Posts in Category: Psychology of Change
Setting strategy aside to bear witness to turbulent times
If you’ve known me throughout my career, you may be familiar with the 80/20/0 philosophy regarding social media posts that I share as a simple template for clients who want to get started in digital marketing to keep in mind:
- 80% human posts lifting up ideas and people that have nothing to do with your work
- 20% work related and promotional
- 0% politics
Following my social feeds lately, you can plainly see I’ve tossed that long-time, steady practice right out for my own personal use.I’d even go so far as to say my personal ratio right now is 80% politics, 20% work, if I had to guess. I wanted to talk for a minute about why I am (temporarily, I truly hope) highly focused on politics and current events.
Without a diverse, intelligent, empathetic, knowledgeable society where we care about and lift up our fellow humans, we are all in trouble – globally. Borders only exist in the minds of humans. They are a construct. A useful construct for shaping smaller, more tribal societies around common values and economic goals, to be sure, but a construct nonetheless. Everything we do impacts the world. We share one planet. In recent weeks, political shifts in the US and the UK (but especially the US) have led to a more restricted vision of society. If these shifts stopped at economics, I would not be so vocal, however; these shifts are putting real human lives here and abroad in peril.
So I ask that if you follow me on social, bear with me. I feel it is important to share my work knowledge with you, but it will continue to be peppered with a heavy dose of bearing witness to the events unfolding. This is a monumental time in our history, and for me it would be morally wrong to turn a blind eye to it and conduct 100% “business as usual.” I say this in a truly non-partisan way, as well: no matter your political leanings, taking care of our fellow humans seems like a universal value we all must share.
Meanwhile, if you want to try the beta of my passion project with the all-woman led BuoyUp, you can download the beta now in the Chrome Store and help us do good while reading the news. Additionally, if you are an ethically focused B2B company who wants the same in your digital strategist to help you right now, reach out to me. We have room for a few more digital strategy and content marketing clients at my company Story Engage before we’re at capacity.
image credit Lucas Franco via Unsplash
Obsessing about the potential of the world beyond work
This week Aeon Magazine had a piece focused on my favorite topic: the world after work. Helping businesses and individuals who are struggling to cope with the change to the world beyond work is the focus of my ongoing studies, in fact, and something I incorporate into change management strategy when helping clients. I realized while reading how little I talk about this passion, so expect more from me on this.
Meanwhile, I encourage everyone to read this article by James Livingston, a professor at Rutgers. It is a great thought exercise in the ways work holds us back, and the need to find other ways to define our value and occupy our time.
“When work disappears, the genders produced by the labour market are blurred. When socially necessary labour declines, what we once called women’s work — education, healthcare, service — becomes our basic industry, not a ‘tertiary’ dimension of the measurable economy. The labour of love, caring for one another and learning how to be our brother’s keeper — socially beneficial labour — becomes not merely possible but eminently necessary, and not just within families, where affection is routinely available. No, I mean out there, in the wide, wide world.”
Speaking personally for a moment on what I believe is a related topic, I think this tense election season was a very real result of refusing to deal with this question in a realistic, non-emotional way. It’s hard to hear politicians around the world clinging to nationalistic ideas as some pacifier for the disenfranchised, underemployed, poverty stricken public when technology has already made it impossible to “bring back the jobs.”
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