Next, please…

With this blog entry my week as a host for the Imagine Blog ends and I hand over to the next host in the list. I hope you enjoyed the topics I brought to the table and had a good time here on this blog.

I’ll still be watching closely what happens here and in the Xing community, and I’m also looking forward to start some closely related projects like nCourage with you.

Keep it up!

Dropping Knowledge

At Imagine 2007 you’ve seen two videos “What’s Your Tree” and “The Question Movie” from Dropping Knowledge. There are lots of other great movies in the films gallery.

By the way: Dropping Knowledge uses Creative Commons licenses.

Creative Commons

In the Open Space session about networking I mentioned Creative Commons, a non-profit organization that uses current laws to overcome copyright’s limitations in a legal way. With Creative Commons licenses you can make your writings, songs, videos available for free and allow others to legally share, reuse and remix your content.

Here’s a video that explains what Creative Commons is all about:

Creative Commons was founded by Lawrence Lessig. Have a look at this blog entry to see him explain his ‘baby’. He has a remarkable presentation style and really knows how to explain complex ‘legalese’ to standard people.

Web 2.0: The Machine is Us/ing Us

The web has become more than just a technology. Have a look at this video to understand what you became part of already:

Looking back at two Imagine conferences, I wonder how interested you are in technology. Although I couldn’t find a topical interest in technology itself, most of you use various technologies effectively to achieve your goals.

I see some similarities between the mindset of Imaginers and the mindset of people interested primarily in technology (Well, that’s why I joined you). It could be an interesting idea to connect people from both worlds just to see what happens.

To find out, here are some excerpts from the ethics some technology specialists (sometimes referred to as ‘hackers’) believe in:

• Above all else, do no harm.
• Protect privacy.
• Waste not, want not. Resources should not lie idle and wasted.
• Exceed limitations. Limitations must be overcome.
• Communicate. People have the right to communicate and associate with their peers freely.
• Leave no traces. Keep quiet, so everyone can enjoy what you have.
• Share. Information increases in value by sharing it with the maximum number of people; don’t hoard, don’t hide.
• Defend yourself to overcome larger, more impersonal, more powerful forces that can control your life.
• Find problems, and tell people how to fix them.
• Constantly test the integrity of systems and find ways to improve them.

Does that sound familiar?
Do you see any parallels to your thinking?
Or is this just some other people’s business?

What is Your Mission?

Imagine has been a place for you to find out about your personal goals, the path you want to take, the achievements you’re going to strive for.

Your goals can be social: save the environment, help to build up education in a developing country, motivate people to change the world with small actions.
Your goals can be business: find a new job, move up in the company’s hierarchy, earn more money.
Your goals can also be very personal: lose weight, stop smoking, learn a new language.

Some people tell you how to define your goals correctly, using techniques like SMART for example. SMART means make sure your goals are specific, measurable, attainable, rewarding, and timely. But only few people apply those principles to their goals.

This is why I separate between a goal and a mission. A goal is whatever you believe a goal is. A mission is a clear picture of what, when and how.

If your goal is to find a new job, your mission might be to start as a project manager for a CSR consultancy before July 1st this year.
If your goal is to stop smoking, your mission might be to not smoke a single cigarette for the next six months.

While a goal can be vague and general, a mission tells you what to do next. And if you still can’t find out what your next action should be, a mission enables you to asks others for help.

Have you identified your mission?

• Can you describe it in less than 60 seconds using less than 100 words?
• Can you explain it to people that don’t have the same background as you?
• Do you know how you recognize that you’ve successfully achieved your goal?
• Can you imagine how it will feel like for you after you achieved it? And does it feel good?
• Have you set a deadline when you’ll either have achieved it or will stop trying?
• Do you sometimes feel confident that you’re going to make it, and other times you feel unsure if you can really do it?

If you cannot answer all these questions with a heartfelt yes, you might probably want to take some more time to think about your mission.
However, if you can answer all these questions with “Yes!”, you moved a big step towards success.

If you’re still stuck with your goals and haven’t yet identified your mission, you’ve just come to the right place. Tell us about your goals! Ask your questions! Let the Imagine community help you define your mission!

The Risk of Failure
You probably noticed the last question above: Do you sometimes feel confident that you’re going to make it, and other times you feel unsure if you can really do it?

I put it there, because I believe that for a real mission you cannot be certain to achieve it at all times. Of course, you should feel confident most of the time. But there has to be a risk involved, a chance to fail. If you don’t believe you can fail, it’s just a job you do, not something you feel passionate about.

Risk is what makes the difference between doing something good and doing something great. That’s why many people don’t start their mission, or don’t keep going.

Keeping Up
If you know your mission, you reached an important milestone. You already put a lot of work into it, and it surely was hard to get here. But you’re just about to realize that this was only the beginning. On your way you’ll certainly experience that although starting something can be hard, finishing it is even harder.

You need motivation and support to stay on course. I know from my personal experience that the best type of support you can get is from people who understand your mission and who have an interest not so much in the mission itself, but in seeing you succeed. They often find the right words to get you back on track.

Project: nCourage
I’d like to invite you to a social experiment.

• Do you have a mission?
• Have you just started your mission, or are you about to start it?
• Will your mission end in six to nine months, or are you planning to reach a really big milestone in that timeframe?
• Do you have these mixed feelings of confidence and uncertainty to succeed?
• Could you use some help to keep up and stay motivated?
• Are you willing to share a small amount of your time (~30-60 minutes/week)?

If you can again answer all these questions with ‘Yes!’, I’d love to hear about your mission and invite you to nCourage, a project / experiment I’m setting up, based on collaboration, tapping the power of networks and putting some technology to use.

Your mission doesn’t need to be linked to Imagine and isn’t required to be social in any way. If you have a personal mission or something in your job this is just fine. Should you be in a position to choose from a couple of missions, please focus on one of them for nCourage.

If that sounds interesting to you, please drop me an email at n-courage@slaser.com with:

• a short description of your mission (you know my definition of ‘mission’)
• your current status (What did you do already? What are your next actions? What are the challenges you struggle with at the moment?)
• a language preference (English or German?)
• your contact information

I’m going to get back to you with details on nCourage either through email or (based on the number of Imaginers interested) here on the Imagine Blog.

Looking forward to hear from you.

Meet the World

What happens when you combine some countries’ flags with some of their social statistics? You get a fine piece of art. And possibly you start a discussion.

Icaro Doria is Brazilian, 25 and has been working for the magazine Grande Reportagem, in Lisbon, Portugal, for the last 3 years. He is part of the team (with Luis Silva Dias, João Roque, Andrea Vallenti and João Roque) that produced the flags campaign which has been circulating the Earth in chain letters via e-mail. [...]

The campaign has been running in Portugal since January 2005. There are eight flags that portray very current topics like the division of opinions about the war in Iraq in the United States, the violence against women in Africa, the social inequality in Brazil, the drug trafficking in Columbia, Aids and malaria in Angola, etc.

http://www.brazilianartists.net/home/flags/

Global Warming Not a Top Priority?

This (seriously!) is a good argument against going to do something about global warming. A good way to demonstrate reasoning at work, and a good way for you to find out if you’re impressed with arguments, or if your opinion is based on something beyond reasoning.

Economist Bjorn Lomborg makes a persuasive case for prioritizing the world’s biggest problems, asking “If we had $50 billion to spend over the next four years to do good in the world, where should we spend it?” His recommendations - based on the findings of the 2004 Copenhagen Consensus - controversially place global warming at the bottom of the list (and AIDS prevention at the top). Lomborg was named one of the 100 Most Influential People by Time magazine after the publication of his controversial book, The Skeptical Environmentalist which challenged widely-held beliefs that the environment is getting worse. Now the Danish economist is taking on the world’s biggest problems with his Copenhagen Consensus. (Recorded February 2005 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 17:27)

This is a video from TED. I recommend having a look at TEDTalks and I apologize in advance for stealing your time and getting you addicted to a lot of profound presentations.

Changing Minds

Although I left Imagine 2007 on late Saturday evening, my name mysteriously appeared on the list of bloggers for the Imagine Blog you made on Sunday.

So I’m going to put some stuff on here this week, starting with my presentation from Saturday. You can find it here, over at my blog. But beware: it might not be very useful to you, if you didn’t join the talk.

Thanks again for the great conference, the good organization and for the many inspiring conversations I had with many of the attendees and speakers.