Flux Populi

Questions to Ask Your Job Interviewer

To whom shall I hire myself out?

What beast must I adore?

What holy image is attacked?

What hearts must I break?

What lie must I maintain?

What blood tread?

— Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)

Flux: A continuum that begins and ends with design.

I started this blog as a place to sketch out some thoughts on how the world is changing, and how the condition of constant change affects people who want to be effective in the world.  If you can master flux, (without a capacitor) you can thrive today.  That’s Flux Populi in a nutshell - people who have learned to thrive in a constant state of change. In that spirit, this is part of a story pitch that I’ve been toying with, which sort of sets up the concept:

It started with a design achievement. 

The “improvement in hoisting apparatus,” was American inventor Elisha Otis’s great contribution to history - a braking system that quelled the fears of people suspicious of the coarse and unreliable technology known as the elevator.  It was 1853. Some thirty years later the first skyscraper popped up in Chicago, made possible entirely by Otis’s invention. An epidemic of high rises followed. The towering beasts begat the luxuriously cocooned corner office - filled with men in gray flannel enjoying superior views, private conference rooms and personal crappers.  It was hierarchy, achievement, status and red meat competition made plain by cable and steel.

Those were the days.

And if you are a person who wants or values that kind of world - or worse, feels entitled to it - then this is going to be a tough time for you.

Today, any business can and wants to be a global one.  We now routinely need to manage staff and customer needs in numerous time zones at once.  Ideas no longer come from the corner office, but flood in from talented people - perhaps customers - who fall outside of the now eroding hierarchy. And traditional institutions have failed us and outlived their usefulness. (I’d even say the hegemony of the nation-state is in play, thanks in no small part to the cross border effectiveness of Al Qaeda. But that’s for another blog to sort out.)

At the heart of flux is technology, which has radically changed the way we do business.  We probably spend way too much time worrying about the image and messaging piece- Look! Someone’s talking about our brand on Twitter! - and too little time analyzing what new technology is actually doing to business processes. Namely, that it has driven the cost of collaborative innovation down by an astonishing degree.  If you can’t speak wiki in the modern world, you have made yourself a dinosaur by default.

Here are some things I think about:

• Command and control vs distributed influence: - the leader who seeks to aggregate power vs. the leader to who seeks to relinquish power and manage the momentum. 

• Design thinking - the optimism of the designer, engineer, hacker: I can make that better!  I don’t know how to fix it now, but I will eventually. Inside every problem, there is a creative solution, whose efficacy can be measured. Progress by prototype - the end of cynical politics, the rise of the meritocratic marketplace of ideas. In the data there is insight. In the data there is justice.

• Collaboration - It’s measurably better if we work together. And there is a way for me to contribute regardless of my personality.

• Generosity - Collaboration necessarily means that excess work products can be shared, given away. Open source.  We are free to care about the problems of others, including competitors. And we are free to work on them efficiently. (Kiva)

• Imagination - the cost of making a mistake is lower.  It’s never been easier to prototype, test ideas, improve. This is driving a new relationship with failure - it’s expected. Iteration means never having to say you’re sorry. But it also means that you can’t take it with you - achievements are short, sweet and replaced with the next innovation. No resting on laurels.

• Curiosity - Others are more interesting than self.  The self-promoting narcissist will have a difficult time. 

• Accountability through meaningful feedback from peers.

• Data - embrace it.  But take care in what you choose to measure and manage to, because it will imprison you.

• Transparency ties it all together: We can learn about each other, we all have access to data, information, people of influence. It is the democratization of the workplace. If everyone has access to critical information - SEC filings, sales projections, best practices what is the value of the guy in the corner office?  We need to answer that. The new leader - who is she?

• Inspiration - leadership is about developing the capability of others. No better crucible than collaboration.

I asked a question on Twitter recently: What is the opposite of cynicism?  A wonderful conversation ensued, but no real answer emerged. But it is the sensibility that I am most excited by.  What if we stopped fucking around with office politics and actually got some work done that was meaningful?  What has the network brought us if not hope?

Love Letter From America - Winter 2001

Shortly after 9/11, I embarked on a broken-hearted writer’s road trip, to meet everyone in America. The trip took six months and 16.000 miles. I traveled with Jay Golden, a dear friend. We met and swapped stories with hundreds of people. It was, without a doubt, the most transformative thing I’ve ever done. (I talked about the trip during a TEDx preso last year.) From time to time, I’ll be posting excerpts from my travel log, which sits fallow in an unpublished book called Love Letter From America. This one was from the first day of winter, 2001. I thought about Sarah recently. I still wonder where she is.  

Sarah’s Smile

The solstice has spawned Festivals of Light in numerous cultures around the world. Partly a celebration of the rebirth to come, partly an acknowledgement of the harvest behind us but mostly, it seems, to chase away the torpid chill of winter, if even for a little while. It’s no accident that Christmas comes now; whenever Christ may actually have been born, we certainly need to celebrate the light in the darkness at this time of year. But meeting Sarah shed some light on how homelessness can affect families in surprising ways. It was a particularly poignant meeting, occurring at a time of the year when we are reminded how precious our families are.

It is the shortest day of the year.

Today is also Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day, which I didn’t know until I saw a little mention of it on the web a few days ago. Since 1990, the National Coalition for the Homeless has sponsored National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day on the first day of winter to bring attention to the tragedy of homelessness, and to remember those homeless persons who passed away during the year.

Homeless people have died at the hands of assailants who found them to be vulnerable targets, deep in the woods and on the streets where treatment for health problems could not reach them, and on busy thoroughfares and railroad tracks where they remained invisible until it was too late.

—National Coalition for the Homeless

It is unseasonably cold in South Florida. Tourists who have sought relief from the weather and the news are shivering in shorts and freshly purchased fleeces. Jay and I, who have already braved below zero temperatures, are amply prepared. But the South Florida poor are having a tough time managing.

 This year, the State of Florida is observing this Memorial Day for the first time, to call attention to the estimated 450 men, women and children who lived and died without a place to call home in 2001. About 20 communities statewide are holding vigils. So Jay and I, with our road fatigue, open hearts and stories of our American neighbors, decide to go.

 “Bring a present, anything will be great,” says the man who answers the phone at the Broward Coalition for the Homeless. “Books are great, food, personal toiletries, whatever you wish.” He is kind, curious about our trip, informed. “Yes, more than 26 homeless people have died in our county in the past year,” he confirms. “Just come, hang out, talk to anyone you like.”

 So, what do you give someone who has nothing? After an hour of agonizing, nail biting, thinking, imagining and worrying, I assembled the following items:

• Travel mug
• One box assorted of teas (hey, I figured hot water is usually free)
• One small box of chocolate chip cookies
• One coupon for a years worth of free bagels (one dozen every month, but you gotta keep the coupon)
• One box of Q-Tips
• One box of antibacterial hand wipes
• One bottle nice smelling hand lotion
• Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
• One travel toothbrush and toothpaste set
• One package safety razors 

It was an odd assortment, I know. I divided up the loot into two small gift bags – one got the mug, tea and cookies, the other got the bagel coupon and the book. Then, loaded down with donated jackets, sweaters and blankets from my generous family, off we went to the vigil.

It was already dark, windy and chilly. Folks had assembled around a makeshift buffet table, which loaded down with rice, beans, chicken and other delights. More than four-dozen people were there, in various states of disarray. Closing my eyes, I listened to the unique banter of the homeless. Sometimes drunk, often confused, sometimes remarkably lucid and normal. There was singing, laughing, gifts were traded; people ate and talked to each other. It was orderly chaos.

 Our gifts disappeared quickly and with little fanfare. “One of my favorite books is in there,” I said to a young man who emerged from the dark when I said, to no one in particular, that I had a gift. He smiled, sort of, and took the bag. He never took his eyes off mine. Someone walked up behind me and said, “Oh, I’m glad that he got your book.” I turned around and a volunteer was standing there. “He’s really nice. He’s special, I know he’ll appreciate it.” And then he vanished.

 Jay gave his bag to an older man, black with a gray beard. “Here you go,” he said. “And, actually, I found this present on the ground, already wrapped. I don’t know what it is, or who dropped it.” The man studied it and then took it. “Oh, okay, ah’ll take it and give it awah to someone else. Dat’ll be nice.” He smiled broadly. His lilting Caribbean voice made us smile back. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you.

 It was hard to find someone to talk to, the scramble for food and gifts was fast paced and action packed. So, I decided to sit down on the sea wall instead. Within minutes, an older woman came and sat next to me to finish her meal. Her name, she said, was Sarah, and she was a grandmother. “But I never expected to be out here,” she gestured with her plastic fork, “living like this.”

 Sarah has been on the street for nine months. She needs dental work and is tired, but basically okay. She lost her apartment when her roommate (which also sounded like he might have been a boyfriend — a really, really bad boyfriend) beat her up a bit, then robbed her. Unable to work or pay the rent, she was evicted and ended up on the street. She says she is too proud to tell her son, who has a family of his own, so no one knows her situation. “They don’t visit me, so they don’t know where I live. I have a voicemail. I just call them to say hello.” Sarah makes the rounds between shelters, is taken in by an occasional kind soul, but usually makes due on the streets. “People are pretty nice,” she says.

 Sarah keeps her belongings in a wheeled cart, and she has cobbled together a strange outfit to keep her warm. I hand her my mother’s jacket, something she has given me to share with whomever may need it. It is a beige suede-feeling thing, and is both warm and clean. “Here, I brought this for you.” Sarah thinks it’s mine. In fact, given that I’m carrying such a funny array of things, she thinks I’m homeless too. “No, I have a place to stay, I’m fine,” I reassure her. “My mom gave it to me to give to someone.” Sarah smiles, but continues to decline. She is not so homeless that she doesn’t have distinct memories of being another way. “Actually,” I say, “it looks like your size, and it matches the outfit you have on.” That did it. “Really?” she smiles again and tries it on. Modeling it for me, I see a different Sarah. One who shopped, one who wanted people to think she was pretty, one who had a shiny future. “I love it, thanks!” She relaxes a bit. “It gets so cold. I needed a jacket badly.” I ask why she doesn’t tell her son that she is in trouble. She doesn’t really have an answer. “I just can’t… I just can’t.”

 We chat some more, and she gets ready to go. I wish her luck, which hardly seems to be enough. “Merry Christmas, sweetie,” she smiles over her shoulder. And she is gone.

 Of the hundreds of people I’ve met, gotten to know and released back into their lives, Sarah is the one I wanted to hold on to the most. It gets cold at night, even in South Florida, and I am pretty sure that one beige jacket is not enough to keep someone’s grandmother warm when the wind kicks up and she is alone, while the rest of us stay safe in the indoor world we call home. 

tumblrbot asked: WHERE WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO VISIT ON YOUR PLANET?

Your house.