This week I have been in Rio De Janeiro attending the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations Third Forum. It has been a blast. I am a Terana Fellow and so was asked to attend the forum as a Youth Participant, (they consider youth 18-29). I have never given up a free chance to travel and the fact that it was a UN event it was an easy thing to say yes to. The Youth came a day early to discuss the issues that would be discussed by Heads of States in the coming days so that we might contribute to the conversation on such issues ranging from migrant’s rights to the new social media…really interesting stuff. The conclusion of our meeting was a list of recommendations we created to be announced at the opening ceremony of the forum so that the Youth might have a voice.
Long story short at the opening ceremony every head of state exclaimed the importance of listening to youth, but when it came time for the youth presenters to take the stage they were told their role was canceled due to time constraints..womp, womp.
My first reaction was, “Oh well, we’ll post it online.” However this deletion caused my brethren from different parts of the world to become enraged.
I forgot an important lesson from my college days, who we are and how we act comes in large part from our context. Can you imagine traveling to somewhere you will finally be given a voice and a platform only to have it taken away? Even now I am able to speak my voice with no fear of reprucssion. The friends I have made while I am here do not have that same luxury.
6You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:6-8
I don’t think love is love until it is tested. How can it be? How do we even begin to model this type of love for one another? How do warring cultures put away past wrong to love each other?
I think this principal goes back to global citizenship and the vital importance of finding identity in something more than the boundaries or individual nations. I think what the passage is saying is that there isn’t a scale of right and wrong. We all don’t get a number between 1-10 and everyone 7 and higher is good to go and anyone below 7 looses out. I cannot even begin to wrap my head around how this would work.
There isn’t enough time to put off the junk in your life you need to work on. Identify it quickly and then fix it. If you wait for tomorrow the weakness will bring you down.
Churchill was a Squirrel for Halloween.
Book: Six Pixels of Separation: Everyone is Connected. Connect Your Business to Everyone by Mitch Joel
Rating: Meh
Lesson Learned: The internet has closed the gap
This was a good book and would have been a fantastic book had I read it at the beginning of my quest to learn everything about online marketing and building brand awareness. However, I didn’t and so I was re-reading a lot of stuff I had already heard. It seems like the new deal for marketing agencies is to have their higher ups write really good books. I’m down with that. I think the real story here is that if this book was published there are still people out there that don’t know and understand the power of the internet.
Don’t misunderstand me the book is worth reading if you are beginning your exploration into online marketing and understanding electronic community, but if you are in your 20s you have grown up with this stuff.
I decided to get artistic this weekend. I can’t paint, but I came up with an idea that I thought might make for a good piece of art.
First, I built a PVC Structure:
Then, I built a Popsicle ‘lattice’ to hang inside the structure:
Here is a bird’s eye view:
Then, I dripped paint through a Styrofoam insulator with holes drilled at the bottom. While the paint was dripping down the structure I moved the canvas around so the paint would hit it all over.:
Here is the finished product:
Book: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath & Dan Heath
Rating: Amazing
Lesson Learned: Artistic points of creating a story
This is one of the best marketing books I have read. It explains clearly how to tell a story that will stick with a congregant, customer, student, etc. The authors also have a column in my favorite magazine, Fast Company, which is always an interesting read. This is a book anyone with a story to tell needs to read.
Book: Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity- And How Great Brands Get it Back by Rohit Bhargava
Rating: Good
Lesson Learned: Be Original
It seems like businesses have a hard time being original. Most of the books I read on business say think outside the box, be creative. Is this something that people just forget? I am kinda tired of being told to be different…I know, I know you gotta have something that gets you noticed, thank you. This doesn’t diminish the value of this book. In fact, it was great.
Sorry the link is to a kindle edition, I didn’t want to take the time to find a tangible edition.
Book: The New Gold Standard by Joseph A. Michelli
Rating: Good
Lesson Learned: Customer Experience is Important
The book follows the Ritz-Carlton and highlights the five lessons that made the company world renowned. Great use of stories to make his point. I bought this book after Michelli found my post on his first book The Starbucks Experience . He commented on my post and suggested I read his newest book.
The books are great, but I am more impressed by him. He obviously has tools scouring the Internet looking for mentions of himself so that he can effectively respond and grow his reach and network. The real story is his effective use of the Internet to spread his name and enhance his network by utilizing tools that search for mentions of himself or his books.
You have to leverage, leverage, leverage for the new internet economy.
