Having said all that, I found the book fascinating and thought-provoking because it’s a genuine attempt to point to something that I feel is incredibly important and generally excluded from most management books: the mysterious stuff that goes on between we human beings that cannot be reduced to a business process. And I know there have been seminal moments in my life where I’ve experienced groups of people thinking together in a way where one begins to sense something really powerful at work, below the surface.

One of the great benefits of a travel day is the opportunity it affords to catch up on some reading. Yesterday was such a day and it gave me time to ponder some unrelated but connected posts which had been swirling around in the hopper.

Jon Udell’s recent series of posts on SL – the first and second on 3D simulation, the third commentary on a breakout session at the Greater IBM Virtual Block Party and the latest post looked at 3D telepresence – had all registered.

As it turns out I have been having some great conversations with SL residents of late on each of the above. One of those is Nobody Fugazi who has written a great two part post on presence. It beautifully captures the meaning of the concept which is extremely difficult to verbalism at the best of times.

When not helping people out with petrol money and becoming one with immovable objects friend and fellow facilitator Johnnie Moore shared his thoughts on presence. Using Peter Senge et al latest work titled Presence as the platform Johnnie thinks aloud on a subject we have discussed on a number of occasions.

On the last occasion we spoke I shared with Johnnie my thoughts from a dino inc chapter titled Fight or Flee to Flow which to my simplistic world view perfectly captures the essence of presence. Rereading each of the above posts and accompanying comments I was reminded how fortunate each of us are to be living in such interesting times.