The Invisible Mentor

Archive for November, 2011

When I think of Jane Jacobs, US Anthropologist, Margaret Mead’s famous quotation comes to mind. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Jane Jacobs had no formal training in urban planning and design, yet she wrote a seminal book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which is still referred to five decades later. She opposed plans for an expressway to run through her neighbourhood in New York City and others rallied with her resulting in the Mayor nixing the plans. Jacobs demonstrates that a small group of committed people can change the world.

Name: Jane Jacobs

Birth Date: May 1916 – April 2006

Job Functions: Urban Theorist/Visionary, Writer, and Activist

Fields: Urban Planning

Known For: Stopping the expansion of the Spadina Expressway in Toronto and the Proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway in New York City

After Jacobs graduated from high school in Scranton, Pennsylvania, she worked a year as an unpaid reporter for Scranton Tribune where she got a firsthand look at the problems of working-class districts. After that, she spent six months at a community centre for the Presbyterian home missions that her aunt ran in the mountains of North Carolina. In 1934, Jacobs left for New York City where her older sister was living, and eventually settled in Greenwich Village. While living in New York City, Jacobs initially worked in stenographic and secretarial jobs, and later as a freelance writer contributing articles to several New York publications. She didn’t limit herself to the types of articles she wrote because she was a quick study and would focus on any subject matter she needed to at the time.

During that time, Jacobs was unemployed a lot so she often took the subway and got off at random stops and walked around investigating the neighbourhoods and industrial districts, while at the same time seeking employment. Jane Jacobs learned about the city by wandering around. She was an excellent observer.

In April 1944, while she was a feature writer for the Office of War Information, Jacobs and her two roommates threw a party. One of the party guests was the architect Robert Hyde Jacobs Jr., who soon after became her husband. They had three children together – two boys and a girl.

In 1952, Jacobs took a job as associate editor at Architectural Forum. With the help and support of her husband she could master the knowledge she required to do her job well. In the role of associate editor, Jacobs had to analyze the problems of cities such as New York, Washington DC, Baltimore, San Francisco and Chicago, and became an ardent critic of tearing down old neighbourhoods to accommodate high-rise towers. The 1950s was also a time of urban renewal, and urban planners and developers were destroying the vitality of cities by “cleaning them up.” They levelled buildings in neighbourhoods and replaced them with high rises in park-like settings, thinking that they could get rid of social problems by doing so.

Jacobs wrote about these issues in her articles because she wanted to change the attitudes. She advocated for mixed-use buildings and proposed combining both residential and commercial needs in the same neighbourhood. Jacobs delved deeper into urban planning and design and contributed an article to Fortune magazine for its “The Exploding Metropolis” series. Her husband, and William H. Whyte, the editor of Fortune suggested that she write a book to capture her innovative ideas and thoughts on healthy and unhealthy cities, and The Death and Life of American Cities came into being in 1961. This book turned out to be Jacob’s most influential.

Jane Jacobs on her book “Dark Age Ahead”

If you cannot view this YouTube video please click here.

David versus Goliath

• In 1962, urban planner and multimillionaire Robert Moses proposed a 10-lane superhighway slated to be called the Lower Manhattan Expressway which would run through SoHo, Little Italy, Chinatown and the Lower East Side. Jacobs chaired the Joint Committee to Stop the Lower Manhattan Expressway. Their efforts paid off and New York Mayor John Lindsay killed the plan.
• Jacobs first came head-to-head with Moses in 1956 when he wanted to continue Fifth Avenue (in Manhattan) as a four-lane expressway through Washington Square Park, her neighbourhood park.
• She also opposed Robert Moses’ plan to build a parking lot in Central Park.

Jacobs spoke out against Moses, and led others to oppose his plans. David prevailed over Goliath.

Jane Jacobs on the similarities between economies and nature

If you cannot view this video click here.

In the late 1960s, Jacobs opposed the Vietnam War and got arrested at one of the antiwar demonstration rallies. Her sons were at the age where they could be drafted so her husband encouraged her to move the family to Toronto in 1968, fearing that their sons would be arrested for refusing the draft. Within months of her arrival in Toronto, Jacobs was involved in opposing the Spadina Expressway which was slated to run through the City’s Chinatown, and they were successful in their efforts. She also influenced the regeneration of the St. Lawrence Market in downtown Toronto.

Jacobs felt at home in Toronto because the city represented many of her ideas and principles about what made healthy cities. Jacobs continued to get involved in issues she was interested in and wrote until she died. She was awarded the Order of Canada in 1996 for her writings.

Steps to Success

• Jacobs was very curious and learned how things worked.
• Learned about urban planning and design by walking and wandering around neighbourhoods.
• Quickly acquired the knowledge necessary for any topic she had to write about.
• Overturned current thinking in urban planning and design.
• Jacobs’ husband subscribed to Architectural Forum, and she became a regular reader. She decided that she wanted to work for them, so she applied and was given a trial assignment and then the associate editor position.
• Knew how to garner support for her cause – rallied high profile people like Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Mead and the New Yorker architectural critic Lewis Mumford.

Why Jane Jacobs’ Contribution Matters

Jane Jacobs did not have much formal education – she attended Columbia for two years in the School of General Studies taking whatever courses caught her fancy. Jacobs didn’t have a college degree like urban planners and architects, but she was vocal about what she believed in and others listened to her. She created a body of work in the form of articles and books that others refer to.

Lessons from Jane Jacobs 

• You do not need formal education to leave behind a legacy.
• One person can make a difference.
• If you don’t ask you don’t get. Jacobs liked reading Architectural Forum and wanted to work for them, so she applied for a job and got it.

 Books by Jane Jacobs

The Death and Life of Great American Cities (50th Anniversary Edition) (Modern Library) (1961)

The Economy of Cities (1969)

Cities and the Wealth of Nations (1984)

Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics (1992)

The Nature of Economies (2000)

Dark Age Ahead (2004)

Works Cited/Referenced

Encyclopedia of World Biography

International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2^nd Edition

American Decades Primary Sources, 1960 -1969

American Women Writers

The Writers Directory 2008

Scribner Encyclopedia of America Lives

Ideas That Matter: The Worlds of Jane Jacobs, edited by Max Allen

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

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YouTube Credits: Jane Jacobs on the similarities between economies and nature, Jane Jacobs on her book “Dark Age Ahead”AllanGregg; 

I finally got around to reading my complimentary copy of Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness: The Science, Design, and Engineering of Contagious Ideas by Dan Zarrella, which is a manifesto from Seth Godin’s Domino Project. The manifesto is a short read but it is packed with a lot of punch.

We’ve all seen videos, blog posts and ideas that spread like wildfire over the internet.

But what makes them spreadable? Is it because they are good?

Not necessarily, says Dan Zarrella, since some of those videos, blog posts and ideas aren’t good. They spread because they have contagiousness factors.  They spread because they are able to reproduce themselves. “In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins coined the word “meme” to mean a “unit of cultural inheritance.” His point was ideas evolve like genes do, and their success is based on their ability to spread, not on their benefit to provide to their hosts,” says Zarrella.

What I liked about the manifesto is that it’s researched-based and the author loves to tests things. Before an idea is spread, there are three criteria that must be met first:

1. Exposure: People have to be exposed to your content, so that means that they have to subscribe to your blog, be on your email list, or follow you on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook. To win at this you have to increase the number of people who subscribe to you blog, are on your email lists, and who connect or follow you on the various social networks.
2. Attention: They have to be aware of the content that you want to spread, so they have to read you blog post, open your email or read you status update. To win at this, you have to write better headlines/subject lines for your blog posts and emails, as well as more engaging status updates.
3. Motivation: They have to be motivated to share your content. Always have a call to action so people know what they are supposed to do next.

And the key to the above is really to experiment to determine what works and what doesn’t work so well.

Zarrella takes each criteria, and delves into them in their own chapter and gives deeper insight into exactly what he means. For instance, we are often told that if we have a small engaged list, our idea will spread, but the science doesn’t really support that. Yes, there are times we’ll get lucky, but for an idea to spread, it’s better if it’s exposed to a larger audience because not everyone will read it, and of those who read about your idea, even less will be motivated to share it.

In addition, certain words such as official, founder, speaker, expert and so on give us authority and increases our exposure. Another interesting piece of information is that people prefer information from you that’s positive because they are bombarded with so much negative information every day. And when you write, they want to hear your voice, your unique take, they want you to be authentic, but they do not want to hear about you. It’s what’s in it for them.

To grab attention you have to cut through all the clutter, but to do so, you have to say something new in a way that is familiar, or say something old in a new way, and one of the examples Zarrella gave was new adaptations of Romeo and Juliet. Another way is to personalize your message, or even broadcast your message at counterintuitive times such as on the weekends. Email messages that were sent between 5 and 6 am had the highest click through rates.

Certain types of information are more spreadable than others:

1. People have to be eager for the information.
2. Have to know what information people already have and what they lack.
3. Have to have an understanding of what moves them – their hopes, fears, hostilities.
4. Have an understanding of how they deal with their hopes, fears, hostilities, and so on.

Some of the reasons people are motivated to spread your ideas include: Personal relevance, humour, usefulness, shared common interest and so on. And the easier it is to read and understand your idea, the more spreadable it becomes.

3 Great Ideas

1. Talk as yourself, not about yourself.
2. Add to the conversation with interesting content.
3. Scarce knowledge is power

I recommend Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness: The Science, Design, and Engineering of Contagious Ideas by Dan Zarrella because it has tips that you can readily implement to test for yourself.

Other Resources

 How to Write Magnetic Headlines, Copyblogger.com

How to Write Headlines That Work, Copyblogger.com

102 Proven Social Media Headline Formulas, Chris Garrett

Idea Starters: 52 Headline Archetypes to Get Your Creative Juices Flowing

How to Spread Your Ideas, Leo Babauta

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

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Recently, I attended a book signing event at Indigo Books and Music where Walter Isaacson talked about his biography of Steve Jobs. Indigo’s CEO Heather Reisman did an excellent job interviewing Isaacson, and the audience got some deep insights into why Jobs was the way he was.

Isaacson remarked that kindness was not among Jobs’ top 100 traits – words he used to describe him include: Petulant, artistic, emotional, genius, mean, dual-personality, intuitive, control freak, liked to have his own way, had the ability to engender loyalty. If someone were eulogizing you, what would your top 100 traits be?

I’ve been thinking that I’m not always as grateful as I could be because there are times when I take things for granted. I also asked myself if I make the most of what I already have. Each of us is unique in our own way. We have talents that others don’t have, but are we using them well? Are we using them to serve others? When someone offers us their talents, are we gracious in accepting them, or are we dismissive? I am writing this post for you and for me.

Since attending the Isaacson event, I have been thinking how I can be of better service, and be gracious (gracious is one word that Isaacson used to describe Bill Gates) in the process. On The Invisible Mentor blog, I have added a page called The Mentors. On that page, I have placed all the Interviews and Profiles in Wisdom in one place where they can be easily accessed. The intent of The Invisible Mentor blog is to provide mentoring in a non-traditional way. I feature interviews I personally conducted, and profiles of wise people who have died, and that’s my unique way of connecting modern and ancient wisdom.

If there are blogs and other websites that you frequent and print their content, to strip away all that extraneous stuff so you don’t waste paper, download the Readability tool bar extension and click on it before you print. You’ll also notice that if you go directly to The Invisible Mentor blog, you’ll find a Print Friendly button at the end of each post. After you have used Readability to strip away whatever I have in the two outside columns you can print a clean copy of any post. In the mean time, I’ll research to see if there is a way to do that in one step.

Are you making the most of what you have, and how are you using it to serve the world?

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

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This is what we talked about on The Invisible Mentor Blog this week: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frédéric Auguste Barthold, Sculptor, Created the Statue of Liberty and Irene Becker, Life and Leadership Coach, Just Coach It.

Mondays at the Salon

Today, we have to go deep and wide in our knowledge to remain relevant, deep in our area of expertise, and wide by knowing a little bit about many things. Adventures in Learning are meant for both you and me to pick up some pearls of wisdom from people who are masters in their fields – we want to have great conversation starters at events, but we also want ideas that we can transport from one field to another. We start off with Gene Waddell who is an architectural historian and College Archivist at the College of Charleston.

Adventures in Learning – Architecture in our Lives, from Gene Waddell 

Booked on Tuesdays

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is the autobiography of the self-freed slave Frederick Douglass. This was not an easy book to read, and it will not be an easy book for anyone who believes in the rights and freedoms of all. This book is about Douglass’ life in slavery, his experiences and the experiences of other slaves – what he saw for himself.

Booked on Tuesdays: Review – Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass 

Wisdom Wednesdays

As a child, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was very interested in art and often neglected other studies. He studied art under the tutelage of Ary Scheffer a prominent artist. Scheffer had traveled to the United States as a young man and stayed with French nobleman the Marquis de Lafayette who had fought beside George Washington during the Revolutionary War.

Wise People: Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, Sculptor, Created the Statue of Liberty 

Perspective Thursdays and Workshop Fridays

This week we featured life and leadership coach Irene Becker. Becker was the first female CEO of a steel company in Canada. Like most people she has had many ups and downs and has had to start over in life, but these experiences helped to shape who she is now. Here are Part One and Part Two of Irene Becker’s interview.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

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Interviewee Name: Irene Becker

Company Name: Just Coach It

Website: http://justcoachit.com 

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Irene Becker:  I’m a coach, a speaker and writer who helps people to work, communicate and lead happier and smarter lives in high stress, high change environments.

Avil Beckford: When you have some down time, how do you spend it? 

Irene Becker: I make sure that I take downtime for a couple of minutes, three times a day to do exercises that build my 3Qs. I do a little exercise called the Pause that’s a two-minute stress buster and mindfulness meditation. When I have downtime, I’m either learning, praying and meditating, or I’m sharing and doing something of service that’s relationship-based.

Avil Beckford: What are five life lessons that you have learned so far?

Irene Becker:

1. Always be solution-focused. We know that our brain is automatically set to negatives, so being solution-focused is retraining our brain. But today more than ever before, we all need to move from being problem-focused to solution focused.
2. Don’t forsake your courage, integrity, or humanity.
3. Give more, share more, care more and contribute more because they are all roads to fulfillment and happiness.
4. Love more.
5. Live more and laugh more. Appreciate and be grateful for your life-inject humour wherever and whenever you can.

We look around and there are parts of the world where people go to bed hungry and yet they seem to be happier than people in North America and Western Europe. Life is a gift.

Avil Beckford: What’s your favourite quotation and why?

Irene Becker: My favourite quotation is from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who was a palaeontologist and Jesuit priest. He said, “Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”

Avil Beckford: How do you define success? And in your opinion what’s the formula for success?

Irene Becker: I don’t think that my formula for success would resonate with everyone, so I’m going to give you two answers. My definition for success is service above self. I had a client who was the Bill Gates of the country (Canada), and I’m really curious, here is a man who has everything, had built everything from scratch. And I asked him, “How do you define success?” and he told me in two seconds, “happiness,” so I think that’s the ultimate definition because when I define success it’s service, it makes me happy to feel that I have been of service. So success is happiness. I think the formula for success is timeless, it’s creating value for others. Whether you’re talking about business or personal success, it’s only when we’re creating value for others, that’s what success is. It’s that feeling of contributing that makes us happiest, and a sustainable business is about creating value for others. A sustainable relationship also depends on creating value for others.

Avil Beckford: What are the steps you took to succeed in your field?

Irene Becker: Learning, continuously learning, being passionate about my craft, working hard, contributing and understanding the difference between wants and needs. We used to be in a marketplace where Marketing 101 used to say, find the need, that’s no longer true. We’re so deluged with everything. When you have a product or service you have to understand the want.

Avil Beckford: What advice do you have for someone just starting out in your field?

Irene Becker: Find your passion then search for the want. Work hard, work honourably and work consistently.

Avil Beckford: If trusted friends could introduce you to five people that you’ve always wanted to meet, who would you choose? And what would you say to them?

Irene Becker: This was such a hard question because there are so many people I want to meet. So I decided that I would pick people from the past.

1. Abraham from the Bible
2. Rumi the Sufi mystic and poet
3. Dr. Martin Luther King
4. Albert Einstein
5. George Washington Carver, the peanut farmer: He was a man of such values and principles, a true leader. He was offered a lot of money but would have to give up his values and he never would. Corporations wanted to buy him out and I think it was the most incredible story.
6. Anne Frank

I would say, “Thank you!” because they all made the world a better place, and they all truly came from a place of love and service – extraordinary people.

Avil Beckford: Which one book had a profound impact on your life? What was it about this book that impacted you so deeply?

Irene Becker: I actually have a few books. I couldn’t come up with just one. The Torah, Bible, the Psalms, The Zohar, The Prophet, Les Miserables and the Wizard of Oz.

Avil Beckford: You are one of the 10 finalists on the reality show, So, How Would You Spend Your Time? Each finalist is placed on separate deserted islands for two years. You have a basic hut on the island and all the tools for survival; you just have to be imaginative and inventive when using them. You are allowed to take five books, one movie and one music CD, and whatever else you take has to fit in one suitcase and a travel on case. What would you take with you and how would you spend the two years? T he prize is worth your while and at this stage in the game there really aren’t any losers among the 10 finalists, since each are guaranteed at least $2 million?

I would take books: The Psalms, The Bible, The Zohar, Writings/Essays by my children, Poetry by Rumi.

I would take my favourite movie, Bruce Almighty as it is both very funny and very profound, spiritual.

Irene Becker: For the two years I would be praying, meditating, reflecting, and writing thoughts of value that I’d like to share with others – Thoughts about how life is a gift and how to use it. I would try to develop a routine that taps into my head, heart, soul and body. Never giving up faith that my two years was for a purpose that I cannot see, but that will be of service to others.

Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?

Irene Becker: Love!  The ability to cleave to the spark of Godliness, the spark of eternal love that is the source of all.

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

Irene Becker: Love and prayer!

Avil Beckford: If you had a personal genie and she gave you one wish, what would you wish for?

Irene Becker: I would wish for what Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said in my favourite quote that I would see a day when…. “We shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”

Avil Beckford: Complete the following, I am happy when…..

Irene Becker: I am living and leading in service to the greatest good, because it is only in service that we realize our true purpose.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Book links are affiliate links.