Monthly Archive for May, 2009

New Vistas

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on May 19, 2009
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I’m on the road.  Yesterday we drove through the Valley of Fire in Nevada.  I recommend approaching from the west end of the park. One minute, we were surrounded by grey slopes and tan sand - the next minute, we came around a corner for a dramatic reveal of red sandstone outcroppings.

The stones show swirl lines and hollows.   They seem almost unconnected to the ground below them, rising sharply with changed texture and color.  Our party walked around them, scrambling down slopes, stepping into sculpted alcoves, and snapping pictures.

We enjoyed the new sights.  We’d deliberately taken a small detour to reach them.  The novelty was part of the pleasure.

Sometimes when our lives take a turn into new territory, we don’t appreciate the change.  If we had come into the Valley of Fire without intending to, would we have thought these rocks were too red, too tall, too strange?  Would we have been annoyed instead of intrigued by their unusual forms and their complexity?

Or would we have been glad to discover them?

I can’t know for sure.  I cultivate an adventurous spirit, the better to surf the inevitable surprises that come my way.  I enjoy my life more that way.  Travel to new places helps me stay open to new experiences.

And sometimes I still take annoyance at change.  Then I seek coaching.

May you have the resilience to take what comes your way well.  And if at first you don’t, may you find the support you need to develop it.

Anna

Small Steps

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on May 19, 2009
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“That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Neil Armstrong, as he placed the first footprint on the Moon.

This issue’s Small Step for Space:  Seek out something new.

A spacefaring civilization will be different from ours in many ways.  Prepare yourself for the future by taking a step, however small, out of your comfort zone today.

Book Recommendation

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on May 19, 2009
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Looking Glass by James Strickland

Remember cyberpunk?  Just in case you don’t, there is a glossary in the back of Looking Glass.  James Strickland knows he is returning to the school of Neuromancer and Hardwired.  He acknowledges the genre by using the term “Gibsonian”.  Looking Glass has the vibrant language, strong female characters, virtual reality thrills, and emotional payoff of a superior example of cyberpunk.  The strong plot kept me engaged from beginning to end.  I cared about the characters, and the world felt completely plausible.  James Strickland is a new author to watch.

The Wider Effects

Published
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on May 5, 2009
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I’m not sure what the economy is doing.  The economy is big - it’s hard for a single person to encompass all the trading activities of billions of people.

I’ve had so much work come in that I had to invent new ways to handle it.  Some of those new ways won’t work in the long term.  So, part of my work going onward is to find better ways to handle large amounts of work.  It’s a good problem to have - one that successful businesses tend to face, eventually.

So, if I was to look no farther than my to-do list, I’d think the economy was doing well.

Eventually, if I looked no farther than my to-do list, my to-do list would empty itself.  To keep myself employed, I need to look into the wider world, find people to serve, and pay attention to what is happening around me.

I do hear from a lot of people that they are finding the current economic situation difficult.  I allow a small amount of mainstream news into my life, and those sources mostly agree that the economy is having a hard time.  I wonder how they know.  Statistics do give us a way to grapple with the actions of large numbers of people at once.  I do think that rising unemployment numbers and falling gross national product mean that something is going on.

So, even though I don’t really know what is going on, I’ve built a theory.  Here it is:  I think the economy is a little like my own business - if for too long, the people who affect it pay attention only to their own paperwork, and not to the world around them, problems develop.

One piece of evidence I have for this theory is that businesses that have green or social concerns have for decades been doing better than businesses that don’t.  Classical economic theory suggests that paying attention to items other than the bottom line would make a business less competitive and less successful - classical economic theory fails to explain the success of these businesses.  So maybe - the effect you have on the world around you matters.  If your business is polluting or causing people to be miserable, maybe in the long run, that comes back to hurt your business.  And if your business is improving the environment or helping people live better, in the long run, that helps you, too.

I’d like this to be true.  I’ve seen some signs that support it.  I’m going with it.

So how do the actions you take to make a living affect the world around you?  How could you do more good while doing business?

May you prosper while enhancing the world.

Anna

Small Steps

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on May 5, 2009
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“That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Neil Armstrong, as he placed the first footprint on the Moon.

This issue’s Small Step for Space:  Check out this new space news source:  Unigalactic Space Travel Magazine

They have a website at www.unigalactic.com, which includes a good number of free articles.  (And I do believe space development enhances the world.  For one thing, it brings in information and resources from outside the system of Earth.)

Book Recommendation

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on May 5, 2009
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Rolling Thunder by John Varley

When a book starts with a heroine named Podkayne, you know we are in Heinlein territory.  Many of the pleasures of a Heinlein novel are here:  competent women and men, acts of daring, technological advancement, and clean, elegant prose.  More modern aspects of the book include the conscious acknowledgement of Heinlein’s work and an Earth still reeling from the disaster in the previous book in this trilogy.  Rolling Thunder stands alone reasonably well, and also wraps up some threads from the previous two books in the series.  I particularly enjoyed the day to day details of creating a life in some of the solar system’s less hospitable reaches.