Global Neighborhoods: Of Trees & Forests

Nature's Special Effects
Originally uploaded by Walkabout Wolf.

I'm still at the stage where I'm struggling to articulate what my new book will be about.. I was talking to someone at Lunch 2.0 today who was eager to hear about all the social media companies I'll be seeing in my upcoming travels. It dawned on me that each company is a tree, and I really want to talk about forests.

The forest is made up of trees some of which are magnificent, sme growing at awesome rates. others are stunted and are getting blocked from the light and others are just dead, slowly decaying back into earth.

This makes them interesting, but I', interested in the bigger picture. I'm interested in the organic, living shape-shifting thing that is the connected world. Yes, I am among those who regard it as a living thing.

It is the impact of the whole entity that the book will address. That and how it will impact for better or worse the people who will be living in this forest a few years down the line.

Comments

[joe bruzzese]

Tell me more about social media companies and your intent in the upcoming book to go exploring among the world's forests. Your work and ideas sound intriguing and seem to align with the conversations we have at www.thinking-forward.com. We may have something to talk about. When you have a moment click my way and take a look.

[Matt Edmundson]

Two thoughts came to mind when I read this post - firstly, great! You are doing a new book - can't wait to review it. Second, for some reason, I couldn't get the phrase "cannot see the wood for the trees" out of my mind. So I put the phrase in to Google, and found this site: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1498095. It makes an interesting read for your forest metaphor.

[L.L. Barkat]

And, will you be telling the Little Red Riding Hoods how to watch out for wolves? (Are there wolves in this forest, in your opinion?)

[shel israel]

Every neighborhood has its local version of the wolf. They get to devour a few innocents. Otherwise they would not be wolves.

[/pd]

Shel, let me recount a story , which was told to me a long long time ago

There was once a company that needed to build inroads thru a forest to get out of the thick. So they sent out a batch of young excutives to cut thru the clutter and create a pathway to lead the company thru the thick forest. Each day tirelessly, these executive cut the trees and built teh road. Even after many months of labour, it appeared that they were getting nowhere, the trees were being cut, the road was being built, but yet they were not out fo the thick and the company felt they were being strangled.

So, one fine day the boss sent another exeutive to see what coould be done. This guy instead of walking down the road and looking into the forest, rather looked for the tallest tree and said -"I'l begin here" and everyone laughed at him, saying that the road was over there. Anyway, the guy scrambled up the tall tree and took a peak about and yelled down - "guys - you this is the wrong forest to begin with - no wonder you ant getting anywhere !!"

Moral of the story: Becarefull, which forest you chose to hack your way thru.

Shel: Not All Forest's are the same, each forest is different and needs to be treated differently !!

.... FWIW thats my 2 cents :)-

[shel israel]

Pete,
The story you tell is my favorite from Steven Covey's Seven Habits.