RadioBack

Long Hair

Calvin said, "It's a magical world, ol' buddy...let's go exploring!"

Rosemary, Carla, her friend Deanna and I were eating at the Fresh Harvest restaurant inside the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino the other day.  A gentleman and his female companion sat down at a table next to us.  My heart sank right out of my chest as I uttered to myself the same words I always utter to myself when I see an older cat with long hair:  "What does he do for a living?"

Flat out stone cold, long hair represents freedom to me.

I recently picked up a book from Borders - by mistake.  I noticed that it was written by a dude named Blanchard and his wife.  Its title is Live What You Love. I must have picked it up and put it down three times.  I thought Ken Blanchard...one minute manager, raving fans, gung ho.  And then I thought, no.  But the title got me.  It wasn't until later at home that I realized the book was written by another Blanchard.  In the book's introduction the authors say, "We don't live a typical life and our life literally does not fit in the boxes on forms."

This represents freedom to me.

What does Bob and Mel Blanchard have to do with long hair?  They met at an intersection in dave's life.  And now they travel together on the  Yellow Brick Road. 

This post is a bit of a ramble.  Sorry for bouncing you around.  I look at it as notes to future dave.  Or notes to future dave's family.

It is just the long hair thing on guys.  There isn't a larger baseball bat in all of the universe.  It smashes my psyche into orbit. It manifests an aching, soul full, aching, aching yearn.

The art of true personal expression void of constraints, void of worrying about what others will think and void of suppression, is a dream.  To take one's talents and skills and cast them off to the universe - to allow the universe to direct them to corners in need of the value only you can provide.  Yes.  You make a difference by providing value.  If not for your value a person's life or company would be lacking.  Yes, even if you've got long hair you can provide value.  Although my genetics will no longer allow this pulsing symbol of freedom, a position in the universe where it just doesn't (you have no idea of how badly I would like to insert a swear word right here) matter! - would be a dream.

Future dave - For over twelve years you have been trying to figure out what you'll be when you grow up.  You've participated in every self-help guru's exercises.  The question, "what do you dream about?" has come up four hundred and twenty-two thousand times.  Twelve years of journal writing, ten years of Internet writing...you've never answered it.  You know it.  You've never said I dream about this...  Perhaps this is a break through son.

Tattoos too.

Ten million Americans had tattoos ----- in 1936.  Twenty-four percent of Americans had tattoos in 2005.  Like it or not tattoos are part of the American culture.

Hmmm, genetics are not a problem with this form of expression.

*Dude, you don't swear around your family, you don't swear at work, can't remember the last time you swore here and you pretty much don't swear around your friends.  I think that we do understand the need for heightened expression.

*Thanks!

Forward

Dave's Log:  Cyberdate 7.8.07

Emma has become impatient with our recent lack of adventures.  While we have been working and doing the typical kind of stuff that is necessary to live, Emma has been at play.  She has made Gabriele real.  Well, we suspect that real is an interpretation, but Gabriele sure looks real.  Standing next to Elle, it is impossible to tell which person requires food and air. 

To shake off the rust Avelina has us heading to the Quadrant of Change to visit the planet Forward.  Gabriele will be running point on this mission.  In a preflight meeting, she tells us that folks who live on Forward, are forging new frontiers in the world of Public Relations (PR).  It is Gabriele's opinion that the lads who drove the Cluetrain back on the planet of Conversation, were among the first to venture West towards where the planet Forward is today.

Erin Caldwell meets us upon deboarding.  She walks directly up to Gabriele and gives her a  hearty handshake.  Except for Elle, most of us are a tad bit older.  We suspect that Erin has correctly recognized Gabriele as our translator.  Erin tells Gabriele about all that Forward offers.  There is career advice, technology advice, advice to help one become a more accomplished PR professional and just some darn good advice.  We also found this kind of interesting.

This has been a most refreshing visit.  There are so many here dedicated to improving their profession!  You know, Emma has been awfully quiet since we've landed on Forward...and this concerns us.  And, as if on cue, "David, have you noticed Gabriele?" Emma asks with a bit of mischievousness in her voice. 

We look up and there is Gabriele eating an ice cream cone.

The Cluetrain Manifesto

Dave's Log:  Cyberdate 6.17.07

Today we are going to test Emma, like she's never been tested.  But first...  It began a couple of days ago while a few of us gathered in the lounge.  Elle told us of a conversation that she had with Christopher Locke.  Christopher was in 1999, Elle 2007.  Elle was curious, prior to the explosion of blogs and social media, who or what was, in Tom Friedman's terminology, flattening hierarchy in the business world?  So she queried a sector of thought particles in the year 1999, using elevated emotion as a filter.  Here is a sample of the data stream that led Elle to Mr. Locke: markets...hierarchy...corporate...ivory towers...subvert...rage boy...conversations...community...tired and not gonna take it any more.

"Destination: the planet Conversation located in the in the quadrant of Change."

Avelina's voice drips with excitement and anticipation.  Is Emma doing this or is Avelina emerging as a life of her own?  Time will tell.

With the coordinates of Conversation as it was in 1999 secured in navigation, Emma is challenged to take the Starship back in time.  She must get our craft 100 times past the speed of light, to a value known as the speed of thought.  It is at this point that we cross over.  Emma pulls it off without a hitch.

We land a short distance outside of a town called 95 Thesis.  Wood burning and food cooking loosen our taste buds and place us in a festive mood.  The town is a series of cobblestone roads and open front shops.  A wooden plank sidewalk that in places juts out to full fledge porches, lines each side of the roads.  Not only have we walked into a vibrant town, we have been swallowed by a community bent on sharing.

Over plates of barbecued pulled pork, baked beans, potato salad and tall glasses of ice tea, we talk to the town elders.  They tell us of four energetic lads who road into town on a private train.  This train was unlike any ever before seen.  Picture the ice-cold Coors Bullet mashing up with a fire breathing, vapor spitting, version of a train created by a sixteen year old fantasy gamer.  They called it the Cluetrain.

The four men barnstormed the country online and with a sacred printed document.  Their message was simply an illumination of what was already going on - the end of business as usual.  The World Wide Web allowed conversations between networked employees, customers and companies, networked employees and customers and maybe most profoundly, customers and customers.  Message boards, chat rooms and e-mail were the greased conduit.  Conversations eroded boundaries, ivory towers and conventional media.  Who listened to the ad media when an online community of people either ranted or railed a product?

The elders thought the lads had a legitimate platform from which to build upon their message, elevate the Cluetrain movement, and even perhaps, carve out a new philosophy of management.  We could only imagine the management instruction that coaches how to conduct your business in a transparent world, a world view open to employees, customers and the corporate world.  But that was not to be.  Before tee shirts were printed, Web sites were spun off or cults formed, the Cluetrain blew out of town leaving a vapor trail of imaginative what-could-be's.

Elle believes that the Cluetrain mindset still prevails today.  It has become more a way of life though, than the shock and awe it produced in the nineties.  She thinks the tools of blogs, podcasting, video-sharing, instant messaging, wiki's and others take the art of conversation from single engine prop planes to the Space Shuttle.  We raise our eyebrows and stare inquisitively at Elle.  "Elle, we just traveled back into time, flying one-hundred times faster than the speed of light.  Isn't the Space Shuttle so 21st century?"  "Yes David it is.  It is what is yet to come in methods of conversations that I save the description...from Space Shuttle to Starship for."

Ahhh youth.  We should have known better.

Nau

Dave's Log: Cyberdate 5.26.2007

Emma completes a download of Fast Company's latest issue.    A low pitched, electronic purr travels throughout the Starship.  We can always tell when an article peaks Emma's curiosity.  She receives a delayed signal from I.D.,* on Nau, her topic of interest.  She initiates a coordinate sequence into the navigational system. 

"Destination: the quadrant of Change."

...a female voice dipped in sine wave, fills the control room where we stand.  We look at each other in surprise.  Emma.  "Emma, would you please care to explain?"

"Errrr, I thought you would be pleasantly surprised David.  Please allow me to introduce you to Avelina, our new and slightly modified navigation system.  She doesn't have a physical presence yet..."

Apparently Emma has taken the ball and run with the advice on managing your boss that Penelope gave her in Brazen Careerist.  We love it, but can't let her off the hook so easily...

"We are surprised Emma.  We also notice that you've been bringing a lot of women on board lately.  Are you planning a takeover?"

"Now David, the women on board and the women out on the edge are for one, appreciative of all those who have gone before them fighting for equality and justice in the workplace.  But that was so Twentieth Century.  Today we all just are...and you know that!"

Hmmm, looks like we riled Emma up just a bit.  We like that.

"Destination in the Quadrant of Change: the planet Nau"

Hyper-sleep drive is not required for this trip.  Prior to landing, we circle Nau once at low altitude.  We see mountains, forests, deserts, swift running rivers, oceans and lakes.  We do not see cities or office buildings, just dwellings.  Upon landing, we walk a few hundred feet to The Thought Kitchen.  It is here, with the open hearth fireplace, the plants hanging down in front of the windows, barely blocking the brilliant rays of sunlight bathing the huge oak table where steaming cups of coffee and blueberry pie await us, that we hope to learn more.  Ian Yolles, vice prez of marketing, greets us and motions for us to sit down.  He proceeds to explain about Nau.

Emma feels the passion in Ian's voice.  She has our cultedge meters going ballistic.  The culture of Nau weaves between the hearts of its inhabitants and the great outdoors of this planet.  Knowledge here is gained by storytelling and story-listening.  Inspiration is gained with each story.  Each story strengthens the connection between land and spirit.  We are overwhelmed by a sense of place. 

There is much to RadioBack about Nau today.  We love it all.  Its products, its propensity to do business differently, its love of learning and storytelling and perhaps what we like most, its soul.  Design is at the core of Nau's soul.  In orbit are performance, sustainability and beauty. 

Back on the Starship:

"Coordinates: Home"

Avelina's electronic sine wave disappears.  Her voice now sounds human.  Emma tells us that she has placed Avelina in direct line with Emma's culture - knowledge download path.  When Emma downloads the planet's culture and knowledge into her data banks, Avelina picks up the planet's collective warmth and friendliness.  Since these characteristics poured from Nau, Avelina now has that down home vernacular in her voice.

We feel good having met the folks at Nau.  We know they belong out here on the edge.  We hope their beacon is strong and those who share in their beliefs follow the light.

*There is an article on Nau in I.D.'s June Design and Business issue. 

Penelope Trunk

Dave's Log: Cyberdate 5.20.2007

Emma is so excited today.  We are going back to the quadrant of Change to visit one of her most favorite people, Penelope Trunk.  Emma first learned of Penelope when she discovered Penelope writing a column for Fortune magazine.  How could such a hip chick write for such an older gentlemen's magazine?  Perhaps this is one of the reasons we feel that Penelope belongs with Tom Peters (and us), way out there in the quadrant of Change.

We have an unidentified entity joining us on today's voyage.  Emma will not disclose its name nor will she allow a visual meeting at this time.  She tells us the audio banks will remain silent and for us to turn down our own personal noise.  We ask Emma who exactly is piloting the Starship, as we are normally in control.  Now, this is why we love Emma...she changes her tone ever so slightly and asks if it'd be all right for us to run silent.  We're done, we're butter, we melt, we concede.

Walking out on to Authentic, Penelope's planet, we stretch our bones following the sleep induced ride. Penelope greets us with a firm handshake and then we walk over to a nearby table underneath a huge oak tree.  Five minutes with Penelope and we are overwhelmed with two descriptors of this fringe dweller; real and energetic.  Although there really are not generational differences out here in the quadrant of Change, Penelope deals with it everyday.  It involves the folks on the other end who receive her own RadioBack signals from the edge.  As a trailblazer Penelope has dealt with many aspects of the working world.  She seeks to provide a road map for those less experienced and a light for those who think they are more experienced.  Her perception of the real world of work and in particular the values and characteristics of those younger folk entering it, is more crisp than a beam of laser light.

Penelope relays coordinates of this new world via her website Brazen Careerist and a brand new book by the same name.  She also participates in the old world as a writer for both Yahoo Finance and the Boston Globe.

Our cultedge meter is silent.  Usually by this time our meter is glowing with Emma's activity, downloading the planet's culture and knowledge into her computer banks.  As we wonder about Emma a stunning holovision approaches us.

"My name is Gabriele.  Emma created me using coordinates that Penelope sent her over the last year.  I have been on the Starship since the departure for Authentic.  I will be a permanent member of the crew, helping those who receive our signals to understand the new revolutionary world of work in which Penelope is immersed and those who are out here now.  Understand at this time what is really important; work is part of a lifestyle, it challenges, it fulfills, it is a part of personal growth and development, it helps to enhance family life, not inhibit it and it is one of the moons that orbit your being, not the sun."

Penelope's eyebrows raise and then she smiles looking our way.  She sees that Emma gets her.  Although the real Emma back on the planet Leeds is not as athletic as Penelope, we see striking similarities.  No wonder our Emma likes Penelope!

On our flight back, prior to hyper-sleep, we reflect upon today.  Penelope has an important message for all, not just those who wish to follow her path.  We will continue to point toward her coordinates in the quadrant of Change.  And what Emma has done with Gabriele is a lesson for the entire crew.  If our RadioBack mission out on the edge is to succeed, we must gladly accept those who wish to join us...even if we make them up.

Tom Peters

Dave's Log: Cyberdate 5.12.2007

While Emma is busying with coordinates and her audio banks, I need to get personal.  If there is a really hot trend going down, and people are flocking in droves to get with it, I am running in the opposite direction just as fast as I can.  It's the same with business books.  If one registers high on my Pop meter, I avoid it, at least as long as I can.  I was years behind the curve on the fish and cheese books.  For some reason I haven't been able to pick up a copy of Freakonomics.  And the same holds true with the business gurus.  If it is Poppy to link out to the uber-gurus, I find it most difficult for myself to link to them.* Today however, I am compelled to make an exception.

Our present mission takes us to the quadrant of Change.  We will visit Tom Peters on the planet of Re-Imagine.  Tom is such a true pioneer with his vision of change-needed-in-the-business-world-to-survive, and so far out on the fringe, that Emma must put the Starship in hyper-sleep drive for a part of our journey.  Emma programs random into her audio banks for our listening enjoyment.  We fall asleep listening to the Guess Who:

"No time left for you
On my way to better things
No time left for you
I’ll find myself some wings
No time left for you
Distant roads are calling me
No time left for you."

Awakening, we find that Emma has already landed the Starship on Re-Imagine.  Three separate suns shine glorious beams of light all around us.  The Universe smiles upon Tom's world, basking in the knowledge that this is where She wishes him to be.  The first thing we see is a thirty-foot high granite rock.  The script, In Search of Excellence, is chiseled into a ten-foot section of black marble and dated 1982.  Tom greets us just beyond the rock, motioning for us to cross the grassy knoll and to enter the building named Design.

Before we open the door we already hear Simon and Garfunkel permeating the structure...

"It's the same old story
Everywhere I go,
I get slandered,
Libeled,
I hear words I never heard
In the Bible
And I'm one step ahead of the shoe shine
Two steps away from the county line
Just trying to keep my customers satisfied,
Satisfied."

One footstep into Design and we know, we know without being told, this is where it all begins.   Design is core to a company's soul.  A company is inanimate without emotion.  Design is made from emotion.  Infuse Design and a company breathes.  Jimi replaces Paul and Art.  He asks:

"Are you experienced?  Have you ever been experienced?"

And you know that notion just crossed our minds...Design equals experience.  Our personal involvement with a product or service brings us inward.  If we get the company's soul, then it was a good experience.  If not, it wasn't.  Either way, without our involvement the relationship is static, inanimate.

As we converse with Tom, we feel his passion.  This dude cares.  He has no tolerance for those not ready for the change required to survive in business today, let alone those not willing to walk into tomorrow, eyes wide open.  We lose track of the times he uses the word mad.

A red indicator light flashes on the cultedge meter.  We smile.  Emma.  Emma is amoeba-itizing the land's culture and knowledge into her data banks.  We wonder about the effect that Tom's planet Re-Imagine will have on future experiences.  We suspect that we will be better prepared.

We are comfortable out here on the fringe with Tom and his associates.  Tom would have us believe that destruct, disrupt and blow up are Re-Imagine's mantra.  Wipe out the old.  We see it differently.  Yes, the old must go.  But we feel some fragments remain.  We see, not only a world of change, but a world of evolution.  Tom Peters is an exception to the Poppy-Uber-Guru types who are mostly style without substance.  We love what Tom is doing.  We will return.

On board the Starship, we rumble home.  As we fall asleep Emma looks toward U2...

"Hello, Hello,
I'm at a place called Vertigo
It's everything I wish I didn't know
Except you give me something i can feel, feel..."

*I have another site where I have been scribing for three years.