Today, we have the skills and technologies to listen to the universe. But often we don't listen to the people around us.

Jim Macnamara, Organizational Listening

Listen. I'm gonna tell you a story.

Max Bygraves

I had the privilege to sit in and watch (and listen) to a presentation this past week. Can't say too much (Chatham House Rule (sic) and all that), but if I were to tell you that I hauled my ass out of bed at 4:30 am to listen live - even though I could have watched the recording later - maybe that will provide you with the import I laid on this talk.

That and the fact that I can share who presented ... Kristin Little who has The IEEE, 14 years at The World Bank and Fellow of The People Centered Internet - to name but three institutions on her resume. To summarize ... well worth 'tuning in'.

When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.

The point of this piece is not to take you through what was said idea by idea, but rather to provide some key points that you might find interesting. Each headline groups one or more takeaways that I thought were interesting.

A lot was talked about and covered and I am real happy to get into a dialogue about this and other threads around the challenge of listening. For now, though, this is it.

Most important .... in 40 minutes nobody said anything like ‘you were born with two ears and one mouth - use them in the same proportions' ... and for that, I was truly thankful. So, here we go.

Opening Comments

On average, around 80%, of organizational resources devoted to public communication is focused on speaking.

Some organizations even were up to 95% of their so called communication was outbound.

At the individual level, we've diminished our ability to have real listening and real conversations. We're now able to voice our thoughts and opinions easily, social media has allowed us a platform to do this.

The Promise of Listening

At the same time, we willingly or unwillingly customize our feeds. We end up hearing views that are just similar to our own. And we filter out the others, it feels like everyone is speaking and not enough listening is happening.

Listening is more important than ever.

To Listen is to Participate

Well, I guess that is exactly what I did. I said nothing. I asked nothing. I just listened. (I know - right? ME!)

Translation

Came up a few times during the talk, not just between different languages, such as English to German, Japanese to Russian etc but also cross-disciplinary translation. This is something I talk about a lot in my world. I am a 'cloud hopper', and I can do that, because my superpower is 'translation' (not language translation, which tends to be the assumption, but cross-disciplinary translation; sales to marketing, customer to vendor, American to English.

It's that last one that confuses people the most. Surely both countries speak the same language?

They do. They don’t. We hear similar words, so we assume we have understood. My view is that we spend less time listening - and thus understanding if we don’t have to concentrate too hard on what is being said. In other words, we assume. (How many times do we leave meetings and each one of us has 'understood' the conclusions, only to discover at the next meeting that this simply was not the case. Partly I think this is because we hear words we recognize and so assume we understand them.

Back to the talk. What really made me sit up was the idea of cross-species translation. The lady that spoke said she 'swims (and talks) with the dolphins' daily. We know that the animal kingdom communicates. Few of us really think about communication with them. In fact I would go as far to say that if we hear such talk - at best we 'raise our eyebrows'!

Stop The Post Mortems

The speaker spoke of post mortem analysis around projects and programs that she has been part of. An audience member suggested that rather than using post mortem, postpartum be considered as a more positive alternative. In their words ... "the line ahead as being a death experience as more like a birth experience."

Postpartum - opening up the possibility to the idea that lessons are being learned and that a new beginning would be possible the next time. Post mortem implying dead, over, passed and definitely not being revisited (my paraphrase).

The Delphi method

Uses 'iterative feedback' to reach consensus (one way to drive more listening in an OODA loop spirit.)

A way of driving towards consensus by everybody giving an opinion and then iterating on that opinion, until everybody agrees on a consensus. It's iterative and a useful technique.

(Delphi Method and OODA)

Superb Quote

It’s hard to transcend a combative question. But it's hard to resist a generous question. We all have it in us to formulate questions that invite honesty, dignity, and revelation.Krista Tippett

Thought(ful) Leadership

A twist of the expression 'thought leadership', and instead focus on thoughtful leadership.

Thought Leadership offers ideas so as to 'lead' in the marketplace of ideas.

Thoughtful leaders listen first, before they pronounce.

Not to mention that Mindy Gibbins-Klein has a book out on this very topic.

Two Stories About Computers In Meetings

Someone who went into a meeting and said, Why is everyone looking at their laptops for the entire meeting. There was nobody who looked at the speaker. Turned out that it was a special meeting for people who were on the autism spectrum. It was meant for them to be watching the speaker on their laptop and replying that way, because that's what was comfortable. That's how they could best function.

I gave a talk recently at a conference for blind people and was shocked to find out that when I was talking, everyone was looking at me. So I was very perplexed. Because I thought well, I would think they would be looking down at their screens. Well, of course, they can't see the screens, but they really loved engaging by looking up at the faces that they couldn't see. Because it made them feel part of the conversation.

Use of Zoom

It's distracting when, people don't seem to be looking at you in the eyes.

Side (authors) note - there's a fix
- place the camera further way from you
- place the camera focussed on you as close to the person on the screen as possible

Smaller groups tend to benefit more interaction.

Break out rooms are very helpful in bringing out people who might otherwise remain quiet.

Encouraging people to be on camera is good,

When you start a meeting, ask a question, an easy question that people can answer,

And so much more, that all felt very much motherhood and Apple pie. Maybe that it is because Zoom and all the other video conferencing tools have just been part of me for a long time. It was nearly twenty years ago that my startup was building 'across the firewall collaboration tools' that included embedding video conferencing software and chats right into the dynamically generated collaboration sites ... twenty years ago? Ok - eighteen!

Separately, I thought this was an interesting exchange. To me, it clearly demonstrates a before and after scenario. The questioner and presenter, both appeared to be in what I would call the old paradigm, the 'refiner' attempting to recalibrate the job of the presenter.

Question : How do you gently encourage people in Zoom not to multitask?

Answer : Beyond telling them that it's very important that we all focus beforehand, maybe also send an email in advance with expectations, and clearly explain what those are and why you would like them to not multitask. And recognizing that it happens, but saying that you want them not to for these reasons. And then thanking them for having not multitask.

Alternative Suggestion From The Audience :
I would like to suggest that multitasking is a feature of Zoom. It provides the environment for you to be able to be looking at multiple things, especially if the camera gets turned off. So the first notional idea is, is that you have to accept that. And then secondly, it's incumbent upon the person who's hosting the meeting, to have content that's worth paying attention to, that will arrest your attention.

That seems to be a perfect summary of why presentations fail in general, which I accept is a totally different topic - but one that I am very keen to drive home.

A lot more was said about Zoom, but it didn’t cover off the issues that I have with that world - which happens to be the topic of this week's newsletter. (I will add a link here when it goes live.)

Conclusion

So much was said. So much was covered. I just wish I could share the actual conversation. Bottom line. Fascinating and delighted that I did indeed haul my ass out of bed when I did.

This piece is knowingly not a flowing article, but I hope it peeked the interest and held (if not arrested) your attention. What are your thoughts?

Thinking Allowed

• More about People First
• Other People First Posts
  (not just from the ‘other domain’ … all of them.)

Wouldn't you know that one of the first real blog posts to go live on the newly revamped People First Blog is really not my work at all - but rather that of 'People First Friend and Member' ... Jeff Mowatt.

So what does business that puts people first actually mean in practice?

People-Centered Economic Development derives from a paper for the steering group for the Committee to (Re)Elect the President, describing a business model which operates for social benefit rather than maximising shareholder returns.

In the core argument which critiqued the fractional reserve banking system the paper asserted:

"Economics, and indeed human civilization, can only be measured and calibrated in terms of human beings. Everything in economics has to be adjusted for people, first, and abandoning the illusory numerical analyses that inevitably put numbers ahead of people, capitalism ahead of democracy, and degradation ahead of compassion."

"Each of us who have a choice can choose what we want to do to help or not. It is free-will, our choice, as human beings."

Jeff Mowatt

Read the whole article here ....

More about Jeff Mowatt, Director, People-Centered Economic Development UK.

After a few decades stumbling around the topic, two things became clear.
- You have to change the way business thinks if you want to change how it works.
- If businesses change how they work they can change how their audiences think.

John Caswell - over on linkedIN

I had to reply - of course, and I did, but it felt substantial enough to include here - flip though the first sentence was.

You might imagine that I won’t argue too much - except to say that businesses not only won’t think - they can’t. It’s the people in those businesses that do the thinking.

We then have to ask - if what needs to happen is so clear to so many people, (judging by everything that you read), then why doesn’t it change?

My friend (Daniel Szuc) in Hong Kong has observed that when at work people are essentially in the mode of sleepwalking … and related to that, see their roles defined in the organizational boxes - and rarely look outside that box … ‘not my job’.

One question …. “if not you … if not now … if not ….” you know how it goes.

Seperately Venkatesh Rao developed a simple model a while back where he mapped the 4 forces of nature to his own 4 forces of humanity, drawing comparison between the relative strengths and reach of each force. He mapped business to gravity.

I take it a step further - unlike the 4 natural forces - the 4 forces of humanity are not givens. It is in our power to change any of them.

Gravity is a given. Business is not.

A friend of mine sent this link to me. I was incensed. (I think he knew I would be). In turn, I sent this link into an Internet Identity community I belong to and asked : "How many different ways is this wrong?"

Amazon To Pay Consumers For Their Shopping Data

People First Podcast Guest Tim Walters was quick to reply (the link takes you to the podcast - the show has not yet gone live).

The great and sadly late European Data Protection Supervisor, Giovanni Buttarelli, said it all in 2014:

"There might well be a market for personal data, just like there is, tragically, a market for live human organs, but that does not mean that we can or should give that market the blessing of legislation. One cannot monetise and subject a fundamental right to a simple commercial transaction, even if it is the individual concerned by the data who is a party to the transaction."

If I thought it was worth $10 a month, I'd go to a shopping district and gather discarded receipts to scan for Amazon. After all, "That data will be used anonymously, the company says." But . . . if it is genuinely used anonymously, why doesn't Amazon just collect and study discarded receipts themselves? They could certainly find a way to do it at far more scale -- not to mention, actually anonymously -- than a cumbersome mailed-pictures-of-paper-receipts-for-Amazon-credit scheme. (S&H Green Stamps, anyone?)

The company says it deletes any sensitive information such as prescriptions from drug store receipts and allows panellists to delete their own information whenever they want." Oh, not so anonymous after all.

Tim Walters / Giovanni Buttarelli

What do you think?

Thinking Allowed

• More about People First
• Other People First Posts
  (not just from the ‘other domain’ … all of them.)

Community mind you ... not Network - is a yet to be developed space/application that will serve to provide a fabric that wraps so many people, organizations, books, papers, applications etc. My observation is that in any initiative you find parallel organizations that seem to relate and compete and yet essentially are discussing the same topic. Think 'not-for-profits' fighting each other for the same funding to solve the same problem.

People First is not the only organization in this space - so in one sense we are another node on the network. No argument. BUT. What [peoplefirst.community](https://peoplefirst.community) will do is provide a network map of anybody and everybody related to and working with the challenges we are identifying.

No need to click through by the way - nothing there - yet - move along. It for the moment remains the vision.

DigLife and Generative Identity

Once such organization, lead by Philip Sheldrake is The DigLife Collective - of which yours truly is a founder member. Their observation says it all;

COOPERATING AT GLOBAL SCALE IS HUMANITY'S PRIMARY CHALLENGE

DigLife Collective

DigLife has in turn recently spawned another initiative that explores Generative Identity. It's new thinking that I wanted to capture now. It's an important message. To me the first time that I am aware of the world of technology that in talking about identity, they are not just talking about the 'ID' - but also starting to think of the 'entity' of Identity.

For those keeping track, you will recall that it is a significant stone in the People First canon.

Whenever we contemplate human dignity and well-being, social inclusion and equity, economics, education, democratic process, peace and justice, whenever we contemplate many of the sustainable development goals and corresponding targets, we inevitably contemplate the question of human identity in the digital age.

Anyone who has worked on projects in areas such as these will vouch that questions of identity are integral to their research, their analyses, and their designs.

The term generative identity is used to refer to research and thinking and designs that prioritise psychological, sociological, and ecological health in their approach to digital identity. The interdisciplinary working group on generative identity exists to encourage such work and, by corollary, to highlight the innate dangers of approaches to digital identity that do not qualify as generative.

https://generative-identity.org/about-generative-identity/

Funny, just today, I published the weekly newsletter referencing a quote from Douglas Adams. There must be something in the ether. Over on the DigLife site, I found this image of dolphins.