GREAT ADAPTATIONS

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

What frame of mind brings you new ideas? Are you aware of the process you use to generate and utilize your ideas?

The Idea Book is a fantastic tool for expanding your creative capacity, discovering untapped resources in your own brain, and actively connecting to the world of innovation.

Published in Stockholm in 2004, over 200,000 copies of this book have sold in 9 languages. Sold to 40 countries, it is not yet “available” in the U.S., but you can find it and the author Fredrik Haren at the parent site, www.interesting.org.

I’ll be telling you more about its excellent layout and the experience of writing in the blank pages over the weeks to come. This post is your heads up to seek out a copy of The Idea Book — and become part of the huge wave of innovation which is carrying us into a viable future.

Suzanna Stinnett

A modern communication skill taken from our young friends, the Digital Natives

There’s something I’ve realized, working with people who are learning how to use new media. Newer users, who are often older people, get stuck on little things that don’t make sense.

We newer users are, in general, making use of a different skill. It’s along the lines of proofreading. It has served us well for decades and it still has a high place in the world of communication.

But it is stopping us dead in our tracks when it comes to the efficient and effective use of modern tools. Tools like Twitter, for example.

I teach people to enter microblogging by using Twitter as a search tool. Twitter is already the premium search tool, for those who understand it, and it’s a good place to begin to see what’s going on in that universe.

Here comes the dead in our tracks part. The first time someone does a search on Twitter, they’re bound to come up with a string of seemingly irrelevant posts. When I sit side by side with a newer user, I can point to this and that to help them see what is relevant on the page. But they are drawn to everything that is NOT relevant. What does RT mean? Why is it there? What are all these @ signs? Is that a link? Why are they saying #FF, is that like an obscene gesture?

Hold it, whoa, take a breath. Let’s learn from digital natives, who are able to quickly find the relevance they seek. Here’s how they are doing it:

They ignore the vast percentage of what’s on the page. Instead of looking for the irrelevant or incorrect bits like any great proofreader, they are scanning the page for relevance.

They skip over everything they don’t need and go straight to what they want. And even then, they scan. Skip and Scan. It’s the great new way to use your brain. And it will make a big difference in getting where you want to go – if you want to access the vast intelligence now available to you on sites like Twitter.

Skip and Scan! Anyone for an Evelyn Woods class?

Here’s to your new brain areas: Breathe deep, walk often, and drink lots of water.

Blessings,

Suzanna Stinnett

Catching up with my brain

While preparing my notes and whiteboard scribbles for a corporate presentation tomorrow, I realized I had not articulated some concepts I refer to often. In my journal.

Remember, folks, the global brain does not carry your information unless you upload it. So I’m writing today about thought sourcing. If you Google “thoughtsourcing,” you get references which contain sentences like “what they thought sourcing was…” Well. That’s not it. That’s about sourcing. Not thoughtsourcing.

(Before I go any further, let me state clearly:  My use of thoughtsourcing is NOT “outsourcing your thoughts.” What Nick Nanton called “The 8th Deadly Sin” in his article in January 2009 is a completely different animal, and, to my mind, a good example of how we often jump the gun with a negative reaction before we really see what can be done with instant and exponential communication. Nick’s concern was that people stop thinking for themselves and draw from the collective without any creative effort of their own. I believe it is quite the opposite. In my Glossary, I put Nick’s definition as the second possibility for this term. Consider this disclaimed.)

Thoughtsourcing

Thoughtsourcing is using modern communication tools (digital) to feedback an answer, a segment of an answer, an expansion of any kind – on your own thought.

Bringing it down to earth a bit more, I could say that “thoughtsourcing” is in the same ball field as what we do when we use Twitter to “crowdsource” and get answers to questions or come up with some research data. But it’s more than that.

Cloud Alchemy

Let’s back up and reference that other term in the title, cloud alchemy: Connecting the thoughts of two or more people on the Internet in a meaningful way to create a new synergy, a new statement or definition or resource or investigation. Cloud alchemy can be done in a few different ways, but it speaks to the new capacity of the global brain to think as an organism.

I think, therefore I tweet

Thoughtsourcing happens when a skilled new-media user employs a tool like Twitter, for example, to almost instantly answer a question or fill in a blank. A new-media user with a broad range of skills can obtain the next piece of information related to their own thought so quickly that it mimics the human thought process. It’s still thousands of times longer than thought itself, but it is so fast now, we can start to see the future through it.

It’s not crowdsourcing

Thoughtsourcing is faster than crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing has its own value and purpose. Thought sourcing is an individual’s extended reach, through their organized and informed use of new media, into the global brain, where they can cherry-pick a trusted source and zero in on an answer – or a new perspective – which does not require further research to validate. The sourcer (ooo, sourcer!!) can then promptly move on to the next thought with new information integrated.

A global brain area, properly connected, means the participants can thoughtsource each other, which makes them all more efficient and more intelligent.

So go do some cloud alchemy. Bring your sources closer together by introducing your best peers to one another. Make a new brain area strong and effective and meaningful.

Be well, friends.

Suzanna Stinnett

*train of thought illustration (c) Suzanna Stinnett 2008

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Jump ahead of the “conversation”

In the morass that is analysis of social media, branding, and consumer sentiment revealed, I see one choice a corporate entity can make. Jump ahead of the “conversation” by producing a focused media piece which helps the public see that you know how to offer value through new media. By innovating your own media piece, you control its appearance – and may be able to quantify public sentiment directed at the piece.

For example, a large company might decide to create a specific social presence through new media, as a particular type of educator. This presence is, at first, an addendum to who they already are. (It’s not enough to have an F.A.Q. on the website, though it is a good start.)

Plan your own media piece

What the company can do is plan their new media presence around an educational product. Let’s say a solar company produces a short video suitable for school-age children, explaining how solar works. By including this in their branding, they may become more memorable and more approachable to parents and grandparents. This can be extended as far as the company wants to go. Note: Avoid any scent of company propaganda. Answer tough questions head-on. Think legacy.

Analysis isn’t very analytical right now

Rather than flail around looking for a lighted path on a huge and changeable ocean, companies can develop a special presence which inherently shows who they are and where they’re going. Trying to quantify how the public views your product or your company by looking at the conversation on Twitter, for example, is not yet proven to be worthwhile. Give your public a place to gather which is a real gift, not a sales channel.

A people piece helps people relate

Proactive innovation, making use of crowdsourced ideas and rewarding the crowd with recognition, could take a company closer to their goal. The goal should be to be “favored” in new media. Creating your own funnel of appropriate information allows you to measure views, participation, and sentiment. Monitoring becomes more focused and more meaningful.

Okay, over to your brain: Comments now being accepted!

Suzanna

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I was so exhilarated by this term in the title of Stewart Brand’s new book that I decided to launch a conversation about new words in our conversation-culture vernacular. I’ve already put these definitions in my Glossary, but I’d love to have some voices weighing in here. Check what I’ve carved out and if you have any ideas or comments, go right ahead and post them here. Go on, I’m waiting!

Recent additions to the Great Adaptations Glossary

Ecopragmatist: Without reading his new book or checking with Stewart Brand, who probably coined this term, I’ll define it this way -

“An ecopragmatist is a person who cares enough about a cause to set emotion aside and continually integrate, articulate, discuss and act upon new data. An ecopragmatist must surely be a big-picture thinker – or surround herself with others who bring a larger view to the table. Read his book, “Whole Earth Discipline: An ecopragmatist manifesto” if you want the authoritative definition.”

Social Proof: 1) Wikipedia admits that a better term is “informational social influence” as it defines social proof as basically herd behavior. I disagree.

2) The Stinnett definition rides on the strength of the word “proof” and reads:

“I’d say social proof consists of the viewable accumulation of testimony. Including outright testimonials (with some evidence they are real people), and some combination of: A following on Twitter with posts and replies, blog posts which show engagement in the conversation, other published items like white papers or ebooks, perhaps a Facebook group or page with some activity, and speaking engagements on the author’s topic. Proof means proof, not suggestion.”

Digital immigrant: n. Those of us who were not born into the digital world, but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology. Digital immigrants (like all immigrants) retain, to some degree, their “accent,” that is, their foot in the past. Examples of the accent can be seen in such things as turning to the Internet for information second rather than first. A digital native would call a digital camera “my new camera,” while a digital immigrant would refer to it as “my new digital camera.”(Definition derived from Marc Prensky.)

Digital Native: n. Person born in the mid 1990s or later, with immediate exposure to multi-media.  Neural pathways may be physically changed. “… wired different, paved to an on-ramp to the Information Super Highway,” according to a handful of neuroscientists. Coined by futurist Marc Prensky.

Internet Hero: n. Regular person using technology to engage an ever-expanding community with ever-more-focused material.

That’s about enough for today. What do you think?

———————-I’m all ears!————————–

We’re all young pups when it come to the wide world of modern communication. Much of what we are now starting to use was only invented in the last 18-36 months. While we explore our too-numerous options and skirt the edge of overwhelm, (or fall right into that pit), it does help to keep the rewards in mind.

Those of us who have given in to the learning curves of technology are wheeling along in a new world of connection and possibility. I like to think of it as forming my own area in the global brain. My global brain area includes a whole lot of interesting, helpful people. They live nearby and they live on the other side of the planet. We are connecting across our diversity and benefiting from it. I’ve even met a few people I hope to keep as friends for the long haul. It’s a global community, a neighborhood defined by our willingness to connect. And because I keep plugging away at the new-best-tools, I’m finding more ease of organization. That’s one reward.

I’ll tell you more specifics at another time. For now, I’m sending you over to this great little list of iPhone apps that help your brain keep growing.

By the way, I’d add one to the Science and Mathematics category. I like the one called Pi Brain. It’s an app that prompts your memorization of pi. Yes, I memorize pi. How many do you know? You can read about it here: Pi Brain.

Here’s Adrienne Carlson’s post on 100 iPhone apps to boost your brain power.

Have fun!

Suzanna

Teaching

September 23^rd was “Twitter-intensive” for me. Mid-day I taught a great group of newer users in Berkeley. I learn at least as much as they do in these groups. I feel like a neural conduit in the global brain, downloading a bunch of big files into the system. Process, process, process. The best moment, as always, is when the energy shifts in the room: The collective mind turns toward curious investigation. Question and expressions change. We breathe.

Learning

At 5:30 I attended a WIC (Women In Consulting) networking meeting in San Francisco where Irene Koehler, Nancy Friedman and Cathy Curtis spoke as a panel about the whys and hows of Twitter. A lot of intelligence in the room there, 30+ women in some type of consulting business. I watched the unfolding. As I always see in my own classes, there is a spectrum of understanding and readiness for this information. People do balk at the vernacular. “Tweet-up?” I saw one woman’s spine stiffen as she deflected yet another goofy new term. Overall, though, the panel got this group over the bridge. Applause.

How I get around

My work is brain-informed. Now that probably sounds silly, too, but I mean it in the mechanical sense. I have studied the brain since I was a kid, and follow neuroscientists along the ever-widening path of discovery. I have a capacity for translating science for laypeople, so I stay in that sandbox where I like to play and make myself useful. Peter Russell’s metaphor of the “global brain” captivated me back in 1987. And with Twitter, now, here we are. A thinking global organism. Big potential there.

Balancing

But back to the human-size brain and what informs me. Being raised a practical Midwesterner (now an escapee), I like to hold on to what is rooted while waving my other arm around in a very big picture of what is possible. The mechanics of the brain are well understood and provide me with ways to comprehend our choices, our options, and our potential. This viewpoint does regularly lead me into a sense of awe. I like it there. Working directly with people keeps me connected to gritty realities, so my glowy appreciation of life is a form of balance.

Enough background. What I was reminded of yesterday which could be of value to you, dear reader, is this:

We like our corrals, our words, and normalcy

1. We are naturally limited at the brain level in our willingness (not our capacity) to reach for broader, more diverse understanding. It’s a mechanical function of the brain, human, necessary, and just fine.

2. Most of us don’t like our words being messed with. We get annoyed and we put up more boundaries. This is a 21^st Century dilemma and a playground of staggering proportion.

3. We have a mandate to play (read Dan Pink) which is uncomfortable and confusing for lots of us. This may be the key “brain area” we have to develop to re-invent viable culture today.

4. Our ideas, beliefs and techniques of teaching (and learning) new media are very diverse. This reminds us to value differences, raise our tolerance, and become more interested in a range of communication styles.

5. Learning new media (social media, Twitter, blogging) is one of the most effective ways to expand our brains and our businesses. It’s like learning to ride a bicycle: Wobbly at first, then freeing and natural.

I’d like to thank you for reading my work. Did you know that you legitimize me? Social proof and all that? Your comments are the way I know you’re reading and taking it in, so thank you for taking that time, too.

Very best wishes,

Suzanna Stinnett

P.S. Look for Irene, Nancy, and Cathy on Twitter, and be sure to check out their blogs. Thanks again to you three and to WIC for providing a rich evening of musing and connecting.

The Berkeley “kitchen class” – next dates: October 9^th and 22^nd

Global Brain Series in Berkeley: October 8^th, 15^th, and 29^th

Contact Suzanna for more info – suzanna@greatadaptations.org

Now go relax.

In the classes I teach on new media, I have learned that one of the biggest hurdles people face is coping with the avalanche of options for their new web presence.

That’s why I guide my participants toward the simplest, most reliable tools. You see, it really doesn’t matter which tools you use. What matters is that you can understand them, access them, and direct people to your own little kingdom online clearly and easily.

The Google profile is one of those simple tools we now can access. I love it because it is super clean, super simple, and gives me one web address that I can send people to. From my profile there, everything else I’m doing online has its own pretty little link.

When newer users of modern media ask me what they should do first, this is what I tell them:

Relax, take a breath, and do one thing at a time–

~>Single Task – Multi Outcome. That’s what you want.

1. Get a gmail account. Make your gmail name as short as possible.

2. Create a Google profile. Don’t worry that it’s a bit thin at first.

3. Start a simple, free blog on either Blogger or Wordpress. Use your first one as a “play-and-practice” blog, knowing you can delete it. Remember you can have as many as you want, for free.

4. Open a Twitter account and start following a few reliable people. (If you don’t know how to do that, then follow me, and start exploring who I’m following. Let yourself meander and find people, posts and links that reach out to you. Follow those people.) Use your Google profile as your link out of your Twitter profile.

5. Go back to your Google profile and create the links to your new blog and Twitter account.

Relax, play, and do NOT overdo it. You are creating a new brain area. Spend about an hour a day for five days. Do NOT keep trying when you are frustrated – that blunts your new brain area.

Get a blog buddy. Find someone local you can meet with and share this process. There is no substitute for face-to-face interaction.

Keep playing and realize that each of these processes is a new world with its own language and culture. Do you expect to learn French and understand Paris in a week? Of course not. But you can read about it and begin to love it, a little bit at a time.

See all of the above as your entry into a whole new world. Your new skills will grow. Your new brain capacity will grow. You will use these skills the rest of your life. It is an important investment in modern communication. It will get easier.

For many of you, it will become part of your daily life. The benefits of connection and engagement as you continue to show up will expand into untold new opportunities, new fantastic relationships, empowerment, and a growing sense of belonging.

That’s what it’s all about — boom-boom.

Welcome! Follow me on Twitter at

twitter.com/brainmaker. See my Google profile at

Google.com/profiles/imaginecreating.

Now relax, get a glass of water, and spend some time with the dog.

Suzanna Stinnett

Listen to audio here: Spoken For You

See local classes here: Twitter for the Trees

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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