People often ask me how I write so much. But there's so many subjects I could write about every day, so many threads running through our lives creating touchpoints and experiences. For example - I could write about the conflict of my beliefs with the medical profession involving injecting oneself with heavy metals (the iron injections my midwife wants me to take because I am heavily anemic), or the fact that this week has seen my daughter go to nursery for the first time (yet another example of strange Swedish customs - the first thing that they did was strip all the kids to play around in water - 'water sports' jokes abounded on my Facebook status THAT day I can tell you), or indeed the fact an old friend got in touch last night and rekindled a deep sentiment that I thought was gone. Buried, not forgotten.
My blog today starts with a new contact I have made on LinkedIn. Actually I didn't make it - he contacted me with a compliment. As is the way of the world, I was at first suspicious (this is what happens when you receive 100s of spam mails every day).
Why exactly are you complimenting me? (if it has been in a bar in the 1980s, I would have looked him up and down and decided whether I could do better that night - but it was an email, so clearly not).
Is it to sell me some new conservatory blinds for the conservatory I don't have? Or perhaps to tell me I have the opportunity to profit from some old dude's death who happened to be called 'Leontiades' if I agree to give you my bank account details?
It was none of the above. Innocent until proven guilty, he genuinely seems to admire Investment Impact, the ethos and its sense of humor. I am flattered; but more than that I feel proud that it inspires people to reach out and gives me the opportunity to stay in a role that is both teacher and student. It is in keeping with what I believe are fundamental pillars supporting the evolution of our society.
It's why I have worked on projects like the implementation of 4G in Africa and why I chose to work in technology and communication in the first place.
All three pillars serve to promote mentor-ship and community building.
There are many many people in my network that are simply there - dead wood - because they have added me for no good reason and never touched base since. They don't care. I am relentlessly bombarded with pitches where no one has bothered to get to know me - despite my best efforts at getting to know them.
Self-interest - the cornerstone of modern day economics - shows itself so more clearly online where uninteresting and un-targeted noise seems to be 'de rigeur'.
If education enables better communication and technology facilitates it and all three of them propel us to greater evolution...self interest can destroy it all.
I started an online consultancy. It made me want to drink copious quantities, smoke myself into oblivion and hit my head against a brick wall. Instead I wrote a blog.