Why discover how to make self-led teams succeed? Because, in this flattening world, more of us are thrown into the self-led situation. And, more alluringly, we can have more fun and make more money, according to Alex Linksker. Can’t beat that name for someone who writes on “organizational democracy.” He boasts, “We boosted annual profits by over a million dollars in four months.” Find his “800 refrigerators” real life story for team building in the new normal world here. My favorite: “Big teams had teams-within-a-team.” Then you may go dancing around too.

From the Slobberknockering changes in pro wrestling to the appearance of Cartoon Network clips on YouTube “entertainment” is changing. Some fans are becoming co-creators. New kinds of businesses and individuals are now distributers. What role would you like to play?

Want a window into the future of entertainment? Attend next year’s Futures of Entertainment conference at MIT. The 2007 conference just ended this weekend. “You see entrepreneurs mixing with educators, admen with game-world architects, artists with engineers,” notes Jesse Walker of Reason magazine.

“In 2006, at the Friday night reception, I sat between an officer in a small gaming company and an anthropologist studying Firefly fans,” Sam Ford told me. He’s with MIT’s Convergence Culture Consortium, the conference sponsor. he adds, “A couple chairs down was a fellow journalist — she was interviewing people for Spellcast, a podcast devoted to the Harry Potter fan community.”

Rather than a meeting of peers from this same profession, this conference attracts wildly different kinds of people. What they share a passionate interest in entertainment and what’s broadly call culture. And where their interests converge they have exciting opportunities to collaborate. It’s the only place on the planet where, “academics, creatives and industry professionals …” gather to compare notes on “games, comics, television, transmedia storytelling, alternate reality games, user-generated content and fan cultures.”

“It is one of the few conferences that gets the big-brained academics and big-money industrialists to share,” notes Marisa Gallagher.

“The line between producers and consumers is no longer as clear as it once seemed to be,” observes Ford. From Cult Media to Fan Labor to Mobile Media, read living blogging coverage of the conference. In this podcast hear more - and, perhaps contemplate how you might participate.

This kind of conference reflects another kind of trend. The desire to expand one’s world and find fresh ways to collaborate by mingling with bright people in other kinds of work. See, for example, the TED Conference and Renaissance Weekend.

… down San Francisco’s hilly streets. That’s Jonathan Glazer’s captivating way to announce Sony’s next generation of TV sets, with “colour like no other”.

That prompted the ultimate compliment, a parody.

Yes, unexpected tumbling and color are “in”. Move on to watch the exploding 18,000 gallon paint dance over a block of abandoned Scottish high-rise buildings, set to a celebratory Rossini score. Just 70 seconds.

That was Danish director, Nicolai Fuglsig’s creation, perhaps influenced by his past work as a photo journalist covering Kosovo.

Now, ready to see Play Doh bunnies hip hopping across New York streets?

But we saved the best for last, perhaps inspired by The Way Things Go.

In a remote Argentine village, Fuglsig and team create a mega-dominos game that tumbles down through town to tip furniture, tires, burning haystacks and, well, we won’t spoil then end for you. Just 90 seconds. It is Guinness’ most expensive ad ever – and virally well worth it. But these ads-as-adventures will spoil you for the “regular” ads you (non-Tivo users) must sit through when you watch TV.

Detonators, animators, carpenters, set designers… imagine the diverse talents with whom Fuglsig gets to collaborate when he creates “first of a kind” vignettes.

Last month the members in my audience at EMC Venues’ MEET voted on questions I asked and saw their cumulative votes appear on the screens on either side of me soon thereafter. They loved it. I only wish audiences had more ways to share and compare all year long. That’s what moms in medicine are doing.

Whatever your profession or industry in which you work you probably get invited to join one or more professional associations. And if you have attended the annual conference you know, first-hand, the power of meeting peers face-to-face to keep up with the latest trends in your work world. Plus some of your closest friendships may have blossomed through gathering at those conferences year after year. That is especially true if you are a boomer or older. Let’s not fall into the Status Quo Trap.

Younger generations are accustomed to text messaging and emailing each other all year long, checking out each others’ profiles on FaceBook, LinkedIn and other social networks. In short, they are forging friendships and finding work contacts online. In fact, many of those entering college need a workshop to learn how to meet and talk in person.

So, like many sea changes, this gap between how people are used to meeting and collaborating is a two-edged sword. The burgeoning use of social media creates discomfort and opportunity. As a frequent speaker at conferences, I have been advocating more interactive meetings, storyboarding them to make them more meaningful and involving social media to deepen the in-person connections all year long. That’s why I wrote about the threat that association professionals face from “outsiders” if they don’t provide more ways for member to interact, as these have done. My fellow MeCo members have picked up the discussion as have Jon at Confabb, Amanda Fretheim Gates and Ben Zeitlin of West Glen.

As my friend Jeff Davidson notes, in this time of increasing social isolation we crave face-to-face meetings with our peers. The high tech of social media is getting user-friendly - even for non-geek boomers like me. That means the high touch of the conference experience can only get better as people can continue to get to know each other when they are not face-to-face.

I’m optimistic. Many of us predict that 2008 will bring a rush of social media adoption among some associations, opening the floodgates for more member organizations to jump in the pool. Certainly if a social media maven goes after an association’s members with an alternative offering, more meeting professionals will be shocked into taking a quick primer on blogs, wikis, vlogs, podcasts, social networks, online groups and more. Dan Parks, Corbin Ball, Joan L. Eisenstodt, Jeff De Cagna and others are leading the way for us. Research indicates this adoption will build trust and innovation. Not a small goal for 2008, eh?

Take one step and you can power two 60W light bulbs for one flickering second. Not much. Yet a rush of fans at a concert or commuter walking through a commuter train station could create the energy for the signs they pass.

How?

Where crowds walk, build, “a responsive sub-floor” of blocks that slip against each other from the pressure of the steps. This “generates power through the principle of the dynamo, a device that converts the energy of motion into that of an electric current” according to two MIT grad students.

James Graham and Thaddeus Jusczyk suggest that this flooring be built into buildings where there is considerable foot traffic. Somehow dubbing this invention a “crowd farm” seems rather drab.

The duo’s other idea depends on bar crowds. Bounce up and down (between gulps of beer) when you sit on their MIT-designed bar stools. Your weight makes a “flywheel to spin, powering a dynamo — or electrical generator — and in turn, four lights.” The Holcim Forum in China gave this stool design “the top prize.”

So I guess if you care about world energy conservation, you’ll get energetic at your favorite watering hole. Imagine walking into a bar for the first time and seeing a crowd of people bopping up and down on their seats as they talk.

Some lower-tech and less expensive ways to generate energy from human power are already in use. The non-profit, Ecosystems designed a pedal generator that’s used in remote parts of Nepal for lighting, water sterilization and more. Each one can produce enough electricity to provide minimum light for 200 homes, or light a schoolroom and run a television and DVD for students. Also cyclists are using headlights that are powered by their pedaling. Hikers’ backpacks are designed to use their walking to charge their cell phones and MP3 players.

Forty days after his fiancée disappears she is found, “badly injured on a mountain road near an abandoned amusement park where her younger brother died.” When she asks him to return a sealed envelope to someone at the park he enters a world where the rides “mystically comes to life.”

Yes this is a novel and yes it mirrors the author’s real life story of redemption, Life’s Golden Ticket.

What role do you want to play in other’s lives over the next chapters of your life story? Well author Brendon Burchard is determined to leverage his value to others through speaking, vivid storytelling in the style of Mitch Albion – and by partnering with causes to help them flourish, and you can too.

If you become a valuable partner for non-profits as Brendon is, you may gain these benefits:

1. Expand the ways, times and places that people hear about you.

2. Create a new reason for people to buy from or otherwise support you.

3. Cultivate strong friendships by acting for the mutual benefit.

4. Inspiring others to propose ways to partner – perhaps with you.

Here’s some of the ways Brendon acts from the sweet spot of mutual benefit (for his partners and for himself) that you could adapt to your situation - whether or not you are an author:

1. Giving a portion of book profits to three respected non-profits that serve his main constituency – young people and the people who care about serving them.

2. Give those non-profits visibility on his web site, in his blog and on his book tour.

3. Inspires others to volunteer for these three non-profits, calling on them to become “miracle workers” like the ones featured in his novel.

4. Offer an “in-person” triple benefit for any non-profit:
• Speak for free at their fundraiser that ties to the book
• Offer books at a discounted price for them to sell
• Provide “a two-hour staff training session on online marketing and fundraising.”

5. Host a sweepstakes timed around book launch where one does not have to buy a book to have a chance to win. When the grand prize is “roundtrip airfare and three nights accommodations for two to a destination of their choice anywhere in the world” Brandon was sure to attract people to his web site, his novel and earlier books, his partnering non-profits and the companies that gained visibility by donating to them.

Here’s two more ways you can partner to boost your visibility and value – and that of your partners:

1. Write positive mini-book reviews (under 50 words) related to your book or your expertise. At the end of the review include your name, book title or name of your business or other organization. Offer these to your local bookstores to tape on the shelves underneath the book you reviewed.

2. Offer to conduct an in-bookstore mini-seminar (that spurs people to buy your book or your product or service). Agree to mention three to five books as follow-up resources and to provide an idea-packed handout for the bookstore to give away for the month prior to your seminar and during it. That handout also lists the recommended books. The seminar is promoted in the store’s newsletter and online.

Not surprisingly, in his earlier book, The Student Leadership Guide, Burchard quotes from George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman, “I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

Thousands of prisoners, nursing home patients and others cut off from freely roaming the world have been moved by the live concerts organized by Bread and Roses.  Famous musicians including Bonnie Raitt, Huey Lewis and Tuck and Patti have been joined by hundreds of other skilled, local musicians, sound engineers, event producers and other volunteers to bring concerts to those leading more isolated lives than most of you who are reading this. If music moves you, then you may be motivated to jumpstart your own version of Bread and Roses in your community. What a way to create a circle of talented friends as you help make music for others, eh? As Maya Angelou wrote in Gather Together in My Name, “Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.”

Since Bread and Roses has established systems to leverage the value of their volunteers in hosting a packed schedule of concerts each month, you may not have to start from scratch. Get more ideas and systems from The ‘Rite of Spring’ Project and other music-to- community non-profits.

From this beloved non-profit’s executive director and my friend Cassandra Flipper and her talented producer and public relations director Marian Hubler, hear how these concerts have lit the lives of so many. Bread and Roses has a poignant back story, intensely loyal supporters and a lively collaboration with local high school students that brings the story to life for you here. After all, as Berthold Auerbach wrote, “Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”

As Taquisha, a performer in The ‘Rite of Spring’ Project, “a sixth grader … wrote (on the Carnegie Hall web site), ‘I think the music is awesome because the music is so strong. If that music is strong, I am going to be strong.’” Amen, Taquisha!  See more at http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2007/12/25/bring-music-to-the-isolated-in-your-community/

Until The New York Times asked for his opinion about this trend, Erik Torkells did not even notice it. Yet he was a part of the trend - and it related to his area of expertise.

Trend: Increasingly, people are traveling together (or meeting in new places) as their way of celebrating special events, such as weddings, birthdays and anniversaries.

Then Torkells looked back on this year and recognized that “…the vast majority of my trips were as much about being with people I care about as they were about the destination.”

Hint: Sometimes we are simply too close to a “Me2We” approach to life that we just don’t recognize it.

How can you mark significant dates with others by taking a getaway trip, enjoy the journey and play in a new place or one that holds special significance? From adventure and cultural travel to spas and taking seminars we can see new sides in each other when we share unfamiliar places.

Next year we already have plans to travel to Miami (speaking and seeing friends), Los Angeles (speaking and seeing god daughter and her mother), New Zealand (speaking and seeing friends), Neapolis, Greece (wedding) and Croatia (meeting new and old friends). Plus several friends are gathering here in Sausalito for a reunion. See more at http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2007/12/24/a-memory-making-trend-you’ll-love/

… so they’ll want to come back next year. How many conferences have you attended where you felt talked “at” by a series of speakers up on stage? Then you rushed between sessions to meet new people and catch up with friends in the hallways. Wouldn’t it be great to have a meeting designed to support you in exchanging ideas with the colleagues most helpful for you? Well, next February many professional meeting planners will be attending a conference that’s designed to in a “Me2We” way – where attendees turn from passive to active participants - interacting more frequently and productively. Then they can celebrate together and to learn from each other. (Not a new idea - just one that is spread too slowly for some, including me.)

Want your next conference to be more meaningful and memorable? Via Jim Louis, one of the adept moderators of a closely-knit online group to which I belong called MeetingsCommunity (MeCo), I discovered MeetingsNet’s coverage of the innovative formats for the conference, “MPI Meeting Differently”:

“To improve the trade show experience, MPI is changing the layout of the exhibit hall. One innovation is something MPI calls “conversation spots,” freestanding circular plexiglass towers that are divided into quadrants and placed in high-profile spots around the exhibit hall. The idea is to provide a more intimate meeting area for exhibitors and attendees than they normally find on the trade show floor.

Organizers tinkered with more than just the trade show format. New concepts include:

a. The “Conversation Café”-a learning environment based on a coffee shop.

b. “Book clubs” - discussions led by book authors and subject matter authorities.

c. Wikis - each educational session will have its own wiki pages to encourage pre- and post-session communication and collaboration.

d. Educational sessions in “soft seating” or lounge-style meeting environments. Most of the 80 educational sessions will eschew a traditional classroom setting. Instead they will be held in the round to facilitate interactive learning and discussion.”

My faint hope is that this is the tipping point to make meetings even more interactive so attendees find in each other fresh ways to be mutually-supportive. Even as a “professional” (aka paid) speaker I’d welcome more short (20 - 30 minute) “meet the expert” sessions around 8-12 person tables, with a bell ringing so you could move through three sessions in a block. Then the mix and mingle times are more fun and valuable. That’s because you’ve probably discovered some people who share your interests and gotten a sense of whom you might like and respect enough to talk further.

For an invitation-only gathering, have inclusive, action-inducing rituals like the TED conference or Rennaisance Weekend.

Plus why not let attendees vote on the topics, speakers and session formats they most want?

And why not ask all invited speakers to 1) submit in advance, three of the tips they will present, then 2) receive an email of all speakers’ tips and be required to 3) refer to at least two other speaker’s tips as they complement the speaker’s message. Thus the conference would have more continuing threads of themes.

Also why not have lively panels of inside and outside experts (1. journalists or columnists, 2. researchers at investment banks, and 3. veteran, respected exhibitors) who see, from a different perspective, the sector represented in the conference. Give each panelist just seven minutes to offer their best two pieces of advice for attendees. Encourage attendees to submit written questions as they listen. Volunteers could gather the questions, sort for best mix for the strong and well-liked MC to present to the panelists to answer. As attendees leave the meeting room, they are given the handout with the written version of panelists’ tips and their bios. Thus attendees see more candor and pertinent content - in a contagiously active way. Who knows? That may lead to more unconferences.

Speaking of partipatory, hear holiday cheer that’s guaranteed to make you laugh with joy. My way of wishing you a (me2we) holiday you savor - with others .

Literally see how two nerdy brothers, Hank and John Green, became closer by restricting their communication, helped causes – and are celebrating this holiday with the world. Their tightly orchestrated, viral “Me+Me(brothers)toWe” campaign method is one you could adapt for your own purpose. It launched the brothers and their allies to the top five spots on YouTube. A first.

Tips we can glean from their success:
1. Conceive a “first-ever” campaign where all participants gain visible bragging rights.
2. Make your first partner someone you know very well.
3. Keep the concept simple and visual.
4. Create a new word and a slogan.
5. Make it easy and fun to participate.
6. Have a start date and an end date tied to familiar holidays.
7. Create and adhere to specific rules.
8. Find a way each participant can support a cause.

Here’s the Brotherhood 2.0 story as told by ReadWriteWeb’s Muhammad Saleem.
See more at http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2007/12/22/first-ever-way-to-celebrate-the-holiday-brotherhood-20/

…. don’t have to.
Not every opportunity is collaborative.
If it is more effective to go alone, go alone.

“If you want to go fast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together…”
- African saying

Hat tip to Jeff Hamaoui via Social Edge for his blog post that launched an intelligent discussion on six tips for successfully partnering to make major global changes happen. Regardless of the size or scope of your intended collaboration, if you want to involve unlikely allies you will find his insights mighty instructive.

See http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2007/12/22/don’t-collaborate-when-you-…/

From carpentry to cooking, from pediatrics to pest control - who do you choose or turn to for answers?  Soon you may have a top-of-mind web site to find the best expert.

That is the same place you want to be seen as a trusted expert. Plus, when you share your expertise, you can get paid. You rake in some money - if your insights are top rated by others. And you’ll become more well-known around the world for your knowledge.

Just hop aboard the brand new google-backed plan to beat out the trailblazing Wikipedia - or be complentary. That’s a lofty goal. Yet, in true Me2We fashion, google is offering participants money and perhaps more glory than Wikipedia. Thus google may suck the crowd their way. They promise that they will “highlight authors” yet, as Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins notes, it may need “a strong guiding hand” to serve the common good.

Stepping on the stones of incremental yet innovative change provided by Seth Godin’s Squidoo and Jason Calacanis’ Mahalo and the smaller Citizendium, google’s Knol (units of knowledge) will be a leap forward in the collaborative sharing of best and latest information - again free to all. A far leap from the top-down sharing of knowledge in the printed volumes of encyclopedias.

Plus, as John Blossom observes, Knol may provide a more efficient way for you to compete with others to become the most respected, “subject matter expert” than, say About.com. Yet it may also represent a possible conflict of interest for google.

To set a high bar for quality, google has invited certain experts to make their best contributions in this “by invitation only” beta stage. So create a google alert for Knols so you can be among the first to share your knowledge when it opens to public participation.

Get a peek preview. Unlike Rob Hof, I believe that, by this time next year, Knol could be the most widely linked to best place for finding credible answers. What a sweet spot for finding the experts with whom you may want to collaborate. Also for being discovered by the kind of partner with whom you’d want to work.

See more at http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2007/12/21/share-your-smarts-for-money-and-the-common-good/

Have you ever been on a team where things just fell apart? Or was dominated by complainers (or worse) or endless, circular talk or caused another risk? Or one person (perhaps you) got stuck doing most of the work? Wouldn’t life be more fun and productive if we understood how to create higher-performing and happier teams? Especially in a convergence culture.

Birds do it. Bees do it and so can we, as collaboration expert, Belfast-based Ken Thompson has proven. His methods have been been successfully use by groups as diverse as the Northern Ireland band Kharma45, a forum of day-traders, a hospital and WIMPS - a countrywide movement to get the youth re-involved in politics.  After studying virtual and in-person businesses, teams and other groups, Ken discovered why some succeed and others fail. In fact he’s launched a new program, based on the principles of nature, called Swarm Teams. Consider it the next mobile step after Smart Mobs. You can use it to recruit mobile online groups to promote your cause, or product or community. It’s about turning audiences into communities.

Yet, in this podcast Ken describes the questions and steps he used to get individuals animatedly talking about how they could help each other - thus becoming a team.

Then hear how you can attract avid swarms of support. With Ken’s SwarmTeam technology:

1. Any group member can take the lead (Are you an Alpha Swarmer?)
Any member can broadcast to the group, create their own swarms, invite others to them and create links and content.

2. Integrated Messaging across phone and web
The ability to message every member of your swarm in one click on any device without worrying about how they are connected.

3. Small is Beautiful …..and Big is Powerful
“Swarm Communities” are multiple swarms on common topics of interest providing scale yet maintaining the small group dynamic.

4. You can reach the many through the few
Engage individuals within their communities via their trusted relationships.

Even when injured, Cody McKibben was a steadfast, creative and savvy teammate to launch this blog with his elegant design (thank you, again Cody!) so, from first-hand experience I recommend his insights on the power of teams and mastermind groups. I found his post via one of my heroines, Penelope Trunk who thinks us boomers stink at being team members.

See more at http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2007/12/16/be-an-alpha-swarmer-attract-fans-start-movements/

Few people grow up and stay in the same town all their lives, with the same friends and family members just a short drive away. We meet people at college. We jump around in our jobs. Settle down. Life flies by. For many of us, our dearest friends are not down the street.

Yet we want to keep them close. One of the most popular ways we can share the news of what’s happening in our lives with those we hold dear is online scrapbooking - with others or are in our hearts yet far away. You have many ways to share photos, video vignettes and your thoughts and stories with others - without the whole world seeing them.

What a gift - to co-create such scrapbooks for a friend’s birthday, your parents’ anniversary celebration, your club’s annual party - and more.

Among my favorite online helpers are Dandelife, Story of My Life, Multiply and MyFamily.

Yet one of the first and most user-friendly (asks questions to get you going) is OurStory. It enables you to keep “a lifelong interactive timeline” with others.” It was founded by Andy Halliday. In this podcast Andy describes ways you can collaborate with others to celebrate the poignant and the triumphant chapters of your life stories together.

What if more people, so far away from home this holiday, were being celebrated with a tribute from those who know them best? For those your admire and love, more than anything you could buy in a store, give the gift that evokes tears, laughter and most everything in between. Start now with Tribbit.

Want to meet other Shih Tzus owners? Find a fellow skier, cyclist, kayaker or climber? Get a pick-up basketball game wherever you are? Start a team?

Organize a speaker series, and charge attendees? Get a free web site and/or social network site where your new group can gather online? Or provide the event calender others use to find meetings?

Jump on a growing trend. Use extremely user-friendly online services (many are free) to enable people with passionate, shared interests or needs to actually meet in person. Quickly, in some cases. Facilitating face-to-face meetings is one social media trend that continues to grow in popularity while others are beginning to wilt.

Want to be the popular Connector to arrange gatherings with people who share your interest? Find a free meeting place, announce your meetings and invite others to come - even charge for attendance, as Edith Yeung does, keeping her overhead next to nil, using PayPal. You can do it all at MeetUp. Next step?  Soon you can start an alliance of local groups.  See more ideas at http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2007/12/12/organize-a-meeting-share-interests-make-money/

The unpopularity of top-down management is old news by now. Yet how, exactly, does one create an openly collaborative organization? One that’s based on the power of peer relationships? One that can thrive?

The best Peer2Peer groups are efficient, adaptive and resilient resource-maximizers. That’s why they include “good” and “bad” groups. They are exceedingly good at outmaneuvering their opposition in this flattening world. They include Toyota, Wikipedia, AA, craigslist, Skype - and al Queda.

Yet “flattened” leadership is not a modern notion, notes Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom who believe it enabled the Apaches to evade a much larger Spanish army for 200 years. In their book, The Starfish and the Spider they offer six signs of a starfish, a decentralized group:

1. When attacked, it is more likely to become even more open and decentralized.
2. One can mistake a starfish for a spider.
3. A ‘starfish-style” open system doesn’t have central intelligence, rather intelligence spreads throughout the system.
4. Open systems can easily mutate.
5. A decentralized organization sneaks up on you.
6. As industries become decentralized, overall profits decrease.

To confirm that an organization is a starfish, observe:

1. Is there a person in charge?
2. Are there headquarters?
3. If you thump it on the head, will it die?
4. Is there a clear division of roles?
5. If you take out a unit, is the organization harmed?
6. Is power and knowledge concentrated or distributed?
7. Is the organization flexible or rigid?
8. Can you count the number of employees or participants?
9. Are working groups funded by the organization, or are they self-funding?
10. Do working groups in it communicate directly or through higher-ups?

In the authors’ rather ghoulish metaphor, starfish (representing headless, decentralized groups) can survive when legs are ripped off while spiders can’t. As H. Soza notes, “Many of our problems today are the result of leaders who try to defeat “starfish” entities using “spider” techniques (e.g. shock and awe, surges, lawsuits, hostile takeovers, etc.) We waste energy, treasure and lives because we have been too lazy to truly understand what we are fighting, or the actual opportunity that stands before us.” Some think the book over-simplifies.

While many of the authors’ examples involve large groups, the same principles hold true for any start-up, cell group centered or one-time project team. “We” can succeed when recruited or by recruiting individuals with much less money or contacts today. Yet we need the right mix of talents, an agreed-upon goal and rules of engagement - and a capacity to work with extremely diverse people, it seems.

See more ideas at  .... http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2007/12/07/why-al-queda-and-aa-are-succeeding-and-you-can-too/

“Go slow to go fast” I remind myself (too late) as did this other Scandanavian. See what’s already made a half million people laugh.

Then see my favorite second, third and fourth “go slow to go fast lessons” from around the world, right here at tbs’s very funny ads. Sometimes one can’t run fast enough.

Be kind to all, as who knows what’s happened just before you met each person or what he fears or how things may turn out? Ah, art in ads. Now, back to work. See the links
http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2007/12/07/our-laugh-break-“go-slow-to-go-fast”/

Got a minute for a recap of what’s happened so far? See the lecture offered by University of Pennsylvania intellectual historian, Alan Charles Kors. Unfortunately, you’ll need Real Player to view it. Below is a written summary. Hopeful notes: (for some) irrigation strengthens community and (for more of us) the many benefits inherent in the “cooperation of strangers.”

• First, tribes: tough life.
• The defaults beyond the intimate tribe were violence, aversion to difference, and slavery. Superstition: everywhere.
• Culture overcomes them partially.
• Rainfall agriculture, which allows loners.
• Irrigation agriculture, which favors community.
• Division of labor plus exchange in trade bring mutual cooperation, even outside the tribe.
• The impulse is always there, though: “Kill or enslave the outsider.”


• Gradual science from Athens’ compact with reason.
• Division of labor, trade, the mastery of knowledge, plus time brought surplus, sometimes a peaceful extended order and, rules diversely evolved and, the cooperation of strangers - always warring against the fierce defaults of tribalism, violence, and ignorance.
• No one who teaches you knows what will happen.

This is not the first time Kors has stirred lively conversation about “our” behavior. Yet it may inspire you to explore more of the remarkable research at SAS. Now what do you recall from your past history with others?

http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2007/12/07/hear-about-our-whole-human-history-in-60-seconds/#more-127

Why discover how to make self-led teams succeed? Because, in this flattening world, more of us are thrown into the self-led situation.

And, more alluringly, we can have more fun and make more money, according to Alex Linksker. Can’t beat that name for someone who writes on “organizational democracy.”

He boasts, “We boosted annual profits by over a million dollars in four months.”

Find his “800 refrigerators” real life story for team building in the new normal world here.

My favorite: “Big teams had teams-within-a-team.” Then you may go dancing around too.

See more at http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2007/12/04/“800-refrigerators”-approach-to-self-led-teams/

From the Slobberknockering changes in pro wrestling to the appearance of Cartoon Network clips on YouTube “entertainment” is changing. Some fans are becoming co-creators. New kinds of businesses and individuals are now distributers. What role would you like to play?

Want a window into the future of entertainment? Attend next year’s Futures of Entertainment conference at MIT. The 2007 conference just ended this weekend. “You see entrepreneurs mixing with educators, admen with game-world architects, artists with engineers,” notes Jesse Walker of Reason magazine.

“In 2006, at the Friday night reception, I sat between an officer in a small gaming company and an anthropologist studying Firefly fans,” Sam Ford told me.

See more at
http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2007/12/03/what-role-will-you-play-in-entertainment/#more-85

… down San Francisco’s hilly streets. That’s Jonathan Glazer’s captivating way to announce Sony’s next generation of TV sets, with “colour like no other”.

That prompted the ultimate compliment, a parody.

Yes, unexpected tumbling and color are “in”. Move on to watch the exploding 18,000 gallon paint dance over a block of abandoned Scottish high-rise buildings, set to a celebratory Rossini score. Just 70 seconds.

That was Danish director, Nicolai Fuglsig’s creation, perhaps influenced by his past work as a photo journalist covering Kosovo.

Now, ready to see Play Doh bunnies hip hopping across New York streets?

But we saved the best for last, perhaps inspired by The Way Things Go.

In a remote Argentine village, Fuglsig and team create a mega-dominos game that tumbles down through town to tip furniture, tires, burning haystacks and, well, we won’t spoil then end for you. Just 90 seconds. It is Guinness’ most expensive ad ever – and virally well worth it. But these ads-as-adventures will spoil you for the “regular” ads you (non-Tivo users) must sit through when you watch TV.

Detonators, animators, carpenters, set designers… imagine the diverse talents with whom Fuglsig gets to collaborate when he creates “first of a kind” vignettes.

See the rest at http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2007/11/28/sending-250000-colored-balls-bouncing-…/

Busy bees. Yep. “The busiest ‘hive’ is the (formerly) student “hive,’” notes Mark Brooks, to the surprise of few who go online. More people check in more often at Facebook than at any other online social network. But few people guess the name of the second busiest hive.

See the rest here http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2007/11/27/second-biggest-“people”-hive-on-the-planet/#more-96

I got this strange idea in eighth grade. To run for student body president is not a surprising decision for most outgoing, popular people.

But I was neither. In fact I tended to daydream, read books that were not on the required list, and sit in the table at the far corner of the cafeteria with the only two friends I had, Denise and Janice. What unfolded within two months led me to discover the single best method to succeed (sometimes) in new endeavors.

Perhaps more importantly, looking back, it enabled me to savor my life with some remarkable and remarkably diverse people who became my friends. Here’s what happened

See the rest at
http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2007/11/27/your-fastest-path-to-greater-success-and-friendship/

When a dot com founder and a real estate developer can bankroll successful movies for profit or for noble social goals, then the movie studios better watch their backs. They have more than the writers’ strike to worry about in a power shift that L.A. Times reporter, Patrick Goldstein predicts will crack open the movie business to further ground-breaking alliances (and inspire you to create your own.)

Like other hyphenates (as Marci Alboher knows), the writer-director of “Michael Clayton,” Tony Gilroy, was thrilled with the opportunity to use his multiple talents – and add one - “entrepreneur” to his tool-kit.

Notes Goldstein, “Hollywood is a town awash in hyphenates. TV is loaded with writer-producers. The movie biz is full of writer-directors. There’s even a legion of actor-filmmakers like Clint Eastwood and George Clooney … .see the rest of the story at
http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/page/2/