The Five Most Career-Limiting Habits Of Smart People

According to this study;

1. Unreliable

2. “It’s not my job”

3. Procrastination

4. Resistance to change

5. Negative attitude

h/t Penelope Trunk.

Right

Link Loving 08.06.11

• Are you ready for more? Scary stuff from Sharon Begley.
• Reforming the Lords. Patrick McGlinchey.
• The welfare economics of elevator travel. Surprisingly interesting. Cheap Talk.
• The rise of the far right across Europe – video.
• The Spanish revolt – a backstory. Bernardo Gutiérrez.
• Could the emerging powers set up their own IMF? David Bosco.
• Beyond GDP: Bold new direction, or a few more statistics? Saamah Abdallah.
• Lichfield local campaigns more able to mobilise than Friends of the Earth? Tom Baker.

Being An Executive

“Being an Executive does not require very developed frontal lobes, but rather a combination of charisma, a capacity to sustain boredom, and the ability to shallowly perform on harrying schedules.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

h/t Natalya Sverjensky

Remembered Heroine: Octavia Hill

Octavia Hill was an English social reformer and pioneer of affordable housing. She led hugely impactful environmental and open space campaigns, co-founding the National Trust, and her legacy can be seen in many of London’s green spaces today.

The eighth daughter of a corn merchant, whose mother opened up the community centre for adult education in the evenings, her upbringing imbued in her a strong sense of social justice. The family moved to the country following her father’s bankruptcy, where Octavia learned her love for nature.

She campaigned against development on existing suburban woodlands, and helped to save London’s Hampstead Heath and Parliament Hill Fields from being built on and was the first to use the term ‘Green Belt’ for the area around London.

This episode of In Our Time gives a rich insight into her life and work and is well worth a listen.

Her success with social housing was based on the assumption of personal responsibility by both owners of property and tenants. She encouraged people from all classes to work together towards a healthy society and relied for many years entirely on volunteers.

During her life, she also set up the first Army Cadet Force, worked with William Morris to ensure that the houses she managed were beautiful, and became a talented painter.

Some more on Octavia and three other amazing women as part of this Hidden Herstories series.

How To Start A Revolution

The film about the work of Gene Sharp is nearly ready for release. Cannot wait. If you’ve never come across his work on non-violence, read it.

Link Loving 07.06.11

• How to give an interview. Seth Godin.
• The Transition movement and activism – a response. Rob Hopkins.
• Gandhi’s journey and the power of nonviolence. Dennis Dalton.
• How to survive an unpaid internship. Alex Varley-Winter.
• Escape the City.
• The 10 ways to future-proof your career. Lynda Gratton.
• The elusive craft of evaluating advocacy. Steven Teles and Mark Schmitt.
• Grassroots anti-coal campaigns around the world. Ted Nace.
• Are you a social entrepreneur interested in winning £25,000 to kick-start your idea?

Out Of The Spiritual Closet

This report may be from 2009, but it is wonderfully current. From the great people at the Movement Strategy Center, it includes some of the lovely quotes below. Read it. I think it’s exactly where we need to be moving as movement-builders.

“Faith is required when there is a gap between what you know to be true and what you believe to be true. When there is no gap, when everything is aligned, you no longer need faith. The search for spirituality is to find that alignment.”

“To counter greed, we need a sense of abundance. To counter fear, we need hope. To counter violence, we need peace. All too often, our movement uses the old mainstays of competition, isolation and division to get funding, brand our organizations and structure our internal management.”

“During the Civil Rights Movement we didn’t have the awareness that I see now. It feels like youth are learning from the mistakes of older generations about how we treat the Earth and interact in community. It feels like we are returning to traditional ideas of community love, support and care. Consciousness is evolving; I am in awe.”

“Movements are about moving people. Fundamentally they are about the relationships and the connections we build with each other.”

Artfully Visualizing Our Humanity

Aaron Koblin takes vast amounts of data — and at times vast numbers of people — and weaves them into stunning visualisations. Awesome.

Link Loving 06.06.11

• How do these people sleep at night?
• The death of small businesses – in graph form. Kevin Drum.
• Oooh – ThinkProgress get’s a re-design.
• The sweet smell of hyprocracy. Daniel Elton.
• Is it too late for Serbia to join the EU? Joshua Keating.
• Looking for work, young and ambitious?
• The man and the machine: in search of Barack Obama. Roger Hardy.
• New Australian LGBT campaign launches. My Marriage Story.
• Awesome people hanging out together.