Finding WOW – the Toxteth Riots & Wimbledon Photographers
Regular readers (and those who have just randomly come across my LinkedIn or Twitter profile) will know I like WOW projects. The term comes from Tom Peter’s article in Fast Company magazine back in 1999 that explained that in the new economy, all work is project work. And you are your projects!
He said: “Your goal should be to work in perpetuity with Wow people, on Wow Projects, for Wowable clients.” It’s still true today – and will be in the future.
From the start of my working life, I’ve been fortunate enough to be involved in some Wow projects with some Wow people. I’ve been reminded of this a couple of times in the last 24 hours.
Firstly, I picked up the paper this morning to find a story about the Toxteth riots being 30 years ago this week. That was the week I started my first job
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– a Trainee Press Photographer at Mercury Press Agency in Liverpool.
I’d not bargained for my first week in employment to involve the coverage of some of the worst rioting on mainland Britain.
I can always remember the phone ringing late at night after the family had gone to bed. I was told that another photographer would pick me up (I didn’t have a car) and would take me to Toxteth where there were some sort of disturbances.
The first pictures that I took were of riot police dragging away an injured colleague as buildings burned around them. It was scary – but exciting for an 18 year old who had dreamt of being a press photographer. It was what I’d wanted to do through my adolescence.
My mum and dad were concerned – especially when I didn’t arrive home for another 20 hours (that meant I had worked through the night and had no sleep for 30+ hours). I’d photographed the aftermath of people trying to put their lives back together after the riots.
I was back out in Toxteth the next night – and for many more nights over the next month. I witnessed CS Gas being used to quell a riot on the streets of mainland Britain for the first time; photographed a policeman stabbed in a related demonstration; and recorded a protester run over by a police van and then dragged in to the back of the vehicle with his back broken.
I also photographed “Minister for Merseyside” Michael Heseltine being pelted with food by children. It was a baptism of fire for a young photographer – but remains a Wow experience in my life.
This week, I’ve watched quite a few hours of Wimbledon coverage on BBC HD. The quality of images is superb – nearly as good as having a courtside seat. Looking at the background of the TV images, about 60% of the photographers sitting at Wimbledon Centre Court this week were my colleagues up to 1994, when I hung up my cameras. So they’ve continued to have Wow time for 17 years since I left this work behind. I got immense enjoyment from having the best seats in the house at Olympic Games and World Cup Finals with these photographers. It was a Wow!
From Toxteth Riots through to world class sports coverage – I had a Wow experience. Since those times, in the last 17 years, I’ve been fortunate to work on some Wow projects. Including growing and selling a business, winning a National award for technology – and most recently managing to find “funemployment” projects helping a Duchess and creating a children’s cricket charity.
I’m currently on the look-out for the next Wow projects. First step, as you might expect from the title of my blog, is developing my Personal Network for the new challenge. Do contact me if you have anything Wow that I might be able to help with!
Where you live – creativity lessons from Bono & Bowie
The place you live is mostly associated with quality of environment. However, you can’t underestimate the effect it has on your ability to create.
I listened in to a BBC Radio 2 interview by Chris Evans with Victoria Wood the other day. They were discussing the creative process and Wood said: “If you have no life – you have nothing to write about.” It’s important not to become so detached that you separate yourself from the elements of life that give creative energy.
After Wood said this, Evans relayed a tale about how David Bowie calling Bono to say “I can’t write anything interesting anymore”. Bono replied “Look at where you live” – Bowie lived in Switzerland – “You need to move.” Bowie took the advice
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and moved to New York – and the creative juices flowed again.
I’m enjoying the benefits of moving out of the countryside and in to the city of Bath. It gives me the energy I need and the right lifestyle to get the creative mind whirring again. By coincidence, I’m off to Switzerland next week for a nice bit of relaxation – but the city (and the network of people in it) will be what brings me to life!
I met a man on the internet….
Don’t worry – it’s not quite how it sounds. I’m not joining those newspaper headlines about Facebook fuelling divorce. However, I am meeting some very interesting people on-line – and then meeting up in the “real world”.
I had breakfast with one of them this morning. Rob Geraghty is an entrepreneur – involved in many projects – including his presentation training company the Wow Factor. Rob got in touch with me (via LinkedIn) after stumbling across my blog – and in particular liking the idea of “funemployment”.
We met for breakfast this morning – and one of our similarities was how baffled our wives are by this concept
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of people connecting via the web and meeting up. There is always a raised eyebrow when the response to “what are you doing today” is “I’m having a coffee with a man I met on the internet.” It does seem strange…
However, I’ve been thinking about it – and actually, it’s one of the brilliant opportunities thrown up by social media. In the past you would try and find like-minded people by traveling to conferences, speaking to lots of people with vaguely similar interests – and occasionally finding someone worth connecting with.
In our new world, you can easily find like minded people. You can do the research and understand what makes the person tick – and get to a stage of comfort way before you decide to write that first introductory message to initiate a connection.
I read today about Google’s new tool for “on-line reputation management”. It’s called “Me on the Web” – and can be found in your Google Dashboard. Google and many others recognise that our on-line presentation will be increasingly important as we build our Personal Networks of the future. I don’t believe this to be just a marketing exercise – it’s a way of reflecting on-line your values, interests and character.
Rob has added to my list of men met on the internet. Others include:-
Chris Redmond is an inspirational leader – and thought provoking blogger. (Attended one of his charity fund raising events in Reading.)
Jordi Robert-Ribes is a internationally respected speaker on networks. (Met for lunch in London when he was over from his home in Andorra)
Benjamin Wirtz is a young entrepreneur creating applications to help people manage their networks. (met for coffee in London)
Anyway, Rob was good fun to be around – a very similar connector. Within a week of his email – and before we met in person – we’d made a connection that should be of benefit to the Cricket charity that I’m involved in. Today, we worked through a few ideas that might be mutually beneficial – and our on-line “research” of each other before this meeting has already accelerated the level of connection and trust.
Connecting via the web is undoubtedly the most efficient way to meet like-minded people. I will be continuing to meet men on the internet – and I do recommend you give it a try!
Small Worlds, Connecting the Dots and Dark Side of the Moon
It never ceases to amaze me how the world connects. The “dots” we create as we meet people, take on new experiences and generally make our mark on the world often join together to create startling insights and opportunities.
One of my favourite examples of this comes from Steve Jobs. If you get a chance, watch this video of him addressing students at a Stanford University Graduation ceremony about 6 years ago.
The speech is superb – emotional and motivational. Jobs manages to make you laugh, cry and – most important of all – gets the brains (young and old) to click
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and tick in thought.
One part of the speech focussed on following your heart. Just doing things – that make no sense at the time. He told the tale of dropping out of college and for some reason taking a course on calligraphy. He didn’t know why he took the course – but looking back he can clearly connect this to being obsessed with getting the fonts right on the original Apple Macintosh computer. That’s why today our Mac and Windows computers have great fonts!
Steve said: “You can’t connect the dots going forward, you can only connect them going back.” That was the only part of his magnificent oratory that grated with me. Entrepreneurs can’t say can’t – and you can’t say can’t to an entrepreneur! I think building a Personal Network is the strategic pursuit of creating the dots with a view to making those connections work.
Anyway, this week’s “small worlds” in my life.
1. I bought a book that I’d had my eye on for a while – “Just My Type” by Simon Garfield. I’m not a designer – but I do like fonts. I’d seen the book reviewed – and a skim through in the bookshop convinced me it would be a fun read. I settled down at home to read the intro – and the opening of the book was about the Steve Jobs story above. I’d had it in mind as the intro for “my book” (when I finally get around to writing it!). Ah well, another excuse to not put pen to paper yet.
2. My last blog post was about Reflexivity. I’d never heard the word – and was struggling to find a meaning for it. Lo and behold, one of my twitter pals got in touch about something else – and I mentioned the word (he’s far brighter than me – so I thought he might know a little about it). He sure did:-
As it happens “reflexivity” of two types I am expert on:
– philosophical reflexivity that is concerned with the relation of concepts to experience & how they co-effect each other {example: no point in concepts of left and right if you can’t move. And that is what we find: kids with paralysis & motor difficulties don’t form spatial concepts like left and right easily}
– sociological reflexivity, especially in the work of Pierre Bourdieu the French sociologist (now dead), who pioneered the use of it in empirical studies that avoid dead ends by understanding reflexive co-relations {example: buying behaviour for Chanel No. 5 is based on idea of exclusivity. IF too many class BC&D women buy it exclusivity is destroyed & sales plummet. Therefore Chanel in the 80’s used jazz music in adverts because this put off C&D buyers & some B’s whilst A’s loved it. This re-established the “exclusivity” of their market & sales became stable again. This pattern is necessary to all long term perfume sales. Its a great example of the co-relation of cultural/economic reflexivity.}
3. My blog has been getting some serious traffic (for me) in recent weeks. I hoped it was that people had recognised my talent – but no! It’s the the release of the film – “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” that has triggered it. I wrote a post a while ago entitle “Dark Side of the Moon” – and it has managed to reside on the first page of Google’s search engine. Who says wordpress.com is no good for SEO!
The “small world” on this one is that also residing on Google’s first page for “Dark Side of the Moon” is fellow Bath Tweeter Marcus Tullius Cicer – @georgianbath!
Hoping to join the dots with my Roman colleague at a Tweetup in Bath soon…
“I’d Like to See the Manager”
I’m not sure if it’s only a term used in the UK – but “I’d like to see the manager” is a very British way of saying that I have a complaint. Anyone who knows a Brit will know that we’re not great at making a complaint – we tend to just moan after the event! So, when it escalates to the manager – things have gone wrong.
Our Western Culture seems to have dealt with sidestepping this quite well. The development of retail chains and food franchises means that we’re unlikely to get to look a real decision maker in the eye when the time to complain comes. The result being that our issues is “absorbed”, steam is let off – and life moves on. It’s usually an unsatisfactory “21st Century” experience.
I’ve recently moved home – and for just under 2 weeks have been a resident of Bath. One of the things that has struck me
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is that there is a sense of real community – a connection with people. As I’ve been walking around the city (it’s so compact – I no longer use a car to get around … yippee), I’ve realised that there are very few large businesses, franchises and chain stores – but many small local businesses.
The city also has a couple of great magazines that come out on a fortnightly basis – Bath Life and The Bath Magazine. I’ve been reading them since we decided to move the family to Bath over 6 months ago – and the local faces are becoming familiar just from flicking the pages.
What’s making me feel so good about this City? Well, I think it’s that it lacks layers. What do i mean by that? Well, what you see is what you get. The new deli in Bath, Sam’s Kitchen, is a case in point. I can read a little about the new venture in the magazine, give it a try (nice Fennel & Rocket soup!) – and guess who I can feed back to? Yes, Sam!
It’s a great community because I am only one-degree of separation from the people who want to give me service and make Bath tick. That goes both ways. If I don’t smile, if I’m rude, if I am always complaining – that’s on show too. It’s a city where one-to-one relationships – on a weak or strong level – can develop.
I feel very welcome in my new home. Relationships at one-degree work for me. It’s great to know who the boss is by looking at the name over the door or the person grafting hard behind the counter every day. I’m very happy that “I’d like to see the Manager” will not have to be in my vocabulary! I know who he or she is….
How Technology Fosters Strong Ties – a guest post by Joel D. Canfield
I’m pleased to welcome an “on-line” friend, Joel D Canfield, to the Personal Network Blog. He’s agreed to be my first “Guest Blogger”!
The clearest communication happens face to face, eye to eye. One purpose of my family’s nomadism is to meet eye to eye people we’ve previously known only over the internet. Some few we’ve spoken to by telephone but that’s a tiny portion of the people and conversations.
When it comes to technology and relationships, you know the stereotype: the asocial geek sitting in his basement in the glow of a computer screen, with the misguided belief that those avatars and screen names he interacts with are real relationships. That stereotype, accurate as it may be, doesn’t render technology meaningless in developing and maintaining
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the strong ties of real relationships.
Best Beloved and I use technology to maintain family connections and our real-life friendships from before we began our nomad adventure. These days, though, we’re meeting people we would never have known without technology’s ability to introduce us to real friends all over the earth. (We may even be meeting Phil this summer!) As we move on, technology allows us to maintain, develop, strengthen those ties.
The nearly two dozen online friends we’ve met have yielded precious few surprises in real life. They have all been more or less what we expected. Strong ties created through technology aren’t less valuable or real than those created in “real life”, they just don’t include the option to shake hands or hug. (I’m a hugger.)
I’ll take a hand-written letter over an email or Facebook post any day. There is nothing in the world like sharing a meal with someone to let me get to know them and them to know me. In a perfect world, those are the ways I would foster strong ties in my relationships. Until that perfect world, technology will continue to be a useful tool in fostering friendship’s strong ties.
Bio:
Though he pays his bills as a business author, writing and business coach, and web developer, Joel D Canfield is first and foremost a philosopher who believes that finding why makes what and how become clear. Get to know him at http://FindingWhy.com.