My life has been full of numbers lately because there are people around me who like to count. Jacob, my five year old son, estimated that one row of books (across four bookcases) in our home would total 100. He counted until he reached 101 and was surprisingly accurate. He counts just about everything of interest to him.
The same goes for Paul Allen, CEO of WorldVitalRecords.com. He is focused on numbers. His work life is filled with watching web analytics, search engine optimization tools, and campaign conversion rates. He is constantly monitoring the numbers in order to maximize the reach of every advertising dollar we spend and every resource (time, effort, partners) we use to extend the WorldVitalRecords.com brand. Paul’s constant vigil with numbers has motivated me to reassess how I value the day-to-day tasks I perform at work. I realize that if I track what works and what doesn’t in my day and continually make course corrections, I can extend my reach far beyond what I would do if I wasn’t focused on metrics and performance tracking.
I work in content acquisition at WorldVitalRecords.com. Paul has shown our team that the number of records we acquire on a daily basis increasingly has a direct correlation with the effectiveness of our reach in cyberspace. Our directive is to acquire genealogy and family history data from all over the world. And as we amass these records, our goal is to provide a value-add to the material. So, not only do we acquire the records, we plan to extend the reach and accessibility of the records by repurposing the content in as many ways as possible for our subscribers.
Paul’s constant watch on the market has led to some innovative developments at WorldVitalRecords.com which soon will be implemented. We are indeed a small company at the moment, but with the watchcare of a person who loves numbers, our continued growth is a given.
Last year at this time I started a class in instructional design languages taught by Dr. Andrew Gibbons. As I looked back today on some of my journal entries for January of last year (just to see if I have made the progress I intended to make), I was intrigued by what I recorded about something he said in one of his first lectures. He talked about being purposeful in our communication—that effectiveness takes design in how we communicate.
I like what Dr. Gibbons said when he mentioned “purposeful†communication. John Durham Peters, in his book Speaking Into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication defines communication as the “orchestration of collective being.†The word “orchestration†in this definition implies purposefulness and design. We sometimes should design before we speak/communicate. Dr. Gibbons also mentioned that we create energy as we deal with each other.
Sometimes this energy is created through difference because whenever there is a contrast there is information. (This reminds me of Follett’s ideas about difference…that we can only create with difference and that the crux of all human progress is meeting the clash of difference.) He said that the natural processes depend on the transfer of energy and the transfer of information and that as we communicate we propagate energy and information into the world around us.
So….I learned today the importance of designing before speaking—being purposeful in my communications because of the energy factor—the idea that we can create energy and information and send it into the world in a purposeful way. My day had some particularly hard moments and instead of trying to orchestrate collective being and harness the energy of difference, I ended up propagating negative energy (which is not purposeful and doesn’t orchestrate togetherness). I want to be able to be more purposeful in the communications of my life and be able to send out wonderful energy into the world around me.