Month: June 2014

Some thoughts on leadership

Carl Setzer

In Steven Covey’s “Seven Habits…” book, he relates a story of a consulting gig. After asking “what’s the best way to motivate…” some one spat out “hand-grenades”.  Apparently a bit of a debate broke out. I’ve wondered what would say during that, and think I have my answer. “That’s effective if your goal is to build a subservient fiefdom. If you’re trying to build a dynamic team of effective contributors, this will fail gloriously.”

In today’s economy, a company of meandering automatons who only act directly upon orders is a recipe for failure. This is a blind bureaucracy. Any need for independent thought or action induces a fear based paralysis. These are non-agile orgs that cannot react nimbly. Their only strength comes from sheer mass. Most of the entities which remind effective do so because they command immense resources, enabling them to catch up with innovators…eventually. Or they just acquire them.

Many managers feel empowering their teams is some fluffy, sentimental fad. Sadly, some systems allow them to flounder in their ineffectiveness. They remain blind to the costs they craft, and to the opportunities squandered. Thus is the path of fear and brutality.

Prime Music

Carl Setzer

In case you missed the announcement, Amazon has launched Prime Music. As you can guess, Amazon is the latest tech animal to enter the online music fray. I downloaded the iPhone app last night and have been streaming music at my desk at work today. For now, the music selection is pretty small for the streaming service. As a heavy Spotify user, Amazon is not going to displace my current habits. Prime looks to be supplementing/feeding their mp3 download service. That’s not where I am, at this point. Key phrase: at this point.

I fully expect that Amazon is “in it to win”. They’re fierce competitors, and I expect that they’ll push this service further. Probably, there will come a point that Spotify’s $9/mo service will seem redundant to my Prime membership fee. Then it will be tough. I’m not keen on giving too much control over my life to one vendor. However, I value my cash. Yeah; tough. Or, perhaps, Spotify will be bought by one of the big players and this will become a non-issue. Always in motion, the future.

Social Media: Work vs Magic

Carl Setzer

Magic. I’ve seen this idea many times, item X will “save us”, ” make us rich “, “make critics vanish”, what have you. Looking to some tool as a savior, the proverbial ” magic bullet”; all our problems will vanish. Nearly daily I see emails promising “Pinterist will make you rich”, along with myriad, similar titles. Magic sells, but never returns on that investment.

Social media won’t make you rich, make critics vanish, nor any issue disappear. No blog post, tweet nor Google+ share will, either. It’s way these efforts are called campaigns. Regular posts, with thoughtful content, over several channels, and with engagement, interacting; that’s how an audience is built. Gaining fans, then nurturing those relationships, that’s the gift of social media.

MaydayPAC and Hope for Democracy

Carl Setzer

I am excited by this project: Mayday, creating a crowdsourced SuperPac to end all SuperPacs (SuperDuperPac?). I’ve long admired Larry’s work, and also have been concerned by cash’s influence in politics. For me, this has the potential to be a profound pivotal moment of the internet age and social media driven democracy. This coming Monday (June 16) at 8:00 pm EASTERN time, Mr. Lessig and Amanda Palmer will be hosting a video conversation that I expect will be very much worth your time. If I can at all make this work with my calendar, I will be online for this.

Update: Here’s some recommended “pre-reading”:  1) http://thebea.st/UhhBVV  2) http://bit.ly/MD-TNR  3) http://bit.ly/MD-Medium 

My Writing’s Evolution

Carl Setzer

Noticing my poetry’s evolution. Once, my focus was flowing words, rich in descriptors, often verbose. Now, now I so often seek brevity. Driving to strip distraction, superfluous text, longing to grasp the core meaning, what lurks at the deepest recesses. Often I fail, but that hardly dissuades me. Much like Thoreau’s failure to attain the rich independence alongside the pond, failure is no shame. To stretch, dream, depart from the norm and traditional, daring something new; the results never match the dream. Its always so much richer.

Grasping hold of dreams, daring to work them real, that’s my newest focus. Seek out the new, the never-done daring deeds of the heart. To live fully engulfed within a creative vortex, fearlessly facing the winds, that is what I seek to build now.

My poetry is the focus of another site:

Http://questionsall.wordpress.com

I’ll endeavor to post daily. Challenging, pushing myself forward, beyond the limits of fear.

Such is my dream.