Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Roommate needed for Biomimicry Education Summit in Boston!
Anybody need place to stay for the upcoming Boston conference? I've got a double at the Hilton if you want to split it! I don't snore... much.
Social species and complex systems
As you know, I've been hard at work writing, BioInspired Inc, a book on nature-inspired business principles. What can businesses and other organizations learn from complex, highly coordinated, and supremely adaptable biological systems like fungus, slime molds, social insects, bird flocks, and fish schools? How does nature design complex systems, with thousands of individuals working together? How do they adapt to disturbance and change? These are some of the questions I'm trying to address in BioInspired Inc.
Generally, successful social species rely on decentralized, distributed, highly networked sense-and-respond systems between individuals in constant contact with one another. Colonies of ants, termites, honeybees, and slime molds appear as "super-organisms," made up of thousands of individuals sensing and responding to their own slightly unique individual experiences. These remarkable social structures emerge from simple rules, a unity of purpose, and constant communication. The resulting society is much more than the sum of these 'parts.'
Individual honeybees, for instance, assess potential food and nesting sites, and then report back to their hive-mates with a descriptive waggle-dance. The strongest signals build, while the weakest decay, until the whole colony reaches a decision and suddenly departs en masse for the new location.
Some birds, like the famous starlings of Venice, flock with such machine-like precision that surely they must be orchestrated by telepathy. Social fish, like tuna and sardines, school in perfect synchrony, appearing as a single, fluid organism.
The ultimate super-organism is the slime mold. This strange creature is just a bag of nuclei encased in slime, but it somehow has behaviors you'd only expect to find in an animal with muscles and a simple nervous system. Each nucleus goes its own way for most of its life, living as an single-celled amoeba. When times get tough, though, a chemical secretion signals their slime-mates to congeal into a single, slug-like creature. The slug streams off to find a cozy spot, where it becomes a stationary 'fruiting body.' Some cells form a stalk, which will die, and others become spores, to be carried off by the wind to start the next generation of clones. Are they a super-organism colony of amoebas, or are they a single creature that breaks apart as needed? Hard to say...
The octopus is another creature that leverages a distributed sense-and-respond network. These unparalleled masters of camouflage scan their environment with remarkably advanced eyes, processing information with an exceptional brain for an invertebrate (consider their brainless, clammy relatives, by comparison). But the octopus goes far beyond the limitations of centralized command-and-control. She assesses and responds to the environment locally and directly, with a distributed array of sensors and complex layered signals found right in her skin. Its a quick, effective, accurate, and efficient strategy for responding instantaneously to complex changes in her environment.
These kinds of systems are ubiquitous in nature, and evolutionarily persistent. They are remarkably effective, and natural selection favors individuals (and probably groups) that are good at it. What can humans learn from them? Can 'nature's business principles' help us become more robust, resilient, and responsive in the face of increasing change as well? Tune in next time to find out...
Generally, successful social species rely on decentralized, distributed, highly networked sense-and-respond systems between individuals in constant contact with one another. Colonies of ants, termites, honeybees, and slime molds appear as "super-organisms," made up of thousands of individuals sensing and responding to their own slightly unique individual experiences. These remarkable social structures emerge from simple rules, a unity of purpose, and constant communication. The resulting society is much more than the sum of these 'parts.'
Individual honeybees, for instance, assess potential food and nesting sites, and then report back to their hive-mates with a descriptive waggle-dance. The strongest signals build, while the weakest decay, until the whole colony reaches a decision and suddenly departs en masse for the new location.
The ultimate super-organism is the slime mold. This strange creature is just a bag of nuclei encased in slime, but it somehow has behaviors you'd only expect to find in an animal with muscles and a simple nervous system. Each nucleus goes its own way for most of its life, living as an single-celled amoeba. When times get tough, though, a chemical secretion signals their slime-mates to congeal into a single, slug-like creature. The slug streams off to find a cozy spot, where it becomes a stationary 'fruiting body.' Some cells form a stalk, which will die, and others become spores, to be carried off by the wind to start the next generation of clones. Are they a super-organism colony of amoebas, or are they a single creature that breaks apart as needed? Hard to say...
These kinds of systems are ubiquitous in nature, and evolutionarily persistent. They are remarkably effective, and natural selection favors individuals (and probably groups) that are good at it. What can humans learn from them? Can 'nature's business principles' help us become more robust, resilient, and responsive in the face of increasing change as well? Tune in next time to find out...
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Book Review Published Today!
I recently wrote a summary review of Giles Hutchins' excellent book, The Nature of Business, for it's North American publisher, and I was excited to see it appear today on CSRWire! I think its a great summary and interpretation of a very insightful book, and I'm quite pleased with it. Here is the link:
"Evolutionary Biology As a Model For Sustainable Business: A Review of Giles Hutchins' The Nature of Business" http://bit.ly/Xo8ZrP
As always, thank you for reading!
"Evolutionary Biology As a Model For Sustainable Business: A Review of Giles Hutchins' The Nature of Business" http://bit.ly/Xo8ZrP
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
The 12 Step Recovery Program for Humanity
Most traditional organizations are centralized, hierarchical, and linear, both in communication flow and in resource use. Nature doesn't generally do things that way, because its inefficient, wasteful, and slow to respond to changing local conditions. Social structures emerge from the behaviors of individuals, without a top-down plan. But, you say, aren't humans part of nature too? Why do we do things differently?
I think the answer is two-fold. One, we're a pretty young species. We've been doing things this way for only really the last 50,000 years, and its open to debate whether natural selection is going to take us out before the next 50,000 years are up. Compare that to sharks, which have been around largely unchanged for 400 million years. Now THAT'S sustainability. Two, our societies ARE emergent, just like the rest of nature. But we've settled on our traditional social structures because our communication technologies have been limited in efficiency. In the very recent past, individuals were just not well networked. When information-flow and decision-making are linear (if you remember the party game 'telephone'), they are prone to errors of interpretation and judgement. With a system like that, an organization needs a centralized administrative ‘brain’ to direct and coordinate actions, and someone to take responsibility when things go wrong. It's also difficult to change a system like that, because it lacks transparency and access, and those with the most to lose hold the lion's share of information and resources.
Today, the Internet and cellular network are radically altering these traditional structures. From finance to healthcare, business, government, and education, our society is transforming into a densely interconnected network. This is not unlike the human brain, honeybee hive, underground fungal mycelium, slime mold, ant colony, or termite mound, but on a global scale. All of us, even children in remote African villages, will potentially have access to the same information, the same ability to contribute our voice, knowledge, opinion, experience, and action to the conversation. In the age of the digital superhighway, it becomes very difficult for organizations to hide from public scrutiny.
This is how the rest of Nature has solved problems in changing environments for billions of years, and now humans can do it too. The internet gives us the power to evolve flexible, resilient, and adaptive structures for solving problems quickly, effectively, and sustainably. In fact, we can't even stop these systems from emerging. Big things will come from the collective tiny, simple acts of seven billion highly networked individuals, as several Arab governments recently discovered.
Biomimicry is the art and science of borrowing Nature’s best ideas to solve human challenges in sustainable ways. By consciously imitating the special powers of other species, we can broaden our ability to address novel situations. After 3.8 billion years of evolutionary research and development, only the best ideas are still around. Each of Nature’s ‘designs’ has been subject to rigorous and exhaustive testing. Is it efficient, flexible, and sustainable? Is it resilient to change and failure? Does it leverage webs of interconnectedness with other life? If not, even the cleverest idea will be removed by natural selection. And so it is with organizations today. Businesses become obsolete, institutions irrelevant, and governments are overturned.
Successful species evolve systems that respond quickly and effectively to changing local conditions. They don’t perfect or maximize a one-time solution for each challenge, because the conditions to "survive and thrive" are constantly shifting. Species that persist have flexible, resilient, adaptive ways of detecting environmental change and responding locally. With our Internet and cellular capabilities, we can mimic Nature’s ‘smart swarms’ and ‘super-organism societies’ (like ants, termites, fungus, and honeybees), to create similar systems that respond and self-heal in the face of change, resource instability, and disturbance.
By looking at these natural systems, I've put together 12 simple principles that nature uses to create ‘adaptive cascades,’ in which small adaptive actions trigger other actions that ultimately generate systemic 'self-healing' responses to change, with no need for centralized command. Natural systems built on these principles not only adapt quickly, but they learn how to respond and get better at it. Evolution is an arms race, yes, but one that results in unimaginable diversity, innovation, and ever denser webs of interconnection and interdependence between all living organisms. The more diverse and interconnected these webs, the more resilient the ecosystem becomes.
Humans are part of nature too, and our social systems are no different. Business is competitive, driving innovation and diversity, but often, the next level of success demands partnership and collaboration. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. As stakeholders become more interconnected and interdependent, the business environment grows more resilient as well. The trick lies in aligning the values and goals of all stakeholders, so the organization moves toward a unified purpose. You can see how this is accomplished in an ant colony: all the workers are sisters, sharing half or more of their DNA. Lock-step collaboration emerges easily when the success of your nest-mate isn't much different than your own. It's trickier in a complex system of unrelated individuals, each with her own goals, values, and incentives. Nonetheless, many successful, cutting-edge companies (like Nike, InterfaceFLOR, Virgin, and Ecover) are implementing policies that encourage the emergence of a decentralized, purpose-driven, sustainable culture. By adopting these simple rules, honed by 3.8 billion years of ruthless R&D, human organizations can achieve sustainable success as well. And yes, I will elucidate on all of these, with examples, in upcoming posts!
And yes, I realize this looks suspiciously like a 12-step recovery program. But when the party is over, and the punchbowl is gone, maybe that's just what we need.
I think the answer is two-fold. One, we're a pretty young species. We've been doing things this way for only really the last 50,000 years, and its open to debate whether natural selection is going to take us out before the next 50,000 years are up. Compare that to sharks, which have been around largely unchanged for 400 million years. Now THAT'S sustainability. Two, our societies ARE emergent, just like the rest of nature. But we've settled on our traditional social structures because our communication technologies have been limited in efficiency. In the very recent past, individuals were just not well networked. When information-flow and decision-making are linear (if you remember the party game 'telephone'), they are prone to errors of interpretation and judgement. With a system like that, an organization needs a centralized administrative ‘brain’ to direct and coordinate actions, and someone to take responsibility when things go wrong. It's also difficult to change a system like that, because it lacks transparency and access, and those with the most to lose hold the lion's share of information and resources.
|
| Slime Mold |
This is how the rest of Nature has solved problems in changing environments for billions of years, and now humans can do it too. The internet gives us the power to evolve flexible, resilient, and adaptive structures for solving problems quickly, effectively, and sustainably. In fact, we can't even stop these systems from emerging. Big things will come from the collective tiny, simple acts of seven billion highly networked individuals, as several Arab governments recently discovered.
Biomimicry is the art and science of borrowing Nature’s best ideas to solve human challenges in sustainable ways. By consciously imitating the special powers of other species, we can broaden our ability to address novel situations. After 3.8 billion years of evolutionary research and development, only the best ideas are still around. Each of Nature’s ‘designs’ has been subject to rigorous and exhaustive testing. Is it efficient, flexible, and sustainable? Is it resilient to change and failure? Does it leverage webs of interconnectedness with other life? If not, even the cleverest idea will be removed by natural selection. And so it is with organizations today. Businesses become obsolete, institutions irrelevant, and governments are overturned.
Successful species evolve systems that respond quickly and effectively to changing local conditions. They don’t perfect or maximize a one-time solution for each challenge, because the conditions to "survive and thrive" are constantly shifting. Species that persist have flexible, resilient, adaptive ways of detecting environmental change and responding locally. With our Internet and cellular capabilities, we can mimic Nature’s ‘smart swarms’ and ‘super-organism societies’ (like ants, termites, fungus, and honeybees), to create similar systems that respond and self-heal in the face of change, resource instability, and disturbance.
By looking at these natural systems, I've put together 12 simple principles that nature uses to create ‘adaptive cascades,’ in which small adaptive actions trigger other actions that ultimately generate systemic 'self-healing' responses to change, with no need for centralized command. Natural systems built on these principles not only adapt quickly, but they learn how to respond and get better at it. Evolution is an arms race, yes, but one that results in unimaginable diversity, innovation, and ever denser webs of interconnection and interdependence between all living organisms. The more diverse and interconnected these webs, the more resilient the ecosystem becomes.
Humans are part of nature too, and our social systems are no different. Business is competitive, driving innovation and diversity, but often, the next level of success demands partnership and collaboration. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. As stakeholders become more interconnected and interdependent, the business environment grows more resilient as well. The trick lies in aligning the values and goals of all stakeholders, so the organization moves toward a unified purpose. You can see how this is accomplished in an ant colony: all the workers are sisters, sharing half or more of their DNA. Lock-step collaboration emerges easily when the success of your nest-mate isn't much different than your own. It's trickier in a complex system of unrelated individuals, each with her own goals, values, and incentives. Nonetheless, many successful, cutting-edge companies (like Nike, InterfaceFLOR, Virgin, and Ecover) are implementing policies that encourage the emergence of a decentralized, purpose-driven, sustainable culture. By adopting these simple rules, honed by 3.8 billion years of ruthless R&D, human organizations can achieve sustainable success as well. And yes, I will elucidate on all of these, with examples, in upcoming posts!
- Create dense decentralized networks.
- Embrace diversity.
- Unify action around a purpose.
- Optimize the whole system, not the parts.
- Waste nothing.
- Seek symbiosis.
- Cultivate redundancy. Make every structure perform more than one function, and every function be performed by more than one structure.
- Minimize uncertainty. Become transparent.
- Seek opportunity at the ecosystem edge.
- Utilize ‘living organs' for indirect communication.
- Cultivate ‘tipping-point’ decision-making.
- Build from the bottom up. Embrace emergence.
And yes, I realize this looks suspiciously like a 12-step recovery program. But when the party is over, and the punchbowl is gone, maybe that's just what we need.
Sunday, February 3, 2013
BioInspired Inc: The Nature of Organizational Transformation
Did you miss me? I've been working on a number of exciting bioinspired projects, including a feature article on octopus-inspired technology for the über-cool digital magazine Zygote Quarterly (yes, I am tickled), promoting sustainable practices for California museums through the Green Museums Initiative, and developing a biomimicry framework for Ernst & Young's latest sustainability report. And now, working on BioInspired Inc., a book about organizational transformation inspired by nature.
All this got me thinking hard about social structures. How does Nature design complex systems of many individuals (or cells) working together? How do these structures adapt to change? Can we use these principles in our own organizations to make them more adaptive? Why was the relief effort for Hurricane Sandy more effective than FEMA's mobilization after Hurricane Katrina? How did the Arab Spring spread so quickly and achieve such dramatic results? How can we make our government more responsive, our healthcare system healthier, our economy more resilient, and our businesses more sustainable?
I've been thinking about the octopus. These unparalleled masters of camouflage scan their environment with remarkable eyes and process the information with an exceptional brain (consider their brainless clammy relatives, by comparison). But they go far beyond the limitations of centralized command-and-control, by assessing and responding to the environment locally and directly, with a distributed array of sensors and signals found right in their skin. Its a quick, effective, accurate, and efficient strategy for responding instantaneously to complex changes in the environment.
Other species use similar decentralized, distributed, highly networked sense-and-respond systems. Individual honeybees assess potential food and nesting sites and report back to the hive. The strongest signals build until the whole colony reaches a decision. Colonies of ants, termites, and slime moulds appear as adaptive "superorganisms" made up of thousands of individuals sensing and responding to their own slightly unique inputs. These remarkable social structures emerge from simple rules, a unity of purpose, and constant communication between individuals. Similarly, birds may flock with machine-like precision, and fish school in perfect synchrony. These 'smart swarms' are evolutionarily persistent because they are remarkably effective, and natural selection favors individuals that are good at it.
What can human organizations learn from these kinds of systems? I've been writing a book, BioInspired Inc, to explore this question from a biological standpoint. Meanwhile, I had the good fortune to run across The Nature of Business, by Giles Hutchins. Giles is the director of Biomimicry for Creative Innovation (BCI), a UK consulting firm specializing in applying nature’s inspiration to sustainable business transformation. His book is a broad and knowledgable recipe for radical change, incorporating a wide array of approaches to sustainability, with lots of great examples. Highly recommended for those interested in sustainable business practices and transformation.
And...drumroll...he accepted my invitation to write a guest blog post for me here! Enjoy!
All this got me thinking hard about social structures. How does Nature design complex systems of many individuals (or cells) working together? How do these structures adapt to change? Can we use these principles in our own organizations to make them more adaptive? Why was the relief effort for Hurricane Sandy more effective than FEMA's mobilization after Hurricane Katrina? How did the Arab Spring spread so quickly and achieve such dramatic results? How can we make our government more responsive, our healthcare system healthier, our economy more resilient, and our businesses more sustainable?
I've been thinking about the octopus. These unparalleled masters of camouflage scan their environment with remarkable eyes and process the information with an exceptional brain (consider their brainless clammy relatives, by comparison). But they go far beyond the limitations of centralized command-and-control, by assessing and responding to the environment locally and directly, with a distributed array of sensors and signals found right in their skin. Its a quick, effective, accurate, and efficient strategy for responding instantaneously to complex changes in the environment.
Other species use similar decentralized, distributed, highly networked sense-and-respond systems. Individual honeybees assess potential food and nesting sites and report back to the hive. The strongest signals build until the whole colony reaches a decision. Colonies of ants, termites, and slime moulds appear as adaptive "superorganisms" made up of thousands of individuals sensing and responding to their own slightly unique inputs. These remarkable social structures emerge from simple rules, a unity of purpose, and constant communication between individuals. Similarly, birds may flock with machine-like precision, and fish school in perfect synchrony. These 'smart swarms' are evolutionarily persistent because they are remarkably effective, and natural selection favors individuals that are good at it.
What can human organizations learn from these kinds of systems? I've been writing a book, BioInspired Inc, to explore this question from a biological standpoint. Meanwhile, I had the good fortune to run across The Nature of Business, by Giles Hutchins. Giles is the director of Biomimicry for Creative Innovation (BCI), a UK consulting firm specializing in applying nature’s inspiration to sustainable business transformation. His book is a broad and knowledgable recipe for radical change, incorporating a wide array of approaches to sustainability, with lots of great examples. Highly recommended for those interested in sustainable business practices and transformation.
And...drumroll...he accepted my invitation to write a guest blog post for me here! Enjoy!
Friday, February 1, 2013
Island of the Praying Mantis Nymphs
A futuristic B-movie account of the evolutionary future of men and the women who love them. This biological gorefest will disturb and titillate you, and is not for those of tender age or faint heart! Happy Valentine's Day!
Disclaimer: As a single woman who knows where her reproductive bread is buttered, I disavow all the views expressed here, even though I wrote them. Actually, I blame Ancient Historian and B-movie aficionado Professor Darel Engen for the idea behind this article. It is his fault and all hate mail should be addressed to him. My three beautiful, brilliant, little boys will probably not find it funny, nor will all the wonderful men I know who bear no similarity to this profile. I'm really sorry in advance. Please forgive me. I love you all. No, really.
Have you ever noticed all the beautiful, intelligent, successful women paired up with, for lack of a better description, meat-heads, clods, and derelicts? Seriously, how many well-employed, well-educated women do you know that either can't find anyone worth bothering with, or simply end up sticking with an adorable, but slightly slow-witted, go-nowhere-fast, underemployed, X-box loving, couch-potato because "at least he loves me?" And I'm not even talking about the enviable power suit-moms who get to disappear off to their jobs each day while low-powered dad stays home changing diapers or going to the park. (Which makes sense, since she makes more money, and dad is just a big kid anyway.)
Women put a ridiculous amount of effort into looking their best, remembering anniversaries, giving thoughtful tokens of appreciation, and agonizing over what men really mean when they say and do less than thoughtful things. Even though women know, in their hearts, that men are just simply less... thoughtful. I mean, its pretty clear to any mom who has ever volunteered in their kid's kindergarten class, gone on a preschool field-trip, or simply graduated, that girls are better outfitted for modern-day success. Sitting at a desk for hours? Check. Listening to multi-step instructions? Check. Planning ahead and prioritizing? Check. Political maneuvering? Definitely big check. On average, girls are more successful at these tasks. Boys underperform in every grade and subject, and according to Maureen O'Dowd, "they are medicated, disciplined, suspended, and expelled far more often than girls are."
The performance gap shows up in adult society as well. (Yeah, I'm just going to wave aside the facts that we are underrepresented at the top of just about everything, Hilary lost this time, and we are radically underpaid). For every two men who graduate from college, three women get their degree. There are just as many women as men in the work force, contributing about 45% of a family’s income, on average. Three-quarters of those who lost their jobs in the Great Mancession were, you guessed it, men; many of them victims of that incredible sucking sound as manufacturing jobs went overseas. In 1950, 1 in 20 working-age men were unemployed; today that number is 1 in 5. It's a service enonomy now, favoring “social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus.” In short, women's work.
This results in the classic "bottom-of-the-barrel, cream-of-the crop" dilemma: the bottom-of-the-barrel men and the cream-of-the-crop women are the only ones still single when the music stops. So guess what? These amazing, talented women, desperate to fulfill their biological imperatives, find themselves grabbing whomever they can tolerate. Which is probably why women work so damn hard to look good, while men just show up in a sweatshirt.
Genetically, it turns out that women are more complex than men, who really are the simple creatures they appear to be. Some three hundred genes on the second X chromosome (missing entirely in men) are active. We can hazard some guesses at what those genes might do, but leaving the toilet seat up is probably not one of them.
The Y-chromosome is “a microscopic metaphor of those who bear it, for it is ... decayed, redundant and parasitic,” says Steve Jones, geneticist and author of Y: The Descent of Men. But without it, the secret sauce that stews an unborn boy 'in a bath of masculinity' would not occur, and he would stay female. As Jones says, "biology reveals every man's battle to escape the woman within." Males really are the weaker sex, a delicate and fragile version of their high-endurance female counterparts. Extra testosterone makes men shorter-lived, with higher rates of mortality, disease, and suicide. And, they are three times more likely to be struck by lightning!
Shriveled and decrepit, the Y chromosome mirrors post-modern manhood (surrounded by a bong, remote, and a litter of old pizza boxes)? Maleness itself originated as a parasitic strategy, says Jones, as certain microbes forced others to replicate their genes for them. Just like the flu... And the microscopic Y (yes, I'm afraid size does matter) continues it's inexorable decline. It is degenerating so quickly that men face "inevitable eventual extinction," with nearly all of them completely sterile in about 125,000 years. The chromosome itself will blink out of existence in a few million years. Any genes that are actually important (like spider-killing, jar-opening, and the ability to move large, heavy objects) will probably transfer to one of the other chromosomes, much like any other bit of viral DNA. With the Y chromosome but a crumbling shadow of its once-mighty self, "men are wilting away," says Jones. We can imagine a world without men, where women are in charge, and men just there for entertainment. This sounds like the premise for a cool 1960's B-movie or an old episode of StarTrek: a distant future when men evolve into little more than wormlike parasites on their female hosts. And then, just as now, the women will tolerate them because they want kids (or William Shatner) so, so badly.
This is, in fact, not so different from what happens in many species:
So maybe men will become soft, legless couch potatoes, and finally devolve into blood-sucking leeches? Added bonus, they suck our blood, making us skinnier? (Or just our wallets) Personally, I don't find this scenario the least bit enticing (except for the skinnier part). But Jones assures us that "plenty of creatures don't bother with sex at all. Sea anemones just cut themselves in half indefinitely and make copies again and again and again," while other species pursue hermaphroditism. If I have to choose between becoming asexual or a hermaphrodite, I'm definitely going for the latter. Such a smorgasbord of options for the women of the future to choose from! Like:
I'm sure there are many men (like all of them) who would like to stick around and watch, or even participate in these potential human mating scenarios (except maybe having their penis chewed off). But too bad! You've been made redundant, and women can take it from here.
Jones refers to hermaphroditism as "sex with somebody you really love." Yourself. So, maybe women won't miss men too much. But then again, might not "the healing power of lust" make us keep them around, pleads Jones? After all, he whines, don't "people carry on having sex because it's fun?" Sure, but my girlfriend of the future fulfills all my needs and remembers our anniversary.
Thanks to the following sources for inspiration and unverified-by-me facts:
Disclaimer: As a single woman who knows where her reproductive bread is buttered, I disavow all the views expressed here, even though I wrote them. Actually, I blame Ancient Historian and B-movie aficionado Professor Darel Engen for the idea behind this article. It is his fault and all hate mail should be addressed to him. My three beautiful, brilliant, little boys will probably not find it funny, nor will all the wonderful men I know who bear no similarity to this profile. I'm really sorry in advance. Please forgive me. I love you all. No, really.
Have you ever noticed all the beautiful, intelligent, successful women paired up with, for lack of a better description, meat-heads, clods, and derelicts? Seriously, how many well-employed, well-educated women do you know that either can't find anyone worth bothering with, or simply end up sticking with an adorable, but slightly slow-witted, go-nowhere-fast, underemployed, X-box loving, couch-potato because "at least he loves me?" And I'm not even talking about the enviable power suit-moms who get to disappear off to their jobs each day while low-powered dad stays home changing diapers or going to the park. (Which makes sense, since she makes more money, and dad is just a big kid anyway.)
Women put a ridiculous amount of effort into looking their best, remembering anniversaries, giving thoughtful tokens of appreciation, and agonizing over what men really mean when they say and do less than thoughtful things. Even though women know, in their hearts, that men are just simply less... thoughtful. I mean, its pretty clear to any mom who has ever volunteered in their kid's kindergarten class, gone on a preschool field-trip, or simply graduated, that girls are better outfitted for modern-day success. Sitting at a desk for hours? Check. Listening to multi-step instructions? Check. Planning ahead and prioritizing? Check. Political maneuvering? Definitely big check. On average, girls are more successful at these tasks. Boys underperform in every grade and subject, and according to Maureen O'Dowd, "they are medicated, disciplined, suspended, and expelled far more often than girls are."
The performance gap shows up in adult society as well. (Yeah, I'm just going to wave aside the facts that we are underrepresented at the top of just about everything, Hilary lost this time, and we are radically underpaid). For every two men who graduate from college, three women get their degree. There are just as many women as men in the work force, contributing about 45% of a family’s income, on average. Three-quarters of those who lost their jobs in the Great Mancession were, you guessed it, men; many of them victims of that incredible sucking sound as manufacturing jobs went overseas. In 1950, 1 in 20 working-age men were unemployed; today that number is 1 in 5. It's a service enonomy now, favoring “social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus.” In short, women's work.
Genetically, it turns out that women are more complex than men, who really are the simple creatures they appear to be. Some three hundred genes on the second X chromosome (missing entirely in men) are active. We can hazard some guesses at what those genes might do, but leaving the toilet seat up is probably not one of them.
The Y-chromosome is “a microscopic metaphor of those who bear it, for it is ... decayed, redundant and parasitic,” says Steve Jones, geneticist and author of Y: The Descent of Men. But without it, the secret sauce that stews an unborn boy 'in a bath of masculinity' would not occur, and he would stay female. As Jones says, "biology reveals every man's battle to escape the woman within." Males really are the weaker sex, a delicate and fragile version of their high-endurance female counterparts. Extra testosterone makes men shorter-lived, with higher rates of mortality, disease, and suicide. And, they are three times more likely to be struck by lightning!Shriveled and decrepit, the Y chromosome mirrors post-modern manhood (surrounded by a bong, remote, and a litter of old pizza boxes)? Maleness itself originated as a parasitic strategy, says Jones, as certain microbes forced others to replicate their genes for them. Just like the flu... And the microscopic Y (yes, I'm afraid size does matter) continues it's inexorable decline. It is degenerating so quickly that men face "inevitable eventual extinction," with nearly all of them completely sterile in about 125,000 years. The chromosome itself will blink out of existence in a few million years. Any genes that are actually important (like spider-killing, jar-opening, and the ability to move large, heavy objects) will probably transfer to one of the other chromosomes, much like any other bit of viral DNA. With the Y chromosome but a crumbling shadow of its once-mighty self, "men are wilting away," says Jones. We can imagine a world without men, where women are in charge, and men just there for entertainment. This sounds like the premise for a cool 1960's B-movie or an old episode of StarTrek: a distant future when men evolve into little more than wormlike parasites on their female hosts. And then, just as now, the women will tolerate them because they want kids (or William Shatner) so, so badly.
This is, in fact, not so different from what happens in many species:
- Daphnia water fleas are all female until conditions are bad. Then they start making males, just to jumble up the DNA a little for some new combinations to try out. Until then, no need!
- The black widow is famous for eating the hapless male after mating with him. She has to build her strength up, you know.
- The praying mantis female often snacks on the male's head DURING copulation, which doesn't slow him down in the least. Just proves that his head was never really necessary anyway.
- The male nematode worm lives his entire adult life in the reproductive tract of his female host. Enough said.
- The honeybee drone gets by on one set of chromosomes, and has only one purpose; to fly up, mate, fatally explode his body, and fall down to earth, dead. Like Icarus flying too close to the sun...
- My personal favorite is the abyssal "sea devil" angler fish. Chance mating opportunities are rare in the millions of cubic miles of pitch black, deep ocean. So, when a tiny male does meet a female, he bites into her flesh and literally fuses with her body, living off her nutrients and oxygen. With no need for organs, his body degenerates into essentially a pair of sperm-producing testicles. The female becomes a functional hermaphrodite, with multiple tiny male parasites attached to her. She can have sex any time or place, with as many males as she wants, while the eggs and sperm remain genetically distinct.
So maybe men will become soft, legless couch potatoes, and finally devolve into blood-sucking leeches? Added bonus, they suck our blood, making us skinnier? (Or just our wallets) Personally, I don't find this scenario the least bit enticing (except for the skinnier part). But Jones assures us that "plenty of creatures don't bother with sex at all. Sea anemones just cut themselves in half indefinitely and make copies again and again and again," while other species pursue hermaphroditism. If I have to choose between becoming asexual or a hermaphrodite, I'm definitely going for the latter. Such a smorgasbord of options for the women of the future to choose from! Like:
- Sequential hermaphroditism, in which an individual is born as one sex, but later changes into the opposite sex. This is common in teleost fish and some jellyfish, many gastropods, and some flowering plants. While some sequential hermaphrodites can change sex multiple times, most can only change sex once. So choose wisely.
- Bidirectional sex changing, where an organism has both female and male gonads, and becomes either sex as needed. Lythrypnus dalli, a fish of the coral reef, changes sex based on social status. If it encounters an individual with subordinate behavior, it becomes male. If the other fish expresses dominant behavior, it becomes female. Top or bottom?
- Simultaneous hermaphrodism, in which an individual has fully functional male and female sexual organs at the same time. Banana slugs, for instance, prefer to mate with a partner, but will self-fertilize in a pinch. This is made possible by the fact that the male sexual organ is the largest in relation to its total body length of any land creature. (Because it can, that's why)! Mates often get stuck together because of this anatomical anomaly. If her best efforts to get free are in vain, the acting female simply chews off the acting male's organ, and these castrati slime off for a still-fulfilling life of mating as females. Or how about Hamlet fish? They do not self-fertilize, but instead, a pair takes turns acting as the male and female through multiple matings over the course of several nights. (Roleplay?) What about the unassuming earthworm? Two-way subterranean sexual reproduction takes place on warm, damp nights, whenever two worms meet, each exchanging both male and female gametes.
I'm sure there are many men (like all of them) who would like to stick around and watch, or even participate in these potential human mating scenarios (except maybe having their penis chewed off). But too bad! You've been made redundant, and women can take it from here.
Jones refers to hermaphroditism as "sex with somebody you really love." Yourself. So, maybe women won't miss men too much. But then again, might not "the healing power of lust" make us keep them around, pleads Jones? After all, he whines, don't "people carry on having sex because it's fun?" Sure, but my girlfriend of the future fulfills all my needs and remembers our anniversary.
Thanks to the following sources for inspiration and unverified-by-me facts:
- "Male Free Zone," Maureen Dowd, Sydney Morning Herald, Jan. 22, 2006. The End of Men, And the Rise of Women, Hanna Rosin. 2012. "The End of Men" Book Review, Jennifer Homans, NY Times, Sept. 13, 2012. Y: The Descent of Men, Steve Jones, 2005. Wikipedia: Hermaphrodite
Monday, January 21, 2013
The Nature of Business: Guest Blogger Giles Hutchins
I am privileged to have Giles Hutchins, the author of The Nature of Business and the director of UK consulting firm Biomimicry for Creative Innovation, as my guest blogger today! Giles has over 15 years of business transformation experience and is working on a BBC/Open University documentary about the ways nature can inspire businesses to become more sustainable and resilient. He regularly lectures at conferences and business schools, and blogs at www.thenatureofbusiness.org. For more information about Giles' excellent and highly acclaimed book, please view his two minute video clip.
Building A Bridge Between Business and Nature
The ecological, social and economic crisis now upon us is as much a crisis of spirit as it is a crisis of resources. Indeed, part of the crisis of spirit is because modern society and industry tends to perceive the Earth as a set of resources, and values it as such. What scope is there for this paradigm to change in order to perceive the Earth as an animate, living system in which humans play a constructive, not destructive, part? In order to live differently... we must think differently, and this relates to the way that we see ourselves in the world.
Just as our need to transform business is now becoming apparent, so is our need to transform our engagement with and response to nature. In fact, our sensing and responding to nature holds much learning to help business transform. Understanding the patterns and principles of nature can provide insight into how best to future-proof business for the unpredictability ahead.
All organizations operate within a community – an environment of interconnections – likewise so too do the people within organizations. The age-old adage ‘no man is an island’ is the same for an organization. In fact, just like an ecosystem in nature, the more diverse the relationships and resources an organisation makes use of, the more resilient it becomes.
Organizations of the future are: collaborative, innovative, networking, emergent, dynamic organisations, more akin to living organisms. There are a plethora of nature’s insights that can be applied to business – all that is lacking is the ability to convert these insights into a business frame, for example:
The circular economy, industrial ecology, cradle-to-cradle, the learning organization and biomimicry all share a common foundation: they take inspiration from nature. Nature has been dealing with dynamic change and complexity for over 3.8bn years, and the more we re-connect with nature, the more we open ourselves up to the wisdom that lies all around us.
What is desperately lacking in today’s framing of sustainable business, and for that matter wider business transformation, is a language and engagement approach for business people to unlock nature’s wisdom and in so doing re-enchanting ourselves with nature - re-establishing our vital bond with our environment.
By framing experiences people have with nature, nurturing them with examples of business inspired by nature, seeding ideas of new ways of operating, we can catalyze the re-connection across the currently broken bridge of business and nature. The re-building of a bridge between business and nature calls on skills and expertise from multi-disciplines: biology, eco-psychology and business change, for instance. This fusion of skillsets, with the right vision and mission, can help equip local, national and global business people with the wherewithal they need to adapt, innovate, embrace change and engage in meaningful business transformation towards a sustainable future.
Building A Bridge Between Business and Nature
The ecological, social and economic crisis now upon us is as much a crisis of spirit as it is a crisis of resources. Indeed, part of the crisis of spirit is because modern society and industry tends to perceive the Earth as a set of resources, and values it as such. What scope is there for this paradigm to change in order to perceive the Earth as an animate, living system in which humans play a constructive, not destructive, part? In order to live differently... we must think differently, and this relates to the way that we see ourselves in the world.
Just as our need to transform business is now becoming apparent, so is our need to transform our engagement with and response to nature. In fact, our sensing and responding to nature holds much learning to help business transform. Understanding the patterns and principles of nature can provide insight into how best to future-proof business for the unpredictability ahead.
All organizations operate within a community – an environment of interconnections – likewise so too do the people within organizations. The age-old adage ‘no man is an island’ is the same for an organization. In fact, just like an ecosystem in nature, the more diverse the relationships and resources an organisation makes use of, the more resilient it becomes.
Organizations of the future are: collaborative, innovative, networking, emergent, dynamic organisations, more akin to living organisms. There are a plethora of nature’s insights that can be applied to business – all that is lacking is the ability to convert these insights into a business frame, for example:
- Mycelium networks provide insight for a responsive and adaptive organization
- Nature (and business) is emergent and interconnected, not predictable and linear
- Nature does not do waste. Waste of one is food for another.
- Natural ecosystems develop niches where each aspect of the material throughput is used.
The circular economy, industrial ecology, cradle-to-cradle, the learning organization and biomimicry all share a common foundation: they take inspiration from nature. Nature has been dealing with dynamic change and complexity for over 3.8bn years, and the more we re-connect with nature, the more we open ourselves up to the wisdom that lies all around us.
What is desperately lacking in today’s framing of sustainable business, and for that matter wider business transformation, is a language and engagement approach for business people to unlock nature’s wisdom and in so doing re-enchanting ourselves with nature - re-establishing our vital bond with our environment.
By framing experiences people have with nature, nurturing them with examples of business inspired by nature, seeding ideas of new ways of operating, we can catalyze the re-connection across the currently broken bridge of business and nature. The re-building of a bridge between business and nature calls on skills and expertise from multi-disciplines: biology, eco-psychology and business change, for instance. This fusion of skillsets, with the right vision and mission, can help equip local, national and global business people with the wherewithal they need to adapt, innovate, embrace change and engage in meaningful business transformation towards a sustainable future.
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