About The Author

ABOUT THE AUTHOR CREDO I believe human civilization is in its last century. While we have a responsibility to do the best we can to make the world a better place while we're here, and to help our descendants cope with the mess we are leaving them, it is really too late for the world to be 'saved'. I continue to hope that governments and corporations can be persuaded to behave in a more altruistic and enlightened manner -- e.g. working towards Sustainability in a Generation. But whether they can or not, I think the more important political, social and economic activities of the next half-century will be grassroots, bottom-up actions: The creation of sustainable intentional communities, sustainable natural enterprises, and peer-to-peer collaborative information and education networks about how to live sustainably. We will in effect be creating new, self-managed political, social and economic systems to replace the completely dysfunctional hierarchical systems that we currently live under. This is consistent with Bucky Fuller's advice: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." I believe in creating these new bottom-up political, social and economic systems despite the fact that I think it is too late to save the world from the old ones. At best, what we will accomplish is to have created some 'working models' that will be useful by post-civilization society. That's not much, but it's better than doing what we're doing now, or doing nothing at all. ABOUT THIS BLOG This weblog is a journal of my search to find better ways to live, and make a living, and a better understanding of how the world really works. It has six converging, overlapping categories of essays, articles, synopses and stories: Preparing for civilization's end: Articles about sustainable living, how our civilization emerged and why it is no longer viable, what we can learn from nature and from history, building community, activism, alternative economies, animal sentience and how to prepare ourselves, and our children and grandchildren, for civilization's twilight and aftermath. Working smarter in the meantime: Articles about sustainable business and how to find meaningful work in a world where most work is not. And some useful ideas and tools from my own business experience to make you more innovative, better at business research, more effective at getting things done (and done well), more collaborative, more appreciative of complexity, and more aware of what is really going on and what is needed in the evolving economy. Using weblogs and technology: Why blogs and other social networking and collaborative learning tools are so important in a networked non-hierarchical society, and how to use them more effectively. Understanding ourselves: Our culture, what drives us to do what we do, feel what we feel and be what we are, and what we can learn from science, the arts, holistic approaches to health, great writing, and stories. How the world really works: What the political and economic news really means, the news you don't hear, how the political and economic systems really work and why they're so dysfunctional, and the role that the media, the education system and our frames of reference play in how we understand the world. Stories: My short stories, poetry, memoirs and other fiction writings that try to imagine what is possible, and try to explain things that essays cannot, in ways that essays cannot. MY DISTINCTIVE COMPETENCIES (IN CASE YOU WANT TO HIRE ME) My genius -- what I do uniquely well, and love doing -- is imagining possibilities. If you have a set of intractable business and/or social problems, I can draw on 30+ years of business experience, an extraordinary breadth of knowledge, an extremely creative yet pragmatic mind, exceptional research and collaborative skill, and a knack for taking an idea or solution from one discipline and seeing how it could apply in an entirely different one, and come up with ideas, solutions and approaches that will address these problems, better than anyone else can do this. And then I can provide you with processes and tools and coaching that will show you and your co-workers how to make this continuous innovation process "part of the way we do things around here". My experience and understanding of complexity science and systems thinking have also taught me what (including most 'conventional wisdom') doesn't work, and why, so I can help you avoid the mistakes all your competitors have made and are still making. I'm up on the latest business techniques and knowledge, from customer anthropology to tapping the 'Wisdom of Crowds'. I'm an expert on: Knowledge management (e.g. personal productivity improvement, just-in-time knowledge canvassing, knowledge harvesting, personal content management, the cost of not knowing, adding meaning to information), business innovation, all aspects of entrepreneurship (e.g. researching unmet needs, the innovation process, finding partners and allies, organic financing, viral marketing, building networks, strategic improvisation), social networking, information architecture, the virtual workplace, complexity management, cultural anthropology, business valuation, business sustainability, collaboration strategies, the future of business, the new economy, capturing employee and customer intelligence, differentiation strategies, and personal effectiveness coaching. I've written, lectured and presented at conferences on most of these subjects. You can find many of my writings on these subjects in the business category of this blog. E-mail me for more information on my competencies, experience and credentials. ABOUT ME: MY STORY SO FAR 1951-1968 I had a very happy early childhood -- a middle-class family in a middle-class neighbourhood, lots of friends, and I was a voracious reader with a good imagination. But like many children, I found school increasingly traumatic. I was far too sensitive and trusting for my own good, and very socially naive. I had none of the things that were (and are) required for popularity in middle school -- I was short, skinny, uncoordinated (I couldn't, and still can't, swim or dance), and by adolescence I needed glasses and had developed severe acne. So I withdrew socially until my last year of high school. 1969-1970 In my final year of high school, our school allowed students who maintained a 75% average in tests (that was not easy to do in those days) to skip classes and learn in 'independent study' with other students in the program. We took over a small area in the school lunchroom, and when Spring came we moved out to the nearby park, tutoring each other, going on self-organized field trips, writing poetry and discussing the meaning of life. We won most of the province-wide final examination scholarships that year. It was a transformative time for me. My average grade went from 67% to 96%. I discovered reading, and learned that I loved to write. With a lot of practice and the patience of my independent study colleagues, I became competent enough at it to get published in the school literary journal, and in the process developed a modicum of social graces. I became active in politics as an environmental activist. I fell in love with the smartest girl in the school. I've written about this relationship, which, mostly due to my emotional immaturity, did not last. I was devastated. The happiest and most fulfilling year of my life would give way to its darkest period. 1971-1979 My 20s began with several years of horrific depression. After that, I spent the remainder of the decade in a large number of short, superficial, mostly fun and healing polyamorous relationships, some of them simultaneous, but sank back again into depression as the decade ended. 1980-1999 I was rescued in 1980 by the woman who was later to become my wife. With her and her two children, I found meaning, joy and stability in a monogamous family relationship. At this time I was four years into my career with a major international professional services firm, working mostly with entrepreneurs and learning about all aspects of small business. For the next two decades I was preoccupied with making my family life and my work life a success, and received enormous satisfaction from both. We bought a large but energy-efficient home on a four acre lot in a lovely, quiet community next to a conservation area. And then, as I became an "empty-nester", the depression returned. I had been transferred from working with my beloved entrepreneurs to an executive position as Chief Knowledge Officer, and was struggling with the company's reticence to invest in social networking tools and practices ("moving from collection to connection"), which I thought were (and still feel are) the most important aspects of "knowledge management". 2000-2005 I remember little of the first years of the new century. Most of the time I was deeply depressed, but this was punctuated by brief spurts of euphoria as I rediscovered the joys of writing, renewed my interest in environmentalism, and began to try to understand the source of my unbearable grief for Gaia. I began blogging in February, 2003, largely to explore the potential application of social software in business, but kept it up as an outlet for my writing and as a useful way for me to "think out loud". The following year I parted company with my employer of 27 years (they had decided to cease serving small enterprises), embarked on an innovation consulting career, and began writing a book about sustainable entrepreneurship based on what I'd learned from my clients. 2006-2008 This new career was neither satisfying nor successful, and the stress over this was spilling over into my family life. In 2006 I received some ghastly financial news, and this precipitated a debilitating bout of severe ulcerative colitis. On doctors' advice I said farewell to my consulting partner, quit working entirely, changed my diet, and began an exercise regimen I've followed ever since. Thanks largely to the reputation I had established through the blog, I landed two successive low-stress jobs that allowed me to do meaningful work again, and found a publisher for my book. At the end of 2007, the rapid changes in my life continued, as my wife and I mutually (and very amicably) agreed to separate (as some readers have guessed, my stories Rehearsal and Sorrow are largely autobiographical), and our house went on the market soon after (terrible timing: it's still on the market). But 2007 and 2008 were the healthiest and happiest years of my life, and in 2008 I returned to polyamory, fell in love twice (neither woman lives in Canada or in my time zone, and long-distance romance can be trying, but it's worth it), and dreamed of finding or establishing an intentional poly community (ideally someplace warm). As I write this in January, 2009, this year looks like another year of enormous change: Who will I love, who will I be, where will I live, and what will I be doing when this year ends? My earlier version of this bio was written as an obituary looking back on my life with intention and a sense of destiny. Now I'm not so sure. Stay tuned.

© Copyright 2009 Dave Pollard. Last update: 2/5/09; 7:18:04 AM.