What does it feel like when your world starts to implode?

Good God! Last post was on the 24th of February! A lot of water has passed under the bridge, and just about as many excuses. But it has been pretty tough - an earlier version of this post described my world as imploding.

Maybe it was. Probably it wasn't. What I am more certain of is that the blogosphere isn't particularly interested in hearing that sort of stuff. So it's gone. Suffice it to say that the last couple of weeks have been tough.

Imploding, by Agnes Nedregard. Source: Stills.

What has made the difference have been some great articles to spark me,.

Ira Glass

These words from Ira Glass speak to me. Sure, I'm not doing "creative work" like a writer or musician, but I AM doing creative work in making something new. A world without waste. And so these words matter, because I do have taste, I have a vision that matters. There is just the gap to be closed by doing the work.

The Gap, by Ira Glass. Nudged in my direction by +John Kellden 

Think Cosmically. Act Globally. And live locally

Then there is this from Ian Lawton, and brought to my attention by +Karin Sebelin. It is a post called "Live large, size matters", and in short, it talks about how you need to pick a life that is bigger than yourself, then grow into it.

Some quotes:

You have a right to a life that fits. Choose a life that is large enough to stretch and sustain you

And this:

How do you know when something becomes too small? The same way you know when a sweater or pair of pants has become too small. It doesn’t fit any more. It feels constricting, like you want to burst out of it. When something becomes too small, you become defensive, protective, fearful, anxious. If you live too long with something too small, it manifests as pain in your body and conflict in your relationships

They encapsulate where I am.

Institutional Innovation

There was a great post I skim read from John Seely Brown and John Hagel called Institutional Innovation. It is long, and I mean to read in more depth, but I loved a presentation given by John Seely Brown to the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders at Stanford University and so expect I'll love this too.

My skim of this latest looks incredible, and I am looking forward to further insights. This matters because Garbologie is all about bringing new solutions to bear to old problems. A new type of organisation that swarms at problems, that treats staff as individual centres of excellence, that has an incessant desire to create a world without waste.

We need to understand institutional innovation.

You cannot plant a forest

The final piece that I love and that encapsulates a great deal of my thinking is a post by +Michelle Holliday: You can't plant a forest.

The point being made by Michelle is that while you can obviously plant a great many trees, trees are not a forest. A forest is emergent, it is all of the life that happens around the trees, the systems that are influenced by and in turn influence the trees. It is the ecosystem and a whole lot more. You cannot make this.

Applying the same analogy to organisations, and you come to see that you do not make an organisation. You create the conditions for an organisation to form. An organisation is a living entity of great complexity. You are a steward rather than a manager.

And so I don't have to create the whole of a world without waste. I don't even have to come close. I just (just!) have to create the necessary conditions for it to emerge.