heathervescent

Words

One long present moment, dream flowing into dream.

Saragossa.

"The impossible is only temporary." says Muhammad Ali

I'm reminded of my catalyst activity.

Only this catalyst bleeds.

Drop by drop, remembering. 

A full red robust glass.

Drained over conversation.

I think of Redwood trees. Past companies.

Past lives.

Past adventures. 

Past moments, feed into present interpretations. Perception.

Projecting.

The Future.

The possible.

The impossible.

They are just moments.

Present moment, unfolding dream.

STL

"A true traveler has no fixed destination and is not intent on arriving."

I've been looking at flight timetables weighing possibilities for the past hour. I've got to get myself back to Europe sometime next week, but I'm traveling a different way. I'm traveling the way I used to travel. The way my Mom taught me. The way of the flight attendant.

I remember standing in the International Terminal of STL - that's St. Louis - one of the main departure hubs for TWA, the company my mother worked for. I lived just across the state in Kansas City and most flights on TWA connected through St. Louis. It was great, a short hop and then I could literally go anywhere in the world. 

I was probably returning home from a California Summer, arriving from John Wayne Orange County (SNA) or San Diego (SAN). 

That TWA International Terminal was full of possibilities. Milan. London. Paris. Zurich. Frankfurt. Rome. Berlin. Athens. Istanbul. Cairo.

Ah, Cairo. The memories of the bazaars. The stares at the blonde teenage Heather.

I never knew if I would get on the flight, but it was fine, because there was always another one, going someplace else, but nearby enough.

So as I head back to Europe in the next 10 days or so, I ponder where I will land. Will it be in Paris? (I haven't been in Paris, except for the Eurostar, in decades. What about Zurich? I always wanted to go to Switzerland. Or good old London? Dare I return to Germany? After my antics of decades ago and my very German last name, misleading my complete inability to sprekenzie Deutsch. 

It all depends on the ticket sales. 

I mentally pack my bag. I plan to attempt travel with merely a carry on. I plan to bring my favorite Joshua Tree painting. And I plan to bring an attitude of adventure, of luxurious time. Of travel on my terms. 

The Power of Planning

The crew was prepared to go until 10pm. I was hoping we'd be done by 8pm. Or 6pm best case scenario. We had a lot of material to shoot. Two days compressed into one. We had to get through it. We did it in lightening speed. The crew started leaving at 3pm. Most of them were gone by 3:30. I was home at 4:30pm. We got amazing footage. Gorgeous, magical footage. More footage than we excepted. At our usual exemplary quality. 

That is the power of planning. 

When I talk about planning, or try to do it on projects I am not the leader of, or suggest it to a team /individual that doesn't think highly of it I often get pushback about it's value.

There is this (mistaken) assumption that if you plan, you have to stick to the plan. Having a plan does not equal that you will never change it. I believe, and my experience shows that having a plan opens one up to more possibilities than without one. You not only have the possibilities that you explored systematically (and either agreed to implement or not) in the planning phase, but you also have all the possibilities that emerge magically, synchronistically of their own accord. 

In other words, when you have the baseline for success planned for execution, it's a lot easier to reach for superawesomeness. You can reach higher, farther, faster. Do more with less. You've got a plan to hit your goals, achieve what you need to achieve, and the resources to do it. But who likes to rest on their laurels? (Not I, and not the people I work with/hire.) We like to push it. We like to do more. We like to stretch. 

And you can push it, do more and stretch farther after you create a plan.

Sure you can chuck the plan out the window. Sure I know the quote that it's not about the plan, it's about planning. And I am 100% behind going with the awesome magical unknown.

My plans and planning gives me the flexibility, the efficiency and the resources to diverge from the plan - at any point and for any quantity. They give me peace of mind to do my best, to allow the people I work with/hire to do their best. I've thought about every last corner case and I'm open to the new, novel, innovative solution, idea or other perspective.

The movie magic that always happens. 

Those are the things I live for. That magic. The things you can't plan. Emerged perfection. The stuff you would never think of. I find those things happen a lot more when I have a plan. ;)

 

Klout: Old Language, New Paradigm

There is an unspoken assumption when one engages in a transaction, it is _one_ transaction. Most of the time the transaction getting the attention is the one that deals with money.

Do you pay in cash, credit card, mobile wallet, via square, via a different app on a smart phone? There's a lot of information about that kind of transaction that goes uncaptured. 

Value like your Yelp rating, your LinkedIn Recommendations - experiences you have about the transaction itself. Meta-Transaction information. With the help of Information Technology, this is changing.

Still from my short future film, Fly Me to the Moon,
of a Smart Check with specific integrated rating mechanism.

We know the importance of having a good reputation. It used to be calculated by the size of your rolodex. Today, we have LinkedIn Recommendations. While I can't cash out my LinkedIn Recommendations to pay my rent, they do have a direct influence on my cash flow.

Our consumption today is more sophisticated than ever - did we really care about shade grown free trade coffee before 2002? Or whether our consumer goods were made in ethical factories? (I'm looking at you Nike and Apple.) Perhaps not so much.

These values are generally difficult to specifically track. Sure the trends are strong, but the lines are fuzzy and often understood only after a delay (and there's a positive feedback loop going here too). Information Technology could change this. 

From the results of my research on transactions, I coined a new phrase: "Value-Encoded Currency." I use this term to describe a bunch of new "currencies" being explored in the marketplace. I use the term currency creatively - I do not limit it to financial instruments such as the dollar, euro, yen or renminbi. I may not go so far to say that data or reputation are currencies in themselves - in some ways they are, but they also lack some key characteristics and are generally pools of currency potential. Reputation and data have values and I consider them proto-currencies.

Bitcoin is a better example of a Value-Encoded Currency because it has both the characteristics of a traditional currency (exchange, transactions, an agreed upon value that can be exchanged) and it ALSO has specific values encoded into the DNA of the currency.  The values encoded in Bitcoin are peer-to-peer, decentralization, distrust in government/central agencies and highly technical. (Based on my survey from Summer of 2011.)

To some extent the US Dollar is a value encoded currency, with (watered-down) values of capitalism, free open markets, circulation, the American Dream. 

This is what I mean by a Value-Encoded Currency. The currency has certain values associated with it.

People will care about these values as we increase they ways (which includes apps and hardware dongles like Square) we can pay for things. More on that later... let me get back to Klout.

I've watched Klout since it opened. I was skeptical at first. I did not agree with the behavior its ranking system encouraged. You could game the system, rewarding people with higher scores for certain behavior. This made the system that Klout is trying to create less valuable overall. (Or perhaps only valuable to those who wanted to play within the Klout ecosystem.) Perhaps they realized that, with their two score resets (that I remember).

I interpret these score resetting or algorithmic tweaking as QA testing. They're not testing their software, they're adjusting the intelligence of the system. 

Klout is one of few companies exploring these waters, and I see it as the tip of an iceberg. That is, if they don't get seduced into the world of advertising and marketing building their network audience only to sell them out to the highest bidders. The advertising model is at best short to medium term. There is a much bigger pie long term, and Klout could play a defining role in that. Klout is already playing a defining role in it.

Long-term, Klout could become a platform for currency creation based on specific values. Take their K score and a dating matching algorithm add etsy and an open market transaction. Throw in local and collaborative consumption for the icing and cherry. A platform for creating and managing value encoded currencies. As the platform for these currencies, it could create/support/enable a mechanism for inter-market exchanges of value encoded currencies.

Currently no platform for this exists. I always saw this utility provided by an entity that was more standards based (ahem, who was my last client?), but hey, the open market is a wonderful thing.

This is why I watch Klout. This is why I think this company could be poised to transform the future in a way few of us can imagine.

If I'm honest with my futurist self, based on my research and the trends extrapolating into possible futures, it's not a question of IF this functionality will be created, but only BY WHOM.

Society, consumers, people are demanding this type of currency. They're being fed a shallow version of it through marketing and brand rewards - but the hunger is not sated.  The behavior has been primed by virtual (gaming) and alternate (rewards type) currencies. And many people are experimenting already with systematic work arounds (reselling gift cards network).

It's only a matter of time, and who. 

Klout is one company that could execute on the possibility. And that is why I watch them.

Scenic Flights

I read this WSJ article today about scenic flights (h/t @daveharkins). Well, you know the Heathervescent has flown more than 100k miles this year and I have some opinions of my own! So here's a quick list of my top. You'll notice I quickly skew to Mountains and Deserts. 

• Utah. Utah is one of the most under rated scenic states in the US (for us local Americans). LAX to NY, LAX to Denver, or  LAX to Toronto all pass this gorgeous landscape. You'll catch birds eye views of Zion, Grand Staircase, Escalante, Capital Reef, Canyonlands and Arches (Moab). All in about an hour. It's the most gorgeous landscape gorging feast. I toast it every time.



• LAX to Denver/Colorado Springs: In addition to the Utah feast, you'll watch the rolling Rocky Mountains. 
• LAX to Austin/Denver/Texas: I love this route as it flies directly over my own property before passing over Arizona (Monument Valley!) and New Mexico. 
• Brussels to Bologna: The Alps. Need I say more?



• LAX from the East: Any flight coming into LAX from the East/MidWest flys over the Mojave, often over Death Valley herself. And the flights from Texas, they fly right over my property near 29 Palms.
• Rio to Lima: Although I was scammed out of my window seat for this flight, I caught glimpses of the amazing Bolivian Desert before flying over the Andes. Um, just wow. I am going to fly this route again with a window seat.
• The Clouds: I never tire of looking out the window. Here's a recent Thunderhead.

That's the short list for now. What are _your_ favorite flight routes?

Positive Conflict

There's this idea that any kind of conflict is bad, is something to be shied away from. To avoid at all costs. I don't think anyone particularly likes an argument, but to me, passionate conversations, arguments and even conflict are a healthy part of interpersonal communications. 

My favorite "conflict" story comes from working with my favorite Dev team. The team was full of amazing genius software engineers. We were a small company building brand new technology and our small set of users didn't yet get the full understanding of how to use this new paradigm. A cross-functional team met (mostly engineering, myself, our tech writer and the head of Marketing - about half the small company). 

The very passionate discussion lasted a week. We met for 2-3 hours every day, hashing out the problem, exploring possible solutions, vehemently arguing for and against these solutions. There was some pretty empassioned discussion for this one little feature. One engineer was not backing down on his proposed solution. It was not the most elegant or beautifully designed solution, but it was probably more effective than the others proposed. We finally all agreed to test it out and evolve it as we iterated the product.

This week long passionate discussion ended with real solutions. Additionally, I felt a stronger rapport with the team. I had argued for a solution that was not chosen; but when I made my argument, everyone listened, we had a discussion around pros/cons. The same happened with the other solutions presented. 

The team I was a part of allowed open, dissenting opinions. Responded to them with respect and exploration. We were all there to create the best product we could; and we did. In the process, I had the best team experience of my entire life.

I still think back to that group of software engineers. I'm friends with many of them today. They were hands down the best team I have had the honor to work with.

I was reminded of this story a few weeks ago while reading The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. One of the five dysfunctions is:

• Fear of conflict—seeking artificial harmony over constructive passionate debate

Reading this clarified a personal conflict - seeing conflict as a bad thing (what society tells me) vs my direct experience with positive conflict. I never saw conflict as a bad or negative thing. For me, conflict is a way to put everything on the table for comprehensive clear discussion.

Not everyone is going to have the same opinion - especially if you are working on something cool and new. Teams have to have a mechanism for voicing, listening, addressing and exploring the topics where there is disagreement. 

Effectively doing this creates a stronger team. I experienced this directly in the story above. But I didn't understand the mechanics and why this happened until I read the 5 Dysfunctions book. It's a great book and I highly recommend it: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.

I care about execution and getting results. Along the way there is bound to be some disagreements. I'm a passionate individual and I like to work with other passionate and smart people. (An A team player hires other A team players.) We don't always agree. That's totally fine.

I like to work with people who have different perspectives, knowledge and skillsets from myself. When I am a leader, I work to create the space and comfort for my team/crew to voice their disagreement/concerns. And I have to be comfortable listening to them. Sometimes it's not easy. :) But it's worth it, because in the end, we make something that is awesome. 

And that is what I want. An awesome team, empowered to make the most awesome thing we can and delivering something that is better than I can dream of - because it's a collaborative activity weaving together the strengths of everyone in the team. 

Strange Day

I breath. I do push-ups. I drive all over the Valley running errands. I'm holding it in. Distracting myself with errands for Sunday's production. I walk the dog. I give away a burning man ticket to a good friend. I'm asked for advice and I give it. I pay attention, which allows me to help my neighbor locate her lost friend (she was talking on the cell phone when I passed her walking the dog). I try not to think. I try not to freak out. About budgets. About life. I fail.

I look at my todo list. I eat home made cobbler and talk with a good friend. We both have fucked up relationships, fucked up lives we're managing. Not that the advice we give each other makes much a difference. We live our lives. We're both somewhat successful by normal standards, but not enough for either of us. We're ambitious I guess.

I search book titles on Amazon. I read about chemicals on Wikipedia. I've taken a sudden interest in psychology. Today's research obsession was passive-aggressiveness. I'm reading about topics I never gave one thought about. I was amused for hours by this site. One person once tried to tell me I was passive aggressive. She was wrong, I'm not passive at all. I made a decision when I was about 7 that I would never be passive.

I compose blog posts in my head; that I will probably never write. At least not this year. I have blog posts in my head from 15 years ago. Someday I'll tell those stories. (Someday I'll weave the one where I wasn't fucking the startup founder into one of these posts.) All this shit is material for the writer, I remind myself. Looking for the gems I can take with me. But living has lost its luster.

I listen to Steely Dan. I vacillate about Burning Man. I sleep. That's about the only thing I look forward to these days. The morning always brings my favorite coffee. Then it's back to breathing. Inhale. Exhale.

Chopping wood, carrying water.

Nootropics: The Spice is Real

Nootropics are drugs that make our brains and bodies better. Faster, smarter and can reduce the impact of aging. Sometimes they offer enlightenment. Nootropics are part of a larger trend that is exponentially advancing humanity. It takes our brains and bodies and makes them more efficient, pushing them farther, faster than evolution can on its own. 

IT Technology is another trend and when applied to medicine it has exponentially advanced our knowledge and understanding of ourselves. One subtrend of IT technology is the use of mobile computers (phones, tablets and soon to be small specific always connected electronics). The "cloud" makes these devices and interactions possible. That's the hardware side. There's the software side with open APIs and an "app" platform that encourages development by anyone. 

But what's beyond Mobile Medicine?

This is exactly the questions, Emily Empel (@localrat) and I propose to explore at SXSW in 2013 in our session entitled: Doctor in the Cloud: Beyond Mobile Medicine. 

If you're curious about how you might manage our health experience in the near-future, please leave a comment and give us an upvote (you have to register, but it takes just a moment and we really appreciate it).

We'll cover 

• Secure Accessible Health Records
• Mobile scanning
• Doc in a Box: the importance of pharmacies, health food sections
• Mobile Hospitals and Pop-up ER Units
• Alternate Transactions for medical treatments
• Food-a-ceducials
• Robotics and remote surgery
• Nootropics
• DIY Health
• Artisanal medicines
• Medical Tourism
• New Business Models

And while we love taking a positive view on the future, we give serious consideration to current and emerging concerns. We will include the downsides:

• Secure Accessible Medical Data
• Quality Medications
• Misdiagnosis
• Liability and Insurance

Emily and I will prepare the session with our usual robust research and present it with high energy and our engaging style. You'll leave our session with a broad understanding of current trends and a balanced view of what the near future promises.

We can't wait to share our results with you!

Please show your support with an upvote, like, tweet, and RT. We sincerely appreciate it!

Go to Doctor in the Cloud: Beyond Mobile Medicine submission.

Down

Limits pushed.
Hopes dashed.

Doing the right thing.
Only makes you a better person. (which makes everyone else worse.)

Making the world better.
Makes your experience of the world worse.

Because it falls short.
Of all expectations. 

It takes a lot of energy to create positive futures. It takes more energy to be positive than the negative. I'm lucky, I have a lot of energy available. I've cultivated it in myself. I know where to go to get it externally. But sometimes, all the energy in the world can't help me be positive. Like I've felt the past several weeks.

You see, there's this side to me. That few people see. That I don't let many people see. Because it is ugly and full of hate and anger. It is the part of me invoked when I'm fucked over again, when I'm stabbed in the back again, when I'm betrayed again, when my ideas are stolen again, when despite all the good I've done in the world, it's pain for the heathervescent again. 

I've been reading a lot of the Tao Te Ching lately. It's about the only thing that keeps me from slitting my wrists these days.

The Master has no mind of her own.
She works with the mind of the people.

She is good to people who are good.  
She is also good to people who aren't good.
This is true goodness.

She trusts people who are trustworthy.
She also trusts people who aren't trustworthy.
This is true trust.

This kind of sentiment crushes the Old Heathervescent. I mean, does it make you inspired to continue living with 99% of fucked up humanity? It does not inspire me. 

Yes, yes, I know, there is the good, the evolved, the beautiful in this world. Oh, believe me, I know about it. But sometimes, like now, all the beauty in the world doesn't matter.

Behind my positive futures is a raging hatred for the current reality. For the small-minded limited thinking of our race. I don't think we can evolve as a species fast enough. I, myself, can not wait to escape.

WFS12: An Unlikely Cocktail

Crossposted from @localrat's blog, my co-conspirator in presenting awe-some futures work this weekend. 

My co-conspirator (@heathervescent) and I are participating in two sessions at The World Future Society Conference. Last year, we presented on the “Best of Houston Futures” panel and renamed it “The Future of Money, Sex and Politics”.  Look out Toronto- we’re back!

At first glance, our topic areas are seemingly disparate. But think of them as your favorite cocktail combo- an unlikely mixture with intoxicating results. We’re futures mixologists and promise to inform, intrigue, and inspire. Here’s a sneak peak of what’s ahead:

Saturday 2:00 pm- 3:30 pm: The Future of Shopping: An Immersive Experience

It’s the first time we’re piloting this type of session! Heather and I have been conducting independent research on the future of transactions and retailing. We’ve decided to merge our interest areas into a scenario based futures immersion. During this session, you will have the chance to create and experience a future retail environment- complete with alternative currencies, rotique vendors, and virtual incentives.

Sunday 9:00 am- 10:30 am: Best of Houston Futures: The Demographic Transition

Heather and I were awarded third place by the Association of Professional Futurists for our systems model of the demographic transition. This is our first public showcasing of the model! If that doesn’t get you in the door, this should- two amazing futurists, Josh Lindenger and Jason Swanson, will also be presenting on the future of locomotive media and learning management systems. Best of Houston is a session for futurists who want to leave WFS tantalized by a wide breadth of topic areas they haven’t considered.

I’m now off to grab a real cocktail in the hybrid space. Tweet me (@localrat)!

I am SO EXCITED to co-present these two sessions with Emily. We got the idea to combine our research after last year's Houston Futures session (mentioned above) and submitted our idea. We've been working like mad the past week putting the final touches on our very interactive session. 

The second presentation, on the demographic transition, is something I am particularly proud of. The systems model we created is decidedly complicated with more than 160 equations in it. While challenging us, it only whet my appetite for more systems analysis. I'd really love to do this kind of work for the government (gasp!). I am also especially proud of our 3rd place award. It's always gratifying to be rewarded for excellent hard work (not always the case in the business world).

If you're not able to be in Toronto and are interested in our research, invite us to present to your group or company. We'd love to share this research broadly. 

If you like what we've done, let us know. And yes, we can be available for your projects.

Cleaning up the Shit

So, as you know, the heathervescent has spent a lot of time on airplanes this year. I've flown first class, business class, economy plus, and economy - all levels and on about 10 different airlines (I have no loyalty). 

I quickly created my own airplane amenities bag, that rivals even the best first class offerings, with full size of moisturizers, wet wipes, Dr. Hausha's lip balm, face mister, thick plushy eye mask and my leather moccasins. Right now, I'm rocking out at a window seat in the bulkhead row of economy and the only thing I'm missing is the footrest. Anyway, I digress.... I was going to talk about the bathrooms.

I kind of love airplane bathrooms. They are tiny and compact. They have little nooks and cranny's. Some of them have nice soap and my business class flight from London to Rio even had roses in the bathroom. I LOVED that touch! Anyway, one thing that doesn't change when you're flying Business class is the MESS that people make in the bathroom. I mean, water all over the floor, leaving the basin practically overflowing with soapy water, water splashed all over the place. And guys, seriously, if you're drunkedly pissing on the floor due to all the free drinks... well, at least I am not married to you, disgusting shits despite sharing this 10 hour flight from London to Los Angeles. (True story!)

Anyway, I was going to talk about cleaning the airplane bathrooms. It's something I do quite frequently. It started when I was 13 or 14. I think it was when I flew to Paris in first class. Back then they still had the tiny soaps. I'd go to the bathroom, do my business, and then give the bathroom a quick wipedown, sometimes leaving a towel and little soap folded nicely for the next person. You see, I like to make the kind of world I want to live in. I want to experience certain things... but I can't do those things for myself. And no one is really like me, and most do not think like me, so I'll really never experience the world the way I want to experience it, but I can give someone else a taste of how I might want to experience the world.

So I clean the airplane bathroom.

I was given pause to reflect about this today, when I was waiting in line for the bathroom. Two people were ahead of me. The door opened. The lady took one look inside and with an aire of disdain (and I do mean air"e") stated she would wait for the other one. The guy opted to use it. Quickly I might add. And he was out before the other bathroom finished. Lady continued to disreguard and I thought... how bad could it be. Worse than that Virgin Atlantic Upper Class drunk pisser? I asked the Flight Attendant for some supplies (wet paper towel and a can of club soda) and went in.

It wasn't that bad. But it was a mess. I went to work. Cleaning, wiping, using the soap. (The trick to cleaning a wet airplane bathroom floor? Throw papertowels on the floor, use your foot/shoe to wipe them all over the floor picking up the wet fluid. Use the paper towels liberally. Then grab another few paper towels, unfold them and use them to pick up semi-moist floor towels. Throw the big mess in the trash (by holding the trash door open with your other hand). Then wash your hands.

Easy.

And now, the mess is gone.

And I'm back to living in the world I want to live in. 

 

Lane splitting the Big Rigs

It's the Bay Area, 2003, I'm riding my second bike, a Honda Nighthawk, 750 ccs on 880, 280, across the Bay Bridge. I was trying to kill myself. My life meant nothing to me. I was at the edge. I had been pushed to the edge. 

A particularily rough commute. A very slow merge, car commuters, big rigs, and me, a suicidal lane splitter. I had years of lane splitting, but I always respected the big rigs, gave them room, dared not engage with them. Not that day. I zipped at reckless speeds between the hulking, slow moving transporters, one on each side, sometimes just one between the long line of cars.

The thrill I got, a tiny fly, weaving in the space between, could be smashed at any time. I still respected those big rigs, but I was a different animal. I was fast, nimble, efficient on a different scale. I used the space those big rigs couldn't. Audacious. Zoom, zoom.

This memory recently asserted itself. And while I haven't lane split on a motorycle in many years, I still identify with that past self. I'm still metaphorically lane splitting the big rigs.

Creating the Future in Films

Next week, I am headed to Vail, Colorado for the Cloud Identity Summit where we kick off the filming for my third Future Scenario Short. While my past two shorts have been design fictions, based on my research, this one is a little different. 

In Fly Me to the Moon I designed the product and user interface of something that currently does not exist - but the technology to enable it does. When working with my prop-makers, one of them suggested we mock up the software and display it, while another asked when we were going to actually build it. My sound guy on the shoot pulled me aside in a quiet moment and asked me with great excitement when this would be able. He started telling me how it would make going out with his friends easier. (I was beaming with validation of the results of my research and future scenarios.)

We used the same technique for the products showcased in Flowers for Grandma (still in post-production). I'm always gratified when people ask me if the products in these films exist after they see them. Well.... they could exist. It's not technology that is the limiting factor in most cases. It's collaboration between the existing systems. And since these existing systems are mostly owned and operated by large corporations, getting them to work together can sometimes be a challenge. And it was exactly for this reason that I joined Innotribe.

Well, we might see those things change in this third video. But you'll have to wait until Fall, where we'll globally launch it at Sibos in Osaka. I bet it will show you a positive vision of the future that you can barely imagine today...

Playing A Role

I've felt like my life has recently been a play and replay of this scene. 

Regardless of my evolution, enlightenment, self-awareness, following the path makes my heart raw. Well, if I'm doing it right, my heart is raw. It's a roundtrip from consciousness/awareness ("pure being") to shitty humanity/day to day drama.

But that's ok. Because that's what this life is. A game, a jungle gym, for flexing, building and using muscles, knowledge, information. I'll play my role. I'll provoke. I'll allow myself to be stabbed, show the vulnerable underbelly. (Sometimes I'm the one wielding the ax that cuts forever.) Because I gain valuable information with each "role" "experience". I chose to consciously create my life. I'm here, in these places, playing these roles for a reason - and that reason is partly mine, but also for others...

In the end, evolution. Opening possibilities. Choice. Be-ing.

Que Saudade and the Problema com Succeso

Note: This post was written, but not published, when I was in Rio de Janeiro.

I walk these city street at home as in Los Angeles. I love the black and white mosaics, the moist air, the breeze, the grand mountains of rock, the ocean waves. The language returns to my tongue, unspoken for over a decade. Its sounds are hot and salty on my lips, I twist the words improperly, with my american "soutake" and mis-conjugated verbos. But my passion is there.

I had forgetten. How could I have forgotten? Forgotten the joy, to forget the longing.

--

Walking back after midnight from the Copacabana night market, I decided to pass by a certain corner I had written up in my Rio de Janeiro guidebook 12 years ago. It was across the street from my beachfront apartment. It had a cool little bar and boteco. Imagine my shock! when I saw the tiny local place with barely 6 seats had quadrupled in squarefootage becoming a pizzeria. Taking over the little bar with the Marlene Dietrich shrine. Bright lights.

My heart died. I thought... I did this. I personally contributed to this reality.

God DAMN, Heather! You did not THINK of the impact of putting these things into a popular guidebook! I kept walking into Ipanema, beating myself up for my lack of consciousness, for my inability to see this possibility 12 years ago. I kept thinking about success and failure. Which was worse? Wondering how and when things happened. Did the bar owner sell out and start a new bar elsewhere (quietly)? Obviously the botequim was doing well, they had expanded. The business was good. I suppose that was good - for the business.

But still... as I walked the empty after midnight streets in Ipanema, a single woman, alone, wearing platform fluevogs, wondering what I would find in the shadows, realizing I had nothing to fear, because I was one of them.

The Stars My Destination

"I took. I went and took. What did I leave in return? My change."

Tornado powered me 15 thousand miles. Across the great plains into the concrete jungles of New York. Across the North Atlantic to European countryside with fields, cows and wind power windmills. Skirting the edge of Europe and Africa before traversing the Atlantic once more, to the Southern Hemisphere to a favorite dream land. 

In darkness I landed. I remembered my first (terrified) time in this airport almost 20 years earlier. Different this time. No fear walking the Copacabana midnight streets. In Rio the tornado changed, shifted, transformed. A phoenix rose from the tornado calm: a blue stone wrapped in silver gold, etched with a symbol. Symbols.

The tornado powered me once more; from the South American Atlantic to the Pacific. Walking the streets of Lima with a friend, a one who is unlike any other, crystallized the fate of the tornado. Transformation, but not death. A symbol, for one and many, appeared in the calm center.

It's this symbol I returned with to Los Angeles. A symbol Los Angeles is most know for. Full circle perfection. 

Walking with/in the Shadows

I've been listening to this song on repeat a lot recently.... I really like the lyrics.

Look back to see all the dreams 
You said you never even tried for
Like mirrors try to see 
New reflections that will be
Crystal Illusions

I'll walk but don't walk behind me
I'll go where no one will find me
The shadows walking beside me will find me

Could it be I'm just a dreamer
only looking for the sun
If I stay awake the morning
I believe the day will come

I'll go away
(I'll go away)
I'll find a way
(I'll find a way)
I'll try to know
(Know what I say)
I'll go

All the love that hides behind the eyes 
That try to find a reason
If you only look within it's true
Love will begin
Waiting there to find you

I'll walk but don't walk behind me
I'll go where no one will find me
The shadows walking beside me will find me

All I want to know is wonder
Want my eyes to feel the rain
All the tears that spill for sorrow
Will begin and end again

I'll go away
(I'll go away)
I'll find a way
(I'll find a way)
I'll try to know
(Know what I say)
I'll go

I'll walk but don't walk behind me
I'll go where no one will find me
(I will be waiting for the sun)
The shadows walking beside me will find me
(I want my eyes to feel the rain)
I'll walk but don't walk behind me
(We'll begin and end again)
I'll go where no one will find me
(I will be waiting for the sun)
The shadows walking beside me will find me . . .

- Sergio Mendez and Brazil 66

LA-nniversary

This week marks my return to Los Angeles. The purple flowering Jacarandas celebrate dropping their trumpet shaped flowers on the sidewalk, bright green grass and my head during the dog walk. Two favorite colors: purple and green, psychedelic even more together. I feast my eyes on my favorite Jacaranda trees, their branches twisting in the air, despite gravity. Their buds growing, filling the sky with purple blossoms before falling to the ground. 

It's been eight years in this city. I still love "la dona" as much now as in the beginning. 

Indulge me as I reflect. When I arrived in Los Angeles I had no plans. I specifically unplanned. Eight years later, I've done a lot. I've _been_ a lot (of different people). Not too shabby for someone with no job, no friends, nothing more than a 1 month sublet in Venice. 

I feel I've completed an equal shift. I've physically moved. My relationship status is offroad after more than six years. (ps. I am NOT in the market.) I've shifted professionally too, from product management, blogging, performing and marketing consulting to become a professional futurist who also makes films. I have an amazing job, where I might actually be able to positively improve the lives of billions of people (anonymously). I've consciously evolved, created and undone my personal brand. I'm "enlightened" "conscious" "aware" - not that it makes living or being any easier. I understand my own programming - and sometimes when I have enough energy, I can understand others too. 

I feel I am in a similar place as that day eight years ago. I have no idea what the future might bring. (Well, professionally, yes, I do know what it _could_ bring.) Despite not knowing, what do I _want_ it to bring? I'm not even sure about that. I've accomplished a lot. I'd be fine going down in a fiery crash. (I have a good relationship with my death - maybe too good.) 

I think I'll leave my mind open, I don't need to make any decisions right now anyway. I use my past as the spring board, the moment now, my toes curled around the end, except there is no pool below, I have my transformative purple tornado in the palm of my hand, I ask her to blow, my feet bounce, toes curled, the wind swirls, gently, hot scent of desert creosote, I bend my knees, open my hands, drop the weight, release, a moment's pause, infinite, the jump, I catch the light from the Vanilla Sky, I spring up into it, caught on the winds.... these beautiful Santa Ana winds that come in from the desert, making crystal clear the Hollywood Hills.

My feet are no longer grounded, but that's ok. I'm grounded as the earth. I'm grounded as a planet in the solar system, orbiting the sun. I'm not just experiencing the Vanilla Sky, I'm creating it, along with you.

"All these adventures begin simply. The listener thinks it'll soon be over, but one story creates another, and then another."

Grounded as the Earth

Every solid handhold I created the past 5 years has shifted.  So far, I've traveled almost 60k miles this year, my preferred tool has been broken/in for repair for 2 1/2 months and I just moved (it only took me 3 1/2 months to do it). (There are other, larger shifts, not mentioned here too.) 

Needless to say, I have felt a bit unsettled. I needed to find a sense of "grounding." Stability. But, I was rarely home. I spend more time with my suitcase than I do with my dog.  I'm in an airplane a LOT. My feet are barely on the ground. 

So I embarked on a thought experiment. I started with a vision of grounding. I thought of tree roots in the earth. A vertical grounding, so the tree could grow, strong yet flexible in the winds of change. But this concept of roots wasn't working for me. 

Then I started thinking about the earth. What's the earth grounded to/with? Nothing? It's a sphere hanging in space. The earth has no "roots." It lays on nothing. I envisioned the solar system, the planets - all wondering what how they were "grounded". In nothing? Spinning? Then I saw the earth is "rooted" in its core.

I thought about this.  I liked that. Seemed to make sense. But how to translate this concept to moi, human? My core is not not a physical core, although it comes with me where ever I go. Part body, part mind, part something else. It's the part of me that rocked a 2 week trip after my computer died on the airplane (and proceeded to give 2 presentations with temporary tools). This combination of self, part personal identity, part body, part mind, part online connectivity. It's where and what I'm rooted in as I physically move around this globe.

Cutting the Line

I had a new experience in rudeness last night as I waited in the popcorn line at the New Beverly Theater. It was a David Lynch double feature: Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive. I was looking forward to a respite after the emotionally taxing (and ongoing) move.

I was cranky. My place was a mess with boxes, my new home office (kitchen style) was bare bones. I had spent the morning running around getting my Brazilian Visa. My internet was giving me dial-up speeds. The dog was upset and being bratty. Work wasn't pulling any punches either. At least I had another 2 weeks in LA before the mother of all travels. All I wanted to do is stare at a screen at a more surreal Los Angeles than the one I live in/created.

The popcorn line is around the corner into the theater. We go get our seats and ponder getting in it. It's not getting any shorter. Finally, I say I'll do it, weave my way through the seats to the line. I'm in no mood to talk to anyone. I want the damn popcorn and red vines and that's it. I didn't come to a movie theater to be social. 

So as noted before, the popcorn line is quite long. Anyone who sees it, understands that's the situation. You don't want to wait in line, don't wait in line! As I walk up to join the end, a large woman walks into the theater. Her arms are full of snacks and two bottles of coconut water. She questions everyone, are you the end of the line? are you the end of the line? Well, I was the end of the line. At which point, she asks/declares/demands in no uncertain terms that I hold her a spot in line behind me while she goes to get her seat. I tell her that I disagree and that I will not do that. That if she wants to get in line, get in line now or come back and take your chances. She insists that I hold her spot. I tell her in no uncertain terms I will not do that, but I will convey her request to the people that get in line behind me and they can decide. 

After five minutes or so (the line is moving s.l.o.w.) she returns and demands her spot. There are now 5 people behind me. During her 5 minute absence I have communicated the situation to the guy behind me. As he is a nice person, he allows her to get in line. She is not in it more than 1 minute before asking him to save her spot while she does something (I did not hear her reason). She leaves the line (again!) and does not return until she is the 3rd person in line (another 10 minutes or more). 

W.T.F. woman?!

You've just taken the prize for the rudest person I've had the pleasure of encountering in this city!

 

Shouting at the Childless

I was at my favorite bakery a few weeks ago. My European travels gave me a hankering for fresh croissants back at home and I knew just the place. I was up early - thanks again to the jetlag - so pup and I piled in the car - a quick stop before a Hollywood hike.

I knew exactly what I wanted. A latte and a croissant. Simple. My typical European breakfast. When I opened the bakery door, it was children chaos and cacophony. Overwhelmed mom in front of me with two misbehaving kids running around causing all havoc and hell. I waited patiently. I was in no hurry. Fully present, thankful I was not the mom of two misbehaving children. Asking the counter attendant question after question about which pastry had which filling. Unable to remember any answer. Frazzeled she was. I shifted slightly and a strange type of calm settled over me. (Or perhaps I settled into a strange type of calm amidst the storm.) I was amused watching the scene. Detached. Knowing soon I would be pulled into the clusterfuck. Despite mom's vacillation, another person came to take my order, and that's when I was sucked in. (O Calm Center of the Tornado can not hold for Long. A Ying/Yang / I <3 Huckabees red ball head bashing moment of sublimity.)

It was like in a dream; you are speaking, the words go through molasses before they reach the other person's ear, letters jumbled up in the hearing no matter how much enunciation. It was the interference of the childrens cacophony. They distracted all, but me. As I intended my order they twisted and misunderstood in the most sublime telephone game way. Through the cacophony, I remained calm - I take no pleasure in this momentary ability to remain in the eye of the storm - I work hard to sustain it when I am lucky enough to find it.

Childrens strollers were strewed throughout the aisle. When I got to the register, to my dismay, my order was incorrect! My amusement rose at the level of sheer fucked-up-ness occurring. Me to blame for the misunderstood order! Me to blame for no place to stand because of the cacophony of children and unaware parents. Me to blame because the food has to get out and I am in their way (not the two strollers or multitudes of running children and parents lost in their keeing up with the jones conversations). Losing it to the only adult waiting patiently consciously (and with judgement only after the fact) for their latte and croissant!  Register person screwing up the order one final time just for good measure!

O.M.F.G. It was like the Bermuda Triangle of Bakery experiences. I had to get out of there.

Sometimes that happens. The person with extra mental bandwidth becomes the target. Amusing it can be, just don't get sucked in.

NorCal vs SoCal

Anyone who's lived in the Bay Area for a significant amount of time has come across the huge (one-sided) NorCal-SoCal rivalry.

From the San Francisco Bay Area perspective, Los Angeles is the ground zero of shallow consumerism - fake fake fake. People. Boobs. Personality. And the traffic?!?! We all know how horribly polluting cars are, those horrible horrible Los Angeles people - don't they know what they are doing to the earth? (This was before the Prius.) NorCal would expound on how much more aware they were, more evolved, aware, of the earth, good food, real sustainable businesses. There was no fakeness here in NorCal! We reveled in our "coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco" foggy summers. Fuck the tourists expecting typical California (SoCal) sunny beaches. Bwahahah - go buy those sweatshirts to stay warm! Oozing with self-importance. Oozing with I am better than you.

From the SoCal side, the rivalry is .... *poof* what rivalry? Yeah, some people up there have a chip on their shoulder, but that's their issue. It's great down here. Great weather, lots of space and so much going on! Yeah, people think Hollywood's the big industry here, but there's so much more.

The NorCal SoCal rivalry was one-sided. I stopped caring about the haters up north and instead set about to make my dreams come true.

Regardless of where you live that's good advice. Stop caring about the haters and make your dreams come true.

Heather's 2012 SxSw Recap

It may be a few months late, but I'm still thinking about things I saw/heard at SXSW this year. Here's my recap of the event.

1. The New Age of Money

Or how I learned to stop worrying and love the economic collapse

I had a 15 minute talk in the Future 15 series where I crammed in as much information before showing Flowers for Grandma. After my talk, one woman whose company builds applications, came up to me and asked - when is this launching!? People get very excited when they see the example products in these visions of the future. Link to the Presentation (slideshare). Link to Audio (SXSW).

2. LATAM Startups

I attended a panel on LATAM startups and met key connectors of the startup community in Chile and Brazil along with several Mexico VCs. I'm very interested in exploring and building relationships in my favorite southern hemisphere to give local innovations a regional spotlight through my work at Innotribe. 

3. Activities in the Payments Space

3A: ISIS

ISIS had a big presence and was pushing their mobile payment application, a hardware integration of NFC (Near Field Communication) and credit cards. Partners are Capital One, Chase, Verizon, T-Mobile & AT&T. I got a demo of the app and it looked well designed and slick - however my concern with NFC is adoption and ubiquity.

The adoption problem will not come from shoppers/purchasers - many of us are used to various applications on our smart phones and we like to experiment with new payment methods. The long road of adoption will come from Merchants/Vendors - they need an easy, cheap way to extend their payment infrastructure to accept NFC. ISIS launches their program in Austin and Salt Lake City later this year. I'll be watching to see how things go.

3B: Barclay's Crowdsourced Credit Card

UNBELIEVABLE!I was really impressed with this credit card offering. It's a mashup of a credit card + crowdsourcing + radical transparency. The community of card holders decides how they want the card serviced. Things like, what do you want your late fee to be? DO you want outsourced customer service experience, paperless statements, etc.

A perfect example of what I call a positive wildcard: a low probability event with a high positive impact. (Innovation team: these people are one of us!) Read the release. 

I was so impressed with this card, I invited Paul to join my panel at the Future of Money conference. I'm definitely watching what they do and how people respond to 

3C: Community Currency

The most interesting community currency at SXSW came from a woman in the Chilean startup community. Her challenge was to build a vibrant startup ecosystem that required/encouraged participants to give back and reinvest in the community. Companies that participated in the 6 month program had to earn 4000 points and there were a variety of activities they could do to earn those points; for example mentoring programs, giving a workshop or talk. I was fascinated and impressed with this way to encourage participants to reinvest in the ecosystem, strengthening and growing it.

4. Bina48

The most fascinating thing I saw at SXSW was Bina48, a robotic panellist: a head and shoulders sculpted with a mindfile uploaded into it. Bina48 could understand speech and speak and the audience asked all kinds of profound questions. I was personally transfixed, overcome with emotion at seeing this "robot" answer profound questions.

From a future of identity perspective I was transfixed. Today you can create a mindfile of yourself, by scraping and collecting our data and information, very soon, you might be able to do something with that file. A previous article on Bina48.

5. danah boyd's talk on fear and hate on the Internet

I had not heard danah speak recently and really loved her talk. A few pull quotes: "Power is no longer hierarchal, power resides in the network." And "we view the world as a linear story - but these paths are not linear. Historically they ebb and flow." 

On the fun side, I picked up a sweet pair of cowboy boots and filled my belly with delicious avocado rich Tex-Mex.

Changing the Rules

Back in the summer of 2008, before we entered financial no man's land, I had an epiphany.

I knew for a long time (call it gut knowledge) that our existing financial systems were going to shift dramatically. I had no idea how and it terrified me how it might impact humanity negatively. 

One day, driving over Laurel Canyon to the San Fernando Valley, with the top down in my convertible and my dog in the passenger seat, I saw a glimpse of the future. Relief. Curiosity.

The rules would change.

We do not live in a static world. The rules (and regulations) that govern us, our systems today - did not always exist. The rules are our own creation. We change them on a regular basis. Even if the rules (or repeal of some rules) created today's situation; there is no reason to think that we (our governments, banks, institutions or people) will continue to play by those rules. I think the opposite is more true. When we don't like things, we change the rules.

Sure, if we DID decide to play by the rules, it could be a very bad scene. But who wants a bad scene? We'd have to find someone to blame - it's not easy or safe to take responsibility for our wrongs in our world. So we change the rules. And we will continue to change the rules. 

Our rules will change and evolve, the system will be pushed and gamed and played (in response), and rules will change and evolve (in response).

 We're watching and changing the rules around money, value and transations today.

The Global Now

The Global Now is a term I use to describe

• the mental awareness of the global world
• the various time zones - envisioning the dark, light, sunrise, sunset, noontime meal, midnight mysteries - of places around the world
• my colleagues, friends, family, dog, my beloved Queen of Angeles in their current timespace
• and the varied activities: working, play, sleeping, eating of above around the world

While being aware of my individual, personal, immediately direct experience. 

It's viewing my life from a global perspective while holding/experiencing my individual context.

Let me give you a few examples:

Early Morning Los Angeles

When I travel to Europe my workday is through the quiet hours of the California night. Right as my mind is waking up (even if my body has acclimated to the time zone), tuned to the rhythms of Los Angeles, I finish my European workday. Before closing down my laptop, collecting my electricity adapter and hailing my taxi to the hotel, one last check of twitter.... an early morning tweet from LAFD - Los Angeles Fire Department talking about a morning cup of coffee. Physically 5500+ miles away, in a instant my mind is right there, on Robertson or Santa Monica or Wilshire Blvd in the pre-dawn darkness. #theglobalnow

Innotribe Week: San Francisco, Singapore, London

A few weeks ago Innotribe hosted events in San Francisco, Singapore, Bangkok and London within a day of each other. I kicked off the week with our Future of Money panel with Yobie from Citi, Paul from Barclays, Shamir from Simple and Michael Michael from Burning Man. Tweets and Instagram pictures went out with the #innotribe tag. Just as we finished a celebratory conference dinner, the Singapore Startup Challenge kicked off with tweets from Matteo and Nektarios and my APAC colleagues. I raised a gin and tonic to them as the sun rode West, heading to bed before the winner was announced. Later, the sun rose on London and #innotribe represented at our business forum panel.

All around the globe, as time flowed, the world turned, I saw my colleagues and I - tiny moments on the crust of this earth, a globe hanging in the universe. Pinpricks of light, stars in the world. #theglobalnow

#FutrChat

Once a month, the Association of Professional Futurists holds a chat on twitter. It's about a specific topic: the future of ----. For that one hour, colleagues from the APF get on twitter: DC, Kansas City, Florida, Seattle, Texas, Sydney, Hawaii, London and beyond... a firehose of rapid fire conversation. Intimate, public. I imagine the usernames, my colleagues, collaborators, all over the world, with each tweet, at their computer or device tuning into our shared time-space on the internet - one hour - we come together in a timeless, locationless space. We are together in conversation. #theglobalnow

Domestic Meditation

The morning is cool. I'm up early. Finished the coffee challenge (a variation of the kitchen challenge - where the kitchen and sometimes the laundry or other cleaning errand - is clean/prepped/done by the time I finish fixing my coffee).

Kettle onto boil. Prep the mug, melita filter, Peet's Major Dickenson, half n half, a spoonful of powered chocolate (Belgium is influencing me), sugar. The stove clicks and then the gas is lit. I take the sponge, I wash the two pots, one knife in the sink. Pick up the empty wine glass on the coffee table. The dog snuggles into the blanket on the sofa. A cool breeze comes in from the open kitchen window. One ear on the kettle, I pop into the laundry nook. Checking on the air-dry items, putting the next load into the dryer. The timer. I push the button. Back in the kitchen, I can hear the kettle gaining energy, but it's still got some time to go. I start a few hand wash items, get them started in the kitchen. The kettle starts making the pre-boil noise. I pull it off and begin decanting my morning liquid. As it seeps through the filter, I run the hand washables through the double rinse. Blot them dry on a towel so they don't drip and hang them in the laundry nook with the other air dryables. Meanwhile the water has turned to coffee. I doctor it with half and half, sugar, stir in the chocolate, a liberal dash of cinnamon. I mentally start making a grocery store list. I've used the last of my coffee. My hands are warm from the hot water, from the coffee cup, moist with the hand washables.

I miss these domestic mornings with the cool breeze of Los Angeles. Possibilities of the day, before heading to my office, my computers, my devices, the internet, the world, the global now.

White Lilacs & European Introspections

Mr Great Great Great Grandfather Schlegel left the motherland in the mid-1800s. After 15 years traveling the frontier territories, he settled in Iowa. Lost connection with the old country, building a new legacy, a family, a law practice in a new country. A wild untamed country. 

During my last trip over here (to Europe where I sit typing this), I chatted with a colleague. He mentioned he had family in America. Someone from the family generations ago crossed the great water, went to the wild land - but they lost touch. They never knew what became of them.

I never thought of it from the other side. That there is some Schlegel family here in Europe, that might occasionally think about my great great great grandfather Schlegel who left and was never heard from again. I wonder if they wonder; Did he die, merely survive, start a thriving legacy? And as far as me and my name? Who did I come from? I have the same name as a minor philosopher, but whether I am related by blood or similar interest in romantic poetry, I will never know.

--

As I drive these European roads, motorways, almost literal cow paths, through small towns and fields, shifting up and down the gears, I am reminded of the midwest. It's as if I am visiting an alternate universe. I can see why so many Europeans settled there (in the midwest). The fertile fields.  The forests. The animals. It is familiar, the lush land. 

I can see the attraction. I can see what was brought - ideas, hard work, beliefs, traditions. And I see how those were changed by the wide, open land. Big sky. Possibilities. The farther West, the more the change. I guess that makes sense... you'd have to give up a lot (and want to give it up) the farther you moved West. The land is RAW. It is unworked by human hands. It is land on a geographic scale. No forests or fields, this is rock and water, the elements and geology.

Everything is easy here - in Europe. Things are well made. Well crafted. Attention to detail. Sophisticated. Expensive (but only comparatively to the cheap Chinese production). Quality. Artisanial. There are years upon years upon years of civilization to stand upon. Build upon. Then there's also all the baggage that comes along with years of civilization. Reinvention, I think, is difficult. In some ways I think it's easier to be who you are, but I don't know that it would be easy to change the image once decided upon. But life is easy here. Comfortable. The land does not challenge. The land has been tamed. 

The thing that strikes me the strongest is society - human society - civilization. People have lived together in close quarters and cultivated the land here - much much longer than America. There's been time to refine things - including how to socially interact - learn to live with others in such close quarters. Other places in the world have experienced this longer - China, India - but I do not yet know these places.

It should be no surprise that we're rawer in America. We've only had 600 or so years (of development of the dominant society - please realize I am leaving out a huge hole of Native American Society, but that culture has unfortunately not significantly influened mainstream Americanism.) There's more physical space, so people spread out - because there is space to spread out. Survivors had to be resilient and independent - especially if you moved West of the Mississippi. Risk takers with nothing to lose. Kansas City was the last bastion of back water culture until San Francisco. Kansas City has more fountains than Venice.

I think about the people who came, and still come to my country. It attracts not a race, an ethnicity - but a way of thinking about the world. It attracts an attitude. The farther West you go, the more intense this attitude, until you reach California. It has a reputation for a reason. It is, I think, the metaphorical edge of this world. It is the place you go to invent, reinvent. It is here, in my city of Angels, I honed my ability to pluck possibilities, pull them through the fine mesh of imagination and manifest them physically. 

With every trip away from her, I bring a piece with me - this skill to pluck the possibilities, to enable a new view, invention, reinvention, seeding her beyond the deserts.

 --

A week or so ago, I remembered the white lilacs of my childhood. Lilacs were/are my favorite flower, and they were familiar in the town I grew up in. I loved the deep purple ones and also the white ones... because who called a white flower lilac? (Even as a child I loved contradictions.)

As I drove down Highway 1 from San Francisco last week, I thought about white lilacs. They just popped into my head. It had been decades since I had seen a white lilac, let alone think about them. Lilacs do not grow in California, except in some of the colder mountain regions. And every lilac I have seen in California has been light purple... or lilac. 

But today, as I explored these Belgium country roads along the roadside were bush after bush of lilacs - not the light purple ones, but the white and dark psychedelic purples one. Strange synchronicity, this memory of white lilacs... or perhaps it was just the whisper of my ghost?

Road Warrior

It has been a luxurious week in Los Angeles, but my time here is coming to a close. Over the past 6 months I have had to completely change the way I work. No more long weeks in my office, I have been away from it more than I have been here. 

 (Note: I started this post three weeks ago... back when I had a gorgeous week at home.)

Reduced Productivity

I'm not as productive when I travel. This is because I have a highly optimized work style for a home office set up. I've had to change this. My office is now my beloved Brenthaven backpack (thank you @urbanverse and @busynessgirl). In this I carry 2 laptops, an ipad, an iphone, an itouch, a kindle, various headphones, a notebook, office supplies, business cards, and a myriad of necessary power cables, cords and power adapters (when I travel internationally).

Respecting the Introvert

Most people don't believe me when I say I'm introverted, and that's because people see me when I'm out in my extrovert character. You don't see me, like this past week, when I spend hours on end in my office, very quiet, talking to no-one, listening to music, typing away. It's not that I try to hide this part of me. It just by it's nature isn't seen except but a very few intimate people. I am a different person when I am around people.

So while traveling, I have had to change this. Let the introvert show a bit more. Not engage with people. Eat lunch at my desk. Listen to headphones. Not book every evening with events. Not book every traveling moment with meetings. And to give myself a break. To stay in my hotel room, order room service and spend quality time with myself.

Respecting the introvert in New York is especially hard because of so. many. people. It's exhausing just to go into the office. People everywhere, bumping into you, crammed like sardines into a train. I hate it. Which is why I come in late and work late. I just can't stand the onslaught of humanity.

Air travel hacks

I thought I was good at air travel, being the daughter of a flight attendant. Traveling 50-75% of my time has optimized this. I don't bother to pack light anymore. I check my bags and have a flight carry-on that includes includes

• my leather moccassins
• face mister and moisterizer (face and hand)
• noise-canceling headsets
• my iphone/itouch (to take pictures out the window)
• Window seat is a MUST
• Internet on domestic flights
• Snacks
• I drink a lot of (sparkling) water

I almost always make sure I get to the airport early. I don't like the stress of missing a flight. (That's the years of flying standby.) I try to make sure I eat good food. No junk food.

Making it fun / Keeping it stressless

I try to make it fun to travel. I hate the TSA - I find it degrading and non-effective. So I try to make it fun. I try to humanize people. Talk to them. Joke with them. Make myself (and maybe them) laugh. Taking pictures and Instagramming them.

Missing Home

I miss Los Angeles a lot when I travel. I love this city. What it represents. Who is here (my dog, the boyf, my car, the freeways). It's proximity to the desert. I miss my easy weekends in the desert. So I travel with a piece of it. I have a painting of a Joshua Tree that I bring with me. There are other memories of home I bring with me, my West Coast style. My coffee with cinnamon. I've been known to imagine NY skyscrapers as Joshua Trees and Mountain Ranges.

Sometimes I listen to Los Angeles' police radio. Often I'll catch early morning tweets by the LAFD. I always check in on the LA Times. And always there is Twitter and Instagram. These are important links to my city while I am gone. 

Time Traveling as Therapy

I often think of the past. Moments I have essence snapshots from. I remember years when I didn't leave LA. I think back to those dog walk mornings. I think back to my times in grad school, spending every weekend researching and writing. I think back to camping trips. To home cooked meals, to cakes made from scratch. I visit their sweet memories - a juxtaposition from waiting for my flight at an airport, riding in a taxi cab, watching the earth pass below me. I think of these moments  - while in another: waiting in an airport, riding in a taxi, flying around the world, riding the subway, eating out. Present in these moments, I savor the opposite, holding both in my mind, present in my experience. Later, I will visit the snapshot of jetset memories for the same type of therapy. Perhaps when I am on a dusty lakebed or driving off road for several days or something more mundane.

 An Iterative Process

I'm still learning how to have a satisfying life traveling so much. I am reflecting on a comment from a William Gibson novel - about a writer who wrote much of his books in hotel rooms. I am looking for activities I like to do - and do at home - that I can transport and do with myself in hotel rooms.  I try new things and adjust what I'm using to make it work better for me.

Snapshots of Home

I cracked the largest grin of my trip when I saw the Virgin Atlantic flight sign showing destination: Los Angeles. LAX. What have I become? This trip convinced me, that while the world is a grand and interesting place, I live in the best place in the world. I don't want to move to Austin, or Portland, become an expat or become a global nomad. Right here in West Hollywood. Dreams are created and realized. 

--

It's the smell of LAX: jetfuel and airplane exhaust. I've told my seatmate, a Brit who is coming for a Hollywood gig, "In LA, anything can happen. Your dreams can come true. That's what's amazing about this place. You _can_ stay," I say to his desire to find more work after his short-term gig, "but the trick is give yourself no option to go back." It's step 4, Burn Your Ships.  He's off on an amazing adventure to explore the City of Angeles. I am excited for him.

--

Up, early morning. Everything is quiet. The dog, the boyf are asleep. I take the truck and drive the city streets. In search of half and half and breakfast provisions. I step outside. The air is chilly. But there's an undertone of warmth. Then I breathe deep. It hits me, the messages traveling my nervous system from my nostrils, lungs to my brain, exploding into meaning. The smell of Los Angeles. Moisture. Cool. Undertone of desert heat. The edge of possibilities. 

Sun rising upon the Hollywood Hills. 

--

So many choices. The aisles are stacked with boxes, products being unloaded. I admired the branding, the perforations to unpackage individual packaged entrees. I had never thought about the wholesale and shipping side. I see the choice. Such variety. I think, this is an upside of the free market. Such selection. It's kind of amazing.

I get into a conversation with a shop stocker. He talks to me in Spanish, I hesitate and reply. My brain is a scramble with languages. I realize I'm much more comfortable speaking bad Spanish than French. 

I come across a display of Avocados. It's like I've found the city of gold. I restrain myself from kneeling in worship to selecting a few for breakfast. Then there are strawberries from Salinas, I imagine the fields, rows of short green clumps up north. I know I'm romanticizing, but what can you expect? I'm an unapologetic Angelino.

I am so happy to be home. I've missed my city.

My SXSW Talk: The New Age of Money

or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Economic Collapse

If you weren't able to catch me at SXSW or Digital Money Forum last month, my presentation slides are posted below. SXSW captured the audio of my talk, so you listen to me speak very quickly (I had a very short period of time and wanted to show a preview of Flowers for Grandma).  I went into a bit more detail and showed both Fly Me to the Moon and Flowers for Grandma (sneak peak still photos below.)

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Economic Collapse

View more PowerPoint from heathervescent

Flowers for Grandma stills  (we're finishing this up as fast as we can)

European Fields

I was having one of those days. A day when I was in no mood to deal with people. Didn't want to talk to them, didn't want to see them, didn't want to be around them. I have been fairly lucky to set up my life such that when I have one of these days I sequester myself in my office with my dog. I don't like feeling this way and I don't like inflicting a cranky, negative Heather on the world. I gotta keep up my, I am so awesome, invincible, rah-rah-rah personal brand, you know on the blog, ya know!

So anyway, after an awesome day of London shopping, I had to cram everything into my suitcases (which I barely fit stuff into), then lug all this LUGgage off to the train station to catch the high speed Eurostar to the continent. When I arrived, the train station was a madhouse. Crazy lines, people cutting in line, rolling these huge suitcases everywhere, people bumping into each other, no awareness of space and people behind them. For 3 seconds my blood boiled and then I looked around. There was nothing to do.

I watched the guy in front of me become red-faced with his wife and two kids. They had waited until the last  minute to get to the station. I watched him try to bully the woman keeping order among the chaos into letting him cut in line. Her response was pure pleasure, straight British to the point. Unbudging. The Europeans sure can talk straight. (How refreshing!)

Finally I'm on the train. (All my luggage lugging reminds me of a train ride 20+ years ago with my Mom and Grandmother. Between us, we had 7 huge pieces! And all this, before roller bags.) I'm engrossed with my latest iphone app purchase, zoning out to my downtempo mix. Across the aisle from me is a family - I think they are Americans. But I'm not feeling chatty. (Come to think of it, until the conference call this afternoon, it had been more than a week since I've heard an American accent. Even the English non-native speakers speak that damn British English!) American family is crashed out across the tables. It's a bright sunny English afternoon. Which means the sun is rising over the US. Jetlag. I wonder if they are from Austin, California, New York, Colorado - the time zones in my phone. 

I'm watching the countryside. It looks strangely familiar. (More on that later.) We cross under the Channel, then we're in Calais for a short stop. Sleeping family starts awake... the teenage son is dragging his heels... almost wanting to go back to sleep. I'm watching detachedly. There is one bag they missed. I call out, but the teenage son is intent on getting off the train. I jump up, grab the bag from under the table and run down the aisle. The family is off the train and down the platform. I wonder if I can catch them before the train leaves. But the train attendant sees me (running down the aisle) - understands - and takes the bag from my hand at the train door. She calls out to the family and they turn, return and get the bag from her. I see their sighs of relief as I return to my seat at the window.

That would have really sucked, hm? Leaving your bag on the train. Who knew what important things, money, passport, clothes, phone, were in it. Hours of heartache, frustration and anxiety - the possibility evaporating in a moment. Along with my cranky mood. I was left only with a feeling of relief and the view of European fields, wind turbines spinning, black and white cows frolicking and another day living.

Foreign / Not Foreign

I had a strange realization just as my Virgin Atlantic flight took off from Los Angeles bound to London last week. I was listening to the directions - all in that lovely internationally sounding female British voice. I overheard my fellow passengers chatting - most in that British accent. Flight attendants also all in that British accent. Finally, the captain came on and welcomed everyone on the flight that would take them ... "home."

Home?!?! What shock then! Los Angeles is my home! From my perspective, this flight is taking me away from home!

That's when the epiphany came. _I_ was the one with the accent. I was the foreigner. 

--

As I've walked these London streets this past week. Managed my jetlag (brilliantly, I might add), met with people, had conversations, eat, go to the office, go to stores - all the normal everyday things I might do at home, I've been aware of my foreigner status. I've made no effort to try to blend in. I've made no effort to change my LA (recently strongly influenced by Texas) style. I'll bet, I'm the only person walking around the London Bank district in black cowboy boots. They're just my favorite pair of shoes at the moment and I couldn't bear to not bring them with me. 

What fun is it being a foreigner if the whole time I'm trying to fit in - trying to smooth over my standing-out? Squashing my California expression? Does a rock star change their style when they are traveling to fit into the local look? I don't think so.

The point of all this a awareness. The conscious choice to stay attuned to my culture, while in another culture. This goes for corporate culture too. 

--

When I send emails from my corporate account, the British English spellcheck always catches specific words, trying to convert them into their British spelling. This is a strange thing for me - because for some words, I already use the British spelling (thank you International Flight Attendant Mom). But for others, I use the "American" English and refuse to change the spelling. 

It was a cute thing at first... and it's certainly helping me learn differences between American and British English. But if I ever start saying/using "maths", will you please shoot me with my own gun?

--

When I was a teenager, "banished" to grow up in Iowa - the great plains - the MidWest - farm country; I used to entertain myself in the afternoons by driving the open roads. I'd spend hours exploring gravel roads, barely paved paths, of course at as high speeds as I could push my teenager-safe car to go - I would listen to new-wave rock and think about other places. Exotic, cultured, foreign places. Places like Europe, Africa, India, South America.

One day it hit me (after I had returned from six months in Brazil, so full of saudade I could explode) - this place I lived in - where I freely drove to Hell and back. Down to the Mississippi on a midnight lark. Racing trains, kicking up dust on gravel roads, triumphantly stopped on the bridge overpass, waving as the train passed under. Hiking old Indian paths in the forest, barely visible, picnics in old horse thief caves (long since collapsed). These "boring" "normal" "unexotic" places to me - were to someone else ... quite exotic. And these were grand adventures. 

--

It's about perspective. Where you stand when you look. Isn't that magic? That the same object, the same experience, the same thing... can be interpreted dramatically differently?

Who can say, which perspective is "right" or "correct" - rather than "is."

The Montessori Smile

As I was packing some of my favorite books today (faerie tales, Italio Calvino, Brothers Grimm), I wondered what my first social experiment was. As I flipped back through my memories I came to 3 year old Heather. I went to a Montessori school just down the block. I was bored, having already finished the assignments - I had too much energy - my teachers didn't know what to do with me.  

It was picture day. They lined us up. As I stood there, waiting for other kids to get in place, settle down, they said they would take three pictures. Bored, waiting there, I wondered how I could know which picture they would use. There was no way I could know this now, before the fact, or during the picture taking, but I could do something that would tell me which picture they used in retrospect. I decided to make three faces. Then I could remember the order, thus knowing which one they used. Ready for the first shot, I made my big usual smile. Second time, a slight smile, Mona Lisa style. Third shot I went full emo frown. (I wanted faces that didn't look like I was making faces.) 

When the picture came back, I was disappointed with the choice but I knew which one they used. It was the third one. Of course, then I wanted to know what criteria they used for their selection. 

It's probably not my first social experiement, but it's the one I thought of today.

The Present vs The Future

Eckhart Tolle's work and the concept of being present has come up in my network from several places recently. For several weeks, I've been percolating upon my issues with this work, trying to reconcile my negative associations with it - while practicing and living in the present moment - something I have spent years doing with various successes. I wondered, why does something about his work rub me the wrong way, while I generally agree and practice the concept?

It's important to note that I've spent years business/life planning as well as professional training to be a futurist (using scientific and creative methods to explore future possibilities).

And I've spent more than three decades understanding, decoding and reprogramming my own programming.

Here's the rub. It's not either/or. It's not a choice between the intertwined past, the present or the future. One must move fluidly between these states; mining, acting, learning and creating.

I should be honest here, my intention is not to live a life of happiness, to get my needs met, gain power or money. My intention is to consciously be - create who I want to be/am. Which is both creation and be-ing. It's a "goal" that is never met, always met, never changing, always evolving.

The present moment is about action (or inaction). It's where the shit happens (GTD baby!). It's the moving spark in time of manifestation, creation, action, re-action. It's where choice occurs. It's where one can jump from one quantum branched reality to another. (Which I have done upon numerous occasions.)

But how does one decide how or what one wants to act, or call in the programming (e.g re-act)? Is there is a preferred branch to jump into? How does one know what to look for? To read the signs? To understand the impact, the ripple of one's actions? In the pregnant present - a moment just barely into the future.

One decides how one wants to consciously act by mining the past and visiting/seeing future possibilities/implications.

Of course, it's not as simple in practice. 

Living solely in the present is as much a trap as living in the past or dreaming always about the future. 

Tolle's work, and the mantra to be present in the present moment is too simplistic for me. It's missing a magical world of manifesting, creating the world, creating the future (for accurate work once must know the past). I'm not saying, don't live in the present moment - but to live in the conscious present - you must regularly visit the past and the future.

The Invisible Arts

I lose myself to find myself. 

I'm assaulted by the smell of raw fish and grey shrimp. Cartons of Chinese vegetables, prickly Durian, fat fuscha Dragon Fruit. I navigate the streets full of people. Stopping to peruse the red envelopes and knock off bags. Wandering these small streets, comfortable in my illiteracy.

In the park, my eye is drawn to the Tai Chi practitioners. I don't know the specific series, but I know similar ones from years of warrior practice. Watching them push and pull with energetic tension makes me long for my martial weapons. I continue to watch them and observe they are plucking the strings of energy, pushing and pulling, creating an invisible work of art. It comforts me. Seeing them paint and play and pluck the energy, seeing each series of movements creating a work of art. The body a paintbrush, the painting invisible. 

It's the same with song. There are several groups playing music. I'm loitering near one. I imagine they get together every Saturday to play and sing together in this park. Friends stop and say hello, embrace between stanzas. I'm seeing the invisible. Hearing the song, seeing the relationship interactions, the Tai Chi series paintings.

I am a similar artist. This body, these hands are the paintbrush; my ephemeral, transient life, the painting. A work of art created in/with time - moment by moment.

 

New York Fail

I'm standing at the counter of a UPS store on Broadway crying. My dead laptop in one hand, my phone in the other. What was to be the triumphant sending of my Thinkpad to Lenovo for repair was complete and crushing failure. (This was plan D going into action, after the failure of plan A, B and C.)

Simply, the required packing materials were not at this UPS Store - or any other store in Manhattan either. And no one - not the clerks behind the desk or the UPS Customer Service Rep on the phone could tell me how I find a store with the required packing materials, other than individually calling each store (of which I did call 7 with failure).

In desperation, I called Lenovo and asked them if I could send the machine (aka my other brain) in other packing materials - but No, that would void the warranty. I was completely crushed. I hated this city and all it's people - their unwilling, inability to solve this problem. And that's when I realized what I hate about New York - it's the people - the attitude - this culture. 

Not friendly, not willing to help someone out. Seemingly only in it for themselves, hyper competitive. Ready (and willing) to fuck you over, cheat you, mercilessly watch as you crumble offering no assistance what so ever, no help. What an archaic paradigm.

What the fuck New York? It's not about the competition. You've got it wrong. 

"The battle is not here with your fellow men, but out there, in Infinity."

We can do so much more together.

The World I want to Live in

Feeling beaten down by a stressful week, I am reminded of the reasons I do these things.

"You don't do them for money or fame or because it's easy. You do these things because that's the world you want to live in." - Jean Poulet

I want to live in a world where people think outside the box to solve problems beyond the standard procedure. I want to live in a world where someone can have rockstar hair in traditional business environment. I want to live in a world where granddaughters send their grandmothers flowers - every month. I want to live in a world where people make amazing experiences for other people. I want to live in a world that evolves down a pathway that increases possibilities. I want to live in a world where people are aware of the ripple of their influence on others and themselves. I want a world aware.

I create this world I want to live in - bittersweetly, even if I rarely get to experience it. 

Creating the world you want to live in is a hard task. The status quo beats and attacks and shuts you down. Sometimes breaks you. But there is always another day, another attempt to create this world anew.

Giving other people (who are mere reflections of myself) the experiences I desperately crave.

Leveling Up

Six years ago I compared the way I viewed my life to Diablo II (ok, yes, I was a gamer at one time). I was going through some challenging things after kicking major ass at everything I had previously done. I felt pretty awesome and had new (audacious) plans.

But here I was getting my ass kicked in what seemed like all my new endeavors! What was the deal? I was the one kicking ass just moments ago. And in fact, my past ass kicking lead me to my current ass getting kicked. What the hell happened?

I'll tell you what happened. I had leveled up.

The playing field changed. The demons were stronger, sharper, faster. I had to up my own skills to kick these demons, skeletons and undead asses.  And I was taking a beating. That's the bittersweetness of leveling up. Paying homage to your awesomeness, even while eating your humility. The Zen Mind / Beginner Mind. The challenge of/for growth. Evolution.

I probably don't need to write this, but all kinds of things level up: individuals, companies, teams, ideas, products. It's a natural part of the process. But it's never easy, in fact, it requires more diligence, attention and effort. But it's worth it, because you're playing in a new game.

You've passed the previous levels and it's here you find worthy challenges. Challenges that you will pass, another level complete. The levels themselves don't really matter, except in the play, practice and execution you engage in. No one level is particulary better or "higher" than another. The importance is present awareness and attention to the worthy challenges. And practice. Lots and lots of practice.

 

Announcing the Future of Transactions Survey, Year 2

In September 2010, I conducted an initial survey on the Future of Transactions. The response to the survey was overwhelming and launched my obsession into Future of Transactions. 

The Scenario, "Dinner with Friends" based on my research results

• Won an Honorable Mention by the Association of Professional Futurists 
• Was produced into a short commercial (with financial support from Innotribe @ Swift) 
• Is nominated for a Most Important Futures Award

I shared the results of the survey in 2011 at 

• Future of Money and Technology,
• World Future Society in Austin and Vancouver, 
• Web 2.0,
• Mindshare,
• Sibos,
• Compass Conference and
• Association of Professional Futurists Virtual Conference

Finally, I was invited to join the Swift Innotribe team as their Innovation Leader for the Americas in August 2011 where I am working to make my preferred future, co-re/creating our financial systems with the financial community, a reality.

This year, with the help of futurists Emily Empel (http://localrat.com/meet-the-rat/) and Justin Pickard (http://justinpickard.net/), the future of transactions survey is back with a bang!

The intention of the updated survey is to gather yearly information in order to explore how we may "pay" for items in the future. Results will be shared at upcoming conferences including SXSW, Digital Money, World Futures and the Future of Money & Technology. 

--> I invite your participation in The Future of Transactions Survey, year 2. <--

The Thunder Breaks

I alway use January 1-29 to put the finishing touches on my yearly goals/plans/intentions/focuses. This year I've got two very different sets.

1. Americas Innovation Strategy: which is focused on what I want to accomplish as Swift's Americas Innovation Leader. It is focused on activities that support and encourage collaborative innovation in the financial industy by the community for use of the community.
2. My personal 2012 Plan aka my Warrior with Heart.

Both of these strategies/goalsets were well focused before the end of 2011, but these 30 days in January have been a series of conversations with intersted and impacted parties (in both my professional and personal life) to get feedback and be open to comments. To makes these two yearly plans more co-created.

So these past few weeks have been more like honing and polishing and trying on different situations, taking actions to try on these situtations. As these actions unfolded, and I gathered new information, situations changed. Even without completing the action, new pathways opened up. Stuck energy flowed forth.

Note: the previous paragraphs were written on Jan 31. 

--

In the past two weeks, I've begin to walk the pathway I mapped out. Walked down West Hollywood streets, through airports, train stations, pristine stone 45th office hallways, dirty city streets, subway undergrounds, talking with friends, the boyf, the dog, weaving through strangers and tourists. Walking with elation, depression, tears, desperation, intention, celebration.

I stopped hanging on. Spinning center. A ball, cracked, whacked in a home run dream come true execution, traveling far beyond the fence, spinning, speeding, pinball branching quantum possibilities. There is no grounding. This is the jump. The flying. A springboard high dive into the the deep unknown.

I asked for this. I took the leap, but one never gets used to the free fall speeding, passing all possibilities except that one out there, the one you're headed too, the one that is so far away, and yet laser beam focused. Every pedaco, your guts of steel, impossible possibilities, passing hundreds of impossible possibilities in a split moment. 

Free flying. Spinning. Hands pulled in tight, no resistance.

Our Co-Perceived World

We had an extraordinary Los Angeles sunset a few days ago. The sky was a combination of vanilla peach and pink colors. The lenticular clouds over the city were highlighted pastel pink contrasting with the darkening blue of the evening sky. 

Los Angeles has fabulous sunsets and those of us who live here enjoy them. Just look up from our palm tree lined streets into a pink swirled sky and you'll get the feeling, an LA essence, a palm tree shadowed, behind a changing rainbow sherbet of colors. 

This sunset was better than usual. I noticed it on my dog walk, stopped to enjoy it and took a few camera photos. Minutes later, I started to see friends and colleagues tweet and instagram photos of this very same sky from all over the city.

We don't necessarily realize that we are perceiving the same environment - and in our current paradigm, often documenting it. What does the sunset look like from Hollywood? Silverlake? Venice? It's the same sky, viewed from many perspectives. Our digital mobile devices make it easy to capture our perceptions, our perspective. Instagram filters act as thesaurus for our images that we share with our networks.

Our capturing and sharing activities today are innocent, undirected and unintentional from a collective perspective.

What will the world be like when it's easy to access multiple perceptions/perspectives of the same situation/experience/landscape? Through a timeline - I am reminded of Richard Misrach's Golden Gate series of photos of the sky above the San Francisco Bay, but also of place, like the sunset view from Venice, Hollywood or Silverlake. 

I am reminded of the radical performance theatre, Sleep No More, where the audience is let loose in a 5 story set, in which the actors move from space to space performing/embodying the character within the confines of the set space. No more is the audience limited to rows in front of the fourth wall; the audience becomes part of the performance. Is threaded through the performance space. Each attendee (is responsible for) and has their own personal experience. 

I have trouble with absolute truth. 

I want to believe there is absolute truth, but I just can't see how it could be. Absolute truth would have to include all these various (and potentially conflicting) perceptions.  I see value in being able to perceive. 

Perhaps Absolute truth is a continuum, encompassing perceptions as sub-variables, explorations. There are infinite perceptions, and who is to say which one is "right" and which one is "wrong?"

But back to the long term impact of digitally capturing our co-perceived world. How does the world change when we have "user-generated" content capturing the same scenes from various perspectives? How do we as humanity change in our way to interact with others? The world? Our experiences? And how will the content we've created today (take these many pictures of my beloved LA sunset) be used and for what purpose in the future?

I think we're creating/collecting the raw materials today, in these digitally collected snapshots - documenting our co-perception, that will become something awe-some and transcendent.

Reflections on Preferred Futures, Possibilities & Impossibilities

I am fascinated by possibilities. There's nothing I like better than seeing what can be, than perhaps transitioning those possibilities into this world. In the past few years I have honed my ability to see possibilities (and a process to make them real). I can see around corners, juggle variables and play a metaphorical shell game with data, research & time extrapolations to create a cone of plausability, mine the possibilities in and around it (wildcards fall on the edge or outside of them) and identify (sometimes multiple based on your valueset/variables) preferred futures.

All futures are possibilities. The future is subjunctive tense. There are no future facts, as Bertrand de Jouvenel writes in The Art of Conjecture. So by definition the future is pure possibility. Of course, with the demonstration of the cone of plausibility, some futures have an increased likelihood of occurring, for various reasons. The probability of those futures occurring is more likely or of higher probability. While others have very low probability. (Wild cards aka black swans aka STEEP surprises defined by very low occurrence probability). But low probability does not mean impossible, although for all practical purposes, it may be.

It is interesting to note, that the probability of possibilities doesn't really matter when the present arrives. The present is made up of possibilities that held all kinds of probabilities: from the habit to the wild card.

When thinking about the transition of future possibilities into present reality/action, I like to borrow an example from Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Pirsig explains quality with a train. The train is riding on its tracks with quality the ever moving place at the front edge of the train as the train moves on it's tracks. This metaphor has stuck in my mind for over two decades. Rather than use it to define quality. Let me use it to explain the transition of the future subjunctive to the present (and riff off of China Mievelle's Iron Council a bit).

The train is moving along the track (representing time) but instead of one track in front of the train to drive on, there are many tracks (sure, go quantum here), some are more solid than others. Any track is possible; the more probably the track, the more real that track seems (higher probability). (Habits and other things create solid tracks for our metaphorical trains.)

The track the train has not already passed on is the future (even if it's the daily commuter train). There is no guarantee the train will pass on it (it could get derailed or float off into the sky of it's own accord a la the Glass Hotel or the Land of Green Ginger). As the train passes the tracks, pregnant possibility ends, rendering one possibility amongst all other, now impossibilities. This happening many times each second, train clipping along the track.

So let's talk about preferred futures. A preferred future is the future you would prefer to occur. You may have some (or a lot of) control in making it occur. And the more direct control you have over the variables, the increased likelihood for you to make it happen. And by variables, I'm talking about people, companies, technologies, etc. Whatever you need to make that future real. Subjunctive present. You are laying the track you want the train to run on. You want to increase the probability of the train running on this track when it gets to it. This is your pathway to your preferred future. (And here we can go full Iron Council.)

Now let's talk about impossibilities. For every present moment (a rendered possibility), there may be a thousand impossibilities. Evaporated forever. Or perhaps for just a moment (I will not eat that chocolate today! this week! for the next 5 minutes!). As a lover of possibility, you'd think I'd hate the impossibility and yes, they do provide some sadness. But one must love the impossible, unrealized futures as much as the one that is realized. And while the train is not on the track, those tracks still exist in possible form. Perhaps never to be realized. Or realized at another time. Possible impossibilities. 

Reflections on the Concrete Jungle

New York got to me. 

 

In past trips, she coaxed me with beckoning caresses, this trip she dug in her nails. Biting cold, wind whipping through the urban canyons. I opened my coat and let that cold wind pierce my heart, remembering cold January's in the early 90s. I found no solace in people. None in work. I felt I had lost my path with heart. And in heathervescent land, there's only one thing to do when that happens...

Returning to Los Angeles, brisk wind blowing through her, I was thankful for my new found NY clothing. At first moment, I took Lady Vescent on a long embrace. I was interested if I had grown rusty with almost two weeks of subway traveling. But I was sharp as a knife. Threading the needle at 90 through city streets and favorite freeways. The speed, she heals my soul. 

I needed to push my boundaries. I wanted to kiss the edge, go beyond it, etch a remembrance of my tires in the pavement. I went to the wildest place close to Los Angeles: not Latigo, Piuma or the Malibu hills "racetrack", but the raw mountains of San Gabriel, Big Tujunga and Mt Wilson. 

Lost, and found.

Lady V and I weave out of Hollywood, through the San Fernando Valley and I finally hit the triple digits on the 2 north of Glendale. Racing up a mountain, top down, wind blowing, white knuckle riding, conversing with my city. I decelerate quickly, pause at the stop sign and head north into the mountains. The stop is as critical as the acceleration. There can be no speeding without being stuck behind the slow car, no acceleration without the stop. 

I feast my eyes on the scenery as I pass the 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000 elevation markers. It's getting colder, I'm glad for my heated seats. The road is moist, rockfall peppers the pavement. We're above the clouds, a road twisting between the mountains. 

I reach the top, view shrouded in fog. There is no Los Angeles overlook today. But that's ok, because I know what my city looks like. I didn't come for the views today, I came for the roads. And off we are again. Painting the double yellow through a burned forest. 

Sharing the road with a few sightseers, motorcyclists and locals. I came to the roadhouse, a row of motorcycles parked outside. Lunch stop perfection. Body refued before pressing forward. With the intention of getting lost in the mountains. Easier with no cell reception. I sped again on roads, tracked and backtracked, turned off and turned off again. The mountains eventually changing, until I realized I was entering the desert. 

Such was my delight! Lost in the mountains only to find the desert. Look at those wide open spaces! 

The afternoon waned and I felt responsibilities calling. My heart rejuvenated, I returned to the mountain roads, pushing faster spurred on with favorite songs, winding my way onto the freeway system: 210, 118, 5, 170 into there's no place like Hollywood Home. 

Home again, home again. 

The Spike Returns

I'm walking a couple down Amsterdam in the UL /unlicensed district. Except in this reality, it's the upper west side not Triton. I'm wearing a fur shug, no gold eyebrow. I have been chatting with my new companions  over guava and a glass of wine. I've found a great connection with these two. We continue our conversation on the city streets, until I turn to stand in front of a familiar red door. (Familiar from my childhood.) My demeanor changes. I am no longer chatty. The show begins, the door opens and we step inside.

The building reminds me of Victorian remodels from the Midwest. Plaster and lathe ceilings, peeling paint, a worn buffet, dusty floors. I am tempted to explore, but do not. I know more faces from last time. We are all much warmer.

There are performers, there is an audience, I am a guide. Through rooms, up stairs and down, for listening, observing, interacting. A journey, an experience, a commentary of man and nature deep in the mechanical beast of Manhattan. Finalie culminates, led down the aisle. I whisper a few words, unlatch the door and the show is over. 

I take a momentary pause, then return to my place. The show plays again.

Note: this post is about a real microtheatre performance in NYC. I take the name Microtheatre from Samuel Delaney's book, Trouble on Triton, wherein, his character, The Spike, writes, coregraphics and performs (with her troupe) microtheatre or theatrical experiences in the street for an audience of one.

And the Italian one

For Mom, here is my third favorite selection... Fellini Satyricon.

My other favorite film

is a collection of tales... with my favorite section starting at 7:30 of this analysis. 

 

"All these adventures begin simply. The listener thinks it'll soon be over, but one story creates another, and then another.

We are like blind men lost in the streets of a big city. The streets lead to a goal, but we often return the to same places to get where we want to be.

I see a few little streets here which, as it is now, are going nowhere. New combinations have to be arranged, then the whole will be clear, because one man cannot invent something that another cannot solve."

 

 

 

Life is but a dream...

The final scene from my favorite film

The 2011 Retrospective

What a watershed year! Pivotal. My 2011 Mindmap of goals was packed, and yet, I did not fail to deliver. After 2010 - the year I did too much, I wanted to relax things but still kick ass. My themes were: Relaxed Awesome, Weaving the Threads and Return to the Path with Heart. I most certainly "succeeded" at all three.

• Grad School: Hit the books big time with my Future of Transactions Research, on track to graduate at the end of the year until the dream job put grad school on hold... ;)
• The Conference Circuit: Spoke at SXSW, Future of Money, WFS Austin, Web 2.0, WFSummit Vancouver, Sibos Toronto, Compass, Mindshare & APF Virtual Gathering; Attended TedxCalTech, PayPal Developer's Conference, Internet Identity Workshop (A & B)
• Awards! Honorable Mention for the Value Exchange, Fly Me to the Moon nominated for Most Important Futures Work
• Scholarships! Kay Hamilton Future Studies, PEO ELF Award
• Produced two Films: Fly Me to the Moon and Flowers for Grandma (post-production)
• Became Bi-Coastal: Boy, did New York really get under my skin, but she had to bring out the big guns to do it. 
• Found my Dream Job: Who knew it existed? (Actually, I did.)
• The Usual Cacophony in March, June, August and December: Brides, Caveman, bi-coastal Santarchy and a surprising wolf pack in upper Manhattan. 
• Tons of great times/re-connections with friends from my early SF Intervista/Cacophony days in SF, NY and Portland.
• Despite family death and illnesses (cancer, knee surgery, brain tumor), I have the best relationships with my family I've ever had. Spent tons of time and holidays with my family, including my first fly fishing trip with Dad. Became an aunt for the second time.
• Travel! Hawaii, SF (3x), Montana, Colorado, Belgium (2x), Black Rock City, London, Toronto, Vancouver, New York City (5x), Austin, Houston, Salton Sea, Mountain View, Mammoth, Palos Verde, Portland and always to return to my City of Angels.
• Barcamp LA Returns! After a two year hiatus, I was part of the team that brought it back. 
• Writing: Completed two scripts, although I didn't do as much Sci-Fi story writing as I wanted...

My focus for 2012 was going to be "the Return of the H-bomb." (H-Bomb is one of my nicknames, mostly used in 2005-8, my kick ass years.) But after reviewing this year, I think the H-bomb is back in full force.

So 2012... is the year of living the future in present tense, with all my ass kicking warrior rockstar dreaming manifesting magic. Take my hand, there is plenty of space to dance here in the eye of the tornado... 

Nominated: Most Important Futures Award

I'm very excited to report my film, Fly Me to the Moon, which was created to show the results of my research at Sibos has been nominated for a Most Important Futures Work by the Association of Professional Futurists (disclaimer: I am a member of the APF). This is a huge honor and as you can see by the competition is very high with Nassim Tableb's Black Swan, Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and Jane McGonigal's online game, Evoke. You can click through to see the other nominations. You can watch the video below, which was proudly shot and produced in West Hollywood, California, USA.

-Heather Schlegel, SWIFT Americas Innovation for Innotribe

(cross-posted at Innotribe's Blog)

2011 Retrospective, 2012 Sights Set

It's that time of year. When I revisit my yearly goals/objectives/mindsets and plan for the next year. This is a ritual I've done more or less publicly on the blog since 2004. This year, 2011, my themes were

• Relaxed Awesome
• Return to the Path with Heart
• Weaving the Threads

with a lot of specific, vague and inbetween goals. Part of this year was weaving the threads, bringing things in my life that seemed separate or unrelated together... like the winds joining in a tornado.

The other return focus this year was to the Tao and my warrior ways. To this end, I have returned to many conversations with the 2006 self (time travel conversations to a past hero self), this vibrant ruthless woman, nothing standing in her way. This was the woman who intentionally created her dream life and lived literally in the future. Somehow over the past few years, that women got sucked into the day to day present life, while professionally studying the future. While that's all fine and cool, I vowed to never live a normal life, a life that anyone could have. The waters of forgetfulness lulled me to sleep and my weapons were stolen, edges rusty and dulled. Searching this year, I have regained them. Sharpening them with increased subtle understanding in their use. 

I bring my seven daggers and a sword with me into 2012. Along with several other tools:

• Positive
• Adventure
• Travel
• Passion --> Love
• Work
• Transformation
• Courage

My sights are set on the fruit at the top; to adventure in the unknown while living/walking the path with heart.

2012 is the return of the H-Bomb.