Category: hmm… thoughts

  • Schlepping through a data schmutz

    At work I’m doing a data smash. That is a tech geek way [I made up the term myself] of saying I’m taking all of our pipelines of customer web data and pouring it into one bucket to see if there’s anything interesting I can learn.

    It’s an experiment. There’s no guarantee it’ll tell me anything!

    Lately I’ve felt like I should put my lab coat on when I go into the office. And I find myself telling data jokes that people just stare at.

    It’s a very interesting experiment from 30,000 feet. But in the course of doing it, at ground level, it’s pretty flipping boring. As I trudge through spreadsheets, cleaning data, and merging terms like “church” and “organization” and “account” from various databases into one consistent term– I try not to let my mind wander. Consequently, at the end of the day I’m completely mentally exhausted. And you thought my job was just playing on YouTube, Facebook, and podcasts?

    My little experiment makes me think of real scientists in  real lab coats doing real experiments. These folks test a hypothesis with their hard work, ingenuity, intuition, experience… and money. Like my little experiment at work they don’t know if their hard work will ever pay off or if they’ll have to admit that their hypothesis failed despite all of the hard work, ingenuity, intuition, education, and money.

    And yet some of them work years and years, day-after-day, on the mundane unsexy experiments that change the world in big sexy ways. They invent new medical devices, develop vaccines, make sure the stuff we use is safe, on and on. Our society is dependent on nerds in lab coats.

    They are often the quiet heroes of our civalization. And yet we never learn their names.

    Better find my pretend lab coat and get back to work.

  • Unleash the Power of Observation

    observation

    Life is full of surprises. Unexpected things happen. People do funny stuff. But you’ll never notice the good stuff until you train your eye to look for it.

    Every week I see something that completely blows my mind. Sometimes its hilarity. Sometimes its tragedy. Sometimes its awkward. Sometimes its a persons moment of accomplishment. And when I share these things I always get the same response… how do you notice all that stuff?

    Observation is a skill. I don’t have special eyesight and I don’t think I live somewhere that especially strange things happen. OK, living near a university gives me the advantage that strange things probably happen more often than in other places. But I will make this promise, if you develop your observation skills you will see the art of life unfold before your eyes.

    Step one: Pop a squat. Define normal.

    The first thing you need to do is get to know your environment. If you’re new to this, go to a favorite coffee shop with a legal pad of paper or your laptop. Then, start writing everything you see down. Don’t talk to anyone. Just observe who is there, what they are doing, what they are talking about, what they are wearing, what they order, what they do after they order… write it all down. When it’s slow, map out the floor plan of the the coffee shop. Start noticing where people’s eyes go when they first walk into the shop. Start tracking foot traffic. Start noticing who stays how long. Start noticing how other people chose a seat. Once you’ve done this for a couple hours you will know what is normal about that shop.

    Step two: Contrast everything. Ignore the normal to notice the abnormal

    Once you get comfortable with the normal behavior of people in the coffee shop, you’ll start to notice the abnormal. (aka The Good Stuff) Notice that a guy sits in a certain place to check out female customers. Notice that people drop their change when the cute person is taking orders. Notice that the same person is meeting multiple people in a day. Notice the woman who cries quietly by herself. Notice the guy in the suit rolling his eyes while on the phone. On and on.

    Once you are used to a single environment and you get good about noticing what is abnormal at one place… it should start to come naturally with things in your every day routine.

    Most of the interesting things I observe happen when I’m in my routine. Riding my bike to the trolley I know what sprinklers are on, which direction cars typically come from at the intersections, which people are normally waiting for the bus, who are the regulars outside of Starbucks, that Tuesday’s are light traffic days at SDSU, who gets off at my stop, and which cars are parked on the side of the road as I work my way from the trolley to the office. Once I know that stuff– I only notice things that aren’t normal.

    The more you do this the better you get. I think I observe things a little better than most people because I do it in my routine all the time. Airports are easy “next steps” as typically most people behave about the same in all airports. But just know this.

    You can observe great things about the world simply by training your eyes to look out for it.

    The irony of this post? I notice obscure things but often miss the obvious.

  • Is God Still in Charge?

    who-is-in-charge

    It’s kind of funny, isn’t it? We live as though we are in charge. As if we decide and determine everything. Do we put the Bride of Christ into a cheap box and make it seem as though church is just a company?

    – Church growth can be boiled down to a formula? You need training for that. 4 easy payments of $19.95.

    – Church boards decide who is the leader? They pray at the beginning and end of each meeting.

    – Want a thriving church? Follow these 6 steps.

    – Want to experience life-changing worship? Hire some great musicians.

    – Need to reach the community? It’s all about your marketing strategy.

    – Want to change people’s lives? You need a gifted preacher to do that.

    Jeremiah 17:5

    This is what the LORD says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD.”

    Romans 9:14-16

    What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.

    Colossians 2:8

    See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.

  • Americans Love to Hate Winners

    celebrity-plotline

    We have a fascination with the little guy. Foundational to American storytelling is the little guy overcoming adversity to make it big. Americans love happy endings. The movie credits roll when Rocky raises his fists to the sky. Or when the young lawyer wins the big case against the mean corporation. Or when the nerdy sales guy finally marries the hot receptionist.

    A storyline of a champion successfully defending his place in the world would never make it on TV. You’d never see a TV drama about a big law firm protecting their big clients assetts in a positive light. It would be offensive to our American storyline to celebrate the big guy keeping the little guy down. Our culture isn’t wired to believe that is a valid storyline.

    We, collectively, hate the perennial winner. When the Chicago Bulls finally won the NBA Finals we celebrated with Michael Jordan. But when they won 3 in a row that seemed a bit much and everyone was fine with MJ going to play baseball for a few years. We were sick of his winning ways. The good guy needed to go wear a black baseball hat for a while… so we could welcome him back as he overcame being down to come to the top one more time.

    We love the process of becoming a winner. But actual winners become the enemy in about two seconds.

    This plays out painfully in politics. Collectively, we loved Bill Clinton as president. Then we hated him. We loathed his sleazy ways and couldn’t wait for him to leave office. People loved George W. Bush. It’s almost embarrassing to say that publicly– but the people loved Bush! Then they hated him. As time wore on everyone looked forward to him leaving office. Not even Republican nominees for his office wanted him at their events in the last year of his presidency. And now the tides are turning against Barack Obama. Just 12 months ago more than 60% of Americans chanted “Yes We Can” as they cast their ballot. Many cried along with the thousands at Grant Park when Obama won. Many lined up for days to proclaim his innaguration as the greatest day in our lifetime. But now he’s not the little guy, is he? The little guy has become the man and there is something in our collective DNA that must learn to loathe him.

    It’s a little surreal when you look at it like that, isn’t it? Maybe its just hip to hate the President?

    Sports? Same thing.

    Celebrity? Same thing.

    Business? Same thing.

    Churches? Same thing.

    Pretty much anyone or any thing which rises from obscurity to some notoriety is immediately loathed once they make it to the top. People hate Microsoft. They hate Dell. They hate AT&T. They hate the Yankees. They hate CNN. They hate Rick Warren. They hate Miley Cyrus.

    I don’t know about you. But I’m ready for a new storyline in our culture. I’m sick of the hatred. I’m bored with making celebrities awesome in order to just tear them down. The plot is disgusting to me.

    How about we start celebrating the everyday champions? The ones who never gain notoriety for coaching a freshmen basketball team. Is it possible for our culture to celebrate the Jack & Diane’s of the world? How about celebrating longevity? How about focusing on long term success instead of a parabola of success?

    Of course not. We love creating superstars for the sole purpose of destroying them far too much.

  • Alone in the Wild

    wide shot ed walking

    Last night I watched a fascinating documentary on the National Geographic Channel called, “Alone in the Wild.”

    It was difficult to watch. Here was this outdoorsmen named Ed Wardle. He wanted to test himself to see… can I live completely independent of others and survive in the Yukon wilderness? He intended to make it 90 days. He made it 50. And the last few weeks weren’t pretty. As time wore on, as hunger set in, as the reality that he could contact people but was choosing not to set in, the pain set in. It was agonizing TV. He cried a lot. He dealt with a lot of emotional pain. And of course he documented his unraveling. With the pressure of shooting a film on his mind all the time and the reality that he was lonely– he was paralyzed. He was in the wild, all by himself trying to prove that he could do it on his own, and he realized he needed people. He could technically do it but he chose to give up.

    Deep exhale on that. He needed people. He had the skills to do it on his own. But we just aren’t wired that way. We’re hardwired to need one another.

    And so he quit. He couldn’t do it. Check out what he said:

    The isolation was the most difficult element of this adventure. With no contact I immediately began to lose direction and reason. Without food I lost concentration and the ability to think straight. I worked hard from week one to keep myself motivated and keep going and by the end I was spending hours every day just convincing myself to carry on one day at a time. When I was travelling or doing something physically hard I had a military voice superimposed on my thoughts keeping me going and getting me organised, other times I had a female voice that would tell me to be sensible, breathe and take it easy on myself. They helped and I could feel them getting stronger and more necessary as time went on. link

    I doubt Kristen would remember saying this to me but when we were dating in college she wrote in a letter, “I love you because you don’t need anyone but you chose to let me into your world.“ True– I was raised to be independent. One of my parents goals in raising my brother and I was that we’d be able to take care of ourselves. (I don’t think they ever meant this emotionally, but physically we knew how to take care of ourselves with food, laundry, cleaning up, and stuff like that pretty young!)  When things got rough in high school and college I took that desire to be independent to an extreme. In my dysfunction I translated “you can do it on your own” to “I will do life with no ones help, I will muscle through anything, I don’t need to depend on anyone.”

    Kristen was right. Back then, I didn’t need or want anyone in my life. It was amazingly fulfilling to find my own way, take care of myself, and go from absolutely nothing to paying my way through college. But it was also dysfunctional. And it took someone I loved calling that spade a spade to motivate me to change.

    This is where Kristen has completed me in a powerful way, though. She reminds me, in words and deeds,  that we need others in our lives. We need good friends. We need the wisdom of our peers. We need to be open in these relationships. She has taught me that while we don’t “need” others to survive… life is infinitely better with people than without.

    Doggone it if she wasn’t right, too. Life is way better surviving in the wild with friends.

  • Let’s Clarify our Relationship

    Dearest blog reader,

    It’s tough for me to write these words. Yet our affair is such that I think we need to clarify our relationship. It’s been pretty muddy as of late and I feel as though you are beginning to disdain me. And my ambivalence towards your disdain may not be helping matters.

    I write this blog. I invite you to read it. But it is important you know it was never about you. It’s about me. I don’t mean that to sound narcisistic, the way professors try to write off all social media as narcisism. See, I was blogging before we called it a blog. This thing you are reading started way back in high school– in journals. Then, in college, I got more sophisticated about it and would write this on my first Macintosh– in 1994. After that, I learned that my words could be more portable so I carried this around on Zip disks that I popped into computers all over the place… writing on the go! If you see the first post on this blog, from 5.5 years ago, you’ll see that it refers to other involvements online. (Seriously, I’ve been doing this online thing in one form or another since 1994!) It’s about me and my writing, not you and your reading.

    I consider my blog a form of art. I’m not that creative in the traditional manner, I can’t paint or draw. I suck at singing and dancing… this is what I have to work with. This is my studio.

    Long ago bloggers wrote in secret. (Think about the movies– how many of them are based off of journals found after a person dies?) I hid behind names I created for myself and never associated my name with what I posted online for fear that people would know what I was thinking in real life. The secrets weren’t because I was ashamed of what I wrote. It was because it was clear that I was keeping a journal and it was more for me than it was for you. I was fine with people reading it. I knew people read it. Back then it was more about the style of “hiding” than the hiding itself. Everyone did it.

    In the last 3-4 years styles changed and people went public about blogging. I’ve owned and blogged here at adammclane.com for almost 3 years. I was intentional about chosing this domain because I wanted to be transparent— I was tired of people whispering, “I found your blog, is it OK if I keep reading?”

    I don’t even blush anymore when you walk up to me and tell me you read about something on my blog. It’s just part of my life. Some people are strong verbal communicators– I like to think I am a stronger written communicator. It’s what I do and who I am. The fact is I love it when you walk up to me and say, “Are you Adam? I’ve read some stuff on your blog.” That’s great, it’s always fun. You’re welcome here. Please continue that. Please let me know how I can help you if you are learning to blog.

    What isn’t so great is when you put words in my mouth. Or when you steal my work. Or when you correctly quote me but misspell my name. Or when you take my ideas and thoughts and claim they are your own. Or when you want to take my ideas and make money for yourself. Or when you ask me to work for free. [There’s a whole rant to this one– for another day] Or when you blog/Facebook about my ideas negatively and don’t have the balls to at least send me a link to invite me into the same discussion that kicked off your rant with your friends. I could go on. But the point is made, right?

    This relationship is about trust. You trust me to write something worth reading. And I trust you to treat me with respect.

    – If you want to discuss something with me, I’ve given you 100 ways to contact me or leave a comment right here.

    – If you want to quote my blog, please spell my name correctly. (How do you get the link right and the name wrong?)

    – If you want to put a blog post on your website or in your denominations newsletter… please ask me for permission. I’ve never said no.

    – If you want to start a conversation about me, that’s totally fine… please allow me to defend myself.

    – If you want me to give you advice on how you can make money (or raise money for your ministry), don’t be annoyed when I ask for payment.

    I live a pretty open and public life. I’m totally fine with that. It goes with the territory. But living my life before you doesn’t mean I am open to being robbed, misquoted, mislabeled, and written off as some kind of jackass to be taken advantage of.

    I’m not angry, I’m not thinking of quitting, I’m not even a little bit ticked off— I just thought it was a good time to clarify our relationship. I live my life before you. I share my thoughts with you. I trust that you respect this relationship as much as I respect you. I invite your response. If I’m off base, let me know.

    Thanks for reading,

    Adam McLane

  • Warp Speed!

    warp-speed

    That’s how I feel about the next 90 days. This week starts the first of three National Youth Worker Conventions. For me, it’s a huge honor to be able to go to the three U.S. conventions and to play such a cool role. On site I am in charge of capturing the story of the convention for our internet audience, snapping a couple thousand pictures, filling a years worth of blog content, co-leading a seminar on social media and video, plus a whole littany of other normal stuff the whole staff does on site.

    What this really means is that this is my busy season. Between now and the end of the year I’ll be gone about a week a month for work. Of course, while I’m gone doesn’t mean that regular work doesn’t get done, it just backlogs. And I stil need to use a weeks vacation in there. So the pattern is go away for about a week. Rest HARD on the travel day. Push through as much work as possible. Rest HARD some more. Get everything together to go back on the road. Repeat.

    The point of this post isn’t to lament about the next 3 months of my life. Not at all. Trust me, I consider this insanity to be a blessing. I am thankful to God for the opportunity. The point of this post is to think about the question, “How do you find sanity when your life hits warp speed?”

    Here’s how I do it. I’d love to hear how others go through similar times.

    1. Embrace some insanity. This might be super unhealthy, but when I’m on site at a convention, I focus on what needs to be done. If these trips were a sport I want to make sure I leave it all on the field.With thousands of attendees coming I want to do whatever I can to make their experience awesome.

    2. Schedule rest when on the road. The attitude of #1 above will kill you if you aren’t disciplined. Last year, I was so wide-eyed about the whole thing that I barely slept, said yes to everything, and allowed my schedule to get out of control. This year I’ve blocked out times for meals, rest, and “me time.” I’m an introvert– this is for my sanity and everyone else’s safety.

    3. Schedule rest when at home. I’ve gotten better about not working on weekends, I need to keep that pattern going through this busy time. I also need to look at holes in my schedule and stay home to work a bit during the week, leave early when possible, stuff like that.

    4. Do fun stuff with the kids. My travel stuff is hard on the kids. Sure, they don’t express it. But I can tell when I come back that it hasn’t been easy without me. I’m cooking up some evil plans to spend time with them.

    5. Accept that some stuff won’t get done on time. As much as it drives me insane to know that I need to do that, I just need to decide which things get done on time and which things are less important and get pushed off until later.

    6. Take notes. My mind swells with ideas/thoughts/reflections during these times. This year, I’m going to capture so much more with Evernote on my iPhone.

  • 3 Tests of a Leader

    1. Are they attracting leaders? A great leader surrounds herself with other talented leaders. Other leaders make sacrifices to work for her. A leader doesn’t just attract talented leaders, she keeps them. Established leaders pop in to hang out with her. She raises up leaders from within. She creates a culture of education and mentorship. If you are new to organization– you don’t have to be an insider to see this happening, it’s obvious.

    2. Is the vision happening? Lots of people call themselves leaders. And lots of leaders say they are visionaries. But I measure a leader by their fulfillment of the vision. Is it really happening or are they always one thing away from it really taking off or always starting something new and changing courses without admitting that they failed? Is the company, church, or organization funding their vision to rally behind the leader? Does the vision show measurable results in the last 30, 60, 90, 180, 365 days? (More income, more people helped, better customer satisfaction, etc.)

    3. Do they stick around? This is a little tricky for emerging leaders as they have a tendency to try a lot of things out until they find the right fit. But by the time they reach the highest levels of leadership they should be steady. If they have a tendency to get big jobs and stay for 2-3 years before moving on… chances are they will do that to you, as well. There’s nothing wrong with that type of person… you just need to know that they are like that and you’ll soon be a part of something without them. When I think of powerful leaders I think of people who have lead an organization successfully for a long time.

    There are so many other tests I use to know if someone is a leader I want to follow… but those are my top 3. They are big, obvious, and universal. I can see them on the surface. From there I need to know core stuff like, “Are they open/honest with me or do they hide stuff?” “Are they a leaders outside of their job or is it just a work hat they wear?” “Are they fun to be around?” “Is their leadership about them or is it about the good of the organization?” “Do they flee notoriety?”  Things like that are obviously super important, as well.

  • U2 in Phoenix


    I can’t wait. Is it October 20th yet?

    p.s. They have an awesome WordPress powered site.

  • Commuter Stories

    san-diego-trollyI’ve got this running joke that I am guaranteed to see something bizarre at least once a week as I commute to work on the trolley. Here’s just a few things that I’ve seen in the past few months since I started taking public transportation most days.

    On my way to the trolley:

    – Two drunk college females, in bathing suits, lounging in a kiddie pool in their front yard.

    – A scene fit for Animal House at a sorority house, but on a weekday afternoon.

    – An elderly naked man picking his nose in front of a frat house.

    – A grown man falling off his bike and laying out on the pavement at a major intersection in front of a ton of college students. (Oh wait, that was me on Monday.)

    – Watching the summer transformation of trashed rental houses to decent looking rental houses so parents will sign leases… right back to trashed rental houses!

    On the trolley itself:

    – Regular cat and mouse games between trolley police and people who don’t buy trolley tickets. Rivals Keystone Cops.

    – The unibomber. Seriously, he must have gotten free. He rides the 5:20 PM train from El Cajon to 70th Street every day. Who let him out?

    – Two college students practicing pole dancing on a crowded train.

    – A schizophrenic man receiving everyday kindness from a group of 4 strangers he repeatedly called every name in the book.

    Not only does taking the train give me a few ounces of excercise each day, eliminate the stress of sharing the car with Kristen, and give me a chance to catch up on unlimited episodes of This American Life… it also provides me with the fun observations that add to the tapestry of bizarre I enjoy so much about life.

    Plus, I’m earning my “green” card here in Southern California.