What Was the Most Important Lesson You Learned in 2005?

Here are my top 25 in David Letterman Countdown Format. I learned that:

• 25. There is no defence against disruptive innovation.
• 24. The impediments to sharing what we know are mostly cultural, not technological. Dysfunctional ‘information behaviours’ (office politics, not knowing what you don’t know, incompatible learning styles, inadequate or counterproductive reward mechanisms etc.) abound and confound us.
• 23. The customer has all the power in our economy. We just don’t realize it yet.
• 22. Small is beautiful. Simpler is better. Less is more.
• 21. The most important step in any innovation or collaboration project is who you invite, and crafting the invitation so that the right people (caring, knowledgeable etc.) will accept and show up. 
• 20. You know much more than you can say and you can say much more than you can write down. So if you want to share what you know, forget about writing it down, converse with me, or better still, show me. 
• 19. As work gets more complex, more specialized and more networked, we are seeing a World of Ends, and the End of Process. 
• 18. Most technology is inexcusably complicated and intolerably dumb. We need to learn that the brain is much more than an information processor and a memory. Technology needs to learn how to learn, to observe, to see patterns, and hence to advise us, connect us, instead of depending on us to spoon feed it. Heuristics: Less matter and more art.
• 17. People learn more from stories than from even the most brilliant analytical discourse. 
• 16. Collaboration is much more than just coordination or cooperation.
• 15. Look carefully at the data before you jump to conclusions. The main reason for the recent decline in violent crime in America’s cities was Roe v. Wade two decades ago and the increased access to abortion that it allowed. Not law & order, not more prisons and stiffer sentences, not gun control. 
• 14. The political system (and to a lesser extent the economic system) is inexorably rigged in favour of the rich and powerful. If you want to change anything, use other levers — social, educational, technological, entrepreneurial. 
• 13. Artists see things the rest of us can’t see, but they speak to us of them in a language we often don’t really understand. Scientists appreciate that the purpose of science is to develop models that are interesting and sometimes useful. Next to artists, they are our most perceptive citizens. 
• 12. We need to find the things that are at the intersection of what we love doing, what we do well, and what is needed — and then do them. 
• 11. Always trust your instincts. When your careful rationalizations or your passionate emotions lead you to do something that instinctively seems questionable, you will probably regret it.
• 10. There’s nothing wrong with the education system except for the teachers (we learn best by watching and doing, not by listening), the classrooms (the world is out there, not in here!) and the examinations (they are more likely to tell you what the students already knew than what they learned).
• 9. Complicated ‘solutions’ don’t work if the ‘problem’ is complex. Forget root cause analysis, systems thinking, and easy answers. Engage a lot of people in conversations, observe, listen, pay attention, be open, and allow possible approaches to such situations to emerge. 
• 8. Courage is the difference between merely great ideas and great accomplishments. For most of us, we only get courage when we have no other choice. 
• 7. Nature is the best teacher. We just need to re-learn how to learn from her, and how to pay attention. Ask and people will tell you what they think is happening. Watch and you will know.
• 6. If you can’t imagine, you can do anything. If you can imagine, you can’t not do anything. Many people just can’t imagine. We live in a world of great creativity but terrible imaginative poverty.
• 5. Things are the way they are (and happen as they do) for a reason. It’s not mystical, but it’s rarely obvious. Observe, study and understand that reason well before you try to change the way things are.
• 4. Frames matter. You’ll never convince anyone of anything until you understand her frame of reference. And you’ll never convince anyone of anything until she’s ready to be convinced. 
• 3. My Genius is Imagining Possibilities and its Purpose is Provoking Change. 
• 2. What most people want, women and men alike, is a little attention and a little appreciation. We need to be much more generous with these things, even more generous than we are with material things, and our knowledge and our love. 
• 1. We cannot change what we are, or our species’ destiny. The Earth will recover from what we’ve done to it, and continue just fine after we’ve gone, with the birds and insects likely the next ascendant species. So we should not be weighed down or depressed by the burden of our species’ inhumanity to each other, to our fellow creatures and to the Earth, but instead do what we can to live life to the fullest, create some useful models for others to follow, and make the world better in small, exemplary, noticeable, generous and important ways. AprËs nous les dragons, mais la vie continue. 

If my question is too broad for you to answer, pick some of the topics from my blog taxonomy (diagrammed above) and answer it in the context of those topics.

And if your answer ties in to the subjects of innovation, creativity and brainstorming, don’t forget to drop Chuck a line by Friday as well.
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Thanks to all those who taught me these lessons, and in particular: Clay Christensen, Chris & the Open Space gang, Dave Snowden, Ross Mayfield, Clay Shirky, Doc Searls, Dave Weinberger, John, Jon, the breakfast at Flo’s gang, Mitch, Carolyn, Tim, the Freakonomics guys, Cyndy, Andrew, Dale, Mariella, Dave, David, Rob, Evelyn, George Lakoff, Daniel Quinn, Kevin, Kathy, Fouro, Hugh, Indigo, Dilys, Renee, Sam, Medaille, Pearl, Emily, Kara, Rebecca, Stephen, Dick Richards, Aleah, Rayne and the wild and wonderful women of Salon Blogs, John Gray, and all those readers and people on my blogroll who have imparted wisdom over the year which, finally, perhaps is beginning to sink in.