Obscurity, the curse of being a person who is isolated and without connection.  Did you know that you may only be six degrees of seperation away from someone of real influence?  Probably, BUT I bet you didn’t know that you can build a wall around yourself that makes you feel like you are the only one who knows something about something.  Well, I can say that through this blog I have learned that you aren’t the only that knows something about something.  Others do and chances are they may be equally as interested as you in finding that stuff out.

How do we box ourselves into obscurity?

The way I did it, was primarily through three ways.

Way # 1 – The language we use

A colleague pointed out to me the other day that I had reduced my potential on the academic market 400% (not his words mine) because I kept referring to the work I was doing as methodology rather than applicability.  He encouraged me to use more general terms accepted by the wider community and find more acceptable language to promote myself.  So instead of saying, “conceptual frame shifting” which is academic language I could use, “changing your perspective”.  Now my audience of interest is about 400 times wider than it was before.

Way # 2 – Having  a bad attitude

Another thing that I did which boxed me into obscurity was the idea that everyone didn’t have a clue… but me.  This is stupid.  You are not the only person who knows something about your area.  Chances are, you feel alone and rightly so in some cases… maybe even out of place.  However, you are the not the only one.  A paper I wrote recently was published in a journal that most people, or so I thought, didn’t really read.  After it was published I received several emails from people all over the world saying how the core idea of the paper was helpful to them.  They were from agricultural science, information systems, technical and management backgrounds to name just a few.  Now, I never thought I would ever get an email from anyone about anything I had written, let alone someone in agricultural science!  The people are out there, you just have to patient and look for them.  Most people are not going to hunt you down,  you have to find them.

Way #3 – Refusing to network

This one is particulary hard for me because I am not an out-going person.  I don’t like going to parties and I certainly don’t like swapping business cards!  That’s me.  However, if you want to work with interesting people you have to build bridges here.  It’s hard, but the world is not external to us, we made, co-create and develop it.  Without people there are no partnerships, no buildings, no work, no progress … only nature!  Now unless you worship the sun or don’t need a network to take your ideas and use them, then you need to find partners to work with.    This is hard but the fact of the matter is people support other people, there is no magic here, it’s a simple matter of maths!

There are many more things we do to box ourselves into obscurity.  However, these are the ones that I have used and more recently realised were attitudes that were hampering my development.  I have to be honest here and say more often than not, I will avoid people.  BUT I am learning and getting better at this, and I hope you are too.

A few years ago I wrote a post about what I was learning from integrating a Tiki Wiki into the curriculum of a course called Mobile Workforce Technologies.  Time has passed, wheels have churned and work was done.  GUESS WHAT!  A paper came from that experience that started on this very blog…

Read the paper here

The idea that came to me while we were using the wiki, shaped the final outcome here and I am very happy with this paper.  Ideas are not just little things we keep and then throw away.  They are things from which BIGGER THINGS can grow.  Like papers for example.  More than that though, ideas have a way of being carried sometimes way beyond what you intended and can reach bigger and better heights when you let them go.  This small victory is a case in point.

Ideas are important and we need to be constantly building, shaping and guiding the ideas we have.  We need to stretch boundaries, go beyond what we accept and create more about what is known, we need to build better things from the dust of our past failures.  We need to destroy creatively the past sometimes and make new things grow where they need to.  Standing still doesn’t work, observing doesn’t work… it’s action and the engagement of new ideas!  Get out there and build something awesome right now! DO IT!

I am attempting to do something similar to Alison who wrote a list of things she was interested in as an attempt to find focus.   At this point in time I find myself horrendously bored with my work, life and pretty much what I spend 99% of my time doing.   Perhaps, boredom is a larger symptom of a dissatisfaction with life itself… especially since I set out with four goals this year and none of them have been reached.   Yes, I am whining and so what.  You don’t like it … I apologise.   This is not a whine though, it’s a structuring activity, I am attempting to build a list of things that I am interested in.  So here it is… the master list… in glorious technicolour black and white:

A list that makes my previous list feel less adequate

1. The art of starting a business (and not failing!)
2. Internet and internet business
3. Human problem solving and how that works
4. Fiction writing
5. Creativity and design
6. Gaming
7. Technology (cool stuff not fixing or repairing computers or programming… I HATE THAT)
8. Family stuff and values
9. Existence and reality
10. Theology, the human spirit and matters of Faith
11. Music and guitar playing
12. Film (pimpslap!)
13. Aid work
14. Having fun

This is all I could think of right now!  Our lives are rich are they not?  However, in all the fluff I read there is something I have found to be of value. Recently, in our standard occupational health and safety text, I was led to a section on strategic planning. This sectionthat had some interesting information on how to meet objectives.  You have to formulate the steps as a “To” statement (that was my interpretation, upon reflection it probably didn’t say that!!!) To me I think I could summarise what I would want (i.e. the deep down desires) as the following “To” statements:

1. To start new and interesting business ventures
2. To write new and interesting fiction
3. To learn new and interesting things every single day
4. To somehow contribute to the spirituality of people in a positive way

Now comes the next part.  I need the “how”.  Dammit!  Oh well… at least I have begun my life structuring exercise.  I can’t leave it here, I need a how statement of some sort.  The “How” puts legs on the “To” statement. For example how would I learn new and interesting things every single day:

How: Make a conscious effort to seek new opportunities to learn interesting things every day by making time to learn something (basket weaving, French, eschatology, step aerobics or fly fishing for example),  for a small amount of time everyday.

Now this is a commitment.  I am committed!  Learning is a way of life for me and I love it.  But I only love it while it’s new.  Hence, why I want to start new and interesting businesses.  I hate the boredom of repetition found in work  routines and the mundane grind of administration… if I could I would outsource the ruddy lot of it!   In fact I probably do… let’s not talk about that, let’s talk about the how statement.  Now, I must work out the how as I possess more clarity that I previously thought I did when I started writing this thirty minutes ago.   I am ending this post now because I must meditate on the “how”!