The Parting Challenge of Beautiful Business

A final poetic project for your inner Pessoa

This week, professionals from around the world came together to live and work in the House of Beautiful Business. We listened, we spoke, and most of all, we felt our way, often fumbling, toward the possibility of a more human mode of commerce.

Yesterday, we saw the Unknown Summit, the very last event linked to the House of Beautiful Business. Now, the residents of the House of Beautiful Business are scattering to the four winds.

Here’s What’s Next

“Shall we have been, in the world, at the most, pen and ink with which somebody writes properly what we here jot?” — Fernando Pessoa

The time has come for us to jot.

At the House of Beautiful Business, I heard people from a diversity of cultures and languages stretching beyond their ordinary repertoire of words to express new ideas. They spoke of business, but they spoke with poetry.

I want us to capture some of that poetry for the rest of the world.

For that reason, I am proposing a Poetry of Business project beginning… today.

I encourage you to reflect upon the most vital experiences from this week’s House of Beautiful Business, or more broadly, from your life in business, and set these ideas down in verse.

Don’t aim for perfection. Embody your passion, and let your inner critic take a nap as you take hold of your pen.

Send your poems and visual artwork to me at Jon****CCook@icloud.com. I will edit them together into a book of poetry that we’ll make available to the world.

Contribute something of substance (no 5-second sketches or Twitter-scale verse), along with your mailing address, and you will receive a physical copy of the book for free. In accord with the vision of Fernando, you should feel free to use a heteronym (pen name), but you’ll have to send me your true mailing address if you want the book.

This is not an English-only project. Write in your native language or the language of your heart. All non-English verse will be included as it is sent, without translation.

Those who are willing to read, record, and share their poem will have their work included in a special poetry-only bonus episode of the podcast This Human Business.

Although this project is inspired by the House of Beautiful Business, participation in it is not limited to current and former residents of the House. It is open to all who are willing to submit an apt contribution — a poem or piece of visual art reflecting your experience of the pursuit of human beauty in business.

So, if you happen to know an aspiring poet toiling away in a cubicle somewhere, please spread the word and encourage a submission.

(Throughout it all, your poetry and art remains your property, aside from permission to use it in this project.)

The 30 Poem Caveat

Here’s the thing: We can’t possibly create a book of poetry unless we have a book’s worth of poetry and art to work with. I figure that, even with the addition of visual art and explanatory prose, we’ll need at least 30 poems to craft a book worth picking up. Anything less would be… a brochure.

So, the future of this project rests with you, a member of the larger community inspired by the House of Beautiful Business.

If we fail to reach the 30-poem threshold, the book will go unpublished.

Will you help to make it happen? If you’re particularly eager, you can submit more than one poem, though there will be a limit of 5 published poems per person, just to prevent the book from being dominated by any single voice.

I look to reading all about your beautiful business… in verse.