Jeremy Faludi over at Worldchanging has a nice primer on biomimicry.

“Most designers, engineers, architects, and other people who build things just don’t know that much about biology and the natural world; and even when they do, there’s often a gap of capability in available materials, manufacturing methods, and economic systems … Even with existing technology, however, an enormous realm of possibilities is feasible, it just requires the right approach.”

Now, I’m a fan of biomimicry (or what little I know of it), and I like the idea of organisation as organism, with its emphasis on the interactions between organism and the environment, and its emphasis on survival. But though metaphors are a great way of seeing things from a different angle, they are also a way of not seeing things. Metaphors help you change goggles, for sure, but you’re still wearing goggles. {Jason has a great post on the same here)

Some of things I don’t see with the biomimicry/organisation as organism metaphor are:

• that organisations affect their surroundings (possibly more so than organisms?)
• that individuals in the organisation don’t always gel as smoothly as the parts of an organism. Perhaps they ought to, or perhaps the lack of gel gives the organisation a creative edge. Don’t know.

Personally, I do like the organism goggles, but it’s good to try to take them off once in a while. Anything else the organism metaphor stops us/me/you seeing?