The Upward Path

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Do you belong to the 21st century growth tribe?

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Many hands as leaves on a tree

This is a term that popped into my head the other day. I was pondering ideal clients, niche, etc, as I do every so often.

I’ve always struggled with it, and I know I’d help myself if I were clearer. The thing is, I kind of know who I’m aiming at, even though it’s rather broad and cloudy and – here’s the point – resistant to a short label.

It’s the people who are building the new world, or the new story of the world. The people who are the foam at the edges as the tide comes in.

I keep spotting myself using ’21st century’ as an adjective. It’s a shorthand for the way the world is, with the problems that face us and the trends in society, and for the way we ought to be operating to be in tune with that. So much in society, and particularly in the news, is still running patterns of the late 20th century.

It’s part of what I talk about in my book Crowd/Control, and over at The Upward Path. That idea of living in a time when the human path forks, and we can choose to move into a better potential or a grubby cul-de-sac.

Who are they then?

So, who are the 21st century growth tribe? Creative entrepreneurs, personal development folks like coaches and therapists, thought leaders, social and community enterprises, the ecosystem of creative and ethical microbusinesses, self-realisers, potential uncoverers, compassion leverers, truth tellers, idea makers, tech channellers, crowdsourcers …   [Read more…] about Do you belong to the 21st century growth tribe?

The age of illumination

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This piece is an excerpt from my ebook ‘Crowd/Control’, now available on Amazon.

Crowd Control coverWe had the Industrial Age. We had the Information Age, which slid into the Communication Age of putting information to use. We saw ourselves from space as one planet for the first time, and then set about making it a technosocial reality.

If you had to classify the times we’re in now, or are moving into, what sort of Age would you call it?

I’m juggling a few different words for it. It could be the Age of Consciousness, or Psychology, or Illumination.

Use the brain, Luke

I’m not talking about consciousness and illumination in a woo-woo airy-fairy sense. It’s very practical.

We’ve learned to do amazing things, and more all the time. But what we’re increasingly bumping into is ourselves.

Our brains were wired up a long time ago, in ways that don’t always suit the modern world. For instance, if you’ve ever had a panic attack you’ll know that our threat detection and adrenal response systems are not always very smart.

Our social structures are based on principles that no longer hold (and some that never did).

We routinely mess each other up.

The world, and our fellow travellers on it, desperately need us to solve problems, to redesign the way we do things, to free human potential and build for happiness. Yet our sludgy conditioning makes us pretend these things don’t exist, or to scramble for illusory advantage, or to trot out maxims that will keep things safe and stable and low-energy.

I think the tide is turning on all that. I think more and more people have had enough of it. They look at where it leads and say it’s not good enough.

This is the age when we look inside ourselves and reorder our ways of thinking and being – or get brought down by the world they have manifested.  [Read more…] about The age of illumination

Crowd/Control – book launched

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Crowd Control coverMy new book Crowd/Control is now out on Amazon!

Although I like delving into practical communication advice, it’s in the service of social change, and I spend a chunk of time thinking about that.

Why is the world like it is? Where are we going? Why haven’t we fixed these problems yet?

This book is about that. It’s about looking at changes in the world in the recent past and near future, with a particular interest in the psychology that’s driving them.

The first part is about Cultural forces. I argue that the internet’s gift of communication beyond borders has accelerated a lot of things. Among those are two powerful mindsets or movements.

Some people have seen the opportunities to join together in common causes and interests, and combine skills and resources to make things happen. I’ve called this the crowd movement.

Some people find the loss of familiar structure (and of privileged positions) threatening, and respond by trying to enforce more structure. I’ve called this the control mindset.

This isn’t any kind of universal theory, but it’s a lens I find useful for looking at events in the world. The two aren’t setting out to oppose each other, but they are pulling in different directions and influencing ideas.

The second part of the book is about Surfing the fluid world. It’s a collection of short articles on a range of important topics, like technology, work, business, health, media, climate and social gaps.

A lot of talk about the future is rather techno-utopian. I wanted to broaden out and talk about the resource implications and social trends that are at least as important in our unpredictably evolving world. Crowd and control are woven through these. I’ve made some predictions, but a lot of the point is to give perspectives and raise interesting questions.

So I hope that has made you interested in checking it out. It’s an easy read and not too long, with plentiful dollops of humour and wordplay.

But there’s an important thread too. I believe we’re in a time of choosing between an upward path, employing the best of our values and gifts, and a downward path where our lower selves drown us in the problems we’ve created. The cultural forces of compulsive control are trying to close off the possibilities we need to follow, and the windows for action may not last forever.

So the book also has a call to action. It asks you to hold up to the light the things those in positions of power want you to believe, and to speak out from your true values for the kind of world you really want to see.

 

Crowd/Control: two mindsets shaping our future by Tim Gray is at Amazon stores for the UK, US and elsewhere.

It will be coming to other ebook stores in the near future.

 

Why Google does what it does

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I discovered this interesting post by A J Kohn. Some of the stuff Google does can seem rather odd for a company whose core business is internet searches and advertising. It makes more sense, he says, if you consider that Google’s “evil plan” (tongue in cheek) is to get people to use the internet more – which will mean more displays and click-throughs for Google’s ads.

Kohn seems to be a well-regarded figure in online search marketing, so he knows his e-onions.

The example that struck me most was the project to make a self-driving car. Why on earth would Google be interested in this, apart from general tech-fun? Well, he says, if you turn a commuter from a driver to a passenger, that’s an extra hour a day (on average) they can be accessing the internet. Now that’s long-term planning.