Work

The Habit of Close Talking after Quick Connections

Thanks to Seth Godin for the inspiration here:

I grew up with an Apple IIe and a floppy disc. My adolescence involved the cringing sound and loading speeds of AOL. Remember that car-crashing wheel screaming sound of AOL loading? Ugh. Click here to hear the song. Ugh. Why did I just click that!? My hair just stood up.

Capture the flag and hide-n-seek remained a game of improv - not knowing who was where. There were no text messages that read "Game Over." Soon enough, the text message replaced the walkie-talkie in my pocket.

Over the years, we are getting more connected as a human race than ever in the history of mankind. The irony here is that even though we are more connected, meaningful relationships are at an all time low.

Students can ignore the face-to-face conversation and engage in a clitter clatter of a text message or tweet. Confrontation can be ignored. Building relationships can be substituted with adding a new "friend". 

LIkes replaced high fives and handshakes.

Recently, I've had the good fortune to learn from the works of Phil O'Brien and Pete Bacevice. Both have greatly influenced my thoughts on how social media can be a beautiful tool to connect like-minded individuals to build ideas into eventful projects - Linchpinesque projects. Too many fail, however, because it's far easier to go on to the next follower or next like. The key is to take this new connection from this new-school form of connection into the realm of an old-school chat. 

Work is the creation phase. There's a dip involved where one goes from idea to creation that is stressful and requires one to take a vision into reality. This is good stress. Positive stress. The stress that makes one happier in the end than ever before. It brings on smiles and a perhaps a thicker wallet.

Slow work and meaningful conversations will take one out of what Phil O' Brien refers to as mild rage, the state where one realizes they are not working at their full potential. It's kind of like driving a car with three wheels. It's working, but it's wobbly and doesn't feel right and is far from efficiently enjoyable.

What do you think? How do you define close talking and purposeful work? Have you had success with building an idea to creation through a quick internet connection? 


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