Given the past two weeks I'd thought this deserves a repost... Who is Michel and why should I, you, or anyone care? Fear or Hate - what choice?

Several evenings ago around 9:00 PM I was introduced to Michel.  He is here on LinkedIn but this isn't where we met.

Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater. -- George Washington Carver

In the site stream for our marketplace at Fleet Logistics I saw an alert that we had a new user sign-up. When you are a startup each new user is exciting. It is what keeps you going one after another. You celebrate them and you celebrate with them as if every one is your 1 millionth customer!

The point is that the behavior of a user in the platform business model is something to be understood, explored, and leveraged. You want to know in detail why each person does what they do. There is no more intimate time to do this than at the beginning of your journey.

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding. -- Leonardo da Vinci

How did you find us?  What value are you seeing? Who are you?

Curation is core to building a marketplace. We want to make sure that our users are who they say they are, we want to create an exceptionable experience, we want to be comfortable that what we have is safe and trustworthy.   

When you curate you find people entering the store you don't like very much.   These are the ones that create a bad experience for the rest of the people.  There are others too!

When you have these at first you fear them, then you hate them, and ultimately you want to kill them!   After all that first person who signs up with a fake account is just like any other scum of the earth faker who is there to make my life hard.   So now when I see one, my fear of a bad experience moves directly to,  KILL THEM!  I hate them... something isn't right however.  See how easily fear turns to hate?

We are not any different than another startup. TechCrunch sends out an article and before long you have more engineering and entrepreneurial / founder types signing up as everyone from Alvin Chipmunk to Zoolander.

They all want to see what you got.  You also have those that sign-up with identities pretty easy to check.   They still make work for you, I fear the work, I must Kill Them!  Remember, fear makes it easy to hate.

As this was happening a lot was going on in the world.  A black person getting killed in the US by a policeman.  Police getting killed as a reflection of the fear that turned into hate.   ISIS creating fear of Muslims.   It goes on and on.  

As I saw the face of the policeman who shot the black man I saw something.  He was frightened, he didn't hate the black man.  He was almost crying when he realized what he had done, he acted out of fear, not hate.

The same week I watched an animation of a Palestinian boy playing on the beach with a Jewish boy.  It was looking backwards as they enjoyed each others company reflecting on why so many people died because they feared each other. 

Michel is different to me in some way?  I see a person that I don't understand.

When you curate you make decisions.   From those you judge and you act.   If I judged every user based on fear we would have no one using our platform.   If I let my reaction to that fear cause me to "Kill them" ... cancel their accounts, my world ends. If I act this way always I will miss an opportunity to understand.  The desire to understand fundamental to us. We are human, we need to understand.

Later that night and into the next day I was troubled by Michel. I decided Michel is different, he signed up but did no malicious activity on the platform.   Was he to be feared? Did he hate what we did because he was jealous?  Was he trying to steal an idea?  ...... or perhaps, he is just curious.   

Curious... the desire to understand.  Fundamental.

You see Michel is a student and in farming in Angola.  Or at least the person who has that name has a profile that says that.   My Michel is from Angola and I have only been able to find one.   

Why would a student and someone in farming create an account on a global logistics marketplace? Is he an engineer? Angola is not a hot spot for software engineers but he could be, after all he is also a student? Is Michel a dreamer and in his dreams for a future tied in somewhat to the hopes of international trade and logistics? Or starting his (maybe her) own business.  

He(or she) says his business is in an area called Amilcar Cabral. I searched for the address and then found out that Amilcar Cabral is a person. I don’t know if Amilcar Cabral’s and my politics would agree but in that search I found this quote. Now I am more curious.

In the end the same curiosity that drives us to understand user behavior as we build a business is now driving me to see if I can learn more rather than fear another person. How might our differences, our cultural perspectives determine history? Are our cultures closer as a result of a international trade, something we aspire to make easier at Fleet.

Michel is curious about Fleet, now I am curious about Michel. 

Let me leave you with this thought.   Have you ever been afraid because of the fruit of another's behavior?  What if you approached this with curiosity instead of fear?   That does not mean don't be cautious just be less fearful.  Why let the fruit of another's history determine our current history?  

What if we curate our world differently.  Curiosity rather than Fear?

I know I will fail at this but I think I want to try, I want to make more effort to understand.  Why will I fail, because I am human.  But also in failure I will learn.

Michel, who are you?   I'm curious.

A long career in international logistics has given me the gift to look at the world differently.  I can only hope all of us can find the logistics of kindness.   I am still human and so are you.