The Monkey Mind of Peter Durand

For the past five years, Beth Kanter ( http://bethkanter.org ) has been teaching social media workshops for nonprofits and lately doing deeper dives on the techniques of listening both for nonprofits and in her role as Visiting Scholar in Residence at the Packard Foundation.

She lead the SI Fellows through a few exercises designed to draw out the continuum of opinions--and fears--of how to use social media as an element of overall strategy. More of Beth's writings and presentations can be found on her wiki portfolio.

More images and video on Tumblr. Follow via Twitter: http://twitter.com/peterdurand/

Design for Impact

Kevin Starr Director of the Rainer Arnhold Fellows Program Kevin helps the brightest social entrepreneurs maximize the impact of their ventures in the developing world. Starr describes how a social innovator takes a big idea to scale through a process of modelling and measuring impact. Robert Fabricant Executive Creative Director of frog design Leads the Fellows through an exercise in design thinking, emphasizing that design is an active process, not a product. His presentation was inspired by a comment from Erik Hersman (he thought we were here to talk about ice cream) and the inimitable Sasha Baron Cohen's character, Ali G. Robert is assisted by design and marketing genius Ali G demonstrates the power of a succinct, compelling pitch to venture capitalists for a product with an enormous target market:

1. People who have hands
2. People who like ice cream

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48TR0vUPQCs]

Few activities give me more peace than sitting with a sharp, black pen and a crisp black blank page.

I have begun to publish sketches from some recent moleskin journals on Flickr: doodles done during meetings; travel sketches from Poland, China, Russia and America; and portraits of friends and strangers.

sketchbook | view slideshow

On a marathon late summer Saturday, we made two big birthday parties with the Family: a pool party and a superhero party! Seeing the five- and six-year-olds transformed by their masks and capes reminded me of this story. When I was in pre-school, the Apollo Missions were still in full swing. I had my own silver space suit that I chose to wear every single day. For footwear, I refused to venture out with anything other than a pair of large cowboy boots handed down from my aunt, who was 7 years older.

The kindly teachers at the pre-school called my mom in for a talk. Apparently, my running and jumping skills were drastically altered by way-too-large clompy boots and a way-too-tight swishy Mylar jumpsuit. (Notably, this was the same year as the release of David Bowie's 1972 masterpiece The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders of Mars, so I was just way out front of my pre-school classmates.) Although just three-years-old, I was already reading and an avid comics fan. Mostly of superhero comics. On Saturdays, I'd ride with my dad on errands and get fifty cents allowance which all went to comic books.

Incredible Hulk, vol. 1 # 140, June 1971, Marvel Comics (originally $0.15)
Even today, I can recall the awe and fear inspired by The Incredible Hulk. He was so big, so powerful, and his rage followed no moral compass.
''The Incredible Hulk'' TV series debuted on CBS in 1978
"HULK SMASH!!" The television series with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno came along when I was older, in fourth grade when my friends and I could debate plot lines and scientific theories, but the comic version had already burned itself into my young brain--the nice guy got mad and he turned into an unstoppable monster! This was a pretty appealing concept to skinny little boy, who, quick to tears, suffered frequent ear infections, awoke most nights with bad dreams, and was afraid of everything except being alone and drawing. Eventually, my mom had to away all my comics as I continued have nightmares. At almost 40, I am still feel transformed when I don a cape and mask! Not to mention, still reading comics. (NOTE: In my defense, I at least don't still live at mom's house.) Below is our mysterious Super Baby Monkey and her DynoMom crossing a deadly lava pit at the superhero party.

I have lived in many urban American landscapes (Chicago, St.Louis, Pittsburgh) where distressed neighborhoods smile like gap-tooth lovers. I felt such love and sadness when passing these lonley buildings, these islands of past lives. This is a wonderful project on Flickr.

Image by orangeacid.
I recently trolled the cluttered ailses of a discount bookstore, killing time with my daughter who equates acquisition of a new Wonder Pets sticker book with finding the lost Gnostic gospel.  In the search for something to jolt me out of my reading doldrums, I prayed for a work of spiraling adventure, metaphysical misogyny and crusty end-of-the-first-decade-of-a-new-millennium edginess. I found it...

Daniel Pinchbeck's book 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl has thus far delivered. The book is one part Beat Poet quest for transcendence of modern mundanity; two parts Gonzo journalism-slash-ecotourist trip in search of rainforest wisdom and native dreamcatching; and three parts anthro-historical unwrapping of the End of the World. The date December 21st, 2012 A.D. (13.0.0.0.0 in the Long Count), represents an extremely close conjunction of the Winter Solstice Sun with the crossing point of the Galactic Equator (Equator of the Milky Way) and the Ecliptic (path of the Sun). This alignment of celestial forces is predicted to herald a period of mass change. Some say a new awakening. For others, 12/21/2012 unlocks the code of the Apocalypse as expressed in the hieroglyphics of the Mayan calendar and the dream-language of St. John's Revelations. Pinchbeck also edits an on-line magazine on all such topics metaphysical and psychedelical, Reality Sandwich--a shoutout, no doubt, to another Beat write, William Burrough and his seminal work Naked Lunch. The "stimulus" article mentioned in the title of this post--and under the image of the big, beautiful eyeball above--really captured the yearning I have for a transcendent, inter- and intra-personal experience on-line. Wendy Strgar hits on so many themes and questions that have been rattling around my skull as I clack away on keyboards, scratch with plastic stylus on digital tablet, and cycle through dozens of images, animations and videos a day at work and leisure. Most interaction on-line is monodirectional, asynchromous, at best, and parallel processed at worst. It is bifurcated into either informative or entertaining. Much like scanning a magazine rack flipping through Us, People, Time or Guns & Ammo. But what is important? What remains of these on-line experiences? What sticks? What transforms? Wendy's message is important: It is the 3D experiences we have, those messy, unpredictable relationships with other humans and nature, that have grown us... socially, spiritually and physically (the pre-front cortex of our big brains developed to handle complex social connections).

Boundaries need to be drawn, distinguishing between the work of relating and the convenience of chatting or texting. We need to be vigilant to the human moment when we are right next to someone and create a virtual boundary around the machine in our hand. The skill of being present to the moment and the activities that develop our social brain functioning happen in the midst of attending to our primary relationships, face to face. Most of the messages that take us away from the people we love most are inconsequential and can wait.

What remains is how we feel about what has happened to us with real people in the real world. Perhaps it is the "realness" of those feelings that cause us to  retreat into the flattened, controllable, dopamine-laced realm of digital media.

Twitter live from Vanderbilt 2009 Commencement

What the heck is Twitter?

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: “What are you doing?

This is a 10 minute presentation on the topic, given at a summit on Web 3.0 at Vanderbilt Medical Center.

It features Ashton, voter fraud, swine flu, a white african and siamese twins.

(You can "follow" me using this tool here: @peterdurand)

[slideshare id=1373998&doc=2tweet-090501141411-phpapp02] Come follow us!

• VanderbiltU - The University
• VCBH - Center for Better Health
• VMCnews - official press releases from VUMC
• CanConnect - cancer community
• ontheirway - Childrens Hospital at Vanderbilt
• catchitearly - testicular cancer prevention

Playing with our new Wacom Intuos 4 tablet to get used to all the clicks and taps required to be facile. The form factor is very nice, sleek, soothing. I am ramping up for Remote Graphic Capture now that getting together for facilitated events is (a) cost-prohibitive and (b) bad epidemiological hygiene. As long as the electricity stays on, we're set. Did this whilst listening to Kurt Anderson's Studio 360 on creative career change and good things from Mexico (music!).

Did Buddha have a scale?

PHOTO: Modern ceramic pop art. Peter Durand (c) copyright 2008

So, anyway, I try to weigh myself every morning. Like many men approaching the tail end of my 30s, I am trying to lose weight. According to the official BMI calculator, I am obese, defined as BMI 30.0 or greater. Well, barely obese (I am 30 even!). Alas, I am trying to make a concerted effort to eat right, read up on nutrition, turn down seconds, cut down on a bad pizza and coffee habit... anything to stave off the prospect of aging, developing diabetes, and (God Forbid!) cancer. Well, you know, anything within reason.

So, how should I reasonably track all these vectors in my life in a way that the results are useful and the process is not onerous? According to an article on the topic, A Perfect Personal Data Collection Application, posted on the data-loving site Flowing Data:

The number of Web applications to collect data and information about yourself continues to grow; if you want to track something, most likely there's an online tool to do it. This is great - especially since a lot of the applications seem to have a lot of users, which means an interest in data. Whether it is deliberate or not is a different question, but you know, that doesn't really matter. What does matter is that people are taking notice.

The Hawthorne effect describes what happens when others take notice of what you are doing. The very act of observing a situation, changes the behavior within the situation. (Ever had to pee in a cup for a drug test?) Another fantastic resource for tracking this trend of self-measurement is The Quantified Self. This project--one of Kevin Kelly's special interests--collects diverse form factors and interfaces for personal data collection, whether the need is obvious or unanticipated. For example, very few of us gather numerical data on our indoor environment, which may actually be more harmful due to high concentrations of volatile organic compound (VOCs). One very inexpensive DIY kit looks like thimble-sized water tower hooked to a circuit board. At less than $15, you can monitor the safety of the indoor environment where (unfortunately) more and more of us spend more and more time. Personally, I am experimenting with CureTogether and your.flowingdata with gadgets in iGoogle and Twitter to input my weight, sleep patterns, BMI, etc. However, like most Americans, I trend towards ADHD rather than OCD, leaving much to be desired in my data collection habits. In the end, for the sake of "patient safety and wellness", the best tools will need to be ambient, automatic and mobile--especially for care coordination of the elderly who suffer from so many conflicting health conditions, known as multimorbidity, and the unintended effects of taking too many medications, a dangerous situation known as polypharmacy or "pill burden". The guy that has figured out how to track every aspect of his life is artist/professor Hasan Elahi who has turned the daily, boring activities of eating, relieving oneself, shopping and going to bed a high art, inspired by his detention by the FBI after 9/11. Ditto with the work of artist and storyteller Jonathan Harris, especially his Whale Hunt, a multimedia experience that captures his heart rate, the luminous and gory images, and maps it all in interactive colors, emotion and multiple timeline formats.
Plan of the Panopticon, The works of Jeremy Bentham vol. IV, 172-3, pub. 1843 (originally 1791)
Of course, all this "biodata collectivity" augments fears that we are walking confidently into a brave new world of the Panopticon. Originally a French prison designed in 1785, this penal observatory became the modern hallmark in surveilance, achieving an invisible omniscience by authorities over those imprisoned and observed. The designer, Jeremy Bentham, himself described the Panopticon as "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example." The Devil may well dwell in the details, but God is in the machine. All of these health tracking tools will ultimately be measured by their effects and outcomes. Are people made safer--physically, mentally and spiritually? Does it make the complexities of health and technology cheaper in dollars and time invested? Will I lose that weight and dodge the cancer bullet in time to dance at my grandchildren's wedding? For now, I am merely trying to breakthrough from being statistically obese to severally overweight!

Field Painting
Back at the house by the creek, the older men are debriefing the End Times. It is no conversation for fathers of young children. Instead, I am in the field nearby, admiring the carpet of plants, which, to me, have no names.

There is the soft moss, the small flame-shaped succulants, grasses, heart-shaped leafy things, a smattering of purple wildflowers, green shoots, dandelion sprigs, stray sticks, fast amber ants, bumble bees barreling by. All is random. All is order. The world, when we are done with it, will do fine without us. With whatever time is left to us, we can only guess and try to do the next right thing. That, right now, for me, is to sit in this field and not to worry: God is in his heaven and all is right with the world.