Passions
Someone said to me recently that I appear to be passionate about blogging, RSS, podcasting, and all that stuff. I can certainly see why it seems that way, especially in contexts where I may be surrounded by those who are relatively new to those things and am trying to illuminate the context of where they sit in the big picture of marketing and, well, life. But considering that one of the big reasons I left the Big Blog Company was because I was so burnt out and tired of talking about those emergent technologies, the perception that I am still very passionate about such things is one that made me wonder what I am passionate about.
I ended up at a wiki. Yeah, go figure.
Back in June, when I had left tBBC and was considering what direction I wanted to take next, Adriana showed me her private wiki on Jotspot. It was a neat way for her to organise her goals and priorities, and it certainly looked more fun than using a Word document or some other boring, static format. So I signed up for a free beta account and started hashing through the question of what I really wanted out of life, behind the protection of the password.
Here’s part of what I wrote:
My goal is to advance the migration away from feudal, command-and-control style working methods, towards coordination-and-cultivation management. I want to show businesses how to use emergent technologies to be more efficient, make more money, and enable employees to get more out of their existence. I want to show individuals how to use those same technologies to give themselves more options in life, more control, more motivation, more time, and more fulfillment. I want to show organisations and individuals alike how to gain not only more wealth, but more riches in the form of a better existence…
Oh, the things we write when we’re young and innocent! (Can you tell that Thomas Malone’s The Future of Work was a huge influence on me?)
Although that reads to me as incredibly arrogant and dreamy now, only five months later, it does contain the core of what I do feel quite passionate about, something I am loath to call individualism but which is not far off.
Or maybe it’s just that nothing is more fun to me than showing people what I think is a better way of doing things. (This is not always fun for the person being instructed, especially if the task at hand is domestic and my ‘guidance’ unsolicited.)
What’s missing in the description above is the fact that learning about these better ways as they emerge - and they are emerging at lightning speed right now - is a big chunk of the satisfaction. I have learned a huge amount in the short time since I joined the UK’s market-leading search engine marketing company; indeed, I learn something startling and cool at least once a day. And I’m told by those who know little or nothing of search that I come off these days as fiercely obsessive about the subject. (I don’t talk about it much here, though, as there are lots of others in the blogosphere who know so much more about it than I do. Plus, talking about work on a personal blog gives me hives.)
So I’m not sure what my passion is, but it contains elements of the following:
* learning
* teaching
* empowering others to empower themselves
* not being able to keep my mouth shut
The conclusion of my cringeworthy “What I want to be when I grow up” diary writing above reads thusly:
More important to me than money is that I have plenty of time for the things that I need to stay sane: Antoine, family, learning, and connection with others.
You know what buys that time? Money. Like I said, I learn something new every damn day.
Filed under: Life