Exerpt:
Work on Something that Matters More than Money
Nothing great or lasting was ever created by pursuing money for money's sake. Momentous innovations and companies emerge from visionary goals...
--Take the Long View
Tim calls it "taking the long view." I call it "systems thinking." In both cases, we mean understanding how your work fits into a larger context and set of outcomes. In business, as in life, we often make local, fragmented choices that promise us an immediate benefit while ignoring the long-term costs...Even though it's hard, taking the long view is a key not only to business success but to planetary survival.
Consultants are the honeybees of the business ecology. We spread the good pollen around in the form of insight, methodology and best practices. So the question for consultants is this: Am I helping a company with ethics and an impact on the world which I support?
Underlying the power of Web 2.0 is the idea that every contribution made on the Internet--from an action to a link to a blog or any other commentary--adds value and significance to the network.
Every choice and action counts. This dynamic is true, too, in the "real world." Where we spend our money, our labor and our attention define the world we live in. It is the aggregate of our choices that brought us to this place. It is only through individual choice that we will emerge on the other side.
O'Reilly Insights
Big, Hairy Audacious Work
Joshua-Michele Ross, 02.17.09, 06:00 AM ESTHow to rethink work in the 21st century.
SEBASTOPOL, Calif. - In March 2008, two days after I joined O'Reilly Media, I found myself at ETech, O'Reilly's emerging technology conference, listening to my new boss, Tim O'Reilly, give a speech about the importance of working on "stuff that matters." His point boiled down this: "We have some really big problems facing us. Let's apply our talent to solving them."
Implicit in that call to action was its mirror opposite directive: Stop working on stuff that doesn't matter (like developing a new way to throw sheep in Facebook). The government's intervention to save Bear Stearns a few days later brought that speech into sharp relief.
Tim's "stuff that matters" theme gained clarity and focus over the year, and current events added urgency to the message. Gas climbed over $140 a barrel. Shearson Lehman collapsed the same week Tim gave a similar talk at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York.
A few weeks into 2009, the message has become simple: We cannot continue "business as usual" in the face of dwindling oil supplies, environmental degradation, climate change and a worldwide economic meltdown.
Yet Tim's call is answered by a different question: "What is the stuff that matters?"
Working on stuff that matters is a personal choice--not a project checklist. In that spirit, here are a few first principles we talk about at O'Reilly. (Tim has written about this on his blog, too.) It's just a beginning. I hope Forbes readers will add to the conversation in the comments below.
--Work on Something that Matters More than Money
Nothing great or lasting was ever created by pursuing money for money's sake. Momentous innovations and companies emerge from visionary goals, or a "Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal."Google's
Google didn't have much money, but it did have an audacious goal.
--Create More Value Than You Capture
In this era of corporate meltdowns, it is easy to see that the captains of Wall Street were guilty of pulling more out of the ecosystem than they put in. By contrast, the tech companies that have thrived are those that have built strategies where their partners are invested in building joint success. Microsoft
--Take the Long View
Tim calls it "taking the long view." I call it "systems thinking." In both cases, we mean understanding how your work fits into a larger context and set of outcomes. In business, as in life, we often make local, fragmented choices that promise us an immediate benefit while ignoring the long-term costs. Logic tells us this is the very definition of unsustainable growth. Even though it's hard, taking the long view is a key not only to business success but to planetary survival.
This last point is particularly critical for me in my role leading the consulting arm of O'Reilly. Consultants are the honeybees of the business ecology. We spread the good pollen around in the form of insight, methodology and best practices. So the question for consultants is this: Am I helping a company with ethics and an impact on the world which I support?
Underlying the power of Web 2.0 is the idea that every contribution made on the Internet--from an action to a link to a blog or any other commentary--adds value and significance to the network.
Every choice and action counts. This dynamic is true, too, in the "real world." Where we spend our money, our labor and our attention define the world we live in. It is the aggregate of our choices that brought us to this place. It is only through individual choice that we will emerge on the other side.
The current recession obliges us to rethink business practices. As Stanford University economist Paul Romer has said: A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. So work on Stuff That Matters.
As vice president with O'Reilly Radar, Joshua-Michéle Ross runs O'Reilly Media's consulting practice, helping clients apply Web 2.0 principles. He is also working on a video series, "The Future at Work." E-mail him at joshua.ross@oreilly.com.
See Also:
Great Inventors Living Among Us
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