We humans have ants in our pants. We are road warriors, million-mile-flyers, web-surfers, because-it-was-there climbers. We come upon this tendency honestly. Our early ancestors sprung up and out of Africa sixty thousand years ago, on a grand trek that involved land bridges and star navigation. The march continues to this day. Only now, on a grand scale, we really have nowhere left to go. No uncharted points on the map. No hospitable land to grab. Not many stones left unturned. Our billions have spread far and wide and down and up, scraping the sky and mining the deeps and paving even the wildest of paradises.We social innovators are not immune to the adventurer's inclination. As "change-makers," we strain against the start gate, our eyes trained on the finish line. Armed with sticky notes, we rapidly prototype our way from pain point to panacea, from shame to solvency.Of course our work is needed. I am no stranger to sticky notes. I work as a strategist, helping social innovators crystallize their organizational identities squarely in the solutions space. But I am coming to realize that the rush from problem to solution may be leaving something essential in its wake. My clients and I are stepping into, and learning to savor, the rich and marvelous state that exists between problem and solution. A less celebrated place, for certain, but a place well worth our attention if we are to learn not only how to race but how to stay.In nature this place is called the "ecotone." Translated from the Greek, it means "house of tension." Ecologists see it as a transition zone between two established biomes ... a swath of shrubs between field and forest, or a bed of reeds between aquatic and terrestrial habitats. These are the places we fail to notice when we lift our eyes to the horizon. But we should not rush through the in-between places. If we stay awhile, the ecotone offers a unique analogy for our work in the world.When we pause...Read More
