About

Mark Gordon

Mark is an experienced entrepreneur and business executive with over 25 years’ experience in fields as diverse as the military, publishing, software, web development, and nonprofit management. Among other things, Mark has launched two national, four-color trade magazines; a book publisher; a web development firm; an art institute, and an energy development company. He has also written for several national publications, is a published poet, a blogger, and for seven years hosted a nationally syndicated radio program. Read more about Mark here

What is a ‘path tree?’

Native American tribes living in deep forest maintained trails that appeared invisible to an outsider. To them the way was clear, emblazoned with markers that lasted for decades, even centuries. How did they do it? They established path trees, also known as signal trees. Tying back a sapling to give its trunk a sharp bend in the direction of the trail, they encoded information in the very growth of the tree. As long as it stood, it showed the way to those able to read it. To anyone unfamiliar with the forest, with what belonged and what might have been subtly altered, the path was indistinguishable from the woods around it. Whole-systems thinking is about the pattern recognition that occurs when we scale or slew our perspective appropriately. Through whole-systems thinking, we walk the delicate line between chaos and complexity, just as native Americans did when they discerned the signposts known as path trees.