Jen Central

Jill flew out from Minneapolis to spend a week with me here, and we had a GREAT vacation.

Saturday/Sunday we went to Bumbershoot and saw something like 15 bands. Beck, Lucinda Williams, Stone Temple Pilots were some of the big names. We also became fans of artists and groups like Sons and Daughters, The Blakes, Joe Bonamassa, and Vicci Martinez. Some great new music got discovered over the weekend!

Monday Jill and I took a day trip to Mt Rainier. I was just there three weeks ago with Katie, but this trip turned out VERY differently. Katie and I had a gorgeous day, but Jill and I didn’t have the same luck. It was beautiful in Seattle, but it was a bit chilly when we got to the mountain. We headed up the Skyline Trail, and by the time we were up about 1,000 feet (the trail has a 1700 foot elevation gain) it was quite foggy and getting colder. By the time we were up about 1500 feet, visibility was down to about 30 feet, and it was a mix of rain and snow. I was dressed in shorts, so needless to say, not the ideal situation. We had low visibility, the weather was getting worse, and I was freezing cold. Yet, we continued on, and finished our hike. Rainier is an unbelievable place, and Mother Nature has a GREAT EYE. Even though we were cold, wet, and tired, it was well worth the hike.

Tuesday morning we headed up to the San Juans for another three amazing days. By the time I was on the ferry home last night, all I could think is that there is no place else I’d rather live. Just wow. Harbor seals, porpoises, deer, exotic animals, purple starfish, sea lions. All there to just watch, take in, and enjoy. I have few pictures from the trip, as it can’t be captured in pictures. But it was amazing. Great friends, wonderful environment, rejuvenating experience.

I’ve been waiting a LONG time to write this post, but I can finally make this public.

Yesterday I resigned from Slalom, and starting next week I’m working with Z-Health on a full-time basis. This move has been a year-and-a-half in the making, and I’m ridiculously excited about it. It’s not often that someone gets to pursue their passions and do what they are really good at, all at the same time. I really believe that Z can change the world, and I need to make that happen.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” - Mahatma Ghandi

I’ve had my iPhone for about a month ago, and while I’ve always loved the form factor and ease of use, I’m just now starting to appreciate how ridiculously useful it is as well.

I spent today with one of my students, trying to figure out her credits so she could graduate high school on time. My first “useful” moment was when I had to try to find a wi-fi hotspot so we could register for the SAT and do some college research. A quick web search told me that Tully’s always has free wi-fi.

We listened to music off of my phone, as we drove around this afternoon.

Then, twice today I was lost in parts of town I’m not used to trying to navigate. I used the GPS function combined with the Directions feature to give me real-time instructions — I even knew immediately once I had missed my turn!

At this point, it’s not even about always having access to my email (a bonus), but it’s really the ability to have a computer with me 24×7 that makes the device invaluable.

A few weeks ago I ran across a link to the commencement address that Steve Jobs did at Stanford in 2005. I won’t try to explain it here, except to say that it’s always worth following your passions, because later you will connect the dots and it will turn in to something great. I re-listened to it a few days ago, as I’m still on my inspiration kick.

Enjoy!

I’ve been looking for some inspiration lately, and having heard great things about Seth Godin from my friend Jenny, I picked up a couple of his books last week. His books are all short, to the point, and inspirational. Filled with anecdotes and examples, they were exactly what I was looking for.

After getting my Seth Godin fix, the concept that I kept coming back to was “Be Remarkable”. Find your market, and be the best for that market. Have a product or innovation or message that gets people talking (remarking) about you. In today’s over-marketed world, unless you are the best, you won’t be noticed and will not succeed. I love this concept, because it gives me the freedom to define my market any way I want. I’m now better off NOT trying to appeal to everyone, because when I do that, I don’t appeal to everyone.

Seth Godin has a wonderful blog post today entitled “Is it worthy?” that ties directly to my PUSH experience of the past two days. He talks about making our actions worthwhile.

The post ends with ” Our birthright is to fail and to fail often, but to fail in search of something bigger than we can imagine. To do anything else is to waste it all.”

Thank you, Seth.

I returned last night from PUSH, a conference that is all about ideas and trends and our global future. This was my second PUSH, and it was an amazing experience. I’m still trying to process everything I heard, but I came away with two predominant (and interwoven) themes, ENGAGEMENT and YOUTH across the four conference topics: economics, politics, religion, and technology.

The first theme was of ENGAGEMENT. It may sound cliché, but we have to be the change we want to be in the world (to me, it mostly sounds really hard). From an economic perspective, businesses produce what consumers will buy – as Nate Garvis from Target pointed out, the conversation used to be “is that a cotton shirt”, which moved to, “is that a cotton shirt made without child labor” to “is that an organic cotton shirt made without child labor in sweatshop free conditions”. If we ask the right questions, companies have to respond. It’s simply good business. Yes, it takes critical mass, but 20 years ago I didn’t know what organic produce was, now I can find it virtually everywhere.

The same concept of ENGAGEMENT applies to the media. A statistic thrown out at the conference was that 90% of mainstream media comes from one of two news sources – which is why it sounds like we keep hearing the same thing over and over. But, in the age of YouTube and witness.org, citizens now have a voice. We can influence political campaigns for the first time (Howard Dean’s scream, “macaca”, The Obama “yes we can” mashup), and have the ability to do much more.

I heard more about ENGAGEMENT in religion and technology. Anthea is a religion professor who discussed using the power of the communities formed by religion to serve the planet and the greater good. She also urged those not involved with the church to reach out to these groups and to use this shared value of service to accomplish great things.

With Eboo Patel and Michael Furdyk, ENGAGEMENT met YOUTH. Both men have created non-profit organizations designed to ENGAGE YOUTH to create communities, build respect, learn, and overcome differences. The YOUTH factor is so important when you consider that the median age of the global population is 28.0 years old (Global Health Facts) with US residents being 36.6 years old and Iraqis being 20 years old.

Eboo Patel is the founder of InterFaith Youth Core (IFYC). IFYC “builds mutual respect and pluralism among young people from different religious traditions by empowering them to work together to serve others.” Eboo’s message was extremely powerful for me. By taking youth of differing faiths, introducing them, and focusing on their similarities, they can overcome their religious differences and shed their prejudices. By seeing each other as equals, they learn to co-exist. By “catching” them as YOUTH, you end up with adults who believe in pluralism. It’s an interesting option for tempering religious extremism.

Michael Furdyk is the 25-year-old genius and founder of TakingITGlobal. TakingITGlobal is “online community that connects youth to find inspiration, access information, get involved, and take action in their local and global communities.” The community has partnered with the UN and is now represented in every country around the globe, truly creating a global community. A teen when he founded this company, he realized that most teens are disengaged from what is going on around the globe, are bored by school, and not optimistic about the future. He wanted to change that conversation, create a global community to make the learnings in school relevant, and like Eboo, he recognizes that by “catching them young” you can develop patterns for positive choices. They have 350 Guides to Action to help teens actually DO something, online communities for YOUTH to make commitments and be held accountable for them.

These two concepts were really powerful for me, and perhaps resonated because of my work with Community for Youth. Regardless, what I distinctly heard is that is it up to US to engage companies, the media, and youth to make a difference. I definitely left the conference with a message of hope.

More thoughts and deep dives forthcoming…

I’m obsessed with finding the right tool for the job. I just have too much that I want to do to waste time on something that doesn’t work. I really do.

I became interested in visual communication tools a couple of years ago. A picture really often can be worth a 1000 words, and I wanted options for conveying those thousand words. It’s important to me to convey a message as efficiently and accurately as possible, by using the optimal combination of words and images.

A few years ago I found something called the Periodic Table of Visualization Methods. It’s this diagram that really started me on my journey in to visual communications.

Enjoy!

You can see more about the periodic table and dive in to the “elements” here.

After months of promising I’d get this web site up and running, it’s finally here. I’m using thing-a-day (and what will hopefully be a month of no travel) as the catalyst for getting everything up here.