Innovation As Legacy

PBS has amazing programs!  We all really need to watch that channel more often!

In celebration of being on the air 30 years, PBS through its Nightly Business Report (NBR) program,  collaborated (one of my favorite words!) with the Wharton School of business at University of Pennsylvania and its Knowledge@Wharton website on innovation and entrepreneurship.  Their goal: to identify the 30 innovations that have changed life most dramatically during the past 30 years.

The resulting program, the Top 30 Innovations of the Last 30 Years, is also featured on both the Wharton and PBS websites.   NBR program viewers in over 250 markets across the U.S. and Knowledge@Wharton readers from around the world submitted some 1200 suggestions for the best innovations they thought had shaped the world in that time.  A panel of eight judges from Wharton selected the top 30.  A fascinating list to check out — true legacies all.

This got me to thinking about my favorite teacher R. Buckminster Fuller, the man who coined the term “Spaceship Earth” and the phrase ”doing more with less.”  He encouraged people to create artifacts - very much a personal legacy concept.

Bucky’s stated intention - as a lifelong experiment with his own life, made as a conscious decision in his early 30’s - was “to make the world work for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or disadvantage of anyone.”

He answered the question of why there were humans in the universe, with the notion that we are basically local information gatherers and problem solvers.  While we are more complex than that, it is an accurate observation.

Bucky focused his life on solving complex problems through an approach he called “comprehensive anticipatory design science.” The approach emphasized individual initiative and integrity, whole systems thinking, scientific rigor and faithful reliance on nature’s underlying principles.

He thought it was not helpful to try to change people, but rather important to change the context in which they operate, by providing innovative solutions to the problems they face.  That way, ultimately no one would have to work to ‘earn a living’ (we are, after all, already alive), but we would each contribute what we’re good at to positively impact the world around us: gathering information about and solving the problems that presented themselves uniquely to us.

What if we did more of that?  What if you took a look at what you do well and easily and even take joy in doing, and looked around to see who you could assist by creating something that would benefit them in some way?

If your brain is already spinning with ideas, you are developing a legacy consciousness.  Building anything from that thinking would make the planet a bit better place.

If what you build happens to answer Bucky’s urgent call for a design science revolution to make the world work for all.  If it:

• “emphasizes a new design, material, process, service, tool, technology, or any combination”
• “is part of an integrated strategy dealing with key social, economic, environmental, and cultural issues”
• “present[s] a bold, visionary, tangible initiative that is focused on a well-defined need of critical importance [and is]
• regionally specific yet globally applicable, and backed up by a solid plan and the capability to move the solution forward”

Then you might even win the Buckminster Fuller Challenge, as stated on the Buckminster Fuller Institute’s (bfi.org) website.

My ultimate joy at Creating Legacy would be to work side by side with you in helping you do just that, or even some fraction of that, which, in your own unique way “makes a difference now that lasts for generations.”

I’d love to hear your ideas.

Legacy is Becoming A New Trend

Used to be when I used the word legacy, people cocked their heads to one side like a curious puppy hearing a new command for the first time. Huh?

It gives me great joy to see the concept out from under the wraps of heads of state and philanthropists with enormous financial estates. While these folks may or may not create great legacies, it seems more and more people are stopping to consider what their lives really mean, and what difference it will make for them having been on this planet. And, oh boy, that’s where it starts.

I read a great post by a guy named Chris Guillebeau in Seattle, Washington, USA. Chris has a great take on his own legacy and his post inspired the comments of a great number of kindred legacy spirits including me. If you’re interested in these notions, you may well find it a great read too!  I couldn’t have said better what he did if I’d written it myself, and I swear I didn’t hire him to write about it. These notions of giving back and social entrepreneurship are springing up spontaneously all over the place. I am so glad to see the trend forming.

I am struck how common the concept of creating a legacy project seems to be among Gen X, Gen Y and the Millennials - even more than it is with people often of considerably greater financial means in the Boomer and beyond generations. There is a legion of humans developing on this planet with a penchant to give forward (as well as give back) and make a difference. And it is from that mindset they will find the means to get it done. You don’t have to start with a great deal of wealth or power to ‘leave a legacy.’ You just have to care about something and decide to act on it. Money can be raised to support something worthwhile.

What would you throw yourself into, whole-heartedly, that would be a joy to promote and even raise funds for if you had to because it did so much good and made you feel incredible?

American Labor For Sustainability - Woo Hoo!

Mainstream America is coming to an understanding of the need to get behind efforts to clean up the planet.  The American labor movement has for some time supported expanding “green jobs” that will help create a cleaner, renewable energy economy and address global climate change.  Three unions recently took additional action and announced their support for the science-based targets called for by the IPCC to reduce greehouse gas emissions that cost us all, and future generations, far more than any savings offered (to anyone) by maintainining the status quo in our current fossil fuel based economy.  More on this story here: http://www.labor4sustainability.org/post/unions-call-for-science-based-reductions-in-greenhouse-gases/

Learning the issues and taking action to be for the right kinds of change, are legacy level leadership activities! Right on!

The Solar Race Is On - Now There’s a Developing Legacy to Get Behind!

Many of you know my personal legacy is devoted to environmental protection, conservation and support for the development of clean, renewable energy technologies. Now that folks seem to be getting the sense that global climate change is happening, addressing it is important and that it is economically and common sensically viable to do so (not only crucial to life as we know it on Earth), it seems the race to innovate and initiate new solutions is on.  Yea!!

From the Las Vegas Sun news online comes the story of the race between Nevada and Arizona to be the first to employ solar energy production and storage.

Imagine: what would the world be like if we all were racing to create better solutions, especially to environmental problems?  From my perspective, it would allow us to eventually get away from fossil fuel based energy production, which is important why?  Again, from where I live on the ocean it would stop us from killing the ocean and a crucial food chain all us Earthians depend on.  The ocean is not the vast resource we once thought, that we can treat as a giant dumping ground (and unfortunately have).  Between doing that and adding carbon to the atmosphere, which the ocean tries to help moderate by absorbing it and creating carbonic acid (H20 + CO2 = carbonic acid), not to mention unsustainable fishing practices, the ocean and its resources are dying. 

Here’s a picture of where we’re going if we don’t race to find solutions.  This is not just a scary story, we’re already actually on our way to this end:

Coral reefs and climate change, a message for Copenhagen from Earth Touch on Vimeo.

It was a video shown in Copenhagen as part of the effort to urge global solutions to climate change (of which the ocean acidification I mentioned is part).  Consider your children and grandchildren and the world they will inherit from the current generation if we don’t get behind efforts to change things for the better. 

Knowing this, what solution could you race toward as part of your consciously chosen life legacy?  Let us know how we can help you!

181 Investors Managing $13+Trillion Call For Strong Climate Change Action

Going into the United Nations Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen, which begins this coming week, I am feeling a bit dismayed, despite the fact that more and more common sensical and educated folks (like the 181 investors referenced in the title) are displaying a willingness to come forward in the climate change discussion and call on world leaders to get a grip and begin to do something about it. 

I am dismayed because telling the truth seems to be such a hard thing to do - because people are afraid of what will happen if they do.  Yet, as we are taught (just maybe not taught well enough how to practice), honesty is still the best policy.  It lessens the need for “spin” and opens the door to debate - hopefully honest debate without conniving trickery.  Having practiced law, I can, unfortunately attest to the existence of both conniving tactics and trickery in what is supposed to be high level honest debate built on a foundation of professional integrity.  Anyone who reads or watches any news also knows that people often read and watch whatever supports their underlying beliefs and attempted assertions - rather than staying open to and dealing directly with the sometimes not so pleasant actual truth. 

I say all this because in the past couple weeks thousands of emails and files were hacked from scientists inside East Anglia University, the British keeper of global temperature records, revealing at best a fearful reluctance among them to reveal all their scientific data and their efforts to disguise data that give rise to questions about human caused global warming.  Presumably, they do such things to divert the attacks of critics - when it would just be better to put it out there and well … honestly debate.   See more on that story here. (The hackers, of course, are still unidentifed and at large, and following their actions have been others who have attempted to post outright false information online to persuade people further in their beliefs that there is no environmental problem going on and we should stop making such a potentially expensive fuss about it).

Genuinely concerned scientists and environmentally minded citizens like myself have recently had to divert their focused attention from environmental protection, to defending the need for environmental protection.  This is despite plenty of real evidence that humans have seriously degraded the planet - jeeze just go to your nearest water body and have a look at it: wanna swim in that?  how about taking a nice long drink? 

And why and how did we get here? It’s a result of fear - it always comes down to fear even if it parades as greed and arrogance - of telling the truth in the first instance. That results in back peddling, having to explain, being diverted from the real, important issues, and feeling like you have to justify.  And worse, having to work harder to get a clear message to people whose beliefs cause them to be grounded in denial and avoidance to begin with. 

Yet, the truth, however it comes out - and it generally does - eventually leads to some level of honest debate among truly open and concerned persons, even though spinmeisters know that creating diversions can delay that debate.  Hence the old saying “justice delayed is justice denied,” a problem that ultimately be avoided if we would just do a better job of practicing telling the truth and treating each other compassionately. 

And the truth is that pumping carbon in the form of carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gasses, in to our atmosphere IS a problem and it needs to be corrected.  Even scientists who criticize alleged ”government by the few” or a handful of “elites” — like the members of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been called – conclude that hidden and hacked emails or not, global climate change (a lot more than mere “warming”) is still a problem.  It is not a matter of how much carbon based fossil fuel is left in the ground and how we can exploit every last drop.  It is a matter of whether we should continue to pump that carbon into the atmosphere and poison our planet - or begin to move, as rapidly as possible, into production of clean energy alternatives and more effective conservation efforts. 

Not surprising as a result of the East Anglia email hacking debacle, I heard a report on the radio this morning that some religious leaders have started speaking out against efforts to address climate change, claiming that our creator endowed us with an earth that is resilient.  I have no qualms with them.  But best I’ve been taught, our creator also gave us free will, and that free will may be causing serious harm and deterioration to this garden and paradise we were given in the form of the earth.  I agree the earth is resilient and will be just fine - what I question is what will happen to life on earth (humans and other species, which are so very threatened and disappearing at alarming rates as a result of humans’ exercise of free will).  While I don’t completely agree with George Carlin’s suggestions in his “The Planet is Fine” comedy sketch that we should do nothing to address it, I do agree with his underlying premise.  We may destroy our species and life on the planet as we know it, but the earth itself will be fine.  But I have serious questions about what will happen to ‘we the people’ – so many of whom are failing miserably at living up to being made in God’s image and likeness.

Yet, from the business world we have some enlightened leaders:  Ceres (pr. “series”), is a U.S. network of investors, environmental organizations and public interest groups with a stated mission to integrate sustainability into capital markets for the health of the planet and its people.  They recently reported some seriously good news:  the world’s largest group of global investors has issued a joint call for U.S. and international policy makers to take strong action to address global climate change.  

What a pleasant experience to find such enlightened leadership within the financial industry - which often takes a bad rap for greedily focusing on profit over anything else.  Head of one of the investment group members recognized publically that the human cost of inaction is unthinkable, and called for the development of sustainable business practices.  Just goes to show, there are reputable, high integrity professionals in all industries (even as there are those gripped by fear and acting badly …).

And from the religious world come some enlightened leaders, too, who see global climate change as a possible threat to peace.  Religions for Peace is the world’s largest and most representative multi-religious coalition. In September, the organization participated in the sixty-fourth session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.  Their purpose was to help promote a binding global climate deal at the UN Climate Change conference this next week.  Hallelujah!

The upside?  Dismayed or not, I can always find some good news.  I’m so grateful for that.

68% of Americans Know We Can Do This - And We Can! Now Tell Congress To Get It Done

Two fascinating bits of news I ran across today:

As reported in Solar Nation, 68% of people in this country believe that passing strong clean, renewable energy legislation to address climate change will result in new jobs (as opposed to job loss).  And why would investing in creating and developing new green technologies not result in new jobs?! 

This is great news because the Senate is currently deliberating the Waxman Markey climate change legislation that came out of the House of Representatives a couple months ago.  If you want to let your Senators know how you feel about the U.S. taking a global lead in reducing the use of fossil fuels and addressing climate change, you can easily find and contact them here.

The second piece of good news is of the we have the technology variety.  Well, so many of them, but this one is amazing.  This isn’t some pie in the sky notion - creating these new clean technologies.  We now have the Algeaus: the first car with a gasoline engine (as opposed to diesel engine as in bio-diesel), to cross the United States powered by fuel derived from algae.  This story is being told in a film called The Fuel Film a winner in the prestigious Sundance Film Festival.  And what a legacy story that is!! World changing in a big, positive way.  Take that big oil!

Remember photosynthesis?  The process by which plants take up carbon dioxide and, using sunlight, produce oxygen? Well algae can do it and produce fuel - more fuel than any crop based ethanol or other biofuel.  Take that big agriculture!!

More about the film and the car:

 
But there is more to know and do, so oh!, now maybe we can move some of our tax dollars being devoted to oil and corn subsidies and pass them along to the production of clean, renewable energy sources?! As a consistent form of support they can count on so the needed business infrastructures can be built around them?  The kind of leadership being shown by the developers of this news and these technologies is the kind we need in our government representatives - focused on a more positive future for us all and following generations.

That would be a significant impact and a great thing.

Passion for Life is the Stuff of Legacy

My friend and fellow blogger Jeannette recently lost her beloved husband.  Having been married only a few months now myself, but to someone who is the-love-of-my-life-like-I-had-no-idea-could-be, I can empathize with the depth of the void that loss must be. 

A consumate writer, Jeannette wrote in her Write Speak Sell blog, a tribute to her husband describing what he left in the minds and hearts, not to mention lives of others — his legacy.  It reminded me that we all have a legacy, however conscious we are of creating it, and others will be impacted by it.  And they are most profoundly impacted by the things that we do, that we do well and happily because we are most passionate about them.  Read Jeannette’s beautiful tribute here.  It’s a legacy in itself, a legacy of tribute tangibly preserved and offered to the world in a way that will benefit many who read it.

She also included a lovely blog post from Seth Godin about decision making, concluding that recognizing and exercising our power to make decisions allows us to make a bigger difference.  Very nicely stated. 

When you let the notion of legacy develop in your own consciousness, what bubbles up about it?  What does your life mean to others?  What would you like it to mean?  How might you get into action to create something tangible around your passions that will benefit others?  The world needs more of that …

Strange Bedfellows: Algae and Big Oil

Bravo on the Enlightened Leadership scale, for Senator Bill Nelson of Florida’s commitment to the environment.  He has introduced Senate Bill 1250 in Congress.  It is the Algae-based Renewable Fuel Promotion Act of 2009, which would amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to expand the definition of cellulosic biofuel to include algae-based biofuel for purposes of the cellulosic biofuel producer credit and the special allowance for cellulosic biofuel plant property.

In plain English, that means that producers of biofuels from algae would get a tax break for pursuing their work.  Finally, some sensible support comes to the clean energy industry along the lines of the subsidies Big Oil and Big Agriculture have enjoyed in building their businesses.  (Can you say “corn subsidies”, and “high fructose corn syrup”? - the latter of which seems to be in just about everything these days - both of which started in the 1970’s right around the time the obesity epidemic began … but that’s another story). 

Interestingly, Exxon and BP are beginning to invest in this arena according to the Business Exchange forum Clean Techies.  As the Clean Techies article notes, these oil production companies know from whence support for fossil fuel production comes, and hopefully reailze that to continue to command market share in the new clean energy space they’ll need to change from a focus on taking every last drop of oil out of the earth. 

We can only hope.

Creating Your Legacy Starts Today!

My new program, 7 Steps to Creating Your Legacy, debuts today! I can’t wait to see what the participants do with the materials - what they consciously choose to create in the world, how they decide what they want their impact to be and in what manner they’ll carry it out.

Watching all that unfold will be magical!

And the program itself is brand new, so it will be a creation unfolding as well - with the added energies of the group members.  Beginning any new process always carries with it excitment “with an edge …”  That’s how it is with the process of creation, and we’ll all be in that together adding the potential for the experience of some great synergy.  This pioneering group of leaders will be taking action that makes changes in the world - we will have our own “butterfly effect” (maybe many of them).  So exciting to see what that will be.

Right foot, left foot, one at a time begins the “journey of a thousand steps” that any significant project includes.  Will keep you posted on how it all unfolds.  If you want more information, please feel free to contact me!  Here we go …

Intentions & Motivations: What’s At the Heart of It?

Many legacies take the form of nonprofit businesses, which like any enterprise must be run in a business-like way. To me, whether the form of an enterprise is for profit or nonprofit - simply two different ways to structure a legal business entity engendering a much longer discussion — the business-like way to run them is with both head and heart.

Just as medicine is often as much an art as a science (unfortunately these days often way too controlled by accounting principles …), it seems there is a tremendous imbalance between head and heart.  And when heart loses out, so do we all.

In a recent article on the Planned Giving Design Center’s blog there was a discussion about the impact President Obama’s Tax Plan would have on the cost of charitable giving for wealthy donors.  Coming from the “head” view, the article made a lot of valid points, calculating the amount of tax benefit that might be lost and suggesting that this would dissuade wealthy donors from supporting charitable causes.  If that is truly the case, it is a cause for great sorrow to me.

One commenter to the article made an extremely valuable observation.  Fred Matthews heads Sound Development Strategies in Seattle, WA, a consulting organization that assists mid-size nonprofits.  His lovely observation in the discussion bears repeating, so I quote it in full here:

This discussion is a classic example of the difference between fundraising and philanthropy. Fundraising is a set of techniques and processes we use to implement philanthropy. Philanthropy is about creating change in our communities, our society and our world on behalf of those who are vulnerable and do not have the advantages many of us do.

When we start to confuse fundraising–and its associated tax benefits–with philanthropy, and do not focus first and foremost on the case for support of our nonprofit organizations (the change for the better in the lives of those less fortunate who share our planet) and donative intent, we have seriously lost our professional way.

Thanks again Fred.

Fundraising and Philanthropy.  Head and Heart.  Both are important.

Where is head and heart out of balance in your work in the world?  Would you like to put more heart into it? Profit is important, let’s be clear - enterprises with no money, whether a family or a company - can’t do much good in the world.  But how can revenue generation be better tied to the heart?

To me, the answer lies in holding the strong intention to do good work in the world with an underlying motivation to add value wherever possible.  What does that look like in what you do day to day?  How would you incorporate it into your legacy project?

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