Grits

Going fishing

Almost anyone who has struggled with making a job or career change has asked themself, "What is it I want to DO with my life?"

This is a pretty good indication that you aren't all that satisfied with whatever you are doing in your job right now. There could be lots of outward reasons -- not enough money, no challenge in the work, too much challenge in the work, bad boss, etc.

Whenever I have asked the question of myself, and I have many times, once I get past the outward stuff, it always comes down to "no meaning." IOW, I didn't feel like I was making a difference or contribution, either to the workplace or to anyone else in the world. But it took me awhile to figure out what to do about this. Prayer helped a lot!

During one period of my life (about 10 years), I actually worked at one advertising agency THREE TIMES because I was escaping other jobs that didn't satisfy me. Now, in all fairness, each time I returned to the ad agency it was for a better position, but I wonder if it wasn't because it was "familiar"?

Now I am in a different position. About a year and a half ago I finished a 7-year job that was the MOST fun, MOST fulfilling and HARDEST job I have ever had. Seriously. It was like everything I had learned in my 25-year working career was brought to the table to be used and then WAY MORE was required to achieve results.

When it was time to leave (and it was time), I was even satisfied that I had left nothing of myself on the table. IOW, I gave it my all (and more than I thought I had!). And I NEVER asked myself, "What do I want to DO with my life" because I was doing exactly what I wanted to do: make a contribution, to my workplace and to the larger world.

So, back to where I am now. Once you have had that feeling of fulfillment and meaning, nothing else will do. Sure, you could say "OK, I have done it!" But that is not for me. There is more to do. That's how I am feeling now....I don't ask myself what do I do, cuz I know. But what form should it take now?

I pray a LOT about this because I know in my heart that God wants the talents that He has given me to be used...to be expressed. These aren't "my" talents, they are His that I am reflecting. He wouldn't give them without creating the opportunity for them to be expressed. There is no doubt in my mind that the most wonderful job I have had to date was made possible by God. He hasn't stopped being God, has He? Then He hasn't stopped loving me and giving me the opportunities to express His nature.

This week I was reading the Bible story from John about the disciples meeting Jesus after he had been crucified. When he died, they just seemed to scatter...and many of them immediately returned to their former occupation of fishing (sounded familiar to me!). Only, this time they caught absolutely nothing. What's up with that? These guys were professional fishermen, following many generations of fishermen, and still they caught nothing.

And then Jesus appears on the shore, only they didn't recognize him (they thought he was dead, so how could they see him?). And he kinda drives it home by asking them if they have any fish. SInce they didn't he gives them a tip (I think this is funny, coming from a carpenter): "Fish on the RIGHT side of the ship..."

Lo and behold, they couldn't even bring up the nets because there were so many fish!

And when they came to shore, and there was fish on the barby, they finally recognized Jesus. They must have known this was a bigger deal than just going fishing.

In Science and Health, by Mary Baker Eddy, the author describes her understanding of this experience:

"Convinced of the fruitlessness of their toil in the dark and wakened by their Master's voice, they changed their methods, turned away from material things, and cast their net on the right side."

Many Bible scholars consider this "right side" as meaning the right motive or purpose of the disciples' work. Evidently what Jesus wanted them to do was be "fishers of MEN"...to continue the work of teaching humanity about their true spiritual natures as children of the one God.

So, Jesus wasn't teaching them new technical aspects of being fishermen, they had that nailed. But he was enlightening them as to their true purpose in life.

Here is another tip from Ecclesiastes:

Be generous: Invest in acts of charity. Charity yields high returns.

For me, this message is clear: to continue in some form the good work of serving humanity. I won't -- can't-- return to my previous life of marketing and strategic planning ...unless these are part of my tacklebox in being a fisher of men :-).

Volunteering pays off

Boy, was I wrong in a blog I wrote several weeks ago on volunteering for political campaigns.

I said that I could volunteer as long as I didn't become invested in the outcome, because I got so burned emotionally the last time when my candidate lost.

Who was I kidding? I volunteered for a Santa Fe mayoral candidate and of COURSE I got invested!!
You get up-close to the issues, the other campaign workers, meet the candidate and talk one-to-one, daily compare what the other candidates have to say...yeah, it MATTERS if my candidate wins.

But this time around I did something smart. I prayed. Not for my candidate to win, cuz I don't think that asking Spirit for specifically outlined actions, especially if it impacts other people, is fair. What I focused my prayer on was, How does Spirit, or God, govern His creation? Since He is the Creator of all living things, then He must be the Supreme Governor. And since He is all Love then His government can only be good.

So no matter what happens in the election in a tiny corner of His universe called Santa Fe, Spirit is still governing, still showering His creatures with good.

I also had to change my thinking about the other candidates too. If every living thing is created by God that includes all the candidates, not just mine. God is blessing each one, and each one can (ultimately) only do His will. Not my will or someone else's will, but God's will.

This made me think of a description in the Bible about the sons and daughters of the Creator: the elect of God. So we are ALL elect -- and elected by Him to be His good children. We are all elected...How cool is that?

This filled my heart with peace the night before the election. My candidate didn't win, but I am not emotionally bereft. In fact, in further discussion with fellow campaign workers, there is a feeling that many issues are just gaining momentum in the public forum. And that there is work to be done to continue what was started.

What really matters? Doing good for your family and community. Sometimes your guy gets to be the head honcho, sometimes not. But doing good still needs to be done. That's what I am invested in.

Spiritual Lessons from Open Source Technology

The common misperception about open source technology (by people who are not working with it) is to merely think of it as free code that anyone can use to incorporate in their own system. Programmers are given permission to use it and the code itself is “open”, meaning it is based on a universally accessible and applicable source code (called “kernel”, created by Linus Torvalds). 

The deal is, however, if you use the code you have to contribute back to the open “library” the code that you created with it. Pretty fair deal, seems to me. Because once it is back in the library, other programmers can use “your” code and adapt, enhance, build, improve....and you can go back to the library and use the expanded code again. And again. And...well, you get the point.

When you think about it, this method of ever-developing code from programmers in all different walks of life, organizations, countries, and time zones  is like having a 24/7 IT department of the best programmers in the world. Because the bottomline is, not that they showed up to work, but that the code has to work.  The worldwide community of programmers – peers –judge whether or not the code performs in a myriad of applications. Not your boss, your peers provide the ultimate proof.

While workable code is the output, it seems to me however, that the power of open source technology is its strong platform of ethical code. This is a worldwide community with no hierarchy or conventional management. Sounds chaotic, no?  But there are principles in operation that bring order, discipline, quality, performance, universal benefit. Not once in a while. Consistently.

One of the most profound principles is open source’s culture of giving. The code library builds exponentially because programmers are contributing the fruits of their labor back to the whole community. True, that is the “deal” – but is anyone checking to make sure that they do? Fact is, programmers WANT to give back their expanded code. They believe they have developed something of value that others can use. So they share it.

IOW, “I’m doing this for me, but here – you can have it too. No strings. If it can help your work, that is the only payment I want!”

A couple of quotes come to mind: “All for one and one for all” (Alexander Dumas, The Three Musketeers), and “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Christ Jesus).

Think about it...the more you give, the better it is for everyone else.  But the neat thing is, it can actually come back to you even better! Why hang on to something proprietary if you knew, without a doubt, that by letting go it would come back to you way better? The technology community has figured this out in a big way.

Wouldn’t it be cool if all businesses worked like this? And not just technology departments, but whole organizations  -- marketing, content, R&D, operations-- realizing they can share whatever secret sauce they have in the vault, because sooner or later it will come back to them even better than they could conceive on their own.

Technology is proving the value of community contributions, mutual support and unrestricted benefits. The value of universal giving.

And that’s not all. There is more to the ethical code of open source than giving. What kind of spiritual qualities do you see in open sourcing?

Spirit and Politics

The last political campaign I volunteered for was for the third-party Presidential candidate, John Anderson, in the '80's. Kinda depressing, actually. It was more of a cause than a campaign -- tilting at windmills for a viable third-party because the two dominant parties weren't responding to the issues of the younger (at that time) generation. Haha -- funny that I am saying that now!

Anyway, I was soooo disappointed in the process, the outcome...the politics, that I vowed never to get involved in a campaign again. Because it felt like it didn't matter, after all the effort. Oh, I still voted, still had an opinion about the issues, but I didn't get invested in the outcome. (BTW, the 2000 Presidential campaign totally changed my mind about one person making a difference!)

Fast-forward to 2006. I now live in Santa Fe, NM, which is way smaller than the big cities that I have spent my whole life in. What a breath of fresh air, literally and figuratively. The physical beauty of the place truly takes my breath away: the huge blue sky, the sunrises, the sunsets, the weather coming in, the mountains, the mesas, the aspens (summer AND fall).  So, yeah, I like it a lot.

But culturally, it is really really different from any place I have ever lived. In fact, the motto of Santa Fe is "The City Different". You gotta live here to know what that  means...and what that means to you.

One thing that makes me tick is figuring out what makes other people tick. It's my personal device for learning how to  fit in, adapt, communicate, relate, feel comfortable. My current challenge is to figure out what makes Santa Fe tick! So I did something I never thought I would do again: join a political campaign. Oh yeah.

It's the Mayoral campaign and there are 5 people running. I thought, what better way to connect with the community than to work door-to-door? So, I picked a candidate based on the ideas and campaign issues that meant something to me and volunteered at headquarters.

I made a deal with myself that I would do whatever was needed, including talking on the phones which is my least favorite thing to do. Because my motive now was to really understand the community, not advance my issues. This has made a change in the way I approach the politics. Now I am listening, not pushing...I am sharing, not demanding.

I had a spiritual insight the other day while on the phones. If you are the person being called by someone you don't know, there's a tendency to feel like a "sitting duck": you are kind of trapped into a conversation you don't necessarily want. So I was thinking, how can I change that? How can I change my thinking about what is going on that can improve that?

A really good friend of mine who is a professional spiritual healer says that whenever the phone rings she thinks, "Perfection is calling!". Meaning, that whoever is on the phone is the ideal and perfect creation of Spirit. See, by identifying the caller in a totally good way, she is actually loving them before she knows what the caller wants. That's unconditional love to me.

So I decided that before every call I would mentally "announce" myself to the person I was calling, "Perfection is calling!" ...in other words, the ideal of Spirit is calling the ideal of Spirit. Immediately, this made me care so much more for who I was calling. The conversations were positive (even if we disagreed) because I listened and shared...and loved.

This campaign has already made a big difference for me, in The CIty Different. The election is in March, but I feel like I have already won so much in my connection with the city and each ideal of Spirit.

In need of a lift

So my mom called me. Not unusual, in and of itself. Ever since I moved from San Francisco to Boston, I call my mom every Sunday night. It's our time to catch up on the week's events and what's up for the next. My mom is an email nut since I got her a WebTv about seven years ago. So, during the week we are constantly chatting.

But this was the middle of the week and I was at work. "Didja hear? Scott Peterson just got the death penalty."

Sigh. I am a long time foe of the death penalty. It is not "intellectual" for me, although statistics support my position: not proven to be a deterrent to killing, potential for putting innocent people to death is proven. It is deeper than what is going on in my head.

Seems to me that one of the benefits of a progressing society is its ability to lift  the citizenry higher in outlook and action than the individuals would on their own. It's the power of the rule of law. When a person kills another, and the law determines they are guilty, the punishment shouldn't be the same act as that which the criminal performed. Then we are no better. If the reason is to give the family a sense of "justice" or satisfaction, that sounds suspiciously like revenge. No virtue in that.

I lived in California when that state changed from life in prison to the death penalty. Oh, much private and public soul-searching, debates, vigils, despair -- on both sides of the issue. The morning after the midnight execution, people in downtown San Francisco were huddled around newsstands (this was several years before the Web, if you can imagine). And -- I am not making this up -- there was a dark mood in the city that day. The decision didn't then, and doesn't now bring satisfaction. The citizenry is not served.

I wonder if anyone has done a study that marks when a state reverted to the death penalty and the rate of death crimes to see if there is a correlation? It has occurred to me that once a society accepts death as legitimate that dark atmosphere pervades and aids crime.

And that's not my only reasoning. I look at things many times from a metaphysical standpoint. It's my heart compass that tells me right or wrong. It's based on a firm belief (cuz I have seen proof) of a Higher Power's hand in my daily living...as long as I am true to a good, righteous life. I am not convinced that death is a penalty of any kind. Nor is it an end of living. A life here, in prison, being reminded every moment  -- even in dreams -- of the crime committed, would be a far worse penalty.

Then, from a spiritual perspective, there is true Justice. That which is meted out by the Higher Power with the purpose of correcting wrong behavior, for as long as it takes. Ooooh, I am figuring this takes place wherever and is the ultimate. How could lowly man improve on this?

Scott Peterson broke a human law and a divine law. Death does not aid, nor will it change the correction that he must eventually learn, here or hereafter.

Back to my mom. For years, we were on opposite sides of the issue. You'd think I would just avoid the discussion, but she suckered me into it by saying "No, I really want to hear what you think. Maybe you've thought of something I haven't." Of course, I hadn't.

But somewhere in the past several years, mom and I agreed. I don't know what it was, maybe just the futility of it, but one day she announced to me that she agreed with me.

So when she called me the other day, it wasn't the news. She was disturbed and saddened. And she knew that between the two of us we could lift each other up just a little.

Deep Despair

I am a rabid Cal (University of California) Golden Bears fan. Football, mostly, but I even get puffed up when Cal gets another Nobel prize winner. As if I had anything to do with it!!  Ahh, reflected glory.

Being on the East Coast, a Bear gets pretty lonely, not only because California and everything associated with it is in a galaxy far far away: the whole notion that a public school can be so renowned and respected in academics and sports is an anomaly. But that's not my point...there is an East Coast connection here, however, if you can hang in there.

Last summer I visited my mom in Northern California and lucky for me the Cal Marching Band was playing in a polo field at her retirement community (yeah, that is a funny juxtaposition).  More than the football team, I love the band. In fact, I love any kind of band music: big brass sounds, woodwinds, drums. John Phillips Sousa forever!

Well. I digress. Back to football. If you have been following this year's BCS bowl matchups (mismatchups) then you might know where this is going. The USC-Oklahoma Orange Bowl is a good one: numbers 1 & 2 (ranked that way for most of the season) is a big duh. But then it starts to fall apart. Number 3 is meeting Number 6, Utah. Why? everyone says "well, they were undefeated." So what? Everyone also says Utah is a "mid-major" -- a nice way of saying they don't play in a very tough conference.

Anyway, all that (the strength of the competition AND the win-loss record) is factored into the statistical ranking process. And they ranked 6. Cal was ranked for the latter part of the season Number 4. Consistently. The only loss was to USC, which was a very close game and could have been won by Cal at a couple of stands. So logic would tell you that Cal should have gone to the Sugar Bowl to play Auburn, Number 3. But no. However, that is OK, because to a Cal Bear, it is all about the Rose Bowl. The third big bowl game is the Rose Bowl. Beating Stanfurd (find your own dang link) is way up there, but the Rose Bowl...that is nirvana.

So you'd think that out of three Bowls, Cal as number 4 in the nation would be going (hey, six slots?). But no. Texas, ranked Number 5 is going and playing Michigan (ranked what??).

Oh the depths of despair. Collective despair -- the emails were flying, articles (even NYTimes) written about the injustice and the dark maneuverings. See, the whole season we all had been living with great football. Statistically, plus the opinions of Coaches and AP reporters. And that should have been rewarded, no?

Yep, this is a sensitive issue for me right now. And I have not been quiet about it. Many of my colleagues know how I feel and are offering their condolences. They are probably faking it, but I will accept them at face value.

This morning, however, I was stopped in my tracks. And here's the connection to the East Coast (I promise you, you will have not seen this one coming).

A colleague asked me, "Gee, which makes you feel worse: Cal not going to the Rose Bowl or Kerry losing the election?"

I have been a Golden Bear most of my life. I was a Kerry supporter for, oh, 10 months.

I am still thinking about it.

The power of good

In my previous work life, I was consumed with advertising. It was my profession and my entertainment. Come on, who gets to say that about their work?! The Super Bowl was about the advertising, not the sporting event. Dinner get-togethers almost always including discussions of most-liked and least-liked ads, starting off with "Didja see the one...".  It was fun...and funny.

At some point, maybe around year 20, advertising became kind of "silly" to me. Maybe you are thinking, "it took that long?"  I believed (and still do) that advertising has an essential function: it communicates the value proposition of a product or service to a prospective customer and tells him/her where to get it. Simple, right? But it wasn't that simple, it was complicated by personal opinions, conflicting data, no data, corporate issues and politics. Complicated by life, I guess. Other than occasionally impacting everyday lexicon ("where's the beef?"), advertising wasn't leaving any noticeable residue on humanity. Not good enough for me. (And with all the money spent in spreading a message, seems to be a lost opportunity.)

So I asked myself, "would it make any difference to the world if there was one less product advertised or one less advertising agency?"  Guess that was the beginning of the end of my long career in advertising.

But a new campaign by eBay has given me new faith in advertising. The only line in the print campaign, and the main message of the tv spots, is "People are good." I have heard Meg Whitman, big head of eBay, talk about this as the basic premise of why eBay works as the largest market in the world. So this "meme" or mantra (as Guy Kawasaki would call it) isn't just an ad campaign, it is the guiding light for the company's ethic.

Man, when I first saw this, I thought two things: that's the power of advertising, to convey a positive message to the market not only about the company, but about its customers! The second thing I thought was, I wished I had thought of that!

I wished I had been in on the creative sessions. I wished I had been in on the presentation to the client and the client discussions. See, in my work now, I see the effect of good and right thinking. Good is a tangible power that scoops up all best efforts and ideas and knits them together to bless humanity. It's a halo effect that gives momentum to the activity.

This eBay campaign does so much more than promote eBay. It makes me feel good about me and my fellow man. It doesn't get much better than that.

Boomers, move over

Yeah, i am talking to myself actually. Which is kind of fitting for my first weblog. I am doing this because if I dont, my fear is I will be spending downtime watching reruns of Law and Order and CSI. Not good (maybe I needn't add that, but just in case I want to be clear).

I read on a recent blog that blogging is over. Figures. I just wake up to a burning desire to do this (last weekend) and I find out it's over. Well, that is another reason I am blogging now (even late): I hate hate hate being behind stuff I am supposedly passionate about (business, technology, spirituality, innovation). Used to be that I thought if I read enough magazine articles (books are not fast enough), I could keep up. Nope. Print is behind. Bad place to be. Learning (moi only) is not in reading per se, but in engaging.

My hope is that this discipline is going to impel me to engage more with ideas before they are fully formed -- even help others in connecting the dots. Like my friend Kathy who prodded and cajoled me into doing this. We all need people like that in our lives. I want to be a prodder too, not just the proddee.

So, back to the point about Boomers. I attended a conference last week in NYC. It was put on by Forbes magazine for CIOs. It was pretty good and there were some high points ("Corporate Speed Dating" with Keith Ferrazzi changed the dynamic of the whole meeting, very cool). And there were good, informative panels with CIOs from Fortune (sorry!) 50, 100, 500 companies.

But the head-snapping session was with Max Oshman. Max is a partner in Sixth Floor Developers, an award-winning and very successful web developer primarily in the music industry (McCann Erickson is working with Max to pitch the Army on a recruiting website). Max has written a couple of books on Flash programming (which he helped pioneer). He has been doing this for 5 years or so. He is 19 years old and a freshman at NYU. Yeah, do the math.

But the reason he was on the dais, in a one-to-one conversation with the Publisher of Forbes, was because his company of developers is spread all over the world. He hasn't met any of his developers because they are in Croatia, UK, wherever. Just recently, his company got their first "office", in NYC. And only because they had to have a central place for the servers and support.

What blew me away was that Max had so much presence -- not cocky, just sure. He wasn't intimidated by being in front of these CIOs of very very large companies. He knew a lot about something most of his audience did not. And he was secure in that. What also blew me away was that he represented achievement that is upside-down of the typical boomer recipe: go to college, go to college to get a job, climb the ladder, earn the right (after 20 years or so) to be on a stage in front of your peers sharing your experiences.

Someone asked him if success meant that he was going to have to dress differently (haha! the boomer corporate uniform!), and he said "If I didn't dress up to come here..." (t-shirt with a collar and jeans). Another questioner asked why he was going to college at all....since he was already successful in work. Oh wow, this made me fall off my chair. A boomer goes to college to get a job. Max said he wanted to be more sociable, and his fear is that he could get stuck behind his computer screen all day. College makes him get out and meet people.

The Maxs are taking over now. They are changing the way business works now. I wish I could be Max.