BLACKBERRY CIVIL WORKS Blackberry Pie: A Savoury Slice June 2003 Volume 1, Number 11
	Openings: The up coming national birthdays are excellent reminders of the importance of celebrating. Whether an event is a public or private affair with grand or simple festivities, every celebration enhances life. Be certain to celebrate your country and then find time to celebrate yourself, your family, and everything else.
	Spotlight: In a flash of brilliance, an idea so simple and profound is born. This idea has within its essence the power to transform your enterprise. As with all transformative ideas, this idea challenges the status quo and therefore may be resisted. Still, the beauty and importance of the idea give rise to the commitment to bring it forward. The idea is laid out and the presenter—through words and his passionate presentation—indicates his total commitment. This scenario plays out every day in enterprises across the continent. Whether the impact of the idea affects a select few people or every one of the enterprise’s stakeholders, how the enterprise responds affects the presenter in the same way. The response, outside of accepting or rejecting the idea, tells the presenter if he should present other ideas. A common response is to ask for further explanation. While requesting further explanation may seem reasonable, such a request often indicate a lack of trust. Rather than dismissing the idea outright, the request for additional research is a test of the presenter’s resolve. If he is willing to jump through the series of hoops put before him, then the idea will be considered. The great danger in requiring explanations is that they can steal a person’s energy. In the process of explaining, the spark that existed, the willingness to make it happen, can be extinguished. It is not that the person thinks any less of the idea, he just realises that the energy required to get through all the obstacles is more than he can offer. If the enterprise’s response is to welcome the idea, there is no limit to what a person will do. For a number of reasons, the idea may not live long and because it did see the light of day, the impetus to form another idea is born. Few job descriptions have “come up with great ideas” listed as an objective. People just naturally have ideas and they offer them up freely. It is pointless to attempt to define what is a good idea and what is not. All ideas should be fostered with the only true danger to be guarded against being the lack of ideas. As long as the enterprise is receptive, stakeholders continue to bring forth a wealth of ideas. Only one-in-a-thousand ideas ever prove out. If your enterprise does not come up with at least 1,000 ideas, there is a chance that the one great idea is missing.		Facts & Figures: Families will not be able to watch locomotives steam around the 1.5 acres of a miniature railway village in England this summer. The opening has been delayed because insurers would not provide coverage "because of a heightened threat from terrorism". It seems that the application forms do not allow for the differentiation between a railway in an amusement park and one that is a part of a transportation system.
			Quote: Peter Block provides some advice on how to approach the next fork in the road you encounter. “Each act that expresses trust in ourselves and belief in the validity of our own experience is always the right path to follow.”
			Lexicon: Worry is the most common stress experienced today. Worry comes from the Old English word wyrgan, which meant, “to strangle”. While our current use carries an emotional or psychological rather than physical sense, the effects of worry still drain the life out of a person.
	Just For Fun: Russian president, Vladimir Putin, ordered fine weather for the St Petersburg summit and the city’s recent 300th anniversary festivities. Ten aircraft, equipped with cloud-seeding agents, were dispatched to the area surrounding St. Petersburg in an attempt to induce rain cloud formation away from the city allowing tourists and visiting heads of state to enjoy dry weather and blue skies.
	Musings: As summer begins to heat up, the idea of reading a book under a shade tree sounds appealing. Trees, with their roots in the earth and the branches in the sky, provide us with a reference point throughout our lives. A place to hang a swing, a place to carve our initials, a place to build a fort, and a place to escape a sudden down pour; trees just do it all. Every property should have at least one tree of significance, a tree that because of its size, age, positioning, or any other aspect, draws us to it. For both dwellings and commercial properties, the presence of that one tree makes it a nicer place to be. So, go climb a tree or have your lunch under one.
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