image courtesy of slash___

Saturday I attended a workshop led by Pamela Slim (author of Escape from Cubicle Nation) and Jonathan Fields (author of Career Renegade) designed to help budding entrepreneurs step through the process of turning our passions into viable business models.

As Pam and Jonathan shared their hard-won expertise and helped us evaluate our ideas, I started think how new this was. Ten years ago, or even five, how many big selling authors would take an entire day to educate fledgling entrepreneurs and possible competitors? It’s not like they did this for free, of course—each of us paid a fee to be there—but still, the monetary rewards seemed modest for a whole day out of both of their lives.

Moreover, these two writers have a wide overlap in the audiences they serve. They are each others’ competition. And yet they chose to work together.

From a traditional business standpoint, this looks kind of crazy. But from the strange brew of internet accessibility, the critical-condition economy, and the gnawing questions many of us have about the value of a life dedicated to corporate service, a new way of doing business is emerging.

Instead of baffling, old-school org charts, this new economy—based on generosity, encouragement, and partnership—creates its own kind of hierarchy where the size and dedication of your market is directly proportional to the contribution you give them.

Thinking about all this, I was reminded of Cradle to Cradle and its explanation of economics from the point of view of a cherry tree.

Consider the cherry tree: thousands of blossoms create fruit for birds, humans, and other animals, in order that one pit might eventually fall to the ground, take root, and grow. Who would look at the ground littered with cherry blossoms and complain, “How inefficient and wasteful!” The tree makes copious blossoms and fruit without depleting its environment. Once they fall on the ground, their materials decompose and break down into nutrients that nourish microorganisms, insects, plants, animals, and soil. Although the tree actually makes more of its “product” than it needs for its own success as an ecosystem, this abundance has evolved (through millions of years of success and failure or, in business terms, R&D), to serve rich and varied purposes. In fact, the tree’s fecundity nourishes just about everything around it.

What might the human-built world look like if a cherry tree had produced it?

On Saturday, as I conversed with other people trying to wrap our minds around new possibilities and contemplated how I can offer more inspiration and direction to you, the open-hearted and concerned readers of The Sunny Way, I felt like we were getting a bit closer to answering that question.