Sacred Business Part 4

Google Sacred Business

In this Sacred Business series/conversation we’ve been having we started to hash out ideas for the future of Business. We’ve begun to ideastorm about the concept of Sacred Business, Conscious Capitalism, or being an Enlightened Entrepreneur.

And really what does all that mean and how does this apply in simple terms to you, me and the person next door?

What about all those people, including myself, who are wracking their brains trying to come up with an idea that will not only pay the bills but do a little good within the world as well?

What can we do?

So to answer these questions we’ve been staying up late, 3am late, doing our little part to create a new blueprint for the world of business.

Right now I’m about halfway through Jeff Jarvis’s awesome book What Would Google Do? and I have to say that this is one of the most exciting books I’ve read in a long time.

It’s a complete paradigm shifter. Jarvis’ insights will literally keep you up late at night and turn you into a page turning fiend.

At about 20 pages into the book I already began preaching and pimping it to anyone that ventured into my Business section of the World’s Biggest Bookstore.

So, I began to skim the back of the book to see if Mr. Jarvis had placed a recommended reading list of books to further quench my thirst for all things Business 2.0/Sacred Business/Conscious Capitalism.

Unfortunately nothing of the sort. :(

What was there though was his blog address (http://www.buzzmachine.com) to join in the conversation about the ideas in the book and info to check out his Five steps to a Googlier you.

Create. Listen. Link. Join. Innovate.

I believe that the ideas listed below will help to forge the new Sacred Economy. They have already begun to and will continue to gain momentum everyday. Google is an innovator and maybe more of us should be asking the question Jeff Jarvis asked, ‘What would Google do?’

And maybe, just maybe, Mr. Jarvis may share his wisdom with this author to help shed some light on a couple of crazy ideas that are bouncin’ around his head.

Below you’ll find Jeff Jarvis’ 5 Steps. Please read slowly and digest well.

Five steps to a Googlier you

Source: http://www.buzzmachine.com/tips/

The Googlification of the world affects not only companies, industries, and institutions but individuals. It brings new means and expectations for how we can advance our careers, lifestyles, and agendas. If we want to be Googley and take advantage of these new opportunities, then we need to understand how Google values creation, openness, connections, uniqueness, collaboration, and invention.

Create. The best way to be found via Google is to make something of value and make it public: a blog, a feed of photos or videos, a contribution to a discussion, an opinion, an application, a product, a company.

You may protest that you’re not creative—“I’m no writer,” I hear people say all the time. But you talk, don’t you? Think of the web as a conversation. If you have something of interest and value to say, say it. Others can hear you via links and Google. Your online portfolio becomes your persona, your résumé, and your personal brand: You are what you do, what you show, and what you say. Nothing can stop you.

To get started, go to Google’s Blogger, Wordpress.com, Typepad.com, or MySpace. It will take you—I guarantee—only minutes to publish to the world. Share what you know and what you care about, whether that is your profession, your hobby, your town, your taste in movies, or your pets. Be open and generous. If you are a teacher, talk about life in the classroom and how children learn; parents will read it. If you’re a gardener, share your secrets. If you’re a veteran, share your memories. If you’re a tattoo artist, show us pictures of your oeuvre. If you’re a birdwatcher, give us a Google map with your best spots. Everybody knows something others want to know. Whatever draws you into the conversation will help you understand the internet better. That’s how I did it.

If you want to stand out, specialize—think small. If as you search for sites of interest you find a void, fill it. Maybe you’re a First Amendment expert and you find tons of blogs about it but none about your real specialty, free speech and comics. Grab it.

You don’t have to blog. You can leave comments on others’ blogs when you have something to contribute: a fact, a correction, a new perspective. Can’t stand to write? Then talk. Go to Google’s YouTube or to Seesmic and say what you think to a video camera. Take photos of your vacation, post them on Flickr, and tag them with the destination; they will help someone else decide whether to go there and you’ve become a travel writer. Leave a restaurant review at Yelp.com or TripAdvisor or a book review at Amazon and you’re a critic. Just create. That is the way to Google’s world.

Listen. Before you write, read. Use Google blog search, Technorati.com, Blogpulse, Icerocket, and the other sites to search for topics that interest you. I’m asked all the time for one place to get started reading blogs. There isn’t one because the web is filled with as many conversations as there are interests. The trick is to find someone writing about what you like and to follow links from there to find more people and sites.

You can keep up with these blogs, people, and topics using RSS, an elegant technology that simply lets you read constantly updated feeds of the latest from most any site or search. I use RSS every day to keep track headlines from publications and blogs I like, to follow what’s new about topics (companies, people, places, and words like “Google” and “journalism”), and to see what’s being said about me and my blog. You can get started with RSS at Google Reader.

Link. Here’s the single most important and counterintuitive lesson of the age—the Golden Rule of Google: Link unto others if you want them to link unto you. Linking to others is how they discover you. Other bloggers and sites use search and RSS to keep track of conversations about them. If you link to them, they may see what you have to say. If you add something of value to a conversation, they may link back to you—and their readers will also discover you.

You may link directly to a post a blogger wrote to add your knowledge or perspective. You also may curate a list of good sites you find as a service to your readers.

Remember that Google values links, which power PageRank and determine which sites are listed higher than others. Links are Googlejuice.

Links are like invitations to a club. Through them, you may join a network of bloggers writing about your area of the law or shows you love or a medical condition you have. I learn via links. I make friends via links. Linking is social.

Join. The internet is not just about data. It’s about people, connections, relationships. You may join Facebook, LinkedIn, Bebo, and other social services to link up with people you know and to meet more. You can have these services check your email addresses to see whether there are people you know already there. You may be surprised at how many you find. When you do find a friend, you ask to connect and both parties must agree. Then you may invite others in. And you can search for interests—marketing or BMWs or France—and join groups.

Some people connect with anyone and everyone, others only with people they know. I am among the latter. So don’t be insulted if you contact me on Facebook and don’t hear back. That’s because I use Facebook and LinkedIn to organize people I work with. The services are especially valuable at reconnecting me with former colleagues so we can keep up with each other.

Innovate. You need your personal 20 percent rule. Spend some piece of every week doing something new: research, learn, experiment, invent. You don’t know where it can lead. But you do know where doing the same old thing week in and week out will take you: nowhere.

My blog has been my 20 percent rule. I didn’t know that when I started. I thought I would blog for a few weeks until I ran out of memories to share from surviving the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. But it soon filled all available time and changed my view of the world and my career.

My blog taught me a great deal. It allowed me to experiment and to explore new ideas. It helped me connect with a new professional network. It enabled me to advise old media companies and new media startups. The blog helped me build a new reputation and to launch new careers as a teacher and now an author.

Your 20 percent doesn’t need to be a blog. It could be a company, interactive art, how-to videos, an online group, or something I can’t imagine. But this much I know: You must create, share, link, connect, and join if you want to succeed in the Google age.

Some kind Blurbs about the Book:

Google is not just a company, it is an entirely new way of thinking about understanding who we are and what we want. Jarvis has done something really important: extend that approach to business and culture, revealing just how revolutionary it is.”

— CHRIS ANDERSON, AUTHOR OF THE LONG TAIL

“What Would Google Do? is an exceptional book that captures the massive changes the internet is effecting in our culture, in marketing, and in advertising.”

— CRAIG NEWMARK, FOUNDER OF CRAIGSLIST

“Jeff Jarvis has written an indispensable guide to the business logic of the networked era, because he sees the opportunities in giving the people control, and understands the risks in letting your competitors get there first.”

— CLAY SHIRKY, AUTHOR OF HERE COMES EVERYBODY

“Jeff Jarvis’s What Would Google Do? is a divining rod for anyone looking for ways to hit real paydirt in the new territory of Web 2.0 marketing. Jarvis has a sharp eye for what is relevant, real, and actionable. Isn’t that what we all need today?”

— MARC BENIOFF, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, SALESFORCE.COM

“If you want to understand how the innovation around the New Web is the anithesis of the dot-com period, read this book. It’ll open your eyes to a ton of real possibilities for your business in a new world.”

— Don Tapscott, coauthor of Wikinomics and Grown Up Digital

And…

Check out Business Weeks cool little special they did about the book http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/01/0129_google/index.htm

Related posts:

1. Sacred Business Part 2
2. Sacred Business Conscious Capitalism Part 1
3. Sacred Business Part 3

Foreword to Conscious Business, by Fred Kofman

By Ken Wilber

Conscious, Business, Spirit. Three interesting words, yes?

Words not often put together in one sentence, let alone an entire book. I wonder what they could all mean, hooked together like that?

Business, let’s start there. Business means… business. The dictionary definition, dry and prosaic, is “occupation, work, trade, commerce; serious, rightful, proper endeavor.” Sounds serious.

Conscious means “having an awareness of one’s inner and outer worlds; mentally perceptive, awake, mindful.”

So “conscious business” might mean, engaging in an occupation, work, or trade in a mindful, awake fashion. This implies, of course, that many people do not do so. In my experience, that is often the case. So I would definitely be in favor of conscious business; or conscious anything, for that matter.

Spirit is trickier; it’s a big, complicated, loaded term. “The vital principle or animating force in living beings; incorporeal consciousness; supernatural being.” I don’t like any of those definitions; I don’t think Fred does, either. Another definition, farther down the list, is “essence,” which seems a bit closer.

So “the spirit of conscious business” might mean “the essence of awake or mindful work.”

That starts to sound interesting. Still, I wonder exactly what “conscious” or “mindful” might mean, especially since under “conscious” we found the provocative phrase, “aware of inner and outer worlds.” Just how many worlds are there, and do I have to be conscious of all of them in order to be… really conscious?

Here, I think, is where the entire idea of conscious business-not to mention, the spirit of conscious business-starts to become truly interesting. Worlds, terrains, landscapes, environments-it’s a big world, and the better we understand that world-both inner and outer-the better our navigation of that world will be.

A map of the outer world would help; so would a map of the inner world. Together they would provide a tool that would dramatically improve my navigation through any environment, any world, including the world of business. A comprehensive map that combined the latest knowledge of both inner and outer worlds would provide an extraordinary means for fulfilling any goals that I might have. It would also provide the key to being conscious of both inner and outer worlds. Conscious business-in fact, conscious living-would start to become a very real possibility.

Big World, Big Map

A map, of course, is not the territory, and we definitely do not want to confuse any map, no matter how comprehensive, with the territory itself. At the same time, we don’t want to have an inadequate, partial, broken map, either. The fact is, most human endeavors, including most business practices, operate with incomplete and often misleading maps of human potentials. These partial and fractured maps of inner and outer realities consistently lead to failures in both personal and professional endeavors.

In the past few decades, there has been, for the first time in history, a concerted effort to take all of the known maps of human potentials, both inner and outer, and combine them into a more comprehensive, inclusive, and accurate map of reality. This “big map”-sometimes called an Integral Map-represents the most comprehensive and balanced overview to date, and as such offers an unparalleled navigational aid in defining and fulfilling virtually any goals, personal or professional.

How comprehensive is this Big Map? It started with an exhaustive cross-cultural comparison of all the known interior maps offered by the world’s major cultures, including psychological maps from Freud to Jung to Piaget; Eastern maps including those offered by yoga, Buddhism, and Taoism; the extensive results of cognitive science, neurobiology, and evolutionary psychology; typologies from the enneagram to Myers-Briggs; transformation tools from ancient shamans to postmodern sages. The idea was simple: what psychological map or model could account for, and include, all of those possibilities? Because human beings have in fact proposed all of those various schools and systems, there must be a model comprehensive enough to account for all of them, and the Integral Model, as far as we can tell, does exactly that.

The result, on the interior domains, is that there appears to be a spectrum of consciousness available to men and women. This spectrum ranges from body to mind to spirit; from pre-rational to rational to trans-rational; from subconscious to self-conscious to superconscious; from emotional to ethical to spiritual. The point is that all of those potentials-body to mind to spirit-are important for a comprehensive approach to any situation, personal to professional, because those realities are in fact operating in all humans in any event, and you either take them into conscious account or they will subconsciously sabotage your efforts at every turn. This is true in any human endeavor, from marriage to business to education to recreation.

In addition to these interior or psychological realities, the Integral Model also includes the most recent maps of the outer world, maps offered by widely respected empirical sciences from dynamic systems theory to complexity and chaos theories. Combined with interior maps, the result is indeed an Integral Map of inner and outer worlds-a Map that therefore is the measure of what it means to be… really conscious.

Complex as this Integral Map sounds (and is), it actually shakes down into a handful of fairly simple factors that can be quickly mastered. The easiest way to summarize the Integral Map is that it covers a spectrum of consciousness operating in both inner and outer worlds: the Integral Approach includes body, mind, and spirit in self, culture, and nature.

We have already briefly examined the first part of that equation-namely, “body, mind, and spirit”-which we saw as the spectrum of consciousness that constitutes the interior realities or worlds. The second half of the integral equation-”in self, culture, and nature”-represents the three most important worlds themselves; that is, the three most fundamental environments, realities, or landscapes through which the spectrum of consciousness operates.

“Self” simply refers to my own interior world or subjective realities, which can be accessed by introspection, meditation, and self-reflection. “Culture” refers to the world of shared values, mutual understanding, and common meanings that you and I might exchange, such as a common language, an interest in business, a love of classical music, or any shared meaning or value. This is not subjective but intersubjective, a world accessed by interpretation and mutual understanding. And “nature” refers to the exterior world of objective facts, environments, and events, including exterior human nature and its products and artifacts. If the human organism is a part of nature, and it is, then the products of human organisms, such as automobiles, are products of nature and can be approached with natural sciences such as systems theory and complexity theory.

These three major landscapes-self, culture, and world-are often called the Beautiful, the Good, and the True. Or Art, Morals, and Science. Or simply I, We, and It. They are also sometimes called “the Big Three,” so fundamental and important are these three worlds in which human beings are always operating. Conscious living-and certainly conscious business-would therefore necessarily take these three worlds into account when planning any activity, because, again, these worlds exist in any event, and you will either take them into conscious account or they will subconsciously sabotage your every move.

Integral Business

Conscious business-business that is conscious of inner and outer worlds-would therefore be business that takes into account body, mind, and spirit in self, culture, and nature. Put differently, conscious business would be mindful of the way that the spectrum of consciousness operates in the Big Three worlds of self and culture and nature. This means very specifically that integral business leadership would use the tools that have been developed to best navigate and master self, culture, and world.

It’s not surprising, then, that business management theories break down into three large categories covering the Big Three landscapes: approaches that focus on exterior objective systems, flow patterns, and quality control; those that focus on individual motivation; and those that emphasize corporate culture and values. The whole point is that integral business leadership would use the tools of all of them in a coordinated and integrated fashion for maximum results, or settle for less than optimal.

For example, integral business leadership would use systems theory to understand the dynamic patterns of the exterior world. The systems approach to business has been made popular by writers such as Meg Wheatley and Michael C. Jackson, among literally hundreds of others. The systems approach is also widely used to track business cycles, as in the ground-breaking work of Clayton Christensen on disruptive technologies.

But integral business leadership would also use the tools of the interior spectrum of consciousness in individuals-tools such as emotional intelligence, made popular by Daniel Goleman; Myers-Briggs, already widely used as a management aid; and personal motivational tools, from Tony Robbins to Franklin Covey.

But integral business leadership would not stop with self and world. It would also draw on the extensive knowledge that we now have of corporate culture, shared values, and company motivation. Not only does every company have a culture, specific business cycles seem to be most effectively navigated by different types of corporate cultures, as suggested by the important research of Geoffrey Moore, for example, or the empirical research of Jim Collins, both of which point to the over-riding importance of corporate values and intersubjective factors in long-term success, a fact that any integral leadership would want to take into account if it wanted to be mindful and awake in the world of corporate values and maximum effectiveness.

In other words, all of those major theories of business management and leadership-from systems theory to emotional intelligence to corporate-culture management, covering the big Three Landscapes faced by all humans-have an important place in a truly Integral Model of conscious business. Although this might at first seem too complicated, the now undeniable fact is that any approach less-than-integral is doomed to failure. In today’s world, nobody can afford to be less than integral, because the guaranteed costs are otherwise much too high. Body and mind and spirit-and self and culture and nature-are all there, all exerting an influence, all actively shaping events, and you either consciously take them into account in any human endeavor, or stand back and watch the roadkill.

Big Map, Big Mind

I have attempted to give a simple summary of this overall approach to business in A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science, and Spirituality. But perhaps the best place to begin with an integral approach to business is with… oneself. In the Big Three of self, culture, and world, integral mastery starts with self. How do body and mind and spirit operate in me? How does that necessarily impact my role in the world of business? And how can I become more conscious of these already-operating realities in myself and in others?

This is the great value of Fred Kofman’s The Spirit of Conscious Business, the third and concluding volume of Conscious Business. Integral mastery begins with mastery of self, at an emotional level, a mental-ethical level, and a spiritual level. Anything more than that is not needed; anything less than that, disastrous.

Fred Kofman is a living example of what he preaches, a man of sensitivity, impeccability, and keen consciousness. It’s not just that this makes him a better, more effective, more successful businessperson, but that it makes him a more admirable human being, whom I am proud to call friend. I highly recommend you take the following journey with Fred, learning to transform body, mind, and spirit as prelude to transforming self, culture, and world. And in that integral embrace, neither you nor the world will ever be the same.

Source: http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/misc/foreword-spirit.cfm

Related posts:

1. Sacred Business Conscious Capitalism Part 1
2. Sacred Business Part 2
3. Sacred Business Part 4

Sacred Business Conscious Capitalism Part 2

Inspired business leaders, people who’ve already glimpsed and had the experience of seeing that perfect vision, that interconnectivity of us all, may already be striving toward a new business paradigm.

And for those people who haven’t begun to change all we can say is, “Evolve or Die.”

You will be left behind.

Businesses up until this point have abused the power given to them, and consumers have given away their power.

So now we have come to a new point in the future of business.

Active and educated consumers participating with inspired and open businesses.

This is the hope.

Businesses forgot that their ultimate mission was to be of service. That they were blessed if people decided to spend their hard earned dollars on their products and services. The phone would ring if what they we’re offering solved a problem or fulfilled a need.

There was no coercion necessary. No multi-million dollar commercials during the half-time show. No interruption marketing. No trying to convince me with phone calls or knocking on my door.

If what you had was good the news would get around. It would spread.

Your great new widget would become popular because of people. You focussed on people when you created it and in turn people focussed on you.

So is this a key insight for this streamlined future of ours? Are we going back to a continual start-up mentality?

Start-ups are excited about their solution and they share it with all the world. They’ve identified the problem and though long and hard about the solution, and once found, the news is spread from one person to the next, “Hey did you hear that Ian started a shiny widget company!”

From one person to the next the message was passed along.

Person to person.

This is what we’ve forgotten.

We’re people trying to help people.

Related posts:

1. Sacred Business Part 4
2. Sacred Business Conscious Capitalism Part 1
3. Sacred Business Part 3

Sacred Business, Conscious Capitalism, Enlightened Entrepreneur

There’s no doubt in my eyes that a fundamental shift is happening within the world. Both on a personal and on an economic level. The foundations of our existence are being rocked and shaken to their core. Everything we knew and held to be true is no longer. And we now find ourselves in a gray area. A middle point. Lost and wandering. Desperate for some form of stability.

I know that on an individual level these forces for change have been working for some time now. It just seems that there intensity has increased of the last few years. Our lives being violently tossed about and we’re have been left to put together the pieces, hoping that what we create is a life worth living. Something that can not only inspire ourselves, the people around us and all the world.

This same force is now tearing through the business community. Ripping apart old outdated models of commerce and business structure. What was once standard practice is no longer finding acceptance of benefit within this new and emerging world.

So what can a person do?

What are your options if your an employee or business owner? What can you do if your planning to start a company in these turbulent times?

The Blueprint for the Sacred Business, Conscious Capitalism, Enlightened Entrepreneur Movement

These coming pages will help to lay down a blueprint for the new world of business that’s emerging. A map of sorts to help people navigate themselves to a new shore of prosperity.

In Buddhism the first “step” of Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path is called samyag-drsti in Sanskrit, and is usually translated as Right Understanding but a truer meaning, closer to the heart of the matter, and these times were in need more heart, would be more to the liking of Perfect Vision

Perfect Vision
This first step is something that is transformative on an individual level. It may come suddenly light a flash of insight or it may happen gradually over a number of years or a lifetime.

Sometimes it occurs because of deep anguish that washes over us because of a tragic loss. We then go off searching for deeping meaning and purpose in life. And for others it may come from a meditative experience or being fully present to some form of immense beauty like a sunset or a walk through a huge and ancient forest.

In any case the final results are usually the same.

We finally arrive at a point where we are perfect a new and life changing vision of the world and our lives.

We awaken to a new paradigm.

We’re given a glimpse of a world where we’re a part of an interconnected web of life. Where we see that the actions, thoughts, and words we do and use effect the whole. We see that the world is the way it is because we have made it so. A sense of awe and rapture begins to penetrate our existence.

And ultimately we begin to change because this experience feels more real than the lives we were living before that point.

The Canadian psychologist Richard M. Bucke, in his book “Cosmic Consciousness” 1902, describes this experience as a transpersonal mode of consciousness, an awareness of the universal mind and one’s unity with it.  Individuals develop a deep awareness of the life and order in the universe.

An individual who has and lives within this new world is often described as ‘Enlightened’ and such a person is also said to have a sense of immortality, not of attaining it but of already having it.

Burke believed that this new conscious was the next stage of human evolution.

He believe that during the course of humanity’s evolutionary development there are three forms of consciousness.

* Simple Consciousness, our instinctual consciousness.
* Self Consciousness, that self-awareness that allows a human to realize himself as a distinct entity.

* Cosmic Consciousness, a new developing faculty at the pinnacle of our evolution.

Bucke outlines the evolutionary struggle on our planet which has produced self-consciousness and then describes the appearance of a new species that possesses cosmic consciousness, a consciousness that expands to become one with all. Bucke theorizes that, with increasing frequency, persons like Buddha, Christ, Mohammed, Walt Whitman and others are making their appearance on our planet and by their teaching are helping to transform life on this planet.

This evolutionary process continues up until today. Bucke studied the lives of these persons that had attained this new found awareness and found common characteristics such as:

* intuitive understanding
* elevated moral stature
* loss of sense of sin
* intellectual illumination
* sense of immortality
* no fear of death

* definite moment or period of transformation

“The person who passes through this experience will learn in the few minutes, or even moments, of its continuance more than in months or years of study, and he will learn much that no study every taught or can teach. Especially does he obtain such a conception of *the whole*…Along with moral elevation and intellectual illumination comes what must be called, for want of a better term, a sense of immortality.”

From his book he describes how those he interviewed had experienced the state:

“Like a flash there is presented to his consciousness a clear conception (a vision) in outline of the meaning and drift of the universe..He sees and knows that the cosmos…is in fact…in very truth a living presence. He sees that instead of men being, as it were, patches of life scattered through an infinite sea of non-living substance, they are in reality specks of relative death in an infinite ocean of life. He sees that the life which is in man is as immortal as God is; that the universe is so built and ordered that without any peradventure all things work together for the good of each and all; that the foundation principle of the world is what we call love, and that the happiness of every individual is in the long run absolutely certain.”

The New Consciousness & Business

As we will explore over the next little while, collectively we can see that these changes are happening at an ever increasing pace. Our next step is to anchor into our lives, every aspect of them, a new way of “doing business”, one that respects all the aspects of life, and inspires us all to do better.

A new Blueprint that generations can be proud of and build upon. Because if we don’t this world of ours will ultimately be torn apart, us included.

Ian

Related posts:

1. Sacred Business Part 2
2. Sacred Business Part 3
3. Sacred Business Part 4