Generational Power Styles

I just wrote this text, below, in an email to a friend. I like the summary, so I’m reposting it here. It speaks to some core points and differences in how generations — and the individuals in them — tend to experience power. And I quote (from myself),

• Turf is really a Boomer thing, generationally speaking. They experience power through individual turf ownership.
• Functionality and efficiency is a GenX thing. … Tending to the details no one else is heeding. They experience power in small, nimble, mission-focused (and usually temporary) groups.
• Millennials are all about collegial, team-oriented collaboration. They experience power as a collective.
• Homeland gen are masters of nuance; they experience power through unrivaled, credentialed expertise.

Generational Resources

I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to generational theory, and I ping to very specific sources for my information. As I’m often asked for some good books to read on the subject of generational theory, let me outline my suggestions here:

• The big heavy academic book: Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069
• The easiest read: Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation
• The most current, pressing and predictive book: The Fourth Turning, An American Prophecy
• If you’re in marketing: Millennials and the Pop Culture

All of these books are by the generational theorists, William Strauss and Neil Howe, whose website is found at Lifecourse Associates.

A really cool resume.

I don’t how or where I encounted this guy’s resume. I just know it’s really smart. A great solution. Excellent organization and design. Different, and worth a peak. I wrote over 1,000 resumes in my early days in business. Back when I was out in the community as Do The Write Thing. I just have to say, I really like this. It may not work for everyone, certainly; but it may be just the perfect approach for others.

Many a time, when writing resumes in years past, I sent my client toward this resource: Do What You Are I highly recommend the book. For a quick insight, the author’s website is here.

World Hoop Day … in li’l ol’ Columbia

Magic happened. Today — 8-8-8 — is World Hoop Day. Across America and the world, hula hoopers are gathering in public spaces to celebrate hooping and share a bit of hoop love. But I was in a bit of a quandary. I wanted to be part of World Hoop Day. My hooper friends were gathering in Baltimore, but I couldn’t make it. Other hooper friends were gathering at the Tidal Basin in DC this evening; unfortunately, I didn’t feel like driving in to DC by myself.

Yet, hoop magic happened today, on 8-8-8.

I went to the King’s Contrivance village center for lunch today. It just so happened that they had live music at the courtyard. It was a blues band, and blues music is some of my favorite for hooping (and dancing. Right away, I went back to my car, grabbed a bunch of hoops, came back to courtyard and started to hoop in the perfect little space right in front of the band. The weather was perfect. The sky was glorious. The space was great. The band was wonderful. The people sitting about were generally delighted.

I actually hooped on World Hoop Day — in my community — sharing the hoop love and putting a smile on my face and those around.

Rock on.

Listen in on The Aaron Brazell Show

I’ll be this week’s guest on The Aaron Brazell Show. I know Aaron from my Coworking in Columbia times at the Dobbin Starbucks. We’ve shared a number of thought-provoking conversations at The Bux and beyond. And I’m looking forward to the show and the opportunity to not only talk with Aaron, but with the listeners who both call in and “type in.”

Tune in on Saturday, August 9th at 9 p.m. We’ll be talking about generational dynamics, cultural change and a host of relevant and intriguing topics. If you’d like to participate in the concurrent online discussion, create a TalkShoe account beforehand. After the show has been recorded, you can listen to it at any time.

Microsoft Immigrant Family Networking event

Out on EventBrite.com, this caught my eye. http://www.eventbrite.com/event/145859269  Oh, and “family” includes “spouse/partner.” I like that.

Long, quirky and surprisingly charming.

Reposting from Geren and Blather de la Semaine. A 42-minute long musical / movie: Dr. Horrible and his sing-along blog.

Panoramio is Coolio-io

I discovered this rad site and Web 2.0 type tool the other day: Panoramio. It takes photo sharing (similar to Flickr) plus Google Earth images and makes for a very cool tool. Think of the fun and value a local community could have, posting and geo-tagging hyper-local images and helping to tell a visual story about their community. Neat-o. The service also allows user-selected content tagging. Here’s an example of a Panoramio search on “Ellicott City.”

Quoth I

I was interviewed for two recent articles addressing generational dynamics: At About.com, I was quoted in an informative article about mobile giving (a new way to raise charitable funds via cel phone texting). In Advantages, a magazine for the Advertising Specialities Institute, I was a resource for an article about cross-generational marketing. The author does a stellar job of explaining the four-part cycle of generational dynamics in short order.

I feel a little sad.

A tradition with a nice vibe ended this evening. For the past two years or so, most Wednesday nights, I’ve carpooled to Baltimore for a contra dance held at Lovely Lane Church. For most of this time, I’ve carpooled with my mother and a long-time dancer my mother’s age, Jo. The three of us would gather and talk on the way up and the way back. Now, while I like the contra dance in DC much more, I often have to drive there myself. And I’ve noticed that over time, that if I have to choose one night a week to dance, my preference has been the Wednesday night dance and the social aspect of the carpool.

Jo and her husband decided to move out of Columbia and live their retirement years in St. Petersburg, Florida. She did check out the contra dance scene before selecting the town in which they’d soon live. But, on my end of things, tonight was the last night we’d all carpool down together. And I feel a little sad. It’d probably be an over-statement to say I’m good friends with her. But I like her. And I like what we shared: a tradition, an agreement, some time together at regular intervals.

I wish her the best, of course. And hope she finds lots of good dancers and interesting people in St. Petersburg, but I’m really going to miss her and the weekly carpool rides we shared.

Columbia 2.0 on WBAL tonight

Tune in tonight around 6 p.m., to WBAL Channel 11, to catch news of Columbia 2.0, “a thriving grass-roots organization whose mission is to support the Next Generation of Columbia Town Center.” Thanks to Mindy and her team at WBAL for covering today’s press announcement at That’s Amore. Columbia2point0.com is the place to go to read more about this new group. Rumor has it they’ll have a blog in short order, so I hope we’ll be seeing them over on HocoBlogs.com in short order.

Hey, if you’re in Howard County and you’re looking to connect with a mostly GenX group of community-minded folk, there are plenty of opportunities. Many of us use social media, parties and informal meet-ups to connect. For a list of places and online sites where you’re likely to connect with your neighbors and local peeps interested in a thriving and re-energized community, check out our Living Locally resource list.

Exploring Plaxo.

My thinking buddy has been nudging me for some time to explore Plaxo. She speaks with a gentle and upbeat tone about Plaxo being a tool for organizing and navigating personal and business contacts. So, I created an account, but never paid it much mind. Til today. Plaxo has the stuff I love: FEEDS. Rather than it being yet-another social networking site that asks me idiotic questions such as “What are my favorite books?” Plaxo uses feeds from other sites to make a profile robust. And, as they ask that each contact be categorized in one or more category (biz, friend, family), I can then set my preferences so that my feeds are published for public consumption or for just a category of folk, such as business contacts.
Cool stuff. Highly recommended. Plaxo.com.

Boomers and Blogs

@Technosailor just sent me a blog post link about Boomers and blogging. Or, better yet: How boomers aren’t adopting social media as much as younger generations. Duh. Anyway, my Utterz response is here: Turn your speakers on to hear it.

Stealing Civility

Mike of “Do I Amuse You” has a great post on choosing civility.  Or stealing civility, in his particular case. If you’ve yet to discover his blog, I recommend it for some cynical, humorous and always-logical perspective on Life and Such.

Thanks to all the bloggers (and blog readers) who came out to the Hoco BlogTale party this evening at Lee Lynn’s. What a lovely night to be out (and outside) with friends. Thanks to Frank for bringing Little Miss Emily along, too.

I’m not mad …

… just incredulous. This evening I found a barely chewed wad of gum placed on my car’s rear windshield. A Kleenex to deal with another’s saliva and — when I get to it — some Krud Kutter will do the trick and clean it up. But I’m left wondering about this gum depositer.

Were you raised by wolves? … No, no, that couldn’t be it. Wolves have a pack mentality, and you would have been bitten and snarled at for such attitudes and behaviors.

Were you in a particular idiosyncratic mood to stick gum to a car? If so, wouldn’t your own car have sufficed? If you’re a kid, wouldn’t your parents’ car have filled the bill?

Are you just in that much of a daze that even simple common sense behaviors elude you? If so, stop eating the donuts and Coco Puffs for breakfast. Start exercising and getting some oxygen-rich blood to your brain.

Well, like I said. I’m not mad. Just a little confounded.

Am I really popular or … ?

Am I really popular, or is there something else afoot? See, I am just boggled. I have received five party invitations for parties occurring on August 2nd. No party invitations for the 3rd, or even the following Saturday on the 9th. But five on the second.

Curiosity piqued, I gave it some thought. My suspicion: August 2nd is a seasonal midpoint, a deep traditional point of celebration, just like Ground Hogs Day is a midpoint and traditional celebration on Feb 2nd. At some level — even though most of us “modern day people” don’t eat on a purely seasonal schedule, we can still feel the clock of the earth. Our bodies/lives can sense that summer is half way over

Now, this doesn’t solve my quandary about which parties to attend, and in what order, but the phenomena of the grouping of parties has me quite fascinated.

Millennials and Mobile Giving

I was recently contacted by a reporter who is writing an article on mobile giving and nonprofit organizations. She sent a few questions my way, and here are my answers. It’s about 8 minutes of recorded audio. The service I used — Utterz.com — is free and fabulous.

I need to buy some grass.

I’m looking for grass, but I don’t want to buy it from just any source. No, I need a specific kind of dealer … a transaction that makes me feel safe and confident. See, I’m looking to build up the organic material I can add in coming years to my garden, and I want to get a lot of grass clippings now in the summer and then mulched leaves later in the fall.

I’m willing to pay full price, as long as the person is a time banking member. I want to “buy” the bagged (and delivered!) grass clippings using some of my time bank hours. Know someone who might be able to hook me up? Let me know.

More thinkers like him. Please.

I want to know more people like him. He makes me feel sane for my fierce feelings about Columbia’s dullness and my desire for this place to live into its initial mission of being a model American city … for the times. Who is he? He’s Chris Bachmann, and if you’re local to Columbia and have yet to read his blog or his latest post on “A Vision for Columbia, part 1,” I invite you to do so.

I met Chris at The ‘Bucks … aka Laptop Alley. He’s often there, and he’s integrated in with the geeks, the thinkers, the social crowd there. If you like the way he thinks, know that Chris can also be found on Twitter, in Socializr.com and, work schedule permitting, at some of the Hoco BlogTale parties.

Word up on Wordle

A toy. Something fun. Possibly useful. Introducing Wordle, posted here by Kenneth Yeung, a local guy in Jessup, Md. I like it.