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Getting my kids into the tangable

In art,Books,business,computers,culture,family,k ids on August 11, 2011 by mstevensrev

My work allows me to be around amazing technology and the people who make it. I have worked intimately with leading companies and gotten to see first hand the artistic nature of writing code and then it coming to life. For most consumers though this elaborate process simple becomes a means of consuming content, the creative is behind the curtain and often ignored.

I started thinking about this because of a conversation with a new friend where in talking about raising children she mentioned the importance of having books around in addition to the ‘screens’ that are apart of our daily existence. She said, “I want my kids to have something tangible.” Which stuck with me.

Tangible things create limits very quickly for us. That is the magic of technology, Ray Ozzie said that the entire reason he started programming is because he knew if he could imagine it, he could create it. There is a huge difference though in my mind between creating and consuming. When I pick up a trumpet I immediately run into the limitations of my lips, training, lungs, and everything else. When I play a trumpet on Garageband I am free of many limitations.

As a parent of three kids I am often looking for the easy way to get through situations, and I am keenly aware that is not the best. Hand a kid a screen, and they will be entertained for an hour, teach the kid what about life the screen makes magical and they will be caught up in the wonder of life.

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Seth Godin & his talk on revolution

In art,blogging,Books,Evangelist on June 25, 2011 by mstevensrev

Stevens & Seth Godin, he complained about the lighting the entire event...I see why

Yesterday I spent half the day listening and talking with Seth Godin at his interactive session in Seattle. Okay perhaps I was just listening but there was plenty of questions being asked and thoughtful wrestling going on. Much of what Seth shared was wisdom from his many books, especially Lynchpin, The Dip, and Poking the Box. The only one I had not read was Poking the Box and I’m excited to get to it.

The event open with the gospel music of Fivacious! They were beautiful, of course ended up sitting behind us and Karin and I totally chatted them up.

The highlight from Seth’s comments was about being in a project world, not a factory world. The factory places people at companies that have the right skills, the project knows the goal of what is being accomplished. This fits into my understand of sales, consulting and ultimately what I want to do regarding business. My ability to quickly assimilate information, high emotional intelligence, and natural curiosity makes this very good work for me. Seth’s encouragement is that we are to draw the map, rather than merely follow it. This reminds me of a post from my friend Dick Staub, check out the post here.

Another great encouragement from Seth was to challenge our kids with problems to solve, and let them enter into the big problems we are thinking about whether it regarding politics, healthcare, faith, or whatever. He mentioned bringing the toy drinking bird and getting kids to talk about how it works. When talking about this it was a personal challenge for me to continue to feed my curiosity and that of my kids.

Overall what made the event so great was who I was there with. Of course having my wife gain some insight into the world I feed myself on by listening to Seth was wonderful, we had a date night that night so we were able to really bat around some good ideas and thoughts. I invited another friend who immediately seemed to catch a fire. Then a husband of a old client ended up attending with us. They are not only involved in very cool vocational work, but are deeply thoughtful about artists and children and trying to change the world through their work both in their jobs and outside. My goal for the event was to take people with me that would be the most inspiring folks in my network and who I would most want to spend a morning with. I am grateful it ended up being that!

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Articles

>Becoming a masterpiece

In Books,culture on October 30, 2010 by mstevensrev

>Did you know that Michaelangelo’s David was made from a piece of marble so ruined it was deemed of no value by other artists? This is what I just read in Dick Staub’s book, About You. There are two parts of this that blow me away. First that artist have to, usually because of cost, work with rubbish to make their art. These are the prophet’s of our age and they are left with ordinary means, often less then ordinary.

Second what a beautiful picture of God’s kingdom. Anyone who thinks of themselves as rubbish and unworthy is exactly who God turns into David. In my own life I recognize God is working with a mess, weak and fragile. The place of faith is believing that there is a David under there and to live in that.

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>Middle-brow culture

In Books,culture,Theology on October 27, 2010 by mstevensrev

>Reading About You, by friend Dick Staub, I came across a concept I found fascinating as Dick recounts a conversation he had on a plane where the gentleman referred to “middle-brow culture”.

“Fleshing out the idea of ‘middlebrow,’ he described highbrow culture as elitist and academic and lowbrow culture as diversionary and vacuous, adding, ‘America once had a thriving middle-brow culture.’ In his definition, ‘middle-brow individuals’ are interested in thinking through ideas and issues, but are turned of equally by both highbrow pretensions and lowbrow mindlessness.”

This is the world in which I live, thoughtful but not academic. I have never been in a classroom that didn’t make my skin crawl unless I was the one teaching;) This group to me are the culture drivers in any society. They are the ones who can take what the culturally elite are thinking, synthesize (though I’m not sure that is the correct term), and push the populous to engage and/or blindly adopt. It reminds me of the movie, White Squall, from the ’90s about young men on a sail boat, and at the moment of crisis ‘Chuck’ Gieg has realized he does not know who he is. One of the other young men on the boat says, “You are the glue. Don’t you get it, we wouldn’t be here if it were not for you, you are the glue that holds it together.” This group is the glue.

Many times those of us who fall into this group feel like less than masters and more like generalist. Perhaps we are more of generalists but that does not keep us from mastery. May those with this gift and calling move boldly and intentionally into the cultural fray. In a world where the amount of content doubles every eighteen months, the ability to name what is good and not evil is extremely valuable. ” C. S. Lewis, in The Abolition of Man, maintained that there are certain acts that are universally considered evil, such as rape and murder. On the other hand, many acts now considered evil have been termed as acceptable in some societies at different times.” This value of this work will be recognized monetarily but also by saving people from despair.

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>The Revelation of the Golden Pyramid

In Books,business on March 13, 2010 by mstevensrev

Reading Awakening the Entrepreneur Within has been a good exercise for me which I have been inspired, at times overwhelmed and wanting to give up, and generally encouraged that I can do this. Before I take it back to the library I wanted to take some last notes on the “Enterprise”. When you understand business systems, there is the ability not just to start a business, but to start hundreds of businesses.

Here is the strategy:
1. Identify Old Co. – these are the marketable skills that you currently possess
2. Make a list of every single vertical niche market you could conceivably provide your service to – these make up customer categories
3. Identify your trading zone – geographic area of customers (I question relevance for web based products/services)
4. Pick the ten most appealing Customer Categories
5. Pick the one most appealing Customer Category – where is the money:) I like this because success these days is not necessarily making the next walmart but rather getting followers that will evangelize your product or become your tribe
6. Learn everything you can possibly learn about this one customer category – who are they, passions, hopes, buying habits, etc.
7. design client fulfillment system – must have the means to get it out there
8. design your lead conversion system – person is interested…must be ready
9. design your lead generation system – sales 101
10. test effectiveness of your new practice – do it, track, measure
11. document – weakness of mine, have trouble doing this within my home which would yield quick results must be disciplined about doing this in business
12. Create your surrogate practitioner agreement – legal, trademark/patent make sure you IP is taken care of
13. Recruit first surrogate practitioner – these will be folks you take through the previous 11 steps
14. Train your first Surrogate partner
15. Build your business management system – monitor performance of practices, improve operating system, expand the capability
16. Replicate

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Articles

>never eat alone

In Books,business,Friends,Fun,Reading,Theology on December 29, 2007 by mstevensrev

>Great title for a book by Keith Ferrazzi is excellent. Not really into writing summaries of books because I don’t do them justice. My approach is more day by day, taking in something new or being inspired to action, here are two points that hit me today:

“Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Those rewards create almost as many problems as they solve. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter so the world will at least be a little bit different for our having passed through it.” – Rabbi Harold Kushner

Keith on his career and the lack of balance: “For me, the best thing about a relationship-driven career is that it isn’t a career at all. It’s a way of living. Several years ago, I started to realize that connecting was actually a way of seeing the world. When I thought and behaved in that way, dividing my life between professional and personal spheres no longer made sense. I realized that what made you successful in both worlds were other people and the way you related to them. Whether those people were family people, work people, or friend people, real connecting insists that you bring the same values to every relationship. As a result, I no longer needed to make a distinction between my career happiness and my life happiness-they were both piece of me. My life.”

A few years ago I read a book called “Season of Life: a football star, a boy, a journey to manhood” by Jeffery Marx. It changed my life, by stating many of the parts of my worldview but had never expressed. This book “never eat alone” did the same for me. So much for not summarizing huh? God is glorified when we love his creation, and we (people) are a significant part of that creation. The more I understand about myself and my story I see that I have been gifted in this pursuit. Keith Ferrazzi nails it for me and applies this worldview to work practice whereas “Season of Life” applies it to coaching

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