It was partly out of pride and a sense of privacy. “It’s nobody’s business,” the matriarch would say. She’d decline to fill out the income questions on school forms and avoid letting others see the struggle. (Although, of course, they could still see.)

It also was partly a belief that asking for help was the same as admitting failure. The right thing to do was to soldier on and know that there are others even worse off than you. To prove it, it was important to always give to others, no matter what.

So it’s no surprise that the children in this family adopted that same belief structure.  They marched on, doing the best they could, while understanding that they also must help others. It was OK for others to ask for help, but not them – that’s where the pride came in.

For the most part, it worked out OK. The children all grew up to become modestly successful and mostly productive members of society.

Until one of them really, really needed help beyond what the family could provide.

Slowly and reluctantly, they broke the tradition. They took small steps to see about getting help from a local agency, affiliated with the state. They filled out forms. And more forms. They made appointments. They cautiously talked with the agency and government workers. Over time, they began to imagine letting others help them.

It started with very small steps. And it took a very long time (years) to even allow the smallest bits of support.

Looking in from the outside, I can understand the uncertainty, mistrust and shame they felt at asking for help. Asking for help is an admission of incapability, and it is difficult to hold onto anything like self-confidence or pride when you do so.

So it was an act of courage for them to ask for help.

I know it didn’t come easily; I know they are still quite tentative. They are learning how to behave in a new way, allowing others to see the condition of their lives – and participate in making it better.

I tell their story only because it seems worth noticing this component of the human condition. It may be an odd belief system, but it may be more prevalent than we notice.  And it seems timely as so many are struggling in this economy, in one way or another, perhaps with this same discomfort of learning how to behave differently.

Perhaps I can come to recognize this and to understand that although they may not ask for help, I should be mindful enough to offer.

But in my family, it was Beth who made us what we are.

When I was six, Beth was born with Down Syndrome. I remember us learning words like “trisomy” and “mongoloid” and slowly realizing that our lives would be changed completely. Not just in the way that a new baby changes a family, but in a way that made us all realize we’d be expected to do more to help her.

It wasn’t so much that my parents told us this; we are a family that doesn’t talk much, so it was not an explicit instruction. It was a dawning realization — for me, coming as I watch our Mom take time every day to teach her to read.

The three older brothers had their own lives — teenagers in  a world mysterious to me. Yet Beth reached them and they too responded. She brought us together.

She taught us how to really see each other. She helped us learn more about ourselves. She gave us our identity — with Beth we practiced patience, gentleness and laughing. With Beth, we thought and explained things to each other more. She made us a better family.

And she still is teaching us.

We’re all adults now. Even Beth, the baby, is 46 and now experiencing a new phase in her life. And we are again recalling how to deal with changes — although the changes this time involve  her memory loss, confusion and physical incapacity.

Not that it’s easy, but we are realizing that we need to have crucial conversations about planning for the next stage of her life. And making it easier for her to transition to it.

We’re not done with these crucial conversations, we don’t have them often enough to be comfortable with them. I worry that critical time is passing while we tiptoe around emotions, duty, responsibility and avoid our own uncertainty.

Beth, again, has focused our family on the important things. Now it’s up to us to respond and raise our own expectations of each other.

I don’t know how this story will end.

I only tell it in hopes of learning more potential endings than I can imagine. I look for connections with others who have had similar experiences; I wonder if my experiences (as imperfect as they are) can provide help to others.

I’ve recently joined a small group of folks who have adult siblings with Down Syndrome.. We’re just now organizing ourselves, providing support to each other and hoping to bring others along. We also have big dreams to draw in medical research, to help develop the understanding of the Down-Alzheimer link, to provide appropriate care facilities for our siblings.

We may not be able to change things for Beth. But Beth’s experiences may be able to change things for someone else.

For more information, visit Siblings Are Great Advocates.

A thread running through the topic is the importance of play and creativity in solving the problems of the world. This isn’t hyperbole — the discussion really looked at the largest issues in the world.

From Jane McGonigal: the idea that in playing games, we are using our best version of ourselves; the mindpower that can be harnessed in playing games to make the world a better place.

Her goal: to make it as easy to save the world in real life, as it is in online games. And she’s not joking. If we could increase our game playing time from its current 3 billion hours a week to 21 billion hours a week, the world would be different place.

I look at gaming in a new light.

From Michael Wesch, social anthropologist from K-State: Good questions and illustrations of the world on fire — and brilliant insights on the changes technology offers. We can’t live the next 100 years like the last.

Media uses us as much as we use it; and there is no opting out. Media mediates relationships, when media changes, relationships change — including the structure of our culture.

Technology in our hands creates new potential. Question is how will we use it? How will it change us? Wesch articulates the razor’s edge between a hopeful future and a more ominous one with new openness and freedom, transparency, mass participation vs. the potential for more survelliance and control, deception, mass distraction.

His goal is to move his students from being knowlegeable to knowledge-able. He explains we need (and need to teach) skills to find, sort, analyze, organize and create knowledge.

He told the story of when the world was on fire. All the animals running to escape, but it was impossible — the fires were raging and soon they were trapped.

One little bird had an idea. The little bird flew to the stream and picked up a drop of water in its beak, flew back to the fire and dropped the water. And again, and again, and again.

What are you doing little bird? The best I can.

The heroics inspired the rest of the creatures (or variously, the gods) who joined in to save the day and put out the fire, by working together in the example of the littlest bird.

From Francis Cholle:  We need a higher level of creativity to solve sustainability questions. Creativity will be the the No. 1 leadership competency in the future.We need to play more to become more creative — play eludes our analytical minds. Our analytical minds can be a handicap to creativity.

The most important skills to master:

• Think holistically; there’s more to consider than the P&L
• Think paradoxically
• Listen for the unusual. Or, stop thinking and start feeling.
• Lead by influence, not by control

Plenty to ponder.  Thanks, TEDxKC.

Shocked, truly, to find myself sprawled and wet and suddenly aching. I couldn’t speak for a minute, I was so jarred.

And then I slowly understood — I’d slipped on the ceramic street tiles embedded in the sidewalk under the leaves. My cowboy boots were no match for all that slick stuff. I was bruised and shaken, but not broken and certainly not going to stop and linger.

Change hits us like that. And it takes time to absorb; sometimes you just have to let the bruise form to take stock of what happened, and what didn’t happen.

It’s a new year, which prompts taking stock and getting ready. Taking stock is a way of counting up the inventory you possess — customers, opportunities, friends, ideas, gratitude. Getting ready for the new year is preparing yourself for change — building up the flexibility and resilience to anticipate what might happen, or at least be strong enough and open enough to adapt.

I’m grateful to all the businesses who have entrusted me with their stories; I’m honored to be working with you. I’m grateful to the many friends who’ve given me support in this first year of business. I’m touched by your willingness to connect, to share, to listen, to guide me. I appreciate my generous colleagues and fellow entrepreneurs in the Kansas City chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators, who welcomed me so warmly. The National Association of Women Business Owners offered a bounty of smart and fun women; and I’m glad to be part of it, too.

And in the coming year, I want to do my part to give back the kindness and support that I received. I’m planning on expanding my horizons — video! audio podcast! art! bird-watching! — and other delights as I find them. I’m open to adventure, I’m willing to experiment and take a few chances.

Even if I fall.

Here’s to a grand new year!

Credit: SALADELLES, an extraordinarily talented photographer with beautiful images from nature — go visit: http://saladelles.over-blog.com/

The series, conducted by Dr. Bill Ashworth, at Linda Hall Library (Kansas City’s hidden treasure) has been delightful.<Update: Maybe not-so-hidden? See November 1  NYTimes article with prominent reference to Linda Hall Library.>

Ashworth is curator of “The Grandeur of Life” exhibit and author of the exhibition catalog. He’s also an associate professor of history at UMKC and consultant for the History of Science at Linda Hall Library. Ashworth brings Darwin to life and is continually telling stories that paint the context of life and the knowledge of the day.

Darwin, I learned, really did not like his schooling — not his prep school time at Dr. Butler’s School in Shrewsbury, or his medical studies at Edinburgh University, or his clergy studies at Cambridge University. His letters talked about how boring his professors were, how dreadful the topics and, like most university guys, he even participated in a drinking club. (The club’s crest included a beer keg, tankards and a water pipe, and in Latin, the phrase “replete with barley and ale.”)

It’s not that he wasn’t curious or interested in learning. Not at all. He just wasn’t suited to the lectures and the classical training that was meted out. It was boring and outdated, and he had other interests — like exploring the estuaries at the Firth of Forth and, later, collecting beetles.

He indulged his passion for collecting things, and that changed the course of science.

It wasn’t always easy. Darwin faced some pretty harsh criticism from his father, who told him he likely wouldn’t amount to anything (I’m paraphrasing, but it wasn’t positive feedback at all). Despite his failures in school, and letting his family down by not following his father’s footsteps in medicine and rejecting a career in the clergy, he managed to follow his interests and that made all the difference.

I learned one other bit that fascinated me: When Darwin returned from his five-year voyage on the Beagle, he realized that he didn’t know what all of his collections of bones and fossils and specimens really were. He admitted that he wasn’t skilled enough to identify them.

So he asked for help.

He gave his collection of creatures’bones to Richard Owen, famous anatomist (known as the English Cuvier), and he gave his collection of 26 Galapagos birds to John Gould, the famous naturalist painter of birds. It was Owen who identified key items in the bones, including the giant sloth; and it was Gould who told him that 13 of the Galapagos birds were finches.

What he learned floored him and led him to ask: why? The rest is history — he kept searching for answers and produced “The Origin of Species” to explain the  questions.

Darwin had asked for help and shared his collections to get it. He’d had a bittersweet experience earlier: At Edinburgh, he’d been thrilled to discover a new type of seaweed but when he told his mentor about it, the professor told him to get off his turf and then took credit for Darwin’s find. So Darwin was seduced by the excitement of uncovering new knowledge, and yet he must have been frustrated by the pettiness and unfairness of the professor who claimed it.

Still, he took a chance again. He was willing to share what he’d found. I have to believe that, even though he didn’t know what he had, his passion for LEARNING overcame the risk of losing “credit” for it.

It was risky then and it’s risky now.

It takes courage to admit what you don’t know. It’s hard to ask for help. Darwin won’t be remembered for this, but he wouldn’t be remembered at all if he hadn’t done this.

There’s a sweetness in this little backstory lesson: take a risk, share information, collaborate. It still makes sense, 150 years later.

With the open culture driven by social media, transparency is demanded: it is a component of your reputation, measured by your authenticity.

And it’s an uncomfortable spot for most traditionally minded businesses.

The examples of missteps are everywhere — one great source is The Naked Corporation, by Don Tapscott, which compiles examples and describes the damage to corporate reputation:

• Diebold insisted its voting machines were hacker proof until a professor showed how it could be done on a You Tube video
• Corporate memos from Eli Lilly, Enron, etc., showed company practices that didn’t match the company’s words.
• Lies and misdeeds can’t stay hidden; and the longer they are, the worse it is for the offending company’s reputation.

As always, some companies are willing to step up to the challenge and are responding with openness and actively engaging customers, stakeholders and employees.

I’ve talked before about firms that openly share their plans and perspectives, in blogs and webcasts, as well as companies that seek input.  Southwest Airlines does a good job of engaging its customers and employees to weigh in on pending decisions; Sun Microsystems (an early open systems advocate) encourages open dialog in interactive blogs, from the CEO on down.

But my new favorite may be Air New Zealand, taking the concept of the naked corporation with nothing to hide to new heights. Enjoy!

Additional resources on transparency: I love Kevin Kelly’s recent Wired article on the New Socialism;  while at Wired also check out an early report on Tapscott’s book.  And it’s worth watching what’s up at the Sunlight Foundation.

Based in Camden, N.J., Campbell Soup is the largest soup-maker in the world. It has revenues of more than $7 billion and sells its soups and other food items in 120 countries around the world.  With a 136-year history, Campbell Soups had never before opened its doors for outside innovation.

Until now.

The company recently launched a new initiative, called Campbell’s Ideas for Innovation at www.campbellideas.com. The website invites suggestions for new products, technology, packaging, marketing and business processes.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Campbell had studied successful programs at Procter & Gamble Co. in Cincinnati and Kraft Foods Inc. in Northfield, Ill., before launching its website.

It’s not exactly a wide-open wiki, but it offers folks a way to share their ideas, with  legal protections for both sides.  It’s a start, a recognition that there are new ideas and new ways of doing business — and they don’t have to be invented within company walls to be worthwhile.

I see it as another crack in the monolithic corporate culture of closemindedness –  a little bit of openness, a willingness to listen to customers.

“Open for business” could have a whole new meaning soon.

Corporate Social Responsibility is the integration of business operations and values, whereby the interests of all stakeholders including investors, customers, employees, the community and the environment are reflected in the company’s policies and actions. (CSRwire.com)

Earth Day had me thinking about why businesses behave so differently from what we expect of people. And how that’s just not OK anymore.

How often do we see business operating without a sense of responsibility for actions? (AIG? Enron?) Is it because businesses are identified as an “it” rather than a “he” or “she”? It’s not personal, it’s not even a person — it’s something removed from the human individual and, therefore, not expected to behave as a human?

I think the old ways of doing business are changing, swept in on a wave of transparency and accountability. Corporate social responsibility appears to be taking hold for real, a response to the demands of customers, employees and stakeholders.  (Another example of individuals using the collective voice to agitate for change!)

Evidence from Daniel Yankelovich, the masterful public opinion research leader, gave me hope. In an interview with The McKinsey Quarterly, he articulates the case for real change in corporate culture.

Paraphrasing Yankelovich: The question shouldn’t be — Is it legal? The question should be –Is it good for the public?

He makes the case that corporate strategy has to answer two questions:

• Does it enhance the company’s long-term profitability?
• Does it serve the public good?

It’s a big change from Milton Friedman’s position that as long as a company is profitable, it is automatically serving the public good. We now expect more. Sure, it’s legal to pay an executive 250 times the wage of the average worker in the company … but is it right?

Yankelovich says the development of trust equity with the public will be a major competitive asset in today’s corporate environment.  He’s right — change will occur only if the public good also serves the bottom line, if there’s a true value to trust equity with the public, consumers, stakeholders.

I’m keeping his questions top of mind with my business and with my work with clients:  will the business strategies enhance profitability, AND, will those strategies serve the public good? The answer to both has to be Yes.

Her work is modern and non-traditional; her technique is to patiently draw and color tiny shapes in fluid lines until her page is utterly full.

The result is a swirling mass of colors, with an illusion of movement. Often there will be a surprising omission in the pattern, a jarring break in the movement that forces a deeper look at the image.

A bit of her background: She has worked for 25 years at her local public library, and now holds the distinction of being the longest-serving employee there.

You wouldn’t describe her as an athlete, although she competed in gymnastics and swimming with respectable results during her school years.  But is fanatical about the workout routine she follows at Curves, where she is an inspiration to friends and staffers.

She loves to travel and one of her favorite things is dining out and trying new foods.

She loves music of all types. She’s quick to start up a song by herself in the car with family, and she loves live music, especially Irish traditional by Eddie Delahunt.

But her art is her passion.

She starts by laying out her colored pens in an arrangement of her design.  Next she makes a few foundational points on the page — defining if the work will be based on circles, triangles, squares or lines.

The foundational points might be at the corners, or in a cluster somewhere on the page. From there, she fills in the rest with alternating colors in a pattern she can see at the outset.

Her name is Beth Tracewell, and (full disclosure) she is my sister, and in many ways, my teacher.

She does her art because she loves doing it.  It’s that simple.

She reminds me to be open to possibilities, to embrace creativity in any form. Sometimes she astounds me with the things she can see, sometimes making me feel blind.

She doesn’t worry about things she doesn’t understand, but she loves to learn new things and she takes delight in exploring the new.

Being around her is a reminder to refocus.  Somehow, that’s what she accomplishes with her art, too.