Somewhere on this site, Kate Richardson wrote a comment. And that comment made me want to ask her to write something. So, here it is. A guest post.

As soon as Mark asked me to write a post on living a values-based life I started thinking about yellow cars.

What I mean is, you know when you decide to buy a yellow car and suddenly there are yellow cars everywhere, where there were none before? You can’’t turn a corner without bumping into a shiny lemony automobile.

A values-based life became my yellow car. And before long, I was acting in a generally self-flagellating manner, citing values violations and issuing self-infringements.

In the end I tore them up (metaphorically speaking).

Because the notion of living a values-based life has many dimensions (too many for one blog post). Our values are not just defined by who we are, but by our purpose, context, those around us, and of course, the filter of our humanity.

And as those values change and shift and grow over time, living a life that’s true looks more like a story than an edict. For me, different values come in and out of focus.

So I thought I’’d share two stories from different times when people that have challenged me to think long and hard about this subject.

Having purpose

In 2003, I chucked in my job and headed off to Cambodia in search of volunteer work. You know, all noble and lofty like. I felt so good when I told people what I was doing. In truth, it was a very humbling experience and the person who benefited most from the experience was me.

But I had the privilege to work with one of the most impressive, talented and fierce women you are ever likely to come across. She was unnervingly principled. She became a vegetarian at 8, could be found on soap boxes in Western Sydney at 12, and had read Marx at 16. She was married, but still called herself a lesbian. Within the space of a month, I saw two people (one from the World Bank, and the other from Oxfam) go into her office and emerge quite literally crestfallen. She had made such an impression on them with her case, that they went back to their offices immediately and quit because they couldn’’t face working in jobs that contravened their values.

In living a values-based life, she has achieved incredible things: quite literally empowering a grassroots movement of women across the country. And I don’t think I’’ll ever meet anyone so damn uncompromising. Or ever be so inspired to literally join the charge.

Being yourself

The second experience was during my 9 month stint at the Sydney Leadership program in 2007 (now called Social Leadership Australia). The program espouses a new model of leadership, exploring amongst other things what it means to be purposeful.

For me, it prompted a lot of thought about whether I was failing at this values thing, or whether my values had changed. For one thing, during my twenties (including a fairly unattractive non-bra wearing phase which thankfully didn’’t last too long) I was utterly opposed to working in the corporate sector. When I came back from Cambodia I was as an even more avid-liberal-evangelist-overbearing-social-capitalist, prone to delivering didactic speeches at dinner parties.

Anyways, during this time, I met a lot of amazing people, some of whom were on the course, and others who were speakers generous enough to share their experiences of different social issues.

A story from one of the speakers struck a chord with me. She was a firm believer in being the same person in every facet of your life and told a story to this effect from her time in banking.

Every day she’d drive in and park near a guy from her floor. She’d see him arrive in a yellow convertible: top down, sleeves rolled, breeze in his hair, music blaring. By the time he’d driven around the carpark and pulled into his space, the top was up, the sleeves buttoned, the hair flat and the music off. With newly drooped shoulders, he’d shuffle off towards the lift. So she started leaving anonymous notes on his windscreen that said ‘stop leaving your personality in the car’. After a while he realised it was her. They had lunch, she encouraged him to be himself, noting that his staff would be a lot happier for it, and he and they were was relieved.

So what’s the moral of this story?

If you rent a yellow car in Cambodia put the top down.

And in thinking about a values-based life, remember that it’s a never-ending story.

/ End

Many thanks to Kate for sharing her thoughts on living a values-based life. You can find her on Twitter: @katerichardson. She blogs www.stickywood.blogspot.com.

Photo courtesy Rouge Rouge.

If you enjoyed the read, please leave a comment. Feel free to follow me on Twitter

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I presented my thoughts about community at the NSW Knowledgement Management Forum last night in Sydney. It was a fun event and is always interesting to hear other people’s perspectives on this enigmatic thing we call ‘community’. Below is the presentation with the original Ignite presentation for context.

Would love your thoughts.

Read other people’s thoughts about the event:
Thoughts and photos by Jye Smith
Thoughts byAmniisia
Twitter stream: #nswkm

Looking for more presentations? Try:
- Social media (aka Don’t use social media)
- Twitter. WTF? (ideas about Twitter for personal use)

Related articles:
Not all interaction is created socially
My Ignite presentation about building communities

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When I used to write for music magazines, I wrote a lot under the pen name, LoQuay, and I’d use my real name for my radio show (The Mothership Connection, 2SER – no longer running).

There are several reasons I used the pen name:

1. I used to MC and an MC ‘name’ – like a graffiti tag – is your brand: it differentiates you, provides insight into what you’re about

2. I thought it was a cool thing to do – I was trying to be individual within a group context

3. With a made-up name I could role play a little
(BTW when I interviewed people on my radio show I preferred calling them off-air by the name their mum called them to try to keep them out of persona – I still believe it helped achieve a more authentic energy for the interviews)

But after a few years, I decided to put everything under my real name – and it wasn’t to become famous under my birthname.

Why?

1. I kept finding that writers who submitted articles to my magazine (Stealth) under pen names acted too much in their writing (insert ghetto slang)

2. I found myself making more effort with my writing if I couldn’t hide behind a stage name – ie writing under my real name made me feel more accountable to my ideas – and spend more time with them

So, I’m curious: why do you use your real name or a made-up name online?

If you enjoyed the read, please leave a comment. Feel free to follow me on Twitter

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Be warned – reading this post may result in you losing yourself in abstraction.

Yesterday I posted up my Ignite presentation about building communities.

One of the points I made is that anonymity is antithesis to community – and it led to some interesting debate.

But first, to explain: I believe that communities are based on relationships that are anchored in some sort of authenticity. Now, I’m happy for the idea of authenticity to stretch to a persona that may be different to how someone really is face to face, offline (eg a pen name, stage name). And, I believe that accountability is the foundation for a thriving, constructive community.

The diagram below – while tongue in cheek – makes my point conveniently.

So, in the comments to my Ignite presentation about building communities, Julian Cole (AdSpace Pioneers) made an interesting point about Campaign Brief and a few other forums which allow participants to post anonymously. And I started thinking…

1. Not all activity that happens via social technology is social
Just because someone posts something on a message board or blog does not make that thing social. The best analogy that I could find – and this relates a little bit to some of the behaviour on Campaign brief – is this: a telephone, one would argue, is inherently social but if I phone someone, say my piece then hang up, I might be making a social point (or not!) but I’m not really using the telephone socially, to socialise. Or, if I walk down a street shouting through a megaphone to crowds of people… it all looks social, but my purpose is not ‘social’ (yes, it may be one of ‘social impact’ but not of ‘social bonding’).

2. Not all social activity is validated in the sphere it takes place
Would love your thoughts on this but I believe that most social activity has a social goal. We want to be liked, respected, acknowledged. We want to learn, be inspired, be accepted. Having seen this sort of behaviour in music forums over the years, some anonymous, antagonistic behaviour within an online community may be to achieve a social goal in a separate online or offline community (“Look, what I did. I threw some stones over the wall.”). So anonymity in one forum (eg graffiti writers on trains) may actually be claimed behaviour in another forum (eg graffiti writer showing photos of his piece to friends at a party) – in other words, anonymity may be superficial.

This is starting to get way too theoretical but I wanted to throw these thoughts out there. Talk back!

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