mike rowe

[san fran]

intro’d to Mike in 2010 via Dan, see below.

re-intro’d here:

two video clips embedded in post, first one:

tricky thing.. people automatically wonder what it is you’re against when you start talking about what it is you’re for..

3 million jobs, 8-12 percent of them need a college degree.. 90% of jobs require a skill, [you’re not buying an education, you’re buying a diploma.. that’s not saying don’t go to college, that’s just saying – to start your life 80,000 in the hole.. with some degree, expecting life to be waiting for them…]

college needed a pr campaign in the 70’s, but it went to far.. ie: which one of those do you want to be, the one that works smarter or the one that works harder

2nd video:

work is the thing you admire, labor is the thing you have to do

enough with the color of collars, … let’s get into, what are you addicted to… everybody can take a micro-macro look at this thing

reference to Matt Damon quote from good will hunting:

You just spent 150 grand on an education you could have gotten for $1.50 in late fees at the public library.

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CBS News Sunday Morning – Down and dirty with Mike Rowe

2011

a reality show that’s really real..

showing the dignity in jobs that are vital for society

people think i’m a spokesman for the blue collar american.. i’m not… i’m a fan.

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find/follow Mike:

his site:

initiative:

profoundly disconnected

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2009

Learning from dirty jobs

i realized how wrong i was…

anagnorisis – greek word for discovery – transition from ignorance to knowledge
parapetia – discoveries that lead to revelations

when you start to look for parapetia – you see it everywhere.. 

what if it’s really safety 3rd..

we’ve declared war on work as a society – a civil/cold war – on at least 4 fronts (hollywood, madison ave, silicon valley, ..), the collective effect is the marginalization of lots and lots of jobs…

innovation w/o imitation is a complete waste of time

i got a lot wrong.. so the thing to do is to talk about a pr campaign for work..

the jobs we hope to make/create aren’t going to stick unless they are jobs people want. clean and dirty aren’t opposites

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2008 – mission video – 10 min:

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wednesday, june 2, 2010

dan pink on polarunlimited

just a bunch of random notes… collection of my thoughts…
if you don’t like random… shooo shooo…..dan pink interviewed on drive

check out the autonomy audit

lawyers are so miserable.. because paid by the hour and time destroys autonomy

most people wouldn’t know what to do with 20% google time

fed x day…

have to ease them into it…instruct them

moments of flow have transcendence to them.. unfortunately most work places don’t have it.

flow test (because most of us don’t know when we are in that state)

what can we do to increase flow….

experiment recording your mental state

top motivator at work – was making progress… so the more people can see their progress – the more they will be motivated.

levels of engagement in workplace are falling.. and we see a rise of gifting outside of work – open sourced, etc

because people are engagement mastery seeking missiles

most people in organizations are feedback deprived.

performance review is usually once or twice a year.

better way for feedback… self evals… give yourself performance goals…

mastery

1. mastery is growth

carol dweck – theories of intelligence

if intelligence can be grown – every opportunity is a chance for growth

2. mastery is pain… have to work very hard for a very long time

3. mastery is an asymptote – alluring and frustrating at the same time.

it’s a choice

it’s going to suck – but moments of flow will get  you through

if not at the level of mastery you want to be

purpose

why is the landscape changing so much now (toms shoes)

companies are raising worthy goals – but they aren’t goals that want people to raise out of bed…

we need something bigger than a profit goal

tie a sense of purpose to the profit mode… esp in america

what’s your question/sentence

he wrote books that helped people see their lives more clearly and live them more fully

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so then… i’m sharing all this with my friend Jim – who i am working with to develop some means to validate a process of unleashing passion in public school.
first he greets me with this post he got today from John Hagel – where he brilliantly distinguishes between passion and flow..
then he tells me of his connections with Mike’s daughter Maria, who is doing a dissertation on innovation, and Mike, who did amazingly innovative workwith Whirlpool and is now sailing the world.
and Jim shares his post in Hagel.
{Instead of pursuing scalable efficiency, institutions must learn how to pursue scalable peer learning. Said differently, institutions must find ways to make talent development the core rationale for their existence.}
and here’s my throw in – a manifesto on public ed i was working on with steven.
{the quality of the school should depend on the innovation of of the kids}

then Jim shared this ted talk by Mike Rowe on celebrating the nature of hard workanagnorisis
parapetia – discoveries that lead to revelations
notions of work i had determined as sacrasanct
people with dirty jobs are happier, they have an amazing sort of symmetry to their life
what if we follow our passion…
he didn’t follow his passion.. he watched where everyone was going.. and went the other way…
efficiency vs effectiveness
safety first
what if it’s really safety 3rd…
ie; i value my safety first.. but the people out there know that the work comes first.
son i’m the captain of a crap boat.. my responsibility is to get you home rich, not alive
complacency doesn’t happen heretheory:
we’ve declared war on work.. a civil war, a cold war,… on at least 4 fronts…
1) holliwood  – low end jobs are a joke
2) madison avenue – commercials – your life would be better if you worked less
3) washington
4) silicon valley – we are plugged in and connected…
innovation without imitation is a complete waste of time
the dirty jobs that keep it alive are just as valuable as the genius that designed ittalk about a pr campaign for work.. the forgotten benefits of work
declining tradeschool enrollment, infrastructure jobs
the jobs we hope to create aren’t going to stick unless they ones that people want