Dilemmas

I went to the cinema with a friend a couple of weeks ago. Not Mrs theWeir, but the man who stood beside me when I married her.

We went to see The Dilemma. Neither of us knew what to expect. Both of us really enjoyed it.

What really struck me was how much it linked to a couple of situations that I've been aware of this week.

The big lesson - and challenge - I've felt this week has been about being willing to have the difficult conversations.

I've never really been one for confrontation. I'm sure I used to walk another way home from school when certain other pupils were going to be on the same way as me. I'd probably have run home rather than walking at the same time as people that I didn't want to spend the time with. It's not always about being afraid, but if I'm honest fear was a big part of it.

But that was then and I'm much older now. Still I have a hesitancy about confronting people or situations that I *know* need to be dealt with. Still it can be easier to find another way. To pretend it's not real. To pretend it'll be alright.

But it's really not okay to ignore the elephant in the room. It's not okay to run from your fear. Unless you have no confidence that it can and will end.

That there is another way that isn't running or denying or just carrying on.

Sure, there are times when confrontation isn't appropriate. In public isn't best. When emotion isn't kept in balance. When we're exhausted.

But whatever we aren't willing to talk about now will fester and ultimate eat us, our joy and our peace alive.

And we can stop that happening.

"No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; he’ll always be there to help you come through it."

(the trailer may offend some... but not many)

water works.

I've found myself much more likely to cry recently. It's not an easy thing to say, but it's the truth. I'm sure I won't be the first person to say that, but there you are.

What points me towards precipitation? More often than not, it's stories. Stories about life, allegories intended to teach, hopeless and hopeful stories.

Our traditions of storytelling are many and varied, and the ones I connect with most obviously are probably films. But books do it for me too. In fact some recent songs have brought me to tears.

It's usually tales of reconciliation that get me the most. Of estranged family members reconciling. Of the lost child coming home. Of the proud parent realising that love is more important.

But it's the reality of the story that makes it all the more compelling for me. That doesn't mean it has to be in what we'd call the "real world", or in the present. But it has to be *real*. Which is something else, isn't it.

So it's good to weep. It helpful to admit that we aren't that pillar of strength - a rock that cannot be shifted. We are human, after all.

If it's great news or something devastatingly harsh, tears are alright.

(The Meaning of Life - 10) = today

I have been blessed with many gifts today.

Air in my lungs, for a start. A beautiful family. A warm, dry place to live and a fun pace to work too.

Loads of Birthday greetings on my Facebook page. Thank you for each and everyone of them.

I got to spend some time with Henry today, for the first time in years. It was great to see him and share stories.

Life is always better with stories.

Some friends sent some fertiliser to South America on my behalf today too. Which was nice. But Oxfam told me where the gift was being given and the impact it had. Through the farmer's story.

Mrs theWeir made some glorious cake (though, technically, I have had that for a couple of days now). Sharing the cake with some folks has led to sharing stories. (Sorry, Mum, it may be all gone by the end of the night).

I got a wide array of gifts too. They made it into my first Blipfoto entry today.

But what really struck me today was Henry saying "wow, I didn't recognise you". It was a bit of a gift.

Why?

I don't want to be a carbon copy of myself year after year. I want to grow. I want to mature. If I don't then perhaps I'm not fully alive.

Being alive is really important.

Liam reminded me of these words last night:

"This is your life, are you who you want to be?". I think that today, I am more of the person I want to be than I was yesterday. How about you?

(here's the band playing the track in session)

You're just like...

You hear some horror stories about the way people are managed or lead in the workplace. I mean, some really nasty, vindictive stories of how people treat other people.

I've been blessed by having good relationships with my managers almost since the day I started working. I think some of that was personality of the people I've worked for, but often its been through working hard (some of the time, at least), being reliable and showing some ingenuity too. It's helped to find ways to express the talents/gifts that I have in the work I've been doing.

I got a fright the other day when I realise that I've been working for 16 years. More than half my life. That's just slightly concerning.

Come July I'll have worked for my current employer for 12 years. Jings. In no one year has my role at work been the same though - and that's a very encouraging thought!

Funnily enough, when I was at school my ambitions were clear: I don't want to work in an office. Seems that I didn't fulfil that one. I think that's because my Dad was never *really* all that happy at work, and so I didn't want to be like that. I equated the unrest with the office, but it really wasn't because of that.

How about you - how did your childhood influence your choice of work?

Feel the rhythm!

Here's a wee treat from TEDIndia 2009.

It's rhythmical, skillful, witty and a great story.

And it's simple patterns, playing against/with/through each other. Just like life, right?

16 mins that may well capture your attention.

difficult is simple

Okay, time for a statement of the bleeding obvious.

There's often times in life when we experience inertia. For me it's when there's something difficult on the horizon. Something that might take fair bit of effort to make happen.

It struck me the other day that anything that is difficult is often really simple.

What makes something simple?

Take some time to understand the situation, make a list of these little thing, put them into priority order then:

Do little things. Do them well. Do them excellently.

Difficult becomes simple.

Nothing earth-shattering in that, but it helped me with some stuff this week. What else would you say makes difficult things simple?

shifting sands

There's been plenty of coverage of the news that Facebook has a smidgen more pageviews than Google. The first time in the history of everything that has happened. Big. Deal.

Or is it?

I might not be a classically trained marketer, but I think it's amazing how the ability to self-publish, share and interact though these new digital channels is changing our culture - and the way we consume (products and ideas). Mostly for the better, I reckon. How about you?

So what about Facebook & Google then? For a long time, Facebook was a walled garden - that's all changed now. Much more of what's happening on that platform is now available to those outside of it. (cue rush to check privacy settings).

My thinking here is not that platforms are what it's all about. It's about being where people are - and interacting where they are. Facebook might be winning the social platform race for now, but nothing in this world is a certain.

When I set up my blog here, I plumbed it in to publish into Facebook Notes automatically. The idea was to share the content with people who might not be into reading blogs frequently. Then I noticed something about a year ago. People started to comment. Which was great. But there were two places with different comments - Facebook and the blog...

Which can lead to two different sets of conversation. I remember Mitch Joel deciding to stop publishing into Facebook and pulling people towards the blog so that the conversation happened there. But may folks just won't follow the link as they like the convenience of doing it all in once platform. Not saying that's right, but it's what happens, isn't it?

So, what would I like? Some way of aggregating comments between publishing platforms. There must be a way to pull the comments for a post into Facebook!

Anyway, it's all sand and it's all shifting. Don't build your house on it.

Beneath the Sheets?

I've listened to The Moth podcast for about 18 months now. You find out more about The Moth here. It's not always the kind of content you'd let your children listen to, but most of the time these live stories leave a mark on you.

Jerry Mitchell's story (under the title "Beneath the Sheets") was quite spectacular in it's content, delivery and conclusion. I really didn't see that coming.

Have a listen and share what you think:

Jerry Mitchell: Beneath the Sheets

theWhat?

JL recently asked me why I use the moniker "theWeir".

My first response? Because when I registered for twitter around 18 months ago, the username AndyWeir was taken. As were more sensible variations on the same. So I thought "theWeir" would work. Especially as there can be only one Weir. Yeah, right?!

But this wasn't the only possible reason why my online interactions (particularly outside of Facebook) are under this identity.

Curiously, some people at work who've caught up with me online outside of work are known to use that moniker is person. Which is fine, good and proper, but still feels a bit strange. Maybe a bit like a recently married lady hearing her new surname being read out?

So, working back in time, from twitter, I started my blog here in November 2008 (moving from my old iWeb blog here), I called it "weir online". See what I did there? So I was theWeir online.

But it all started back in early 2000s. I met the Mighty Quinn. Not the song, but the man. He signed his email & sms with a "Q". He was (and forever shall be) Quinn. I liked that. I liked his style. I like theQuinn.

At the same time, our good friend Mr Clive Parnell does a proper London boi accent. Mainly 'cos he's got family there. And when we played in a band together (IndigoEcho) it was around the time when speaking in a mockney accent was a bit cool, like.

And there was a phrase used (often) "easy for the [insert object here]". On seeing you, CP was often prone to hailing with "easy for theWeir" or "easy for theFrancis" (Bass player) and "easy for theQuinn". I guess it was *inspired* by Ali G being all over pop culture at the time...

And so, it just kinda stuck in my head.

theWeir

Apparently, there's a play called The Weir. There are a few resturaunts called The Weir. Infact, there's plenty of Weirs around the place.

But none of them are why I chose "theWeir".

At least that's my (not very interesting story) and I'm sticking to it.

Isn't it cool how these things weave together during our lives?

My favourite podcasts.

Okay, I promised I'd list my favourite - and therefore the most studiously listened to - podcasts.

So, looking at iTunes, I've got stuff from BAC, TED and WC. But here's the ones I will always keep up-to-date with. In reverse order:

5: The Moth - stories told live, without notes to audiences in the US. Can be funny, sometimes odd, but always an insight into real life in other parts of the western world and how to tell a story.

4:Pods & Blogs + Digital Planet -It's a tie. the former being tales of online culture, technology & innovation from BBC Five Live. The latter being a BBC World Service programe with a global take on what's happening with technology. I probably would have tied three ways with the Guardian Tech Weekly, but it's lost it's way a bit without Aleks and Jemima!

3: Something Beautiful - a (partially) homegrown collection of stories of people's faith journeys. Knowing one of the hosts from back in the day helped me persevere when Thomas was on his soapbox, but the encouragement from listening to these stories has been tremendous. Leaves me thinking what my story would be.

2: Spark - a recent addition to my downloads, but what a quality one. Beautifully produced, witty and packed with insights. All about our digital lives - asking questions about how we live and how technology is influencing that.

And the podcast that always gets listened to first (and often repeatedly) is

1: Mars Hill (Grand Rapids) - teaching from a church in North America might not be the obvious one, but I have found the content from these guys to be thought provoking and continued in a widening of my view of the world.

So that's my top 5!

Thank you to all the producers and contributors who keep my ears filled with varied and helpful things!

a few of my favourite things

As a growing-up person, I loved Lego. I still do.

Infact, if I had time, it's not impossible to imagine that I'd want to have fun making stuff with Lego.

8 years ago, I watched The Matrix for the first time. As a small-time fan of Sci-fi, and a big-time fan of great stories, and the retelling of familiar stories, I quite simply loved it.

Imagine my delight when I came across LegoMatrix.com.

Check it out:

so what's next?

I'd hoped to write this series of posts about my current role at work over a few consecutive days. Given that the first one (here) was written on 3 September, that's clearly not happened. Let's see what can be done to rectify that.

So, a few months after I did that job for Garry, our Director, I was working in another team in our department (on secondment) as an eCommerce Development Consultant (what on earth was that?!).

Around this time, there were some stronger gusts from the winds of change than usual. It was putting pressure on the way our department was funded and how we got things done. We had enjoyed some level of autonomy and that had brought a good measure of success, but it wasn't as easy as that.

There were looming changes to reporting practices and requirements for greater levels of detail in those reports. At the same time as this, a friend from the Powerpoint band (where I was playing drums at the time, and nothing to do with Microsoft products) shared a link on his blog. It was to a presentation inspired by the style of Lawrence Lessig and it completely blew me away.

On two counts:

1) the way he spoke and the material he used to help articulate his points (his narrative) and

2) the content he was sharing.

After a few hours (over a few days) of looking at Lessig's blog (now in hibernation), finding Garr Reynolds blog on presentations (one of the *best* resources you will find) and then watching Dick Hardt's video from OSCON, I was suddenly properly aware of the power of online tools to change the way the world interacts.

You might suggest that I was hooked, and I'd probably agree. I found iGoogle and started tracking people's content online.

I shared the Lessig and Hardt videos with a colleague and friend, Robert McGill. He said "we could make something like that" about where we worked. So we did.

Storyboarded, created and distributed in about a week and a wee video about "where I worked" caught some pretty big attention from our business and IT bosses.

It didn't save the department from going through a rough time, and it probably resulted in me taking my eye off the ball a little on my day job.

Through this process I realised that communication - and really storytelling - was what I loved doing. Agile development (from a business & user perspective) is all about stories. Making our little video was all about stories. Making slidedecks is all about helping someone tell their story.

It was around this time that Garry, David and I spoke about maybe doing some work to help our area tell it's story better. But that's another story.

Real Fiction

A few months ago, I watched the film Stranger than Fiction and loved it. I was really surprised how much I loved it.

I think it was the mix of a great plot, some lovely cinematography and a few really cool mashups of design/technical drawing/schematics and real-life. Loved it.

So then I saw the video embedded below and was reminded of that film - as well as appreciating the message. I might not be Canadian, but I totally get the point of this:

Hellmann’s - It’s Time for Real from CRUSH on Vimeo.

I think I also loved that this was from a HUGE corporation (Hellman's is a Unilever brand). I wonder how much of this is reflecting their corporate mentality...? Oh and it doesn't make me want to by their product. But that's not the point, right?

H/T http://infosthetics.com/

dinner. from a factory?

Since being on a few distillery tours when on holiday, I've had the thought of *industrialisation* of our food on my mind.  Many of the places I visited dented (if not shattered) the feelings I had that our Whisky industry in Scotland was a boutique, or cottage thing.  Still using the same tools that were used 150 years ago when things really started.  But no, in order to make the product (that's what it is, right) there's a certain amount of mechanisation required.

I guess that's inevitable with success, but it tends to take some of the *magic* out of it.  Albeit that some bright people worked hard to develop systems and machinery that can produce the quality product in the same way (even if it's not all done by a hand!).

Thinking about the industrialisation (that I recognise revolutionised the world beyond recognition and that the developing world is trying it's best to play catch-up in), this didn't help much.  (but the next post provided some hope!)

Might not see this in the UK cinemas, but I imagine it's a story we could all learn something from!  Gets me thinking about stewardship of resources and stuff like that.  And makes me want to cry about our lack of respect for life.

Visualisation - Crisis of Credit

Thanks to Citywire, I came across this great piece of visualisation today.  I'm not talking about the visualisation of seeing yourself winning a race or how to achieve success at work, but the kind that tells a story in a simple way.

This is complex topic, but I think I learned more about this topic from these few minutes of (well executed) video that I have from all the news reports I've read/seen/heard.

What you you think?