Beach Walk 686 – Does Experience Matter?

One of the big myths floating around is that a person’s position or title is comparable to their competence. Not always true! Like me, I am sure you can think of examples. Many choices in life really do boil down to personal preferences. “Who you know” really does matter, and that is not always a bad thing. This turned out to be relevant in a discussion I was having with several other women speakers. We are all going to be presenting at BlogWorldExpo next week, where there keynote speakers are all white male. It’s an old issue, but one that is not all that easy to address. It is a combination of micro and macro energies in play. We have ideals we want to play out in the macro yet change happens in the micro of person to person relationships.

The majority of the time decision-makers go with the known quantity. This is seen by some as pandering by others as smart business to fill seats. Attendees too say they want something new, but are attracted to the known and familiar too. BlogHer is a women’s blogging conference, and founder Elisa Camahort prides herself in pro-attractively seeking out new voices for each event. And BlogHer is growing and growing – proving that this too is a viable business model.

Are you more attracted to familiar big names or the chance to help discover new talent?

Hawaiian Word:
ʻike: experience, to see, know, feel

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Beach Walk 87 – Sorting Saves Energy But…

Sorting people into quick, superficial categories saves energy and it also leads to stereotyping and missed opportunities.

h3. About Today’s Show

My brain was full and I was feeling aware of how much information and stimulation exists in my (and your) environment, I found it really useful many years ago when I learned about the limbic brain and how it wants to categorize and store things for simplicity sake. It makes sense from a filing point of view, but it turns people into groups based on the most superficial of criteria, then the result is racism, sexism, nerdism, and so forth. (I mean that literally as in their surface attributes, not conceptually, whether they are deep thinkers or not.) Here’s a list of 234 isms relating to belief systems.

Consciousness takes energy to be sure. It is hard some days. We get to choose though with whom we want to use our energy to get to know more personally. And for me, it’s really useful to tell my old back brain that just because I met someone with whom I did or did not click, please do not take a scan of their physical characteristics and apply the intrinsic qualities I experienced to all similar types of people!

And so I end up with one of my favorite recurring themes: life is specific. The urge to generalize is compelling, but I prefer things like cognitive dissonance and meeting people who shake up my known world.

Hawaiian words
‘Ano: type, sort
Lolo: brain

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