Let’s Face it: There is Nothing Human in B2B or B2C

Let’s Face It. That’s what I thought when I composed this picture. It all began with the recent tweet “[By The Way] There is no such thing as business-to-business or business-to-consumer; only human-to-human” from @lucgaloppin. This tweet inspired me to envision how we humans are accustomed to use words/language to abstract or generalize factors into something vague. Anyone can understand a concept like Human to Human, but as soon as we call it something else, for example Business to Business, we are in effect immediately hiding the human aspect. We loose the human aspect by this abstraction. As long as we behave as loving humans we can easily connect and share (consider the Human2Human picture). But as soon as we put a label “Business” to something we are in effect stimulating disconnections, greed, anger, status etc. (consider the B2B and B2C pictures). Maybe the time is right to transform from a more a-social to a more social society. Where loving/caring/helping each other becomes the dominant mantra as the picture to the right envisions.

Why It Is So Important To Have Learning Experiences

We have all come to this earth to have learning experiences. However, in our quest for perfection or operationale excellence or even greed, we often tend to forget how important it is to make room for these experiences. And having learning experiences is not something you only do in school. It’s a life long task. Every person on earth has the basic right to have ample learning experiences. Because what could we possibly gain, if others have already taken away the learning experiences for us? Our children would be utterly boared if we take away their chances to experience, especillay if we make their lives easier and easier. So we need to factor learning in, into the designs of our educational, government, institutional, corporate and other related societal systems. And be careful with strategies that tend to take away or damp experiences. For example standardization can take away experiences because there is only the ´standard´ option available.

Below are some quotes that I think also fit whell to this post. These are quotes by which I am trying to live:

• Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy ~ Robert A. Heinlein
• It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know ~  Henry David Thoreau
• Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn ~ Benjamin Franklin
• Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge ~ Lao-tzu
• People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves ~ Paulo Coelho
• Be brave and take riscs. Nothing can replace experience ~ Paulo Coelho

Happy Learning!

Relax! Practice Equanimity and Serendipity Will Come To You

Remember Adi Da Samray’s quote “Relax! Nothing is under control”? I believe this is a mindset that could benefit humanity in going through it’s transformations towards a new, more social, human-centric society. Equanimity could help us going through this transformation. But what is equanimity? Well, there are multiple definitions. Here we use “the art of letting things go”. I believe that if we are not afraid to let “old” things go, leave our comfort zone for a short while, we will get ourselves more open toward “new” things. And this openness might just be the catalyst to help us achieve more serendipity cases. Because when we are more open to new things, chances are bigger that accidental connections are made. Growing the global consciousness.  And achieving serendipity could also mean experiencing more from need-to-know to nice-to-know cases. And from searching for specific answers to finding unexpected solutions. From unintentionally improving something globally by improving something locally. So by learning to let things go, we become more open to new, unexpected experiences. May you have a lot of serendipity!

From Opaque Authority To Vulnerable Authenticity

This blog was inspired by  a question from the audience about authority (see the video at Venessa’s blog about Social Media and the Evolution of Consciousness starting at timeframe 48:30). It got me thinking about the true value of authority. Is there any value in authority or is authority in fact a kind of waste, or a men-made illusion? Suppose we looked at authority through the glass of the principles of LEAN (see figure). If you map these wastes to authority, you can easily imagine that authority as we are accustomed to, can create waste. For example overprocessing because you need to transport authoritive actions from one person to another. Or under-utilized people because you don’t really use all of their talents if you take away authority that would fit within their “talent scope”. And so on.  I finally also looked at an authority related article in Wikipedia and found the following excerpt “You must learn to live with your own conscience, your own morality, your own decision, your own self. You alone can do it. There is no authority but yourself.” That excerpt inspired me to think of real authority as an expression of vulnerable authenticity. So if you present yourself vulnerable, you show to your environment what your authenticity is, which kinda might give you some implied authority. What if we all would do that? Would it change our world to the better?

For Re-Members Only: Forgetting Before Re-Membering

Did you know that we have all come to this beautiful starship Earth to have (learning) experiences? And that in order to have these experiences, we first must have forgotten them. Otherwise they would not be experiences. So by having forgotten experiences, it gives us the free will to be able to create something new, and experience that. And then, only after the creation, we can remember what we created. And add it to our knowledge. Literally “re” “member” it. Add a new “member” to the list. So (s)he is re-membered. People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves. So they need experiences. And just like Paulo Coelho once stated: there is nothing that can replace experience so we must be brave and take riscs. Henry David Thoreau also knew: it is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know. And even Lao-Tzu said: those who have knowledge, don’t predict, those who predict, don’t have knowledge. So predictions therefore can have the side effect of inhibiting experiences or making them less attractive. It’s as if part of the experience is already in the prediciton. Allmost the same applies for standards, rules, procedures, laws, plans, strategies etc. These are all more or less techniques that inhibit having full experience. So if we want to have a world where people have attractive learning possibilities, we must from time to time forget so we can re-member!

How Can We Put Our Own Illusions To A Benefit?

We human beings are strange species. We normally do not react on the objective reality that surrounds us, but we give this reality our own interpretation. By doing this we are in fact creating our won illusion. And whatever illusion we create, gets attention, not only ours but also from others. That’s how the Universal Law of Attraction works. So whatever illusion of the objective reality we create, will grow. So our illusions are in fact a very powerful machinery.

Suppose we all interprete the way we see the world as being a “system” full of crises, we then create ourselves the illusion that there are nothing but crises. But what if we changed the meaning of these illusions? Suppose we all would think and truly believe there are no crises? Act from positive thinking only. Then there ARE no crises. They vanish! We have invented them ourselves! And we sustain them by keeping thinking that our current systems are the only possible systems. But that in itself is also an illusion! It’s as if we have made our thinking immune to new, fresh viewpoints.

There is a very easy way out: start really thinking what reality you really want to see. Start thinking what reality you really want to create. Then this is the beginning of change. Change from Humanity 1.0 which is currently a champion in creating self fulfilling illusions. And change to Humanity 2.0 which can become a champion in creating new global happiness! Happy changing!

Relax! Humanity’s Long Tail Has Arrived

This blog is inspired by the term ‘Slow IT” from a collegue who blogs here. The term Slow IT reminded me of one of the LinkedIn discussion groups I follow: Slow Management. But besides these two viewpoints on Slowing Down, there are a lot more slow movements. For example, an excellent summary (in Dutch) can be found here. It reminds us that we as a globalising consumption society are quickly wasting and spoiling our beautiful earth. The only thing that seems to matter is short-term wins. I win, you loose. Greedy. Egoistic.

It’s time we started to design our world for our children. And that’s why I made the Dino graphic. It’s my representation of how Humanity should be transforming from short-term goals (institutional-centric, a-social, often supported with generalisations or centralisations) to long-tail goals (human-centric, social, decentralized, localized, specialized).

It’s my dream that Humanity’s mindset evolves to this 2.0 mindset, creating a world that is not only liveable for us, but also for our children. The time to slow down the infinite growth engine of Humanity 1.0 is here now. We can create Humanity 2.0 if we want!

Relax! Infinite Growth Is Just An Illusion

Have you seen the video The Earth Is Full already? Quit scary stuff if you ask me. But then again, if you scare people, chances are, they get scared. And fear becomes their dominant driver that sets only negative things into motion. And that only amplifies the culture that has gotten into this greedy, infinite growth strategies we all know too well. All based on the (economic) illusion that scarcity thinking is the preferred management instrument of our world.

So why not turn it the other way around? Tell people there is nothing but abundance. Show them the video Abundance is our Future instead. And yes, ofcourse there is scarcity here and there but it’s more a question of how you approach it: from the negative (scary) side, of from the positive (yes we can) side. My tip: treat scarcity from now on as an illusion and you will see more and more abundance things popping up in your life. Happy traveling on your abundance path!

Relax! Take Your Time To Learn

Have you heard about the Cool School of Life Long Learning? It really exists! And it was designed to let you relax. Because there is so much to learn, it takes more than an average human’s lifetime. So this means our life must be stuffed with learning experiences. And learning experiences take time. That’s why our world isn’t perfect. Because we all are experiencing. If there was a perfect world, there would be no experience. And without experience the will to say yes or no to a new creation is not possible. So we need experiences. We need an athmosfere that allows learning mistakes. And because we all have a different understanding of everything, we need to give eachother room for misinterpretations. Allow others than ourselves to make the same kind of learning mistakes we make. And don’t forget, anybody can try to explain something to anybody else, but will never be able to understand it for another! You have to do that all by yourselves. That is your learning path. And that is why we should take it all a bit more relaxed. Allow ourselves time to learn. Have a good and relaxed learning journey! Picture originals here and here.

Manifesto Manifesto

Picture source here.  Let’s face it: the time of manifesto’s is over, isn’t it? It feels like yet another set of “must-do” values others have thought for us. As if it were some kind of new “law” to abide to. And yet, they do carry some intrinsic value. Especially if you first simplify them. Leave out the parts that are obvious. And then with the leftovers, see if you can combine them. Then try to find the elements that can be integrated into a more cohesive, stronger whole. A whole that might even be positioned to be shared as part of our emerging collective, global or universal consciousness. In this way, individual manifesto’s submerge into a manifesto of manifesto’s. Want some more examples or inspiration? Take a look at this mindmap. The mindmap contains a (very small) subset of all existing manifesto’s and some statements that might also be regarded as manifesto’s.