Bridge Stunt Chokes City (Source: SMH, http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/bridge-stunt-chokes-city-20110513-1emg5.html)

It is how you deal with disruption that is what’s most important. Shortly after launching my new website, I encountered some unexpected troubles with my old host provider. For me, this was a relatively small problem even though it consumed more time than I would have liked.

A few hours before my problems began there was a different story of disruption taking place in the centre of Sydney on one of the few internationally recognised iconic structures- the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

THE private pain of a troubled man rang out from Sydney’s iconic bridge and struck at its congested heart.

A lone act of defiance stopped trains, changed traffic lights and left one of Australia’s busiest stretches of road empty of the morning rush-hour peak, exposing the flaws in the city’s overburdened traffic network.

You can read the full story of ‘Mick’ Fox in the SMH article titled: Bridge Stunt Chokes City.

Mick was staging a protect that lasted shortly over two hours and created massive disruption to commuters, businesses, schools and infrastructure. One man almost brought a city to a stop, and this was true for many left waiting in traffic.

Results from a SMH Poll. (Source: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/bridge-stunt-chokes-city-20110513-1emg5.html)

Was he right to do this? What about the unintended consequences of his actions? These questions are worth discussing, but that is not my point here. Interesting to see that many people see a protest of this magnitude can be justified.

Disruption is inevitable. Early into my army career, the truism “no plan survives first contact with the enemy” was drilled into our thinking. The enemy we face in our day-to-day lives are usually circumstances and access to resources, often affected by time and money. People are mostly just actors in these vignettes, rather than the villains themselves.

The important thing about disruption is how you deal with it.

Strong social capital helps. That has been proven, and shows why relationships across networks are important. Disruption takes investment- beforehand, in building social capital, and at the time when you caught amongst it, there is a need for focus and attention to make the right decisions to navigate a way towards a better situation. How prepared are you?

My first tweet

Mick Liubinskas made me do it. Well, he didn’t “make” me, but he did say he wasn’t going to talk to me until I could do it myself. Thrown in the deep end, on twitter of all things. This is the story of my first tweet, and the beginning of a new narrative for me that day, which has since revolutionised how I get my information, find opportunity and connect with people.

Ironically enough, I was attending Ross Dawson’s Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum, which was a gathering to discuss social media and how it was changing business. You can see the first message I sent on the screen shot above.

Later the following year, it was Steve Hopkins at the May 2010 Australian Davos Connection Future Summit who gave me a better insight to how Twitter works, and how it was necessary to build community through conversation to reach its full potential. I played around with Twitter, and after a short time- maybe one day- it fell into place and I understood the concept he was explaining.

Twitter not only shapes our social engagement and ability to get more information. I have a view that it directly shapes world events. Following the twitter stream on the night of 23 June 2010, after the 7.30 Report had ended on TV it seemed almost as though the conversation online gave the tipping point for Kevin Rudd’s leadership to be challenged. It toppled, and the rest is history. Thankfully, that wasn’t the end of Kevin Rudd, but it did show the influence of social media.

My experience on twitter would be different if it wasn’t for people like @liubinskas (Mick Liubinskas), @rossdawson (Ross Dawson) and @stevehopkins (Steve Hopkins). Twitter not only opens a new door to opportunity, but changes the narrative completely in some cases. None of this is possible without the participation from others. More than ever before, collaboration is more important than competition.