I yesterday was at a fascinating conference of the Swiss fundation of certified non-profit organisations about Pictorial Worlds of NGOs. It was held at the Paul Klee museum -  a place for images…

Pictures are used for fund-raising, for sensitizing the public and for informing about people in need. The discussions were about the effect of pictures, what is a good picture and what are the possibilities of the language of pictures. And where are limits and dangers of misuses.

There were very interesting inputs. The head of the media service of the catholic church showed how today there is such a flood of images, that images are destroying themselves. The speed of the image flood keeps increasing. There is a trend from static images to moving images. Images try to capture attention, to rise emotions, and this often by means of creating irritations.

As an example of irritation he showed an unusual video about accident prevention – there are more people dying by stumbling than by cars. Irritating pictures are often used, but they can (consciously or unconsciously hurt feelings like the exposition arranged with plasticized dead bodies or pictures hurting religious feeling like the Danish caricature of Mohammad. Personality rights can be violated, when images are used without the consent of the persons shown, especially with children from developing countries.

A well-known Swiss filmmaker spoke about his portraits of people living on the margin of society – people in need, physically or mentally handicapped people, so-called “local idiots”. He tries to give them a voice and show the individual reality, which might deviate from social norms. He tries to “meet levels” and not to stand above the portrayed ones.

The last speaker was from a marketing agency, he spoke about the problems of time and money in creating impact: You see about 2000 pictures a day, everybody wants to have your attention. He presented examples about what is a powerful image. He gave 9 theses, seemingly contradicting themselves:

The strongest image is positive – showing a video clip of positive emotions. The strongest image is negative – often used; is a symbol; is created in the head (he showed a text of an Indian campaign against killing female fetuses, just a text describing how you can kill the fetus and try 3 month later to get a boy…); can be just a phrase (an inspiring campaign of a Japanese city turning its destiny from a big coal mining town to a non-successful amusement park going bankrupt, and now to a city of love where there is no divorce -recreating its destiny and attracting people from all over the country); is costly; is simple; is an experience (a campaign of Red Cross Portugal selling hope in a shop); and is a reality.

The strongest image factor is the idea. And this is true also for other inspiring activities. Inspiration comes through ideas, and this is the moving factor – not money or greatness. Master DK says: “Energy follows thought”. This is an applied form of it.

The hall where the meeting took place. For me the red decoration was a symbol of the images crying for attention.

The Klee museum: Moving lines of attention

I was today at a Social Media Marketing conference in Zurich. Marketeers and web-consultants spoke about using social trends for your website with different tools, platforms and strategies, for increasing one’s presence in the communities. While most speakers gave very interesting presentations, others weren’t much relevant for me or seemed to give an exposure of the portfolio of their agency, spicing it with slogans. As usual you had to filter yourself to get the nuggets out of the sand.

I was much interested in the way the dialogue between business and users is being orchestrated and in understanding better the strategies and technologies. It was fascinating to see how the mechanics of human curiosity and gossiping are being used in this. Most relevant is to understand the users and what they want. This is often not so clear, and easily the gap causes miscommunication.

As expected at such a conference, people were busily twittering the whole time. There was a feeling in the room of keeping oneself in a state of excitement and continuous communication. The last speaker even highlighted this as a kind of telepathic inter-relationship between all participants. I thought I don’t want this kind of permanent interconnectedness. Inter-relationship is not just in talking, but, more so, in silence and in subtle linking through meditative work – this not particularly being the sphere of social media marketing.

So I didn’t join the conference with twittering or linking in, trying to keep the everyday information overkill with some inner filters at a distance. I had some talks and took some good inspirations back home. I now ask myself if I shall nevertheless do a step into the twitter-world after some steps into Face-Booking. I saw interesting vistas, but time is scarce…

One’s own website is just the top of an iceberg where the sphere of social media networks like facebook, twitter, flickr and the like offer fields for extension of the scope of influence.

Yesterday evening when going home from the office I made a stop at the hairdresser’s shop to fix an appointment for a haircut. The young lady at the reception said if I had time and no preferences to who cuts my heair I could immediately get it done. I said, fine, and she started cutting.

At the end she asked me if everything was fine, and I remarked that the hair in front of my left ear was still a bit longer than on the right side. She hold her fingers on both sides, looked and said: “No, it’s o.k., with some the ears are not at the same height.” I looked a bit incredulously, smiled, paid and went home.

Looking into the mirror I saw that on the left side the hair was about 1.5 cm longer than on the right side. I thought, “Oh, now also my eyes start shifting, my whole head is getting into a transmutation.” I took the razor blade, cut away the hair on the left side and thus did a “surgery” to bring back the proportions of my poor head.

The story reminded me of my parents who used to tell me that when I was a little boy and had to clear up the toys spread on the floor, “Oh, I can’t do it, my arms are too short.”

Also in spirituality you come often across what we call “spiritual excuses”: You can’t do this or that because, and then comes an explanation in which you try to believe yourself: “It is my Aries moon which makes me so aggressive”. “The sun in Gemini gives me difficulties concentrating…”

My wife and I like playing with it, looking if the other is witty enough to look through the disguise of the excuse…

Man is very creative in inventing all kinds of excuses… (Drawing by Leonardo da Vinci)

At my office, I started 3 months ago some activities using new communication instruments. One of them is the use of Facebook for corporate communication, a social community website, the largest of the world, allowing to build-up groups of so-called “fans”.  It is fascinating to see the growth of the fans of the site, thus expanding the range of the communication target group.

I observed it with a critical interest, for I didn’t want to expand into trashy communication. I read a lot about the questionable sites of Facebook. I came to consider it a valuable instrument and pondered for a while upon using it as another communication channel for the Circle of Good Will. So profiting from the skills learned, I now set up two pages, one for the Circle of Good Will, and one which will be communicated a bit later…

When done with discernment, Facebook is a real Aquarian instrument: very easy to operate, networking and “pervasive” – though it might take some time until the “dynamics” of this instrument will develop.

A friend send me the link to an interesting website (German/English), the Gaia Media Foundation, a non-profit organization in Basel, Switzerland:

“We communicate information for a holistic and up to date understanding of our existence, and the potential of human consciousness. We equally respect the knowledge and the experience of ancient cultures, spiritual traditions, and of modern science, without committing ourself to a particular view or direction. We advocate the firm belief that the ability and desire to achieve transcendence is inherent in man, and that expanded states of consciousness shed light upon the knowledge of the laws of life, of nature, and the universe. An awareness corresponding to universal laws not only guarantees humanity the surviving, but also allows us a symbiotic and hedonistic existence on Gaia, our home planet.” (from the website)

Sunrise this morning at Lake Sihl, Einsiedeln, Switzerland

Some time agou I posted a blognote on the Playing for Change series. A Belgian friend now sent me the link to another song of this inspiring session. And she added a link to an interesting video on the functioning of the right and left hemisphere of the brain, by Jill Bolte Taylor.

Sculpture of an angel by an African artist in the park of a castle near the Baltic Sea.

For over 6 months I was in a coaching group for project managers. It was a small group of 3 persons with a very experienced process consultant with whom I’m in contact since about 16 years. We had 6 sessions together and today was the last one. It was very fascinating for me to have here a space for reflecting the dynamics of complex processes in our projects. The general experience is that situations who seem to be clear tend to do into some kind of diffusivity. Quickly the landscapes change, and situations or agreements which seem to have been clear are getting uncertain or silently enormities happen which you tend not to note at first hand: The commitment of team members changes, the external partners have another understanding than oneself, and though it seems that it has been clarified on paper and in contracts, the clarities tend to diffuse. The process consultant today gave us a paper with the sentence: “With the time every project starts living lies”. You must be very truthful, careful and attentive to see the subtle changes and, if necessary, to do the needed interventions.

The last weeks I had been writing poems (condensed thoughts) – in German – in the early morning hours about observations and experiences. One of them reminds me of this morning’s topic of the coaching group, so I translated it into English:

Where the path might lead me today?
Questioning I stand at the threshold
of a new morning.
Every day opens, related to
the previous one
and embedded in old tracks,
but there are always
new wanderers waiting
and even the seemingly old companions
enter every day
into a new landscape,
where the sceneries keep on changing.
Often a friend seems to hurry ahead
or fall behind
or take to another way
and slips away, mostly unnoticed,
but frequently also only a cloud
or a bend hides the view
and the closeness remains nevertheless.
The community of
those striving to the common goal
gives protection and strength
in dangerous times.
For suddenly the way might lead
through rough areas
and besides it open abysses
of incertitude, irritation or
poisonous clouds of fear,
or there is
a fight against fatigue and
weaknesses and
threads to the body.
It is good to have
a skilful guide,
whose leading hand
gives strength and shows the direction
and sees that the
group of wanderers
stays together and always
keeps the eye on the
star of the goal.

Marzili bridge, today at noon time in Berne, on the way home.

Yesterday I felt a great relief: At noon we had the launch of the new intranet of my office. We had been working for the launch for over one year – and the whole process took more than two years. (I had mentioned the project in a number of posts.)

About 2 months ago we saw that part of the project had to be taken out into another project: The document management, which shall replace the file explorer, turned out to be more complex than we had thought during the concept phase, so it will be developed in a second tranche of the project – again me as the project manager. We will start when I’m back from January’s holidays in India. It seems that this will again be a long project, we will start with a pilot.

Being the project manager I had a lot of trouble with instructing the team, finding and describing mistakes and cleaning the system. The last weeks we had been working on the migration of the content from the old intranet into the new system, and the team of our info-managers had done a good job, but – mostly out of ignorance – also created several “crises” by trying to adapt things in a “try and error”-way. I sometimes was reminded of Hercules fighting with the Hydra: Having cut off one head, two other heads appeared. The mistakes of the system didn’t seem to take an end.

Hercules fighting with the Hydra. Image of Antonio Pollaiuolo, from Wikimedia Commons

And then the launch – the director giving congratulations, the head of the agency speaking about the pioneer work and me about the team-work and the surprises of the process -  happy faces all around.

An hour after the launch new problems popped up – no safeguarding possible with different pages, strange way of presentation of the news in one of the news aggregators. This morning some other questions popped up…. The last months my patience has been tested a lot – and quite some times I failed. It seems that my personal testing phase isn’t over yet.

An old sewing machine – not so complex than a modern web collaboration technology, but also helping to stitch different matters together.

Last Wednesday I participated in a workshop of my office on image language and the way we use images at the Red Cross. Though three years ago I had built up the image bank we use, I hadn’t been much into the topic of images, especially not the last year.

The meeting was held in the rooms of a media agency in Berne, by a photographer and an art director, specialist of visual  design. After an introduction to image theory, image language and picture assessment, we had a look at our publications. It was very interesting to see these visual specialists “from the outside” giving a critical look and showing flaws and shortcomings. We see the pictures with your own intentions, without noticing that they might stand in the way of the perception of others. When pointed out, you understand the questions arising, but as a lay person you normally just feel that there is something not at optimum with a picture or a detail, be it in the composition or its placement in a publication.

They showed us a number of examples of how enterprises or other organisations have defined their “image language” and present themselves according to it, giving thus a visual message linked to their vision and mission – in the form of colour selection, emotional tones or image composition. They showed us extracts of photos from which everyone immediately recognised the related organisation, without seeing any brand sign.

In the afternoon, after an input about image rights and models of  licensing we did some picture research in image banks like Gettyimages, Fotolia or Corbis. It’s not easy to find pictures for visualising a given theme.

Then we tried to define some basics of the picture language we want to use. It was an interesting discussion, to describe some do’s and don’t's without becoming too rigid in regulations. It made me think about the way I work with pictures for the Good-Will website, especially when I am preparing powerpoint presentations on different themes of the wisdom teachings.

Seeing the costs of professional image licensing gave me an idea of the great treasure I collected with the pictures given to me by friends from all over the world, which I use for illustrating the teachings. Of course, they are not done by professionals with their high-tech equipment, but nevertheless many of them have quite a high quality standard.

Shooting or seeing photos is not just a process of the eye, but of the mind, the photographer. The way he captures a scene or how he selects a detail expresses very much of the consciousness with which he is working.

Photos of an iris, by a friend. The iris is also part of the eye and a Greek goddess of the rainbow, messenger of the gods, like Hermes. In Wikipedia it says, As the sun unites Earth and Heaven, Iris links the Gods to humanity.

An Indian friend forwarded me today the following text with an interesting story about decision making. How would you decide?

“A group of children were playing near two railway tracks, one still in use while the other disused. Only one child played on the disused track, the  rest on the operational track.

The train is coming, and you are just beside the track interchange. You can make the train change its course to the disused track and save most of the kids. However, that would also mean the lone child playing by the disused track would be sacrificed. Or would you rather let the train go its way?

Let’s take a pause to think what kind of decision we could make…

Most people might choose to divert the course of the train, and sacrifice only one child. You might think the same way, I guess. Exactly, to save most of the children at the expense of only one child was rational decision most people would make, morally and emotionally. But, have you ever thought that the child choosing to play on the disused track had in fact made the right decision to play at a safe place?

Nevertheless, he had to be sacrificed because of his ignorant friends who chose to play where the danger was. This kind of dilemma happens around us everyday. In the office, community, in politics and especially in a democratic society, the minority is often sacrificed for the interest of the majority, no matter how foolish or ignorant the majority are, and how farsighted and knowledgeable the minority are. The child who chose not to play with the rest on the operational track was sidelined. And in the case he was sacrificed, no one would shed a tear for him.

The great critic Leo Velski Julian who told the story said he would not try to change the course of the train because he believed that the kids playing on the operational track should have known very well that track was still in use, and that they should have run away if they heard the train’s sirens.. If the train was diverted, that lone child would definitely die because he never thought the train could come over to that track! Moreover, that track was not in use probably because it was not safe. If the train was diverted to the track, we could put the lives of all passengers on board at stake! And in your attempt to save a few kids by sacrificing one child, you might end up sacrificing hundreds of people to save these few kids.

While we are all aware that life is full of tough decisions that need to be   made, we may not realize that hasty decisions may not always be the right one.

Remember that what’s right isn’t always popular… and what’s popular isn’t always right.
Everybody makes mistakes; that’s why they put erasers on pencils. “