Archive for December 2010

Community ties.

Update #2 12/29: For those of you who’ve asked how you can get involved in bridging the digital divide (or simply learn more) in this beloved city of ours, please read the DC Office of the Chief Technology’s Digital Divide Strategy in which they lay out how they’re going to address these issues over the next few years. Also, you can email me at nmcairns at gmail dot com as I’m putting together a group of interested folks who want to work on this issue together.

Update 12/29: I’m really grateful for the response this post has gotten – positive and negative, supporting and dissenting opinions. I sincerely apologize if I offended any particular people. Unfortunately, blogging isn’t fair and you’re often forced to make blanket statements. For that, I am truly sorry. I don’t believe everyone nominated is simply “just a loud voice”. In fact, many of the people on the list are doing truly tremendous things.

Those were my points/intentions and I’m sorry if I missed a few transitional paragraphs here or there. Thank you for reading and please comment if you have any thoughts on this subject – positive or negative.

I was originally going to hold off on completing this post after some consideration last night, but after reading The Advoc8te’s blog post this morning about #DCTweeps I’m grateful I’m not the only one who feels as though the Washington Post’s contest (and the Fast Company Most Influential competition months ago… and every other social media competition) is missing the point.

I got into social media to change things. I got into web development to change things. I want to improve the lives of those around me and I think I can do that with the skills and connections that I’ve obtained in my time working tech-based jobs. I just need the ideas in my head and good people around me to actively make change happen. I don’t need awards or recognition to feel fulfilled.

This isn’t the case for everyone. Not everyone needs or wants to change the world, or even their community. And not everyone who uses Twitter needs to be changing things for the better; Twitter wasn’t built for that reason, nor should it ever completely become about advocacy. This doesn’t make me better than anyone, it just makes my role and goals for this community different.

However, we’re the leaders in this online community whether we choose to be or not. We make a living, feed ourselves and/or our families, and have an offline social network because we’re the best. People listen to what we have to say and are invested in our opinions and our lives. We’re not living up to our responsibilities as leaders through innovation, change, or betterment of our community and our neighbors; instead, we’re participating in meaningless competitions to garner an award from a print publication that does a poor job at covering/reporting the news on social media. Furthermore, we’re squandering the power we do have when we succumb to competitions like this.

I’m fully aware that people think I’m bitter because I wasn’t nominated. In fact, that’s not true at all. I easily could’ve asked one of 15-20 people who would’ve been more than willing to nominate me for something. I simply don’t need it. At the end of the day, awards like #DCTweeps don’t add any value to me or my role in this community. People listen to (or don’t listen to) what I have to say because they want to, not because I convinced a ton of people to vote for me so that I could win an award. That is what makes me a valued member of this community.

I’ve been thinking a lot about community and what it means to me, so I thought I’d share that. To me…

Community is about doing something – and doing it well – with no other intention than to better the world around us.

• We all have a lot of followers (apparently followers that will vote for us!) with a wide reach. I can send out a tweet about something DC-centric and get responses from people in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin… you name it. But what are we tweeting about? What messages are we spreading? That we organize events. That we hang out together. That we gossip and have formed clicks (bloggers, drama kids, outsiders, the pretty people) just like high school. We do all of that really well – maybe too well.

Community isn’t a place where we strive for individual recognition for personal gain.

• It’s cliche, but a community is only as good as the sum of its parts. As individuals, we can only achieve so much and if we continue to separate ourselves from the rest of the community that only leads to detrimental results. If we started working together, and then take our talents offline, the change we could achieve would be tremendous.

Community is a place where criticism and questions are valued.

• What good is a community if we’re not constantly exchanging ideas? Sometimes that can lead to difficult questions and different ideas, but that’s not a bad thing. As a community (and an individual), we learn the most when we’re tested and are forced to look within to find the answers. We shouldn’t ostracize others if they don’t agree with us on a few issues.

Community isn’t about putting ourselves above our friends and neighbors who are left behind.

• Case in point: DC broadband access. While we’re sitting here making a living off the internet, social media marketing, or whatever buzzword philosophy term you coined last month, there are parts of this city that have basically no internet access. The entire city has a broadband adoption rate of just 57% while Wards 1, 2, and 3 have adoption rates of nearly 100%. We’ve put a lot into who we are on the internet and the internet has paid us back. Shouldn’t we now try to pay it forward and advance our city?

We’re at the point where the loudest voice in the room gets heard and that’s not always good. People value number of followers over quality interactions. People value how cool a new tool is over what you can use that tool to effectively change your community or better this thing (the Internet) that has given you a career and put food on the table for your family.

We’ve allowed our leadership to morph into a constant online popularity contest where we vote for coolest nerd or floppiest butterfly instead of recognizing those who have actively sought to change the way our communities function. We’ve lost touch of what we’re supposed to be doing as leaders and I really hope we can find our way soon enough.

Overwhelmed.

I’ve spent the better part of my life searching for something — confidence, a voice, a mission — that I was lacking. This year alone, I’ve experienced a lot of personal and professional growth, and feel like I’ve finally obtained all those things I’ve been lacking. Sure, I struggle with one or all of them on a daily basis, but they’re there underneath there… somewhere.

As I pursue this new project, I’m bringing a lot of scary things upon myself. I’m not sure what’s come over me with this idea that I have, but whatever’s happening is really going to change my life. I’m setting myself up for one of two things:

• Great failure. This is a serious possibility. I’m simply being honest here. This plan I’m working on is very big and requires, at minimum, a year of researching, planning, organizing, gathering support, and fundraising. There’s a lot of potential for failure. Should this happen (I’m really hoping it doesn’t), I think I’ll be okay with it. This is the first time I’m really putting myself out there, allowing myself to take risks, allowing myself to make big, bold moves. If this idea doesn’t work out, I’ve at least accomplished all those things and that’s pretty amazing.

OR

• Great success. Normal Nicole would automatically set myself up for this option. Normal Nicole would say, “This idea is great, but it’s going to be a lot of work, so I’ll just give up now before I get too invested.” But New Nicole really wants this to succeed. Unlike other times when I’ve given up, I’m going to do my best ensure this idea comes to fruition. I have the potential to change my life and improve the lives of others around me. How can I turn away from that?

Even though I’m ready for these things, I can’t say I’m not overwhelmed. The possibility of failure or success is completely overwhelming and terrifying. A lot of things come with either possibility. Failure on this project would mean that I pursue this project for X-number-of-months and then it all dies. All my hard work falls apart and I start over. Success means that everything in my life changes. No more answering to bosses, no more commuting to work, no more 8 hour work days. Hello autonomy, hello being responsible for your own ideas, hello 16 hour work days.

All of that is terrifying.

I find it pretty appropriate that this is all happening weeks before my 25th birthday. My 20s, like most people’s early 20s, have been hard.

• At 20, I met my first love and he moved to Europe for 6 months.
• At 21, I didn’t graduate on time from college and moved out on my own.
• At 22, I broke up with my first love and moved to New York.
• At 23, I moved back to D.C. and changed my career.
• At 24, I started dating again and changed my career yet again.

These things have taught me that I don’t have complete control over what happens. These things have taught me that, no matter how hard something may crush you, you can always pick yourself back up. These things have taught me that I can

At 25, I don’t expect big things to stop happening. Actually, I hope the exact opposite happens. Instead, at 25, I anticipate even bigger things to start happening and I welcome any and all obstacles that my come into my path because I’m finally capable of dealing with them.

It’s still incredibly overwhelming. Wish me luck.

Always learning.

I recently had the epiphany that I wanted to go back to school. Working and making money is great and all, but sometimes I feel like my skill set and knowledge is decreasing in size by the day. Chances are, that’s probably not true, but the single-child, overachiever in me is constantly pushing to be someone, to do something.

When I look back now, sometimes I think college wasn’t right for me. At least not at that time. My high school didn’t prepare me for spending more time on homework than in class. My teachers didn’t prepare me for developing complex arguments or taking tests longer than 20 questions. My parents were able to prepare me for the class-studying-social balance because they never went to college themselves. I simply wasn’t ready.

At the end of the day, I have to tell myself, “You hated college. You never went to class. You don’t really want to go back.” I was a terrible student and nearly flunked out of college my freshman year. When I started working at the student newspaper, I found my place. I found my purpose and got back on track.

It took the entirety of my college career to pull myself out of the trouble I got into freshman year. I altered my schedule by taking a lighter course load and supplementing my free time with jobs and internships as opposed to seeing movies or hanging out with my roommates while they studied. In the end, I was able to finally graduate (and got an A on my final thesis, no less).

I have to remember that I’m constantly learning things whenever I think of going back to school. I may not be learning about cultural history through rock music or American Folk Art, but I’m learning things. Recently, these are the lessons I’ve “learned.”

1. Moving doesn’t solve your problems. I wanted it to so badly. When I moved to Brooklyn, I thought everything would be better. Better than what? Better than wishing away my life in DC waiting to move to another city to be with someone. Better than hating everything about my apartment because it overlooked a dumpster. Better than hating my job because it involved doing public relations instead of journalism (my roots). Moving to Brooklyn didn’t make the heartbreak of my breakup any better. Instead, it made it easier to not deal with the issues I was facing and only made them worse when I started dating again.
2. Doubting yourself is healthy. Over the past few days, I’ve discovered a lot about myself simply through reading a self-assessment book for nonprofits and writing, writing, writing. By constantly doubting myself and asking questions, then forcing myself to answer those questions I’ve figured out a lot about myself and what I need… from me.
3. Rocking the boat is necessary. If you don’t do this, why are you even bothering doing what you’re doing? I get in arguments with people about this all the time — in fact, I had one today. When someone wrongs me, I tell them. I let them know exactly how and why I feel that way. Maybe that’s not the best thing to do in every situation, but I can’t not do it. At work, I constantly fight to have my opinions heard and, if they’re good, executed. If I see something that’s not going the way I think it should, I do my best to make sure it’s corrected and that our company is constantly improving itself.

These are big lessons that took a long time for me to learn, especially the first one. As I grow and develop as an individual, I feel like knowing these things about my situation and life help me, even if I can’t always act upon them. On an almost-weekly basis, I consider moving out of D.C. I think, “Maybe I’ll have slightly better luck in San Francisco, meet a nice boy, and use trolleys for transportation.” Or, then there are the days when I consider rolling over at work and just accepting things for the way they are instead of pushing like I normally do. Those days are dark, but they happen. In the end, I just have to keep reminding myself that I’m going to keep learning and growing. It doesn’t matter if I move to another city, do some long soul searching process, or stop speaking my opinion… it’s going to happen. Until then, I need to keep my feet planted and keep being true to myself.

The six people you meet online.

Someone recently Tweeted: “Facebook is where you lie to your friends and Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers.” I think that’s completely accurate. I’m not sure what it is about Twitter that encourages me and others to share as much as we do to complete strangers, but we’re all in this community now. There are groups of people who talk to each other all day long. Some of them I know I’ll meet in person one day and others I likely won’t ever know their real name because they use a pseudonym online. Either way, Twitter’s allowed us to develop “friendships” with people online that we would ordinarily have no relationship with.

Over the past few months and even years, I’ve met a considerable number of people from the Internet (don’t worry Mom, I’m always safe!). This ranges from the people I met on the_gw_files LiveJournal community, people I met through Facebook when we realized we had classes together, and, now, people I’ve met through Twitter. Some of these people have gone on to become my closest friends and I even wound up dating one of them for three years.

That said, no matter which way I’ve met people, there always seems to be the same kind of people:

The creepers. There are a LOT of guys who will follow you on the internet if you’re a moderately attractive girl with a snarky 140 character profile. Then, they’ll even try to connect with you on a personal level by STALKING YOU, sending you DMs instead of public responses, finding your email through stalkerish methods, and using an abundance of winky faces. These guys don’t allow the natural order of things to occur and, instead, ask you to hang out well before that point in the relationship has been reached.

The SWF. Yes, I’m talking about the movie. No, I have not personally had a situation in which my roommate cuts her hair to look like me and kills my puppy, but there are definitely situations in which people really want to be your friend. That’s great and all, but SLOW IT DOWN. You’re not going to be super close with every person you meet and sometimes people have real life commitments that make it hard to include new friends into the fold. That doesn’t mean the desire to meet more people and forge close relationships with them isn’t there, but that sometimes… people have lives outside of Twitter. [shocking, right?]

The people with no social skills. I think this is the category I fall into the most. I think we all flock to social media and the internet because that’s where we feel most comfortable, it’s where we think our voices are most appreciated and understood by others with similar interests. You don’t have to go to a bar and ask people a lot of questions to find out if you have the same interests — everyone just puts that information out there for you to see before you even get to know them. Then, we talk to people for however long it takes before we no longer feel awkward and decide to meet. Sometimes it’s awkward in person, sometimes it’s not.

The celebrities. Internet celebrities fascinate me because they’re generally ordinary people who write things about their every day lives for thousands of people to see it. Or, there are simply people that I’ve happened to follow for a long time and know a lot about their lives.

I don’t get star struck about actual famous people (I’ve met a lot of them and they’re usually underwhelming). However, put me in a room with “internet famous” people and I can become a total nut job (takes me out of the “no social skills” category and lumps me in with the “creepers”):

Me: OMG I KNEW EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU BEFORE WE EVEN MET.
Them: *unfollows @nicoleindc on Twitter*

The people you should know. Sometimes there are people you simply just haven’t run into in life, but you need to. These people have a lot of the same interests as you and you may occasionally joke that you’re the same person. Sometimes, life is cruel and doesn’t allow you to meet. Then, nerds develop micro-blogging and that changes everything.

The soulmates. A very, very select few people fall into this category. These are the people that you bond with over joking about running through sprinklers on a hot day or meet you after work one day for 15 minutes just to keep your mind off things. Then, you realize you share the same love of 7-11 nachos and it’s a done deal. In all seriousness, these are the people that you’re lucky to meet no matter how you meet them; social media just so happens to be the way in which you’re introduced.

I’m sure there are a billion other ‘types’ of social media people, but these are my favorite. They’re the ones that make things interesting, in good and bad ways. Sometimes, the bad ones make you want to quit it all and the good ones make you grateful to be a nerd.

Mission statement.

The question of mission has become, if anything, even more important as our world becomes increasingly disruptive and turbulent. No matter how much the world changes, people still have a fundamental need to belong to something they can feel proud of. They have a fundamental need for guiding values and sense of purpose that give their life and work meaning. They have a fundamental need for connection to other people, sharing with them the common bond of beliefs and aspirations. They have a desperate need for a guiding philosophy, a beacon on the hill to keep in sight during dark and disruptive times. More than any time in the past, people will demand operating autonomy – freedom plus responsibility – and will simultaneously demand that the organizations of which they are a part stand for something.

A week ago today, I had a revelation. A revelation that I wanted to do something and start making things happen as opposed to sitting back and waiting for them to fall into my lap. A friend now refers to them as “stop-the-hairdryer breaking thoughts and news” because that’s literally what I did — I stopped blowdrying my hair, risking potential curling (!!!), and wrote down my ideas to make sure I didn’t forget them.

I’ve wanted to put my talents to use in a new way for the longest time. I’ve wanted to find a way to incorporate what skills I have to accomplish something for the greater good — do something for people who can’t or don’t know how to. I’ve been looking for a mission and I’ve found it.

After talking my initial mission over with a few people, I honed it a little more. Next, I set out to the bookstore one day after work and picked up some resources on getting a nonprofit started including The Five Most Important Questions, a self-assessment tool for nonprofits to use in re-examining their organization. I’ve been reading the book and writing ideas and questions in the margins all weekend.

At just 97 pages, I’ve had the opportunity to read it twice now. I realized that the portions I was highlighting were not only relevant the brainstorming and plan-writing phase of this endeavor, but also to where I am in my life right now. Things like:

• Self-discovery is an introspective and courageous journey that gives [... people] the energy and courage to grow.
• There is no conventional bottom line.
• Leadership has no choice but to anticipate the future and attempt to mold it, bearing in mind that whoever is content to rise with the tide will also fall with it.
• To abandon anything is always bitterly resisted. People [...] are always attached to the obsolete – the things that should have worked but did not.
• What endures from the work [...] is not how hard we try or how clever we may be or even how much we care. [... .] But ultimately what is remembered is how we have been able to improve lives.
• Before you go into something new, don’t say, “This is how we do it.” Say, “Let’s find out what this requires.”
• It is important to recognize what you do not know, when you are not yet sure whether to abandon, concentrate, go into something new or take a particular risk.

These little tidbits have encouraged me to ask tough questions of myself and my ideas. It’s made me think and utilize the analytical skills I haven’t really utilized since I wrote my thesis more than two years ago. Most of all: it’s made me feel inspired again.

This December blogging project was initially supposed to be a storytelling project, one that got me in touch with myself and my voice. However, as with many blog posts and projects, it’s quickly turning into a self-introspection and assessment process thanks in large part to this book. And I’m enjoying it. A lot.

I find myself constantly thinking about topics in the book and how I’m going to either write about it in the mission-values-goals brief I’m writing or in this blog. For the past few months, I’ve been begging myself to have the courage to write about something and just hit publish. And now I have it.

Now I have it.

I’m awesome.

So, because I wrote about my character flaws yesterday, I thought I’d take today’s post to address the more positive things about my character: most notably, my awesomeness.

I got a lot of people who responded saying that I don’t have any flaws and I’m perfect the way I am (thanks, guys!). While those sentiments are nice, I don’t believe in perfection… not in the slightest. I don’t admit to knowing everything (or a lot even), but one thing I do know is that perfection doesn’t exist and striving for perfection is a hopeless cause that only drives people to madness.

I may not be perfect, but I am awesome. Let me count the ways:

My hair is amazing. Even my friends thinks so. I’m not the prettiest or skinniest girl in town, but I know what I have and how to use it. I used to be an emotional haircutter (I’d cut it whenever I was going through a Big Life Moment) and I’ve recently stopped doing that. Now, my hair is longer, and prettier than it’s ever been.

I have amazing cats. I mean look at this guy! They take care of me when I’m sick or having a rough day, they leave me alone when I stay at home a lot, and they make living alone a little more bearable. Also, they’re incredibly photogenic.

I have really cute clothes. There’s really not much to say about that. I’m a great dresser.

In all seriousness, I’m pretty great. I’m a nice, well-rounded, non-accented girl from the South who has nothing but good intentions. I’m honest, caring, and a good friend who likes to listen and help people. To flip yesterday’s post around, here’s why my character flaws make me awesome:

I fall hard. And fast. I’m a very passionate person. I’m constantly striving to learn, do, and achieve more in my personal and professional life. I have an insatiable thirst to develop skill upon skill. This started when I was an only child. We didn’t have any money because my mom stayed at home to take care of me. I wound up playing with water and toilet paper. The 24 year-old environmentalist in me is disappointed that I wasted all that paper, but I’m glad my mom made me find new ways to create enjoyment in my life instead of finding it through purchased things or false experiences. I do this by devoting tons of attention to the people and things I “fall for”. This intensity can be scary to some, but it’s simply who I am. Also, if something is worthy of that devotion, it’s pretty freaking awesome.

I lack focus. I’m never too focused on one thing or one person. I have a lot of interests and a wide variety of friends that makes it easier to not get pigeonholed into one subject or one type of friend. I’m interested in everything from computers and tech to handmade crafting to community organizing. My friends are becoming increasingly diverse. They hold jobs in many different sectors, represent several political parties, yet they’re all caring individuals who generally want nothing but the best for the people around them. I never fully commit to one hobby or one group of friends simply because I don’t have to. I find this lack of focused attention to be healthy, it allows me to grow, and it keeps me on my toes.

I often lack follow-through. I know this is a weird thing, but I’m actually okay with my lack of follow-through. Sometimes it makes for disasters, but other times it sets me up for great success. I’m able to discern the situations that require or demand follow-through and which don’t. I know when something’s (a job, a relationship, or a hobby) going to be successful or valuable and I drop everything else to ensure that it’s followed through to my best abilities.

These things make my life is rich, unusual, and ever-changing and, yes, that makes me awesome.

Character flaws.

I love movies. I love watching and rewatching them and picking them apart with friends. I always loved movies growing up and occasionally shifted my movie-watching habits from teen comedies to horror films to thrillers. In college, despite being at a school known for politics and business, I majored in American Studies (a glorified term for “create-your-own-major”) and took classes on culture, movies and music, and electronic media. I began looking at film as a piece of literature and with a more critical lens. Additionally, I wound up surrounding myself with film students and even dated a filmmaker for three years expanding my movie tastes to include independent and art films. (I still have an appreciate for all film, especially The Lizzie McGuire Movie which I own.)

I love the characters in these films. I love how a well-written character can make you recognize their flaws, yet fall in love with them in spite of it. I’m not a fan of the kind of movie that has perfect characters in perfect lives and everything goes perfect for them for 90 minutes. Then! For a whopping 15 minutes, everything seems like it’s in disarray and that the guy might not get the girl… only to fall madly in love in the last 5 minutes. I don’t like those stories, I can’t relate to those characters.

One of my favorite characters is Ryan Bingham from Up in the Air. I love Ryan for many reasons, but mostly because he isn’t perfect. He spends his life surrounded by people only to find himself constantly alone and incapable of forging quality relationships with people.

As you watch Ryan make these decisions that eventually drive him to the point of rebellion against his own actions, you begin to analyze things he does and relate them to your life.

I fall hard. And fast. Jobs, boys, projects, friends — when I find something or someone I like, I have this undeniable craving to wrap myself up in it or them. This habit of mine has led to incredibly great things, incredibly bad things, and soul crushing things. I kind of always assumed this was something people did if they’re interested in something. Over the past few years, I’ve learned I’m very wrong about this. Not everyone wants to, or is capable of diving in head first into a new endeavor. There’s nothing wrong with that — I just don’t operate that way. I have passion and drive and I try to put that into everything I do, if I’m interested.

I lack focus. When you’re constantly thinking, self-analyzing, and brainstorming, this is a serious problem. Instead of sitting down and mapping out the idea I have, I let it get carried away and lose sight of the original idea. I’m not sure if this is a side effect of my current career, growing up with MTV, or my general disinterest in just about everything, but I have a serious issue focusing on important tasks at hand. Give me a movie to watch or an entire album’s worth of lyrics to remember and I can do it. Give me a blogging project? Eh.

I often lack follow-through. Case in point: this blogging project. I’m two days behind and it’s only the third day! I have a lot of ideas, some are good, and a few are even great. However, I rarely put in the effort to follow through. Last night, I bought the short book The Dip by Seth Godin. The book is about quitting, picking and choosing the right times and situations under which you should or shouldn’t quit. The first story focuses on the best Supreme Court associate in the U.S. While she may not look like a quitter on the outset because she’s the absolute best at this one position, she had to quit a lot of other things along the way. This really resonated with me because of my habit to quit or give up before something can realize its full potential.

In a weird way, I feel like these character flaws are important to examine at this phase in my life. I’m embarking on a big journey: starting a nonprofit.

The potential return of personal and professional fulfillment on this project is off the charts. I’ve been searching for something that utilizes my skills and interests in writing, research, outreach, education, community organizing, and personal development for the longest time. Now that I’ve found it, I need to take advantage of my ability to fall hard for something, yet make sure I stay focused and follow through.

Until now, I’ve (like Ryan) completely embraced my character flaws. Now’s the time to turn around, run after I want. Maybe I’ll discover the dream is a myth, but maybe I’ll get the greatest payoff I could ever ask for: a feeling of purpose.