August 2, 2004

change the world

2 Comments

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Just added another thought to “How To Be Crea­tive”:

15. The idea doesn’t have to be a big one. It just has to change the world.

(The two are not the same thing)

2 Responses to “change the world”

  1. Mary Beth says:
    August 5, 2004 at 7:13 pm

    I don’t want you to think that we’re igno­ring the new addi­tion — but I’m thin­king about this one a lot. There are a cou­ple ways to take this. The idea that shifts the para­digm. The appa­rently small idea that makes small rip­ples that keep going and going and come back across them­sel­ves and build up big­ger and big­ger waves. This is my search in a way — I am loo­king for a way to approach a big pro­blem — a something that I can do by myself (at least to start) that will make a dif­fe­rence. A con­tri­bu­tion that will mat­ter even if it’s a small thing it does.
    Sounds sim­ple. It ain’t.

  2. Chris Johnson says:
    August 9, 2004 at 6:54 pm

    This is an awe­some point. I would love to hear what your ins­pi­ra­tion or musings is about it. It is just left here so aus­tere. Perhaps that is because it is so daun­ting a cha­llenge.
    I think it is an exce­llent model for inno­va­tion and ins­pi­ra­tion. It is about having a ‘posi­tive legacy’, something that you did that you can be proud of (ie it con­tri­bu­ted to the good of the world, and not at the expense of others).
    I think it begins with 1) inten­tion and 2) vision. You have to have know where you are going and why you are doing it to get there (espe­cially for the per­sis­tence you need).
    This has been the model for me in my busi­ness, ifPeo­ple (www.ifpeople.net), where we aim to con­tri­bute to the social, eco­lo­gi­cal, and eco­no­mic sus­tai­na­bi­lity of our clients through our ser­vi­ces. In the pro­cess, we also want to create our com­pany as a sus­tai­na­ble ins­ti­tu­tion. That has meant edu­ca­ting our peo­ple and part­ners, expan­ding the set of values we con­si­der when eva­lua­ting our per­for­mance and suc­cess, and cons­tantly see­king new ideas.
    It is intense, cha­llen­ging. But I love it.