twitterverse

What if we saw image AS experience? One may use social intelligence tools to discover a community surrounding an image. NOW!

“It helps to regard soul as an active intelligence, forming and plotting each person’s fate. Translators use “plot” to render the ancient Greek word mythos in English. The plots that entangle our souls and draw forth our characters are the great myths. That is why we need a sense of myth and knowledge of different myths to gain insight into our epic struggles, our misalliances, and our tragedies. Myths show the imaginative structures inside our messes, and our human characters can locate themselves against the background of the characters of myth.” ~James Hillman

What if we saw the social networks as a soul-making exercise, one intended to train the human community in depth of experience? What if we saw image AS experience? What if we saw one aspect of our consciousness as follower and one as leader? And what if that leader was like a very clever Market Research Director using social intelligence gathering tools like Research.ly, Sysomos, Radian6 and the like? What if this leader in our psyche was peering into conversations within and deciphering meaning, finding insight and plotting direction?

James Hillman goes on to say, “Character is characters; our nature is a plural complexity, a multiphasic polysemous weave, a bundle, a tangle, a sleeve….I like to imagine a person’s psyche to be like a boardinghouse full of characters. The ones who show up regularly and who habitually follow the house rules may not have met other long-term residents who stay behind closed doors, or who only appear at night. An adequate theory of character must make room for character actors, for the stuntmen and animal handlers, for all the figures who play bit parts and produce unexpected acts. ”

Social monitoring tools give Market Strategists an opportunity to hear the voices within the culture and plot direction for the collective psyche. Ideally, digital engagement offers a bridge to both spiritual AND flesh encounters. Social networks like Meetup.com offer physical engagement with those who share a passion.

Imagine a person dreaming in his bed. He/she lives within a scene. The scene is distant, yet close; powerfully enwrapping the dreamer in another life, another place. We now have the ability to wake up, switch on our laptop and search the collective consciousness/sub-counsciousness using keywords in tools as simple as Google and as complicated as Radian6, Research.ly and Sysomos.

One may use social intelligence tools to discover a community surrounding an image. And within a very short amount of time, one may be with these people in the flesh, in that dream scene in the flesh. This experience, this journey, from image to flesh, from passion to experience, from my tight inner circle to the outer world, IS one of the greatest gifts social networks offer.

James Hillman writes, “The character truest to itself becomes eccentric rather than immovably centered, as Emerson defined the noble character of the hero. At the edge, the certainty of borders gives way. We are more subject to invasions, less able to mobilize defenses, less sure of who we really are, even as we may be perceived by others as a person of character. The dislocation of self from center to indefinite edge merges us more with the world, so that we can feel ‘blest by everything.’ ”

We now live in times when we can “dislocate from center” and be “blest by everything”. That’s the journey of the seeker in social networks. And no set of tools could be more effective than those that search the Interest Graph. Twitter is the Interest Graph, a place where individuals and groups have grouped themselves into lists and are sending out byte-sized messages with links to information related to niches. Jodee Rich, CEO of PeopleBrowsr, has said, “The trend I’m seeing is that the world is evolving from a social graph towards an interest graph.” Susan Etlinger, consultant at Altimeter Group, says, “I see social graphs and interest graphs converging. FOr example, people into fashion conecting online and going to events together.” Etlinger identifies here that movement I referred to earlier concerning the journey from searching online to meeting in the flesh.

When one realizes the potential of powerful social media monitoring solutions to connect one to one’s dream, the world changes dramatically.

Dreamtending/Collective Consciousness Research/Creative Exercise:

1. JOURNAL AND MEDITATE: Spend an hour before bed journalling and meditating on what you want out of life, what you want in your career, what you desire in a relationship.

2. DREAM PREPARATION: Tell yourself prior to sleeping that you will dream about this. Put a journal and pen next to your bed.

3. DREAM RECORDING: Upon having a vivid dream and waking, write down the dream.

4. SEARCHING THE COLLECTIVE: Go to your computer and use social media monitoring tools/social intelligence gathering solutions, to search the collective consciousness/unconscious using keywords from your dream journal.

5. CREATIVE EXPRESSION AND FLESH CONNECTION: Create a Kickstarter creative project or Meetup flesh-group based on this research AND your own creative process.