Not unlike this blog–or blogging in general, I suppose.

And it got me thinking. At first, of course, as a champion of all things current and now, I grew a little defensive. I cited the arrival of the 24-hour news cycle and the obsession with the 7-second soundbite in our political spheres as equal measures of evidence toward such a shallowing of the pool of human thought. But I suppose the Internet and social media had its share of the blame for things. So I relented in my stance that finger-pointing should continue. Blogs vs. lazy journalism vs. business, etc.

Then yesterday I had the chance to meet with a veteran newsman–an Air Force public affairs chief master sergeant. Veteran in terms that he had pre-dated the official arrival of social network in our professional spheres–a feat most of us qualify for, as it’s only been less than a decade since journalism was more like the Fourth Estate of centuries past and not like the Bieber-entranced drool machines of late. Not “veteran” in terms of being old or any veiled insult that readers may imply while scanning over these words.

Veteran in that I respected his experience, and he, mine. We talked a bit about how the Web has made a lazy bunch out of many military journalists. How, apart from any undue shaking of fists at the arrival of the present, the past’s reliance on newspapers–replete with deadlines and gruff editors, forced writers to produce. And what’s more, to produce works people would wish to read. And in timely manners, no less.

This editor friend of mine talked in examples about how, when in times past, covering sports or certain VIP visits to bases, he would have to rush back and spend some evening hours to hammer out stories. And since these stories often HAD to appear in that week’s paper, there was often not time to parade versions and opinions around. The slightly-olden journalist had to get it right the first time. Thinking to now, some five-10 years later, he described how his staffs leisurely get around to posting stories occasionally. Since the Web is always there, things lose a sense of urgency. Also, since it was so easy to change content, my editor friend described what I’ve heard from a dozen other journalists as story “coordination”. In this lovely phenomenon, stories are emailed around to a small army of would-be critics, who quibble and gripe about every noun, phrase and piece of jargon–a kitchen full of chefs, cooking stew.

So many journalists, because of the time-intensive nature of coordination in military journalism, get around to maybe posting a story every week or so.

The point is, apart from the numbers, where people can argue and say they are better because they post more…

…the point is, the web may have cheapened our ability to produce and or think to the level we ought.

Military journalists often don’t have to think through their work because they realize a half-dozen writers are going to weigh in on their words anyway. So why try? Digital cameras let people “spray and pray” that a good photo comes out of a batch of 1,000, rather than carefully choosing when to let loose an exposure on a painfully short roll of film.

And the pundits, bloggers, writers…we can spout out a billion entries across a billion blogs every day, but to what end, eh? The person with the best 7-second soundbite wins anyway, because who has time to actually get to the meat of a thing? Who has time to think about the impact of words and sentiment?

I might end up buying that book. Seems to be worth looking into, rather than just spouting off a few ‘graphs and moving on.

###

Doh!

Haha, well I’m a jerk, but you knew that. There’s no way I can maintain my steady stream of ranting, writing and fixing the world. Something’s got to give!

Lots happening. Lots to consider. First off, my honest and genuine prayers go out to the several friends and family of friends I’ve heard have hit rough financial times. Lay-offs, health woes–life can be a real jerk sometimes. I do hope some fortune finds its way to your corner of things. I know a few sentences in a not-often-read blog probably don’t mean much, but for what it’s worth, I think about you all a lot.

And if no one has let me know about their hardships, lay ‘em on me–comments, tweets, Facebook, whatever. You can glean some semblance of joy that I have enough heart left to feel the desperation, uncertainty and doubt along with ya. I even try to pray about people in these sorts of situations.

All that to say, I count it as a blessing to have work. And I don’t take it for granted! Here today, gone tomorrow–the universe has a way of shaking the box. The Lord giveth and taketh as the saying goes.

As such, work has been weighing a bit heavily on the ol’ shoulders in these months past. There’s more to do with fewer resources. More meetings, more projects, more monitoring of social media channels. Sometimes in the midst of my little listening-post moments, with my ear buds in, jammin’ to Trent Reznor’s “The Social Network” score, I fancy myself some sort of CIA analyst, pouring over diplomatic cables and surveillance tapes, watching the streams of data, listening to clues…

…trying to solve what? We’ll, everything, friends. Some cache, clutch, cadre, whathaveyou of leaders have gotten it into their heads that social media is the cure-all for business. It’s like Windex. It solves everything. It’s like salt. It’s like Emiril’s essence. You sprinkle social media on top of a project or business need and–BAM! instantly better.

So there’s cause to utilize, synergize and exploit every neuron of those slaved to the social media machine to crank out the elixir of awesomesauce to solve the way of things.

Only one problem: Social media isn’t the cure.

What’s that? Gasp! The horror!

Even this has been said a dozen times in a thousand blogs, but it’s worth saying for the blessed few who see these words: Social media amplifies existing signals. It casts a brighter light on what’s already there. Illuminate a pile of crap and you have a clearly-lighted pile of crap. Savvy?

So, it’s important to keep expectations in perspective. I say this with the realization that some may wish to expel this particular prophet into the unemployment wasteland and look for new zeal, but I try to speak truth.

I shall endeavor to communicate, teach communication, empower my fellow employees to reach new heights in regard to distributing content across the cosmos. I shall eternally watch and react to the changing landscape, as a person may step up as he sinks in the sand at the edge of the surf.

But what I won’t do is sell snake oil.

Social media amplifies and illuminates the quality of existing practices and candor. I do wish the ability to tweet was like some magic dust that sent kids giddily toward a promised Neverland, but it’s a bit more grounded than that.

So here we are, at the cusp of what’s next. And tomorrow comes.

###

I forgot how much I enjoy not having much to do. My old roommate from D.C. let me crash at his place once my second event concluded and he went to work like normal, leaving me to my own devices Thursday and Friday. The hours sort of hurried by as I watched the Twitterstream. Now that it’s Friday, I feel almost guilty that I don’t have all of my notes transcribed.

Not too guilty, though. I am using personal days for these final few days in D.C., so I’m not technically on the clock. If I’m a little sluggish is responding to work email, so be it. The purist in me would say leave the work phone off altogether. But I know it’s better to chip away at the email mountain now than try to climb it flat-out when I get back to the office. For all the “you’re not allowed to use personal sites at work” sentiment that still persists in many circles, I don’t think those particular managers realize how much work life already permeates personal time.

Others do realize that, and it’s why I’m very okay with people taking a few minutes to look up that thing on Amazon they were wondering about. Sure, it technically is “time wasted,” but so is eating lunch. So is saying “hi” to a coworker. As much as I thought the message of “give a little, take a little” in terms of personal/work time had already been established in workplace circles, I’m still surprised how often I run into organizations who still believe their workforce is 100 percent productive between the hours of 8:59 a.m. and 5:01 p.m. Most Internet sites are forbidden. Hours are meticulously tracked. I’m surprised they allow talking in the halls.

People have been wasting time since the beginning of time. Facebook isn’t the problem, attitudes and people are.

Luckily, I work for a place that’s not THAT strict when it comes to logging and tracking every second of my day. I’m allowed to check on social media sites and whatnot so long as it doesn’t affect my productivity. If so, my manager fixes what is a management issue. Cool, huh?

But there is the other side of the coin, where employees also need to know when to unplug. As I type, there are five or six brewing storms that I’m going to be sucked into when I return to work after this little break. I could sit here and fret about them. I could furiously write reports to estimate and try to mitigate perceived risks and problems, even if those perceptions are bound to change and shift. I could, but I shouldn’t. I’m off the clock. That’s why they have a clock. Being “on” too much will burn a person out.

So I sit and watch the sun set, looking over to where the light switch is in my roommate’s apartment. Later we’ll go out and chill with some people. And I’ll let the work tempest brew. Only eight-12 hours in the workday, after all. They can’t fire me for not working during personal time. At least I hope they can’t :p

###

They aren’t the first VERY successful people whom I’ve heard say this. In fact, I’ve heard it so often that it makes me feel like an idiot.

“I don’t know…I just did it?” Ha, that easy, eh?

On the other hand, I’ve heard from the next couple of levels down. These are the people who aren’t quite there. They have to always pitch themselves. They’ve had some semblance of success. They’ve gathered a larger-than-average pool of Twitter followers, whatever. They appear at conferences and seminars too, pushing their new blog/site/business, begging for followers/retweets, handing out “buy my stuff” swag. They have theories and coin phrases. And while they’re being recognized for their successes at certain venues, they haven’t “made it” by many long shots.

When these “almost but not quite” people talk about success, they recount the thousands of ways they expand their influence. They recount formulas for maximizing viewership. They talk about selling ads, Excel spreadsheets, projections, ad-words, keywords. They’re always self promoting. They’re always working. They claw success and fame from life like a starving farmer ekes his years from poor soil.

So there seems to be something else in the works. It seems that hard work only takes you so far when it comes to influence. Some people just have it. Some have to fake it.

Perhaps it’s like Shakespeare (and what isn’t?) “…some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.” It’s like there’s a marked difference between the genuine achievers and influentials in the world and the rich guys you see in pyramid scheme late-night commercials.

However, it also makes me think of something Abe Lincoln said (and what doesn’t?) “…give me six hours to cut down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

Maybe the major successes of the world have something else they do? Maybe it’s something that’s so ingrained in their behaviors and dispositions, that it just seems like common sense to them?

Hell if I know what it is outright, but I’d like to think they know how to listen—they know where to apply their limited force on the world and cause a shift.

Penn talked about adapting and learning different skills and doing different things as he saw them. Mark talked about hearing different ideas and going with ones he thought were compelling. There seemed to be a lot of “Wait, then act” motifs to their life stories.

…which flies in the face of the “always on, sell, sell, sell” obnoxiously aggressive sales approach I hear from others.

So maybe, instead of asking the Penns and Marks of the world, “How do I get to be as famous as you?”, we should ask, “What do you value and how do you pursue it?”

Seems like one of those, “It’s the journey, not the destination,” sorts of things. And that’s cool, as I’m all for naturally accruing influence in life. Scheming and following formulas to mine fame comes across as disingenuous.

###

One, I need an iPad. Yes, I did have one for a couple of weeks before I got the cease-and-desist from work—not cool to invest in productivity tools, it seems. It’s a security risk, they say. But seriously, I’m going to need one. I’ll ask the bosses.

While we, the human race, have gotten along swimmingly for centuries using paper and ink, I have drawn the line in the sand and declared scribbling notes during seminars is no longer adequate. Hear that, nature? Josh says the cool kids on the planet need to move on.

For me, the sexy advantage to an iPad-like device is how one person can simultaneously and easily hop-scotch from listening, browsing and note-taking with just a few flicks of his/her type-y fingers. Hear a mention, look up the website, type out a note, send a tweet. Boom. Done.

I was able to keep up with my notepad, sure, but now I have 40-50 pages of notes to work through. Ugh! With something like an iPad, I could have taken notes on the cloud, parceled out bits for tweets and moved on to cocktail hour. Priorities, people!

The other bitingly sweet feature about iPad is the portability. Macbooks and the MBAir used to be the bizomb. But nowadays, any clamshell is cumbersome. I need something I can ninja flip around in mid conversation once I admit the person talking is worth remembering. I don’t want to have to balance my coffee, disposition and laptop in mid hallway.

The second thing I noticed during BlogWorld was how much I still dislike self promotion. Maybe I should say shameless self promotion. Everybody has to self promote, sure. It’s as basic as birds puffing themselves up for potential mates and all that crap.

What I really dislike, though, is session hijacking. It’s like thread hijacking, but in person. You know…topic is one thing, panel is discussing it…the floor is open for “questions” and people start giving GD soliloquies about their business.

It’s ridiculous. I’ll say to those out there who do this sort of thing what my commanders told me: if you’re not at the adult table, you don’t get to talk. In the service, as a lowly-ranked peon, if I wasn’t spoken to about a specific topic, I shut my mouth. This includes topic shifts…like “Do you have a question?” “No, but let me show you a cool thing I learned in Boy Scouts.”

Yes, no, we’re good. Thanks.

Teaching soldiers that they aren’t the center of the universe is standard practice pretty early on in military careers. Maybe I take that for granted. I’m of the persuasion that people sometimes need a kick in the shins to remind them the whole world doesn’t bend to their will. Things will go on if they don’t scratch that itch, gawk at that passing cute something-something, or indulge in any of the 1,000 impulses that come to them every second. It’s why we military guys stand guard over buckets of water on “fire guard” or do any of the other asinine things that siphon hours of life—the whole of the group is bolstered by each of us denying ourselves now and then for the benefit of others.

This includes shutting mouths when others are talking and NOT hijacking panel discussions.

I have no illusions, I’m not THAT special. If I’m doing something that is astronomically awesome, stuff has a tendency to get noticed as I go about my NORMAL ROUTINES. I call it God’s grace.

But what are those normal routines?:

1) Don’t be a dick.

2) Listen.

3) Encourage others.

The end.

###

And so it came to pass that the great USAA employer gods would wish to send me out into the wilderness, to survey the landscape and gauge the culture that exists outside the walls of our campus.

What better event to check out than one of the largest social media conferences in the world, the Blogworld Expo? And what better venue than Las Vegas?

I flew from San Antonio to Phoenix then to Vegas. It was interesting seeing the landscape change. While I’ve spent time on the West Coast, I’ve always hopped over the South West. Fort Hood was about as “west” as I’ve ever been, from a tumbleweed, dusty savanna kind of perspective. It was pretty neat seeing mountains again. Green fell away off the color scheme for the most part, though I see how allergies are on the rise in Phoenix—so many pools, trees and forced lush greenery. The trip into Vegas itself was even more interesting. By change, I happened to look out the window as we drew near and saw the Hoover Dam, you know, the place Michael Bay let the cat out of the bag concerning where we’re keeping Megatron. It’s important that you stick with me on these things.

It was pretty gnarly, even from a pretty good clip up in the air. I landed to a setting sun, so the strip hadn’t sparked to life. Las Vegas has a very interesting skyline, as you’d imagine. There are spires, pyramids (well, one big one) and the typical less exotic high rises. What’s funny is everything is Las Vegas-ified. So the McDonalds are sparkly with lights and a huuuuuge sign. The Motel 6 near my hotel has a sign nearly as large as the building itself. Pretty sweet. I’ll have a chance to roam around and take pictures more over the next couple of days.

For now, though, I had to catch up on some work, answer some emails and all that. I’m not here for kicks, there’s work to be done.

I am very interested in learning more about blogging, in particular. Sure, I’ve been a blogger in spats since 2004 and have run this blog since 2005, but I still have a lot to learn about cultivating an audience and approaching community building. And since those are the types of things I am to perform in my new position at USAA, then I better get cracking at learning from the best. I’m pretty stoked to check out the keynote speakers and I’m interested who’s running the “milblogging” tracks. We do have a few military blogger celebrity types. I’ll gush and name drop tomorrow after I meet a few of them.

Amateur goof goes to me for not being obnoxious enough at work. For the past couple of weeks I’ve been trying to find out what the heck happened to the business cards I was supposed to get. I only re-engaged on the process a few days ago and came to find out some “t” didn’t get crossed on some email somewhere (should have used a Sharpie on the monitor, I suppose). So, I’ll be meeting dozens of people with a handshake and a smile, hoping they don’t mind if I can’t return the gesture of their business cards. Can’t we just use “bump” on our phones, anyway?

I’m told my snazzy new cards will be overnighted to my hotel in a couple of days, but I’ll have to win over friends and influence people a capella until my rectangular credentials arrive at the front desk. It’s how I rolled in the service for a while, so I’m not too worried. Heck, I just broke down and printed my own cards even then. It’s no biggie.

So yes, BlogWorld Expo. Me and 50,000,000 other bloggers. I’m here to scout for allies and infiltrate social media circles. Wish me luck, friends!

###

So, most people are born with levels of coordination. They can move their hands, feet and think their bodies into patterns of motion. These patterns may have been useful for taking down large animals or arranging ourselves in masses of force to be brought against other people, but eventually, they became cultural games we call “sports.”

Now “for sport” used to surround activities mirrored from hunting/fighting. Archery competitions were just like hunting or war, but were “for sport.” Hunting itself eventually became “for sport” as food was available in ample supplies through agriculture.

Check out the very early days of the Samurai. Battles were won/lost based on contests of skill, not on numbers of men on the field. Even when troops would gather, it would be to support their champions as they competed in sports. One athlete would win and that would be in the end of the battle. Of course that only lasted so long. Eventually “might makes right” trumped honoring the outcome of some contest, and Sengoku Jidai began. But for a while, sport was the ultimate showdown—shaped the fate of thousands and all that crap.

Our games like football, soccer, basketball, etc. are also games of sport. Maybe they are based on battlefield tactics, combat or some sort of arena-style events; maybe not. Regardless, those who throw themselves on the altar of sport now do it as a matter of entertainment. It’s not needed, it’s wanted.

Moreover, those who watch sports do so because they like it. It’s no longer in an attempt to admire the best fighter/shooter/horse rider. It is to admire, sure—but now for the icon, the hero of the moment, the champion of *fill in the blank activity*. There are not any direct links to prowess in any usable skill and most sports (master swordsmen may have survived long enough in war to become generals; master horse riders for the same reasons; but football, baseball? For all the billions of dollars and thousands of hours we spend worshiping these men/women, what do we want from them? Role models? Leaders?)

All of that being a big, puffy hot-air attempt to mask the fact that I suck at sports.

I do. I’m no good at them. Basketball, baseball, softball—hell, even kickball; I’m occasionally lucky, but generally terrible. And it’s embarrassing. What seems to come so naturally to thousands of kids is lost on me.

I perhaps could get better, but I am of the very unpopular opinion of not liking them. Whereas in Roman times it was very poor form to dislike races and gladiatorial games, these days, I dislike sports.

Not sure what fuels the dislike. Again, maybe it’s the days of getting pushed around and worn down by the alpha males out there (didn’t have the girth to hold my own in middle/high school). Yet there are plenty of wimpy/out-of-shape fans who also suck at sports and yet have painted faces and spend $1,000s to attend games.

And I don’t think it’s some high-and-mighty detachment—like I’m above it somehow. It’s actually pretty cool that people cherish those awesome moments with their teams. I got to see a really good friend of mine see his lifelong team, the Boston Red Sox, break their curse and beat the Yankees—and later win the World Series back in 2004 (before it was trendy to like the Red Sox). For him, it was this cosmic Zen kind of moment. It was actually pretty sweet watching him watch the games.

But for me? Didn’t feel anything. Sure it was kind of cool seeing the underdog come through, but I didn’t have tears in my eyes. It didn’t strike me that hard.

So I dunno. Am I missing something? Apart from the God-shaped hole in my heart, is there a sports-shaped fissure that also could use some filling? At this point I’m on the fence.

###

Admittedly I had blogs I wrote in my head during these last few weeks. Well, okay, not “written” but had the gist of them hammered out during the work day. I’d get home, often exhausted, and would look at the blank web browser. I’d think, “Should I go to the blog and hack out a few paragraphs?” “Naw,” I’d then think, “I don’t want to get into it.”

“It” being talking about life. “It” being talking about work. There are those from work who read this here blog in ones and twos, to be sure. Not that I had anything bad to say about people—it doesn’t get a person anywhere to bash people outright, especially from under the skirt of the Internet (yes, she’s a lady and she’s sexeh). It’s just the whole conundrum about writing about work. Should I? What else should I write about, then? Work  has kind of been most of my life. I don’t have any exciting hobbies. I can only try to play softball (note to self, write post about softball).

What else is there to write about other than work? Social media theory? Ha! I hardly get any chance to read, let alone comment on that sort of stuff now that I’m in corporate America. There’s too many meetings to go to. And, honestly, when I get home, logging in to Google Reader and seeing the 1,200,000+ unread items is depressing. I’ve heard others talk about that. It’s one of those features I think actually dissuades people from using Google Reader. Maybe I should write a note. Like they could flip the feature around and talk about how the two posts I read today was a full 100 percent more (ZOMG w/ exclamation point) than the previous day’s reading. That sort of thing might get me out of bed in the morning in the hopes of getting around to Google Reader right before I get back into bed.

So all that to say, by the time a few days got between me and blogging, the gap sort of fed itself. It was like seeing how long it took for a flickering candle to eventually sputter out, or a car to run out of gas. Ok I don’t do that. Maybe not that example. Or it was like seeing the sun fully slip under the horizon. Better, yes. I watched it, saw the days compound and sort of just let things go.

Pretty bad of me, right? Well, that’s the thing about the Internets, people are jerks.

Part 2: The iPad

So, as an impulse, I bought an iPad a couple of weeks back. Don’t think I did it to prove I was alive or whatever shopaholics claim is the muse for their condition. I just sort of decided to buy one. For me, the build-up was a two day process. I heard how frikkin’ amazing the damn things were from clergy, coworkers and nature itself (Dreamed about an otter using an iPad. That was my sign. Otters, dude. Yeah.). I arrived at work the next day, decided to get one and bought one that evening.

Didn’t make a big production out of it. I didn’t make an announcement. Didn’t update my Facebook status. Didn’t see the need to really call it out. I guess part of that was my embarrassment at claiming I would not get one—that I already had a Kindle, a laptop and a will to live, so an iPad just didn’t do anything for me. And yet, maybe I needed a new type of will to live. Maybe I needed a media consumption “will to live”. I heard an iPad would reinvigorate my love for interacting with rich content—which itself sounds both intriguing and revolting in a “is this where I am in life?” sort of way.

Now, for my remaining two readers’ (hi Mom, Dad!) benefit, iPads are a pretty big deal where I work. We are a company that is absolutely infatuated with hip buzzwords like “innovation”, “synergy”, “thought leaders”. And our hearts are in the right place, but sometimes it’s a bit much. We develop apps for iPhone and iPad like it’s our job…which it is, but regardless, our company has an almost unhealthy love and indirect endorsement for Apple products. iPhones and iPads are handed out to leadership and select managers/leaders like candy. Scores of directors, VPs, AVPs, SVPs, EMGs, DSKWEs, EWKWOIJGDOSDIs and whatever else walk around the building with their issued iPhones, iPads and wax eloquent on how their lives have morphed into living technological haiku, all because of the tech-kensei status bequeathed to them from the very POSSESSION of such implements of awesomeness. The ‘tic tic tic tic’ of iPad keystrokes is a five point palm exploding heart technique on my soul!

So of course I wanted one! JEEEZ!

And it is pretty cool, except for the part where I may not be allowed to use it at work. We’re reeeeeeeeeally sensitive about keeping all corporate things confidential. Not to be confused with military intelligence classification. I have a government clearance. That’s easy breezy. They just hand those out. Doesn’t count. Our policies are moar hardcorez! Nothing can be trusted!

So I may be asked to not ever bring in my personal iPad to work at some point. Which is a bummer, since all the cool leaders and managers and anyone worth a damn have theirs to get ahead in life. The plebes fail.

Part 3: The End

Of the post. Ah, that was cheap, wasn’t it? Okay, scratch that.

New Part 3: The Beginning

As you may or may not know (again, to my readership…Mom, Dad), I was hired at my current gig to be the chief blogger, senior community manager and corporate conversationalist. Fancy words for “Guy who writes, trains and empowers others to participate in social media.” Dunno if all that will come to pass. There’s an awful lot of day-to-day grind stuff that needs doing. And new stuff shows up every day—all that “life” and “news” stuff that bubbles up. So, there’s no real way to get on top of it.

There is hope, though.

There’s an unfilled position for someone to be the “communities and collaboration” leader…which, to those paying attention, sounded exactly like the job I was hired to do. This one will get paid a lot more money, though, so I’m hoping maybe I’ll be under that person? Or maybe I’ll be reassigned? Regardless, one way or the other, I won’t have to fret about not doing the job, because I’ll either be doing it for the person it charge of it or letting someone else do it. There is a third option, to be revealed by God’s providence, but those are the cards I have at the moment. Pocket threes and someone raised before the river. Jerks.

And, as a parting shot, please don’t take the cynicism for unhappiness. That’s just my shtick. I’m cool with whatev. I’m happy not babysitting troops—not worrying they’ll get swindled at pay-day loan spots, not get tossed in the slammer, not piss hot, not lose accountable equipment. I do miss the manager/leader stuff sometimes, and look forward to the day when I can be a leader in the normal world and not have to counsel someone for being the “phantom pooper.” But for the moment, I’m fine with life sans fecal crises.

###

The fear of the unknown—of being possibly incorrect in some small way—the fear of not being 100 percent absolutely sure about the stability of every step in life. It was suffocating.

In 2000, when I worked with some friends to start up a film business, pushing out in new territory, we were told to pipe down. We might get something wrong, they said. They were afraid for us all. They were looking out for us. We, being young and stupid, needed to learn the fear, they said through their attitudes. The fear would tell us when something wasn’t right, like how deer perk up and freeze in terror at every sound.

And it was this fear, programmed into us at instinctual and social levels, induced by the threat of something unknown, which kept us in line. By dragging each other down, we could stay together. Anyone who tried to leave was branded as some sort of traitor, putting the safety of the herd at risk. It is this fear that kills innovation.

In the mid-2000s, when many in the military advocated blogging as a way to communicate more freely with families while deployed, we were told to pipe down. We may have been out too far. People were afraid of being wrong—that someone somewhere might get called into an office. They would have to “appear before the man” or be called out “on the carpet.” In that office was a predator, usually wearing stars or the rank of a bird of prey. They said we should learn the fear—stay safe, not rock the boat.

In 2007, when advocating for curriculum changes at the Defense Information School, I ran across the same thing. In 2008, when pushing NATO SHAPE, same thing. In 2009 at various government agency meetings or workgroups, same thing. People were paralyzed with the fear. It was this fear that kept everyone safely munching on the meadow grass.

And even now in the new job, there are people advocating caution—not to try that change thing. There was an order to things after all, they say. I still had to learn how this place had rules and quaint little boxes of how and why things are done.

There is this fear that if someone strays outside of the self-imposed thought boundaries, he/she will immediately be snatched up and devoured by an angry boss.

This is BS too, by the way. More on that in a sec.

What’s with the skittishness? What opposition, clad in armor, pointy sticks or things that shoot, has ever been subdued by someone cowering in the shadows? What obstacle has ever been conquered through fear?

When I say, “Let’s try this,” it’s not out of recklessness. It’s not out of some effort to throw others to the wolves. There are no wolves, actually. And if there are, we too are wolves if we choose to be. I mean, I don’t see how the secret of success at my job—how those around me “in the know,” can be right by running and hiding whenever there’s a snag. Does that work in other areas of business? Hell no. Does that work in relationships?

So, why do people think it works in innovation? I don’t get this fear I’m supposed to learn.

I’ve been in trouble before. I’ve had my ass chewed by every rank from E-1 to O-6 (parents of high school athletes are a journalist’s bane). I’ve been in big trouble before, and guess what, the boss didn’t shoot me. He/she didn’t disembowel me.

At worst, in cases where I was wrong, I learned from my mistake and grew. At best, in cases where I was honestly trying to improve something, I was told to watch it. But, see? The thing was my bosses in those situations knew I was trying something new. They would applaud me for attempting to be innovative, believe it or not.

Hell, in some cases when working through government policy and best practices, my bosses told me and others that they would rather us swing for the fences and miss than constantly go for the bunt. I was personally told this by my assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, the Army chief of staff, and my chief of public affairs.

And I take those episodes to heart, those times when faced with that supposed ravenous, potentially angry boss, I didn’t get devoured. I’ve never been fired for attempting process improvement. I’ve never been fired for trying to improve the organization.

But what “if,” some say? I have people here too scared to read a blog at work. “They” are watching, these people say. “They” will crack down on anyone who goes to websites, even if it’s directly tied to work. “They” will get you fired.

“I know of a person who was let go because he was on a social media site at work,” someone told me the other day.

“Really?” I asked. “No other extenuating circumstances?”

“No! That’s why we can’t use social media at work. It’s a policy.”

“I’ve looked for this policy. I don’t see it.”

“Well, it’s true.”

“Saying it’s true doesn’t make it true.”

I had an instructor back in my Army training days who told a story, straight out of a forwarded email/chain letter. It was the one about the banana/cactus that had spider eggs inside it, which exploded and shot baby spiders everywhere. It’s bogus, look it up on an urban legend site. Yet, this instructor said it happened to her grandmother. As if saying so made it true.

It was supposed to be funny, but highlights an interesting phenomenon. We enable fear. We try to spread it to others. Not about spiders (scary, though!), but about questioning things.

Don’t do it! I know someone who went outside of the meadow and they were eaten!

Really? Eaten?

YES! I knew the person. It’s true! Swear to X!

Ah, since you swear, I’ll cease all thought on the subject. Since you’re sure we’re still herbivores, stuck in some meadow prison, I’ll never try to leave.

Now, I’m not trying to re-start some stupid “Be the ball, Danny!” or “I am a wolfpack” saying, but I sure as hell am tired of people trying to keep me as some frightened Bambi in the woods. Screw that. I’m also tired of people saying “no,” not because of any sort of reason, but because of The Fear! Yup. Screw that too.

I’ll make everybody a deal. If I ever get fired for diligently striving for process improvement or sincerely advocating for change to improve an organization, I’ll shut up and munch on some grass. Until then, I’ll keep howling at the moon or whatever pithy saying we can roll this post up with and get going.

Word.

###

There was nothing to fear, however, the right people were in the room and quickly alleviated the fears of those not up to speed on what was scheduled. While very beneficial, a full hour was needed to bring yet another group into the fold.

So I started thinking about all of the new workflow augmentation and internal collaboration tools beginning to gather steam. We all have email, but that doesn’t do the job. We all have some sort of document-tracking system, but that’s usually very lackluster. There are, however, better ways to collaborate. There are niftier tools that share notes and side conversations, capture questions, provide achievable and searchable video sessions. As we, society or whatever, move toward more robust and more comprehensive content management systems, we will become not just connected, but beyond that…probably into the realm of assimilation.

Assimilation being merging streams of thought into each other, collaborating and correcting points of view way before they even get to an email or a curt comment said to a coworker under his or her breath. I’m talking about the end game of collaboration, the fusing of intent and talent into the natural mechanics of one corporate entity. This is super connectivity, hyper connectivity, more than just cooler email.

Now I’m not saying we’ll go Borg from the onset, but I think we will have augmented reality screens, speech-to-text transcribers, eye-driven GUI glasses and a lot of the sorts of cool building tools seen in “Ironman” or “Star Trek.” It just makes sense to me.

Because, I mean, we’re already pretty immersed in connectivity. How much MORE “connection” can we have? We all have work cell phones, work email, and the ability to call a coworker or subordinate in the dead of night and get some information about such-and-such document. It may be frowned upon (for now), but the possibility of this sort of normal life disruption is there.

Let’s look at the inherent inefficiency of modern communication, “connected” though it may be.

Person A, let’s say Sarah, has an idea. Sarah has to use her communication skills to take her thoughts, select words to those thoughts and form sentences and paragraphs. Then, like some complicated origami project, Sarah has to fold and build her proposal into a series of lines of symbols on paper or a screen.

Sarah then sends off this idea. Others see her words and paragraphs and decrypt it into their own thoughts and feelings. People routinely misread, skim over too quickly, or perhaps vaguely understand the author’s intent. They then react to this new information in their own ways, internalize it, build judgments and responses.

If collaboration is required, these independent agents, each with their own views and opinions, must be brought together over the course of multiple meetings and briefings, to air their specific interpretations of Sarah’s idea. Unfortunately, each response now starts the process again; and the probability for misunderstanding and gap of intent increases exponentially.

We usually muddle through the ineffectiveness of group thought by having multiple meetings, using humor or charisma to persuade or perhaps brushing aside objections through rank structure and hierarchy.

But all of those steps, and there are more, sure, I believe lead to so much of our life drama and inefficiency as an organization. We can look at the alien nature of an ant hive and scoff, sure, but we can’t argue with the results, can we? Now, I’m not talking about slaving of one to the will of many here, but don’t we think there will be a move toward this direction? I mean, as an evolution of the corporate body?

No? What happens when Google or some whiz-bang company develops some basic assimilative tools, where Sarah, from our example, can virtually be standing over the shoulders of everyone who interacts with her information, to correct or at least better explain her intents in word choice or sequence of ideas? Wouldn’t this be more efficient communication? Isn’t that the end goal of all the email programs, scheduling apps and meetings we hold every day?

What if a company was able to connect the relevant people to the relevant projects and share information to minimize misunderstandings or personal differences? What if managers knew of the obstacles as they emerged, without having to interfere or ask to be “back briefed” on situations? I think of all the video games out there, where the human player assumes the role of some omnipresent commander, able to see the workings of each part of his or her army, training and production, with just a few clicks of a button. It’s the way to be an efficient leader, isn’t it?

So, as a man who understands one can only rage against progress for so long before drowning in the rising tides, I wonder if we’ll look back on ourselves in 20-30 years and think how silly we were to think and feel in isolation. There will probably be a good chunk of us who would welcome this assimilation. It would lead to vastly superior profits and performance, wouldn’t it? Just sayin’.

###

By slightest missed detail I mean some aspect of the project that could go wrong or differently than planned and by zombie apocalypse I mean that the whole thing will come crashing down in abject failure and pink slips for everyone. I always try to get zombies into things at least once a quarter.

It’s interesting to see how some people believe unless every aspect, every nuance, every possible problem is psychically predicted, mitigated and guarded against, the whole thing won’t work.

That’s not to say planning isn’t necessary or that we should all live by the Spirit and just hope things magically happen, but there are always two extremes—two ditches to fall off the road from. As a man who has been a doer and a planner for the better part of 10 years, I put some observations forward.

Now, there are many strata of people in the corporate world. For our discussion today we will talk about two of them: the planners and the doers.

The military has these two levels of people too—typically officers as planners and enlisted as doers. Anyone who has ever served as an enlisted person knows when the brain trust finishes their decades-long planning process and asks for execution, the drama hardly stops. All manner of status update briefs, freakouts and FRAGOS (fragmentary orders…as in “Hey, we were thinking and something else came up, change your plan and stand by for more instructions”) ensue when the brain trust catches wind of what’s going on in their climate controlled buildings.

One of the things often overlooked is that the doers are people. That is to say, they think. That is to say, they aren’t Roombas stuck on a dining room table leg, unable to free themselves. And, contrary to what the brain trust might think, many doers are experienced and know how to adapt.

But I understand where the thinkers get nervous. After all, there are usually many organizational and physical barriers between planning meetings and where the leg work of execution happens. Planners can’t see how their plans are actually going until they get some sort of report back—sort of like how parents need their kids to call after travelling or whatever. They worry.

And it’s sweet, but often the planners’ incessant prodding and second guessing creates mountains more work than if planners cultivated a sense of trust between themselves and their workers.

Because when an event or whatever is actually going on—when chairs aren’t in place or there are hiccups with the microphone, good people will not just collapse and cry, waiting for the planners to tell them what to do. They will work on solutions. They will fix things.
Or maybe they won’t, which speaks to the quality of the doers. But as for me and my former enlisted compatriots, we get sh*t done. We adapt. We think things through. We work at it.

In the end, when a project or event is actually happening, a missed detail won’t cause the whole thing to combust. I know it’s hard for planners to realize this, but when the gears of production are in motion, pure inertia will keep things flowing—maybe with a couple of bumps, but nothing that will keep the mission from happening.

During graduation ceremonies, someone would be late, a slideshow wouldn’t be ready, an announcement was forgotten—you know, life happens. My planning overseers would suddenly disappear into their rooms and return in a sweaty panic. “OMG! What is going on?! We’re all going to die!”

“Chill,” I would say. “It’s been handled.”

“But how? With whom? The thing isn’t working. What can we do? Did the audience notice? Did they think we were failures? We need to formulate a strategy to ensure no hiccups of any kind ever happen again. We’ll meet Friday night and go through rehearsals all weekend to stop this from ever happening again!”

“Yeah but I just restarted the computer and it works now, so we don’t—”

“You had to what? Are we allowed to do that? What if IT has a problem with that? What if it messed up a setting?”

“It happens all the time. It didn’t mess up anything; we’re on track now, please stop making a scene. People are looking over.”

“A scene? There’s gonna be a scene when the IT director catches wind of what you did and I’m called into a meeting. There’s a scene! Now I’ll have to work through a process augmentation memo to suggest methods of avoiding this sort of thing.”

On and on. Dozens of people, stressing out, trying to read tea leaves and organize the future, while the majority of the work is done by men and women on the ground, seeing and adapting.

###

It’s something that gets a lot of cheers and jeers. Some people celebrate the free market, the captains of industry, all that jazz. Some people lament the cubicles, the Office Space and Dilbert characters that seem to be everywhere.

And, like most things, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Things aren’t so amazing that I soil my pants with joy every hour. Things aren’t so bad that I’m vitamin D deficient from the life-siphoning fluorescent lights.

A few military friends have asked what it’s like. I went into a bit of what it isn’t a couple of posts back, where I talked about all the ways I didn’t have to stay on edge. So this time, I’ll get into a little bit of what it is.

Now, I do need to qualify some things. I’m not in full-blown corporate America, as much as people seem to slap that label on every circumstance they are personally in—like how troops say they’ve “been to war” whether they were in the Korengal or lounging poolside in Qatar. Are both extremes closer to war than those at Starbucks? Yes. Am I so deep into corporate America that I can claim to know what it’s all really like? Not really.

So, that said. It’s pretty cool, from a guy who tries to take things in stride. A lot of movie and comic stereotypes are here. I guess that’s why all those movies are so funny.

There are the people who live in total fear that their every move is watched.

There are those who have been around the company for a decade or two, working themselves to the bone, but always in ways that create more burdens for themselves without getting ahead.

There are the meetings…lots of meetings…lots. I have five hour-long meetings today alone. Geez.

There are the power walkers in the halls. There are the gym guys who say “boss”…or is it “hoss?” Dunno.

There is the aversion for all things provided. Eating at the cafes is so passé for some. Screw that, there are like five different cafes here! I’m hungry!

There are motivational banners up. There are core values and virtues posted on all the walls like some recruiting drive.

There are coupons! Cell phone belt holsters. I’m asked to focus my efforts on what is good for the member.

People laugh. They like being around people who laugh. There are the fashion conscious and those (especially guys) who need a couple of issues of GQ.

All to say it seems pretty “normal” from a guy who is new to “normal.” I like it, but I’m at a different point in life.

Already there have been a few projects that have come up where my coworkers flip into full freak-out mode because of some perceived need or expectation from higher ups.

It’s EXACTLY the attitude that followed generals around. There would be the “good idea fairies” who would create a crap-ton of work for the average Joe, all to anticipate unstated needs by the big bosses.

So, being a former NCO who has seen this scurrying-around-for-no-reason hundreds of times, I just get a soda and let people freak out. Once they settle down, I’m able to ask questions like “Did she say she wanted it three weeks early? No? Then why are we thinking she does? Ah, she’s going on vacation next week? Did someone ask if we could send it to her while on vacation? No? Let’s do that.” Turns out the boss would love a one-way-one-time update on the status of the big project. Problem solved.

So, corporate America? Sure, it works. I don’t let the small stuff hang me up. Five hours of meetings? No prob. Paycheck still goes through whether I’m working or listening to people talk all day. Doesn’t bother me at all.

###

Seriously. People can really go out of their way to fuss, cuss and generally put others “in their place.” I think maybe we’re in love with being that person in the movie who shouts down the antagonist or sits in comfortable smugness after telling off someone who was clearly wrong. I think we are programmed where any infringement on the sovereign territory of “our calm” should be met with a jolt of anger, hatred and meanness. Mess up my coffee order and I break your face. Ask me for something and I roll my eyes, laugh about you to my coworkers and not care if you hear me or not.

The meanness can show itself in many subtle forms. It can be a curt email. It can be several audible sighs during presentations. It can be in a condescending attitude over the phone. There are glares, frowns, head shakes or snide comments…all sorts of stuff.

The thing is it’s not necessary. Now, I’m saying this as a man who has endured a few infuriating customer service situations and a couple of bummer circumstances with military SNAFUS. Meaning I’ve had a lot of opportunities to fill up with righteous indignation. Many of my friends have looked at how calm I attempt to remain during these trying times and say, “You’re a better man than I.”

And while I appreciate that they are indirectly saying I need to get angry more often, I persist that a calm response is the wiser approach in situations.

I mean, seriously. Srsly. It takes as much effort to engineer a jerk thing to say as it does to let things go. It takes as much time (sometimes more) to chew out and curse than it does to say “thanks” and move on. What do we get out of one of these tirades? Satisfaction? Some sort of revenge? Fulfilment? Is there some committee out there silently keeping score? Does it get us a better job? Does it give us more friends?

When I was working retail and jobs in the service industry, I had a few doozies when it came to angry customers. Hell, as an Army journalist, I’ve been chewed out by every rank from E1 to O6 (parents of high school athletes are the most vitriolic). Every once in a while the situation was because of something I did, but most of the time the person was raging against circumstances completely out of my control.

When the angry customer was done telling me I’d never amount to anything and that I was an oxygen thief, that I had ruined Thanksgiving (actual story) or whatever else they had pent-up, I went about my day. I still had other customers to get to or other stories to write. I don’t know what the angry person thought would happen—maybe that I would collapse and weep, maybe that I would burst into flames. Who knows. After each tantrum, I would say my obligatory apologies and go about my life.

The Kingdom of God was still intact. I still had however-many credits toward a degree. My mom still loved me. I was good.

And, on the giving end of such an exchange, the few times I have blown my top and called down columns of fire from heaven to swallow up my bookstore-cashier-adversary, what have I really accomplished? I’ve satisfied some twisted prideful need, but I’m not any better of a person. Other than a few times with bullies in school, it’s not like rage or anger ever protected me or made me into a better person.

So when my coworker talks about how evasive, mean and terse a colleague is over the phone—how a simple “can you send me XYZ?” turns into a back and forth exchange where my coworker has to defend how and why her boss wants XYZ from our colleague’s boss—I shake my head. Why does it have to be so difficult? Why do we, the normal people—not prime ministers, not executives, not kings/queens, princesses nor princes—but people who aren’t bound by national consequence and are free to live and love as freely as the birds—why are we so mean?

Call me too patient all you want, but that’s not really an insult. I’m immovable in my self identity. I’m damn proud of where God has put me after 29 years. He’s even seen fit to bless me a bit—give me a job, a good clutch of friends. If I don’t see fit to erupt into a fit of rage at the Blockbuster guy, maybe it’s because not only would anger not resolve anything, but maybe it’s because I’m more of a guy who thinks the world could do with less meanness.

###

• People don’t use pockets for anything in particular. They just shove their hands in there. For whole minutes.
• People lean against walls.
• First names predominate.
• You can potentially not work out for days!
• Work doesn’t usually call on the weekends. Pt. 2, coworkers don’t call, needing to be bailed out after a DUI.
• Saying “yeah” won’t incur extra duty.
• Walking either on the right or left of someone is completely acceptable.
• You can walk around, completely *^%$^&@ oblivious.

The last point has been getting to me. I mentioned it to a coworker. I’m actually not too keen on it. People are generally clueless to their surroundings. They bump into things, block doorways, block aisles, cut off vehicles in traffic, talk too loudly, trip other people, knock over stuff, on and on.

In the service, there’s this state of mind called “situational awareness.” It’s almost this Zen-like state, where a service member is imbued with the near-godlike ability to know where he or she is in relationship to the universe.

No, seriously. It’s pretty frikkin’ epic. You may not realize it, but most service members who haven’t gotten away with standing at parade pretty (entire other series of posts) know where they are. It’s awesome!

What does that mean? It means a service member will wait for others to go through doors. He or she will say “sir” or “ma’am” when encountering another human being in the general vicinity. And generally, although American road rage trumps all, they will know when the hell to stop, yield and accelerate when it comes to vehicular traffic.

It all starts at basic training. I remember it well. My particular unit stood outside in the January South Carolina evening air, which, contrary to what you might think, is pretty blasted freezing.

We were told to exit the bus, quick like, arrange our backpacks in an orderly fashion, and extricate ourselves into a line all in a span of about 15 seconds. Of course, you might imagine what happened, all manner of hell broke loose. There was no coordination. There was no consideration. It was every person for him or herself. We bumped, tripped and shoved our way into the drill sergeant’s escalating rage once the requisite 15 seconds passed.

Tests like that were designed for us to fail. Passing the test wasn’t the point. The point was to show how absolutely clumsy and self-centered the average person is. We’re like heifers, chewing the cud, oblivious to the semi trucks attempting to pass us on the road. We’re completely self-centered, expecting the world to pay us mind, pay us heed and worship us at our feet. We have more cars, clothes and money than 90 percent of the GD world, after all, there’s definitely a sense of entitlement that comes with that sort of nobility.

So, it is the job of the drill sergeant (or drill instructor for our maritime friends) to undo the worthless, clumsiness of the average U.S. civilian. Thus begins our quest toward situational awareness.

When a sergeant walks to work, you may see a confident stride and a sharp-looking man or woman; but inside, there are all manner of processes and checklists going off in that person’s head. Every single person that walks into a service member’s viewable area (six paces radius from all living things, for your information) must be checked for rank, uniform, disposition, proximity to others. A service member will see if there’s something in the person’s right hand (which there shouldn’t be, since he or she needs that hand to salute at a moment’s notice), and that hands are out of pockets. Service members will salute, if appropriate (depending on the rank, uniform, time of day). They will check to make sure others are behaving, that they are being respectful. They will stand ready to correct junior troops, alter their course if needed to stay on sidewalks, stop completely if a cell phone rings. They won’t chew gum or eat while walking. They will walk tall, taking 30-inch steps, their hands held in loose fists, as per regulation. They will scan passing vehicles to render honors if officer rank placards are displayed. They will watch for the right time of day to render honors to the flag in the mornings and evenings.

All of it, just from walking to frikkin’ work, is to hone a person’s acumen for situational awareness.

And it doesn’t stop in the states. There are a whole mess of other checklists service members go through in deployed environments.

Over there, weapons must be carried properly, cleaned, uniforms maintained. Service members must keep a sharp ear out for incoming mortars, alarms, approaching vehicles. On patrols, they must watch out for piles of debris in the road, quiet streets before an ambush, influx of onlookers before an ambush, pot holes, wires, discoloration on curbs, orderly piles of trash compared with disorderly piles of trash. Vehicles must be listened to. Is the engine sounding healthy? Do the brakes feel right? Are there fluid leaks? How about the radio? Do the headsets work? Got enough ammo? Got trash bags? Got the stretcher? How’s the .50-cal? Barrel clicked in (learned about that one the hard way)? Sights clean? Pedestal pin in (yet another story)?

When walking around, service members need to know where their barrels are pointing AT ALL TIMES. As they pass each other, as they walk to the chow hall, as they go to bed; is the chamber empty? Has the weapon been cleared? Where are all the other accountable items? Body armor? Ballistic goggles?

Leaders must know when and where incidents occur, in the states, the field or downrange. What time did the rounds hit? What grid location? Whose battlespace are they in? What frequency should they use to call the medics? What’s the alternate in case there’s no response? Where are they? Where’s an alternate route to get around the roadblock?

None of this aimless walking around. A troop’s mind needs to be on, sharp, at all times. Is it, always? Ideally, sure, but all troops are human. There are lapses, sometimes a lot. But they should be paying attention. “Get your head out of your @$$!” is a common verbal exchange as one troop points out the spacial perception lapses of another.

I’m newly a civilian, and while it’s sort of cute it’s also a little unsettling to see how frequently people walk down halls, ear buds in, running into others, or seeing people back into people while looking for birthday cards, or how accidents occur with cell phone users in cars, nearly hitting me as I go to H.E.B. to get toilet paper.

I guess it’s because most people haven’t had the pleasure of having situational awareness drilled into them almost literally. So it remains a quintessential skill possessed by few—that ability to analyze and categorize a dozen characteristics and traits of people, places and things entering and leaving a service members proximity every step and every second of the day.

###

These guys have employed a lot of retired generals and colonels in the past. They spent a lot of time at the Pentagon and, in turn, didn’t want the USAA campus to turn out like that. So, while the building is massive and boasts more square footage than the Pentagon, it is laid out much better. It’s actually nine buildings that have been joined together into a long chain. The company would grow to a point and decide to build another building at the ass end of the complex. So, naturally, There was A, the oldest portion, then AB (guess it came after B was already there), then B, then C, etc….all the way down to H. As soon as they finished H, they started renovating A. So even though it’s the oldest actual building, the company has been revamping the interiors so that the whole place is still pretty legit.

Where the Pentagon has acres and acres of parking (ugh!), requiring shuttle buses to take most people from Lot ZZ232 to the building, each building at USAA has several levels of parking below the buildings and there are three separate garages that are attached to the complex. Since I was able to score an apartment with an attached garage, I don’t have to step outside when going to or from work. It’s garage to garage, baby! Ginger’s paradise!

There is a service level that runs, unimpeded, down the entire length of the complex. People do their little fitness walking things up and down it through the day. They have programs where people can log their distances and time and have friendly low-impact competitions with other employees.

For the more active employees, there are four gyms at the complex. The main fitness center in building A is open 24 hours. All day, son! I can get my kettlebells on!

Employees pay something like $24 per month to be a “member” and the gym gives us shirts, shorts and towels to use. That way, we don’t have to babysit sweaty clothes all day. The underwear and socks are up to the employee (as I would hope), but coming from the military, where it’s customary to have sweaty PTs hanging up around everyone’s work area, not having that is pretty awesome.

There are fitness trainers on site whom employees can hire for an additional fee. Otherwise, they just let us do our thing. What’s cool is that the company, being in the insurance biz, after all, wants its employees to be healthy. So, if we use the gym three times a week for the whole year, the company refunds our gym fees. Moreover, the company gives out healthy points, based on how often we buy healthy food options at the cafeterias (most employees pay for everything by scanning their ID cards…which makes buying everything from tshirts to food super easy), how often we go to the gym and if we participate in the PT tests of sorts they give every six months. If we rack up enough healthy points through the year, the company knocks off a few hundred bucks off of our insurance premiums. Monies!

They subsidize the veggie dishes at all the cafes and cafeterias (there are five or six of varying size and “fanciness”). So, healthy lunches end up crazy cheap. There is actually a very large number of veggie stands and dishes–I think because there are a lot of cultures represented at USAA who don’t normally go for intense diets of greasy fast food like we Amurikans. Since most of the cafeterias are open from 6 a.m. to 8 or 9 at night, breakfast and dinners are available. Some of the cafes even have meals-to-go for guys like me to take home more wholesome snacks than Papa Johns or whatever.

The building interiors are awesome. There are lounges and places to sit and chat everywhere. The main walkway runs through the middle of all the buildings, dividing each segment into an east and west side (west sieeeeeede!). The center of the buildings are hollow from roof to floor, with offices and spaces ringing the main square. Each of the buildings has military stuff in this grand hall area to teach employees history and heritage of the company. It’s cool because it blends into the lounges and cafes that exist. It’s not too preachy or pushy. I dig.

Pretty dope, overall.

###

For me? It was my first day out of the Army. I had been in for seven years, five months and a day (or a “wake up” for you who are fans of military parlance). It hit me like most holidays hit me—with an alarm and ticking seconds. I’m a one-day-at-a-time sort of guy. I didn’t feel any huge weight lifted, I didn’t see the heavens part or hear any angels sing. I just sort of got up, did the shower thing, you know?

I know some people have more spirited first days out, full of introspection or running wild through the streets, singing. For me, it was walking by that closet and seeing that uniform that I actually wasn’t allowed to wear anymore. That’s what marked the day as different.

By God’s grace, sunrise on June 30th found me in a new city, with an alarm that woke me up for a new job. I was in San Antonio, closer to Fort Hood than I ever thought I’d be again. I’d taken a job with USAA, much to the surprise of my peeps in Washington, D.C., who all thought I would snag some big gig in the capital.

I had received a few offers from contractors, a couple of private firms and a couple of GS positions. I went through the hiring process with several of them, did some interviews and got a lot of good vibes from a couple of positions. The USAA gig came pretty late to the party. But, I’ve been a happy member for a while, and there was an offer to whisk me down to San Antonio for some interviews before any offers or decisions were due, so I said, “Why not?”

Did I blog about that? I may have kept all of that pretty close to the chest. There are always feathers to ruffle if too much is said to too many. So, sorry about staying quiet on that–well, on everything it looks like. I slip in and out of routines sometimes. The casualties of this purge were blog writing and working out. I’ve noticed I’ve put on a few after-Army pounds already, so I’m putting a stop to that. The blog writing is another area to work on.

Not that I’ve been away from writing altogether. I’m finishing up the novel too. Okay, I’m not “nearly finished” as I thought I’d be at this point, but laziness and moving takes a lot out of a writer, especially when it’s all pro bono for the writing gig.

So, back to the new job. I am to be a blogger for USAA. And a community manager. And a writing coach. I’m down with anything, really. In the service, you sort of become a lot of things as you go, so I’m used to the adaptable thing. The company is doing a lot of really cool stuff with the social mederas. I’m very excited to be a part of it.

More later. Lots to do. Mmmmmm.

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It’s been great, but I do feel like I’m at the stage where I’m waiting for the opportunity to let Facebook know I’m miserable and it’s over between us. I can’t point to one event over another, but I’ve about had it.

So, two parts. One, why Facebook is on its way out. Two, why I’m ready to call it quits.

I first heard the murmurings about how Facebook was becoming passé a couple of years back. There had been similar concerns when Facebook opened itself to a non-college audience. Some thought it would be the death of what Facebook was (the spirit of it or whatever). And while it may have been snobby elitism to keep Facebook as this guarded secret, the move to a non-college audience catapulted Facebook forward in its battle against MySpace, the dominant social networking site of the time. When Facebook Connect launched, I heard another few murmurs, yet that move allowed Facebook to catapult its way into the mainstream and become a hub of news, images, fan pages and the like.

I think that’s when I started looking at the eventual death of Facebook. And it was strange, because I am a pretty heavy user of Facebook Connect features. I share links from news stories and blogs more than I should (as my homework languishes), so a person would think I’d be happily clicking away.

But being the closet cynic I am, I realize that all good times are fleeting, and the march of progress is unrelenting. I wasn’t looking at Facebook’s eventual demise in a “Nobody comes here anymore; it’s too crowded” exclusive sort of way. I was just thinking through how these things go. There would be other stuff that would take over. Some people thought the idea was impossible. “What could take on Facebook?” they said, forgetting that the MySpace Empire had crumbled after a similar period of perceived invincibility.

Then everyone’s parents flooded onto Facebook last year. That’s when I saw the influencers leaving in greater numbers. Lifestreaming began. Flavors.me, Posterous, Tumblr, et al began popping up.

Then fan pages arrived. Then social gaming flooded in. Then spammers. Then scammers. Then I saw it featured in seminars. Then the media discovered Facebook. Nothing says “time to move on” to innovators like having news stories written about you.

Yet how could Facebook be in decline, in a real sense, despite such a smiling outward appearance?

What some people don’t realize is how adoption curves work. Let’s have a picture:

We’ve all been trying to be cool and hip since childhood. This is the way things unfold. The wheel, the printing press, Harry Potter, whatever—this is how we discover new things and how those things enter into the public conciousness.

So, at this point with Facebook, fast forwarding to the present, Facebook is probably on the right downward-slope of the curve. How far down is debateable, but most of the public knows about Facebook and it has probably captured the lion’s share of its potential audience.

Cool people—innovators—discover new things. The thing about innovators, though, is that they are restless and reclusive. They don’t want to be where everyone is. As soon as they are discovered, they usually move on. And the throngs of groupies (myself included) pick up their trail and scamper after them. It’s like hunting foxes, where the innovators are foxes, the influencers (who hop back and forth in the adoption gap) are the yapping hounds, and the majority of the public are the gents and ladies on horseback.

If the search for “cool” is a never-ending fox hunt, then we can assume that where the loud, galloping masses are, the foxes are not. They are busy finding new places to hide (or in our adapted example, finding new places to “be” is probably more appropriate, since our goal is not to shoot the foxes, but instead to share a conversation and tea…that’s where this whole analogy unravels—sorry).

And so, all that to say, I feel as though the galloping masses have been trampling all over Facebook for a while now.

Part two of this story is a bit more succinct, personal and irrefutable insomuch is its my personal opinion. Here goes:

I’m tired of Facebook.

I’m tired of Mafia Wars, Farmville, “First 1,000 people to join get $100,000,000,000″ groups, “Let’s see if X can get more fans than Y” fan pages, on and on. I’m tired of chain letters from the 60s and 70s that made their way into forwarded emails now make their way into “post this in your status if you love X!” demands.

I’m tired of privacy concerns. I’m tired of others tagging photos of me at bars. I’m tired of porn bots trying to be my friend. I’m tired of the threat that Facebook may decide to change the rules again next week. Seriously, it’s like a bad landlord who changes the parking rules every day.

Other sites are popping up. They’re taking on a more anti-Facebook approach in terms of content sharing and private information. Lifestreaming serves a similar function that Facebook does, without the incessant gimmicks of Farmville and “join my cause to put 1,000 gummy bears in every mailbox” announcements.

And so, while I need to maintain a Facebook presence because my job is to tend to the galloping masses, you may not see me there as much. I’m nearly ready to break up with Facebook.

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At first, people would come up to me during conferences. I was a target of opportunity. They would see that I was in attendance. They would see the uniform. They would hand me a card and that would be that. Later, when I began presenting at conferences, the vendors and hawkers would suddenly become more interested. I wasn’t just someone to flirt with, I was worthy of a date. They would hang around after a presentation and, amid those asking questions and wanting to learn more about social media (the reason why I attend conferences), they would also strike up conversations, then lead into their pitches. Many of them were pretty good at this. I wouldn’t catch on that I was being pitched to right away, until the point in the conversation emerged where I was asked to either commit to purchasing their product, or giving them the name and number of someone who could.

Some vendors were graceful with this transition from rapport building to selling, many were not. Some were outright rude or insistent, like an online dating stalker.

Still later, when I became a fixture at several conferences, I would get cold calls from vendors who had heard my name mentioned by others. Some would mask their pitch by inviting me to a seminar or offering to meet somewhere for drinks, some would just start reading from their scripts. While it was flattering in a way to be seen as a gateway to riches and sales, I was always up front about my position: that I was a mere staff sergeant—a man of humble rank and position, who had simply been at the right place at the right time. My charisma, for what it is, had been shaped by my training and my proclivity for stage theater. My disposition had been shaped by my spirituality. Most of the time, I was a pretty easy guy to get along with, always eager to teach others and engage in conversations that would teach me something as well.

But I’ve begun to wear thin on the vendors and hawkers who don’t even try to ease me into a conversation. And it’s too bad. As a journalist, I always look forward to new conversations and new people. It’s the one area that we don’t normally grow cynical toward. Now, however, when someone comes up to me, calls or emails, I have to eye that with a level of suspicion. Am I being played? What is it they want? It’s an attitude I’d hoped to avoid, but a lesson probably better learned now than later.

Some vendors are so bad that they call, flatly asking me to solicit government employees for them. Some ask me for my contacts just a few seconds into the conversation—as if I have the friends and colleagues I do because I flood their inboxes with spam. Some ask how I would run their marketing if I were them.

And while I might be willing to give such data to even them, were they to not just brazenly demand it; I’m also taken aback by how little they engage me, as a person. During these conversations, I wait for my turn to speak, and routinely get little more than a chance to say “yes” or “that’s good” while they run down their bullet points of reasons why I should make them money.

There are exceptions. I have met a few start-up ventures that I do believe in. Those who man these businesses are a lot more mature in their approaches, even if ultimately they need the same thing from me. They offer to make me a part of the team. They ask for my input. And while there is the ever-present sense of urgency, it’s not a hard sell. I don’t feel guilty for taking lunch that day and going to bed that night without shoving their product down my friends’ throats.

In the end, maybe it’s all in the pitch. And maybe that’s a lesson for all of us “selling” social media to our coworkers and counterparts. Running across the vendors and hawkers at these conferences reminds me that, even with a product I believe in, I cannot neglect the community and rapport that is needed to transfer enthusiasm from me to another. While it may take time to engage the influencers in my life, I can either put in the work to listen to their needs and work with them to overcome obstacles, or I can be like these vendors and just shotgun blast everyone I see like the stereotypical car salesman.

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I took it seriously enough and was able to hit 50,000 words in the allotted time, but the book wasn’t done. I set out to keep writing. Time is as it is, however, and I neglected the novel for a couple of months. It sat and languished on my desktop while I moved on to other life projects. I was nearing the end of my time in the military, after all, and I needed to focus on completing the last few work-related projects before I continued. Ok that, and I started playing my video games again. Darn those pixels are so enticing!

So now that I am actually nearly complete with my time in the military, I am looking forward to spending the next month finishing up the manuscript. I have nigh but a college class and some random out-processing appointments to compete with my intentions. While the out-processing process may sap more of my strength than intended (more on the latest paperwork debacle later), I have made some boasts about how the book will be finished in 30 days. That, and no more video games. Not good for the soul.

The book is a first novel, so it’s no masterpiece. That’s what’s sort of liberating about the whole thing. Many people seem to get caught up in trying to make their first work some seismic event. It reminds me of what I went through in journalism school and, now that I’m an instructor at said school, what my students go through with their assignments. No matter how many times I try to tell them the exercises they undertake while at the training school won’t be seen by anyone except God, them and I, many of them still slave, stress and freak out to make it as perfect as possible. Many do a passable job, but, as novice journalists, the stories are at best, passable and at worst, trite.

I fully expect this first novel to be one of those options. Hopefully, realizing that a first novel will hardly cure cancer, I want it to be a badge I can sew on my life sash and move on—perhaps to another novel, or to another chapter in life altogether.

Writing a book is one of those things, you know? It’s in movies, it’s in the introspective conversations of men and women at retirement parties—writing a book is one of those things, like a college degree, that can prove to someone, maybe one’s self, that we have the discipline to stick with something long enough to create something cool. It’s like having kids—not the sex part, that’s easy, but the 0-18 year mark of a person’s life. Except it’s not THAT much of a commitment and, in the end, if I screw up a novel, it has eternal, but not as severe consequences as would a life ill-raised.

So here we go, wish me luck, or a broken pen—whatever writers wish on each other. I shall now push out again from shore after a few-months-long picnic of sorts, and continue down the river.

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And it’s not a problem with OGI, the organizers, or the speakers; I would say it’s a problem with the open government community.

It’s a problem I’ve heard, re-heard and said again in the echo chambers: that we hang out in echo chambers.

Same objections, same cautions, same fears, same possible solutions—the topics that come up during OGI are varied, but similar, in a year-to-year basis.

This isn’t a hit on the people attending either. It’s not a plea for more elitism in open government. It’s not a chance for me, Josh Salmons, to beat his chest and be considered someone who “gets it” a certain percentage faster than someone else.

I say it because I’m afraid the echo chambers and constant need to train newcomers are bogging down the revolution.

We need to define skills that lead to open government. We need to stratify experience levels. We need to develop 101, 201, 301 levels for efficient, productive government. Even this has been said before, but it’s important.

Because we love newcomers! A couple of years ago, I was one too. I attended my first series of seminars, voiced my concerns about adoption rates and access to sites and had my fears assuaged, just like the more experienced social media advocates did this year. Having new blood in the mix shows the health of the ongoing culture shift. That’s not the issue at all. I’m eternally thankful there are people who admit to being “clueless” at every conference. I appreciate their honesty and their willingness to learn.

My problem is we are doing both the new and the seasoned social media advocates a disservice by keeping things as they are. I believe we should be more formal in our evaluations of our skill sets. Asking “Who here is on Twitter? Who here blogs? Who here is on Facebook?” was cute three years ago, but why are we still at that level now?

Maybe it involves an accreditation system like 6 Sigma—green belts, black belts; that sort of thing. Maybe there is a comprehensive wiki-like exam that we can develop and, based on your score, you can fall in to certain strata of social media advocate.

Again, not to establish some sort of class system, but as a triage sort of approach. Since there are only so many minutes, slots and sessions during seminars, wouldn’t it be more productive if we can identify who needs what treatment? Who is just there for a yearly checkup? Who needs help, stat!?

I’ve been honored to receive a lot of invites to seminars over the last couple of years. I’ve met some really awesome people. But it’s getting to the point where I don’t want to show up for the whole conference. I start to dread the same questions from the same levels of experience. It might sound a bit selfish, sure, but I spend most of my time training. I don’t have a problem giving back. But I would also like to know I could get some targeted content as well.

A few people turned me on to a few existing places where others are trying to do just this. Awesome! Let’s keep things moving forward. I don’t think we need to have college degrees about this stuff just yet, but we need something.

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To my defense, I’ve been a little busier than usual. Those in my normal circles have known, but the world at large may have been left out of the loop. I am leaving the Army.

It has been about seven and a half years since I raised my hand and processed into the service. It was a whirlwind romance. I stepped into the recruiter’s office the day after New Year’s 2003 and was at basic training three weeks later.

It’s how I roll, though. I have a tendency to completely reinvent myself every couple of years. Being in the military has been life changing in more than the usual ways since it has forced me to stick with one thing for nearly a decade. Still, time is time.

I’ve had wonderful opportunities in the last couple of years. In January 2009 I started my tenure as the official DINFOS emerging media coordinator. I’d been working the social media scene since I arrived here in June 2007, but it was more of a hobby and personal quest for revolution, rather than any official capacity.

Since my christening, I’ve worked with dozens of awesome peeps at the DOD, major command and service level. I had the chance to go to SHAPE, the military arm of NATO, and contributed to their first strategic communication directive working with social media. I’ve been on the DOD’s all-services social media council and threw my $0.02 in on DTM 09-026, the DOD’s first social media policy(ish).

My time at DINFOS was winding down, though, and I had a choice. I could stay in the Army and go on to do the normal E7 stuff, or I could let my enlistment expire and continue with the social media fight in DOD. Although I was surprised to make the E7 list with just six years in, I wouldn’t be able to keep working in my social media circles while in uniform. There are no positions like mine at DINFOS in the regular military. There will be in a few years, but for now, I have to get out of uniform to keep working for those in uniform.

Strange huh? I think so also, but that’s the way of things.

My former chief of public affairs, Maj. Gen. Bergner, had been tremendously supportive and offered to give me whatever assignment in the Army I wished to keep me in, but I’m hardly close to retirement. Fourteen years is a long time.

Even if I stayed around for one more tour, eventually, a couple of years from now, I would have to return to “normal” military assignments: checking humvees, planning field problems and deployments—which is no problem, but I’d miss out on influencing the DOD social media discussion. If I could just do more years in the desert and still come back to what I’m doing now, that might suffice.

But I might as well just get out, get paid a lot more, do what I want and NOT have to get shot at anymore. It becomes a pro/con thing.

So, good luck to my uniformed sisters and brothers, and the DOD civvies that keep things rocking. I’ll be around more than you might think. I’m not done yet

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