I tried my best to disconnect from my working life while on my Honeymoon. Honest. No, seriously I'm telling the truth. In many ways I was quite successful, I completely disconnected from e-mail, no meetings, no conference calls, it really was great. I even found time to get comfy on a hammock on the beach and read a book.
I didn't however, completely disconnect with everything related to my job. That's because there's intersection between the things that consume my working life and the things that I fill my outside life with. The main intersection involves the Global Ecosystem, and mankind's undeniable impact on it. This is a topic that I personally care deeply about, and something that is of strong corporate importance for Autodesk.
In my role as Product Manager, I'm lucky to have the tremendous opportunity to help shape the software that you in the Building Design industry use to design buildings. More and more, the software that you are using is replacing decades-old "check figures" to drive the design decisions for the Built Environment. This integration of technology is allowing for dramatic improvements in in the availability of objective design information, when it is needed for design decisions. With better information and technology, we can make better decisions.
Those decisions, in turn, make a huge impact on the Built Environment's energy and material usages. I'm sure you all know all of this, so I'll step down from my soap box...for now. In short, I feel it is my obligation to my grandchildren, and their grandchildren, to try and reverse the damage that we inflict on Earth's Ecosystem every day, and Autodesk feels the same way. So with that in mind, I set out to do a little "light" reading while I was in Costa Rica.
When I was a Senior in college at Cornell, my brother told me that I needed to read a book called Natural Capitalism. I'm admittedly not a huge reader of books, although I have an insatiable appetite for Internet articles. Nonetheless I read the book; and it completely changed my view on the world.
I know that sounds dramatic, and I'm usually not a really dramatic person. Nonetheless, it really was a big change for me. Never before had I be so clearly presented with objective information regarding mankind's impact on Earth's Ecosystem, it's consequences, and the options to avoid those consequences. As a senior in College though, I didn't see a whole lot that I could do, other than trying to minimize my impact, which I try to do every day.
I've been so caught up with 60-70 hour weeks, endless e-mail, conference calls, and wedding planning lately, that I really felt disconnected from the larger world, so I decided to re-read Natural Capitalism, to help re-focus and re-energize me with a larger purpose at work and at home.
Wow. That's all I can say. Wow. I really didn't expect everything to be just as powerful the second time, but it was. I could go at length about the immensely important points made in the book, but it's much better for you out there to read the book. My ability to articulate these points with quantifiable evidence pales in comparison to Natural Capitalism's authors.
So that's my call to action, if you haven't read Natural Capitalism, read it. If you have and it was a long time ago, read it it again. The entire text of the book is available for FREE online, or you can buy the paperback version. If you need motivation to make changes in your personal life or your professional life as a design professional, this is it. If you already know the importance, but want to better understand everything, read the book.
Okay, now I will get off the Soap Box. There will be a test in 2 months. Just kidding.
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