[Opinion] Google’s Glass Problem is Your Problem Too

There’s currently no compelling reason for us to buy Google Glass.

There’s also no compelling reason (beyond the SEO game) for us to be involved in Google+.

There’s no compelling reason because the guys out at Mountain View haven’t given us one, other than the fact that they currently own all of Internet search worth talking about.

But, as the attention of the world shifts to mobile phone use, apps matter more than search, and Google will have one less compelling reason for us to be involved with them.

The utility of search, mobile, and even wearables is based upon the idea of resolving a need or a want that the customer has and then making the solution so attractive that we can’t help but use it.

However, as the web has matured, Google hasn’t and the utility of wearables really comes down to third party data gathering about users’ behaviors, antics and actions.

The much more compelling reason for us to buy Google Glass—or any other wearable—will be answered, not by Google, or Yahoo, or even Facebook, but by Big Data advocates and privacy hawks.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

[Opinion] The Idolatry of Selfie

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the selfie is on the rise.

So is being famous just for being famous.

And there are parents out there that are using their children to promote fashions, lifestyles and conscious ways of being.

All of this may just be fancy marketing, attention seeking behavior, or merely a sign of the times.

Much has been said and written about the rise of narcissism in the overall culture, and we won’t add to that here, except to say this:

The most pernicious conflicts that can occur are the ones that people have with themselves. And the rise of narcissism can be directly related to three things:

Idolatry of self
Idolatry of others
Idolatry of fame and celebrity culture

Once understanding occurs around those three areas, then we can maybe become a little wiser in how often we retweet that Ellen DeGeneres selfie.

Or the one attached to this post.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

Well That Went Viral

Well, that went viral.

How often do we note that now, in the post-social environment that we all now inhabit?

Going viral can be a good thing for an idea, a change or a movement.

Going viral can be a bad idea for a team conflict, poisonous personalities and bad ideas.

Unfortunately, when the negatives “go viral,” they can kill the body in which they live, unless stopped by a trained professional.

A “Doctor” of conflict, if you will.

Because, by the time the interventions occur, an outside expert may be needed in order to ascertain the cause of the negativity in a clear headed fashion.

And in start-ups, small businesses and partnerships, a viral conflict among passionate people can cause major damage.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/
HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com

[Advice] Ethical One-Way Streets

The European High Court handed down their opinion dubbed the “right to be forgotten.”

What’s missing in all of the subsequent debate occurring around issue of privacy versus censorship, is the very real issue about a lack of organizational (read “Googles’”) ethical dealing.

“Organizations are seeking honest, fair, reliable, benevolent partners who will commit themselves to the relationship and prove trustworthy. In other words, they seek ethical partners.”

Organizations seek ethical

partners
employees
vendors
customers
clients
and audiences

who will deal fairly—and transparently—in the public commons space of the pro-social spheres that we have created.

However, when asked to engage in the same trustworthy behavior, (read “providing individuals the benefit of the doubt, forgiveness and grace about their messy histories”) they balk.

And then organizations wonder why individuals—who only build real, lasting relationships based on genuine trust, collaboration, ethical dealing and just plain enjoyment of each others’ company—balk at having their every move monitored, recorded and then used against them later.

Doesn’t sound like the thinking that leads to the behavior that will sow the seeds of peace to us.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

2 Cups of Active Listening

There are two parts to active listening.

Two Cups of Active Listening

The listening without speaking part is obvious.

What’s not so obvious is the listening with

honor
consideration
and caring.

These require exercising patience, which goes out of the window if you are dialed in on what you’re saying and thinking–and how to respond to the other person–rather than the actual emotional content of the other person’s statements.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/
HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com

Social Youtility

So, here’s a story that will seem wild, but in the context of a shared, collaborative economic system, it’s really not.

We here at HSCT are staying on the cutting edge of the marketing evolution taking place right now in the world, and a huge part of that is hanging out, listening to podcasts, attending online webinars, and reading a lot of blogs.

A LOT of blogs.

And we could always, read, write and research more than what we do, but occasionally an opportunity comes along that allows for all of our talents and skills to coalesce.

That happened this last Wednesday at around 1pm EST. We were invited (via email) to attend a webinar hosted by Ion Interactive, where guest Jay Baer was talking about his latest concept, YOUtility.

Now, YOUtility is not new. As a matter of fact, it is the basis of everything that we do here at HSCT, and one of the key concepts behind YOUtility is the idea that brands should create content (video, blogs, podcasts, advertorials, advertisements, shows, etc.) that is so good that people can’t ignore, won’t want to and will want to pay to see more of it.

See why this appeals to us? It’s the Steve Martin concept writ large.

Anyway, we were on this webinar and were encouraged to live tweet questions into the host with the #IonWebinar. We did this almost incessantly for the entire hour as Jay was presenting the high points of YOUtility.

In the question and answer segment, we even got one of our questions answered almost directly. Something about getting the C-Suite on board.

As a result of about 45 minutes worth of work, we and five other live Tweeters were rewarded with a hardcover copy of Jay’s book, which you can find by clicking here.

Who says that social doesn’t work?

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

The Psychology of Mobile Flow

There’s little talk about the flow involved in online and social media conflict communication practices through the use of applications.

Or, for that matter, the flow of communication via your mobile phone.

We have a thought.
We type it in.
We press send.

No thought involved in that process.

But search (think Google) often involves more steps. The flow is interrupted by the nature of the process.

We have a thought.

We type it in the search bar.

But then the questions start or a finger slips and a misspelling occurs.

“Did I really mean that?”
“Am I spelling that word right?”
“Is this even what I want right now?”

As the war between talent and virtue heats up in online conflict communication spaces, the social communication tools begin to resemble more and more the speed of instinctual thought (where considerations of bad/good fall away) and move further away from patience and deliberation.

Traits which might interrupt our collective social communication conflict flow.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] Who Will Hire The Bigots

In a world where talent and ability matter more than character and virtue, what is an old racist to do?

Donald Sterling, former owner of the LA Clippers behaved abhorrently in many ways over the years, which was well documented everywhere:

in court documents,
among close friends and business associates,
even by a fractured, distracted, ADD-ridden, news media.

But until his comments were recorded surreptitiously and then played back, not one iota of an issue was raised.

He was even given an award by the NAACP.

But now that the dust has settled on that unrepentant old racist, what are we to think of his sudden change in fortune?

In this current incarnation of American culture, talent and ability trump character.

And character and virtue seem to only matter as they publicly buttress innate talent and ability.

See Tiger Woods’ fall from grace as an example of this.

When culture giveth position, power, accolades and applause, culture can also taketh away.

Forgiveness and grace are gifts to be given out of a sense of compassion and empathy (are Sterling, Woods, former Mozilla Firefox CEO Brendan Eich not human? Do they not bleed?) But a desire for lockstep conformity prohibits this. And when character is linked exclusively to talent and ability forgiveness and grace are hard to come by.

Because everybody fails.

Particularly the envious.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/
HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com

Dear Graduates of High School & College – 2014 –

Dear Graduates of High School & College-

You have been told a lot of things by a lot of well meaning individuals on the way to the end at which you find yourself. You have been told things by your parents, your teachers, your counselors, your professors and even your crazy Aunt Ida.

But now, I’m going to tell you something that none of them may have had either the wherewithal or the gumption to mention. I’m going to try to do it gently, but, as a famous man once said “The Truth isn’t mean, it’s just the Truth.”

So….here we go…

Life is hard. Your grades, those letters that you spent a lot of time, sweat and—in some cases—blood, to get don’t matter a hill of beans to anybody outside of this institution from which you find yourself escaping.

Those little letters (and numbers in some cases) actually serve to hobble you and handicap you in venues outside of here.

The attainment of them has twisted your thinking into believing that there is only one way of doing, thinking, and being, when, in actuality, there are an infinite number of ways of thinking, doing, and being and no one can tell you which one is the best.

This realization is the chief thing that makes life hard for the first five years after you leave here. There are right and wrong decisions, but there are no definite decisions.

Employers don’t care about how smart you are.

You are the smartest generation to ever graduate from educational institutions that haven’t changed their approach to education significantly since World War 2 (it was something that happened in between the end of the Great Depression and the end of Jim Crow. Google it.) and no one outside of these walls cares about your level of intellectual intelligence. Unless you’re a doctor or engineer.

Employers only care about you showing up, doing the work, not complaining or bad mouthing them either in person or online, and then taking their check and going home to your one-bedroom, badly light and poorly heated apartment.

They don’t care about your student loan debt.
They don’t care that you fed kids in Kenya last year.
They don’t care that you have an active Youtube.com channel with 30,000 hits.

Employers are really…really…really…narrowly focused.

They only care about how much your work adds to their bottom line. In business speak, this is called “added value.”

And most of your bosses, i.e. employers, supervisors, managers and others above you, who will hire you, are people that never graduated college and couldn’t wait to get away from high school, or who drank their way through college and ten years later made anywhere between $250,000 and $1,000,000.

And all your intellectual capacity won’t matter a hill of beans to them.

Develop something, anything that you own.

Look, social media is great for Snap Chatting to your friends, knocking other people on Twitter or getting all hot and bothered about the Ukraine or social justice on Facebook, but these platforms can also be used to build a project, an idea or—even a business—that YOU care about.

This road, the road through entrepreneurship—is hard, heartbreaking, long, and lonely and will not be materially fulfilling for the first ten years that you are doing it.

Almost everyone will tell you that you’re crazy.
Almost everyone will silently cheer for your failure.
Almost everyone will tell you about their half-baked ideas.

But if you can survive all of that, you can have something that no one in any previous generation has had for a very long time: Positional financial security.

Or, you’ll crash and burn and fail.

But, at least you won’t have another $150,000 of student loans in your life, chipping away at your financial, emotional, marital (some of you out here WILL get married) and psychological health.

I will not close with the maxim that many do to “follow your passion.” The reason I won’t is because the Greek root of the work passion really means to “work unceasing.”

I will close by encouraging you to work.

Work unceasingly.

So…go do that.

Go to work.

Thank you.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

A Question of Scaling

Does this idea scale?

It’s popular question around here lately at Human Services Consulting and Training as our efforts become more targeted toward our customers, fans, followers and others.

The question come from a series of assumptions that have very little to do with the work that we are doing—consulting, freelancing, “entrepreneur-ing” at the intersection of peace, education, problem solving and communication—and have a lot to do with how other organizations have “built out.”

Scaling up for peace is a tricky proposition, primarily because everyone—the fan, the customers, the followers—wants to own the victories; but at the same time, they want to minimize the defeats.

The only organizations that we have seen scale up for peace successfully have been churches. And we don’t know about you, but we’ve noticed that sometimes the world and the church don’t always see eye-to-eye.

We answered part of this question last week here, but the answer to “Does this idea scale?” can only be answered by you.

So…

Give us an answer by connecting with us on social media via the channels below our signature line, or by sending us an email, and, as usual,

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant

Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)

Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com