The gold is IN the shadow. ~Carl Jung
Rukeyser writes, “The world is made of stories, not of atoms.”
You have your brush, you have your colors, you paint the paradise, then in you go. ~Nikos Kazantzakis
CHANGE IS HERE NOW: The world population is migrating into social networks at a sizzling pace! In doing so, individuals are increasingly relating to one another within the format of a circle vs. within top-down hierarchies. The circle is becoming the norm in terms of human organization as a result. To keep up with this change in ethos, institutions, organizations and nations are in FULL TILT change mode from hierarchies TO circular (hub and spoke) structures. Leaders must contend with this new paradigm (the circle) and encourage their partners, audiences, and niches to get educated in the circle format.
HUB AND SPOKE TRANSPORTS FROM HIERARCHY TO HOLISTIC STRUCTURE: The entire eco-system of a circle facilitates a different kind of action and pace than “getting permission from the top.” Indeed, there’s really no time for a “top” any more, it’s far more effective to have a “center” or a “hub”. And this hub and spoke is REALLY only a vessel transporting its occupants to the next form: a holistic organization (all equal). See an excellent graphic here on the types of organizations: http://bit.ly/hub_and_spoke_organizations.
BRANCHES IN THE SUN, ROOTS IN THE EARTH: Joseph Campbell writes, “To be in accord with the grand symphony that this world is, to put the harmony of our own body in accord with that harmony” Our organizations MUST be involved in a collaboration oriented around harmonizing human activity with planetary necessities IN THIS SEASON of human existence. This means dreaming BIG and celebrating the link between dream and action, the imagination and production, the working out of ideals in the context of everyday life.
So we MUST start with dreams.
THE VALUE OF A CULTURE THAT LISTENS TO ITS DREAMS: The first key to creating a dreaming culture is to open a safe space between people every day in which dreams can be shared and honored. If we can bring this about in our families, our schools, our work environments and our communities, we will take a tremendous step towards manifesting a more generous, spirited and compassionate society where we can move decisively beyond barriers of prejudice and misunderstanding. We will also bring gifts of storytelling and spontaneous healing into our everyday lives. (http://www.lucidityapp.com)
A PATH TO MAKING DREAM HAPPEN IN 2011:
1. Identify and prioritize your interests. (A journal and a pen).
2. Identify trends consistent with these interests. Also identify allies to your cause. Do this by listening to the social networks using free tools. Social Media Monitoring Tools give us the power to discover the 5 W’s of our Key Influencers (individuals, entities and organizations). The range of sophistication in this area of technology is wide and worth understanding prior to deciding which tools to use. (Research.ly + Qwerly + Twitter Lists + Listorious)
3. Create non-branded communities of interest in Twitter for research, influence and sales.
4. Do the Twit-Face two-step and discover that same community within the social graph (Facebook) and the career network (LinkedIn).
5. Create a Meetup group and invite ALL those people to it. Create something with those people in the flesh. (Meetup)
6. Gather the latest 100 tweets, latest 100 Facebook status updates and latest 100 LinkedIn updates of your Key Influencers. Mash these into stories. This involves good writing skills and story-telling skills.
7. Turn these stories into money (Kickstarter), into love (Match), and into community (GetSatisfaction).
The following quote from Jeff Dachis captures the significance of these stories for an organization in transition:
“A social business can transform the brand story from talking points, testimonials, and on-brand visual assets to a collection of authentic stories that build strong connections across all constituencies. Personal stories from suppliers can be shared with end consumers to make a product more than a product. Stories from consumers can be circulated back into the business to help everyone in the chain see how they are impacting lives for the better.” ~Jeff Dachis, The Dachis Group, Austin, TX.
A FEW STORY-MAKING RESOURCES:
1. Quora.com – http://www.quora.com/
A continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it.
2. Storify.com – http://storify.com/
Storify is a way to tell stories using social media such as Tweets, photos and videos. You search multiple social networks from one place, and then drag individual elements into your story. You can re-order the elements and also add text to give context to your readers.
3. Paper.li – http://paper.li/
Paper.li organizes links shared on Twitter into an easy to read newspaper-style format. Newspapers can be created for any Twitter user, list or #tag.
4. Trailmeme.com – http://trailmeme.com/
A trail is a (partially) sequenced collection of digital objects, such as webpages. A trail can be a straight sequence of pages or contain branches and other interesting features that allow you to construct more complex patterns and stories, such as organizing a tutorial into two branches for “beginner” and “advanced” material.
5. SPOT.US – http://spot.us/ – Spot.Us is a nonprofit project of the “Center for Media Change” and funded by various groups like the Knight Foundation. We partner with various organizations including the Annenberg School of Communications in Los Angeles. We are an open source project to pioneer “community powered reporting.” Through Spot.Us the public can commission and participate with journalists to do reporting on important and perhaps overlooked topics. Contributions are tax deductible and we partner with news organizations to distribute content under appropriate licenses. Donors can also take a survey from our one our sponsors, when available, to support the story of their choice at no cost to them.
OTHER RESOURCES RELATED TO ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE VIA COMMUNICATION:
ARTICLES:
HIGHER EDUCATION IS A BUBBLE: http://tcrn.ch/education_2011_change
WAITING FOR SUPERMAN ANALYSIS: http://tcrn.ch/our_schools_suck2011
JOURNALISM IS ENTREPRENEURSHIP: http://bit.ly/journalists_are_entrepreneurs2011
AL JAZEERA’S SOCIAL STORYTELLING EXPERIMENT 2011: http://bit.ly/thestream_experiment2011
SITES:
SPOT.US: http://www.spot.us/
KNIGHT DIGITAL: http://www.knightdigitalmediacenter.org/
NIEMAN LAB: http://www.niemanlab.org/
CUNY ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNALISM: http://www.journalism.cuny.edu/academics/entrepreneurial-journalism/
J-LAB: http://www.j-lab.org/
RJI ONLINE: http://www.rjionline.org/
PLACEBOGGER ANGEL FUND: http://placeblogger.com/blog/lisa/announcing-the-placeblogger-angel-fund
CHANGING JOURNALISM IN THE UK: http://www.journalism.co.uk/
IPI NEWS CONTEST: http://www.ipinewscontest.org/about-us/about-programme/
SOCIAL STORYTELLING REAL-TIME:
