Money & Power Aren't Enough; We Need The 3rd Metric.

Huffington Post

We've all bought into this male definition of success, money and power, and it's not working. It's not working for men, and it's not working for women. It's not working for anyone. ~Arianna Huffington

Arianna burnt herself out a few years ago- literally collapsed at her desk broke her cheekbone and required 5 stitches on her eye- so she was forced to look at what she had been doing to herself. She started a sleep movement and now is expanding this thought that life is more than power and money. Wellbeing is the missing element(s) that makes both men and women more joyful and therefore more successful in the end.

She recently held The Third Metric: Redefining Success Beyond Money & Power to introduce the idea and has been speaking and writing about it a lot lately and I applaud her message. My own burnout and that of many of the people I care about is the main catalyst for my work today. Exhausted whether we work inside or outside the home and even if we're successful in many areas of our lives we're often too depleted to appreciate the good fortune. And it's not just that we are doing this to ourselves, which would be bad enough, it's that we are parenting our kids that it is normal to be constantly busy and frantic. What kind of life is that for us let alone kids?

The graphic above was part of an infographic that was posted regarding this topic and what instantly popped out at me was how the new definition resembles a ME Map. Yup, I made The 3rd Metric about ME ;)    And while some might poo-poo the idea as fluffy and a luxury they should note how 8 out of 10 employees are experiencing workplace stress and it cost businesses $300BILLION a year. Gallup recently did a study that said only 30% of the US workforce is engaged with their jobs and that the cost is closer to $500B, but you get the point.

Something tells me this is going to be the hot new topic of conversation in business. The economy is starting to get better and whether next year or 5 years from now employees are going to start exiting companies that burn them out. The attraction for talent is going to include how they thrive and not just on the power and money that is offered up. If businesses brush this off not only are they holding back the engagement that could profit them now, they will be left with a stale and numb bench to work with then.

Loving Twitter & Busting Bullies

Dick Costolo is a good guy and the perfect CEO for Twitter. He's witty, smart, and uses humor he honed in his improve days to disarm and charm folks. And so it comes as no surprise that when I sent him my last post about Tom Peters' troll issue he quickly responded. But it did make me feel kind of bad that in only 140characters I didn't have room to address issue, make a suggestion, and tell him how great Twitter is... so let me remedy that:

I dare say Twitter it is one of the most important tools created in the last decade. Yes, some people use it for mere amusement which is still worthwhile but it also helped facilitate the Arab Spring and other political movements. It is priceless in weather, national crisis, and natural disaster situations when people are trying to get information and connect with their loved ones; I myself used it to find out information on a friend who was running the Boston Marathon. And for political and breaking news it beats all other media for speed and diverse points of view to pull from.

Whack-A-Mole! Now I knew when I alerted Dick to Tom's troll that it was an issue that is already top of mind for his team. And with all that is going on with running this company and expanding the service into other parts of the world Tom's little annoyance was not going to be a top priority but I sent it as a tangible example of how trolls can drive even the most accomplished folks away. I can't imagine how frustrating it must be for the Twitter team to have to deal with spammers and trolls popping up all over the place and as soon as they kill one account 5 others pop up. Kudos for what they are already doing behind the scenes that is no doubt a huge effort.

I would like to suggest an unorthodox idea though... as good as the Twitter security folks are they are probably in-the-lines kind of people and some times we need to fight hacker with hacker or troll with troll. So, my idea is to put a bounty on an useable idea to stop trolling. Open it to anyone who can send Twitter a workable solution and heftily reward them, maybe $100K, for their efforts. Not sure if this is a realistic idea or if you'd need to know Twitter's code or other factors, but I tend to believe most every problem has a solution. And to clarify, I'm not talking by nefarious means but more out-of-box, non-corporate type thinking. If you have better ideas please list them in comments.

Tom sent me a nice tweet thanking me for my post and it's too soon to tell but it looks like his troll might have actually decided to move on to more useful and positive endeavors- fingers crossed. I want to thank Dick for all he is already doing to make Twitter great and thank his team for all the work they do behind the scenes. And to Tom: I hope this stands as a tiny example of the effort people are willing to go through to thank you for all you've done for us. You and Twitter are so great together so tweet on :)

Tom's Twitter Tainted By Troll

I love Twitter and adore Tom Peters so you can imagine how disappointed I was when last week he almost stopped tweeting because he was being harassed by one kooky follower. When he posted his intention to leave I along with many many others chimed in: why didn't he simply block this jerk? Seemed too simple of an answer and apparently it was. Turns out this stalker was setting up multiple accounts for the sole purpose of hassling Tom, as soon as he blocked them another would pop up.

Aside from the annoyance that one unbalanced person was going to ruin the rest of our fun interacting directly with Tom, it made me wonder what kind of person has this kind of time on their hands and what's with all the hostility? Then I realized, as did Tom, that it doesn't matter- there are some nutty people in the world and it would be a shame to let them spoil all our fun.

But that said, this is a real issue that social media sites are going to need to step up and handle better. Blocking, un-friending, etc are all good for the casual annoyer but for a persistant pest or heaven forbid a more menacing scary threat there needs to be a way to address the situation more proactively. Twitter and the other sites are going to need to implement a stronger harassment barrier. I'm not sure of the legality of it all but there should be a way to block the IP address so that even if someone makes up another email or account attempt it would block them from signing on to the service permanently.

If Tom, a fully grown accomplished adult, can be worn down by this sort of thing I can only imagine what a teen or more vulnerable person would have to deal with. There are obviously reasons people want/need anonymity and privacy for certain types of interactions on the web but there should be a way to control who comes at us too.

To Catch a Predator caught and hopefully made online child predators fear they would be arrested and exposed - maybe it's time for the same treatment for these trolls and expose and shame them into stopping the bullying. There have been many cases of teens being bullied into suicide so it is not a victimless annoyance. And even if they are not life threatening in nature, we should be able to go online and interact without being driven away by a few badly behaved bullies.