So much of our lives now are seamlessly integrated in the cloud. Media is more and more centered around the experience of the individual being a member of others like themselves in community. Even through the code, we all are seeking significance and harmony to our online environment, seeking awareness in others in an audience, building a place of respect and authority so others may listen to us, so we may be accepted and found credible, many call this a platform.

The reality is as we seek harmony with our online environment, the 1′s and 0′s begin to sink in, we begin to see the online world as formulaic, and be begin seeing others as on and off switches to elevate our platform, our personal brand, our “presence” and our social-relational-economy is at work. Simply follow anyone with #teamfollowback in their profile, and get instant friends, or go to a fan page like Jesus Christ is Lord, and “buy” post updates to their 1000′s of liked friends.

It’s all about the 1′s and the 0′s

To me the poing is us being 1- whole, real, relational, authentic, analogue individual looking to connect without any real agenda. Don’t be the 0, the pushy update maker, the fake friend who only wants access to my network for their benefit, the website brand copier, who wants a website to look just like this other successful site. Or even the person who has tricked themselves into believing what they are seeking is authentic, when they jump through every success hoop they see to make themselves like someone else.

Don’t be a 0- Share life.

My morning ritual finding my place in a creative space (Taken with instagram)

The organization I co-Founded with EJ Swanson has raised $15,000 for Malaria resources in Africa (Check out http://www.iwontwatch.com and buy a watch)  = HUGE WIN

My day job running everything at STYLEVOX.tv has been bumping too, with some amazing opportunities to announce in the near future. If you want to check out our work and whats been happening, the news/blog is the best place to keep track of me there.

Most recently I have been spending a lot of time thinking about WHY social media is so important. When I consult and help people they want to “build their platform”, they want to “increase their social presence” or “solidify our follower-ship online”. These are all synonymous with an ugly idea. The Platform.

None of these people are evil, in fact many of them are well intentioned, however they have bought into the myth of the Online Platform.

I love CONFERENCES! I really am a bit of a nut, I love the idea of big events currated with great looking paper materials, lights, music, invigorating experiences and motivational resources and speaker. There is just something electrifying about it. 

I think all of us look at that big stage and wonder what it would be like to be “up there” . To have the recognition of our own opinions and ideas, to be respected by peers and experts as a creditably and trusted voice on a subject. Its a really sexy idea- And I think you are lying if you never coveted the position that comes with being a hot shot on stage. 

You see, at a conference there are two roles; the speaker who engages an audience with a message they will benefit from, and the audience, those who wish to receive information out of self-improvement, interest and adventure.  This one-way communication is very satisfying for everyone- but I would go as for as calling this experience “interactive”.

We take some of these same social frames and apply them to our online experiences and it leads to a false assumption about the reality of the online platform. 

ONLINE- unlike with platforms, followers or likes aren’t always quantifiers of experience as much ascontent would suggest.

One Account I follow had 1,500 followers or so on twitter, the next day (the same day a big cool conference started) they had 10,000 + Followers and followed just as many back.

What happened? Did they speak that day? No- Publish a big article? No- they purchased them.

Everyone WANTS to be the big voice on stage, but I believe a true test of klout is now a matter of many but HOW MUCH. 

Its not about how many follow you, its about how much that community responds to you and your voice. Are links clicked? Blog posts read? by 70% or more of your follower-ship? Do you click on 60% of THEIR material? 

The platform mentality says “GIMME” its a parasitic paradigm, “I am the authority, so support and share my shit”  rather than a CreativeSpace  mentality, lets come together and create a narrative that includes our stuff working together” its symbiosis, its the fact that everyone is trading roles as audience/receiver and communicator/broadcaster.

The PLATFORM does not exist, because its an outward approximation of an inward dynamic called community. 

And I KNOW, because I bought into the lie that if  I shared this much, this often and these times, with these people then magically, a platform would be created.

But then we created @iwontwatch, and raisded $15k in 7 weeks from 1500 followers.  We out-gave organizations 2:1 that were 10x our size in the same space, of social entrepreneurship. Thats community, thats passion, not a platform.

Amazing Easter weekend in SoCal (Taken with instagram)

This is so wrong in so many ways (shake your peanut)

My new addiction (Taken with Instagram at Pine Valley Retreat Center)

Recently I have been challenged and energized by Erich From a 20th century author, philosopher with some earth shattering ideas on what it means to be human. Ini his book, THE ART OF LOVING I’ve sets for a summation on the truest and most connective element of humanity- Love. In world that has largely adopted the freudian post 1970 concept of love, Fromm is bold and very fresh.

His Premise—- Love is art.

Love is a skill and a talent human beings develop to combat our “separateness” in community in romance, in families. Love is only given and experienced. As the theory of love unfold he describes something I have believed myself for a while. That human beings endowed and created by a creator, a on a constant journey back to Eden back to wholeness and balance.

One cannot love others unless they are themselves complete. That selfishness in fact is not a love of self, but a depravity in ones ability to accept and love themselves. Thus he asserts most of what is broken in the world comes when incomplete people attempt to love.

This leads to his brief expression of creativity as the worship of ones self in life, love, and activity. Creativity in his definition is not selfish, but an activity that points back to ones ability to love. More correctly creativity is a act of worshiping love through. Wow—-

- From CNN, a classic example of shock and awe messaging vs. relational marketing, which is more effective? Depends on the message…… 

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