Where Hope Lives
Challenge, isolation, youth and individualism are fundamental characteristics of human territorial frontiers. In the continuing process of fixing ideas in frontier theory, a functional definition of a frontier is the most essential element. It is also the most difficult, because people tend to confuse the idea of a frontier with that of a space that is merely empty of human habitation.
Siberia is empty. The bottom of the ocean is empty. Antarctica is empty. None of these are, or could become, viable frontiers. They all fail by one or more of the following criteria.
The pages of a technical journal for lubrication engineers is not the most plausible place to seek insights into cultural anthropology, yet it is where Dr. Shirley Schwartz, a senior staff research scientist at General Motors, shares an intriguing link between ancient Alaskan tribes and creative productivity in modern engineering. It seems that the Tlingit (sounds like "klink it") were among the most technologically advanced of the early North American peoples. Schwartz attributes their advanced state to harsh living conditions that motivated the development of technology, especially that of building ocean-going boats. The Tlingit themselves believe, according to Schwartz, that technology and creativity flourished with them because of their freedom from the kind of raiding, warfare and forced migration experienced elsewhere in North America. Their freedom from attack was the result of isolation, isolation provided by rugged mountain ranges on three sides and the sea on the fourth.
The story has relevance to business administration via an analogy with corporate culture. Firms that experience restructuring, downsizing and relocation, the business equivalents of raiding, warfare and forced migration, rate a "-1" for enablers on Schwartz's "creative productivity" scale. Firms without a driving need to meet tough technical challenges rate a "-1" for motivation. Schwartz proposes the Tlingit Scale as a new tool for investors. Probably without realizing it, she has demonstrated an application of frontier theory to twenty-first century speculation. With that digression, we move on.
In "A Shared Vision in Space", Allan Lee, Suite101's contributing editor for Broadcasting, calls the Apollo flights to the moon and subsequent crewed space missions "perhaps one of the few things we watch on TV that's truly worthy". He concludes by asking, "Have we lost the capacity to go out into space, not for entertainment, but because it is a challenge?" Lee and Schwarz are on he same wavelength. Challenge, the key to economic vitality, is as well a primary ingredient in our definition of a frontier.
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