*Follow the Velcro. Find Jon Ray.
Here’s a theory I’m working on that is a little jumbled. See if you can help me flush it out.
Being Transparent to Grow In Strength
As many of you know, I am a big believer in creating transparency within organizations. There is just something about a company making itself vulnerable that ultimately allows it to grow even stronger. Transparency for me means being honest and accepting both the good and the bad out in the public for everyone to see. It means admitting to mistakes and then learning from them. The only way to truly grow in strength and numbers is to embrace the community around you and become an open book for them to read. It’s been said that the best way to run a company is to hire people smarter and more talented than you. I know that theory all too well, and thank the stars above for the amazing team I have working with me.
Allowing the Community to Help
This same theory can be taken further, though. While your company, no doubt, should be filled with as many talented people as you can convince to stay, this effort does not have to remain in house. When a company is truly transparent, it’s strengths and flaws are known to everyone, employees and customers alike. A transparent company is very similar to an open source software program. All of the inner workings and elements that make the company run are available for everyone to see. Many companies would see this as a bad thing, but in many ways it could, potentially, provide you great value. What happens when the public starts pointing out your strengths and flaws, but since you’ve made that information readily available to them, they help you strengthen those areas in which you are weak. By being open, there is less opportunity for outsiders to point a finger and more opportunity for them to lend a helping hand. Of course, there are many variables that go into this equation, but in theory, your company would prosper by utilizing the outside community to fix or strengthen itself. The key is asking for their support.
The Collaborative Customer
When you become transparent, you make it easier for your customers to offer their help and support. Of course, you are now more vulnerable, but this creates a connectedness with your consumer and helps build relationships that may never have formed had you remained faceless and guarded. As you embrace customer input and ideas, you will find that by allowing the customer to have a say and be a little creative, you have strengthened the bond that customers has with your brand. The more collaborative each customer is allowed to be, the longer they will remain a customer and the more forgiving they will be should you mess up from time to time.
Where Is This Theory Going?
What I’m getting at is that the best way to grow as a person or company is to utilize the resources around us and embrace the community we find ourselves interacting with on a regular basis. By becoming vulnerable, we are no longer hiding our dark secrets, but rather airing them for the world to see and hear. It is only at this point, I believe, that we can truly start working towards bettering our lives, companies, countries, etc. Once all of the skeletons are out of the closet, we can begin to rebuild and having learned from our mistakes, the new product, our new life, our new company will be better than we ever could have imagined.
How I Plan On Testing This Theory
Of course, I’m a dreamer and while it sounds nice, we all know that things can often times go terribly wrong once we start airing our business to the world. In one hour, I am going to start live broadcasting my life to the internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This is being called “lifecasting” and as a lifecaster, I hope to put this “Open Source Theory” to the test. I’ll be airing all of my dirty laundry in an attempt to query the community on the best way to rebuild from scratch and make my life, body and soul stronger. I am far from perfect and I’ll be the first to admit that. But, I think we all have our bad habits, some more than others. I’m certain I fall into the former of those.
How You Can Help With This Experiment
Here’s how I’d like you to help me as I lifecast to the world. First, if this experiment interests you, please head over to my lifecasting blog at FollowTheVelcro.com and subscribe there. Why follow the velcro? As I film my very existence, I plan to interview various people from time to time. As a way to quickly and easily mount my camera to capture both of us, I have covered the camera in felt and have circle velcro hooks with an adhesive backing that provide a camera stand in an instant. I will continue to write about applications of social media, primarily, on this blog and will utilize FollowTheVelcro to chronicle my experiences as a lifecaster. You can watch my live feed by heading over to JonRay.tv at any point. This will come in handy when you try to call me and I ignore your call. I suppose the, “I was in a meeting” excuse won’t work as well, anymore.
Here are some other ways you can help:
- Join the Conversation. Do you think this is a good idea?
- Tell your friends about this experiment and get them to join in on the debate.
- As I post goals for myself, help me achieve them by offering your encouragement and support.
- Provide constructive criticism whenever you feel the urge.
This is going to be quite an undertaking for me, as any private life will fly right out the window. But, I’m hoping to prove that by utilizing the support of a community, one can live a better, more meaningful life. If this proves valid, then I’d like to think it might transfer well into a corporate structure, as well. At any point, should you wish to get in contact with me while I’m broadcasting, you can send me a direct Twitter message, which will come to my new iPhone (which I LOVE!). Think of me like a real life subservient chicken. : )
I also plan on hosting a weekly podcast or call in show to field your questions and what not. I’m really just kind of winging this and shooting from the hip, but with your help, I hope that we can sculpt this into a worthy experiment in becoming truly transparent and the implications of that. I look forward to hearing your thoughts, comments and suggestions.
What do you think of this experiment? How should I proceed? Is it possible or responsible to merge your personal and professional life? How do you see this ruining my life? How do you see this improving it? I’m curious to hear everyone’s opinion on lifecasting in general? Leave your feedback in the comments section of this post AND of the duplicate post over at Follow the Velcro.
As always, the support of the community fuels me in everything I do.
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