Musings

Monday is a day we mark as Martin Luther King Day. Federal offices and schools have the day off. Banks are closed.

Stores are open.

It seems like Martin Luther King Day, or as so many commercials refer to it, “MLK Day,” is becoming another day to consume. To buy. It’s like Memorial Day. Or Veterans Day. “Go out and buy, people. That’s what today is for!”

Except it’s not.

What I’ll think about on Monday

I always take the time on Martin Luther King Day to try to imagine what went on inside that man’s mind and heart. There were a lot of African Americans who had the skills necessary to do what Martin Luther King did. They had the passion. They had the ability to organize people and speak and offer patience in the face of fire hoses. But Martin Luther King, he was special. He lifted up those people who could have taken the lead but didn’t. He lifted up the the poor and the downtrodden. He lifted up whites as well as African Americans. His message was of love and peace for everybody.

Man I wish we had a person like that today.

I have been trying to imagine what Martin Luther King would say about this world of online social networking. I keep coming back to the same answer. I imagine him saying, “What an amazing opportunity to spread good around the world. What an amazing opportunity to create a world where color and creed doesn’t matter. It’s just people talking. How incredible.”

The Dream has not been realized

A lot of people said that when Barack Obama became President of the United States, Martin Luther King’s dream was coming to fruition. I asked around, on Facebook and on Twitter, trying to find out what people think MLK would say about society if he was still around today. I wanted to see if anyone would say, “Oh, all of my dreams have come true.”

No one did.

The responses were almost unanimously the same. “We’ve come so far, and we have so much further to go.”

You can carry that sentiment to the world stage, where we are talking about the shootings in Tuscon, the war over immigrants coming into the United States from Mexico, and the general pall of incivility that looms over Washington, D.C. But you can also see it on a smaller stage – on this online stage. There are so many people who use this tool as a way to pick at people, as a way to spread hate and maliciousness, as a way to tear people down. Every time that happens, it shows us how far we are from Dr. King’s dream coming true. It’s not just about race. It’s not just about creed. It’s about all of us together.

It’s so entirely not about getting a mattress at 40% off.

Think about the future

As we move one generation further from when Martin Luther King was alive, we risk the danger of children not understanding what this annual day of observance is about. We move one more generation away from when schools and buses and stores were segregated. We move one more generation away from the March on Washington – the first one. We move one generation closer to marking Martin Luther King Day with a trip to the store and nothing else.

I don’t want to see that future. In fact, I have a dream that it won’t happen that way.

How about you?

After World War II, when the world finally realized that all of the rumors they had been hearing about the Holocaust were true, there was shock and horror. This reaction was not just to the horrors that were uncovered – the concentration camps, the open burials, the crematoriums – but it was also to the fact that people had been describing these things. People had come to countries like the US and said “help us!” And no one did help. Not until they were affected. And so the phrase “Never again” was born.

Attention Matters

Yesterday, Chris Brogan talked about how attention will matter in 2011. Attention will matter, but I think attention needs to matter beyond the boundaries of Jim Kukral’s book.

You see, for me, a lot of the tragedies that have happened lately are all about attention or a lack thereof. Tyler Clementi died both because people did pay attention to the webcam video his roommate sent out into the world and because people didn’t pay attention to how Tyler was being affected. Simone Beck did not get help because people paid the wrong kind of attention or didn’t pay attention at all.

And then you have this:

People are paying a lot of attention to this now. Some people are saying that Sarah Palin is to blame for the shooting at Gabrielle Giffords’ event in Arizona yesterday.

Nobody is paying attention.

The truth is that this map was released in March of 2010! It’s almost a year old. I was not aware of it till now. I wasn’t paying attention. Did you know about it before now?

It’s irresponsible, in these unsure and violent times, to post something with gun targets and peoples’ names. Plain and simple. Somebody should have told Ms. Palin that this was inappropriate. If individual college students have the power to force people to suicide, what can powerful people like Palin, Obama, Pelosi, ,Boehner, and others do to influence people via online communications? Are we paying attention to this?

Do I think we can draw a quid pro quo between this year-old map and the shootings that happened yesterday? Not right away. But Social Media is reporting that there is a connection. It’s all Sarah Palin’s fault. Let’s dump her and the shooter down the drain and move on. “Never again!” We’ll shout.

But if we do that, we are still not paying attention. And never again will happen again.

It’s easy to get upset

This morning I awaken to details about the 9 year-old girl who was killed yesterday. So promising. So full of life. There was no crosshair on her face. When events like this happen, it is easy for us to jump on to sites like Twitter and Facebook and say “never again.” Or something like it.

But really what we need to do is pay more attention.

We need to pay attention to each other. We need to pay attention to cries for help. We need to pay attention to loud voices that suddenly become quiet. And yes, we need to pay attention to our leaders. Who is guiding them through the dos and donts of Social Media? Who is reminding them that everyone can see what they are saying? Who is reminding them that some unstable person maybe clinging to every word?

We need to pay attention. Let’s have that as our cry this time. And then let’s do something about it. Let’s monitor our leaders’ websites and Twitter accounts. Let’s help stave off backlash after backlash.

Let’s pay attention.

As I reflect back on the decade that was, a few bright and shiny faces came to mind who really made a difference in my life. Beyond the realm of my family, who are just always there and always wonderful, these people did all kinds of things to let me know that they cared. Whether they were just available when I was going through hard times or whether they were the first to congratulate me during the good times, they kept my ship sailing, they kept me up, and sometimes they even offered a well-placed, well-timed kick to the hiney.

There are a lot of motivational quotes out there about what true friends are. But I have learned, thanks to this last decade, that a lot of those flowery sayings are not really getting to the core of the matter.

The people who matter are your strength when you are running low. They are the purchasers of the champagne (or ice cream) to celebrate your victories. They don’t run away from bad times, and they don’t run away from your success.

Today, in my opinion, is a really good time to tell the people who made a difference in your life that, “Hey, you made a difference in my life.” I have let the people who fall into that category in my life know that they have impacted me in ways they might not even have realized. They made a difference. It’s a chance to be Clarence the angel from It’s A Wonderful Life.

It’s also a really good time to think about how you can be a difference maker for someone else. What better goal is there to strive for as this year and decade come to a close? It can be as simple as being around. We all can do that, can’t we?

Happy New Year to you and yours. I’ll see you next year.

Imagine this scenario. A kid is having a birthday party and it’s time to open the presents. Everything the kid asked for appears under beautifully colored wrapping paper. At the end of the present-opening extravaganza, under a mountain of everything cool, the kid looks around and lets out a big sigh. “This is just too much stuff,” the kid laments. “How can I possibly play with everything I ever wanted? I don’t have enough time, even!”

What thoughts would go through your head?

Well, in the world of Social Media, it’s easy to come across as a kid like that. It all comes down to one simple fact – a lot of what you receive in this online world is a gift, and if you don’t really make a point of remembering that, you can come across as ungrateful.

What are these gifts I speak of?

We all know that we’re busy, and if we’re all busy, then we know everyone’s busy. In that kind of environment, any investment of time is extremely valuable, and in this online world, any response that you get represents time someone took to respond to you.

So, for example, the fact that you are taking the time to read this post? That’s a great gift. If you take time to tweet out a post or comment on a post, those are great gifts. Taking the time to tweet with or to someone meaningfully is a gift.

It seems like sometimes people groan about gifts that are in the grey territory. For example, a lot of people tend to not appreciate it when people ask for free advice. To me, this is a great grey zone that needs to be considered individually. If a person wants you to do their work or thinking for them then yes, that is not something to get excited about. However, if someone is asking for your advice, or is asking you to review something, to me that is a great gift. It means they are willing to open something up to you, which can really be hard to do online. It also means they value your opinion and feel you know enough to be able to help others beyond yourself.

Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water

Just like all facets of Social Media, accepting gifts with grace is something you need to do consciously and conscientiously. Often, this involves a bit of censoring. For example, let’s say you’re getting really bombarded with blog comments (awwww). People are giving you all kinds of good insights for the most part, but it’s just a lot to respond to. If you say, in a moment of frustration, “Man, I just can’t keep up with these darned comments,” what message does that send to the people who took the time to comment on your post?

This logic carries on to all sorts of interactions. If you complain about people asking you for advice, you are making everyone who has asked you for advice wonder if they are more a burden to you. This can be especially damaging if you are making an effort to come across as helpful and engaging. If people asking for your opinion seems like something that drives you nuts, you will soon find that your key channels of communication will have disintegrated.

It all comes back to courtesy

You’ve seen me talk about this before if you’ve been here for awhile, but so much in Social Media revolves around basic manners and courtesy. What do you do when someone gives you a gift? You say thank you. Maybe you do something in return. So it is here. And if it is someone asking you to be a resource, take it as a compliment, not a burden. They are, in essence, calling you an expert in that particular area. Say thank you, and help as best you can, or direct them to someone else.

Bad News Bears versus the Good News Gnus

I know, I know. It’s easy to complain. You have a stage all to yourself, and few things are more dramatic than saying, “Oh, woe is me. So busy. Drowning. Ayeeee.” However, I will tell you a little secret I have learned. The Bad News Bears online may get attention for fleeting moments, but it’s the Good News Gnus who find themselves immersed in long-standing communities and relationships.

So how are you responding to your gifts?

Take a moment and look at your blog community, your Twitter community…take a look at your Facebook updates and your posts to LinkedIn groups. Are you whining in the face of wealth? Are you groaning under the weight of what you are working towards? Let me know what you find out in the comments section, and let’s talk about it, shall we?

Image by David Duncan. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/D-squared

Today, Chris Brogan wrote a post about how to manage distractions to get the job done. Oddly enough, what caught my attention was not the meat of the post, but rather the first part, where Chris talks about how he “phoned it in” at various times and did or didn’t get desired results.That part really got my attention.

A bit about me and my phone

When I was in oh, fifth grade or so, I was phoning it in hardcore. I would wait to work on my homework till the morning it was due, and if that didn’t give me enough time to finish, I’d race to get the work done while the teacher was taking attendance. I’d work while the teacher was collecting everyone’s work. I hated that feeling – that cold sweat, that pulse racing. When I would wait to write my papers, inevitably the printer would run out of ink at the last minute. I’d run out of paper.

It just was not working for me. So I decided I’d start doing things that would lead to a higher quality of work. Then I realized that working as hard as I could was really rewarding. I made fewer dumb mistakes on math tests. I bumped all of my grades up. Phoning it in became a distant and harrowing memory.

Replace Phone with Fire

As I got through high school and college and into graduate school, my passion filled and overflowed the place where my phone had been. Not only did I not miss phoning it in, but I actually was driven to go as hard as I could and do the best that I could simply because I cared. It was important to me. I was striving for good grades, sure, but as time wore on, I also just wanted to learn as much as I could. I wanted to immerse myself in the experience. I wanted to make me proud of myself.

As I endeavored to do so, a lot of people looked at me funny and told me I was doing things wrong. In high school, a lot of the smart kids would brag before a test about how they had read the entire book the night before. When I’d tell them I’d finished the book 2 weeks earlier, they’d roll their eyes. In college, friends would always tell me my papers were too long. In graduate school, I was picked on because not only did I read every word of every book, but I also took painstaking notes.

“You don’t need to do that,” my peers would say. “Just read the first and last sentence of every paragraph.”

Most of my friends in graduate school finished their theses before me. In college, most of my friends got better marks on their independent study projects than I got on mine. I was never valedictorian.

I have no regrets, though. I learned as much as I could. I put everything I had into the work I did. While the grades and ratings were measurements of a sort, ultimately, they are not the measurements I care about.

Don’t back down and don’t give up

There are a lot of people out there who are ready to offer you advice. I only have one overriding piece of advice. Be guided from within. Use a compass of your own devising. And once you have that, don’t let other people or other pressures tell you that what you are doing is “wrong” or “crazy” (unless you are trying to cut a tree down with a herring or something like that). It can be hard to do things this way. It was hard to be the last one to get my thesis done. It was hard to be rated lower than my friends on the magnum opus of my college years. But I clung to what I believed was most important. They did so for themselves, too, and that’s how things ended up. I doubt that any of us have any regrets. We stayed true to ourselves.

What really matters to you? Protect that like you would protect a tiny lit candle on a windy night. If your readers aren’t digging your blog right now but you know that what you are writing is what you need to write, stick to your guns. If you are tweeting a certain way and people say, “Ew, why are you doing that?!?” don’t be swayed if you really believe you are doing it right for yourself.

But keep your ears and your mind open

This doesn’t mean that we should fence ourselves off from other peoples’ opinions and advice. There are always things we can add to our arsenal. We can always add another bit of fuel to our inner fires. And if you end up shifting course as a result, don’t let people tell you that you’re dumb for doing that either. We are like flowing streams, always changing yet always remaining the same.

And let me tell you a little secret. Are you ready?

The only advice that you’ll carry is the advice your ears and mind are ready to gather for you.

What really matters to you?

Are you on a path that you know in your heart is the right one, yet all you are encountering is pointy fingers and cackling laughter, doubt, maybe disappointment…things that are standing in your way? Hang in there. It’s hard. It’s really hard. But you will not regret fighting for what matters to you.  Make sense?