Google today celebrates 366th anniversary of Maria Sibylla
Merian 's birthday with the gift of the Google Doodle. She was one of the
world's first entomologists, the 17th century artist and naturalist was
captured by butterflies and other pupal insects.
What makes Maria special, not only was she an
accomplished artist, but she was also an excellent naturalist and a bold
explorer, and her ability to well mix science
and art. Merian's pictures of insects were the first to depict all the
different life stages and the chrysalis for each species on its particular food
plant. Merian has since been recognized as one of the most talented and
influential scientific illustrators of her day and beyond.
Sure, today, business world becomes so overwhelming, but
nature is as fresh as three hundreds years ago, amazing creatures make the
world and life special, a little insects continue to teach us numerous
lessons:
- Butterfly’s
Transformation Journey
Merian described many details of the evolution and lifecycle
of the insects she observed. She could, for example, show that each stage of
the change from caterpillar to butterfly depended on a small number of plants
for its nourishment. Her studies prompted her aforementioned caterpillar book,
for which she is most well known and respected.
Business world also faces many transformation today,
the leadership transformation, digital transformation, global transformation,
what butterfly teaches us is about planning, dedication and timing.
- Bee’s
Pollination
Bees play an important role in pollinating flowering
plants, and are the major type of pollinator in ecosystems that
contain flowering plants. It is estimated that one third of the human food
supply depends on insect pollination, most of which is accomplished by bees.
Business’s innovation management just like Bee’s pollination
process, tends the garden, encourage and nurture innovative communication
cross-organization.
- Dragonfly’s
Excellent Vision
Despite human’s visual color range, there is a creature with
even greater scope; the dragonfly. Dragonflies (and bees) have the largest
compound eyes of any insect; each containing up to 30,000 facets, All
dragonfly species have excellent vision. Each compound eye is comprised of
several thousand elements known as facets or ommatidia. Day-flying dragonfly
species have four or five different opsins, allowing them to see colors that
are beyond human visual capabilities, such as ultraviolet (UV) light. Together,
these thousands of ommatidia produce a mosaic of “pictures” but how this visual
mosaic is integrated in the insect brain is still not known.
For many organizations today, business vision need be shaped
via collective wisdom, without vision, strategy loses its focus, and execution
has no direction to go, only multi-facet and multi-dimensional vision with full spectrum of color
can create a mosaic business picture to create synergy for the team.
Maria Sibylla Merian created an incredible merger of science
and art with her tireless study & work, shall we all follow her footsteps, and learn how to view
the world with cross-disciplinary lens?
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