Bird's Eye View

Has Today's Friending Changed Conversation?

My friend Millie McCoy suggested I check out David Brooks' op-ed in today's NY Times entitled "The Flock Comedies."  Brooks is a favorite of mine, so I needed little prodding.

Brooks notes that today's television sitcoms differ from the traditional television comedies that were mostly about families (think "The Dick Van Dyke Show; "The Cosby Show").  They featured husbands and wives and kids. Today's sitcoms are different.  Forget families; now they are about groups of friends who sit around apartments or offices or coffeehouses and talk, gab, exchange witty one liners.  Brooks calls these sitcoms "flock comedies."

 
 
Why the shift and what does it mean?  Brooks posits that the patterns of friendship in society have changed.  Young people spend longer periods of time away from the family where they grew up and, not yet in marriage, among a group of friends.  They have networks of friends, often circles within circles so that one young person may have a circle of friends at work, another that is mostly fellow college alums, still another people from the hometown, and perhaps another of people who live in the same apartment complex.

Brooks notes that when these people do get married, they are generally in marriages where both partners work, they may now be commuting, possibly even have children.  They have time pressures nonexistent in their post-college friendship period, and they sometimes yearn for the palling around they did for endless hours with their best buddies.  So these young harried married types provide an audience for the flock shows, watching them as much from a place of nostalgia as anything else.

Brooks thinks that the nature of these flock friendships is different in kind from the traditional one-on-one friendships of earlier eras.  He says that young people's co-ed flocks are more "many to many" relationships, where the friendships are networked, involving several people.  Participants are less committed to each other than to the flock as a whole.

 

Hmmm.  I have to think about this.  As a student of conversation, I believe that face-to-face conversation is the new luxury.  What Brooks is suggesting is that face-to-face conversation that is one-on-one may be less valuable in the flock universe than group conversation in which everyone participates (think "Seinfeld" when he and his friends are sitting around the table in the coffee shop).  If he is right, it would explain some of the shifts in conversational styles I'm observing.

What do you think?

 

 

 

TEDX Pearl River Preparations

I'm working on my remarks for the TEDx Pearl River event coming up next week in Hong Kong and getting jazzed about it.

 

I'll be speaking on the strategic power of conversation (my all time favorite topic) and am having fun reviewing all the latest on the subject.

What is not fun is considering what has happened to dialog in general.  Do you have the same impression that I have?  That there is little conversation going on...anywhere?

Seems to me that our world right now is locked in what Deborah Tannen calls an “Argument Culture.”  She says “our spirits are corroded by living in an atmosphere of unrelenting contention.” 

And she said that back in 1998, over 12 years ago!…

 

Americans right now can’t seem to find our way out of this argument culture. I’ve never experienced anything like this in my lifetime.  And it is not just in America.  The  French are—again—involved in crippling strikes all over France.  And the English have taken to the barricades, too.  And many others in countries around the globe are on strike or about to be.  I sat next to a South Korean journalist last night at a dinner in New York and he told me Koreans are furious at their parliament, and at each other.  He says people there are screaming in the tabloids, cursing each other through emails and on websites and on television—everyone seems to be angry at someone.  Some are angry at everyone.  They are just plain mad and they utter words filled with insinuation, denunciation, repudiation. 

So It’s happening from New York to rural villages in China.  This argument culture is spreading all over the world, I guess. 

Plutarch told us that “anger is worse than undiluted wine in producing undisciplined and disagreeable results.”

This is the winter of our discontent, as Shakespeare said in Richard III. 

 

In this discontent, when we let anger take the lead, we render conversation impossible.   No progress can come from such undisciplined argument.  And what a pity, because not only can conversation solve problems (virtually all problems, in my view), it is downright pleasurable.  One of the great pleasures of life.

Sigh.

Vamoose Bus And The Customer Conversation

I've gushed before about the Vamoose bus line that ferries people back and forth between DC and Manhattan.  I was especially effusive about the Russian bus driver whose name plate at the front of the bus identifies him as "John Driver" because, as he explains, his name is too difficult to pronounce and our calling him Mr. Driver is just fine with him.

Turns out there is more to share about the Vamoose folks.  Since that first sojourn of mine on the Vamoose bus from DC to New York, I've learned that this corridor for bus traffic is highly competitive.  In addition to Vamoose, there is the Bolt Bus, the Tripper bus, the DC2NY bus, the New Century bus, the Washington Deluxe bus, the Eastern Travel bus, the GoToBus, the MVP bus...whew!  This is a crowded field of companies jostling to garner loyal passengers among the many people who travel between these two urban centers on the Eastern corridor.

So in addition to Mr. Driver, what does Vamoose have to offer?  Great service.  I mean great service.  I heard from several other passengers on my last trip that after four one way trips on Vamoose you are eligible for a free trip.  That's cool, I thought.  I learned that you must sign up as a Vamoose member to be eligible so quickly did so.  Then I learned that unlike many airline frequent travel programs, Vamoose will allow you to register trips you've already taken before becoming a member.  Sounds good.  So I found my registration numbers from three of the four trips I've taken thus far.  When I registered them, it appeared that only two showed up on my personal file on the website.  So I dropped a quick email to Vamoose customer service and got a note back--within minutes--that said:

"Hi, Susan. 

The points for the 3rd seat have been attached to your account.  You currently have 90 points in your account.

Thank you."

Impressed, I wrote back "Great.  thanks for your quick response.  I have to find one more reservation I made in September and then I'll be up to date."  Minutes later, I get another email from Vamoose that says,

"Hi Susan, Your trip on 9/06/10 has been added to your account.  Thank you."

OK, now they have me.  Someone at Vamoose took the initiative to look up my earlier trip and post it for me when I hadn't even asked them to do so.  When is the last time your frequent flier program on an airline did something like that? 

Vamoose is carrying on a conversation with me.  And it's personal.  What a pleasure.

Besides that, their staff wear great Tshirts with moose antlers on them.  For someone from Wisconsin, where people wear cardboard cheeses on their heads, this has a certain appeal.

Vamoose logo shown on their t-shirt

 

Hong Kong Bound To Discuss Innovation

I'll be going to Hong Kong later this month.  I'll be speaking at TEDX Pearl River, one of the TEDX programs taking place throughout the world this year.  TEDX programs are TED programs independently organized in venues from Nairobi to Nantucket (if you don't know about TED, you owe it to yourself to learn.  Go to TED.com and check it out) in an effort to further spread the great ideas introduced at TED.

www.ted.com

TEDX Pearl River is being organized by my friend and fellow TEDster, Jose Rueda.  Jose is a remarkable entrepreneur, leader, and big thinker who is the Chief Executive Producer of PlayLab in Hong Kong.  We first met at a TED program in California several years ago and I later invited Jose to an Inner Circle I was conducting in Los Angeles in 2008.  He enjoyed it so much he requested that we conduct another Inner Circle in Hong Kong and so we did.  And now we'll be doing both an Inner Circle and taking part in a TEDX all in the same week.  Double whammy of the best kind.

www.playlab.hk

Jose is the kind of thinker perfectly suited to convene a TEDX program.  He follows the expected trajectory of a discussion topic, then throws in another aspect of the issue that illuminates things in a whole new way.  He is a humanist first and foremost, deeply concerned about the impact of new technology on human beings and its potential for improving life as we know it.  I've reported here before about PlayLab's focus on creating software that can train people in new and wonderful ways.  For example, he demonstrated to me last year a video game designed to help kids with attention deficit disorder (ADD) learn to improve their powers of concentration and focus on whatever is the task at hand.  It was impressive and, I'm told, kids with ADD live it because it rewards them for paying attention.

The coming Inner Circle in Hong Kong will include other TEDX Pearl River speakers as participants to discuss the topic of "Where is Innovation, Now That We Really Need It?"   This is the same topic I've facilitated among senior executives in London and Hong Kong earlier this year and I know this one will be equally provocative.   Our earlier scrutiny of this topic revealed deep concerns about--among other things--education of young people and the current failure to provide the kind of venues and teaching that appear to provoke innovation and creative thinking.  Europeans and Americans have indicated in our Inner Circle conversations that they feel the Western world is stuck in outmoded systems of education that are hopelessly incapable of producing the kind of innovation necessary in order to remain competitive in a global economy.

In recent conversations preparing for the coming Inner Circle, Jose voiced the same concern, indicated that Hong Kongers are frustrated with the rote methods still used in Hong Kong schools to teach young children.  He says educational practice there has simply not kept pace with our evolving technologically savvy global population.  So we may find that East and West parts of the globe have the same educational concerns and share the same fear that "somewhere else" others are getting it right.  I'm not sure where "somewhere else" is, since I've heard the same thing in Beijing and Tokyo, too. 

Will report back.  Meanwhile, you may want to think of the public school system of education in your own city, state and country.  Up to par?  Delivering what is needed for school children to compete globally?  May be a conversation you want to initiate yourself, wherever you are.

 

 

The Reality Show In Chile

How much longer with the Chilean miner rescue hold the media's attention?  And ours?

The media machine doesn't stop and like a vampire always needs fresh blood.  Now that the Chilean miners are safely back home--and their personal dramas have found their way virally into our hearts and heads (i.e. the one with the mistress and the wife; the one who wasn't supposed to be there; the one who loves Elvis and will now be able to visit Graceland), what is next?

Did you have one or more conversations about the event?  Did you watch any of the live coverage?  And will you still be talking about it this weekend?  My guess is that it is already old news, given our of-the-minute media appetites.

That's a shame because there are aspects of the rescue mission and the world's response that are worthy of discussion.  For example, how do you think you and your work colleagues would respond if by some quirk of fate you were suddenly holed up together at your place of work?  Let's say there was an earthquake or some other natural disaster that somehow cut you off from the rest of the world.  Let's say it lasted a day before you were discovered and freed from your temporary isolation.  How about a week.  Make it a month.  Two months?

Do you have any idea who would take charge?  What you would do about eating if there were only a few bag lunches (not yours) among the group?  Would people naturally share them?  What about drinking water, if the usual source was unavailable?

Should you be the one to set up a disaster plan just in case something like that were to happen?  In New York City, most office buildings have such plans but you can count on most of us not having a clue about them or about who is in charge.  Perhaps he or she doesn't even work here anymore. 

What about your family or your roommates?  Do you have a plan?  Will you meet somewhere? 

As important it is to have a disaster plan in place before the disaster, I'm more interested on the human dynamics that occur when people are thrust together for an extended--and unintended--period of time.  What are the conversations that take place?  Who becomes the moderator, the peacemaker, the judge?  Do you have any idea what role you would play?

People trapped into a giant cube, Cube (1997 movie)

This was a reality show to trump all those we see on TV.  And it had a happy ending.  Let's face it: the Chileans--from the president of the country who pulled out all the stops to rescue these men to the men themselves who quickly set up a hierarchy of needs and responsibilities--have set an example of human cooperation and innovation at its best.  Would you do as well? 

 

 

Trouble in Cheesehead Land: What Wisconsin Can Learn From Chile's Miner Rescue

Today’s lead editorial in the New York Times deeply disturbs me.  On several levels.  The first is that it underscores the difficulty in conducting thoughtful, reasoned debate on issues of significance to our Nation.  We are simply not listening to one another and our reluctance to consider other’s views is a practice that will lead to peril.

On another level, Wisconsin is my home state.  I am frustrated as heck that the land of the independent thinkers (Wisconsin has a long, proud history of independent thinking and governance) has joined lockstep with other dumbed-down areas of this country where hollering takes precedence over thoughtful consideration of the facts.

 

 

Here’s the start of the editorial that has me flummoxed.  Take a look and then let’s talk about what this has to do with Chile and the extraordinary drama playing out as one after another, the miners trapped for two months are being hauled to the surface and a new appreciation of life on earth rather than under it.

“When it came to the actual details of governing, Senator Russ Feingold, a Democrat of Wisconsin, trounced his Republican challenger, Ron Johnson, in a debate in Wausau, Wis., on Monday night. He knew that the new health care law will not reduce Medicare spending but will slow its staggering rate of growth. He knew that a vast majority of small businesses would not pay higher taxes if rates went up on the wealthy and that global warming isn’t caused by sunspots. He knew that without the 2009 stimulus there would be at least 1.5 million fewer people with jobs.

Mr. Johnson, on the other hand, proudly proclaimed recently that he doesn’t “think this election is about details.” That’s as good an explanation as any of why — in Wisconsin as in so many states — candidates like Mr. Johnson are ahead in the polls. Insurgent Republicans don’t need details when they can play on the furious emotions of voters who have been misled into believing that positive changes like the health care law are catastrophic failures.

The public’s lack of attention to detail, and Mr. Johnson’s willingness to exploit it, could end the career of Mr. Feingold, who in three terms has distinguished himself for trying to bring fairness to campaign finance and decency to national security, among other achievements. He has routinely crossed party lines to work with Republicans and has had the courage to break with his own party more often than almost any other senator.”

So where does Chile come in?  If you’ve been following the news about the mine collapse and the rescue effort, you’ll see that today’s happy ending of the ordeal of the miners trapped underground is a textbook example of collaborative leadership.  The Chilean authorities knew quickly in the drama that they could not rescue the miners without a great deal of help.  Help from people they didn’t know, help from experts who even among themselves disagreed as to the best way to approach the herculean task of bringing people—alive—up from a mile below the earth.

They knew they had to listen.  Carefully, with full attention and an open mind.  And then, only after careful consideration of the different proposals, make tough choices about ways to proceed.  Even up to the actual hauling operation, which began yesterday, they were still considering alternative approaches.
In fact, one of the most important lessons from this operation (and there are many) is that they had three different procedures that were being activated simultaneously, for the actual removal of the miners.  And guess what?  Plan B turned out to be the beset of the three.  Not Plan A! 

How many times do we make quick decisions, choose a route that appears to get us out of a difficult situation and follow that without considering other possible approaches including the status quo?  Hello, Wisconsin!

Please read the entire NYTimes editorial and let your friends in Wisconsin know you are thinking of them and support their holding on to the smart kind of debate for which the Dairy State was once so well known.   Doesn’t matter which side they choose just so long as they have considered the options, listened to the facts, and made a thoughtful decision. 

Baby's Babbling And Dinner Table Conversation

Today's New York TImes has an article by Doctor Perri Klass, a pediatrician, who writes of the importance of babies' babbling, and how what sounds like a jumble of gurgles and bleeps is the precursor to speech formation and the ability to converse.

Turns out that research of Klass and others reveals that a baby's making sounds in the first six months of life is important; if baby isn't babbling normally something is interrupting that crucial activity and sometimes that something can be as simple as not enough words being said to the baby.  Apparently, babies have to hear real language from real live people in the room with them.  Television doesn't cut it, and neither do educational videos.  Wow.  We really are social animals and from the moment we are born we are dependent on others. I knew that, of course.  But I hadn't focused until reading this article on how fundamentally that dependency extends to learning to talk and to take one's place in the conversational world.

So bottom line, there are specific things parents and those around a baby need to do in response to that baby's babbling in order to help baby learn the building blocks of speech.

Fast forward this thought to the movie "Waiting for Superman", which I wrote about here recently.  In that film, which follows a handful of kids whose caregivers place them in the charter school lottery in hopes of providing them an education far preferable than that offered by their local public school, the kids and the parents/caregivers are shown, sometimes in conversation with one anothr.  After seeing that movie, I couldn't help but think about the dinner table conversations that were taking place behind the scenes.  DId each of these kids have a routine of family dinner in which conversation takes place?  If they do, are they listened to--and responded to--in the course of dinner?  I wonder. 

I was shocked several years ago when asked to conduct a number of webinars online for Microsoftabout the use of conversation in business.  In the webinars I talked of the conversational skills that are necessary for anyone hoping to make his or her way in the professional world.  After the webinar, I received lots of emails from people who had taken part.  Turned out they were mostly young professionals with several years experience in the business world--mostly at places like Accenture, Microsoft, Ernst & Young and the like.  They made it clear they despite the fact that many of them had received what appeared to be first rate educations, they had little experience initiating, much less taking part in, intelligent, significant conversation.  And they wanted to learn.

The thread that runs through these three examples of conversation is this: parents need to talk both at and with their kids from the time they are babies.  And all of us need to do a better job of talking with one another about issues of importance that make us think, make us choose words to express ourselves, make us, well, intelligently conversational.

Maybe the place to start is over dinner.  Without television.  With no iPhones on the table.  With no outside distraction.  Maybe it's time to start a ritual of having dinner together and talking about the day, what happened, what we learned.  See Umber Ahmad's story, reported here, of her family's practice of hearing each other's "roses and thorns" of the day over dinner.

Maybe we all need to let baby do the babbling and make a point of graduating, in our own speech to more mature exchanges than the babbling that often occupies television commentary and twitter talk.

Wild Life in New York

Many people lead a wild life in New York.  Heck, for generations some people have been attracted to New York by the opportunity to do just that.  Not sure it counts as an illustration, but I recall fondly the long ago weekend my sister and I spent as visitors to New York, including our pride in finding we were the last to leave a particular downtown bar at 4 AM.  At the time, we regarded our experience as the height of coolness. We were totally oblivious to any danger in talking to strangers, as wild and aggressive as some of them appeared. 

Then there were the many nights my husband and I used to go downtown to dance.  Our favorite joint was a cafeteria during the day that turned into a rock n' roll dive at night.  And it was a dive.  That kind of wild life in New York has been replaced by more thoughtful pursuits, but it was great fun at the time.

I'm thinking now of a different kind of wild life.  This morning on my jog in Central Park, I saw for the first time signs alerting parkgoers to the dangers of wildlife in Central Park.  Specifically, there is a concern about rabies spreading among the raccoons that live in Central Park.  Rabiesis no small matter.  As I understand it, at one time decades ago in this country, dogs were often rabid and a bite from one of them was a serious occurrence.  So past decades of mad dogs have become this decade's raccoons. It's all a little scary, I guess.

Still, I found it fascinating to come upon a sign in one of the world's great urban centers pointing out the presence of "wildlife" in our midst.  All those people who think they have to move out of the city were wrong: important aspects of country living are right here in our midst: wild animals.  Wow!  I like thinking that one block from my high rise apartment building lurk creatures one otherwise would encounter only hours from the city. It would be nice, though, if they were not potential rabies carriers.

I understand that New York City's park authoritieswho want to prevent the spread of rabies (and thank heavens they are on the alert to do so) have also put out warnings to parkgoers to notify the City if they  spot "disoriented or aggressive animals" while in the park.  Gosh, I spot disoriented and aggressive animals just about every day on some New York street corner or other.  But I guess the Park folks had raccoons and rats in mind; I'm thinking of the two legged crazies one finds in every urban center in the world these days.

I suspect both my sister and I would be less eager to embrace the wild life of New York City these days.  Been there, done that.  Too much wild life.  And now, wildlife too, I guess.

 

 

Does Sexist Conversation Really Do Damage?

Sometimes I get heartened that we're engaging in thoughtful discourse as a populace.  Other times, not so much.  Think Jersey Shore exchanges. 

So I'm not quite sure what to think about the report I received from Name it. Change it about the September 20 radio "endorsement" by Boston-based WRKO-AM radio producer Bill Cooksey of Republican State Treasurer candidate Karyn E. Polito for her "banging little body" and "tight little butt."

Actually what he said is, "I think she's hot.  She's tiny, she's short.  She's got a banging little body on her.  Facial wise, I give her about a seven.  Body wise, I give her about an eight-and-a-half.  Tight little butt.  I endorse Karyn Polito..."

Is this delightful, humorous social commentary?  Or sexism at its most indefensible?  My first thought is that it is just stupid and will be recognized by most people--and most voters--as such, then ignored.   After all, much of what passes for discourse in our media is just that.  Stupid.  And we all know it, right?

Apparently, not right.

A study by the Name it. Change it people suggests that sexist conversation is not so benign.  It's potentially damaging to a political candidate.  They did a study, sponsored by Women's Media Center and others, in which they had likely voters read an article of an attack made on a female political candidate.  One half the people surveyed read an exchange between two candidates in which the woman was attacked in sexist language (i.e., she was called an "ice queen," a "mean girl," and a "prostitute."  The other half heard an attack based on policy issues. 

Turns out that support for the female candidate who was attacked in sexist fashion dropped 21% in contrast to the 10% drop in support for the candidate attacked on policy issues alone.  But especially interesting is that the candidate who was attacked by "inappropriate sexist" remarks could fight back and increase her numbers by responding, especially if she labeled the remarks as "sexist, divisive rhetoric."  (The usual advice given female candidates is to ignore sexist remarks, based on the thinking that by not dignifying them with response, they will die.  Apparently that is wrong.  What can die is the candidate, not the remarks.)

That could be extrapolated, it would seem, to include other situations in which someone is maligned, not only sexist grounds, but racial, cultural and other grounds as well.  If we speak up and name the charges as what they are, we can have an impact on the outcome.  Conversation matters.  And there are places--like this one--where being silent adds to the problem rather than diffuse or erase it.  So speak up.

And don't only defend the person maligned.  Name the words against them for what they are.  Sexist, if that's the case.  Bigoted, if they are racially charged.  Your response will have an impact.  Just like the kid in the playground when someone finally had the nerve to face him/her and call it like it was: "You're a bully." 

 

 

 

Starbucks Talking: Customer Survey Talk

I had a startling realization today when asked on a Starbucks survey how many times I visited a Starbucks shop in the last 30 days.  When my answer was 20, well, I thought, there may be something wrong with this picture.  That's an awful lot of green tea lattes.  More significantly, that's a lot of money going to Howard Schultz and his team in Seattle.  At just pennies under $4.50 for every grande green tea lotte that passes my lips, c'mon!  Yes, that's what it costs; here's the receipt. 

 
I've been justifying this extravagance by telling myself I deserve this more-than-a-little-luxury because I have been involved way too long in my apartment renovation here in Manhattan (it's a nightmare) and until this past week, did not even have a working sink since the end of May.  (Yes, folks, as many friends have reminded me, the scene was much like that of Kramer on "Friends" when he was seen washing his vegetables in the same tub where he would take a bath.) 

My little head story--the one I would tell myself to justify plunking down half the cost of a lunch salad for a cup of fancy pants tea--is that because things were so bleak in my non-kitchen at home, I could keep going by indulging in someone else making tea for me.  Yes it was a lame excuse. 

So today, on my daily trip to my friends at the 685 Third Avenue Starbucks location, I was handed a survey along with my receipt.  

 
I spent a fun-filled year doing surveys for Procter & Gamble so I love seeing how companies use them to connect with customers while they learn something in the process.

I came back to my office and did the survey.  Note my thanks from Starbucks is a free beverage.  It doesn't say whether my grande green tea latte will be my free beverage, but by the time I read this, I was hooked anyway.  So I answered their questions, trying to see what it was they are looking for.  Looks like they are analyzing just who buys coffee beans and ground coffee in the bag while in a Starbucks store.  And who is buying food and why.  Also, they are interested in the kind of service we receive from specific Starbucks locations and how neat the place is.  Who better to ask than the customers, right?

 
I would love to see just how many people take the survey as well as the back end analysis of the results.  Starbucks is good at engaging its customers at many stages of the Starbucks experience.  It's clear that even those handed a survey who don't bother to answer it may have at least a momentary thought about the fact that Starbucks seeks their opinion.  And those who do take it can't help but think positively about a company that so directly solicits their help.  Think of the low cost of this effort.  It costs them--at most--one beverage to get my survey answers.  Their real investment will be in the analysis. And, by the way, they've now got my email address so they can communicate again with me.

A survey is a conversation with one's customers.  And Starbucks is highly expert at keeping that conversation going. And going.  It's not just between me and my barista anymore... now I'm talking with Starbucks itself.  Whoo-ee.