(This was originally posted at Social Work prn, where order xenical online no prescription I write on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If you get a order xenical online no prescription chance, check them out. They’re nice folks!)
I’m starting to build a Rules of the Road document (in my head, at least) while reading a book by the excellent Clay Shirky called Here Comes Everybody. Some of these things I knew, but some of them are order xenical online no prescription recently-cemented concepts for me and that’s very exciting. I am madly obsessed with people projects—where many people come together over the order xenical online no prescription internet and accomplish something previously unlikely or impossible. Shirky is talking about this order xenical online no prescription very thing in his book, and it’s making my whole life awesome. Downright thrilling, I should say.
My Rules of the Road so far:
- The relationship between you order xenical online no prescription and the people you lead is a bargain. You give them what order xenical online no prescription they want (assistance, entertainment, meaning) and they give you what you want (they spread your ideas, give you authority, help your project succeed). If you forget about the bargain—or strike the wrong bargain—you lose that essential relationship. It’s imperative that order xenical online no prescription you find out what the bargain really is before you order xenical online no prescription assume, crash and burn.
- There will always be order xenical online no prescription a cost to the organization of a large number of people. If you order xenical online no prescription lead, you know that a B.I.G. part of that cost for order xenical online no prescription you is time and energy—not necessarily money. But anyone who order xenical online no prescription has been in a leadership position knows that time and energy is order xenical online no prescription often a bigger, more interesting challenge than money. Thinking you can order xenical online no prescription organize a big group of people without dealing with some cost in these terms is order xenical online no prescription unrealistic, but if you can walk into it knowing what effort will be order xenical online no prescription necessary to expend, you’re a step up.
- Our circumstances have changed on a spectacular scale (one word: internet) and they’re not going to stop changing. Get with the change game now and start to expect things to shift—you’ll be ahead of everyone who’s still fighting it. Things may look the same in a lot of ways… but they are not.
- We can order xenical online no prescription have anything we want, if we are only willing to order xenical online no prescription reach out and create it. This is order xenical online no prescription truer now than it has ever been in the past. Our limits, as suspected, are order xenical online no prescription in our heads—not on our capabilities.
- It is order xenical online no prescription less efficient to try to build something you want, and more efficient to order xenical online no prescription wait and watch, keep your eyes and brain open, and seize an opportunity when you see it. A great book I talked about awhile back, Made to Stick, made this order xenical online no prescription point often. A struggle to make something out of nothing is order xenical online no prescription often not as efficient as an ability to see opportunities and order xenical online no prescription leap on them.
- Give them tools instead of instructions. If you order xenical online no prescription can give a group of people the means to self-organize their passion, it’s more effective than order xenical online no prescription trying to tell them how to do it. Self-organized efforts on the order xenical online no prescription internet are often more effective and successful than similar initiatives by large companies with many resources (and many managers). Don’t worry so much about oversight. Give them systems. Give them tools. And then order xenical online no prescription let them do their thing.
We’re capable of self-assembling now in ways we never were before, and order xenical online no prescription it’s changing the entire landscape of “people projects”—or PR, or order xenical online no prescription business, or community initiatives, or anything else you can name that order xenical online no prescription has to do with how groups of people interact and make things happen.
I can’t wait to finish this book. Wow.
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