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There is a new field called biomimicry, just over two decades old, where nature is used to solve problems in the world. This may sound odd to you, but George de Mestral invented Velcro after burrs stuck to his jacket, and when examined them he recognized the potential for a fastener. 

Today, let’s take a look at the palm tree. I will include some of the characteristics of a palm tree and use them (add some of your own) to associate with a pressing problem that you are having, to see if you can open a new avenue of thought to aid with creative problem solving.

When you think of a palm tree what immediately comes to mind?

• Tall and majestic
• Towering beauty
• Slender
• Graceful
• Evergreen
• Provides shade
• Withstands drought
• Stands strong even in the most inclement weather

Facts About, and Characteristics of, Palm Trees

• Evergreen, mostly tropical plant in the family Palmae (also known as Arecaceae).
• 202 currently known genera with over 2,600 species of palms.
• First appeared in the fossil record around 80 million years ago.
• Growing from three to 100 feet.
• Strong Foundation: Before it begins to sprout upwards, it attains its maximum girth beneath the ground first. That is, it grows deep first.
• Grow best in moist soil to dry, desert conditions – rainforests to deserts.
• Crowned by a mass of branches from 40 to 80 in number, and on these the fruit grows.
• Fan shaped (palmate) or feather shaped (pinnate) compound leaves arranged at the top of an un-branched stem. The leaves of palms are found in an equal distance apart on the spine of the branch.
• Flexible: The tree bends and sways back and forth but does not break.
• The coconut tree is a type of palm tree.

If you assigned the characteristics of a palm tree to your problem, how would you solve it? For instance, consolidation is taking place in many industries, so perhaps you are no longer earning enough income. Like a palm tree, you have strong roots since you have built a strong Foundation of knowledge. Now could be the perfect time to sprout upwards, and like the palm leaves, which spread outwards, you could move into adjacent industries, or provide complementary products and services.

Further Action

Spend some time exploring http://www.AskNature.org.  Nature may be the solution to your most pressing problems. I have included photos of palm trees that I took while on vacation in Barbados a few years ago. Take a look at the pictures, you may notice other characteristics that stimulate problem solving.

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

I have never given museum curation much thought, and I first learned about online curation in the fall of 2010 from Social Media Examiner in their post How to Grow a Following With Other People’s Popular Content. However, during Social Media Week Toronto, I attended an excellent session titled Curation vs. Curation, where the panel compared curation in the context of museums with curation online.

The big question is, are online “curators” true Curators?

According to Dictionary.com, curator [cu•ra•tor - kyoo-rey-ter] means “the person in charge of a museum, art collection.” Museum curators are also responsible for choosing and acquiring the pieces displayed in the museum, as well as deciding how the pieces will be displayed.

Content curators on the other hand, “review and filter articles and blog posts from across the web.” At the Social Media Week Toronto session, the panel emphasized that for true curation to take place online, the curator has to add their insights to the information that they have reviewed and filtered. Mark Farmer, Website Redesign Manager, Royal Ontario Museum one of the panelist remarked, “Curation is the value you bring to a set of information.” Having a list of links to excellent content is not true curation, you have to add your thoughts and reactions to the content that you have reviewed and filtered.

I found this distinction quite helpful in clarifying who is and who isn’t a curator. This is another instance where one idea is transported from one industry and used in another creating innovation. What idea can you transport from another industry to innovate the way in which you perform your work?

In the session, they also talked about crediting the source of the original information. You can easily do so by linking to the original source. I use the Zemanta and Scribe SEO plugins to enhance my blog posts, and I tend to stick with photos in the public domain and those I have taken myself. When using YouTube videos, at the end of the post, I usually have a link back to the person who uploaded the video to YouTube. I am slowly going through my old posts to ensure that I give proper credit.

In How to Grow a Following With Other People’s Popular Content, they mention Cadmus, PostRank, and Yahoo Pipes as great content creation tools. In addition to reading many blogs to keep informed, I use Google Alerts, and SmartBriefs, to learn about really great content. I have tried to add value to blog posts and create a multimedia experience by adding relevant videos, when appropriate, as well as further reading. Now that I know more about “true” content curation, I have to pay more attention to how and where I place the additional content such as the video, so that it brings maximum value to the blog post.

Where you can find content curation tools

Best Free Content Curation Tools 2012

30+ Cool Content Curation Tools for Personal & Professional Use

Content Curation Tools for B2B Marketing

The Best Tools for Content Curation 

Can you use content curation in your work? How about if you curated content that senior level executives in your organization would appreciate and add your thoughts before you forwarded them?

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

I get contacted all the time by people asking if they can write guests posts for The Invisible Mentor Blog, but I say no, not because I do not want to introduce new thought to my readers, but because what they are pitching is inappropriate. You can tell that they do not even know what kind of information is on the blog, and they do not care, all they care about is pushing their content.

But a few weeks ago, Craig Murray asked if I would publish an infographic guest blog post, and you could tell that he had actually gone to the blog and read what was there. We started the dialog, and he produced a mentoring infographic. I suggested a minor change and he made it, no questions asked.

When you approach someone for help, do you make sure that they are the appropriate person? Do you take the time to do your homework? If they are the right person to approach, are you ready to have the conversation? And are you flexible enough to be open to suggestions?

Here is Craig Murray’s (http://www.phoenix-training.co.uk) guest post. I thought it was an interesting infographic on mentoring.

Mentoring at a Glance

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Related articles

• Create Your Board of Mentors – January is National Mentoring Month (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Adventures in Learning: DIY Mentoring Program, Episode Two (theinvisiblementor.com)

How does a phenomenon get started? You’ve all heard the phrase six degrees of separation, which is the idea that any two people in the world can be connected through six steps or less, through a chain of intermediaries.

Image via Wikipedia

But where did the idea of six degrees of separation come from?

What you may not know, or have ever heard of is Chain-Links, which is a short story written in 1929 by Frigyes Karinthy. Frigyes Karinthy (June 25, 1887 – August 29, 1938), a Hungarian author, playwright, poet, journalist, and translator, was the first proponent of six degrees of separation. Here is an excerpt from the story:

Image via Wikipedia

“…One of us suggested performing the following experiment to prove that the population of the Earth is closer together than they have ever been before. We should select any person from the 1.5 billion inhabitants of the Earth – anyone, anywhere at all… He bet us that, using no more than five individuals, one of whom is a personal acquaintance, he could contact the select individual using nothing except the network of personal acquaintances…Our friend was absolutely correct: nobody from the group needed more than five links in the chain to reach, just by using the method of your acquaintance, any inhabitant of our planet.”

The idea of six degree of separation was popularized decades later when John Guare wrote a play about it. The play was later released as a film. Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is a spin off from the concept, where any actor can be linked to Kevin Bacon through no more that six connections. According to Wikipedia, “This idea [six degrees of separation] both directly and indirectly influenced a great deal of early thought on social networks.” Kevin Bacon also started SixDegrees.org.

So the big questions are:

1. Who is in your network?
2. Do you take the time to work on building your relationships?
3. Can you be connected to the people you need to be connected to through six degrees of separation or less?
4. Where is your Chain-Links? Where will you find that one big idea that will spread like wild fire?
5. Where do your great ideas come from?

You can find a copy of the short story Chain-Links in The Structure and Dynamics of Networks By Mark E. J. Newman, Albert-László Barabási, Duncan J. Watts. I read the short story at Google Books, but you have to read it online, no printing or downloading unless you purchases a copy.

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon: Inside the Game

If you cannot view this YouTube video, please click here.

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Video Credit: Uploaded by DaveOfTheRose on Jan 9, 2010

For National Mentoring Month, consider creating your Personal Board of Mentors. Having one mentor is seldom ever enough these days, because no one person can assist you with all your mentoring needs. It is your responsibility to ensure that all your needs are taken care of. Your Personal Board of Mentors is similar to an organization’s Board of Directors, except in this instance, you are the organization. You don’t have to meet with all the members on your Board of Mentors like an organization’s board would, but you do have to be in contact with them.

Before you choose the members of your personal board, you have to first assess your needs based on where you’d like to end up in life. Whatever you do should be a part of your life plan and subsequently take you closer to achieving your big goals.

Mentoring Needs Assessment

1. What are your vision, mission and purpose in life?
2. In the next three years, where would you like to be in your personal and professional life? Are you committed to achieving your personal and professional goals listed above?
3. Think about your professional goals, what gaps exist between where you are now, to where you would like to be in the next three years?
4. What actions do you have to take to fill those gaps?
5. Who are the experts that you can learn from, and what are their areas of expertise?
6. Of the experts that you identified, which ones do you respect and are respected by others?
7. Why do you need a mentor? What can a mentor help you with?
8. If trusted friends could introduce you to five people who would be ideal mentors for you, who would you choose?
9. Would your ideal mentors be similar to the experts you identified above?
10. Could your ideal mentors assist you with achieving your identified goals, and close the gap you identified above.

After you have answered the questions above, you are in a better position to find the appropriate persons to assist you in filling those gaps. There are also specific types of people who you should have on your Personal Board of Mentors.

• Connector: A well-respected person in the community who has influence, authority and access to an extensive network of people.
• Industry Expert: Someone who has already traveled the path that you are now on, and is willing to share her experiences, both good and bad with you.
• The Listener: Someone who you can call when you are having a down day, who will allow you to rant for a while, to get things off your “chest,” so that you can focus on your next steps.
• Tough Lover: An objective person who is willing to tell you like it is, holding you accountable to keep your promises and remain on track to achieve your goals.
• Sponsor: A senior level person in your organization who will open doors for you. But the catch is that you have to make yourself memorable so that he will choose you. Typically you choose your mentors, but sponsors choose you. An example of how to make yourself memorable is to take on difficult projects that others do not want, then do them successfully.
• And one other person who will also help you to achieve your goals based on the needs you identified above.

All the people on your Board should care about your success, and be willing to accept a quick call from you. Be very honest and clear with the members of your Board, let them know exactly what you require from them, and make it very easy for them to help you. Mentoring is about give and take, so find ways to give back to your mentors, and always let them know how much you appreciate what they are doing for you.

When you have decided who you would like to be on your Board, ask them if they would be willing to mentor you, and explain what’s required. It goes without saying that you should take some time to get to know them first before asking for a favour. And it is even better if there is someone who could provide an introduction. With social media, this is a lot easier to do today than it was five short years ago.

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Related Posts

• Adventures in Learning: DIY Mentoring Program
• Adventures in Learning: DIY Mentoring Program, Episode Two
• Adventures in Learning: DIY Mentoring Program, Episode Three
• Five People You Need On Your Personal Board of Directors
• Forget Mentors: Employ a Personal Board of Directors
• Looking Out for Number One
• Create a Personal Board of Directors
• A Personal Board of Directors