Tag: scanner

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Life(style)

Still Not Sure “What to Be When You Grow Up?”

“Do you have so many different interests and passions the concept of settling into one career always felt awful to you?

If so, do you recognize yourself in these descriptions?

You are…

…Afraid you’ll either have to settle into a career and stick with it for life (boring!). Or, pursue your many, unrelated passions that will leave you penniless and unable to support your family.

…Well beyond your college years but still clueless about what you want to be when you grow up. You feel like something is wrong with you.

…Often described as a Jack-of-all-trades, master of none. You are quickly excited about many, completely unrelated topics, but you may lose interest just as quickly.

…Someone with a zest for life and a love of new experiences and learning for the sake of learning.

…Very successful in your field, but bored to death and looking to change directions – again. To the horror and disbelief of those around you.

If this sounds like you, chances are, you are frustrated. Or worse; you are desperate because you can’t seem to “get it together.” It’s even possible, in your attempt to keep your options open in order to satisfy all your different interests, you make no choices at all. You know you have all this potential but lots of it is going unused.

If you’ve ever felt as if something was wrong with you for your inability to stick with a passion, a hobby, an interest, or job, or even a career; take heart. You are completely normal!”

Read the full article by Ilona Vanderwoude, also on Twitter @careerbranches

Categories
Digital

San Sharma @ Scanner Central

Last night I went to my first Scanner Central event. I’ve been meaning to go for quite some time… although as I said to John Williams when he asked me how I’d heard of them, I can’t remember any more, but it was something to do with reading Barbara Sher ‘s book and then finding that John had been on one of her holidays abroad, and had since set up something in London! It’s a bit of a trek from Winchester (about 1.5 hours each way), so I may not be able to go every month, but it’s great to meet other people who change interests so often, and John wants to encourage people to work together to get some of those ideas into production, rather than giving up as soon as you’re bored with it! I guess I’m more of a longer-term scanner, as I DO have lots of short-term interests, but also have some long term ones, centred around learning, academia, learning, contemporary contemporary Christianity, and wartime posters!

San Sharma gave a really interesting talk (apparently only his second time of public speaking: wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t said!), most of which was familiar to me, but it’s always great to see that I’m on the same wavelength as others, and there’s always a couple of things you come across that you go “ah ha” to! Most of the tools are listed from San’s presentation (see below), but gave some interesting context for social media also!
  • Any business not in social media is not likely to survive for long in the modern world.
  • Social media allows you to express different parts of yourself, as you talk you find a theme/style that you like and others who like it. So you connect with others with whom you have things in common.
  • Social media – offers accessible publishing tools for everybody, for many to many dialogues.
  • It has changed the fundamental nature of news media, from institutions to the media, the masses decide what’s hot (see how quickly the news about Michael Jackson’s death got out)
  • It’s now about how good you are, not who you know, or who you work for.
  • Twitter is rather like a city, where you overhear random conversations. A lot of the conversation is random, but this is similar to real-life where chit-chat hold human groups together. No one cares what you had for breakfast except you, but you’ll tell others anyway (we’re talking offline, as much as online!)
  • Social media is just another tool, you can write a novel with a biro, typewriter, computer, blog… all different tools, although changes the writing/reading experience somewhat.
  • Social media offers an opportunity to build meaningful relationships, and follow industry news (whether you’re pulling it down or pushing it up)
  • Twitter: Should it change it’s question from “What are you doing?” to change the kind of responses that it gets?!
  • Mass media offers a mass experience for events, for example, for the final of the Apprentice, felt a bit like was watching it with the rest of the nation in the front room, following Twitter feeds!
More Information:
  • See San Sharma’s presentation here (6MB, PDF) (picture)
  • I have been using Vistaprint, but love the Minicards that Moo uses (San does some work for Moo, and a number of Scanners had the cards)
  • Handy tools: Knowem; DandyID
Other Presentations
Categories
Digital

Scanner? For Sure!


I love this from Barbara Sher: “you wouldn’t ask a bird to pull a plough. It’s not cos it’s an inferior bird, a naughty bird or a lazy bird. It’s just cos it does other stuff and there are animals who do that… it’s their thing, they know how to pull a plough. And there are people who do the things you don’t like to do, and they like to do them, and they’ll do them better than you’ll ever do them on your best day because they get a kick out of it!”

Barbara Sher
First came across Barbara Sher in 2007, when I was trying to decide what I SHOULD do “for the rest of my life”, not sure that’s for me, and coming to terms with the fact that I can do many things, and that my passion for doing them means that I’ll do them well, but there reaches a point where I’m done! I have noted, however, that my interests circulate around learning/research, teaching/academia (post-compulsory), communication, community creation (online, including new media or offline) and contemporary Christianity!
Scanners Night, 8th July
Looking forward to going to a Scanner’s Night in London next Wednesday (organised by John Williams), with San Sharma, a Social Media Consultant.
Categories
Life(style)

Random Wanderings Around the Net…

Barbara Sher

My random wanderings around the web tonight started with an email from Barbara Sher… I picked up her “What do I do if I want to do everything?” before I went travelling, and it was a great revelation (I need to do the activities, although I read the book cover to cover!)… scanners are not diletantes, but exceptionally intelligent with a lively sense of curiosity! Listen to Barbara Sher (geniuspress) talking about ideas she’s been working with for over 30 years (or follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/barbarasher):

Scanner Links

John Williams, aka “The Creative Maverick” (first came across in careershifters… yes, this man is a true scanner!) is the obvious man to follow. Inspired after a retreat with Barbara Sher, he set up Scanner Central in London (no, I’ve not made it there either). For the April event we’ve apparently just missed Beyond Chocolate (which I remember seeing on the TV at some point, if it’s been around for a while).

Other Links

  • Checked out “Gifted Adults” on Google, see also here, after Sher indicates that many scanners are also gifted adults… I fit quite a lot of the bulleted list, but I’m definitely no introvert! Is that a form of cyberchondria?.
  • Yesterday I found myself on Martin Seligman’s Authentic Happiness pages
  • In December I went on a course with Chantal Cooke, Nick Williams, Niki Hignett
  • Tonight I downloaded ‘The Imposter Syndrome‘ article…, I can remember talking about this with one of my PhD supervisors (Professor Joyce Goodman) – it’s very common amongst female academics, apparently! (Also on “Changing Course” with Barbara Sher and Barbara Winter… who works with Nick Williams!)
  • Checked out “Anybody“, which looks to challenge the links between culture and body image.
  • Rechecked Serenergise, where I gained my ICF-Accredited coaching certification.
  • Rechecked PALS, which I need to see if I can unzip now I have a laptop that works… David Lett and John Evans, who have a vision to get more life-coaching style skills into schools.
  • Checked out “The School of Life“, where you’re being asked to rebel against APPLYING for jobs, and to create your own job spec, and see if employers pick up on it. Well, why not?
  • Read an article on Eric Gill, recommended by @tonywatkins on Twitter…. for whom I’m supposed to be writing an article tonight, instead of which I’m surfing. I’ll get there!
  • This morning I read C.S. Lewis’s “The Screwtape Letters” – thought-provoking stuff (see p.46, where Screwtape encourages Wormwood to let the humans think that ‘religious’ is just another phase to go through…)