Category: reflection

From the Archives: X years of blogging and what’s next

Agenda from BlogHer 2005

May 1st, 2004 was the first post to this iteration of my blog. 18 years of writing blog posts in one place. The previous blog waffled, wandered and the digital artifacts are for the most part, lost. But even those four years were instrumental to my discovery and learning. (I used the first blog mostly to curate resources for clients!)

In 2017, my dear friend Lilia Efimova reflected on her blogging history. She is, happily for me, still blogging, as is Ton Zylstra, whose post triggered Lilia’s. Those two were pioneers for me, and their writing still inspires and teaches me. (The list of other people whose blogs were/are still dear to me should be added to this post. Someday, right?)

Ton’s post on 15 Years of Blogging made me realise that I had reached similar milestone last June. In this post I look into “more blogging, less FB” issues and outline several points to work on.

Lilia Efimova

Source: 15 years of blogging, FB and what’s next — Mathemagenic

Lilia reflected back then on the wider range of places we can write, share, post, connect and most directly reflected on the borg that is Facebook. The proliferation of other socially-oriented platforms definitely had an impact on blogging in general, and directly for me.

Ton wrote:

When I started blogging it was the source of a tremendous proliferation of new connections, a whole new peer network emerged practically overnight. Distributed conversations became face to face meetings and brought us to places like the Blogtalk and Reboot conferences. Many of the people I regard as a major source of learning, inspiration I met because of this blog. Many over time have become dear friends. That alone is enough to keep blogging.

Ton Zylstra

Back in the day blogging was so many things. It created an online identity, connected me with people who have been essential in my life and formation. It triggered F2F things like Blogging conferences (Northern Voice! BlogHer!)

For me blogging is still primarily a place to think out loud together. Since fewer people blog/read blog posts/comment, the level of connection has shrunk. There has been no group F2F for years. But the last four months of regular blogging have reenergized some of those connections. And reaffirmed the value of thinking out loud together. Thank you for reading… and happy Blogiversary to me!

Franzen: Technology Provides an Alternative to Love

childs drawing of a network of hearts and the caption "love is powerful."

Jonathan Franzen wrote in a NYTimes piece back in January of this year something that keeps haunting me. This quote may be beyond what is appropriate – and yet, go read the whole thing. 

Let me toss out the idea that, as our markets discover and respond to what consumers most want, our technology has become extremely adept at creating products that correspond to our fantasy ideal of an erotic relationship, in which the beloved object asks for nothing and gives everything, instantly, and makes us feel all powerful, and doesn’t throw terrible scenes when it’s replaced by an even sexier object and is consigned to a drawer.

To speak more generally, the ultimate goal of technology, the telos of techne, is to replace a natural world that’s indifferent to our wishes — a world of hurricanes and hardships and breakable hearts, a world of resistance — with a world so responsive to our wishes as to be, effectively, a mere extension of the self.

Let me suggest, finally, that the world of techno-consumerism is therefore troubled by real love, and that it has no choice but to trouble love in turn.

Its first line of defense is to commodify its enemy. You can all supply your own favorite, most nauseating examples of the commodification of love. Mine include the wedding industry, TV ads that feature cute young children or the giving of automobiles as Christmas presents, and the particularly grotesque equation of diamond jewelry with everlasting devotion. The message, in each case, is that if you love somebody you should buy stuff.

A related phenomenon is the transformation, courtesy of Facebook, of the verb “to like” from a state of mind to an action that you perform with your computer mouse, from a feeling to an assertion of consumer choice. And liking, in general, is commercial culture’s substitute for loving. The striking thing about all consumer products — and none more so than electronic devices and applications — is that they’re designed to be immensely likable. This is, in fact, the definition of a consumer product, in contrast to the product that is simply itself and whose makers aren’t fixated on your liking it. (I’m thinking here of jet engines, laboratory equipment, serious art and literature.)

But if you consider this in human terms, and you imagine a person defined by a desperation to be liked, what do you see? You see a person without integrity, without a center. In more pathological cases, you see a narcissist — a person who can’t tolerate the tarnishing of his or her self-image that not being liked represents, and who therefore either withdraws from human contact or goes to extreme, integrity-sacrificing lengths to be likable.

via Technology Provides an Alternative to Love. – NYTimes.com.

Snapback, Falling off Horses, Toxic Nostalgia and What Do We Do Next?

Picture of a horses nose and mouth with bridle on.

Today is my birthday. Always a good time for reflection….

How do we discern what practices to keep and which to throw away? What have we noticed in our changing practices since the pandemic and how do we make the MOST of them? Or not! Are we wallowing in toxic nostalgia?

Dr. David Viscott, author of a book entitled Emotional Resilience, defined toxic nostalgia as “a subtle mixture of feelings, attitudes, perspectives and needs from different ages all showing themselves at once as the unresolved past attempts to define the present.” I found Dr. Viscott;s quote via Rabbi Mike Harvey. Rabbi Harvey also made his own offering describing toxic nostalgia is “thinking that things used to be amazing, focusing only on good memories, and defining the past by those good memories, then projecting the difference between the reality of the present with the imagined reality of your past and seeing the difference. “

Once I started looking, toxic nostalgia shows up in the media a lot lately. I felt resonance. Think about our societal polarization on so many issues. Our blindness as we endorse things that do us harm.

For me and my group process practice we use the term “snapback.” Snapback to the old, familiar, comfortable ways – even if those old ways are no longer serving. For groups working together, the pandemic tossed us out of our familiar ways and ruts and many of us rapidly embraced new ways. Now that things are leaking back into old settings (i.e. F2F offices, meetings) the snapback is showing up. I’m noticing that some of the groups I worked with during the pandemic where they created and adopted new, productive practices, are slipping back into high control, low liberating practices.

If we don’t examine and compare our practices, we may default to toxic nostalgia and snapback. Or we can stay awake, notice what has changed and how that change has or has not positively impacted what we are trying to do together. We fear “falling off the horse,” but perhaps what we should fear is not noticing with either got back on or fell off the horse and learned NOTHING!

Update on the Blog Draft Archives Project

a picture from a balcony looking down at people walking, watching, connecting at the Guggenheim Museum, New York City.
People watching, people connecting…

Of the original 419 blog post drafts, 76 drafts remain. From the first post of this silly project in early December until today’s post, I’ve revived/edited or nearly simply reposted 68 posts. That nearly eclipses my early blogging frenzy in the late 90’s/early 2000’s when I posted snippets nearly daily… many of those posts are now inaccessible due to transitions of blog archives, but they are not lost. One day I will figure out if I should (and how to) reconnect them here.

I am now posting 2-3 per week. Of the remaining drafts, I estimate there are up to 40-50 viable posts. Some require real work, others just some light editing. Probably fewer of the latter. I’ve weeded out most of the drafts that refer to links that are now broken, unable to connect to the sources that inspired the post. That makes me sad.

Happily, some of you have left comments and we have reconnected — sweetness. It reminded me of the importance of leaving comments. Euan Semple, I keep trying to comment on your blog, but I fear I have so many different WordPress identities, I keep failing at logging on. I will work on that but I’ve posted imaginary comments quite a few times in the past few months. Harold Jarche, I was thrilled you were happy to get a comment from me on YOUR blog. Ton, Alan, Darcy, Joitske, Mark, Christy, Monica, Robyn, Patrick, and Stephen, thanks for your comments so far. The 10 of you give me more energy than you might imagine!

From the Archives: Making as a Communal Process vs Individual Act

In April of 2014, one of my friends (and fellow blog writer/reader) Ton Zylstra wrote about making as a communal process. (Sorry Ton, it landed in the drafts and languished there until today!)

In the digital age, we add to the mix connectivity, the ability to both make objects, make tools to make those objects and make connections with other makers. Living today, in 2022, in a highly individualistic country, I grasp for more of the communal. With the pandemic, I probably hew more to solitary work. So revisiting Ton’s post has given me food for thought.

reflections of trees in a puddle with autumn leaves floating on top

…making is a communal process. Communal both in its source of knowledge and inspiration, as well as in the context and rationale of where the stuff you made is put to use. Process, as in the full cycle from awareness of issues, ideation, and creation, all the way to application, impact, and sharing the resulting insights again.

Seeing making as an individual act towards a solitary object obscures the layered richness making in the digital age is an expression of. A maker is not doing DIY, but a maker becomes a bridge or boundary spanner between his own local community and other wider global communities, as well as becomes a community hacker.

Ton Zylstra

via Making as a Communal Process vs Individual Act | Interdependent Thoughts.

As a little side bar, from a later draft came the link to a piece on why we tend to value art created by an individual, versus a group. Artists Working Solo Create the Finest Work – Pacific Standard: The Science of Society.