Ohio Investment Network


Recent Blogs


Pitching Help Desk


Testimonials

"I made several great connections through your network. In fact, I was able to over fund my project. I also listed with another network that cost 3X as much and the leads were nowhere near as solid as the investors I met through this network. I will definitely only be using this network in the future. "
Jason A.

 BLOG >> Recent

Principle of Highest Use [Design
Posted on January 18, 2016 @ 09:01:00 AM by Paul Meagher

One of the books I'm currently reading is Toby Hemenway's book, The Permaculture City (2015), which I also mentioned in my last blog.

I am a couple of chapters in. These 2 chapters were worth the price of the book as they are filled with insights on systems thinking and design, a couple of topics that are of perennial interest to me. These chapters reaffirm a suspicion I've held for awhile now, that anyone looking for advice on coming up with ideas and approaches to starting a business can look to Permaculture as much as to Lean Startup Theory for advice and inspiration on how to proceed. With the publication of this book, I think that there is now a solid case for doing so.

The book is not about starting a business per se, but starting a business is just one example of where good design comes into play. You also need good design to grow a productive garden, to raise good kids, to construct a successful investment portfolio, to build a house that you will be satisfied with over the long term. Why should the theory on how to start a business be viewed as separate from the theory on how to design anything well? Toby views Permaculture's design principles as general design principles.

The Principle of Highest Use is one such principle which Toby discusses in chapter 2. This principle advises us to consider all the uses that X might have and to structure our usage to ensure that we extract the highest use along with many of its other uses as well. We employ the highest use principle, for example, with our use of clothing. When our clothing is shiny and new we wear it in situations where it will be put to its highest use, at work or at school for example. Once the clothing gets a bit tattered and smeared, it might become clothing we wear around the house and in the garden. Once it gets really beat up we might wear it on a messy job that makes even its use around the house unacceptable. At that point we might cut it up into rags and continue to use it. Our clothing has all of these potential uses, but we want to make sure we enjoy its highest use, its next highest use, and so on before eventually discarding it or recycling it. This may sound like an ecological principle with a scope limited to telling us how to treat physical objects, but what Toby does well in this book is illustrate how Permaculture principles have much wider relevance:

Many people, consciously or not, apply highest use to their work habits. At the beginning of my workday, my brain is at its best, so I do the most intellectually challenging tasks, such as studying new material that I need to master. When that part of my mind feels stuffed full, I move to writing and other creative work. Once my creative juices are spent, I answer e-mails and make phone calls. It takes even less brainpower to sort, file, and organize tasks and materials so I do that next. When my brain has deteriorated to an inert mass, I find physical work to do. Somehow that work pattern manages to preserve some social energy, which often fills my evening. ~ p.33

This way of illustrating the principle is provocative and made me reflect on whether I am making the highest use of my brain. Makes me appreciate why watching TV is a guilty pleasure. Is my brain really that dead that all I can do with it is watch tv?

The highest use principle is useful for thinking about manage a business. If your startup is doing poorly is it because you aren't making the highest use of your employees? Are you only getting their second or third highest use? How do you structure your workplace so highest use is managed appropriately. If your programmer's highest use is programming, when should they be attending meetings? At the beginning of the day when they are potentially at their most productive or at the end of the day before they leave work for the day? What may be convenient from a management perspective may be disastrous from a highest use perspective.

According to Toby:

Highest use tells us how to connect design elements or activities in time by linking their functions or uses in a sequence. It tells us what to do first. ~ p.33

The assimilation of a design principle usually involves 2 aspects:

  • Bill Mollison, the co-founder of Permaculture, observed that design principles are usually formulated as as imperatives to do something. In this case, we might formulate the highest use principle as the imperative to "Evaluate and Apply Highest Use".
  • Toby advises us to turn this imperative into a mantra so that it becomes ingrained in our consciousness.

I hope this discussion of just of one of the many Permaculture Principle discussed in this book helps to convince you that Permaculture might have something useful to say about alot more things than how to grow a garden, which it also offers good advice on. It can also be used to give us practical ideas on how to start and run a business or how to invest in such businesses. What is the highest use of investment capital? What are all of its potential uses?

I don't want to leave you with the impression that I think Lean Startup Theory is not worth studying. It is. It is no longer the only game in town, however, and many Lean Startup principles are derivable from Permacuture's larger set of design principles. Where they fundamentally differ is that Permaculture's principles also include 3 ethical principles (i.e., Earth Care, People, Care, Return of Surplus to Earth and People) where Learn Startup Theory is not so constrained - let the free market be the judge. Ultimately I think there should be more crosstalk between Learn Startup Theory and Permaculture to see if we can't move both frameworks forward even further. I think Toby's book is a good resource to spur some of that crosstalk.

Permalink 

 Archive 
 

Archive


 November 2023 [1]
 June 2023 [1]
 May 2023 [1]
 April 2023 [1]
 March 2023 [6]
 February 2023 [1]
 November 2022 [2]
 October 2022 [2]
 August 2022 [2]
 May 2022 [2]
 April 2022 [4]
 March 2022 [1]
 February 2022 [1]
 January 2022 [2]
 December 2021 [1]
 November 2021 [2]
 October 2021 [1]
 July 2021 [1]
 June 2021 [1]
 May 2021 [3]
 April 2021 [3]
 March 2021 [4]
 February 2021 [1]
 January 2021 [1]
 December 2020 [2]
 November 2020 [1]
 August 2020 [1]
 June 2020 [4]
 May 2020 [1]
 April 2020 [2]
 March 2020 [2]
 February 2020 [1]
 January 2020 [2]
 December 2019 [1]
 November 2019 [2]
 October 2019 [2]
 September 2019 [1]
 July 2019 [1]
 June 2019 [2]
 May 2019 [3]
 April 2019 [5]
 March 2019 [4]
 February 2019 [3]
 January 2019 [3]
 December 2018 [4]
 November 2018 [2]
 September 2018 [2]
 August 2018 [1]
 July 2018 [1]
 June 2018 [1]
 May 2018 [5]
 April 2018 [4]
 March 2018 [2]
 February 2018 [4]
 January 2018 [4]
 December 2017 [2]
 November 2017 [6]
 October 2017 [6]
 September 2017 [6]
 August 2017 [2]
 July 2017 [2]
 June 2017 [5]
 May 2017 [7]
 April 2017 [6]
 March 2017 [8]
 February 2017 [7]
 January 2017 [9]
 December 2016 [7]
 November 2016 [7]
 October 2016 [5]
 September 2016 [5]
 August 2016 [4]
 July 2016 [6]
 June 2016 [5]
 May 2016 [10]
 April 2016 [12]
 March 2016 [10]
 February 2016 [11]
 January 2016 [12]
 December 2015 [6]
 November 2015 [8]
 October 2015 [12]
 September 2015 [10]
 August 2015 [14]
 July 2015 [9]
 June 2015 [9]
 May 2015 [10]
 April 2015 [9]
 March 2015 [8]
 February 2015 [8]
 January 2015 [5]
 December 2014 [11]
 November 2014 [10]
 October 2014 [10]
 September 2014 [8]
 August 2014 [7]
 July 2014 [5]
 June 2014 [7]
 May 2014 [6]
 April 2014 [3]
 March 2014 [8]
 February 2014 [6]
 January 2014 [5]
 December 2013 [5]
 November 2013 [3]
 October 2013 [4]
 September 2013 [11]
 August 2013 [4]
 July 2013 [8]
 June 2013 [10]
 May 2013 [14]
 April 2013 [12]
 March 2013 [11]
 February 2013 [19]
 January 2013 [20]
 December 2012 [5]
 November 2012 [1]
 October 2012 [3]
 September 2012 [1]
 August 2012 [1]
 July 2012 [1]
 June 2012 [2]


Categories


 Agriculture [77]
 Bayesian Inference [14]
 Books [18]
 Business Models [24]
 Causal Inference [2]
 Creativity [7]
 Decision Making [17]
 Decision Trees [8]
 Definitions [1]
 Design [38]
 Eco-Green [4]
 Economics [14]
 Education [10]
 Energy [0]
 Entrepreneurship [74]
 Events [7]
 Farming [21]
 Finance [30]
 Future [15]
 Growth [19]
 Investing [25]
 Lean Startup [10]
 Leisure [5]
 Lens Model [9]
 Making [1]
 Management [12]
 Motivation [3]
 Nature [22]
 Patents & Trademarks [1]
 Permaculture [36]
 Psychology [2]
 Real Estate [5]
 Robots [1]
 Selling [12]
 Site News [17]
 Startups [12]
 Statistics [3]
 Systems Thinking [3]
 Trends [11]
 Useful Links [3]
 Valuation [1]
 Venture Capital [5]
 Video [2]
 Writing [2]