Showing posts with label storytelling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label storytelling. Show all posts

Monday, January 22, 2018

A Tale of Two Silos

"Stray the course every once in a while.  Be innovative and a creative thinker."
~Jeannette Marshall
@optioneerJM



It has occurred to me that so many of the world”s woe would be mended and solved into a peaceful Utopia of world reviving the sun and our major offtime is shrouded in darkness,  probably fine for the fewer nocturnal humans - if we stopped “if” or “either” “or” one or the other of just about anything.

Brilliance would abound if companies stopped either your the doers or the workerBees.



I’ll show a third component strongly urged to consider: remove the worst factor in most employees’ minds: to fall onto either heep where the “either” is the most repulsive to you xx you never hear the good news first in an either or situation.  

Thinks about it as you take a few deep breaths: I am just guessing without any evidence, just instinct with logic stealing my course.

I reported to an executive once who’s favourite directive, delivered with flourish would say: “Stay the course!”

In the end meaning either you produce OR perish was the sizzle amongst all that steak where you were a workerBEE or you are a DOer.

Looking back now, I’ve had this attraction to reading my RECOMMENDATIONS on +LinkedIn when I’m going through turbulent waters whether Work or Personal life.  One of my former colleague wrote one for me stating that I “stay the course” just now realizing it.



In general, in life there are the matches by culture, upbringing, beliefs of multitude categories and sub sections which spread out as waves upon the ocean making it infinitely more possible that no two opinions match, merely bounced off one and another of either conflict or harmony.

Taking this as a hypothetical example, either seem to be in a state of either conflict or chaos with the longing for harmony.  By bringing in a third element infused with technology you are more likely to thrive.

I’ve bounced from a DOer to a workerBEE and fell into a cultural shock.  Not really too bad unless you’ve acted like a queen before the high/nose dive into the pit.

Injecting a hyper performer among coasters or followers can create havoc.


Monday, September 25, 2017

It's not just about "data" ::.... numbers tell a story

NOW, I remember what I started to do before being sidetracked sideways for a few hours ::... * mon dieu * [my dear] .... maybe I am losing my mind?

by Jeannette Marshall
@optioneerJM



A storyteller is someone who is imaginative
evoking empathy, intellectual connection with a highly *involved crew.  Not always YUPPIES as my egocentric alter ego YUPPYdom on Word Press has developed a pulse.  Thank you for that.  That is the start of how we would define a storyteller, by traditions, teachings, assumptions.  

In my mind's eye I see a storyteller as someone who can write
a story, encouraging the absorption of the tale, definition solely by you.
A storyteller can and often does evoke reaction.
Some positive, others not so.
Tears of sadness that comes with empathy,
chuckles or giggles that express joy and humor [key to our Mental Health].
Intrigue, mystery, literature or entertainment
the writer's gift to the world.
A bond that is established.
A loyalty.
A tribe.

You see, I study the numbers, absorb them, roll them around
in my head.  Then an eruption of ideas explode
from an implosion from within.  A strong
desire to develop writing, a following, 
a brand.

I'm always testing things consciously or subconsciously.  Perhaps that is why my tribe is really very, tres coolio [ translation:  my vibe ].  I had decided from the start to be who I am, be truest to myself.  Cherish my mental wellbeing above all else.  Sometimes failing, sometimes melancholy, other times a fear of despair.  

Have I been spirally downward and only just now realizing it?  Or, in the utter pit of despair, clambering to stay as far away from depression as possible, as I read and absorb that topic:  Mental Health.  

A fascination that compliments my life long love of numbers, hatched at the ripe age of 25.  Yes, the parent of a few Millennials of my own.  Offspring of my heart, soul and love.  Who would have imagined a YUPPIE being able to exude that much love, give up attention, recognition, so yield pride and ego to the exit door.  That should in essence describe the boon of the aging YUPPIES.  The champion of so many things, discoverers of wondrous wisdom, leaders of free worlds, emblematic of racial acceptance and waivers of discourse.  Fashionable statement is the championship of a YUPPIE.  In the 80s or ever since.  Bred of a generation in which appearance meant everything::... if you appeared the cleanest, purest, honest, intellectual, polished, fashionable young lady or man who surfed their way through the 1980s, hitting your 20s in practically, direct unison with the Millennial implosion of population, attitude, aptitude, striving, able, strong hipsters [ born in the 90s when their parents had done a little adulting before diving into parenthood ].

Lucky for me, when someone was showing me and teaching me something in my 20s, it snapped in to my brain, and hasn't really let go.  I think that sales was a science with numbers if I think back on it now.  A way to set up your own intellectual (golf-like) game of improving your own score.

If you are driven with south doubt, there is nothing more soothing than a love story of numbers ::... the characters evolving and changing, the plot rotating, the cast of characters alternating.  What stays true, is the numbers.

There is corruption in numbers.
But far more poetic and entertaining for sure.

I've been hinting at forecasting being critical
over the past number of posts.  Where many of my most devoted readers merge with me, hang out with me virtually, so to speak.  What's appealing to me or something worth a expulsion of thought.  Some pass on.  Others pick up.  

The ones that pick up are part of my crew.
How else could they not be (wow, what a bunch of bad grammar eh?)  meaning they must be my crew, if the followers are attributed to me.  Right?

Let me show you what I mean
while I tell you a story with numbers.
My own numbers.  
No one else.

Derived by really smart people
developing algorithms
that pops with artificial intelligence
of a different kind.

My perception of AI or what is catching on
as "artificial intelligence".
Just recently, Facebook announced 
setting up shop in Montreal.
As its "Artificial Intelligence" Headquarters.

Facebook has really fallen by the wayside when it comes to my interpretation of "Artificial Intelligence" (theory posted without research other than casual reading and dissemination of information available on the web for free) this Monday, September 25, 2017 at 10:30 pm MST Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Before I started reading up or noticing clips on television about artificial intelligence, I truly thought that how I defined it in my mind to mean to be the right interpretation:  AI for simplicity sake of typing as I've ranted about ACRONYM HELL before (maybe one of my more entertaining rants).

I thought and think that AI is the absorption of personalized information (or aka also known as "data" ) stored to the "cloud" [ which is not an Apple creation as in Xerox still is to photocopiers].  






It makes sense.  
The more faithful I am with certain social media platforms, the more forthcoming they are starting to bring me my numbers.  I commented about Linked In's more intuitive dance that they are experimenting with what I would think is mostly my crew:  the early adopters of online culture and earliest users of Social Media platforms like Twitter and Facebook before getting a special invite to be able to be the first to sign up to Google Plus or G+ as it is affectionately known.

By reading the numbers, I can tell who is my crew.
It's a vibe that resonates and seems to bounce around like an uplifting game of toss the ball, virtually meaning a rallying of support from those who get to know you by your message, your consistent messaging and vibe.

I did go on a rant today, which I really try to avoid.
Nothing destroys a social media following
 more than a rant.
Since people are used to the SPAM and self-promotional garbage,
they're able to tune out that noise and grasp real important stuff.

BUT they avoid rants like a rampant virus.
Toxic and toxicity avoided
so most people run away from toxicity
yet ironically rally around violence or catastrophe.
[You don't have to think that far back
glued to Twitter feeds and 24 hour news
about hurricanes and earthquakes
as most were.]

Nothing deafens your voice faster than a rant.
A misuse of power or a disuse of trust.
That is what I've tried to uphold as an online motto
and a heartfelt belief.

To use the information at your disposal to uplift
educate, elevate anything worthy of a rallying assembly of really smart, gifted, talented, successful, financially stable and morally sound folks.



Those are my PEEPs, TWEEPS, TRIBE, FRIENDS, FAMILY, and FAVORITES.

Looking at the numbers, just defines the spirit of who they are.  See if you can see the story?


















Let me float this out one more time:  this is a very telling page of numbers.  I'm wondering if you see what I see?




Saturday, April 15, 2017

Are you REALLY linking in?

With deep regret+utter transparency
I am self-tasked to exposing executives who have an army in front of them, answering their emails, linked in messages, and anything else they find favorable.  

Face of the corporation
As an executive, you are the face to which others, mostly all, associate your name as a brand within the corporation.  Yet so many executives are dilusional to think that it won't catch up with them.  I say a LOT sooner than later!

The tides are turning
in the world of employment and recruitment.  Those measly applicants that you invited to apply, beat them up persevering through the MAZE (not amaze) of the CAREER section of most websites.

After you playing pinball?
Who has convinced the person on the other end that you dodged pinball bounces without falling into the deep dark black hole.  

You are paying for nothing
these days because you can't demonstrate value to joining your organization.  A confident prospective professional within range of your company has gracefully navigated your site well enough to get past the red stars * you keep forgetting or actually are deciding whether that is the sort of information you want to impart until there are some serious indication that a job offer is in the immediate mix.

What are u doing to sell ur company?
Should be the thing you ask all of your executives and board members at your next meeting.  In fact, it should be prioritized and then teams formed to leave for a week to come back with intelligence and insights to support their argument that everyone and every person is selling their companies 24x7/365 of the year.  

Do not allow executives to hide
behind their own personal brand, to be esteemed, somewhat feared, but powerful none the same.   Common denominator being internal fame and little public refrain. I know how the system works because I've emailed an executive for the past three years.  I would say that actually is two executives that are at the highest chain of command within unsaid organization.

Response is reflective
to the arrogant, egotistical side step.  I must importantly convey that yes every email is personally read, even if not by the person to which it was directed.  So many executives find this an excellent coping mechanism.

Bernie Sanders kind
Here in our midst, in Calgary, in Canada is a Bernie Sanders of our own.  What's that you ask?  Well, swap politician with businessman, to get the real drift of the message written here.

Only one of the executives whom I write a brief (and sometimes long) message to has ever responded, written back, and had a message-conversation of only a few.  This gentleman answers every single email personally, with humor, anecdotal.

I will share a few, without revealing the names or company to which they are aligned with.  I will also share whether there is a response and how it was handled.


 Congrats on FINALLY being offered a position worthy of you, Mr_.  You kinda got a bum rap at ur previous GIG.  Now, you may be victorious!  Thank you for keeping me on your connected list.  I hope u notice how I will reshare on LINKED IN any news with ur name on it ::... which i normally reserve for the CEO of Salesforce.com fame.    He and I connected almost immediately when we hitched a ride to LINKED IN back in 2010.   I enjoy the opportunity to read the going on of some various wellknown business leaders in Canada and abroad.  I am just launching a website called:  www.graFX.online < still under construction until my vision is aligned in an execution-able fashion.  This unnamed company will get the first right of refusal on advertising allotment, after that we will see.  I won't allow competing brands on my page at the same time.  The brands have to meet my criteria::... innovative, open to change, leading edge in technology, especially MOBILITY with a dynamic, positive, healthy culture [ marketing literature aside ] and women have half a better chance in moving up the corporate ladder than other places.  

A cultural fit
Examine the culture before you go work anywhere.  Where I currently work had almost all of the checks in my boxes to agree to go work, some would consider under-employed, I like to think of as a new beginning.

That has gone on far too long
for any sane person.  Yet here is the magic.  I demonstrate tenacity and sticking to my commitments.  I won't dwell on the past where my loyalty was skathed and bruised confidence hang out.

A hang out for disbelievers?
Or a place for optimistic comradely and support to stay connected.  Cheering each other on when you see someone heading to the finish line:  fame, wealth comes second to the thrill of finding something that people will love.

A legacy we must not forget
fading Steve Jobs back into the backdrop of historical proportions.  Where his greatest arch-rival still maintains.


Objet d'art (plural objets d'art) means literally "art object", or work of art, in French, but in practice the term has long been reserved in English to describe works of art that are not paintings, large or medium-sized sculptures, prints or drawings. It therefore covers a wide range of works, usually small and three-dimensional, of high quality and finish in areas of the decorative arts, such as metalwork items, with or without enamel, small carvings, statuettes and plaquettes in any material, including engraved gemshardstone carvingsivory carvings including Japanese netsuke and similar items, non-utilitarian porcelain and glass, and a vast range of objects that would also be classed as antiques (or indeed antiquities), such as small clocks, watches, gold boxes, and sometimes textiles, especially tapestries. Books with fine bookbindings might be included.

An objet de vertu by excellence, Fabergé's "Memory of Azov Egg" (1891), contains a ship model wrought of gold.

A Swiss singing bird box with a bucolic lake scene on the lid, c. 1825, another example of an objet de vertu.
The term is somewhat flexible, and is often used as a broad term for "everything else" after major categories have been dealt with. 

Objets d'art 
Creating aesthetically beautiful objects, words, art, songs, melody, photography with innovation and zest.  Those are the best leaders because they want perfection.  They've been knocked around a few times, but they bounce back stronger.

How many can you think of 
who has had that?  You know I mean Steve Jobs, I've mentioned Barrack Obama before.  Who is really leading the spirit of the social media?  Facebook or Twitter may think they've gotten "IT" while instaGRAM or snapCHAT or PINterest display it can channel and expand the audience.  

Besides the where-with-all
who is really leading the charge?  Google and newly formed Alpabet?  Again, I challenge you to think beyond that.  Those are companies all aforementioned.  

I'm talking about personal BRAND
that has not been sold to the highest bidder ...... yet.

I message to executives in the spring of 2017:
pay attention to your culture, examine it objectively, challenge who is selling your brand.  Setting advertising agencies and pre-set social media placement aside.  

Who IS selling your brand?
Get rid of the CEOs and boards who collect a paycheque and run the accounting side of your business or investments.  They are the short run wagons to hitch a ride on.  The enduring, innovative, revolutionary companies in history had a leader and company overlapping by brand.

Hire the writers and the imagineers
who can see the future clearly, not clogged with BS and YES-men (and ever-growing, but still far behind, number of women)?  

Fire the ad agencies
who are merely graphic design studios.  Nothing like the "Mad Men" era so well depicted in one of my favorite docu-drama series of all time for me.  

Ogilvy on advertising 
is a worthy read.  It should be a mainstay in any creative agency or entrepreneur.  His extraordinary vision is like a bible to how to behave online and get sophisticated, academic, creative followers is a mighty key.

Story telling
was clearly the backbone to Ogilvy's approach.  How isn't that phenomenal when you think of the brands that are winning because of how they act online?  Whether by video or posted words.  Tells the story.

The exchange with others
is a one-sided currency ... except where in one instance a time I was online [ Wednesday ] with full force and paying attention,  I witnessed a customer with a REALLY big following on Twitter tweet his dissatisfaction with his customer experience for their technology.

Ability to respond
Is your company equipped to respond?
You have to be honest here.  Start from the very top and then cascade down the line.  

Whoever professes ignorance
are likely your board of directors, of the Baby Boomer age  [ born from 1959 to 1945 times ] where spark is of the very limited kind.  Who has last had an idea that sat where your company is run?

Whoever professes participation
can fan-dangle and confuse you with so much techno garbage and marketing slogan-ish barbs.  They are no more online than your top dog CEO.  Some have presence to be sure.  Mostly on things not deemed indicative of your brand [ for example, pornography, mean words, falsehoods, sarcasm ]

Operated by robots
who send out your endorsed words ::... usually a campaign, that really is advertising.  This is where the gifted online rise above.  They can smell a scam or a spam, cloaked in sophisticated disguise.  

Whereas the responses
are automatic.  As though they've been keyed in by a computer after a roundtable of committee members compose or decide which will be exposed online.  [NOTE: if you ever want a NONdecision, get a group together and call them a committee or an association].

Ego can collide
with the noise online.  People with much greater value, wisdom and words emerge and rise to the top.  Not the brands with their tricks and paid dollars to drive revenue or traffic to websites to justify their existence.

Merely hanging on with a bandaid
will be those who will be faced if they don't wake up and pay attention to the ability to CONVERSE online with your customers, your supporters, your buyers, your vendors, your fans while being made aware of your detractors, competition or negative vibe generators.

Make sure everyone is telling a story
even if it isn't your story.  In fact, that would be better.  Share stories of employees who reached out to connect online with an idea to help others that generated a response and churned the wheels of progress and communication farther.

Hang up the old standards
and start creating a culture that adapts to the ever-changing world.  Ensure your technology is robust enough to withstand cyber attacks.  

Hire wikileaks as your defender
of all that is true and exemplary.  Less would be exposed, embarrassed and sink off into the moonlight as the werewolves of change howl.

I'd love to sell wikileaks.com services
Can you just imagine?  A brand name that anyone who is everyone can ignore any longer.  One of the easiest criteria to determine who to sell for.  If you have made it past the excruciatingly painful online "SUBMIT" on the CAREER portal, you have proven that you are worthy to work there wouldn't you think?  Fear not, that application sits behind technology.  It picks out key words in the resume that it has hyperboiled into identifiable words that in all its theory can expose.  

Missing key ingredients like instinct
judgement and overall presentation.  How can you hire someone so poised and seemingly perfect who has constantly garlic breath and something green stuck in his or her teeth?  

A computer taught to think still lacks instinct and human judgement that can unfortunately be pre-determined by bias or self-centered view, yet can also see smiles, sense warmth, sincerity  clearly shine.   Yet today's forward thinking companies are falling behind in the times.  

Becoming more robot
and run by a gaggle of gearheads or geeks [ of the destructive kind like hackers, exhibitionists to namely only two ].  The silliness that it needs to be cautioned against may seem almost alarmist by some.

Where complacency rests
on the shoulders of nuts, bolts, power, fingers, minds is sadly what is happening.  They've climb the heap of others, even stepping on a few to get there.  These are the people who are behind your company's words?  The popular or populist ones.

Maybe they are more expensive
in the thousands an idea and more when delivered on time, if on time.  To ignore the ability to resound your message and create a positive vibe is an opportunity so many companies are missing.

Remember, I said it starts at the top?
Proof is not hidden, nor under a disguise.  That to which Trump earns my respect for his wisdom of speaking online.  For himself, by himself.  Rather than the pocket of a few others, the rest allowing a technology or stranger to convey what is on your mind?

How is that possible?
I can tell you how.  They're ignorant of the influence they have online, denying the potential to have every single employee, customer communicate and interact online.  Where are the skilled manifestos of intellectual power your boast you have?  Hidden and trampled on by your sickness going misdiagnosed.  Inspected or neglected?  Either cause harm.

Your employees' valuable time
is important and you should concede or acknowledge that.  Their ideas more rich and fruitful than anyone trying to tell you what you want to hear.  They are impassioned by the believers and loyalists lost in your midst.  A true voice for your company.

If you can, seek and find
the RT on Twitter from 48 hours ago where I exclaimed over an exchange between a customer and his support service solving a problem, together, in real time, online.  No waiting line or number queue.  Immediate, solution nailed and resolution intact.  Not to mention the proof of your culture not as clearly defined as shown, demonstrated and acted on.  

Not by hey-sayers nor digital players
who are usually of the very young mind.  No experience or wisdom to fall upon, just speed in clickness and keen savviness they climbed over the backs of the many who built things, helped build the company.  Besides the gold pin for 5 years or platinum for 10, retirement parties have become instinct.  Those were the best networking environments of my career.  If you were well enough liked or respected, you would be invited to a retirement party, a fond adieu by many as they blend into the twilight of years, traveling, not working, painting, writing.


If you read enough news
you can almost start to believe it.  
When you choose the news you want 
it is much easier to follow it.

~ Jeannette Marshall




Jeannette Marshall sent the following message at 12:48 PM
  • Congrats on the new job! What will u be doing now M? Is this something one can do online? I currently work in Loyalty & Retention at a call center at one of Canada's largest _____corporation. If I can leave by Tuesday at the same $25/hr with home office I'd be deliriously happy!  It would allow me to continue my passion online.