heathervescent

Frying Pan Salad

The headlights barely make out twenty feet into the mist filled darkness on enchanted forest road.  We've spent all day getting here. On airplanes, in cars, across the great water on a ferry filled with cars. We end up at a remodeled fishing cabin, waves lapping upon the rock beach.

The night is pitch black. The moisture sucks the light. Unlike my clear desert nights, full of sharpened stars. The moisture permeates everything. Seafoam green moss drips from bare trees, vibrant green moss grows up tree trunks and across forest floors. 

I spend time in kitschy cabins. In one, a brass eagle, wings spread, escapes from a frame. In another a giant 3 feet diameter "frying pan" hangs near the wood burning stove. The kitchen is a challenge. At least 4 cooks prepare contributions for the group meal. Two of us rummage through the cabinets for a bowl big enough for an 18 person salad. None is to be found. 

Suddenly, the three foot diameter frying pan appears in the kitchen. It's been removed from the peg on the wall. We clean it as best we can and proceed to fill it with lettuces, tomatoes, peppers, avocados and other veggies. It takes up a good third of the Thanksgiving sized dining table.

Outside, the grass is moist and cool. Fresh and clean. My skin soaks in the water. My soul soaks in the expansion. I can't help but think about the future.  Watching the ripples in the water. Shades of grey in an overcast sky. Green-black mountain outlines.  A black  bobbing head. 

Something inside me has changed. I've got new focuses for 2011. Echoes and voices I've suppressed - put off. Things must shift and change. And they are.

A Box of Journals

I was moving things around in the storage unit last night. Box after box, I was reminded of who I was - who I am. Things I put in storage "just for a while" until I got settled down. Well.... 5 years later, in the short-term place I moved into ... the reminders of my identity are still in boxes.

One box was like slicing into the raw. It was my box of journals. I found three from 2003, 2004 and 2005.  Opening them, I was thrust into a very hard edged heather. Reading my own words, handwriting that no longer matches my own (I change it on a regular basis) I was shocked. Shocked and suprised by what I wrote. Who was this person I was reading? Who was this person I had become?

Back in 2003, I was so different. Cut. Edge. Ruthless. Completely and totally ruthless with my life. It was as if, I walked out the dojo (and I did metaphorically) and into the world. And in doing so, I was changed. And I changed (as in forged myself).

I need to study this past self. I still feel the echos and reverberations of her. And yet, I am still her. I remember speaking to her as I am today. And how she laughed, but also enjoyed the thrill and freedom. I don't remember her words to me. I think she had turned her back on me and walked out into the world, to see what she could become, knowing she's be here at some point.

The Secret Life

My sharing activities have shifted this year. I used to share lots of things everywhere. I've written thousands of blog posts on multiple blogs. I used to present (and attend) at lots of events. But this year, that changed.

My circle of trust and sharing, while expanding via social networks, is also narrowing. The things that are important to me, I do not share as much. Yesterday I was interviewing someone for my academic research on the Future of Transactions, something I have actively studied for 10 months. And until a few weeks ago, no body knew. That's so not heathervescent. Or is it.

You see, the identity that's here on the Internet, is not my full or complete identity. That's no surprise, I suppose. Whereas many people keep their personal identity private and their professional one public, I and just the contrarian. And while I do make remarks from time to time about my 5 hour engineering meetings, or stressing out over bug testing, or how I feel I've did some of my best product design this summer... I don't actively talk about that.

Nor have I necessarily talked about my Impossible Futures, a project I began last spring. Nor about my academic research that I plan to make public early next year.

It's a strange thing. And I should begin to remedy it, because the world will be better with these shared futures.

The Future of Transactions: A Study

In January, I began studying disruptive technologies in the Financial Sector. The most interesting areas I found were in Lending, Transactions and Alternate Currencies. After completing a high-level baseline forecast and several future concepts of those areas in May, I decided to explore the Future of Transactions in more detail this fall. 

Transaction is an area to watch with the changes in the global financial markets and mobile technology trends. My own participation in non-hard currency transactions like the gift, barter and swap economies along with tracking the stock markets, global financial meltdown, gold and commodity price fluctuation leads me to believe there is a possibility of transaction disruption.  Much like the slow but eventual creative/destruction blog publishing platforms had on traditional publishing.

Last week, I launched a public survey asking the question: How will we pay for things in the future? The response has been great with almost 200 participants. I plan to use the data to create multiple future scenarios and will share the data and these scenarios in a report in a few months. 

To everyone who has taken the survey: THANK YOU! You're really blown my mind. There were several technologies and ideas I specifically left _off_ the survey (didn't want to go too future out there, ;) ) that several folks wrote in. Thanks for validating the viability of those ideas. I hope you're as excited about the future as I am. Let's co-create it! Oh wait, we already are. ;)

Big thanks and shout out to everyone who forward the survey, via email, twitter, FB and word of mouth. Kudos to the following folks who RTed or forward the survey via Twitter. Check em out and follow them. 

• therefore (did you hear my silent thank you?)
• helenyung
• iftf (The Institute for the Future)
• openp2pdesign
• cole_tucker
• artbrock (Extra thanks!)
• metacurrency
• jerrymichalski
• umairh (Thanks!)
• CoCreatr
• AnalPoet
• suzieis
• poweressence
• gavinho
• mrosas (Hi Margaret!)
• nuance_intel
• Firqby
• smokeymtnholler
• ydn
• And to those of you who forwarded it via email. THANK YOU.

I will be expanding and extending my Impossible Futures and look forward to sharing them with you in a few months.

In the meantime, the survey will be open until November 15th.  Please feel free to continue to share it until then.

See you in our co-created Future!

H arches driving
Originally uploaded by heathervescent

British Rule Best Practices by P. Denlinger

My twitter friend, @pdenlinger / Paul Denlinger, made an interesting comment in his tweet stream reminiscing about the British Rule of Hong Kong. I like following Paul because he's got an interesting, macro economic Asia emphasized but global focus. Asia is one place of the world I have not directly experienced, and I have always dreamed of going to Hong Kong. 

I asked him to enlighten me to the British Rule Best Practices, and he responded with these 6 items.

 1. Using minorities to rule such Chinese in SE Asia, Indians as police in HK, Shanghai

2. Ruling with very light hand

3. Letting brown people kill yellow people and vice versa so that Brits could avoid blame;

4. Not fighting directly

5. Allying with local businesses, biz community; building local relationships

6. Playing role of bestowing democracy

And, relying on use of force only as a very last resort, and then only reluctantly

These are very strategic (and brilliant) moves. 

As we enter another age of expansion (OuterSpace and further development of EarthSpace) it will be interesting to see the attitudes and strategies utilized - and which ones give the most success given our zeitgeist. 

Thanks for the Hong Kong/British Rule Perspective, Paul!