Day #750 - Separation
Connectivity and Space
Back in London today: everything takes longer than planned as it's so busy and I always feel I’m running late. But I’ve found my way to where I need to be, with the help of CityMapper and Google Maps. I rely on these things, alongside WhatsApp and Teams, to remain connected to my Crew Mates even as I travel, as well as to my family, for updates on arrival, and last minute requests for dinner.
A feature of the Social Age is that we inhabit a diverse and personal ecosystem of technologies: some which we have to use, mandated by the Organisation, others that we choose to use, and typically we differentiate these in different ways. Some are for ‘personal’ business, some for ‘work’, some we trust, and sometimes that trust is contextual.
This radical connectivity, within diverse ecosystems, breaks down the boundaries between systems. Liberating in one sense, chaotic in another, as we fail to ever ‘escape’. We can be perpetually conflicted.
Last year, when I interviewed some people here, in this Community, I was surprised by how many people said that they were here to ‘shelter’. A selfish slice of time, a guilty choice, to focus on themselves.
Use your sixty seconds today to consider how you find separation.
How do you turn off, or disconnect?
Is it simply the discipline of not checking your emails, or do you turn things off, or leave them in the office? And even if you do, can you stop thinking about them? In the ‘Identity Project’ work, people described how ‘separation of space’ was the most reliable way to be safe, and yet it can be one of the hardest things for us to achieve.
