Wednesday Stretch: Open Desert

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." - Rumi, Sufi Poet

American can-do spirit seems to have morphed into competitive spirit and then mutated into polarization - politically, socially, and in our business dealings. Even in the face of the positive history of a practice like coopetition (that's not a typo, there's a book on this very subject), polarization seems to be sucking the strength from American culture.

What to do? Create a clearing. And no better place to do it than our Open Desert. One of our greatest resources is our literal and figurative wide open space, meaning this: we have relatively blank slates. A young state with young cities and towns has many opportunities and choices that have just been made or are yet to be made. As the prinicipal of my kids' elementary school says on the PA each day, "It's your choice. Make it a good one."

Take a moment today to look at your choices. Are they polarizing? Coopetitive? Collaborative? Or even unifying? I'll be reflecting today as I work, asking the same questions of myself.

BTW: Google the words "Open Desert" and you'll find our neighbors in Coachella Valley, CA have started a group by that name (and note that I pinched a photo from their site.) At first glance, it appears to have no rudder in the water. When you dig a little deeper, it turns out that this is actually a kinder, gentler networking group. This could be an interesting model for business networkers here to consider.

Over the Top to Make a Point

My, oh my, oh my. Please do yourself a favor and visit Bob Fuller's Roadside Memorials. It's twisted and wrong, but dead-on right at the same time. Make sure you watch the television commercial and call the 800-number.

Nonprofit advocates are really getting what the web can do. I originally thought that Elect Susie was nicely done. But what 'til you get a hold of this one.

If only Saturday Night Live had writers this good.

Who Are the Strangers? (VTech, Part 2)

More reflection brought to mind the story told by community development expert Jody Kretzmann from Northwestern University. He shared the situation: a diverse, busted-up neighborhood in Chicago was making progress in bringing neighbors together and improving their situation. Everyone was feeling good. Feeling like a community. Kretzmann challenged their good feeling with the question, "who in your neighborhood still feels like a stranger to you?"

Answer one: the police. Answer two went something like: the people who live in that house for crazy people. Indeed, neighbors were uneasy about recently discharged mental patients living in a group home.

Kretzmann reminded the assembled group that these people had unique gifts and contributions to make too. To make a long, compelling and emotional story short, the neighbors even succeeded at involving the one inhabitant who had in turn been marginalized by all of the other home's residents. His name escapes me, but this man of Polish descent had been relegated to a back room with barely enough space for a bed and no windows. He spoke to no one. For years. He was 'invisible,' to borrow a phrase from the VTech situation.

Within a year, this invisible Polish man had become a member of the neighborhood's championship all-Hispanic (except for him) bowling team. He had started talking again - some Polish, but all bowling dialogue was in Spanish. He had been brought back from invisibility. He was no longer a stranger. He belonged.

Could something like this have happpened with Cho Seung-Hui? On the one hand, Cho was severely defensive, angry, calculated, cold and mean. On the other hand, anything's possible. The question is, what kind of social capital do we need to foster to make it probable?