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.

As a young man in the early 1940s in New York, Ion was a regular at the legendary taverns in Greenwich Village, and his favorites were Minetta’s and McSorley’s.

Minetta’s has given way to the times, with a recent renovation that turned it into an upscale eating establishment. But McSorley’s, as I’ve noted before, stands defiant in its refusal to change. The last major change was the result of a 1969 legal decision, which forced the establishment (founded in 1874) to open its doors to women.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a champion of change. I applaud the decision that allowed me to visit McSorley’s. But some change does bring a pang to the heart.

Like the most recent one at McSorleys, involving the wishbones.

Back to my friend Ion.  When he visited McSorley’s, those wishbones were there, pronged on the gaslamp chandelier. They were already covered with decades of grime and dust.

They’d been placed there by young men, before they headed off to war. The first wishbones, it was said, came from the Civil War. They represented hopes delayed — the wishbones became symbols of the desired return. Once back, the soldiers could retrieve the bit of bone and make a wish.

Only many of the men didn’t return. And so the wishbones remained, unclaimed.

Ion was one of the lucky ones. He returned from World War II safely, and reclaimed his wishbone. He’s the kind of guy who might have wished for an end to all wars or maybe just another pint.

Other wishes and wishbones went unclaimed, and so remained atop the chandelier, gathering dust and grime. Until this week, when a health inspector ordered them cleaned. Details at this NYT article. (The inspector also ordered the McSorley cats removed.)

In responding to the order about the health hazard of the wishbones, Proprieter Matthew Maher carefully removed the wishbones, cleaned each, and returned each to its proper place. In a loving touch, he kept the grime  and dust removed from each, and took it home with him, “because, in the context of McSorley’s, it is sacred.” (quote from the NYT article).

Perhaps like the other changes, these will become part of the lore, always evoking a pang in the heart. Perhaps the important thing is passing on the stories of this remarkable place.

Ion did. He understood me well enough to know that I’d go there, whenever I could. He knew I’d look for the wishbones and give the cats some kindness, and keep the story alive.

My evidence?

- Maker’s Faire. Coming to Kansas City, June 25 and 26, at Union Station. Organizers are expecting 100-200 participants, a good start. I’ve written before about the power of makers, the honor of the craftsperson, and the attractiveness of the maker movement. Now it’s becoming a respected and valid entry to entrepreneurship. And it’s bubbling in Kansas City. This nascent movement combines innovation, creativity and a little bit of anti-establishment attitude in focusing on making rather than consuming.

- Forbes magazine identifies Kansas City as 5th of the nation’s 50 largest cities in terms of the growth rate of college-educated adults, making Kansas City one of the top “brain magnets” in the country.  Here’s what Forbes said:

The two-state Kansas City region boasts strong population growth and net in-migration– and for good reason. The city has one of the lowest costs of living, one of the highest personal-income growth rates and one of the healthiest real estate markets in the country. Short commute times also add to the attractiveness of the city for families. The city is the second-largest rail hub in the U.S. and is actively growing its life science and technology sectors. Kansas City gained 38,398 graduates from 2007 to 2009, or 2.96 percent of its 25-and-older population.

- Life Sciences and KC Animal Corridor. This is perhaps the most tangible of the signs. Rising from the loss of Marion Merrill Dow, dozens of smart Kansas Citians chose to stay and build upon their expertise and passion. They could’ve left to take jobs on the East or West coasts, or gone to rebuild from there. But they planted roots here, and now those roots are flourishing. Now, I don’t want to see any of our other large corporations move out, but even if they did (thinking of the perennial Sprint rumors, for example), I now believe the same could happen again.

- Blossoming arts scene. Kauffman Center for Performing Arts, the Nelson-Atkins, the Kansas City Art Institute, the arts incubator, the Crossroads, and loads of additional artist/entrepreneurs are changing the vibes in this town.  There was a small performance last week, “A Gaelic Revival,” held at the Irish Center in Union Station.  A handful of equity actors, including some of the best in Kansas City, performed scenes from “Playboy of the Western World,” “The Plough and the Stars” and “Kathleen nee Houlihan” for an enthralled audience of about 50.  Multiply this by the dozens of events every weekend, heck, every day, and you understand what a gifted arts community we have.

- Final perspective: Six qualified and capable candidates are running for mayor. Local pundits have already noted that the city can hardly go wrong with this roster.  Even discounting that all candidates speak in glowing terms about the city’s potential, this time … it feels like most of them really mean it.  I’d like to see the next mayor embrace collaboration and build on this newly emerging power.

So, to all those HR recruiters and corporate executives who still believe that the best come from somewhere else — think again. Look here first.

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.

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.

They came up with an idea: let each individual identify their own capabilities, skills and interests. The business leaders could then use this directory to find people with the right skills for the right jobs. A side benefit could be to understand what key skill sets are lacking, and then provide training.

A good idea. But it never came to pass.

On further discussion, the leaders decided they’d need some form of verification over what the individuals cited as their skills. What if people lied about their certifications or experience? Then there was the whole matter of capabilities — they’d need specific definitions for each level: interested, novice, apprentice, skilled, expert, etc. Who would judge? And just think of all the people who would certainly list inappropriate or non-business interests — why would we want to know that you coach a pre-teen baseball team?

The project fell apart under the added weight. It could have worked — if leaders had been willing to demonstrate trust. Trust was lacking in this organization.

Employee surveys later proved this: employees didn’t feel they were treated fairly, given enough information or valued for their contributions.

I remembered this story when I recently heard Brad Whitworth, senior communications manager at San Jose-based Cisco Systems Inc. He was a guest at a recent meeting of the Kansas City chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators.

Brad told about the employee directory at Cisco. The company had the idea to set up an open directory like a wiki: let employees describe themselves and be accountable for themselves.

This time, a different culture nurtured the concept. Cisco, a worldwide technology giant, promotes the “Human Network Effect” and uses slogans like “Knowledge is Power” to describe benefits of collaboration.

To kick it off, Chairman and CEO John Chambers listed his own areas of interest … including globalization, collaboration, TelePresence, Duke basketball and Diet Coke. (Folks around him say he’s practically a Diet Coke addict; he was willing to admit it and show 65,000 co-workers a human face.)

As others entered their info, the directory provided the link to individuals’ assets that were previously invisible. Communities started to form across the organization around business topics. These groups started sharing their collective wisdom on intranet pages that they “owned” as part of a user-built Ciscopedia.

Pretty soon, the wealth of knowledge paid off.  A sales team needed help finding a systems engineer in home networking who was fluent in Mandarin. Using those search terms in the directory, they found a colleague who was able to answer a customer’s questions and seal a deal.

It’s all about trust.

Open up with the people you work with, and you can find common ground. Show trust if you want others to trust you. Share information if you want others to share with you.

Collaboration wins over fear of risk every time.

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.

I had the good fortune to hear Dr. William Duncan, president and chief executive of the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute, speaking at a meeting yesterday. He was talking to job seekers, professionals who were interested in learning more about the growing life sciences industry here.

The institute is the focal point in the region’s goal to attract and develop the area as a bioscience and biotechnology center of excellence, developing on the natural strengths of the region, which include the clinical research firms based here, the depth and breadth of animal health firms here (five of the top 10 companies have headquarters here, 31 percent of global revenues come from this region).

My favorite part of the discussion was his recollection of the development of the institute, which was founded in 1999, a result of engagement between the Stowers Institute, the Civic Council and the Kansas City Area Development Council (and others).

Early on, the group noted that despite the available assets, the region lacked a major top-tier biomedical life sciences university. The answer, it turned out, was to fill the gap with a collaborative effort between the existing players: the KU Med Center, St. Luke’s Hospital, UMKC, Midwest Research Institute and others.

Dr. Duncan described how the various leaders were not accustomed to working together.

“In the early days, it was difficult to get them to come to meetings,” he said. “But now, the culture has changed and there is a willingness to collaborate.”

So powerful, this collaboration.

In this case, Duncan attributed the collaboration success to a couple of key factors:

• It developed with an empowered board of leaders who set the tone. It wasn’t driven by a single institute, but by many who saw the power in building something greater than could be developed independently.
• It engaged the entire community — both sides of the state line, regional agencies and groups, government, civic groups, business leaders, academia and interested members of the community.  People were able to set aside differences (yes, border wars and deep university allegiances) and focus on building something together.

It was inclusive and that crowning philosophy was a key to the collaboration and to the early success of the region’s development — now home to more than 300 life sciences companies.

But Dr. Duncan had a caution — an additional culture change is needed here.  He described an attitude common on the East and West coasts, where a failed entrepreneur is hailed as a hero. In places like San Francisco and Boston, these types are respected and encouraged, he noted, but here, there’s a tendency to just look at the label: failure.

“We need a culture change in KC,” he said. “We need to accept failure and embrace risk.”

He is not talking about admitting defeat or taking wild risks — he’s talking about driving a change in the prevailing business attitudes here, one that would make us more open to learning from mis-steps and supporting measured risk.  Collectively. Inclusively.

Although Dr. Duncan also spoke with passion about challenges of  technical bioresearch, complex investment/profitability strategies and difficult political scenarios — this was my favorite part of the discussion.   He was just talking about how people deal with each other.

So much of our success with any initiative comes down to how folks can best work together: collaborate, look beyond a label, work toward something bigger than yourself.

I can’t help but wonder if these culture changes might be the most difficult part of Dr. Duncan’s job.

I can’t help but believe that embracing these culture changes might be more even valuable to our region than the life sciences initiative that launched them.

The one thing a business must have is customers.  And today’s customer is a lot like today’s citizen journalist.  Your customer:

• Cares. The Customer cared enough to give you money for your service or product.
• Has a voice.  The Customer can spread stories about the great or poor experience.
• Can amplify the story. Here’s where Social Media changes the traditional interaction between buyer and sell — and the outcome. Customers have always had a voice, but now Customers can easily form spontaneous organizations with others anywhere. Instead of just talking to a neighbor or coworkers, your Customer today can Twitter, launch a blog, publish ratings and build a Facebook community about the experience, etc.

So what?

Here’s a great example from November: The Motrin ad.

It ticked off some blogging moms who wrote about it — here’s the original post.  Next a Twitter army spontaneously formed and quickly spiraled into a movement, including a campaign on Facebook to boycott Motrin.  It spawned parodies and hit mainstream media and generated lots of angry customers for Motrin.  Motrin responded but even a big company with all its resources and smarts didn’t get it exactly right.

Need more examples? How about SciFi — er, SyFy? Or Tropicana’s new labeling?

Being a Customer today is a participatory experience — another example of mass collaboration. As a business, you can listen and engage, even empower your customers and employees to speak for you. After all, they are already.

Why not participate?

Sure, for a business, it’s a change and it can be disruptive — but probably more disruptive if you don’t.

To be successful, you’ll also have to balance top-down hierarchy with participatory technology, and maybe rethink your perspectives on control vs. freedom.  You’ll want to relinquish any belief that you know where the good ideas come from or that you know all the good ideas, and replace that with a willingness to listen, learn and respect the individuals who care enough to engage with you.  Sure, it can be messy (remember Motrin?) — but also authentic and powerful and rewarding to the business.

There are other, more tangible and practical things you’ll want to do too.

• Do an audit — what’s the marketplace really saying about you right now? What’s happening with your competitors here, too? (Although, again, this one  starts with the soft skill of listening.)
• Define your strategy. Know what you want to accomplish.
• You might need policies on the changes and on managing risk. (Like email, you have some ownership in tracking, auditing, defining what’s unacceptable, storage, privacy, etc.) Don’t lose sight of the collaborative nature of social media, use the culture to help with self-policing and honest engagement.
• Engage slowly.  Don’t lose sight of the need for authenticity — don’t let corporate-speak take over.  Be real.
• Over time, engage in full.  Your employees speak for you, so do your customers. You initiate conversations, invite feedback and give something back to those individuals who care enough to engage with you.  Build relationships.
• Over time, build this process into your standards and culture.

It’s your community, and it’s already there. It’s up to you to join in.

UPDATE:  Here’s a nice summary from the LA Times, incorporating some other incidents (Amazon, CNN, Dominos) and describing the need for rapid response.

Wednesday afternoon while on a run, I saw my first crocus of the season — a tiny cluster of purple petals with golden faces,  just next to a small snow patch.  At home, I Twittered my delight — well, almost — I stopped.

What does this have to do with business? Why would anybody care? I thought of  the current Doonesbury strip and all the now-trendy criticism of Twitter.

But I kept thinking about it. Then in a moment of serendipity,  Science Friday on NPR discussed the phenologists who are enlisting observers to help document nature’s events — things like the date of the first crocus, first jonquils, first dogwood blossoms. Suddenly, my Twitter-that-almost-was had a meaning — a hyperlocal contribution to the scientific record. As a citizen scientist, my observations can support the development of a predictive model to help us understand the climate. (Plus, I get to share my delight at the same time.)

It seems easier than ever for the individual to contribute to a larger goal in small but meaningful ways. The contributions can be widespread, from hyperlocal to global, gathered and measured and applied.  It’s not just a nice philosophy — mass collaboration,  crowdsourcing and open source models are real and can be applied to drive business results.  See Wikipedia as a real-world success story and Wikinomics for dozens of business applications.  Think of the open source model of software development, where anyone can contribute an improvement — apps,  widgets, ideas. A population of citizen scientists, citizen journalists, developers; a population of contributors.

Oh, count me in!

It’s an open source world and that bodes well for businesses that are willing to participate — that is, to listen to customers who will share ideas and feedback.  It can drive business results — marketshare, customer loyalty, innovation, employee engagement can all be measured in the bottom line.

Let me know if you want to explore more. I’m open.

PS:  There’s more to come on this theme. In upcoming posts, I’ll address:

• the idea of tapping into hyperlocal expertise for news reporting (citizen journalism — I’ve been intrigued by this for a long time).
  
• the naysayers who challenge open source models, not believing in the accuracy of the amateur contributors (perhaps my crocus had actually bloomed on Tuesday and I just didn’t see it then).
  
• the wisdom of crowds and the use of predictive markets as a business tool.
  
• the potential army of spies,  the omnipowerful database and privacy challenges — and how businesses can manage privacy risks.