The New World of Power is Humbling – and Abundant

Problem:
In a world of free ideas, why and how are we still needed?

Mastering the Problem:
Your unique reason of being today, and your "unique edge", is in the human element. Skills and technology and ideas - once the staple of competitive edge [a term outdated in a world of crazy collaborations] - come cheap(r). To just about anyone. For example, if we thought having a social network was still the latest path to billionaire glory, we haven’t yet known Ning.

The ability of a person to make unique connections, and sustain them through service is a truly human endowment. We are gifted with that capability, and a “web” that needs us. And there is work enough for everybody – the number of problems/opportunities is never exhausted. The abundant mind sees the reason of being in in working to solve problems/ create and fill opportunities.

As long as we serve, we are needed. As long as we are needed, we don’t need worry about an edge. When we serve with more courage and passion, we develop more numerous and stronger ties - and so gain "interestingness".

Benefits:
Which place of work would you rather leave:

a. one that demands (more) work for as few benefits as possible from you?
b. one that makes it a mission to create a space where you can express your talent while working on a win-all business model? Such as the remarkable The Hub?

It's a contest between the demander (a) and the server (b). Your answer is the answer of any sane person - you like those who serve you. You will be liked by sane people if your serve, at a quality.

So the benefits: Costs of broken ties saved. Lesser time spent making new relations and creating trust. New ideas and partnerships brought in by passionate partners. A happier life, lesser partner turnover, consumers in love, healthy sleep and a glowing skin.

Also read: Google Made Ideas Free. So Where's My Edge?

Image credits: Paper Men, by Brokenarts

Google Made Ideas Free. So Where's My Edge?

Everybody knows it. From programmers finding code, to ex-lovers looking up dirt on jilters, to graduate students procuring thesis - Google has it all.

Google is the highway to 100-ideas-a-minute factories. So how on Google earth are we to have what is variably known as "competitive edge" or, in quaint business speak, "unique selling proposition"!?

In human speak, it means, to thousands of corporations and millions of free agents, "What worthwhile thing can I offer if ideas are free? When someone else has done it already? Or I look a fake doing it? Or someone can simply steal my idea?"

Over: the Edge?

I've been through this anxiety. It paralyzed me when undertaking a new enterprise. A mere curious googling of keywords of a "new" idea would reveal darn! I have arrived too late. And just as I can be "inspired" by those I Google - [no, honestly, I don't disrespect the concept, inspiration is a valid-legit thing] - well, so, anyone can also pick my idea and run with it. So what now?

Yet there is one answer. Like all things in life, the "answer" to this contemporary challenge is deviously simple.

You Are The Center of Your Web of Life - and There's Nothing Taking That Away!

This amateur sketch (excuse my MS Paint skills!) puts us as the center of the "elements" of our unique life - these elements being other people, organizations, resource, places... just about any "organism."

We are each thrown in a certain set of circumstances. These circumstances yield a singular "mix" for each one of us. From our own position, we will have the ability to connect to other elements.

This “lifeset” becomes a macro-organism that thrives on adaptability and change of its parts. It’s like any other living organism in that respect.

The key is to understand the golden principles of making this "web" work for us, which are:

1. What goes round, comes round.
2. Do to others as you would have them do to you... because of principle #1.
3. Integrity (thoughts, words, actions, message being one) and honesty reinforce the ties (the thin lines in the sketch) amongst the elements, and increase inter-reliance. You need other needs you need other needs you...
4. More ties = more power.
5. The connection is received by the other by way of SERVING them, not DEMANDING rights from them. One makes a connection by GIVING, not asking or taking. This web is created by Human Duties & Service, not Human Rights.
   

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