Observing

When I look at branding, selling, social media and marketing etc it is through the orange lens.  Ironically BeBee's colour happens to orange so I will paraphrase the scene in Good Will Hunting "How do you like them Oranges" We are so ingrained by this word "follower" that we don't think twice why we are "followers".  If others are heavy into religion or they like worshipping the cult of celebrity or they are good with idolizing the superficial, I say that is freedom of choice and good on you if you do, but that isn't me and maybe there is an economic return to following, but I look for a learning return, because that kind of freedom is something nobody can buy - it is either something we choose or lose.

When I observe I do see that following behaviour does create value and it also contributes to massive wealth - again I am not foolish to think I can go against the grain and revolutionize the natural effects of the Power Law. Whether it is long-tails or power laws or whatever way networks scale, that is an aspect of network intelligence and not follower behaviour.  There is no value in describing follower behaviour as "herd mentality" or "sheeples" - the choices we make is who we are and we have enough going on in our own lives without making judgements about what others choose.

When I focus on my Orange Intelligence, I am focusing on my own learning relationship.  The presentation from Leonid Zhukov is what I refer to as Red Intelligence (the statistical component) but it contains aspects which pertain to Orange Intelligence - and the actual practice of how I operate within networks is "Orange".  At present my weakest area is Red, what really matters here is an appreciation for the mathematical, but we do not need to feel overwhelmed by this form of intelligence - if it takes time to understand, it simply takes time.

What matters right now is that I appreciate what Power Laws are and how they arise and how they will continue to arise.  At the same time I understand the network effect of long-tails also, which is the other side of the power-law graph. What I do appreciate is that it is the digerati who make platforms possible and it is marketers who entice us to become a part of those networks - but much of this push is based on a traditional type of social engineering, of which FOLLOWERS and LIKES are socially engineered components - and it is not marketers who created followers - we all go through an educational system which is about creating followers, long before the Internet was created.  The actions of television industry also were engaging followers long before marketers of modern media were.Observing is allied meaning, so meaning is much more valuable to me than following.  Meaning means I can sit in parallel with other thinkers, but following simply leads to an on-off switch which equates with agree or disagree.  We are taught to follow in University, we are taught argument and principles of discourse - this is great, there is a huge place in this world for such quality, but there has not been a huge place in this world created for reflection or observation - and if it did, why are we telling each other what to think, rather than learning ourselves how to think.  Newton Minnow spoke about the Vast Wasteland 55 years ago - which is the entire expanse of my own life - but here we are in 2016 and that speech remains as relevant as ever.

Observation is also allied with appreciation.  If there is a continuum between depreciation and appreciation, this has been one of my biggest learnings, that when I started out utilizing the online space as a personal learning lab, I was much more on the depreciation side of the depreciation-appreciation learning continuum.  As I observe, I learn the importance of appreciation.  Appreciation is not a political correctness, nor is it appreciative inquiry - free of any dogma, appreciation is a difficult personal challenge, because it questions what it is we think we know and it involves learning to see - and sometimes we make mistakes before we learn to see - so appreciation is learning from our mistakes also.

So much of Orange is based in the language of success - and another key in observation is proportionality - why is it that some of richest people in this world talk least about success?  It really comes down to what it is we hunger for, and here hunger is not a value of desire but a reality of deprivation.  When we are deprived our view of success is informed by lack and scarcity, rather than value and abundance.  I do not need an extra penny to see value and the kind of abundance that is learning is far greater than the scarcity of trying to achieve - so I count my blessings and value what it is I have already got - and a lot of that is my own business, so I do value privacy - and so privacy is also a part of Orange Intelligence - how do we create a world where the group need is met but we balance that need with the emergence of the individual.  All of that falls in the remit of my own observation.  When it comes to observation I cannot teach people how to observe, all I can do is question the value of what it is I am learning.

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