People First - An Introduction
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step
In Brief
People make their money through ‘business’.
People save or spend their money with a ‘business’.
People are thus central to any business.
So why does it seem that People are an afterthought?
People First is focussed on a new way for People and Business to engage.
We put people at the center of ‘The Business Equation’ because ‘The Future Of Work’ is only part of the problem, the bigger problem is ‘The Future of Business’.
In Detail
The day-to-day world that so many of us live in is shaped by business, companies and corporations.
It’s a problem, because we are often left helpless and feeling like a cog in a machine. A small example; how did we become unpaid data entry clerks for our records in corporate Customer Record Management systems? When did we grant our permission for that to happen?
That said, business is important to us all and no, this is not a revolutionary manifesto seeking to ‘overthrow the capitalist system’! It is an exploration into looking at ‘business’ through a different lens.
People-Business boundaries are integral to ‘The Business Equation’
Just as we accept gravity and aren’t constantly wondering why we don’t float away from the earth. So too we spend little time;
thinking about business
understanding how we got to be here
wondering how business influences us
asking if there is a different way
Business - A Life Force
Business is the 4th ‘life-force’ that shapes and drives each one of us every day.
This (1) emerges from a 2011 post by Venkatesh Rao, entitled ‘A Brief History of the Corporation’. (2)
The human world, like physics, can be reduced to four fundamental forces : culture, politics, war and business. That is also roughly the order of decreasing strength, increasing legibility and partial subsumption of the four forces.
Business is a force of humankind. But unlike gravity, we made it, so we can change it.
Thank-you for your time. I look forward to our journey together. Please share the newsletter with others and get them to sign up by clicking the button below. It’s free - so what have you got to lose!
Footnotes
(1) I don’t seek to explore culture, war, religion, politics, things that absorb our minds and brains almost constantly and shape us in a variety of ways. I am exploring business as the 4th ‘life-force’ that shapes and drives each and every one of us each and every day.
(2) If you are a physicist, you might question that the reduction of the human world can be reduced to four forces, but let’s put that aside for now.
Finally - if you got this far and read this newsletter, please allow me to extend my thanks to Tim L for confirming that the 5th person in that photograph was indeed Ian Carmichael. We still can find no reference to him ever being part of the Goons.