Cam Findlay

Posts Tagged ‘X:Media:Lab’

Purpose I something that I have been thinking about a lot lately and it is still something I am not crystal clear on just yet.  I do or have done a lot of hobbies, jobs and I always put as much as I can into everything I do.

Lately however I am finding that I am spending more time in and around social networking and online communities both as something I naturally do when I am online (I participate and contribute to several forums, blogs and networking sites) and also something that I have consulted and helped others on getting their head around it.  A couple of examples being:

1) Meeting Fraser Hurrell from BrightMind Labs at X:Media:Lab, helping  and consulting him on how to align his online business model for his learning game and online community through Facebook Pages.

2) A student who had been in my summer paper earlier this year after yesterdays lecture sort me out to talk about online business and his ideas.  I had a good discussion with him about online community, different business model for existing as a business online.  Hopefully I can help him out with his ideas and how to grow his tribe around his ideas.

There have been countless other times where I have helped or given away advice to friends and people I have met around the topics of computing, communication, social networking, communities, online business the list goes on…

So something is making me seriously look at possibley having a purpose based around offering advice in helping businesses exist online within the new ideas around online community and how people can take advantage of all the great tools out there to communicate more openly, and honestly -  up, down and across their social graph.

I brought up the “5 whys” exercise back in the lecture 2 post last week but to recap the basic idea is to think of an important event that has occurred in your life and ask yourself why that was important.  Then take your answer and again ask yourself why that answer was important.  Repeat 5 times.  The idea being that after digging down to why an event was important to you you should start coming across some ideas or themes that could potentially be your core values or your purpose in your life. On a side note you can also use this technique for finding root causes for problems by digging down through symptoms.

So here is a brief run down of the three events that I chose:

Important Event 1: Winning my Iaido Competition
1. Why was winning this important?
Because it showed that I have a talent or aptitude for my chosen martial art.

2. Why is it important to show your talent?
Because I put a lot of hard work, learning of new skills and mental discipline into practice.

3. Why was it important to do all that hard work and mental discipline?
Because it helped me overcome my nervousness and fears while performing my Iaido Kata in front of an audience.

4. Why was it important to overcome your fears/nerves?
Because I was able to show confidence and believe that what I was doing was bigger than the fear.

5. Why was it important to believe in what you were doing?
Because I want to be more honest with myself and be able to do anything I put my mind to and grow my character.

Important Event 2: Being able to attend the X:Media:Lab Conference Workshops as part of my work at Rock Star Recipes.
1. Why was it important to attend the workshop?
Because I got to network and talk about our companies ideas with some of the worlds best digital media gurus.

2. Why was it important for you to network with these people?
Because I was able to make some great business contacts and mentors and gain insight on our ideas.

3. Why is it important to you to build these relationships?
Because it builds a community of support around the work I am doing and our companies vision.

4. Why is it important to build support in the form of a community?
Because it seems the nature of business is changing and that engaging and building a community around your vision/product/organisation and engaging in real dialogue with those in the community.

5. Why is it important to understand this change in the business environment?
Because I want to help businesses understand how to talk to their community and conduct themselves more openly and honestly.

Important Event 3: Returning to Universit y to study part time
1. Why was it important to return to your study?
Because I want to finished the degree (BCom) that I started several years ago.

2. Why I it important to finish your degree and learn more?
Because I want a greater understanding of my work and the business environment that I operate in and where this environment is going in the future.

3. Why is it important for you to have a greater understanding?
Because I feel by understanding and gaining more knowledge I will find more purpose and meaning in my work.

4. Why do you want more purpose and meaning?
Because I want to enjoy what I am spending a lot of my time doing, I want it to be more that just a job.

5. Why do you want to enjoy and have more than just a job?
So I can share my excitement and enthusiasm with what I do with others.

So what can I take from the above exercise?
1. Being honest and striving for personal growth is a core value for me.

2. I think perhaps my purpose might have something to do with communities (either online or offline) and pushing for this new change in the way we communicate/market/exist in business in the future. I need to explore this more.

3. I want to enjoy my work and share what I am passionate about with others.