GoHuman Blog

I’m intrigued with author Frances E. Vaughan’s definition of intuition as “a way of knowing…a way of recognizing the possibilities in any situation.”

Decisions based off of intuition come from an ability to integrate and utilize both the left and right sides of the brain.  The combined product of both facts and feelings that are unclouded by the involvement of personal ego.

Leaders with good intuition see new opportunities in any given situation. They visualize the future and are well equipped to move an organization forward, in response to it. These leaders are particularly good at generating new ideas and providing fresh, creative solutions to old problems. They function best in quickly changing environments, and moments of crisis.

Most men tend to refer to their intuition as a “gut feeling,” whereas women are more comfortable calling on their “feminine or women’s intuition.”

Because intuition originates from a certain feeling in our body, when someone asks how we know, we can’t explain the rationale behind the conclusion. As a result, we’re inclined to keep these thoughts to ourselves in fear others will label us as being unreasonable or foolish.

In the business world, effective leaders understand the importance of using logic and analysis when making certain decisions that will or have the potential to heavily impact the overall standing of the organization. Furthermore, leaders who possess these key traits also understand when to call upon their intuition, not as a substitute to analysis, but as an equal to it.

Clarity accounts for nearly 80% of success and happiness. Lack of clarity leads to frustration and underachievement. Those with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than those without them. Everywhere and under all circumstances!

In fact, the three keys to high achievement are, “Clarity, Clarity, Clarity.”  Success in life is largely dependent upon how clear you are about what you really want.

The more you write and rewrite your goals and think about them, the clearer you will become about them.  And the more likely you are to do more things that are consistent with accomplishing them.

Experiencing an “A-ha” or a “light bulb” moment, is like discovering an important piece to a difficult puzzle.  It’s rejuvenating, motivating while adding new challenges and opportunities for learning and growth.

In order for a fresh idea to become fully developed, it requires more flashes of light and self reflection. The idea must be evaluated to determine if it’s worth pursuit and further cultivation. Things will have been overlooked, and you’ll find ways to make the idea better, or why a certain idea isn’t ready to fully pursue.

The quickest way to gain clarity is to simply take action! When we take action, we get immediate and direct feedback. We gain insight and great knowledge as we continue to work through a situation. Things happen rapidly these days and therefore, there’s not much time to contemplate starting a project.  It’s always better to take action and learn along the way, than to spend time over-engineering without ever seeing any results.  Taking action, provides many answers to questions we were previously uncertain about. This doesn’t mean jumping totally into the project, but it does mean knowing that no plan is totally set in stone.  A road map is essential, but don’t let the absence of having one prevent you from moving forward.

When working towards meeting personal needs, or maintaining relationships, it’s important to consider how big decisions impact other people in our life. Most often, a change in one area of life, will ultimately affect other areas and therefore, we need to consider any potential negative consequences. When it comes to getting clear about relationships, ask yourself, “How much does the relationship mean to me?” “How much does my personal goal mean to me?” Remembering that relationships are a major key to happiness, so be certain to gain clarity in how this area of your life will be impacted.

Companies who deliberately create a culture to work with systems and allow themselves to see the underlying system beneath everything create a wonderful mind-shift.

Every system is perfect for what it produces. Once your mind shifts to see the perfection of every system, you’re in a clear enough state to produce new systems that provide different results.

Even in situations when customers are upset, it can be said that a perfect system was used to anger the customer. It certainly doesn’t mean you have to like or tolerate the system that produced this particular result, in fact, applying this type of system thinking to anything you don’t like allows you to immediately correct it: “We have a perfect system for producing poor quality product, low margins, low productivity, high employee turnover,” and so on.

Declaring the existence of a system, allows you to avoid the habit of blaming other people for things that go wrong. Nothing can ever be improved or corrected that way. You’ll always get what you’ve designed a system to get and therefore, the solution to any ongoing problem is to design a new system. This is referred to as “systems thinking,” which is a higher order of thinking than we normally use. Once the mind shifts to systems, everything begins to change for the better.

Many companies have ongoing problems with politics, ego and insecurity issues of certain managers. Such companies assume they’re always going to have these issues and chalk it up to the price of working with people!  Not true. One company, Microchip, proclaims that politics, ego and arrogance are “NOT ALLOWED.”  How so? Because they deliberately created the culture they wanted. When it’s crystal clear that something isn’t allowed, people just don’t do it.

In past blogs I’ve compared Corporations to Dinosaurs.

One reason is the “Reptilian Brain Stem” – where we get our fundamental survival instinct – the so-called “Fight Flight” response.

The DNA of even the best intentioned corporations, such as Apple and Google, determines it’s nature.  The purpose of corporate structure is to remove the personal risk to the creators and investors by creating a new entity, under the control of the creators, which acts to secure profits.   Even with the most noble of intentions, once this new entity reaches maturity, and the intentions of noble founders recede into the background, it uses its gargantuan power to dominate and control any market it can, for the profit purpose for which it was created.  Frankenstein style.

Most people don’t see Apple and Google that way.  Apple is cool, hip, stylish, trendy.  It’s customers identify with it, and are willing to pay premium prices.  At the opposite end we have Google.  So nerdy it’s cool, lavishing free stuff on all as it slowly worms it’s way into a position of absolute dominance relative to all information on the planet.  And information is power.

They’ve also had a cozy inbred relationship, even sharing Board seats – until recently.  Here’s an article that shows the Reptilian Nature inherent in their previously symbiotic relationship beginning to emerge.

GoHuman.com’s DNA is different.  I hope you’ll dig deeper to learn why!  We hope you’ll join us in deploying a better evolutionary model.  We hope you’ll use us to change the way your world works.

Why GoHuman.com?  Reason #12 is that we’re more Human!

Reason #1; Reason #2; Reason #3; Reason #4; Reason #5; Reason #6; Reason #7; Reason #8; Reason #9; Reason #10; Reason #11;

What does green mean to you as a business owner or consumer? It’s certainly a buzzword that gets a lot of attention, especially this month as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day.

In 40 years have we accomplished as much as we could to sustain a sustainable ecosystem for our planet? Probably not, but it’s human nature to move incrementally until disaster strikes.

GoHuman is a marketplace devoted to helping local communities achieve sustainability. Local energy and ideas serve as the foundation for the site’s growth, and allow for mutual prosperity. Local means:

• Fewer resources to transport goods and services is better for the environment
• Money spent by the community stays in the community
• Services tailored specifically to the needs and challenges of the community
• Reduced costs due to lower overhead of the individual provider
• Greater flexibility for better quality of life
• Bringing back the unique downtown communities this country has lost
• Helping the economy-at-large by feeding it at the smallest level
• Taking the current crisis into your own hands rather than waiting for someone else to fix it

If you are a green-certified service provider, you’re one of us. So why not join us? I welcome you to post your services to GoHuman and join a growing community of like-minded businesses and community members. Together we can help local communities and the environment.

Thank you for making a difference in your community and ours. Read on for ideas on marketing a green business.

I’ve been cooking up this blog since I lived in Germany in the early 90s.  I read “Food 2000″, a coffee-table book, touting “food miracles” – scientists solving world hunger and such.  It was sponsored propaganda against Alliance 90/The Greens.  I was horrified by what I saw.

I was just beginning to recover from an “incurable” auto-immune-related condition little understood by Medical Science, using dietary and other natural methods.  I told myself I would help change the system of systems.

Now Agribusiness is moving from propaganda to sinister control.  Scientific American, explains how Bio-engineering companies own articles published about their seed. Cropchoice.com explains how farmers using seed infected by patented seed are guilty of stealing.  Food Inc. is eating up the conscience of consumers.  Watch it, and take a symbolic stand, however small.

Yesterday Forbes arrived, with Monsanto on the cover as Company of the year.  Forbes’ arrogance since the economic meltdown has shocked this longtime reader.  The Frankenstein monster of business is  running rampant.  Our food supply is controlled by companies bio-engineered for greed.

Greg Brown sings “I watched my country turn into a coast-to-coast strip mall and I cried out in a song: if we could do all that in thirty years, then please tell me you all – why does good change take so long?”  Join us and speed up change.

Why GoHuman.com? reason #6?  Local Food

Fight for your right to control your own food!

Reason #1; Reason #2; Reason #3; Reason #4; Reason #5;

Next Time #7: All Hail Snopes! Reason #8; Reason #9; Reason #10; Reason #11; Reason #12

Check out Shift Happens: Education 3.0, for an interesting barrage of stats demonstrating just how quickly the world is moving in education and business. One of the reasons we started GoHuman.com is to help independent businesses keep up with all the changes that otherwise might leave them behind. Individuals are being rewarded for their ability to work independently and fluidly now more than ever. GoHuman.com helps those people find good customers locally for all their various talents.

You’ll have noticed the GoHuman byline above: “change the way your world works.”

Well, the folks at GoHuman.com aren’t your only friends who have that dream – witness Google’s 10th birthday initiative 10^100.

It began in September 2008, asking the public to submit world-changing ideas, from which Google would select and invest $10,000,000 into the most promising.

I’m quick to give a big “thumbs-up” to this, because with Google’s money, public image and presence they’re in a fantastic position to bring in some great ideas out of the 150,000 which have been submitted so far! Hey, who wouldn’t want better methods of clearing landmines, or more effective ways of making our taxes work? So, expect some great things out of Google!

But the skeptic in me keeps reminding me that Google, as a publicly traded company, has an over-riding legal responsibility to constantly deliver the greatest profit for its shareholders!

So what happens to the vast majority of those 150,000 ideas which have profit-making potential? Have the rights been signed over to Google?

One assumes the people contributing these ideas do want to help the world, so they don’t mind if they personally don’t make anything out of it. Or, perhaps they are hoping Google will recognize their genius and take them onboard. But are there any guarantees?

And what about the ideas which would bring great good to the world – but not great profit to Google? What if an idea would be of huge benefit to the world, but also reduce Google’s profit, increase a competitors’ profits, or reduce Google’s market power?

Isn’t Google, like any large corporation, despite having lofty sounding ideals and the greatest of goodwill, trapped by the capitalist system?

I expect, and I’m ready to applaud some real world-changing improvements out of the 10^100 initiative, and I hope I’m wrong in my fear that the best will never see the light of day.

As Web development evolves with an increased number of technologies and skilled people, new companies such as Mashery.com are coming online to help companies tap into the teams of independent developers out there that have ideas about how to leverage their products. Most companies simply don’t have the resources or vision to recognize or capitalize on all the opportunities that exist within their networks, products, and technology. Companies that are willing to open themselves up to outside partnerships with shared revenue potential are paving the way for new ways to do business online.

According to Mashery.com, “By publishing your API, you give potential and existing partners the ability to create applications that use your data and engage customers in new ways.”

The trend is clear. Consider the benefits of developing an open platform to which many people can contribute or keep your secrets and watch the Web pass you by. Security and secrecy are, of course, important for any company with proprietary interests, and boundaries must be set. But businesses that have successfully employed open models such as eBay and Apple are reaping the rewards and even seeing a majority of their business created through alternative channels.

Gmail users were left without email for an hour on Tuesday, which some might say doesn’t bode well for Google’s bid to sell enterprise-level cloud computing services. But instead of fumbling and obfuscating, Google simply let everyone know what happened.

It only gets harder to be this transparent and honest the bigger you get. At least that’s what most companies would have you believe. But Google proves that people respond better to companies who go the extra mile to make it right than those who don’t. This is a philosophy we embrace and nurture within GoHuman.com, so I applaud Google’s efforts to maintain their culture.