There is something about the return of 24 and Jack Bauer to the scene that quickens my pulse and puts me in to full implementation throttle.  Enough planning. Time to act Jack.

The words of my friend Len Schlesinger, Babson College President, have stuck with me since he shared his story at BIF-5.  Len challenged us to reverse our normal tendencies and go from doing to knowing instead of from knowing to doing.  He is so right. We know more than enough to act.  We have more technology than we could ever absorb to enable action.  What we lack is the capacity or inclination to try more stuff.  It is time to take ideas off of the white board and get them on the ground.  We have big social challenges to address and it is time to put technology and purposeful networks to work solving them.  You know, little things like health care, education, and energy.  We will learn what works by going from doing to knowing.

Two examples in the news this week reinforced for me the need for an action orientation even in the face of seemingly impossible odds.  Both Scott Brown winning the open Massachusetts Senate seat and General Larry Platt’s viral rendition of ‘Pants on the Ground’ remind me of the importance of acting upon passions without over thinking.  If Scott or Larry had spent more time thinking than doing neither of them would have ended up national headlines achieving their implausible results.

Regardless of your politics you have to be impressed with what Scott Brown pulled off.  Just 30 days before the election he wasn’t given even a remote chance of winning.   Who among us would have even embarked on any task with similar long odds?  I know many things came together to enable Scott Brown’s perfect storm but I can’t help but be impressed with the way he stayed true to his convictions and plan despite the odds and what must have been an avalanche of “experts” who piled on the bandwagon once they saw a scenario where Scott could win.  It seems to me that Scott didn’t over think it he just got up every day and stuck to the plan.  It worked.  Scott Brown went from doing to knowing.

I have not been able to get ‘Pants on the Ground’ out of my head since I heard it performed by General Larry Platt on American Idol.  Apparently I am not alone, as social media networks have lit up all week discussing the ditty. Talk about a bias for action against long odds.  The cutoff age for American Idol performers is 28.  Larry Platt is 62 and has spent a lifetime defying barriers and long odds.  Larry was nicknamed ‘General’ because of his track record of heroic efforts on behalf of the US civil rights movement.  He has battle scars from being beaten on the Bloody Sunday march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama for heaven’s sake.  General Larry Platt has a bias for action so fighting for a national platform to tell our country’s youth to pull their pants up comes naturally.  It worked. He didn’t have to think about it.  General Larry Platt went from doing to knowing.

Jack Bauer has begun his eighth day and in classic 24 style has come out swinging.  There is no doubt given the show’s frenetic heart stopping pace that doing comes before knowing.  Jack has no time to think about just-in-time intelligence before taking action.  Doing takes precedence.  Thank goodness because the planet’s existence seems to be at stake every season.  I am all Jacked up to do more stuff.  It is time.  The patient, student, citizen, and consumer are waiting.