What’s Up with Looking Up? The Path of Intelligent Optimism
Posted in communications hints of inspiration by on Aug 9 2011
Ok, so I’m a converted eternal hopeful optimist. Life just seemed to get a lot better when I started tuning into the positive things around me and turning inspiration into action. I believe that the how, what and why you receive information is of utmost importance to how you disintegrate and integrate the messages and then convert them into action.
At 23, I stopped watching TV. I realized that watching the standard mass marketed news and TV shows had a profound effect on my anxiety and fear level, so I turned the TV off. Did I desire to be clueless? Not at all. I wanted to tune in, but tune in to things that elevated my state of well-being and consciousness. I realized that I was a much calmer, more balanced and positive person when I was paying attention to the things the made me happy and feel safe, rather than the contrary. Unfortunately, the large amount of information being divulged by the media and much of popular culture does not inspire that. I spent a few years completely cut off from media, for better or for worse. A little bubble I was in, but as they say what you don’t know can’t hurt you. Or can it?
I wanted to make up with media. Really, what type of PR and communications consultant does not watch TV or read the newspaper? Gasp. I would neeeevvvvver admit it. Then one day a light came on. I picked up an Ode Magazine waiting in line at a health food store in Charleston, SC…for intelligent optimists the cover said. I liked the sound of that.
“Ode is a print and online publication about positive news, about the people and ideas that are changing our world for the better. In print and online, Ode’s aim is to bring a new reality into view, to explore opportunities for positive change in our daily lives and our daily minds. Ode was founded in the spring of 1995 with a vision to create an alternative to mainstream publications, a magazine that was open to new inspirations and new visions from around the world.”
From that day forward, for the past ten years, Ode Magazine has been a bit of a modern media bible for me. If the information age is a complicated highway system, positive media might be the most powerful navigator. So, when I recently saw my favorite magazine was creating a daily wire service of worthy news bites, I was ecstatic. Now this was something I could sink my teeth into.
“OdeWire presents news to inspire intelligent optimists. Our unique wire is constantly refreshed by an automated system that combines advanced semantic technology with the guidance of our editorial staff. Around the clock and around the world, OdeWire is always looking at the most authoritative news sources for stories that focus on solutions rather than problems, and on positive changes rather than negative ones. Unlike other news sources that are over-weighted with negativity, OdeWire contributes to a more balanced media diet.”
“OdeWire is a collaboration between Ode Magazine, the global magazine for intelligent optimists, and Federated Media Publishing, which powers the best of the independent Web, using technology that originated at TextDigger, a Silicon Valley firm developing ground-breaking semantic search technology.”
In this article in the Scientific American, Daniel Stone breaks down how it works. “The slant engine dives deeper into algorithmic programming. It starts by classifying a story’s topic as either a world problem (disease and poverty, for example) or a social good (health care and education). Then it looks for revealing phrases. “Efforts against” in a story, referring to a world problem, would signal something good. “Setbacks to” a social good, likely bad. Thousands of questions later every story is eventually assigned a score between 0 and 1—above 0.95 fast-tracks the story to Ode’s Web interface, called OdeWire. The system is trained to only collect themes that are “meaningfully optimistic,” meaning it throws away flash-in-the-pan stories about things like sports or celebrities.”
The goal of Odewire, as stated by editor of Ode Magazine Jurriaan Kamp, is not to ignore the realities, “drowning out the gloom to focus on rainbows and unicorns.” Kamp states that the focus is also on looking at things from a different angle, turning otherwise downers into inspirational stories that encourage positive action.
As Rebecca Solnit discusses on the nourishment of hope, “Think of hope as something that requires care and feeding. You feed it by finding news sources that give you information about alternative movements and new possibilities. The real territory for hope is the possibilities we possess for acting, changing, mattering.”
Through communication, we can change the world. Ten years later, Ode’s vision has served as a beacon of light for me as I have progressed through my career and into my own vision of providing conscious communication strategies that celebrate passion and optimism in business, firmly rooted in the concept of community and the power of giving back. I believe that in my role as a gifted communicator, connector and agent of change, it is part of my duty to serve as a conduit of inspiring and important information that makes a difference. Change must be facilitated on a local to global scale, and technology now provides us plenty of connectivity to share stories. In the online world of social media, when I share something, I share because I hope it will inspire, uplift and engage. In the world of business, I bring balanced and positive energy into situations and help bring clarity through right intent and action. Yes, there are struggles in the world. But what part can you play in addressing them? I believe positive change comes from each individual action and the butterfly effect that those actions lead to.
I love what His Holiness the Dalai Lama has to say on this topic. “History reflects our understanding. The history of humanity is, in some respects, the history of man’s understanding. Historical events, 
wars, progress, tragedies, and so on, all of these reflect the negative and positive thoughts of mankind. All the great personalities of history, the liberators, the great thinkers, all such people reflect positive thinking; whereas tragic events, tyranny, and terrible wars have resulted from negative thinking. Therefore the only thing that is really worthwhile is to increase the power and influence of positive thinking, and to reduce the occurrence of negative thinking. If you let anger and hatred run loose, you are lost. And no sensible being wants to be lost.”
“And no sensible being wants to be lost,” including me! I have much gratitude for the beauty that I discovered within finding my way, and for all of the inspiration that has supported me personally and professionally though the years. Here’s to following the path of intelligent optimism…kudos to Ode for leading the way.
Revolutionize news with OdeWire from Ode on Vimeo.
Next thing I want to see Plant a Wish on the cover of Ode!
