Inside the Hive

There are 71 days between today and my graduation ceremony. I know that there are 71 days because I keep refreshing this web page on my phone, encouraged as I anticipate the return of Thursday nights and Saturdays, sleep and maybe even a social life (however unlikely.) 

People keep asking me what I’m going to “do with my MBA,” as if the diploma is the critical ingredient in some world-changing concoction I am expected to manufacture, thereby proving it was worth sitting in a classroom for two years and amassing all that debt.

I have never known how to answer this question. It is narrow in its implication that I am required by the Masters Degree Gods to immediately change jobs upon graduating. I am still learning, challenged and motivated in my current job, and in today’s market, I know very well how fortunate I am to be able to say that. It is uninformed in its premise that I will not begin to apply the knowledge acquired in graduate school until I am done. I have been working full-time throughout the program, and in that time have completed many projects I would not have been able to manage without the skills I learned in my last class. And it is ignorant in its presumption that I went to graduate school to learn how to step on other people on my way up the corporate ladder (in case there’s any doubt about that, I did not, and that’s not actually what they teach in business school.)

And yet I do agree that in a greater sense, accomplishing this goal is an opportunity for reflection. Am I making the most of the chances that are given to me? How do I learn from this experience to be a better leader/daughter/friend/partner/etc.? How do I pay forward the gifts others have shared with me? I don’t have the answers to any of these questions either, but my nightstand is supporting a pile of books like this to help me harness my thoughts into something productive.

The title of this blog was inspired by something I use in meditation, when my mind is full of unanswered questions and disorganized thoughts. It’s no secret that I want to be a beekeeper (why is a story for another post,) and that in many ways, I think bees are smarter than people. When I am overwhelmed and anxious about the future, my mind is like an unhealthy beehive. Without a leader (a queen bee), the inhabitants of the hive run in all different directions, making lots of noise without getting much of anything done. 

When I meditate, I visualize a healthy, swarming hive, in which the voices of individual bees are indistinguishable. Each bee is completely focused on performing its work, which it does in order to sustain the hive. It’s not a competition to get ahead. No bee sits in the corner of the hive complaining “What’s in this for me? I work so much harder than the other bees. I have a masters degree and they treat me like just another drone. No one ever notices me in this hive. My life is so unfair.” Self-absorbed bees would never be tolerated in a hive. In fact, when a bee stops contributing, it is immediately and unsentimentally removed by the other bees (for more about bee behavior and its applicability to us, read this book.)

Ultimately I think my answer to the “what will I do next” question will not be about using my degree to get the next bigger and better and fancier thing. It will be about applying my skills in a more meaningful way, and one that does some good for people beyond myself. I don’t need to know right now how I will accomplish that; I just need to keep an open mind, and remember that I can do anything for 71 days.

Reflections on "7 Massive Ideas That Could Change the World" (WIRED Magazine)

In business, when we learn about strategic planning, all we are really studying is the art of articulating a vision - first to ourselves, then to other people in our organization, then to people outside of our organization who have an interest in what we are doing. Every great vision starts with a simple idea, and every great innovation is simply the result of a person or a team of people who are willing to do whatever it takes to make the idea come to life.

What if we took this concept and applied it to education? We lament over the collective national lack of interest in science and mathematics, but maybe all we need to do is get a little better at communicating our vision to our youngest and brightest minds. Instead of forcing bored teenagers to memorize periodic tables, what if we started by showing them what humans are capable of creating when they possess a basic understanding of the building blocks of life?

Take “Big Idea #2” from the attached WIRED article, for example. We can teach anyone that a proton combined with an electron creates hydrogen, but why do we expect them to care if they have no concept of how a single molecule of hydrogen is relevant to them? But if instead, we open with, “We can create enough free fuel for the entire planet as long as we have sunlight,” maybe now we’ve captured their interest long enough to teach them how a battery works.

I’m sure there are many great educators who are already doing this, and I applaud them. I can’t help but think that if we enthusiastically encouraged and funded this type of approach, we’d have more aspiring scientists, mathematicians, technologists and innovators than we’d know what to do with.

On Standing Where They Least Expect You

I Guess That's Okay

As a natural introvert, I’ve never liked calling attention to myself, but to make it in the world as an adult, I’ve had to overcome some of my most comfortable insecurities. There was the fear of public speaking, the fear of confrontations, a hint of social anxiety and an irrational fear of treadmills to be grappled with (I always thought I’d be the person who flew off the back in the middle of a crowded gym.)

I’ve always thrived behind the scenes, behind the lens, behind the words I write for other people. That is, until I made the uncomfortable discovery that things which were becoming important to me required a little more boldness and a little less hiding behind things. I found myself attracted to leadership, which demands the willingness to sometimes seem ridiculous, to communicate visions people aren’t ready to accept and to be more vocal and visible than I used to think I was capable of being. If I wanted to grow into a better leader, I needed to take some risks, make some dumb mistakes and stop retreating to my comfort zone.

A year and a half ago, I took a risk few people saw coming. I went back to school, not for the MFA I was expected to get but for the MBA I actually wanted. I was truly grateful for the people in my life who supported my growth and encouraged me throughout the process of applying, getting accepted and learning how to manage the rigors of fulltime work and school. From the rest, I endured the endless “what about your art” questions, and the jokes about “selling out,” “working for the man,” and “moving to Wall Street,” and I pretended they didn’t hurt. I knew a month into the program that I’d made the right decision, and that was enough to keep me going. Seven months away from graduation and what I anticipate to be one of the proudest moments of my life, I no longer feel the need to explain myself.

I don’t mind that I’m not sure how to answer the “what will you do with your degree” question, any more than I could six years ago when it applied to my BFA. I just know that I could not have predicted then how much I’ve learned, or how many different ways I’ve applied those skills or how glad I am that I bucked the wishes of my high school guidance counselors and went to art school. If I remain as open to trying new things after this degree as I did following the first one, it will have been worth it.

I have a lot of ideas - some of which are completely and utterly foolish. I hope I put everything I have into every single one of them, and I hope I fall flat on my face at least a few times. I hope to have more stories to tell my children about things that worked and things that didn’t, and about how I picked myself up bruised but slightly wiser. I hope to things that make my Dad say “this will build character,” a remark I used to roll my eyes at but now aspire to. In the meantime, I’m happy to be enjoying the process. 

What Would Dorothea Do?

Much internet fury has been leveled at AFP Photographer Joe Klamar for his rather unfortunate (in my personal opinion) portfolio of photos of the 2012 U.S. Olympic athletes. In private conversation, I have contributed to the deluge of different approaches we’re all convinced we would have taken were we to find ourselves in the same scenario. But candidly, none of us have any idea whether our results would have proved superior, because none of us were there. So let’s just put our judgements - and they are many - aside for now. 

I will admit, however, that this incident has left me troubled. Today, Joe Klamar finally released an explanation of sorts, citing not the deliberate fly-in-the-face-of-athletic-prowess vision some had interpreted in the photos, but a lack of preparation as the root cause of the awkward portraits.

“I was under the impression that I was going to be photographing athletes on a stage or during press conference where I would take their headshots for our archives,” [Klamar] explained. “I really had no idea that there would be a possibility for setting up a studio.” (Source: PetaPixel)

Okay. I’ll take his word for that, and I’ll even relate. Who among us hasn’t felt that moment of sickening panic upon realizing that the scenario you planned for is the exact opposite of the one you’re in? 

But what sets us apart in moments like these is what we’re capable of creating under less-than-ideal circumstances. I can’t help but imagine what Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks and other unarguably great photographers I grew up idolizing could have produced with two cameras, three lenses, one flash and a 12-inch laptop.

We have more technology, ease, convenience and waste available to us today than my childhood heroes ever dreamed of. And yet, the quality, the integrity and the character of their work puts the vast majority of today’s images to shame. 

I hope our Olympian portraits can serve as a reminder that when we think we have too little to work with, we can leverage our constraints and find a source of creativity that might have otherwise eluded us.

Of course, if that’s too difficult, we can always blame our circumstances. 

Banned!

It isn’t easy to write an effective marketing piece that accurately describes your product, service or cause in simple terms, leaves people with a compelling idea and gives them reason to consider supporting you or your brand. And yet, some marketers seem to try to make their jobs harder, by talking as though their audience is comprised of something other than regular human beings. Why else would someone try to sell me something by promising “islands of excellence”, “carousels of progress”, “goldmines of opportunity”, or “nuggets of information”? I think I recognize those words as belonging individually to the English language, but I have no idea what those phrases mean in the context of your product.

In The GobbledyGook Manifesto, David Meerman Scott analyzes this epidemic of marketing failure, and explains why people are so fond of saying these confounding things: “Because these writers don’t understand how their products solve customer problems, they cover by explaining how the product works and pepper this blather with industry jargon that sounds vaguely impressive”.

Two years ago, inspired by @dmscott and frustrated by the barrage of buzzwords filling my inbox every day, I started keeping an Evernote list of “Banned Words and Phrases”. These are things my marketing team and I will immediately backspace over if we find ourselves saying them. All have been said in actual conversations I’ve been involved in, or marketing materials I’ve received. Feel free to contact me for the complete list (currently at 123 phrases and growing), but here is a sample:

  • 360-degree view
  • Best-of-breed
  • Competitive advantage
  • Cross-pollination of ideas
  • Deep-dive
  • Double-down
  • Integrated efficiencies
  • Off-the-shelf
  • Real-time savings
  • Second-to-none
  • Turn-key solutions

We add phrases to our banned list when they could be removed from the message without changing its meaning, or when they could be applied just as easily to the benefits of your so-called unique and innovative offering as to the cereal we had for breakfast.

Marketers, make it stop. Put a little more effort into speaking in terms that humans can relate to. Make me believe there are real people working at your company who want to talk to real people like me. It might take a little longer to get your message out, but I bet more people will want to do business with you.