Stand Alone | Quebec City, Quebec, Canada | Sep 2008

It can be hard to stand alone. In a sea of loose ties, with more and more things pulling us to be open, to connect, to find “friends” and “comparable” people, it can be harder and harder to define yourself, to voice a different opinion, to pursue a different path, to be unique. The threat is no longer mass conformity but increasing cultural segmentation; we face the conformity of the niches, the commodization of uniqueness, incrementalism, the defined “alternate route”, the shallow, narrow thinking of the meme.

The sea of loose ties may not help us find deep bonds, but it can surely help us find broad, loose affiliations.

Yet at the same time, the divergent opinion can have a larger, broader and deeper impact, spreading ideas across a wider net of connections, finding strong viewpoints or interests, if we can find a way to cross-pollinate and bridge our cultural chasms. Open your mind to ideas outside your niche, consider lessons from other areas, loosen your processes to random events, maximise the power of the undirected, find the “unknown unknown”, expect the “black swan”, consider your blindspots: they are opportunities, not threats.

An oddity: at the near opposite end of the spectrum is the scientific theory of management known as “Taylorism”; not exactly the kind of “Taylorisms” I tend to espouse.