Earbud_U, Season Four, Episode # 5 – Dana Caspersen

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Four, Episode # 5 – Dana Caspersen, Dancer, Conflict Specialist, Author, Performance Facilitator

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The results of our conflicts, disagreements, differences of opinion and more are manifest not only in our lives, but also are captured in our physical bodies.

Structural violence, social justice, and where is all of this exactly in the individual’s body?

Our guest today on the show, Dana Caspersen, is a conflict specialist, author, dancer, and performing artist.

Her work focuses on empowering people to transform conflict from the inside: changing the conversation by changing their own actions and approach.

Dance is not something that I know anything about. Sure, my daughter does dance. And I’ve done some dancing in the past. And my wife likes to go dancing.

But that’s just the rantings of a dilettante who knows nothing about the process of art. Kind of like a weekend painter or a casual sculpture.

Dana has written a book about all of this, including how implicit biases live in the way that the body moves. It’s the mind-body connection where a lot of the outcomes of conflict live at.

And we all do performances so that we don’t have to listen to each other, much less our own selves…

Here’s the thing though: Violence captured in bodies ends up leading to violent lives.

And even if there isn’t any overt physical violence, the toll that stress takes on a body in conflict is manifest in the ways that we walk, talk, and carry ourselves.

None of this is easy to talk about, much less recognize, which is why Dana does the work that she does, and why she wrote the book that she wrote.

Dance, movement, conflict, and systemic violence.

All elements that meet in a miasma of conflicting ideas that continuously crash around us.

Whether we are consciously aware of it…or not….

Connect with Dana through all the ways you can below:

Dana’s Tedx Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfQeH3092Sc

Dana Caspersen’s Website: http://danacaspersen.com/

Dana on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DanaCaspersen/

Dana on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dana-caspersen-99243827

Dana on Twitter: https://twitter.com/danacaspersen

Dana Caspersen’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCpuYD5HgcyW3MxvPxNL5YA

Knotunknot Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ39dpZMNmw

2 Reviews of Dana’s Book:

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Three, Episode #10 – Cinnie Noble

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Three, Episode #10 – Cinnie Noble, Mediator, Conflict Coach, Social Worker, Entrepreneur, Lawyer, and Pioneering Conflict Coach

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Brand building is not easy, particularly in a world where peace building and brand building are not often associated with each other. But our guest today has figured out a way around that problem, by slowly and surely doing the things that matter.

I’ve been reading a lot of books about advertising, writing copy, and philosophies on how to embed a marketing message deep inside a consumer’s mind. But for the professional peace builder, brand building, advertising, and on and on seem overwhelming at best.

I even talked to a person last week who’s a corporate trainer in a different space, who when I mentioned my passion for marketing, she threw up her hands in disgust.

But one of the ways to overwhelm the advertising heebie-jeebies, is to build your peace business in the way that Cinnie did: with aplomb, intentionality, and care. She has been able to build a brand that has influenced many people: leaders, managers and clients.

But she has also managed to be industry facing and has challenged people in her industry to evolve tools and products that have helped mediators expand beyond just mediation and toward developing products that can serve as early stage interventions, instead of struggling to manage late stage interventions.

Co-creating a relationship around things that matter is part and parcel of the language of coaching. So is the CINERGY^® Model that Cinnie came up with.

But for our field, co-creating a relationship with the incremental brand building practices that Cinnie has pioneered is about the future of the field.

And Cinnie, Tammy Lenski, and Pattie Porter, and Anne Sawyer, and many others are doing that co-creating right now…

Check out all the ways below to connect with Cinnie today:

Cinnie’s Websites:

Cinnie’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/cinergycoaching

Cinnie’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cinnie.noble

Cinnie on LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/cinnienoble

Cinnie’s Books on Amazon:

Conflict Management Coaching: http://www.amazon.com/Conflict-Management-Coaching-CINERGY-Model/dp/0987739409
Conflict Mastery Questions: http://www.amazon.com/Conflict-Mastery-Questions-Guide-You/dp/0987739417/

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Three, Episode #1- Travis Maus & Ryan Berkeley

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Three, Episode #1 – Travis Maus and Ryan Berkeley, Entrepreneurs, Cutting Edge Financial Planners, Trailblazers for Your Money

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People often remark that money makes people act funny. And not in the “haha,” Heath Ledger Joker way either. We talked about charging people for art last season in our ninth episode conversation with Nicholas Jackson, and we talked about charging people because art is valuable.

But what about managing money?

Nobody gets excited when you are talking about managing money.

As a matter of fact, eyes roll into the back of heads and people gradually slump down in chairs until their heads are the merest slivers above a table.

Then there’s the common situation where two adults hang out at the kitchen table talking about family budgeting every month…or they don’t

And then there’s the fact that there isn’t much education in school around the topic of money, money management of financial matters. And no, studying macroeconomics doesn’t count…

Case in point: My son was asking me about credit card use during the summer. He was on the cusp of turning 18 and wanted to know about credit scores, building a financial background and what the penalties and pitfalls would be with taking on more than he could handle.

After a 30-minute period where I laid out everything that I know about the wide world of credit creation, money management and fiscal sanity, he flopped onto the ottoman, held the cat in his hands, and asked:

Why don’t they teach us this stuff in school?

Why indeed…

In the kick-off to our third season of The Earbud_U Podcast, we talked with Ryan Berkeley and Travis Maus, partners and co-founders of SEED Planning Group, based in Binghamton, NY.

They are no-nonsense when it comes to managing your money, but they were plenty animated when it came to discussing why you should seed your financial strategies and goals with them, for both the long-term viability of your financial health, and for the long-term viability of the financial services industry.

So take a listen to Travis and Ryan, and take a little knowledge from our talk.

Check out all the ways below that you can connect with Travis and Ryan and S.E.E.D!

S.E.E.D Planning Group website: http://www.seedpg.com/

S.E.E.D Planning Group on Twitter: https://twitter.com/seedgroup

S.E.E.D Planning Group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SEED-Financial-Strategies-288049794685377/

S.E.E.D Planning Group on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seed-planning-group-62410167

Travis Maus on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/travis-maus-15aa2429

Ryan Berkeley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanberkeley

[Opinion] Google for Podcasting

The rumblings have started through the podcast world, and the big players haven’t said (or written) anything about anything yet, but I’m sure there’s been all kinds of back end, off line chatter for months now. And, two days ago, Google announced that content creators of podcasts can get their shows listed in the Google Play Store.

There are several significant issues with podcasting, which have been addressed by writers here, here and here. The Google announcement (you can check out the link to the announcement page here and the interview they did with Libsyn (a podcast distribution company) here) while great in the light of Google discontinuing Google Listen in 2012, doesn’t answer how this new venture is going to significantly impact podcast content creators positively in two areas where they struggle:

Getting accurate audience analytics

and

Developing a strong marketing and branding process.

Let’s all be clear for those of you who consume, but don’t create, audio content:

Itunes and Apple doesn’t care about audio content (i.e. podcasters don’t get accurate download information and analytics on listeners (i.e. who’s listening when and through what device)) because Itunes and Apple don’t make any money off of downloads of podcasts.

Yet, Itunes is where most podcasts (even The Earbud_U Podcast) are located. Apple has ruled the roost for 10 years during this era of podcast creators struggling with inaccurate distribution metrics and having podcasters beg listeners to give review of podcasts in Itunes to demonstrate they are listening. And all this was happening while Google was busy developing life sciences projects and tanking Google+. This phenomenon of inaccurate analytic data also haunts how podcasters monetize what is still an expensive process for many content creators to start, while showing little traction (even less than starting a blog in some cases) early on in the production process. This combination of inaccurate analytics, the struggle to get traction and the lack of support from the larget distribution platform on the planet, leads many podcasts to be abandoned by frustrated creators.

Thus, the question: Is having a podcast in the Google Play Store going to improve the tracking and analysis of downloads and listeners for the benefit of podcast creators, in a way that Apple has caved on providing or developing?

In other words, by submitting to Google Play Store and Google Play Music, are podcast producers going to have access to the entire suite of Google products to track and monetize their downloads, i.e. have access to Analytics, Search, Google Ads (which Google promises not to put on top of creator owned content, or insert into content mid-show) and even Google My Business?

This leads to the second concern that wasn’t addressed in the interview that Google did with Libsyn: Branding for podcasting is all about getting the right audio content, at the right moment in front of the right listeners. This leads directly into the vagaries and complications of getting discovered through Google search, which to Apple’s credit, they have largely left up to the content creator to manage and struggle with. Most branding and marketing for podcast content is a shot in the dark, leaving many podcasters thinking that the best way to market is as an “always on, always downloadable” piece of content; and then, to go off and make content in other areas, bringing those audiences over to the podcast from platforms that have nothing to do with podcasting. A lot of these decisions are based on how Google manipulates its search algorithm in relation to podcast content in particular and audio content in general. There’s no “You Tube” for audio content.

The question then is: If a large podcast creator whose content already generates 10 million downloads a month (i.e. Serial, This American Life, The Adam Carolla Podcast, The Jay Mohr Podcast, The Marc Maron Podcast and on and on) is going to be ranked at the top of a Google search in Google Play Music (where they dominate without being listed in Google Play Music currently) how does that impact who gets listed highly in the Google Play Music library for listeners?

And then, what is going to happen to the searchability of the content of the mid-range folks (people like Arel Moody and The Art of the Charm Podcast–among others) who already are struggling to market themselves and rank as highly as the big players?

And then, where do smaller podcasters (like The Earbud_U Podcast, The Launch to Greatness podcast, Grammar Girls, and others) whose content doesn’t rank highly in their own niches (or who are having to partner with other podcasters to form networks (like The Rainmaker Platform, Relay.FM and others), because audio content consumption hasn’t happened yet at mass in their niches?

Google moving into the space of promoting podcasts in their store is interesting to me as a podcast creator, in the same way that IHeart Radio partnering with podcasters and Spotify also partnering is interesting to me. None of these moves take away the core responsibilities of the content creators, which is to create an engaging, interesting and motivating platform and then to create audio content on top of it.

In the future, as more and more marketers, organizations and brands discover the power of the spoken word, I predict a time when all of the branded, walled garden, distribution players (don’t be surprised if in three years Facebook announces it will launch a search service for podcasts) will seek to bend the arc of engaging content creation (and content creators) in their direction. This might be good for the field of podcasting (which is still niche at around 200,000 podcasts compared to 1.5 million blogs) but the audiences are growing, slowly, niche by niche.

And don’t worry. I already got Earbud_U approved to be in the Google Play Store, and I’ll let you know when it goes live.

-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/

[Podcast] The Likely and the Comfortable – The Earbud_U Minute

There is a way that work realities are constructed that betrays a lack of understanding and acceptance of an uncomfortable, likely future reality; and betrays a comfort with creating a reality that is comfortable, but unlikely:

The comfortable reality is that employers keep hiring (albeit at a lower/slower rate) and that they keep on the people that they already have.
The comfortable reality is that college age students will continue to pile on massive student loan debt and the skills that they get in exchange for this debt will somehow be rendered relevant in the future economy.
The comfortable reality is that employees will continue to be compensated at current (and ever rising) levels as the technical skills that they exhibit continue to remain more relevant than the people skills that can’t be measured.
The comfortable reality is that all this technological and software advancement will remain nothing more than a meaningless side show with no value to a corporate bottom line, middle line or even top line.

Considering, pontificating and reassuring that “it’s always been this way and will always be this way” in the form of published bromides and policy assurances, calms the employee lizard brain (the cerebellum where fight/flight/freeze responses live) and such statements and actions soothe and serve to maintain the status quo in organizations.

The likely future reality is much, much more complicated. And scary.

The likely future reality is that technological and software changes in the industrial workplace structure and underlying economy will allow more advancement and innovation to be done with fewer employees.
The likely future reality is that employees will be compensated less and less (and at ever decreasing rates) until the gap in compensation between top individual organizational performers and the next employee down the line, will mirror the current growing wage gap between the upper class and the middle class in the overall economy.
The likely future reality is that college students with crushing debt will struggle to learn and integrate emotional and psychological lessons that the academic world did not see fit to teach them at $7.00 per hour jobs. Or that they did not deem important enough to learn in between the socialization and the outrage. All while paying back five and six figure loans.
The likely future reality is that employers will seek to replace people with algorithms, or computer programs, or software solutions and (at the end of the line) robots, who will demand no pay, no benefits and will have such incredibly high productivity that shareholders will be happy to fire humans as a reflex, even as their returns increase.

Writing, teaching, lecturing or even casually mentioning likely future realities activates the employer/employee/politician/administrator lizard brain and makes fear, avoidance and attack responses kick in at all levels of society, from the C-Suite of an organization to the office of the President of the United States.

True management and supervisory leadership requires clear eyed planning for likely future realities, as well as a sophsticated ability to persuade, cajole and even threaten employees, shareholders, and the public to face likely reality head on. Such leadership will create sustainable economic and social systems that will be antifragile, and able to sustain and evolve from unexpected shocks, rather than attempting to build redundant, robust systems, or constructing fragile systems that fall apart in a heartbeat when the next “it could never happen here” event, happens here.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Podcast] Web 3.0 – The Earbud_U Minute

We need to figure out what kind of Internet we want to have.

The business model currently funding and pushing the growth of the Internet is based upon monetizing a base of users who come to a project and use it for free, or for a nominal price.

The user takes advantage of the content/service/process for free. And, as a result, the user is so enamored with the content/service/process that they keep coming back over and over again, building a trust based relationship with the creator/creators of the project. Subsequently, in order to fund the project, there are hopefully so many users that an advertiser has no choice but to put advertisements in front of a group of eyeballs with whom the project owner has built a relationship.

This is the model underlying Facebook. The nominal fee model (a subscription-based model) underlies LinkedIn, journalism models, ecommerce platforms and other content/service/process platforms.

Web 2.0 is what everyone is talking about now, but Web 3.0 is really, where the Internet has to move to.

Web 3.0 is beyond just the Internet of Things. Web 3.0 is the Internet as Everything. Web 3.0 is the Internet waging active battle with the last, sticky remnants of the world built through the assumptions of the Industrial Revolution. This is a world created around the rules, laws and policies, created by politicians and people to keep the common democratization of the Internet out of the hands of the common people before the Internet.

Here’s a question: Why is it that there aren’t any internet connected roads?

It has nothing to do with technological innovations such as creating concrete that can communicate with strips on the road. Or with computer chips that can talk to your car. Or signs and traffic signals that talk to the road, the car and each other.

The reason there aren’t roads that are intelligent is not a smart car issues, no matter what Google Cars would have you think.

The issue is really laws and regulations.

Laws are the last bastion of the Industrial revolution world that have yet to fall to the unending sweep of the Internet. We see the beginnings of this with our current thrashing around privacy, data, and “who owns the future” (either you or a corporation) but once we settle all of this we will have new business models that will allows the Internet to be truly “baked in”.

Then, once that happens, the sky truly will be the limit.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] Symbols Matter

Mattering and meaning are more important to the accomplishment of work tasks—and the avoidance of work conflicts— now than ever before.

But not if you talk to managers, supervisors, executives and others.

The people who are bosses still believe the Industrial Revolution idea that the work is the only thing that matters, that shows dedication, service and loyalty to the cause, the company and the future.

For employees though, symbols in the workplace have been cheapened because of the deeply held beliefs that bosses sometimes have, exemplified by human resource policies, time away, manifestos, and quotes on the wall. When asked, many employees (particularly those who have been in an organization more than six months) report that they “don’t even pay attention to that stuff anymore.”

This is because the symbolism behind the policies and procedures no longer matters to an employee, when the lived out, organizational substance doesn’t match.

In the world before Google based transparency, where rumors, tall tales and other misinformation could spread about an employer, the work was the substance and the symbols didn’t matter to anybody.

However, institutional lethargy and fear of change has caused many organizations to cling to the past, even as the waves around them swirl, demonstrating that symbols bring mattering to the workplace. And even more than that, symbols backed up by substance, history, and truthful stories told truthfully, are the only things that can give employee work meaning.

Otherwise, thrashing about work-life balance versus integration, time away versus time at work when away, and all of the other human resource based arguments that have arisen over the last forty years, don’t really matter much in the larger scheme of reducing workplace stress and conflict.

-Peace 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: http://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

[Strategy] Preparing for a Keynote

Preparing for a speech—any kind of speech—is something that is conceived of as so challenging that very few want to do it.

But here’s a few tips to get started:

Don’t start with the speech.

Instead, start blogging. Once you get into the habit of publishing written content everyday (or every other day) then you’ll be able to work through arguments that you may want to use for developing a speech later on.

Listen to podcasts from people in parallel industries.

You know who are good presenters?

Comedians.

Forget the funny jokes for a moment.

There is nothing more nerve wracking than standing in front of a crowd of intoxicated people at nine o’clock at night and having to tell them jokes.

Podcasting is a way to discover beats, pauses and the power of the human voice. Also process and procedures. Jay Mohr’s podcast as well as Marc Maron’s are good ones to begin with.

Write the way that you watch a movie or a TV show.

Your speech should be in the form of a three act structure. Just like a film or a TV show:

Act One: Introduce the problem.
Act Two: Expand on the problem.
Act Three: Offer the solution and summarize.

Don’t give it all away. Lead your audience into the problem, but know what you’re speech is for.

A call to action should be obvious, but should also exist in the “white spaces” of people’s perceptions about what you said.

The best orators, from dictators to corporate titans, allow the listeners in the crowd to “fill in the blanks” and empower them to take the action that the speaker wants them to.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Podcast] Earbud_U Episode #6 – London Ladd

Earbud_U Episode #6- London Ladd Children’s Book Illustrator, Entrepreneur, Speaker, Man of Many Colors, Valiant Warrior in the War on Art

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Illustration and the arts are not hard to understand. But we have fetishized the artist and his work process, when, in reality, most artists are just as normal as everyone else. They have conflicts, disputes and experience frustrations in working with clients.

London Ladd is an illustrator, entrepreneur, speaker and much, much more. We met this man on a missions trip to Oklahoma in 2013 and we have kept track of his changing career as he has morphed and changed his approach to art, life and business.

The author, Steven Pressfield was right, there is a war on art, but it’s not fought in the way that we think it is.

I think that London is trying to mount a forward action in the war on art….

But let’s be clear…

The war on art begins with the distractions and interruptions of everyday life that cause people to avoid doing their best work and serve as excuses for not getting ahead.

The war on art begins when artists, creative people, engineers, supervisors and others begin to believe that inspiration comes only at special times, rather than when the butt hits the seat.

The war on art begins when anybody stops following their long-term guiding principles, in favor of a short term payday.

But London is winning his own war on art, but in his own way, with his own tools and in his own time.

A man of many colors, indeed…

Connect with London Ladd via his website: http://www.londonladd.com

Follow London Ladd on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LondonLLadd

London Ladd’s Agency on Twitter: https://twitter.com/painted_words

London Ladd’s Work Process: Man of Many Colors Video

London Ladd’s Painted Words Blog + Portfolio: http://painted-words.com/portfolio/london-ladd/

And

Check out his images on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaintedWordsNYC

Check out the interview below the blue panel, or download it via Soundcloud, coming soon ->

Download the Latest Episode of Earbud_U!