Innoveering Nebraska

My bookclub recently read The Lady and the Panda by Vicki Constantine Croke.  It’s a biography of Ruth Harkness and subtitled: The true adventures of the first American explorer to bring back China’s most exotic animal.  It’s a great read for so many reasons: there’s adventure, intrigue, romance, science and I even learned some Chinese history.   It’s also well written, although some of the transitions feel abrupt.

Most importantly though, it gives you a sense of what it was like to launch an exploration into the unknown when the world still had blank spaces on its maps.  And guess what, it didn’t seem all that different than launching a new business today.  There’s the idea (let’s bring a panda out of China!) the insight  (Harkin’s decision to aim for a baby panda which would be easier to feed and transport), the audaciousness of the endeavor (a 1930′s New York dress designer venturing into the wilds of China), putting together a team, the money concerns (Harkness did the impossible twice on a shoestring budget), the intrigue with competitors, the camraderie, the doubt, the excitement, the fear, the joy of success and the continual quest to repeat the experience.    

What I’m saying is that I believe entrepreneurs are the adventurers of the twenty first century.  Yes, I know you thought it was the extreme sport people or the astro/cosmonauts or maybe even the reality tv exhibitionists.  But really it’s the entrepreneurs.  They’re pushing back the boundaries of the known and unknown every day in ways big and small.  They’re risking it all on a gut feeling, careful research and tons of hard work.  They’re exploring new ideas and business models.  Entrepreneurs expand our world today, just like the explorers of yesterday.

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My friend Mary Kay and I have been walking at the local zoo (the Henry Doorly Zoo) every Sunday.  Lately it’s been cooler and we’ve been visiting the butterfly pavilion to warm up.  I’ve enjoyed it immensely.  The multitude of beautiful, varied, delicate, fluttering butterflies remind me greatly of entrepreneurial dreams.  Think about it, they’re both unique, erratic, ephemeral and yet hardier than they seem.   

Three weeks ago we saw a terrible site at the exit of the pavilion.  A boy crushed the body of a beautiful butterfly when his parents told him he couldn’t take it with him.   They seemed ashamed of his behavior, but didn’t reprimand him as he threw the dying butterfly down on the path where it fluttered its wings a bit before lying still. 

This disturbing image has stuck with me the last few weeks, popping into my head at unexpected moments.  It’s a powerful image and reminds me greatly of how alarmingly common it is for childish people to squash other people’s entrepreneurial dreams like that little boy crushed the butterfly.  It’s also common for the people around them to not like what they’re doing, but to not call them on their behavior. 

The moral of the tale?  The next time you see someone squashing someone else’s dream, speak up.  And if you’re ever tempted to squash a dream yourself, please pause and remember that little boy and the butterfly.  Is it really your place to kill that particular butterfly dream?

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P.S. The Henry Doorly Zoo is one of the many reasons I love living in Nebraska.

October 28, 2010 was the 124th birthday of the Statue of Liberty

Matt Ridley (author of The Rational Optimist), said it best when he was interviewed on the PBS Newshour    http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec10/recession_08-19.html

For me that [The Statue of Liberty] symbolizes everything  that’s been incredible about this country [USA] in particular and the world in general for 50,000 years.  Which is that, when we’ve let people do what they want, when we’ve let them get on with their lives socially, politically, economically – then prosperity just kind of happens.  People get better off. 

Celebrate Lady Liberty’s birthday and all the lovely rights, freedoms and opportunities she represents. 

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