Phronesis

Happy for a happi coat!

Late last night I bought a Japanese Happi Coat from Kyoto Silk Company Ltd.

First thing this morning I had an email "turned letter" from Noriko Kimura of Sales:

To Bev Trayner

Thank you for your order.
We are ready for sending your goods.
But unfortunately we can't understand your address
because some letters turned into strange ones cause of computer as below.

Bev Trayner
Pra軻ta de S縊 Francisco, 2, Bloco Esq. 1 Esq.
Setubal, 2900-613
Setubal, Portugal

Would you please tell us correct address.

We wait for your reply.

And then, a few minutes later, I got this email:

To Bev Trayner

We could find your address from internet!

http://www.reboot.dk/person-994-en.html

Thank you for your order.

I haven't had such a human service from ANY online purchase that I've ever done. It was quite quite wonderful.

P.S. This will be one of my last posts here in Phronesis because I hope tomorrow that I'll be moving to my NEW WEBSITE.

Wondering what to do

Yesterday my daughter, who's in Brazil travelling alone, said to me: "Well, I'm wondering what to do tomorrow".

Gasp. The fresh breeze nearly took my breath away.

Do you remember those days? The days when there were no piles of paperwork. No overdue deadlines, no reports to write. Bills and things to fix were background gurgles , so soft you rarely heard them. Piles of ironing didn't exist and friends were there for fun, not to bring you work!

Relish it, I told her. Breathe in and appreciate every bit of wondering what you are going to do tomorrow, of the unknowing, and the possibilities of something or nothing still in creation.

Death . a celebration of life!

A friend just got a phone call from the doctor. The treatment for her advanced brain tumor has been successful. It has disappeared. Completely.

The news is almost too big to take in. The doctor rang on a Saturday evening because it was important that she knew.

We never talk about death. But it's part of our life. And our learning.

We die. That's important.

And it's not.

Yesterday was not my birthday

Lots of people sent me lovely birthday wishes yesterday. I was very happy.

But it wasn't my birthday, even though Skype said it was. I must have some US/UK setting the wrong way round which makes the 7th of December (07/12) my birthday instead of the 12th July (12/07).

What was remarkable was that lots of people who wished me happy birthday yesterday also sent me cards on the  12th July.

So now I've decided that as part of my life-happiness plan I will leave the Skype settings as they are and celebrate two birthdays a year.

Asynchronous time is not free

"Dear Beverly

I know you are very busy, so for that reason we can communicate through new new tools and electronic means.

Yours"

It serves me right. I find that as I try to reframe people's expectations about how much time I can invest in a project or a new set of relationships I get an increasing number of replies guiding me towards making better use of new online tools that will help us develop our communication.

Dear friends

The busier I am the more I rely on synchronous discussions and thinking on my feet. Asynchronous conversations are a luxury I no longer have. Furthermore, asynchronous time is time.

Gasp.
Did I really say that?

A thanksgiving

Thanks for:

• the food I eat
• my good health
• the joy and enthusiasm I feel, every day
• the love, care and dedication I get from Jess and from Nuri
• my friendship with Sally, that didn't stop when she died
• the people who love and support me
• the friendships that partner who I am
• the things which are going to surprise me
• the instinct I have that with the right people I can tilt the axis of our small planet

Profound effects

Steve Bridger's comment on my blog post - what can I say?-  feels like one of those life-changing moments! He led me to a brief interview with Michael Wesch who did that great video of Web2.0.

If I substitute "cultural anthropology" for "life learning" then Wesch is talking loud and clear to me. In the interview he says:

"...cultural anthropology is a continuous exercise in expanding my mind and my empathy, building primarily from one simple principle: everything is connected. This is true on many levels. First, everything including the environment, technology, economy, social structure, politics, religion, art and more are all interconnected. As I tried to illustrate in the video, this means that a change in one area (such as the way we communicate) can have a profound effect on everything else, including family, love, and our sense of being itself. Second, everything is connected throughout all time, and so as anthropologists we take a very broad view of human history, looking thousands or even millions of years into the past and into the future as well. And finally, all people on the planet are connected. This has always been true environmentally because we share the same planet. Today it is even more true with increasing economic and media globalization."

And that reminds me - again - of why I have to move beyond reading, talking about, and doing communities of practice and Web2.0 because it is reductionist and ignores all the other things that bring meaning, connectivity and learning to our lives. Or rather, my understanding of what I'm trying to do will come as much from things outside the magnifying glass as it will from what I see through the lens.

Let's face it - you can't look at learning in isolation from history, love, philosophy, sex, religion - and cross-country cycling - and that's just how it is!

You've got it wrong

I flew back from Brussels yesterday but my luggage never arrived.

I had left all the leads to my  various bits of equipment in my suitcase - always an ongoing issue as I don't like lots of  leads in my hand luggage, but know it's precarious not to keep them on you.

So today I'm watching the life drain from my headset, phone, camera etc.

In the meantime I phone Groundforce to see if they have found my bag yet and tell them it's essential for my work to get it back to me as soon as possible.

"No, no" reassured the woman who was attending to me, "It is not important. Your bag is not important."

I try telling her again, that this is very important to me - it's not just that I've got no toothpaste or that I've lost my favourite skirt, it is that vital pieces of equipment for my work are in there.

"You have it wrong" she told me, impatiently. "It is only important after it has been lost for five days. Now it is not important."

OK, I've got it.
Context is everything.

Snail mail and fax - alive and kicking

So I wanted to find a hotel that has free internet and WIFI access in Lisbon and phoned the Lisbon Tourist Board whose site offers to tell you where to sleep, where to eat and where to go.

We can't give you this information over the phone, they tell me. You have to send us a letter by post or by fax, and we will send you a reply.

Can you send me the information today as I want it for Friday, I ask.

"Isso não sei dizer" was the reply. ((That I can't say)

Oh.

Let's buy in Portugal

hmmm... One of my blog posts appeared on this nice looking blog called Let's buy in Portugal.

But when you look closer it's not a blog. It's an aggregator collecting blog posts tagged with "Portugal". It's a money spinner with lots of Google ads. for things related to estate agents, removal services or holiday rents - in Portugal.

Through Beyond WhoIs  I found out that Glyn McCarthy owns the domain for letsbuyinportugal. And he also owns the domain for letsbuyinfrance, letsbuyinitaly, letsbuyingreece and letsbuyinmalta. He left the domain names for Germany, Sweden and other cold countries.

Many years before Glyn Nick Sanders registered the domain letsbuyinspain. I wonder if Nick is now kicking himself for not having bought the other domain names!

It's interesting - and disconcerting - how our online snippets can be appropriated by other people. Especially for indirect marketing. I guess we do have more tools to piece together what's going on. Anyway, I'm going to tag this post with "Portugal" in deli.icio.us to see if it appears in the aggregator. Wonder if Glyn, the "blog" owner will ever see it.