Words = Culture
Words
Are 'principal carriers of meaning,' powerful beyond comprehension. Building blocks. Tools of expression. Significance filters. Words matter. They always have and now amidst a globally connected web community, they matter more; if that's possible.
Culture
A culture is the cumulative beliefs and behaviors, the personality and characteristics of a particular community, social or ethnic group. And to 'culture' something is to grow it, to till, nurture, to cultivate growth and development.
Words create Culture
Words are the most overlooked tool in community building, in nurturing human potential and in the creation of communities, organizations, teams, movements and tribes.
Words. Think about them, listen to them. What do they mean?
What word mattered to Obama?
Change. Now, agree or disagree; the word has meaning and placed at the heart of a movement as the purpose or vision the word develops the soul of the community, it communicates what is significant.
Let's try a few more.
Hitler: One word full of HATE.
Please: A feeling in and of itself.
Nigger: Racism in 6 letters.
You, We: Inclusion
I and Me: Exclusionary
Non-profit: Having no value
Human Resources: People as things.
(of course I don't use the N word; it's not in my vocabulary because it doesn't represent my beliefs, character or feelings and of course I don't believe non profits are valueless - rather the exact opposite is true and because of their incredible value to society they should ditch the term non and come up with a new word that speaks to the heart and soul of their impact; social ventures, social business, social partnerships...And don't even get me started about the words 'human resources.' People are not human capital, resources or any other term that in any way diminishes them, compares them to non-human materials and purports to put task, organization and goals ahead of them...
Businesses, organizations, groups, communities and individuals come to understand what is significant, what each other stand for by the words we use.Words = Culture
What is significant to you, your business, team,family? What has meaning? What is it, you are trying to develop, cultivate, improve? What are the behaviors, beliefs, the characteristics that define what is important to your team, family, venture?
A few of my favorite....Word and Culture Questions
If I ( my company) was 1 word it would be?
The feeling I want ( or my business intends) to leave others with is____________
If I( or my company, team ) was a verb, it would be ____________
If I ( or my company, team) was a noun it would be__________________________
The words that conflict, oppose my purpose, intention for my life and company are ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The big idea I am ( my team, tribe is) inspired by is_____________________________
The 8-10 words that I am most interested in, ( best describe my company or teams passion)
are:
As a leader, parent, friend and writer I find myself in a constant state of awe at the power words have to create, cultivate, kill, harm and destroy. And now we have high powered search engines helping everyone find us, identify the words that have meaning to us and are significant.
Edit.
Edit.
Edit out words that hold no meaning for you. Architect phrases, choose words that best express your authentic self and the true meaning and purpose of your team, community, venture or organization. Review the words you use - do they cultivate the beliefs, the meaning, feeling, significance you represent? Do you have a word map that represents the soul of your culture?
Listen.
And tell me what words best represent you, your company, purpose or passion?Pam Hoelzle
Photo credit Word Week: A word cloud of my comments, originally uploaded by lee.stephens.
I can't help but notice your use of spacing in this piece. Silence, the non-use of words and the use of non-words in communication, is also culture.
It seems as if you are posting provocative words and asking questions to start-up an intellectual dialogue. The Socratic Method is a dialectical exchange of ideas--like a debate. Despite your definition and later disavowing of the N-word, now it's is connected to you via search.
We self-edit as we write because we are acutely aware of search engines. Whether to write SEO optimized-copy or to avoid trouble, their effect on speech and written language must be profound. I think that using forbidden words in a post will reduce the number of people willing to engage in the conversation. I get where you are coming from, but search engines are binary, and don't really provide context or point of view.
I had a hard time commenting on this post because it contains the n-word. In my opinion, using it distracts the reader and detracts from the thesis. So much negative energy and cultural history is aroused by that word, that I would not have included it in this post.
I could imagine feeling less concern writing about that word in its own post. The N-word has so much historical and cultural baggage that it is hard to justify using it and doing justice to it as part of a list.
Strange how I didn't formally react to the use of Hitler...
Posted by: Kirste | February 22, 2010 at 01:34 PM
Kirste:
Thanks for adding your valued viewpoint. I appreciate your thoughts. Actually I think when we begin to automate communication because of binary search I wonder will not dialog and conversation weaken. I agree the word is offensive and for that very reason it was used with a disclaimer. I absolutely see your viewpoint. As a communicator I believe that which we are vehemently opposed must be talked about and the words that represent it must not be watered down so that we don't become lulled or seduced into believing it is anything other than what it is. I want to communicate not judge or become so search politically correct there is no meaning. Here's to the journey....
Posted by: Pam Hoelzle | February 22, 2010 at 05:37 PM