GREAT ADAPTATIONS

    

The Year of Living Exponentially

I’m a collage artist. I enjoy scissors, paper and glue. Always, I am trying to communicate something through my collage pieces.

Not all of my collages have a name, but this one does: It is “The Year of Living Exponentially.” It illustrates my tribute to nine notable innovators.

It’s a valentine, a winter bouquet, a gift for my readers and a tribute to my muses, leaders, and mentors. For me, it was a winter meditation.

I also practice another art: Cloud Alchemy. It is described in my manifesto by that name. The alchemy is putting people together in dynamic ways, talking about them with my readership, juxtaposing different energies in the “global brain.” In this collage, I’ve taken the nine notables and put them together as an art piece along with the stories I’ll tell about them.

The Nine Notables

The following are nine among many who have lit my path:

Janet Tokerud:

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A web professional since the early 80s, Janet continues to inform her audience in a multitude of ways. I enjoy her intelligent reviews of new products, her enthusiasm about the culture of the web, and her grounded support of my own projects. Janet attended the first meeting of B.A.B.S. (Bay Area Bloggers Society) and is one of the reasons I went forward with it. Follow her on Twitter as @tokerud, and her blog on http://tokerud.com.
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Dr. Ellen F. Weber

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Dr. Weber is a neuroscientist I have come to know on Twitter. She shares amazingly useful concepts about the brain and how to create leadership and learning environments which are most productive and human. Ellen contributes so much love and wisdom to the global brain through her continual high-level communication, she is like a one-person web of connective tissue. Everyone should follow Ellen. Find her on Twitter as @ellenfweber, and see her blog at http://BrainLeadersandLearners.com.
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Barbara Bonardi

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Barbara was one of my students in a new media class in early 2009. She has progressed at an astonishing rate, while continuing with her own art, journaling, and the process of earning a green MBA. Barbara is just getting her blog started and I am so curious to see how she will inform us all. She’s a superb example of a mature mind grabbing these tech tools and running with it. Barbara is an original member of B.A.B.S. Follow her on Twitter as @barbarabonardi.
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Michael Phillips

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Michael is one of my early influences. I read his book, “The 7 Laws of Money,” in the late 70s. His classic, “Marketing Without Advertising,” (now being revised for the 7th edition), taught us the culture of marketing at the deepest human level. It stands today as the best guide for marketing and led the culture of “the conversation” long before we had the tools to converse. Among his unique qualities is the ability to trigger the brain to think in a new direction. He does this on his blog, http://phillips.blogs.com/. Put your thinking cap on and take a look! Follow Michael on Twitter as @phillips1938.
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Valeria Maltoni

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Valeria Maltoni is another communication professional I met online. I think I was reading her vastly informative blog, Conversation Agent, before I knew her on Twitter. Every time I read something on her blog I think I should just drop everything and spend the next month reading everything she’s written. Valeria carries “the conversation” with elegance and a deep understanding of what is productive and true. You can find her on Twitter as @conversationage, and see her blog at http://conversationagent.com.
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Catherine Grison

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Catherine is one of the new friends I’ve made through interacting on Twitter. She has a warmth and style you just have to experience. A Parisian ex-pat, she is a Feng Shui artist who embraces the Twitter community with humor and humanity. When I need an uplifting moment, I just go look at her website. It’s a tonic for the soul, in living color. You can follow her on Twitter as @catherinegrison, and see her website at http://YourFrenchAccent.com.
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Mark McGuinness

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Mark is one of the creators of Lateral Action, which began as a great animated series about the role of creativity and innovation in successful business today. Before Lateral Action, I read his work on Copyblogger. Mark speaks the language of creativity and business, which makes him a potent contributor to the global brain. His art and his writing convey concepts in a simple, straightforward way that I find as reassuring as it is informative. You can follow him on Twitter as @MarkMcGuinness, and see more of his work on http://LateralAction.com.
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Chris Brogan

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Chris Brogan knows at least as much as anyone on the planet about how to live in a social media world with fairness and integrity. He talks about this openly in all of his material. If you want to see something really refreshing, look at his Disclosures and Relationships on the About tab of his website. When someone talks to me about values in leadership today (usually complaining that there are no values in leadership today), I point them to Chris Brogan. Chris is one of the reasons I believe we are creating a more civilized world through the employment of online communication tools. You can follow him on Twitter as @ChrisBrogan, and see his website at http://ChrisBrogan.com.
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Liz Strauss

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It makes me smile just to type her name. To me, Liz is a mastermind of the giant hive of minds contributing their best to “the conversation.” She created a system to honor others for their work with her Successful and Outstanding Blogger site (SOB). That’s the best kind of announcing. Liz is a model for anyone who wants to get their mind around how helping other people keeps you on the track to personal success. She’s funny, too. You can follow her on Twitter as @LizStrauss, and see her website at http://successful-blog.com.
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I hope you will explore these fine contributors to the innovative online community. Our world is more sane, more civilized, more viable, and just better at everything because of them.

Suzanna Stinnett

Let’s dispense with the conflict about tree planting and take a look at a system that works. Kim Isley’s company Trees for a Change (treesforachange.com) is a sensible way to give a meaningful gift, quiet as a winter forest.

It’s true: Not all tree-planting companies are legit. Kim looked into all that as she researched how to build her company.

Wander the path over to her site and you can learn anything you need to know about how trees are planted when people give the Tree Gifts through Kim’s site. These trees are planted in U.S. National Forest areas destroyed by fire.

You can even see your tree and learn about the area where it was planted. In case you want to go visit.

Trees, good. Here’s the link again:

Trees for a change

Happy December!

Suzanna Stinnett

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It was my extreme privilege to attend the 14^th Anniversary gathering of the Brain Exchange last night, in El Cerrito, CA.

I have to say this may be the easiest Alchemy Lab I’ll ever write. The connection and chemistry arose intact and it just wants to flow right onto the page. All I’m doing is keeping my hands on the keyboard.

You can learn more about the Brain Exchange on the website. What I want to convey here is the profound sense of connectedness I have today.

A call from the distant past

You know I’m always talking about connectedness and the tremendous tools we now have for building community, solving problems, and innovating. I can clearly see a thread here, a calling-out from the distant past through women’s work and women’s way of connecting community, going back for thousands of years.

What happened

At the Brain Exchange, we were led through a practical process which brainstormed the heck out of a few of our challenges. There’s only time for 6 or 7 questions to be worked on. The brainstorming was like an avalanche. The individual who had the challenge had a new challenge: to sit and receive ideas. (Not as easy as it sounds.) This group of 30 plus women at last night’s meeting has about a thousand years’ worth of resources to offer to almost any problem. This is pure, heart-fueled, brain-based innovation.

So my second point is about diversity. Last night, we brainstormed with a 16 year old on innovative ways to stand out on her college applications. I wonder how she’s feeling today. We also brainstormed on an older woman’s extreme situation having suffered stroke, and now facing surgery, six weeks of recovery, and a home that is about to enter foreclosure. I’ll refrain from further details, of course, to preserve the confidentiality of our gathering. But I think you’ll get from this example what I’m about to say.

My reflection: Twitter came from women’s legacy

While I sat and looked around the room during the avalanche directed at my question (how lucky was that?) I realized, with a flush of emotional joy, “This is exactly like Twitter!”

Like Twitter, if you know how to use it.

Like Twitter in that people continue to gather by the hundreds to pour helpful solutions and connections on every problem they can spot.

Like Twitter in that strangers meet, open their hearts, give all they can, and go away deeply connected.

Maybe this is one reason why Twitter has a difficult entry portal for many people. It’s almost instantaneous intimacy.

That thread I see is women connecting and informing each other how to connect. It’s deep work. And I imagine (oh, I do imagine), that Twitter is what it is because we have known how to do this for millennia. And we’ve brought it forth and made it digital. And the wholeness of it is spreading exponentially now.

It’s spreading organically: In living rooms, among strangers, through laptop screens and iPhone apps and on into a vast global-brain ecosystem made of kindness.

I hope you’ll consider participating, if you are not already.

Blessings galore,

Suzanna Stinnett

What’s an “Alchemy Lab?” Cloud Alchemy: A Thinking Heart

Follow me on Twitter: Brainmaker

Listen to my audio about your web presence: Spoken For You

Come to a Twitter class – and plant trees! Twitter for the Trees

The global brain is pulsing with intelligence, and my mind reels with the potential.

Potential. Do I misuse that word? What I mean is that I see a vast landscape of possible outcomes, possible paths, possible triumphs, and what gives me that view is something quite simple. Connectivity.

You know I talk about the global brain all the time, and that I latched onto the concept in the mid 80s when Peter Russell put out a film by that name. He described this dynamic global ability before it existed. My brain just about had a blowout when I realized what he meant. I really, really “got it.”

Now here we are. In a world of crisis which means a world of opportunity. And nearly all of that opportunity is carried in the big wide net or the world wide web. So how are we accessing it? By using new tools of communication. In a nutshell. What tools? To me, maximum accessibility with optimum productivity means using:

1) A simple blog and 2) Twitter.

So I preach, and try to be better at ministering to those who don’t quite understand the potential here. Yes, we have plenty of smelly hype that we’re having to step around carefully. We have hucksters and scammers and spammers at every turn. That does not change the fact that we have in our hands this sparkling jewel of a moment, and by golly, I want you to experience it. Here we go.

I hope you can handle a few more new terms, because I’ve got one for you. It’s “cloud alchemy.” Simplest definition: “Connecting thoughts in the global brain.” You can read what I’m up to in precise detail by getting a copy of the manifesto by the same name. (No charge, just join my website.) You can learn more about how it works by reading these posts. I demonstrate cloud alchemy by performing “alchemy labs.” This is the second one. (The first one, Cloud Alchemy: A Thinking Heart, was kinda long. I’ll work on that.)

Alchemy Lab #2

Today I’m thinking about Valeria Maltoni, of the site Conversation Agent. I’m also thinking about Betsy Burroughs, who has FocusCatalyst.com. Because these two women are right up front in my cerebral cortex there, I’m going to bring them into this Alchemy Lab and see what we can mix up.

(Okay, picture a woman in a white lab coat, humming, pouring steamy fluids into a beaker, and glancing up with a really wild look in her eyes.)

The Ingredients

Valeria

I’ve followed Valeria’s work for at least two or three years. She knows me only through some comments I’ve made on her site and a few Twitter moments, but I’m not a stranger to her. Hi Valeria! Valeria writes about, well, the conversation. Her articles are deeply informed, broadly connected, and worthy of some sort of Internet Ambassadorship award. She promotes thought on a high level and attracts a conversation through comments on her site that is often as informative as the posts. That’s a gift, to be able to do that.

Betsy

Betsy Burroughs, I just discovered. Betsy wrote a book called Focus: The Catalyst for Creativity. Well. If you have read my manifesto, you know I place a pretty high value on focusing. Betsy’s book isn’t really about that, though, it’s about taking a special route into your own brain and planting some rapid-growing high-yield productivity seeds. Some of them you can even harvest in moments. The blurbs about her book are great but they are really not doing it justice. I’m going to risk another too-long post here, but you should also know that Betsy is the catalyst bringing together some amazing brains, at her loft in San Francisco, and through the Internet. You really better get to know her. She’s redesigning her site, so just start here and read about the salons she does, who comes, and what happens.

Why Valeria and Betsy in Alchemy Lab #2?

Just one reason, really. They are both in the front of my own brain right now. More reasons – the work they are doing is changing the global brain.

Do they really need to connect their thoughts?

That’s not for me to say. My job is to throw it out there. Cloud alchemy is simply “I am thinking about these two people and I’m all fired up about life because of them.” For now, that’s enough.

Valeria, meet Betsy. Betsy, meet Valeria.

The mind reels.

With love and neurotransmitters,

Suzanna Stinnett

Get the manifesto here on Great Adaptations (upper right column)

Ladies and gentlemen, I propose a new plateau of collective intelligence.

The brain we have formed through our use of digital communication tools is now functioning. We have thoughts, and we are sharing them in deluges.

I propose we recognize this as a new brain capacity – specifically a global brain capacity – and that we orchestrate our global thoughts with the highest possible intentions.

I propose we recognize that this is what we have already been doing. Through these new media tools we have a thinking heart. This is what fuels my own daily journey as a teacher and articulator of new media.

This huge, benevolent, thinking heart. This heart which pulses through the vast onground servers to the vast online cloud.

Being a practical midwestern gal, I want you to understand what I’m proposing without a lot of folderol. To that end, I have written a manifesto. I call it “Cloud Alchemy.”

The manifesto explains in simple terms what it means to participate in the global conversation through new media tools. I want you to read it. I want you to become part of my conversation. You.

Before I send you to the manifesto, let me demonstrate cloud alchemy. There will be many demonstrations of this force at work. I call these demonstrations “alchemy labs.” Here we go.

Alchemy Lab #1
July 23, 2009

Preface: In my work as an online communicator and teacher, I have the privilege of engaging hundreds of very bright, active minds. New media tools make this possible by delivering the daily offerings of these bright minds in manageable little bits.

Daily I am struck by recognition of special possibilities, if, for example, I could help one mind recognize another.

Now this “connecting” I am talking about could be called networking. It certainly is a form of networking. What makes it cloud alchemy is two things:

1. It can happen instantly, easily, with minimal effort, because of new media tools.
2. I am delving deeper than a simple networking-style “introduction.” I intend to trigger a resonance between two people (or two hundred) by sharing with each person a relevant detail about the other. In other words, I am pulling the thoughts together. Bringing them into close quarters so they can become a new energy source – a spark – recognition – joined thoughts.

That’s the alchemy: My brain wants this brain to know that brain.

Begin the Lab:
I’m beginning these Labs at the top. Today, July 23, 2009, I recognize Dr. Ellen F. Weber as a “brain area” of the first order. I will let you discover more about her work. I also recognize Liz Strauss, a leader and a gatherer. I want to connect these two.

Ingredients:

a. Triggering the thought process, let me point out that Dr. Weber is a brilliant neuroscientist who brings great kindness to her offerings. She teaches leaders how to work in what I call a “brain-friendly” way for maximum positive outcomes. Her website is Brain Leaders and Learners. She can be found on Twitter as @ellenfweber.

b. Now I will bring in a second force, someone I know helps and influences many thousands of people. She is a leader and another force of kindness. Her name is Liz Strauss. The reason I want these two brains to connect is simple. I want the global brain to have a new brain area which is informed by Dr. Weber’s understanding and connected to the social prowess – super high brain connectivity – of Liz Strauss. Find Liz on Twitter @lizstrauss. (For a stellar example of cloud alchemy, see lizstrauss.com and look at her list of Blue Feather Association Tweeters.)

Outcomes:

Many possible outcomes. My work is to tell the story my brain concocts, point Ellen and Liz toward one another, and expose my own audience to this process and these two brains. Sometimes I will persist in deepening the recognition of two people. Other times I simply allow the alchemy to do its own work.

Wrap-Up:

This is one example of an Alchemy Lab. I’d say this is a longish version of the Labs. Tomorrow, I’ll demonstrate a Lab which employs Twitter.

Twitter?
Twitter, by the way, is a supreme form of cloud alchemy. For the people who have engaged Twitter fully, there is a constant thought-share happening. Enormous thinking-heart activity is enacted hour by hour on Twitter. If you blog, you might want to conduct longer Alchemy Labs. You could, however, use only Twitter to connect and electrify powerful new brain areas. That’s some great alchemy right there.

About that manifesto
The manifesto, “Cloud Alchemy,” will clarify your role in the global brain. It invites you with simple steps to become an active part of this conversation.

Boomer Women and Men
I dedicate this first version of Cloud Alchemy to women and men in the vicinity of 55. (That’s a broad vicinity, reaching from the 40 somethings to the 90 somethings. I call that “Web 55.0.”)

Why?

The emergence of Boomer women and men into new media is a real paradigm shift. Mature minds can be enhanced greatly by engaging the learning curves of new technology. Once the challenges are met, these minds can offer up their richness, their decades of experience, skills, and life-juice, to the conversation. The mature mind is needed in order to bring balance to our changing world.

Is it difficult to grasp?
Boomer women and men may find the paths of new media quite obscure. This is natural. We Boomers don’t have brain areas for communication technology. While we were indeed the ones who brought it into existence, we have not, for the most part, engaged the super-charged speed of change as these tools have become integrated into business and social cultures. We have to build these brain areas.

That’s a bit of a problem. But it is not as big an obstacle as it once was. Now, for your learning pleasure, we have teachers and tools which can be engaged quickly. The brain area grows when curiosity and openness are nurtured. The next day, it’s easier.

Cloud Alchemy is for you, my fellow Boomers. It’s for us all. But today it’s for you.

Join my web family. Read Cloud Alchemy. Begin your own new brain area. You are needed.

Sincerely,
Suzanna Stinnett
Please join us: Type your email in the upper right corner and click to receive the manifesto.