As the world becomes more and more global and the European national political and economic frameworks remain stressed, each city is left to its own devices to attract inward investment and keep and grow talent.
In researching this area for a number of UK cities, a friend in the US sent me the link to this video. It is so clever on so many levels you have to watch it more than once:
Enjoy!
Oh, and anyone thinking of moving into a new career of iPad magic shows, please let me know! I would love to learn how to do this kind of magic! Brilliant!
Last week there were no Thursday Thoughts. I was in Edinburgh and thinking far too much to write about it. Today I had to go up to London and got writer’s block until a chance Skype conversation with Malcolm about random stuff. It got my right brain going and I am now back in the flow.
In much of the work I do, I am drawn to creating order from chaos by documenting the present situation. One very useful tool is to take an inventory of what is. A version of the truth that is accurate enough to be good enough. It is like the difference between German and British accounting: German accounting is always exactly wrong: British accounting is almost roughly right!
So it was I was chatting to Malcolm on Skype who was listening to Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time – a discussion on James Joyce’s Ulysses. At the start of the talk, Bragg points out that it is one of the most famous books of the last century – and one that few have read cover-to-cover – myself included.
It got me thinking about the fact that 95% of books are never read. Mine included……
So I thought, what about an inventory of all the books I have – and then work out how many I have actually read? More than 1,000 books – and less than 5% read? I suppose that the types of books I collect are not novels. They are more like factoid books, text books, “how to” books. Bee books, personal development books. I don’t read novels. My father used to say “Life has enough drama in it that I don’t need to go to the theatre”. I think the same about reading books.
So the inventory, used with the mirror, forces to look at yourself, your behaviour, your reality. But the Skype conversation I was (and still am) having with Malcolm on this touched on another interesting thread. The fact that I am of a generation where physical books represents learning, knowledge and intelligence. But for my children, the world is very different. An Amazon Kindle could contain the same number of books as on my bookshelves and many more besides. For generation Y (which I call Generation Why – because they always seem to be asking the question Why?) the value of owning physical books is almost diametrically opposite to mine. To take an inventory of Apps on my MacBook (which I also collect) takes less than 5 seconds. The software can be updated across the internet when new versions arrive. Information is more transient. More connected, near-free to produce.
So what? Well it is time for me to start to clear the clutter of my bookshelves. To stop ordering physical books on Amazon. To change my behaviour. One of the most difficult things to do. But the inventory and the mirror are perhaps the most powerful tools to help change behaviour. Question is whether I can reduce my inventory without being distracted by workload, the bees, the dogs, the children – oh and that urge to go onto Amazon to buy another book on my Wish List!
Time for an inventory. Time to put the mirror up! It works with clients – but is so much harder to do to oneself!
We caught the first swarm of bees for this season on Monday night. It was 18ft up in a bush in a nearby village – very late in the season for the first swarm because of all of the wet weather we have had in April. I had to use an extension to my long pole (used for painting) to get the box up high enough. Luckily Dennis (whose garden it was) had an additional 3 poles which I used both to extend my pole as well as get the smoker up there with a further two! Very Heath Robinson!
The photo looks as though I am trying to catch the sun!
Here is a close-up of the contraption holding the box that I caught the swarm in – the sun was a bit out of reach!
Having inspected the hives on the previous Saturday, the hive called Faith is still very weak from over-wintering and I somehow doubt will survive – as I have now tried to re-queen her twice. We therefore decided to call this swarm Hope to keep the spirit of our three first hives that we started back in 2004 – Faith, Hope and Charity. The original Hope and Charity hives died off in 2005/06, but Faith has kept going since then and has produced some of the finest honey-crops.
Oh – and it was luck that the place that we caught the hive in started with an H – so we stuck to the Bee Law of naming the hives from the first letter of the place that they were caught!
Hence we are losing Faith (although not all is lost) and we are gaining Hope! Not a bad place to bee!
I suppose that Tom Peters must take place as one of the great management gurus of our time. This week I have chosen a short video clip of Peters talking about diversity with a small “d”. There is a great phrase within the video lecture: “Random groups of human beings dragged off the street will do a better job of solving problems than a group of experts.” Here is the clip:
When I looked at the comments below, I found a lot of anti-Diversity emotions (some stronger than others) – many of whom did not understand the subtlety of Peters’ distinction between BIG D and small d. However, there was a comment referring to my old Alma Mater which resonated with me:
“Henley Management College did a similar study. Industry experts and top personalities spent most time arguing between themselves – they were used to being in charge not in a team. Egos blocked progress. Sales people did best because they were used to time targets, finishing, and compromising. Expert groups itellectulised and ran out of time trying to get the perfect answer. Tom’s on the money here and there are studies to support his proposition.”
So, if you really want to solve a problem, business or personal, then go out into the street and collect a few strangers- preferably some with sales skills. It might save you a bundle on lawyers fees and it could turn out to be quite fun too!
After having dug to a depth of 10 feet last year, French scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 200 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 150 years ago.
Not to be outdone by the French: in the weeks that followed, American archaeologists dug to a depth of 20 feet before finding traces of copper wire. Shortly afterwards, they published an article in the New York Times saying : “American archaeologists, having found traces of 250-year-old copper wire, have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network 50 years earlier than the French.”
A few weeks later, ‘The British Archaeological Society of Northern England’ reported the following: “After digging down to a depth of 33 feet in the Skipton area of North Yorkshire in 2011, Charlie Hardcastle, a self-taught amateur archaeologist, reported that he had found absolutely sod all. Charlie has therefore concluded that 250 years ago Britain had already gone wireless.”
Just makes you bloody proud to be British, don’t it?
(Thanks, Richard, for sending me this on an email. I thought I would put it on the blog to share it more widely!)
I pulled off a book from my bookshelf the other night with the title of this post. The book is a collection of writings, including nine chapters never before published in book form by Alan Watts. Watts was a British pilosopher, lecturer and author who interpreted Eastern thought for Westerners. He was born close to where I live in Chiselhurst, Kent in 1915 and died in California in 1973. Other more famous titles of his include “The Way of Zen” and “The Book”.
I have copied the article below – which has the same title as the book – which gives a good insight into Watts’ writing – as well as a piece to ponder on this Thursday:
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Become What You Are
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It has been said that the highest wisdom lies in detachment, or, in the words of Chuang-tzu: “The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror; it grasps nothing; it refuses nothing; it receives, but does not keep.” Detachment means to have neither regrets for the past nor fears for the future; to let life take its course without attempting to interfere with its movement and change, neither trying to prolong the stay of things pleasant nor hasten the departure of things unpleasant. To do this is to move in time with life, to be in perfect accord with its changing music, and this is called Enlightenment.
In short, it is to be detached from both past and future and to live in the eternal Now. For in truth neither past nor future have any existence apart from this Now; by themsleves they are illusions. Life exists only at this very moment, and in this moment it is infinite and eternal. For the present moment is infinitely small; before we can measure it, it has gone, and yet it persists for ever. This movement and change has been called Tao by the Chinese, yet in fact there is no movement, for the moment is the only reality and there is nothing beside it in relation to which it can be said to move. Thus it can be called at once the eternally moving and eternally resting.
How can we bring ourselves into accord with this Tao? A sage has said that if we try to accord with it, we shall get away from it. But he was not altogether right. For the curious thing is that you cannot get out of accord with it even if you want to. Though your thoughts may run into the past or future, then cannot escape the present moment. However far back or forward they try to escape, they can never be separated from the moment. For those thoughts are themselves of the moment; just as much as anything else they partake of and indeed, are the movement of life which is Tao.
You may believe yourself out of harmony with life and its eternal Now; but you cannot be, for you are life and exist Now – otherwise you would not be here. Hence the infinite Tao is something which you can neither escape by flight nor catch by pursuit; there is no coming toward it or going away from it; it is, and you are it. So become what you are.
Source: Become What You Are – pp10-11 from the book with the same title by Alan Watts – (c) Shambhala Press 2003
In my research on swarms, I came across this extraordinary video of a swarm of tiny flying machines called “nano quadrotors”. You have to watch it to believe it. The mind boggles when you think of some of the applications! Once you have watched the short video, please leave any comments on what you think!
At the recent evidence for the House of Lords Communications subcommittee, I drew attention to a great piece of thinking which was written-up in a book by Everett M Rogers in 1962 called “The Diffusion of Innovations”. It has since sold more than 30,000 copies, is now in its fifth edition and has become a classic on how ideas spread.
Often, when we think about innovation, we think of words like “new”, “creative”, “first-mover” etc. Diffusion is not really a word that instantly springs to mind. Yet Everett’s research has proved to be a robust model which has stood the test of time across many innovation cycles. Here is a great cartoon which outlines Everett’s five constituencies that need to be convinced about a new idea, product or service:
I particularly like the cartoon because it includes “THE CHASM” as the first gap across which all innovations much leap if they are to be successful and grow beyond the first 15-20% of any given market. How many ideas or innovations fail at this hurdle!
What is even more interesting to note are the different dynamics as you move from up the curve after the chasm has been crossed. To capture the “early majority”, then a “word of mouth” or “refer a friend” strategy is the main mechanism for growth. There are many examples on the internet where this has been institutionalised.
Once the early majority has been convinced, the late majority tends to be more convinced by the opinion of a number of individuals or other social groupings. Once again, the internet has helped to accelerate this in recent years with social media platforms and other types of discussion fora – further driven by well-designed applications that allow people to group themselves together in areas of common interest like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.
As the Internet has accelerated the diffusion of ideas around the world, distance has become less important than it was in the 1960s. The fifth edition was updated in 2003 to address the spread of the Internet, and how it has transformed the way human beings communicate and adopt new ideas. How much has changed, even since then!
I have found this a very useful model for all those struggling with marketing ideas, products and services in the age of the internet. It is always worth remembering that the tactics used for getting over the chasm are probably not going to be much use when you have to convince the Laggards. Perhaps the UK needs to understand the model better when looking at how we increase our usage for the internet as a whole – and particularly encourage the laggards to get online. Hence my use of the model when talking to the Peers last month.
Whilst away at Easter I started to read Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell’s book “Godhead: The Brain’s Big Bang” which was published last year. It is the latest accumulation of Griffin and Tyrell’s ideas on the Human Givens, and the importance of the REM state in sleep and the Universal Relaton Field. Yet to list out the other many ideas in the book is impossible.
What is impressive about the work is that it attempts to bring a set of organising ideas to some of the BIG questions that mankind has asked since the beginning of history such as: “What is consciousness?” and “How was time created?”. It gives some very interesting frameworks for understanding the universe by relating concepts like the big bang theory to the development of the human mind.
By drawing on their previous ideas of caetextia (or context blindness), the authors link the development of the human brain to the two very separate ways that we think: left-brained thinking and right-brained thinking. This is very similar to the System 1 and System 2 in Kahneman’s “Thinking, fast and slow” which I reviewed a few Thursdays ago.
However, Griffin and Tyrell (being psychoanalysts) bring out some very interesting new theories on how the human mind developed to become more conscious – both to become more objective (or left-brained) as well as subjective (right-brained). Each half of the brain (in balance) creates a rounded self-consciousness which connects both sides of the brain for human living. However, too much focus on the path towards objectivity (which they also call the arc of descent) creates a tendency towards scientific genius and autism. Too much focus on subjectivity (or the arc of ascent) creates art and a tendency for certain folk to become schizophrenic. They also suggest that mood swings, depression and bipolar disorder are, perhaps a mixture of both without the ability to create balance between the halves – and yet have also produced many of our most creative geniuses such as Robert Schumann, John Keates, William Blake, Winston Churchill, Charles Dickens, Peter Gabriel and Spike Milligan…..and their list goes on much longer (p.96)!
However, the book is far more than a set of ideas on the development of the physical brain and mental health. In the second and third parts of the book, the authors bring together a set of very powerful organising ideas on how human consciousness connects with the “one-ness” of the Universe through an invisible field of “relatons”. Since only 4% of the Universe is made up of matter that is visible (detectable by radiation), the authors believe that the field of relatons (or subjective matter) is contained somewhere within the remaining 96%. These relatons have some very interesting properties. They are undetectable (like all dark matter). They are also capable of relationships with solitons (objective matter) and are always generating consciousness (or information). And when two solitons are joined as matter, relatons are released!
The struggle that the mind has in balancing between objectivity and subjectivity (and the ability of such thinking to drive us mad in the process) was well narrated in the timeless classic “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”over 30 years ago – which had a major influence on my thinking at the time. The authors suggest that this balance-of-two-halves-in-time (between the two sides of the mind) appears to echo the same dance that plays out from the largest to the smallest objects in the Universe and that somehow time breathes in and out between objective and subjective states through states of probability.
The book is not just analytical and mind-stretchingly interesting. It intersperses spiritual stories and poems – and one of my favourites is here:
“How often do you sense that there is a profound meaning in a poem but, without an organising idea to consolidate it, you can’t hold on to it and it slips away from consciousness? T.S.Eliot knew this, as we see from other lines of his great “Burnt Norton”, where he reveals his intuitive grasp of the nature of truth but also that he is aware of the failure of words to hold on to what he has grasped:
Words, after speech reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.”
Overall, the book presents a fascinating set of ideas and theories which draw on thinking from our latest understanding of the physical brain, quantum mechanics, spirituality, creativity and the development of mental illnesses – and much more besides. Big ideas which the book far better articulates on over 450 pages than I can in this short article.
I remain fascinated on how we can apply some of the ideas to the areas of Information Management and Organisational Design. My previous article on Organisational Caetextia started to explore some of these themes. Expect more to follow – particularly with colonies of bees interwoven in the stories!
I hope that it makes some of you interested enough to buy what I think is one of the best books I have read in the past year.
Picture: (c) iStockphoto not to be reproduced without licence.
