Patterns of Engagement

In a recent tweet, I wrote:
Increasingly drawn to creativity at the margins, in the gap, where little is expected & folks later scramble to explain what happened.
And nearly as soon as I released it, I realized I had used “margins” as a place holder for several different dimensions that may intersect with unexpected results, sometimes [...]

Just contributed a comment to another great conversation over at Tim Kastelle’s Innovation Leadership Network blog about “Personal Filter, Aggregate, and Connect Strategies,” and felt that I should expand a little here while the creative juices were still bubbling.
For reference, here’s my comment:
Now I’m realizing that there’s yet another dimension or perspective beyond filtering, aggregating, [...]

Time for corrective action.  I have stood and continue to stand among those calling for greater transparency in the public sphere, and particularly in the workings of government. I operate under the assumption that whatever I place online or in email is ultimately available for all to see, by accident or intention.  Everything I post [...]

What is social media and why is it so important right now?
Rather than aggregating a selection of the amazing wisdom and insight already available across the ‘Net (especially note the fantastic conversation taking place on Venessa Miemis’ posting, “What is social media [the 2010 edition]“), I’m going to adopt more of a personal witness approach, [...]

A recent exchange of comments on David Hodgson’s Idea Hive blog around “A Culture of Innovation is the Key to Our Future” got me spinning off into an entirely different reflection on “culture.” As much as I’ve participated in the framing of “corporate culture,” for example, in the nearly mythical terms of vision, mission, shared [...]

In the course of researching ESL (English as second language) materials, my wife came upon Global Brains: Knowledge and Competencies for the 21st Century by Gary Ferraro.
At first, the list of competencies seemed relatively typical; but once I started playing around with how they actually related to each other, something kind of clicked, and the [...]

Twitter is one of those unique environments that defies simple categorization: kind of like a blog, or a telegram, or instant messaging, or a wire service, but somehow distinct, deceptively simple, and surprisingly protean, in the sense of shaping a wild frontier of information within the flow (and steadily accumulated log) of 140-character messages. [...]

Several months have passed since I began exploring a few social media tools that “play well together.”
And now, as I look back, I’ve been surprised how much FaceBook, Twitter, and my blog, feel similar to some of the old ways of connecting, but with a twist (ok, maybe “twist” is sometimes more like popping donuts [...]

OK, quick, name your top five comfort foods, the meals you count on to relieve some of the anxiety of uncertain times. Umm, the flavors, aromas, textures, and probably not-so-subtle spices of times gone past, the everyday, home-cooked meals, with “secret” ingredients, like mustard in macaroni and cheese, that you sat down to at the [...]

In every movement the entire body should be light and agile and all of its parts connected like a string of pearls.
T’ai Chi Ch’uan Classic
Typically interpreted to describe the flowing of energy within the body in the course of each form, the “string of pearls” can also be seen as a metaphor for the complete [...]