The pelicans are returning. They fly in a vee shape, just like geese. Yet they are bizarrely pre-historic with their big gullets and crooked wings. Makes me think that a dinasaur head will pop up over the palm tree, next.
It’s cold and foggy here on the Central Coast. My tomato plants on the deck are struggling, but still producing flowers, but the bees must be hiding in their hives trying to stay warm. No little tomatoes are starting. The plants need the bees, as well as the soil, water and sun. Some of this dependency is mutually beneficial; the bees are getting nector after all. But not all of it is. After all, what does the sun get for putting out its rays of warmth?
The web of life is complicated. So is the Web of Business. When you tug on a string that’s in your business by creating a new system to respond to customers more promptly, you are creating a new pattern in your web. When you help someone with no thought of getting anything back, you are expanding your business web to include new people.
I’m reading a book by Clara Shih, called the Facebook Era. In it, she talks about an experiment she participated in during a leadership course at Stanford. The essence of the result was that people rarely received help directly from the person that they had given it to. Shih then went on to apply this concept to social networking.
As the use the new tools of Twitter, Facebook, You Tube, etc. continues to shake out, this will be the profound shift in how business is done. It’s a much more “feminine” model, if you will. Women, as a generalization, are much more in touch with the web of life than men are. And if we can apply the knowledge of the web of life to our business web, we will be able to grow our business with more ease and grace.
