The Escher Cycle and GM genes

Click to read Guardian article

This article from the Guardian in May 2000 states:

“A leading zoologist has found evidence that genes used to modify crops can jump the species barrier and cause bacteria to mutate.”

This will come as no surprise to anyone who has read The Escher Cycle.

We are brought up to believe that species evolve. But Gregory Bateson showed us that it is ecosystems that are the unit of evolution, not individual species. The whole ecosystem evolves together.

One mechanism by which this happens is mechanistic: faster cheetah cause faster antelope, and faster antelope cause faster cheetah. Insects that prosper later in the year lead to birds that have their chicks later in the year, and so on.

And another mechanism of evolution is the jumping of genes between organisms. After all, Continue Reading >

The Purpose of a Business is to Create a Customer

20120813-cxcytw45yqp1iedb5sfkt5ygg4So said the ‘Father of Management Theory’, Peter Drucker.

The Escher Cycle agrees.

Chapter 2 opens with the words, “Different people want different things, and the foundation stone of any business is the set of customer needs that it aims to satisfy. If it serves a lot of people with strong needs then there is potential to build a large and thriving business. The fewer or weaker the needs, or the more short-lived they are, the smaller, weaker and more short-lived will be any business that tries to fulfil them.”

Drucker says that the only two basic functions of any business enterprise are marketing and innovation.

The Escher Cycle agrees that these are two themes that run through the core of the book:

— Chapter 2, Satisfying Customer Needs deals with marketing, and the innovation required to keep up with changing customer needs over time.

— Chapter 3, Using Resources, deals with how to deliver the services that the marketing has defined or identified, and the innovation of that delivery over time. Continue Reading >