Tending Relationships In The Technological Age: Multiminding

"relationships are the basis of our productivity" ~ @estee of #mmindding — Anastasia Ashman (@AnastasiaAshman) December 5, 2014

My worlds colliding -- no, integrating! -- at Estee Solomon Gray's Mmindding Symposium on what she calls agile attention management. It's a movement toward our reality as relational beings, supported by the technologies of today. We can do this. We want to do this. We are doing this. The talks were by academics who study things like proxemics and chronemics. The audience was filled with people who are carving out lives and work in just this post-industrial age reality. We're returning to our natural rhythms.

Pictured and not pictured, friends and colleagues and acquaintances from GlobalNiche, future of work thinkers, expat entrepreneurs, TEDxBayArea, Wisdom 2.o conference, Exceptional Women in Publishing, Bryn Mawr College alumnae, Women's Startup Lab.

'Humans are not machines'. #mmindding @mminddlabs pic.twitter.com/l1YrKKWcnL — Pamela Day (@ZibbyZ) December 5, 2014

Held at Rodan-Fields HQ, pictured: Leslie Forman, Pamela Day, Karen Jaw-Madson, Tanya Monsef Bunger, Maria Judice, Monika Ashman, Shirley Rivera. Also seen at this afternoon of theory and practice of "multi minding", relational thinking and acting for a qualitative life: journalist Liza Dowd, Kevin Marks, creativity expert Austin Hill Shaw, Bonita Banducci, Minda Aguhob of Peak Foqus, salonista Betsy Burroughs.

Identity and attention map visually displays what #mmindding looks like pic.twitter.com/NFgJPHBYUF — Tanya Monsef Bunger (@TMonsefBunger) December 6, 2014

"we're enabled to multimind by virtue of today's technology, it's not rewiring us" ~ @estee #mmindding — Anastasia Ashman (@AnastasiaAshman) December 5, 2014

A visual representation of what's on @CorSher 's work mind #mmindding pic.twitter.com/kdVHlnUKdb — Karen Jaw-Madson (@KarenJaw) December 6, 2014

. @BonitaBanducci outlines distinctions between individualistic and relational competencies at #mmindding pic.twitter.com/U3tdIrqh8Y — Leslie Forman (@leslieforman) December 5, 2014

.@BonitaBanducci speaking about how understanding competency differences empowers everyone. #mmindding pic.twitter.com/e5Iv6ACwmn — GlobalNiche (@globalniche) December 5, 2014

How relational thinkers operate. Same idea as improv. Don't judge--build. Say "yes, and." #mmindding pic.twitter.com/5jX5k67PnY — Leah Hunter (@leahthehunter) December 5, 2014

At #mmindding learning new ways to stop tasking and start minding. My notes so far. pic.twitter.com/1HocbNQtYF — Leslie Forman (@leslieforman) December 5, 2014

with respect - first step of multiminding: shedding remnants of GTD mentality "tasking" is so last century #mmindding — debs (@debs) December 5, 2014

"Your life is beautifully complicated" intriguing theme for #mmindding symposium @mminddlabs — YY (@thisisyy) December 5, 2014

Our spheres are not separate - you're at home but your mind is at work. #mmindding works across space and time — Tanya Monsef Bunger (@TMonsefBunger) December 5, 2014

.@rotanarotana my takeaways: we practice what academia theorizes + tech enables us to do today better what humans long have done #mmindding — Anastasia Ashman (@AnastasiaAshman) December 8, 2014

(I just grabbed Castell's link. His premise: we live in a global city.) Time and space sharing! Yes! http://t.co/V5ZvtypXNW #mmindding — Leah Hunter (@leahthehunter) December 5, 2014

This is why we feel stressed - no more tasking apps please. hah! #mmindding pic.twitter.com/oellTuYPNG — debs (@debs) December 5, 2014

Video Director Amit Raikar's GlobalNiche Interviews

"It's a community about possibility. I'd like to see this become a life philosophy." ~ Tiny Habits coach and environmental engineer Shirley Rivera

Just saw the rough cut of director Amit Raikar's video about the GlobalNiche movement shot this spring. Such great questions, and so many distinctive perspectives to fill in the mosaic of what GlobalNiche is, what it means, where it's going, how it works in our lives. I can't wait to be able to share it more widely! Here are some stills from the video (Shirley Rivera, Tanya Monsef Bunger, Loreen Huddleston, Bertita Graebner, me, and Evelyne Michaut), and a few juicy quotes. More to come...Thanks everyone, and Amit and crew for the wonderful work.

"This allows me to build the platform to be very consistently me in the world." ~ transpersonal psychologist and life transitions coach Bertita Graebner

Curating My Influences On Entrepreneurship, Global Women Entrepreneurs, & Future Of Work

Just started this curation topic at Scoop.it and I've already got more 100 links of evergreen value and cutting-edge thinking.

I've been harvesting all the links I've been discovering, sharing, posting and discussing for the last couple of years in the dark social of email and private (and some now defunct) discussion settings.

That includes material I discovered and shared over the past four years at my LinkedIn GlobalNiche group, my Facebook Creative Entrepreneurs group, my Facebook GlobalNiche graduates group. I'm also posting my original comments on each of those shares.

Expect more as I pull links from more than a year's worth of postings at Basecamp, a collaborative service I've been using to discuss entrepreneurial issues with my GlobalNiche team members.

If you're interested in these topics and the thinking from around the web that has most influenced me, it's easy to subscribe to the collection in one click over at Scoop.it.

On the GlobalNiche Bookshelf: Global Dexterity. Reinventing You. The Impact Equation.

Building your global niche is a 21st century skill. For work. For life.

International business, human resources, the future of life & work bestsellers and new releases from Harvard Biz Review are stacking up on our bookshelf at Pinterest.

Finding cultural effectiveness. Career reinvention through social media and your own content. Achieving impact via your platform and social networks. Adopting an entrepreneurial mindset.

These are all GlobalNiche mainstays going mainstream. Click here to tweet about this.

What does it mean to be a global worker and a true "citizen of the world" today? asks author Andy Molinsky in Global Dexterity: How to Adapt Your Behavior across Cultures without Losing Yourself in the Process.

It means you're able to adapt your behavior to conform to new cultural contexts without losing your authentic self.

"Not only is this difficult, it's a frightening prospect for most people and something completely outside their comfort zone," writes Molinsky, an associate professor at Brandeis University's International Business School. He straddles the psychology and organizational behavior departments.

"What's needed now," he claims, "is a critical new skill: global dexterity."

Global dexterity? It's what we do here.

This critical 21st century skill is exactly what we've been pioneering at GlobalNiche and expat+HAREM group blog and the Expat Harem book before it, as we have striven to make the limbo state and high cultural stakes of expatriate life a strength instead of a weakness. How to navigate your surroundings in culturally appropriate ways while also honoring the truth of who you are. That's global dexterity. Thanks to Andy Molinsky for the term. Back in 2009 we couldn't find many people talking about it at all, so we came up with our own term: "psychic location independence."

At GlobalNiche we've also come to the conclusion that this approach to a dexterous, global version of yourself  increasingly works for people everywhere, whether you're 'actually global' or not. You might be in your own backyard and need to navigate your surroundings in culturally appropriate ways and have your own, distinct truth to honor. You might not have a passport but can still benefit from becoming a global operative. In fact, being globally aware and globally functional has become an imperative in today's connected world.

"Use social media to build connections" is one of seven steps branding expert Dorrie Clark lays out to reinvent yourself professionally, in  Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future.

"Show what you know" is another of Clark's steps. She suggests you use your content to show the world what you care about.

Again, sound familiar? It should. Using your content online and off to get where you want to go is exactly how you build your global niche. It's why the GlobalNiche program at its heart is about content strategy. Your content and your online presence is the key to creating your place in the world.

Another title that is particularly useful for people building online presences to reach offline goals is The Impact Equation: Are You Making Things Happen or Just Making Noise? by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. Brogan is a favorite of ours here at GlobalNiche.

The impact of our ideas is a function of the quality and similarity-but-distinction of the ideas, our ability to reach people and be understood, trusted, appreciated.

Impact = C x (R + E + A + T + E)

C = Contrast – having ideas similar to existing ideas, yet different enough to stand out

R = Reach – connecting higher numbers of people to your idea

E = Exposure – knowing how frequently you connect people to your ideas

A = Articulation – ensuring that your ideas are easily understood

T = Trust – based on multiple factors, such as credibility and reliability

E = Echo – connecting to your community in a personal way

As Brogan explained in a fun January 2013 Twitter chat I participated in (#BizBookChat a virtual book club for the actionable books community by Alyssa Burkus), "The Impact Equation is about how to turn your goals into ideas, & how to get those ideas absorbed and actions taken."

To build a platform, Brogan says, "you've got to find how you can best tell the story and where you can reach the people you hope to reach."

"Start where you are," Brogan counseled us in the fast-moving Twitter chat. "But look for growth. Move your chips to the next table. Strive to reach who you need to reach."

Start where you are. That's your only option. Oh, and start your evolution today.

Evolution is exactly what Nacie Carson urges in The Finch Effect: The Five Strategies to Adapt and Thrive in Your Working Life. The Portfolio.com blogger and founder of TheLifeUncommon.net says it's your best bet in today's high-pressure economy.

Traditional career strategies spell professional extinction, she writes, but the fluid new gig economy offers tremendous potential for anyone willing to adapt.

Carson's five steps for ensuring professional success are all part of the GlobalNiche mindset and skill set.

• Adopt a gig mindset.
• Identify your value.
• Cultivate your skills.
• Nurture your social network.
• Harness your entrepreneurial energy.

Among many other notable titles on the shelf about navigating the world today is Mitch Joel's Ctrl Alt Delete: Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends On It. I hope to tackle this sometime soon. In the meantime, tell us which books on your shelf echo these 21st century life and work skills.

Your Content Adds Up. Now Make It Discoverable, Too.

We're born content producers. The more prolific among us are literally volcanoes of content.

Yet, what you’ve generated probably isn’t working for you.

It’s probably not laid out as a path where you want to go, nor presented as an invitation to other like-minded souls and interested parties to join you in your journey. It’s not contributing to the discoverability of you.

Do you have shelves full of:

• paper, boxes and binders, clippings, photos, slides, sketches and notes
• memorabilia and scrapbook materials

What about in the hall closet, and all that stuff in the basement?

• floppy disks
• hard drives
• external drives
• CDs, cassette tapes, video tapes

I bet you have a bunch of content stored here, there and everywhere. There’s a reason you haven’t gotten rid of it.

That mountain of stuff represents your effort and interest, and independent research. 

That mountain represents the things you chose to do because they make you feel alive.

Think of all the activities you’ve poured yourself into and how you’ve retained the evidence of them.  Anything that represents your experiences, your thinking and feeling on certain topics. All those photos of people and places and things that hold meaning and jog memories, yet haven’t seen the light of day in practically FOREVER. Some of it may represent creative failures. False starts. Ancient history. That's okay. Include it.

Maybe now you’ve got a mental image of your piles of creation, content associated with the life you’ve lived and the things you’ve loved (or hated, who knows).

At GlobalNiche we believe it’s forgotten gold. (Don’t feel too badly. We all have similar piles that we haven’t used for much of anything. YET.)

So, next question.

Are you sitting on that mountain of content -- and also wondering how you’re going to make ends meet, effect a career change, or achieve a goal?

Maybe you’re thinking you can’t do what you yearn to because you live in the wrong place and don’t have the right contacts and there’s no opportunity to pursue that interest where you are. As an expat for 14 years, I spent a lot of time wondering if my location was a disadvantage to what I want to do. The answer was "yes" most of the time. But no longer.

If we consider that earlier output and experience not as failure or a waste of time, but instead a chain of events that make us who we are today, then we can start to get an idea of the arc of our lives and how what we’ve done in the past can help us get where we want to go in the future. No matter where we are -- with the help of the web and the platform we build on it.

What if you were prominent and findable in your chosen field of interest or activity? 

How might your opportunities change if you let your content support your aims? <---Tweet that.

Whether you’re positioning yourself to land jobs or funding or a book deal, or you’ve got a completed book or other product or service to sell, it will make a difference to your results. If you’re findable and well-represented, you have a chance. If you’re unknown, unfindable, and a jumbled mess when people DO happen to stumble on you, you won’t make much of an impression.

Whatever you want to do, you’ll need help and support. An important part of gathering support is going public with your process, to attract likeminded people to your cause and to involve them in your journey. The kind of people who are interested your vision and your way of thinking and feeling, parties who can help you develop your plan, the kind of peers and confidants and guides who will form the basis of your network.

We've entered a golden age for content creators. Do you know how to wrap your arms around your content, see the story it tells, and link it with your goals?

A version of this post originally appeared at Kristin Bair O'Keeffe's Writerhead, September 7, 2012

Mapping Your Complex World

Have you tried mapping the complexity and richness of your life (and career) with an overlapping Venn diagram?

Here's what turned up when I did one for GlobalNiche -- you can see all the relationships of our personal and professional influences and communities as we operate at the intersection of content, culture, and identity.

There's power in your diversity, how you combine your worlds, and the hybrid result!

If you've attempted a Venn of some part of your life, you're invited to share it on the GlobalNiche Facebook page here.

Talking To Expat Entrepreneurs About How Facebook & LinkedIn Don't Touch Twitter

My comments from a discussion thread at the private forum for expat entrepreneurs run by Karen Armstrong: You can find me on Facebook (which I'm using increasingly more as a place to share what I'm reading, thinking, what I'm doing, etc -- and created recently an Expat Harem page which still needs a lot more love), Linked-In (which I've begun to join in forum discussions here and there) and Twitter.

I'm most active on Twitter because it works so well for me as a writer, as an expat, as a trafficker of ideas.

With Twitter I'm back in school (taking business courses, marketing and media affairs), I'm at summer camp, I've rejoined the publishing industry, and making new filmmaker friends, and following peripheral interests through the lives of people more devoted, taking part in live discussions about literature, editing, branding, virtually attending conferences and events like yesterday's brown bag luncheon thrown by Random House on the topic of digital publishing.

The other two sites have their purposes but nothing touches Twitter.