#1263 seeds of knowledge

A new colleague shared with us an item from the Internet that alleges you can predict the winter weather by the appearance of a persimmon seed.

According to this article, if the kernel is:
> spoon shaped, lots of snow will fall
> fork-shaped, there will be a mild winter
> knife-shaped, expect icy, cutting winds

It would have been easy for us to dismiss this and move on, but we needed to know.  First off, we needed to know what a persimmon was since no one was quite sure (looks like a tomato; but is hard and tastes like a pumpkin).  Then we needed to know where to buy one (answer:  Walmart, not either of the grocery store chains).

We gathered around for our grand experiment and what did we learn?  That the Fuyu persimmon we purchased is seedless!  AHHH!!!

But our colleague did learn that this is a metaphor for how we do things.  We share.  We ask questions.  We do research and learn more.  We don't give up when we can't find things the easy way.  We experiment.  We test hypotheses.  We help each other.  We fail.  And we try again.

I am not sure we would have learned anything new about the weather if the fruit actually bore a seed. But what we demonstrated about our culture was more valuable than knowing the forecast.

Is there a seed of knowledge in this lesson that you can apply in your office?

-- beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com

@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com

Source: http://www.almanac.com/content/predicting-weather-using-persimmon-seed