Blogging @ http://drewrieder.com NOW!

Blogging at http://drewrieder.com NOW!

Drew Rieder — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 06:38:54 +0000

Hello visitor! I wanted to let you know that I’ve moved. It’s kind of like moving your house but in a digital way. I’ve moved all my content from the three blogs I’ve written from (starting back in October of 2009) over to http://drewrieder.com

You’ll like my new home. It’s cool and there’s lots of room to wiggle around and create stuff. I’m just getting started.

So come visit me here and you’ll see that I’m stepping up my game a bit for you. I’ll continue to post fun and interesting info always with a personal approach. Thanks for reading and I look forward to seeing you at http://drewrieder.com

Peace….drew

Filed under: How to?

Lessons from Otis Redding’s “Dock of the Bay”

Drew Rieder — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 07:07:28 +0000

PORCH SITTING IS A LOST ART!

STOP and stare at the beauty of God's creation all around you!

DISCLAIMER: This is not the view from my front porch (i-pod photo). It’s Multnomah Falls. But I wish it was the view from my back porch. Wouldn’t that be cool?

In America, we tend to label any activity where it looks like you’re not busy doing something as laziness. We champion the appearance of work as some badge we get to wear that proves we get to still keep collecting a paycheck. I believe the appearance of work and work for the sake of work are the worst kinds of anti-productivity. Perhaps the workplace would be much healthier if we had a results only work environment.

I think the corporate culture of “looking busy” is bunk and it’s this kind of widespread behavior that’s not only reinforced daily but is driving humans into the ground in this hyper-driven society. Think of all the people out there who are working hard to appear to be busy doing things. This seems like a lot of needless energy being expended to me.

Recently I carved out a small twenty-minute window of time from my day and just sat on the front porch and did nothing. It was sublime. It was relaxing. It was cathartic in a healthy and passive way.

It seems like nobody ever slows down anymore or unplugs from their electronic life on their phones and computers (irony of blog posts noted). There’s a great lack of rejuvenating types of activities.

I’M TRYING TO SLOW DOWN & UNPLUG MORE OFTEN (AS A MATTER OF MENTAL HEALTH)!

Surprisingly, sitting out on my porch the other day doing absolutely nothing but watching cars go by, people walking and the leaves dancing on the trees was one of the most productive activities I’ve done in a long while.

Lately, I’ve just been feeling a great need to have more solitude in order to figure some things out and decompress my mind.

Both solitude and doing nothing at all are two things I’ve been desiring a lot lately. My schedule is usually full from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. so neither of these things happen very often unless I’m intentional.

But what if I miss something important (I think to myself) when I’m unplugged from my phone and the internet? What if I miss the latest piece of big news coming down the Twitter stream? At the end of the day, my answer to myself and this nagging question is, “who really cares”?

I’M TRYING TO LEARN TO GIVE MYSELF PERMISSION TO DISENGAGE FROM TECHNOLOGY AND THE GRIND!

So here’s a quick note on solitude. It is a precious resource that hardly exists for anyone these days. It’s a wonder we don’t find ourselves falling into large holes as we try to text & walk from here to there or drive our car off more cliffs as we text & talk while driving.

I don’t do either of these things very often, but I am guilty of doing them every once in a while (don’t get all judgmental and stuff). My point is that we’re hardly ever focused on the “now” and for many people “distraction” is a constant problem.

Everywhere you go people are interacting with their electronic devices and relating to their phones. You think childhood obesity is an epidemic? Why not throw worldwide distraction in the ring for consideration?

People think to themselves “I’m important and I have value & meaning because so-and-so just texted me or just sent an update on FourSquare or somebody Facebooked me.” There’s this desperate urgency to get back to our connections right away or to send notes out constantly reporting every grid coordinate that we stop on.

I’M TRYING TO BALANCE MY LOVE FOR SOCIAL MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY WITH MORE HUMAN INTERACTIONS!

SO WHAT DOES OTIS REDDING HAVE TO SAY ABOUT ALL THIS?

You might not be surprised by this as I’m sure it’s probably true for you, also. I learn a lot from listening to music (all kinds, all eras). Otis Redding–legendary soul singer, song writer and performer–had some wisdom to depart on the topic we’ve been exploring together? It seems that he was alluding to many of his own stresses and worries in his song “The Dock of the Bay.” Give it a listen.

Great tune, by the way, and it was written way before e-mail, mobile phones and the Internet ever existed.

So as I was sitting on my front porch “resting my bones” this song ran through my head and had a very different meaning than it had ever had before. So keeping in mind the things I talked about what can we learn from this song? Otis recorded it only 3 days before he died. Here are the lyrics.

(SITTIN’ ON) THE DOCK OF THE BAY
- written by Otis Redding and Steve Cropper
- lyrics as recorded by Otis Redding December 7, 1967, just three
days before his death in a plane crash outside Madison, Wisconsin
- #1 for 4 weeks in 1968

Sittin’ in the mornin’ sun
I’ll be sittin’ when the evenin’ come
Watching the ships roll in
And then I watch ‘em roll away again, yeahI’m sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Ooo, I’m just sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Wastin’ time

I left my home in Georgia
Headed for the ‘Frisco bay
‘Cause I’ve had nothing to live for
And look like nothin’s gonna come my way

So I’m just gonna sit on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Ooo, I’m sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Wastin’ time

Look like nothing’s gonna change
Everything still remains the same
I can’t do what ten people tell me to do
So I guess I’ll remain the same, yes

Sittin’ here resting my bones
And this loneliness won’t leave me alone
It’s two thousand miles I roamed
Just to make this dock my home

Now, I’m just gonna sit at the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Oooo-wee, sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Wastin’ time (whistle)

Here are some habits I’m going to APPLY after thinking about Otis Redding’s song:

Take time to sit and observe nature for long periods of time.
When the stresses, demands and worries of life become too much (daily) take time to be still outside of my office.
Go for short walks around the block.
Lay on the grass in my backyard and watch the clouds roll by.
Sometimes, if my mind wants to wander I should let it. Focus is good but not all the time. Great creativity often happens.
There is something beautiful about the active pursuit of rest & renewal in God’s creation that can renew the mind. It’s good for the soul.
I would beg to differ that sitting on my front porch or the dock of the bay is not a “waste of time.”
Trying to pick 1-2 days to watch TV and leave that wondrous distraction OFF the rest of them. I’m not quite to the get-rid-of-it-completely phase yet, but that’s not a bad idea.
Using an actual writing utensil and journaling some of my thoughts as I chill out.
Seeking to not become a slave to cyber space, but instead become its master by using it to reach my goals (like building a healthy and vibrant online community).
Breathe in and breathe out. Listen to the sounds all around me.
Marvel at all the life happening in front of me.
Repeat all of the above as often as I can.

REALITY CHECK:

The way our world is built today, we’d all be hardpressed to completely disconnect from media and electronic interaction, but we can’t forget to take regular periods of time to be offline.

The soul of the human needs time to interact with its Creator by being out in nature and we also need lots of time to relate to each other by doing human things (like face-to-face meetings, playing sports or sharing a cup of coffee). Ponder all this as you get close to the weekend.

What’s the best way you’ve found to unplug from technology or unwind from a stress-filled life?

Share your best practice with the rest of us. And, as always, thanks for reading….drew

Filed under: Music Thoughts, Ponderous

Have you been voted off your ISLAND?

Drew Rieder — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 16:13:35 +0000

The Tribe has Spoken

What is your tribe saying?

BIG QUESTION: What if you were a part of a larger online community where you had such a high level of accountability to your fans, friends and followers that they could, essentially, vote you out of their group if you weren’t meeting their standards or if you did something to compromise their trust?

Pause. Now ponder that question for a minute while I explain the references in this post and the nature of my question.

SURVIVOR THE TV Show!

I love it when TV shows and pop culture lingo find their way into our everyday lives. The title of this post is a direct reference to the popularized show, Survivor, in which the small group of island inhabitants get to vote their least favorite castaway off the island at the end of the show. To speak thoroughly on the topic, this person may or may not be a weak player or have done anything wrong (other than posing a threat to other people trying to win the show).

Maybe some of you are still fans of this show and have watched it since it began back in 2000. I don’t even know what season they’re on now as I haven’t watched it since some former Navy Seal named Rudy was on the show. However, it’s a pretty good “reality” show and has stood the test of time as far as how long these types of shows tend to last. More importantly, I thought that the show’s premise was a good backdrop for some discussion about online accountability to our people.

So to finish painting this picture for you in order to draw a comparison to what we do as artists, the end of each show goes like this.

Each tribe member casts their vote for the person they want to send home. The losing tribe member (the one with the most votes) then gets his or her torch extinguished and they must leave the island right away. Immediately preceding the loser walking into the darkness of the jungle and into oblivion, the show host says something like “the tribe has spoken” and then it cues to some dramatic music, of course.

So there’s a REVIEW. Now back to THE QUESTION at hand.

What if life online was like Survivor? What if our online tribes had this kind of power? Better yet, what if we empowered them to be able to help us stay the course and stay true to our work? Or what if we allowed them to hold us to the standards we professed to live by?

You might think this type of scenario seems a bit extreme–that you and your work could or should be under such scrutiny. But remember that me even posing this concept puts my neck on the proverbial chopping block, too.

I beg the point that the pursuit of developing a community like this very well should be the heartbeat of every good marketer?

So what might a “Survivor” model blog or an online community look like, you say?

Let’s play this out in a realistic scenario. It would be a place where the following things could be true:

We tell the truth to our readers as we see it flowing from our own life experience.
People have the freedom to respectfully share their opinions about us and our work.
We tell people what we’re about and live transparently.
If we do something that we said we weren’t going to do then our tribe has the right to call us out on it and raise an issue.
Our loyal constituents can interact with us on a personal level and may even help shape some of our content by expressing their preferences.
People in our communities feel like they are a part of a special team of insiders who get access to content and art that makes their world better.
There are rewards to be had for making it through different challenges, sharing stories & ideas and reaching milestones.
It is a place where we can champion our fellow tribe member’s projects and applaud collective success.
Community members could even filter out other members who may not be living up to the right tribal standards of conduct and call those individuals to give account for their actions or to exit the island (metaphorically speaking, of course).
Adventures can be expected as the social landscape changes for the community site and we discover new places & interests and experience things together.
Members start to form their own tribes (spin-offs) as they are inspired by us and by one another to pursue their passions with excellence.

Does this sound like a place you’d like to be or something you’d like to build? This is the sort of community model that I desire to be a part of.

I think you should consider what your ideal community would look like. Every community might look a little different but to each one the artist has a big responsibility. So here’s a few ending thoughts and questions.

What is your ideal design for your community?
What kind of people would you like to join your online tribe?
What would an action list look like that could help you build this?

Answer these three questions and you might be ready to make some new changes. I’m ready. Will you join me?

Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear any thoughts you might have. Let the community voice be heard….drew

Filed under: How to?