I started the week with a quote from Steven Johnson’s Emergence.

Here’s another lovely Great Work insight from the book, albeit a slightly dated one. Johnson is talking about SlashDot.org, a geek site where posts got posted on tech stuff and comments got made on those posts.

As the site expanded, the moderation duties became overwhelming and in an act of bravery the founder gave moderation rights to the community itself. But it wasn’t just a “dump and run”, it was a well thought out process (somewhat too long to get into here) that was governed by these four principles:

1. Promote quality, discourage crap
2. Make Slashdot as readable as possible for as many people as possible
3. Do not require a huge amount of time from any single moderator
4. Do not allow a single moderator a ‘reign of terror’

Fantastic! As you can imagine, they had me at “promote quality, discourage crap”. But I also love the way this complex community is managed by some core principles and that those principles promote engagement and accountability.

The question of how you bring in others to support your own Great Work is such a powerful and tricky thing.  Finding the right people, helping create the right focus, walking that line between guiding and not micromanaging or not “dump and run”.  These principles might serve you well in shaping your own Great Work community

We’ll be looking at what you should be thinking about, as a coach, when you’re hired by people looking to find work, and to find their “right livelihood” (or ‘Great Work’ in my parlance).

Hope you can join us - we’ll be live from 8:30 EST at http://www.wsradio.com

• How stealing carburetor’s launched his training career
• Why worrying about outcomes might get in the way
• Insights from positive psychology
• Tools and tactics to help you play to your own strengths

You can listen to the interview (or download it for free) here: http://www.findyourgreatwork.com/interviews/thiagi/

“You have to make it live before you can understand how it works.”
~ Steven Johnson, Emergence

It’s a terrific book this one, tackling the big big question: how does complexity get created. That is, how do the simple building blocks of life combine to create something more complex. Or to drop to the bottom line here, how does life, civilization happen?

It’s also a little out of date - it was published in 2001, and I’d love to read the 2009 version. Much the same, but a good deal different too as we watch the web and the internet continue to emerge. (As an example of how much is changed, Yahoo is mentioned as the premier browser over Google…)

This quote is just one I pulled out that made me think. What I like about it is this: You can only research and think things through so far, particulary if the “thing” is a complex issue and not a straight-forward, linear piece of machinery. Things get messy and unpredictable - at least at the details level - fast. It’s why Google has everything in permanent Beta mode. Because it all keeps evolving. Emerging.

What are you trying to figure out, that you should be just letting live?

(Why the ant picture?  Johnson spends a good deal of time talking about “hive intelligence” and how from the simple building blocks of “stupid” ants, a complex community is created.)

Three smart posts from the past week or so.

1. What should I do on your birthday? (And vice-versa)

Seth wrote this on July 4th, for obvious reasons. But he didn’t know that July 4th, by some weird act of fate, is also Box of Crayons’ birthday. We’ve just turned 7. Hurrah!

2. Things to keep in mind

These signs made me laugh out loud. I particular like the one that starts “Fridays are a good day to…”

3. War and Reality in Afghanistan

Steven Pressfield is a smart guy, and I’m a big fan of his book “The War of Art” which tackles the questions of creativity, discipline and Great Work in a elegant and wise way. He’s a writer of historical fiction and an ex Marine. He’s just started posting an insightful series on the war in Afghanistan, an the importance of the Afghan tribes to its success (or not). Not my typical type of post I mention here, but important.

One billion

Line up an elephant, a hummingbird, your favourite pet … and you.

What do you have in common? (Apart from the good looks, of course.)

The answer I’ve got is that you’re all born with about a billion heartbeats to spare. It’s why big animals live longer than small ones - their hearts beat slower. It’s a powerful metaphor of course, and it begs the question: What do you plan to do with your billion beats? But you can get much more specific than that…

12,486

That, according to my calculations, is how many days I’ve got left to live this life. Or to put it another way, the actuary tables are predicting my demise on September 15, 2043. (It will be the 35th anniversary of Lehmann Brothers going bankrupt.  Terrific.)

What does that number do to you? For me, it does two things.

It sends me into a bit of hand-flapping panic. “Aaagh!  So much to do!  So little time!  Work harder!  Focus more!  Freak out a little bit!”

And at the same time, it quiets me down. You’ve probably read stories of people who’ve come close to death and afterward found absolute clarity about what they want to spend their time on. Here’s a recent example.

That, although undoubtedly to a lesser extent, is what happened to me.  It absolutely makes me stop and take a breath or two and ask myself: What am I up to?  And is this the best it can be?  Is this really my Great Work?

And even more important for me, it makes me think about what I should stop doing.  I know I go on and on about this - it’s probably because I’m trying to remind myself to say No so I can say Yes.  Someone recently described me as being a ball-juggling, plate-tossing, chair-balancing maniac.  And funny as the image is, it’s not exactly the way I’m trying to show up in the world…

You can calculate what your own number is by following the instructions in this article by Kevin Kelly.

5.75 Questions

Not sure where to begin?  Why not carve out 10 minutes and ask yourself the 5.75 Questions?

1. What’s going well? (No, really. What can you celebrate?)
2. What are you trying to ignore? (That irritating stuff that you’re tolerating.  Or that call to Great Work that’s making your palms sweat)
3. What’s boring you? (”Comfort is boredom with good PR.”)
4. How do you want to be remembered? (What’s the ending you want to write for your life?)
5. Who do you love? (And why aren’t you spending more time with these people?)

You can see it in all its glorious animation here, and find out just what is the 0.75 final question.

6 strategies

I hope I’ve stirred you up a bit, pushed you a little, and got you thinking. But what will you do?
Here’s a few options you have - feel free to pick more than one.

1. Pick a project. Just one.  The one project you’re going to really focus on for the next 90 days. Make it a project that counts. Make it Great Work.
2. Pick a big project for the next five years.In the Kevin Kelly article he quotes Stewart Brand (founder of The Long Now Foundation) who says a good project takes five years from go to whoa. Start a company. Write a book. Begin a new career. Change the World. Pick something that will inspire you, hold you, thrill you.  (At the very least, write a shortlist.)
3. Write out your “Not To Do List.” Put down at least 10 things you’re likely to get suckered into doing that - big picture and all - are a waste of your time. This is the stuff you’ve been keen to say No to for some time now - and I’m giving you permission to do just that!
4. Write out your “To Be List.” Don’t get fooled into thinking that it’s all about what you do. How do you want to show up for the next little while? Will you be … loving? Courageous? Focused? Happy? Unpredictable? Curious?
5. Get inspired. Go check out the Great Work Interviews. In recent weeks we’ve posted podcasts with Steven Rothstein (Head of the Perkins School for the Blind), Dixon Thayer (senior exec and turn-around guru), Sally Bonneywell (Head of OD for GlaxoSmithKline) and Chris Guillebeau (world traveller, writer of the Art of Non-Conformity.) Don’t tell me there isn’t SOMETHING there for you!
6. Get tactical. Think about the next 90 days. I wrote about the power of planning in 90 day “chunks” a little while ago, and you can read some specific tactics to do just that here.

“Tyranny cannot defeat the power of ideas.”
~ Helen Keller, 1880 - 1968

Helen Keller woudl have celebrated her 129th birthday on June 27th, as good an excuse as any to share this quote.

In this world of Twitter and blogging and instantly-uploadable video footage, you can see regimes such as Iraq and Burma facing this truth square-on.

But I’d hazard a guess that all of us reading this aren’t up against such an obvious form of tyranny. For us, the challenge is a little more insidious - the tyranny of busy-ness, the tyranny of Good Work, the tyranny of the safe rut & habit, the tyranny of “best practice”.

It’s true that an idea - a Great Work flash - can shake things up. But most of us are just hoping, half-heartedly, that such a thing will show up.

What if you actively sought out the idea that might overthrow your own petty tyrannies?

Oh - and if you haven’t already, please listen to the fab Great Work Interview with Steven Rothstein. He’s the President of the Perkins School for the Blind, Helen Keller’s school. You can listen to it here.

This week it’s a celebration of the genius that is Kevin Kelly. My goodness, this man knows how to write and knows how to write provocative, smart, thoughtful stuff. Perfect reading for those of us on a long weekend…

1. What’s your death clock read?

Just posted today, and already a classic. You can set up your own countdown to when you die… (it’s not a gruesome as you’d think)

2. Upcreation

How does complexity happen? How doe things keep upgrading so the simple building blocks become the marvellous, complex universe in which we live? Not a fast read, but a deep one.

3. The arc of complexity

This article follows on nicely from “upcreation”. Read the two of them together. Then go: Wow.

We finished the conference last night with a concert from the redoubtable Sheryl Crow. She rocked us with all her hits.

And the crowd?

They sat there.

I on the other hand put aside my embarrassment about being an awkward white guy, stood up, and danced the whole show long.

And I tell you - I’ve decided that dancing more is a pretty good answer to whatever ails you.

Time to get a little more funk and groove into your life too?

Happy Canada Day to those North of the border, happy July 4th to those South of it