Hasta La Gadget!

Twenty years ago, the term ‘thought leader’ began its journey into modern vernacular. Since its introduction into business language, the term has been lauded, mocked and overused, gradually morphing into a new concept that is now employed in a variety of ways inside and outside of the business landscape. In the digital realm, we see it every day: tweets packed full of ideas stream by as we struggle to grasp which of these are worth pondering, who we should follow, and whether they have merit. The infoglut has become so prevalent that this is becoming a greater challenge. To find relevant thought leadership or to be a thought leader, we have to dig deeper and shift our own thinking.

Thought leadership should be useful, novel, and authentic. “Focus on delivering real value,” advises Denise Brosseau, CEO of Thought Leadership Lab and author of Ready to Be a Thought Leader? . Brosseau’s tips for aspiring thought leaders: be service-minded, listen, collaborate, put yourself out there to be discoverable, share openly, and “think relay, not sprint.” Thought leadership works best when ideas are cooked on slow simmer vs. microwaved for twenty seconds. Sharing one unique thought that’s retweeted 100 times does not make one a thought leader; it takes consistent effort.

As a successful social entrepreneur and executive, Brosseau is a thought leader in her own right. She has developed a framework for thought leadership and how to take each idea and present it to the world. It starts with finding your passion, sharing your ideas, creating a network of support, and slowly building influence. It’s not about becoming viral or increasing name recognition; it’s about solving problems, inciting change. Riveting TED Talks, heart-wrenching blogs, poignant posts – we’ve all seen them. Over time, both the ideas and the names of the leaders who came up with the ideas get shared more, and this happens at higher speeds.

Thanks to modern technology and digital media, anyone with a presence online now has the opportunity to become a thought leader on any subject at any time. Breaking through takes insight, passion and dedication. Considering your idea like a product, knowing your subject and your audience is crucial. Seeking examples of digital thought leaders, we can look to well-known bloggers, LinkedIn influencers, or recommended accounts on the other major social media platforms. Additional sources: industry publications, shared presentations, and videos. The key lies in separating the insightful ideas from the marketing murk.

To avoid being buried beneath the celebrity gossip and political one-liners, thought leaders strive to view issues and topics differently enough to come up with unique notions but not so outrageously wild as to lose relevance. We’re bombarded by pithy top five lists for how to get your ideas to “go viral” and “get more followers.” If we’re not careful, our ideas get buried under the metrics and then we’ve lost our ability to adequately get our messages across.

Proving thought leadership in the digital age requires continually engaging with others, refining ideas, producing new insights on subjects where the leaders have the most expertise and inspiration, and nurturing relationships within the leader’s sphere of influence. Iterating on the process, testing the ideas, and studying qualitative and quantitative data allow those who wish to continue on the path as serious thought leaders. To be successful means curating our own input and output of information, and not just letting the best ideas rise to the top, but helping them get there.

On a tactical level, this means choosing your battles. Thought leadership and quality content go hand-in-hand, so identifying the right medium for the ideas takes research and energy. To cut through the clutter means rising above the stream, stepping outside the comfort zone. When you find yourself being referred to more than once as a thought leader, maybe you’re onto something, so stick with it.

After weeks of wonder goals, GIF roundups and post-game selfies, the World Cup frenzy has drawn to a close.

If you’re new to the sport (or even if you’re a longtime footy fan) you’ve probably beefed up your soccer knowledge considerably in the past month. Still, a few questions may have gone unanswered while we were distracted. Before you move on, we’re tackling a few of the biggest questions you may still have about the World Cup.

Who were those kids that walk out with the players before each match?
Gokhan Inler of Switzerland leads his team to the field with their player escorts during the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil Group E match between Switzerland and France at Arena Fonte Nova on June 20, 2014 in Salvador, Brazil. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

The pint-sized player escorts who walked out before each match are part of FIFA’s youth program which soccer’s governing body says is geared at connecting youth from more than 70 countries with the sport.

Kids between the ages of six and 18 are eligible for the program, and apply with the tournaments partners and sponsors like McDonald’s, Sony and Coca Cola, according to FIFA. The children who walk out on the field holding players’ hands, for example, are from the McDonald’s player escort program which comprises more than 1,400 youngsters. Other roles for youth program participants include carrying the national flags, the FIFA Fair Play flags or assisting the sideline ball crew.

Some the the children, like those from the U.S., were chosen through a sweepstakes, the London Sun reports. All the children selected get a four-night, five-day trip to Brazil (along with a parent or guardian) and play in matches with other participants.

Other than glory and worldwide bragging rights, do the winning teams get any kind of reward?

In this Sunday, July 12, 1998 file photo, French teammates from left, Zinedine Zidane, Marcel Desailly and Laurent Blanc hold the soccer World Cup after France defeated Brazil 3-0 in the World Cup final soccer match, at the Stade de France in Saint Denis. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)

A gold trophy, lots of slaps on the back, maybe a statue of you and your teammates? The answer is “yes,” across the board, but when it comes down to the bottom line, World Cup victors also stand to earn cold hard cash.

Though FIFA snagged $4.5 billion in revenue from broadcasters, sponsors, hospitality and licensing deals, the Associated Press reports the 32 national federations (read: all the teams that made the cut to play in the World Cup) get just $400 million of that pie.

The winning team’s national soccer federation will also get a cool $35 million in prize money, which the federation can spend as it pleases (including in the form of bonuses for the individual players). The runner-up is awarded $25 million, while third and fourth-place finishers get $22 and $20 million, respectively.

Even teams that that don’t make it past the group stage are given $1.5 million to prepare for the tournament.

What happens to the stadiums in the host country after the tournament?
The 2014 FIFA World Cup at the Estadio Nacional on July 11, 2014 in Brasilia. (Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)

Brazil’s World Cup stadiums have been lightening rods for criticism since the host cities were announced due to soaring building costs, claims the sites displaced local communities and concerns about future uses.

In 12 cities throughout the country, five stadiums were renovated while entirely new ones were built in seven others — including the especially controversial Manaus stadium that was built in a remote Amazonian town in the rainforwest at a cost of $270 million. The Manaus stadium was used only four times, with limited plans for further use after the tournament ends.

Even previously existing stadiums that were refurbished, like the one in Brasilia, will only expect to draw crowds a fraction the size of World Cup audiences. Few of the host cities have local club teams that will be able to regularly fill the stadiums. Brazilian officials hope the venues can find new audiences with concerts and conventions. Jose Maria Marin, the president of the Brazilian Football Confederation, told the AP finding uses after the World Cup would “all depend on the creativity, the imagination of the owners and the operators of these stadiums.”

I really like that Tim Howard. Will he play another World Cup?
Goalkeeper Tim Howard of the United States looks on during the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil Round of 16 match between Belgium and the United States at Arena Fonte Nova on July 1, 2014 in Salvador, Brazil. (Photo by Jamie McDonald/Getty Images)

Howard’s history-making performance in the 2-1 loss to Belgium made him a household name — and not a moment too soon. The 35-year-old goalkeeper has been playing pro soccer since 1997, so many see this year’s cup as the twilight of Howard’s impressive career. Though Howard earlier this spring inked a two-year extension contract with his pro team, Everton, he’ll be pushing 40 by the next World Cup (where the historically “perfect” age for a male World Cup player is 27.5).

What’s more, earlier this spring, Howard not-so-cryptically told ESPNFC.com: “I’ll be on a beach somewhere when I’m 40. I would pretty much take it to the bank that I won’t be playing past 40. There are other things I want to achieve in life, other things that I want to do.”

Where does the winning country keep the World Cup trophy?
The Italian goldsmith and sculptor Silvio Gazzaniga poses with his most important work, the FIFA World Cup at GDE Bertoni factory in Paderno Dugnano, near Milan, Italy, on Thursday, June 3, 2014. (Giuseppe Aresu/AP Images)

Unlike other sports trophies like hockey’s Stanley Cup — which victorious players get the schlep around and shower with — FIFA doesn’t let the actual World Cup trophy out of its clutches.

Trophies used to be considered permanent property of the winning federations before 1970, but now FIFA rules state the trophy can no longer be won outright, and the original must stay in FIFA’s possession. Nowadays, winners get gold-plated replicas known as the FIFA World Cup Winners’ Trophies (hey, it beats it kick in the teeth).

As for the actual trophy, FIFA lists its specs as a 14.5 inches tall prize weighing 13.61 pounds due to its 18-carat gold makeup and malachite base. The name and year of every World Cup winner since 1974 is engraved on the bottom.

Where will the next World Cup be held?

Bangladeshi women walk past a street painting of Argentina footballer Lionel Messi as 2014 FIFA World Cup art is painted by football fans on the walls of old Dhaka on July 10, 2014. (MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Depends on which tournament you’re talking about. The Women’s World Cup, held on odd years, roars back to action next year in Canada (and unlike the men, the U.S. women have won the cup several times over).

As for the fellas, the next men’s World Cup is in 2018 with Russia as the host.

Ugh. That’s so far away and I’ve been bitten by Luis Suarez/the soccer bug. What’s the next big soccer event I can look forward to?
United States fans react while watching the final minutes of the 2014 World Cup soccer match between the United States and Germany at a public viewing party, in Detroit, Thursday, June 26, 2014. Germany defeated the United States 1-0 to win Group G ahead of the Americans, who also advanced to the knockout stage of the World Cup despite losing. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

You’re in luck because soccer is all around! In the U.S., Major League Soccer is in the midst of its season; the Gold Cup and Copa America tournaments will take place in 2015 (along with the aforementioned Women’s World Cup); the always anticipated European Championship returns in 2016. There is also nearly constant action in the various domestic leagues around the world.

“What makes you, or any modern American woman think she’s deserving of a good man?” asks improbable Internet anti-hero Mark Bellrose, known to readers as Kilmister, in his essay “Most Women Don’t Deserve a Good Man.” The unapologetically pro-masculinity Op-Ed is both a call to arms and a calling out of women he describes as “typical American females who feel they can behave any way they choose,” while still expecting men to “open doors, pay for dinner and send roses to her work on Valentine’s Day.” Kilmister’s blog-style rant quickly went viral (it was re-tweeted more than 2,000 times and garnered 200,000 Facebook “likes”), and inspired both rousing male support and widespread feminist outrage. It also exposed a growing tension between men and women by raising a provocative question: Do men feel that women have become their social oppressors? And more importantly, do they have a point?

“Feminism was an important movement in this country and it helped move women forward to a place where they have all the rights men do. That’s great, and that’s how it should be,” Bellrose concedes.

Yet, many women still want to enforce old school ideals on chivalry. When it’s time for a pay raise, they want to be treated as equal to men. But when the check comes for dinner, they may not say it, but they’ll usually look at a man who wants to split the check as a cheapskate or loser who will never get a second date.

It would be easy to dismiss Bellrose’s views as the mutterings of a bitter “woman-hater,” but it might not be wise. Bellrose and others like him represent a growing voice of men who feel that American women no longer seek equality, but to be “treated as superiors” and the sole beneficiaries of outrageous double standards in the dating world. They paint a picture of a modern woman so lacking in self-awareness that she routinely demands men behave in ways she doesn’t even find attractive, thus setting men up to fail. American women today, Bellrose explains, feel entitled to attack, degrade and shame men without any fear of social disapproval.

The type of verbal abuse men commonly suffer, explains writer James Desborough, 38, of the United Kingdom, “is the equivalent of ‘You’re not allowed to hit girls,’ which gave girls free rein to smack, push and tease boys at school. If the boy fought back, he would only be confirming the stereotype of the abusive male, so he’d have to sit and take it ‘like a man.'”

Desborough claims that by publicly questioning feminist ideals, he has become the target of vicious attacks and relentless Internet bullying.

“I have been subjected to personal attacks lasting months, threats, petitions, threatened boycotts, my job and work prospects placed under risk,” Desborough claims. “Any skepticism and questioning of feminist ideology is dismissed with buzzwords like ‘privilege’ or ‘patriarchy.'”

In this sense, Desborough compares today’s feminist rhetoric to religious fundamentalism.

“I am constantly struck by the similarities [with religious fundamentalists],” Desborough says. “Not believing the same things, or to the same extent, must mean you hate women (God) and are in favor of patriarchy (Satan). You’re not a feminist (Christian)? Then ‘something bad’ must have happened to you, and so on.”

Bellrose concurs that women often respond to his essays with vicious attacks on his manhood, appearance, sexual skill, and other types of gender shaming that, if he were a woman, would be labeled “misogynist” and “oppressive.”

“I have never read more vile comments than those that come from women who have read my material,” says Bellrose, smiling at the irony. “To say that I’m angry because I’m not getting laid — how is that any different than my saying that a feminist is bitter because she’s ugly or fat and no man wants her?

With the term “slut shaming,” gaining media traction as women demand the right to openly choose lifestyles of sexual promiscuity, it may be time to ask whether men can invoke the same privilege. Are women ready to retire pejorative terms like “dog” and “womanizer” when referring to promiscuous men? Has the time come to equally support male expressions of sexuality? Or is “slut-shaming” a man still acceptable?

“Women can’t routinely complain there are no good men out there when they do not carry themselves like a ‘good woman,’ either,” Bellrose states. “More and more men I come across are opposed to the idea of marriage or even commitment, because with social media and smart phones they’re seeing how shady and hypocritical most women really are.”

Bellrose admits that there are “plenty of hypocritical, shady men out there, too,” but he argues that women continue to berate men for behaviors they now willfully exhibit themselves, in the name of “feminism.”

“If a woman wants to behave like a vulgar, over-sexualized party girl, that is her prerogative,” Bellrose states. “But she shouldn’t be baffled when men are not opening car doors or laying down in traffic for her.”

A man who chooses not to date a promiscuous woman isn’t “slut shaming” her, Bellrose contends, but is only expressing a preference shared by both sexes for a partner of substance.

“It’s common sense.” Bellrose says.

So, what now? If a woman wants a man who picks up the check, opens her car door, sends her flowers and treats her “like a princess” must she stop posting booty pics to Instagram and live-tweeting wild nights out with the girls? Or, has the time come for women to (happily?) accept that men don’t have to treat us like “ladies” any more? That they no longer have to ask for our hand in marriage, ask us out on a date, or call us the day after we have sex with them? Are American women truly ready to embrace total sexual equality?

Bellrose predicts we won’t have to find out any time soon.

“I can’t imagine what it would take to really change the mentality of men and women,” he says. “As long as there are desperate men and attention-starved women for them to chase, this dynamic will continue indefinitely. Just be aware of it, is all I can say.”

(Diriye Osman is photographed by Boris Mitkov).

I’m sitting here feeling worn and scratched — a vinyl record that has seen better days. I’ve grown accustomed to this feeling. Oftentimes, it is accompanied by days of lying in front of the television, blanket over my head, as the latest comedy on Netflix echoes around my living room. Sometimes the most innocuous, chirpy song on the radio has the capacity to make me cry. In those moments of quiet desperation I often ask myself, ‘Where did this sadness come from? When did this pervasive emotionality seep into my system and, more importantly, how do I stem it?’

Manic depression — or bipolar disorder — is like racing up to a clifftop before diving headfirst into a cavity. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is the psychic equivalent of an extreme sport. The manic highs — that exhilarating rush to the top of the cliff — make you feel bionic in your hyper-energized capacity for generosity, sexiness and soulfulness. You feel like you have ingested stars and are now glowing from within. It’s unearned confidence-in-extremis — with an emphasis on the con, because you feel cheated once you inevitably crash into that cavity. I sometimes joke that mania is the worst kind of pyramid scheme, one that the bipolar individual doesn’t even know they’re building, only to find out, too late, that they’re also its biggest casualty.

When I was a child, my family and I fled from Mogadishu, Somalia, during the civil war and relocated to Nairobi, Kenya, a move that had a profound multi-edged effect on my childhood. Kenya was peaceful compared to Somalia, but that sense of peace was disrupted in a tight-fisted, mean-spirited manner by the Kenyan authorities. Somalis were branded on arrival as unwelcome, second class citizens. As a result, the Kenyan authorities were constantly rounding up Somalis and sending them off to desolate refugee camps, and the only way to escape this fate was to pay hefty bribes, whether you were a legitimate citizen or not. This witch hunt created an atmosphere of fear and paranoia that followed Somalis from the kiosk to the classroom. I remember being petrified to step outside the school gates as a kid in case I was carted off by the police to a refugee camp.

Life behind the school gates posed its own problems. I was an effeminate gay kid who was constantly being ripped to shreds by bullies for being feminine and for being a Somali. I drew into myself and disassembled my sanity and sense of identity like a matryoshka doll.

Salvation came in the form of art. I had always loved painting and my parents were proud and supportive. Inspired by fashion magazines, Alphonse Mucha and Gustav Klimt, I drew androgynous women in sultry outfits and souped up stances. As I honed my skills, the art fizzed with a fantastical, psychedelic exuberance. I was a repressed gay teenager, and these images — and the act of creating them — helped me to externalize my dreams and desires without fearing denunciation. These beautiful, nymph-like characters became proxies that inoculated me from the painful drudgery of my daily life. When I painted, I was powerful. Nothing else mattered. Everything I valued most about who I was and where I was coming from bled onto the canvas.

(‘THE GODDESS COMPLEX — Aquatic Arabesque’ by Diriye Osman).

All that changed when, at the age of seventeen, my family and I immigrated to London. I was excited about exploring my sexuality in a city where being gay was an acceptable part of the cultural landscape. I was amped for adulthood, and no longer felt I needed the safety net of making art to map out my desires and hopes for the future. My life-long guilt and repression, however, split my selfhood into wildly opposing polarities: the asexual, mysterious vault crammed with secrets to appease my Muslim family, and the hedonistic, sexually adventurous man who danced and drank and made mad, intense love. These polarities — coagulated fear and shame versus freewheeling youthful energy and passion — were headed towards a collision that ultimately resulted in a psychotic episode followed swiftly by hospitalization in a psychiatric unit.

During that period of time I abandoned making art altogether. I mistakenly associated making art with my manic depressive symptoms when in fact art allowed me to delve into my subconscious and exorcise my demons. It took ten years before I could pick up my paintbrush again and come back to my first creative love.

As I sit here and write this, feeling scratched and worn — a vinyl record that has seen better days — I know all is not lost. I know I will wake up in the morning, make a cup of tea and sit at my studio desk. I know that at first I will feel antsy and on edge at the prospect of sitting down for eight straight hours working on a painting. I also know that after the first thirty minutes of painting, something miraculous will happen. I will stop thinking and slip into a deep, meditative trance. It’s akin to learning how to breathe underwater.

During those eight hours of painting a day I know that my mania, my depression, my frustrations and anger will dissipate and I will come face to face with who I really am. I know that I will not be afraid or look away from my interior reflection. There will be no joy, no exuberance, no melancholy: just an understanding and the purest form of self-acceptance. I know that making art will keep me alive even when, in moments of undiluted self-destruction, my first instinct will be to step in front of a speeding train. I know that art can save lives because it has saved mine on numerous occasions. The thought alone fills me with comfort, joy even, at the prospect of daybreak.

Diriye Osman is a British-Somali short story writer, visual artist, essayist and critic. His acclaimed collection of short stories, ‘Fairytales For Lost Children’ (Team Angelica Press) can be purchased here. He is currently at work on a long-term series of paintings about the link between cultural identity, fairytales and sexuality. You can visit his website www.diriyeosman.com to explore his short stories, photography, visual art, videos, audio recordings and essays.

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[via NOTCOT]