Allegra Rivett Sloman's blog

Jelly babies – planes up for sale at YVR. Yes, that is a very large building.

This cat is one of the most stunning I have ever seen. She’s as soft as a plush toy and quite self possessed. When I followed the “how to take a picture of animals” instructions and got down on her level she decided to investigate, and I quite like the expression on her face. She lives in Courtenay with my aunt and uncle; I got her name but in the really persistent brain fog it didn’t stick. That’s Mary’s head I managed to truncate in the background.

Here’s the reading:

2 Wands, 10 Wands, 5 Swords, King of Swords, the Hanged Man, Queen of Swords, 4 Wands, the Chariot, 10 Pentacles, Ace of Wands.

Despite all the sharp edges and blunt instruments, this is a good reading. You are a successful person with many burdens, and not an immediate prospect of putting all those burdens down. The 5 of Swords is a plea to either quit banging your head against the wall(!) or to guard against false pride, which I don’t think obtains in this case, though you should heed the warning. Who else could he be but the King of Swords, who is (in this case) “justice” without compassion? What else could the series of events represent but a sacrifice, emblemized by the Hanged Man? And who could you be but the Queen of Swords, sorrowing but sure to love again? The way those three cards were in sequence reminded me of what I love about the Tarot, the slashing economy of the images.

Happily the next card is the 4 of Wands; you will find yourself in a celebratory and peaceful and successful place. I looked to see the Chariot in this layout, and was not disappointed. It is two fold – it is a literal and figurative card. It’s about the car (a matter of some concern) and it’s about the embattled situation you find yourself in (controlling your impulses).

Your hopes and fears are exemplified by the 9 of Pentacles – the only money card in the layout. She is the gracious lady of the manor, her impulses well under control, her wealth and comfort and refinement obvious. Finally the Ace of Wands, a card of immense creative power.

Expect a flowering of creativity after a period of retrenchment and grief. The signs are favourable. Do not look for romance now – there are other concerns closer to hand.

CLUETRAIN

You don’t have to believe any of this… but I am a signatory of the Cluetrain Manifesto, because I actually believe most of this.

Markets are conversations.

Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.

Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.

Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived.

People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice.

The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.

Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.

In both internetworked markets and among intranetworked employees, people are speaking to each other in a powerful new way.

These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.

As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally.

People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products.

There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.

What’s happening to markets is also happening among employees. A metaphysical construct called “The Company” is the only thing standing between the two.

Corporations do not speak in the same voice as these new networked conversations. To their intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman.

In just a few more years, the current homogenized “voice” of business–the sound of mission statements and brochures–will seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th century French court.

Already, companies that speak in the language of the pitch, the dog-and-pony show, are no longer speaking to anyone.

Companies that assume online markets are the same markets that used to watch their ads on television are kidding themselves.

Companies that don’t realize their markets are now networked person-to-person, getting smarter as a result and deeply joined in conversation are missing their best opportunity.

Companies can now communicate with their markets directly. If they blow it, it could be their last chance.

Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them.

Companies need to lighten up and take themselves less seriously. They need to get a sense of humor.

Getting a sense of humor does not mean putting some jokes on the corporate web site. Rather, it requires big values, a little humility, straight talk, and a genuine point of view.

Companies attempting to “position” themselves need to take a position. Optimally, it should relate to something their market actually cares about.

Bombastic boasts–”We are positioned to become the preeminent provider of XYZ”–do not constitute a position.

Companies need to come down from their Ivory Towers and talk to the people with whom they hope to create relationships.

Public Relations does not relate to the public. Companies are deeply afraid of their markets.

By speaking in language that is distant, uninviting, arrogant, they build walls to keep markets at bay.

Most marketing programs are based on the fear that the market might see what’s really going on inside the company.

Elvis said it best: “We can’t go on together with suspicious minds.”

Brand loyalty is the corporate version of going steady, but the breakup is inevitable–and coming fast. Because they are networked, smart markets are able to renegotiate relationships with blinding speed.

Networked markets can change suppliers overnight. Networked knowledge workers can change employers over lunch. Your own “downsizing initiatives” taught us to ask the question: “Loyalty? What’s that?”

Smart markets will find suppliers who speak their own language.

Learning to speak with a human voice is not a parlor trick. It can’t be “picked up” at some tony conference.

To speak with a human voice, companies must share the concerns of their communities.

But first, they must belong to a community.

Companies must ask themselves where their corporate cultures end.

If their cultures end before the community begins, they will have no market.

Human communities are based on discourse–on human speech about human concerns.

The community of discourse is the market.

Companies that do not belong to a community of discourse will die.

Companies make a religion of security, but this is largely a red herring. Most are protecting less against competitors than against their own market and workforce.

As with networked markets, people are also talking to each other directly inside the company–and not just about rules and regulations, boardroom directives, bottom lines.

Such conversations are taking place today on corporate intranets. But only when the conditions are right.

Companies typically install intranets top-down to distribute HR policies and other corporate information that workers are doing their best to ignore.

Intranets naturally tend to route around boredom. The best are built bottom-up by engaged individuals cooperating to construct something far more valuable: an intranetworked corporate conversation.

A healthy intranet organizes workers in many meanings of the word. Its effect is more radical than the agenda of any union.

While this scares companies witless, they also depend heavily on open intranets to generate and share critical knowledge. They need to resist the urge to “improve” or control these networked conversations.

When corporate intranets are not constrained by fear and legalistic rules, the type of conversation they encourage sounds remarkably like the conversation of the networked marketplace.

Org charts worked in an older economy where plans could be fully understood from atop steep management pyramids and detailed work orders could be handed down from on high.

Today, the org chart is hyperlinked, not hierarchical. Respect for hands-on knowledge wins over respect for abstract authority.

Command-and-control management styles both derive from and reinforce bureaucracy, power tripping and an overall culture of paranoia.

Paranoia kills conversation. That’s its point. But lack of open conversation kills companies.

There are two conversations going on. One inside the company. One with the market.

In most cases, neither conversation is going very well. Almost invariably, the cause of failure can be traced to obsolete notions of command and control.

As policy, these notions are poisonous. As tools, they are broken. Command and control are met with hostility by intranetworked knowledge workers and generate distrust in internetworked markets.

These two conversations want to talk to each other. They are speaking the same language. They recognize each other’s voices.

Smart companies will get out of the way and help the inevitable to happen sooner.

If willingness to get out of the way is taken as a measure of IQ, then very few companies have yet wised up.

However subliminally at the moment, millions of people now online perceive companies as little more than quaint legal fictions that are actively preventing these conversations from intersecting.

This is suicidal. Markets want to talk to companies.

Sadly, the part of the company a networked market wants to talk to is usually hidden behind a smokescreen of hucksterism, of language that rings false–and often is.

Markets do not want to talk to flacks and hucksters. They want to participate in the conversations going on behind the corporate firewall.

De-cloaking, getting personal: We are those markets. We want to talk to you.

We want access to your corporate information, to your plans and strategies, your best thinking, your genuine knowledge. We will not settle for the 4-color brochure, for web sites chock-a-block with eye candy but lacking any substance.

We’re also the workers who make your companies go. We want to talk to customers directly in our own voices, not in platitudes written into a script.

As markets, as workers, both of us are sick to death of getting our information by remote control. Why do we need faceless annual reports and third-hand market research studies to introduce us to each other?

As markets, as workers, we wonder why you’re not listening. You seem to be speaking a different language.

The inflated self-important jargon you sling around–in the press, at your conferences–what’s that got to do with us?

Maybe you’re impressing your investors. Maybe you’re impressing Wall Street. You’re not impressing us.

If you don’t impress us, your investors are going to take a bath. Don’t they understand this? If they did, they wouldn’t let you talk that way.

Your tired notions of “the market” make our eyes glaze over. We don’t recognize ourselves in your projections–perhaps because we know we’re already elsewhere.

We like this new marketplace much better. In fact, we are creating it.

You’re invited, but it’s our world. Take your shoes off at the door. If you want to barter with us, get down off that camel!

We are immune to advertising. Just forget it.

If you want us to talk to you, tell us something. Make it something interesting for a change.

We’ve got some ideas for you too: some new tools we need, some better service. Stuff we’d be willing to pay for. Got a minute?

You’re too busy “doing business” to answer our email? Oh gosh, sorry, gee, we’ll come back later. Maybe.

You want us to pay? We want you to pay attention.

We want you to drop your trip, come out of your neurotic self-involvement, join the party.

Don’t worry, you can still make money. That is, as long as it’s not the only thing on your mind.

Have you noticed that, in itself, money is kind of one-dimensional and boring? What else can we talk about?

Your product broke. Why? We’d like to ask the guy who made it. Your corporate strategy makes no sense. We’d like to have a chat with your CEO. What do you mean she’s not in?

We want you to take 50 million of us as seriously as you take one reporter from The Wall Street Journal.

We know some people from your company. They’re pretty cool online. Do you have any more like that you’re hiding? Can they come out and play?

When we have questions we turn to each other for answers. If you didn’t have such a tight rein on “your people” maybe they’d be among the people we’d turn to.

When we’re not busy being your “target market,” many of us are your people. We’d rather be talking to friends online than watching the clock. That would get your name around better than your entire million dollar web site. But you tell us speaking to the market is Marketing’s job.

We’d like it if you got what’s going on here. That’d be real nice. But it would be a big mistake to think we’re holding our breath.

We have better things to do than worry about whether you’ll change in time to get our business. Business is only a part of our lives. It seems to be all of yours. Think about it: who needs whom?

We have real power and we know it. If you don’t quite see the light, some other outfit will come along that’s more attentive, more interesting, more fun to play with.

Even at its worst, our newfound conversation is more interesting than most trade shows, more entertaining than any TV sitcom, and certainly more true-to-life than the corporate web sites we’ve been seeing.

Our allegiance is to ourselves–our friends, our new allies and acquaintances, even our sparring partners. Companies that have no part in this world, also have no future.

Companies are spending billions of dollars on Y2K. (Note, okay, this is old.) Why can’t they hear this market timebomb ticking? The stakes are even higher.

We’re both inside companies and outside them. The boundaries that separate our conversations look like the Berlin Wall today, but they’re really just an annoyance. We know they’re coming down. We’re going to work from both sides to take them down.

To traditional corporations, networked conversations may appear confused, may sound confusing. But we are organizing faster than they are. We have better tools, more new ideas, no rules to slow us down.

We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.

The road trip was exceptionally fine, with the exceptions hereafter noted; Granny, Mum, Auntie Mary, Aunt Diane, Jim, Jan, Carly, Jackie and Barry all came to the sermon and appeared to enjoy it; sloth and pride again took first and second for sins Unitarians consider their most besetting; and I will post a couple of pics.

Since a description of my digestive system’s aberrations during the trip up would be amusing but not uplifting, I will omit them; suffice to say those present were moved to be sympathetic, especially when I got a soaker coming back to the car from my impromptu commune with nature. Which reminds me, I still haven’t cleaned my shoes properly.

Paul claims I have previously had visual disturbances without headache with migraine – I certainly got them big time last night on the way back from the ferry but they were substantially cleared by the time I drove home. And yes, I shouldn’t have been driving while I was having visual disturbances, but Paul was too tired to drive.

Came home to find the lawns mowed, the kitchen immaculate, and the children asleep in their beds. Apart from screeching WHO ARE YOU and WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY BABIES, there was nothing to do but collapse.

Defining moment of my weekend: My mother falling on her knees in a Unitarian church, not in a sudden attack of religious feeling, but to inspect the altar hangings. Without question, the Comox Valley Unitarian Fellowship has the finest altar hangings it has ever been my privilege to see, and I am NOT posting a picture, first because hauling out a camera like a frikkin tourist is NOT on, and second because you’ll just have to go and see it. I suspect it’s one of those things that would be VERY hard to take a good picture of. Kids are now up and getting ready – I should clean my shoes and get out of here as well.

Foggy as the dickens this morning. Pics are possibly of the hyla, the ‘jelly babies’ or multicoloured aircraft outside the Air Canada Hangar at YVR, a detail of my rug, Jackie’s cats, and maybe musical evenings. It’ll be a hodgepodge.

Got up the highway okay; am now in Courtenay. My daysign, which I hope to post at some time soon, is a hyla, which we found in Jim and Jan’s yard. Talk to yall later.

Posting from my folks’ place; daysign three Stellar Jays, who are not designed to hang upside down, trying to get suet from the hanging suet cage. Hang, flap madly, right themselves, hang, flap madly, right themselves. Paul off to his class at Camosun College; he said he was a little anxious about it but I’m sure he’ll do fine. Off later to Comox to visit a small horde of relatives. Hoping to see Pagan and Eric – baby should have arrived or is about to – and will definitely see Jackie and Barry, Garry and Diane, Granny, Mary, and I guess I if I was sane I’d be phoning Jim and Jan and making sure they’re still expecting me, ha ha, otherwise I have to figure out where the hell I’ll be sleeping tonight. I will be delivering the sermon The Seven Deadly Sins Unitarian Style tomorrow at 4 pm at the Comox Valley Unitarian Fellowship, which meets in the United Church in Comox. I will, unfortunately, have to bail on the potluck supper and head straight down island for the ferry. Picture is of my mom, Mary and Barry when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Ashley and Matt slept over. Picture of Matt shown doesn’t quite correspond to his charm, wit and intelligence (and for once I’m NOT being sarcastic). There was another picture with him playing with an orange section which definitely reduced his IQ by about 300 points, but I’ll be nice and post the ‘good’ one. Off to Victoria tonight and Courtenay tomorrow. Daysign yesterday on the Skytrain between Lougheed and Lake City was a great blue heron, heading off to Burnaby Lake. Lots of mist, looked very European art film.

Today at work I say goodbye to Jim A, who in the brief span of his employment became one of my all time favourite coworkers, and Tony Z. who has left the company after fifteen years. They will be missed, although likely for different reasons.

Jim gets a bunch of time off and will now blitz the VIFF and sit in a dark room absorbing angst as fast as those little filmmakers can shoot it.

Tony’s gone off to work with a bunch of ex employees of my current locale; I really wish him all the best and hope his skills get put to better use.

Work just got fun and interesting again. But lonelier… my grandboss is moving downstairs. There’s nobody but me and Linds there now. If I’m lucky, or feel like hopping up and down in my seat, I can just barely see the top of Kevin’s head; although in the normal course of events I can hear Arzina and Harry squabbling like an old married couple. Really, it would be very hard to tell, from the outside, that they are in a reporting relationship; usually you don’t hear employees yelling What the Hell are You Doing? to their bosses. I remember Harry telling me one time how happy he was not to have anybody reporting to him, but that didn’t last.

Yes, employee relations can get lively. I remember the time I left my underwear at Mike’s place – he was then my boss – because I had neglected to entirely attire after having soaked in the hot tub (and yes, my husband and kids were present so it’s either much worse than you thought or much less interesting) – and he brought them in the next morning and put in on my desk with a flourish. The good old days. There used to be beer on Fridays at work, too, but that was before my time. And I remember when Gary signed off, his last email was a forward of the very first email he ever got, which was Jim E.’s deathless line, “Tony Z farts too much”.

Arden is sleeping a little better, but not much (see earlier picture). Rob looks a little redeyed, but he was certainly returning fire with a will at the product meeting yesterday. His son would have been proud.

Tried really hard to go to bed early and get enough sleep last night but it just didn’t happen. Tammy and Phil split up this past week and Tammy called me last night. Paul pulled an all nighter – basically he worked 24 hours trying to get this stupid aircraft entertainment system sorted out and everytime I woke up and he wasn’t there I had a hell of a time going back to sleep. I am a wuss, I cheerfully admit it.

Kids have a PRO-D day today, no school for 4 days. Ashley over for a sleepover tonight. Matt is supposed to come for a visit as well.

Keith didn’t set the bread early enough for me to get any, grr.

Not feeling quite so icky today. The closer the Good Soldier Svejk gets to the front, the nastier the book gets, and the more brazenly communist in tone. I thought yesterday that the translation bit mops, so I went on line and found out that it DOES bite mops, so I should have been warned when Parrott (the translator) whined about how it was ‘impossible’ to translate the colloquial Czech.

Somebody else has done a more recent translation and it’s only available on line. I’m very tempted to get it, but only the first book is available, and it’s ten bucks US. I’ll have to think about it.

Paul did NOT have to go to Calgary, and Katie’s friend Ashley had dinner with us last night. Katie didn’t – she was working out with Lexi. My life is too freaking complicated.

Ashley asked Paul how much John was paying for rent (this was while we were driving her home) and Paul said, in a tone of voice I wish I could reproduce, but let’s just say bemused and frustrated, “None of your f*cking business!” and I laughed so hard I hurt myself. Sometimes you just have to tell it like it is. I assured Ashley, through my gales of laughter, that we still liked her, but there are some questions you’re just not supposed to ask. Ashley has very severe ADHD, and although she is a sunny natured creature, she has the impulse control of a housefly.

It’s okay, I’d say it to her face, too.

Had the pleasure of meeting Katie’s new boyfriend Matt yesterday. If he can be civil to both of my children, he will always be welcome in my house.

MOTHER OF GOD! You should see what Katie’s wearing for picture day at school. Maybe you shouldn’t. It’s pretty, um, well, uh. Okay, let’s just say that most of the boys at the school will greet her appearance with attention and enthusiasm. There, how’s that for a nice way of putting it?

Last night I dreamed a Russian couple tried to kidnap me to be their sex slave. We had been sitting in a restaurant, out on the patio, eating dinner, and all of a sudden they do this stick their hands in their pockets and pretend they have guns thing. I started laughing and said, “Oh, right, you’re going to shoot me in public. Get lost, I’m not going anywhere.” As I was waking up I realized they had stuck me with the cheque. Damn! So the gypsy put a curse on me, but only half of it stuck. I am now remembering dreams at about ten times the frequency of six months ago, but interpretation of the damned things is completely beyond me. The curse was, you will remember your dreams and you will be able to interpret them, but like I said, only half of it took. If somebody can help me with the second half of the curse, I’d be obliged. On the other hand, do I really WANT to be able to interpret dreams like that? Who are you, and what have you done with my brain????

I am feeling entirely blah, joints achy, fighting off some form of ick. Katie is still headachy but not light sensitive so I am hoping it isn’t a migraine. All I want to do is curl up and drowse, maybe with Svejk to hand, and I have to go to work today.

Paul off to Calgary to fix a recalcitrant airplane. Not an airworthiness item – more light pipe problems. The thing about fibreoptic stuff is that it has many more ways to go weird than plain electrics. And a single box has 18 connectors and if you get one wrong the whole thing is squirrelly. And instead of troubleshooting the techs who aren’t really familiar with the system replace boxes, which frequently doesn’t fix the problem and adds a whole new level of complexity to it. And also people don’t report error messages, on the time honoured military principle that if you don’t report it you don’t have to do anything about it. So wish him luck, the airplane is only going to be on the ground for four hours. We all know Paul is a genius, but four hours to get a fix in for an ongoing glitch in an entertainment system with four separate operating systems all interfacing madly, AND it could be a power issue, AND it could be just cabling, is a bit much. Just a wee tad. Mind you if he pulls it off he’ll be very pleased.

Keith was sparring last night, and he nearly got off unscathed but he fell down when somebody trapped his foot.

Katie and I and Paul and Ashley went to the Canada Games Pool last night and all I did was soak, I was so freaking exhausted. Ashley kept exploding out of her bikini top in the most entertaining way. I’m so tired I can barely lift my arms to type. SIgh.

I didn’t REALLY get enough sleep.

Great time singing and playing at Tom and Peggy’s last night. Mike J, Nicki and Denise in attendance, as well as the usual gang of idiots (myself, Paul and John). They fed us exquisite cherry broiled salmon. And then bickered about how it was overcooked. Some people!!! Paul and I thought it was perfect… maybe they got the wrong end or sumthin.

Picked Katie up at Jessica D’s afterwards and she was complaining of a headache so I fluttered around her and fed her various nostrums until she went to bed. Then I forced Paul out of bed to ask her if she was feeling well enough to sleep now. Paul is really hesitant to talk to Katie because she can be pretty crabby towards him, but I said that if he doesn’t occasionally act like a caregiver rather than an authority figure he’s missing some points when he’s counting his crib.

The sunshine yesterday was glorious and I’m so happy I was out in it. Homemade chicken soup for lunch today, and it’s yummy. Put some dirt in the hole in the front yard and planted some digitalis and camas and dill and something else, I can’t remember. Very random, just like me.

I light a candle for Darfur.

I light a candle for all victims of cross border kidnap for the purposes of prostitution, and all the child victims of prostitution.

I light a candle for my sermon next weekend in Courtenay….hope it goes well. But my MOM and my GRANNY and my AUNTIE will be there, so it will be swell. And I get to drive up the island highway…. road trip road trip road trip!!! My mother is ECSTATIC that I’m driving. Frankly so am I, I love that stretch of road.

 

(note from the perspective of 2019 – I did not mention that I had an IBS attack and everybody else had to wait in the car while I had an attack of brown sad just off the Island Highway)