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Best Advice, Intelligent Optimism, Midwest Teen Sex Show and More
Friday, January 23rd, 2009 at 9:49 PM - by Vern Seward
You know, being the odd egg isn't always a bad thing, especially in an environment that fosters inclusion versus cliques that exclude those with behaviors and ideas not inline with the group's.
If you work in corporate America then you'll have likely spent time at any number of "diversity" seminars where our differences are highlighted as a positive thing and inclusion is this year's equal opportunity concept of significance.
What the Fortune 500s fails to realize is that you can't create a program that talks about acceptance and inclusion and expect the rank and file to lock-step to it if the company does not change its culture to embrace these concepts. Mere programs and sound bites during all-hands meetings won't get it.
It's usually just lip service paid to keep bureaucrats and bean counters happy. Companies that REALLY want to include everyone in its day to day operation do so without the need of programs. In fact, leading companies -- ones that everyone else in the industry looks up to -- lead their respective industries because they foster environments that nurture eccentricities, oddness, and obtuse views. They know that it is from these unconventional viewpoints that new approaches to problems can be found, that new ways to do things are noted, and new opportunities are realized where there was none noticed by conventional views.
Actually, looking at problems a bit different than how we see things personally is a good thing too. It doesn't mean you need to toss out everything your parents taught you every time someone comes up with a coherent thought, but it never hurts to look and listen to the eccentrics. You never know where your next lesson in life is coming from.
Being an eccentric does not mean that you walk about mumbling incoherently to yourself, looking disheveled, and eating Fig Newtons dunked in buttermilk. It just means that you see things differently, and as we've already established, different can be good.
Take Dan Gilbert for instance, he looks like a normal guy, not someone who founded Quicken Loans Inc. I would suspect he might tell you he's a normal guy as well, but he has a few oddnesses of his own. For instance, ask him what is the best advice he's ever gotten and he'll say, "A penny earned is just a penny."
Huh?
He explains what that means in the second episode of the Fortune podcast, The Best Advice I Ever Got. Other episodes offer insights from Kobe Bryant, Felix Dennis and others.
There are six episodes of The Best Advice I Ever Got and none are much longer than a minute. More episodes are added weekly.
Not odd enough for you?
How about a guy who says germs are our friends? I'm not talking about the bacteria you find in yogurt or the bugs they use to make biodiesel. I'm talking about the germs that inhabit the grungiest, nastiest, filthiest places all around us.
Jurriaan Kamp of Ode Magazine says that we over sanitize ourselves to such an extent that our bodies don't know how to handle germs. He sites studies where farmers who habitually shovel cow poop were five times less likely than the non-shoveling populace to get lung cancer. The germs in the airborne poop dust somehow inhibits the likelihood of cancer, he suggests.
Is he nuts or is he on to something? I'm not sure, but I know I don't want to start making pies out of what comes out of the south end of a northbound bovine to find out.
Be that as it may, if you'd like to hear more of what Mr. Kamp has to say on the subject the check out In Praise of Germs, one of seven episodes of Ode's podcast titled Intelligent Optimism.
I like the name, "Intelligent Optimism." It implies that we have a lot to look forward to, a lot to be happy about if we would only look at stuff more closely and we might see things differently.
There are many subjects in mainstream society that are considered too touchy to talk about openly. The problem is that these subjects are often the very things we need to talk about openly.
Take sex for instance, I find it amazing that we keep the physicality and the psychology of sex under so much mystery that its a wonder we ever procreate at all. And it's shameful how we hide even the most basic knowledge of sex from our youngsters. I mean geez, no matter how much we try to hide it, sex is everywhere and if we take some of the mystique out of it then maybe we wouldn't have so many dangerous freaks running around.
It take so off-center thinking to come up with a way to talk about taboos in an open forum. And that's just what you get with the Midwest Teen Sex Show podcast.
OK, first off, you know exactly what this show is about so warning you that it contains content that may not be suitable for the very young should be redundant, but I've done it anyway.
What's cool about the Midwest Teen Sex Show is that they don't mind talking about any subject as long as has to do with sex. Dating, breasts, sexually transmitted diseases, and a whole lot more is covered and they do it in such a way that you completely understand what's being said. I'm not talking about watching some trussed up spinster lecture about abstinence. Each subject is accompanied by skits that humorously illustrate the topic.
Again, not for the wee ones unless you are truly open-minded about the subject.
There are more than 20 episode of the Midwest Teen Sex Show and I think all are worth watching regardless of age and experience. I can guaranty you'll learn something.
Grab all episodes at the iTunes Store.
And while you're at the store check out the new HD freebies. You can get webisodes of Battlestar Galactica, the pilot of Patrick Swayze's new show, The Beast, and others. May as well give that new HD TV you bought over the Holidays a workout, right?
Find more free stuff at the iTunes Store below (and direct links are back!)
Vern Seward is a writer who currently lives in Orlando, FL. He’s been a Mac fan since Atari Computers folded, but has worked with computers of nearly every type for 20 years.
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