The Snarky Optimist

Hashing it out: best practices for avoiding and dealing with hashtag hijacking

2012-01-30T07:32:00.000-08:00

“Them chickens jackin’ my style; they try to copy my swagger.” – Black Eyed Peas

Most Twitter users have been exposed to one instance or another of hashtag hijacking: be it a spam tweet making its way onto an event’s Twitter wall, or a critical tweet posted in an otherwise self-congratulatory community stream, hashtag hijacking is now a common practice in the shark-infested waters of social marketing campaigns.

While spambots usually can be managed through careful content curation and reporting mechanisms, sentient users who choose to tweet with a hashtag for purposes other than those intended by the creator—or those who try to shift the conversation onto a different, problematic hashtag—can be trickier to deal with.

Selecting a good hashtag

There are many best practices for selecting a good hashtag to suggest for community use. Keep in mind that often several competing hashtags will emerge, and gradually the community will choose one that seems to work best—a choice often based on character count, attractiveness, popularity, key influencer adoption and ease of identification.

If you are going to pitch a hashtag to the community for use, it is important to consider how your hashtag will be received, especially in choosing the wording.

When Kathryn Marshall of Ethical Oil began tweeting about the new hashtag #oilsandspride, she no doubt intended it to be a vehicle for outreach and promotion through which users could express their support for Canadian oil products.

But Twitter users quickly began associating the hashtag with another well-known context of the word pride. I don’t think that the creators were thinking of jokes about rainbow parade floats or massage parlours in San Francisco when they created the hashtag, but that’s what happened.

This illustrates one of the most important practices in selecting a good hashtag: considering other perspectives. Not everyone thinks of Alberta when they hear “oil” and “pride” together, so it is important to pitch your hashtag to individuals outside your communications or PR team. Alternatively, you could propose a few hashtags to the community of users and see what best attracts the kind of content you are looking to encourage.

To quote Rob Townsend: “Social media campaigns exist in the same reality as every other type of message going out about your brand—so be acutely aware of how your campaigns can be misused.”

Twitter does not exist in a vacuum

Speaking of misuse…

A brand’s social media activities are obviously related to its overall PR presence, and the two are co-dependent. Embarking on a Twitter campaign is not an easy Band-Aid fix for a PR crisis—rather it will simply give those with complaints a larger and faster platform on which to air their grievances, as occurred with Quantas Airways this past November.

At the same time, the brand has the opportunity to expose itself to these complaints and to show the community how it responds, so though fraught with potential risks, incorporating Twitter into a crisis communications plan can be a good way to apologize or to shift public discourse after an embarrassing mistake. Besides, very little is worse than saying nothing at all, as I mentioned in my post on crisis communications last April.

The bottom line is that when dealing with hashtag hijacking, you need to be aware of existing pressures, not only on your own brand but also on the environments in which your brand exists.

Responding to Criticism

There are a variety of approaches to dealing with a hashtag hijacking. In some cases, as with Nickelback’s response to #nickelback insults, it can be effective to respond in a snarky or irreverent fashion, directly addressing the critiques of the hijackers or poking fun.

However, not every brand is free to openly mock their haters. When McDonalds experienced the hijacking of their #McDStories campaign, it would not have been wise to make light of some users’ concerns.

In a situation such as this, McDonalds was presented with a great opportunity to challenge users’ assumptions, showcase less well-known menu options, and confront false allegations—as it did in a lengthy Twitter exchange with PETA.

A hashjacking is not the end of the world for a PR campaign. To return to the #oilsandspride example, we can see that most of the users making gay jokes quickly grew bored and left, whereas the community using the hashtag as intended is steadily growing.

Those who are using the tag to air their ethical and environmental objections the oil sands remain, though, and show no signs of slowing. In a move bearing striking resemblance to the infamous @BPGlobalPR joke account, someone has created @OilSandsPride and @Ethical__Oil (with two underscores versus one), neither of which seems to advance the agenda intended by the hashtag’s creators, shall we say.

This brings us back to selecting a good hashtag in the first place. Not only is it important to consider different connotations of the words used, it is also important to consider accuracy.

Your hashtag should further your message as intended. The goal is promoting the interests of Canadian oil, rather than the oil sands themselves. While #oilsandspride is being used to distribute information about jobs, community involvement and the boycotting of conflict crude, the initiative might have made itself less of a target to criticism if it proliferated such messages under a hashtag emphasizing something other than the campaign’s most controversial component, such as #CanOil or #CanadianOil or something similar.

Exploring alternatives

Eventually, a brand may decide to explore the possibility of an alternative hashtag. In this event, it is likely that users are already one step ahead. If a Twitter hashtag has been hijacked for purposes other than those which interested users had been lead to believe, expect them to create their own alternative.

Brands can build on this initiative and embrace a user-created hashtag in the event that their own is—for whatever reason—not working out the way they had planned. This can be a great way to identify your dedicated community of followers, and to reward their involvement.

However, sometimes users will suggest alternative hashtags (or even begin moving tweets away from your hashtag onto another) that are not compatible with your goals. For example, users may be tweeting with a hashtag that has politically sensitive connotations.

In a situation such as this, explaining why you chose the hashtag you did and why you might not embrace the use of the alternative can be helpful. Do not frame this as a criticism of the users: rather emphasize that you wish to be part of the conversation but do not feel comfortable using a particular term.

If your brand cannot publicly address the reasons why you will not support a certain user-suggested hashtag, it is still imperative that you monitor its activity. Replying to user’s posts and employing your own hashtag in the reply can be a useful way to draw attention to your own hashtag, but at the end of the day you cannot force anything.

Users will follow the hashtags that distribute the most timely, valuable and interesting commentary and information. If you want your hashtag to succeed over another, bring your best game to the field.

Image via Vertical Measures

How (and why) to write, work, and think like an advice columnist

2012-01-16T12:26:00.000-08:00

It will come as a surprise to no one that I am interested in the craft of writing. A creature of bubbling and widely varied enthusiasms, I love few things so much as I love words.

I am of the opinion that the best things one can do to improve one's writing are reading a lot and writing a lot. And one of the many things I like to read is a good advice column.

I think my favourite thing about advice columns is the hope. It is often a stern, no-nonsense, tough-love kind of hope, but it is still hope. The authoring of an advice column, and the act of reading or writing to an advice columnist —indeed, the very existence of advice columns at all— is a profound demonstration of optimism that I feel is often sorely lacking in the world. It requires the belief that things can improve, that help can be offered and solutions proposed and alternatives explored, that such things as wisdom and caring and counsel are available to us and can have an impact on our lives.

This is my kind of optimism: the kind that doesn’t sugar-coat and doesn’t screw around, but stubbornly refuses to give up on the idea of goodness and potential and things working out, someday, eventually, if we’re willing to try and try and try again.

Any person who believes that reading advice columns is simply a gross form of voyeurism, a reveling in the dysfunctions of others, may be argued against from the basis that such an individual would never bother to read the answers. It would not be necessary to have a columnist at all, rather we could simply publish letters from people airing their troubles and dirty little secrets.

Oh wait: we already have something like that. It’s called PostSecret. And guess what? Even here —where no help is being solicited, where people write in simply for the relief of having shared their secret with someone, however anonymously— even here there is help to be had, in the form of community, resources, and optimism.

Advice columns are so beautifully optimistic. I include those who write letters knowing gosh-darned well how to solve their own damn problems but just need a rhetorical kick in the rear, and those who write letters from the depths of despair: they have summoned the strength to ask for help, and in return they receive acknowledgement and ideas and perspectives, which are among the powerful tools around.

So, this brings me to my first point of advice in how to work like an advice columnist.

Aim high
Reach upwards from the dark pits and reach upwards from the trees and reach upwards from the mountaintops. Believe in the possibility of improvement and tackle the question of how to go about it.

The rest of my advice runs thusly:

Practice active empathy
Every good advice columnist is empathetic. This means really considering other perspectives with an open mind and fighting the impulse to normalize your own desires and experiences at the expense of others. Not only will empathy help you to better understand where others are coming from, it will boost your patience and can lead to the development of better communication skills.

Embrace fallibility
It takes courage to ask for help. One of the defining philosophies of the advice column is that no one is perfect, everyone has problems, we all make mistakes… and that while no single person has all the answers, together we can solve even that which seems insurmountable.

Focus on people
The best advice columnists really care for their readers, strangers though they may be. Remembering that behind any piece of work is a human face with a history and passions and family and stress is a valuable perspective to maintain in life.

Be honest
Advice columnists are a great source for tough love when someone really needs it. The value in this is not a willingness to say something unpleasant, but in the willingness to be honest with the best interests of the reader at heart. Voicing an unpopular position is rarely the ideal decision in the short term, but often is best and most beneficial in the long term.

Share your knowledge
An advice columnist is never afraid to share their own experiences and expertise. It is difficult but valuable to own your wisdom and have the guts to assert that you know what you’re talking about – and that assertiveness can be instrumental in having your expertise respected. But even if some choose to disregard your advice, you have at least contributed the most quality input in your repertoire.

Do your research
Remember how I said that no one has all the answers? Effective advice columnists will do a lot of research before replying to a particularly difficult inquiry, and will often refer their readers to other resources. Foster a healthy sense of curiosity and if you don’t know, go find out.

Distinguish fact from opinion
Anecdote is a powerful tool in the advice columnist’s toolbox. It can help reassure an anxious reader that they are normal, and can be a good means of conveying a life lesson in a digestible way. One should never make the mistake, however, of assuming that’s one opinion is universal or that one’s perspectives are shared. Most importantly, don’t conflate that which you think with that which is known and proven to be true. Sometimes this means admitting error, both to yourself and to those around you.

Ask difficult questions
One of the most valuable things an advice columnist can do is ask questions. Questions serve to broaden not only our own horizons but the horizons of others, bringing into focus related matters that previously did not fall within the scope of discussion. Ask tricky questions, challenge boldly, and new solutions will present themselves.

That’s all I have to say about advice columnists for now. Want to learn more or see some great columnists in action? I recommend The Rumpus’s Dear Sugar and Apartment 613’s Dirty Laundress.

(The image at the top of this post, incidentally, is a collection of choice quotes from Sugar’s column that has been made into a poster. You can click the image to embiggen it and read the small print. It is available for purchase online.)

“The butterflies could be made of dark matter”

2012-01-04T06:49:00.000-08:00

Life lessons from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, for the workplace and beyond

Image by smokeybacon on DeviantArt

My Twitter followers will know that I am a big fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and regular readers might have begun to suspect that I am of the pony persuasion when I used a picture of Fluttershy in my recent post about apologies.

Bronies, for those who haven’t heard, are adult fans of Lauren Faust’s epic reboot of the Hasbro line. The term can be used to refer to both male and female fans, but some ladies prefer to call themselves pegasistas. Since breaking into the mainstream with an article in Wired, the brony community has been growing and gaining steam, spawning myriad tumblrs, blogs, fan art, fan fiction, and other awesome creative works.

When Hasbro enlisted Lauren Faust – formerly best known as the genius behind Powerpuff Girls – they had little idea how popular the new children’s show would become with girls, boys, parents and even childless adults, but the heart-warming stories, snappy dialogue, and clever soundtrack have converted many to the brony cause. Some – like me – played with My Little Pony toys as children, while others are discovering talking rainbow ponies for the first time. But whether you’re an old fan or new, bronies are equally welcoming.

As with any fandom, Rule 34 applies. The brony community has its shippers, slash (“clopfic”) writers and erotic fan artists, and unfortunately (or fortunately) these deeper waters serve as a first exposure to bronies for many people. In reality, the brony community is best represented at the premiere brony blog, Equestria Daily, or perhaps the imageboard Ponibooru, rather than the prolific – if questionably tasteful – headquarters for all things pony and NSFW: Equestria After Dark.

But even if you’ve never heard of the Wonderbolts, or if you can’t tell a cutie mark from a sonic rainboom, the show presents a number of valuable lessons about working as a team. Heck, you don’t even have to like the show. There really is something for everypony to learn!

Ask for help
Several episodes feature ponies learning to respect their limits and accept assistance when they need it. While most of us have learned the hard way not to bite off more than we can chew, the ponies remind us that it is okay to ask for help if we find that we’re in over our heads, and that an offer of help is often just that: an offer of help, not an insult or an insinuation of incompetence. Remember, you do no one any good if you burn out! (See episodes 4 and 17.)

Believe in second (and third) chances
One of the things I addressed in my post about trust and accountability is how to rebuild trust after it appears to have been broken. One of the keys is to believe in second chances, and to give colleagues the opportunity to prove their value. Princess Luna is a perfect example: despite beginning the series as arch-villainess Nightmare Moon, she is able to find redemption through the power of friendship and assume a position of leadership. (See episodes 1 and 2.)

Assume good intent
Sometimes people behave in ways that appear to be counterproductive or even malicious, but very often they are trying to do what they think is right – just going about it in an unexpected way. It can be especially tricky for people to adjust to new cultural norms (think openness and sharing versus knowledge is power mindsets), and it is important to ask questions from a position of empathy, and give people a chance to explain their actions. Princess Luna might have seemed scary or domineering when she shouted at the other ponies, but she was just exhibiting what she thought to be an appropriate level of formality. Fortunately, Princess Luna had Twilight Sparkle to explain that shouting isn’t really the best way to go about making new friends. (See episode 30.)

Don’t be afraid to shine
Never hide your talent for the sake of someone else’s ego, but at the same time practice active empathy in all you do. Twilight Sparkle is one especially magical pony, but she hid her skills from her friends for fear that they might envy and resent her talents. She had to learn that there is a difference between living up to your full potential and bragging. (See episode 6.)

Learn from Failure
At the end of almost every episode, the ponies send a letter to their ruler, Princess Celestia, to tell her the latest lesson they have learned on their adventures. If there is one thing that these “friendship reports” prove, it is the educational value of failure. In nearly all cases, the reports detail a pony’s experience royally screwing up – and learning how to avoid making the same error again. In fact, the whole show is framed around the idea of learning from our mistakes.

Embrace Diversity
Each pony is different, with unique talents, personality, and interests. The strength of the friends is derived from this very diversity: the ponies can rely on each other to compensate for weaknesses, inspire growth, and offer alternative perspectives. Encountering differences encourages us to step outside our own comfort zones and find that, through teamwork, we can thrive. (See episodes 1, 2, 7, and 31.)

Stay organized
With a skill set mostly focussed on the use of magic, Twilight Sparkle found herself feeling utterly useless at the traditionally magic-free Winter Wrap-up. However, by putting herself in a situation where her standard skills did not apply, Twilight Sparkle was able to find that she is also a great facilitator, and all the ponies discovered the importance of organization in large-scale collaborative projects. (See episode 11.)

Offer useful criticism
Designer pony Rarity found out the hard way that trying to please everyone can be the quickest way to spoil a project. When offering input or criticism, it is important to consider the perspectives of others and respect the opinions of subject matter experts – they often know what they are talking about. If you’re going to offer criticism, do so in a way that fully explains your point of view and how it might influence the final product. And while providing input is always valuable, never demand a change just so you feel that you’ve contributed. (See episode 14.)

Be Honest
Very often, we think we are doing the right thing by hiding our true sentiments for the sake of manners or a colleague’s feelings. But in the end, as Rarity and Fluttershy discovered after the latter’s failed foray into fashion modelling, it is best to be honest about your feelings and to speak up if something is making you uncomfortable. And if we find ourselves in the position of unlucky confidante, like Twilight Sparkle, encouraging open communication and honesty is always the best approach to conflict. (See episode 20.)

Embrace Talent
No one can be the best at everything, and sometimes we find ourselves faced with an individual with more talent in a certain area. Like Spike’s encounters with Owlicious, it is easy to feel threatened by a skilled and charismatic new colleague or teammate. But rather than fretting about being replaced, the best thing to do is to learn what you can from this new resource, and take the opportunity to explore and flex your other talents – after all, now you’ve got a teammate to help you out with the routine stuff! (See episode 24.)

Don’t Panic
Even the best employees sometimes need help to meet deadlines. Like Twilight Sparkle, many of us can feel tempted to cut corners or be less than honest about our progress when we’re feeling overwhelmed. But rather than allowing fear and stress to compromise our professional integrity, it is best to communicate clearly throughout the process, and never be afraid to discuss it with your superiors or ask a colleague for help if a deadline seems unreasonable. (See episode 29.)

Be patient
Due to the unusual and often misunderstood nature of the fandom, bronies – like trekkies and LARPers and otaku and Browncoats and, really, most subspecies of geek – are frequent targets of trolling on YouTube and elsewhere on the Internet. True to the lessons imparted by their beloved television show, however, the bronies’ response is consistently patient and welcoming, as illustrated by their catchphrase: “I’m gonna love and tolerate the shit outta you.” Inspired partly by Fluttershy’s adorable counter-trolling of the villain Discord, the bronies are so maddeningly nice that, eventually, most trolls just give up and go away. But in the event that you encounter blatant hostility, don’t be afraid to draw the line and report it. Remember, patience is a good method for counter-trolling, but harassment is never okay.

Think creatively
Though he likely did not know that he’d spark a trend of fan-made, pony-themed science education videos, one young brony chose to use the show as the topic of his physics presentation, focussing mostly on its various physical impossibilities. Rather than simply relying on conventional assumptions and proofs to argue that, for example, a falling pony cannot be caught by a cloud of butterflies, Beatledude64 takes it one step further and suggests that “the butterflies could be made of dark matter”. Awesome. Hilarious. Yes.

So there you have it. Now you're all set to hit the office, kick ass and take names... pony style!

Suited and Sauve, by Rautakoura on DeviantArt

The Cinderella Complex

2011-12-14T14:23:00.000-08:00

How misguided notions of virtue can poison workplace morale – and what you can do about it.

Image by petitetiaras

Meet Cinderella. She’s polite, efficient, and highly skilled at multi-tasking. She gets up early and works hard all day, with little assistance or encouragement from those around her. Her tasks are no source of personal fulfillment, but she knows that someone has to do them. Cinderella is very patient and mature, and despite her frustration, she limits herself to the occasional sarcastic comment about her colleagues.

On the side of her desk, she spends her free time working on a personal project that exhibits her true creativity and skills. This project holds the key to one day landing the position of her dreams, and also allows her to have a little bit of fun. Cinderella’s boss is adamant that this project never cut into her regular duties. With a little help from her friends, Cinderella’s side project takes shape.

But just as things are finally coming together, her jealous colleagues swoop in for a piece of the accomplishments. Suddenly they’re staking a claim on Cinderella’s project, hungry to take credit for her effort. In the end, they end up tearing it to pieces.

Cinderella’s boss – who is apathetic at the best of times – does nothing to prevent this backhanded and petty betrayal. Allowing Cinderella to grow and flourish would just mean she’d have to tackle the daunting task of replacing her and, worse, would no longer get to reap the benefits of Cinderella’s productivity.

But ol’ Cindy is ever the optimist. One of these days things will work out.

(Cue fairy Godmother.)

I imagine that scenario seems familiar to more than a handful of readers. If it isn’t you, it’s a friend or a colleague – somehow it seems like they’re stuck on the hamster wheel of a 1950s animated family film, with no royal ball or prince in sight.

The Ghost of Horatio Alger

Everyone loves an inspiring rags to riches tale. In the late 1800s, Horatio Alger, Jr. published over one hundred stories – mostly focussed on the same idea: that “any poor boy with patience and an unwavering commitment to hard work can become a dazzling success.”

A good work ethic and a positive attitude are valuable skills to have in any job. Unfortunately, North American literary and cultural history is saturated with the idea that with a little luck, this is more or less all it takes. Call it bootstrapping or the myth of the self-made man – in an effort to inspire ambition, inventiveness and optimism, this individualist perspective on success has permeated our cultural consciousness.

Thus we have middle-aged, middle-class accountants like Gene Marks, who write columns for Forbes arguing that poor black children need only study hard and use the Internet in order to go to college and succeed in elevating their station in life. Naturally, obtaining a solid education is invaluable. But Marks fails to take into account that getting good grades is very difficult when you are rarely eating properly, and buying “a cheap computer” with which to browse Project Gutenburg and host Skype study sessions seems laughable in the context of a family who struggles to afford adequate clothing and keep a roof over their heads. And it’s a real challenge for children to get to a library if their neighbourhood is unsafe or quite simply does not have one.

But I digress.

At the moment, the Horatio Alger Myth is most frequently discussed in the context of the Occupy protests, and the deterioration of social mobility in the United States. But that’s a different matter, and the concept comes into play in myriad other contexts – one of which is the office.

A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

When the concept of a virtuous employee is equated to one that works hard and maintains a positive attitude, the Cinderellas of our offices are setting themselves up for burnout. They maintain a high level of productivity, playing by the rules and swallowing their objections when undermined or mistreated – all in anticipation of a reward, raise or promotion that never seems to come.

So what would have happened to Cinderella, if that invitation to the ball never arrived, or if the fairy godmother never showed up?

Like so many employees, she is headed for a burnout, burdened by the notion that hard work plus optimism equals reward and success. She might stay motivated for a while by maintaining a process-focussed sense of ownership and connecting with like-minded communities, but through little fault of her own, Cinderella is neither healthy nor sustainable as an employee as long as she exists in a flawed system that does not consistently reward the virtues it advocates.

This is why it is of utmost importance that we continue to have conversations that promote new virtues, identify relevant skill sets, and teach us how to work differently as opposed to simply working harder. We need to empower Cinderella to speak up and suggest new ways of working, and to reward her not only when she optimizes the process for making breakfast, but also when she demonstrates methods to completely redesign the distribution of tasks for increased overall productivity.

We need to allow Cinderella to raise concerns and not, through fear or subtle persuasion, try to silence anyone.

Of Mice and Fairy Godmothers

But apart from keeping these conversations going, what else can we do?

Well, if you ever happen to find yourself in the rare position of Fairy Godmother – act. If it is in your power to solve someone’s problem, enable them to take a prudent risk, hire them for a dream job you know they’re qualified for, or help them achieve their goals... do it. Very infrequently are we able to enact solutions to others' problems, but it does happen. Assume authority and turn some mice into horses, damnit.

Speaking of mice: Cinderella wouldn’t get very far without the support and aid of her friends and allies. More often than not (even when we are Cinderellas ourselves), we have the opportunity to help someone out, even if it is only in a small way. It could be something as simple as stitching the hem of a dress, or something as pivotal as delivering a key or helping pull a carriage.

The mice are never the star of the show. They don’t get to marry Prince Charming and they don’t get the credit. But they help Cinderella because she deserves it and because they can. Mice aren’t after the credit. So maybe you’re no super-powered fairy, but if you can sew on a button or help someone out when they are overworked – do it! Provide a listening ear or a helping hand, and Cinderella will get you out of a mousetrap when you really need her. And who knows? Maybe one day she’ll take you away to the royal castle.

Either way, you'll have gained a career-long friend and ally.

Reimagining the Boardroom, Part 2: Cubicles and Sleep-pods

2011-11-28T09:40:00.000-08:00

Back in 2009, I wrote a little rant about how many office buildings are squandering the potential of their physical spaces, with a focus on boardrooms:

"Important decisions are made in our boardrooms. So why aren’t they tailored to maximize their effectiveness? In a building with ten boardrooms, why do they all look the same?"

So my latest question is this: if most office buildings have outdoor space that is — officially or unofficially — allocated for workers to take smoke breaks, why are there no nap rooms? Naps aren't just for children. Catching a 20-minute power nap on your lunch hour is proven to improve morale and productivity. Google has sleep pods at their offices for this precise reason. My idea is to replace one boardroom in every office building with a nap room featuring capsule hotel-style sleeping pods that employees can book or drop in to see if there's an opening when they're feeling a little drowsy come lunch hour.

I realize that not all physical spaces can be tailored to suit the preferences of all individuals. Some people like offices with doors, while others prefer open concept offices or bustling coffee shops, while others (like me) are actually rather fond of cubicles.

Maru knows that working in a box is where it's at.

Sitting in a cubicle, I feel like a bee happily camped in its own private hexagon in the honeycomb. I am content with the much-maligned cubicle (even when I worked in a cube that was basically a storage closet) because when I worked in an office with a big desk and a door, I felt very isolated. But when I worked in an open-concept office, I sometimes found the environment distracting. I like the cubicle because it offers a compromise. I'm an extrovert and I find feeling the presence of other individuals — the clatter of fingers on keyboards and the snippets of conversations in hallways — very invigorating and oddly comforting. And when I don't want to listen to the muted bubbling of lifenoise, I can throw on some headphones.

But I also recognize that not everyone feels this way, and with good reason.

Cubicle farms are sometimes located in buildings with poor ventilation and other health hazards. But for the time being I'm going to focus on what I think cubicle farms should look like. I think that the cultural perceptions of cubicles have both informed and influenced the way we react emotionally to them and to how they are built. Films — from The Matrix to Office Space — portray the endless rows of cubicles as suffocating and soul-crushing labyrinths. And I think this is both encouraged by and contributes to the all-too-common problem of office depression.

With winter approaching and Seasonal Affective Disorder symptoms looming on the horizon for many people, I think we should start sharing tips for how we can adapt our environments in order to maximize morale and productivity.

Let's assume that you are not like me and that you find cubicles stifling. And let's assume that you don't have the option to work elsewhere. (But maybe you do?) What can we do to improve them? I really enjoyed this article about boosting productivity with stylish cubicle decor: making your cube your own instead of tacking up a family portrait as if you're in prison or something.

Personalization is obviously of the utmost importance, in addition to colour (grey rooms have been shown to stress people out). Check out this interior design blog for more tips.

So go ahead: pimp your cube! Need inspiration? Check out these 15 crazy examples.

Quick hit: writing for mobile

2011-11-15T06:08:00.000-08:00

There are plenty of resources online that can help you learn effective web writing techniques. However, the conscientious writer must also keep in mind that many readers are consuming content while on the go.

That is to say: whether it's an email to your boss's Blackberry or a blog post published during people's morning commutes, we must remember that many readers are viewing text on an itty-bitty screen.

Obviously, design and layout concerns are of the utmost importance when it comes to mobile usability -- things like avoiding large images, tables, and uncommon fonts. But what about the writing? Look below for my top tips!

1. Remember the small screen. Simply remembering your mobile readers is a great first step. Think about how your writing looks scaled down. Try drafting on your own mobile phone, if you have one.

2. Divide text into smaller sections. Paragraphs should be as short as possible, as they will appear much longer when condensed on a small screen.

3. Put your most important information first. This is a standard web writing best practice. Are you writing for a business? List your hours and phone number prominently. Keep your writing brief, if you can. Make sure that your title is descriptive so readers can quickly determine if they are in the right place.

4. Fatten your hyperlinks. While excessive hyperlinking should generally be avoided, if you include a link, make sure it is long (that is to say, several words) and easy to tap accurately without zooming in. For the same reason, do not put hyperlinks too close together.

5. Use short sentences. Fragments are okay. On a small screen, run-on sentences are even more difficult to follow than usual.

6. Avoid columns of text (and images). A top centred image is better than a right- or left-aligned one. To use my two most recent posts as examples: my post about mistakes demonstrates better mobile layout than does my post about failure and accountability.

7. Write customized, concise URLs. Copying or typing in long URLs is a pain on most mobile platforms. Make it easy!

8. Use sub-headings and logically-ordered lists. Not only will sub-headings make your content more attractive to search engines, they will make it easier for mobile readers to digest your content.

Do you have any additional best practices to share? Hit up the comments!

How to admit that you were wrong (and change for the better)

2011-11-06T19:10:00.000-08:00

Fluttershy image by 305Nat on DeviantArt. Character developed by Lauren Faust.

In my previous post, I talked about failure and accountability — how working together means holding yourself accountable for how you support your coworkers and how you regard and respond to mistakes made within a team. As a follow-up to that, today I will discuss some of the ways we can address our own mistakes, and start contributing to that lovely collaborative climate I talked about.

First, we’ve got to free ourselves from the need to be right all the time.

“I used to think being ‘right’ was a big deal,” Johnathan Morrow wrote. “I had to say the right thing, dress the right way, know the right people, read the right books, live in the right neighborhood, go to the right school. It wasn’t because I wanted to, exactly, but because I thought it was a prerequisite for success.”

But the fact is — as we discussed — that being right all the time isn’t half so conducive to success as is failing safely and learning from it. And one of the biggest ways we do this every day is through the seemingly simply process of changing our minds.

Changing your mind: it’s a pretty powerful concept if you take a moment to think about it.

Changes of mind often manifest as subtle, gradual shifts in opinion. It’s not until you look back on something you did or wrote a few years ago and think, “My goodness! Did I, really?” that you realize your mind has changed. It happens as gradually as a rough stone is worn smooth, tumbling in the surf and sand of a beach.

However, occasionally, changing your mind is less like erosion than it is akin to a landslide: troubled first by a few trickling pebbles of doubt, we shortly find ourselves gobsmacked at the revelation of our own error.

This is not a pleasant experience, and so it makes sense that the mind is capable of executing astonishingly acrobatic rationalizations and leaps in logic in order to avoid it.

Everyone makes mistakes, big and small. In fact, as I argued previously, being wrong is essential. But rather than fixate on the little whoopsie-daisies, let’s focus on the big whomp-whomps: regardless of whether we meant to, what happens when we realize that we did something that was patently unwise, or believed something that was provably false? What happens when we really screw up?

When we realize we were wrong

Good for us! Recognizing an error or inconsistency in one’s own actions or thinking is no mean feat, considering how very predisposed humans generally are towards avoiding such realizations.

First of all, we will award ourselves a cookie to munch on while we discuss next steps, because I like cookies.

Cookie photo by roboppy on Flickr (Creative Commons)

Now let’s get down to business! Being wrong isn’t all that bad if we handle it well.

Acknowledge the error. Say “oops”. Say it aloud. Shout it, even. Do not self-immolate or indulge in excessive guilt-wallowing, but own your error and embrace it as the means through which you desire to improve yourself. As the Japanese saying goes: “tsuyoku naritai!”

Consider the factors that led your error. Now I’m not talking about shifting the blame, here. I am talking about an honest reflection on the complete context. Chances are good that if you have discovered one erroneous belief, there are others that are connected or contributed to it. Ideas are like that. Take into account the entire scope of the problem.

Decide how your actions should change. Make some decisions about how you should change your habits or workflow in light of your error. Formulate your plan with an eye to rectification and prevention of future errors, if you can. Map out some steps you can take to improve things — and actually follow through.

Resist the urge to cover your tracks. Naturally, we want to distance ourselves from the erroneous opinion or mistake. But in the case of a significant error, one of the worst things we can do is attempt to retcon the past into alignment with the present. I have made this mistake before: simply revising a statement without indicating that the content had been changed. While in most cases this is a fairly innocent impulse undertaken in the interest of quality and accuracy, some people may interpret it as an attempt to destroy the evidence or deny the error. If you wish, you may choose to go back and update or append previously published materials to reflect your change in opinion.

Depending on the nature of the error, it may not be necessary to make any kind of announcement or public acknowledgement. This is entirely up to the individual.

However, we should also consider the possibility that other people have noticed our error but said nothing. Naturally, there is no way to know for sure without asking, and not all cases demand this. But if we do decide that it is in our best interests to publicly acknowledge the error, we should treat it similarly to when…

When someone else points out that we are wrong

Don’t be dismissive or defensive. Take some time to think about feedback and formulate your response. I am often guilty of trying to fall back on my good intentions, but it’s important that we prioritize the outcomes — we’ll tend to our battered self-esteem in a moment.

Take responsibility. Feel free to share your side of the story, but do not attempt to deflect blame onto another person, or derail the discussion onto a tangential issue at the expense of your critic’s concerns. The best way to take responsibility is simply to say so, or offer a sincere apology. Taking responsibility doesn’t mean shouldering all the blame — it means empowering yourself to enact positive change on a situation in which you play a part.

Formulate and share your commitment to a proactive response. See “decide how your actions should change” above.

Look at the big picture. Remember that your mistake is just one data point along the entire plot of your reputation. Concentrate more on how you handle the situation than on your own embarrassment. To quote Julia Galef: “If people learn that you're willing to concede a point if it's warranted, then on those occasions when you don't concede, they'll be more likely to take your objections seriously rather than dismissing them as obstinacy.” You may have permanently altered your relationship with someone by making your mistake, but you have the power to continue impacting that relationship with positive change.

How do you deal with it when you find yourself in error? On the other side of the climbing rope, what can your colleagues do to support you when you mess up? Share your ideas on Twitter or in the comments!

Stumbling at Centre Stage: trust, failure, and an expanded conception of accountability

2011-10-18T10:26:00.000-07:00

(photo by @_finn)

This post is not about video games, but that is where we’re going to start: with an anecdote.
Regular readers will know that I enjoy horror games, so my finally getting down to playing Alan Wake was long overdue. It’s a game so affectionately trope-filled (“Have we mentioned that we love Stephen King?”) that from the first moment, you can tell that the creators nurture a great appreciation for the genre.

As I settled in to tackle the second section of the game, I was in the company of an individual who had already played through Alan Wake in its entirety. Now, I enjoy horror games partly for the titillation and partly for the zen-like patience I have for tackling frustrating (and terrifying) difficulties. But as I encountered my first real challenge in Alan Wake, something was different. As is par for the course in horror games, I found myself overwhelmed by enemies and burdened with an ever-increasing awareness of my character’s inevitable demise.

Feathered, Hitchcockian marauders assailed me from the sky. Shadowy, axe-wielding psychopaths charged out from the darkness. And I was cursing a blue streak.

With each successive attempt I grew more frustrated. There were clearly too many enemies for the amount of ammo I had been allocated! The game was not responding promptly to my controller inputs!

My Honourable Spectator helpfully suggested that if I hadn’t blown all my flares (one of several available weapons) so early on, I might stand a better chance of succeeding. “Well, that would have been helpful to know before I found myself in this situation!” I snapped at him, mashing buttons frantically.

And now, dear Reader, you might be wondering what happened to my alleged patience. Well, I wondered the exact same thing, and after giving it a little bit of thought, reached a startling conclusion.

I am comfortable with failing in the pursuit of success, but I am not happy with failing in front of an audience. I love the dogged, determined repetition that is necessary to finish most horror games – but I’m not used to having someone sit and watch as my character gets mauled, despite my efforts.

Needless to say I engaged in a humbling bit of self-reflection. But the matter is not as simple as the willingness to look bad in front of other people. It’s about fostering safe spaces and examining the language we employ pertaining to accountability.

License to Fail

In in a recent blog post, the inestimable Laura Wesley argues that “a successful life is one that is full of failures. Many failures means limits were pushed, lessons were learned (hopefully) and opportunities were taken.” And she goes on to discuss a matter I have seen surfacing a great deal lately, namely, giving oneself “permission to fail”.

Risk-aversion – whether on an individual or organizational level – has been a challenge in the public service for a very long time. On the Public Service of the Future blog, Colin Hoult talked about the ongoing challenges we face with risk aversion in the public service, and how there are few easy answers about how to go about assessing risk consistently and practically: “the Code [of Values and Ethics] is relatively silent on how risks should be taken. How should public servants assess if risk is appropriate? And if there is no framework for making that assessment, are we surprised that there aren’t people out there trying to push forth new ideas?”

But while I am pleased that folks like Laura have a solidly internal locus of control and respect the fact that she very self-effacingly claims that her “ego is getting in the way”, when it comes to fostering this so-called permission to fail on an individual level, I think that she strikes closer to the root of the problem in the following sentence: “I’m too afraid of being embarrassed or what people may say about me to really achieve A-N-Y-thing.”

This consciousness of the external gaze – this awareness of an audience – is what was at play when I was struggling with Alan Wake. And it is the same social reality that is at play every day of our lives. It’s the reason I rarely leave the house without throwing on a lick of mascara, and it’s the reason that when we slip on the sidewalk, many people are initially more concerned about who saw them fall than whether they hurt themselves.

This effect is amplified at work, where performance is tied to livelihood and reputation. And yet failure – though not critical to achieving success – is critical in elevating the level of success achieved and the potential heights that can be reached.

In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell describes a study concerning students learning the art of pottery, in which it was determined that students tasked with making a single, excellent pot over the course of their learning acquired skills much more slowly than students who were simply tasked with producing a pot each time they sat down at the wheel. To quote Penelope Trunk, “Greatness comes from lots of terribleness.”

In Poke the Box, Seth Godin argues that in order to “consistently ship innovations to the market “, a business must also cultivate “the ability and willingness to appear stupid in front of others”, and I certainly agree. I think that cultural change starts on the social level, in email threads and between cubicles, and that organizational risk management practices follow – indeed can only be implemented and modeled after – the flow of socio-cultural work conditions, which are in turn influenced by micro-interactions between individuals and within teams.

But the real question is how we can get to this place where – at least on an individual level – we can enjoy a qualified license to fail. The answer starts, naturally, with trust, and more specifically with accountability. First, let’s talk about trust.

The Secret Sauce

Being able to trust your colleagues is of the utmost importance when it comes not only to fostering this license to fail, but also just in everyday operations.

As Nick Charney lamented in his presentation at the Next Generation of Government Summit, people are more likely to cover their own butts and copy your bosses on an email tasking you with a project than they are to trust that you will do what you said you would. He calls trust the secret sauce, and we’re missing it. This is a big problem because if your colleagues can’t trust you, can you trust them?

It’s a vicious and self-perpetuating cycle.

But in marketing trust, we often risk overlooking the fact that sometimes trust is betrayed. Sometimes your colleagues let you down, and then what? When it comes to performance management, our behaviour often leans towards once-bitten-twice-shy dynamics.

Written partially in response to Nick’s statements, Colin has another great post about how to rebuild trust when it has been violated intentionally or (as is more commonly the case) unintentionally. He focuses on the essential but often challenging necessity of communicating openly with one another.

“Without those tough conversations, we end up hoping that situations will magically resolve. In our organizations, especially in government where we work largely in a knowledge economy where we need to share information and trust our colleagues more than ever, we need to make sure that not only do we start from a position of assuming trust, but that we also have the courage to address our professional relationships if that trust is broken.”

I think Colin and Nick are absolutely right, but I want to dig a little bit deeper and examine precisely how we can “start from a position of assuming trust”.

Expanding trust and accountability frameworks

If we are going to create safe spaces where we feel able to risk failure in order to elevate our levels of success, we need to work on creating spaces that are safe for those around us. And again, it comes down to micro-interactions between people, both in and outside the workplace.

In a comment on Colin’s blog, Thom Kearney remarked that “too often [we] see organizations that are dysfunctional because individuals don’t pay attention to the basics of inter-personal communications.”

Everyone is the protagonist of their own story. As such, for better or for worse we tend to privilege our own points of view. So when another person’s actions have an impact on our work, we are quick to centre the incident around the impact it had on us. But it is, quite simply, not that simple.

When rock climbing, the climber is kept safe through cooperation with their belayer (the person who manages your ropes and whose body weight will catch you if you fall). The belayer provides enough slack for the climber to move up the wall freely, while keeping the line taught enough to ensure support if the climber falls or releases their hold on the wall – often to take a break or assess the situation to determine a best approach.

Let’s say the climber jumps for a hand-hold and misses it, falling off the wall. The belayer is jerked upwards in their harness, balancing the fall of the climber according to the allocated slack. It’s a bit of an unpleasant sensation on both ends (falling and jerking upwards), especially if we don’t anticipate it. But as much as ongoing communication can facilitate this relationship, both partners know that they are connected to each other and through that connection are working to both reach the top and stay safe. If the climber falls, the belayer’s harness gets jerked because that is part of being a belayer, and falling is part of being a climber.

I think we need to reframe our work relationships this way. We are all climbers and we are all belayers. Sometimes a climber falls, and with a limited conception of accountability this can be seen as the climber’s responsibility alone. But that’s not true, really, in any workplace. We are interdependent, even when we work in isolation. Everyone climbs; everyone belays. We all rise and we all fall and we all catch someone. Next time someone messes up, view it as a jerk in your harness.

Don’t tell them they betrayed your trust. Tell them that you’d appreciate a heads up next time they are going to attempt an epic dyno – so you can be prepared to adjust your workflow accordingly. As a belayer, that is what you are trusted to do, and there is someone doing the same for you.

So it’s not just a matter of – as Colin discussed – rebuilding trust after it has been broken. It means expanding our notion of what constitutes accountability to include our own responses to difficult incidents. It means refocusing our narratives to regard such incidents not as a betrayal of trust, but as a natural diffusion of responsibility and a hiccup in the way we work together. And that means holding ourselves accountable for how we view challenges, and how we respond.

This is a tricky thing to do in some situations. We are predisposed to dole out blame relative to what we perceive as a person’s level of influence. It’s an adversarial model that we’ve been raised on and it will take work to shake it. You were more “popular” than me in school and so now I can call you snooty and make fun of you for making less money than me, right? I don’t have to think about your personal struggles or your perspective – if someone has more power than me, then they are more accountable, right?

Wrong. This system is about forgiveness and expanding trust – not about normalizing or making apologies for poor behavior, but about challenging people to step up their game. Dropping someone is not okay, but neither is it acceptable to go grumbling away without addressing the issue when you think you’ve been dropped. It’s about telling someone how you view them and why, about listening to their perspectives, and about expanding accountability to create safer spaces.

We’re all connected, climbers and belayers, and we are accountable as a network – one person laced to the next. Whether you have to manage up or manage down, we need to be mindful of our role.

This means, maybe, that we shouldn’t snark about our colleagues when we’re out for beer. This means that we shouldn’t just say, “Oh, that speaker was decent, I guess, but this one time she really let me down” – you need to talk to the person in question about why your harness was jerked (or why your belayer dropped you) and what we can do to prevent the same thing in the future.

It’s not as easy as playing the blame game. IT isn’t enabling me! My manager is too restrictive! We all do it. But if we are going to set up an environment where we can innovate, fail and succeed safely, we need to work on creating that secret sauce together – for each other, for ourselves, and for our organizations.

Is there a cast of Shakespearian characters in your office?

2011-10-06T13:33:00.000-07:00

A just-for-fun post that includes a few minor spoilers.

“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.”

- William Shakespeare, As You Like It

We all know what is meant when someone is described as “a real character”: oddball. But turns of phrase aside, sometimes literary characters make appearances in our everyday lives. You may recall my Middle Earth post playing with this idea, and now I bring you workplace personalities part two, the Shakespearian edition!

Antigonus (The Winter’s Tale)

You might remember Antigonus from my earlier post, Exit, pursued by a bear. Grey-haired, reliable ol’ Antigonus is a little low-profile compared to some of the other characters on this list, but he’s certainly common in the office environment. Antigonus always wants to do the right thing, but ultimately his deference to his superiors trumps all. He swears to obey commands before knowing what the commands will be. He is not afraid to speak truth to power, yet will always back down and calmly carry out orders he knows to be unwise if his allegiance is called upon. Antigonus will innovate only so far as the rules allow him to, and ultimately gets eaten by a bear for his pains.

Hamlet (Hamlet)

Hamlet is intelligent, creative, well-educated and likable. The problem is that he is more talk than action, and he has a fatalistically external locus of control. He will commit to things but rarely delivers until he has absolutely no other alternative, and can be resentful of his peers. He is an eloquent speaker and is popular at events, but may secretly harbour dark thoughts and feelings. Hamlet has no problem pretending to be something he is not if he thinks it serves his purposes, so as much as everyone likes him, few people really know him – a fact, though of his own doing, he broods about frequently.

Lady Macbeth (Macbeth)

Lady Macbeth is slick, ambitious and persuasive. Strategically placing herself in positions of power, she is demure and sweet on the outside but will not hesitate to throw peers under a bus if it helps her climb the ladder. She is great to have on a team because she always achieves what she sets out to do, but has questionable professional ethics at times, and isn’t big into sharing information. Considering how competent and productive she is, it can come as a bit of a shock if she abruptly has a breakdown – but this is simply an illustration of her greatest weakness: her inability to connect with and rely on other people.

Othello (Othello)

Othello is a bold and passionate leader who has overcome great difficulty to get where he is today. He never hesitates to take action and can always be relied upon. But his communication skills are severely lacking and he is a terrible judge of character. If he has doubts or a problem with one of his colleagues, he is unlikely to approach that person directly, instead choosing to believe what others tell him. As a result, many people don’t know that he is upset with them until he is lashing out. While being swift to take action is an admirable trait, Othello could benefit from thinking things through and getting a complete picture of the situation before leaping to judgement.

Cordelia (King Lear)

Cordelia is tactless and kind to everyone; these are her greatest virtues and also her greatest weaknesses. She always speaks the truth and is unwilling to sugar-coat or flatter simply to cater to social conventions or solicit cooperation. She is polite but haughty and feels that strategy is beneath her because it is just another form of deception, especially in the social sphere. As a result, she often finds herself in trouble with colleagues – especially authority figures – for what they perceive as a lack of respect. However, her sweet disposition has ensured that she has a modest support network and enables her to land on her feet most of the time. Being so tactless herself, Cordelia is ultimately most vulnerable to the machinations of others.

Puck (Midsummer Night’s Dream)

Puck is light-hearted and mischievous. He is the office prankster, and though he usually completes all of his work, he doesn’t seem too interested in whether he delivers on expectations and rarely bothers to get permission for anything. Those around him tend to underestimate Puck’s intelligence, but he can be surprisingly clever when it suits his purposes – and his purposes are usually focussed on what he finds the most engaging. Although the general sentiment is that Puck is a slacker, he can always be counted on to find a creative way to accomplish the tasks assigned to him.

Rosalind (As You Like It)

Rosalind is idealistic and adventurous. She seems not to take things too seriously, but nonetheless has high expectations of herself. But as much as she sells herself as a straight-shooter, anything she says and how she presents herself should be taken with a grain of salt – Rosalind is very mindful in how she presents herself, especially when it comes to attire. Despite being quite bright, she can also be hypocritical, in criticizing other people for things very similar to what she has done or thinking that her own personal relationships are somehow more important than those of her colleagues. At the end of the day, Rosalind has the best intentions and the smarts to get the job done, but needs to stop underestimating those around her.

The Fool (King Lear)

The Fool is not only a lot of fun to have around, he is also the ideal strategic advisor. He is fiercely loyal and perceptive, and is highly skilled in telling the truth people might not want to hear in a way that will get through – with minimal damage to self-esteem. Many people think he’s a little crazy and are not quite sure what his job description is, but in reality the Fool is very intelligent and works hard to bring out the best in people.

How about you? What characters are kicking around in your office environment?

Image via nawasaka.

Quick hit: concerning change

2011-09-07T18:39:00.000-07:00

Erosion by Olaf Gradin, used under Creative Commons licensing

"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason." - Thomas Paine

via maymay.

Trolls, griefers, harassment and hate crime

2011-09-01T13:29:00.000-07:00

A post inspired by personal experience, written in response to Naomi Dunford.

My name is Chelsea, and like most people I know, I use the Internet. As an Internet-person, I am more than familiar with the fact that while most people are various shades of decent, there exists a very vocal minority of people who exist as proof of Penny Arcade’s “Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory”, which states that the combination of anonymity and an audience will transform an otherwise normal person into a complete jerk.

In psychological terms, this is called deindividuation – and it is a phenomenon by no means exclusive to online environments. When your identity is concealed and you may act with relative impunity, adherence to social norms deteriorates.

I am of the opinion that anonymity is not the problem any more than the Internet itself is. While I blog and tweet under my own name here, I also believe that there are circumstances under which anonymity or pseudonymity are socially productive things, as they allow things to be said – things that should and need to be said – without fear of reprisal. Although they also permit the saying of some pretty nasty things, the root of the problem is, in my opinion, people.

We know them. We’ve crossed paths with them. Maybe we’ve even been them ourselves at some point along the line. Most often, they are garden-variety trolls and griefers. Sometimes they believe what they are saying, but it’s difficult to tell. What is easy to tell, however, is that they are not being nice.

Trolling can vary in tone from vicious to rather jocular, and at the end of the day it is all about getting a reaction out of the target. Take, for example, the recent case of Alyssa Bereznak, who engaged in a rather explosive bit of geek-baiting by writing mean things about a well-known gamer and expressing disdain for anyone who plays Magic: The Gathering. Trolls crave attention; thus the old Internet adage: don’t feed the trolls. If you ignore them, trolls will eventually give up and go away, like how our parents told us to deal with schoolyard bullies.

The problem with this advice is that both on the playground and online, not all bullies are simply trolling.

Though common discourse tends to conflate the two terms, griefers and trolls are different – mostly in their motives. In online games such as World of Warcraft, griefers are predatory players who will repeatedly harass weaker players for no apparent reason. More broadly, a griefer is someone who will try to upset you regardless of whether you show it or not. Your parents’ advice doesn’t work very well against a bully who insists on punching you in the face, because no matter how unfazed you try to appear, the bully still knows that being punched in the face hurts and will continue to do it, or maybe they will just punch you once and walk away, purely for giggles. (The online equivalent is someone who drops in, posts a hateful comment, and subsequently posts nary a peep.) Not caring about your response means that griefers have little motive to continue harassment beyond their own pleasure in the activity. Griefers are basically Internet sadists – and not the fun kind of sadist that cares about your feelings and enthusiastic consent and wants you to have a good time.

Generally speaking, if a troll or griefer is targeting you personally, they will focus on whatever is ostensibly different about you. Take, for example, persons of colour being told to “go back where they came from” or some such racist vitriol. In the absence of any identifying characteristics, if you are presumed male you will often be targeted on the basis of your sexual orientation, masculinity or sexual capacity, whereas if you are presumed female you will often be subjected to allegations of ugliness or promiscuity.

Everyone has different boundaries. Everyone has different ideas of what is and is not appropriate. And we all say nasty things on occasion; especially if we think someone is insulting something that means a lot to us, whether it is a video game or Jesus Christ or Justin Bieber or whatever.

But there is a line. There is a line beyond which we pass out of the realm of trolling and griefing and into the sordid territory of harassment and violence.

I don’t know what it is that makes people cross that into that dark arena of explicitly wishing, advocating, or threatening violence against a relative stranger, but I do believe that most people do not mean what they say, even if they think they do. Some people hold opinions or behave in ways contrary to the accepted norm because it makes them feel enlightened, persecuted, or courageous. Some people find it easier to blame others for their problems. Some people like the feeling of being part of an in-group and thus must hate members of the out-group.

We all know not to feed the trolls, but what happens if someone online threatens you with violence? (Trigger warning on that link, by the way. Things start getting disturbing around the 2:50 mark.)

Anyone who spends enough time reading will eventually run across online harassment, either personally or through a popular blogger or public figure. Death threats online are, sadly, not uncommon. In fact, the only time I have ever moderated comments on this blog was when a certain individual saw The Snarky Optimist as a suitable venue in which to issue violent threats towards me. As a reader of several feminist, masculist, and gender egalitarian blogs, I am more than familiar with the fact that ladypersons and gay men online don’t just deal with threats against their lives and their families – they also often endure threats of sexual violence.

So when I read this post on IttyBiz (via the Geek Feminism blog) in which Naomi Dunford discusses the recent spate of serious death threats she has received – for no discernible reason apart from being a successful female blogger and businessperson, although allegations of sexual indiscretion and tax evasion have been made – I am sad to say that my initial reaction was damn, not again. It happens all the time. Game developer Kathy Sierra’s well-known situation was not a unique case, nor was it the worst.

Rather than simply accept this as a sad fact of Internet life, I decided to heed Naomi’s call to talk about it. What people who harass others online want is for these individuals to shut up and go away – they want to feel that they have won. But I’m not writing this as an attempt to give the middle finger to potential harassers, a blog-delivered rah-rah for empowerment. What I want to do is to reaffirm that this kind of behaviour is not okay, it is not a joke, and most importantly it is not a private matter you need to deal with alone.

I believe that many people who issue threats have no intention of ever carrying them out. I think of some people who issue threats as the online version of Scarlet Kingsnakes. The Scarlet Kingsnake is a nonvenomous snake that bears a tri-colour pattern believed to mimic the highly venomous Coral Snake as a defense mechanism. Like some people online, these snakes have essentially evolved to protect themselves from aggression by appearing to be more dangerous than they are.

But you know what? Even if you don’t intend to carry out a threat, it’s still illegal. It’s still harassment, regardless of whether you’re just doing it because you enjoy the feeling of power or if you have a self-esteem problem or if people have been really cruel to you.

When you are on the receiving end of a death threat, there is little way to tell if the people involved are serious or not, which means you must take them seriously.

Even though most of these hate-spewing individuals do not themselves pose a danger to anything beyond your emotional and financial health, the fact remains that people who are more dangerous are listening to what they have to say, and interpreting their hate speech as sanction for violence.

“These people are escalating, and they’re looking for a success,” Naomi writes. “Hate bloggers claim innocence because they are acting within their First Amendment rights. But their mobs look up to them, and the mob mentality that they are stoking is escalating.”

This is why you shouldn’t make jokes about – for example – sexual violence: not only because it’s highly probable that someone who is listening may have survived a similar incident (and seriously, is a joke really worth reminding someone of one of the worst days of their life?), but also because it’s possible that someone who is listening has perpetrated or would consider perpetrating a similar incident (and you are unintentionally sending them the message that it’s okay). This is not blaming assaults on insensitive jokes about assaults, but it is saying that we can and should try to send clear messages to those around us that assaults will not be dismissed or ignored or taken lightly.

Because among the scores of people who will say that women should not hold positions of power, some of them happen to be like Jared Lee Loughner, who will decide to take action in support of their beliefs. He shot Congresswoman Giffords in the head and killed six people, including a nine-year-old-girl. Because among the scores of people who will advocate for the eradication of the Islamic faith, some of them happen to be like Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 85 young people in Norway and believed his actions were necessary.

Fred Clark has written about this issue in the context of the political rhetoric surrounding abortion:

“Paul Hill [the former minister who murdered an abortion
provider] argued that abortion was the moral equivalent of the Nazi Holocaust –
just like the National Right to Life Committee, the Southern Baptist Convention,
the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family and dozens of other evangelical
groups said it was. If that's true, Hill said, then he wasn't
merely justified, but obligated to take up arms against
abortionists. If you're confronted with an evil equal in magnitude to that of
Adolf Hitler – as all these groups insisted was the case – then surely one is
obliged to do more than vote Republican every four years in the hopes of one day
appointing enough judges to change the law of the land.

Confronted with what all of these groups assured him was the Holocaust,
he decided to become Claus von Stauffenberg.

Yet when Hill repeated their own argument and their own rhetoric back
to them, these groups all recoiled. They all claimed to share Hill's premise,
but not to share his conclusion. That won't work. Hill's violent conclusion
arose logically from that shared premise. If he was a madman to be condemned –
as all those groups suddenly insisted he was – it was because of the madness of
that premise. So how was it possible they could repudiate him without also
repudiating that rhetoric that compelled him to act?”

The bottom line is that hatred – in all its forms – is deadly, and the cure for hatred is certainly not more of the same.

Naomi called for bloggers to speak out, and I decided that this was a call important enough to answer.

So here is what I have to say: this is a plea for empathy and forgiveness and restraint, in the hopes that reasonable human beings will make the effort to distinguish themselves from the real criminals and predators, and in hopes that if we commit ourselves to being more empathetic individuals, maybe we can save someone the heartache and pain that eventually rots them into monsters. But no one is perfect. We all mess up. So maybe, if we can forgive those who have hurt us terribly, we can save each other from contributing more hatred and scorn to the world and becoming some manner of monsters ourselves.

Update, full disclosure: I have no comment regarding the allegations (regarding sexual indiscretions or the nature of her business) posed by some against Ms. Dunford. She and I are not personally acquainted in any way. This is post is designed to say that harassment is not acceptable, and to that I hold. We should all strive to be better people. Additionally, while I do not intend to moderate comments on this post unless things get out of hand, I will delete anything that I deem to be threatening, derogatory, or offensive.

Helpful links:
· Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime
· Canadian Clearinghouse on Cyberstalking - resources
· The Office of the Privacy Commissioner blog
· Department of Justice Criminal Harassment handbook

All I really need to know about teamwork I learned playing Left 4 Dead

2011-08-23T12:29:00.000-07:00

Image via PlatformNation

Snow falls over New York City, and a crow soars through the maelstrom to land near Doc’s Diner. An off-duty cop sits at the bar. The camera pans into the men’s washroom of the greasy diner. A middle-aged man in a suit finishes up and moves to wash his hands. Meanwhile, something is amiss in one of the stalls. A young man sits trembling, covered in his own blood and holding a knife. His eyes roll back in his head. We see flashes of darkness, visions of rooms filled with candles. All of a sudden, he gets up and leaves the stall. Before the middle-aged man knows what is happening, he is brutally murdered, right there on the bathroom floor.

Suddenly, you are no longer simply a spectator – you are the trembling young man. You have no idea what just happened or why you killed an apparent stranger. But you do know one thing: you’ve got to act fast.

So, what do you do?

Well, if you’re my friend Lopert, you quickly hide the body, clean up the bloodstains, conceal the murder weapon, tidy yourself up and casually re-enter the diner to finish your coffee as if nothing out of the ordinary occurred, waiting for your chance to slip out of the diner unnoticed.

If you’re me, you shriek “OMGWTF!”, bolt from the diner and sprint to the subway tunnel across the street, while the other diner patrons sit, slightly taken aback, wondering what that guy’s problem was.

This is the opening scene of Fahrenheit (better known in North America as Indigo Prophecy), a cinematic adventure game released in 2005. Though I could have picked another example, Fahrenheit is a favourite of mine for illustrating how video games give us the opportunity to see how we respond to situations that would otherwise remain completely unknown to us, and through these experiences we may discover things about ourselves.

For example, Lopert is a much more tactical thinker than I am.

What would I do?

Seeking the answer to this question is one of the primary reasons I like playing video games, and the reason I find myself particularly drawn to the high-stakes titillation of horror and thriller games, where the player’s choices don’t just influence the evolution of the character (like in the Fable series, for example), but can make a difference between life and death.

I like these games because they offer exposure to foreign situations (and cheap thrills) that allow me to stretch and grow in my self-knowledge. I like that they both entertain me and make me uncomfortable.

To quote Penny Arcade’s Tycho: “These are truly alien experiences for me, and I’m exposed to them and enriched by them because I didn’t have to fill out some questionnaire before playing the game to make it aware of my sacred boundaries.”

And in addition to getting to know ourselves better, sometimes video games can provide valuable learning experiences that can be helpful in real life.

The Left 4 Dead series (L4D and L4D2) offers an interesting example. While many view the game as a fairly unremarkable instance of run-and-gun, I see it as an exercise in teamwork.

The reason for this is that unlike many class-based shooters (such as the Team Fortress or Call of Duty series), the roles are not prescribed, intuitive, or in any way organized by the character you play. In a sense, you are playing as yourself.

Playing a character with a distinct class and set of equipment or abilities makes teamwork, in my experience, a little easier. People are given a part to play, a role and a set of tasks to go with it. In L4D, you can see this easily when playing as the Infected. Each special zombie has a set of abilities that can be used in concert with the attacks of your fellow zombies.

But things aren’t always so tidily structured in real life, and that’s why today we’re going to focus on the Survivors, who are no doubt much more stressed out anyways.

And so without further ado, I give you The Snarky Optimist’s L4D teamwork lessons, guaranteed to help you survive your next workplace transition, project crunch, or zombie apocalypse!

Check your fire. As I am somewhat aiming-challenged, my weapon of choice is generally the combat shotgun. Using a weapon with quite a bit of spray, it is important for me to make appropriate decisions about where to position myself (i.e. near the front) and keep track of my teammates. It is absolutely essential that you know where your teammates stand and how their work relates to your own. Not only does this help prevent conflicts and confusion, it is an important tactic for avoiding duplication of work… and filling your friends with shotgun pellets.

Be flexible and change roles on the fly. Armed with my trusty shotgun, I tend to move near the front of the team. This enables me to drop into a crouch and mow down large numbers of zombies quickly, protecting my teammates and staying out of their way when the team gets rushed by the horde. However, if I am hurting for health or if the person taking point needs to be more precise (sniping a Smoker off a rooftop, for example), then it is best for me to drop back and temporarily switch to my handgun. This is true in most teamwork scenarios: as effective as your best practices and status quo may be, nothing is quite as valuable as being able to adjust and, if needed, jump right into a new role.

Communicate. L4D is one of the few games I know of that actually built helpful communication into the scripted dialogue. That said, nothing can compare to actually talking to your teammates, and the same is true in the workplace (or even on a sports field). Providing helpful status updates and letting your team know where you are at and what you need makes cooperation much, much easier.

Stick together! Sure, maybe you can run faster than your teammates. Sure, maybe you can rack up more kills if you hurry on ahead. But no matter how skilled you are, if you distance yourself too much from your team, there will be no one nearby to save you if you get pounced, snared, or otherwise incapacitated. This applies everywhere. Work independently if you like, but always keep a friend nearby to bail you out if you need it.

Challenge your teammates. Between L4D and L4D2, I noticed an interesting difference in the behaviour of the AI governing the zombie hordes in campaign mode. In the first game, the special Infected (super-powered zombies) would most often target the player with the highest score; that is to say, the player that the AI perceived as the greatest threat. In the sequel, the AI was more likely to target the weakest player on the team, because it had been shown that the strongest player will most often be the one to come back to help out the weaker player. In effect, the special Infected make two players vulnerable by strategically attacking one. So what is the solution? If you’ve got a weak link in your team, have them take point. Put them in a leadership position. Not only will this help them grow and improve faster, it keeps them where you can see them and easy to rescue without having to go backwards and re-trace your steps. Moving forward to help your teammate is better than rushing backwards to amend damage already done. Maybe you have a longer reach, but it’s probably better in the long run to use your height to give someone a boost.

Help each other out. One of my favourite things about the L4D series is how completely unproductive it is to go it alone. In fact, it’s downright dangerous. You are dependent on your teammates and they are dependent on you, so don’t be a jerk. Help each other out!

Don't interrupt when someone is on a roll. When I’m being swarmed by zombies, even if my health is getting low, the last thing I want is for some well-intentioned ally or brainless bot to waltz up to me and hand me pills. (This is known to some players as the awkward pill game.) Why? Because this makes me put my gun away, and I need to be slaying undead before they slay me, capische? I’ll gladly take your pills when I have a spare moment. This is true in most group work scenarios. When someone is on a roll, let them be. Make sure they know you are available to provide assistance if they need it, but don’t go jumping up in their grill and throwing off their groove.

Monitor your environment. I know it’s been said a thousand times, but once again: mind your surroundings. Listen carefully to what is going on and track changes that occur. This is not just empty social media advice, either; environmental scans, whether official or unofficial, can definitely save your butt and make you a more effective teammate. Keep your ear to the ground and your eyes open, whether you’re shooting zombies or working in a cubicle. It just makes sense.

That’s all for now. What real-life lessons have you learned from playing video games? Share in the comments!

Peacocks, llamas, and the glass-crunching shadow army

2011-08-12T10:31:00.000-07:00

Llama overlooking Machu Picchu, by Schuyler Shepherd

Since I first had the experience of working for the federal government as a co-op student, very little has frustrated me more than hearing people talk about how public servants are lazy and taking advantage of the average tax-paying Canadian. In fact, the only thing I have found more infuriating is meeting public servants who actually are seemingly lazy, who reinforce the cruelly negative stereotype, or who actively disassociate themselves from the public they are sworn to serve.

I’ve said it before: everyone who pays taxes pays a public servant’s wages, and that really should light a fire under our butts on days where we might be tempted to putter along or dick around. Just as it is motivating to work for a private company whose interests and values you share, so too I find it incredibly motivating to know that I work for the interests of my family, my friends, and indeed for myself.

But lately, it has been very difficult to ignore the fact that I am not actually a member of this public service whose strengths I vociferously defend and whose failings cause me to blush with embarrassment.

I am a contractor, a member of the so-called “shadow public-service” that represents a problem with staffing processes in government, whose existence allegedly constitutes an “assault on public service values” and whose livelihood “comes at the expense of the actual public service”.

When I hear some people talk about contractors, I am very often made to feel that I am some manner of wolf in sheep’s clothing – when in fact I consider myself more like a young guard llama. A llama helps protect the flock from attack and provides wool akin to (but not entirely identical to) that provided by a sheep; however, despite the fact that a llama is a positive force, his or her presence is symptomatic of a problem. If there were no wolves or coyotes then there would be little need for llamas, and if there were no staffing issues there would be much less need for contractors. Llamas are good, but if we didn’t have problems there would be no need to have them.

I may not be a sheep, and perhaps my presence is an indication of a wider problem; but as an individual I am absolutely working very hard in the best interests of the flock. I am, in essence, a positive symptom of a negative situation.

And just as I feel frustrated with public servants who contribute to the toxic stereotype that harms productive and unproductive public servants alike, so do I feel a decidedly unglamorous sense of fury when I hear of instances of exploitation on the part of the private sector. And while I am oversimplifying the issue, I still find myself thinking indignantly, “I’m not like that!” and being at serious risk of setting up false dichotomies and committing the self-aggrandizing error I once referred to as turncoat chic.

If we’re going to tackle this problem, the focus must be on more than simply reducing the amounts spent on contracts: we must learn to distinguish the llamas from the wolves, and bring the llamas into the flock wherever possible. And those who consider themselves llamas must be willing to recognize that they are part of a problem, however noble their intentions may be.

So it will come as no surprise when I say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading Lee-Anne Peluk’s recent post in which she argues that the treatment of temporary “shadow public service” workers represents a threat to public service renewal and innovation efforts. It was refreshing to see that she discussed the issue in terms of policies and practices – rather than framing the issue exclusively as one populated by caricatures of irresponsible managers, lazy staffers and the selfish, exploitative soldiers of the nefarious shadow army.

It’s an odd feeling to want to tell the other side of a story you already agree with, but here I am about to do precisely that.

Lee-Anne’s post was a refreshing new take on the issue, but the backbone of her basic argument – that overuse of contractors represents a threat to renewal efforts – seems to be based on the idea that a contractor will be less inclined to innovate.

“As long as there are people who are willing to eat glass to get in, there
will be a culture that lacks innovation. They will do what they are told, rather than trying to come up with innovative ideas.”

I’m certainly not going to make any offers to eat glass, but I would be lying to you if I said that I wasn’t hoping – sooner or later – to find a challenging, engaging, more or less permanent position, either through the student bridging mechanism or otherwise, in the public sector or the private sector. But that doesn’t mean I am keeping my head down and ignoring opportunities to innovate.

In fact, I am constantly on the lookout for new ideas to suggest and explore. As just one face in the nefarious and much-maligned glass-crunching shadow army, keeping my head down is no way to get noticed or re-hired. And most young contractors I know feel the same way.

If we have a failing, it is the exact opposite of keeping our heads down. We push ourselves to take on more than we can handle. We have helium hands and we have peacock tails, desperate to grab attention, to prove that we can run faster and jump higher than the old guard – but some contractors make much better sprinters than marathon runners, and all too often find themselves at the end of a short race with no team to play for, told that they’re great employees but cannot be kept on, with nothing to do but smooth their feathers and try again, unsure of how to do better, while another young gun takes the spot they just vacated. I know.

Lee-Anne is right when she says that “hunger and innovation do not go hand in hand”; but I am here to say that neither are they mutually exclusive, and from my experience, the problem is less about timidity or desperation and more about high turnover and the staffing problems faced every day by managers.

The idea of hoping to nail a job by compromising my professional integrity and, to quote Lee-Anne, do “whatever I was told, even if it seemed like nonsense or a time-waster” seems highly counter-intuitive to me. Then again, I don’t have a permanent job yet; so maybe I don’t know what I am talking about.

But I have to agree with Brianne Maxwell, a former colleague of mine and a fellow co-op-student-turned-contractor: “by constantly recycling students [or contractors], companies are wasting time, money, and knowledge”.

While I nodded along with the vast majority of what Lee-Anne has written, I can’t say that her characterization of the way contractors are forced to behave necessarily reflects my experience. If I read Lee-Anne correctly, she asserts that contractors are less likely to “rock the boat” or seek to innovate, because they are afraid that it will decrease their chances of getting re-hired or sought as an indeterminate employee:

“I had 90 days to prove I could fit in with the best of them, so I never wanted to rock the boat, in case the door closed on my one foot holding it open.
[….]
Being on contract essentially silences you because you want that contract to be renewed.
[….]
There are some shops in my department that are run completely through the use of contractors. They get the job done, sure. But we need a public service that does more than uphold the status quo.”

She appears to argue that financial cost aside, the temporary help workforce represents a risk to the public service because its members are passively discouraged (by the work environment and hiring practices of the public service itself) from being innovative. And we of the shadow army are therefore likely to be hindering renewal efforts, through no fault of our own save the desire for a modicum of job security.

I am absolutely resolute in my belief that this is often the case. But I am equally resolute in my assertion that it nonetheless fails to adequately reflect my personal experience.

In my experience, as a contractor I do not have the luxury of swallowing my objections, keeping my head down, and upholding the status quo if it seems counterproductive. To do so would result in a bad reference, a team within the community I rely on for employment that thinks I am nothing special or – much worse – a waste of money. I speak from experience. I have occupied a job for which I was a poor fit, a job in which I occasionally put in a less than stellar performance: and believe me, I got stung, my reputation was damaged and I learned my lesson.

This is not to say that contractors are better equipped to be innovative than indeterminately employed public servants; Lee-Anne links to a study that suggests this is not the case. But contractors are certainly motivated to innovate. If contractors are crippled in their efforts to innovate, it is not because we are timidly unwilling to rock the boat. It is because we are in a position that is inherently very hostile to the possibility of failure. Students are expected to screw up sometimes, but the cultural narrative within the public service does not generally include the same allowances for contractors. We are expected to come in, get the job done, and (usually) leave. As we have not been treated as long-term investments, we are not often in a position to ask for help or make mistakes and learn from them as readily as we could if we weren’t so busy flashing our peacock tails and trying to pretend to perfection. Granted there are exceptions to every rule, and in my current position I have had the opportunity to mess up (oops) and learn from it.

We’re not trying to fit in – we’re trying to stand out. But we are also very conscious that any errors we make will be subject to scrutiny. Making mistakes is important and healthy and an essential part of innovation and change.

The moral of the story? Hug your llamas if they deserve it. If you’ve got a llama in your flock, chances are they realize that their presence may be symptomatic of a larger issue – and that this is a larger issue we’re going to have to work together and do a lot of listening in order to solve.

NOTE from the author: For some reason my blog is not saving comments consistently if you are using Internet Explorer. I really would love to hear your thoughts, so if your comment does not immediately post, please try using an alternate browser such as Firefox or Chrome, or send me a message on Twitter. Special thanks to Lee-Anne for her help and patience in determining the source of the issue.

Is your office like a karaoke bar?

2011-08-02T12:02:00.000-07:00

He took a midnight train going aaaannnywheeeere....

Image by Jan Mehlich, used under Creative Commons licensing

In my experience, the people who attend karaoke bars are as diverse as their reasons for doing so. Scarcely can you find a more eclectic mix of individuals and histories in such an ordinary place. While Ottawa’s karaoke scene is perhaps less vibrant than some, it is still represents a lively collection of various local businesses, each with their own little community of karaoke regulars.

I don’t have the same level of karaoke street cred as some of my friends, but nonetheless I think that karaoke is a great way to wrap up a fun Friday (or Monday!) night, and can often be seen doing precisely that.

Karaoke offers an interesting social atmosphere. When last I hit a karaoke bar a few weeks ago, it occurred to me that some of the observations one could make about karaoke can also be made about many workplaces, and therein lies a series of points to ponder.

The people having fun offer the most value to the group. It is certainly more enjoyable to listen to someone with a great set of pipes than it is to listen to a tone-deaf drunkard, but at the end of the day those who contribute the most are those who are happy, energized, and enthusiastic about what they’re doing. Maybe they’re the most talented person in the room, but that often isn’t the case. And the cool thing about enthusiasm is it often leads these people to improve their performance skills even as they are motivating others to get involved and contribute their own unique talents. Think about it: how does your level of enjoyment correlate with your personal level of perceived impact?

The community matters. Karaoke isn’t just about getting up on a stage and singing whatever you want to sing – that’s what your shower is for. It’s always kind of awkward when someone gets up and mumbles a monotonous rendition of some unknown song. But if you can get up and sing a song that makes the rest of the audience feel engaged, sing along, or stand up and dance – then you’re providing entertainment not only for yourself, but for your peers as well. And these are the performers that have the most fun and have the most to contribute: the individuals who see themselves as part of a team, even if their performance depends on them alone.

Passion breeds passion. I wasn’t always a fan of karaoke. Singing is not exactly my forté, and it took a while for me to be able to loosen up and realize that karaoke is less about being good at singing than it is about enjoying singing (these are not the same thing). But more than overcoming my personal qualms and insecurities, what really keeps me going back is that I love to be around people having fun. Some people take it seriously, and others don’t, both can have a lot of fun – karaoke is really what you make of it, and the enthusiasm of others has made me pretty enthusiastic myself.

Flexible structure facilitates enjoyment. One of the most important tasks of the karaoke host is to ensure that different participants are granted their fair share of time on stage, and make it easy for people to assess when they will be performing and where they stand in the queue. This way you can avoid people being in the bathroom when it’s their turn to hit the stage. Like many things, a little bit of structure allows people to concentrate on picking a really fun song or being really creative. Obviously the structure should be flexible enough to allow collaborative performances and unexpected interludes, but people are more likely to exceed expectations with their performance if the basic environment functions in an effective and relatively predictable manner.

People will form preconceptions based on your appearance, but your reputation is mostly defined by your performance. You didn’t think this post was going to be all warm fuzzies, did you? It’s an (unfortunate or interesting) fact that people expect certain things from you based on how your appearance interacts with their opinions and perception. There is really no reason for me to be surprised when a woman in her forties sings “Let the bodies hit the floor”, but I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that it did surprise me. And at the end of the day, the surprise becomes half the fun. The great thing is that karaoke offers an excellent environment to play with expectations and explore the ways people react to atypical identity performance. (I could really write a whole post about this point alone.) So when I perform this song, some people interpret it as a joke, while others interpret it as my making a social argument. And in fact, both can be true but neither needs to be.

The superstars and the odd ducks both contribute value. Everyone loves to hear a talented person sing. But the thing about karaoke – like the workplace – is that talent can manifest in many different ways. Some of the best performers aren’t particularly good vocalists, but if they engage the audience and put on a good show, everyone has fun. And even an awkward, tone-deaf mumbler contributes to the environment in an important way: he or she humanizes the experience and shows those who may be feeling shy that you don’t have to be a superstar to have fun. And today’s awkward mumbler could be next week’s comedic sensation. If Happy Feet taught us anything, it’s that performances can be vastly different but equally entertaining and equally demonstrative of talent. One of my karaoke compatriots will frequently death growl girl-power pop songs by the likes of Britney Spears and Lady Gaga, and people’s reactions are always intriguing. Some promptly get up and leave the bar; others fidget uncomfortably; some laugh with good-natured surprise; others cheer enthusiastically. But one thing no one can argue with is that his performances really liven things up – and that makes him a valuable performer. And you know what? The same things apply in the office; so don’t dismiss someone’s contribution because they don’t fall within your radar of acceptable expectations. Try expanding your scope.

Your efforts outside the spotlight make a huge impact. One might think that karaoke is all about the performer on the stage. Au contraire! The involvement of the audience members is essential. Karaoke would be a colossally boring activity if the scant minutes one spends on the stage were the most enjoyable, and what about those who don’t want to sing? The more the audience is engaged – singing along, dancing, applauding, cajoling – the more fun everyone has, audience members and performers alike. A great performer is nice to have, but a great community is beyond compare. And the wonderful thing is that each individual audience member can contribute to that atmosphere, by choosing to applaud or by getting up to dance. Change starts with individuals!

Mutuality, group dynamics, and the iterated prisoner's dilemma

2011-06-20T11:24:00.000-07:00

It seems like everyone is talking about game theory these days. As those who know me can attest, I'm much more interested in game studies (applying literary/social/design theory to games) than I am in applying game theory to life, and my forays into game theory of late mostly result in my getting caught up in the particulars and implications of certain grammatical conventions. But I digress.

After reading Nick's game theory post on cpsrenewal.ca, I decided to post some of my own perspectives on the applications of certain theoretical paradigms to a real world (workplace) context. By the way, if Nick's post got you interested in backwards induction and Nash equilibriums, I wholeheartedly, emphatically suggest that you play Frozen Synapse.

In a recent discussion with a friend regarding symbiotic relationships and inherent motivations for cooperation, we ended up tossing around a few ideas related to the prisoner's dilemma. Often used as an explanation for why individuals might opt not to cooperate even if it is in their best interests to do so, it's less about doing the right thing than it is about minimizing personal risk and covering your own butt. And I thought that this sounds an awful lot like some work environments.

(from Wikipedia)

Cooperating holds the maximum potential gain, but also the greatest potential risk. For this reason, most players will opt to defect (that is, not cooperate) when faced with the prisoner's dilemma. This is true whether you are playing one round of the game or, theoretically, any limited and specified number of rounds.

But that's not what most people deal with in the workplace, is it?

The iterated prisoner's dilemma

The work environment can be more appropriately modelled as a multi-player indefinite iterated prisoner's dilemma. That is to say that the individuals will play a non-specified (potentially indefinite) number of rounds in which each individual can recall the previous decisions of the other players and adjust their own strategy accordingly. The iterated prisoner's dilemma game is fundamental to certain theories of human cooperation and trust. Even in cases where the number of rounds is known (and theoretically the best strategy would be to consistently defect), the establishment of an indirect relationship between the two players results in cooperation being a more dominant strategy.

And research shows that purely self-interested and rational players interacting for indefinitely long games can sustain the cooperative outcome, quite simply because when you're in it for the long haul as opposed to a one-off task, you have a vested interest in both fostering your relationship with other individuals (to ensure their cooperation) and in maintaining your best possible long-term outcomes.

While choosing your own partner (unsurprisingly) expedites the emergence of a mutually cooperative equilibrium, establishing this pattern is possible for people who do not know or like each other, even in cases when no communication between players is possible.

Though hotly contested, the most effective strategy (in terms of personal gain and in terms of establishing mutual cooperation) is perhaps the "tit for tat with forgiveness" approach. Under this strategy, the player defaults to cooperation at the start of the game, and henceforth does what the other player chose to do in the previous round (defects as punishment for defection), while occasionally choosing to forgive instances of betrayal in order to avoid falling into a cycle of mutual defection.

This strategy appears to be relevant in the workplace as well as in theory. The best approaches are those that are nice, assume good faith but are not afraid to react to instances of betrayal, readily forgive, and strive to maximize personal gain as opposed to simply besting the score of another player.

Viewed in such a light, personalities tending towards risk-aversion (which are often regarded as opponents to openness and collaboration in the workplace) can actually promote cooperation; because even though the payoff for selfishness can be higher, the risk is also greatest.

The question is: how do we create a culture where it is obvious to all people that cooperation (or collaboration, if you will) is not only most likely to benefit the largest number of people (appealing to the community-minded) but also that not cooperating comes with a greater risk to the individual (appealing to the risk-averse).

In most cases, this environment already exists. Increasingly, as networking and sharing within communities becomes a great way to access new information and resources, those who choose not to share risk being left behind. The problem is that many who are sitting comfortably with more or less unassailable job security do not perceive this risk as actively as one might if they were in a less secure position. But set on a long enough timeline, everyone's comfy status quo is threatened by stagnation and lack of cooperation.

What do I mean by cooperating, here? Put simply: cooperating means doing your part in as transparent, communicative and accessible a fashion as possible, as an individual component of a network of mutuality.

The network of mutuality

In describing society (or any group, such as colleagues) as an inescapable network of mutuality, I am respectfully alluding to Martin Luther King Jr. and, more recently, Fred Clark as a way of saying that we are all responsible to each other and it is in our own best interests to embrace that responsibility.

"We are all responsible, but we are not all responsible in the same way. We each and all have roles to play, but we do not all have the same role to play, and we do not each play the same role all the time.
Relationship, proximity, office, ability, means, calling and many other factors all shape our particular individual and differentiated responsibilities in any given case. In every given case. Circumstance and pure chance also play a role, sometimes a very large role, as when you alone are walking by the pond where the drowning stranger calls for help, or when you alone are walking on the road to Jericho when you encounter the stranger who has fallen among thieves."

By failing to support the efforts of others, by failing to proactively share information and access to the work we are doing, we are contributing to a culture that will not support our efforts, or share information when we ourselves need it. Call it karma or call it game theory, the bottom line is that it is in our own, individual best interests to take care of each other, whether in the context of a small team or a staff as large as the public service.

But just to make sure, let's examine that premise through another paradigm and think about the really important question: how do encourage this?

Avoiding the tragedy of the commons

Garret Hardin's 1968 article on group dynamics (based on a scenario outlined by William Forster Llyod) cast a dim view of the possibility for group cooperation when it is in the individual's short term interest not to do so. He argued that even if it is in the individual's long-term interest to cooperate and contribute actively to a shared responsibility, individuals will opt for the more short-term profitability of exploiting their peers. (In game theory, this is often called the commonize costs - privatize profits game, credited to Garrett Hardin.)

The tragedy of the commons has been used as an argument for sustainable development, and as an argument against restrictions to private property. But at its heart the commons dilemma is a paradigm that can be applied to any situation in which people's short-term selfish interests are at odds with their long-term interests and the common good.

So, based on this model, how do we account for myopically selfish behaviours in the workplace?

1. Community-building. In this paradigm, motivation to contribute to a shared responsibility is increased with the number of social ties an individual has within a group. When we identify with the other members of our community, we are not only more likely to exercise personal responsibility, but also more willing to compensate for the shortcomings or overindulgences of others. (Lesson for the risk-averse and uncooperative: if you do not invest in people, they will not help you out or cover for you.) Group identity promotes a long-term perspective on shared responsibility.

2. Transparency. Research has shown that people are less likely to take advantage of the group in public situations than in private. Additionally, those who contribute actively to group needs and exercise restraint in the interest of their peers gain greater prestige and influence within the group. Working in a transparent environment (in which information is freely accessible) not only makes people feel accountable, but it also amps up the perceived and actual value of social capital.

3. Ownership. Feelings of accountability to the group actually increase the smaller the group size happens to be. At first this might seem counterintuitive: why should I feel more responsible to fewer people than I would to more? But upon examination of social realities, it makes sense. In smaller groups, you are personally more responsible for the results produced by the group: your work and your choices enact considerable influence. The fact is that not all of us can work in a small group (and not all of us want to), but by tasking individuals with projects that really matter and in which they can perceive the impact of their work will, as I've argued before, result in better work and more productive groups.

3. Low barriers to entry and concrete, attainable goals. To quote Scott Johnson, "if you don't have to pitch in much to fix a huge problem, you'll take that deal. If the solution to the problem seems out of reach, you may consider contributing to be a waste until it looks tractable; then you'll want to pitch in." People are less likely to cooperate if they consider the goals of the group to be intangible (hence the reluctance to cooperate exclusively for the preservation of long-term interests) or difficult. We need to build transparency into the way we work, through using platforms such as wikis and fostering movements that favour openness. And anyone can do this: start sharing your drafts and posting your ideas before they are finished. Make your work findable and contribute to the culture of group-focussed productivity in order to re-align social norms.

5. Leadership. One of the best ways to motivate cooperation is to demonstrate it and lead by example, but there is more to it than that. Several responses to the tragedy of the commons suggest (and I am inclined to agree) that people are more likely to cooperate when a respected person not only endorses and exemplifies cooperation, but also makes it clear that it is expected. When openness, creativity and cooperation are normalized, even the reluctant individuals are more likely to engage because that's just how we roll.

6. High stakes. As discussed above in the context of the iterated prisoner's dilemma, the fact of the matter is that some people are more motivated by what they risk losing than by potential personal gain. While I certainly think we should empasize the benefits of cooperation first and foremost, it's worthwhile to consider the risks of doing nothing in how we frame our value propositions.

The bottom line is that our actions as individuals must be more than efficient and inspiring -- each of us must also strive to be propulsive, for the sake of our own interests as well as those of Canadians at large.

Snarky Soapboxtimist

2011-06-07T14:31:00.001-07:00

I wrote a response to an Ottawa Citizen article and decided to post it on the other blog I forgot I had!

Check it out.

And I'll post something substantial here this week.

Quotemining: how do you define success?

2011-05-10T12:48:00.001-07:00

I'm currently developing a new post on a topic of great personal significance and interest: the idea of success.

All over the Internet and on bookshelves around the world, we are barraged by guides that can help us attain success. They describe the traits of successful people, presumably for the purposes of emulation. Everyone wants to be successful, right? It's a word that gets tossed around a lot.

There are notably fewer resources available that engage with defining the concept of success itself, although there is some decent stuff out there. It's something I spend a lot of time thinking about.

I'd like to ask you to help me out with my writing by sharing your own thoughts and sharing resources. I want to hear from you! Please leave a comment, tweet at me, or if you'd like you can email me at chelseaedgell[at]gmail.com.

Here are some questions to consider:

- How do you define success? (Be honest.)
- Picture a prototypical successful person in your head. What does that person look like? What do they do?
- What does it mean to be successful?
- How does the concept of success relate, in your mind, to the ideas of motivation and potential?
- How does the concept of success relate to achievements, accomplishments, or credentials?
- How does the concept of success relate to the idea of impact, social influence or notoreity?
- When you think of success, do you think of social, financial, spiritual or academic matters first? (Or maybe something else?)

Note that unless you ask me not to do so, I will attribute any quotes to the person who shares them according to the supplied identifiers. Thanks in advance!

Pieces of the puzzle, cogs in the machine

2011-05-06T11:05:00.000-07:00

Concerning agency, and fostering a process-focussed sense of ownership on collaborative and hierarchal projects

One of my favourite things about working in the public service is how motivating it is to work for myself, my friends, my family, and my communities. Everyone who pays taxes pays my wages, and that really lights a fire under my butt on days where I might be tempted to putter along or dick around. In fact, I presently have a note stuck to my monitor at work to remind me of that very fact.

Another thing that is very motivating for me is the fact that I am tasked with projects for which I have a great sense of ownership. At the present moment, Eyes Abroad is my file. I work with people all around the world to generate content and tell great stories, but at the end of the day I feel personally responsible for ensuring the quality of the final product.

I have been very fortunate throughout my career in that I have often been assigned to projects in which I was able to invest myself on an emotional level because I had a sense of ownership and substantial influence on the task. From my first “real job” working in a Victorian-themed tea shop years ago to my present position, I always seek to feel involved in the service I deliver. Ownership and engagement go hand in hand; it’s hard to care if you don’t feel like your work matters, after all.

In November 2009, I wrote a blog post titled “The Cheater’s Guide to Giving a Shit”. In the comments, I got into a bit of a debate with some readers in which I asserted the following:

The job does not control one's personal impetus towards progress. If someone has a problem with being too comfortable (in a job, a relationship, whatever), I say do something about it or stop complaining. Take some ownership. Talk about it to people who have an impact. Empower yourself. No one else is going to do it for you.

Today, you might say that my idealism has been tempered slightly by the knowledge of how privileged I have been. Not everyone has a project in which they can see evidence of their contribution in the final product. Some people feel that they do work only to have it undone at a subsequent step in the process. I understand that this can be very emotionally taxing and de-motivating.

The state of my own mental health is greatly dependent on my sense of agency – feeling that I have control or at least can exert influence on my situation and the world around me. So I understand how important this is in the workplace.

“I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me.” – Jack Nicholson, as Frank Costello in The Departed (2006).

Sometimes that sense of agency is difficult to maintain. Every day, horrible things happen in the world that we have little – if any – ability to control. Sometimes we feel helpless in the face of the events of our lives. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. Well-meaning idiots mess shit up. Efforts are wasted in vain. Good intentions amount to naught. This is sometimes the way of the world, and sometimes the way of the workplace.

It is encouraging to remember that there is always help to be had if you are willing to seek it out. That’s the key to a healthy sense of agency: remember that even though you may not always be able to control your situation, you can always exert influence on yourself and your perspectives. You may not be able to shift your outlook entirely, but even trying to do so demonstrates the emotional and mental capacity to self-influence. That’s what I think, anyway. I’ve said it before: it’s like the fact that choosing to smile can help improve your mood.

So let’s talk about ownership.

It’s easy to feel a sense of ownership for a project for which you are personally responsible. But what happens if your contributions to the final product appear invisible, infinitesimal, trivial or – worse – have been eliminated entirely? It is only human to find these experiences challenging, and to find self-motivation even more so as a result.

On the flip side of the coin, it can be very easy to slip into laziness if you find yourself in a situation where poor performance on your part can easily and routinely be compensated for by other members of the team. Sure, you might feel like an asshole sometimes (and you should), but does anyone notice or hold you to account if the final product meets deadlines and expectations? I’m sure we’ve all dealt with dead weight like this; some people deal with it daily. Perhaps you’ve even been that dead weight yourself at some point.

So whether you’re dead weight or your work is getting lost in the process or you feel like you’re spinning your wheels, obviously we have a problem with fostering a sense of ownership. What’s to be done?

I think that it can be valuable to shift focus away from the final product and towards the process of service delivery. If you have participated in the process, you have influenced the final product; therefore, you can see your contribution where you may not be able to specifically point to your work.

This is especially important to remember on collaborative projects where individuals may not get the credit that they feel they deserve. If you have influenced the process, you have influenced the product. This could be advice offered to a colleague at the water cooler, a blog post you retweeted that boosted morale, an edit that was considered but later rejected. You played a part, and that part was important.

To conclude with an example and a success story, I’d like to point you in the direction of HitRecord.org, an open source collaborative production company fronted by actor-musician-producer-well-dressed-Jack-of-all-trades Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

The way HitRecord works is that arts projects are freely produced, mashed up, and remixed. Individual contributions may be modified or erased entirely, but each person who participates leaves a mark on the growth of an evergreen creative product.

Take this collaboratively developed hip-hop track for example. It was the result of Gordon-Levitt adding to a song that employed music from another work… and 14 different new interpretations and contributions have been made since then. Or check out the whopping 119 results of a fun video about a young couple’s date. That’s the way things roll at HitRecord. And they’ve managed to monetize this process too, which makes it all the more worthy of attention, even if the critical acclaim weren’t merit enough.

The moral of the story: acknowledge the impact of your existence and seek to expand it. It’s incredibly motivating.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the Internet...

2011-05-02T08:00:00.001-07:00

This is just a quick update to let you know that Macgasm has started posting new episodes of their video podcast. Why am I writing about that here? Well, because I happen to be an occasional guest-host on said video podcast! I recommend you check it out, as the latest episode features yours truly.

The Macgasm podcast releases a new episode every Friday. Stay tuned for an upcoming episode entirely about headphones, in which I nerd out all over the Macgasm studio. You know how much I love headphones, right?

Check out the Macgasm video podcast here. In this episode we talk about speakers, iPad cases, accoustic amplification devices, and more. Many thanks to the Macgasm dudes for inviting me onto the show.

In other news...

By request, I am posting some of my columns and articles from when I was Online Editor of the Fulcrum. The Fulcrum website has plenty of content written and edited by yours truly, but here are some of my old favourites.

What's in an M? - my analysis of the alleged relationship between the scarlet letter of video game ratings and their commercial success.

lol u mad? - a discussion of Internet lingo, grammar, failbooking and Stephen Fry.

Gaider versus Bastal - a wrap-up of the controversy surrounding gay characters in DragonAge 2 and how BioWare responded.

Point/Counterpoint: 3-D Movies - I go head-to-head with the talented Jane Lytvynenko in a debate over whether 3-D movies are awesome or a waste of time.

The Walking Dead - an opinion piece I wrote shortly after season one of AMC's The Walking Dead launched, featuring stellar artwork by Caitlin Vitamaki, laid out for print by the incomparable Jesse Willms. Read this especially if you haven't seen the series.

Consoles and Condescension - my response to the atrocious Dead Space 2 ads that debuted in January.

Dropping the F Bomb - a brief look at the principles, problems and philosophies that come together in the feminist movement.

Stooping instead of levelling up - a discussion about responding to bullshit, written following the Carole Liebermann "video games cause rape" fiasco.

Thus concludes the shameless self-promotion. We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

Lessons in clarity and transparency: learning from the PlayStation Network hack

2011-04-28T13:10:00.001-07:00

Sony has been getting a fair bit of bad press lately. First, there was the GeoHot saga: Sony sued PS3 jailbreaker George “GeoHot” Hotz for allegedly jailbreaking a PS3 and posting details and instructions online. Before they managed to reach a settlement, hacker collective Anonymous targetted Sony’s websites and subjected it to a series of distributed denial of service attacks. However, Anonymous appeared not to want to harm gamers themselves – just to send a message that they disapproved of Sony taking legal action against the 21-year-old Hotz.

Then the PlayStation Network (PSN) went down – and it couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Right in the middle of the highly-anticipated integration of PC gaming platform Steam with the PS3, and immediaetly after the launch of Portal 2 and Mortal Kombat? This is not the time for your online gaming platform to go down for a couple weeks. But it gets worse. It turns out that the PSN was breached and that gamers’ personal information has been obtained by an unknown infiltrator.

I happen to own and love a PS3, so it pains me to be redistributing tales of woe – but there are lessons to be learned here and it’s not just about privacy and protecting user data. We’re talking crisis communications, PR, personality and transparency.

Although I am sure they had their reasons (likely related to the investigation of the breach), Sony waited almost a week before disclosing the breach in a blog post, and even longer before confirming that birth dates and credit card information may have been leaked in the hack. Media outlets have been chronicling the situation as it develops, and one thing is clear: Sony was really dragging its feet when it comes to releasing information. Gamers (there are 75 million active PSN accounts worldwide) and privacy advocates are pissed off.

Now that the story has blown open, different people are reacting in different ways. Michael Pachter of Equity Research has been quoted as saying that the PSN hack is not that big a deal since “a serious hacker with evil intent” would target a financial institution, not a gaming platform.

But Pachter seems to be alone in this sentiment, as the CBC is calling the hack one of the top five cybersecurity breaches ever. While really crucial information such as social insurance numbers and credit card security codes were not part of the information obtained, whoever infiltrated the PSN is now sitting on a goldmine of information that could easily be used for social engineering and extremely detailed targeted phishing.

Anonymous has denied responsibility for the attack, although with their decentralized leadership model it is impossible to say whether one or more Anons may have been involved. Ben Kuchera of Ars Technica has very aptly pointed out that “In some circles, damaging a company this badly would be considered a badge of honor, no matter how many other people were hurt in the process.”

The problem is that Sony took too long before it began communicating with customers as effectively as perhaps they could. Privacy and information Commissioners worldwide are still looking for more details. Gamers were upset and confused, calling their banks (who were likely equally upset and confused).

The lack of communication was getting many gamers more upset than the hack itself. After all, although they have experienced the loss of their personal information and the sudden onset of the risk of targeted phishing, most gamers should have little to fret about in terms of immediate financial risks or repercussions – they aren’t likely going to get slapped with ridiculous bills if their card information was compromised. And Sony has provided American consumers with advice on how to protect themselves from identity theft affecting their credit rating. But Sony’s lack of clear communication was a problem.

Then Patrick Seybold hit the Sony blog. He is the Senior Director of Corporate Communications and Social Media at Sony, so I’m not surprised that he’s making the most of a crappy situation. Last night he posted a very clear Q & A on the blog, providing essential information in a clear and understandable way. He validated the anger, thanked people for their input, and encouraged them to continue commenting and asking questions.

It’s a great example of crisis communications. And if the comments on the post itself are any indication, most gamers are calming down and willing to forgive. Mostly, they just want guidance, and they want the PSN to get back up and running securely. They want the hacker caught. They want to play video games.

So what can we learn from this mess?

I think that the biggest lesson is that unofficial communications are better than no communications at all. Sony took too long to announce the breach, and uncertainty does little to inspire confidence in your customers. When shit is hitting the fan, it’s important to at least touch base and share the information that you do have available. Transparency inspires confidence.

It’s also important to make sure that your messages are clear, concise, and easy to absorb. When readers are upset, they want to obtain the information with as little hassle as possible.

Lastly, I think that it’s important to acknowledge the power of putting a face and a name to a corporate message. Seybold’s blog posts inspire confidence in gamers because they are coming from a human being who is currently tasked with a very difficult job, and doing it well despite the challenges. Commenters are empathetic, because they are not speaking to a faceless corporation called Sony, they are speaking to Patrick Seybold, who is interacting with them as part of the team working hard to fix a messy situation.

It can be scary to face an angry customer’s wrath, and it is very tempting in those situations to fall back behind the corporate mask. We’ve all run into unhelpful customer service representatives that claim “there is nothing they can do” due to “company policy”. Humanity and individuality may make you feel vulnerable sometimes, but when it comes to eliciting patience and understanding, I think it can be your greatest strength when communicating.

We’re seeing this approach more and more in corporate communications, and I really like it. It makes an individual personally responsible for the message they deliver. I love it when someone with actual influence on the product or service interacts with customers, especially online in environments like forums.

I’ve written about this sort of thing before in chronicling the interactions between a pseudonymous gamer and Dragon Age 2 lead writer David Gaider. It was a really interesting situation and we can learn just as much from Gaider as we can from Seybold, I think.

In short, transparency is essential in a crisis, and communicating in a clear and human way can save your skin – even if your customers may have just had their personal information stolen.

In defence of hipsters

2011-04-15T09:27:00.000-07:00

“No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.” -Henry B. Adams

Somewhere along the line, the word hipster became a genuine insult. I am not quite sure when it happened, but happen it has, especially in technologically-oriented communities. As the word geek was reclaimed and embraced, so hipster transformed from a term connoting good-natured cajolery into a pejorative.

Few social subgroups are as maligned in popular discourse and culture as the hipsters. You know the stereotype: leggings, keffiyah, chunky glasses, “passion for obscure bands, obtuse fashion sense, cheapness masquerading as quirkiness or upper-middle-class white self loathing”. Hipsters are pretentious and elitist, with an overdeveloped appreciation for irony.

Adbusters magazine described hipsters as “the dead end of Western civilization”.

Websites like Look At This Fucking Hipster or Die Hipster or I Hate Hipsters are just illustrations of the sentiments many people – especially younger people – have for hipsters. Hipster hate blogs are everywhere. Even people who look like hipsters will often protest loudly against the dreaded label: “I’m not a hipster!” Those who embrace the label are few. Take this anecdote from the Adbusters article, for example.

Standing outside an art-party next to a neat row of locked-up fixed-gear bikes, I come across a couple girls who exemplify hipster homogeneity. I ask one of the girls if her being at an art party and wearing fake eyeglasses, leggings and a flannel shirt makes her a hipster.

"I'm not comfortable with that term," she replies.

Her friend adds, with just a flicker of menace in her eyes, "Yeah, I don't know, you shouldn't use that word, it's just…"

"Offensive?"

Most people will deny being a hipster altogether, but there are some who protest the negative connotation that the word has acquired.

"I've always found that word is used with such disdain, like it's always used by chubby bloggers who aren't getting laid anymore and are bored, and they're just so mad at these young kids for going out and getting wasted and having fun and being fashionable," says Gavin McInnes, one of the founders of the much-beloved-by-hipsters Vice magazine.

It makes sense that people don’t want to be labelled, especially not with a term that mocks your taste and lifestyle, or paints you and your peers with the same dismissive brush. To quote ScienceDaily:

“…findings suggest how backlash against identity categories such as hipster… could generate complex and nuanced identity strategies that enable consumers to retain their tastes and interests while protecting these tastes from trivializing mythologies.”

Basically, we don’t like being called hipsters because the term implies a rejection or refusal to acknowledge the labelled person’s individuality.

So here’s the thing.

Hipsters that adhere to the stereotype are obnoxious. It’s an insult for a reason. As one blogger put it, “if, in an effort to distance oneself from the class you belong to, one appropriates the culture and norms of those less fortunate with no desire or attempt made to truly be a part of that community… that’s fucking hipster. The word is derogatory.”

The problem is that individuals who really deserve the label as an insult are very few and far between. Just like very few geeks are actually socially awkward, nasal-voiced, pimple-faced pocket protector types.

And at the end of the day, I think that people are using the word hipster when certain very common personality traits happen to overlap with certain fashion choices. Everyone is snobby about something; just don’t wear skinny jeans when you’re being snobby, because then you’re a hipster.

I know plenty of techies who are always up on the latest thing and can come across as condescending to those who aren’t quite as in the loop. I know plenty of film buffs who staunchly believe that movies just aren’t as good as they used to be, and that the old stuff is better. I know plenty of literature enthuasiasts that treat having read certain books as some kind of academic street cred.

“Oh, you haven’t read Ulysses? Well, I read it years ago, before people started reading it just to show off. It’s not as good as A Dance to the Music of Time, but you’ve probably never heard of that.”

Honestly, I'm sure that I have probably said something that delivers a similar message.

There are even gamers who come across the same way. Obscure internet joke t-shirts, LAN parties, a scorn for Apple products and dismissal of casual and mobile gamers? Geeks and gamers are supposed to be the antitheses of hipsters, but we have more in common than I think we want to admit.

Try this: every time someone self-identifies as a geek, try replacing the word geek with hipster. Apple hipster. Literary hipster. Film hipster. Photography hipster.

If it doesn’t work for you, that probably means that you either like the person you’re labelling (and as such don’t want to apply an insult to them) or you identify a hipster by the way people look. And that isn’t really fair, is it? I think that we are automatically ascribing obnoxious personality traits to people who dress a certain way without taking the time to get to know them. Forming preconceptions about someone based on their appearance is understandable and human, if unadmirable. But insulting them because of it or assuming certain personality traits because they shop at Urban Outfitters, ride a fixie or listen to Passion Pit… that’s not cool.

Calling someone a hipster is a pretty elitist thing to do. It’s basically saying that you think you are more genuine than they are. And isn’t that kind of hipster? What do you think?

Special thanks to Shawn Hooper.

Managing change: lessons learned from a horse

2011-03-24T13:49:00.000-07:00

Pictured: my grandmother, Roberta Richardson Edgell (age 12), with Flirt in Sherbrooke, Quebec. Also pictured: me (age 16) with Aspen in Stouffville, Ontario.

Like many kids, I grew up with a passionate love of horses. What began as an unhealthy obsession with My Little Pony evolved over the years into a deep appreciation for one mankind's most powerful four-footed friends. Throughout my teen years, the majority of my limited income went to financing lessons at a riding academy in the nearby town of Stouffville, and I would take any excuse to spend more time at a barn. Every Saturday before my afternoon shift at the tea shop began, I spent the morning as a stablehand and horse handler at the Community Association for Riding for the Disabled; in the summer I worked as a counsellor at a riding camp and occasionally as a whipper-in at horse shows in Palgrave, Ontario.

I tended horses, cleaned equipment, and swept barns. Yes, I have shovelled my fair share of horse shit. No, it's really not all that bad.

But the best part was the riding. Over the course of my years at the academy, I progressed from basic groundwork and found my passion in the hunter jumper class. This means that although I didn't have much interest in competitions, I had a lot of interest in going fast and jumping over things.

I was far from ever being able to afford my own horse, so I rode academy horses. While I learned to ride on a variety of different animals with very diverse personalities, once I got skilled I was more or less permanently assigned to one horse, and he to me. His name was Aspen.

Aspen was a large, sleek gelding, just over 17 hands (68 inches) at the shoulder with a broad chest, a sturdy build, a powerful neck and proud carriage. He was about five years old when we met. He was talented, affectionate, impetuous and very strong, and if not for his slightly weak hind ankles, there is no way a quality animal like that would have wound up in a riding school at his age. I was a brash young rider and he was a brash young horse -- we both loved jumping and got along famously.

I wasn't paired with Aspen simply because of our compatible personalities. He and I stood to learn a lot from each other and, over the course of our time together, we certainly did. And some of the lessons that I learned with Aspen have been applicable to other areas of my life -- especially change management. I've decided to share those lessons with you, because it might help you think about how you and your organization approach and deal with change.

Don't haul on the reins

Aspen was extremely enthusiastic, and as such had little interest in regulating his pace on the course. He was somewhat... hectic... to ride at times. With each jump, his stride would grow longer and his speed would increase. The problem with this is that he had no idea where we were supposed to be going, and it can be extremely difficult and even dangerous to attempt sharp turns or tightly clustered jumps when your horse is thundering around the arena at a madcap pace.

My initial response to this behaviour was to resist, to put my heels down and haul on the reins.

But this would not slow Aspen down. In fact, whereas before he was running out of sheer enthusiasm, hauling on the reins made it into a fight. It made him want to run faster. He would use the pressure on the reins as support, leaning his face against my hands, essentially relying on my strength to keep his head up as he ran. Not only is this exhausting for your upper body, it is also detrimental from a performance standpoint. A horse can't jump as high or generate as much power if all his weight is forward, and he is much more likely to stumble. You need to be in rear-wheel drive. So, in order to accomplish this and keep Aspen to a manageable tempo, I would use little tugs to indicate that I wanted to slow down, without offering blanket resistance that would make him want to fight me. I would use my body to prepare him to turn well in advance, showing him that jumps are actually easier when he allowed me to help him regulate his movement.

When things seem to be flying out of control or moving too fast, the answer is not to flatly resist. The answer is not "no" for the sake of exerting control or making yourself feel more comfortable. Sometimes you have to keep up. Sometimes we need to fly by the seats of our pants. My instructor used to tell me, "you can ride as fast as he can run; you need to earn his trust before he'll look to you for guidance, and to do that he needs to know that you're working with him, not against him". I think this applies to organizational change equally well. Don't make it a fight, keep up with the times, and earn the trust of your communities.

Plan ahead but don't be afraid to improvise

One of the keys to successfully executing a fautless run through a course is planning. I would plan where to turn, where to change leads, what angle at which I should approach a jump. Planning not only keeps you and your horse calm and organized, but it also helps you keep your time down. When there are multiple jumps in a line, it is a good idea to plan how many strides your horse will take between jumps. This is important for helping to ensure that your mount is moving at the correct speed, maintains enough momentum to get through the line, and doesn't get caught stumbling awkwardly into the air.

But sometimes things don't go exactly as planned. Aspen had a tendency to take jumps longer than necessary, as if afraid of clipping his heels. The result was that when you combined his large size with his long leaps, a line that was designed to fit 4 strides could often only accommodate about 2.5 Aspen-strides. This presents a tricky situation, because half-strides are no good for jumping -- they kill your pace right at the foot of a jump, which can result in your horse refusing or balking at the jump. More experienced animals can guage distance on their own and adjust their stride length accordingly, but Aspen hadn't really figured this out yet.

And so I was routinely confronted with the choice: do I shorten him to three strides, or make him stretch for two? Aspen could very easily get worked up if pushed to go faster and farther, but hindering his momentum was also potentially unwise. So what I chose depended on how he'd been performing, how challenging the course was, and so forth. I would plan, but also be able to make decisions on the fly depending on the disposition of my hoofed partner. (Quite often Aspen and I took the "go big or go home" approach, to be honest.)

Know when to get out of the way

When it comes to leaping over jumps and obstacles, it is obvious that the horse does most of the work. Equestrian sports require a great deal of athleticism on the part of both horse and rider, but at the end of the day, you're not the one jumping over that square oxer, are you? The rider is responsible for ensuring that the horse is well prepared, set up and aligned correctly, knows when to leave the ground and how far to extend, and has enough momentum to carry through. But when it comes to jumping, the rider's number one responsibility is to get off the horse's back and give the horse its head (release pressure on the reins). To do this, you sit up in your stirrups in what is commonly called two-point position.

When it comes to managing change, the same principles apply. You can provide as much guidance and input as you can, but when it comes time for your team or your community to get something done, if you are not directly involved, the most supportive action you can take is to trust your community and get out of the way. Allow change to carry you to new heights.

Be part of it

The number one key to successful riding is to recognize that you must utilize your entire body; every part from head to toe must be engaged in communicating with your horse: your eyes, your shoulders, your voice, your calves -- it all matters.

And this is also the most important key to successfully managing change, whether it is happening within an organization, within a society, or within your personal life. You have to be part of it. Change isn't something that happens around you or despite you if you are plugged in and communicating. It is something that happens with you, and because of you and your communities.

What the heck is Twestival?

2011-03-14T08:57:00.001-07:00

I'm really hoping that this doesn't make me sound like a bad person, but I originally had no plans to attend Twestival Ottawa, the local iteration of a worldwide charity movement.

Hear me out. I was totally, 100% sold on donating at least $25 to the Royal Foundation for Mental Health through Twestival. Mental health issues hold a personal significance to me, and it is very important that the community support the Royal's efforts to launch specialized programs for women's and cultural health. I planned to support this event financially, and I encourage you to do the same.

I just didn't know if I was going to put in any face time.

My weeknights are often pretty packed, and freeing up time on a Thursday evening can be a challenge, even if I wasn't leaving town the following day (which I am). So I was not sure if I could make it to the event.

But most of the reason for my hesitation is that I had no idea what was going on.

Twestival Ottawa is all about giving back to the community, and I was going to contribute to that. But what about the event itself? I'd been asking around a lot -- I'd even spoken to organizers -- but until very recently I hadn't managed to get a clear picture of what to expect, and the event is swiftly approaching.

Let's be clear, so you don't think I've had my head in the sand: I have followed the @TwestivalOTT Twitter account, I've read the blogs and I know several of the organizers personally. But still it took some digging in order to figure out what the deal is.

Until recently, all I had managed to determine is that Twestival is about a bunch of local Twitter users getting together to... what? Drink and eat snacks and network? I'd heard that there would be Twitter 101 presentations, but I can't say that interested me. If the social appeal of this event is to see my favourite Twitter users and meet new people, that's cool. But is that all? I do that every Friday, and every three weeks at #W2P. I can't say that I saw this as a valuable networking event, because I have no idea with whom I would be networking, or whether it would be of value. I hate to say it, but simply the fact that someone is using Twitter doesn't mean that we have something to offer each other. And I can't say that attending purely for the purpose of socializing is enough to make me shuffle my other commitments for the evening.

I gathered from the @TwestivalOTT Twitter feeds that there might be prizes ("For what?" I wondered. "Is it a raffle?") and an auction ("live? silent? what are the rules?"), but I couldn't find any details on the event page, or on any of the numerous blog posts I spotted. And everyone's message was the same: "Go to Twestival Ottawa!" But the why never extended beyond the moral argument for financial contribution, which does not require my physical presence.

I didn't even know enough about the tone of the event to begin to guess at the dress code. We're all supposed to wear purple, I knew, but is this a casual event? A formal event? Business attire? Business casual? As it is being held at Daly's at the Westin, it really could be anything.

What really stressed me out is that I felt as if I was expected to attend, but not being persuaded by any other means apart from what effectively amounted to peer pressure and guilt tripping. All the cool kids are doing it, of that there is no doubt. But why were all the cool kids doing it, instead of just raising money?

The bottom line, for me, was that if this event is about raising money, I didn't know what kind of impact my face time would make, or even if it mattered. If my face time isn't needed to make some kind of impact, then I needed to be sold on attending. And in order to be sold, I needed to have an idea of what will happen when I walk through those doors.

If you are feeling like I was, check this shit out: I found the answer on the FoodiePrints blog! It has all the details and answered all my questions (except the one about dress code), and let me tell you that it sounds like Twestival Ottawa will be a blast. There will be a raffle, a silent auction, a live auction, and professional Twitter avatar photo shoots. There will be drinks and good company. And there will be me. ;)

I'm going not only because I believe in supporting the Royal Foundation for Mental Health, but because I think that it will be fun. So if you have been thinking that Twestival is just another charity event, just another group of people in the endless tide asking you for money, forget it. Twestival Ottawa is more than a guilt trip -- it's a party. And it's not a stupid party, either. I think that it's going to kick ass.

This is also a lesson for event organizers, I think. Making a moral case for your event is great, and raising awareness for mental health issues is super important -- but if your event also rocks, put that in the spotlight. We all prefer partying for a good cause over simply opening our wallets for it.

Workplace personalities of Middle Earth

2011-02-25T13:26:00.000-08:00

I've been very busy with serious and work-related writing lately, so I decided to whip up a fun post. I wanted to play around a little more with character archetypes in the workplace, and I decided that profiling the different personalities that exist within a fictional team would be a good way to get people thinking about what roles we play in the workplace and how we can improve ourselves. And I watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy last weekend, so there.

It is essential to remember, however, that individual personalities are not half as important as how we interact with and influence each other. This is true in Middle Earth, it is true in your home, and it is certainly true in your office.

You may not have many orcs or dragons in the office, but see if you can recognize anyone in the list below....

Boromir
He's dedicated, skilled, and fiercely loyal to his own team and those who trained him, whose needs he holds in top priority. He is a realist, and though he is willing to take risks when required, he won't hesitate to speak up if he disagrees with popular sentiment. Unfortunately his realism can sometimes come across as pessimism. And while his loyalty is admirable, it can seem self-serving to more big picture thinkers — to whom he could benefit from listening.

Aragorn
He is a talented worker who takes a hands-on approach, the guy you can count on to jump and save a project in the nick of time. He has strong leadership skills but avoids taking responsibility for the actions of others. Though he insists on having his opinions heard by those in positions of power (as seen in his repeated commentary and intervention in the decision-making of King Theoden of Rohan), he still doesn't have any confidence in himself when it comes to the possibility of taking on a formal leadership position of his own.

Frodo
He's motivated but overworked, tasked with ever-increasing responsibility — perhaps more responsibility than he is necessarily able to handle alone. He is highly adaptable but reluctant to communicate with his colleagues about his difficulties, and needs to learn to better take advantage of his support network, rather than letting his extraordinary workload slowly drag him — and his team — down.

Gandalf
He's experienced and responsible. He's comfortable with delegation but at the same time doesn't mind getting his hands dirty and taking on big tasks. He's always willing to go to bat for his employees, but he needs to learn to communicate with them more transparently and share the higher-level knowledge that those beneath him may not have access to. For example, if he knew there was a balrog living in the Mines of Moria, don't you think he should have explained the risk of flaming-demon-beasts to his colleagues, rather than simply insisting that he would prefer not to go into the mines? The time for explaining the balrog issue was before entering the mines, instead of waiting until it has been awoken — at which point you should be instructing everyone to run away, post-haste.

Pippin
He's a joker, a networker and a social butterfly. He knows how to connect communities and is the first to get new acquaintances comfortable and talking over drinks. He's intelligent and knows how to tap into people's motivations in order to get them on his side, like when he rallied the Ents to launch an attack on Isengard. But unfortunately he doesn't always take the time to think things through, and as a result people tend to underestimate his potential value.

Legolas
Dude's got mad skills. He is extremely talented and gets the job done without expecting credit or accolades, and his colleagues tend to take his efficiency for granted. His excellence is taken for granted to such an extent that on the rare occasion when his performance is merely above average, it looks like a failure. But this is the price he pays for being an elf, I suppose. The real problem is that his penchant for silence leads to his valuable expertise often being disregarded. On two occassions in the Fellowship of the Ring, Legolas advises Aragorn that they should move on immediately; both times Aragon disregards this advice and the group is shortly thereafter attacked by orcs. Legolas needs to learn to speak up and assert his expertise.

Elrond
Highly experienced and knowledgeable, Elrond is close to retirement. Because he is so close to ending his career, he's reluctant to get involved directly in any new projects. However, he needs to remember that just because he doesn't think it's a good idea to get involved personally doesn't mean he should prevent those beneath him from doing so. He needs to embrace the passion of his coworkers and allow them to get involved in projects that might seem a little too adventurous or risky for his tastes.

Sauron
He's a giant flaming eye who wants to take over the world. If you have one of these in your office, you may have a very serious problem. Do not bring magic rings to work.

Got your own idea for a LOTR-inspired workplace character? Tell us all about it in the comments!

If you enjoyed this post, you might want to check out Lord of the Rings: Popular Culture in Global Context.

Cowboys and other shit-disturbers-for-the-greater-good

2011-02-03T11:03:00.000-08:00

Examining emergent structural archetypes in the change agent's social narrative

We are all storytellers. Everything -- right down to our tweets and the conversations we have over coffee -- contributes to the building of the social narrative; it is the of the way we speak and think about ourselves and the people around us; it is how we play a role on the world stage. The idea that this ongoing storyline has a huge influence on how we interact with the world is not a new one.

Last year, the ever-apt Nick Charney wrote a column concerning the use of the terms "rock star" and "ninja" in modern organizations. He hit on several solid concepts and cautioned his readers not to employ such terms without due consideration of the implications that run alongside the emotional response evoked by an image.

Nick was correct in saying that the words we use are important. We aren't always very mindful of our vocabularies, but word choice has an enormous impact. These words help build the images of ourselves and our colleagues as they exist within the social narrative -- but words alone do not build a storyline, and no character exists in isolation.

No man is an island entire of itself; every man

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as

well as any manner of thy friends or of thine

own were; any man's death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

- John Donne

This social narrative is populated by archetypes: models, patterns, or symbols with which many individuals or characters are identified. It is the images and characteristics that are immediately evoked when considering a certain type of person or storyline. What do you think about when you think of hipsters, university professors, computer scientists, or mommy bloggers?

It's not just a discrete image or a stereotype, but a narrative that influences how we understand the events of our lives. These archetypes are not merely informative (as in, they reflect our ideas about certain types of people) but also prescriptive (they help us determine how to act). And these narrative archetypes are not simply spontaneously generated or modelled after a single individual. Any character in literature, film, theatre, games or real life is a point on the continuum in the evolution of an archetype within the social narrative. As a result, we tend to model the structures within our own social narratives on pre-existing and familiar story lines.

Put simply, life imitates art. The way we think about ourselves is both reflected in and influenced by the images and ideas to which we are exposed in literature, film, and culture. Without noticing, we sometimes model our conception of the people around us on ideas that we see elsewhere.

What does this have to do with cowboys?

At this point you're probably beginning to wonder why I have a picture of Gary Cooper at the top of this post. Well, I would like to talk to you about cowboys. And yes, I promise it's relevant.

The cowboy is not so much an isolated character type like a ninja or a rockstar so much as he is an ongoing cultural tradition -- an archetype in the truest and most powerful sense of the word. A descendent of the knight errant influenced by the anti-hero sensibility popularized first in the late romantic era, the cowboy became a distinct archetype with the birth of North American literature and the push to civilize the western half of our continent.

The cowboy first hit the silver screen in 1903 with The Great Train Robbery, but he had been alive in the social imagination and on the pages of books for a much longer period of time. Personally, I consider Natty 'Hawkeye' Bumppo of James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 to be the first genuine cowboy, but I suppose that is up for debate.

At this point I will mention that I use the pronoun "he" for simplicity's sake; as not all characters who fall under the cowboy archetypal umbrella are male. This mythological and archetypal cowboy does not resemble real-life cowboys, who were usually low class labourers (often black or Latino) hired to protect ranches and property. The cowboy as we are concerned with him is a unifying fictional construct that has over the centuries exerted a powerful influence on how we categorize certain kinds of people and how we behave.

The cowboy did not die with the disappearance of the frontier. Once the wild west was no longer so wild, the cowboy traded in his horse but lived on as the social imagination adapted him to the city streets. The hitman and the hard-boiled detective are the cowboys of the crime world. Seen first in the work of writers like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie and Jim Thompson, the archetype has evolved to encompass a wide variety of shit-disturbers-for-the-greater-good that are all essentially variations of the cowboy theme: Batman, Inspector Rebus, Wolverine, Tyler Durden, Lara Croft, Rorschach, Jason Bourne and so on. We see permutations of the cowboy archetype all over the place, both in art and in real life.

And increasingly, we are seeing him in our places of work.

The cowboy is usually identified by a few particular characteristics. He is honourable, hard-working, and willing to make tough decisions and sacrifices. He is rebellious and yet charming, usually living a semi-nomadic lifestyle in which he changes location based on where he is most needed and where he is most fulfilled. He fights against forces of corruption or stagnation. He is well-connected and always knows how to handle a situation, if only the forces of the status quo will stay out of his way.

And we are seeing this narrative emerge in an environment very different from the wild west. We are talking about him (or her) on our blogs, in our Twitter feeds, at our conferences and meetups. We have built his place in the professional social narrative gradually, through every word we say and every career choice we make. Seth Godin calls him a linchpin. You might call him an innovator, a hero, a rabble-rouser, a change agent or a W2Per. I think that the emergent social narrative structures in the change agent's storyline have been informed by or in some way based upon the cowboy archetype. This might be how you think of one of your colleagues.

Or it might be how you think of yourself.

One problem is that implicit in the cowboy's semi-nomadic lifestyle (his tendency to change towns or *ahem* workplaces based on where he is needed and most fulfilled) is the fact that he works for the system but in some way exists outside of it. In film and literature, this often means that the hero rides off into the sunset (see High Noon) or is declared a fugitive (see The Dark Knight) or dies (see Shane) upon completion of his mission. He works for the community but will never really be a permanent part of the community until there are no more battles to fight, and there are always more battles to fight. As long as he continues to see the system as part of the problem, the cowboy will never allow himself to completely integrate and he will not be able to fully trust those who have -- only other cowboys. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Another issue here is not only that change agents may be subconsciously regarding themselves as forces that are somehow disconnected -- the issue is also that we may hesitate to identify change agents that do not fit into this script, be they our colleagues or be they ourselves. We need to put effort into crediting all change agents: the productive, patient, quiet and old-school innovative workers in addition to the tech-savvy social butterflies.

And we need to help our cowboys realize that settling in to contribute to the long slow process of bureaucratic change doesn't mean they have to hang up their spurs.

Teal deer crossing: optimizing long-form web writing

2011-01-27T12:38:00.000-08:00

“Brevity is the soul of wit.” – William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Image by the awesome Arabidopsis on DeviantART.

For a number of years now, conventional wisdom has generally concluded that most online readers are sesquipedalophobic. We are scrollers. We are short-form enthusiasts. We are starters, but we are not finishers. Tweeters. Fragmentalists. Attention deficient.

And yet the long form retains its staunch defenders. Because the truth just might be that we are not scrollers so much as we are browsers.

“Web readers are more selective in the stories they choose, but once they find what they want, they read a substantially higher percentage of text than their print counterparts—a result that is true across all story lengths.” – Micheal Meyers, citing the results of the Poynter Institute’s Eyetrack ’07 study.

I have positioned myself on both sides of the fence at different times. On the one hand, I believe in thoroughly fleshing out an idea regardless of whether you are publishing online or in print. On the other hand, at work I am frequently guilty of requesting that my writers limit their online pieces to fewer than 700 words. (But it’s worth noting I do this more to keep my writers focused than to keep their readers focused.)

For quite some time, web writers have been honing their skills to maximize reader interest and message retention. Generally speaking, this means keeping your pieces short, digestible, and appropriately formatted. We use the reverse pyramid style. We minimize our use of hyperlinks. We use short sentences.

Being concise is much more difficult than rambling endlessly onwards – of that there is no doubt. The short form certainly has its challenges, and editing for concision is no simple task. But web writing techniques are easier to apply effectively to short form writing than they are to the long form. And so I believe that if online readers are attention deficient, it is more often attributable to shoddy writing than it is to user behaviour.

“It’s a bald fallacy of presumption to hold that presenting text on a webpage ipso facto induces peripatetic behavior in your audience. The content itself, and the design used to present it, are the leading factors in shaping success.” – David Sleight

The bottom line: don’t be a lazy writer and you won’t have lazy readers.

It is for this reason that I think we web writers should spend more time educating ourselves and practicing the drafting of long form web content. Because at the end of the day, compelling writing methods that encourage a person to read an article from start to finish can be applied to any medium. Besides, it is a much more cerebral activity to construct a lengthy piece than it is to apply tried and true techniques to the short form.

Things to consider

Mark Twain was of the opinion that the impact of adjectives is diminished the more descriptors are used; simply put, being overly descriptive decreases the resonance of your descriptions. This doesn’t mean that you should wantonly excise adjectives from your writing – it means that you should put the effort into saying exactly what you mean. Don’t delete; refine. Value precision over concision.

Refining means staying away from oversimplification. If it takes three sentences to fully explain an idea, don’t use two. Concision and long-form writing are not mutually exclusive concepts. Be concise for the right reasons; don’t just leave ideas unexplored.

Never lose track of what you are trying to accomplish with your writing. Write to your thesis. Plan meticulously, write multiple drafts and get someone to edit your work. Map out the layers of your argument and decide how deep you’re going to go. Hey, you might even have more than one article to write!

Lastly, never forget the importance of design and formatting. Seriously, that shit’s essential.

What do you think about optimizing for the long form? Do you have any tips to share? Did you even read this whole blog post? If not, why not?

Quick hit: thinking about our relationship with technology

2011-01-25T07:19:00.000-08:00

Although I've got a few blog posts in the hopper, I just wanted to take a moment to share this video with you all. Normally I would share something like this via Twitter, but I really dig the animation and decided to post it here.

Feel free to share your thoughts. Big thanks to Ryan for pointing it out to me.

The Internet has all the answers. Or not.

2011-01-11T14:47:00.000-08:00

"He who is afraid of asking is ashamed of learning." - Danish Proverb

I have been using PCs for most of my life. While I interacted with Macs here and there, I only started using one on a regular basis in the autumn, when I started a new job and was given a shiny new Mac to work on. I am not going to get into which I prefer and why, but I will admit that as intuitive as Macs are, on a few occasions I have found myself at a loss for how to get my Mac to perform a certain function.

One of the reasons professionals these days are often so multi-talented is because information is easier to find -- thanks to the power of the Internet. Even younger professionals who have not had the benefit of years of training and experience can quickly acquire new knowledge and skills if they have the motivation and can synthesize information quickly and integrate it into existing knowledge. Websites such eHow and Lifehacker have thrived on our need to grow, learn, and find answers. With the advent of smart phones, information became even more easily accessible. Whether you want to learn how to interface a Wii controller to your PC or you want to settle a friendly dispute about who directed a film, chances are you can find the answer just by Googling your issue or checking Wikipedia.

So when I'm wondering how to get my Mac to do some less-than-obvious task, I turn to the Internet. Forums are often very helpful. I am aware that I do not possess the required know-how, but I still wish to solve the problem myself. This is all well and good, except for the fact that while most of the time the Internet speeds things up, in this case I could just ask the colleague sitting ten feet away. It would be faster. He's waiting on something anyway; it's not like I would be bothering him. So why do I turn to Google? Why do I only call a Help number after giving up on a website?

I'm quite extroverted, I have decent social skills, and I learn things from other people all the time -- so it's certainly not that I am reluctant to interact with people, and it's not a matter of my Internet addiction leading me to devalue other human beings as sources of knowledge. I think that there are two things at root of this behavioural pattern: I use the Internet as my primary means of obtaining information, and I don't usually ask for help unless I have exhausted all possible means of solving the problem on my own.

And I really don't think that I'm very unusual in this sense. But I am writing to tell you today that the Internet doesn't have all the answers, and face-to-face interaction with other people can help you in ways that Google never can. The problem is that learning to ask for help can be challenging for some of us.

We want to be independent. We want to solve our problems on our own. We want people to think that we are intelligent, capable, and in control. This is all well and good when it comes to things like learning how to take a screen capture on a Mac -- in the end it doesn't matter much if I Google it or if I ask my colleague. But asking my colleague offers added benefits well beyond simply solving the problem.

Setting aside the benefits of social interaction, team-building and so forth, the most important thing that asking a person for help can offer is practice. Yes, practice asking for help. Because it isn't always easy.

We who have the Internet constantly at our fingertips don't get a lot of practice asking questions and asking people for help. This may not seem like a big deal in day-to-day life, but like dancing or providing constructive feedback, the more we do it the more comfortable we get with doing it around other people. And being comfortable with asking for help is an essential -- even life-saving -- skill.

Penelope Trunk recently blogged about the importance of asking for help. Whether it be from a career counsellor, a personal trainer, a financial planner or a psychologist... everyone needs help sometimes. I couldn't agree with her more.

"It’s so hard to see our own lives clearly. Resumes are like that—each line is distorted because we distort our vision of ourselves. And just as a professional can help us see our work history more clearly, a professional can help us see our personal history more clearly as well.
When things are going terribly, and you haven’t been able to fix things, you need help. Everyone who cannot get a job should get career counselling. [...] And everyone who has been sad—depressed and can’t fix it—should get help.
It is not reasonable to think that [...] you can fix it yourself. It is not a shortcoming of yours. It’s a part of being human that we are complicated and sometimes we get stuck.
People need help. Look at yourself. Ask yourself if you need help. Believe me. You are not a uniquely, an unsolvable problem. Most of us are not complicated to a therapist in the same way that most of us are not complicated to a professional resume writer. [...] The more impossible your problems feel, the more you need someone to talk with about them."

I am writing not just to say that you should take Penelope's advice and ask for help if you are depressed or unemployed. I am writing to say that all of us -- even the happiest and most successful among us -- should try to practice asking for help. Ask your friend to proofread a blog post. Ask someone to hit your floor when you get on the elevator. Ask the barista to refill the milk instead of settling for cream. Be a minor inconvenience. Ask, because the more you practice asking for help on the little things, the better you will get at recognizing when it is best to ask a person and when it is best to ask the Internet. As I mentioned before: the Internet isn't always the fastest way to find a solution, and everyone loves efficiency.

More importantly, practicing asking for help just might make it easier when you need to ask for help on something big like a mental health issue or a financial problem -- this is devastatingly difficult to do, and difficult things take practice. We're not superheroes. Skills take time to acquire. Practice asking for help -- because you never know when that skill could save you, your job, or someone you love. You have a support network -- so use it!

You can read Penelope's whole post here.

Image courtesy of LiminalMike on Flickr.

The case for a kinky workplace

2010-12-21T17:21:00.000-08:00

...It’s not what you think.

Image by fotolia

(Note: Content is PG and safe for work but may be blocked in some workplaces due to vocabulary.)

We bloggers are always finding inspiration in those around us. Lessons learned from our children, from our vehicles, and from athletics can be applied to both our personal and professional lives to help us fashion ourselves into better workers and happier, more effective human beings.

Those of you who have known me only through this blog might not be aware that I have a professional background in sexual health education. I spent two years talking about sexual health with first year university students, and it was one of the most rewarding jobs I have ever had.

Chill out. I promise that I am not here to talk about sex.

Among the myriad things that I discussed with students were safety issues surrounding kink and BDSM (that’s bondage-discipline/domination-submission/sadism-masochism). Obviously any activity that involves playing with pain and power dynamics requires highly effective communication between partners in order to ensure that everyone is enjoying themselves, and the BDSM community has plenty of best practices to help people learn the ropes and stay safe.

As an educator, I would routinely make the case that the standards of the BDSM community regarding safety and communication should be applied in all relationships, whether friendly or romantic, sexual or non-sexual, kinky or vanilla. Because at the root of these best practices lie values that will never steer you wrong: communication, respect, safety and creativity. This is not to say that non-kinksters don’t believe in communication, respect, safety and creativity, but the BDSM community is all about deliberate (i.e. not simply assumed or implied) and consistent application of these ideals. I’m not trying to say that all kinksters are perfect, and I am not saying their way is the best. But the modus operandi is certainly worth looking at.

It occurred to me recently that we would do well to apply some of these lessons to the workplace. While many of our offices are very respectful and communicative, making a conscious and committed effort to remain so can make a huge difference. So, I say let’s be deliberate.

One fact acknowledged by the BDSM community is that whether you’re kinky or not, there is no such thing as safe sex. There is safer sex, as there are safer practices. But nothing is 100% risk-free in emotional and physical terms. Even abstinence can have its troubles. The same is true in the workplace. Every activity has its risks. When you work with and rely on other people, you are trusting them to treat you and your work with respect and professionalism. You are trusting them to be honest with you and to communicate effectively. You are trusting them to get things done.

In the BDSM community, one of the handy acronyms to make things easier to talk about is RACK. It stands for risk-aware consensual kink, and basically serves as a standard against which you can measure your approach to a given activity. Are all partners informed and aware of the risks entailed in a certain activity? Have the terms of this activity been thoroughly negotiated and discussed? In light of these risks, have all partners given, of sound mind, preliminary consent to engage in said activities? (Note: preliminary consent means that any party can change their mind at any time and revoke consent or decide to stop, according to the negotiated terms.)

I think that if we apply these values to the workplace -- especially to some of the more hotly contested issues such as employees’ personal use of social media -- we might find that we can trust each other a little more. And thus I propose the RACC workplace model: risk-aware consensual collaboration.

Rather than being risk-averse or trying to deny that there are potential landmines in allowing our employees to move in social media spaces or work independently, let’s talk about it. There is a halfway point between risk aversion and leaping before you look: this halfway point is risk awareness.

What are the risks? Let’s discuss in detail what we’re going to be doing, why, and how. How are we going to communicate throughout the project or activity? How are we going to check in with each other to make sure everything is going well? Precisely what are we consenting to when we sign on for a project or give permission to embark on a certain activity? How can we revoke that support if something makes us uncomfortable? How will we deal with this?

Lastly, and most importantly, let’s make things collaborative. Let’s work together and talk openly about our concerns. At the end of the day, RACC is not about sex at all. It’s about making a conscious and deliberate effort to ensure that everyone is on the same page, rather than simply expecting people to hop on the bandwagon or keep bending the rules to get things done.

I say that we should all be a little more transparent and make an effort to compromise with our colleagues in all things. And if we have to get a little kinky to help ourselves remember that, why not?

Twilight, Oprah, and reaching an audience

2010-12-10T11:32:00.000-08:00

Sometimes your audience lives outside your comfort zone.

I was recently in a bookstore with a girl of my acquaintance, someone to whom I serve as an accidental role model of sorts. We have an interesting relationship and I think that I learn just as much from her as she claims to learn from me. This girl is in her early teens. She likes Justin Bieber and 30 Seconds to Mars; she wears skinny jeans and recently dyed her hair for the first time (it amuses her that I have never done this). She wants to be a dermatologist when she grows up. Oh, and she loves Twilight. Does she ever love Twilight.

Those of you who know me understand the level of vitriolic scorn I reserve for Stephanie Meyer's books and the films they subsequently spawned. For those who haven't been subjected to one of my rants, I will simply summarize by saying that I don't think impressionable young people should be forming their understanding of relationships based on the negative example presented by Edward Cullen and the insufferable Bella Swan.

I read the Twilight books mostly because I wanted to be able to discuss them with my young friend, and others who love the series. And I am very glad that I did so, as it has afforded me the opportunity to talk with her about issues such as harassment, independence, depression, sexuality, and more.

But I will freely admit that I was altogether taken aback when -- strolling through shelves of used books -- this young lady cocked her head to one side, listening to the music playing in the store, and said "I like Verdi, I think. It's growing on me."

I love it when she surprises me. The music that was playing was from Verdi's La Traviata. I certainly know the piece, but given that her interest in music rarely expands beyond a limited repertoire composed of pop sensations, this was a pleasant surprise to me, and I told her as much.

"Well," she went on to say, "I don't like classical stuff as much as some other music, but Verdi and Debussy are pretty good."

Verdi and Debussy. Now how, you might wonder, does a girl with no interest in musical history and few musical influences in her life gain exposure to -- and thus begin to develop an appreciation for -- famous works such as La Traviata and Clair de Lune? To whom do I owe my thanks for the fact that she has asked me to recommend more music along these lines? How is it that Ravel and Gershwin now keep Justin Bieber company on her iPod?

The answer, my friends, is Twilight. Verdi and Debussy are both featured on the soundtrack. In fact, Edward and Bella briefly discuss Clair de Lune in the film, as a way of illustrating Edward's age and worldliness and to help label Bella as a smart girl.

Despite the fact that I wish my young friend had discovered the joy of impressionist composers from somewhere other than Twilight, I must admit that I am glad she has made this discovery. And I am sincerely thankful that despite my objections to the moral message of the films, the soundtracks at least feature some pretty good tracks.

I have in the past had similar feelings about Oprah's book club. My joy at seeing copies of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina fly off the shelves was considerably tempered by the fact that millions of people were only reading this masterpiece because a celebrity recommended that they do so. On my more cynical days, I wonder whether Oprah has in fact read all the books that she has recommended to her fans. I also wonder why 2005 was so dominated by William Faulkner, and whether she might better use her powers more often to support currently active -- or even currently living -- authors.

But all this aside, my scorn for the Twilight soundtrack and for Oprah's book club are at their root based on an instinctive elitism. "They are only reading Steinbeck because a celebrity told them to," I want to scoff -- as if this is truly all that different from the fact that I have read many of the same books because the were recommended by reading lists, friends, librarians, professors, bloggers or whoever. At the end of the day, it is a positive thing that these books are reaching an audience. And you know what? The fact that these books are reaching an audience outside of the usual groups makes Oprah's book club that much more positive -- because if not for Oprah, some people would never have bothered to crack the spine. And these individuals arguably have the most to gain from the experience.

I've blogged before about the fact that people tend to discriminate against certain methods of obtaining information, and how that as a consumer of content it can cause you to miss out on important news and opportunities. But it can also cause you to miss out on connecting with important individuals as a distributor of content. It is for this reason that I am very pleased to see communities that have operated principally online (such as #w2p) reaching out to different audiences using broader communications methods. If the people that stand to benefit the most from your message aren't on Twitter, aren't reading blogs, and aren't using the wiki, then perhaps it's time to go to them. Do not penalize your audience if they don't move in the same spaces as you do. This was illustrated by the incredible success of the #goc3 Collaborative Culture Camp, which unfortunately I could not attend. The event was promoted via a multi-channel broadcast, involving email, phone calls, Twitter, blogs, wikis and face-to-face interaction. As a result, new and exciting connections were forged.

The moral of the story is that if you are concerned about preaching to the choir, perhaps you should change where -- or how -- you are choosing to preach. If you want to talk about the negative messages found in Twilight or Justin Bieber's music vidoes, then perhaps you should start by reading the books, watching the movies, and listening to what the fans have to say. My young friend listens to my thoughts on her favourite books because I take the time to listen to her thoughts, and because I strive to engage in the discussion on her terms. It is often said that the most important social media best practice is listening. I believe that this extends well beyond social media.

Sometimes, the people you want to reach live outside your comfort zone. Rather than attempting to drag an Oprah fan to your modernist literature lecture or a Bieber fan to the next symphony performance, take a deep breath and go meet them on their turf. Hit up a Bieber concert. Read Twilight. Use your telephone.

If you want to connect, the onus is on you. Sometimes that means taking a risk or challenging your own preconceptions about a given group. But the potential payoff, I promise you, is well worth the effort.

SPECIAL THANKS to Sophie for agreeing to let me blog about our conversations.

APPENDIX: I found this song on the Twilight soundtrack, and rather like it. Yep, I owe a musical discovery to those damnable films, just like my young friend found Verdi and Debussy on the same album. Blue Foundation - Eyes on Fire

Geek is Sexy

2010-11-22T11:24:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to take a moment to point you all in the direction of the Fulcrum website, where I write and edit as part of my job as Online Editor. And soon you may be able to read my writing at another exciting location online, so stay tuned! ;)

My wonderful writers and I produce reviews, opinion pieces, informative articles and so forth. There is a lot of my writing on the site, but a good place to start, I think, would be my piece on the sex appeal of geeks, nerds, and dorks. It was a lot of fun to write. You can read it here.

I'd like to take a moment to thank Miss Helvetica Bold, Bambi Blue, Simon Sage, Del Roba, Mercedes Mueller and Amanda Shendruk, all of whom helped make writing this article so much more fun!

Anyway, I am actually running content in the print edition of the paper this week, so I have got a production schedule to stick to! Back to work for me. Hope you are all having a lovely day.

Stay snarky!

Appendix: In case you are interested, here is a wrap-up of (some of) the other online exclusives that have run since I became Online Editor of the Fulcrum. You can find more by cruising through the website. Lots of love to Josh, Katrina, Jane and Brennan (and the rest of the Fulcrumites) for all their hard work.

News, Opinions & Fun Stuff

Hot beverage snobbery - your guide to high-end tea and coffee beverages

Nerdcore what? - looking at the world of nerdcore hip-hop

Wintercise - staying fit when it's freezing

Otakool - exploring the driving force behind the hardcore anime fan

SAD Students - looking at seasonal affective disorder

Playing to win - talking to PC gamers

What's the appeal of the UFC?

PowerPoint is dead - enter Prezi!

Super streaming - comparing online music streaming sites

Student Strips - webcomics offer a unique perspective on student life

I got it on Etsy - the web's best place for buying and selling handmade goods

Checking out and plugging in - the University of Calgary adds a video game collection to its library

Lifehacker - solving life's problems together!

Film and the third dimension - taking a look at the technology behind 3-D films

3-D Movies: Awesome or a waste of time? - a debate with my perpetual Point/Counterpoint opponent Jane.

Fashion rant: jeggings - wardrobe win or fashion faux-pas?

Character Chaos - the ultimate literary showdown

Locally local

In memory of the Wizard's Tower - Ottawa comic shops

Tutus, tassles and talent - Ottawa burlesque

Shawarma!

Bar Stars - Ottawa karaoke scene

Confessions of an intramural addict - A student athlete tells all

Small venues, big metal shows - Ottawa as a hotspot for the hardcore? Not yet, but maybe.

GroupOn and Koopon - Crowdsourcing to save money

Reviews

Call of Duty: Black Ops (video game)

Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition (video game)

Threadless: 10 Years... (book)

The Trotsky (film)

Fallout: New Vegas (video game)

Fable 3 (video game)

Battlestar Galactica (board game)

Super Meat Boy (video game)

Metroid: Other M (video game)

Time Crisis 4 (video game)

Turandot (opera)

Return to El Salvador (film)

BlazBlue: Continuum Shift (video game)

Resident Evil: Afterlife (film)

Turncoat Chic

2010-11-17T10:36:00.000-08:00

The disturbing power of throwing your peers under a bus

I’ve noticed an unsettling trend in the rhetoric of a lot of very cool people, and I would like to share my observations in hopes that you might be able to share your own thoughts on the matter.

I’ve blogged before about how making generalizations is problematic and that it just sets you up to be proven wrong, especially when you are making negative generalizations about human beings: men are like this, bloggers are like that, and so on and so forth.

But I have noticed that in a lot of cases, making negative generalizations about groups in which you are yourself included can have a powerful impact. I am pointing this out because I have noticed that not only do a lot of very interesting people tend to use this conversational device, but I do it myself. And the implications are making me uncomfortable.

Let’s get down to particulars; what am I talking about? I am referring to people who feel that they are different from a stereotype opting to affirm it, perhaps in order to assert their own special appeal. These unusual individuals could use themselves as an example to dismantle a stereotype and caution against making generalizations, but instead they affirm the status quo.

For example, I have often caught myself saying that I can’t stand English majors. This is not to say that I can’t stand myself, rather that I have observed that several English majors have certain negative traits that I would not like to have attributed to me. But for some reason people tend to receive the sentiment more positively and think more highly of me if I say, “I can’t stand English majors! They’re pompous, nit-picky, and condescending.”

What is it that we find appealing about people criticizing their peers? Why does it sound closed-minded to criticize a different group, but our peers are fair game? I have encountered this numerous times in the workplace, where an intelligent and tech-savvy older colleague will say something to the effect of “older people just don’t get social media” – when they themselves are proof to the contrary. And yet I accept it as proof of how special they are, when if they had made a similarly disparaging generalization about young people I might have been offended.

Take nerdcore rapper MC Router for example. She kicks ass in a male-dominated industry, standing out as the most successful female in nerdcore. She has spoken out on numerous occasions about her desire to be assessed based on her talent rather than her gender, which is an admirable sentiment. However, she also tends to make flat-out misogynistic remarks such as the following: “They make me sound like a feminist of some sort. Fxxk that. I hate girls, god I hope they die.” MC Router often talks about how girls are superficial and fake, how they only play video games to attract boys, and that they suck at it and the real nerdy girls have zero interest in male attention. Which is of course a massive generalization and general load of crap.

And her fans love it. This happens all over the place. Run a Google search on “I hate girls” and you’ll find that the vast majority of people spouting this sentiment are female, quite simply because it is fashionable and garners positive attention from men and women alike. Dudes come under fire for misogyny if they say the same, and women who claim to hate guys will often be criticized and called foul names. But peers are fair game.

What it really comes down to is this: I think that when we criticize our peers by citing weaknesses that do not apply to us, what we are really trying to say is, “I am not a stereotype. I am an individual and I feel that generalizations do not apply to me. I want you to understand that I am special but I do not want to risk a confrontation by challenging conventional opinions that you might share.”

I’ve been mulling this over and figure that a good way to explore the idea further would be blog about it and see what kind of comments I got. So tell me … what do you think? Have you noticed the same thing?

The Crusader’s Guide to Low Blood Pressure and Keeping Friends

2010-10-28T08:20:00.000-07:00

“Idealism springs from deep feelings, but feelings are nothing without the formulated idea that keeps them whole.” – Jacques Barzun

I have always cared about correct grammar and punctuation. As a result, I just might be a criminal. I have, on one occasion, vandalized public property – but I did not deface it; I corrected it. When I was in the final year of my high school education, I followed the advice of grammar stickler extraordinaire Lynne Truss and added apostrophes to two poorly punctuated signs in my high school, using a sharpie. Black stenciled letters reading “BOYS GYM” and “GIRLS GYM” were unobtrusively corrected to “BOYS’ GYM” and “GIRLS’ GYM”. It may not have been the right thing to do, but after four years of attending a poorly punctuated educational institution where no one seemed to care, my tiny act of vandalism felt really, really good.

Everyone has their little neuroses, their own causes and crusades. Everyone has a mission, a hot button issue, a passion that sometimes eclipses reasonable behaviour. Maybe you’re a stickler like me, or maybe you’re a feminist, an open data evangelist, an electoral reform die-hard, a Web 2.0 advocate, a defender of the arts, or a warrior for some other cause. We all get fired up about something. Everyone is a crusader.

The problem is that because we don’t all care passionately about the same things, crusading can be difficult. Otherwise lovely people will say or do things that secretly drive us bonkers. Being a crusader is sometimes difficult in polite company. So how do you prevent yourself from ranting and keep your friends and coworkers from finding you utterly obnoxious?

Anticipate apathy. Personally, it irritates me to no end when I see grammatical errors in a piece of writing that was presumably edited by a professional. I could care less about poor grammar in everyday conversation or informal writing; like The Grammar Vandal, I might think better of you if you punctuate correctly, but I will not judge you in either case. But in professional writing – such as advertising – it rankles me. However, I realize that not everyone gives a hoot about this. If you feel the need to express yourself and talk about your issue, don’t expect everyone to care. You will save yourself some heartbreak if you anticipate apathy, and have lovely surprises when you find a kindred spirit to rant with.

Stay humble. You are not always right. You do not know everything about your issue. You make mistakes. Remember that a healthy dose of modesty will make your cause much more accessible. Rather than styling yourself as an expert, try to present yourself as a practitioner. Pitch your passion ahead of your ego, and your message will be much better received. I recognize that while bad English grammar may irritate me, my own grammar can sometimes be pretty piss-poor when I am speaking French. Keep in mind that as ignorant as someone is regarding your pet issue, you may be just as ignorant regarding his or her passion. Web 2.0 may seem obvious to you, but then again perhaps ergonomic design does is not. Stay humble.

Pick your battles. When cultivating allies, it always a good idea to remember tact and mind your manners. Because I am passionate about improving the use of the English language in general society, I opt not to offend people by nitpicking their casual discourse. I will, however, often correct myself when I make mistakes. In doing this, I demonstrate that I am informed and that I care about correct grammar, without making anyone feel self-conscious or criticized.

Be positive. Constructive comments win every time. Speak with improvement in mind. Be nice. It’s that simple.

Embrace criticism. Because we are not perfect, we will occasionally meet with criticism. It is important that we embrace this as an opportunity to improve and as an indication that people care enough to provide feedback. Embracing criticism does not mean that you have to change yourself according to the preferences of others; it means that you should consider all pieces of information that could help you improve how you present yourself and your message. Your critics are potentially your greatest assets.

Keep learning. Staying up-to-date on your issue is vital if you want to remain relevant and be of maximum benefit to your cause and to those around you. Constantly seek new knowledge and information, both regarding your passion and the passions of others. Knowledge gained is always a positive thing, in one way or another. Seeking out learning opportunities is a great way to connect with communities of people who care about the same things you do, and moral support and shared growth is invaluable.

Maintain perspective. Take a moment to look at the big picture. Know where you stand in relation to the rest of your community, and where your crusade stands in relation to the missions of others. Orient yourself and tailor your message to your context.

Remember why. Why do you care about your issue? Why are you a crusader? What are your goals and what made you passionate in the first place? Remind yourself constantly why you do what you do, as it can help you stay focused and motivated to get things done.

* At this point I feel it is necessary to mention that while I have proofread this piece, it is distinctly possible that it contains errors. If you notice any, please feel free to use the Editz application on the right-hand sidebar to let me know. Thanks!

Maybe Attending

2010-10-13T13:19:00.001-07:00

How social networks are changing the concept of the RSVP (originally written for The Fulcrum).

We've all done it before: a friend sends you an invitation to an event on Facebook; with barely a moment's thought, you click "Maybe Attending"—and become the bane of an event planner's existence.

There was a time when an RSVP meant indicating whether or not you intend to participate in an event, and there were two options: yes or no. Even the most casual of events received a definitive response, and if you told someone you intended to show up but were unable to do so for some reason, it was expected that you would let them know as far in advance as possible.

The “Maybe Attending” option of Facebook, and other social networking platforms such as Twitter, has shifted the way people think about their personal commitments and time management. Maybe Attending can mean a lot of things, but it can most often be accurately interpreted as "I will attend if I feel like it at the time and I have nothing better to do." Essentially, it is a deferral of the decision, reserving the right to change your mind. Maybe Attending is becoming just as vague as no RSVP at all.

But as the concept of the RSVP becomes increasingly flexible and less a matter of commitment, the issue has extended beyond Facebook and beyond whether or not you actually make it to that kegger on Friday. I recently attended a professional mixer that had filled all its pre-registration spots and had a very long waiting list. But when the day of the event came, well over a dozen people who had registered to attend never showed up, leaving empty chairs that could have been filled by waitlisters had the original registrants taken the time to let the event planners know. Even "yes" is slowly becoming "probably."

Think about it: Have you attended 100 percent of the events you said you would? If you found yourself unable or unwilling to attend at the last minute, did you tell the organizer? Those who can answer in the affirmative to both questions are slowly dwindling in numbers.

The peculiar thing is the fact that, while we are less committed in our own RSVPs, we still often take offence when friends skip our own events without explanation.

"When someone tells me they will come out and simply doesn't show, it makes me feel somewhat unwanted," says Alex Wong, a third-year student at the University of Ottawa. "It really only gets to me if it was an important event, but I rarely say anything because I know that I have done the same in the past. I guess it's kind of hypocritical, but it still stings."

One way to deal with no-shows is to charge money to register for an event. It is an approach that many event planners—both amateur and professional—are adopting in order to get a concrete commitment from attendees. But this can be problematic as it presents a barrier to participation and may discourage attendance.

"The trick is finding the money threshold that is enough to make people feel attached to the event without discouraging them from registering in the first place," says Nick Charney, a former corporate event planner. "For the twenty-something age group these days, I recommend between ten and thirty-five dollars, depending on the event and cost recovery. But you also have to give participants something in exchange for their money, so they see it less as a fee and more as an investment with a tangible benefit."

Naturally, charging in advance for an event can make planning a little more work and is not necessarily worthwhile for small or casual events. Fortunately, online services like EventBrite make it easy to manage ticket sales and RSVPs whether your event has a cost or not.

Online social networks have changed the way we plan our lives. Services such as Facebook and Twitter make it easy to get a message out to a large number of people, and, as a result, have become almost essential for staying up to date with events and getting invited to parties. However, what we have gained in convenience we have lost in precision and possibly manners. While some people use the Maybe Attending option to decline an invitation without offending the organizer, it is generally more appreciated if you simply make a decision.

When it comes to RSVP etiquette, the best approach is to remember the Golden Rule: manage your time effectively, keep your lines of communication open, and respond to invitations as if you were organizing the events yourself.

Stopping Short of Perfect

2010-10-04T13:35:00.000-07:00

A post that is partly a movie review, but mostly about asking an important question.

This past weekend, I went to see Easy A. A romantic comedy that examines the complications of sexual mores, inspired partially by The Scarlet Letter? Sign me the hell up. However, I was nervous that the film could use an empowering premise to deliver a disempowering message. Confronting issues such as homophobia, fashion, religion and sexually transmitted infections in a comedy is a risky move, after all.

I truly enjoyed the movie. Emma Stone is unassailably charming, combining vulnerability with badassery in a surprisingly convincing fashion. Stanley Tucci is hilarious and inspiring as Stone's father. And although I find it very hard to believe that an intelligent, outspoken bombshell like Stone's character could (or would) possibly remain invisible at any high school for very long, the privilege and problems that can accompany conventional beauty is not a topic that the film chooses to address.

And that lies at the root of any criticism that I have for Easy A: there are issues that it simply does not address. It is a brave film that makes some great arguments, but it shies away of making all the arguments it could easily have made. It stops short of perfect, which leads me to wonder why.

For those of you who have seen the movie and would like to know how I think its message could be improved, I will provide you with a few examples.

1) Penn Badgley's character falls for Stone's character because he does not believe the rumours that she has been having (unsafe) sex with half the male population of the school. It would have been a much more powerful statement for his character to respect and want to date her despite the fact that he thought she really had done these things. It would have been more impactful for him to distinguish between wanting a relationship and expecting sex, because even though Easy A criticizes slut-shaming and the gender disparity inherent in the entire concept of sluttiness, it still implicitly supports the premise that sleeping with fewer people is morally preferable to sleeping with more. Stone gets the guy because he sees her for what she is: a kindhearted virgin. It would have been much more revolutionary for him genuinely not to care.

I will grant that the film does the next best thing: it allows Stone's mother to talk about her sexually prolific past in a positive way, demonstrating that a woman can sleep with multiple partners and still turn out to be a happily married, inspiring mother and role model.

2) It would have been nice to see a religious character that was not self-righteous, hurtful, or hypocritical. The Christian fundamentalist youth in the film are more caricatures or plot devices than they are people. I really would have liked to see Amanda Bynes' character elaborated on a little more, or at least include a character that was both religious and a nice person. Because not everyone who is religious is batshit insane and annoying to boot, and it would have been nice to see that represented.
Wait a minute here!
While it is highly probable that the filmmakers do not share my ideals, I have effectively concluded that Easy A is very good but stops a few steps short of perfect, for reasons unknown to me.
This makes me think about how many other things I could say this about. More importantly, it makes me ask myself how often I am guilty of the exact same thing. And what about you? How often do you stop short of perfect, and why?
How much harder would it be to take one additional risk, to move from safely impressive to genuinely revolutionary? We are often excellent, but only within the acceptable (and expected) range. Rare is the instance during which we push ourselves to be more than awesome, to risk terrifying our friends, family and coworkers by earning more than a pat on the head or a hearty handshake.
The next time I am very satisfied with something I have done, I resolve to ask myself: how far is this from perfect? What is the next step I am able take, and why have I yet to take it?
Why have we yet to take it? I realize that perfectionism is silly (and that perhaps there is never a such thing as perfect), but I say we should always try to identify a next step, just in case we have sunken into the complacency of "excellent enough for our purposes".
In the end, I think that a struggled-for A+ is worth more than an easy A, but all too often we are content with the latter.

Exit, pursued by a bear.

2010-09-08T22:37:00.000-07:00

A few introductory words

When I sat down to write a post in response to Joe Boughner's Last Post Challenge, the result was a surprisingly melancholy narrative essay. This is probably because at first, I decided that I would have to take the same approach as some others: that is to say that I would essentially be eulogizing myself, imparting a message to the world in anticipation of my demise. I wanted my last piece of written work to be a creative piece. Literary, if you will.

I have often said that I can no more stop writing than I can stop breathing; the two will have to stop together. And as such, taking the challenge as merely a final post on this particular blog did not seem very daunting. I imagined that it would be a simple matter of bidding a polite adieu and directing my audience to where they might continue to read my writing elsewhere.

Upon deciding that my melancholy narrative essay is not well suited for posting here, I undertook to re-examine the challenge. I concluded that while announcing the end of The Snarky Optimist certainly could be a matter of a simple adieu and redirect, that is not what it should be. To do so would be entirely contrary to the spirit of this blog. I have spent much time and many words extolling the virtues of community, the importance of audience and cooperation and support. How could I leave without grateful acknowledgment of my community, my audience, my co-operatives and support?

While there are certainly online repositories of my writing through which I do not try to make an impact, this blog is not one such. This blog is not just for me; it is for us. And as such it would be perfectly rude to simply traipse off with little more than a perfunctory wave at you, the reader. Perfectly rude indeed.

It is because I appreciate you all and believe that you deserve every scrap of value that I can offer that I have decided to write you my last post. But you needn't worry: I don't plan on vanishing just yet.

Exit, pursued by a bear.

Every exit has meaning. Every leavetaking has an impact. When it comes time to leave a job, a city, a relationship or a blog, it is hard to overlook the significance imposed by finality, to resist the urge to leave on a positive note. We all want good references, healthy connections and amicable breakups. In short, we all care about our legacies at significant transition moments.

But it is not our final efforts that define our legacies; it is our everyday actions that change the game. Consider instead the smaller transition moments: the steps taken as you leave a room, the conclusion of a phone call, lips parting after a kiss, the full stop at the termination of a sentence. As our messages shorten along with our attention spans, it grows increasingly easy to dismiss the significance of a fleeting moment, be it a tweet or a few exchanged words. But this is how your legacy is incrementally constructed. This is how you will be remembered by former colleagues, friends and lovers: it's not your exit interview, it is your everyday performance. Do not try to end on a high note. Instead, try to live on a high note. This is something that I need to remind myself of more often.

Famous last words pale in comparison to the assumulated discourse of an entire life. As for this blog, I would rather its legacy not come down to this moment, because this moment does not represent a culimination so much as it represents a finial: no amount of scrollwork can change the fact that a last post is merely a decoration placed at the apex of a column. It is the column that holds up the building. And just as there would be no finial without a column to adorn, a last post requires a body of work to conclude, and therein lies the real significance.

This blog may not be more than the sum of its parts, but it is at least that: the sum of its parts, a catalogue of ideas rather than the echo of its parting shots.

Chelsea out.

A note regarding the title: "Exits, pursued by a bear" is quite possibly the most famous stage direction in all of Shakespeare's plays. It does not come from Hamlet or Titus Andronicus or some other theatrical tour de force; the impactful, funny and horrifying stage direction is taken from The Winter's Tale. It occurs at a moment of enormous symbolic and structural significance, and signals the play's transition from tragedy to pastoral. The character in question, Antigonus, is simply following orders but ends up getting mauled to death.

Quick Hit: Watch This Video

2010-08-23T07:56:00.000-07:00

Take ten minutes and watch this video. If you can't take ten minutes to watch it, then just leave it playing in the background and listen to it.

The take-away message is this: science shows that enabling autonomy, mastery and purpose leads to better results in the workplace. If you are doing work that requires even marginal cognitive or creative performance, traditional incentive models are not the way to go.

Today's Management 2.0 lesson is brought to you by hitRECord, because I found this video on Joseph Gordon-Levitt's tumblr blog. If you are a fan of openness, sharing and creativity (music, writing, photography, design, whatever) but have yet to hear about the wonderfulness that is hitRECord, go check it out and fall in love. It is a totally admirable initiative.

Death and Memorial Wikis

2010-08-19T11:27:00.000-07:00

Have you thought about it?

As online platforms become an increasingly significant part of our daily lives, online identities become one more thing to manage upon a person’s death. It is becoming routine to include usernames and passwords in your last will and testament in order to assist family members in disabling your account or archiving your information. Facebook, Twitter and other online platforms now have policies regarding the management of the accounts of deceased users. Blogs like Death and Digital Legacy shed light on the issue as policies and practices continue to evolve.

The death of an online friend can be just as traumatic as the death of someone you have known in real life, and it certainly has an element of the surreal. If you have ever read someone’s final blog post or last tweets, you will understand the sense of disbelief: how can someone be gone when their online presence remains?

Facebook sometimes suggests actions for friends you may not interact with regularly. Write on her wall, the system prompts. Send him a message. I have always found this feature slightly disconcerting, but things escalated to a whole new level when Facebook recently recommended that I “reconnect” with a friend who had passed away. This put quite the damper on my day, but since his Facebook account was still active, how was the system to know? LinkedIn and Twitter do this too.

I find it poignantly fascinating to observe the way users interact with the Facebook profiles of their deceased friends. The account seems to transform into an online memorial of sorts, with people posting memories and condolences, or tagging the deceased in old photographs. What was once a single person’s profile becomes a community gathering place for those whose lives were connected through an individual’s impact.

This got me to thinking about what I would like to happen with my online presence if something were to happen to me. This is an important topic and I am not trying to depress anyone, but really – what would you want done with your tweets, blog posts, and photostreams?

Personally, I would like all my online contributions to be piled into a memorial wiki. A wiki not only enables online content to remain online, but it could be organized and is conducive to lengthy content in ways that a Facebook page is not. Rather than posting short messages and condolences to a wall, a memorial wiki would allow people to share stories, photos and videos, in addition to connecting with those who may have crossed paths at a similar time in the deceased’s life. An open, public memorial wiki would make it easy for people to connect and contribute, and no one would be required to be signed up to view the content, unlike Facebook.

Thinking about death is never easy. However, I think that it’s important to think about this in advance, not only to address the mountains of legal obstacles that can possibly present themselves, but to make sure that your online presence remains as uniquely you after your death as it was while you were still live and tweeting. As the Internet shifts the way we interact with each other on a daily basis, it only makes sense that we account for how it shifts they way we remember.

How do you want to be remembered online? How do you want to be celebrated?

Safety in Citation: The Importance of Borrowing Discerningly

2010-08-03T08:05:00.000-07:00

A post in which I borrow materials from FAIL blog, after having carefully considered the implications of making such a connection.

I have said it before, and I will say it again:

Gift economy is extremely important in collaborative workplaces, open source communities and their ilk, and one of the important conventions is providing credit where credit is due. We see it manifest in retweets and hat tips all over the Internet: the basic belief is that knowledge should be shared and contributions should be acknowledged. A belief in the importance of acknowledging the contributions of others is something that online communities have in common with academia (the chief difference being that while the former might call you a thief or an asshat, the latter will call you a plagiarist). Everyone likes to be acknowledged for their work.

I wrote that in a post about the importance of accurate vocabulary, and I was reminded of it today while eating my lunch, reading FAIL blog of all things. (It just goes to show that inspiration can come from the most unexpected of sources.)

One thing I did not address in my previous post was the fact that proper citation is not only the professional, good-karma way to borrow materials from other people; such transparency is also a good way to ensure you don't inadvertently end up looking like a toolbox through accidental self-satirization. But this only works when you actually think about the connection such a citation establishes between you, your goals, and the goals of the content's usage in other contexts. Citation is important because it forces you to attach another person or group to your content, and this moment should prompt you to reflect on what that means. But not everyone is so discerning.

When I saw this image on FAIL blog, I almost spat coffee at my monitor. Let's just say the Official Oregon Tea Party has somehow managed to troll itself.

If you don't get it, don't worry. We're going to break it down, because this is a two-level FAIL and a perfect example of why it is important to consider the implications of reusing or referencing a source's content. It is very tempting to pull a nice quote off the internet and reuse it without doing your research, but trust me when I tell you it is important to think about whether or not you want to connect yourself with that person or group. Even if they string words together nicely that seem to support your point, context is still important.

Okay, so why is this a FAIL? This little promotional product runs into problematic context associations on two levels.

The first and more humourous of the two is the fact that the text, which is quite accurately attributed to Anonymous, is quoted verbatim from a very controversial online video. In this case, Anonymous does not simply mean source unknown; it attributes the quote to a particular online group that calls itself Anonymous. It is a mass noun (not unlike the Borg). The quote is from the video in which Anonymous declared war on Scientology.

I really don't think that the Official Oregon Tea Party wants to imply that it supports Anonymous, which finds its roots on 4chan and is perhaps best described as a loosely organized collective of internet griefers. These are the people responsible for several quite impressive trolling campaigns... but then again they are also responsible for things such as YouTube Porn Day, Operation Titstorm, and other escapades that can be described as silly at best and malicious at worst. In any case, I hardly think that the Tea Party is doing it for the lulz. But I admit that I would feel much better if they were.

The second level of FAIL comes from the religious implications of the statement, which I would have thought that the Tea Party would be more likely to pick up on. The statement "We are Legion" quotes the biblical tale in which Jesus heals a man possessed by demons. The problem is that Legion is how the demons identify themselves. So the Official Oregon Tea Party seems to be implying that it is a hostile demon collective, which I don't think was the intention.

This is just one example of the dangers of quoting out of context, and the importance of doing your research before re-purposing someone else's materials. The moral of the story: share freely, borrow discerningly.

A Friday #UX Funny

2010-07-30T08:10:00.000-07:00

#UX = Twitter hashtag for content related to user experience.

I just thought I would take a moment to share this XKCD comic. One of the files I am presently helping with is the redesign of a website to better reflect user behavior, so this seemed especially relevant to me. That, and I know some of my readers are currently struggling with registration for Fall classes... but not me! I have only a few weeks left in my undergrad. I wish you good luck.

Anyways, enjoy this and have a happy Friday.

The Blog Rally Challenge is officially closed

2010-07-28T08:42:00.001-07:00

Stay tuned for a wrap-up, as well as some special awards for our rally bloggers.

We will return to regular Snarky Optimist programming following the award announcements this week.

Thank you to everyone for your support. Keep on blogging and tweeting!

The Snarky Optimist Blog Rally Challenge -- GO!

2010-07-19T06:24:00.000-07:00

Bloggers, start your engines.

It’s Monday morning, and time to start the very first Snarky Optimist Blog Rally Challenge! *applause and fanfare*

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

Step One: Over the course of the next week, read and comment on the blogs of at least ten other rally participants. You are welcome to do more than that, but you need ten comments (even short ones) to complete the challenge. Don’t just do the first ten on the list, because they are in no particular order. I suggest that you check out all of them and see whose front page content grabs your attention, or to which you can make a valuable contribution.

Step Two: Check in when you have completed the challenge by commenting on this post. Bloggers who do not check in will not be counted as having completed the challenge and will not be eligible for an award. Your completion comment does not count in your total of ten.

Step Three: Read and enjoy the feedback you receive from other bloggers. You might also wish to respond to their commentary and check out their blogs, if you haven’t already. Maybe add a few fresh subscriptions to your RSS reader.

DEADLINE: July 26 at 12:00 PM

The Rally Roster (in no particular order)

Colin Hoult – Public Service of the Future

Todd Lyons – toddlyons.ca

Morgan Peers – morganpeers.ca

Lenny Wu – The WildWorks Station

Tanya Snook – Spydergrrl on the Web

Julie Harrison – Coffee with Julie

Blaise Hébert – Blaze or Blasé

David Hicks – ALL CAPS

Thom Kearney – NuSum

Tyler Williams – Worst Title Ever

Laura Wesley – Results for Canadians

Teresa Baldwin – map-maker.ca

Cate Huston – Accidentally in Code

Nick Charney – cpsrenewal.ca

Arlene Lipsius – A 365 Degree View

Gordon Bonnar – gordbot.com

Ellen Grove – Mastering the Obvious

Martha McLean – Online Odyssey

Ralph Mercer – Digital Chief

Tariq Piracha - Exit Strategy

If you are not on this list and would like to participate, leave a comment RIGHT NOW! If you are on this list but would like to be removed, please do the same.