Life - Servant of Chaos

There Are No More Boundaries

Community, Life, Performing Social Media, The Social Way

The 1950s were a wonderful time. It was a time of nuclear, loving families, safe neighbourhoods and white picket fences. In our local communities we knew the butcher, baker and grocer. The mayor would tip his hat as he passed you in the street and the boy next door delivered the newspaper each day on his rounds. It was a time when professional and domestic spaces were separate – as much by who participated in them as by the clock.

We latched onto these distinct notions with fervour. Deep in our psyches we ingrained the borders between work and home, public and private, and professional and personal as though they held “the truth”. In a post-war world, these distinctions helped us find our place – in the world at large and the smaller, mirror-worlds known as “work”, “community” and “home”. It was our need to BELONG and our desire to PARTICIPATE that drew us to these distinctions and turned a “role” into a way of being. The very act of performing these roles then served to strengthen and solidify them.

Soon we began to identify ourselves with these roles. We left our names behind and adopted these roles in their stead. Rather than “Gavin Heaton”, I would be a “marketing professional”, or even more specifically, a “director of social media”. This meant that the answer to the question of “what do you do?” became even more critical. The society’s shift of emphasis away from community value (I am a father, coach of a soccer team, husband and intellectual journeyman) to personal, professional value (I work at Acme Co) further served to reinforce the distinctions, ascribing a value to the professional/public life over the personal/community/private life.

Even the term “work/life balance” contains this dichotomy. It presumes that there is work – and then there is the whole of the rest of your life hived off in some other (smaller) compartment.

And yet while these barriers have remained in our thinking, they have been undermined by our behaviours. The widespread corporate retrenchments that shook the 1980s marked a fundamental shift in the way that we behaved – even it if had not yet affected the way that we thought. We went from a “job for life” behavioural commitment to a “career for me” action. The sense of security in the workplace was replaced by suspicion (on both sides of the management fence), and the individualism of era was given the face of Gordon Gecko.

Interestingly, these changes were forced upon us. We did not choose them, nor were we coerced or cajoled. As Mark Earls points out, achieving a change in behaviour is difficult.

In the decades that followed, our sense of belonging and participation fragmented, becoming narrower and narrower. We were able to effectively create and manage our fragmented personalities because they were disjointed, unconnected and unconnectable. This personal determinism set in place a regulated paradigm of thinking. Operating within small enclave our behaviours and actions reinforced this mindset.

But the connected (or social) web changed all that.

Our actions and behaviours in one sphere would be surfaced in our dealings with another (I like to think there is a level of subversion taking place here – along the lines of what Mike Arauz calls desire paths). The way we act and behave in business ripples across these connections and impacts the network of Facebook friends, website readers and Twitter followers. Our carefully crafted reputation no longer holds water – living instead in the active recommendations, connections, suggestions and star-ratings of our social networks. Just like the brands that we work for, we have become hub-and-spoke manifestations of our personalities.

But it’s not just digital.

Sure, social networks have surfaced the connections that we spent decades separating. But it is in the real work – the real connections – that value of the network is realised. It’s in the phone calls and coffees. It’s in the collaborative projects and workshops that result. It’s in the conversion of a recommendation to a sale. And underlying all this is reputation.

Whether you like it or not, your reputation is bursting out. It is racing ahead of you – out of reach and far beyond your control. This what I mean when I say “there are no more boundaries”. It goes beyond what we own – to the heart of who we are. It’s about purpose.

It’s The Social Way.

Australian Asylum Seekers Infographic

Activism, Facts & Figures, Life

Each year the Australian population swells. There are babies born and plenty of smart people moving to our country. And there are people who arrive here seeking asylum. But what are the percentages – and should we really be worried by the numbers of people desperate enough to risk their lives arriving by boat on our northern coast? This infographic from the folks at Crikey tells the story (HT to Tiphereth Gloria).

They look like one percenters. Statistically, that makes them bloggers, tech evangelists or early adopters.

Seriously, it’s about time we stopped whining about the “dangers” of these arrivals and started living up to our international humanitarian obligations.

Learning About Local Action: Our Efforts to Save the Bushland at Castle Hill

Good Works, Life

When I first came to look at the house where I now live, I was struck by the towering trees and the piercing blue sky that framed it. It seemed amazingly “Australian”.

To my great surprise there was a large undeveloped block of land behind the house – quite a rare sight in this neighbourhood! Over the last 100 years or so, this land had been variously an orchard, grazing land for dairy cows and bushland native animals. Prior to that it was part of the the government farm that encompassed this whole area, setup in 1802 to help feed a starving colony. The traditional owners, the local Dharug people – and their famous warrior chief, Pemulwuy have lived here for millennia.

castlehillfarm

Since the early 20th Century by a family of German migrants, the Pragers, who had strenuously resisted any efforts at subdivision. But after their death, the land was sold and development planned.

While this was going on in the background, I was enjoying the occasional stroll through this “local forest”. The Pragers had introduced a range of plants but there was still a thriving crop of native bushland that seemed to be home to all manner of native species. Certainly the male Gang-Gang Cockatoos loved the 200 ft trees to showcase their genetic prowess – screeching across the valley in search of a mate.

But what I didn’t realise until reading the species impact statement accompanying the development application was that this site was home the critically endangered Sydney Turpentine-Ironbark Forest. In the last 200 years we have decimated this once plentiful tree species – with less than 5% remaining in remnants only.

The land also contains another “endangered ecological community” – the Shale Sandstone Transition Forest – and serves as the home, feeding and roosting grounds for up to six threatened species. Just on the surface, it appeared that this small pocket of remnant forest deserved protection.

A group of local residents got together to discuss a response. We wanted to preserve as much of this bushland as possible. We wanted to allow future generations to be able to imagine what the local landscape once looked like. And we wanted them to be able to experience it first hand – close by.

But for many of us, engaging with development applications – with the processes of review and approval at the Council and Government levels is beyond our experiences. So in many ways, residents groups face an uphill battle articulating – in the right form and at the right time – their objection or opposition to plans.

But we wanted to try. In fact, we gathered over 70 signatures at two public meetings. We’re learning a lot as we go – and are documenting as we go. If you are part of a local residents group, then I hope you can learn from what we are experiencing.

You can follow our experiences at our blog – Save the Hills Bushland – and you can join our Facebook Page too (the more the merrier!)

Time to Improve Communication – The Hills Shire Council Pulls a Swifty

Life

reservedland One of the the things that I liked about moving to the leafy Hills District of Sydney’s north western suburbs was its history and its environment. Known as “Sydney’s garden shire”, the Hills Shire Council’s website proudly proclaims its focus on “lifestyle” and “heritage”. Reading the details, it seems like a wonderful community in which to live. The surrounding area was the site of the colonial government’s third farm, established in 1801. You can picnic in what’s left of the Government Farm not far from where I live – it’s a small chance to engage with colonial history in our local area. There is, however, very little in the way of colonial buildings or structures in this area – it was predominantly farmland and orchard, so was easily converted for suburban development.

So when we moved into a house bordering 14 acres of undeveloped bushland, I was excited. This land contained remnants of the original native bushland (and habitat) – and provided a welcome relief from the suburban development that has seen Castle Hill and its environs transformed from orchards and farmlands into its current state in a matter of decades. It also provides an important source of shade and a place for the passing breeze to be cooled on its way through the valley.

For miles around, you can see the towering gum trees behind our house. They are home to a number of threatened species – bats, cockatoos and small marsupials. It is a sanctuary for native animals and attracts bird life from miles around. I’ll admit I feel a little spoilt.

But over the last couple of years, this local reserve has dwindled in size. Development had been approved on the vacant 14 acres and was going ahead. Even though our property bordered this area, the Hills Shire Council had not bothered to inform us of the development. They had published it on their website, and I guess, considered they had done their duty to inform the community. Luckily our next door neighbour had noticed – just in time – and pulled together a group to protest. I felt like the council had pulled a swifty – but perhaps it was just a lack of communication. A lack of community consultation …

An environmental impact statement showed that the endangered species needed to be protected, and accordingly a small section of the land was set aside. It has remained under management protection since then – fenced off by a six foot high fence and not accessible at all. It’s a very small, isolated block of forest. Recently a development proposal was submitted that seeks to incorporate this remnant forest into a single block of land – with construction permitted at the far end of the block. This time, thankfully, we did receive a letter from the council asking for our input.

But while looking into the proposal, we stumbled across another proposal by council. They have a plan to replace the current six foot high wire fence with a steel, colorbond version. So rather than being able to glimpse the forest through the fence, we’ll be confronted by a wall of steel. It will substantially increase the reflected light and heat in the immediate area and it will prevent ground based wildlife (such as frogs) from seeking refuge from the scorching summer sun. Again, we were not informed of Council’s intention. Was this an oversight? Was it on purpose? Again, we feel like council has pulled a swifty. Almost. We have until tomorrow to respond, which we intend to do.

But for an institution which claims to support lifestyle and heritage and aims to attract new residents and new businesses to the area – the Hills Shire Council is severely lacking in adequately communicating its intentions to local residents. It’s one thing to publish information – it’s quite another to communicate and engage a community. While I hope that council does not proceed with the fence, I also hope that they find a more adequate method of communicating with local residents.

Note: on the Google map above you will be able to spot the vacant 14 acres. However, a large proportion of that land has now been consumed by new development.

When the Story Gets Personal

Life, Smart Bloggers, Storytelling

Some time ago, Paul Isakson took a walk on the wildside.

He recently presented his journey – a personal journey with professional insights – to the Planningness conference in Denver. He explains How you can wander with purpose – how you can begin to look at your own life with the framework of storytelling.

One of the wonderful observations that Paul unearths in this is the clear connection between purpose and story – between the personal and the professional, and the almost-always murky chaos that we call our lives. In a way, perhaps, he’s asking What’s the Measure of a Life?

This is a pared back presentation. It’s pure text (which I love) – and it resonates. Read through the 40 slides. It will take you less than five minutes. And it will remind you that “where you do what you do matters a lot”. It certainly does. Make sure your day today is full or purpose – and intensely personal. You owe it to yourself.

How To Wander With Purpose

View more presentations from Paul Isakson.

RUOK? How Can We Change a Life?

Community, Good Works, Life

This Thursday, October 7, is RU OK? Day. It’s the day when we’re all encouraged to ask someone whether they are ok. Sounds trivial, right? But this simple act can help reduce the chance of suicide.

Look around you – at your family, friends and colleagues. Ask “are you ok”? Listen to their response. Be interested. It’s important – it’s important because each year in Australia, suicide claims more lives than the road toll. It’s an epidemic, and yet many people struggle with the isolation and desperation that drives them to take their own lives.

Now, I have written previously about suicide and men’s health – for the Black Dog Institute and Riding4aCause as well as working with Mark Pollard to create and publish a book of stories called The Perfect Gift for a Man on depression and male suicide. I would love for this to no longer be a problem in our society – but it remains a very real issue that touches us in many ways. As Cathie McGinn explains, it is hard to ask the question, but:

I’ll never know if there was anything I could have done, if one single question would have changed the course of events. I don’t know whether it would have changed anything, really, but I’ll always regret not reaching out.

I currently have a member of my extended family experiencing a profound depression. He sits in a chair and cries all day. His family don’t know what to do. Their house is being repossessed. Their young children are distraught. And local doctors would like to hospitalise him, but they do not have medical insurance – and there are no public beds. It’s a powder keg, and it’s completely avoidable. But this one family is being torn apart needlessly. And I am sure it’s not an isolated case.

Asking RUOK? is important. But we also must go much further. We must fix the living tragedy that exists right under our own roofs.

The Measure of a Life

Life

In the cut and thrust of life we can easily be consumed – with our work, our preoccupations, our illnesses (real or imagined), with projects, friends and family. We keep incessantly searching for the next thing – something cool, someone beguiling, an opportunity that comes once in a lifetime … and yet, in our restless efforts to attain our desires it’s far too easy to overlook what we already hold, easily, within our grasp. For contentment can never be found somewhere other than where we already are.

As a younger man, however, I could not grasp this fact. I rushed from experience to experience as young men do – seeking an anchor always somewhere over the nearest horizon. Along the way I caused chaos – in my own life and in the lives of others. To this day, I still recall moments of loss – that I caused through a careless word or deed; and with hindsight I realise now that these moments could have been recovered, could have been changed even after the words had escaped my mouth. I chalked most of these up to “experience” and promised myself to never make such mistakes again.

What I DID learn from my own mistakes was that it’s hard owning yourself. It’s hard being responsible for your own actions, your own health and the impact you make on others. It’s hard to find a place where you belong and difficult to commit to relationships with others who are also struggling to do the same. In the process we often confuse power with love without realising they diametrically opposed. We hurt others or are hurt by them as we wheel from one experience to another – and slowly (if we are lucky) we accumulate a sobering wisdom, or are drawn in upon ourselves, falling into depression, or loneliness or an abundant narcissism.

For some time I have been pondering this great article by Clayton M Christensen – it asks a simple, but difficult question: How Will You Measure Your Life? This question seems to be at the core of the tangents I have been thinking about (and living for decades). He proposes that we look at this through three lenses:

First, how can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career? Second, how can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness? Third, how can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail?

That last one is cautionary – but worth considering. After all, the pursuit of your goals can lead in unexpected directions, and the repetition of tiny indiscretions can lead to misdemeanours that if, unchecked, can compound at an alarming rate. Read the whole article – it is well worth it.

But at the core of all of these focuses is one thing: purpose. Now, the interesting thing about purpose is that it’s not something you need to find – it’s something you need to accept. Think for a moment about a personal catastrophe. What if you lost all that you had? What if all those external things – those things by which we measure our stature – were wiped from the face of the earth? How would you feel? I know I would be saddened, but so long as those I care for were safe, it would have little consequence. A purpose tends to attach not to things, but to people.

Over the last week this has come into sharp contrast for me. Last friday, my cousin’s 10 year old son lost his battle with cancer. His was a too short life – but it was lived with all the energy and courage that he could muster. I cannot fathom what it means to suffer such a personal loss. I cannot imagine what it takes to share your son’s passing with his siblings. And I cannot see how any words or deeds would help to ease the sense of loss.

But I know that the measure of that little boy’s life is not counted in bits and bobs. It’s in the richness of memories – a smile, a touch of the hand, the favourite bedtime story shared. And it’s in the raw challenge he leaves behind – to live bravely in the wake of tragedy. Peace, Rex.

The Wilderness Where You Live

Creativity, Life, Social Media, Storytelling, Web/Tech

When I arrive at this site, The Wilderness Downtown, I have no idea what to expect. I know it’s a “chrome experiment” and that it uses Google Maps but that’s pretty much it. The site asks for only one thing – the place where you live (or more precisely, the place where you lived). Already I’m settling in for an experience. I can already feel the powerful pull of nostalgia deep in my gut.

On a whim I decide to enter the childhood address of my grandmother. I am interested to see what this experiment may yield – especially considering what Google Streetview was able to yield in my genealogical enquiries. I am hoping for a different kind of story, perhaps a visual panorama – a mashing of time lapsed images that recreate the emotional landscapes that we once inhabited. Expectantly, I click the Play Movie button and turn up the sound.

The soundtrack pumps and browser windows spawn across my screen. There’s a man running down the street. He’s hooded and he’s pounding the tarmac as though the music is driving him forward. It could be the same street. It could be any street in any city.

In another window I see the street where my grandmother lived. I’m flying with a flock of birds, cruising what is now the high density fringe of the inner city of Sydney. I don’t recognise it from up here – it’s all warehouses and flat roof buildings. Then, on the ground, at street level, I recognise the brickwork, the panorama. Suddenly the aerial view matches up and I recognise the still existing row of slum terraces clinging to their city purchase.

The man’s still running. He’s not looking back. But in a way, that’s what I am doing. I am struck by the changes on the landscapes in which we have lived for generations. I am reminded of the personal stories and current dramas of close friends and family – of unexpected and almost fatal accidents and their aftermath; of diagnoses of cancer and the challenge of its treatment; of chronic pain and helplessness; and of the growing awareness of ageing and what it means to see your own history fade before your eyes.

There is wilderness downtown – and this amazing web experience leads beyond my description. Experience it for yourself – you’ll be surprised – or click here to see what I saw. But there is also the wilderness where you live – where you must live – where you can only live. There is a wilderness in our own hearts.

Be sure to explore it while you can.

Advice from Fathers to Daughters

Creativity, Good Works, Life

I often find great websites and content by clicking on a random link on Twitter. I then tend to leave the tab open, letting what I read soak into my mind while pursuing other work.

Some could call this multi-tasking – but it’s much less conscious, much less directed. Perhaps it could be considered “creative”.

The other day as I scanned TweetDeck, the tool that I use to manage the vast chattering hoard that is Twitter, I noticed a link to a letter from F Scott Fitzgerald to his daughter. The eleven year old was away at camp, and her eloquent father had written to her to help her navigate where best she placed her energies. This list of things to worry about, things to not worry about, and things to think about I plan to share with my own girls.

Things to worry about:

Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanship…

Things not to worry about:
Don't worry about popular opinion
Don't worry about dolls
Don't worry about the past
Don't worry about the future
Don't worry about growing up
Don't worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don't worry about triumph
Don't worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don't worry about mosquitoes
Don't worry about flies
Don't worry about insects in general
Don't worry about parents
Don't worry about boys
Don't worry about disappointments
Don't worry about pleasures
Don't worry about satisfactions

Things to think about:
What am I really aiming at?
How good am I really in comparison to my contemporaries in regard to:
(a) Scholarship
(b) Do I really understand about people and am I able to get along with them?
(c) Am I trying to make my body a useful instrument or am I neglecting it?

I really love the last bit. It’s about purpose. It’s about our place in the world. And that’s something to seriously think about.

Genealogy, Streetview and Public-Private Histories

Life, Social Media, Storytelling

Over the last month or so I have begun researching my family tree. It’s a fascinating research project that involves matching names with stories and stories with memories. It combines official government records with personal letters, and certificates with box brownie photos. I have been amazed at what I have been able to find – and how many traces my ancestors left as they lived their lives.

Of course, the ease with which I can find historical data relies on the digitisation efforts of various government departments around the world as well as what must be massive projects undertaken by various private businesses such as Ancestry.com and Genes Reunited who provide scans of various records from electoral rolls to immigration/passenger lists. All this is bolstered by the work of volunteers who manage local historical groups or genealogical societies – producing books, databases and websites.

One of the most interesting pieces of information that I found relates to my grandmother, June. She died when I was about 12 but looms large in my memory. I wanted to delve deeper than the more generic official records would allow. And when I happened across an electoral roll record for her – I was intrigued. What would her daily life look like? What did the streets look like in her day – and how different are they now?

Then I remembered that the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney has an extensive collection of historical photos available on Flickr. I trawled through the Tyrell Collection, seeking images of Pyrmont from the 1900s, finding a great image of the local public school. Surely she would have walked past this building as a young woman.

But what of her home? I had heard that a large number of buildings were demolished during the early 20th Century. Bubonic plague, poor sanitation and redevelopment had seen many neighbourhoods razed to the ground. Perhaps her house had been one of them. On the off chance, I put the address into Google – perhaps there was a story captured somewhere that was relevant. Useful. But it was Google Streetview that made my eyes pop. Clearly this was the house that she had shared with her brothers, mother and sisters – crammed together in Pyrmont.

It made me wonder. We are already sharing so much of our lives online – in a readily accessible, searchable format. In a way, we are self-documenting our lives for future generations. They won’t need archaeologists to dig through layers of sediment to determine what we ate – they’ll be able to read our Twitterstream. My descendents will be able to trace my movements via Foursquare, cross match it to my blog posts and learn about my friends and acquaintances via Facebook.

Our private histories are – with a small effort – open book stories ready to be pieced together by anyone willing to make the effort. From a family history point of view, this is fantastic. It is also a continuum that began hundreds of years ago. After all, I have now seen NSW Governor Darling’s handwritten script permitting the marriage of my fourth great grandmother to a man transported to a convict colony for life. I have seen the signed ticket of leave granting their freedom, and I have seen the X which is the mark signifying their consent to marriage.

In the torrent of life and the every flowing tides of history, sometimes these stories are the only things that anchor us – to our past and our present. And for many of us, the trivialities that we share – a coffee spot, a “tweetup”, a funny website or link – contain not just banality, but the full emotional force that carries across time and space. And this, perhaps, is what “social” media is really all about.