[Advice] Our Children

What we don’t teach our children in school for eight hours a day would be classified as child abuse, if we actually believed that the nature of the world of work has changed for adults.

But, we don’t.

The world of work is a place where adults are thrown together with other adults we didn’t choose to be with, with whom we have little in common, and must be “nice” to (meaning non-confrontational, but not too nice) in order to “get tasks done.”

School prepares our children for this, disappearing work world. The world of the white-collar office or even the disappearing, blue-collar factory. School tells our children to sit in desks for 8 hours a day, while an adult stands in front of them, lecturing every hour, on the hour.

No naps. No crackers. No grape juice. Not even in kindergarten anymore.

Governments get involved in schooling because people in power (politicians, political consultants, et.al) want nice compliant voters, workers and adults.

Parents send their children to school because that’s the only way to “get opportunities” out of an adult life that seems more and more volatile, or because of the threat of jailing.

Society overall demands schooling (and the ways we currently school children are a product of the Industrial Revolution, John Dewey, Henry Ford and Frederick Taylor—among many others) if no other reason than some adults would rather not see children “running around town” questioning the carefully constructed adult worlds.

Seems like an environment ripe for bullying, stress, mismanagement, organizational conflict, and avoidance of outcomes.

There are some ways out of this:

Teach to individuals, not groups.

The group lecture doesn’t work without individual engagement, even for well-trained adults. There’s a reason Greek philosophers taught outside by asking and answering questions, taught walking around, and were constantly considered to be “corrupting the morals of the youth” of Ancient Greece. If Socrates could do it with 15 kids under an olive tree (or walking through a marketplace), so can the post-modern, 21st century educator with all the technology that we have.

Teach principles, not values.

Here’s a principle: “Choose to be good to one another and learn how to get along with people you don’t like, and who don’t like you.” Here’s a value: “Let’s not bully each other because it hurts the other person’s feelings and it’s wrong.” Children are incredibly gifted at sensing the adult hypocrisy that lies dormant behind adults employing the language of principles to hide other motives that are sometimes value driven, and sometimes not.

Teach emotional intelligence, principles and individuals from ages 5 through 12, teach skills, abilities and life options from ages 12 through 17, then let children decide to go to college, or not with their families.

At a practical level, the current formation of primary schooling in this country is broken, no matter whether the governing policy is Common Core, No Child Left Behind or even Midnight Basketball (remember that from the 90’s). This is because the next world that our children face is post-industrial, requiring the ability to dance with fear, fail with grace and be courageous without shame (which children need reinforced between 5 and 12) and requiring people to be really skilled immediately, regardless of credentialing (what children need reinforced between 12 and 17).

Adults (who have children and vote and who don’t have children and don’t vote) need to change our story of why we send our kids to school, and change the assumptions and expectations that we have around learning and the world of work, before anything will change in the school system itself.

Until that happens, we will raise, and nominally educate, generations of people, who will be released into adulthood, with little understanding of what is happening to them in their working lives, why it is happening, and how to overcome it.

Which is a recipe for increasing societal conflict, not decreasing.

HIT Piece 07.28.2015

With the seemingly overwhelming flood of content, voices, opinions and “takes” in the social media world, there are two common responses to the feeling of being drowned in mediocre content:

Throw up your hands, declare the Internet “dead”, and retire from the space…

Or

Throw more content out there in a never-ending “race to the bottom” for attention, trust and money.

Both choices are false, for me.

Content is a passenger for success, not the driver (or the gas) in the car of any business. The people who are doing the best in the content “game” are those who combine the development of content with the material fact of doing something else (creating, collaborating, consulting) in another area that complements what they do online.

Am I going to develop the next great content management system? Probably not. Am I going to keep workshopping, writing, speaking, collaborating, connecting, and meeting with people off-line, while my online content grows and grows?

Yes.

And that’s the way out of the bind for many people.

-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] How to Curate Content

There are—literally—millions of blogs, covering everything from news to entertainment.

99% of those blogging efforts generate no revenue for the creators and publishers of the content.

With all this noise—but seemingly no fire—what are the two ways that a peacebuilding blogger can drive traffic to their blog, without seeming to “sell out” in the process?

Advertising is the first and easiest way. But the battle over banner ads is not yet complete, and the click through rate on Internet advertising in general is beyond merely abysmal—it’s downright laughable. However, there are some benefits to advertising and allowing ads to display on a peacebuilding blog: The revenue generated through clicks and eyeballs has generated some revenues for bloggers in the past.

But they got in early on the advertising game and now the distance between them and the peacebuilder currently looking to generate revenues after three years of blogging, is the same as the distance between Google (0) and it’s nearest search competitors, Bing and Yahoo (1).

Curating content from others is the second and not so easy way. Curating content from other sources can be fraught with legal (and ethical) conundrums, but the fact of the matter is, with the definition of content having now expanded to audio (podcasts) and visual (images and videos) the amount of content both siloed on platforms (i.e. Facebook Video or Tumblr blogs) has exploded exponentially. This offers opportunities for the savvy peacebuilder to access a wide variety of content based on her audience’s interests, and to offer that content as an intermediary.

A gatekeeper, if you will.

Here are four platforms to begin the process of content curation:

Flipboard—We personally use the magazine and article aggregator, Flipboard to create magazine based content off of what we have on our blog already and to share what is being published other places. Check out what we’ve done by clicking here. The platform is easy to use and we’ve even turned others onto it…

Twitter—Far from being merely a cesspool (it can be) or a noise factory (it can also be that) Twitter serves as a place to share links and engage with content creators around their content. With the current changes to the platform around retweeting and sharing, the ability to truly engage effectively with shared content has exploded.

RSS Feeds—Yes, we know that Google killed its RSS reader and everybody lamented. But for curation, particularly blog based curation with no middle man of another platform, RSS feeds can be a goldmine of sharing others content. Every blog has an RSS feed, but the readers of the feeds are few and far between. The savvy peacebuilder has two choices: Either go out to every blog individually and crawl the sites for the best content to share, or get a reader service such as Feedly (free) or Buffer (paid) and add websites with active RSS feeds.

WP plug-ins—If the savvy peacebuilder with a WordPress blog wants to develop curation on their site directly, then there are a couple of plug-ins to consider. WP RSS Aggregator is the most popular one by far, followed by Super RSS Reader. Both of these solutions to content curation require the savvy peacebuilder to be in the backend of her website, ensuring that the blog theme integrates well with the plug-ins and that the posts, feeds and pages are all delineated properly. But once set-up, this solution offers the most value, as it drives readers of the content the savvy peacebuilder has selected back to their website, rather than the original content creator’s site.

Content curation is not for every blogger (or peacebuilder) and the benefits in increased credibility, trust and value don’t accrue immediately (unlike the risk of advertising, which may create frustration as an assured hit, turns out to be a regular miss) but when they do, there is great benefit.

-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] How to Make an Image Quote

Then, there are visual quotes.

One of the few remarked upon trends in social media (started on Facebook way back in the good old days of 2006-2007) is the overwhelming presence—and virality—of visualized quotes attributed to famous (and not so famous) people.

As we stated on Monday, the Internet is evolving into a medium of seeing and hearing, versus reading and as such, the words of a person (preferably a famous one, we might add) strike a cord with individual followers as visual images.

Many peacebuilders, bloggers and others don’t even think that a quippy line in a blog post can gain some sought after viral traction through the process of creating an image based quote.

There are three tools that the typical peacebuilding blogger can use to create these images:

  • Canva— For the peacebuilding blogger with an intermediate level of comfort and brand knowledge, Canva.com is the best resource right now on the Internet. The platform is the web based photo editing and design system that allows anybody to upload a photo, slap some text over it (or next to it) and then download it as a JPG, or PNG, file. There are about 50 different fonts inside of Canva, along with vector images, different color backgrounds, and even preformatted text images. Plus, it’s backed by the venture capitalist and brand evangelist Guy Kawasaki.
  • Adobe Photoshop—For peacebuilding bloggers with a little more range in their toolbox (and the time to get image manipulation done) the old stand-by is Photoshop. Now exclusively subscription and cloud based, Photoshop is so deep and so rich with tools for photo editing, layering, filtering and designing that we can’t describe them all here. Plus, with Adobe’s move to being all cloud based, storage of large image files just became less cost prohibitive along with increased security and access for the end-user. Just go check them out.
  • Powerpoint + Stock photography—For the peacebuilding blogger who looks at Canva and gets overwhelmed, or for the peacebuilder who can’t even begin to imagine navigating the intricacies of any programs in the Adobe Suite of products, there is the wonder of Powerpoint. Now hear us out: Inside of Powerpoint, one has the ability to upload stock photos, edit out backgrounds and add in other backgrounds, and to add text. It’s a simple and user friendly addition to the Powerpoint list of tools, and with Office 365 being web-based now, as well as Windows 10 coming, Powerpoint is only going to get richer as a tool for designers.

The real question, of course is “What if I don’t have anything inspiring, quippy, or even relatively smart to turn into a quote for my audience to spread around?”

The answer to that question is, “Then don’t create an image quote.”

But, here’s the thing: Eventually, after about 6 to 8 months of steady blogging, we absolutely guarantee that you will turn a phrase worthy of being put next to your face and worthy of being shared around social media platforms.

-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] How to Write a Blog Post

It begins and ends with writing.

Yes, we live in an overwhelmingly visual culture, dominated by ads, images, videos, emojis and other vehicles that serve to entertain, inform, persuade, convince and convert.

But making an argument, and taking a stand still matters.

As does commitment and consistency, and the ability to be alone, (a la Virginia Woolf) and take some time to contemplate, think and formulate.

Blogging—long form content creation—still matters, even in a visually choked world. Many professionals would like to write, but are still trapped by the image that they have of writing from grade school.

Here are 5 steps to actually writing a blog post:

  • Come up with an idea—“I have nothing to write about” is the worst phrase in the English language. Or possibly any other language. With the rare exception, people do not think in images (unless we are counting the actual visual alphabet of a language as an image itself) and so words must dominate. When you can’t develop an idea, what you’re really saying is “I don’t want to think.”
  • Write down a few key words—We are avoiding the term “outline” but visual cueing and memory are still based in words. Write down a few and save them for later.
  • Go back to the key words—Before opening up that Word document, or the lid to that Mac Book, go back to the key words you wrote. Begin to craft a story around them. Yes, “Once upon a time…” is an appropriate opening, but a better one is more metaphorical. Comparisons work, because the human mind needs to analyze the world of the unknown, against what it already knows.
  • Don’t procrastinate—The biggest writing killer is procrastination. Typically based in fear, procrastination sneaks up and robs ambition, the desire to do better, and the will to put words on paper. Nike’s motto rings true here.
  • Step back from what you’ve written—Trust us: Never hit the “publish” button right away. Yes, blogging has some credibility issues, but that has more to do with how the process is used and what the process is used for, than the actual process itself. Writing builds ideas, and a platform, but the audience wants to be treated with a semblance of trust. Misspelled words, poor comma placement, and on and on, distract the audience. Plus, the heat of the writing arena has to cool so that soem ideas can be killed, and resurrected, if need be.

Writing a blog post is not difficult. The underlying meaning behind writing, publishing and distributing that blog post is diffcult.

Writing represents a commitment to the written word. Writing represents standing in a place and owning up to an idea, a concept, and a story that others may not agree with. And without consistent writing, we don’t know how you develop all those other shiny platforms, from podcasting to YouTube videos.

-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] How to Deal with Less

When organizations want to justify budget cuts, workforce reductions, or a freeze on hiring, they often use the shopworn sentence “Well, we’re going to have to do more with less.”

Doing-More-With-Less

At which point, in any organization, be it a nonprofit, a corporation, a small business, or even a church, the remaining employees, volunteers or members may feel as though they have one of two choices:

Leave

or

Stay and do more with less.

The fear and desperation that builds in these situations, serves to highlight, exacerbate or create, conflict scenarios. This is the exact opposite of what happens when an organization is doing “more with more” and everything is papered over “because everybody is getting ‘rich’,” or at the least, doing well.

Personal and professional reactions replace responses and when there is an environment of “doing more with less,” the set-up is perfect for conflicts, stress and disruption.

Compare this to something—a project, an idea, an organization—that is starting out. Much of the time at the beginning, the mantra “doing more with less” is really “doing more, creatively with what we have.” This is a much easier sell to employees, volunteers and members in the start-up stage than it is at any point in the life cycle of an organization, because starting is sexy and exciting.

But going through the middle with no more than what you started with–or less than that–can be disheartening, disempowering and disenchanting.

What’s the solution?

No one enjoys the fear, anger, frustration and resentment that can develop when having to do “more with less,” whether in a family, or a corporation.

But how we respond to the bad news of events that are out of our control, contributes more to the overall long-term viability of an organization, than doing the same thing that’s always been done, by everybody else.

-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] 3 Reasons the Future Won’t Be the Same as Now – The Earbud_U Minute

Nostalgia for the future is a terrible thing. As a matter of fact, we have heard recently that nostalgia for the past might be poison.

Human beings, without much great reluctance, tend to romanticize the past, and believe that the future will be exactly the same. Only slightly cooler.

However, three facts mitigate against this view:

  • Peace is not the absence of conflict. It’s the management of change.
  • The “good old days” were just as filled with uncertainty, suspicion, anxiety, awe, nostalgia (both forward and rear facing) as the current time is.
  • The same conflicts that occurred in the past, will continue to occur both now and in the future, but the impacts of those conflicts will seem faster and more immediate.

Case in point for all of this is the recent 75th anniversary commentary around the 1964 World’s Fair. None of the changes that we currently take for granted were even thought of then.

Or, to make it even more bald: We are currently living in the future that Blade Runner promised us, just without it raining all the time and us all wearing the same drab outfits.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principle 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/

[Strategy] The Last Crusade

Stress comes from managing two areas unsuccessfully: yourself and others.

You_Cant_Program_People

Many uninitiated people have the most trouble managing themselves, but lack the self-awareness to realize that the stress they have comes about due to a lack of awareness about why their stress is activated.

Many uninitiated people think that managing other people is the Holy Grail of stress management; but really, the people that chase those dragons are the same ones that lack self-awareness in the first place.

Other people give you stress if you let them. But only you are responsible for your own emotional responses.

Getting self-aware about what drives you, what motivates your reactions to external stimuli, and why you respond to people and situations the way that you do, is the real Holy Grail of stress management.

Of course, choosing to manage the wrong area is just as bad as picking the wrong cup if you are Indiana Jones…

-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] Supervisory Flattening

Here’s an idea:

Unbundle the supervisor from the team.

People At Work

In a work world, where more employees can be more productive—and have their productivity tracked in more ways—it makes no sense to have someone else standing over them and directing their production.

Unless, of course, your organization looks at people as merely widgets; production as merely a process and measures success or failure by what the stock price says for today.

However, when the supervisor is unbundled from the team, and the team is allowed to engage with their productivity with autonomy, resiliency and a sense of accomplishment, then what grows is not supervisory skill, but actual productivity.

Some organizations have tried this in the past and many more are trying it now.

But in a work world that is transforming around distributive teams, flat processes, and digitized output, unbundling the supervisor role is the only thing that makes sense.

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

[Advice] A Positive No

The moment that you are ready to leave the office, complete a project, take a phone call, or meet a deadline, another person walks up.

This person has other priorities, but finding out what those are is not the thing that you are interested in, but that person makes sure to tell you all about their priorities.

The thing about time management is that managing other people is the unsung, unconsidered hardest thing to do.

Other people have their own priorities, and we are too embarrassed, too distracted, or too disinterested to discover what they are.

This is when the positive no, or the sandwich no, becomes the best way to address the energy vampires (or time sucks) that other people can be sometimes.

It goes something like this:

“Thank you for coming to me with [insert whatever the topic is here]. No, I don’t have time to talk about this right now. But, please come back [name a definitive later time here] and I will talk with you then.”

Then, put that time vampire on the calendar, turn around, and walk away firmly. This last part is important, because many people can’t close the conversation.

When using a positive no—or a sandwich no—remember to always be closing.

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