Seeing What’s Inside

I've got a friend, J, who is studying to become a doctor in the Washington D.C. area. Since she works almost all the time and we haven't talked much recently, we started trading snippets of everyday stories for fun. So yesterday, J is working at a senior living facility, where she is volunteering while school is out, and she had a personal epiphany that moved me to tears while I was sitting here at Starbucks. She's graciously allowed me to share her words here:

So, I have a story to tell you. Yesterday I went to volunteer in this senior living facility. I do a free blood pressure check-up for the residents there once a week there. Because the facility is an apartment for the seniors with the amenities geared towards senior living rather than a nursing home, the residents are pretty in good shape. However, one of the patients obviously did not look normal but rather disabled. He had a disproportionately large head compared to his torso, even more so when compared to his legs. His torso was so hunched over forward, he reminded me of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. On top of that, he couldn't walk well even with the walker. His lips were open constantly and he drooled. His hands were permanently deformed due to the neurological damage which caused contractures. Hope you get the picture.

I glimpsed him walking (rather, dragging himself) into the room and felt a little bit of repulsion in my gut because he just didn't look like a human to be honest. He walked in and sat down on a chair next to me while I was checking other residents' BP which took a good 10 minutes. When it was his turn to take BP, he mumbled something and showed me his note book. He couldn't even speak right so I had a hard time understanding him. He kept saying the same thing repeatedly, and finally I figured it out. It was that he drew a profile of me in his note book while he was waiting and he wanted to give it to me when he was finished. It was so touching that I almost had teary eyes. In the drawing, there were crude outlines of me which occupied half of the page. The lines were so zig-zag that it was hard to tell what it was at first glance. Yet, when I looked more closely, there was the eye, the nose, the lips and even the glasses I was wearing. The face was colored with red and yellow crayon which were the only color in the drawing. It might be just my own imagination but I could tell this person in the drawing surely is an Asian. When I looked at the drawing I could feel my heart wringing in my chest and ache. Here was this person, who didn't even look like a human to me, who had the talent and the kind heart to draw me and give it to me!

It turned out that he used to be a painter and he still enjoys it. I asked him whether he could show me some more drawings in the notebook. When he flipped through his notebook, there were pages after pages full of peoples faces all with the familiar zig-zag lines, yet with well-captured features. A chubby-faced boy with lots of freckles, a middle aged African-American lady, the security guard of the apartment, and so on. And he told me who these people were in his notebook. Some he saw in the emergency room a couple weeks ago, some were fellow residents, some were visitors, etc... He made me realize how shallow, calculating, judgmental I was. I failed to see past the person's outside. I forgot that there is a soul in every human being no matter what kind of physical state he is in. It was amazing how one little drawing could change me so much and so deeply. It was amazing.

I reflected on this story for many long minutes, sniffling quietly, and was newly amazed at how every small interaction with another person can lead to...well, I don't know what to call it. A connection? A change? Maybe it's a reminder that so long we have the capacity to recognize a genuine gesture from someone's heart, or to have the ability to express in that same way, we create the opportunity for something amazing? I have myself been going through an identity crisis of late, and have been hyper-aware of my barriers and preconceptions. I've been more self-conscious than usual---or perhaps it's more accurate to say that I've reverted to an old self-consciousness---as I've tried to work out what it is that's been bothering me and define a course of action to correct it. J's story reminds me that this is all in my head, and that if I can be open to what is out there, I'll find amazing people and experiences just like this, hidden behind doors I wouldn't ordinarily open. It could be that simple.

But there I go, introspecting again about myself. Thank you, J, for sharing that special moment with those of us who needed to hear it and didn't even know it.

Podcamp Boston July 19-20

I've signed up for Podcamp Boston this-coming weekend, July 19-20. I don't really know that much about it, but I'm sort of craving another SXSW-style experience and this sounds like it just might be it. I convinced a good friend of mine, Erin, to tag along so she can learn about the mysterious world of social media and apply it to her nascent blog over at Living Vicariously. I'm really looking forward to meeting other people in the area who are doing the same thing. The following panel titles have caught my eye:

• Turning Buzz into Business - Christopher Penn ... I feel I should know more about how business people think so I can use this with my own design practice.
• NeoVictorian, Nobitic, and Narrative - Mark Bernstein ... I have no idea what this is about, but the combination of "NeoVictorian" and "Narrative" piqued my curiosity. Maybe it is my soft spot for Jane Austen.
• Using a live podcast to allow your readers to "become part of the conversation" - Nikki Starr ... Until I can afford to travel freely around the world, telepresence may just be the way to do it in the meantime.
• Is the 2.0 Generation Prepared to Inherit the Earth? - Alexa Scordato and Maria Thurrell ... This is a fascinating idea, and as someone who is participating more in "the world", I might pick up some hints on what I might be looking forward to.
• All I Really Need to Know I Learned From Knitting - Guido Stein ... What? I must know!!!!
• Marketing Over Coffee with David Meerman Scott, John Wall, and Christopher Penn ... I like coffee. And I like the human puzzle solving that goes behind advertising and marketing. Might be an interesting panel!
• Audio vs. Video Podcasting: Panel Discussion - Jeff Hinz with Mignon Fogarty, Michael Gaines, Steve Garfield, Dana Hawco ... I'm interesting in knowing the pros and cons of either media approach, though I think I could guess.
• Common Audio Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them - David Fisher ... This may save me some time in the future. Mostly I am hoping for software and gear recommendations ;-)
• PR 101 - the Basics - Sharon Davis ... I have a very general view of how PR works from a systems perspective (agencies, news outlets, etc), so I could use some instruction here
• Building Your Brand Through Passion & Community - C.C. Chapman ... This is TOTALLY what I want to do.
• The Authentic Enterprise - Jacqueline Prescott ... You had me at "authentic".
• Sustain the Fun - Business Models & You - David Cutler ... I want a fun business model, one that I will find motivating AND make money to fund all the various enterprises that I think would be awesome and empowering.
• How People & Organizations Make Decisions - Dave Wieneke ... I am interested in comparing my own understanding with that of the panelists.
• Breaking Into the Conversation, Busting the Cliques - Leslie Poston ... Although I'm far less shy than I used to be, I find it difficult to bust into a conversation where I haven't been invited. Teach me!
• How Social Media is like High School - Adam Zand ... This just sounds like it could be fun :-)

I just read that PodCamp Boston Registration ends tomorrow (July 16) at NOON, so if you're planning on going now is the time to sign up. Looking forward to meeting some new people to possibly scheme with :-)

Freelance Referral Network Building

Today I got an email from someone looking for a referral if I was still booked through November (I am, on that museum interactive project). It highly irritates me that I don't have a good referral network of deserving people who share my values. Almost two years ago, I wrote about a different kind of freelance network that would be powered by circles of personal recommendation of the work, from which the nature of the person can be inferred. My theory is that as freelancers, we really have no idea what clients respond to, so we put together a portfolio of our "best work" and hope for the best. Frankly, it all starts to look the same after a while, and it's impossible to see the person behind the work because we assume that he/she is the same. I say show your most "you" stuff, and let people form their own impressions. If they like what you see (and this is hard to predict), they will act if it's convenient relative to their need.

Referring

When I refer someone, I insist on qualifying what I know about that person's work and character. I don't refer someone who I don't trust, and if there are areas that I think are important to the business prospect that I can not speak to from personal experience, I say that. Here are some of the things that I like to see in the people I refer, adapted from my original post:

• Defines tangible, concrete results.
• Is candid, real, and honest in establishing expectations right from the get-go.
• Tells you how much something will cost before the work is done, to the best of their ability. Sets the expectation that this may change under specific conditions without being a jerk about it.
• Acknowledges the sending and receipt of critical work and related dependencies (e.g. receipt of asset photographs, etc)
• Strives to understands the nature of your work and the context in which you operate.
• Is willing to learn how to speak your own language (business, art, etc).
• Teaches how his/her profession works as necessary or as asked...no secrets! Good clients hire for the person doing the service, not the service itself.
• Actively collaborates to deliver tangible results at every stage of the project
• Keeps your best interest as the priority, not maximizing revenue at your expense, at fair compensation.
• Takes appropriate protective measures in terms of contractual scope that are mutually beneficial, and/or requires mutual commitment through tangible action.
• Looks out for other's relevant interests in day-to-day operation.
• Delivers great product on time.
• Is a source of good ideas and brainstorming.
• Enjoys the process of communication through regular dialog.
• Accepts criticism and disagreement, and works with that to help bring the project back into alignment (any feedback is good :-)

I don't expect to see every one of these line items in the same individual, and goodness knows that I am not perfect in this regard either. However, these values are what I aspire to professionally.

Building

The original initiative petered out as I got involved in other projects, and I figured that the energy it would take to build the network exceeded my available energy. This is still the case, but I'm now thinking of a relatively lower level of commitment. Ask people for resumes. I just posted this on Twitter:

I need to expand my referral network: If you kick ass at whatever you do and have 3 examples of ass kickery to back you up, contact me!

I'm going to keep everyone's information on file and start the positive critical review process myself on the information provided. This is useful for me because I'll start to rebuild my rolodex of people to go-to for work. Secondly, I will make the review process public by posting my positive impressions of the work I get to see. This means I focus on possibility, not expectation. It's up to the hiring client to make a determination whether a given freelance is reliable enough to do the work; I merely want to see what people are doing so I can connect the right gigs with the right people. This is something I like to do anyway, so it will be fun. This is a sort of variation on word-of-mouth, designed to create short lists of qualified candidates as opposed to filtering through hundreds of people.

So if you're an ass kicker of any stripe, send me your information or post it in the comment area. I am not sure how this will all play out, but I think it will be informative in some way. Here's what you should do in the email:

• Provide your name and public contact information
• Provide links to your three best examples of your work, as you see it. And that means you pick three links instead of throwing the whole portfolio at my head. It'll be hard, perhaps, but this is about what YOU think is important, not some abstract demographic. Three means three.
• Tell me what you think you do. If you don't know, that's OK, so long as you picked what you think your three strongest bits of work are.
• Tell me the story of how you got into what you're doing. This is very important context for me.

What I will do is spend about 30 minutes on each set of links, and then I'll spend another 30 minutes doing my informal analysis of how I can imagine your work being used in a given situation. I'll then post it on the public wiki for my reference, based on when I can get to it and what people are asking me for. It will be visible to the public, but as I said I will be only posting the positive reactions I have. This is not a recommendation I'm making; I'm merely documenting possibilities. As I said, it's up to the hiring party to do their own due diligence.

The benefit to you is that you'll get my perspective on your strengths and how I imagine it might fit with other people. People who have gone through this process with me have told me I should charge a lot of money for this service, but in this case you'll be doing me a favor by helping me expand my Rolodex. I can't promise that I'll get to everyone in a timely manner, but I will try my best to help people make connections.

A Year of Going to the Gym: Recap

I started going to the gym on July 1st, 2007, so it's been a year of time and expense. Was it worth it?

In terms of weight, I am about 10-15 pounds lighter than I was before, which is still a rather hefty 210 pounds. I have also gained an inch in height, measuring 5' 8" tall. This was an unexpected development, and is perhaps due to stronger back muscles and improved posture. I attribute the lack of weight loss to a lack of control of my diet. I've shed about 3" from my waist, however, and I think some of the fat has been replaced with muscle. I have to take one of those body mass index readings on my friend Duncan's scale to find out.

In terms of cardiovascular endurance, I am vastly improved and can go almost all day moving people's houses or running around outside. It took about three months to get to the point where I can maintain regular 160-170bpm heart rate on a machine without feeling winded. This came in handy last winter when I was in downtown Boston and my friend had left their luggage in the taxi we'd just vacated. We ran as fast as we could down Newbury Street, suit coats flapping behind us as we booked down the brick-paved sidewalk on a beautiful autumn day as passers-by watched on in curiosity. I'd always wondered how FBI agents chased anyone down in their dress shoes, and apparently the secret is that they are in good shape; I was just a touch winded, and felt pretty darn good.

I haven't really focused on muscle development, but I am a little stronger. I haven't really pursued a regimen of exercise other than to work the core muscle groups, alternating between lower and upper body. I also do some abdominal things on some machines along with some isolation of the arm muscles.

Other areas such as posture, balance, and mental clarity have also improved to some degree. My biggest challenge currently is keeping the daily workout to a reasonable amount of time. If I had time to burn, I could spend about 90 minutes total. However, I tend to get sleepy afterwards, and that kills the rest of my momentum. I'm experimenting with a lighter regimen that's designed more to wake me up and get some sweat out of me, but this isn't very satisfying.

Ok, ok, enough stalling! Here are two pictures to compare "pre-gym Dave" to the current state-of-the-art.

At the left I'm at a "Chainsaw Garden Party" event I attended in 2007, a few months before I started going to the gym. I'm looking pretty hale and hearty after layin' down some manure. Definitely chubby, but I'd like to think I'm lovably so ;-)

On the right is a picture I took for an online dating profile in late June 2008. Since no one was around to take my own photo, I had to use a mirror (hopefully distortion free). I think I can detect shifts in the subcutaneous fat of my face with some improved definition, and there is an increased leanness in my torso, and my posture seems more balanced.

Long Term Lessons from the Gym

Hey, it's cheaper than having Starbucks every day, especially if you factor in your health insurance provider's willingness to reimburse you for part of the cost of joining. I paid $249 the first year to join the club, a one-time fee, plus $19/month. My health insurance required that I go 3 times a week for at least 3 months to kick in $200. The subsequent year, I am just paying the $19/month because I've already paid the joining fee. Theoretically, that works out to $240 for 12 months, minus the $200 that my health insurance provider kicks in once you show them the proof that you've been going. Grand total: $40/year. It's better than cable, and it's infinitely better for you.

If you get to like the feeling of physical exertion, sweat, and exhaustion, then the gym gives you an automatic hobby when you're too bored to go to the mall. I've done this a few times; there's always a muscle group, sport-like activity, or exercise that you can work on for a few minutes.

My gym is fairly quiet, so it's become a place of solitude for me. There are a lot of books and podcasts that you can consume while you're doing that 30 minutes of cardio on the treadmill. I sometimes just meditate or zone out. Some days I try to work through programming problems. It's a great time to be with yourself.

If you go to the gym every day, you will eventually run into people and make their acquaintance. This has happened to me three times, and in two of those cases I made some new friends.

Next Challenges

To lose another 10 pounds would be fantastic, and this will take concerted effort on my part to count calories and increase the intensity of my workouts, which are not as rigorous as some of the ones I've seen people follow. I also have become a little lazy in going to the gym every day because work is pulling me away through guilt. It might be time to put together my own targeted regimen to emphasize the areas I'd like to most improve: upper body strength and core abdominal and back muscles.

You can read about the first few weeks of going to the gym here:

• I didn't even know what to wear or do with the machines
• Learning to have a conversation with my body
• Getting past self-imposed limits and other epiphanies
• Surprise, I have a new habit!

Groundhogs, The Future, and Tanabata Too

It's 07/07, which is Groundhog Day Resolutions Review Day 5. This is one of the 10 days during the year when I review the progress of my resolutions. In 2007 , I did a fair job of keeping to task, but my zeal for process faltered this year. I've been all over the place, as you can see from my past posts on the subject. Last month's update was really just an admission that I didn't really like tracking my goals because I lacked real passion for it.

Today is the day when I reset my expectations.

From Goals to Business Outline

Here are the general goals I'd set this year. I've crossed out the ones that I've either achieved or no longer need:

• Work based on my vocation, so it's work that sustains me in spirit, mind and body.
• Figuring out how to be a full-time writer and content creator, because I like it.
• Commit to Deriving Income from Writing and Making Stuff
• Sell a Product
• Build Sustainable Social Networks ... done!
• Reduce my needs. If I can live cheaper, then I need less money, and can work less ... maybe I should focus on making MORE money instead :-)

On review, the first three items on this list are really the same thing: how to make a living doing something I love. My challenge for the past two years has been to figure out exactly what that means. The criteria for making that living is, functionally speaking:

• It's gotta be energizing, not draining.
• It's gotta be something that people can use in their daily life, and therefore be worth paying for.
• It's gotta be easy for me to do, yet relatively unique in the marketplace to maintain a leading position.
• It's gotta be appealing to people that I find appealing.

Then I have some additional criteria for satisfying work:

• It's gotta be functional and high-quality.
• It's gotta have my voice; in other words, I represent myself in plain english.
• It's gotta include your voice. If I don't hear your story, I will not be motivated to help you build you dream.
• It's gotta be bullshit-free. I reserve the right to define this in any way I see fit, within reason of course.

The rudiments of a business model came to me as I was visiting the studio of Sid Ceasar, a local photographer that is starting a local scooter club. I was quite enchanted with his studio, filled as it was with toys, posters, and other cultural artifacts that suggested an eclectic mind. Sid's studio told me the story of who he was and where he was going, and when it came time to describe what I did for a living this came out:

A the heart of everything I do, I like to share stories and experiences. All my media skills are employed in service to that.

Now, I've written about this thought before, but in the environmental context of a friend's working studio the words helped evoke a different shape. The follow-up epiphany was that my design business really aspires to the following:

I help people create stories they can live by.

This captures a lot of different impulses I have: design, storytelling, sharing experiences, and productivity. And most importantly, I realized that there was a tiny voice inside of me that was trying to say something.

Shedding the Armor

So what do I mean by "tiny voice"? Last year I posted about acting coach Susan Barton's approach to creating a "walking, talking human being" for her Oscar-award winning clients. There are three parts:

• The first is the need that is deeply planted in you by the time you're around 5 years old.
• The second is the persona you create to cover-up or protect that need.
• The third is the tragic flaw, which arises when there is conflict between the need and the persona. That's when things get interesting.

The little voice is that need, trying to express itself. As a little boy, I was pretty happy but tended toward feeling like an outsider. I spoke English and only English, and going to the Taiwanese Church where EVERYBODY EXCEPT ME spoke Taiwanese made me feel worse than stupid. It got worse when our family moved to Taiwan; again, although I went to an American/International school and could speak English every day, culturally and socially the rest of the island was a mysterious and frightening place. My need for understanding had a second dimension as well: I craved reliable and definitive references for my interests, and was often let down or put down by people who had "mastered" the subjects through some means I didn't follow. I came to the conclusion that I was probably just dumb.

To cope with the feeling of dumbness, I focused on things I liked doing: writing essays, drawing spaceships, and debugging computer programs. It was upon these competencies that I built my persona. Writing I could always do, so I went into Computer Engineering and generally did well. I went on to Art School for computer graphics design, got into the video game industry, burned out, and ended up doing Internet stuff before discovering blogging. Over this period of time, I developed a pretty sophisticated and comprehensive set of methodologies that I have come to rely on, both professionally and personally. It is my suit of armor, girded when the going gets tough.

Recently, I came to wonder if that suit of armor had become a substitute for interaction, masking something else very deep inside of me. I realized that it was "the need" again, making sad noises and emanating mild terror. These feelings had been there for so long that I no longer heard them; they were just part of my automatic reaction to the world. The armor, effective as it was with dealing with the nastiness of the world, had muffled it.

I was scared to look, visions of The Tell-Tale Heart coming to mind. What if I didn't like what I saw. But I had to look. Defining and facing your fears is just one of those things that you have to do.

I lay down on my bed, looking up at the ceiling. Then I closed my eyes and quieted every rational and analytical thought that was going through my mind. After a few minutes of this, I felt the desire to bounce around in the world without fear. The manifestation of this desire wasn't myself as a little boy. Instead, I envisioned a little bird, like the sparrows I see every morning at Starbucks. These birds had made an impression on me because they are aggressive, bold, and industrious in a cute sort of way. Now I was seeing them wrapped up and muffled by my persona, and they're clambering to get out to start talking to people without apology.

"Whoa", I breathed to myself, "I am going freakin' nuts. I should keep this to myself."

I came to the conclusion that these little birds actually were tough enough to face the world despite their small size. In other words, I didn't need to protect these innermost desires from the nasty world. They can face it. If the world gets REALLY nasty, I can strap on my armor of rational objectivity then. The armor, however, is not me. I have to lead with the little birds, which means I have to lead with what is important to me in my heart. I suspect this is one of the keys to following my bliss.

In the days following this epiphany, I've found that I've relaxed a lot more when dealing with people, and for the first time don't have trouble making eye contact. I don't even think about it anymore, as the little birds bustling inside of me will do what they want. Before, I would rationalize my behavior: "What am I saying when I look at someone? What will they think? Will I offend them?" These are old behavioral patterns that are obsolete. Now, I know when I look that I'm just looking and taking in those people in the environment that I find interesting, no big deal.

Next Month's Concrete Goals

For the coming month, I really want to work on the whole idea of a story-based design business that employs my particular powers of observation and analysis. I could write this up as a brief, but I think the form it will take is similar to my Make Your Own Museum approach on my public wiki. I think it will feel more "live". It will be fun to define what this "agency" would be like in my wildest dreams. Hint: there would be a professional kitchen :-)

Secondly, I want to start blogging more regularly. I've been letting my other project sap the energy out of me in this regard, and it's important to me to maintain momentum here because this is my main business. Shorter posts, with one idea per post, might do the trick. I'm thinking a 3-day a week schedule; we'll check on this on August 8.

Thirdly, I want to complete my online dating profile by incorporating some of the suggestions I'd received. Yes, it will be shorter, and I will keep in mind that you really just need 3 or so intriguing things listed. I'm not out to sell my entire being on the first read (which is what I was doing). I'm just trying to be interesting enough for a date...thanks for that tip, everyone :-)

Making Wishes

July 7 happens to be a Japanese holiday called Tanabata, a day when you write down your wishes on paper streamers and hang them from bamboo trees. I'm planning on deploying these wishes as goals for the rest of the year.

• Let the world directly touch my inner self (i.e. those birds) instead of impacting on the armor. And vice versa: let the inner self lead, not follow, the armor.
• Let my community grow and flourish.
• Have the guts to approach some women and ask them out.
• Stay real.
• Stay in motion.