Organizational Democracy

Saturday was a wonderful day.  J– and I biked to Coney Island for the Siren Music Festival.  We locked up the bikes and walked on the beach.  The sand was extra-white and burning hot.  I thought J– had superhuman feet until I saw she was wearing sandals.

The water was super-clear and beautiful.  I waded in with my jeans rolled up.  The water was really cold.  So there was only one thing to do.  I took off my pants and shirt and, holding my boxers together, jumped in the water and swam out.

There was so much salt in the water that it was really easy to float.  I laid back and looked at the sky.  It was so easy to float that I sat up and stayed floating.  It was so easy to float, if you picture how you are right now, and if you’re not sinking, wherever you are, it’s probably because of the salty water at Coney Island.

We met D– at the music festival.  Anthony Perkins’ kid was playing in a band.  Elvis Perkins in Dearland had a drummer who switched from playing a heavy beat on a big drumset to jumping around on stage scraping a tiny rasp, and then waddling around pounding a big drum.  It was awesome.  They even did a cover song.  Written by a guy in 1863.

Then I leapt on the subway to go play Capture the Flag.  The last time I’d played Capture the Flag was in fifth grade on a soccer field.  Both teams have flags , and you try to capture the other team’s flag.  You can hide it and run with it, pass it to other players, but if you’re tagged, the other team can take you to jail for ten minutes.

When I showed up on the soccer field, I thought that’s where we’d play.  But soon I learned this was a Big Game.  Our goals were maybe 20 blocks apart.  Bikes were allowed.  I was defense in the first game, and when a guy was charging straight at me on his bike, I opened my arms and gave him a big bear hug.  He got mad (and tagged out), and later accused me of devious tackling maneuvers.  But it was great.

In the second game, five of us rode a bus to the other team’s flag.  In the third game, Z– convinced some random guy to give us a ride for a surprise attack to grab the flag.  We won 2 to 1.

It was interesting, because the playing area was so big, we used cellphones to radio in reports and to announce when the game was over.  When the game was over, only a few people knew for sure who’d won until we all regrouped in the center of the soccer field.  I thought of All Quiet on the Western Front where the soldiers don’t know when the war is won until after.  I’m not used to playing games where the winning is so definite yet so distant.

We’ll probably play again soon and I can’t wait.

All in all, a perfect outdoors day.

On the questions website, I made a simple change.  It really reassures people tremendously.

After answering the questions, I added one extra question.  It asks what you’ve learned or discovered through these questions and your answers.  And it shows all your questions and answers.

This recap is essential to any kind of deeply satisfying experience.  Whether you’re reading a book, shopping for a shirt, or walking through the park, at some point near the end you will want to evaluate what’s just happened.  Imagine a day where you did a lot of things, you got comfortably into bed, and suddenly you blacked out.  If you hadn’t gone through the events of your day, putting them in order and deciding what they meant to you, you would be dissatisfied and bothered.

When your experience consists of answering questions, it’s natural to recap what you’ve just done by answering a question.  That was the main missing step, and now that it’s in, people are a lot more comfortable with the website.

On another note, I’m really proud of how many computer languages I’ve learned, and what I can do without even thinking about it.  For ya’ll developers out there, here are the languages and my skill level.  I started with only intermediate knowledge of HTML.  I learned:  JavaScript - intermediate.  PHP - intermediate.  SQL - beginner.  DHTML - beginner.  AJAX - beginner.  CSS - intermediate. 

I’m reading Walter Kerr’s wonderful book, Tragedy and Comedy.

He writes, “Tragedy seems to me to be an investigation of the possibilities of human freedom. Whatever is free about man is examined, given work to do, invited to assert itself and to assert itself utterly, ‘I shall follow this thing to the end.’….The end is not known. The limits of human freedom are not known.”

When I observe people answering the questions, I’m struck by three drastically different types of reactions. The first kind of reaction is from the person who answers the questions with a view towards what might be possible. When asked, ‘What would you like to get from saving $2K that’ll make you go wow?’ she responds, ‘To go back to school.’ When asked, ‘What would you like from working?’ she answers, ‘respect, money and personal time.’ This is the heroic approach. Respondents feel inspired, and often act to make their possibilities real. Nothing is more deeply satisfying to me.

The second kind of reaction is from a person who answers questions feeling stuck. When asked, ‘What would you like to get from saving $2K that’ll make you go wow,’ she responds, ‘More money.’ When asked, ‘What would you like from working?’ she answers, ‘A good job.’ Very soon, she breaks down laughing and also, if the laughter is intensely frustrated enough, grimacing and sobbing. The need for possibility is present, but shackled and restrained. Comedy, as Walter Kerr clearly shows, comes from feeling limited.

The third kind of reaction is what Peter Brook in his book The Empty Space calls ‘deadly.’ When something “not only fails to elevate or instruct, it hardly even entertains….securely, so comfortably and so slyly….they are supposed to be the best….yet secretly, we find it excruciatingly boring…..” that is deadly. Vague answers, clever answers, and over-analysis result in deadly answers, useless. Often when people answer questions with their friends watching over their shoulders, they answer to entertain. As someone once said about improv theater, if an audience member suggests a theme for a scene which instantly gets a big laugh, such as, when asked for a location, ‘bathroom,’ it is probably going to make for a boring scene. The same is true for these answers. If an answer immediately entertains, it’ll probably make boring questions.

Photo is (c)iStockphoto.com/Andreas Kaspar

The top of a webpage is hugely important. The first few seconds of looking at a page are usually when you make a decision about whether you’ll stay on the page or click away. The top of the page is usually what you see in those first decision-making seconds.

It’s also hugely important to choose your messaging and image. Mesh what you’re passionate about with what other people will appreciate. In an interview Michael Weitz and I did with Howard Bloom in March of last year on superstars he worked with such as Prince and John Cougar Mellencamp, Howard uses the metaphor:

“You know a clutch in an old engine? Yeah, okay, so you know – that one plate spins, and the other one is disengaged, but when the two engage, the clutch moves things. Well, this part is the public. And this part is your soul. And you have to find the place where your soul can interface with the public to make the whole thing spin. To make the transmission go. To take you through the rest of your life.”

In choosing the image at the top of the Questions pages, I want a picture or pictures to convey what people are going through and feeling when they are thinking over and over about an upcoming situation or something that’s going to happen. That’s the “before.” And then I want pictures to show the “after” — jumping for joy, celebrating, smiling, ideally an activity you can feel in your body when you look at it.

These images need to be universal. The person needs to be so involved in their emotions and their situation that they are not looking self-consciously and everyone can relate with them. I’ve only found two photos of this yet though, and it’s taking awhile to hear from the copyright holders.

So I thought a “Store Opening” equivalent image would be okay. I found a photo of party streamers, and up close they made a nice banner. But it’s not totally clear what the close-up is. Yes, it looks possibly like DNA, with streamers entwined in a helix. I thought that before I posted the image, and then I thought it looks good anyway. It’s colorful.

But some people today said, “It looks like DNA.” They obviously didn’t like how DNA looks at the top of a website! And I’m assuming that many, many people don’t like how DNA looks at the top of a website. But also, the party streamers do give the page a nice colorful feel if you don’t get all negative about DNA.

So, having known the image wasn’t perfect, I am now looking for another one, but leaving it up until something better comes along. If you have a photo of yourself, or yourself and friends, or yourself and family, or yourself and your significant other, or a photo of other people who will look great at the top of www.questionswebsite.com , then please email it to me or send me the link to it online, through the questions Contact page.

So the thing with making a website is, I’m trying to recreate my voice.  And when I ask people questions, we connect and there’s huge trust.  I’m very reassuring.  :)  (OMG I just saw the smile this makes online and that is the opposite of reassuring.)  And so recreating reassurance on a website is gonna take a few tries.

Anyway, the website ingredients for ya’ll technical folks is, it’s built in PHP, with a little bit of AJAX.  It’s awfully satisfying to have learned several programming languages in a couple of weeks.  Form really does affect content, and content affects form.  The PHP setup changed what I say, and how I say it.  It’s been fascinating to play with the buttons and forms, and get better integration of how people can click with what they’ll read.

I added a contact form for emails and newsletter signups last night.  Today I added a tour from Demofuse.com .  The version of the website that went up on July 7 turned heads (literally, in the coffeeshop), and the Demofuse tour melts hearts.  Maybe that’s coupled with my in-person reassurance.  So now it’s time to try it out online.  Try it out!  And send your advice.  I’ve gotten many suggestions so far and many of them are being added.

It’s tough knowing there are so many ways to improve a website, and also wanting to get it out the door, into people’s hands.  I want it to be a success as a business.  So that means making enough money from it for it to sustain itself and grow.  I’m using ChipIn.com for donations. 

I do best in life when people get the word out about me.  That’s how this is going to take off.  It’s gotta be something you’ll tell your friends about.