The Power of Pictures: A Social Scrapbook

There are always two people in every picture:  the photographer and the viewer. | Ansel Adams

I collect antique photographs. Old photos of strangers I have never met and have no familial ties to. I know nothing about their pasts. I don’t know their names or where they grew up. I can’t tell you their favorite foods or where they were born or buried. Despite the abundance of question marks punctuating their lives and stories, however, each photograph offers a doorway to the past; a split-second time warp, capturing a moment I wasn’t there to experience, but somehow feel connected to.

This weekend I watched NYC fireworks sitting atop the roof of a yellow taxicab. I met a pair of superhero dogs, dressed in patriotic superhero dog capes. I took a wild and windy ride on the back of a motorcycle. I cheered when a friend got engaged.

I wasn’t really there for any of it, but somehow I felt a part of it. All thanks to Instagram.

I recently stumbled across a blog post declaring Instagram “The Most Important Social Network I’ve Ever Used.” As a newbie to the iPhone world, it seemed like a grandiose and sweeping statement. Can a wordless social medium really connect people and start a conversation? And what, exactly, is the power of a picture?

In a word: storytelling.

Instagram (and photosharing) not only provide us with new and instantaneous ways to capture and preserve our stories and moments, they offer an outlet to illustrate our stories, too. We are creating social scrapbooks, and each photo has the potential to ignite sentiment, stories and conversation between the photographer and the viewer.

So what do we gain by tapping into our inner instartist? Some people suggest these apps are creativity and conversation catalysts with the power change the way we approach our everyday lives and world.

“Instagram is tapping into a creative yen that I did not know I possessed. I am starting to see the effects rippling through my everyday life. The desire to look for the unusual in the ordinary is beginning to permeate more and more of my thinking. There is a willingness to consider ideas that traditionally would have been way too out of the box for me. The act of looking at things in a different way is leading me think about things in a different way as well.” [full article here]

It's Tuesday. It feels like Monday. Most of us are back to work after a long (and hopefully happy) holiday weekend. We woke up this morning and went through the same routine we do each day of the week. We took the same route to work to return to the same office we inhabit 40+ hours a week. But somewhere along the way, I imagine we all bypassed something beautiful.

Maybe it's time to start seeing our same world differently. Today I'm challenging each of you to look at your day. Don't just look at it - really see it. And when you do, snap a picture and send it to me amy@brainsonfire.com. Let's practice the art of silent storytelling through the power of pictures.

UPDATE: Thanks to all our friends who submitted photos today. Tuesday was a truly beautiful day. We think you'll agree...

On Community Building: We're All in this Together

"The moment [laughter] arises, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place." -Mark Twain

A couple weeks ago a few of us were discussing the somewhat unfortunate relationship between airlines and social media. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go ahead and do a quick Twitter search for “airline” and you’re guaranteed to find a plethora of complaints.

“They lost my bag” complaint. “We’re still sitting on the runway” complaint. “Why can’t the plane take off with a crack in the windshield?" complaint. “How can adult humans take so long deboarding an airplane” complaint. “I don’t like peanut smell” complaint. “How dare you bring a baby on an airplane!” complaint.

The list goes on and on.

I admit it. In a moment (possibly multiple moments) of frustration, I too have turned to tweeting. And while I feel justified in doing so, (we were told our plane was held for over an hour “waiting on bags from a previous flight” as we peeked out the window to discover the baggage handler taking a nap on the bag trolley...) the airlines seem to take a particularly harsh 140-character flogging on a regular basis.

Perhaps it’s just the nature of a high-stress experience (travel) combined with the instantaneous gratification that comes along with unloading that stress on the world with the push of the button. Who can say?

But one thing is certain: travel brings out a side of many people you (thankfully) don’t see in everyday life.

Precisely why I was extra delighted to stumble across the new preflight video for Virgin America (in partnership with Method Products whose hand wash takes up residence in Virgin America restrooms).

This video does everything right.

It appeals to travelers of (all types) by embracing reality (of all types). It uses humor to boost customer morale. It creates a sense of oneness amongst strangers, if only from wheels-up to wheels-down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-sfzLRjocs

"Everyone knows you’re not supposed to stand up when the seat belt sign is on, get blotto on board or hog the armrest, but when a flight attendant snaps “Sir/ma’am, you need to [fill in the blank],” sometimes you want to do the opposite just to show who’s boss. The video uses the world’s best teaching tool, humor, as a reminder that behaviors like loud conversation, kicking the seat in front of you and dawdling in the restroom are, in fact, disturbing to fellow passengers.”

“There’s nothing in the video that says to our guests ‘you’re bad’,” says Porter Gale, Virgin America’s Vice President of Marketing. “We wanted it to be light and fun in a way that respects our guests.” [read full article here ]

Research has shown that laughter, among other things, lowers blood pressure, increases teamwork and helps people feel more in control of their situations, even if those situations seem out of control. In fact, even if you don’t get a giggle out of someone, the simple anticipation of a positive, humorous laughter experience has been shown to reduce stress hormones.

Virgin Airlines (and Method, too) deserves a pat on the back (and perhaps some love tweets) for displaying such an evolved sense of self awareness. There are always going to be flight delays. Luggage will get lost. People are going to be annoying. They might even kick the back of your seat.

But we’re all in this together. And with a dash of good-natured humor, one simple, powerful message (and a catchy tune that doesn't hurt, either) they create an insta-community at 20,000 feet - from New York to Los Angeles, Houston to St. Paul.

The List

I think I am ramping up to a pre-midlife crisis. Or maybe it’s a delayed quarter-life crisis. Or maybe it’s a one-third-life crisis (do those exist?) I can’t be sure. What I do know, is this: I am turning 30 in a few months. Admittedly, I overdramatize my pending 30. In a way, I think it’s a bit like psychological flooding. I’ve joked about it so much at this point, when it actually happens I should be long-immune to any kind of shock, horror or despair that accompanies a hop from the 25-29 checkbox into the 30-35 checkbox.

Having said that, last week I was working on some copy for one of our clients, and in order to get “in it,” I had to think back to my college days. Somewhere between the mental time warp and putting words on paper, I found myself longing for late-night cram sessions, weekend out-of-towners crashing on sofas, the sublimeness of Saturdays during football season and the sinfulness of a 3:00 a.m. run to Pita Pit. This sudden onset nostalgia, however, was followed by an immediate wave of reality: I’ll never be 19 again.

I know, I know. It sounds dramatic, but for the first time in my life, I became acutely aware of the fact that at some point - as I’ve had my back turned, busy living, up to my elbows in NOW - one chapter of my life has ended, and another has begun.

I have nearly three decades of snapshots and slides behind me. If you loaded them into a player, you’d see Easter egg hunts and Sunday dresses, a few generations of beloved family dogs, bedtime stories and family vacations, a few leftover shards of broken hearts, a lot of laughter and one minor incident that involved a handful of my closest friends, a 24-pack of toilet paper and my one (and only) run-in with “the law.”

Tonight I found myself flipping through XM channels. I happened to stumble across a radio talk show and the host was talking to his mother. She had managed to score tickets to Oprah’s last taping. She talked about the milestone show for a few minutes, but eventually the conversation turned to why the opportunity had meant so much to her. Her response was simple: attending an Oprah show was an item ticked off her “Bucket List.”

As the conversation went on, the host’s mother encouraged listeners to make their own Bucket List. “Just write it down somewhere. That’s very important. Then go back in a year and you’ll be surprised how much you’ve done.”

It reminded me of a long-forgotten list I started a few years ago. I revisited the list last night, and just as foretold, I was surprised at how many of my To-Dos had been checked off the list simply by living.

As I scanned the list, it read like a clairvoyant friend who had taken a peek into my future...

• Item #2: Write my grandma a letter (I did, thankfully. She passed away in February)
• Item #8: Share a moment with beluga whales (Georgia Aquarium, September 2010)
• Item #15: Do some freelance work (The path that brought me to Brains on Fire)

There are also a handful of To-Dos still dangling out there, waiting patiently...

• Item #14: Volunteer somewhere outside my comfort zone
• Item #27: Take THE Great American Roadtrip
• Item #32: El Camino de Santiago
• Item #36: Karaoke (God help us all...)

As I perused the internet tonight, researching bucket lists, I caught a glimpse of a side of humanity that made me smile. A few random pulls from Bucket List blogs dotting the internet:

• Find a pen with brown ink
• Meet Chuck Norris
• Sleep in a heart-shaped bed
• Be happy for one whole day
• Get an octopus tattoo
• Make a perfect snow angel
• Get drunk with my mom
• Own a beagle
• Drive the Golden Gate Bridge ( http://www.vimeo.com/11642661 )
• Make guacamole
• Hug a koala bear

The great Charles Bukowski once said, “Too often people complain that they have done nothing with their lives and they wait for somebody to tell them this isn’t so.”

And herein lies my challenge for you. Quit waiting. Write it down. And go do it.

A good place to start: http://www.43things.com

So...what’s on your list?

It's Monday. Let's all go MAD!

Let’s be honest. Monday is nobody’s favorite. When someone is crabby on Monday, we accuse them of having a “case of the Mondays.” The Cure suggested Monday was the perfect day to fall apart, The Bangles accused it of being the most manic day of the week.

Just when the future of Mondays was looking pretty bleak, along came a group of people on a mission. A mission to do what, you ask? A mission to make Mondays matter.

And just like that, MAD (Make a Difference) Mondays were born.

MAD Mondays are a weekly excuse to “Go MAD” by participating in random, simple acts of kindness that make a difference in someone else’s life - be it friend, family or a stranger.

The Every Monday Matters website even offers 52 suggestions (one for each Monday of the year) full of inspiring ideas on how to celebrate and elevate your Mondays. The ideas range from showing your smile to adopting a pet, giving a hug to creating (and enjoying!) art.

A quick Google search reveals countless stories of people on both the giving and receiving end of the Monday MAD-ness... “Several months ago a coworker and I went through a drive through for lunch.  When we got to the window, we were told by the cashier that the gentleman in the car ahead of us had paid for our meals.  He said he was in the military and just arrived home from being overseas.  He explained that he'd been so blessed by acts of kindness while he was away that he wanted to begin returning the favors as he could.”

"I have a neighbor who leaves her trash bags in the hallway of our apartments. Yes I could report it. Yes I could ignore it. But this morning? I just carried the two full bags to the dumpster when I was walking to my car I went past her open window. I could hear her crying. She seemed to be talking on the phone, because I heard no one responding to her. I did not linger to hear the details, but it seems her teenage daughter is in trouble. I had just been feeling annoyed that she had left her trash in the hall. And now? I hope that somehow my little act of kindness helps her feel even the slightest bit better."

Going MAD is simple. Opportunities abound. Buy someone a cup of coffee behind you in line at Starbucks. Send a letter of gratitude. Bake cookies for your local fire department. Help someone. Share something. Choose to begin your week by making someone else's week just a little bit better. Become an active and frequent practitioner of good karma building, smile inducing and world betterment.

It's Monday. Today you have a few options. You can embrace your case of the Mondays and wallow under a little Monday raincloud. You can throw yourself into neutral and try to just survive the day. Or you can make your Monday matter by making a small contribution to the world that leaves it a slightly better place than when you rolled out of bed this morning.

I vote for the latter.

How will you go MAD today?

How to Be Awesome

It all began with broccoflower. But I’m jumping ahead. When Neil Pasricha picked up the phone and the voice on the other end of the phone informed him he had just won “The Best Blog in the World Award,” the first thing he thought was, “That sounds totally fake.”

Nonetheless, Neil’s blog, “1000 Awesome Things” had, in fact, won a Webby Award - and a short time later, Neil found himself author of an international bestseller.

In the wake of a failed relationship and the death of a dear friend, Neil began looking for a way to infuse his life with some positivity. Reflecting on the time period during which he launched the site, Neil says, "If you flipped open the newspaper it was filled with the same stuff every day. The polar ice caps were melting, there were pirates storming the seas, the economy was on the verge of collapse, and there were wars going on all over the world." Rather than allowing himself to wallow in the negativity, Neil began making a list.

A list of awesome. 1000 awesome things, to be exact.

The site is updated Monday through Friday, counting down awesome things from #1000 to #1. What was the awesome thing that started it all? Broccoflower. Or, as Neil describes it, “The bizarre misfit child from two of nature’s most hideous vegetables.”

The most recent post - #255 - is a tribute to “That guy who brings treats to work on Friday.”

Along the way, more than 30 million visitors have celebrated awesome things such as people who look like their pets. The smell of barbecue. Putting things in your shoe so you don’t forget them later. Car dancing. The sound of a golf ball falling into the cup. Dogs with jobs. When iPod shuffle setting reads your mind. Looking through the little window in the oven. Finally finding the start of this stupid roll of tape. Finding out what song is on that commercial. Finding good reading material in someone else’s bathroom. Watching your odometer click over a major milestone.

So here we are. It’s Monday. I am challenging myself to be a little bit more like Neil this week. I’m making a conscious choice to celebrate small joys - whether that means admiring the shape of a melon ball (versus the far inferior melon cube) appreciating puppy breath or stopping to whisper a few words of encouragement to the office basil plant.

I intend to make this an awesome week. And I hope you will, too.

What would you put on your awesome list?

Where Do Good Ideas Come From?

Where do good ideas come from? For the last several years, Steven Johnson has been investigating that very question. Specifically, what are the spaces that have historically lead to unusual rates of creativity and innovation?

And what did Steven find?  People, of course.

Say farewell to the eureka theory, because it seems great ideas rarely arrive in a flash of great insight. Great ideas prefer to simmer, incubate and marinate.

Great ideas operate on their own time frame. Sometimes it takes a few weeks, other times a few months or, in some cases, a few decades.

And perhaps most interestingly of all, great ideas play well with others. In fact, more often than not, great ideas result from the collision of smaller hunches.

As it turns out, there’s a very real chance that the missing piece of your great idea is hanging out in someone else’s head - right at this very moment - just waiting to meet you. And that meeting is a catalyst with the power to propel your idea from “hunch” to “breakthrough.”

Before we dig any further into Steven’s research, let’s take a trip back to elementary school. One of the first rules we learned was “NO TALKING.” Violate the rule, get your name on the board. Press your luck, get a check mark after it. Three times? Well, we won’t even go there, you rebel.

Now I’m going to ask you to throw away that little schoolhouse nugget forever. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Toss it out. Feel better? You should, because you are now one step closer to greatness.

You see, our teachers had it all wrong. On the quest to foster great ideas, innovation and creativity, the #1 rule should have been: MORE TALKING!

And Steven Johnson’s research agrees.

“The great driver of scientific innovation and technological innovation has been the historic increase in connectivity and our ability to reach out and exchange ideas with other people - and to borrow other people’s hunches and combine them with our hunches, turning them into something new. That, more than anything else, has been the primary engine of creativity and innovation over the last 600 or 700 years.”

And herein lies the lesson for each of us. As marketers. As CEOs. As teachers. As parents. As leaders. As human beings. Great ideas and innovation happen when hunches (and passions ...and people) collide.

Talk to your customers and fans and staff and colleagues and neighbors. Listen to what they have to say. Build unlikely partnerships and teams. Rally together. Shake things up. Encourage and enable interaction and contribution. Invite everyone to the brainstorm and to the party. You never know when or where two hunches will meet and spark the next great thing.

So there you have it. Great ideas are born when we’re busy working, playing and sharing with other people.

Which now leaves us with only one question: What are you doing still sitting at your desk?

Step out of your office. Exit the cubicle. Take a stroll down to Starbucks with your coworkers. Add your voice to a conversation. Share your hunch with someone around you. Dare to chitchat.

You may just find greatness.

Originally posted on the Brains on Fire Blog

The Art of Being Alone

Welcome to a world where the only places a person “checks in” are hotel lobbies and airports. A place where badges are earned by police detectives and boy scouts. The birds here are not angry, and they not only tweet, but chirp. When we have a conversation, we speak in as many characters as we like. When we like something, we say so by smiling. We still think poking is terribly rude. It began with a simple e-mail.

“Dear friends,

Hope this e-mail finds you well. This message is just to advise you that after some introspection, I have decided to begin a social media fast of undetermined length. I welcome you to call me at 614-555-5555 any time.”

Cheers!”

And just like that, a page was torn out of FaceBook, Flickr was flicked off and one little corner of the Twittersphere went black. The plug had been pulled on social media.

Left with no choice, I did the unthinkable - I picked up the phone and dialed. Once I had adequately chastised his hasty departure from the social media social scene, I pressed my friend for the details of his self-imposed hiatus.

The rationale was quite simple: He wanted to spend more time focusing on the real social connections in his life. He wanted to spend less time on Facebook and more time with faces and books.

My inner social media lover immediately began seeking a loophole in his logic. As someone who avidly uses Skype, Facebook and Twitter to keep in touch with family and friends, I think there is an argument to be made that social media can strengthen real social connections in our lives if we’re committed to using to do so, but is it ultimately at the detriment of those relationships in real time? Does it matter how many adoring Facebook message you’ve left on a friend’s wall if you’re distracted by text messages and tweets when you finally get the chance to sit down to dinner together?

Is social media becoming an insecurity blanket we carry with us everywhere we go?

Curious, I set forth on a mission to read up on other people’s motivations for going off the grid. What I discovered is that they missed the late night backyard conversations. They missed the simple pleasure of chatting over a glass of wine or a cup of coffee with a friend. They missed taking time out to slow down on a Sunday and meet up for brunch. Story after story, what I heard is that by chattering with everyone online, people felt like they were connecting with no one offline, including themselves.

Last weekend a woman pulled up beside me at stoplight. She immediately pulled out her iPhone and began typing. I don’t know if she was tweeting or texting or checking in at “stuck in traffic” on FourSquare, but it struck me as truly ridiculous. On a beautiful Sunday afternoon, was the thought of 60 seconds spent enjoying the solitude and quiet of her own good company really so daunting?

I stumbled across an awesome video this week called “How to Be Alone,” an art many of us have forgotten - and some of us have never learned. It’s a testament to the value of being present in our lives - with others and with ourselves.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs?rel=0]

90% of Word of Mouth happens offline, because life happens offline. Get to know the people you love offline. Get to know yourself offline. Practice pulling the plug on your online life now and then in order to plug into the people, memories, conversations and moments that are your one and only real life.

My wish for you this weekend? A little alone time, a little offline time, more faces and books.

Originally posted on the Brains on Fire Blog

Just a Moment

http://vimeo.com/8189067 Last week I had the opportunity to attend TEDx Greenville. My first TEDx. Nine hours of mental, spiritual and creative invigoration. Truth be told, I’m still feeling a little “TEDded up.”

They warned us that might happen.

While each presenter inspired with their stories and passion, it was writer and teacher Max Strom whose message really gave me pause to think.

<strong>&ldquo;Upload a life of meaning, there is no app for happiness.&rdquo;</strong> | Max Strom

How, exactly, does one upload a life of meaning? I believe the answer is found in our moments, not our minutes.

But what, exactly, is a moment? How do you differentiate between a moment and a minute?

A minute is 60 seconds.

Moments are born when we make the choice to be present in our lives.

A minute is the ticking of a clock, a passive passing of time.

A moment is shuffling through mail to find a real letter hidden amongst a stack of bills. It's the blissfully broken hush between a ringing doorbell and the sound of loved ones bursting through the door. It's blowing out birthday candles and lifting the lid of a Christmas gift. It's taking the route through the sprinkler on a hot summer day - not around it. It's the splash of a penny-shaped wish in a fountain. It's a Monopoly, Scrabble, Uno victory. It's watching jellyfish dance in water and a plastic grocery bag dance on a breeze. It&rsquo;s losing, then finding, your keys. It&rsquo;s a phone call waking you in the middle of the night. It's when the song you were just thinking about comes on the radio. It's driving with the windows down on the first really great day of spring. It&rsquo;s a bouquet of yellow balloons in transit to a party. It's the smell of barbecue from a block away and bonfires after dark. It's the kid at the back of the school bus waving at traffic as it passes by. It's snowflakes at 2 a.m. falling so unexpectedly the weatherman didn't have time to spoil the surprise. It's a first dance and a 50th anniversary dance. It's a hummingbird there one minute, gone the next. It's "now you may kiss the bride." It's stepping off an airplane and into a hug. It's taking one really great deep breath. It's laughing until your sides hurt. It's crying until your heart no longer hurts. It&rsquo;s every opportunity life presents us with to do, feel, live, see, be.

Max Strom&rsquo;s words inspired me to reflect on the value of a moment - to think about what is truly lost when a moment is wasted, and what is gained when a moment is well spent.

<strong>What would happen if we all stopped worrying about time this week - and started caring about moments? What if we all made the choice to be present in our lives?</strong>

This week you have 10,080 opportunities to turn minutes into moments.

Happy Monday.

Originally posted on the Brains on Fire Blog