Friday, December 16, 2005
Ode to a Toad
Serge Kahili King
Urban Shaman
Grunt and gurgle, little toad
Down there in your mud abode.
Do you ever think of us?
Do we make you fret and fuss
With our wars and waste and greed,
Our rush toward death with reckless speed?
Do you wonder at our fate,
Who preach of love and practice hate;
Who distrust and fear those not like we,
Though they live next door or across the sea?
Do you laugh and laugh at how we talk
Of peace, while one hand holds a rock
Ready to bash our neighbor's head,
Because he's yellow, black, or red?
And at those who cry,
"We must disarm!
Our enemies will ne'er do us harm.
When they see we've no weapons or means of defense,
They'll be happy to stay on their side of the fence."
Or at those who say, "Attack and fight!
We'll show them all that might is right.
Who cares about nuclear radiation?
It's important we prove we're the strongest nation!"
Ah, men say this and men say that,
And some change sides and some stand pat.
And some merely glory in tromping on toes,
But few see beyond the thick end of their nose.
They rant and rave with fiery speech,
And preach, and preach, and preach, and preach.
So what is achieved by a thousand words?
And where are the footprints of flying birds?
For words can't grow crops or clothe the poor,
Or find a disease's elusive cure.
They can't feed children or heal the sick,
Or build a dam or wield a pick.
Oh, they have their place, that I concede.
But a word can never replace a deed.
Yes, it's action that counts, not what we say.
We must act and do and lead the way
By DEEDS! if we hope to live at all
In a world without hate, or revenge, or a Wall.
Do we truly believe in the Rights of Man,
Be he black or white, yellow or tan?
Do we honestly think we can live without war,
In trust and peace forevermore?
That there needn't be hunger or sickness or fear;
That death for so many need not be so near?
If we do then let's ACT! and make this old Earth
A place where real joy will attend every birth.
And what if we don't?
If we just sit and wait
Till the bombs start to fall and we know it's too late?
These are questions I ask myself, too, little toad,
As I sit at my desk or drive down the road.
If we drop our terrible, monster bomb,
Will you sit there serene, patient, and calm?
Or will you just chuckle, thinking of when
The Earth will no more be troubled by men?
If instead we recognize Earth as our Mother,
And all of her creatures as sister and brother,
The land and the sea and the sky as a friend,
Ourselves as gardeners whose role is to tend,
Then maybe, with love, in an ACTION mode,
We might make it work after all, little toad.
To read a review of King's book Urban Shaman go to The Illuminated Innovant.
Urban Shaman
Grunt and gurgle, little toad
Down there in your mud abode.
Do you ever think of us?
Do we make you fret and fuss
With our wars and waste and greed,
Our rush toward death with reckless speed?
Do you wonder at our fate,
Who preach of love and practice hate;
Who distrust and fear those not like we,
Though they live next door or across the sea?
Do you laugh and laugh at how we talk
Of peace, while one hand holds a rock
Ready to bash our neighbor's head,
Because he's yellow, black, or red?
And at those who cry,
"We must disarm!
Our enemies will ne'er do us harm.
When they see we've no weapons or means of defense,
They'll be happy to stay on their side of the fence."
Or at those who say, "Attack and fight!
We'll show them all that might is right.
Who cares about nuclear radiation?
It's important we prove we're the strongest nation!"
Ah, men say this and men say that,
And some change sides and some stand pat.
And some merely glory in tromping on toes,
But few see beyond the thick end of their nose.
They rant and rave with fiery speech,
And preach, and preach, and preach, and preach.
So what is achieved by a thousand words?
And where are the footprints of flying birds?
For words can't grow crops or clothe the poor,
Or find a disease's elusive cure.
They can't feed children or heal the sick,
Or build a dam or wield a pick.
Oh, they have their place, that I concede.
But a word can never replace a deed.
Yes, it's action that counts, not what we say.
We must act and do and lead the way
By DEEDS! if we hope to live at all
In a world without hate, or revenge, or a Wall.
Do we truly believe in the Rights of Man,
Be he black or white, yellow or tan?
Do we honestly think we can live without war,
In trust and peace forevermore?
That there needn't be hunger or sickness or fear;
That death for so many need not be so near?
If we do then let's ACT! and make this old Earth
A place where real joy will attend every birth.
And what if we don't?
If we just sit and wait
Till the bombs start to fall and we know it's too late?
These are questions I ask myself, too, little toad,
As I sit at my desk or drive down the road.
If we drop our terrible, monster bomb,
Will you sit there serene, patient, and calm?
Or will you just chuckle, thinking of when
The Earth will no more be troubled by men?
If instead we recognize Earth as our Mother,
And all of her creatures as sister and brother,
The land and the sea and the sky as a friend,
Ourselves as gardeners whose role is to tend,
Then maybe, with love, in an ACTION mode,
We might make it work after all, little toad.
To read a review of King's book Urban Shaman go to The Illuminated Innovant.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Creativity and Boxes
I'm not sure when or where the phrase "think outside the box" originated. As I remember, my first exposure came with the introduction of the nine-dot puzzle. The idea was to draw no more than four lines without lifting your pencil that crossed through all nine dots. Most people stopped the lines on a dot, With that restriction, the problem is impossible to solve. But, if you extend the lines beyond the dots, the problem can be solved. Thus, in order to solve the problem you had to think outside the box. (By the way, there are many other creative solutions to the puzzle without thinking outside the box.)
I must admit that I used this example in the 1980s in training. However, I quickly realized that thinking outside the box wasn't the challenge. The real challenge, especially to business, is thinking creatively inside the box. That's where most of the real work gets done, and the most productive innovation.
There is something about the tension of a closed system and creativity. An artist painting a picture has the two-dimensional surface that is framed. Writers start with a blank slate and the limitations of the language. Sculptors start with a piece of stone or clay.
The Roman's use of the square in battle was innovative and almost impenetrable for many years. Fortresses are almost always rectangular. Forming a circle for defense, as in "Circle the wagons". What happened inside the circle or rectangle was essential to survival.
I wonder why the phrase was not "Think outside the circle". Circles have been around for a very long time. And, we're finding that a circle of people still has enormous power.
What I'm discovering is that it's not the network of people or the links between people that is key. I'm finding that it is the space between that's important. But, more about that later.
The seminar on Systematic Idea Generation by Mark Fox puts a different twist on things; what he calls thinking in another box. You can think outside the box, inside the box or in another box. Thinking in another box is a very appropriate metaphor for business. It will probably result in distinctive innovation, a source of great wealth.
I've attended Mark's seminar twice and found that I learned things both times. He has a unique way of looking at creativity with a fresh new set of techniques.
I must admit that I used this example in the 1980s in training. However, I quickly realized that thinking outside the box wasn't the challenge. The real challenge, especially to business, is thinking creatively inside the box. That's where most of the real work gets done, and the most productive innovation.
There is something about the tension of a closed system and creativity. An artist painting a picture has the two-dimensional surface that is framed. Writers start with a blank slate and the limitations of the language. Sculptors start with a piece of stone or clay.
The Roman's use of the square in battle was innovative and almost impenetrable for many years. Fortresses are almost always rectangular. Forming a circle for defense, as in "Circle the wagons". What happened inside the circle or rectangle was essential to survival.
I wonder why the phrase was not "Think outside the circle". Circles have been around for a very long time. And, we're finding that a circle of people still has enormous power.
What I'm discovering is that it's not the network of people or the links between people that is key. I'm finding that it is the space between that's important. But, more about that later.
The seminar on Systematic Idea Generation by Mark Fox puts a different twist on things; what he calls thinking in another box. You can think outside the box, inside the box or in another box. Thinking in another box is a very appropriate metaphor for business. It will probably result in distinctive innovation, a source of great wealth.
I've attended Mark's seminar twice and found that I learned things both times. He has a unique way of looking at creativity with a fresh new set of techniques.
Friday, December 02, 2005
The Tribe of the Ambiguous and Living in the Question
I've been having a lot of conversations around "Where are we?" and "Where are we going?" lately.
After two conversations in one day, I finished reading a book by Christian Baldwin, Storycatcher. Within the last chapter there was this:
"The renewed life we long for is already residing in the hearts and minds of people all over the world; it's just waiting for us to believe in our capacity to live it.
Yet hope is tricky; like joy, it must include and befriend ambiguity. To live in denial, to proceed with false cheerfulness, avoiding the seriousness of our situation, will quickly dash any hope built on such a flimsy foundation.
As I travel around speaking and listening to the Tribe of the Ambiguous, a story-based role is becoming clear: storycatchers can serve not only as carriers of hopeful thought-provoking tales, but also receivers of confused and heartrending accounts of personal awakening. The movement aspect of storycatching is about creating interpersonal space in which we can hold story with each other. Like the circle of listening that frames Chapter 2, we need to practice being in the now; we need a readiness to notice, to volunteer to listen and respond to each other while we speak our way into holding the complexity of the world."
Christina Baldwin, Storycatcher, New World Library, 2005
(I will write a full review of the book in a few weeks. Look for it in www.illuminatedinnovant.blogspot.com)
In an article Donna Prestwood and I wrote for The Futurist in 1997, we outlined the results of over a year's worth of research, interviews and countless conversations about the nature of the future and how to lead in that future in seven principles:
- Know who you are
- Let go of what you've got hold of
- Understand your purpose
- Live in the question
- Learn the art of barn raising
- Give it away
- Let the magic happen
As I look at these now eight years later, I still see a lot of wisdom in them.
I love Baldwin's term - The Tribe of Ambiguity. But I also like our admonishment - Live in the Question. Whatever the term, we are awakening to the fact that we are living in a question and struggling trying to find out what the question is.
I keep coming back in my mind to Flip Wilson, one of the comics of the 70's (http://www.tvparty.com/flip.html). He was one of the funniest people ever on TV with his outrageous characters like Geraldine and Reverend LeRoy. Reverend LeRoy founded a church - The Church of What's Happenin' Now. I feel we are all members of the "church". Except maybe, we should change the name to "What's Happenin' Now?"
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
McLuhan's Ghost
Author's Note: This story was written to introduce a workshop on story telling.
Marshall McLuhan has haunted me for 41 years. Ever since reading Understanding Media in 1964 and Culture is Our Business in 1970, McLuhan's insights and diabolic turns of phrase have lain dormant in my brain, occasionally surfacing to interrupt a train of thought. Like a virus whose genetic structure takes over it's host's, McLuhan's memes have infected my brain, flitting around like ghosts, multiplying and modifying the way I perceive and think.
"The medium is the message."
"Media are the extensions of man."
"Hot and Cool media."
I think I am possessed.
My infection was dormant. Why now has it developed into a full-fledged haunting?
The short answer is that I was called.
The Wizard of Ads sent the first call. No, really, he's an honest to goodness wizard who practices his wizardry on a hill between Austin and Buda in his castle. He pretends to be a normal human who goes by the name of Roy Williams, but he is a wizard never-the-less.
His wizard-o-gram arrived mysteriously on my computer on November 22, 2004. Its title was "Marketing Without Media", an insightful piece about the declining effectiveness of mass media advertising. McLuhan's ghost started to stir.
The second call came from a guru, friend of mind. He asked me to call the Wizard of Ads. Nick G., also a friend and colleague of the Wizard, had spoken to the Wizard about me and the Wizard would like to talk with me.
In our telephone conversation, the Wizard mentioned an e-mail that he had gotten from someone who had also read his wizard-o-gram and commented that McLuhan had predicted that media technology always reverses itself. The Wizard asked if I knew what that meant. I said no. The challenge was given. The haunting started.
The last call came from a most unexpected source. A Wiccan brought me an article written by Norman Mailer published in, of all places, Parade, in January 2005. Donna P. knew that I was on this quest, and thought I should read it. Mailer's article, "One Idea", outlined his concern about the impact of television, and the increase of advertising, on the attention span of children and their declining ability to read. All the forty-year-old McLuhan memes were activated. This didn't sound right to me and I wrote back to Mailer telling him so. I was committed.
And, I was possessed.
I read and reread all of the books by McLuhan that are still in print. I began to write and talk about what I was learning. I am now beginning to understand what I knew 40 years ago. And, I still have a lot more to integrate and understand.
If this sounds like a mythological quest, it is. I'm not a hero, but this true story, follows all of the major elements of Campbell's "Heroes Journey" in The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
When called on a quest, the hero has many choices. The mythological quest is really a journey into the self, the subconscious. Having accepted the call, and acting upon that call, if you reach the true understanding, your choice is whether to stay there (and become a shaman) or to travel back (and become a teacher) and teach others what you have learned. My quest is the latter.
McLuhan began to warn us over fifty year's ago in his first book, The Mechanical Bride: The Folklore of Industrial Man, that we were transitioning from the literate to the post-literate age. He called the post-literate age "acoustic" as he struggled to explain what he was perceiving.
As the Wizard of Ads has been saying, "A picture is not worth a thousand words. A word is worth a thousand pictures."
The post literate age has many similarities with the pre-literate age, including the power of the spoken word, and mimesis. Like the preliterate age that was filled with mystery and things that went bump in the night, our world is incomprehensible, and equally frightening. And, as pre-literate peoples gathered around a fire* in the dark of night and told stories that explained life's mysteries, so do we now gather. We live in a mosaic world of events for which there is no apparent cause and no apparent meaning. Stories provide the meaning.
* Author's note: This was not planned. Unknown to me, the facilitators arranged the workshop in a semicircle around a large candle.
Marshall McLuhan has haunted me for 41 years. Ever since reading Understanding Media in 1964 and Culture is Our Business in 1970, McLuhan's insights and diabolic turns of phrase have lain dormant in my brain, occasionally surfacing to interrupt a train of thought. Like a virus whose genetic structure takes over it's host's, McLuhan's memes have infected my brain, flitting around like ghosts, multiplying and modifying the way I perceive and think.
"The medium is the message."
"Media are the extensions of man."
"Hot and Cool media."
I think I am possessed.
My infection was dormant. Why now has it developed into a full-fledged haunting?
The short answer is that I was called.
The Wizard of Ads sent the first call. No, really, he's an honest to goodness wizard who practices his wizardry on a hill between Austin and Buda in his castle. He pretends to be a normal human who goes by the name of Roy Williams, but he is a wizard never-the-less.
His wizard-o-gram arrived mysteriously on my computer on November 22, 2004. Its title was "Marketing Without Media", an insightful piece about the declining effectiveness of mass media advertising. McLuhan's ghost started to stir.
The second call came from a guru, friend of mind. He asked me to call the Wizard of Ads. Nick G., also a friend and colleague of the Wizard, had spoken to the Wizard about me and the Wizard would like to talk with me.
In our telephone conversation, the Wizard mentioned an e-mail that he had gotten from someone who had also read his wizard-o-gram and commented that McLuhan had predicted that media technology always reverses itself. The Wizard asked if I knew what that meant. I said no. The challenge was given. The haunting started.
The last call came from a most unexpected source. A Wiccan brought me an article written by Norman Mailer published in, of all places, Parade, in January 2005. Donna P. knew that I was on this quest, and thought I should read it. Mailer's article, "One Idea", outlined his concern about the impact of television, and the increase of advertising, on the attention span of children and their declining ability to read. All the forty-year-old McLuhan memes were activated. This didn't sound right to me and I wrote back to Mailer telling him so. I was committed.
And, I was possessed.
I read and reread all of the books by McLuhan that are still in print. I began to write and talk about what I was learning. I am now beginning to understand what I knew 40 years ago. And, I still have a lot more to integrate and understand.
If this sounds like a mythological quest, it is. I'm not a hero, but this true story, follows all of the major elements of Campbell's "Heroes Journey" in The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
When called on a quest, the hero has many choices. The mythological quest is really a journey into the self, the subconscious. Having accepted the call, and acting upon that call, if you reach the true understanding, your choice is whether to stay there (and become a shaman) or to travel back (and become a teacher) and teach others what you have learned. My quest is the latter.
McLuhan began to warn us over fifty year's ago in his first book, The Mechanical Bride: The Folklore of Industrial Man, that we were transitioning from the literate to the post-literate age. He called the post-literate age "acoustic" as he struggled to explain what he was perceiving.
As the Wizard of Ads has been saying, "A picture is not worth a thousand words. A word is worth a thousand pictures."
The post literate age has many similarities with the pre-literate age, including the power of the spoken word, and mimesis. Like the preliterate age that was filled with mystery and things that went bump in the night, our world is incomprehensible, and equally frightening. And, as pre-literate peoples gathered around a fire* in the dark of night and told stories that explained life's mysteries, so do we now gather. We live in a mosaic world of events for which there is no apparent cause and no apparent meaning. Stories provide the meaning.
* Author's note: This was not planned. Unknown to me, the facilitators arranged the workshop in a semicircle around a large candle.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Innovation as Alchemy?
Innovation is the way of transforming the resources of an enterprise through the creativity of people into new resources and wealth.
Paul Schumann
Building an Innovative Enterprise
The proto-science of alchemy sought, among other things, a process to change "base metals" into gold. The tool thought to be the key to this process was called the "Philosopher's Stone."
In my new definition of innovation given above, it is innovation that transforms resources into new resources and wealth, and the equivalent of the "Philosopher's Stone" is the creativity of people.
The resources of an enterprise include people, capital, knowledge, strategic partners, equipment and tools, facilities and land and natural resources. And, an innovative enterprise, in pursuit of future opportunities or avoidance of future threats, uses the creativity of people, who are enabled with resources, to convert those resources into wealth. At the same time, the quest for innovation creates new resources.
Innovation does more than just make money for the innovators. Innovation creates true wealth. In the sense of the roots of the word, innovation improves the common weal. Everyone within the market, as well as society in general benefit from innovation. As a matter of fact, economists state that the social rate of return from innovation is greater than the private rate of return.
Innovation within an enterprise not only makes money for the enterprise, its employees and owners, it raises the level of economic prosperity in the community within which it operates.
Einstein's equation relating energy and mass is familiar to all, E=MC2. His theory, subsequently proven many times, provides the fundamental relationship between energy and mass with speed of light squared providing the linkage. This simple, but profound equation provided one of the steps to the alchemists' goals. It also provided the basis for nuclear fission and nuclear fusion as means for releasing vast amounts of energy.
By making the analogy I'm about to make, I'm not suggesting that this new definition of innovation is in any way close to the significance of Einstein's equation, but there are some similarities. The definition could be written W~RCi2. That is, wealth is proportional to the resources times the square of the creativity index of the enterprise. Now, I don't know for a fact that it is the square of the creativity. I do have the sense that creativity within an enterprise multiplies. Creativity begats more creativity.
Carrying the analogy one step further, like nuclear energy, innovation can come from fusion or fission (synthesis or analysis). And, while both create energy in nuclear processes, it is fusion that creates much, much, more energy (H-bomb vs. A-bomb). In my experience, synthesis creates more wealth than analysis.
An innovative enterprise creates a "virtuous cycle". A virtuous cycle is a condition in which a favorable circumstance or result gives rise to another that subsequently supports the first - in other words, a positive feedback system. In economics there is an assumption that a complex system will tend to a state of equilibrium. In non-equilibrium condition two cycles can be present - a virtuous cycle or a vicious cycle. A vicious cycle leads to decline and failure. A virtuous cycle leads to growth and wealth. The difference in an enterprise between a vicious and virtuous cycle is determined by the initial conditions, the innovation success rate and the percentage of resources reinvested in the creation of more innovation.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
ACA Call for Presenters
The American Creativity Association is holding it's 2006 International Conference on March 22 - 24, 2006 in Austin, Texas at the Austin-Bergstrom Airport Hilton. The call for presenters as well as other information about the conference is available on their web site (www.amcreativityassoc.org). Proposals must be submitted before October 31, 2005. Linda Shafer & Barry Silverberg are Conference co-Chairs. Contact Barry Silverberg at barry@amcreativityassoc.org with questions or suggestions.
Paul Schumann (www.theinnovationroadmap.com) is organizing a focus on advances in the understanding of innovation in organizations. The desire is to have seminars, workshops and panel discussions on new systems and knowledge of organizational innovation, especially open, collaborative ones. Topics of interest are developing insights in a complex future, discovering opportunities and threats, attracting collaborators and leading collaborations, open systems for innovation, issues of recognition and reward in open collaborations, the microeconomics of innovation and measurement systems. Anyone interested in this special focus on innovation should contact Paul Schumann (512.302.1935) before submitting a proposal on the ACA web site.
Paul Schumann (www.theinnovationroadmap.com) is organizing a focus on advances in the understanding of innovation in organizations. The desire is to have seminars, workshops and panel discussions on new systems and knowledge of organizational innovation, especially open, collaborative ones. Topics of interest are developing insights in a complex future, discovering opportunities and threats, attracting collaborators and leading collaborations, open systems for innovation, issues of recognition and reward in open collaborations, the microeconomics of innovation and measurement systems. Anyone interested in this special focus on innovation should contact Paul Schumann (512.302.1935) before submitting a proposal on the ACA web site.
Friday, September 09, 2005
The Future of Strategy
This is a 47 minute telephone interview of Paul Schumann by Tom Carroll.
All of the files listed are mp3.
1. What is corporate strategy? (1.6 mb, 2:09)
2. What does it mean for an organization to have an effective strategy? (.6 mb, :49)
3. What are some of the best practices for developing an effective corporate strategy? (.9 mb, 1:16)
4. What should an effective corporate strategy include? (1.8 mb, 2:32)
5. Who should be involved in strategy formation? (1.4 mb, 1:56)
6. What do you mean by the term "knowable future" and how does that relate to business strategy development? (4.5 mb, 6:16)
7. What sort of new strategy development methodologies do you see emerging? (1.5 mb, 2:03)
8. Presently, are there some recent global trends that you believe are important to consider when developing business strategies? (9.7 mb, 13:30)
9. Were you surprised on finding that technology develops slowly? (4 mb, 5:30)
10. Are there any companies who really have gotten strategy development down to a fine art? (4.2 mb, 5:48)
11. What are some first steps a company can take to begin formulating an effective corporate strategy? (2.6 mb, 3:36)
12. How can people contact you? (1.1 mb, 1:36)
All of the files listed are mp3.
1. What is corporate strategy? (1.6 mb, 2:09)
2. What does it mean for an organization to have an effective strategy? (.6 mb, :49)
3. What are some of the best practices for developing an effective corporate strategy? (.9 mb, 1:16)
4. What should an effective corporate strategy include? (1.8 mb, 2:32)
5. Who should be involved in strategy formation? (1.4 mb, 1:56)
6. What do you mean by the term "knowable future" and how does that relate to business strategy development? (4.5 mb, 6:16)
7. What sort of new strategy development methodologies do you see emerging? (1.5 mb, 2:03)
8. Presently, are there some recent global trends that you believe are important to consider when developing business strategies? (9.7 mb, 13:30)
9. Were you surprised on finding that technology develops slowly? (4 mb, 5:30)
10. Are there any companies who really have gotten strategy development down to a fine art? (4.2 mb, 5:48)
11. What are some first steps a company can take to begin formulating an effective corporate strategy? (2.6 mb, 3:36)
12. How can people contact you? (1.1 mb, 1:36)
