Anne Giles Clelland

Did It Just Begin

I wonder if It weighs like Mine--
Or has an easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long--
Or did it just begin--
I could not tell the Date of Mine--
It feels so old a pain--

- Emily Dickinson, "I Measure Every Grief I Meet," cited in The New Yorker 2/1/10

"Sometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference to them."
- Lucy Grealy, Autobiography of a Face

When I was nine, my family met my fourth grade teacher and her husband at the grocery store. Her husband held out a hand to me, missing everything but a thumb.  I balked, afraid, but he insisted.  I remember the odd shape, the warm skin.

Making a connecting commuter flight in Charlotte in one of their sunny, glass terminals, I saw a face slick with burn, melted skin pulled red and mottled tight around his eyes, the hole of his mouth, bits of what had been his ears.  I felt shock, then such sorrow.  He sat alone, waiting for his flight, a young man by his energy and dress, not making eye contact, not speaking, not watching the children whose arms were jerked by their parents when they stopped to stare, not requiring that others shake hands with what had become of him.  To and from the restrooms and snack bar, I passed him several times.  On the last pass, I heard him sigh.

In business, scenarios are played out as worst case, best case, and realistic case. 

In therapy, it's The Worse Case Scenario and The Miracle Question.

In a version of The Worst Case Scenario, the client is asked of something he or she fears, “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” To the client’s answer, the therapist asks, “What’s the worst thing that could happen because of that?” With support and only as the client is able, the therapist questions each answer, taking the client down, down to the deepest fear.  Often the answer involves death with a twist of powerlessness and a dash of presence - no one, too many, the wrong one.  In the unknown dark, the fear lurks.  Brought to the light, it threatens less.

A troubled client is asked a version of The Miracle Question:  “If you went to sleep tonight and woke up in the morning and all was well, what would have happened?”  In describing the details, awareness of possibility emerges.

As I contemplate surgery next Monday, out-patient, almost-routine except for that side bit about the facial paralysis, The Worst Case Scenario for me isn’t death.  I have plans for my life and would be sorry to lose those and I would be deeply sorry for the sadness of my friends and family, but I won’t feel that because I’ll be gone.

The worse case scenario for me would be answering the question, "How brave will I need to be?"

The worst case scenario for me would be the sigh. 

Were I to regain consciousness from the surgery and a miracle had occurred, it wouldn't be what’s resulted from the surgery.  I’ve learned that what comes from wishing for outcomes, or for wishing things were different, is irremediable suffering.  “All is well” for me would be that, whatever has happened, I am handling it.

Scar

"...destroy all of my beautiful wickedness? I'm gone! I'm gone!"
- The Wicked Witch of the West, The Wizard of Oz, 1939 film

"When I was young  I longed for scars
like my father's   They were the best
scars on the block...
'It's the ones you can't see that kill you'..."
"Scars," Peter Meinke

LBJ taught me the wonder of scars.

I got a few in the 70s, which, following LBJ's lead, I shared in mutual fascination with the fellow scarred, my mother protesting because their location required me to unzip my jeans.  It was the 70s.

Looks like in the 10s I'll be getting a new one for all to see.

I asked Dr. Aaron Prussin, "If it were your wife?"

"It would come out," he answered.

I'll have a parotidectomy on February 15, 2010 for this.  Since the facial nerve runs through the parotid, or salivary gland, in addition to some other possibilities, the major risk of the
two-and-a-half hour surgery is that my face will sag like a Dali clock.

Here's a detailed text description of the surgery and here, on YouTube, is how Dr. Soh does it in Singapore. (Spoiler alert: The needles come out at 4:46 and the knife at 5:18, which is when I stopped watching.)

Feel free not to click on the links here:  I'm going to look like this at first except mine's on the right side.  Hopefully, I'll look as good as Andy does eventually.  You can sit on my left when we're out to dinner if I develop Frey's syndrome.  Apparently, I'll have a nice dent in my neck, too.  A dent in the neck is better than a hole in the head.

The bottom line for this CEO is that I'm probably just not going to be too good lookin'. Ah, well. 

For my cool speaking gig on April 7, I'll bring props.

The procedure will be done out-patient at Montgomery Regional Hospital (which is amazing because they cut OPEN a guy's head in the ghastly video - okay, I looked) and I'll call on Friday, 2/12 to find out when the surgery is scheduled for Monday.  Dr. Prussin suggested I schedule no meetings for a week afterward.  I think that's to protect everyone from the Dali face thing.

He says for sure, long-term, I won't be able to feel my right ear lobe.  Maybe that's the time to finally get my ears pierced.

If you're not into scars like LBJ, or not into the CEO of the company that provides you service or with whom you partner being out of commission for awhile, I can understand that. If you wanted me the way I was, that makes complete sense to me.  For the change to come, small or large, the concern it may cause you, and the time it may take away from you, I am profoundly sorry. 

Dr. Prussin thought I might want to restyle my hair towards my face, rather than away from it, to hide the scar.

It would just get blown back.  I'm face forward, going fast.

Value Me

“See what is without judgment.”
- Kristen Lenz

I want to be valued.  I want to be valued for who I am, what I know, and what I can do. 

I am a product of my values.  I have worked long and hard to acquire deep knowledge and to master precise skills.  So, not only do I want others to value me, I want them to value what I value.

The challenge is that what I want, I can’t have.  I will be valued by some of the people some of the time, but not by all of the people all of the time.

Using the metaphor of myself as a product in the marketplace, perhaps I am an amazing product and perhaps people “should” want me because their lives, even the world, would be better for it.  No matter how much I pitch them, beg them, one-up them, or strain to convince, persuade or argue them into valuing me as a product, if they don’t, they don’t.

I cannot make people value me.  I cannot make the market buy what I’m selling.

As I wrote in On Paying for Writing, to quote Jim Flowers, "The market is always right."  Rightly or wrongly, it thinks it is. 

As part of speaking at the Roanoke Regional Writers Conference, organized by Dan Smith, editor of Valley Business FRONT, I was on the concluding panel discussing How will writers make money in the future?  It focused primarily on the decline in compensation and careers for writers.

I attended a Sales and Marketing Forum panel discussion offered by the NewVA Corridor Technology Council, NCTC a few days later, led by leaders of PR, marketing and advertising firms specializing in traditional media. 

According to The New York Times, “Advertising…is contracting.”

Despite all the bad news about the media industry, it is expected to be the third-fastest-growing economic sector over the next five years, after mining and construction. Almost none of that growth is forecast to come from shrinking traditional media, however. Instead, it will be drawn from areas like word-of-mouth marketing and public relations (with a 9.2 percent compound annual growth rate from 2008 through 2013), branded entertainment (9.3 percent) and the Internet and mobile devices (10.2 percent).

One of the speakers at the sales and marketing forum cautioned the audience, composed mostly of executives from technology companies, about social media, terming it “shiny.”

In a matter of days, I witnessed discussions by two industries in current markets that are contracting and changing.

I felt sad at those two panel discussions.  I felt, in some ways, subject to directives, to attempts to "make" me value what the market no longer does, at least in the same way.  The subtext I heard - and I may be wrong but I think I recognize it because I long for it myself:  “Value me.  Value who I am and what I do.”

I do value writers and traditional media PR and advertising.  But the market won’t currently pay for "how" they're doing it.

I can see that would be daunting.  I don't think too many children say, “When I grow up, I want to be a freelancer!”  And I've given my heart and soul, more than once, to what was becoming a "shrinking" market. 

But my experience with discussion and debate is that they're usually about attempting to "make" people think, feel or do something and, as I’ve mentioned, as soon as I see what is, to the best of my ability, without judgment - the participants are welcome to carry on - I'm out.

About whether writers' words are shiny or social media PR and advertising are shiny, I’m out.

“For the times they are a-changin'."
- Bob Dylan 

I’ve got this cool new company with a radical new business model that synthesizes the best of writing and the best of PR with the best technology in the latest ways.  We're changing the "how."

We think it's of enormous value.

Welcome.  You're invited.

***

Photo: Dan Smith

On Paying for Writing

"The market is always right."
- Jim Flowers

I was honored to speak at the Roanoke Regional Writers Conference at Hollins University in Virginia, organized by Dan Smith, editor of the Valley Business FRONT.  I was part of the concluding panel discussion on How will writers make money in the future?

For the most part, that final discussion lamented the contracting length of pieces for which a market exists, and the contracting price-per-word the market will pay, falling from $3 per word to 10 cents per word, according to Keith Ferrell.

Whether it is startup of a fresh competitor, or a scientific breakthrough, or wild fluctuations in the price of crude oil, the message from the marketplace must be heeded.  Stubborn persistence in the face of overwhelming evidence that change is required is one of the most common business mistakes.  And it can easily be fatal...

Flaws can doom a business, and do serious damage to unsuspecting and innocent bystanders, such as employees, suppliers, clients, and (let's not forget) shareholders.

- Jim Flowers, The market is always right.

My mother was a PL/1 programmer.  “I could make PL/1 sing and dance,” she said.  About a computer language for mainframes and stand-alone computers, she added, “No one’s interested anymore.  Especially people who are paying.”

As the founder of a digital media company of which one enterprise has a Web 2.0 business model that synthesizes business news (writing) and public relations (PR, marketing, and advertising), I’m one of the “people who are paying.”  (More about that Web 2.0 business model here and here.)

While the creation of a foundation is in my business plan, I cannot subsidize the art of writing.  I need the writing to produce business results.  I need it to be "right" with the market.

The Ghost Speaks, a series on ghostblogging from Entrepreneur, quotes Brad Porteus, chief marketing officer for elance: "The difference between good and great writing can make a tremendous impact on someone's business."

Yes.  That's the basis of our business model.

But we seek writers who aren't ghostbloggers.  We want writers who want their own words in their own voices with their own names and bylines - who can heed the message of the marketplace.

Our Web 2.0 business model rewards writers - now content creators because we need links and images or videos to accompany words - with a byline, a bio, a link to their sites, and base pay and bonuses based on traffic.

That means that the more the market values the writer's writing, the more the writer gets paid.

Is the market morally right?  Nope.  But does it determine the product it wants and how much it will pay for it?  Yep.

How will writers make money in the future?  The market will decide.

***

Photo credit: Dan Smith

The Year of Revenue

"How would you like your hot dog?” the hot dog vendor asked the Buddhist monk.
The Buddhist monk replied, “Make me one with everything.”

- Remembered, possibly incorrectly, from The Accidental Tourist

As 2010 begins, and the eighteenth month of the founding of my company passes, this is The Year of Revenue.

I loved that start-up phase.  It was a perfect match for my idea-driven, acutely lived life.  Open to every thought and possibility, of my own and others, I experimented, I created, I launched, heart pounding only from the exertion of my own mind.

The trashing David Rose gave my angel investor video pitch - "...the video completely fails as an angel investor pitch!" - was uncomfortable, but not intolerable, because I didn’t know then what I know now.  He’s right.  It does fail.  Developmentally, though, when I made the video a year ago, “Why I love Handshake 2.0” is where I was as a company founder.  I, my idea, and my passion for my idea, were one.

The proof of the value of a business idea is not in how much it’s loved, but in how much revenue it generates.

While I couldn’t hear that, even bear it, during the start-up phase, I’m ready now.

At the end of 2009, my email inbox needed its own server, my desk shouted a confetti of ideas jotted on quarter sheets, and my business model - so predictably and tediously entrepreneurial - looked like a house painter’s pants - lots of color, no picture.

I’ve had the great idea.  It’s time to execute it.

In 2010, I aspire to Buddhist monkhood.  I am a) practicing consciousness, b) practicing discernment, specifically thus:  “Oh, I’m having an idea.  Is it one we know, based on our experience and business model, will generate revenue?” and c) choosing to what I give my attention, i.e. if the answer to the revenue question is "no," letting it go.

This takes discipline.  Instead of wrangling other entrepreneurs, I have to snap the reins on myself.

On an execution scale of 1 to 10, for the first 17 days of 2010, I give myself an 8.  My inbox is less full, my desk less cluttered.  I’ve had lots of ideas, and I’ve given the tempting ones a little more time than I would have liked, but the ones to which the revenue question answer is “yes,” I’ve given TLC.

I've never seen an About page that has "Wow!" in it, but mine now does.

And if David Rose is at the next VT KnowledgeWorks Entrepreneurship Summit, why, I've got the colors of my business model in a big picture One-Page Summary ready to apply to pitch.  If I'm selected, my pitch won't begin with, "What I love about Handshake 2.0..."

Did I love the heady, intoxicating, high-low start-up phase?  You bet.  For my head, heart and spirit, that’s a match.  Could I be a serial entrepreneur?  Possibly.  But a series begins with a success. 

Let The Year of Revenue begin.

Nudity is the New Transparency

Oh no I've said too much
I haven't said enough...
- Losing My Religion, R.E.M.

See me, feel me
Touch me, heal me.
- Go to the Mirror!, Tommy, The Who

"What you say on Twitter may be viewed all around the world instantly. You are what you Tweet!"
- Twitter Terms of Service

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
- Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, in The Huffington Post

"Corporate transparency is touted as being good for a corporation's image, and is a key ingredient in compliance and governance. Transparent companies inspire more trust...But is such corporate transparency really such a good thing?...Still, opacity (or intransparency) is an even bigger risk. Not showing what you're doing is simply not accepted anymore."
- Frank Buytendijk, Vice President and Fellow, Enterprise Performance Management, Oracle, on his blog

"...there's no use trying to resist. You're already naked."
- Clive Thompson, The See-Through CEO, Wired

"Six drops of essence of terror, five drops of sinister sauce...and now for the tincture of tenderness..."
- Professor Weirdo creating Milton the Monster

"You're only as sick as your secrets."
- Saying known in therapy and recovery circles, probably most famously uttered by Carrie Fisher

As a CEO, how transparent do I have to be? On my corporate bio page, next to the standard shot in the biz suit, will I need a tasteful nude pose like the Ladies of Rylstone?

While “transparency” as a business term became common after corporate financial and ethical violations, corporate leaders themselves have been asked to adopt personal transparency as they blog and tweet.

What is the purpose of personal CEO transparency?

In the business-to-business realm, if people do business with people, and people do business with people they know because they believe they can trust them more than with people they don’t know, and trust is perceived as decreasing risk, whereas not knowing people with whom they might deal is perceived as increasing risk, how much do people need to know about people to do business with them?

If people know not only a company’s mission, products, services, and financials, but its founder and leader - what he or she thinks, feels and does - are they more likely to do business with the company?

If the CEO presents himself or herself beyond “what you see is what you get” to transparency – being able to see through surface appearances – will that engender that "It's who you know" trust that increases the likelihood of business?

If the answer to "Will people do more business with my company if I am a transparent CEO?" is probably "Yes," then it might be time to find a discreet photographer.

If you’re familiar with triathlon togs - trisuits - then you know I’ve already pretty much been nude in public, especially when emerging from the swim, especially when I forgot to lock the porta-potty door in front of lines of hundreds of waiting triathletes.  I’m desensitized.  No big deal.

What I hear fellow CEOs struggle with is nudity of the heart, mind and spirit. I hear their concerns about the consequences of dismantling privacy fences, of secrets revealed, of that deepest fear - of not being accepted for who we truly are.

For me, I’ve had my dark nights of the soul.  I’ll have more.  I’ve had what Schmidt describes as “something that you don’t want anyone to know” and realized I didn’t want to know it, either.  Like the cartoon character Milton the Monster, though, I’m comprised of both the sinister and the tender. Like R.E.M., I’m torn that I’ve said too much and not enough at the same time.  And I’ve experienced, and witnessed, the risk and terrible cost of Buytendijk’s “intransparency,” of the sickness of secrets, almost unto death.

I think a secretive path, corporate or personal, is fraught with peril.

As a CEO, I have chosen a great deal of personal transparency.  Will it result in more business for my company?

Maybe not more.  But I bet my company, and companies with whom we can do good business, will recognize each other. I’m not a fan of attempting to control what others think and feel, of attempting to "make" people accept a "projection of a corporate image," regardless of the reality of the corporation.

From my company, what you see is what you get, and then some, down to the skin if need be.

Market Projection

I explained in more detail in this post why I think we’re all messed up:

Things that should have happened didn’t.
Things that shouldn’t have happened did.

I described in this post on projection - what’s within, seen without - how I have experienced and observed unconscious projection as a common manifestation of being messed up.

Some of the messed up, with their propensity for unconscious projection, become entrepreneurs, company founders, and company owners. 

I did that.  Yay.

My company is a member of VT KnowledgeWorks.  The program feature that I most treasure for its meaning, significance, and transformative impact - and therefore, its ability to make me tear my hair and gnash my teeth - is being mentored by its executive director, Jim Flowers. 

Even upon reading just the title of this post on Jim’s blog, So you want to launch a business..., I became apoplectic:  The market is always right.

Right?!  Right?!  The market is the arbiter of right and wrong?!  If the market buys what my company sells, I’m right?  If they don’t, I’m wrong?!

I was enraged. 

Beneath rage is always hurt.

Jim's post is dated almost a month ago and it’s taken me that long to realize the source of my anger and, therefore, my hurt.

What is within, I was seeing without.  I was projecting my own, inner messed-up-edness onto my 17-month old company.  I thought, “If the market buys what my company sells, I am right and good.  If it doesn’t, I am wrong and bad.”

I won’t go on and on, but I have always struggled with self-value, depending on people and forces outside of myself - and beyond my control - for a sense of value.  Hence, the anger, hurt, pain, and hopelessness generated by believing, one more time, I had to try to “make” someone or something - this time the market - value me and find me “right.”

Now that's a market projection.

While I stopped listening to The E-Myth Revisited when the author suggested touching customers, I credit him with helping me realize that I need to be very conscious that my company does not become a job for me, but a company based on a business model for which I and others work.  And if I’m not there?  The business model carries the company and it goes on without me.

I am not right or wrong, good or bad, if my company succeeds or fails.  The company that I happened to found will succeed or fail based on whether or not the market needs or desires what it creates.  As the current head of a company that I expect to generate such products and services in such demand by the market that I will be replaced by a new head some day, my job is to derive the business model that will make that happen.

In a recent email to me, my VT KnowledgeWorks mentor, Jim Flowers - who coaches entrepreneurs using what he calls the Four Fundamental Factors, well-explained by him in this video - suggested I consider identifying niche markets for my company's offerings within the broader Market.

The market again?!

My hair is not torn and my teeth are not gnashed.  I am not apoplectic.  I don’t need the market to value me.  I need it to value my company’s products and services.

Let me become conscious of my very, very highly developed personal power of projection and use it to my company's advantage.  What is within that I can see without?  What do I specifically want and need?  What might a specific niche within the broader market want and need?  Hmm…

Projections

Although Freud derived the concept of "projection," the contemporary use of the term is well-described in this Wikipedia entry.  The article notes it has “issues” and is in “need of an attention from an expert" (perhaps an apt description of articles and the human condition).

In any case, a simple definition I’ve derived over the years that seems to be of use for this hugely powerful ability of the human mind and spirit is this: 

Projection is what is within, seen without.

If I’m conscious that I am superimposing my own inner thoughts, feelings, beliefs and ideas onto a place, person, or thing outside of me, and not really seeing the place, person, or thing as it is, I can use projection as an opportunity for insight and informed choice.

If I’m not conscious that, to paraphrase a quote attributed to Anaïs Nin, I’m seeing things as I am, not as they really are, the feelings, thoughts and actions I have in reaction to people, places and things are based on a false perception of reality.  The basis of my choices will be faulty, or, at best, wobbly, because that basis is not grounded in reality.

Projection is normal and powerful.  If we go with the definition of projection as “what is within, seen without,” what is within can be both light and dark.  Lack of consciousness of projections, whether light or dark, can make them problematic.

In my own life, I do have within me unshakeable belief in the ability of people to transform their lives.  When I have worked with people with challenges, I naturally project my vision of the possibilities I see for them onto them and work with them from my projected perception of their reality. 

We want optimistic people working with those who have problems, and we certainly don’t want them to possess the world view, “Got problems? No chance for you, bub.”  After all, projection can prove inspiring.  Others may see in us traits we don’t, and that can lead us to cultivate them in ourselves. 

On the other hand, projecting a vision onto others that they don’t have for themselves can prove disheartening and demoralizing to the "projectee."  They don’t feel seen as themselves.  And they’re not. 

Unconscious of my hopeful projections, I have been fortunate to be considered inspiring.  I have also been humbled by the brave words, “You don’t see me as I really am.  You don’t value me as I am.”  I have over-extended my effort, straining myself, others, and my relationships, believing my projection was the truth, not seeing the reality that my skills were not a match for the other person’s needs.

If I am conscious of my hope-filled projection, I can see my projection, I can see the person, and I can choose, based on my best judgment - never the objective truth, always limited by my sharing of the human condition - what I believe will be best for all.

Lack of consciousness robs me of judgment.  Consciousness gives me a chance to choose.

"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."
- Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Chamber Of Secrets

Good Company

Things that should have happened didn’t.
Things that shouldn’t have happened did.

We’re all messed up on some level and, after decades in education, community work, mental health and business, that’s my summary as to why.

That means that the people I’m standing by in the grocery store line, my neighbors, my parents, my spouse, his parents, my colleagues, the people I follow on Twitter, and the people who follow me - all of us to a greater or lesser extent are messed up.

That means we enter relationships, citizenship, and the work place messed up.

Life and circumstance may deal us terrible blows, but since we’re already messed up, we’re already at a disadvantage to handle them.

Add joy and hope and awing resilience, and that's the human condition.

Some with the human condition enter the world of business.

When I'm at a conference table surrounded by those in business, I feel in good company.

About That Corporate Video

Witnessing my sister give birth to her daughter, standing alone by a gargoyle after climbing the circling tower stairs in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, turning the corner at the Accademia in Florence and seeing Michelangelo’s David in the light - these are peak moments of wonder and rapture in my life.

I cried each time, I think, because I felt profoundly moved by what I saw, and so separated from it.  I was a part of what I viewed only as an audience is part of a play. 

Being unable to give birth to a child as a young woman has affected me as a mature woman in ways I cannot know.  That ultimate moment of being human, of bringing forth something from nothing, from being a part of the creation of existence, I have not had and I do not know.

When I announced that my company would have a film made by a media production company, I termed it a “corporate video” with a “corporate message.” 

Looking back, even then I think I knew it was otherwise, or more, to me.

I asked a musician friend to create a song.  Into silence, with who he is and with his art, he brought forth music and words.  Into seeing, I asked the media production company’s founder to take the song and direct and create a film from who he is and with his art.  I didn’t supervise.  I let go.  

I had a part in the play.

When the film was ready, I hesitated to view it alone and wanted to wait for the public premiere to be shoulder-to-shoulder with colleagues and friends.  Looking back, I think I was afraid I would break open from its beauty.

Urged by almost all to see the film before a public viewing, including by the film’s director, I relented. 

I broke.  My husband held me. 

I adopted a little cat from a shelter in Tampa. Stroking her one day, I was filled with awe at her presence and, without thought, said, “You are perfect.”

At the public premiere, I cried.  My sister cried.

Look at the little video in the YouTube box.

It’s perfect.