I challenge you to find a South African who has been completely untouched by the crime and poverty in South Africa. I can’t think of anyone. Our country is so alive with possibility and hope, but sometimes the darkness of the realities of living here overwhelm even the most committed optimists.

We have all felt the paranoid collective conciousness that swells whenever we have a couple of weeks of horrendous news reports that batter our sense of safety about living here. Every now and then, some company or organisation takes it upon themselves to build ‘anti crime’ campaigns, marches or petitions, and huge amounts of creative energy and, may I say, budgets, go into marketing the ‘anti-crime’ message. I think this is a way for people to take back some of the powerlessness they feel in the face of the darkness: marching or campaigning seems to help people feel they are ‘doing something’.

I’d like to suggest that there is a different, more constructive way to take back the power. In my new talk, the Seeds of South Africa, I make the case for building the people of this country. Many of us who have the means, the time, or the skills, are already doing small things to help the immediate people in our own communities: paying for our domestic worker’s childrens school fees, or helping out at our local churches or community support programes, or providing employment for other South Africans. This talk inspires South Africans about what is possible for individuals to do to make this country a better place.

When each of us is buiding a little piece of South Africa, we take back our power and our pride: I think it is one of the most important ways of holding back the darkness. By knowing your life has meaning and purpose because of the value you are creating for other human beings!

Check out Graeme’s site http://www.tmtd.biz/2007/02/07/crime-where-facts-politics-and-emotions-clash/ for some fascinating insights into crime stats and roots

Thank you, Sharon Jansen, for this special poem. I know it speaks truth to me. And I think to many of the Avos, and maybe some Avo friends too. Avos: develop your Mastery - the prize will take care of itself.

The Archer
Chuang Tzu

When an archer is shooting for nothing, he has all his skill.
If he shoots for a brass buckle, he is already nervous.
If he shoots for a prize of gold, he goes blind or sees two targets.
He is out of his mind!
His skill has not changed. But the prize divides him.
He cares. He thinks more of winning than of shooting.
And the need to win drains him of power.

Perhaps you own one. I don’t. I barely write anymore – most of my thoughts get hammered out on a keyboard or spoken directly into a digital recorder. But I’m intrigued. Not by the odd Moleskine-bearer strolling nonchalantly around Melville or Rosebank (I usually dismiss them as artsy-types), but rather by the phenomenal online following the ol’ Moleskine brand enjoys.

The Moleskine (pronounced mol-a-skeen-a) is simply a brand of notebook manufactured by Modo & Modo, an Italian company, bound in oilcloth-covered cardboard (Moleskin) with an elastic band to hold the notebook closed and a sewn spine that allows it to lie flat when opened. Not particularly high tech, or particularly sexy, for that matter. The pocket notebook’s reputation has grown in stature through the endorsements of the likes of Bruce Chatwin, Neil Gaiman and Pete Doherty, and rumour would have it that the Moleskine was a favourite accessory to the likes of Picasso, Hemingway and Van Gogh.

Whether all the folklore is verifiable or not the Moleskine brand, through its product’s minimalist design and stylish simplicity, continues to enjoy a formidable, almost cultish following. I’ve never heard Moleskine notebooks advertised on the radio, nevermind on the telly, and yet everyone who’s anyone either owns one or can tell you something about them. That’s exceptional - the immense power of viral marketing, personified by a wad of blank pages.

I was interested to hear Jackie Huba of the Church of the Customer blog talking about her Moleskine-fetish, and she listed some fascinating links to some of the more fanatical Moleskine Evangelists in the online world. Moleskine blogs, a MySpace site and even a comprehensive Wikipedia entry (from which, just by the way, I got most of the information for this article). All this free marketing by unpaid, enthusiastic citizens, who believe in the unobtrusive allure of an overpriced notebook.

How many citizen marketers does your brand have?

I had the privelege of spending the day with Meg Wheatley at a Nedbank Women’s forum.

She shared such simple, but profound insights with us, which I’ll share with you over time.  But I think my most profound insight was my own, derived after a really lovely facillitation method called ‘world cafe’ (more about that later too!

‘Trust your intuition’!

Maybe it sounds ‘duh’ to you, but to me it is huge!  I’ve always been a reluctant ‘gut’ girl.  Although I make many decisions based on that ‘feeling’, I’ve always had a bit of ‘imposter’ fear about it.  I have always considered my intuition to be a naive voice - primitive in it’s perceptions and understanding of what’s really going on.

But on that day I suddenly saw that my intuition has travelled the same road as me.  It is (nearly) 40 years old, and has access to everything I know, plus some things only my subconscious knows! When it sends me panic signals, huge ‘NO’s, ‘YES!’s’, and ‘DONT GO THERES’, it’s speaking with a lot of experience and wisdom, and is not naive at all!

I’m going to work with it some more, and see how far it takes me.  Maybe that will become my message to the world: trust it - it really is my true north!

Thought you may be interested in an article in the latest Financial Mail: I was interviewed for my insights on mentorship and the retention of skills across the generations.

Click here for more…

This is an excerpt from the Human trend alert newsletter I get weekly:

Herman Trend Alert: Ubiquitous Cell Phones Blocking Relationships

March 15, 2006

The rapidly growing use of cell phones throughout the world will lead to significant changes in the way people relate to each other. While we are so well connected as individuals, that connection is relatively impersonal. We are laser-focused on our conversation with one person to the point that we do not interact with other humans who may be standing right next to us.

The world is rapidly becoming a collection of people in isolation bubbles who have no connection to each other. Wherever we go we see people talking on cell phones. They talk while driving, while shopping, while engaged in recreational activities. Last night we saw a family at a restaurant. Five people were sitting around the table, while three of them were talking on cell phones. Etiquette and manners are ignored when the cell phone rings. Japan has the right idea: cell phones are banned from restaurants there.

Conversations with people who are not present supersede speaking with people—family and friends or business associates—who are right next to us. If cell phones have already made us less connected to people close to us, what might we expect in the future? We already have challenges with e-mail, instant messaging, Skype, Blackberrys, and our cell phones. This technology allows us to be linked with the world at the same time we are becoming less connected.

Look at your own behavior. Have you ever talked with someone on the cell phone within hearing distance? Interpersonal relationships are at risk. Our on-the-street surveys over the past few days suggest that an amazing proportion of people actually prefer a phone conversation to the opportunity to talk face-to-face with an individual. What does this observation say about people wanting to talk one-to-one with their neighbors? Do you ignore your ringing cell phone or your colleagues?

We hear stories about workers located close enough to talk with each other—or at least close enough to walk a few feet and see each other—communicating by cell phone and instant messaging systems. Technology is disrupting face-to-face communication, making the workplace—and our lives—impersonal.

“At the core of Leadership is communication. And at the core of communication is the ability to listen with empathy.”

(By the way, Avo helps people learn how to do this)

“The front line delivers the bottom line”

Deep.

I went to the ‘never to be repeated’; ‘one day only’; ‘Steven Covey in person’ day at Gallagher the other day.

I think my biggest mistake was reading the 8th habit in advance.

I suppose I was expecting a profound AHA. That somehow being in the presence of the world-famous business guru would give me a life-affirming instant of insight and I would never be the same again. Umm…well… na.

Maybe it’s because I was feeling a bit dof on that day, so I wasn’t joining the dots as well as I should. Or maybe because I left an hour before the end and therefore missed the climax.

Or maybe it’s because a lot of what he said is already part of how we live at Avo. That we already see our people as assets and seek to help not only our own selves, but the clients we have the privelege to interact with, to find their voice.

Maybe I was there to really remind myself not to take the Avo space for granted - that I need to remember that our role is to guide, coach and drag our clients into the thinking that helps people recconect with their soul at work? Not sure, but I’ll figure it out…

It’s the new buzz, blogging. It’s so new that every time I type the word in my MS Word document it gets underlined by my auto spellcheck thingie: I shall have to add it manually to my spellcheck dictionary! It’s taking the internet by storm, and is categorized under the ‘tech’ term ’social software’. And by that, we mean the new way that people are connecting with one another, thinking together, and having conversations across the global village.

Companies like Microsoft (http://blogs.msdn.com//) and General Motors (http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/) have already discovered how blogging, in all it’s transparent, no-edit, warts ‘n all realness, can help show a more human face of the company to the world. It’s turning the old marketing adage ‘control the message’ on its head, and allowing companies to engage with their customers in a very exciting new way. Customers can come onto the blogs, air their opinions, offer (positive and negative) feedback on products and services, and take the company to task on any issue they like. This, in itself is not new: what is new, is that the forum is public, transparent, and conversational. It’s basically market research for free!

Now the purpose of this article is not to expound or explain the blogosphere (another word my spellcheck hates). The best way to understand the blogging world as it exists for corporate companies is to check out a few blogs (www.avovision.co.za, http://www.csr.blogs.mcdonalds.com, http://www.tmtd.biz, http://www.stormhoek.com) that explain it. What I really want to explore is how this new phenomenon can be used inside a company, an internal blog that serves to do for the ‘internal customers’ of a company what other blogs are doing ‘out there’.

It’s always a challenge within huge corporate companies to deliver internal messages so that all the people in the organization remain appraised of latest developments, changes, new product launches or enhancements, brand messages and the like. All sorts of media are employed to deliver and control internal messaging: company newspapers; internal radio or TV broadcasts; the ubiquitous email messages; websites; internal promotions and brochures and even weekly publications of the CEO’s diary.

The problem all internal marketing faces (which is not dissimilar to the external marketing space), is that consumption of each medium declines over time. One of the challenges is that internal marketing (if done properly) follows the same marketing disciples of external marketing: ‘control the message’. So most internal messages read like external stuff it feels like wallpaper after a while and becomes invisible to employees to a large extent. Where companies had 100% attendance and viewership when their new, sexy, internal TV systems were first installed, after a couple of years, I see TVs on all over buildings, with workers happily working away in their cubicles, paying no attention whatsoever to the company broadcasts!

Another problem with existing internal media channels, is that most of them are very ‘one way traffic’ in their nature. They are not internal conversations, and are rather internal announcements and broadcasts: by the very makeup of their technology, they seldom allow room for reply. Even if the broadcast is in email form, reply is not really encouraged. People may reply to the message individually, but then any conversation that ensues would be between the two correspondents only no public forum debate unless, of course some poor soul hits the ‘reply all’ button, in which case the feedback from the ‘all’ would be fast and deadly, if my own experience is anything to go by!

Internal blogging sites may well be a medium for internal communication that addresses some of the challenges with the existing channels. Internal blogs mean that anyone is invited to participate. Communication no longer has the ‘company line’ flavour it becomes real and transparent, where employees can engage one another in debate that defies the hierarchical structure of an organization and allows voices to be heard from all angles. It’s no longer a one-way medium either, but rather a conversation that takes place in a public space.

Stephen Covey proposes that the 8th habit should be to discover one’s own voice, and then enable others to find theirs. Maybe this is one of the ways that organizations can use technology and the shift in communication and connection behaviour to allow their workers the opportunity to find their voices at last. What an amazing opportunity for HR people to keep in touch with the tone and culture of the organization, without engaging really expensive consultants to manage the research.

Make no mistake; internal blogging is not for sissies! A company has to be brave enough to know that many controversial and sensitive issues will be blogged: senior management may be criticized, policies may be ridiculed, and disgruntled employees may rage on in what may be seen as a morale-damaging way. Although there are ways of managing content on blogs, it’s not recommended that you hide the bad stuff. Part of employees becoming more engaged in the work place is about them feeling like they can trust the company they work for. Being able to vent and engage in debate on internal issues in a transparent way without censure goes a long way towards building a robustness and trust relationship in the company, particularly in this new world of work, and with a younger generation that values transparency and realness very highly.

Besides worrying about the potential damage that could be done by employees let loose to debate in a public forum, companies would do well to look at the benefits, and potential value that can be created in a blogging forum. People could also begin to blog about their successes, innovations and best practice. They may begin to deliver recognition to others in this forum, and make each other ‘famous’.

Company management may be pleasantly surprised (as I have been with our own company blog), how seriously people take the blogging space, and how hard they try to contribute meaningfully. They may also be pleasantly surprised by how this medium is ‘consumed’. Once people have blogged themselves, they want to continue to return to the site to see what other people have commented about their thoughts, and continue the conversation. All of a sudden, they have a reason to come back to the site, because that’s where the intrigue is!

There are already over 23 million bloggers actively blogging on the internet today. Google’s stats on new blogs registered are astounding (a Google search for the word ‘blog’ returns over 2 billion results!). It is becoming the trend for how people are connecting with one another globally. I suspect that companies who stay out of the blog space for too long will be sorry, and stale (more quickly than you think).

Avocado Vision (www.avovision.co.za) is a company that helps people communicate with people more effectively. For more insight into how Avo can help your people to connect better, please call Jules on 011 614 0206