Nurtured Chaos

2009-01-02T19:44:00.000-08:00

Fearlessness.
So you've got you new toy, or your Ubuntu install disk, and with trembling hands you recoil from the cd rom drive, or the D.I.Y. hack you are about to install.
Why?
Because you don't want to 'wreck it'. Good news, you have friends all over the place, and they are only a google search away. They will even walk you through the process step by step of getting set up, but you have to have faith and perspective.

Faith in yourself, that you won't totally muck it up - just go slow and easy and you'll be fine.

Secondly, you need perspective. The computer was, what, $30 at the Goodwill? If worst comes to worst, run a C:Config from the cmd line, and start all over again.

I had Ubuntu on my PII for nearly a year, before about two weeks of fiddling convinced me that there was NO WAY I was going to be able to run the apps for my new Palm Pilot (only $50 on Ebay!) from that operating system. So what to do? Find an old copy of W2K we had lying around the house, and go for it!

In the end, your $45 Smartphone WAS a great find, and yes you may totally crater it by entering the wrong unlocking code - but so what? Half the fun was in the getting, right? Sell if for parts, and start again. Even if you have to do it twice, you'll still save a bundle! And you'll have fun in the process.

Next time- tools for the shoestring tech-hunter.

2009-01-02T19:39:00.000-08:00

Anti-Pride
I come from a long line of scroungers. My mom used to work at one of the original cell phone manufacturing companies, and she was always scrounging parts of them together, to come up with frankenphones that were always lying around the house. Technology scrounging was not a source of embarrassment to her, instead it was a source of pride. Sure her technology was maybe not as flashy or state of the art as yours, but it had been either free, or damn close to it.
Truly successful "tech on a shoestring" people are those that get off on this sort of "anti-pride". Sure you could go out and buy the latest and greatest - but frankly, what idiot couldn't. It doesn't take any particular skill or brains to have enough disposable income to be able to sign a 3 year contract with a cell phone provider, and get a free iPhone.
What DOES take skill, is someone who can come up with a Palm Treo for $30 on Kijiji.com, unlock it themselves, and be up and running on pay-as-you-go in under an hour.
To a true shoestring geek, half the pleasure is in the getting - namely getting it very cheap or if at all possible for free.
Next time, Patience, and why it's such a virture.

2009-01-02T18:01:00.000-08:00

Technology on a Shoe-String
So as promised, part two of Technology on a shoe string.
First, some background, I am a self avowed gadget luddite - I believe they call us "late adopters."
It's not that I don't LOVE them, but there's this whole ... baby thing going on, and the little blighter costs a fortune, so in the end, the gadget budget is the first thing to go...and I am just too responsible to go out and purchase them, and pretend that I have always had them, and that the Mrs only just noticed them now...although it has crossed my mind.
So technology on a shoestring is my life.
I use a PII computer with about 32 megs of ram - it can BARELY run Windows 2000, although in it's heyday it had Ubuntu on it.
I also use a Nokia 3100. That's right, the phone is nearly 5 years old. As a result, I spend alot of time in the cloud, and google is my best friend, so here's some tips on how to get the most out of old, run down technology.
Three things every techno-pauper needs is:
Patience, and lots of it.
What I call "Anti-pride",
and a Fearlessness about trying new things.
Next time - Anti-Pride, and how it can save you a fortune, and help you quit keeping up with the Jetsons.

2009-01-02T13:24:00.000-08:00

My Predictions.
SO everyone else is on the prediction bandwagon, so I thought I would skip over my proposed post on Technology on a Shoestring, and offer my predictions for 2009.

1. The economic collapse will spiral out of control, until the US economy is into the 10's of trillions of dollars in debt. Then China will call the loan, and repossess California, Texas, and for some strange reason Nebraska.

2. Bird flu will begin human-human transmission, and the ensuing pandemic will turn out to be spread especially quickly by contact with unsanitized phones. Call center employees will be especially hard hit.

3. Commodity prices will collapse, and Oil will sink below $1.69 a barrel, causing the big three to reneg on their promises, and go back to building giant gas guzzling SUV's. Subsequently the last drop of oil will be extracted from the ground in Nigeria in October, but will never reach the market due to a protracted gun battle between government and rebel forces.

4. The iPhone will be recalled en masse, after one manages to turn itself on and begin spreading a cookbook through that users email contact list entitled "To Serve Man."

5. Everyone will look back at 2009 and realize that it was only their strength, courage, and ability to come together and put aside petty differences that got them through what was otherwise a pretty miserable year.

Did I mention the Ice Age?

2008-12-29T18:43:00.000-08:00

Technology on a Shoestring
Have been reading Richard Florida, and Tom Peters, and a bunch of other people who seem to all be saying that it's not the technology, it's what the technology allows us to do...it's a means, not an end.
So to bring up Twitter. I started a profile on Twitter about a month or two ago, didn't tweet at all. Then I started to connect with a few other training people, and tweeting once or twice a day. The suddenly, something happened, and now my followers list is adding between one and three people a day. Now admittedly, these are not deep personal connections, but they are connections.
So I guess it all comes down to what technology truly allows us to do - in the 21st century, which is to connect. More than anything else, technology allows us to connect with people more easily, more quickly, more frequently, and with more people than at any other point in human history.
But it begs the question - do we have to break the bank doing it?
I want to explore in the next couple posts "Technology on a shoestring" My process for staying remarkably connected while spending very little money on gadgets, toys or hardware, and spending as much time in the cloud as possible.
Stay Tuned.
J

2008-12-09T18:00:00.000-08:00

Holiday Excess
So it's the holidays, and it's time to add my voice to the chorus (pun intended) of writers bemoaning holiday excess. I guess my big beef with people who decry the rampant consumerism of the holidays is that holiday overspending and overconsuming are - well, very democratic.

Let me explain.

Years ago, when we lived in Reno, the local grocery store, Safeway, was scheduled to be open on the most sacred of U.S. holidays, Thanksgiving day. It was only going to be open for 4 hours, and at that point, Christmas openings were fairly commonplace.

So I wander into Safeway on Thanksgiving, and find about 30 people in there buying things, in what is otherwise a massive American grocery store. Then the most extraordinary example of hypocrisy happened in the checkout line. The woman ahead of me had the audacity to say to the clerk, in the most sympathetic tone, "It's a shame that you have to work Thanksgiving."
"She only has to work today," I barged in, "because you are shopping. If you would refuse to shop today, then next year she could be with her family."

This was NOT a popular response, although I did get a wink from the Checkout clerk after the very huffy customer left.

But it led me to a conclusion. Americans vote in two major ways. One is with their ballot, which has seen a big resurgence in popularity in the last month or so, which I find very heartening.

The other way is with their dollar. American's like to euphemistically call it "voting with their feet" as in, which stores they walk in to, but we all know it's really voting with their dollars.

So in the end, if enough Americans vote to keep Safeway open on Thanksgiving day, then that's what they get.

Churchill once said that Democracy is the least bad of all the options for governing.

My take on democracy, is that the people get exactly what's comin' to 'em. The same I guess is true of Capitalism.

So in the end, if people want to over-leverage their homes (which a) they couldn't afford in the first place, and b) are certain to never decrease in value) and spend obscene amounts of money on plastic crap, then shouldn't they be entitled to do so.

I guess the answer is 'yes', iff (if and only if) they are willing to accept the consequences when the whole house of cards comes crumbling down.

And at the risk of coming off as a raving right wing lunatic (I voted NDP in the last election...really!), that's the one thing lacking in this whole discussion of bailouts (be it Wall Street, Bay Street or Detroit) - and that's someone willing to stand up and say "Ooops. I goofed. I'm an idiot. Sorry. I'll resign my position immediately, and you can turn the reigns over to someone who isn't a complete numbskull."

All it would take is for the CEO of AIG, or Chrysler, or Lehmen Brothers to stand up and say "Boy did I take you people to the cleaners. Sorry 'bout that. I'm going to sell my Lear Jet and donate the proceeds to homeless shelters. As a matter of fact, I feel so bad I'm going to liquidate 1/10th of my portfolio and feed DR Congo for a month. Won't happen again...Anyway, I'm going to dedicate my life to teaching High School Ping Pong, because apparently I have no idea of how to run a company."

Even if they just said the first part, I would be fine with that. I would like to say that saying the second part would be a prerequisite to ever having a job more complex than running a Burger King ever again. The sad truth, is that even if Dodds gets his way and Wagoner has to walk, he'll probably be the CEO of Frito Lay in a week.

Ok, rant over.

2008-12-05T10:57:00.000-08:00

Dime a Dozen
So I have been trolling the various Success Blogs I read, and I have come to a startling realization - Success Coaches are a Dime a Dozen.
Now I knew there were alot of us. But I had NO idea.

I guess it all comes down to doing a little more market research.
I have also been doing a fair bit of reading about social objects and I have come to another starting resolution.

The Third Way is a social object. Or more precisely, a nascent one.

A social object, for those who don't read the link, is something that brings people together, and about which they converse.
Hugh's point is simple - people don't want to hear advertising "messages" anymore - enough of the marketing equivalent of throwing a message wrapped around a brick through people's psychological front windows.

What "mass marketing" is quickly being replaced with is conversations. Or as Hugh alludes to - maybe it has always been about conversations, and the messages were just a way of starting that.

So a social object is just a thing that gets people talking. A Starbucks cup. A Tim Horton's cup (I just LOVE Tim Hortons!) - or the Uber-Social Object - The iPod.
The hope, then, is that The Third Way is going to become a social object - a point of discussion between people who want to:
a) Get off their butts and do something about their lives, but
b) Are hampered by the negative spin that they themselves have put on otherwise unimportant events in their past.

Case in point - three times this week my subconscious has gone 'muck diving' into an incident when I was at the Student's Union - Nearly 17 years ago!

So what gives?

Well, after the third dive, when my psyche came up covered in weeds and mud, I figured that it was time to throw on a PFD.
I looked at my Perspective of the incident.
I looked at the Facts of what really happened.
Then I Discovered the kernel of truth about myself that was revealed.
After a quick inventory, I realized that I had indeed learned from that mistake and was in no danger of making it again.

And that was that. The thought hasn't resurfaced. And it of course saved me from having to perform any kind of WOOOSH foolishness.

2008-12-04T18:07:00.000-08:00

The Big Question.
SO although this isn't technically a "edublog", it's the sphere I travel in right now, so I thought I'd respond accordingly.
The Big Question this month (as it is every December)on the Learning Circuits Blog is "What did you learn this year about learning."
Well, the harrowing truth was that - I learned that I didn't know anything.

Which according to Socrates, apparently makes me quite wise (didn't he once say that his only wisdom was the knowledge of his own ignorance?).

The bottom line is, I went into this year a firm believer in Learning Styles - and specifically that Visual/Spatial learners are smarter, and more creative. Sorry Linda, dead wrong. In fact, as a former devotee of Dr. Silverman, it was quite painful to sit through a session on speech pathology where the Speech Path in question trotted out slide after slide of "popular myths about speech that have now been totally dispelled" and Dr. Silverman's quotes were on every one of them.

So that's been hard.

Secondly, I learned that we, and especially I, really know next to nothing about how the brain works. I read John Medina's Brain Rules, I watched Dr Jill Bolte Taylor's moving Ted Talk, and I read every blog, online forum, and wiki I could lay my hands on about neuroscience and learning. Hell, I even participated in the incredibly awkward Learning Town (I had quite enough of social isolation in High School - Thankyouverymuch!), and their forum on neuroscience and learning.

The only conclusion I came to after all that is that nobody has a clue what's going on with our brains. And what little you can claim to know authoratatively, someone else has the MRI's to prove you wrong!

Next, I used to think I was a pretty good instructional designer. I unfortunately also though that putting only 6 lines of text on a power point slide, and having only 6 words to the slides, was the pinnacle of user friendly instructional design. After a year of subjecting myself to weekly humiliation (dear God, I used to do THAT too!) I now realize I know nothing.

Further more, after my daily trundle over to Karyn Romeis's blog today, I realized I know even less than I thought I did. Apparently The ability to puke the contents of your brain all over your class, is not desirable. Who knew?

So in the end, all this may seem a bit depressing. After all, I know so little. But as per my "pre-new-year's resolution" I'm looking on the positive side. Clearly I have much to learn. And I am, after all, in the learning business!

2008-11-18T17:57:00.000-08:00

Forgetting
The last couple of nights I have been finishing Brain Rules by John Medina. What is it about the whole ADD/Gifted/Visual Spatial continuum that makes it so difficult for me to finish a book - even one I find fascinating.

I got to the chapter on Memory, and read that in some cases it can take 10 YEARS for a memory to properly consolidate. And during that time, it can be subject to almost constant revision.

In the place where I work, where I teach people how to sell - we have a phenomenon called the 6 modules. When I first started, nobody wanted anything fancy, they just wanted the same 6 topics (each broken into bite sized chunks) repeated again and again.

I thought at the time, that the powers that be were insane - surely they get it by now.

But today, I was walking around the sales floor, and out of maybe 50 conversations I overheard, one, count 'em ONE was doing what she was supposed to. All of the others were making virtually no effort - or to give them the benefit of the doubt - were TOTALLY STUMPED by what to do when they heard the initial "no" from their customer (HINT - Don't argue with them, and for the love of God don't just hang up - start asking intelligent questions about their situation, and then try and offer them a benefit based on your answers).

The problem is - and the thing that had me nearly pulling my hair out - is that I or their managers have covered this topic with them at least 10 times a piece. In many cases 10 times in the last three months.

So where is the learning breaking down?

Here's where I come into what I call the drudgery factor.

Now, we know that a highly visual/spatial person (although I have turned my back on the hemispheric theory, I still think Visual vs. Auditory preferences are valid) can actually forget a skill or some information by repeating it too many times.

Here's what happens. A highly visual person needs to understand the big picture. The parts have to come later - but it's the solid understanding of the whole that guides their perception. My theory (and Dr. Silverman can question this if she wants to) is that when a highly VS/L person focuses on a task too intently, they start to break it down too minutely into it's component parts, and in doing so they lose sight of the 'whole'. That causes their execution of the skill or understanding of the concept to suffer.

So the drudgery factor (still with me?) means that if a person repeats a fairly monotonous task over and over - and is only rewarded with a positive result once out of every 100 attempts - can that cause them to forget the skill that gets them even that meager result?

More importantly - if the person is PUNISHED for using the technique (in this case with a hang up) once every 15-25 attempts, and only rewarded for using it once every 75-100 attempts - can we pretty much guarantee that they are not going to remember it?

In other words - at the risk of getting all behaviouralist on you - can the lack of consistent reward for performing a fairly boring task -combined with a perceived punishment - cause you to forget how to do that task that you were able to execute so well in the safe cocoon of a training class?

In other words - in the call centre world, should we be rewarding correct application of the technique AT LEAST as often as we reward the positive results?

Just a thought.

2008-10-23T19:22:00.000-07:00

GOI

The three most powerful letters in the English Language:

Get
Over
It

I’m adding two more:
LAGOI

Learn
And
Get
Over
It

Learn from what went wrong, and move on.
Self abuse is…well…selfish.

Beating yourself up all the time about things that have happened in the past is a supreme act of selfishness.

It deprives those around you of the joy of getting to know the real you.
It deprives your family of the success you could be bringing them.
It deprives your friends of taking any pleasure in your company.

Past failures are like a scab. And like every 12 year old boy finds out:
If you pick it, it will bleed.

Just stop.

Stop poking at it and it will heal.

2008-10-21T18:27:00.000-07:00

Celebrate your failures!
If I were drowning in a sea of self doubt, I would want a PFD to help me.
How about:

Perspective,

Facts,

Discovery?

Celebrate your failures!

Yes, that’s right. Celebrate them.

Unless you or someone else was killed, or crippled by it, there is probably something positive you can take from it.
You got through it, didn’t you? What strength or resolve got you that far?
You learned something from it, I hope.

Great, now instead of beating yourself up, can you please just commit to not making those mistakes again, and

move on!

2008-10-17T07:40:00.000-07:00

Third Way
When you are persistently not able to meet your goals, you need to figure out the one thing holding you back.

I’ll save you the time.

It’s fear.

Fear of the future – and failing.

Fear of repeating your past failures.

Fear of being found out for who you really are (a fraud)

Fear of being rejected.

Fear of "ending up homeless and living in a cardboard refrigerator box and licking discarded candy wrappers for nourishment" *Dave Barry.

Sounds ridiculous?

Number 5 is no more ridiculous than number 1. It’s just that your perspective is a little skewed.

Perspective, or its lack, is what keeps us trapped in the failures of the past. If we were to look objectively at what has gone on that we are so ashamed of, would we be better able to face the future?

2008-10-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

The Third Way

Not your family’s perspective.
Not your boss’ perspective.
A third way of looking at things.

The Third Way
It wasn’t a success,
but it wasn’t a failure either.

There is a Third Way of looking at it.

Learn how to:
Celebrate your Failures
Discover your Strengths
Unlock your Potentia

I’ve got the cure for “what ails ya.” It’s not more money or time. It’s not a better job, or a better relationship.

It’s perspective.

2008-09-23T19:00:00.000-07:00

Highly Chaotic People
So I work with someone, who shall remain nameless, who is one of the most disorganized people I have ever met, and it has got me thinking about the nature of disorganization, and what causes it.

I know on this blog on several occasions I have alluded to it being hard wired into certain types of creative people - but here's the challenge. I don't see this person as being particularly creative - s/he's just totally disorganized. I don't see alot of evidence of visual thinking, out-of-the-box problem solving, or any kind of artistic ability at all. Of course I have never been to this person's home, so maybe s/he can paint like Gauguin, but I doubt it.

So now I am left with the uncomfortable realization that some hopelessly disorganized people, are not actually that way because of their creativity - it's just the way they are.

So why?

One, this person tends to procrastinate hopelessly. Constantly. Nothing important is ever urgent, and nothing urgent to this person is ever really that important - to the organization, to the end business goals etc. Also, this person is almost totally incapable of saying No. Ok, that's not fair, s/he has gotten better, but in the end, if someone wants to railroad 20 minutes of their time for something silly, it's pretty easy to do. Maybe not right away, but the railroading will happen.

So what to do?

I have tried to subtly suggest tools and systems s/he could put into place, but this person is also extremely stubborn, and doesn't realize just how much their disorganization is impacting the company.

One of the most fundamental rules of training is that there are two types of trainees - those who want the training, and those who don't. This person is one who doesn't.

So until Hell freezes over and this person reports to me, there's not a lot I can do, except to go back and reassess AGAIN my understanding of disorganization, and it's link to creativity.

What a month! Sheesh.

2008-09-11T13:09:00.000-07:00

Stymied
Ok, so I've been stymied by a link to a great blog post that linked to another great site where the author totally picks apart the whole "left brained" "right brained" approach. He explains with little room for argument how the left brained is linear right brained is parallel argument simply doesn't hold water.

So I'm left with a conundrum. I have doggedly defended my view of why HCP's are highly creative - they are right brained, not left brained, or at least right brained dominant. The evidence, though, seems to be overwhelming that everyone is whole brained.

So what neurological structure exists that makes some people just funamentally more creative, and concurrently much less organized?

Nobody knows.

And that's the part that drives me nuts. Nobody has a good answer yet, and in fact I'll probably be long dead and forgotten by the time some brilliant neurologist sitting in a darkened lab on Extrasolar Planet XB117 finally reads the results from a test that figure it out.

So I need to just suck it up, and realize that nobody really knows why some people are more creative than others - and those who claim to are probably not outright charlattans, but certainly misguided.

The reality, though, is that some people are fundamentally more creative and that this often goes hand in hand with disorganization (thought not always), and that these folks need a system for getting more things accomplished. And I've got that system - or I'm at least working on it.

Damn-it.
I hate being wrong.

2008-08-27T13:58:00.001-07:00

Back to School
Along with a million other Back to School posts this week, I thought I would add my voice to the Lifelong Learning discussion.

As V/SL's, we often find traditional classroom settings, and lecture style instruction frustrating and pointless. I once asked Allie Golon of the Visual Spatial Resource Center whether or not it helped to put the words up on a Power Point slide, so that there was a visual anchor to what was being said.

She replied that words are still words, and they still get processed in the wrong part of the brain. Sitting through an oral lecture for an HCP, is often the equivalent of an English only speaker sitting through a workshop delivered entirely in Russian. Putting Cyrillic characters up on the overhead is not going to help at all.

So if we are HCP's, or know an HCP who is going back to school this fall, let's remember to help them out with appropriate pictures and diagrams along the way. Usually the best way to communicate a concept to a VSL is to draw a simple diagram, or stick figure in motion, and tell a story about it as you go. Both of these things engage the right half of the brain fully, and can lead to much better learning and retention.

For help on drawing stick figures, take a look at Dan Roam's fabulous book The Back of the Napkin. It's worth a read - review to follow in the next few weeks.

Until then, enjoy going back to school, or at least enjoy the autumn leaves which should start falling any day now, if this summer has been any indication.

2008-08-13T09:25:00.000-07:00

Brain Rules
ALlow me to add my voice to the chorus of praise for John Medina's Brain Rules. I'm only halfway through it, but already see all sorts of problems with my training classes.

I know he spends some time debunking left right brain personality theory, but I haven't gotten that far yet, so maybe I should reserve my judgement. I still seem to be stumbling across a ton of evidence for the fundamental idea of the Nurtured Chaos program:

Creative people tend to have a gift, or a knack for a particular thing.
They assume that everything else will come just as easily.
They form a pattern of early abandonment of tasks and learning of skills that does not come as easily to them as their gift does.
As a result, some of the most creative, and gifted people in our society, can't even acheive the most basic of their goals.
They lack a fundamental persistence, that is the product of how their gift taught them to learn.
In other words, their creative talent is both their biggest blessing, and their biggest curse.
I am seeing this everywhere - and left/right discussion notwithstanding, it seems to be a dominant theme among people who end up in ... sales of all professions.
Check out my other project where I attempt to address this.

2008-08-06T18:38:00.000-07:00

Ugly Reminder
I was reminded of the drawbacks of calendars recently, when I flipped over my monthly birthday calendar to August, and realized that I hadn't touched it since June.
This is the fabulous calendar that a Dutch friend gave us, that has a number for each day of each month, but not a day of the week. You put the name of the person by the day of their birthday, and just flip it over year after year.
One problem, we had not taken her most salient piece of advice, and put it in the bathroom, across from the toilet, where we would always see it.
So, when I flipped through past July, I noticed I had missed my little sister's birthday.
Oops.
Years ago I migrated from a day at a glance calendar, because I found I wasn't very good at keeping running to do lists, and I would flip the page over one morning (usually about 10:00 or so, when I got around to it), and find an important conference call with the VP...for 9:15.
So I went to week at a glance, and found that the problem repeated itself like clockwork every Monday morning.
So now I use a monthly calendar, a nice portable sized one I can carry with me, that I can doodle on, and write phone numbers and other things on when I don't have my Moleskine immediately handy.
All works great, and the opportunities for missed VP conference calls are reduced to 12 per year.
All this is a way of saying that if organization is NOT your forte, a Month at a Glance calendar is the way to go - in fact the bigger the better. When I didn't need to be mobile, I used to use the big desk blotters, and then at the end of the month, tear off the page and put it in a folder, because I KNEW I was going to need it later.
Of course, it's even that much more usefull if you put it in the bathroom.

2008-07-29T18:39:00.001-07:00

Technology, Fried or Foe.
So I have aquired two pieces of technology in the last little while, one intended to help you organize, the other not as much - however their usefullness in organization seems to have been reversed.

A few years ago, a friend of mine who is HIGHLY visual/spatial, and used to be extremely disorganized, was over and had to leave at a certain time. To remind herself, she set a quick alarm on her digital watch, and then forgot about the deadline. Being rather adhd, she was pleasantly surprised when the watch went off a couple hours later, reminder her it was time to go.

A few months later, I found myself missing all sorts of appointments at work, and one day broke down and picked up a $12 digital watch.

It has been my saviour. Now, in the morning I have forced myself into the habit of looking at my paper calendar (month at a glance, of course - more on that in a future post), and then setting my watch alarm for the first appt of the day.

Voila, no missed appointments.

On the other hand, my Palm Pilot is totally useless for this kind of thing. I find that I tend to cram it full of every appointment and task I can think of, and set the appropriate alarms. Then of course it chirps like a caffeinated cricket all day, and I end up tuning it out. Of course I could always just set the alarms one after the other, but that's kind of like only scheduling things in your paper planner one at a time. It doesn't work that way.

The benefit of a watch, is that I need to conciously set each successive alarm. I am then reminded of what's coming up, and able to better mentally prepare for it. With a Palm Pilot, the whole reminder function is reduced to automatic. Fine for some, but if the tasks and appointments require any kind of forethought, then you're pretty much done.

I guess this comes down to my right brained need to see the big picture, and then only break down the details so far. Dissecting your day into 15 minute increments on your Palm Pilot smacks of totaly overanalysis to me. Having a month at a glance calendar with big blank boxes I can write anything I want to in, and then a one at a time audio reminder seems to work better.

Comments?

2008-07-26T18:02:00.000-07:00

All's quiet on the Western Front.

So I have started social networking with the global training and VIZThink community like crazy.

Conclusion #1 - I don't know half as much as I thought I did.

Conclusion #2 - I'm at least asking the right questions, and the stuff I really didn't think I understood, I seem to get instinctively.

For instance, take the whole Visual Communication thing.

Say what you want about left brain/right brain Visual/Auditory/Sequential learning - the debate, I feel has really been hijacked.

THere is an increasingly vocal group of people who are saying the whole "hemispheric dominance" theory has been completely debunked, because there are cat scans and MRI's floating around that prove that the vast majority of tasks take place in both hemispheres.

Duh.

Of course they do, and those of us who were approaching the hemispheric argument sensibly weren't focused at all on "Where" those tasks were taking place in the brain, but more on "How" those tasks were being performed. And the evidence is overwhelming.

The left brain processes things in sequence - (but startling new evidence suggests that if there are gaps in the sequence, it just makes them up), while the right brain makes more intuitive leaps from idea to idea in a more parallel fashion.

Just when the debate was starting to heat up, and I was starting to think I stood on shaky ground, I stumbled on Jill Bolte Taylor's AMAZING TED Presentation about her stroke, and how it opened up an awareness of how her right brain and left brain interact. It is unbeleivable, watch it if you haven't seen it yet.

Anyway, it occured to me, it's like someone who only speaks Greek and someone who only speaks !Xhosa both arguaing together - both in favour of the existence of God, but then each coming to the conclusion that the other one is an idiot, because he can't understand a word the other one is saying.

Nobody in the hemisphere argument is saying the Left Brain acts exclusively of the right, or vice versa, to me the analogy is more like "where do you spend your time."
When we go to Northern California, I like to spend my time in San Francisco proper, while my Dad's cousins like to take us to trips to Monterey. Both are amazing in their own right, and the California experience would be missing something without both, but don't tell me one is California and the other isn't.

So all this is my little diatribey way of saying that I still subscribe to the whole left brained right brained theory, not as a theory of whether or not you are creative, because we are all creative, but more as a theory of how do you like to process most of the information that comes into your brain - in a row, or more like a road map -with multiple routes to your destination.

Not that everyone can't do both, but what's your inclination.

And that in the end, I think is what seperates an HCP from the rest of the world. Where does a Highly Creative Person spend most of their time- well, creating.

BTW- my tentative definition of an HCP is someone who engages in the act of creation on a regular basis, not out of a desire to do so, but a compulsion - or a lack of ability to imagine doing anything else.

As for what constitutes creation - well, that's another story entirely.

2006-09-18T17:48:00.000-07:00

Two things:
One, I'm giving up on the idea of a sequential list of Principles for the book. Right? So I'm going with a wheel of principles, with each principle radiating out from the centre like spokes.

Two. I'm adding a principle. I swore I wouldn't do this, but it needs to be done.

I was rereading Napolean Hill's Think and Grow Rich, and within a few days listening to The Strangest Secret (Earl Nightingale), and it dawned on me...every single success motivational guy in the world talks about the power of visualizing your success.

Step one:
Decide what you want.
Step two:
Come up with a step by step plan to get there.
Step three:
EVERY SINGLE DAY spend some time visualizing what your life would be like if you had what you wanted. Visualize yourself having, doing, or being what you want.

So who visualizes better than visual/spatial learners?
Exactly.
Nobody.
Except all our lives we have been told to stop visualizing our ideal situation, because we do too much of it. Only the powers that be in our lives didn't call if "visualizing our success", they called it daydreaming.

So I"m adding the daydreaming principle. How important it is to daydream daily about what your life would be like if you had/did/were what you wanted, but I'm adding this important...crucial caveat.

A daydream without a plan, is only a pipe dream.

Bottom line, it's fine to daydream about what you want, but only, ONLY if you have a step by step plan for how you're going to get there. Once you have the plan, and have taken even the first step to acheiving it, then please, please, please Daydream your heart out.

It's the amazing power of visualizing yourself in the place you would like to be that will propel you towards taking the steps you need to take.

One more issue. Alot of us, I know, use daydreams in a negative way. We often daydream about bad things happening to us, or those we love, as a kind of way to punish ourselves when things are going well. It's not quite as bad as sabotoging ourselves outright, but it fills our heads with negative thoughts, which could quite easily lead ourselves to negative behaviours.

So the rules are:
No daydreams that aren't about your goal, and no daydreams until you have a plan to acheive your goal.

After that, daydream your heart out. Everybody from Napoleon Hill, to Brian Tracy, to yes, even Tony Robbins knows, it's the key to success.

And nobody visualizes better than a visual spatial learner.

:)

2006-09-12T13:03:00.000-07:00

The Archeology Principle
HCP's need to stack things. That's just how our brains operate. We put things on top of one another, because if we put them away, we forget they exist.

So they key to staying organized, is to keep things in sight, and harness the principle of the archeologist, which I think we all know instinctively.

The further down the pile it is, the older it is. Just like an archeological dig, the stuff at the bottom of the pit is way older than the stuff at the top.

There are several ways we can harness this. one is to incorporate a '3 pile' system for organizing paper, and the other is an everything book.

The first is the everything book. The everything book is, quite simply, a book with blank pages that you put everything into. Everything.

There are several keys to this working for an HCP. One is that it needs to be beautiful, or slightly different. I use a Moleskine diary, I like it because it is beautiful and functional. In the past I have used leather bound journals that I have hand made (ok, they looked terrible, but I loved them), and even artist sketch books. They key is something we would enjoy using on a regular basis.

The next key is that we need to eliminate all scrap paper from our lives. All of it. Post-it notes are the enemy of an HCP's organization. In fact, I have called that organization method "Death by Sticky Note". It is the single worst way that HCP's can organize themselves.

What we need to do instead is everytime we have an idea, thought, brainstorm, or even need to write down a fax number or an email address, it needs to go in the everything book. Everything.

The process starts with dating a page every morning and putting our goals and today's goal step into the everything book. That's first. Next we need to leave it open to that page, or put a page marker in that page, so it open easily to where we need to be. After that, it's simple. Everything goes in there.

It sounds too simple for some people, but that's why it works.

Here is the most important part of the principle: It is possible for HCP's to try and get too organized. HCP's do not thrive under intense regimens of organization. They funtion much better under loosely structured programs that allow them to function spontaneously and creatively. Palm pilots that beep every ten minutes (at the same time every day), and Day planners that record things in 15 minute increments are the exact opposite of what we need.

What we need is a big calendar that has each day split into AM/PM, and an everything book.

After that, it's just a question of adopting the three pile system, and we're off to the races.

2006-09-07T05:37:00.000-07:00

The Luddite Principle
So I've been thinking alot about technology and how it applies to HCP's. I have always been a bit of a techno junkie, and admit that for many years I used different pieces of technology that I believed were going to "fix" my problem of disorganization.

The problem was that the incessant beeping of the Palm Pilot pretty much became backrgound noise after about two days, and I went back to ignoring it and being disorganized. Some times I didn't even hear it.

The Luddites were a group during the industrial revolution who despised technology. They were terrified of what mechanization was doing to the cottage craft workers who had been responsible for England's production for centuries.

So they went around busting into factories and smashing machines and equipment.

What I am proposing is somewhere in the middle, namely Technology only when it works. And sometimes the simplest solution is the best.

For instance one of the most important things an HCP can have technology wise is a watch with an alarm (or a cell phone with an alarm that's easy to set). The key with this is NOT to set recurring alarms that beep all day and night.

HCP's minds (and consequently schedules) are more fluid than that. So to set an appointment for, say, a workout, on one day, and repeat it for a week is not productive.

It does two things:
1. It becomes background noise after a little while, and then
2. It becomes a kind of mental clutter that contributes to most HCP's negative self talk, and reinforces their opinion of themselves as disorganized failures...because the alarm goes off, and they can't respond to it right away (black and white thinking, perfectionism, etc...).

This is not to say that alarms are not valuable, but the key is to set them fresh every time, and not to set, say 10 - 15 of them at once.

Focus on doing one thing for now, and set the alarm for the next thing that needs doing. When that happens, do it, and set the alarm for the next one.

So not technology for technology's sake, and not anti-technology, but technology only when it's usefull, and then used only in a way that is usefull to us.

2006-09-05T05:23:00.000-07:00

Right Brained
I think the essence of an HCP comes down to just how right brained you are. I am fairly right brained, but not off the scale, I have good auditory skills, but most of the tests I have taken have put me pretty much on the cusp, maybe 60% right brained...which is way more than most people.

So the role for me, therefore, is as ambassador between the left brained and right brained worlds. Showing some of the tactics that work for the right side of my brain, etc.

I think there is a strong element of ADD in the whole picture though, and I'm not sure where I'm going to fit that in.

2006-09-04T19:55:00.000-07:00

All Inclusive
So I've been struggling all weekend with how I"m going to define an HCP. I have a very nebulous sense of what such a person is like, but defining one is another kettle of fish entirely.

I was toying with the idea of Visual Spatial Learners, but then that excludes me. And I was toying with the idea of Sanguines/Influencers/Socializers, but many of them really have no creative abilities whatsoever, and really not much of a brain either. Then I toyed with a concept of adding Giftedness into the mix, but that is such a restrictive element.

Then I realized that it was my "black and white" brain trying to fit the HCP definition into a very distinct box. Something that left brained people have been trying to do to me for years...with virtually no success.

So it has dawned on me that the definition of an HCP will encompass a number of things. I will come up with a quiz that identifies core traits...rampant disorganization, creative ability, big picture thinking, leaping to conclusions rather than showing your work, etc...then I will have another part that identifies other possible indicators of an HCP...such as visual/spatial identifiers, ADD identifiers, and a bunch of other things.

I know I"m going to be criticized for having a hodge podge of things...and in fact, it just occured to me that I may forgo the whole "quiz/test" thing altogether. And just let people self diagnose. Now that I think of it, a quiz is exactly the kind of quick fix simple solution I intend to rail against.

So that settles it, I will just list key attributes, and other attributes, and say if you exhibit x or more of these traits, you may be an HCP, y or more and you are an HCP, and then if you have z of these other traits, then you are probably and HCP aswell.

In the end, I think the best approach is to keep it exclusive. The metaphor I just thought of while I was trying to sleep, is that for most HCPs, the left brained sequential world we live in thinks of us as square pegs that it is trying to jam into a round hole.

The reality is much worse, we're not square pegs, we're more like a live raccoon that they are trying to jam into that little hole, and in the end, the only likely result is that someone is going to be either hurt, or traumatized.

The main characteristic then of HCP's, is that elusive quality of "right brainedness" that will be so hard to quantify.

It should be interesting.

Night night.

2006-09-01T18:41:00.000-07:00

The Target Principle
This has several parts. One, is that in the real world, whether it's the military, hunting, or even photography...targets rarely stay put.

It is one thing for us to go through a lengthy exercise and distill all of our hopes and dreams into one or two tasks that we will sacrifice anything in order to acheive...but let's get real. If it were that easy, we probably would have done it years ago. The reality is that our brains, as Visual/Spatial learners, are simply not wired that way.

So then it becomes an issue of playing to our strengths, rather than trying to accomodate our weaknesses. One thing about HCP's is that they tend to roll with the punches really well. Often this can be construed as a lack of consistency, but for most organizations having at least one person who thinks in terms of solution rather than why the sky is falling when there is any kind of problem, is usually a pretty valuable thing.

So we recognize that targets are moving thing, and can be fairly fluid. The most important part of the Target Principle is that the fluid nature of goals and targets for HCP's does NOT GIVE US AN EXCUSE TO NOT ESTBLISH THEM. In fact because of our "guided missile with a broken fin" approach to most of life, it is even more important that we do two things:
1. Set goals, and always have something, or things that we are working towards.
2. Give ourselves permission to say 'that's not all that important to me anymore', or 'I need to change the focus of this goal to make it more appealing', and not percieve that as a weakness, but as a strength.

Self help gurus through the ages have extolled the virtues and success of people who can pursue a goal at all costs. Thomas Edison. Babe Ruth, the list goes on.

Yet another example of Left Brained sequential people writing the rule book. Our goals are just as valid, even if they change course every 6 months, the key is that as HCPs charting a new course, we are ACTUALLY CHARTING A COURSE. Does that mean that it's ok to never acheive our goals? Definitely not, but it is ok to take steps to minimize disappointment when goals change direction.

Several ways we can do this:
1. Once we have set the larger goal, break it down into bite sized chunks...NO MORE THAN TWO MONTHS LONG. It is very very hard for an HCP to keep focused on a project for more than two months. If we break our big project down into a few little two month projects, it will be much more doable.
2. Set goals that we want to do, not that we think we should do. Nothing kills momentum like a sense of obligation that is NOT matched with desire. It has to be something you want, not your therapist, or mother, or rabbi, or dying great aunt. You. It's ok to do things you want, because nobody ever acheived anything really spectacular just because they felt they had to.
3. On top of setting a larger goal or project, it is important to have two or three smalller goals to be working on simultaneously. I don't know about you, but I am pathalogically capable of reading one book all the way through without picking up another and getting side tracked for a least a couple of nights. It needs to be the same way with our goals. Set one big one (and break it up, as mentioned), but have two or three little ones to work on. That' where you get to throw the parties when you...
4. Reward yourself as you acheive your goals. Give yourself deadlines, and set rewards, and most importantly DON'T make yourself in charge of determining who gets the rewards. Find someone objective who cares about you, but is firm and fair, who will determing whether or not you get your reward, because if you are like most HCP's, you will deny yourself the reward every time, even if it's something as small as a MARS bar, because you didn't do the project perfectly, or gracefully enough, or whatever. Oh, and set aside the money for the reward at the time you establish the reward, and give it to your Hero to spend on you when the time comes, or at the very least put it in a sock in your safety deposit box and forget about it until the time comes.

Whew, that's all for now.

2006-09-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

Important Adendum
An important addition to the Bicycle principle (which I know didn't appear, and needs renaming anyway) is the principle of recrafting.

When we as HCP's first discovered that we enjoyed/loved/desperately needed to be involved in the act of creating things, some pretty wondrous things happened.

Whether we were writing poetry, prose, songs, drama or whatever, or painting, drawing, or designing choreography or whatever it was, something pretty unusual for an HCP probably happened.

It was probably not perfect the first time, but for most of us, we did not face this temporary setback by throwing up our hands and abandoning the craft...we began to recraft our work. To Edit it. Which is really a fancy way of saying that we recognized that even if it wasn't perfect, we recognized that it had potential, and we gave ourselves permission to uncover, to shape that potential rather than throwing it out and storming off in disgust.

Now don't get me wrong, I have committed more than my share of sappy folksongs to the circular file, but I have more often than not gone back and fished them out, and looked for some gold among the pyrite. And, most importantly, I have never given up on the exercise of making music and writing songs...no matter how silly they may be.

So the trick, as I have said before, is to look at the goals we have set for ourselves, and realize a few things.

One. In six months time, that goal might not be as important to us as it is now. That means a few things, a) that it probably wasn't something we wanted all that badly, and b)that as HCP's we are in constant flux, and now that we have sat down and thought our way through the initial impulse, the goal just doesn't have the appeal to us it once had.

Two. If we set it as a number one goal using the target principle in the first place, then there must have been some grain of desire at some point. The Inchworm principle (yes, I'm renaming it now) gives us permission to look at that goal and say "It's not a burning desire for me right now, but is there a nugget of gold in all that dross that I can recraft, can edit into a new goal or project that doesn't see me either starting from scratch on a new project only to giving it up in 6 months, or giving it up altogether and then beating the snot out of myself for 5 weeks for being a no-good-ne'er-do-well." Just a thought.

2006-09-01T18:13:00.000-07:00

Without Further Ado...
The Principles of the Entropy Management System:
In no particular order...
The Target Principle
The Toddler Principle
The Archeology Principle
The Luddite Principle
The Hero Principle
The Wildfire Principle
The Inchworm Principle.

It is only a coincidence that there are seven. I may eliminate one. Or add one. Grrrr.

And the 5 senses of the Happy, Organized, Successful HCP:
Sense of Gratitude
Sense of Responsibility
Sense of Wonder
Sense of Play
Sense of Hope.

2006-08-31T12:09:00.000-07:00

The Bicycle Principle
I think a big part of the success of an HCP will be their ability to "get back on the bike and try again."

Similar to the toddler principle, this is not so much the will to continue in the face of adversity, it's the concept of "giving oneself the permission to face setbacks, and keep going."

The problem with many (ok, ever one I've ever met) HCP's, is that they are no holds barred perfectionists. If anything is worth doing, it's only because it can be done perfectly the first time.

A big part of continuing on with a project in the face of adversity, is to give yourself persmission to keep going when things aren't perfect.

Another tendancy with HCP's, and I think part of the source of this "It must be done perfectly the first time" tendancy, is that most HCP's have a form of artistic expression that comes naturally to them. For me it's music, especially singing. Singing a song with a clear tone and lots of expression doesn't feel like it takes all that much effort for me. I know many HCP's are similar...either Dance, or painting or drawing, or cooking, or any other form of expression that seems to "come naturally."

The reality is that the level of ability at which we now perform our "art" did NOT come "naturally" to us. While an initial level of competency may have come fairly easily, we certainly did not get where we are overnight. We have been steadily honing our craft, and refining our technique(s) over the last however many years.

What happened over the years was we tried different techniques, we approached things from different angles (both literally and figuratively), and responded to feedback in a relatively positive way, when it was offered. All of these things allowed us to grow in an art form that we either chose, or that just kind of 'happened to us.' But all of this was a little easier for us to swallow, because we were naturally "gifted" with a basic level of talent or understanding.

The key to developing any kind of persistance that I have found has been to think back on all of the difficult steps in my musical development, and adopt the attitude of "I did that, I can do this." I think the awareness that my musical ability didn't happen overnight has been a big part of me allowing myself to pick up this project (the blog) again and go back to it.

I now have a better plan on how to contribute to it more regularly, and I found my notes on the initial outline I did (typical, I know!). Now I can return to the project with more intensity, and possibly even meet my deadline of having the test developped by early September. Wow!

The key to all of this, is that I want to write this book almost as badly as I wanted to perform musically the first time...or indeed any time.

I had a friend come and see me perform at an Open Mic night at a bar once. He sat with me as performer after performer got on stage, and then listened appreciatively while I got up and did my two songs. Then I came back to sit down and he asked "Feel better now?"
"Sure, I replied, why do you ask?"
"Because for about 10 minutes before you got up there, I thought your head was going to explode."

If I can capture that intensity of desire, and focus, and commitment to moving forward despite my fear and anxiety and possibility of failure...if I can capture that, I know I can accomplish absolutely anything.

I am sure there are other HCP's that just need to channel that energy as well, and if they could, they could move mountains.

2006-05-19T10:35:00.000-07:00

Think think think...
So I've been thinking about the Toddler Principle, and how to continue something you have started, when you get bored really easily.

One thing in particular seems to be reccomended by all the experts, and I know I have used it to some good effect...namely rewarding yourself for milestones.

But going back to the last post, and my son's "Stick it to the man" attitude, it seems to me that the reward process is just part of a larger process for HCP's...namely making it into a game, or making the process of focusing and working towards the goal more fun.

It occurs to me that there are two other ways to do that than just rewarding yourself, say, for every week you maintain progess. These are:
1. Competition, and
2. Teamwork.

Competition is what works the best for me. Even if they don't know it's a race, I'm out to beat my competitor. If I find someone who is trying to acheive something similar to me, then I am in a flat out race to the death with them. Whether they know it or not, and I will find myself constantly measuring my performance against theirs. This works well in any setting where performance results are measured and made public. My current position of Call Centre Trainer is great. I take a look at the results of my agents after I have trained them in their first 4 weeks on the phone, and compare myself constantly with other trainers, looking for ways to improve.

Teamwork is also very effective, and requires that you have a peer coach or a mentor with whom you can share successes, comisserate over failures, and ask for advice. The key to this is setting and keeping regular meetings where you discuss what you have acheived over the last week (or month, or whatever), and what you need to work on. The key to success for this type of method is accountability. Your peer coach or partner needs to be someone who is going to see through your feeble excuses, and take you to task if you haven't stayed on schedule.

Competition makes it into a game, or even a sport; while Teamwork operates on the "Together we can acheive the extraordinary" theme.

Then if you want to integrate rewards into that kind of program, I think they would be more effective.

I.e. if you "beat" your competition by a certain margin over a certain period, then you will reward yourself with 'X'. Similarly, if you acheive a certain amount over a certain period, your peer coach/mentor will authorize you to reward yourself with a certain prize.

Those are the two things that have always worked well for me.
More next time...

2006-05-15T18:41:00.000-07:00

The Toddler Principle.
So in the end, I envision the Entropy Management system as being a series of principles and a series of strategies that an HCP can use in order to gain some level of control over their life.

One of those principles is one that is certainly not unique to me. I am by no means the first person to come up with this, but I think it requires special emphasis among HCPs.

Most HCPs that I have dealt with have on some level been perfectionists. In other words, if you can't do it perfectly, don't do it at all. Or do it, and instead of picking yourself up and brushing yourself off when it goes off in your face, use your perceived failure as an excuse to slide into a funk.

Almost every "self help" guru worth mentioning has talked about the persistence of a child in either getting what they want, or learning a new skill.

Anthony Robbins does it particularly well when he talks about a baby learning how to walk. Do they give it a couple of tries, and if it doesn't work out, just go back to crawling forever, he asks? Not likely, they keep at it, and endure the bumps and bruises, and in the end usually (barring some medical reason) end up walking before long.

Well it's all fine and good to talk about having the persistence of a small child in learning a new skill (like, oh, say...organizational skills), but until you figure out why people UNLEARN the persistence of a toddler, it's going to be tough to reteach people that level of persistence.

I think at this point it would be good to remember that HCPs are not only highly creative, they are highly sensitive as well. The answer to their lack of persistence can probably be found in the first time they were made fun of, or teased for not being able to do something perfectly the first time. If a parent wasn't particularly supportive (or a teacher, or anyone for that matter) about something near and dear to their hearts, i.e. their painting, or poetry, or dancing, or whetever, then the odds that they would pursue those things at all costs are dramatically diminished.

Because even toddlers, if you make the experience miserable enough for them will back down at some point.

So then how do HCPs recapture the persistence of a toddler? One answer occured to me this evening while bathing my 19 month old. The best way to sum up his attitude toward me trying to stop him from throwing his toys out of the tub was "Stick it to the man." Or better yet, "Screw you, you're not the boss of me."

What really struck me though, was that each time he snuck one by me, and sprayed the floor with water, he let out this wicked little cackle that seemed to say "Baby 4, Dad 0!"

The key to recapturing toddler-like persistence then may be hidden in a toddler like sense of defiance. May be hidden in just how much fun you can have being defiant.

Or in the wonderful words of Utah Phillps: "You've got to mess with people."

So then how do you teach that level of toddler like defiance? I'm not sure, let my brain ponder it for a few days.

2006-05-04T18:35:00.000-07:00

Entropy (n) The tendancy of all things to dissolve towards chaos.
For years now, I have wondered at the ability of some people to move themselves to great heights, despite having not really very much to reccomend them, while people will enourmous amounts of intelligence and creativity (ahem!) were...oh, say...working in call centres.

Then it occured to me while I was toying with a small business consulting with other small businesses as to how to be more effective cold callers, that most of what I have started over the course of my life, has pretty much just petered out.

There are some obvious exceptions: My Marriage, my love of Music, and some others. But for quite alot of things, there have been big plans, big setbacks, and then....new big plans.

What I realized, was that I am innately not a particularly persistent person, nor do I find it easy to focus on one project or even job, for more than about 8 months. Tops.

So since that realization over a year ago, I have been working diligently on what I call the "Entropy Management System." I have realized, that I can't be the only person like this...in fact the call centre where I train people to sell is full of them. Very bright, very very creative people, who can't focus on one task for more than about 20 minutes, much less long enough to get through a day of doing something as boring and repetitive as cold calling.

So what this great and grand journey will be, is a mission to discover what it is that people like me can do to maintain their focus over long periods of time, and develop some kind of consistency that will allow our natural creative talent and general cleverness to shine through.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm really not all that high on myself. While I pride myself for a certain level of cleverness, it's only because people have been telling me I'm smarter than the average bear since I was about 8. Which begs the quesiton, why am I not a multi millionaire, or the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company in Canada by now?

The short answer? My grade 12 math teacher summed it up while he was signing my release form so I could drop out of high school calculus:
"You know, Jason, you really could do this if you would just apply yourself."

Ahhhhh applying yourself. Sound familiar? If so, then this blog is for you. Together we can explore the tactics and strategies that what I am calling "Highly Creative People" can employ to get what they want out of life.

What is a "Highly Creative Person" I hear you all ask in unison? To me an HCP is someone who fits neatly into the old style "Abstract Random" learning style from when I was a kid. They absorb and process information in an abstract way, and then connect the information together at random to see if they can make something fun or interesting out of it.

In fact, there is one very concrete sequential person in my call centre who calls me just that "Random!" Don't get me wrong, she's a nice enough girl and all, but she processes information totally differently from the way I do, so often she has no idea what to do with the crazy things that come out of my mouth.

HCP's are generally highly creative people with very short attention spans, who struggle with focusing on one task over a long period of time. They are often accused (and rightly so) of being hopelessly disorganized, and lacking in focus.

At the same time, HCPs are hugely valuable to any organization that can put up with the cycles of chaos and reorganization that inevitably follow HCPs. HCPs are the cheerleaders, the energizers of organizations, the truly out of the box thinkers that can propel a company from average to extraordinary with a single idea...as long as someone more 'reliable' is assigned the task of ironing out the details. That needs to stop. HCPs need to be able to start a project with a reasonable level of certainty that they will finish it sooner than 3:00 am on the day it is due, if at all, and take the credit they deserve for their ideas and creative energy.

So HCPs of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but the embarrassment of not being able to find that report on your desk that was due this morning. :)

Stay tuned.