wonderwebby

I find it so inspiring when people:

• start to think beyond themselves and contribute to something greater
• think about ways to make technology make life better
• connect with one another
• learn something new
• enable others
• dream big dreams
• communicate something meaningful
• express something beautiful
• think beyond the everyday
• put purpose into action

It’s a good thing social media allows me to connect with other workplace idealists (and pragmatists and cynics) too!

What examples of workplace idealism in action have you seen lately?

I’ve contributed another guest blog post “Imagination in the Enterprise” over at The Greater IBM Connection blog. Here’s a snippet.

Once, not too long ago in the Enterprise people found themselves working ever so diligently and thought everything was just honky dory thank you very much. Yet they were completely oblivious to the terrible neglect their creative souls were facing. They had forgotten how to imagine, they had stopped practicing the power of insight and ideas were fast becoming stale.” ..read more

Image courtesy of Alice Bartlett

Two of my blogging colleagues Andy Piper and George Faulkner recently pointed out that IBM’s social computing guidelines have been published and now Sun’s guidelines on public discourse has been updated.

Give people access. Create a great company culture. Guide them.

As George Faulkner says, “This was a fantastic collaborative effort and the result is, in my mind, a reflection of some forward thinking. IBMers are on Facebook, Orkut, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc, and are on a wide variety of internal tools as well, publishing at rapid pace. Having a clear and understandable set of guidelines will only help us all to understand this new freedom as we connect with the world.”

Image courtesy of The Paper Boat

The world wide web has been spun inside out. Here we find ourselves caught up in this online flight of fancy; flexing our creative fingertips to detail personal portraits, alive in pixels; shifting to the global drumbeat of new content creation.

Expression resides in a new place. Communication is no longer about pushing out content, it resembles the interaction of a collected expression, thoughts and dreams; moments captured through a mesh of online activity spur further thought and imagination.

Welcome to the collective dimension; an opportunity to share, exchange and co-create. A place where you can express yourself, build upon your ideas and discover grander dreams

Image courtesy of The Paper Boat

A short while back, a colleague in the US blogged (on the intranet) about an innovative product design that needed particular feedback, so I spent a few moments replying. I thought this issue deserved some more publicity and input, so I spontaneously used our internal social networking site Beehive to set up a call to action; calling upon a number of people I have “friended” on Beehive to help with more ideas.

Within 24 hours people from all over the globe, from different parts of the business contributed their bright and shiny ideas, which helped my colleague move his project forward. His team now has so many things to consider adding to the design, that he’s almost not sure where to begin!

Social networks rock. I do enjoy being part of a solution and seeing ideas come together, don’t you?

bright and shiny ideas in a social network
image courtesy of Boston Bill

Creating things is what I enjoy doing. When I am producing a short film, an animation, an illustration, a publication or interactive new media I am in my element.

Producing is the easy bit. I would like to be a better storyteller though.

One of the best “extra-curricular” bits of education I took was in year 12. A friend and I snuck into Cinemateque at a local uni each week and got an education in Auteur cinema. It was great to learn about narrative,style, what the film directors were trying to say, what audience reactions were at the time.

Every time I produce something, I wish I could express myself better. It’s the frustration of any creative individual - I think. You have your intention, a bit of a plan (or a lot) and then you produce. But then you review. Did that video/drawing/photo/website say what I thought it would? Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t…and it’s too late to rewind and start production again.

Putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard when you know it will be screened or published can take some courage. When I look back on my storytelling work, I think I could have been simpler in expressing my point. But I guess I wouldn’t know that, if I never created anything at all!

Probably the easiest story to tell was a short documentary about people who used the newspaper classifieds to find a love match (ok this is back in ‘92). The story was right there in the footage; the people I interviewed told it, and even sang it! Editing was a treat, given the wonderful content we had.

So, I hope to blog more often. Just for a little while. About stuff. I have found blogging has really contributed to my confidence in writing again. And if I blog more often…well, maybe, just maybe it’s a step towards getting my storytelling mojo back!

I’m not one of these women who spent their childhoods dreaming of being a mother or a wife. But here I find myself with a wonderful husband and three young boys. They jump. They make noise. Lots of noise. They sing and dance and paint. They love to make muddy mess (yes even my husband). They heap their affection on me and I on them.

Being a mother - something I never really thought about until I arrived in parenting 101- is an incredible, mysterious and sometimes daunting rite of passage. I now understand some of my own mother’s actions and find myself imitating some of her best child rearing techniques and mannerisms. My mother-in-law has taught me some of her best survival tips and domestic goddess secrets including how to fold pillow cases “properly”.

I don’t find my identity in motherhood. But motherhood is certainly part of my identity.

Tomorrow I’m hoping for a nice sleep-in. Maybe a cup of tea so I can read in bed a while before I get up and open the hand-made presents from my little ones (at this stage I am told these beauties include a cup with something secret inside it, one is purple and rattles inside the packaging and the other is a one year old’s hand stamped into plaster). And I’ll remember how blessed I am to have three wonderful children, two wonderful mothers and one wonderful husband.

So glad I’m a mum. Happy Mother’s Day to me. And to you. And you and you and you.

What does imagination mean to you? What power does it hold? What importance does it have in your life?

A quick Tweetscan revealed some curious insights and quotes on imagination this week.

edallen33 People with imagination can’t imagine how there can be people with no imagination.

eve11 If I can create art out of energy (inspiration, imagination), why not breathe same impulse to materialize food, shelter, all conceivable?

fred_dumas “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” ~Albert Einstein

BPD The imagination exercises a powerful influence over every act of sense, thought , reason, — over every idea. Latin Proverb

Glitchos The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.

lola125 Live out of your imagination instead of your memory. Tie yourself to your limitless potential instead of your limiting past.

gradualdazzle There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste. –Goethe

boobaby26 My imagination scares me sometimes…I think i’m just so tired that my brain is turning to other stations..some very weird stations

BassGhost “The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.” -Edgar Allan Poe

haniff_din Imagination is more important than knowledge…

ArcaneInfernal If I had an imaginary cat and ate it, would it taste like my imagination?

cessibaby I left work at 1 30 this afternoon because i needed to give my imagination space.

asuntruth The man who has no imagination has no wings. Muhammad Ali

shawnz Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor who said he “lacked imagination.”

Alanab Worry is the misuse of imagination.

garyd “Imagination is the weapon against boredom.” - The Wishfarmers Almanac

Imagination is what triggered my little ones to create a colourful piece of chalk art on our back fence! Why have a boring back fence when you can have this?!

How do you exercise your imagination in “the everyday”?

You’re issued a challenge (to coordinate an event.) You don’t think you have time and you are already feeling a little stretched by your other extra-curricular activites. It’s been a while since you organised something like this. It seems like a mammoth task to achieve.

Image by The Paper Boat

But you say yes. Because you know the event will be of great benefit to the company. You don’t know how you can make it happen - but it all comes together. You find five wonderful speakers through your social netowrk. They help you out, you plan it collaboratively online and everybody puts together some excellent presentations. It’s complete. A new community is formed and you sense this is the beginning of great things for the company.

And then you think. I could have made it bigger. What I thought was huge was really not that big at all. Aim higher. Dream bigger. Get there faster.

Yesterday a friend posted me sent my husband his copy (which I am conveniently reading) of Jump In by Mark Burnett (Survivor, The Apprentice.) “It’s about taking action”. Burnett writes “Nothing will ever be perfect, and nothing can be totally planned. The best you can hope for is to be half certain of your plan and know that you and the team you’ve assembled are willing to work hard enough to overcome the inevitable problems as they arrive.”

A couple of years ago I ran with an idea and turned it into a small business. It was a great experience, even though I made the difficult decision to close the business later because I realised I had other, bigger dreams to chase and needed some focus. But jumping in, saying yes, having the courage to believe in yourself and your ideas despite your own concerns or criticism…it’s a great lesson to learn.

Do you have an opportunity you want to explore? Are you ready to jump in? What’s holding you back?

My five year old calls avatars “stamps”. He changes his stamp frequently (his account on the PC). Although he thinks grown-ups aren’t allowed to change their avatars. He has the freedom to be a car, or skateboard, or star for the day - but adults, well he thinks our digital identities are so….static.

My stamp collection is increasing in size and variety. My brand is no longer static. I seem to change it the most on Twitter, my most active social network, followed by Facebook. Sometimes I change it in response to a frivolous experimental collaborative theme (like @chinposin) or a more compelling social call to action (@peavatar)

What does this mean for a company’s brand? Think about the Google homepage logo, always changing. Does your personal brand remain static? Or are you constantly transforming and evolving? Do you cling to a safe, acceptable and trusted online identity or do you look at new ways to communicate and express yourself?

If I have a relationship with you, we converse, you share your original thoughts, information and ideas (that’s your product ) then I find it completely acceptable for you to modify and update the packaging. What you say and do online etches a more permanent profile into the minds of others.

Visual representation of ourselves becomes a decoration, a declaration, an interaction. Do you have a “stamp” collection?