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Current location: Time-Life Navigation :: Conceptual resources ::: Thinking about and using conceptual resources—an essential "brain road"
Current page elements: (1) Conceptual resource viewpoint and work approach—go next links; (2) Intel map; (3) Concepts and Information; (4) Related concepts; (5)Time-Life Navigation resources; (6) A cautionary note; (7) Today's Technology headlines from NYTimes.com; (8) About change and toward tomorrows
Go next: toc.pdf (examples)  toc2.pdf (TOCs) HTML title check list.pdf related concepts
Conceptual resources
This page provides an overview of the tables of content (TOC) tools available on this site.
These tables of content can be viewed as a shopping center from which you can select ideas on which you want to bet (design) your life. It might be productive to augment the contents and links on this page with an Amazon.com search.
Concepts (with the potential for effectiveness) presented in conceptually valid books (and other media) are the raw materials of organization evolution and consequently career evolution, life design, and financial investments. They are the building blocks of social and economic development.
Books (and similar media) are storage containers that allow concept transportation between individuals. They are also attention redirecting tools. The ones that are valid and will remain valid should probably be revisited on a conscious schedule. This revisiting redirects attention and should also reveal new external and dynamic realities.
The positive impact of conceptual resources should be visible or detectable in the world around us today and tomorrowS. Following the Korean War (1954), South Korea was without industry, a higher education system and practically no educated people. Today they are world-class in a couple of dozen industries. This contrast is the result of different concepts.  See (1) a new civilization is born, (2) the management revolution, (3) about management -- actions, principles, essence.
Some concepts are tactical navigation enablers, some are strategic navigation enablers and some are a waste of time. See The thinkers 50 -- European Foundation for Management Development.
Conceptual resource exploration at Amazon.com: Author > Title > Editorial Reviews > Spotlight Reviews > Inside This Book > Statistically Improbable Phrases > Capitalized Phrases > What do customers ultimately buy after viewing items like this? > Customers tagged this product with > Customers who bought this item also bought
Example: Strategy Maps: Converting Intangible Assets into Tangible Outcomes
Time valid concepts are staggered and interdependent. When an organization gives rise to an innovation that results in a new enterprise the time sequencing begins again (hopefully building on previous levels of development). Connections: organization evolution concept map and linear view of organization evolution.
A validity test can be conducted by superimposing a concept on the world of yesterday and seeing if the concept explains or predicts what actually happened.
This area of work is a substantial part of recognizing and defining developmental desires (Google: bobembry "developmental desires") and creating a unique career evolution path. It is also a part of foundation building. Tables of content can also be used for assignment "trapping" (leadership; career evolution module; people decisions).
The previous nine paragraphs taken as a whole combined with the time-life navigation © foundation builds an even stronger and more elevated foundation for future directed decisions.
We are limited to working on the familiar with the familiar. We can only work with what's on our radar and only with our mental patterns. Also the human brain can only see what it is prepared to see. Part of this preparation can come from reading, so reading is fundamental. Comprehending what we read is enhanced by a broad foundation for making connections (see Post-Capitalist Society by Peter Drucker: Knowledge: Its Economics and Its Productivity :: The Management Requirements ::: Only Connect …). Unfortunately the useful broad foundation that is so valuable is not part of the education system—examine the course content or listen to what the "educators" say (a focus on tools not design, results, work, or tasks).
Creating new realities from concepts requires people and the tools they need to get to and from concepts to new daily actions—see related concepts below.
Be
sure to see Peter
Drucker's The Effective Executive preview, Effective
Executive in Action, and The
Daily Drucker. David Allen's Getting
Things Done may also be useful.
TLN conceptual resource file listing in the TLN site "conceptual_resource" Internet directory.
A work approach
First, download or view toc.pdf. It is an example file
It introduces the idea of viewing tables of contents (TOC) as listings of potential work investments along with a worksheet for recording ideas.
toc.pdf contains:
Tables of content (TOC):
 Managing in a Time of Great Change
The Borderless World
The Frontiers of Management
The Changing World of the Executive
Sample table of contents with key points
Sample worksheet
toc2.pdf (tables of contents for 40 books—a panoramic view of the conceptual terrain)
html book and content lists
Table of contents interest profile checklist (titles of the 40 books without contents)
Intel map
Concepts and Information (from Sur/petion by Edward de Bono) What is a concept? It is almost impossible to define—and almost not worth trying. But I recognize concepts, look for them, design them, and use them.
Furthermore, there is a distinction between a concept and an idea. An idea is something specific that you can carry out. A concept is a more general, abstract notion that has to be carried out by means of a specific idea. For example, traveling along a road is a concept, but in practice, you have to do something specific such as walk, ride a bicycle, or drive a car.
Contrary to our normal thinking, concepts are often more useful when they are blurred, vague, and fuzzy, because then they have more potential. If they are too detailed, they cover too little. If they are too general, they cover too much and provide little direction. In time, a creative thinker gets a feeling for when a concept is specific enough, yet general enough at the same time.
There is little distinction between a concept and a perception. When we look out at the world we never see raw data. The data we receive has already been organized into patterns by previous experience (the self-organizing nature of the mind). A person born blind who suddenly becomes able to see cannot see. That person has to learn to see and to build up usable patterns. This organization into patterns, sequences, or groups we call perception. Figure 4.1 (omitted) suggests how we group certain things together to obtain perceptions.
So a perception is a grouping of things realized when we look out at the world. A concept is a grouping of things realized when we look inwardly at our available experience.
When we have grouped things into a perception, we often put a name on that grouping: a flower, a mountain, a restaurant.
When we have grouped things into a concept, there is a purpose or benefit that arises from the grouping: sales tax, traffic control, a restaurant franchise.
A restaurant is both a description and a concept; it sells people food and is a place to eat it. The purpose and benefit are obvious.
See chapter five of Sur/petition for a continued exploration of concepts and information.
Related concepts:
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News stories; Today's Technology headlines from NYTimes.com (at the bottom of the page); Bob Embry's Weblog (views of changes in the strategic landscape)
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Peter Drucker on Leadership 2004 and The Purpose Driven Life (search Amazon.com)
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Strategic work plan (creating a strategic interest profile)
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Calendarization (from concept to daily action)
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Healthy financial architecture (an objective)
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The process of getting from "printed material" to daily work
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Developmental ideas (a melding of the item 6 above and 8 below)
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A structural view of Peter Drucker's writings
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Knowledge system view (an external context)
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The Grail Diary (Indiana Jones, The Last Crusade)
Google search: notetaker OR notebook acquaminds OR "circus ponies"
In what areas of our lives do we need the equivalent of a Grail Diary?
These concept maps and related ideas can be used in conjunction with the tables of contents and the books themselves.
Google book search
Time-life navigation resources (calendarize):
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Who is Peter Drucker?
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Managing Knowledge Means Managing Oneself
http://www.leadertoleader.org/knowledgecenter/journal.aspx?ArticleID=26
After reading article use web browser's FIND command
to locate "people decisions"
then see People Decisions
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The Next Society
http://homepage.mac.com/bobembry/studio/biz/conceptual_resources/authors/peter_drucker/next_society.pdf
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Edward de Bono introduction
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Warren Buffett
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The Essential Drucker (pdf) or The Essential Drucker html (includes people decisions mentioned above); The Effective Executive; The Daily Drucker (a very wide view and work approach)
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Tables of content
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CyberTimes Navigator (used by "NYT newsroom for forays into the Web"). Probably requires free site registration ???
A cautionary note
None of the strategic authors or actors (people having a significant impact on the content and structure of the economy) address how and when to integrate their work or ideas into the life of an individual. Its up to us, but we need a foundation and life-long work approach.
ACTORS:
A generalization: The actors I'm referring to are people like Julius Rosenwald (Sears), Thomas Watson (IBM), Alfred Sloan (GM), and Jack Welch (GE) in the business arena. At the end of their careers many write or collaborate on books about their work at a particular point in time (forming of the automobile industry) and a particular set of circumstances (a state in the general development of the economy). These stories are like the perfect storm that can't be replicated. They reflect individuals taking advantage of the "opportunities that time and history placed within their grasp." Alfred Sloan's My Years with General Motors wasn't the end of the GM story. The individuals who were supporting characters of the winners rode with the momentum and the losers and their supporting characters had to move on. This is in the business news everyday.
Google: "inside the mac revolution" with quotes
AUTHORS:
Authors write (at a particular time in history) about subjects, tools, historical examples (above) and maybe speculate about the future in general. There are vast arrays of different situations in the world to which these subjects, tools, and ideas about the future are totally irrelevant or not relevant right now.
Reading and thinking about these subjects etc. is useful for getting things on our radar and giving us new action choices. I think I remember Peter Drucker once wrote something to the effect: "don't base your life on anything I or anybody else writes." This is a reminder to "look out the window" and be aware of the "current" situation (part of which is invisible, but its there anyway).
When I go to the trouble to buy a book, I outline it, add notes, and maybe an action column. This provides a resource that can be quickly scanned for current relevance and maybe added to a work map.
INDIVIDUALS:
We are born at a particular place and a specific point in time (set of conditions). Our lives progress uniquely from our point of origins. It is up us to use subjects and tools to figure where we want to go and then use our strengths plus the subjects and tools available at the time to navigate to our transitory destinations. So there is time, life, and navigation, but most everybody is already subconsciously aware of this (backdrop of many movies and celebrity life stories) and just "distracted" by the flow of today's events.
A Druckerism: Jobs and assignments should fit an individual's career (not an occupation title) and careers should fit a life worth living (in time).
For those who want to read more about it:
Google: "a century of social transformation" with quotes
Technology headlines from NYTimes.com
A view of the constant flow of change (a dimension of TLN)
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Change:
Things are, like they were, until they're not—and its up to us to make the "not" come to pass.
What we do is largely based on what we or someone before us has been doing for a quite a while and it seems to work. We don't really know why we do these things other that because we always have.
Our life “radar” contains only known, viewable “objects.” Radars are time-dependent.
The worlds of tomorrows are always different, yet our radar unavoidably consists of yesterday—the way things were.
An updated radar is valuable for life navigation because we can only work on—or prepare for—things that are on our radar or within our attention span. Additionally the human brain can only see what its prepared to see.
Imagine someone in the past—1950, 1960, 1990 or whenever—asserting that they had a plan, were performing well, making good progress or any other positive assurance. This type assurance is contrary to development and thinking ahead. At the least it is naive—it ignores competitive effects (existing and new) and new events (trends) that introduce a discontinuity.
Past economic and social conditions
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First Thanksgiving at Plymouth Massachusetts in 1621
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Williamsburg Virginia in 1700s
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Time of the Civil War (The worlds of Gone with the Wind vs. Cold Mountain)
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General Motors 1920s
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The rise and subsequent stagnation of Japan, Inc.
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The companies used as examples in the In Search of Excellence study
“Looking around” in the visible worlds of past times gives no recognizable clues as to what will happen in the distant futureS and maybe only the subtlest clues of near-term changes and discontinuities.
Assurances can be stated in the form of profitability, growth, market share, innovation, quality or whatever and seem reassuring when they most likely should not be. These assurances are usually an attempt to avoid facing the dynamics of the world and the challenges of a world moving toward unimagined futures.
The notion 'don't fix IT if IT ain't broke' is blind, uninformed and misses the point—we are embedded in an unfolding world. IT probably presumes there's a solid-state IT in a solid-state world and that somebody has a deep lasting emotional attachment to IT. (Consider the subsequent rocky roads of the companies used as examples in In Search of Excellence.) In reality, most of us care that IT makes our lives better tomorrow and this is rarely linear—an outgrowth or extension of yesterday. An informed ongoing diagnosis is needed—part of a systematic work approach. See Peter Drucker's “From Analysis to Perception—The New Worldview” and Edward de Bono's Water Logic
Just because things are calm doesn't mean things are OK or there is nothing to do. It may be the calm before the storm. When the storm hits it pays to not be lost in yesterday—often for years. It pays to have tomorrow well underway. It pays to know what to do and what not to do. It pays to be prepared to exploit opportunity when it presents itself. Hopefully the exploration of this site will help in knowing what to do and what not to do.
See Peter Drucker's on "The Change Leader" in Management Challenges for the 21st Century; avoiding the high risk "Bright Idea" in Innovation and Entrepreneurship; his Entrepreneurship and Innovation interview; The Future that has Already Happened; and about management and change.
Brainstorming has the problem of relying on yesterday's mental patterns embedded within their associated life lines!!!!
The issues just mentioned fit within the context of organization evolution at multiple points in the future.
The paragraphs above contain assertions which can be valuable navigation tools. Assertions can be tested—true, false, a probability, or a time horizon. The attention re-focusing can provide an opportunity for reality terrain exploration.
The Experts Speak by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky
[W]hen the Paris Exhibition closes electric light will close with it and no more will be heard of it.
Erasmus Wilson,
professor at Oxford University, 1878
Well-informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires and that were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value.
Editorial in the Boston Post, 1865
There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.
Ken Olsen,
president of Digital Equipment Corporation,
at the Convention of the World Future Society, 1977
640K [of RAM] ought to be enough for anybody.
Bill Gates, 1981
Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.
Lord Kelvin,
British mathematician, physicist, and
president of the British Royal Society, circa 1895
Everything that can be invented has been invented;
Charles H. Duell,
Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899
Similar statements—reflecting the speaker's limited mental patterns—are in the news almost every day.
Connections: Organization and career evolution stories in my TLN weblog and story title listing. Current system status (Is this OK?)
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Toward tomorrows
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Managing in the Next Society (2002); Last section originally published earlier in The Economist (http://economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=770819)
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Post-capitalist Society (1993)
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The New Realities (1988)
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The Age of Discontinuity (1968)
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Assistance available.