Passion

Lyn Hilt's ideas on passion and more specifically, the quote she included from Seth Godin, struck me the most when reading through the different posts on the awesome Project PLN10 Openzine. PLN10Zine The key word that hit home was focusing on what is . . . important.    


Passion is a desire, insistence, and willingness to give a gift. The artist is relentless. She says, "I will not feel complete until I give a gift." This is more than refusing to to do lousy work. It's an insistence on doing important work. (Godin, 2010).


I think that most of education's supposed woes could be solved fairly easily by just focusing on what's important.  When we get to spend at least half our time doing what we feel is important, it makes life easier, more fun, and really more productive. 


Here's an example.  The students watched some TED Talks last Friday.  One by Daniel Pink talked about the "Surprising Science of Motivation."   Watch it at http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html


Lia H., one of my students shared these comments on our class blog.  Check it out at http://wms.podcasts.westside66.org/users/skroenke/blog/
"I thought that Daniel Pink's new (or old, apparently) take on the way businesses should be run was very innovative. One example I can think of that may give further proof to this theory is our Choice Project in English. It was a lot more fun to be able to write about whatever you wanted and present it in your own way. We probably would've been willing to do it even if we'd get a B without doing the work; we could do something WE cared about. That's a good argument for 20% time and the fact that incentives aren't as much needed as opportunities to be creative."


So, basically, Daniel Pink, Lia (a bright young mind, and I all agree that life is about finding our passion and having time to do the "important work."  That's what it is to be passionate.




Zappos.com and Tony Hseih's book Delivering Happiness happen to be two of my favorite examples of where doing what people are passionate about creates good business sense as well as all around good living and happiness. 

  

ROI

       ROI- No, I'm not talking about a man with a name that rhymes with boy or getting mixed up with the Koi, the name of the fish we can see desperately trying to gobble fish pellets we buy with quarters at the turn crank machines at the zoo, I'm talking about one little business term I know.  Yep, just one term.  I often like to think about what I might be like working in a career in the business sector, but usually just for a little bit.
       Regardless of whether people work in business or education, ROI or Return on Investment is something it seems most people pay at least a little attention to especially in terms of input to output or time management.  Return on investment is a topic related to social networking too, but maybe not in ways people might think of first.
        In John Hagel III and John Seely Brown's article, "Five Tips for Smarter Social Networking," they recommend expressing authentic vulnerability, mixing professional and personal, provoking, promoting, and actively seeding, feeding, and weeding."  Especially in promoting, seeding, feeding, and weeding, it seems the old maxim, "you get out what you put in" is true.  However, I liked and agree with the two Johns' idea that it's important not to promote myself but to promote others.  When people take the time to create genuine relationships and share, they will benefit greatly.  Just last night at the Bookworm, I saw the International Intrigue Book Club holding a discussion with the author of their latest book.  What's interesting is the group didn't contact the author; the author contacted them.  He received a Google Alert that they were discussing his book and offered to chat with them.  In the article, "Principal's Perspective" by John Hudson, a similar situation happened.  William M. Ferriter on Twitter noticed John's biography said he was interested in his book.  Ferriter wrote to john and offered to collaborate as well as posted on John's Blog when he wrote about it.  Ferriter as well as the author at the Bookworm both understand the value of hearing others' ideas.  
         This week I hope to take the advice and examples given in this article and work to promote others without worrying about my Return on Investment, but knowing that building relationships, promoting and provoking others, and "feeding" will create positive results. 




What do you think? Is this advice sound? Do you have examples of where and how it has worked? What other practices would you add?