It’s the last day of my pre-BlogWorld Self-Talk on how to get the most out of my networking opportunities.
NOTE TO SELF: Ask yourself these questions before tweeting. Would I say it in person to the person standing next to me? Would I have to whisper it for fear of it being overheard? Would I have to be drunk to say it? Would I have to be crazy irate to say it? Would I have to be a mean, hurtful jerk to say it?
More questions to ask myself, whether talking online or in person: Am I bragging? Am I hogging the conversation? Am I asking questions as well as answering them? Am I sensitive to interest level and appropriateness of what I am saying? Am I listening as well as being listened to? Am I having a conversation or giving a monologue?
I like twitter but it sure can be noisy, rude and dumb if you let it. Not much different than if you are at a cocktail party or other social gathering. You can have mindless chit chat, deep conversations about ideas, drunken rants about all sorts of conspiracies or just pleasant pleasantries with pleasant people. I should remember to practice being the person I want to be, no matter if what I am saying is for the birds or some other animal.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
If you had been networking with me you would know it is day #4 of Networking Week at the New and Improved NDD!
I am not a blogging superstar. I am a blogger, and I do have plenty who read and follow the NDD but I am not a superstar in the blogging community. I am, however, going to Blog World where many of those superstars will be. I will recognize some of them and introduce myself. They won’t know me from Adam (or Eve). But nonetheless I will let them know I admire their work and how they have helped me in whatever way they have. I promise I won’t stalk them. I might hover a bit, but no stalking.
Maybe someone might actually come up to me and say they know who I am but I won’t know them. It’s not an impossibility, but it is not likely either (at least not until after my presentation). I am cool with that. I am there to meet unknowns and knowns alike since both might need what I offer and both might have what I need, who knows. I hope most of the other people attending or speaking are there for the same reason.
After all, Fame is no guarantee of importance.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Today is day 3 of my pre-Blog World self-reminders on all things network and blog.
Ok, so I am going to Blog World in a week. I am not too worried about the information I let out while I am there. I don’t drink so it’s not likely I will get drunk and say something stupid. Then again, I can say stupid things while totally sober. But I do have information to give, that is why I am speaking there. And I don’t want all of that information to get out beforehand, at least not in it’s complete form, until I am ready to present it. Some is good, but all would diminish my presentation and I don’t want that.
But for me to have a successful trip it will come down to editing my information. Not just my presentation information, but ALL my information. Is what I am talking about while I am at Blog World going to be focused or is it going to be just a big hot mess of whatever. Am I going to be on plan, on target while I am there, trying to learn and help others learn or am I going to be distracted in both my commmunication and in who and what I pay attention to? I don’t mean I will not allow serendipity and casual conversation, of course I will. but I don’t want to spend an hour talking in the expo about a digital tool I have no intention or ability to use just because they are giving away something shiny. I don’t want to forget why I am there and what my goals are.
I don’t want to be pissing into the wind.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Keith Henson, 1942-not dead yet, American electrical Engineer and founder of the L5 Society – promoting of space colonization.
In anticipation of my trip to speak at and attend Blog World LA next week I am using this time to talk to myself (and others) about what will be important for me to pay attention to while I am there.
Today is all about ‘The Plan’.
I find it hard to do all the things necessary to have a commercially successful blog. I do a lot, but it hasn’t been quite enough yet. One of my goals this year, and in particular at Blog World in LA next week, is to learn better, to learn again, the art of planning in social media and blogging. Of course to do that I need to plan it. So, I am learning how to plan by making my plan to learn how to plan. Sounds like I need help!
What tips and tricks do you have for me and my readers when it comes to planning, especially in the world of blogging, social media and conference attendance?
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
I am going to be speaking and attending Blog World LA next week. In anticipation of that event I am going to be talking to myself this week. I want to remind myself of why I am going and what I hope to accomplish while I am there. Hopefully what I say to myself will resonate with others who are going to this, or any, conference.
It’s such a well understood idea that it is a cliche: You must cultivate relationships in networking to get ahead. I agree with it, as far as it goes. The problem is it doesn’t go far enough. It is not enough to collect contacts like so many vegetables at harvest time. For me to feel and be successful at networking I want to transform my private garden into a community teaching garden.
I have many areas where I need the expertise of other gardeners in the blogosphere. Wordpress, database development, monetizing, you name it, I need help with it. But I also have some expertise as well; art, design, writing, content creation, If I want my fellow blog gardeners to help me in my areas of need then I need to be willing to help them in theirs. But wait, isn’t that what I am doing by speaking there? Yes, it is what I am doing and I am very hopeful my session, Six Stop Signs on Creativity Road (Friday 4 pm) will be of great benefit to many. But my session is going to last an hour. With people talking to me after (if I am lucky), maybe another 45 minutes. The conference lasts 3 days. Am I going to single-mindedly pursue harvesting from other people’s garden during the other 70 hours or am I going to set in my mind that I am in a community garden where I will look for opportunities to plant encouragement, motivation, inspiration, knowledge and friendship in at least equal portion to what I harvest for myself?
This week I went to a Tulsa Blogger’s Meetup. It peaked my interest because it was being held at a place called ‘Fab Lab Tulsa’. I hadn’t heard of it before but it sounded cool. I also wanted to go because the presentation was going to be given by the director of an online magazine and blog called ‘Prairie Hive’. I didn’t know anything about it either but it also had a cool name. I get seduced by cool names, can you tell?
FAB LAB TULSA
I got there a bit early and a young woman named Mary gave me a tour of the lab, officially named Hardesty Center for Fab Lab Tulsa, and explained what it was all about. Fab is short for fabrication. The idea is to have a place where entrepreneurs, small manufacturers, artists, programmers, and others can come to build prototypes of products, experiment and learn techniques in materials, create art, and develop ideas for projects. In a word, the place is awesome.
There is an electronics bench, a milling station, vinyl and laser cutting.It was most impressive.
It has a classic fabrication shop with the addition of an incredible ‘ShopBot CNC Router’ that can precisely cut in 3 dimensions.
They have a 3D printer that can make actual working objects, like the wrench and bicycle chain pictured, from a file you send it.
Recently they hosted a Hackathon for programmers and this weekend they are hosting a ‘Start Up Weekend’, basically an intense incubator for entrepreneurial idea generation and development. I suggested to them that a similar event for artists could also yield some amazing work. Some day I hope I have a project that will allow me to use that space!
She told the story of the inception of the blog and online magazine. Basically she kept seeing a lot of cool design stuff online from all around the US and Canada and said to herself, “I could do that for where I live, the midwest prairie.” She also realized in short order she couldn’t do it alone. So she gathered a group of dynamic women and they became the hive behind Prairie Hive.
They germinated the idea in February, 2011. And had it launched by April. Pretty impressive if you ask me. It’s even more impressive when you hear that they completely had no technical clue what they were doing. But as with all great entrepreneurs, that didn’t stop them. They kept learning and now they have an online magazine that stands with the best of them!
I love how dynamic and energetic the Tulsa community is, whether blogging about design in the home or creating detailed prototype products. It’s a great place to live and work!
The following is a correct statement: Today is Day #3 of Life Science Week
The Glory of Confusion One of the most satisfying things about studying science, even at my amateur level, is the glory of discovering how many things are contradictory truths. It doesn’t make sense that both are true, but they are. I like that, even as it confuses the bejesus out of me. I am not a big fan of confusion, but I am a big fan of that feeling of understanding that comes after it! That is why I study and/or try stuff that is really hard and confusing (ask me about php and mysql database stuff…THAT is confusing!)
The Life in Life Science I think what maturity I have came into being when I started to realize that my understanding of the world and my response to it wasn’t some absolute truth. It was my truth. It was affected by my biology, my family, my DNA, my experiences, my body, my decisions. I think that is one of the hardest things to deal with in a marriage, for example, is realizing that your spouse is not thinking about your life together exactly as you are. His or her understanding and response is completely and utterly different than yours, even if there are areas of overlap. How you cope with that truth is key to whether you will have a happy and successful marriage.
The Beginning of Maturity It is true that we all have different truths of how the world works, why it is that way, and what our response should and will be to it. Understanding that everyone’s truth is a profound truth that deserves to be understood and respected, even if it causes stress and complications in life, is the beginning of maturity.
The Better Truth After all, how can any of us move into a better, more accurate understanding, a better truth so to speak, unless we can acknowledge the truth we already are living.
For the life of me I can’t believe it’s only day #2 of Life Science Week at the NDD.
I had a conversation once with a friend once where we were talking about what we believed. We asked each other questions and some of my answers were, “I don’t know.” and some were “This I believe.” His answers were all, “I don’t know.” He was unwilling or unable to state, “This I believe.” about anything. In his mind the declarative statement was one he couldn’t step back from once it was made. He didn’t want that restriction on him. The conversation was frustrating for me as a result. We had no no base from which to explore, so to speak.
Having that ‘Eureka!’ moment is a great moment in life. Finding something, whether material, intellectual or spiritual, is wonderful. But the declaration of finality can also shut off possibilities. It’s overdone and it gets in the way of further discovery often times because your mind closes off.
But I also have the attitude that it’s ok to say you believe something. You aren’t making a vow that you will always believe it. You are simply saying, “As of now, I am starting with this as true. I might find it’s not true in the future, and if I do, that is fine.”Scientists do that. They start with certain assumptions of truth. They are willing to test those assumptions to see if they hold up. They don’t test them every day, all the time. Many of their assumptions will be with them all their lives. But a good scientist is always willing to entertain the notion that something they believe may not be true. They are willing to say “hmmm…that’s funny. I wonder if…”
Are you willing to do that in the science that is your life?
We all know the scientific method. It’s pretty simple in its essence – hypothesize, test, evaluate. Then you repeat with variations until you get it right.
Here is my question to you – Do you follow the scientific method in your life? Are you deliberate about figuring out what works, what is true, what is healthy, what is wise in your life? Do you experiment and find something to be true or false or do you just go along with what you have been told, afraid to test on the chance you might have to change what you think or how you behave? Perhaps you do experiment but you never learn it, repeating the exact same test over and over again even though you know it will end in failure.
I know in my own life the people I trust and admire the most are those I am confident will look at the evidence that is their life, will be honest about what is really happening in it and how they feel about it, and will adjust as needed, even if it is painful.
As it is in science, so it can be within yourself.
It’s day #4 of ‘What’s The Problem?’ Week at the NDD
When I got divorced in 2000 I had a lot of resentment towards my ex-wife. When she would come over to get or drop off the kids I would be civil, but cold and short with her. I knew that forgiveness was good, but forgiveness also meant telling her that what she did was ok, right?
Wrong. I realized that forgiveness wasn’t about my ex-wife, it was about me. What person did I want to be? I wanted to be the person I always had been, a kind and forgiving person. I couldn’t be that if I was holding it back towards the most important person in my life up to that point, no matter what she had done.
But I was confused. I thought I had to forgive first, then I could eventually be kind. But I soon realized the opposite was true. I had to be kind first, and in the act of kindness my forgiveness would blossom. So, I started inviting her in when she came over. I offered her something to drink. I asked her how she had been doing, what new things were happening. I told her about my life as well. We talked more about our kids, what they were going through, what they needed. And eventually, through my decision to show kindness first, before forgiving, I started to see her as she really was, a good woman who made a choice I didn’t agree with. She wasn’t evil, bad or terrible. She was the same woman she had been before the divorce and I could still love that woman, albeit from afar and in a different way.
So, in the end, loving the person became more important than holding on to my problem. And the result? The problem went away.
The most important thing in life is love. If you are angry at someone don’t lose sight of the fact that in the end you want your own heart and mind to feel and show love towards that person. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ever get angry or upset. It means you keep in mind the end goal, the purpose, behind your expression. Have the courage to work through it within yourself and with the other person until love is what is left and the negative feeling is what is left behind.
I am not a great writer. I get my grammar wrong, my sentence structure is sometimes caddywumpus and I definitely do not know proper punctuation. But I do know metaphors and analogies pretty well and it’s one of my great pleasures in life to read, hear or come up with good ones. But just as pleasurable is when I hear, read or come up with really bad ones.
Why is it so great to hear something so bad? Because it’s as if the world suddenly became an absurdist Looney Tunes cartoon with funny looking people and fractured language right in front of my eyes. I like things that make no sense whatsoever but still point to something that makes sense.
Most importantly, it makes me laugh and I like that.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Have you ever dealt with someone in the middle of addiction? You will probably hear them admit that the solution is for them to stop drinking, gambling, etc. long before they will accurately admit the problem. How can that be? Ask them what the problem is and see what they say. They might say it’s stress, or maybe family, finances, parents, spouses, where they live, their job, health, kids, responsibilities, boss, environment or politics.
But they will do everything in their power to avoid seeing the real problem because the real problem is them. They will offer all sorts of solutions for how to change all those things, but they won’t ever get to and succeed at implementing the real solution until they admit the real problem.
If you pay too much attention to everyone else’s problems and how to solve them you might just be avoiding your own.
I hope you don’t have a problem with it being day 2 of ‘What’s The Problem?’ week.
FEELING ALONE
Have you ever NOT felt alone with your problems? They are unique and private and not many will understand. Even when you KNOW the problem is not unique to you, it still finds a unique way of manifesting itself in you that makes the problem different than how others experience it, right?
THE PROBLEM WITH COMMONALITY
It is true, each person’s problems are unique. But sometimes they are so alike to other’s problems that medical professionals or communities at large see and treat only that commonality. But if you really want to help a fellow human you have find your way clear of the generalities to seeing them as the individual they are. You can’t do that if you only see them as a statistic or a vessel for a chemical reaction.
THE PROBLEM WITH INDIVIDUALITY
Have you ever felt good about owning your own problems? That can be good; indeed you do have to deal with them as your own. BUT, if you then take the next step – becoming prideful and self-righteous about how you suffer alone, then you move from positive self-awareness to an ego driven path of isolation and delusion.
If you are one of those suffering from feeling alone in your problem just remember that IF you are willing to share your situation with those who love and care for you, whether they are professionals or friends and family, then your journey for solutions will be at least be traveled on the common ground of love and care, not only on the lonely ground of private suffering.
Wrong assumptions can usually stop someone dead in their tracks.
If you have a problem, something as big as a financial mess or as small as being late for a meeting, and you think your first attack on it is going to yield an immediate solution to the problem, then you could be quite disillusioned when instead your solution yields more problems.
But if you know in advance that is how life works, that problems worthy of attack will attack back, then you can gather up the courage and mental fortitude to fight back, not just once, but again and again until the problem is solved.
In 2008 I helped found the Tulsa Digital Photography Group, later named ‘PHOTOG’. It now has close to 600 members, making it the largest in Oklahoma. We put on photo shoots once or twice a month and have a monthly library presentation that I lead. Sometimes I do the presentation other times we have guest photographers come in.
Here are some of the photos I have taken at our shoots over the years.
Rust
This was taken after a studio lighting seminar. The outdoor area had a lot of great locations as well and we continued taking portraits well after the seminar ended.
Look
This was also taken at a studio lighting session. She was the owner of the studio and it took a bit of convincing to get her to model for us.
Another Way of Seeing
This was taken at an equestrian competition shoot. I had to run fast when I saw this girl hanging upside down to get the shot.
Tulsa
This was taken at a ‘painting with Light’ session. I had my camera on a tripod with a long exposure and ran out into the field to draw the word ‘TULSA’ with a flashlight. It took me 7 tries to get the S facing the right way, it’s HARD!
Color Composition #3
This was taken at a Color Composition shoot I led at the Cherry Street Farmer’s Market. Who says red and pink don’t go together.
Tail #1
this was taken at a ‘How to Approach a Stranger’ shoot I led at Tulsa’s Blue Dome Festival. I had already taken photos of this woman’s face when I got attracted to the great color and textures of her scarf, hair and shirt.
Tail #2
This was taken at a Tulsa Zoo shoot. The tail said it all about this guy.
Candy Cane
This was taken at a Bokah Christmas Lights shoot at Rhema Bible College. Bokah is a technique using a very short depth of field where only a small area is in focus.
Ghost Walk
This was taken at a studio/model shoot. This window covering was meant to diffuse the light for portraits but I was drawn to it for how it created silhouettes and shadows in very compelling ways.
Halloween
This was taken at our annual Halloween Cemetery shoot. We have our models dress up in all sorts of fun halloween type costumes and just have a blast with a myriad of the techniques taught over the years.
Due to the very public passing of Steve Jobs I have been listening, reading and thinking quite a bit about death this week.
One of the best clarifications of death and why it has ultimate value to us the living was spoken by Mr. Jobs himself during his commencement address at Stanford University in 2005. Here are three paragraphs from that address. Take the time to read them. It really is worth the time, after all…
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. (emphasis mine) Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Another series I particularly liked from 2010 was one I did on STRESS. I don’t remember feeling particularly stressed when I did it but I think my wife Linda was at the time. That is probably what inspired me. Click on the drawing to see the original post with commentary.
Back in 2010 I did a series on Feminism that I thought was pretty effective. How do I know? I think a few people unsubscribed to the NDD as a result so I obviously hit a nerve or two, always a good thing in my book.The drawings and quotes say a certain amount but click on the napkin to go to the original post and read the commentary as well.What do you think of Feminism as a movement and as an idea?
This week I am posting series I have done in the past. This is my Sex Series from July, 2010. While you enjoy your sex I will be continuing to upgrade and redesign my blog so it’s more valuable to you! As a matter of fact if you have something you have always wanted to see on this blog, or something that has always frustrated you about it, let me know now. Drop me a line at napkindad@martycoleman.com or use one of the social media avenues to let me know, ok?
I am doing some revamping and updating of my blog over the next few weeks so I am using the opportunity to revisit some series I have done in recent years. I sometimes wish people could see the series all at one time (and it’s one of the goals of the revamping) so for this week I am doing a ‘Week in Review’ each day of selected series.Click on the image to go to the original post and it’s commentary.
