wrote a post entitled, “Work Rhythms.” (This post turned up as a “Related post” under my previous blog post, since Nancy White is mentioned in both.) It talks a lot about the merits of slowing down, and it references influential interactions with folks such as Nancy, Chris Dent (my Blue Oxen Associates cofounder), and Howard Rheingold. It’s interesting to see how much I thought about this stuff five years ago, how much that thinking has stuck with me five years later, and how much I still struggle with this.

Here’s a nice historical piece about coworking, a blog post I wrote in 2005 entitled, “Coworking Open House, November 21.” (This post turned up because I was searching for stuff I had written previously about wikis encouraging serendipitous interactions. I couldn’t find what I was looking for, but I found this post instead.) It’s an invitation to an early event my friend, Brad Neuberg, threw to spread the gospel of coworking, a term that he coined. It’s awesome to read and remember this, knowing what a huge phenomenon coworking has become since. What’s even more interesting about that post is that I didn’t know Brad that well at the time, but I had clearly connected strongly with him. A few months later, I hired him to be the architect and chief developer for Doug Engelbart‘s HyperScope, a wild professional and personal experience that I still treasure today.

The Artist in All of Us

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

Howard Rheingold‘s tweet last week about his mother reminded me of a story Charlie Dunton told me last fall. There was a guy who used to go around elementary school classrooms to talk about art. After introducing himself, he would ask all of the artists in the room to raise their hands. What he found was that, up until the third grade, almost every student would raise their hand. Everyone saw themselves as artists. After the third grade, however, almost no one would raise their hands. The artist in each of them had been socialized away.    (MTI)

I wonder what the world would be like if more of us viewed ourselves as artists.    (MTJ)

Walking and Learning in Chicago

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

The first time I met Howard Rheingold, he suggested we go on a walk. A few weeks later, I met Howard at his house, which lies at the foot of Mount Tamalpais in Mill Valley, and we walked and talked. It was wonderful.    (MND)

Ever since I moved to San Francisco a few years ago, I’ve suggested to many a colleague that we go on a walk. I live a few blocks away from Lands End, a beautiful trail along the ocean on the northwest side of San Francisco, with gorgeous views of the coast, the Presidio, and the Golden Gate Bridge. I still do the coffee thing, but when opportunity knocks, I tell people to meet me at my apartment, and we walk and talk.    (MNE)

There’s something about the act of walking that stimulates the brain. It brings a natural rhythm to conversation, giving you space both to talk and to listen. The Peripatetics knew this. So did Martin Heidegger. Heidegger’s magnum opus was entitled, Sein und Dasein. Dasein loosely translates to “existence,” or “being alive.” Heidegger likened it to walking in the forest and suddenly coming to a clearing, an Open Space, a place to breathe. It’s in these places, at the end of a journey, where we become most aware of ourselves and our surroundings.    (MNF)

I’m in the Midwest this week — South Bend, Indiana visiting my younger sister, then Cincinnati to visit my older sister, my brother-in-law, and my three year old nephew. It’s not vacation. Things are crazy at work (in a good way), and so I’m still chugging along, with breaks here and there to spend time with my family.    (MNG)

My original plan was to work from my sister’s place in South Bend. Then I decided that it would be wrong to be this close to Chicago and not visit some of my colleagues and friends in the area, and that it would be just as easy to work in Chicago as it would be in South Bend. So I made some last minute calls and spent yesterday in Chicago.    (MNH)

After spending the morning working, I had the pleasure of meeting Eric Sinclair in the flesh for the first time. He asked me where I wanted to eat lunch. I responded, “Somewhere distinctly Chicago.” He delivered.    (MNI)

Afterwards, I hopped on the El and headed north to visit Michael Herman. Michael’s still doing lots of Open Space, but he’s also got a new project that’s been keeping him very busy: Restoring an 80 year old home, which he and his wife, Jill, recently purchased. After assessing the state of the house and seeing the most magnificent radiator I’ve ever seen, Michael suggested that we go for a walk.    (MNJ)

And so we walked. We walked through his neighborhood and along the Chicago River. In between catching up on life and work, Michael talked about the city’s architecture and history. We discovered new streets and old bungalows. We saw kids playing in parks with their parents, and houses decorated for Halloween.    (MNK)

We walked, and we talked, and we ended up at the local elementary school, which also serves as the home for a community garden, “community” in every sense of the word. Only the students have plots; the rest of the space is community owned. Anyone in the community is free to garden any spot, weed any plot, pick vegetables and herbs from any plant. In the middle of this beautiful, old, urban neighborhood, amidst the hustle and bustle of the city, was this clearing, this beautiful, Wiki-like, community garden where the city seemed to disappear. Dasein.    (MNL)

I began the day with my nose to the grindstone, working on my various projects. I ended it walking, breathing, talking, learning. As I rode the train back to South Bend, reflecting on the day’s events and conversations, I couldn’t help but feel thankful.    (MNM)

My life and my work is ultimately about people, about maximizing our collective potential. As I’ve pursued this passion, I’ve found myself surrounded by incredible people with similar values and passions. I take great pride in the number of groups I’ve helped, the movements I’ve helped catalyze, and the knowledge I’ve shared, but all of this pales in comparison to what I’ve learned from others. What motivates me is the opportunity to share these same experiences and learnings with as many people as possible.    (MNN)

I’ve got a clear vision for how to do this more effectively, and while the mechanisms that make it work are complex, the actual actions required are relatively straightforward. Walking and talking are excellent ways to start.    (MNO)

Work Rhythms

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

I’ve been absent from this blog for almost a month, which is unusual for me. It started with my trip to Baltimore last month for Creating Space, the Leadership Learning Community‘s annual conference, and it ended with the Compendium Institute workshop last week here in the Bay Area. In the middle, I cranked away on my projects and spent some quality time with friends and family. I didn’t get much reading done, but I got a whole lot of good thinking done.    (M7Z)

Nancy White recently wrote of the challenge of balancing work and life, of the nitty gritty and the big picture:    (M80)

Because I fear that if I allow myself to be consumed by work, I will not achieve what I aspire from my work: to add value to the world. Work with a capital W. Some days lately I feel I’m tottering on a “check the box” mode of working. That is when learning stops and, to me, my ability to add value stops. It is a fuzzy line and easy to miss. It is when the quality of attention shifts. Diminishes.    (M81)

I want the shift to always be towards the side of learning, not just getting things done. Of attention and reflection, not forgetting.    (M82)

Her words resonated with me (as they often do). Last year was ground-breaking for me in this regard. For the first time since founding Blue Oxen Associates, I started to build in time for deep reflection about what I was doing and why, and about whether I was accomplishing what I wanted to accomplish.    (M83)

When I was in college, I used to lift weights with a buddy of mine who was an ex-football player. We were both intense guys, and when I’d get in one of my workout grooves (not that often), we’d lift almost two hours a day, five days a week. I got much stronger pretty quickly, but I also peaked quickly as well. I blamed it on the irregularity of these workout grooves.    (M84)

My junior year of college, I started lifting with a neighbor of mine, a big guy who was fanatic about fitness. In one of our early workouts, I complained that I never seemed to get any stronger. “How often do you lift?” he asked. Upon hearing my response, he told me to shorten my workouts — three days a week, no more than 45 minutes a day. I was extremely skeptical, but I tried it, and to my surprise, it worked amazingly well.    (M85)

I’ve written previously about the cycle of thinking and doing. When you’re designing for collaboration, you need to take these natural cycles into account. Doing so usually requires a lot of discipline, especially because it requires fighting workaholic instincts.    (M86)

One of my epiphanies last year was that I wasn’t doing a good job of practicing what I preached, of living what I knew. In particular, I was getting too caught up in the nitty gritty and not spending enough time reflecting. I was getting too deeply involved in too many things, and I was overscheduling and overcommitting.    (M87)

I decided to make four major changes. First, I was going to cut down on the number of projects I would take on simultaneously. That meant saying no more often, and fighting the instinct to get deeply involved in everything I did.    (M88)

Second, I was going to cut down on the number of events I attended, especially those that required travel. Because most of the events I participate in are intense experiences (I rarely participate in networking events), I decided that I would schedule an equal amount of time for reflection. In other words, for every three day workshop, I would need to schedule three days for reflection and processing.    (M89)

Third, I was going to go on more walks. Not only is this a great way to get exercise and think, it’s a great way to think with others. It’s no coincidence that Aristotle and his followers were known as Peripatetics. Instead of constantly meeting folks in coffee shops, I started telling people to join me on walks instead, a trick I picked up from Howard Rheingold. Fortunately, San Francisco has a number of gorgeous places for short, casual hikes.    (M8A)

Fourth, I was going to spend more meaningful time with people. This nicely aligned with my walking edict, but it also meant interacting with less people overall.    (M8B)

I’ve been good about doing all four of these things. Not great, but good. As with the weightlifting, doing less still feels counterintuitive. And just as with the weightlifting, doing less has generated the desired results. This has manifested itself in a number of ways. I’ve only gone on one work trip so far this year, whereas last year, I averaged a trip a month. I’ve blogged more consistently. I feel more connected with colleages and with friends. I’ve had time to really develop ideas and projects that are core to my mission. Most importantly, I feel Less Dumb, which is one of the main tenets of The Blue Oxen Way.    (M8C)