A friend recently pointed out that many of my blog posts eventually find their way back to my mother. They’re right. I sometimes wonder if readers get tired of hearing about her, but the truth is that I’m in a season of life where much of my learning happens through our relationship. My mother is… Read More Learning to Listen at Moms Kitchen Table When Hearing Fades

Do you know how to listen? And more importantly, what to listen to? In the last two weeks, I’ve had two consecutive sessions at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad teaching social entrepreneurs and leaders about the power of listening. Despite that true listening is a life changing experience, so few of us have learned… Read More Do you know how to listen?

Much can be learned about Culture by observing prohibition signs: what a society considers pure and impure; normal and taboo; acceptable and unacceptable; safe and unsafe; and good and bad. Excess use of warning signs also reveals the struggle of the powerful and the rebellion of the powerless against compliance and conformity. While you are… Read More Hidden meaning in warning signs

One of the benefits of thinking semiotically is an attraction to concept mapping. Concept mapping ‘affords’ a visual method for understanding relationships and Socialitie. The following map provides a good overview of the foundations of psychosocial contexts and causation particularly, the emotions each one ‘breeds’. Such a map helps us not get caught up in… Read More Psychosocial Contexts and Risk Factors

Whenever you see simplistic slogans in safety, you know that the origins of the slogan are based in ignorance and a con. Yes, the con may work, because Safety wants to believe yet another myth. This is exemplified in the nonsense HOP slogan ‘blame fixes nothing’. The purpose of slogans is to hide complexity and… Read More Is Safety the Sum of What it Worships?