May 12, 2008

hugh & the rabbi, episode 4

2 Comments

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Rabbi Pinny, John­nie, Euan Sem­ple and myself recor­ded a new pod­cast a cou­ple of weeks ago. John­nie wrote the show notes and ori­gi­nally pos­ted them over on his blog. It was a lot of fun.
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Pod­cast RSS feed for Hugh and the Rabbi pod­casts

SHOW NOTES:

0.00 Intros, Hugh for­gets who “the Scot­tish guy is” and isn’t sure what Euan does but sett­les for rock star.
1.00 Hugh sets up the idea of love, reca­lling a talk about this by Euan at Reboot.
1.45 Euan talks about the L word, and people’s reac­tions to it. It’s about people’s basic desire to con­nect to each other, caring about things, get­ting pas­sio­nate about things. So much of the busi­ness world sani­ti­ses pas­sion out of things.
3.15 Pinny won­ders about how com­pa­nies show love. Refe­ren­ces Love­marks. In rela­tionships, if you don’t go to the nth degree, everything else doesn’t count. Talks about how mis­ta­kes by Face­book and Apple get poun­ced on by the blo­gosphere.
4.40 Love­marks pro­ves a red rag to Johnnie’s bull. Love means dif­fe­rent things to dif­fe­rent peo­ple. John­nie wary of the fana­ti­cal idea of love, the pur­suit of per­fec­tion. It’s more about being human, falli­ble.
5.50 Euan chi­mes in against fixa­tion on the roman­tic idea of love. Ins­tead favours “the pas­sion that grows out of day-to-day stuff”.
6.45 Hugh asks Euan about his World Ser­vice expe­rience at the BBC.
7.30 Euan: Roughly 47 dif­fe­rent lan­guage ser­vi­ces in the same buil­ding. Lots of cha­rac­ters, dif­fe­rent cul­tu­res. “If you were clim­bing lad­ders, they were all against dif­fe­rent walls.” — so less ego and tri­ba­lism than in the rest of the BBC. You had to get on quickly with peo­ple, the abi­lity to engage and con­nect, and move ideas round the buil­ding was a for­ma­tive expe­rience.
9.00 Pro­duct of World Ser­vice is ideas but also the kind of inti­macy you can create on radio.
9.50 Hugh talks about the pur­pose idea — what are we here for, why are we doing this. Trying to get a sense of pur­pose going.
10.30 Euan: pur­pose is good, so is obli­que­ness. Says what he likes about pod­casts is that they are not like broad­casts. Mean­de­ring semi-conversations that get under skin in a dif­fe­rent way than stuff pro­jec­ted at you in broad­casts. Con­ven­tio­nal radio out­put sounds inc­rea­singly patro­ni­sing.
12.20 Euan on how he pays each month to sup­port Leo Laporte’s pod­casts, more than half he pays in the BBC licence fee. “That’s me doing that to an indi­vi­dual because I really don’t want him to stop pod­cas­ting.” Peo­ple will pay for stuff that’s pas­sio­nate and acces­si­ble.
13.00 Hugh con­trasts Euan’s story with a UK show, News­night Review and its affi­lia­tion with the Not­ting Hill cul­tu­ral elite. New media is a threat, not so much to cash as to old media pri­vi­lege.
14.30 Euan recalls David Wein­ber­ger saying con­ver­sa­tions can only take place bet­ween equals.
15.00 Hugh on fan­boys.
15.20 Hugh asks Pinny a ques­tion “as the only guy here with a real job”: does this pod­cast affect your busi­ness.
16.10 Pinny: it’s not affec­ting the busi­ness… what it affec­ted is how peo­ple view him. Dis­cus­ses impact on his emplo­yees with Hugh.
18.45 Hugh on pod­casts as dis­rup­tors. Euan says dis­rup­tion is a word with all sorts of bag­gage but we get invol­ved in this stuff because it makes a dif­fe­rence. How can gover­nance cope with these chan­ges? It’s going to change power dyna­mics and who is suc­cess­ful and why.
21.10 Pinny returns to the theme of love, ins­pi­red by his nephew’s wed­ding where a Rabbi tal­ked about what hap­pens when you aren’t in love with love, but with the other. Com­pa­nies need to own up to mis­ta­kes.
23.00 Hugh: gosh, act like a human being, not a robot. John­nie: inti­macy an impor­tant word in Euan’s story. There’s something about “ordi­nary small­ness”, the abi­lity to have a real con­ver­sa­tion; how mee­tings that strive to be effec­tive often fail. The need to feel each other as human beings.
24.30 Hugh on how small town, West Texas expe­rience has affec­ted him. How it’s safe to have a guy wal­king round with a ten inch knife, because ever­yone knows who he is and what the knife is for. Euan remi­nis­ces about Glas­gow and Pinny, Israel.
27.20 Euan: the dan­ger of homo­ge­ni­sa­tion of suc­cess. Quote Doc Searls about things being valua­ble without being impor­tant.
28.00 John­nie on spen­ding Sun­day mor­ning with the papers and someone else, where you don’t talk but there’s a fee­ling of com­pa­nionship. You can’t put that on a spreadsheet.
29.15 John­nie on a twitter-related expe­rience of fin­ding work in a very acci­den­tal way. If fell out of a con­ver­sa­tion where he wasn’t trying to make something hap­pen.
30.30 Pinny: the unplan­ned as the eureka moments of our lives. Get­ting beyond ego.
32.10 Pinny on the online course Oprah is doing with Eckhart Tolle. This is why the web was crea­ted: to spread good­will.
33.00 Hugh: a lot of peo­ple are trying to use the web to do busi­ness the way it’s usually been done, which mis­ses the point.
34.00 Euan won­ders about how these chan­ges con­nect to our spi­ri­tua­lity. Hugh recalls a Catho­lic priest who influen­ced him. God as a metaphor rather than a bear­ded sky fairy.
35.40 Pinny the web is teaching reli­gion to say it’s about human beings, not about God. It’s teaching com­pa­nies it’s about what the cus­to­mer wants to pull, not what the com­pany wants to push. Strip away the disease of entit­le­ment and learn humi­lity. Con­nects to the rise of Barack Obama.
37.20 John­nie on the dif­fe­rence bet­ween Clin­ton and Obama. Clinton’s posi­tio­ning as the lea­der, Obama’s empha­sis on us.
38.20 Euan: autho­rity used to mean autho­rity as con­fe­rred; now it means having a com­pe­lling argu­ment or idea.
39.00 John­nie on autho­rity as being the authors of our own expe­rience. You don’t take autho­rity from the BBC any more, you par­ti­ci­pate.
40.00 Hugh wraps by asking what advice we’d give cor­po­rate man in light of all this. Euan: be brave. Pinny: don’t be stu­pid (“Be brave but have a day job”) Empty your mid once a day for oppor­tu­nity to hap­pen. Hugh: be com­pas­sio­nate to those above you. John­nie: you already know what to do.
44.35 Ends

2 Responses to “hugh & the rabbi, episode 4”

  1. crawford says:
    May 12, 2008 at 10:55 am

    Two keys on the same chain:
    Inti­macy vs love
    Attrac­tion vs pro­mo­tion
    Thx

  2. Madrugada Jones says:
    May 12, 2008 at 11:57 am

    I like Euan’s reco­llec­tion about David Weinberger’s quote. Con­ver­sa­tions are tricky things to start. I’ve been trying to get one going with my car­too­ning blog, but the dif­fe­rence bet­ween star­ting a convo on a con­ven­tio­nal talky blog and get­ting one star­ted on a blog that employs mainly pic­tu­res is, I’m coming to rea­lize, that it’s hard to get a dia­lo­gue star­ted with just pic­tu­res. But to me, car­toons that are drawn with sub­ter­fuge in mind should be able to jump-start debate. Maybe mine just aren’t subtle or biting enough. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
    http://spinachflame.wordpress.com/