Francis Bacon ant spider bee: stop collecting.
The Francis Bacon ant spider bee image sorts knowledge makers into three kinds, and only the third works. Bacon's ant collects and uses, while his spider spins webs from itself. So the trap is an ant that collects and never uses.
What Bacon meant in 1620.
In 1620, Francis Bacon published Novum Organum. In aphorism ninety-five, he sorted the people making knowledge into three kinds. "The men of experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use," he wrote. Meanwhile, reasoners are spiders, spinning webs out of their own substance. So in the Francis Bacon ant spider bee sorting, only the third kind works.
The Francis Bacon ant spider bee lesson for you.
Bacon wanted the two joined. However, he had no word for someone collecting information without using it. That person carries everything back to the nest, then goes out again. Diego's folder held every PDF, template and video, sorted inside seven days. Yet not one file had been used on a person.
The narrow charge, and the stamped paper.
The charge is narrow. You chose, again and again, work where nobody could turn you down. So knowledge hoarding came with a certificate saying you had done something. Therefore, stop buying the next one, since that needs no permission. But sometimes a government-stamped paper really stands in the way. You have assumed yours is real, and you never checked.
Leave the Francis Bacon ant spider bee nest tonight.
Pause all new purchases until one person outside your house is asked for money.
Check whether the official permit you assume you need is actually required.
From the book.
That's the whole charge, and it's narrower than it sounded when this chapter started. Not that you wasted the money. Not that the teaching was poor, because in my case it wasn't. Only this: you chose, over and over, across four years and a dozen receipts, the version of the work in which nobody was ever free to turn you down, and every time you chose it there was a certificate at the end saying you'd done something.
I Want to Start a Business but I Never Actually Start, chapter 6: The course that never ends
Questions about Francis Bacon ant spider bee.
What is the Francis Bacon ant spider bee idea?
In Novum Organum, Bacon sorted knowledge makers into three kinds. The ant collects, the spider spins, and only the third works.
Why is endless collecting a problem?
Collecting never puts you in front of a customer. The customer is the one allowed to turn you down.
Is stopping the next purchase enough?
It is a start. However, check whether a real government document stands between you and a customer.
Read the whole chapter.
This lesson covers one section of chapter 6, “The course that never ends”. The book goes further, with the full evidence, the stories and every exercise.
Lessons in this chapter.
- 01 Certificate but no customers: the week after the course.
- 02 MOOC completion rates: what the edX data shows.
- 03 Do business courses actually help: the data's limits.
- 04 List of courses never used: build your ledger.
- 05 Does business training work: what Uganda showed.
- 06 Francis Bacon ant spider bee: stop collecting.