The library or the garden

I really love books. The smell, the touch, but most of all, the immutability. I can go back to my grandfather's World War II Navy Bluejacket's Manual — or any of the hundreds of books in our home library — and count on it to have exactly the same information as the day it was printed, no matter how long I've left it untouched.

My wife loves gardens. The life force, the care and maintenance, and most of all, the surprise of beauty. Every season presents a new adventure of care, and yields unexpected disappointments and delights.

How different these two are, in their maintenance, and in what we get from them.

A thought for you:

How do you think of the people represented in your CRM?

Are they a library of resources, to be left alone, and retrieved for your use whenever you need them?

Or are they a garden of living organisms, in need of continual care, needing themselves to be enriched before they can enrich you?

Either answer is fine.

Just remember that if you maintain a library the way you would a garden, you'll probably end up with compost.

And if you treat a garden the way you would a library, you'll probably end up with dead trees.

All the best,
A.