On Being The Mayor

A few weeks ago, I happened to be walking on the beach with my friends Sally and Steve. There was a a sandcastle building contest going on, and though we weren't competing, we had some friends who were; a little "advance scouting" would have strategic value. Plus, it beat doing the digging ourselves :-)

Sally took point and led us around the beach with a warm smile. "Hey, what are you building?" she'd ask with a friendly and welcoming tone. To my great surprise, everyone responded in kind, after just the briefest of pauses, detailing what they were up to. "That's great!" Sally would beam, adding personalized commentary like "That's the best mermaid we've seen! Awesome!" or "Wow, that's really original and great! Good luck!"

It had never occured to me that I could just walk up to someone and ask them what they were doing, without having some "reason" to do so. It was all in the way you did it, apparently. I commented on this by exclaiming, "Sally, it's like you're the MAYOR OF THE BEACH!"

It hit me then that being the mayor was a powerful mindset worth cultivating.

Mayoral Behavior

When I got home, I started thinking about related experiences...there was something behind this "mayor" business that I liked.

• I was visiting my sister in Providence, and we stopped somewhere to grab some snacks. We saw an old guy on a bike who seemed to take a keen interest in what was happening on his street corner. I remember that he radiated a kind of crazed bonhomie for his fellow citizens, who gave him a "respectfully wide" berth as they scurried around him. I was actually impressed, though, by how involved he was in the patroling of his street corner, and declared to my sister that he must be "the mayor".

• I was at Waterfire in downtown Providence several years ago, which is a cool city event featuring bonfires lit along the canal. At the time, Buddy Cianci was the mayor of Providence; I’d heard stories from other Rhode Island residents how he ran a corrupt city government, but he's also associated with Providence's renaissance, and everybody seemed to like him. And even with his political machine was crumbling around him, he always had time to to kiss babies, shake hands, and sprinkle a little bit of the mayoral magic on any event that needed it; the joke is that if there was the opening of an envelope, Buddy would be there. Crooked or not, Buddy loves his city...that's an important part of being The Mayor. At Waterfire, he was riding up and down the canal on a gondala, enthusiastic cries of “Buddy!” following in his wake.

• Just last week I was visiting downtown Manchester, New Hampshire. According my friend Scott, the downtown Manchester area has seen incredible revitalization; the way he tells it, you would have been taking your life in your hands by walking on Elm Street just 10 years ago. Now, there were trendy pubs alongside the respectable shops, every street corners dotted with ice cream parlors and decorative iron gatework. As we crossed a side street, I noticed that the couple walking toward us had an unusual "presence" about them; after they passed, Scott said, “Did you see the guy who just walked past us?” I quipped, “Yeah, who was that? The mayor?” Scott was taken aback by the rapidity of my answer, and explained, “No, that it was the EX-mayor”. I thought how strange it must be to be the ex-mayor, walking the streets of his former stomping grounds. His connection with the city still clung to him, such that an out-of-towner like me could still sense it.

• A few years ago I was one of the principals at ActiveEdge, a company that was playing co-host to a small business technology event featuring a visit by Senator Joseph Lieberman. At the time Lieberman was part of a congressional technology council on the Internet, and was sweeping through New Hampshire talking to small high tech firms. I was curious to see what the experience would be like, especially since I was going to have a chance to talk to him. Though he was relatively short of stature, Lieberman was remarkably self-possessed and smooth. On TV he had never made an impression, but in person he had real presence and confidence, present and fully engaged in the moment. It was rather remarkable to witness the way a seasoned politician navigated the crowd of people while retaining control of the situation and, most importantly, himself.

Historically, I've regarded myself as being rather introverted, especially when it comes to navigating social situations with a lot of people I don't know. Sally's example on the beach was an interesting example of how to work a crowd from a place of genuine interest, and that generated the positive feeling that I associate with the memories I have above. In the past, I've dealt with social situations by becoming the host. For me, it's a lot less stressful if I'm responsible for doing something or have a role to play, so being the one who throws the party is strangely more relaxing. It occurs to me that being the mayor may be my next level of social comfort.

Being the Mayor

When people talk of "owning their job" or "taking responsibility", they often speak of it in terms of individual drive, in response to some externally-imposed organizational need. Some people are assigned that responsibility, while others just take it. In either case, the emphasis is on individual responsibility and getting the work done.

While this is all well and good, it strikes me that if you added a little mayoral interest to the mix, you might end up having a lot more fun. No one told Sally that she had to go out and engage the beach with her genuine and open interest in what people were doing. She just did it authentically, and people responded in kind.

So what's it like to be the Mayor? Here's my take on it:

• The Mayor should project civic pride and inclusivity of community.

• The Mayor should be a source of positive energy as the appointed representative for local issues and affairs, so things keep moving forward in the spirit of public interest.

• The Mayor should drop by and show interest in what you’re doing, you can’t help but feel the connected with the community.

• The Mayor represents your home town. That's far more compelling and immediate than a lot of things occuring at the state or national level. The Mayor has just enough civic responsibility to be of interest to everyone in the town, but not so much that he/she is inaccessible.

Applying this to myself, I've just realized that this blog is my home town, and that makes me The Mayor:

• I'm constantly tending to it to make it an attractive and friendly place for the people who like hanging out here.

• I feel a little surge of "civic pride" whenever I make an improvement to the site infrastructure. When I added email RSS subscriptions, I felt the same sense of pleasure that the transportation chief might get from adding a new bus line.

• I've kept advertising to a bare minimum, which is the equivalent to passing ordinances about overly large and ugly signs.

• I'm planning on building pages specifically tailored toward more commercial activity; that's analogous to zoning the blog for commercial use.

I've noticed since my beach trip that I'm starting to interact with people in the same way as Sally. As I've learned to live more in alignment with my values it's even become "the place that I'm from". So now when I'm out visiting people I haven't met before, I think of myself of being from my "blogtown". You know how people from NYC are New Yorkers, and it sticks to them? That's what I'm talking about. My sense of identity has become more firmly anchored, and since I'm the mayor of my blogtown, I represent the ideals that I write about: empowerment, inspiration, and learning how to get things done. As the Mayor, it's my job to smile and spread a little of that civic joy around, because you know what? I love it.

It's good to be the Mayor. :-) Try it!

The Pursuit of Happiness

Here in the US of A, we celebrate Independence Day on July 4th. This is a holiday I usually associate with recreational activities: picnics, barbecues, outdoor recreation, fireworks, parades and lots of 50%-off sales. It's a pretty mellow day.

The morning after, I was watching the news program CBS Sunday Morning, which ran a segment they called The Pursuit of Happiness. I realized then that there have been several threads of personal inquiry converging with respect to that pursuit: Happiness, Independence, and Community. Perhaps I've found my direction.

Happiness and Independence

Am I happy? I think I am, though there are certain frustrations I have. One of the big ones is the constant desire to be more productive, because I believe that producing more original content is my way to independence.

I used to think that the key to unlocking my productivity monster would be finding the right company. The right company would provide me with the right sense of mission, and so I've been open to finding the right opportunity. In fact, I was in the early stages of forming an business partnership with someone I know, until that person pointed out on one occasion that I didn't sound entirely committed. Oh, how I argued, until I realized that he was right: deep down, I hated the idea of giving up my identity. It was a highly clarifying but disappointing moment. We didn't pursue the relationship.

Since that moment of clarity, I've been more committed to independence as an actual path; I would say that my sense of mission is buoyed by the following statement of belief:

• Happiness will come from creating yummy original content...
• Which will create opportunities for me to be self-sufficient...
• And therefore free me to continue to do the things that I enjoy...
• Which apparently is being the author of said original content...

The lead-off story on CBS Sunday Morning connected the themes of Independence Day with Positive Psychology, a growing movement to scientifically understand the basis of well-being. Most Americans are familiar with the phrase Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness; it's written right into our Declaration of Independence, and was signed by the original 13 colonies on July 4th, 1776. While "the pursuit of happiness" is one of our most basic rights, it's entitlement without guarantee. Bummer!

I haven't read the Declaration of Independence since grade school---and even then I probably wasn't paying attention---so I was surprised by its relative brevity; rather than reproduce it in its entirety, I'll paraphrase it:

1. Ok, guys...there comes a time when a group of people must, due to difference of opinion and respect, dissolve their "political union" because it just isn't working anymore.

2. Here's our opinion of what we think life is all about: we think all men are created equal, have certain unalienable rights such as Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. Governments should exist solely to secure these rights, deriving their power to do so from the People, in a just manner.

3. When--AHEM--some governments fail to do that, the People have the right to tear it down and build another one. Sure, this isn't something one does lightly, but when the government refuses to deal with the issues responsibly, action by the People is necessary.

4. Let's name names: the present King of England has been a real jerk, and his form of "governance" is one-sided and disrespectful. Here's a long list of things he's done to aggravate us...see what we're talking about? And yes, we've bent over backwards to work things out in a civilized manner, but he remains a capricious, greedy, and dangerous prick. We don't think he's going to change. And you know what? We've had it.

5. So today, we're announcing the world that we consider ourselves free and independent states. We will be friends again once this is resolved, but in the meantime: COME AND GET US!

Thomas Jefferson expressed the sentiment more eloquently, of course; you can find the text reproduced over on JWynia's site in his 4th of July post.

As I reviewed the text, it occured to me that the genuine pursuit of happiness takes guts and resolve. This quote from Frederick Douglass also came to mind:

"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them."

I described the Pursuit of Happiness as being one of our basic entitlements, but without guarantee that we will receive it. It is, however, our responsibility to go out and get it, and the Declaration of Independence makes it clear that this is a right worth fighting for. When we make excuses about "timing", or "convenience", we are resigning ourselves to suffer an imposition of injustice, by the tyranny of our own inaction.

Independence and Community

As I said, I've been talking to people about various partnership / company scenarios. I spent many hours talking to people about what this meant to them, and the main arguments for starting a company looked something like this:

• As individuals, we can achieve only so much. As a company, we will have skills that complement each other, which will as a group allow us to offer a more complete suite of services. We will also have the credibility of being a group, which combined with our talent can attract more interesting (and lucrative) projects.
• It would be cool to work together with really talented people. People we can count on. People we actually like working with.
• It would be cool to build a company that emphasized creative facilities: a great space to work in, a place to teach, etc.

These are all fine reasons to start a company, and because I've been interested in community recently it seemed to be a great "two-for-one" deal. Except...it didn't feel right. As I talked with potential partners, I found I needed an awful lot of convincing. And if there's anything that sucks the wind out of a partnership-in-the-making, it's a lack of conviction from the person you're trying to partner with. Everyone I talked to was super enthusiastic about their company-building dreams, but I tended to ask questions like:

• What would be the company mission?
• How will we know we're fulfilling that mission?
• Who is the majority owner? In the case of an equal partnership, how would we resolve inevitable conflict of interest?
• How do you see me fitting into the operation? How do you see us working together? What do you see your role as?

And the doozy:

• What is the advantage of being in a company versus doing what I am already doing now?

The latter really was the sticking point for me because I feel like I'm finally on a path that I'm enjoying: the path of authorship. I like being personally responsible for what I say and do. The questions I asked were good ones, but they really were indicators of doubt wrapped in the cloak of due diligence. And doubt of that nature is NOT something you can tolerate from a business partner, because that indicates a lack of commitment to the whole, which bleeds energy, which is STARTUP DEATH. But I digress...just by asking that last question, I elevated myself to the level of the proposed company, and this tends to have a dampening effect on people who are excited by the very notion of creating something larger than themselves. It's probably not a bad question to ask, because when you're starting up you need to be pretty damn sure of the reason and rationale behind the decision if you're going to really sell it, but it's a real party pooper.

I like the idea of building companies, but I tend to frame the activity in terms of what's important to me, and not so much "what can we make". Here's a list of six directives that I think apply to me:

1. I want to work on my own stuff to create original properties. This is far and away more important to me than creating a company structure for the sake of having one.

2. I want to establish a reputation as a designer / developer / writer whatever. And I want to earn it with my own hands, and be personally accountable for what I put out there. That's how I think of authorship.

3. I want to create and contribute to a community of independent producers. I could join up with a community, but I have specific ideas about what I'd like to see from that.

4. I like creating sparks. For me, that means creating an empowering environment and positive energy, such that the "spark" occurs naturally. In other words, learning and teaching is important to me from the perspective of shared experience, not just for knowledge transfer.

5. If I did create a company or organization, it would exist primarily to provide the scaffolding for personal achievement and development of the individuals, in support of 4.

6. If I did create a company, it would have to be my company in that I would be the one to make the decisions. I am finally starting to accept this, and I'm also getting over the feeling that I have to apologize wanting things to be this way.

In a sense, this is my own Declaration of Independence.

Directive 6 is a completely new insight for me, and it's really the first time I've seriously thought that I may want to create a company. I have been pursuing the first 5 directives for years and never really considered the option, thinking that I was not up to the task, or that it was just too much of a hassle. These days, though, I'm more comfortable with the idea, and I must admit that with a group I could get more done. It feels a tad egotistical to think this way, because we're conditioned to think in terms of "team" and "democracy", but look at it this way: would you want a group of people voting on how you personally choose and pursue your interests? Do you want your own interests and dreams to be interpreted by some "team" with its own agenda and politics? No sir, I don't like it. The Pursuit of Happiness is, in my opinion, not about group consensus; it's about recognizing that we're all free to make our own decisions. The trick is figuring out that this is indeed within our reach, and then learning how to grasp.

So where does community fit into this? Isn't the mindset I described above counter to the spirit of community?

I think I've just figured it out: my values as I've listed them here are completely oriented toward empowering individuals, not organizations. I like to cheer people on! Persevere! Face demons! I support and applaud your efforts 100%! I think myself as a traveller on the same road.

While I don't know where this belief comes from, following through with it is incredibly important to me. It's funny I couldn't see this until I got called on my lack of commitment to the company idea. And now, I can see that this has been something of a recurring pattern when I have worked at other companies. With few exceptions, a company's underlying value was your heart and the company are one. My energies, however, are directed toward empowering the individual so they can shake free of whatever preconceptions limit their potential; company structure and management often are the limit.

I recognize, of course, that insight doesn't pay the bills. At least when one commits to a company, the company reciprocates with salary and benefits. This allows the individual to survive. This is not an automatic if one pursuits the path of freedom; think "Live Free or Die!" The Declaration of Independence, remember, was a declaration of war. If it had been a single colony declaring their independence, that would have been tantamount to declaring suicide. But when a community of like-minded individuals works together, the odds are significantly changed in their favor. So perhaps that's what I'm looking for in a community: shared values, a willingness to take action, and a belief that it will be good for everyone in the end.

Community and Happiness

In studies on happiness, everyone who was very happy could point to a strong social network of friends and family. And for all the shaking of fists and declarations of independence, all I really want is to be happy. The two are related.

If I am going to pursue the formation of a company or be part of a community of like-minded thinkers, what are my expectations? On my freelancer / idea forum, this is the pertinent rule I post:

• Don't be lame. Contribute constructively. Be respectful of each other.

And then there are my basic life beliefs:

• You can do anything, maybe badly, but that shouldn't stop you. You will be surprised by what you can do, and where it will take you.
• Keep yourself open to opportunity.
• Treasure the good people around you. Avoid the toxic ones.

Those would be the operating principles of any community I am a part of.

The Pursuit of Happiness is Happiness?

CBS Sunday Morning's segment ended with this observation:

Maybe Happiness is a journey, not a destination.

If that's the case, then my mission must be learning how to make maps.

Printable Tanabata Star Festival Streamers

I was reading about Tanabata, the Japanese Star Festival, for the first time a couple nights ago. Tanabata has all the ingredients for a good festival: a poignant backstory about two lovers separated by the entire Milky Way, a begrudging Sky Emperor that allows them to meet ONLY ONCE A YEAR, plenty of regional variation in the tradition, and of course awesome decorations. You also get to make a wish on Tanabata, writing them down on pieces of paper and hanging them on bamboo trees in the hopes that the two lovers will see them as they cross the Milky Way.

I've seen pictures of this festival in movies and, I suspect, console games like Harvest Moon, but didn't actually know what it was until very late in the day of Tanabata, July 7. All the stores were closed, so I quickly made some colored streamers on my printer and hung them on the basil plant on my deck.

When I showed the picture of the plant to my sister, she asked where I had gotten the streamers from. She suggested that I post the template online, so I've cleaned it up a bit and am making it available for download. And since Tanabata is celebrated on July 7, August 7 or July 31st, depending on what region you're in, you still have two more chances to make a wish this year. It's not too late!

Using the Tanabata Streamer Template

First, I should disclaim this by saying this template is not an authentic decoration from Japan. On the other hand, it is something cool to do for yourself; I don't think it's as huge a cultural faux pas as washing your face with the oshibori in polite company, or drowning your nigiri in soy sauce at the sushi bar, but STILL...consider yourself warned! :-)

STEP 1: Download the Template. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the document, which you can get from the Adobe Acrobat Reader website.

STEP 2: Print, then cut paper into long strips. You'll have to trim off the ends, of course. I just make them wide enough to feel right.

STEP 3: Punch Holes. This is so you can thread some string or something through them.

STEP 4: Write a Wish on the back of the strip. I made a rhyming wish as an example; apparently people also write haiku and other poems. That might make the wish more potent? Something to consider, especially if you are planning on making OUTRAGEOUS wishes. Since I had a lot of strips, I wrote down wishes for other friends and family who said they could use a boost.

STEP 5: Hang the strips on a bamboo tree. It was already 10PM so I didn't have time to go get an actual piece of bamboo. I considered using some of the leftover chopsticks from pork lunchbox night, but they are actually some kind of soft wood instead. So I hung the streamers on the basil plant on my deck. At least it smells nice and is edible.

Wishing Well

What I like about this custom is that it projects your wish into the world. Our wishes color our perception, and sometimes that's enough to open doors; my own wish was crafted with this in mind. So far, nothing has come to pass, but I remain hopeful---and that is exactly how I wished to feel this weekend :-)

Enjoy!

» Download my Tanabata Streamer Template
» More information about Tanabata
» More printable stuff (though not quite as craftsy)

An Introduction

My buddy Senia recently graduated from the Masters of Positive Psychology program at UPenn, earning yet another of a string of degrees from schools like Harvard and Stanford. What impresses me most, though, are her insights about the world and how we as individuals relate to it and to ourselves. And instead of looking for meaning in complexity like I tend to do, she just points in a direction and says, "see that?" and follows up with an awesome question, citation, or quote. She's also very present in the world, and I think this gives her the ability to see things that I ordinarily don't; a lot of my more interesting ideas have sprouted from one of her observations or questions. I'm very pleased to see that she's started her own blog at senia.com, writing about business, happiness and intuition. It's about time, dude! Welcome to the blogosphere! :-)

Friday is Question Day at senia.com, and today's question is What’s the best thing in the world? Making this introduction is certainly one of them, from where I'm standing!

The Worthlessness of Ideas

Commenter Ben Yoskovitz challenges the idea that ideas are worthless, a view I have stated one-sidedly in a recent post: Obsessing Over Lost Ideas. It's completely understandable that Ben would take affront to this, and he unleashes a laundry list of reasons why ideas are great.

Here's some of his points (check out his post for more detail):

• Ideas create communication.
• Ideas Have No Risk? Says Who?
• Ideas help us be more creative.
• Ideas lead to change.
• Ideas foster communication.
• Ideas are the birthplace of businesses.
• Ideas beget more ideas.
• Ideas foster enthusiasm.

Yes, yes, and yes! Don't get me wrong...I love ideas. My perspective, however, is that ideas by themselves have little worth from a "results" perspective. An idea that stays in my head just takes up space, so either I tell someone about it (useful!) or I do something with it (world changing!)

Ideas that Make Me Itch

The scenario that irks me is when someone believes that being "the original idea-haver" is an entitlement, and that anyone who actually goes and does something with it is ripping them off. When I used to be a teaching assistant for graphic design students, I would occassionally have to resolve complains that "Student B is ripping off my idea!" It usually came down to something like this:

"Dave, did you see Student B's work?"

"Yes, Student A. What about it?"

"She's totally ripping off my design!"

"Really? Tell me more."

"See how I'm using circular elements here on my layout? She's..." and here the student would lower his voice, humbled by the ethical sins he was about to expose, "...she's also using circles! Like me! You have to stop this! It's not fair!"

The thought that would go through my mind was, "What, did you invent the circle? Are you the first person to put it in a design? Sheesh!" I would usually tell them something that the circle is a pretty basic element, and it was how you really used it that would make a difference...look, there's so many other ways you can combine size, tone, image, etc to make a completely different look that blows away "The Circle Stealer", who would happily go on with her business learning instead of, you know, looking over her shoulder.

Then there's the scenario where someone believes in idea-work equivalency; that is, having the idea in the first place entitles one to claim credit for all the work that was done to make it happen. Their argument is, "Hey, you wouldn't have been able to do anything without my idea, so really everything you've done based on it belongs to me." While this perhaps is true (and this is when I wish I'd studied Rhetoric in college), it's also incredibly disrespectful to the people who got off their asses and did the work. I have a particularly strong allergic reaction to people like this.

Ideas as Catalysts

I don't think what I'm saying is an argument against what Ben is saying. I actually agree with all his points; our difference may be where we put the emphasis. I would say that there's three ways I measure the "worth" of an idea:

• As a catalyst for action.
• As a catalyst for communication.
• As a catalyst for community.

My position is that though ideas are catalysts, the meaningful expression of worth is a result of the complete reaction. A catalyst without something to catalyze is just inert, sitting and doing nothing.

On the other hand, a catalyst is a substance that enables incredible things to happen. While a catalyst is inert by itself, so is that pile of resources. A true catalyst enables you to transmute that pile of resources from junk into gold. And truly, that is worth some serious bucks.

So if ideas can be catalysts in the way I describe, aren't they then by definition worth something? Well, no...most ideas are not catalysts. They are wishful thinking.

Imagination versus Catalysts

A non-technical Mac user once told me his idea to solve the Great Macintosh Speed Problem of 1986 (a drought which continued until 2006, I might add). His solution was brilliant in its simplicity: "Put more than one processor in the Mac! They're not that expensive! Problem solved!"

I started to tell him, as the ever-eager computer engineering student, that it wasn't that simple, but he would hear nothing of it. He had solved the problem in his mind. That's wishful thinking...a pleasant fantasy, but not one that was easily acted upon. That is not to say that dreams don't have a place; as Ben points out, these dreams (ideas) inspire us. So of course we do have multi-processing Macs now, finally...the idea never died; it just took a lot of hard work and a completely different operating system to get it right.

I'm going to postulate that a true catalyzing idea has to meet the following criteria:

• It describes a specific reaction between resources yields some desirable result that can be applied in an existing process (physical or social).
• It short-circuits our notion of how such reactions have occured in the past, creating an order-of-magnitude lead over existing methods.
• Our perception of the reaction is irreversibly altered, redefining conventional wisdom in the process.
• And the most important criterion of all: We think it's AWESOME. That's the gut-check, where our intuition comes into play.

If you have such an idea, I think you've probably got something. And that is worth crowing about to someone. You have just crafted a piece of practical magic.

If your idea falls short on any of these specifics, that's OK. Use it as your defining vision, and inspire yourself. Rest assured that plugging away at your idea will yield results, maybe not the ones you were expecting, but it may lead up to that life-changing critical insight that does pay off big. As a dance instructor once told me, the hardest part about taking dance lessons is just showing up.

If you have an idea that you think is worth something...show us. To paraphrase one of my favorite movies, "it's a moral imperative".

The Divisiveness of Ideas

One thing Ben said struck close to home: telling people about your ideas can be really scary. I think I've slowly lost my fear of that, but that is because am relatively independent and I tend to judge ideas on their own merit (I'm an INTJ/INFP, if that means anything to anyone). Unfortunately, a lot of the time people judge us by our ideas, and that can have serious repercussions in the workplace and even the home.

I'm using the term "ideas" pretty loosely here, so I will make a distinction between what we say we believe/think, what we imagine, what we plan, and what we perceive:

• What we say we believe/think -- Religion, Mac versus PC, Red States versus Blue States...you know. This isn't what I'm really talking about when I say "ideas" in this post.

• What we imagine -- This is a little closer. This is about values, dreams, and desire. It's also very private, and in a politically-charged environment these bits of information can be used against us, twisted to create a damning statement from our own words.

• What we plan -- This is more nuts and bolts; "how we will do things to achieve a certain goal". We can be judged on this too, by our bosses and coworkers, who all have their own idea of how something works. If our plan doesn't hold water, it splashes all over our chance for promotion. Bummer.

• What we perceive -- I'm a big believer in looking at things from multiple angles, because ideas often work only in a specific context; you have to be able to see the context before you can have the idea. Then the problem is explaining it to someone with a different perspective. You see this happen a lot between upper executives and floor workers: executives see a very distorted picture of how things work if they don't get out of their corner offices. Even worse, everything they say and do is magnified thousands of times beyond what it may really mean. This is a good example of 1% of what is visible is perceived as 100% of the reality, which doesn't do anyone any good in the long run. When your crazy-sounding idea comprises the bulk of that 1% to your boss, you're going to be careful about what you say.

I don't have any solutions to this, other than deciding to be a freelancer and work on my own ideas on the side. I'm incredibly grateful that this Internet thing exists for me to ramble into, but even I am nervous about what I put up here from time-to-time:

• That post I wrote about getting a manicure, for example, was predicated on the idea that "seeking any kind of experience and writing about it is good"...a strong position to take! On the other hand, I was also worried that people might think I was some kind of nancy-boy, and I'd never have another date for the rest of my life. I decided that people who thought that were probably people I wouldn't be interested in hanging out anyway, and just let it ride.

• Then there was the one about thinking negative, which I wrote when I was feeling kind of depressed. I spun out a somewhat derivative-but-authentic tale about seeing ghosts in my house, and by the end of it I actually felt much better. And. I. Posted. It. That night I couldn't sleep because I imagined losing my entire readership because This Is Not What I Signed Up For. The next day, I got some calls from my friends that were like, "Um, OK. You OK?" and Gueeessss whooooo thiiisssss issssSSSSssSS? WooOOooOOooo! But I also got some comments from people who appreciated the story, and shared some of their own experiences with me. From then on I decided that I would just post what came to me, and live with it. I don't want to live in fear of my own ideas.

So that's where I'm coming from. I'm very pro idea, but I nevertheless value them more when they're put into action or shared.

Now that I think about it, this is probably one of the main motivations for my private Freelancer/Idea Forum: it's private and optionally anonymous because I wanted to create a sanctuary where people could feel free to express their ideas. I value every idea that people post about, and I believe that everyone who's active feels the same way. Although anyone can sign up, there IS a price of admission: you must share a little bit of yourself before you're allowed to join the community; that takes some guts and motivation, and knowing that everyone in the forum has gone through that rite of passage automatically makes them one of your peers.

And with that, let a thousand ideas bloom.