In The Writer’s School I Went To, I Majored In Dylan

Most people who achieve anything in this life carry around in their heads an idol or two. These are not idols in the religious sense, although I guess they could be.

For me they're people whose work I admire and whose career path I marvel at. I have a few of these people, but head and shoulders above them all is Bob Dylan.
I don’t know Bob Dylan, although I did have an opportunity to meet and spend a limited amount of time with him one on one. But he is extremely enigmatic and therefore almost impossible to truly know.
So I settle for the next best thing, which is his work.
History will, and probably already is, treating him as one of the greatest songwriters of all time. And honestly, with close to 1000 recorded songs, at least a dozen of which you probably know all the lyrics to yourself, this is an unparalleled achievement.
But it’s not so much about the musical side of Bob Dylan that makes him a true philosopher king. It’s about the lyric or poetry side.
Dylan’s poetry manages to capture all the visceral insanity of the world, without necessarily taking sides. He is the ultimate reporter on the human condition that I have in my life.
He has, through his songs nurtured in me, a healthy mistrust of institutions, governments, corporations and many seemingly larger than life individuals.
This has been a building force in my writing since I started because he was one of the main catalysts in my life when I was seized with the bug.
I listened closely to his work and saw in it his true gifts for prophecy, storytelling and the desire for justice that we are all seeking.
He was a role model and his songs were the things I emulated when I first dipped my toe into the writer’s pond. I also later learned from the interviews I saw and my chance encounter with him, that finding your own voice was the hardest thing to do. But also the most necessary.
I have written a lot about the idea of finding your own voice, because I believe that the more original thinking we have in the world the better it will be for everyone.
I will, over time, be sharing these with you. I think they are worthwhile because a lot of the reaction I got to them even over in the Lumpy Kingdom of The Mighty Hamsters was positive and encouraging
I have no reason to believe that it won’t be the same or even better here on beBee.

The Allegory Explained

Bob Dylan writes a lot in allegory, as you can see from the meme I posted here. The best thing about allegory is that you can take it and translate it into whatever your situation might be.
Yesterday I wrote my final original post on LinkedIn Pulse. It too was an allegory or probably more of a metaphor. They’re pretty close.
One of the responses I got, from an LI Ambassador, confirmed to me that LinkedIn only created their publishing platform to fatten up their Key Performance Indicator stats in order to eventually attract a whale who would pay way more than the company was worth. And goddammit, it worked.
So in this Dylan meme…The girl by the whirlpool is LinkedIn. And we are the new fools. The writers who were basically sold a bill of goods in exchange for a bag of magic beans, which were, as we all know, later taken away.
But the damage had been done. Millions of great posts attracted all kinds of attention and members and fattened up the pig so that when Microsoft bellied up, they thought “Whoa…that’s one seriously fat pig”.
And they bought it.
The resolution is in the next lines “ Don’t follow leaders, watch your parkin’ meters.”
What happened to me and thousands of other writers over the past year lends itself to another great Bob Dylan line….”Only a pawn in their game.”

So What Does This All Mean To BeBee?

Many of us have pitched our blogging tent here and we are finding Bebee to be quite a different place relative to the Lumpy Kingdom from which we were all fleeing.
But we did not just fall off the turnip truck. Although we are very happy here and see the character of BeBee as very positive thing, many of us, way in the back of our minds acknowledge the possibility that as the site grows, it could turn into another LinkedIn.
I personally don’t believe that because the attitude I see here is one of really and truly wanting to do it right. Not just for the sake of profitability but because the owners of the site actually ‘get’ that its strength, both as a commodity and a service, comes from its membership.
LinkedIn does not understand that. It’s mired in arrogance and manipulation. But to me, that is what it was. And to quote another great musical master, Pete Townsend….”We Won’t Get Fooled Again”.

Closing Note

On Friday night I wrote a note to Javier that pretty much summed up my feelings about beBee…
"Hi Javier
I just wanted to say this. I have been on social media sites since the whole concept was born and I have to tell you that beBee is far and away the best designed site of all of them. You guys have done an amazing job of putting people first and frankly, that’s going to be the key to all the success I am absolutely certain you are going to have.
I know you don't necessary think this way, but you are, just by the example you set here, sucking the life out of LinkedIn. The people who really gave it what life it did have are all leaving it, because of broken promises and a fundamental lack of concern on the part of management.
I feel about beBee pretty much the same way I feel about Apple. It's a brand that I have very quickly come to love, because interacting with it enriches my life.
Just wanted you (and your team) to know that. A lot of people I know have been hoping that something like this would come along, and over the last year, they've been praying for it.
So thanks for showing up. We'll help you all we can because this is our hive now too.
Cheers, Jim"

""""