Mindful of what? The INCOMMN Example
As entrepreneurs, we need to be forward looking. “Being entrepreneurial” is a set of behaviors practiced inside an organization as well as used to create or perfect others. It involves creativity, thoughtfulness, awareness (of self and of others), agility, and management of resources. Entrepreneurs are in motion: their behavior is dynamic. They don’t bring everything to a standstill to look back for detailed analysis. Yet successful entrepreneurs know how they got to the present situation.
“Mindfulness” in this context is the state of awareness, knowledge and thoughtfulness achieved by a successful entrepreneur. This person is “present;” not lost in fantasies of success or accomplishment, and not lost in looking backward with endless evaluations, reviews, and analysis. This person knows what needs attention, spends the resources to address those needs honestly and completely, and understands what is unfolding within the immediate present that will influence future options and decisions.
We want to be positioned to go beyond planning: we want to be prepared. This is our forward-looking stance. Considering all the facets of looking and moving forward deliberately and effectively is what The Mindful Entrepreneur is all about.
The principals and associates of INCOMMN weave into their activities an ongoing conversation elevating mindfulness to a core practice. INCOMMN is a network entrepreneurship enterprise: we specialize in building, upgrading, and extending networks of people and their enterprises so they can reach new levels of accomplishment through collaboration.
It’s a very fast moving environment to function in.
Networks of interests, knowledge, and skills now have global spans, and engage large populations of highly talented and active people. The network is the new community, the new social action organization, and the new corporation. Networks pop into and out of existence almost overnight, move vast amounts of information around, and serve as essential infrastructure for knowledge transfer—networks are the new universities! Networks support every imaginable sort of action, from politics and public policy to the movement of investments and resources. Networks provide the capacity to take critical action at many different scales.
A network entrepreneur, and a network entrepreneurship enterprise, must be agile and constructive. We build collaborations of highly energized people and enterprises—pursuing individual goals—to achieve mutually beneficial common goods. We do this in an ever-changing landscape. Anyone and everyone can be a key player; more people become one every day; and all key players want to belong to something that engages their interests and capacities. The network as spontaneous social organizer has emerged as a solution, and brings along some characteristic physical manifestations:
- co-working and shared office spaces
- “incubators” and “accelerators”
- meet-ups
- crowd sourcing and crowd funding
- associations
- team work, partnerships, collaborations that come into existence as needed
This is the world INCOMMN lives in. We assume that you are active in the same world; we are in the same networks. Welcome to the intersection of competition and collaboration, where the trendline of individual small business requirements crosses paths with the trendline of mutual, common good, benefits. When you contemplate that intersection, you will discover where we connect globally ** and ** stay focused on local, resilient economies; where new enterprises that comprise the explosion of entrepreneurship are born (nationally, over 500,000 a month!).
Where we need to be aware, agile, engaged, and forward looking. Where we need to be mindful.