[Opinion] We Would Prefer Not To

In light of the current interest around Big Data and the privacy issues made relevant through Wikileaks, Edward Snowden revelations and Google’s recent EU “slap-down,” we wonder how the people who choose not to be enfranchised will be cajoled (or forced) into the developing systems of the future.

Typically, late adopters hang out at the end of the bell curve, waiting around for the latest I-phone iteration to arrive on the discount aisle at Wal-mart, but even these days, the distances between the areas on the bell curve is becoming more and more compacted.

The conflict then arises between those who are the early adopters (the “cool” people”) and those who, for whatever personal, psychological, or emotional reasons, would prefer to still run down that awesome eight track recording of Supertramp.

Most marketing thinkers and wizards of smart continually claim that, eventually there will be enough niches for the people who would rather not participate in the future to still hang out and take advantage of the fringe benefits of the future, without having to actually become an early to mid-adopter of the future.

Problem solved.

Right?

But, what if the real conflict comes from the powers that be in government, corporations and other large organizations, who would prefer to have the convenience of having everybody (even the fringe folks) participating in the “whiz-bang” future, in spite of their objections?

It turns out, that Bartleby (and his late adopter followers) wins in the end, but with the cruelest dénouement possible.

And then the question becomes, what’s the early adopters’s Alamo?

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

[Advice] Queen of the YouTube Selfie

Narcissism is the great modern diagnoses.

From philosophers to social scientists to political theorists, the erudite thought leaders have spilled rivers of ink (or created tons of bytes) by critiquing the rise of everything from social media to the “selfie” and positing that such developments spell the end of Western civilization.

For our money, the end of Western civilization may come about, but not because a few million people posted images of themselves on social media sites.

And here’s a prediction for the intelligentsia: If the candidates for President in 2065 don’t have at least a Youtube channel, we here at HSCT will be genuinely surprised.

After all, we hear that you can’t even get a book deal these days without having a platform and an audience first.

To join our email list, please, head on over to http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com/hsct-offers page and sign up today. After you do that, download our two FREE offers: [download id=”2414″] and [download id=”2390″].

-Peace Be With You All-

How The World Sees Jesan Sorrells

I’ve always had trouble “fitting in” with organizations.

I deliver pioneering, irreverent, entrepreneurial ideas and solutions for my clients in corporations, nonprofit organizations and even to individual clients.

#BuildingForTheFutureSelfie

I’ve taken Strengthsquest and MBTI and I know how I see the world. And, I’ve often been given insight (some would call it “feedback”) from others who have seen how I interact with the world. My approach to ideas and processes in organizations for which I have worked has been described as:

Scary
Overbearing
Sucking all the air out of the room

Sally Hogshead, and the Fascination Advantage assessment has changed all of that for me.

I found out that the world views me as a Maverick Leader. I am seen as pioneering, irreverent, and entrepreneurial.

Meaning, others think that I lead with unconventional ideas, propose new directions and believe that higher goals can be achieved in any project. Which gives me those three new words:

Pioneering
Irreverent
Entrepreneurial

Now, according to the assessment, I am also seen as being a sharp wit, creative and able to stay on track (my wife would say “doggedly”) when others peter out or lose interest in a project or direction.

Now, there’s a way to wrap all of this up into one package, and that’s through developing my Anthem.

So, here goes:

I deliver pioneering, irreverent, entrepreneurial ideas and solutions for my clients in corporations, nonprofit organizations and even to individual clients.

Bold. Unconventional. Reaching higher.

I like the sound of that.

The greatest gift you can give someone is to show them their own highest value. I’m going to give that to you. Use the code BL-JSorrells79 to take Sally Hogshead’s Fascination Advantage Assessment ($37 value) for free!

This is a special, limited-time promotion for her new book How the World Sees You.

When you take the assessment using BL-JSorrells79, you’ll get a unique code to share with your audience as well!

This offer expires July 25. Act now!

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

Pajama Based Coding

Are you wasting your time?

This is the interesting summation that Michael Tomeson came to in his Forbes article from a couple of weeks ago.

In doing work that can never be compensated for, to help build something for a corporation who will take it and make profit off of it—but not share any of it with you—you are, in essence wasting your time.

This is a classic conclusion that bubbles up from the depths of the old, Industrial based economic thinking, where every piece of effort to make a widget can be monetized, categorized and codified.

The application of scientific management for labor and profit, if you will.

We here at HSCT don’t believe that you’re wasting your time. Nor are we cynical enough to believe that you would rather help a corporation than help your fellow man.

We do believe that the economic, cultural and social rules are being rewritten, and the next trick to be played will be on all of those systems that insist on being non-symbolic, highly regulated and impervious to any disruptions.

You know, the kind of disruptions that encourage you to sit in your pajamas and code for free while having to go “work” for a big-box retailer for minimum wage.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] Google’s Glass Problem is Your Problem Too

There’s currently no compelling reason for us to buy Google Glass.

There’s also no compelling reason (beyond the SEO game) for us to be involved in Google+.

There’s no compelling reason because the guys out at Mountain View haven’t given us one, other than the fact that they currently own all of Internet search worth talking about.

But, as the attention of the world shifts to mobile phone use, apps matter more than search, and Google will have one less compelling reason for us to be involved with them.

The utility of search, mobile, and even wearables is based upon the idea of resolving a need or a want that the customer has and then making the solution so attractive that we can’t help but use it.

However, as the web has matured, Google hasn’t and the utility of wearables really comes down to third party data gathering about users’ behaviors, antics and actions.

The much more compelling reason for us to buy Google Glass—or any other wearable—will be answered, not by Google, or Yahoo, or even Facebook, but by Big Data advocates and privacy hawks.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

[Advice] Ethical One-Way Streets

The European High Court handed down their opinion dubbed the “right to be forgotten.”

What’s missing in all of the subsequent debate occurring around issue of privacy versus censorship, is the very real issue about a lack of organizational (read “Googles’”) ethical dealing.

“Organizations are seeking honest, fair, reliable, benevolent partners who will commit themselves to the relationship and prove trustworthy. In other words, they seek ethical partners.”

Organizations seek ethical

partners
employees
vendors
customers
clients
and audiences

who will deal fairly—and transparently—in the public commons space of the pro-social spheres that we have created.

However, when asked to engage in the same trustworthy behavior, (read “providing individuals the benefit of the doubt, forgiveness and grace about their messy histories”) they balk.

And then organizations wonder why individuals—who only build real, lasting relationships based on genuine trust, collaboration, ethical dealing and just plain enjoyment of each others’ company—balk at having their every move monitored, recorded and then used against them later.

Doesn’t sound like the thinking that leads to the behavior that will sow the seeds of peace to us.

-Peace Be With You All-

Google to Earth

The most difficult skill set to master, even in our current post-social age, is the skill of managing other people.

The recent changes and departures at Google serve as an example of this. No matter how “whiz-bang” the technology, people will always be at the core of a company’s focus, growth and competency.

Three points to consider:

Managing people is only going to become more complicated, not less, as individuals make life choices that serve to set up their existences around concepts of shared individuality, rather than enforced commonality.
Emotional intelligence, virtue ethics, patience, religious belief, recovery from failure, grit and perseverance are all learned discrete skills and traits that groups can advocate and promulgate, but that individuals have to practice and internalize. Unfortunately, these skills are to often “taken for granted” rather than “trained into” people.
Training implements skills at the lowest level, coaching reinforces learned skills at the next highest level and education—learned skills actively practiced and then passed onto others—happens at the highest level. This is the path for learning and absorbing, the discrete skills to be able to handle other people, as well as oneself.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant

Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)

Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com

[Advice] All That Happens Must Be Known

Given revelations of internet data surveillance what concerns should be raised about the possibility of brain monitoring devices?

All this week on the HSCT Communication Blog, we are answering questions put forth by the folks running the at the upcoming Suny-Broome 6^th Annual Interdisciplinary Conference being held on April 4^thand 5^that Suny-Broome Community College.

This week’s question was posed by the plot of David Eggers’ most recent novel, The Circle, and was not definitively answered by the end of the book.

Well, we here at HSCT have three primary concerns about brain monitoring devices. And the NSA didn’t make the top three.

The first is around marketing and the idea of “opting-out” rather than a mandatory “opt-in.”

The most annoying moment on the internet or social media is waiting for the commercial at the front of a YouTube video to load, with the countdown going before the viewer can “skip this ad.”

As the customer (you and I) have gained more control over blocking being sold to, marketers and advertisers have had to come up with more clever (and blunt) ways to compel our valuable time and attention, with confusing and frustrating results for all parties involved.

Now imagine if marketers had access to the most intimate space on the planet: Your private brain space.There would be no “option to opt-out,” even though all the legalese would say that there would be.

Which gets us to point number 2…

The second concern that we have is that increasingly, the desire to not participate in social communication is seen as a sign of social ineptitude at best and dangerous at worst.

Case in point: Whenever a school shooting happens, the first thing that the media does is breathlessly report whether or not the perpetrator possessed a social media account.

If he (and it’s usually a ‘he’) does, then there is breathless data mining that goes on in a search for pathology, motive, and aberration.

In other words, the nature of the aberrant act itself is no longer enough to create outrage; the lack of social participation is the driver for primary outraged responses.Which leads to concern number 3…

The third concern is that we have long sought—as individuals, societies and cultures—to control people under the guise of freeing them from Plato’s Cave.

Brain monitoring devices won’t be used to give us freedom, collaboration and connection.Instead, they will be used to take away freedom, encourage and inflame false fracturing and individualization, and destroy connections between people.

In other words, criminalization of thought will happen using the same powerful social sanctioning to illegality continuum that has banned smoking from restaurants, trans fats from NY City restaurants, and has gotten the White House cook to quit.

The inevitability of technological progress demands that we think about the ramifications of power and control, not only from government and corporations, but also by and from each other.

So, HSCT’s conflict engagement consultant, Jesan Sorrells, will be presenting on the issue of online reputation maintenance in a world where virtue and ethics are not often addressed.

We would love to see you there!

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant

Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)

Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

Tragedy of the Abundance Commons

In an abundance economy, built on trust, generosity and collaboration, the real tragedy of the commons is those who choose to participate selfishly, and in essence destroy the very thing that they are building in the first place.

http://hsconsultingandtrain.wix.com/hsct

Jasmine Starr’s recent issues in the blogging world are one example.

So is Marissa Mayer’s commentary about the photography world.

Many look at collaborative work in a social space as competing against the soiling of that same space by the presence of big brands with their ability to pay big money to clog your Facebook feed with advertisements.

However, the real tragedy, is allowing the collaborative possibilities to wither under the weight of fears and concerns over Edgerank, “what kind of content should I post,” and irrelevant speculation about an overabundance of noise and chatter.

Collaboration cuts through all of that to the bone of what abundance is at its heart: sharing.

Didn’t someone else bring this up about 2,000 years ago?

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant

Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)

Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

HSCT’s website: http://hsconsultingandtrain.wix.com/hsct

Towards A More Thankful Union

We here at the HSCT Communication Blog are all thankful this day for many things:
The country where we live,
The family that we have,
The connections we are about to make,
The business that we are growing,
The tools that we have to explore the world,
The intellect and science behind them,
The religiousity that allowed people to develop ideas,
The advancements in the world that feed more people well,
The times that are a changin’,
The peace we have an opportunity to build,
The relationships we have had a chance to build,
The connections that we have made,
The critics, naysayers and disbelievers that we have,
The “no’s,”
The “yes’s,”
The “maybe laters,”
The incredulity,
The pain
…and the promise…

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant

Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)

Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/