Do I have to put up with this nonsense? A blog about interrupting

I started off being polite then when no one listened I lost it! 

Ever imagined or dreamed that you are doing something really amazing. You see yourself achieving something winning a prize or completing a goal that you set yourself. Getting recognition, wealth and gratitude for it? That is good but... 

In reality you are total idiot a buffoon. As you step up to the stage you trip, just as you are about to deliver that crushing performance, you lose your notes, or your words. Or are you caught in a state of ‘continuous partial attention’? constantly running to do the next thing or answer the next digital ping? Time to stop!

Time to practice Interruption. The art of stopping in your tracks and recognizing when you are heading for a catastrophic moment. Change direction, do it differently. Go a different way, read different stuff, say different things.

How can you do this? how can you positively interrupt yourself, change a scenario?

Begin by going home a different way tonight, have another alternative conversation to the one you were going to have. Make it about the thing that you want talk about. Find the people who will listen to you. If they won’t then INTERRUPT THEM! Haven’t got an invite to their meeting? Then just turn up, set up your presentation, tell the media. They will INTERRUPT you but other people will start to listen to you. Society will judge you but that's good. Ask yourself some questions at the critical moment. Just that moment that you were going to do the exact same thing that you always do. That moment that you normally give in to convention, STOP.

On your way home? Stop at a different café, read a  different newspaper or book. Make sure you consciously do different things every day. Listen to someone else’s news. Or watch a random TED talk. Not one about stuff you know about. Go see a band or play you’ve never heard of. Write a different soap opera, invent your own plot and ending. Learn a new skill or piece of music, or a poem or a song.

It’s about being present, in the moment. There’s a lot of chatter about mindfulness at the moment but that’s a bit polite and nice. No! Interruption is where it’s at!  I’m not talking about rude interruption like Kanye West on Taylor Swift. Instead, take note of Martin Luther King, or Ghandi no one could ignore them could they? King had no platform, Ghandi had no platform. They interrupted the status quo by creating their own. 

Remember punk? When they couldn't get heard they didn't carry on courting the same old dinosaur record companies they made their own! Music for example Young Fathers, the maker revolution, crowd funding, Bitcoin. They are all examples of interrupted ideas that challenge the obvious, the mainstream. They will be the new economy that takes over when the old one is asleep. Kodak caught napping by digital cameras. Record companies rendered obsolete by streaming music. What next? what will you contribute?

The key is to DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT – INTERRUPT YOURSELF –do these things and You will find that you start to think differently. 

Then you will find the power to INTERRUPT their story if you aren't happy with it. When you get to the door of people who don’t want to listen to you, don’t fight them. DON’T GO IN. In the film Jaws the shark ate people because they went on a long flight to the beach where the sharks were. 

Hacktivism activism, action is the key to change. You can change everything. Yes it's scary, setting out in a new direction, saying a big no to the norm. But it will change your life! Taking that first powerful step is awesome. I remember marching against the war in Iraq looking around me at all those people and feeling at the same time proud and scared. Exhilarating feelings. 

Interrupting, avoiding habitual patterns, might well be the key to avoiding technology that targets you for advertising. After all you'd want to hear new music for the first time that is like nothing you ever heard before. Not just music based on recommendation from Amazon or some other monolith. 

Basically go to a different space, or place to work. Or open an alternative set of doors, behind which you will find a set of people who are ready and willing to listen to you. In the book 'Roots for Radicals', Edward Chambers describes how Saul Alinsky  founded the Industrial Arts Foundation. And then reformed the Bronx. They did it by talking to people for 30 minutes. Then only worked with people who would listen to them.

Ask yourself the question, “why do I need anyone’s permission to do this?”. I ran a session at a conference last year on ‘permission’. The need for people, grown adults to have permission to act on their ideas amazed me. Their fear of acting without permission staggered me. The reaction of ‘leaders’ to requests from their people to do something differently left me stunned. It was so negative!

Start today interrupt yourself, you don't need permission. Break those old long running habits now. No longer stand on the edge of the crowd looking in. Form your own crowd, your circle that want things that you want. If that circle outgrows its usefulness start another one. Vote with your feet, don't stay and be bored by people who aren't worth listening to.

There is something very scary about doing new and different things. But when you find the power to do them they become very exhilarating. Be your own leader not a follower. Find that power and you will never let it go.

Punk's Alive - Generation Z, your time awaits!

I believe the punk ethos prevalent in the 70s is alive and kicking in 2015.

The 70s punk spirit has spilled over into  entrepreneurship characterised by current business startups. Energised by the go get em, multi million pound results of the efforts of Jobs, Zuckeberg and co everyone is at it now, or so it seems. 

How does the new wave of entrepreneurial effort compare to the diy punk efforts of the 70s and how does it differ?

The thing that differentiated the punk mentality from the prior decades was it's 'you can do it' DiY approach. This didn't just apply to the three chord guitar riffs. It was all about a lifestyle choice, taking control. As the eloquent Inspiral Carpets front man Clint Boon expressed it in a recent BBC6 interview. "[it was about] carving out your own destiny, doing things your way. Not always following things the establishment tells you to do". Whilst this applied mainly to having a good time playing and pogoing to raucous music for most people, others made a career out of it. 

Examples of entrepreneurial spirit emerged in the independent record labels that grew and flourished. For example Indie labels like Rough Trade Records took on the giants in the 70s. Also, fashion was heavily influenced by punk at the time. Then mass marketed by those clever enough to see the opportunities. Writers, journalists, film and documentary makers had a field day. 

So what in the hell has this got to do with the startup culture that is currently taking the business world by storm? 

Many people who were around at the end of the punk era have been influential in shaping the desires and markets of post punk consumers. This has led to innovations in many walks of life. The way we consume music, books, the rise of the internet. As well as shopping, film, photography and many other areas of our lives. The spawn of the post punk mentality have shaped these developments. Not as is often assumed millennials. The odd thing is that some of the ways in which companies still do business carries offshoots from the old world before punk. The old school manners, morals and ethics of business have evolved. But not completely disappeared and the legality certainly hasn't declined.

I believe these old school practices are about to undergo a culture shock. The rise of the millennials will bring a new generation of traders who have completely shed the post punk morality. I have heard it said many times by people I've spoken to from this generation that if they can't do things one way then they will find another. Don't expect them to play by your rules. Don't even expect them to hold the door open for you as you leave. They are creating a 'no rules' business culture focused on the individual and profit. Manifestations of this are clear in those pre-millenials  [born just before 80s - 2000]  Zuckerberg, Parker, Dorsey etc. Not a day goes by without we discover they've violated some right or other. They don't seem to acknowledge they've done anything wrong. 

SO how should we, the 'punk era' businesses prepare to deal with this generation? Entrepreneurs who see these emerging behaviours as the norm?

James Burke author of Connections, legend in science communication says. [digital] “fragmentation will move people further and further away from what used to be a  common culture. [in the short term] into which everybody subscribed”. he goes on to say, “we've had a limited way of expressing ourselves in society”. “Explosion in fragmentation, in the sense of [online] tools. Becoming rapidly more available for individuals to indulge themselves”.  “People realising, because of new technology, that It doesn't matter anymore that people don't subscribe to the 5 rules that society requires of them. Be brilliant, go to a good school, go to a good university, get a well paid job etc.” With new technology you can express yourself as well as anybody else”. In a sense you no longer feel that those old fashioned virtues have a value anymore”. “Common cultural infrastructure held us together and kept us safe”

Listen here; You are not so smart podcast 020 The Future.

So it seems that people are deciding to ignore existing processes. If they don't like them they adapt their skills and go around them.  For example cutting a record having been in the recording studio for several months is a long distant memory. The advent of home studio’s and digital editing tools has revolutionised this. Combined with self-publishing and marketing the old way is seriously under pressure.

Maker spaces, such as Exeter Library’s FabLab:  http://fablabdevon.org/. Or Digital work hubs like http://www.atworkhubs.co.uk/ becoming the norm. I expect that home working combined with access to these will become the work pattern of the future. In many rural communities home working is revitalising the communities and their economies. A recent Guardian article features a blistering range of new ideas from the ‘startup’ do it yourself culture.  And its not just work practices that are changing, the traditional funding economy is imploding too. Present and future businesses will turn not to the banks and pound sterling. But’ to crowdfunding and bitcoin. People voting with their purses will enable these new ‘cosmopolitans’ to develop their businesses without encountering the; 'dinosaur says no' culture. 
The revolution is about to hit us! look out for generation Z!