Cam Findlay

Archive for August, 2009

Below shows some activities in my life where I experience “Flow” that being a place where my skills and challenges meet to allow me to perform at my very best. It also shows some of my core values and sense of purpose around these activities.
(Click the diagram to enlarge)

These are just 3 of many areas in which I find a sense of flow there are many more but focusing on these ones for now they have helped (and continue to help) me become more integrated and differentiated in my life by:

Participating in communities are various types gives me both a place to learn from others and a place to share my skills to help advance the goals of that community. I find that there is a sense of community in just about everything I do. Being part of the “Dance Music Community” and helping run events and share my music with others as a DJ and music producer. On the web development and coding side of things I am part of the “Open Source Community” where ideas around building great websites, producing reusable code that anyone can use, modify and make better drive this movement and foster a place where I can again learn from other open source participants and at times contribute back so that others may learn and make use of what I have learnt.  I am also part of a community with my Iaido training which is a subset of the greater community of people doing martial arts (Budo) in a quest to build character, mind, body and spirit in their lives.
I find that for all of my broad range of skills, talents and hobbies there is a community of people (either online or offline) that can benefit from my participation and contribution into that community.

This guys makes all sounds through beatboxing and a rig of effect pedals…Need I say more?

http://www.dubfx.net/

I think Ii still need to explore the idea of SMART goals further before I can successfully start implementing them.  At present I do think I have a strong strategy which I outlined earlier but while I believe these strategies could be re-written into SMART goals I need to make them more Specific, Measurable and Time-Oreinted as in “when am I going to do them”.

For example one of my strategies is to “Continue to work within the technology and web development industry/landscape” but to be more specific I think I need to work out which technology I want to focus on, which companies in the industry and where are those companies? When am I going to approach these companies? How do I measure this or rank my progress on this?

I do think however my goals/stratagies toward my purpose and vision are Attainable and Relevant.  Attainable in that I already have several years of experience in the industry and a good background in technology, coding and I am able and willing to continue learning to enhance my skills so I am able to achieve the goals that I will eventually set. (Perhaps working out what learning I need to undertake and when could be a SMART goal to add).
My goals are also relevant as they all fit and help me progress towards helping make the web an easier place for businesses but without having nailed down my BHAG or full vision the goals themselves are slightly unclear.

The more time I can spend converting and breaking down my strategies the clearer my SMART goals will start to become. (A SMART goal now would be to work out what my SMART goals are and to set a time frame on sorting those out, though one time frame has been set for me… the hand in date on the Personal Development Plan!)

I think I am lucky that I have a lot of supportive people around me, I am intending on running my PDP and my future goals by my partner, Julia, my current boss and college, David McKinnon and my Mum and Dad… all of whom are already following my journal questions on my blog and offering great feedback and encouragement.  These are people I have built great relationships with and will be honest with me, trustworthy and will really help motivate me to do my best as I start to impliement my Personal Development Plan into my life.

Thanks everyone

My strengths in positive leadership are:

• Demonstrating forgiveness for mistakes and errors.
• Providing support and development to indicate forgiveness to those who have blundered.
• Modeling positive energy and encouraging other positive energizers.
• Continuously improving and developing strong inter-personal relationships.

Some development areas I would want to include as part of my PDP are:

• Running more formal events to encourage and communicate emotional support.
• Developing best-self feedback from others.
• Complimenting more with email and cards those around me that are performing well.
• Establishing more one to one meeting on a regular basis.

My strongest skills I have identified from taking the skills of leadership questionare are:

Envisioning

• Visibility & Connection
• Consultation
• Future Orientation
• Fixing Problem Causes
• Short Term Goals

Engaging

• Team Support
• Organisation Networks
• External Networks

Enacting

• Initiative
• Coaching

Creating a hi-performance context

• Contribution & Soul
• Faith & Confidence

Some development areas I would like to work on within my Personal Development Plan(PDP) would have to be gaining a better perspective of my bigger picture which I take to mean my BHAG or long term goals which I am still attempting to clairify at present.  I would also like to work on and perhaps add to my PDP some short term goals around building and engaging with others to improve capibility and performance, that is finding others with the skills and areas of expertise that I lack to help me towards my future vision.

In an earlier post I talked about a conversation I had with my girlfriend…To recap I unfortunately decided to answer her question of  “what do you think of my design work?” (she is studing video post production) with a very attentive style of communication when what she really wanted was reassurance which means I should have listened and offered some positive affirmations about the work “It looks great, I understand what your trying to do with that design”.

After a bit of an argument (downloading) we started to talk on the same level and started talking about the work with some constructive criticism which soon turn into an empathic conversation where I was able to understand her better and how she was feeling about her design work and we actually ended up spending the next couple of hours talking to each other about our future plan and visions once we had finished our study.  At this more generative level of communication with her we were able to talk openly and a lot of ideas for the future of our lives flowed freely which was not only a great feeling personally but we were both able to get a lot done as we held out on putting any brakes on our conversation.  A very positive outcome.

Show that young people are a positive part of your community

Celebrate International Youth Day and Hoodie Day by holding a mufti day at your school or orgnaisation on Wednesday 12 August, and raise funds for young people and older people in NZ.

Donate the funds you raise to Hoodie Day organisers NZ Aotearoa Adolescent Health and Development (NZAAHD) to show your support for other young people in NZ. NZAAHD works to support, inform and connect organisations that work with youth across New Zealand . NZAAHD will pass on 10% of funds raised to their partner organisation Age Concern – to help show that young people care about their older people! Age Concern work to serve the needs of older people in NZ.

Taking some time out to reflect on my values and where I’m heading in terms of my job/career at present I feel like there might be a lot more alignment than I give myself credit for.  The last few months (even before stating this leadership paper) I have been thinking maybe I have been heading in the wrong direction, maybe I shouldn’t be doing any web coding or worrying about technology so much.

I think forcing myself (through the journal questions and taking this paper at university) has helped me start to see that yes… maybe I should continue working with website development, working with clients both within my current job and externally.  Thinking back on where I have come from working in freelancing and for other web development companies I have worked at my best and happiest when I have a chance to work on a challenging project with a client or project manager that pushes me to work at the highest limits of my technical skills (This ties into the concept of “Flow” I spoke about in an earlier post).

This does however bring into question… what the heck am I doing back at university studying management?  Well putting it in the grand scheme of things, it fits in with my value of learning, and anything that will help me understand businesses, the needs of business and translating that to what businesses need from the web to more effectively exist in the online environment does indeed fit within my purpose and values.  By understanding what drives a business and can better deliver the right online solutions, technology, tools, communities and strategies through my work in web development.

If I look at my values of learning, teamwork, community, innovation, hard work and creativity I now see that everything I have done in the past in my career in web development has fallen in line with my values and perhaps going forward I will continue to see more and more my work (Making the web easier, more honest and open and more community and collaboration based) ingrained with my core values.  No point fighting something I am perhaps meant to do better to put more hard work and to doing what I have always done despite having fears and reservations about what and why I am doing what I do at the moment.  That will pass, and I will find myself getting more excited about what I am doing and contributing to the landscape of the web.

If I take my ideas of my BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal) or purpose in life to be something in the realm of “helping businesses communicate more honestly and easily online through great tools and online communities” then my strategy to achieving this will consist of some of the following (A lot I am already doing… a good sign!)

1. Continue to work within the technology and web development industry/landscape.
2. Experiment with as much new technology and advancements on the web and find great practical uses for these in whatever work I am doing.
3. Continue to offer advice and build relationships with business and individuals to understand what they need to work better online and introduce them to the tools they can take advantage of now to move in the right direction.
4. Participate and contribute to communities that share the same ideologies as me around technology, communities and making the web easier and more honest.
5. Build relationships with other technical, digital media, online community leaders who could act as mentors for me.
6. Continue to learn as much about the web development, online environment as I can including web coding, programming languages, social media, communities, online business strategy and models, future web technology, project management etc.
7. Building on my strengths and engaging with others in areas where I need more development or have gaps in my skills and knowledge.