Jesus doesn’t want you to be nice! (Book Review: “The Wisdom Jesus” by Cynthia Bourgeault)

September 5, 2011

“Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

It’s an injunction most English-speaking people have heard, and most of them have conceivably either attempted to live by it or filed it in the “wrong” box. As an adult, I have done the latter. I imagined the sentence loaded with metaphysical and meta-ethical baggage that melts under the spotlight of modern inquiry. I saw it as an egregious oversimplification of human motivation and choice. And for these reasons, I rejected it and similar Christian teachings as incapable of offering much to any contemporary human attempting in earnest to navigate the choppy and sometimes dark waters of their own internal being.

But Cynthia Bourgeault offers a radically different interpretation of that sentence. One that I’ve never heard stated so eloquently. One that brings it to life once again, as an adult, for me.

In “The Wisdom Jesus”, Bourgeault rejects the commonly held thought that Jesus was here in order to get you to believe something about him (i.e. that he died to save you from your sins). And she spurns the notion that his main point was that he wants you to be nice (which is funny when you say it out loud, but how often do we, unbeknownst to ourselves, actually frame most of what he was on about that way?)

Bourgeault systematically and methodically makes the case that Jesus was calling people to transform in ways that would transform the world around them. And that this is not something that he (or anyone else) could do for them, it is something they had to do for themselves. (This is in fact, she writes, the point of the baffling parable of the five wise (read: transformed) bridesmaids who wouldn’t be nice and share their oil with the five foolish (read: unenlightened) ones: “The oil stands for the quality of your transformed consciousness, and unfortunately, it’s impossible to become conscious unconsciously, through a donation from somebody else. You have to do the work yourself.”)

Similarly, through this lens, the instructions “repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” take on a different meaning. Borgeault notes that the Greek word being translated as “repent” is “metanoia,” which means to “go beyond your own mind” or to “go into the large mind” depending on how you translate the prefix “meta.” Either way, this does not sound like a command to change the direction of your life or to stop doing bad things. It sounds like an instruction to transform the way you know and see the world. And although this fact is often ignored, what is meant by “at hand,” is not a place you go when you die, but a place that is right here, right now. So, as Bourgeault puts it, the kingdom of heaven is “not later, but lighter – some more subtle dimension or quality of experience accessible to you right in the moment. You don’t die into it; you awaken into it.” Later, she writes, “It is a whole new way of looking at the world, a transformed awareness that literally turns this world into a different place.”

All of this raises the question, if Jesus wanted his followers to awaken into a transformed awareness of the world, one characterized by a passionate, unified heart that is capable of loving with a fire that is “not of this world”, just how did he expect us to get there? “How do we die before we die? How do we love our neighbors as ourselves? How do we bridge the gap between what we believe and what we can actually live?”

Bourgeault believes that “Jesus does leave us with a path for getting across that gap,” and, although to her way of thinking it is something few human beings have ever achieved, it is what her book is principally about. I highly suggest that you read the book and form your own judgements about it. As for me, I’m not there yet. I do not claim to be enlightened and if anything I’m only more conscious now of how big the gap between the world I live in and the “kingdom of heaven” is.

At the same time, something in me says, “yeah, this is what Jesus was really trying to teach people. This is what he was on about. This is the weird, crazy stuff that baffled the spiritual leaders and turned the world upside down back in his day. It wasn’t just about being nice, and it wasn’t about dogma. Those things wouldn’t have had much of an impact. But this would have stirred the pot.”

What do you think?

PS: Here is a video of Cynthia Bourgeault for those who are interested:

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-200014893861038893&hl=en&fs=true

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Habit Formation: “Floss one tooth.”

September 2, 2011

In a memorable iTunes U lecture entitled “Changing Behaviour and Changing Policies” BJ Fogg offers this very interesting (albeit slightly foul and creepy) metaphor to explain why behaviour practitioners ought to focus more on “ability” and “trigger” (and not just “motivation”) when designing interactions for habit formation.

While change management literature often focuses predominantly on creating a compelling vision of the future that will motivate people to take action (and this is admittedly a significant part of the equation), Fogg suggests that success in new habit formation may depend more on making it easy for people to take a desired action. This is the logic behind the idea of flossing just one tooth. “You don’t work on getting people to walk 30 minutes a day until they have the automatic reaction, ‘Oh, I’m back from my coffee break, I’m going to go walk 5 minutes,’” according to Fogg, and  similarly, if all one has to do is floss a single tooth immediately after brushing, it becomes extremely easy to do, essentially eliminating the demotivators (such as bleeding, painful gums). Fogg’s thinking is that if the tiny habit is successfully trained, it does indeed become quite natural for that habit to expand on its own. So when it comes to flossing the rest of your teeth – no pressure – only do it if it feels good!

The key idea here is that a tiny habit, placed in an artfully designed context, has the potential to “grow without coaxing.”

Fogg reminds his audience that this approach underpins the success of consumer internet giants such as Facebook and Google that have been so successful in training users to return to their sites again and again. “Just use us for one little thing – search maybe, or to share your photos – and once we’ve got you visiting us every day, suddenly you’ll be using us for maps, mail, docs, etc.” What these companies do is “Put hot triggers in front of motivated people.” In other words, they put invitations to do things that are very small and easy to do NOW, in front of people that want to do those things.

This got me thinking about an intranet project I am building. What is the one aspect of an intranet that is small and needed by everyone in the company on a daily basis? What if we could build the most amazing, intuitive, simple, searchable, sleek phonebook in the universe and get people to LOVE using it and come back to it every day? Wouldn’t it be somewhat easier to add in things like birthdays, corporate announcements, knowledge assets, etc., subsequently, without having to train people to go to the intranet instead of their traditional channels?

What other applications for this idea do you see?

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Pascal’s Wager, Perception and the Oil Sands.

June 18, 2011

As an undergraduate, I spent about a year studying the phenomenology of religious conversion. What psychological conditions were required for an individual to completely change their cosmology or worldview, often in a single moment of “realization” or “awakening”? The work I did back then continues to influence much of my thinking about the relationship between linear and non-linear change, the innovation process, and organizational development – but that is a story for another day.

Early in my investigation, I came across an obscure article about the rhetoric of Pascal’s wager. Sadly, I can remember neither the author nor the title, but the gist of the article was that Pascal’s strategy is rational and defensible in light of recent evidence showing the likelihood an individual will change her beliefs about something is correlated with an understanding of how that change in belief would benefit her.

In other words, Pascal did not attempt to persuade people that belief in God is accurate. That is a complex debate, and difficult (impossible, for some) to prove or disprove definitively. Instead, his approach was to show people why believing in God would be good for them, whether it was true or not. And in doing so, he (at least according to recent research) did in fact increase the likelihood that they would change their minds.

Reflecting on this, I started wondering what this approach would look like within the context of the oil sands debate.

Traditionally, the industry’s approach has been to outline what it is doing to improve its environmental performance, and to provide evidence showing that the impacts it has on the environment are significantly less than what people may have been led to believe. But again, this is a complex discussion, there is a lot of nuance, and the industry does indeed have some impacts. Often the facts industry presents about its environmental performance are ignored, misinterpreted, or just overshadowed by the emotional, totalizing doomsday narrative that detractors of the oil sands propagate.

But what if, instead of leading with an emphasis on how the oil sands industry is doing well in environmental performance, industry started by giving people a reason to want the oil sands industry to succeed in its environmental performance.

This led me to draft up a couple “mock” ads (one pictured above, and one pictured here), to intuit what that approach might look like (with an American audience in mind, of course). These ads could be linked to other kinds of white papers, research and details about how industry’s performance is actually quite good, but they set a different tone for the discussion about the facts. What do you think?

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Takeaways from World Energy Congress in Montreal

September 18, 2010

1. When it comes to a global energy future we can all agree to, the path forward involves huge geopolitical, economic and environmental constraints. This means the range of available options is narrow, and none are without drawbacks. It is likely to be a long, untidy journey that involves a mix of technological innovation, mitigation of environmental impacts, systems adaptation, intergovernmental cooperation and behavioral change. Many different interests will need to be brokered (or broker themselves) in the process. It is a massive design challenge. That is the stark (bland?) reality of it.

2. There are at least two moral dimensions to the challenge, and they seem in many ways inextricable: (1) ensure that all people in the world have access to energy (or, in short, eliminate energy poverty, and (2) ensure that our global energy system does not impact the environment in unacceptable ways.

3. Some technologies are promising, in particular, hydrogen fuel cells, superconductors (both of which have immediate applications and many potential applications) and nuclear fusion (which is a long way off, but in the works).

4. At the same time, I did not hear a lot of “breakthrough thinking” or fresh ideas at the conference. It is hard to completely reimagine our global energy system because of its scale. It is unlikely that anything (with the possible exception of, god forbid, world war) will change the game over night.

5. The overwhelming consensus among energy leaders of all stripes is that hydrocarbons will be with us for decades to come. As a result, many believe we need to emphasize carbon capture and sequestration efforts in addition to increasing supply from renewables and changing human behavior.

6. The electric car is about to arrive, possibly with a vengeance.

7. Localized production will become increasingly important, and is seen by many to offer great advantages over centralized production when and where it makes sense economically.

8. Our existing transmission grids are a joke and we need to make them smarter.

9. Our ability to process and store nuclear waste has improved dramatically over the last 20 years, but there are still challenges – in particular, cooperation between governments about where and how to store it.

10. Sustainability does not mean the same thing in the developed world as it does in the under-developed world. This is because they each emphasize different moral aspects of sustainability (as noted in point 2). Essentially, if you don’t have energy, you’re more willing to make environmental compromises in order to get it.

11. Our electricity system is increasingly becoming intertwined with our broadband system: this is a phenomenon that is loaded with its own set of challenges and opportunities.

12. Photovoltaics have potential, if we could make them economic.

13. China is a paradox. But who doesn’t love a good paradox?

14. My personal impression after listening to many government leaders speak, is that our current political systems are ill equipped to deal with the challenges we face in the future, including the energy challenge.

And a few notes on Montreal…

1. Two great restaurants I will go back to are Saloon (in the gay village) and Barroco.

2. Smoked meat sandwiches – what is the big deal?

3. Traffic lanes mean nothing; they are “rules of thumb” at best. Someone told me that driving in a straight line is “very Anglo.” Also, nobody signals to change lanes.

4. Everything is underground: the gyms, nightclubs, supermarkets, are often 2 or 3 stories below ground.

5. People are beautiful, wine is good, food is incred, cheeses are divine, and there is no shortage of style. I have been told this before, but didn’t really expect it to be as refreshing as it is.

6. One exception to the above: all the smokers. Ick.

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Raising the Level of Sophistication in the Oilsands Dialogue

March 30, 2010

I’m not sure what more there is to say. ;)

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Posted in The Energy Challenge | 1 Comment »

Never Miss an Opportunity to be Fabulous

March 27, 2010

I love listening to the Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series on iTunes. Last night I was listening to a lecture called “What I wish I knew when I was 20″ (lecture 97), by Tina Seelig, the executive director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program. Oh, and by the way, she just happens to have a PhD in neuroscience. Anyway, I was so inspired that as I was listening to the lecture, I imagined what the slides would look like and made up my own slide show to go along with it. I highly recommend that you listen to the lecture yourself, but here is my version of the slideshow for your viewing pleasure.

And yes, it’s possible, I might have too much time on my hands.

Update: I noticed that Tina Seelig has an account on slideshare! Here is the original slideshow (and… it appears she has actually written a book about it! Chapters, here I come.)

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What do you think: Spare Change or Get a Job?

March 19, 2010

Either you want to change the world, have dedicated a part of your life to ending poverty, and seek to be involved in making the world a place of love. Or else, you get your shotgun when the United Way knocks on your door, you can’t stand being bothered by charities, and you think most unfortunates are just lazy – in other words, only the strong survive, so get a job! If you see yourself fitting into one of these groups (or know someone who does) – I want you!

I will conducting “unfocus” groups to help build the Uend brand, and need participants. Uend is a new model of NGO that is involved in ending world poverty. But I’m looking for insights from the extreme critics as well as the extreme supporters.

As you can imagine, the discussion around the table is likely to be lively, engaging, and fun. And if you’re interested in branding, communications, or marketing… Then there’s an added bonus for you.

Plus, there’s free food, and maybe even beer.

We are using doodle to pick a date that will work for the majority of the people. Please go to to the date picker site (here), and let us know which date is best for you.

Also, if I don’t know you – if you could please send me a note on Twitter to @juxte so I know how to track you down.

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Some talks I want to see at SXSW

February 22, 2010

Here are a few of the sessions I’m really interested in attending at SXSW (It’s hard to pick though…I’ve only listed a few because I have a feeling I’m going to decide on a lot of them at the last minute):

1. How to Create a Viral Video Margaret Gould Stewart, UX Manager at Youtube (see a video of her here), Jason Wishnow of Ted and Jonathan Wells of Flux are speaking. Plus one of our VPs is always after me to create a viral video, so after attending this workshop, I will know how. ;)

2. Drawing Board: Innovation Lessons from Cartooning. Tom Fishburne does these cartoons called “Brand Camp” and they are hilarious, so he gets my vote.

3. Design Fiction: Props, Prototypes, Predicaments Communicating New Ideas. I have always found scenario planning to be a bit dull, so I’m looking forward to a different perspective. Sounds like a cool group of panelists as well.

4. Digitally Rebranding the Republican Party. (I love American Politics!)

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Why the real solutions for a new energy future will come from Alberta.

January 6, 2010

About a year ago I was in Toronto for an event to discuss the future of energy in Canada, and happened to strike up a conversation with a professor from an established university there. She was adamant that four barrels of fresh water are consumed for every barrel produced. When I told her that this wasn’t the case, that producers have reduced the amount of water used to less than a barrel, that in a lot of cases it’s undrinkable water being used, not fresh water, and that the water is recycled with efficiencies of greater than 90%, she just shook her head violently and said “No! You’re wrong!” Well, I’m sorry. You’d think I would have known better.

You can only imagine my frustration in trying to explain to her that such a thing as SAGD exists, let alone how it works.

And nevermind when it comes to the THAI process, the use of light hydrocarbons as solvents to replace steam, underground well delivery, or any of the many environmental improvements that are in one stage of development or another. Let’s just say the conversation wasn’t going anywhere. The idea that innovation could improve things even more in the future – hogwash as far as this professor-on-a-mission was concerned.

And speaking of innovation, last fall I was involved in putting together a really great Corporate Social Responsibility initiative, designed to teach the innovation process to high-school students that live in a community tied to the oilsands.

In order to make the event as good as it could be, we contracted some of the greatest innovation experts in the world, from a hot industrial design shop in the silicon valley with a reputation for tackling some of the world’s tough problems. They were going to lead students through a two-day innovation workshop.

Eventually the supplier backed out. (It’s a long story, and to their credit they extricated themselves in a way that demonstrated integrity, providing a suitable replacement). I knew, that at least partially, it was their discomfort with Alberta’s less-than-ideally managed oilsands brand that had led to their decision to terminate the relationship. As one of the partners acknowledged, “the oilsands are a controversial space to participate in.”

But here’s the rub. Solutions for the future of energy are likely to come only from people who have a frame of reference that is both deep and wide enough to understand the realities of energy.

They need to be able to think in terms of vast distribution infrastructures. They need to be competent with math of millions of barrel of oil equivalents, and all the physical and economic realities that it takes to create them. They need to have an inside perspective on how and why energy is consumed, how it can be used efficiently, and what that means from the moment energy is captured to the moment it is used to drive a car down the road. (And even the moments after that, if we’re talking cradle to cradle).

And these people, no doubt some of them at least, will have cut their teeth in the training grounds of Alberta’s oilsands.

This province, which has learned some tough lessons in the last decade, has much to offer the world and much to be proud of. Let’s not forget that Alberta is home to some of the most sophisticated energy thinkers in the world. Now and in the future, it will be our province that supplies many of the solutions, the tried and true, the “unconventional” and even the curve-jumping, game changing ones.

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Posted in Innovation, The Energy Challenge | 2 Comments »

Why Satya Das’ Oilsands Tax is a Bad Idea

January 5, 2010
Satya Das’ book Green Oil has garnered significant attention, and he wrote an op-ed which appeared in the Globe and Mail yesterday.

While I agree with many of the points Das makes, particularly the idea that the oilsands can help fuel a cleaner energy future, the truth is government is largely ineffective at managing innovation, and that this is much better left to entrepreneurial corporations who are skilled at adapting quickly to change in ways that make economic sense.


Nor are governments good at betting on which innovations will succeed quickly and which ones will not. (Some might point to a narrow focus on investment in CCS as an example).

Yet another tax on the oilsands, putting even more money in the hands of government, would be one of the least successful ways to spur innovation in the energy space, and would further harm the business environment in Alberta. Instead, companies who innovate should receive incentives as encouragement to bring technological improvements to market faster. This would include both traditional oilsands companies and others who are seeking to drive the future of renewables and create the “next” energy infrastructure. By making Alberta a place where these kinds of companies can prosper and do business in a low cost environment, everyone wins.

The long term payoff to the people of Alberta for these innovations would be enormous. But let’s not kill the golden goose in order to hatch eggs which have not yet even been laid.

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Posted in Innovation, The Energy Challenge | 8 Comments »

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