culture

Anime Research – Jump On In!

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Special thanks to Manga Therapy!

Want to get involved in Anime Research?  Well there’s an International Anime Research project that’s looking for data.  Don’t know too much about them right now, but I asked for an interview, and of course you can go scope it out yourself!

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Geek As Citizen: Talking Is OK

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Discussion Communication

It’s been an eventful few weeks in geekery, with many a thing to make us discuss problems in geekdom and society in general – and what we can do to make things better.

Now a lot of my posts are often calls to action Indeed for all I write, I hope mostly it provides tools and resources for people to do things. I’m always leery of “calls to action” that just seem to keep making more calls to action without becoming anything.

I actually think this is a culture problem. In a culture where overpaid punditry blotivates endlessly, we’re used to not calls for action, but plenty of complaining and words. It discourages action and replaces it with talking.

However, there is a time to talk. When the “Game of Thrones” rape controversy came up, one of the people in the discussion at Geek Girl Diva noted that she’d seen highly productive talks about the controversy. These talks helped people think of what they do, decide on action, and question themselves.

This is where talking actually does make a difference. So though I’ve often decrited the talk-talk-talk of our culture that rarely results in action, I want to note talking has a point. Sometimes the goal literally should be “talk amongst yourselves.”

It’s just that it’s a specific kind of talking that’s important . . .

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#YesAllWomen And Addressing Sexism

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Watching reactions to #YesAllWomen continue to roll in is insightful. It’s informative, and I began to realize something that had been missing in a lot of people’s lives, and something #YesAllWomen is about. Something that is often missed.

So let’s talk about work.

At work someone was giving me advice, and helped me realize that many of us have multiple problem-solving modes. These modes aren’t always the right way to solve the problems, but boy can we get stuck in certain ones because they seem to work or work well enough.

Me, my two modes are the Problem Solver and The Listener, which I imagine are the modes many people have. The Problem Solver dives into things to tackle them, the Listener listens first then suggests or enables. Yours truly has jammed in Problem Solver mode more than once, and now and then people have to smack me out of it or I realize it’s time to be The Listener.  I imagine you’ve been there yourself.

Now I can discuss this intellectually, but #YesAllWomen slapped me in the face with a hard truth.

It’s a call to listen.

Among the stories I saw people not engaging, but judging (it’s anti-male) or making jokes or riding in on their own agendas. But these people weren’t listening.

#YesAllWomen is about women telling their stories so people hear them.

That’s it. People need to listen so we can solve these things – but it takes listening first.

One of the reasons that I’ve posted on this a lot, I realize is that I slowed down and listened here – I wasn’t in Problem Solver mode. Thus it hit me deeply.

Listening impacts someone – it impacts the listener. It changes them. Listening changes us so we can help.  Listening shows the respect people need so they can open up.

So it’s about listening.

A lot is, really.

We all need to listen more, I’d guess.

– Steven Savage