BLACKBERRY CIVIL WORKS Blackberry Pie: A Savoury Slice December 2005 Volume 4, Number 5
	Spotlight: Imagine that the driving purpose of your business is to educate people. Imagine that each day, providing understanding and acceptance to customers, employees, and vendors was the most important aspect of your work. Imagine that stockholder value increased by developing the innate capabilities of all those associated with the business. Imagine that, after successfully meeting the objective of educating all these people today, tomorrow you started doing it all over once again. Education is the key component to every successful business activity. This is not schooling or instruction, but the simple task of consistently communicating the essence of the business to all stakeholders. Every interaction and transaction educates people on any number of important topics: are you easy to do business with, what happens when something goes wrong, how do I find someone who can help me? Taken as a whole, these topics tell why the business is the entity it has become. Advertising campaigns, press releases, and company manuals are a few of the textbooks used in the corporate education process. Through telling your truth, you educate people to the facts that assist them in choosing your organisation. It is the power of information that gives your business the opportunity to make people believe that you not only understand their needs, but that you can deliver on your promise to meet their needs. No stretch of imagination is required to accept that each business day is a day filled with education. What we may need to re-imagine is the role of a teacher. We are all student-teachers, learning enough today to present our course of instruction tomorrow. Beyond the financial gains our businesses provide, they also provide the environment for great experiences. Using those experiences to educate people is definitely a noble calling and a profitable strategy.		Links: The Strong Museum in Rochester New York is home to the U.S. National Toy Hall of Fame. In 2005, one of the three new inductions into the hall of fame was the cardboard box. Any institution savvy enough to appreciate the cardboard box’s contribution to childhood bliss should be on your “must visit” list. If Rochester is not on your up coming itinerary, check the museum out online at http://www.strongmuseum.org/NTHoF/NTHoF.html. Stroll down memory lane as you remember the great toys of your childhood.
			Just For Fun: I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
	Quote: Swiss naturalist Abraham Trembley, in explaining his discovery of the multi-headed hydra, speaks to one of the greatest benefits of education; synchronicity: "Because of its nature, that finding was to be not the fruit of long patience and great wisdom, but a gift of chance. It is to such a happy chance that I owe this discovery which I made, not only without forethought, but without my ever having had in my entire life any idea even slightly related to it."
	Musings: QED: Quod Erat Demonstrandum (Which Was to Be Demonstrated). Courses intent upon proving the truths of our world filled my post-secondary education. Developing a thesis regarding the strength of a piece of steel or the stability of a hillside required sound methodology, accepted principles, and an attention to details. Through the shear volume of work required for these studies, I became skilled at developing proofs that provided the intended answers. As my education progressed, the subject of study constantly moved out of the textbook and into the real world. What had once been Newtonian—an input acted upon by a process that generates an outcome—metamorphosed into organic systems where not only were several outcomes possible, but the starting point of the enquiry was not definitive. This shift initiated within me a greater understanding of the value of my education. If I believed that I knew the answer, it was permissible to forgo the proof, enter QED, and supply the answer. However, because the development of the proof was always valued as much, if not more, than the answer, it was also permissible to provide the proof, not arrive at the answer, and receive almost full marks. Even if pressed, I could not perform one of those proofs today. Still, that education taught me much of what I put to use every day. While I leverage my education through very different skills today, and apply it to information I did not imagine all those years ago, I base my approach to my work on the foundation my education supplied. Any time I feel like shooting straight for the answer, I remember the value of the proof.
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