Had an interesting talk with my friend Kate Conroy yesterday in the East Village. She’s a community arts consultant. She works to bring efficacy into arts organizations. She had a great idea that non-profit arts organizations need to adopt the NGO mind frame and own that they are doing humanitarian work.
Kate sees the current economic down turn for the positive impact it is having on people’s values. She also noted how the people seem less likely to jump on the next bandwagon to pull into town. She was referencing the hucksters, the American archetype of the snake oil salesman who claims to have the elixir. Together we recognized that people are more interested in reconnecting to the ideas and practices that are connected to tradition. She noted we seem more interested in reading passages from dead authors.
In a philosophy class I took, the professor cautioned us in our work. Don’t just make a brick and wave it around. Instead place that brick on the long wall of cultural tradition that each generation contributes too. What’s important is not a blind return to tradition and the cultural conservatism that implies, but to build upon it regardless of what field or niche you find yourself in.
Do you rocognize the wall you are contributing too?
Me over Times Square
David Meerman Scott put out an invitation for thirty people to join him at NASDAQ this morning to “further” launch his book World Wide Rave. Joining the twitter community at tweetups has never been disappointing. Along with gaining further insights into David’s practice, we all enjoyed the high tech studio capabilities and the jumbotron images that lit up Times Square real estate for a few minutes with our less than famous mug shots. And tweeting the event as it was happening allowed us all to share it through our networks. Twitter search #NASDAQ to see the many entries.
I met Heath Row of Google and I was able to relate our postive experience with Adwords at our therapeutic boarding school. As I related our social media strategy he confirmed that it will aid our organic search results. We then discussed the underlying irony of participating in opening the markets on a day some are predicting to be pretty scary with the government/auto industry news cycle. It brought to mind one of David’s principles for a World Wide Rave: loose control.
The participant that was furthest from home this morning was @Girlbug. On a round the world wide romp which she is sharing on her blog, she told me an interesting story about the loose chickens she observed in Morocco. When she asked “Shouldn’t we gather them back in?” she was told that the loose chickens were important. Seeing them out there loose keeps the caged chickens laying their eggs. Her blog captures her wonderful travels and I think you’ll enjoy it. Her presence brought home the fact that we are a world wide community.
Brian Simpson(@bsimi) of the Roger Smith Hotel also shared his story implementing social media with me. They have created a blogger rate and a variety of social media and arts events to become a destination for folks on the East Side, at Lex and 47th. I decided to head over and see the hotel first hand and grab a bite to eat. I was invited to set up my laptop and get some work done an hour before they open, which was exactly what I was looking for. The menu at Lily’s was full of interesting entries. I opted for a shrimp and cheddar cheese polenta special that was delicious. They a crafting a comfortable scene at the Roger Smith, one I look forward to making part of my future visits into the city.
It turns out that David is heading to watch the Grateful Dead at the Roseland Ballroom tonight, a fit ending to his launch as the Dead and their practice of letting fans tape the concerts is one of his examples of pre-social media practices that created a world wide rave.
I had a fascinating conversation with Sid the other day. He was recalling growing up in a well educated Southern family. As a child he remembered one thing crystal clear: the children where not the center of attention in family life.
Two models for family life: either the children are the center with the parent’s as the satellites, or vice versa. The parents are the center and the children are the satellites. While I most often observe the former, I believe having the children take up the role of satellite is healthier for everyone involved.
As Jung pointed out, the un-lived life of the parents gets projected in the children. When parents are obsessed with the children they avoid the challenge of their own individuation and fail to model the sometimes difficult (OK, often difficult), transitions of mid and later life. And the children are burdened with the unrealistic and unrealized development tasks that flow through to them.
It clearly wasn’t the norm for the children to occupy this role throughout history. What do you think has happened?
St. Louis in Flood via flicker
While Washington recedes into it’s back rooms, Mother Nature has taken center stage. The week began with an awakened Mt. Redoubt volcano in Alaska and proceeded to record floods along the Red River. As this map shows, much of the nation can expect some level of flooding during the Spring runoff.
At the turning of the seasonal page it’s interesting that the politicians can’t hold the attention of the news cycle. It almost a relief to have the economic uncertainty displaced bigger forces which we have no control over.
In the midst of these stressors, Earth Hour was celebrated last night, gaining a great deal of attention in the blogosphere. Regardless of where you stand on global warming, reconnecting to the planet is clearly a task of our historical moment. It’s one of the possible values of moving out of the industrial society and into the information society.
One things for sure. I feel more related to the soil under my feet than the political systems that surround me. While our Presedent is rattling his saber toward the Afgan mountains, in these hills, the sap is running in the maple trees. I can sense it.
“At times I feel as if I am spread out over the landscape and inside things, and am myself living in every tree, in the splashing of the waves, in the clouds and the animals that come and go, in the procession of the seasons. There is nothing in the Tower that has not grown into its own form over the decades, nothing with which I am not linked. Here everything has its history, and mine; here is space for the spaceless kingdom of the world’s soul and the psyche’s hinterland.” Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams and Reflections, p. 225-226.
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