Ideas

Train Station

A European train station in action is a marvelous example of efficiency.  There is an endless swarm of activity.  Arrivals and departures being coordinated by timetables.  Large boards announce the pending schedules.  The arrival of the Eurostar from Napoli to Roma becomes the departing train for Milano.  Within 30 minutes the passengers have disembarked and the outbound passengers loaded and departed.


Does your cause have a networking hub for great ideas?  A terminal to sort new concepts and determine which track might be best for directing the concept on for further expansion and refinement.  Who manages the station?  How do you creates a culture of inquiry that encourages innovation and treats ideas with respect?

Ripping up the Syllabus
The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original size.
– Oliver Wendell Homes

How does your enterprise penetrate the bubble of fans that surrounds your cause?  Do you ever seek outsiders who have a fresh perspective?  Does your organization have enough tolerance to hear revolutionary ideas?

I had a professor in college who started his course on the American Revolution by passing out the syllabus.  He then asked us to rip them up.  He had been on sabbatical doing research for a new book and it had fundamentally altered the way he was going to teach the course.  His method for the coming semester was to make-it-up and borrow from existing ideas as we went along.  It was also his thesis for his book on the framing of the constitution.  The semester was memorable because we were adventuring into new territory as a group, not simply on a guided tour.

Waiting for a Matched Set

The lost sock sitting on top of the dyer waits patiently for its mate.  Cycles of laundry are completed and yet the matching sock still does not appear. 

The sock appears to be of no use.  Left to its own it is unattended and irrelevant.

How many great ideas sit on your organization’s dryer waiting for the right match?  I frequently see social sector enterprises put some of their best ideas aside like a unmatched sock.  They are waiting for the perfect donor, moment, or partner to appear and give their abandoned project life.  I am certain that if I go search in the sock drawer I have a high probability of finding the missing sock or I have a better chance of finding the mate clinging to a piece of clothing that the odds of it appearing magically from the dyer.

If there is power in the idea or project then perhaps it is well worth the energy to seek out a partner and start searching.  Another organization will gladly take the sock and turn it into their showcase project if you take no action.