World Service Responsibilities of Londoners to the Future and of the Peoples Economics

Sustainability World's Open Debates - top 3 summer 007

http://cidaworld.tv -selections by Entrepreneur76

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Dr Yunus of Grameen and microcredit and Nobel peace 2006 is setting cities and citiens around the world an interesting challenge. If he is passing through your city would you be able to find 1000 people who all wanted to collaborate with each other as well as him in empowering a good global world instead of the bad one currently compoundingSynonyms for good are win-win-win, sustainable, empowering every community up, one where hi-trust people transparently win over low-trustSo 2 questions:if Yunus was passing through Africa cities, which do you think would produce the most collaborative impactsif you are a twin national

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2516276605 - eg living in a rich city but with family roots back in Africa - how ready is your big rich city to represent Africa interests when Yunus hosts his Forum 1000 there.My friends are particularly working on London and New York as 2 test cities; partly because a London University student spent the summer interning in Dhaka on this project. One intercity collaboration idea is collaboration cafe - see those we have already hosted and tell us at info@worldcitizen.tv if you want to replay one in your city or virtually http://worldcitizen.tv/_wsn/page4.html

Another collaboration idea is can we produce a good global idea to heroes, their projects and networks for humanity. Why do people all over the world know the top 10 sporstmen for 50 different sports but not top 10s for different vital issues of human sustainability? http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5475184122

http://worldcitizen.tv/_wsn/page2.html

But the best truth about collaboration knowledge cities http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%2Bknowledge+%2Bcollaboration+%2Bcity&btnG=Google+Search in the 5 years that I have been searching the peoples and communities that weave them is that if any city does a great job in turning round a beter Global with Yunus we can all learn from what it did and work out how to invite the 1000 most relevant citizens when Yunus passes your way. http://grameen.tv/

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Hello

MARTIN LEITH
I would like to introduce espians and their friends and a few Knowledge revolutionaries to one of the world's top OS agents - though when last I met he had retired from interactive stages since too few media investing sponsors wanted to invest in the before (inviting the milllion people) and after (gluing the million) of the OS as well as the day's performance itself

HOW DO I KNOW WHO ML IS?
well when you go and spend half a day with Harrison Owen founder of OS as well as great stories http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2336949583

you get told chris - well 25 years into open space and its parent network organisational transformation: 100000 open spaces have been convened in about 100 countries; there are about 10000 people who have ever tried to host an OS and there are only about 20 platinum belts who do the whole enchalada- now here are 3 of these people near you- dont correspond with me again until you have met them all - wink! (ie Harrison never says dont but its clear he will give anyone his time once but not necessarily twice)

of the three, Martin certainly had more wildly grounded in contexts innovation ideas of how large scale transformation works- where I say ideas, he has practised them as far sponsors would empower -
-in old days he also donated too? much time to chnage world movements such as CTWWW - create the world we want- I say too?\because CTW3 was the fisrt OS I ever encountered and it changed my views of worldwide networks and who's truly changing what in ways that have a cat's chnace in hell of sustaining or empowering rights (my video thme of week)

BACK TO FUTURE
so for example when the EU knowledgeboard said they wanted to open space all the deepest KM experts they in Brussels could invite- Martin was the host only to find that the EU had a 99% infotech view of KM's future and a 1% human view of experts needed to be invited - well maybe I lie maybe it was 98% 2% but there is a dvd testmony of this somewhgere if someone wants to do the recount

Heavens only knows if any espians or BTC or CW3 or KM want to ask martin anything related to hosting 1000 people meetings on July 28 or other future espian attempts to return the world to the colaboration sanity Time Berners Lee invited us to open space and inttegrate hi-trust network maps around - I guess the circulation list will show if heaven is awake this weekend or enjoying the global warming

related references:
lets fill up an open space wall http://changeworld.net/_wsn/page4.html
http://openspaceraces.blogspot.com
http://futureoflondon.blogspot.com
http://wiki.espians.com/User:Entrepreneur76

KM & Emotional Intelligence snuffed 2005 http://www.knowledgeboard.com/open_groups/emotional_intelligence/

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&sitesearch=knowledgeboard.com&q=transdisciplinarity&btnG=Search

20 ways to love trust map http://ecomap.tv/_wsn/page2.html
http://hi-trust.tv http://hitrust.tv http://joyoftruth.com

Friday, January 19, 2007

Which will be the meetings with the most impact for humanity in 2007? - one of the most critical years of the decade of truth our future historians, economists, entrepreneurs and internationalists forecast 2005-2015 would need to be if the networking revolution is to integrate a sustainable globalisation rather than one that terminates future generations?
http://www.normanmacrae.com/netfuture.html

Our FutureHistory affiliates wish both Davos' oldtimer World Economics Forum (WEF) and newcomer Brazil-Kenya's(WSF) well.

http://futurehistorian.tv http://futurehistory.jp
In WEF's early days before it was famous , my dad helped out as a speaker more than once. However, absent of reformation, WEF has to be reviewed as potentially slipping out of relevance compared with meetings that did not even exist when the millennium began.

First there's the league of inspirational intiative meetings such as
Clinton Global , http://changeworld.net/_wsn/page5.html
microcreditsummit, http://microsummit.tv http://thegreenchildren.com
ted.com http://worldcitizen.tv/_wsn/page3.html
whose world citizen research rankings we maintain here http://sustainabilityclub.com/_wsn/page4.html

Second, this year it appears have become subject to a triple whammy of coincident events. Afirca's first ever world social forum; and India taking the lead with a sustaianbility forum that has bagged that most intriguing duo of climate 007: Nicholas Stern and Gordon Brown. Against which WEF's Lord Browne of BP and Blair look more like history's wisdom than the searching future's - unless this pairing is going to stand up and offer a converted view than any of they have previously mailed us.

Third unlike recent years when a key theme had been clarified and new data collected, and moreover a key speaker from another side of the world made extraordinary challenging contributions, WEF's pre-conference web this year sent me to sleep when I started reading the PCW 90-page knowledge concierge document (in transparency I must admit to potential bias: when I was employed by what became PCW in the early 1990s it was both the most boring and least entreprenurial career move on my vitae)

Nobody will be more delighted than us if WEF pulls a rabbit out of the magiician's tophat. Klaus is an a-list good sort, and whilst media coverage of economics was a subject entrepreneurially concerned with transparently investigating progress for all humanity WEF was the most exciting way to begin every New Year (apart from what each family chose to celebrate on January 1) We will be watching the WEF website http://www.weforum.org which is potentially a hidden jewel as a platform compared with all other meeting formats

Meanwhile, we've been frantically busy trying to sign up a quorum of world citizen future reporters from the World Social Forum in Kenya. What we don't care about is getting the scoops from the next 7 days. what we do care about is identifying the lasting comon actions troughout 2007 and how they connect with other extraordinary events being celebrated later in 007 both:
in Africa such as http://www.ted.com/tedglobal2007/
in the 5 years Passports to Sustainability http://passports.jp being launched as a round the world countdown to London's Olympic year with the goal of persuading the BBC that sustain ability's league heroes demand every bit as much hourly programming of the leading public broadcaster and world service channel as sports. After all's said and done, if we play any more inconvenient games with Truth on climate or the jigsaws of peace there will be no sports for future generations

Should you wish to keep linked in to the very occasional future events preview our networks will be issuing, please go and register at http://groups.google.com/group/maclink/topics?lnk=li&hl=en

Chris Macrae, info@worldcitizen.tv

Sunday, December 31, 2006

It has been declared that London will not host the olympics in 2012 and unless it can be celebrated as carbon free: please tell us bookmarks we should priortise here so that the olympics does take place. 1 2 3

The British Broadcasting Corporation's Charter ends today.
If you scan these three viewpoints 1 2 3, you may decide that the next charter involves the most important media decision ever made in the history of the globe, let alone UK or London. Even if its not that big, it is the biggest public media decision ever made, represents a cumulative investment by Britons over my lifetime of 100 bilion pounds or more, and is permits the jewel in the crown in terms of gifts to the world that Britian brings, by and for all 6 billion beings.

In typical British muddle: it may be unclear until the last minute who makes this decision, all who live in the UK, OR the world served by the BBC, OR the glory me of BlairBand.

Saturday, December 30, 2006

World's Biggest Secrets Archives? we would love to know what Londoners think of them

where? http://clubofdc.blogspot.com
But if that's too far away! we can extract any relevant bits you want in this blog)

What?
We've put a lot of time reviewing our 2 original sources for life-critical ideas that just don't seem to be getting leadership attention and list a few clues why?

source 1 Death of Distance - we wrote the first in this future history genre (now aka "world is flat") 22 years ago; lots that could have benefited from 22 years work as forecast back in 1984 has barely started - eg 1984 billed 2000-2010 as world's most dangerous decade; we believed people would want photosynthesis abundant clean energy by now ( as innovations go its not a big problem to solve just a very contextually detailed one that could have been so much simpler if research had not been blocked until 2006's Union speech on ending petroleum addiction came out of the storm) ; we believed kids & sustainability of future generations deserved a total different education both in terms of curriculum (yes Augustine converted make science as fun as celebrity fashion) content and modalities of learning (less examining separte factors more training in how to network to find your own best embtors through life and help others likewise)

source 2 30 years old- Entrepreneurial Revolution Trilogy published by my father in The Economist; neither the word entrepreneur nor revolution is understood in the most valuable compounding senses; which is a pity because one way to make the world a better place is to extend the family tree of entrepreneurs into many different subspecies but that's not going to work whle we started with the wrong end of the stick of what E & R greatest leadership trusts are

If you do have time to visit http://clubofdc.blogspot.com our open source deal is - cut and paste anything you like to start conversations with; ask us questions here if relevant to Londoners or around a worldwide roundmap at http://www.frappr.com/entrepreneur

22 years ago, I started navigating death of distance stories - the 3rd part of an entrepreneurial revolution trilogy with my father who had spent a career inteviewing leaders from all over at The Economist.

It may be very unpopular in some quarters, but scots like my dad and I (probably over 80% of Scots, because that's how many live and network outside scotLAND) think the idea of living in one place is becoming maddening just as the mass media's lowest common definition of most new media tools' use is. Take WEB LOG. WE blog. How did early sea captains log their discoveries of different cities and trading places in a way that integrated a worldwide trading map? Does this not mean there's a double loop to valuing a city or any place: what its inhabitants have spent longest practising, empassiononing "TIMES" what a visitor sees most uniquely useful to collaboratively, sustainably trade with?

This has both theoretical and deep practical applications if you sail with it. In terms of economics, the people -all 6 billion beings of us (and our lifetime's most open projects http://project30000.blogspot.com ) must unite to ensure the maths transparenctly maps sustainability for at least 2 million global villages (whether place or action learning gravitated) not an economics of numbers ruling solely so that the big gets bigger. Where I put economics you can insert other fi-fo--professional words: accounting, financing, investment, governance, law, communications as media and mediation. They are all ruled by a giant mathematical mistake of ignoring compound exponentials - http://exponentials.blogspot.com (please don't ever do that ask Einstein, Gandhi, Von Neumann if you have read one of their works on the subject http://clubofdc.blogspot.com )

In terms of practice: if we want to be world citizens, why not start with collaboration (its the connecting value multiplier whereas competition is the separating one). I have spent quite a lot of te last 2 years searching through the nearly 50 million bookmarks on collaboration knowledge city; if you have generated one of these why not check our our emerging guided tour at http://clubofcity.blogspot.com and if your city or most open network for how to change the world isn't there yet, start it up as ablog and tells us how to co-promote it.

Emotionally most of all (as is our species trust http://trueflow.blogspot.com , http://simplysee.blogspot.com ), if you are an adult do not forget that if you dismiss death-of-distance Q&A (just because most conventional bloggers of even today's economist on new media does): ask what on earth will happen to the education of our children ?(and their compound futures http://globalcharters.blogspot.com , http://social-entrepreneur.blogspot.com ) should I be at least a few degrees correct in asking -nay begging - you to go beyond only top down nations as a way of democratically mapping world trade.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

The impact of cafes (one hour open meetings but on particular crisis invitations - ie truncated open spaces) where invitations are past through all changemakers networks has never been higher. Especially in London as a model for the future of all open cross-cultural cities and villages as social sub-networks - a reconciliation of enduring urgency forced on us by 7/7 and the recognition that government over many years has failed to wholly integrate cultures at the grassroots in ways that people and local communities must take charge of.

This is such a huge subject that I neither have time nor space in this weblog medium to do justice to all the questions that live cafes have raised and how all the major crises of lost sustainability and distrust between different local and global groups of peoples are being made ever more conflicted by national government- whose monopoly rule over public service budgets in the most vital areas like safety, media, health, education, peace is disastrous when most of the challenges facing us are as world citizens (interlocal waves that are made worse wherever a Blair of Bush make decisions like a Canute) or wherever 2 party politics one-dimensionalises issues that need 360 degree diversity of transparent public dialogue

We will have a special series of cafes in the Islington area all of sept 11-15 - email me for a full calendar; and if you only read this after sept 15: I will be happy to after action debrief on you what we learnt from the dialogues and where next we will be restaging them. I will also be putting a lot of the learnings from our cafe series at these weblogs which are inter-related . chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk

http://worldcitizen.tv - this looks as ways we citizens can perform communications experiments to show that huge investigative journalism contexts are being missed (biased out) by the BBC, and debates how to rectify this

http://worldentrepreneur.net which focuses on the source of good news out of America in terms of supporting the world's poorest with 30 years of mapping what social projects have resolved crises in one local community and can be replicated as interlocal franchises

http://worldeconomist.net pulls together these latest practical banks of learnings and connects this back with my father and my future history book on death of distance in 1984 which forecast that economics as a worldwide discipline would need transforming between 2005-2105, as much if not more than when James Wilson founded The Economist to keep questioning how economics could sustain peoples through the industrial revolution

We also has http://worldapprentice.com given that folk of every age need to start blueprinting a revolutionary new curricula and modalities of education for all our children if we are to time warp through sustainability's inconvenient truths. At time of writing I am still waiting to hear whether I will get accepted into the first wave of 2000 people being trained by Al Gore on how to present his inconvenient truth slides. This first wave rehearsals and start of an amazing change network takes place In Nashville towards the end of September
http://www.theclimateproject.org

The RSA's and Starbucks and BBC action network coffeehouse challenge in 2006 has been much more interesting in London this year as its been permitted to brew as a summer long festival rather being constrained to a one-month (May schedule)

CAFES & OPENSPACERACE 1 2
God bless all who host and attend cafes - seeds and real-people crossroads to the huge virtual networks that can be multiplied if each person's social network can be interfaced with each other person united in hi-trust and wish to raise questions about a global crisis context before we rush for any open answer

Friday, July 07, 2006

To our dear friend Colin 0 1 2 3 one year on

Manuell Castells: The global city is not London, New York, Tokyo or Jo'berg -- it is the part of each which is connected to an analogous part in each of the others.The global city is a distributed phenomenon. There is only one global city, and it floats on top of the others like lace

so London becomes the test case of whether any multicultural city is sustainable

Let us learn from:

valuefuture: Gandhi , Drucker
Geo-disasters compounded by Empire
The degrading future exponentials that must be turred round by 2005-2010 if humanity is not to miss globalisation's singularity
India's Prime Minister's Singh's edict: the world can no longer afford any nation that compounds an underclass on its own soil or elsewhere; nor can we afford global corporations that compound poverty now they are as large economic and societal powers as nations

tell us waht else can we learn

Thursday, July 06, 2006

If I understand correctly, the people of every city -let alone global villages- know who in their lifetime connects the best goodwill of their culture and everyone nurtured by the practice of Gandhi's teachings

Unlike today's mass media celebrities, people from other places (even now that networks often make geographic distance seem to have disappeared) usually never know who is a local place's deepest soul for uniting the world's flows of peace. However, sadly London is one of the cross-cultural test cities where anyone who links through Our Friend Colin's Wave 1 2 3 can see one such soul bearer's connections.

In the first 250 days of missing Colin, I have talked to many people who knew the changes he was searching in us to be. Most seem to remember a change project they were hoping to collaborate with him on. So that all these "be the change" projects do not get separated or lost in the mists of time, I invite anyone who remembers such a project (or idea for one) to join in cataloguing them.

August Fifteenth 1947: To-day our enemy is not outside us but within us. Hunger, poverty and disease, our ignorance, prejudice and folly, and above all the spirit of violence and disorder let loose by communal passions, are our enemies. Against these enemies we have to marshal all our forces. It is the sacred duty of every Indian to help the State fight these enemies. This new struggle will need even a greater spirit of sacrifice and self-discipline than we showed in our struggle for freedom.

Swaraj cannot be real for the masses unless it makes possible the achievement of a society in which democracy extends from the political to the social and economic sphere, and in which there would be no opportunity for privileged classes to exploit the bulk of the people, nor for gross inequalities such as exist at present. Such a society would ensure individual liberty, equality of opportunity and the fullest scope for every citizen for the development of his personality. Only in such a society will the common man be free from the triple exploitation of the communalist, the capitalist and the bureaucrat. Such a society derives its strength from the happiness of its people and its unity from their willing allegiance

Also if you didn't know Colin, but do know a circle of people who try with every breathe to live a "be the change" project that Gandhi would have united in blessing, please do share with us - if you will.

There are 3 ways to share that come to mind:
1) Just post it here
2) Mail me at wcbn007@easynet.co.uk and I will help you edit what you want posted
3) If your project has its own lively collaboration network or is in a family tree of other projects, and you want a section of this weblog to update project news through- mail me and ask for that space

The Road to Ahmedabad
I first heard of the intended Gandhi centenary alumni event when I was at the annual congress of Global Reconciliation Network which was convened in Delhi, December 2004. I will be trying to get Ahmedabad in October 2007, and it would be great to hear from people who have a similar intent. One of the questions I will try to ask our hosts at gandhi's Akram : is there a central clearing house on the web uniting all the world's peoples be the chnage project nominations. There is no wish on the part of this weblog or myself to reinvent the wheel. If you know of a place that already contains the most diverse listings of be the change projects and is open for allcomers to qualify their projects peace-spreading and community-rising intent, then please tell us.

Yours sincerely,
Chris Macrae, Gravity200

Saturday, July 01, 2006

What questions to ask at Annual Meeting of Shareholders of The Economist?

Around now, The Economist holds its AGM? What questions should we table in 2006?

Hundreds of Londoners gravitating around the Village of EcoSaintJames and HRM's question of the year - Is Humanity Turning on Itself? are preparing questions like these...

1 Should The Economist exist? Its 19th Century founder wanted the paper closed once 2 goals had been achieved: repeal capital punishment; repeal corn laws. Would he say The Economist being on corresponding 21st C social leadership and preneurial purposes today or being wholly conflicted.

2 This year is the 30th birthday party of The Entrepreneurial Revolution published in the paper. What are you doing to help certify that the 5 types of preneurial revolution of most potential value to economics of abundance winning over economics of scarcity in mankind's networked century and global integration of local societies? Specifically 2005-2010 was timelined in a 1984 Future History book written by your company's longest serving worker and colaboration leader: as the period for changing economics from that systemising big power's least transparent interest to a transparent peoples economics. What are you doing about that and how are you helping the BBC and other public media that Britain has invested in more than any other country to popularise the search for 30000 projects for humanity?

3 According to the world's most popular current Future Historian (Thomas Friedman has sold 1.3 milion copies of The World is Flat, Episode 1), the biggest scoop of the next few years is Green is the New Red, White & Blue. About 400 yards from your offices, more sustainability investment funding and experimental innovation of prototypes is going on around the globe's make or break challenge of Photosynthesis than any other square foot of any city. Do any of your journalists know all about that?

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Governance Structure of A*B*C:
A)Sustainability*B)Transparency*C)Gravity of True Purpose

Q1 Is it possible to govern the A*B*C of the local and global networks of civil society without this molecular structure?

continue the debate and finetune the details at http://civil-society.blogspot.com or discuss with me at C.M.Macrae.72@cantab.net (CM1)

Friday, May 12, 2006

20 years ago, so I understand, Sir John Whitmore used to convene MayDay what is leadership lectures. They were restared around London BeTheChange branch of worldiwde gandhi alumni in 2004. Colin Morley and Sir John took the lead in inviting networkers for the future of London and all societies sharing Gandhi's vision. On the third day Colin Opened space in the Friends House (Euston). In 2006, the third year of BeTheChange, Colin is no more able to quake our waves and circles of spirit because of the tragedy of 7/7 . Here however are the main empowerment debates his weblog asked us to continue exploring for all humanity

What's empowerment? Academics Be the Change Brands Community Building Creativity Cynics and Critics Dreams and visions Enlightenment Evolution Experts Fun Gurus Heros and heroines Leadership Links and resources My personal opinions News comment Open Space Practice of empowerment Service Profit Chain Sustainability Theory of empowerment Tools Types of empowerment
when?
April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003
Why?
Open Space Time to think Self Directed Work Teams Spiral Dynamics Community Building Ken Wilber Facilitation Participatory Appraisal Commander's Intent Process Work Andrew Cohen The Luck Project Holotropic Breathwork Motivational Quote Of The Day Types of Empowerment
why? not!
Bogus Empowerment Arguments against empowerment The end of empowerment Unions against empowerment Dilbert The Office
how?
Blanchard, Carlos & Randolph Boje and Rosile Conger and Kanugo W Edwards Deming Mary Parker Follett Gershon and Straub Dr E Goldratt Kimball Fisher Eric Trist

Thursday, May 11, 2006

We the medi conference is coming to London - with participants like this seems to be an event not to miss

We Media Global Forum
The We Media Global Forum Site
ContributorsAlan AbbeyFounder, Abbey ContentIsraelAkwe AmosuSenior Policy Analyst, AfricaOpen Society Policy CenterEduardo AvilaEditor, Barrio FloresJohn BellCreative Director, Ogilvy PRjbell@mediacenter.org Florian BrodyDirector of Marketing, A9.comPhilip CesseEditor, artslivres.comFranceJoan ConnellOnline Editor, The NationJudy FaberAssociate ProducerCBSNews.comVanessa FabianoShortcut.comDenmarkKoonal GandhiPresidential Management Fellow; Investment Funds Analyst, OPICBirdie JaworskiBeauty DishHugh LevinsonSenior Producer, BBC RadioUnited KingdomChris NolanFounder & Editor, Spot-OnBrian ReichSenior Strategic ConsultantMindshare Interactive CampaignsRick RobinsonOnline/Wireless Media & Community ConsultantIrina SlutskyReporterGeekentertainment.tvNichelle StephensNichelle Newsletter

The Power of UsThe We Media Global Forum brings together the trailblazers of the connected society - the thinkers, innovators, investors, executives and activists seeking to tap the potential of digital networks connecting people everywhere.
Conducted at and hosted by The BBC and Reuters in London, the 2006 Forum includes a series of keynote, general and small group conversations and workgroups, as well as networking receptions and a World Café - a global "town hall" meeting with Web, satellite, television and other avenues of participation from around the world.
Who Attends? Inaugurated in New York in 2005, We Media gathers about 300 international participants: senior executives, decision makers, storytellers, artists, investors and innovators from media, advertising, public relations, marketing, news, entertainment, finance, telecommunications, technology, philanthropy, government, NGOs, social activism and academia.
They come together to learn from each other and to think about, explore, be inspired by and build upon the shared knowledge and the collective intelligence of the connected society. Their collective efforts spawn new ideas, information, services and businesses.
CONFIRMED PARTICIPANTS TO DATE
Tom Glocer, CEO, ReutersMark Thompson, Director General, BBCRichard Dreyfuss, Actor and ActivistWadah Khanfar, Director General, Al JazeeraCarolyn McCall, CEO, Guardian NewspapersPaul Jacobs, CEO, Qualcomm (via satellite)Richard Sambrook, Director of Global News, BBCDave Sifry, CEO, TechnoratiJean-Marie Colombani, Chairman and Publisher, Le Monde
And.....
Rafat Ali, CEO & Editor, Paid ContentNikesh Arora, Vice President, European Operations, GoogleAngela Beesley, Board Member, Wikimedia FoundationTimothy Balding, Director General, World Association of NewspapersJeff Belk, SVP Marketing, QualcommEmily Bell, Editor-in-Chief, Guardian UnlimitedDavid Brain, European President & CEO, EdelmanGeorge Brock, Saturday Editor, The Times of London Merrill Brown, Founder & Principal, MMB Media LLCSuw Charman, Executive Director, Open Rights GroupJean-Marc Coicaud, United Nations University, New YorkAdam Curry, podcaster, Curry.comDan Gillmor, Author, We The MediaScott Heiferman, Founder and CEO, Meetup.comSue Howard, Executive Director, Australian Broadcasting Corp.Jeff Jarvis, Blogger, Buzzmachine.comRhami Khouri, Editor, Lebanon Daily StarDr. Michael Kraig, Stanley FoundationSunil Lulla, CEO Times Global Broadcasting Co. Ltd. Rebecca MacKinnon, Co-Founder, Global VoicesBertrand Pecquerie, Director of the World Editors ForumShoba Purushothaman, CEO, The NewsmarketKaren Stephenson, President, NetformBill Weiss, CEO, The Promar GroupEmma Williams, Director, Digital Content Coalition

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Al Gore at Tomorrows Company
Thursday 30 March 2006, 5.30pm to 8.30pm

300 people attended the Tomorrow’s Company 2006 Lecture given by the former US Vice-President, Al Gore. The audience was inspired and challenged by his presentation and included business leaders, NGO representatives, governmental officials, environmental campaigners, and MBA students from across the world. He stressed the need for companies to work in partnership with others to combat what many regard as the greatest challenge facing the planet. John Manzoni, BP’s Group Managing Director and Chief Executive, Refining and Marketing, chaired the lecture and led the discussion that followed.

The challenge now is clarifying precisely what is the business contribution to tackling climate change and that will be dealt with in our next publication. If you would like to find out more about the publication that is being produced to follow up the lecture please email david@tomorrowscompany.com

Climate - Be The Change but which way?

Rick (Robert), have you be invited to this in a flowing role?

Nick: since my father and I's 1984 book on death of distance's 7 collaboration waves: climate change sustainability has depended on:

1 photosynthesis energy replacing carbon energy - Rick is epicentral to that map- as scripted in our 1984 book 1

2 getting top professionals and CEO to understand that nature's networks demand that one industry's global waste is another's input (ie the externalisation must be internalised maps of Ray Anderson that Colin brought over to London last year)

3 empowering education of 9 year olds up about flows, networks systems of sustems of systems so that they never get controlled agian by someone who emasures a flow with a number - a bit of a tricky syllabus until the BBC promotes social entrepreneur olympics or is closed down: but where in the USA micro-finance and social entrepreneurship are retranslating Gandhi into american - see 4 hemisphere's model at http://clubofdelhi.blogspot.com

so who are your speakers? are they in one of these dynamic flows? have climate wave revolution mapmakers 1 2 3 missed a trick these last 22 years?

cheers
chris macrae

http://social-entrepreneur.blogspot.com and mac ids of http://worldclassbrands.blogspot.com

Quoting "Nick Hart-Williams (Be The Change)" :

With Be the Change just a week away, we wanted draw your attention to some
of the most exciting elements over the next few days and as always ask you
to tell your friends and colleagues. The full timetable is now up on the
website (http://www.bethechange.org.uk) - and attached here. And though the
Sunday Symposium is sold out, there are still tickets for Thursday, Friday
and Saturday.

On the Saturday morning of Be The Change (May 13), we¹ll take a look at what
climate change really means for us and at how education has to change if
we¹re to have any chance of turning back the impact we¹re having on our
environment. The day will be filled with people buzzing with ideas and
relevant experience but for now, let me tell you about the two giants who
will lay out the central issues for us. As it happens, they are both
academics but there¹s nothing academic about what they have to say.

Prof. Tim Flannery, as he nears the end of his world book tour, has gathered
unprecedented praise for The Weather Makers - the one book which, his
reviewers agree, could persuade the world to tackle climate change head on.
The praise comes from Tony Blair, Robert Kennedy Jr., Jared Diamond and Bill
Bryson; from climate scientists Stephen Schneider and Thomas Lovejoy, from
the US heads of Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund; and from a host of
newspapers across the English-speaking world. And in Australia, he¹s
credited with changing the government¹s stance on global warming. What¹s
amazing about Tim Flannery is the combination of skills and experience
literally, a great scientist and explorer (ranked with Livingston by David
Attenborough), a brilliant writer (see the reviews attached) and a
compelling advocate of positive action by all of us. Towards the end of his
new book, he writes, ŒIt is my firm belief that all the efforts of
government and industry will come to naught unless the good citizen and
consumer takes the initiative....we are now the weather makers, and the
future of biodiversity and civilisation hangs on our actions.¹

Prof. David Orr, the man acknowledged to have taken the lead in
re-fashioning education to respond to environmental imperatives, presents an
uncompromising message. He believes we are facing Œthe end of education¹ as
we know it. ŒNo amount of tinkering with curriculum will adequately equip
students for what they must do ...This is a crisis of education, not in
education¹. David Orr is professor of environmental studies at Oberlin
College in Ohio. And he walks his talk apart from writing several key
books around the subject of education and environment, he commissioned the
top Œgreen¹ architect, Bill McDonough, to design an absolute
state-of-the-art building to house his department at Oberlin.

In his seminal book, Earth In Mind, David Orr wrote of the possibility Œthat
in the long gestation of humankind we acquired an affinity for life, earth,
forests, water, soils, and place what E. O. Wilson calls biophilia. That
is more than an interesting and defensible hypothesis. It is the best hope
for our future that I know. For real hope, as distinguished from wishful
thinking, we ought not look first to our technological cleverness or
abstractions about progress or one kind or another, but rather to the extent
and depth of our affections, which set boundaries on what we do and direct
our intelligence to better or worse possibilities. The possibility of
affection for our children, place, posterity, and life is in all of us. It
is part of our evolutionary heritage. It is embedded in our best religious
teachings. And it is now a matter or simple self-interest that we come to
realise the full extent of the obligations that arise from an alert,
thorough, and farsighted affection.

Against considerable odds, the outlines of a global ecological enlightenment
have begun to emerge....Still, I think H. G. Wells had it right when he said
that we are in a race between education and catastrophe. That race will be
decided in the classrooms around the world and in all of the places that
foster intelligence, thought, and good heart.

So that¹s how the day begins! The rest of the day will be filled with a
panel involving David and Tim, plus others who are working to change
education; a whole series of presentations and challenges by some very
inspired young entrepreneurs; a long World Café discussion; and a final
presentation on Œevolutionary leadership¹ by Peter Merry.

For further information or to book: http://www.bethechange.org.uk
phone 0845-4585925 - email: info@bethechange.org.uk

Monday, May 01, 2006

Could we do a survey of anyone who loves Be The Change London - as to why? what do you get from it? how can we help multiply what you get?

I love Be The Change Ahmedabad - see here for news http://clubofahmedabad.blogspot.com of the Gandhi centenary October 2007 for all alumni most deeply inspired by Gandhi's cross-cultural transformations, you can also take a Gandhi certified correspondence course from the 1920 University he founded with the mission : knowledge is that which liberates us for the bargain price of 101 US Dollars

consider seeing Einstein's review of Gandhi's contribution to leadership at http://clubofdc.blogspot.com

have a look at the largest entrepreneur network inspired by Gandhi at www.ashoka.org (entrepreneur networks being the way my father and I have tried to collaborate towards an economics fit for 2 million global villages) for the last 30 years since my father started his trilogy on Entrepreneurial Revolution in The Economist

Whilst Colin http://www.empowermentillustrated.com/mtarchive/cat_sustainability.html

was with us I could ask him to ask BTC London how are you collaborating (and enabling your networkers to collaborate) with the likes of the above networeks and grassroots diversity movements; since his parting I have emailed the question several times to the powers that Be (London BTC) and not seen a reply

I sincerely hope your time is luckier than mine at chnage-navigating your way round London

cheers chris macrae wcbn007@easynet.co.uk
http://chrismacrae.blogspot.com
http://futureoflondon.blogspot.com

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Who do Londoners nominate for the top 1000 trusted people

1st Quarter Report on Open Research of Trust via GTN and valuetrust

Trust became a big trans-atlantic issue with Queen Elizabeth's end of 2005 broadcast message to the Commonwealth on the ever-increasing risk of globalisation turning humanity on itself, and Jan 2006 State of the Union's reversal of America's addiction to petroleum economics and sports- our 1984 work was referenced as part of the brainstorm stimulus used by the president's Gathering Stormers 1 2

Who are the world's 1000 most valued people in terms of trust not money. Our preneurial research over the last 30 years seemed like a suitable archive for starting up this research - of course we'd love to be contacted by others who want to conduct the survey and share the results -ref Uni1000 and http://chrismacrae.blogspot.com

Http://project30000.blogspot.com contibues it progress in networking the world around 30000 hi-trust projects. Progress is much slower than we had forecast in our 1984 death-of-distance future history but then we were over optimistic about media

To rectify trust in media, Londoners ask for the world's help in 3 long-run campaigns

retrieve The Economist as epicentre of the social entrepreneur olympics in line with its founders values in the 1840s - ref ecosaintjames and social-entrepreneur

retrieve the BBC as the people's world service media - ref futureofbbc and the Blair Legacy and University of Stars

close down the 2012 summer olympics unless social entrepreneur arenas are given as much share of voice in BBC media coverage as sports

We continue to invite citiznes everywhere to join in connecting through the 40 million bookmarks of collaboration knowledge city through the formats of club of city and club of village which we have now helped to co-launch in 100 places and out of all hemispheres. We are building up a particular focus on the Gandhi Centenary October 2007 - A B The DC Testimonies by Einstein et al

A new space for hi-trust mapmaking is www.frappr.com - come and try out maps built around the main colaboration waves we have been monitoring since 1984

Thursday, March 30, 2006

TomorrowsCompany.com Thursday 30 March 2006, 5.30pm to 8.30pm

The former US Vice-President, Al Gore, will outline his thoughts about the opportunities and challenges presented by climate change with a particular focus on the role and impact of business. Following his presentation there will be a Questions & Answers session and a drinks reception. John Manzoni, BP’s Group Managing Director and Chief Executive, Refining and Marketing, has kindly agreed to chair the lecture and lead the discussion that follows.

model family of tomorrowscompany 1:
not for profit aiming to help organisations that compound better consequences for all people related to the organisation

seeks to form benchmarking groups of the world's biggest corporations in which a CEO or other lead member of one company shares a collaboration method that many other organisations could systemically benefit from adopting

we are interested in what are the greatest collaboration methods that intercompany learning could propagate in this way
eg Ray Anderson's map of how doing good (sustainability) multiplies profits as well as all other goodwill , but has systemic governance skills to it that no stanadardising professional interst group will advise you on

we're also interested in how to help other benchmark group start parallel initiatives since Tomorrow's Company is primarily London based

we're also interested in how Tomorrow's Company as an offshoot of the Royal Society of Arts - a 250 year old network with arguably more scripts by leaders on doing better business can help stimulate readership circles in any city - eg visit the virtual library of practitioner lectures here -if you find a paper you love, do tell us about it so we can try and connect friends of the same great ideas

If there are 10 intercitizen networks that could collaborate in making the world a better place for people everywhere, we feel that TC and RSA are part of one of those 10 networks - do you want to see our map we are using to search for 10 cilaborating networks and and suggest any links we could be connecting onto it?

chris macrae wcbn007@easynet.co.uk

To celebrate today's start of the Social Entrepreneur World Championships (University of Oxford hosted by Skoll Foundation) we are starting a survey and campign for the inauguration of social entrepreneur olympics. Why should the deep pursuits of social entrepreneurs get any less media coverage than sports? Which SE arenas are you most excited by? Where do you get a chance to spread the word on how humanity's future depends on these greatest of all collaboration games? Do mail us at wcbn007@easynet.co.uk if you want any help in starting up a dialogue script on this (we're into our 22nd year of making connections)

chris macrae wcbn007@easynmet.co.uk

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Global Charters- Human Story Update in Brief

Ever since 1984 Entrepreneurs (Revolutionary, Social, Intra, Web or Sustainability) and opne Death of Distance Future History debating networks have known that one generation of mankind 1984-2024 will be hit by 7 interconnecting waves: each capable of sustaining or destabilising our children's generations for ever

It doesnt matter if you believe in 7 wonders - as long as you see and connect with people mapping more than 2 ; understand that they are interconnecting and each is systemic (can only compound expoential growth or destriction over time and through the 2 million global villages we 6 billion beings spend our lifetimes and genenerate the next by inhabiting or network around)

wave 1 might be called collaborating with sunshine's clean energy, clean water, clean oxygen, and healthy nature - for its most courageous storylines join in at this collaborative treasure map http://www.frappr.com/algaeworld

wave 2 might be called children's learning potentials and cross-cultural confidences and acccess to lifelong pursuits worthy of developing and not communally destructing

wave 3 might be called ridding apartheids and structural underclasses so that no baby girl or boy is born into and chained around extreme poverty's disease and compound loss of life's energy to make a loving difference
....

wave 7 might be called changing economics, valuation, governance to love courageous people's relationships and trust-flows not to quarterise them -wave 7 was always going to be the hardest conversion of all - eg Augustine's conversion?

We are redeveloping our scripts of each wave at http://globalcharters.blogspot.com - if you have got a script for open use, or a wave of concern, or a treasure map to interconnect, please come along so we colaboration in the generation that collectively decided the fate of our species

We'll also collate economic scripts at the bottom section of this blog

Friday, March 24, 2006

Breaking Views from ClubofLondon current #1 in collaboration knowledge city bookmarks (votes over 40 million)

This week saw world water day come and go with less than a ripple. Did Londoners know how they could have contributed more news on this around the world? no matter

Next week is arguably the biggest in the calendar for gifts to the world Londoners as number 1 collaboration knowledge city can start up, and make the next 6 years marathon of make poverty history connect all around the world

With Al Gore visiting the twin cities of London and Oxford, we cannot imagine a better time to Launch the Social Entrepreneur Olympics. The game is to have got 30 gravity pursuits of social entrepreneur world champions into the public consciousness by 2012 as much as the top 30 sports.

All we need is love and courage to cheerlead cross-cultural creativity's waves:

The Livingstone has got us off to a great start; he has declared there will be no sporting Olympics in London in 2012 unless they are carbon free - turn up the heat on every politician since only photosynthesis innovations can produce clean energy of that sustainability magnitude. Make sure all those who host Al Gore events debrief him as the clock to 2012 counts down

The lessons to be learnt from Make Poverty History from pop stars down can be an epiphany if University of Stars and the BBC turn their minds to the greater transparencies (eg end all country corruptions) needed if Make Poverty History is to be a reality network not just an image-making one

So that's 28 more gravity pursuits we need to celebrate around social entrepreneurs with as much gusto as the 20th Century hailed sporting stars

We are reminded of one Harrison Owen story I should tell because open spacing education is a social entrepreneur pursuit every family can stand up for whereas we cannot all help on the ground with projects in Africa or in the roofs that algae use to convert the sunshine into cleansing energy banks.

He was studying to be a priest around the Washington Dc area. It was a time when Martin Luther King was having a dream. Harrison can't recall quite how it happened but he was standing in a civil rights field in a crowd of African Americans - one tall lanky white man. The police were beginning to charge on the crowd and Harrison was feeling quite scared. That is until a 7 year old black girl came up to him - and said Mister will you hold my hand

Since that day, Harrison gave up the priesthood to the chagrin of most of his family. And is one of the handfuls of people who most interconnects conflict resolution facilitators around the world. Their networks criss-cross all religions that believe in golden rules of reciprocity such as so unto another what you want done unto you. They also connect mathematically - if Einstein is correct here at http://clubofdc.blogspot.com - to Gandhi as the greatest inventor of peaceful social entrepreneurial revolution that 144 years of The Economist's coverage of this most productive of all professions.

If some of this post makes sense to you, why not re-edit the parts you like and send it to the board of Governors of the BBC, and should you wish Tony Blair or another politician well with their legacy why not copy them in to. We the British people, not any of our political representatives own the BBC. We have invested way over 50 billion pounds in this corporation. On a personal note to all scots- may I ask whether you feel the inventor of television would feel proud of a television where every big debate is framed one dimensionally around short-term left and right rivals or whomever is looking fore a job with big business if the party does not turn out Trumps for their apprenticeship to network power.

It is high noon for the BBC with its 10 year licence determined by and for the people in the year of 2o06. Please could our world service be one of British Character we can feel both pride and humility in searching for. Please free your journalists for humanity to take a fearless lead in realising this open source script from 1984 , so that trust across peoples everywhere begins to flow through every documentary inquiry that has anything to do with world peace or nightly newscast on poverty's challenges through 2012 - and through these communications help the British to get to know 30 gravity pursuits of Social Entrepreneurs with as much joy and attention as the 30 sports it spend most public licence fees on.

Hey when Brits helped to invent most of these sports we surely never intended they would take over from greater British realities of world service, through believing in CommonWealth principles and our Queen's higher order right to ask us as she did in her end of 2005 broadcast to unite in preventing globalisation from turning humanity on itself.

For the same of deeper democracy blossoming and connecting every coordinate on earth, you can also play a jigsaw mapping game aimed at sustaining 2 million global villages. Here's part of my family's tree which may open up some useful connections- what connections could your family tree or that of your peer networks open source. If you can make a "peer or family tree" picture why don't we play the mixed networking games of swap and snap. If we are going to turn around globalisation’s exponentials sustainably in time, we are all going to have to work with whatever grassroots community contexts up we can help each other navigate. No lead is too small as long as it is one you intend to gravitate transparently around as part of you lifelong learning mission. We need to help change children's education now so that the core human rights of freedom and happiness have a chance to breathe nature's clean waters, airs and energies everyone human beings sing her praises. Let's all turn up the courage through every family in the land and into wherever co-mentoring networks in internet space may take A B C D E F you

Friday, March 17, 2006

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Blackheath & Greenwich United Nations Association invite you to a public meeting:

Wednesday 15th March, The Old Bakehouse, Age Exchange, Bennett Park, Blackheath Village, London (almost directly opposite Blackheath rail station, )
Speaker: John Bunzl, Founder and Trustee
International Simultaneous Policy Organisation
http://www.simpol.org/

"What kind of world are we creating for our children and grandchildren and what we can do about it".

Please bring your questions and answers! For a summary of the Simultaneous Policy (SP) campaign, see below. 12 MPs from all the main political parties have so far signed up to SP along with MPs in the EU and Australian parliaments.

Simpol promotes the Simultaneous Policy (SP), which aims to deliver social justice around the world, resolve global problems like environmental destruction and regulate the economic power of international capital for the good of all. Simpol seeks solutions to problems that individual national governments cannot resolve by acting alone. This is because the problems transcend national boundaries, and because the global competitive system means that any government that acted alone to try and resolve such problems could effectively make its country uncompetitive.Simpol aims to achieve these objectives by encouraging ordinary people around the world to oblige their political representatives and governments to move toward co-ordinated international resolution of global issues for the good of all. This is because it is only by countries all agreeing to implement changes at the same time that problems no individual government dares tackle alone can be resolved in a satisfactory way. Simultaneous implementation of such policies would ensure that no country became uncompetitive as a result of pursuing policies that were right for the planet and which embodied people¹s higher aspirations.All you need to do is sign up as a Simultaneous Policy Adopter which costs you nothing. By so doing you agree in principle to vote at elections for any candidate, within reason, who has signed a pledge to implement the Simultaneous Policy alongside other governments. Alternatively, if you have a party preference, your Adoption signifies you will encourage your preferred party to make this pledge. This is the simple mechanism Adopters use to advance their cause.Simpol's approach is peaceful, open, and democratic. If you Adopt you will have the opportunity to contribute to the formation of specific policies that answer global problems and join with others in using your vote in a new and effective way to drive the politicians of all parties to implement thesepolicies.

Book Endorsements: "The Simultaneous Policy - An Insider's Guide to Saving Humanity and the Planet" by John Bunzl. Published by New European Publications. ISBN 0-1872410-15-4. Foreword by Diana Schumacher.

"I thought your proposal was an elegant idea of how change could occur. It reflects the core ideas of how to create consensus around change. This is the biggest challenge that we have"
Ed Mayo. Former Executive Director, New Economics Foundation

"Your idea for a simultaneous policy is excellent. … Lets hope that people start to listen to this important message."
Helena Norberg-Hodge Member of the International Forum on Globalisation and Director of the International Society for Ecology & Culture

"It’s ambitious and provocative. Can it work? Certainly worth a serious try."
Noam Chomsky

"…the basic concept is excellent. … Let me know what develops!"
Jakob von Uexkull Founder and Chairman - Right Livelihood Award Foundation

"The Simultaneous Policy is a creative proposal to accelerate progress toward a sustainable global economy. Many movements and grassroots globalists working for these goals can coalesce around such innovative initiatives"
Hazel Henderson Author of 'Beyond Globalization: Shaping a Sustainable Global Economy'

"I agree with the case your organization is making about the failure of anti-globalization forces to propose effective alternatives to thestatus quo. I believe your organization's proposals are an important step forward. I hope that many of those who took first steps in Seattle, Washington and Quebec City will nowtake the second step and take either the ISPO programme, or anyalternatives they wish to propose, into the political arena.Anti-globalization demonstrators have the attention of the world. If they wish to hold that attention, and start to make an impact on policy,they must now follow the ISPO's lead and propose workable alternativesto the status quo."
Prof. Christopher Leo - Dept. of Politics, University of Winnipeg, Canada.

"Simultaneous Policy is a very stimulating book and by substituting internationalism for globalization, co-operation for competition, humanity for markets and wisdom for materialism you have unlocked a powerhouse for good."
Tony Benn - Former Labour Member of Parliament, UK.

"The really big issues today now cross national frontiers and individual governments cannot cope with them in isolation. This is where Simultaneous Policy comes in. … [It] is the only way a host of problems can now be solved. Simultaneous Policy is the alternative."
Sir Richard Body - Former Conservative Member of Parliament, UK

"Simultaneous Policy is a most promising strategy for discovering and establishing a more equitable, efficient and sustainable economic order."
Shann Turnbull Author of "Democratizing the Wealth of Nations"

"The concept of Simultaneous Policy (SP) is a wonderful way of implementing cooperation which is the new law of human survival in the globalized world. With it goes moral education inducing a new system of values to satisfy the requirements of the New Age."
Dr. Farhang Sefidvash Coordinator, the Research Centre for Global Governance

"Working from an East-West perspective in which the interdependency of Buddhism combines with the economics of E.F. Schumacher, Bunzl argues for a program of restoring social control over the blind destructiveness of corporate globalisation by simultaneous government policies across world borders. The need for simultaneity of sovereign state action is an important new dimension of a debate affecting all planetary life."
John McMurtry Author of "The Cancer Stage of Capitalism"

"With his concept of Simultaneous Policy, John Bunzl delivers an important piece in the puzzle that governments around the world can use to resolve the pressures of increasingly integrated markets. ... It is, perhaps, one of the few workable solutions to bridging the sustainability gap."
Matthias Hoepfl Politische Oekologie Magazine, Munich, Germany.

"This is an important book about a potentially very important idea - the Simultaneous Policy. The author asks the question: how can the world get beyond the escalating problems of global competition to a framework of global co-operation? As we have seen with single issues such as arms control, it is hard for an individual country to justify making the first move. This is where SP comes in. It provides a rallying point for those who would like to see the vicious circle broken and a new world system inaugurated."
The Scientific and Medical Network Review.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Hello Rosalind

I am interested in motivations of people who host big leadership conferences, as well as the vip names who talk (do they have missions in life we can join in - given the death of distance world my dad and I have been writing about since 1984, -the third of a trilogy of works on entrepreneurial revolutions hitting one generation 1984-2024 that he developed for The Economist)
http://www.normanmacrae.com/netfuture.html

The blunt questions

- do you expect any intiatives to emerge from your conference that will seek to make the world a better place, and which delegates can participate in - say as http://www.clintonglobalinitiative.com/ has

-do you seek to link your network of speakers and delegates with other world changing conferences or movements; for example I am aiming to connect any world change conferences with the Gandhi centenary conference October 2007 (by link I mean connect some overall action learning so that it informs and is informed by every coference occassion where people spend so much time and energy congragating around visionary views of eladership)

sincerely
chris macrae
http://clubofcity.blogspot.com
valuetrue.com
connecting 40 million bookmarks of collaboration knowledge city
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%2Bcollaboration+%2Bknowledge+%2Bcity&btnG=Google+Search

Quoting Rosalind Oxley :

LEADERS IN LONDON 2006 SUMMIT
29 Nov - 1 Dec 2006, Central Hall, Westminster, London

Dear mr macrae,

The Leaders In London 2006 Summit Conference Programme is now finalised and
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View the confirmed programme on-line now!!
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Web: http://www.leadersinlondon.com

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Is this the #1 story of our life and times? If not , please tell me what is?

# 1 compelling story of our lives and times???
how abundant energy and clean water - and so the economics of abundance became to be co-created is very simple provided :
you have a good enough map (help us develop it)
you all collaborate around developing this treasure

why
value: because those places with the most extreme climates either have the most desperate energy needs or capabilities to multiply sunshine's energy flows or both
*
innovation: they are where people have spent longest with experimenting with solutions, as well as any cross-cultural conflicts or historical errors
*
nature: they are where nature most wants to help save the world from the system of system crises of threat and opportunity that waves dynamise

come on humanity, since 1984 scripts from leading economists have suggested this is the major entrepereneurial 1 2 challenge to network collaboratively around, before all our global villages learn how to network other value multipliers and 30000 projects worth open sourcing all over the world

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

March 2006, London

Noted by aSIN, solaroof, AMED sustainability billionnaires & omniworldview:
The news that Al Gore is delivering March 2006, the annual lecture of Tomorrows Global Company is brilliant:
December ebulletin, Tomorrows Company:
Annual Lecture 2006
Al Gore has been confirmed for next year’s Annual Lecture on 30th March 2006

Future historians & Entrepreneurial Revolutionaries wonder how many more of the 30000 project would already be energetically multiplying around the world if Florida's 2000 elections had been counted by UN observers instead of quaint computing tabulators

This ties in with Club of City's December 05 intercitizen debate:

4 From aSIN ,ValueFuture & Future of London: Will 2006 be the year that clean energy 1 2 cheers up the world showing that Peak Oil and all scaremongering about smaller ecological footprints are mistakes propagated by people who have not been keeping up with the last 21 years of innovations in photosynthetic scorces and architectures of energy

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Why could London be one of the greatest collaborative brands in the world?

We started this debated in 2004 while the ecademy was still a free open space to dialogue in. In many ways this topic seems to keep on growing ... and the waves propagting globally

Business : Co_branding London as World's 1st Collaboration Knowledge City by Chris Macrae on 6-Aug-04 10:12am
When Branders 1 2 like me first proposed this during a day long open space, I thought it was a wild idea. But the ecademicians kept on chatting me up. Now I believe you. Thanks! These are some of the ways to co-brand; I am sure your innovativeness -and our gods' blessings; if I was to be reborn I wouldnt mind being a Quaker because I love open conversation circles, especially as the perfect complement to a lot of time in virtual moding - will add many more.
First our gift to the world of business, even America uses our mother tongue.
Second sustainable trade is compounded around 2 ideas: different value needs on each side, transparency. I am told that London stll has more diverse entrepreneurial trading relationships of trust with people from countries around the world, than just about anywhere West of the Orient. WE don't how lucky were are to be the world's laregst kingdom ruled and opinion led for the last half century by women Queen Elizabeth 2, her mother, princess Di - we should treasure searching 1 2 what women are nurturing everywhere
Third unlike America, we own the world's largest public media (BBC) and arguably the most influential in business (The Economist). Unlike America, we systemically develop collaborative models - warts and all - think of our National Health Service.
4th some great 21st century networks were born around London - ecademy, simpol to name but 2 and most others have active branches through here including two I aim to be a virtual connector for : Australia's Global Reconciliation Network and India's Gandhi's transparency models of community-rising governace and truth-testing
5th we have the self-confidence not to arm our everyday police with guns. The future of any great city is going to depend on open collaboration, the resilience to be too open for terror networks to do their thing. I am concerened that we are not good enough on this yet, but at least London (apart from an odd political deviant) is in the benchmarking club of cities that is trying to keep the epace with peace
6th I believe we've got the world's most collaborative institutes discovering training for leaders of the world's biggest organsaitions on why going above zero-sum economics is now the smartest leadership play there is; it is time for the mother of all benchmarking on how people and organsaotional systems map this.
7th and on- keep the ideas flowing...I am not particularly proud of what we did when history dealth us the playing card of being mother of all empires, I am especially saddened by how we did quick fixes just after the second world war as we exited any claim as a world leading role model; I have been revisiting some family history as my grandfather Kemp helped devolve the British Raj back to Independence and I believe comapred with other inderpendences we fitted up across Africa and the like, he did a 'fair' job given how extraordinary little Britain had left after the second world war. (Perhaps too the rather paltry thanks Europe gave us from the fifties on made us determined to stay as open a collaborator as we could with any country or any race. I know we fail every day, but at least we have thte public media to keep questioning that)perhaps this is also why we can today try harder than any other so-called big city at being the mother of all collaborating influneces on how world trade is done for all people, including lifting up the poorest first at The Global University of Poverty co-sponsored by ecademicians.
[ <<> ] [ ooh its fridays useless fashion tips for men!!! >> ] [ Chris Macrae's weblog ] [ 4 comments ] [ Digg This! ] [ G ] [ GB ] [ T ] [ TB ] [ # ]

What ways can London lead the world that America cannot?by Chris Macrae on 15-Aug-04 1:03pm
Thanks Jim- Well of course it's up for lots of Londoners to co-create, but I would like to see London be an editing centre for globalisation and every transparency dynamic to do with networking getting trustworthily human againThere are some systemic precedents:1) In the 1980s, The US Baldrige version of total quality systemisation was a pretty good model to follow; in other words DC led other US cities led much of the Western world's resystemisation of physical quality. Today's trust chalenge revolves around resystemising human relationships quality.Films like The Mancurian Candidate & The Corporation show that America isnt going to lead us out of global human relationship problem; perhaps its time for the mother country to step up- the BBC's role can NOW be pivotal in making a stand for all the world's people.2) At their best both the BBC World Service and The Economist have edited pretty humanistic and open views of the world during several decades of the 20th C, even if they have currently lost the script.Back in 1984, when my father Deputy Edited The Economist, our futures book on the first 40 years of networking timelined 2005 (give or take) as the crossroads year. Would the world wake up to difference in expectations and incomes of rich and poor nations as its greatest danger. We expected the BBC to launch some kind of reality program which after free syndication in 60 countries and internet access points resulted in 30000 actionable projects on how to end extreme poverty around the globe.You mentioned: why is a physical centre still needed? Though I will be happy if one day virtual centres become as true as city for strengthening social networks, I think we should assume that hasn't happened yet not at least on change the world agendas (which need a lot of trust and time sensitivity between those who help form movements)Ideas like this are for everyone to participate in, but some group needs to plant them first. Are Londoners up for it?
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What ways can London lead the world that America cannot?by Chris Macrae on 15-Aug-04 2:09pm
This 40 page pdf from the Work Foundation is quite exciting stuff if you want to evolve in Cities of Ideas
reply to this comment

What ways can London lead the world that America cannot?by Alan Rae on 16-Aug-04 10:14pm
hi - the story I told you about originally is posted herehttp://www.ecademy.com/node.php?id=28769I definitely think London is the wave of the futureDr Alan Rae - Managing Partner - Ai ConsultantsLand line 01483 832124Mobile 07958 200112Web Site www.aiconsultants.co.ukAi Consultants is the Research and Consultancy arm of Free Spirits LtdMaking e-business work - IT, Marketing, Leadership.
reply to this comment

What ways can London lead the world that America cannot?by Chris Macrae on 17-Aug-04 12:21am
Thanks for the inspiring story Alan. You are absolutely right - it's easy to forget all the reasons that make London unique as a crossroads of human diversity, creativity and a positive kind of world trade. Usually under-recognition indicates types of lost opportunity - any views anyone?

Friday, February 10, 2006

discussion at local-global omidyar

Space Race : Who, Where is Mass Media trying to help people learn global harmony?
Posted to: Local Global by chris macrae (74), Fri, 10 Feb 2006 06:25:53 PSTFeedback score: 0Comments: 1 by 1 members total (1 new to me)Viewed: 2 times by 1 members
This is an absolutely critical space race for British people because we have invested more in world service (public media) than any other nation but some of our politicians have impeded this space race, and the process for renewing the BBC's 10 year charter isn't one that understands the role the BBC could be leading as internet and mass media connect. This 1984 script co-authored with most prolific editorial writer in the Economist's future history clarifies a worthwhile vision for public media http://www.normanmacrae.com/netfuture.html#Anchor-Changin-27687

Honors All For Media that Smartens Up The Public Care for Diversity Worldwide

Here are 3 people who probably merit being in our top 21 division for thinking through what public media's open space race could set as urgent achievable goals regarding Global Reconciliation
1 Charlie Rose - http://boards.charlierose.com/board/forum.asp?fi=24 - is there another program on American tv that interviews such a range of leaders and leading topics - please say if there is
2 Thomas Friedman (originally reporting out of the Lebanon now at New York Times and bestselling books) - if there's a serious book on what future opportunities and risks we are compounding across worldide networks that has been bought by more than 1.3 million American buyers of The World is Flat please say. Also at http://clubofbethesda.blogspot.com/ , we note how the 2 space races President Bush declared in his State of the Union speech seem to have their origin in the Friedman school of open exploraory thinking -again if you believe the media source of end addiction to petroleum economics or teach our kids to love exploring science as much as they do sports of superstars hubs out of someone else, please say
3 Jon Snow a British media news anchor who I nominate at http://deepvoices.blogspot.com/ as the newscaster Londoners probably trust most on make African poverty history

who would you choose to be seen as the first 21 in this space race?

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

http://addictionusa.blogspot.com/
We invite anyone from every place to connect with scripts and debates on how to do this. Here are some of our credentials, and why we'd love it if we all collaborate and just do this now. Since we have been working on this openly for 22 years we have a lot of deep contextual linkins if you will tell us where your contribution to ending this addiction (and passion to help people change) starts....
chris macrae, wcbn007@easynet.co.ukHundreds of co-editing spaces at http://clubofcity.blogspot.com http://clubofvillage.blogspot.com
sustaining 22 years of DoD script and debates http://deathofdistance.blogspot.com
sustaining 30 years of ER scripts and open spaces http://entrepreneurialrevolution.blogspot.com
timeline overview 31 Jan 2006- President Bush asks the world for help in State of Union address - how do we free USA from addiction to petroleum economy and make ethanol (or other green energy) a competitively priced gasoline within 5 years?
2005: dec 25 Queen Elizabeth 2 asks commonwealth: is globalsiation turning humanity on itself- reflecting DoD's 1984 forecast of 2005 as mankind's most dangerous year if we fail to chnage from economics of big power to the open peoples economics http://www.normanmacrae.com/netfuture.html#Anchor-Changin-27687
Oct 2005: 21 Business leaders publish Gathering storm report - its 2 recommendations to the president free us from addiction to petroleum addiction, and invest in education of those who connect maths, engineering and innovation. One of the report'c co-chairs mentions the buzz phrase DEATH OF DISTANCE 5 times of Charlie Rose PBS interview of 1 Feb 2006http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11463.html http://www.nap.edu/execsumm_pdf/11463.pdf
December 1984 : Death of Distance is coined as main slogan of the 1984 future history co-authored by The Economist's Deputy Editor Norman Macrae, and his son Chris Macrae. Death of Distance network maps and dialogue circles have been open spaced ever since. In particular, our 1984 script for energy is reproduced below and helps to explain why hundreds of club of city and village blog correspondents are collaboratively linked in to the most exciting innovations of green energy we can find
page 145-146 of our 1984 book Sunlight is the fuel which sustains life on earth. The process by which plants extract energy from sunlight, using that energy to build up complex compounds from simper ones and thereby storing the energy which animals, including humans, use to grow and move and see and think is the life-process itself. We (human beings) have always exploited that life-process, but in the past we have only been able to do so by using living plants as our agents. We learned to cultivate them, develop them by selective breeding, and since the 1980s to meddle with their genes, but we have not yet learned to substitute something of our own making for the living plant. We have not found or made a more efficient substitute for chlorophyll itself outside the naturally-occurring factory which is the living cell.
Until we design our own systems which can deploy the energy of sunlight as efficiently as humble algae does, we humans have no real biotechnology of our own. We have many kinds of solar cells which can extract energy from the sunlight and store is as electricity or heat, but such devices are very crude indeed beside the technical sophistication and versatility of living plants.
We are making a determined effort to capture and use a greater fraction of the solar energy which falls upon the face of the earth every day. We are trying to make plants flourish in paces where at present they can only eke out the most precarious of existence. The ideal situation, however, would be one in which we did not need to work so hard to adapt existing plants to more hostile conditions. If we had our own artificial systems of photosynthesis we might exploit the desert sun ourselves, without using other organisms as intermediaries. Our ultimate ambition must be to make artificial photosynthetic systems more efficient than those which have evolved alongside side us throughout the history of life on earth. Then and only then will we be able to claim that we are technologically self-sufficient. In 2024, this looks as if it might be one of our children's tasks.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Apart from the news, it is timely that Club of Davos continues are around the world tour of 80 cultures (prior stops Canada and Brazil) worth value multiplying for several reasons. These include :

Trust and colaboration are for the second time this decade being presented to delegates in the form of a round the wprldwide cross cultural survey.

Culturally, I can't imagine mine is the only body and brain that feels instanatly recovered by skiing up and down the mountains. A couple of years ago I was at a meeting Barcelona used to invite the world's cultures to connect in collaboration knowledge city governance and there was Lif Edvinnson most people's father of Intellectual Capital extending his opinion leading clues to the intellectual capital of nations and their captal cities. Here's a memoire of the denoument from his top 10 valuation criteria listing, which we've posted at Club of Davos.

OXYGEN OF LEADERSHIP RETREATS
Please note we are the first to value retreats providing oxygen and space to people who are intensely learning and networking. In fact, we treasure a Barcelona knowledge city convention where Leif Edvinsson, guru of Unseen Wealth's Intellectual Capital, presented his latest factor list of what makes a city compound great wealth. Number 1 on the list is oxygen - places built around lakes and clean air both attract the greatest brains and stimulate the greatest brainwork according to latest research. They also sustain deep cross-cultural innovation as social preneurial research by the likes of Richard Florida has shown.

You'll see more of Edvinsson on Ttust and Commonwelath at Davos, for example this quote from a Europe wide online debate he hosted recently:
The world is starting to see the invisibles or the capabilities in the relationships
... One angle to see is to look for the collaborative possibilities to shape a common wealth
... Just remember the Commonwealth....also referred to as UK, of which we are just renting the language for this dialogue
...Trust is the bridge for knowledge sharing, like a bridge, so for the world of today we have to learn to build Fast Trust, as a priori judgement for interaction and collaboration...A book in progress is called Collaborative Entrepreneurship

Monday, January 23, 2006

economics of knowledge collaboration city

It’s beginning to become clear to mapmakers of cities that 5 village type networks need to be identified and connected (by all means add a 6th for any other or tell me if I have missed one from top 5)

1 Who in this city has the world’s greatest admiration for networking ethics, and valuing humanity- and how does she or he influence change in the way economics is studied, reported and future markets are innovated, structured
Example London – probably Queen Elizabeth 2 – Is Globalization turning Humanity on Itself. Let’s wave ethical leadership debates out of St James CEO clubs, captains of leadership honors and beyond

2 What media and schools of learning has this city for propagating the change waves humanity need to be sustainable. Probably the BBC (a hundred billion dollar investment in world service through my lifetime) and out of aldwich it could change the London school of economics until it fits with Delhi’s if it dared raise public debates and do documentaries inquiring around the queen’s end of 2000-2005 big question.

3 How do the people open space – around the Quakers space for 1000 to debate or through simpol or in memory of Colin Morley and by helping the peace activists of other types of world social forum get the stage at Royal Society of Arts or wherever London’s most influential people to people stages are

4 Where do social hubs keep logging up projects as they emerge for community-up experimentation and once they work open sourcing to any global village that needs them – Islington’s Hub is one cultural creatives example, as are wherever Josef Coates Davies and youth networks parting. How do we get microfinance or other ways of investing in these project hubs given that neither governments nor NGOs sem to wish to start such budgets up. How do these hubs also become main virtual gateways in the future’s googles or peoples world or plex software that London’s espian co-creatives have progressed to potentially world class standard.

5 What confidential cafes do people meet who have a lifelong commitment to changing corruption in another poor country they belong to by upbringing or other passionate duty of care. How do they connect what worlds safely and transparently and sustainably in the deepest of conflict resolutions. How do they make sure that any activist networks they spawn are led or nurtured as much by women’s styles of governing as men
The odd thing is that because of the UK’s constitution as world’s largest Kingdom, first repentant empire and largest owner of public broadcasting, as well as the open sourced English language which makes it natural for worldwide networks to have an active branch here, British cities probably have more responsibility to lead this collaborative networking for humanity in 2006 than anywhere I can yet find. Of course I for one - and my guess all Londoners - will be delighted to be told your country has ever more human ways of connecting, so we can pass the baton on to the Peoples Olympics of 2012 if not earlier.

chris macrae wcbn007@easynet.co.uk http://clubofcity.blogspot.com http://clubofvillage.blogspot.com http://project30000.blogspot.com http://entrepreneurialrevolution.blogspot.com http://deathofdistance.blogspot.com http://kmeurope.blogspot.com

Saturday, January 21, 2006

Algaeworld leader Rick picks Dream Farm lecture by Dr Mae Wan-Ho, one of Global Singularity's big thinkers in our start the millennium catalogue

host Science in Society event in the UK (www.i-isi.org.uk). He will be discussing his work in developing what he calls an Integrated Farming and Waste Management System.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Robert Redford's Sundance film festival starts in Utah today for most of rest of January. The world's most openly inquistive documentaries tend to make their annual appearnce. Not being at the festival, we'd need your help to shortlist those of greatest cross-cultiral relevance to future of London but this is one example I FOR INDIA

England/Italy/Germany, 2005, 70 Minutes, color & b/w
Director: Sandhya Suri
http://www.iforindiathemovie.com

Annoyed at the poor quality of long-distance phone calls from England to his home country of India, in965 Yash Pal Suri bought two Super-8 film cameras, two projectors, and two reel-to-reel recorders and sent one of each to his parents back home. Over the following decades, Yash filmed his surroundings–images of snow, ladies in miniskirts dancing bare-legged, the first trip to an English supermarket–his taped thoughts and observations providing a unique chronicle of the eccentricities of his new English hosts. He then exchanged the journals with his parents' similar recordings of his home culture. I for India is a telling portrait of separation through both old and current footage of the family. As time rolls on, and as the possibility of returning to India becomes less realistic, the cine-reports become darker and more frustrated. Yash has the ability to be both humble and proud in the middle of it all. -Mike Plante

Director(s) Bios

Sandhya Suri
In 2000 Sandhya Suri received a scholarship to study documentary cinema at the National Film and Television School in England, where she directed five films. Her graduation film, Safar, screened at a range of international festivals and won several awards, including Cinema du Reél (Jury Honorable Mention) at the Munich International Documentary Film Festival; it was also named the best short film at the British Film Institute's Imagine Asia Festival. Currently based in London, Suri has lived in Germany, India, and Japan. I for India is her first feature-length documentary.

Film Contact: Sandhya Suri
4 Rosebank Gardens
London, E3 5EE
UK sandalssuri@hotmail.com

Sunday, January 08, 2006

The post below responds to New Zealander's Jack Yan's on Beyond-Branding and Beyond Knowledge Management 1 2 bossed by European Union

Can you tell us whether Helen (ex host of the EU's Knowledgeboard and modern day media social entrepreneur of NZ's radio waves) has any entrepreneurial revolution projects 1 2 going on that she wants the world to connect with? Our economist team is always particularly excited to hear how peoples media projects are upcurving.

You may recall about 3 years ago, Club of Londoners and I introduced you and her as NZ folk most likely to help change the world. In that top 3 my other nominee from personal networking retreats and meetings would be Barry Coates. He was last seen directing New Zealand's Oxfam, having been the person who did most to get World Development Movement going. WDM is a London-originated movement that can get thousands of youthful cultural creatives coming to meetings on what had hiterto seemed to be obscure globalisation policies such as GATTs. One of the great world waves Barry has been connected with is water, and London remains the world's number 1 crisis intervention/collaboration crossroads for all networks concerned with whether we will save humanity from running out of clean water in time.

Chris Macrae, Come Launch Open Space races out of Bethesda before Bush's Cluster of 21 understand quite how many invitations the Gathering Storm of the State of Union address has connected together

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Mapping a collaboration city’s villages in a people’s networking world http://clubofvillage.blogspot.com

6 for 2006 Agendas –last 4 years of changing what globalisation will compound!
If you have you want circulated, please send them before each month’s end

6 Monthly Newsletters for 2006
1 Clean photosynthesising energy and clean water
2 The Queens Mission- Stop Humanity from turning on itself; multicultural collaboration cities – News below
3 Retrieve public media for the people
4 Umbilically Link London and its well networked commonwealth countries including Canada, Scotland and Australia with India, Pakistan, S.America, Africa through microfinance, hubs and jams; women’s and youth movements
5 Change over to the peoples economics of win-win-win; end all closed professions withdrawing royal licenses if needs be
6 Change education of 9-13 year olds so that learning to live network co-mentoring is as appreciated as dead fact examination

WHY SHOULD THE WORLD LOOK TO LONDON FOR COLLABORATION AGE ECONOMICS?
Our open source language; our 50 Billion pound investment in public world service broadcast media; our investment in a constitutional monarchy beyond politicians or business; our multicultural commonwealth epicentre with crossroads in London and all collaboration cities; our potential leadership in peoples economics, transparency and sustainability of investments.

I also have personal and impersonal reasons for believing 7/7 challenges Londoners to map the future of all multicultural cities. Here’s quite a simple map. It suggests we citizens reclaim 5 people’s villages that go beyond what national politicians of global corporations can do because we look at the collaboration futures of worldwide sectors.

http://entrepreneurialrevolution.blogspot.com Our surveys have shown for years since that published in The Economist in 1976: that economics of abundance in a networked world encourages preneurs to multiply :
hi-trust system contexts* transparency across boundaries of systems*systems 9aka networks)* sustainability of life as well as monetary growth compounded openly through time (aka global*local future exponentials).

Any worldwide sector’s vision that isn’t win-win-win over time is a compound agent of corruption or terror in a networked world of localities. Such sectors most be outed and if necessary devalued by people of goodwill everywhere.

The 5 villages – I have mapped London’s locations and weblogs at http://clubofvillage.blogspot.com – have I left anyone out?

Village 1 Sustainability Investment: Where true leaders, deep investors and innovators rehearse sector scenarios that are best for the world and which that city has a pivotal influence on, and constitutionally futurise deep democracy of city, nation and international trade

Village 2 Where public media rehearses the leaders ideas to check they do the world a service and match them at no cost reality marketing to the world’s most urgent needs.

Village 3 Where large citizen groups eg 500 at a time open space and participate so the concepts get used and branched in open value multiplying ways; so that learning and innovation change each other for the benefit of all.

Village 4 More detailed social preneurs hubs where projects get microfinance, catalogued, openly franchised interlocally – see http://project30000.blogspot.com

Village 5 Even deeper conflict resolution links made so that we ensure that cities’ global villages integrate with villages and cities of every hemisphere with particular foci on the most desperate grassroots case first

Events at http://futureoflondon.blogspot.com

Sunday, January 01, 2006

a life in the year of Brand Expert Networkers who would take pach public broadcasting and globalsiation to be for and by the people

Our family tree of networks includes these branches (alive and dead):
Beyond-Branding and Medinge
Chief Brand Officer Association
First ever Brand Consultancy USA/UK - Institute of Brand Leadership
Provisional Wing of Marketing Council
MELNET & AllAboutBranding.Com
Brand Chartering - and genres of living or learning brand architectures
World Class Brands
Total Brand Corporate Responsibility Special Editorial Group
Brand Reality - Pride & Passion - of Service Economy Branding
Brand professionals who agree with the gist of Naomi's Klein critic of the destructive compatetion of Global Branding (when using a billion dollars of ad bugdet per year for image- making and next to nowt for reality making)
ADEPT alumni - Activating, Directing & Expressing Promise * Trust

If you need a live tour , mail me at wcbn007@easynet.co.uk as I helped to found each of the above since 1990 when I wrote the first book entirely about brands in an attempt to restore hi-trust corporate governance -and media that is goodwilled towards all people - given the disatrous brand valuation algorithms sponsred so that 5 global accountnats could continued their tangible monoploy of rulling opver boardrooms

This is a rough 2005 calendar of where we met and open spaces

Specifically , our Swedish friends asked us to review Medinge's Seasonal Rhythms:
December: ask who's brand of commonwealth you trust are you, in this most personal (open space by Gad!) and familial brand month
November: in memory of the 2md millenium's greatest management ecologist, all preneurial innovators and rebel economists prepare to join in jam for habitats, foundations, microfinance, Third of World, WorldFirsts and hi-trust in all creatures great and small
October: aSIN and THE COOPERATION & DC Democracies United renew their invitations to wave our networks grid across citizens. We renew our faith in mapping the USA that the rest of the world loves
September 05: Now that Clinton has joined Robinson in taking New York Global from the search for 30000 grassroots projects up, we also need to Sustain Public Sector Broadcasting
July/August - our ritual is to retreat (5? times to date) to Medinge for 48 hours of lakeland, bonhomie and revolutionary sector 1 2 branding -to be the intangibles seeding ground of the Human Wealth that the World Economic Forum has ne'r yet seen
June 2005: VOTE for which countries merit being in the Live8 club; how do we take NGO's beyond the image-making of Making Poverty History?
April/May05: Seasons when fools, saints and be-the-changers 1 2 conceive what games networks and open spaces will play -looking back to Mardi Gras, mapping innovation as simultaneous conflict resolution 1 2 3, challenging coffeehouses 1, loving wiki for cleansing energy
January : our winter retreat month in London or Amsterdam or wherever we can helpuniversity of stars prepare media answers or questions before of after they cover the soundbiting of World Social & Economic Forums

Saturday, December 31, 2005

Hollywood is starting a survey of the 20 movies of all time greatest future relevance and whether any of the stars associated or influenced by the movie wil be a patron to the humanistiarian cause networks most impacted by whether the movie's future crisis expoentially spins up or down

Giraffes (a 20 year search for 900 heros) are moving towards a media crisis conference in Boston

What can london as epicentre of public broadcasting and world service colaborate round in transforming global media and local cross-cultural love of each other? We have been issuing dialogue scripts for 22 years on this topic and love to connect with any people circle who are also exploring this crisis wave, and its impact on the 40 million bookmarkers of collaboration knowledge city

Sunday, December 25, 2005

queen asks whether humanity has turned aganist itslef

Queens Christmas Broadcast
The Queen delivered a sombre Christmas broadcast yesterday, reflecting on a year blighted by natural disasters and terrorist atrocities.

It was a year, she confessed, during which she had sometimes thought "that humanity seemed to have turned on itself - with wars, civil disturbances and acts of brutal terrorism".

The Queen: Sombre broadcast
The July 7 suicide bomb attacks on London's transport network, which claimed 52 lives and injured hundreds more, had "totally changed" many people's lives in this country, bringing pain and suffering, she said.

Across the world, the Asian tsunami, the earthquake in Pakistan and India, and the hurricanes that hit New Orleans and the Caribbean, had done the same.

"This Christmas my thoughts are especially with those everywhere who are grieving the loss of loved ones during what for so many has been a terrible year."

She added: "This last year has reminded us that this world is not always an easy or a safe place to live in, but it is the only place we have. I believe also that it has shown us all how faith - whatever our religion - can inspire us to work together in friendship and peace for the sake of our own and future generations."

Note clearly the blindness of those in chnarge of large organsiational governance and measurement has turned expoentially aginast humanity:
reference- globla sectors in exponential downturn
-future risks being ruled by a global mathematical mistake-critical time for project30000 as forecast back in 1984-come and co-script a context with entrepreneurial revolutionaries, system and network mapmakers, and Britain's senior economist 1 2 3

Most misunderstood economic liberator of 2000-2005

Learning Networks are not Knowledge Management

Here's what used to be several of our front pages before the 100-blog google meltdown of Dec05

Timeline 2005 -World's Riskiest Year, Chris & Norman Macrae, wcbn007@easynet.co.uk
reported from 1984 here

reported from 31st December 2005:
The first half-decade of Century21 ended with Queen Elizabeth 2 devoting her annual television broadcast to begging the peoples of our commonwealth and friends wherever you may be 1 2 to debate anywhere and everywhere : is humanity turning on itself. Here's one oh so primitive map we have of where bloggers and others are connecting round this deabte. Please exchnage with us any maps you feel people could link round to restore contextual trust in humanity at and through 2 million global villages -or any way in which people's lifetime productivities and demands can harmoniously network together for the greater goodwill of 6 billion beings not the lesser 1 2

Saturday, December 24, 2005

Meta Project Appeals from Project30000

-wherever appropriate, eg among pairings of Gravity200 networks, I will increasingly be sending out inquiries to both networks as tow hether even more of the 30000 projects will evolve by connecting their cataloguing power rather than networking away separately
Example: This invitation issued 26 December 2005 inquires whether the social and conflict resoultion projects rehearsed by 2 networks could multiply each other's propagation for the good of humanity. It is also timely in view of the lesson that Queen Elisabeth asks Britons to ponder in her annual Christmas speech The two commnuitites we are asking to collaborate are:
http://www.catcomm.org/ and Open Space - see eg the listserve of 1000 alumni at http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

Dear Harrison cc Open Space ListI am wondering if we can find a few people who will make 120 dollar pledges for Theresa Williams Catalytic Communities initiative at http://www.catcomm.org/. A deep community project based in Rio De Janeiro, with potential impact replicating societal projects worldwide and linked through the Washington DC region where Theresa was brought up and her parents liveWhy could Open Space people be particularly interested?

...AS well as working as the local hub and community meeting place for people who are have grassroots community-up innovations to space, catcomm has developed the virtual infrastructure to catalogue collaboration projects from any society that are ready to be replicated across orther societies facing the same challenge. I have always thought that quite a large number of open space activations are missing the trick of replicating what one community learns across other facing similar challenges. To achieve this perhaps one of the deeper dynamics needed is to review those open spaces that their facilitation clients want worldwide propagation for from several lenses. Conflict resolving initiatives of most interest to people in S America may have a different pattern from those that interest social change agents in USA and so on. WE can only see the practical patterns of this by iteratively championing local translations of social bariiers as well as cataloguing stories form all around the world of open space. Perhaps one day we could dream that every media organisation had an open space correspondent as well as the 50 less interesting to me correspondents that most newspapers or tv stations field.I feel there is a multiplicative bridge between catcomm and open space but perhaps we will only discover all the practical ways of making the most of catcomm and oopen space worlds if a few people take out a pledge and then start cataloguing which of the open spaces they know of also want to be replicated to any community facing a similar conflict barrier.

If you read this in 2005 and have questions please feel free to ask them of me and Theresa. A fulfilling 2006 to all of us.

Back in London Queen Elisabeth has turned into a social activist. In her annual Christmas message she asked every Briton to debate whether the evidence of 2005 is that "humanity is turning against itself" and if they conclude so: to adopt one way of intervening in 2006. Sounds like catalytic community project hosts and open space agents will have a very demanding year.

LEARNINGNETWORK blog

futher references:

We're all Intrapreneurial Now (1982); 30th Birthday of Entrepreneurs (2006); 21st Birthday of DoD's Project 30000

Contribute to world's most inspirational sayings about learning

Sunday, December 31, 2006

Aide Memoire from EU dialogue on Open Learning & Clued Conversations
The Promise (as yet unfulfilled but not through lack of human potential) includes connecting:
vison 2010: 25 country knowledge society & meta-disciplinary lifelong (e)learning
KM Europe as post-industrial leader for knowledge workers
Unseen Wealth of Intangibles Valuation : Trust & Emotional Flows of service economy , collaborative innovation webs of network economy
Virtual and real community & collective intelligence formats/media/social spaces
Open source and above zero-sum economies
Harmony of trade with poorest parts of world - no more wars

LEARNING Networks & Open Mentors: History's newest revolution:1974-1984-2004-2024Sample Eight main beliefs of one of most inspiring books around in 2004:

1. The world is hurtling through a fundamental turning point in history.
2. We are living through a revolution that is changing the way we live, communicate, think and prosper.
3. This revolution will determine how, and if, we and our children work, earn a living and enjoy life to the fullest.
4. For the first time in history, almost anything is now possible.
5. Probably not more than one person in five knows how to benefit fully from the hurricane of change - even in developed countries.
6. Unless we find answers, an elite 20 percent could end up with 60 percent of each nation's income, the poorest fifth with only 2 percent.1 That is a formula for guaranteed poverty, school failure, crime, drugs, despair, violence and social eruption.
7. We need a parallel revolution in lifelong learning to match the information revolution, and for all to share the fruits of an age of potential plenty.
8. Fortunately, that revolution - a revolution that can help each of us learn anything much faster and better - is also gathering speed.

This book tells its story. It also acts as a practical guide to help you take control of your own future.The main elements of the revolution are twofold. They link the modern marvels of brain research with the power of instantly available information and knowledge
posted by macrae.nets @ 11:14 AM Saturday, July 16, 2005

Related discussion We need to keep management theses open, instead of judged by all the usual suspects. One harvard professor recently admitted that 95% of strategy is conceived dead because the theory is so out of touch with practice. The global corpoartion of 10000 knowledge workers ruled by the fears and stick options of a 12 person board is the least flexible or valuable/sustainble organisational design we could imagine powering over strategiues- so why dont we transparently question such closed monoploies over people's working lifetimes?Odd how management education takes 95% of its precedence from such a small part of the world's diversity as Boston. But then the vicious quartert of :

Delaware Corporate law
Boston educationalists' separatism before meta-discipline, and impact on professions that now separate their business case instead of connecting hippocratic service-to-people oathes
Chicago's global accounting
And Wall Street's financial speculatorshave straitjacketed the world in the greatest investments apartheids our poor globe has ever seen, and bright western minds seemed to have given up student rebellions just when they are needed against the educationalists.

Come to the Delhi/Gandhi alumni sponsored rebelolion in 2007 ( I think I know enough of the organsiers to enable any mice present to have fun there); or go to Lucknow's Chief Justices conference (I have no contacts there though wish I could find an explorers mutual group who wanted to build such links)
posted by macrae.nets @ 12:11 AM Saturday, April 02, 2005

Who do we learn leadership from now the most valuable man has gone?
Pope John Paul 2

In seeking to resolve the globalisation conflict era in which money sought to take over community, John Paul actions included:

Beatifying Mother Theresa for her tireless, selfless work in the slums of Calcutta, for giving “without counting the cost”

Fiercely criticising unfettered capitalism, he castigated the rich industrial countries for not fighting poverty, hunger and disease in poorer regions. He rebuked despots to their faces for crushing human rights. He was a withering critic of the selfishness that afflicts so many

“When freedom does not have a purpose” he warned “when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in the hearts of men and women, when it does not listen to the voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society”
posted by macrae.nets @ 12:41 AM 0 comments
Thursday, March 24, 2005

searching the future origin's of learning, networks and macrae views
This google would make one starting spaceAs open sources of learning and networking, we are interested in hearing from any other clans or networks interested in the future of elaring - would you like to co-edit their view with one month's free space in the archives of this blog?
posted by macrae.nets @ 3:28 AM 0 comments
Monday, February 28, 2005

Job 1 Connecting the Disconnected
Since 1984 we have identified Connecting the Disconnected (1) as this as job #1:Multiply learning where most needed; most likely to pass through the 6 degrees of relationship permissions that interconnect anyone online (or less if they are parts of large virtaul communities); Take the world above zero-sum economics in making poverty history; and other meta-network colaborationshaving shown what networks can do when people open source information and trust-flow, improve competence of collaborative innovation in every organsaition
posted by macrae.nets @ 8:15 AM 0 comments
Sunday, February 27, 2005

Job 2 Tutor children in searching out their own 5 best mentors through life
We have started to converse about this in terms of 12th grade email training; but clearly one needs to similarly discuss graded use of weblogs, real meeting , every mode of communicationsWe also need to get the world's largest public media BBC on side of training kids why email etc changes every curricula. We understand why commercial mass media is frightened that the internet may end its dumbing down rule over people, but it is scandalous how little the BBC covers the real potentials of virtual life including all the main jobs listed for debate at this blog!We are also interested in how everyone outlines new curriclum through all grades in an open way.

Friday, December 16, 2005

KMEurope blog
stories inspiring open knowledge, community systemisation, & blog action

Value Multiplicatio coordinates of productivity & Open People Networks:
What are the most inspiringly productive things people are doing?My linkedin friends and I started piloting story collections a year ago themed round 5 dynamics of productivity whose exploration intrigued us. I am keen to openly expand this survey now, and if it's relevant see how people can multiply relevant stories at the KM fringe event -at 5 Knowledge flowing energy levels
K1 as people
K2 as groups (eg nets, communities) within large organisations
K3 as leadership visions, hierachical led consensus
K4 as business sector partnerships
K5 as societally or cross-cultural led initiatives
K1*K2*K3*K4*K5

EXPLORATION SPACES
Blog Action Firsts
Clinton Global Concerns Tapestry

You're welcome to join our open surveys of how productivity multiplies through networks Results of 5 years of quizzing Knowledge Management Experts as an Unseen Wealth Researcher
Results of 5 years of quizzing Knowledge Management Experts as an Unseen Wealth (Intangibles Valuation Auditing*Transparency's advance conflict scouting at borders where systems have multiplicative impacts*Sustainability Investment) Investmnent Researcher I felt the call to research KM experts for the following reasons. I did so openly at the EU’s knowledgeboard, whose conversations will be extracted in this blog and linked while they are permitted to remain where they began Trust-Flow and other Energy Flows of productive & Demanding Realtionships determine how network economies revolve Like so many human spirits at every locality, I had always Peter Drucker's perspectives of knowledge workers and my fathers of entrepreneurial revolution necessary for service economy to be revolutionary different than working under machines, which is what the industrial age required of most people. Then in 1984, my father and I co-scripted the first 40 year of networking organisations and concluded that the system change of globalisation and local societal networks was going to be an even greater change to measurement sciences of economics etc than going from machine economies to service economy. So when in early 2001, Margaret Blair told me about the results of the inquiry =she had chaired at Brookings into Unseen Wealth – 90% of all future value… ...

RSA values
-IntegrityWe revere honesty, even where it incurs criticism, controversy or unpopularity. We welcome disagreement as the spark from which new fires of creativity might be ignited. We jealously guard our independence, which enables us to work with integrity and be listened to as an authoritative & respected voice. But as an organisation committed to innovation we also recognise that we will sometimes fail: when we do, we promptly disclose any bad news.
PracticalityThe Society has always been pragmatic and practical. We do not apply palliatives, but search for the solutions to underlying problems. When we devise solutions we seek to have them implemented, often prototyping so that we can lead by example. Above all, we seek to make a real difference in society.
QualityThe RSA honours excellence – from whatever source – where it contributes to our purpose. We also strive to achieve excellence in our own Programme work. As a charity, in the other areas of our work we try to meet the expectations which our stakeholders have of us, adding value where we can and eliminating activities which have become redundant.
VersatilityWe have thrived by being flexible in a world that changes rapidly and sometimes violently. We embrace change, and develop our own projects so that they are adopted by other organisations or stand alone – this enables us to move on to new work and new projects. What remain constant are our values: they may be modified in the light of fundamentally changed circumstances, but they will always be firmly rooted in the Society’s origins and in our commitment to do good., 26 July 2005 @ 15:09 PM
RSA Values -part 1Mr Chris MacraeThe Royal Society of Arts born in London 251 years ago is one of the world's deepest mixers of culture, collaboration cafes and influencing leaders through the fringe. So RSA's values may be worth many networkers seeing through, knowing...The RSA’s values explain ‘the way we do things’; they are at the core of the Society and guide all our decisions, from the most strategic to the most mundane. The RSA’s values are rooted in the humanitarian, liberal thinking of the Age of Enlightenment, from which also came our desire to do good. Our values are pragmatic statements of what works best for us in the real world: they enable our Fellows, our partners and everyone connected with us to understand what makes us tick.HumanitySince 1754 the RSA has existed to create a more civilised world, encouraging the development of a sustainable society. Our concern for the betterment of humanity remains at the very heart of the Society, but this does not mean making improvements today at the expense of those living in the future. Our concern works at an individual level, too, which means that we treat people with respect, value different perspectives and strive to be open to new ideas. We listen carefully to all points of view before making decisions, and we deal with everyone in the way we want to be dealt with. We aim to practise what we preach with our own staff.DiversityFrom our very beginnings we have been keen to be open to people of influence irrespective of irrelevant factors such as gender or ethnicity. As well as doing this because it is right, we also recognise the practical advantages that flow from an inclusive approach, from celebrating the amazing diversity of humanity, and from harnessing the talents which everyone has to offer. The Society therefore embraces equality of opportunity in our programmes, our ways of working, and our employment practices. Recognising the law and the commitment of our own Bye-Laws, we seek out positive opportunities to encourage participation from under-represented or marginalised groups.

Gillian Bush , 24 July 2005 @ 12:32 PM Bravo Royal Society of ArtsMs Gillian BushBravo RSA from ClubofCityThe RSA web announces its newest fringe spaceCafé RSA is the Society’s latest venture aimed at generating informal and exciting discussion on a local level. Based in Café Muse at the University of Manchester, the project will follow a similar format to the hugely popular Coffeehouse Challenge, using the Café setting as a catalyst to provoke audience input into the discussion. This format intends to break away from the traditional perception of the RSA event as a lecture-based forum, drawing on the key principle of ‘Inspiring the Future’ in order to promote the work of the RSA to its younger audience.The Café RSA project was conceived by the RSA’s North West Regional Committee and will consist of a series of six discussion events spread over one year. These discussions will be grounded in the RSA’s five Manifesto Challenges, the purpose being to explore each challenge in depth at least once. A further crucial factor in the format of these events will be the linking of the theme of each event to the local community in Manchester, thus generating a debate that has relevance on both a global and local level. Each event will be supported and contributed to by one of the Café RSA’s five collaborative partners: The BBC; Sport England; The Arts Council; British Association for the Advancement of Science; and Museums, Libraries and Archives North West.Booking and promotion for the events will take place online and be orchestrated through the RSA’s central office. Further details of each event will be posted on this site, as and when each one approaches.More information coming soon....

Chris Macrae , 23 July 2005 @ 10:34 AM who's truly up for deepest communal learnings - part 2Mr Chris MacraeDear XXXWe met at a coffeehouse challenge at The National Gallery in May and I passionately believe that spaces for hosting conversations on diversity and open community involvement are vital, ever more so given the challenges London now faces. This blends with networks I loosely connect, emerging out of a 21 year future history systemic forecast my father at The Economist and I co-authored back in 1984 : 2005 would become mankind’s most dangerous year of globalisation and evolution, whose reconciliation would need almost every being to feel openly involved in debating projects that could win-win in making poverty history.I came across the new magazine launch of Society Today at another coffeehouse challenge. Whilst its on its own learning curve, it struck me that the combination of Starbucks and Society Today could multiply much needed deep community in inspired ways.Experimental Ideas include having sample copies of this magazine available for browsing in Starbucks cafes around London. Get involved with the café challenges that diversity journalists writing for Society Today are themselves intent on hosting. Work together with pooling ideas that Royal Society members or the BBC or others passionate about healing London’s and Britain’s communal diversity want to keep testing as seeds for planting open public dialogue.Hom the editor of Society Today once. His would seem to me to be on an uniquely caring mission, capable of sustaining deep networks of supporters around Society Today – a not for profit development that might make an extraordinary multiplier with Starbuck’s commercial business and London as a hub for reconciliation. Multiplying open invitations simultaneously across all ages and faiths seeking to bridge community respect and love seems to me to be our defining challenge, which London as a cross-cultural crossroads has become a world epicentre of.Please contact Hom and explore whether this opportunity could be as great for each other’s goals as the sustainability of deep society out of Britain I believe it to be.SincerelyChris Macrae___________________________________________________Letter Enclosed first issue of Society Today, whose web is at www.society-today.com

Smallprint on my personal stationery letterhead provides 2005’s calendar of diversity reconciliation events including Global Reconciliation Network annual meeting hosted this year in Sarajevo August ; Clinton Global Initiative hosted in New York September; corporation lawyers mediation debate sponsored by http://www.simpol.org,/ provisionally October Select Committee Room, Houses of Parliament London.Chris Macrae , 23 July 2005 @ 10:31 AM who's truly up for deepest communal learnings -part 1Mr Chris Macrae1) How missionaries communalise (link)2) Emotional Intelligences of Life & Death - London Calling (link at KMEI)3) Research with BBCIcan on how cafes work to spread diversiyty good-cheer simultaneously across open grassroots invitations -some may call the fringe3a) Prior research on simpol cafes and London as Collaboration Knowledge City4) Draft of letter to Starbucks Community Development Coordinator (see part 2)Chris Macrae , 29 May 2005 @ 16:57 PM

open cafes number 1 economic & social catalyst of networking age?Mr Chris MacraePosts show the social capital spaces afforded by open cafes are the most vital economic catalyst peoples can enjoy.Summing up : 1 how did we nearly forget this? 2 what exactly makes a cafe zing? 3 how do we include everyone in this most basic enabler of democracy and entreprenurial wherewithal1 we forgot because mass media made obese couch potatoes of us, broadcast news of fear and governments got so impressed with image-making ads and PR that they preferred big corporations to the people..we Londoners' vote to go Beyond-Branding before its too late;other ideas welcome...2 a cafe provides a safe relaxing space and quality time; so a group of people can commune round a common interest/concern ; and having developed trust in each other keep networking;3 to play people need the space near where they live; and easy ways to participate in announcing cafes they want to participate in as wll as calendars of event; realising that getting even 5 people around the same table at the same time is very difficult now we have got to such a time compressed world, and one in which many of the people with greatest innovation needs either fear to come out or have duties that eat up their free time (eg babycare)over the last fortnight, BBCican reporters and the Royal Society of the Arts have hosted 3 events in London with well over 100 participants:how to make London safer for womenhow to put community back into Londonhow to help our children learncafe spaces in their different modes were the biggest solution I heard in each meeting; of course this doesnt mean just posh pay for cafes like Starbucks though those are excellent for innovation by those who can afford them; it means cafe community centres for everyone, and if a local council can't find a cheerful format for financing that it should be sackedfor children, it also means -as open space experts can mentor anyone who needs to know - teaching teachers to allow cafes for teens up or perhaps younger; hosting and participating in a round circle meeting becomes one of the most vital learning in a social networking age; it is as vital as using email and blog because none of the three can enable innovative communications and actions without the otherqueries, wcbn007@easynet.co.uk, ironical that the whole of KM and ebusiness comes down to cultivating this open infrasructure into the living fabric of our knowledge cities...bon courage in seeing it happen around youClub of London - summer cafe Festival:June 3 Can youth film-makers change the world- British Library Cafe Friday 12.30 provisional - sponsor www.simpol.orgJune 6 Play the Sustainability Game & linkin your deepest network Friends House sponsor AmedJune 7 People for Pensions - 17.30 Starbucks 51 Great Russell Streel WC1 -co-sponsors BBCican, Starbucks,

RSAChris Macrae , 28 May 2005 @ 18:19 PM v3 science's 20th C luminaries and alumni
Budapest and similar European cities, which mothered so many of the 20th century's greatest sceintists including those that begot the compute would not have attracted the great thinkers and schooling of the day without the civilisation and social fashionability of cafes.

Chris Macrae , 28 May 2005 @ 18:12 PM V5 Leading social-economic opinion leading network
http://www.thersa.org/acrobat/coffeehouse.pdf Britain's leading network connecting entrepreneurs and socialites would have existed without the cafe. This network's reputational and mentoring influence across leaders remains one of the most likely to restore human sense to those of the world's 1000 largest organisations that have lost true social fabric or love of people.

Chris Macrae , 28 May 2005 @ 18:09 PM K5 Artistic, Intellectual, Fashions
A lot of artistic, fashions and intellectual movements would not have started without cafes
Coca-Cola wouldn't have existed without the late 19th century equivalent of cafes in the USA. Whether nationwide highways and packaged goods would have developed so quickly in the America without Coca-Cola is unknowableChris Macrae , 28 May 2005 @ 18:01 PM
v3 property markets Because of K2 (culture) much of the value of residential property in cities developed from where cafes were. K2 community culture, social networksMuch culture, hobbies, communities were born in cafes
v5 industry sectors and trading markets -Many of the world's largest industry sectors and most of the financial trading markets were born in cafes

Friday, September 19, 2003

Thinking Through A Collapsing World:

Pathways to Reconciliation

An International Network for Local & Global Reconciliation

Promotion of mutual collaboration, enhanced communication & greater understanding across the conventional divides of national, cultural, social, philosophical and religious difference.

Patrons:

Sir William Deane Former Governor-General of Australia
Dr Jose Ramos Horta Nobel Peace Laureate and East Timorese Foreign Minister
Professor Bernard Lown Harvard Medical School Nobel Peace Prize winner
Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue Companion of the Order of Australia and Chair, Reconciliation Australia.
Mary Robinson Former UN High Commissioner For Human Rights and Former President of Ireland
The Reverend Desmond Tutu Archbishop Emeritus Nobel Peace Prize winner

International Advisory Committee
Philip Adams ;Zigmund Bauman ;Marcus Einfeld ;John Funder;Raimond Gaita;Babu Gogineni
Paul James ;Barry Jones;Alfonso Lingis;Patricia McKeever;Chantal Mouffe;Ashis Nandy
Mojtaba Sadria

Background

The world is not collapsing just because of the events of September 11^th, 2001. At that time, many aspects of it were already under duress. There are many people for whom life has always been a struggle for survival. However, the attack on the US, subsequent attacks elsewhere and the recent coalition offensive in Iraq, have shifted matters on a global scale. The world map is being redrawn in political terms, designating peoples, regions and religions as either good or bad. Economically, debt and uncertainty prevail. There is a sense internationally that an ominous horizon lies ahead. These phenomena, both real and imagined, are now the filter through which global and regional inequities are perceived. They have rendered the problems of some peoples marginal, or invisible, while putting those of others under the world spotlight.

There is a pressing need for the people of the world to try to understand the implications of the many complex ethical issues and questions arising out of the current world circumstance. The political issues are momentous; but it is also necessary to clarify meanings at the level of personal experience. Open discussion and dialogue to promote mutual understanding across cultural, racial and political divides is an urgent task, as is the commencement of a search for non-violent strategies for the resolution of international conflict.

During 2002 we conducted public meetings and a conference in Melbourne to address these questions in the Australian context.[1] These events gave special emphasis to the impact on multiculturalism and the experiences of different cultural groups. Their success led to a proposal to pursue similar discussions in an international context. This idea in turn attracted widespread support and led to a vision of an ongoing process to support international communication and reconciliation.

Aims

In order to realise this vision, we have established an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural network to foster practices of reconciliation. The network seeks to recreate globalisation’s ‘human face’ by bringing people interested in reconciliation together, to explore ways of developing and extending cultural, educational and intellectual exchanges.

We have planned a conference and a series of workshops to be held in London in September 2003. The conference will provide a forum for analysis of and reflection upon the major issues arising from discussions on civil society, political institutions and the cultural arena. The workshops will be directed at further defining the network and the strategies and programs for reconciliation that it will generate in the future.

Over the course of this event individuals and groups from different cultural, national, philosophical and religious traditions will be engaged on topics and projects of common interest and concern. It is our objective for the conference to track the ethical and philosophical shifts that have recently occurred, in both public and personal terms. The workshops have been designed to generate specific ongoing events and activities that will convert the massive volume of information currently available into genuine communication and interaction.

Participants

Participants in the network, conference and workshops are individuals and groups from around the world with an interest in reconciliation and the issues associated with it. They include women and men from developed and developing countries, from diverse religious and cultural groups, philosophers, social thinkers and representatives from a variety of organisations engaged in activities directed towards promoting reconciliation on both a local and a global scale.

Naturally, we are concerned that balanced representation is achieved with respect to gender, cultural and religious orientations and philosophical perspective.

Network Development

Development of the network is an ongoing process that we are continuously seeking to encourage groups and individuals to contribute to. In bringing together a range of participants, the conference and workshops will assist in further defining the network and its future conduct.

We are developing the network’s website, which includes a directory of community groups active in the area of reconciliation and information about their activities. The site also offers resources and interactive forums, the first of which is soon to be launched. This forum will be framed by a series of short papers written by leading activists and academics on the topic of Reconciliation. Contributors to this include Margaret and Henry Reynolds, Lowitja O’Donoghue and Justice Richard Goldstone, of the Truth and Reconciliation Court of South Africa.

The network will operate within a democratic framework. A charter detailing the network’s terms of reference, structure and processes of operation will be developed during the series of workshops.

Patrons and International Advisory Group

Both the network and the conference/workshops have benefited greatly from the support of prominent figures in the international reconciliation movement who are serving as our Patrons or as members of our International Advisory Committee. The members of these groups are identified on the covering page of this document.

Organising Committee & Supporting Organisations

The Pathways to Reconciliation network has been developed by a group based at La Trobe and Monash Universities in Melbourne[2] and has the support of a growing number of individuals and institutions around the world. Organisations that currently support the network include:

Ø UNESCO, Paris	Ø United Nations High Commission for Human Rights
Ø UNESCO Australia	Ø UN Association of Australia
Ø Monash University	Ø La Trobe University
Ø Medecins Sans Frontieres	Ø Royal Australasian College of Physicians
Ø International Humanists and Ethical Union	Ø British Humanist Association
Ø South Place Ethical Society	Ø International Physicians Against Nuclear War
Ø The Myer Foundation	Ø The Victorian Multicultural Affairs Committee
Ø Australasian Bioethics Association	Ø Nuffield Trust
Ø University of Westminster, Centre for the Study of Democracy	Ø Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Psychiatrists

Inaugural Meeting

Evening Friday 19^th September to afternoon Sunday 21^st September 2003. Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London

Objectives and content and format of program of meeting

Discussions at the meeting will occur within the context of an examination of the ways in which recent world events have impacted on the lives of people around the world.

Discussions will focus on:

- The ways recent world events have altered the dimensions of personal experience, society and culture and are continuing to shape decisions about values at all levels of social life.

- The concepts of civil society and reconciliation.

- The possibilities for creative change generated by contemporary processes of globalisation.

The event will be opened with a public meeting and will proceed with a series of workshops that provide an overview of the issues and analysis of the underlying problems.

These will examine:

- The impact of recent world events on specific communities.

- Implications for human rights, health and health care delivery.

- How to understand the motivations for and responses to recent events in relation to culture, meaning and morals.

- How to promote dialogues around and engagement of these issues.

In view of the fact that the workshops are being convened to assist in the development of an ongoing network, the following specific issues will also be addressed:

- Clarification and development of the philosophical basis of the network.

- The scope of the activities to be supported.

- Discussion about and planning for specific projects, especially in the four areas identified for major programs: community building, information and media, health and welfare, and youth.

- Detailed terms of reference according to which the network may make awards.

Speakers

The following speakers have accepted invitations to be involved in the conference and are participating in its ongoing development:

Ø Joan Anderson, Professor of Nursing, University of British Columbia, Canada

Ø Ian Campbell, International Health Consultant, Salvation Army and UNAIDS

Ø Mary Crewe, Centre for Study of AIDS and Human Rights, Pretoria University, South Africa

Ø Marcus Einfield, Former Justice of the Federal Court of Australia and of the New South Wales, National Vice President, International Commission of Jurists (Australian Section)

Ø Kersten England, Head of Policy Development, Bradford Council. U.K

Ø Jakob Finci, Chair, National Coordinating Committee for the Establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Bosnia Herzegovina

Ø Christoff Heyn, Centre for Study of AIDS and Human Rights, Pretoria University, South Africa

Ø Pervez Hoodbhoy, Professor of Nuclear and High-Energy Physics, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan

Ø Tanya Hosch, Director, Australian Indigenous Leadership Centre, Executive Policy Officer, Strategic Development Unit, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Island Commission

Ø Azam Kamguian, Iranian writer and Women's Rights activist. Founder and chairperson for the "Committee to Defend Women's Rights in the Middle East"

Ø Alfonso Lingis, Emeritus Professor, Philosophy, Pennsylvania Sate University, USA

Ø Isabel Marcus, Professor of Law, University at Buffalo Law School, USA

Ø Chantal Mouffe, Professor of Politics and Social Theory, University of Westminster, U.K. and New School for Social Research, New York, USA

Ø Hans D’Orville, Director of Strategic Planning, UNESCO

Ø Lowitja O’Donaghue, Chair, Reconciliation Australia

Ø Mary Robinson, Former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and President of Ireland; Chair, Ethical Globalization Initiative.

Ø Modjtaba Sadria, Professor, Faculty of Policy Studies, Chuo University, Japan

Ø Roberto Unger, Professor, Harvard Law School, USA

Ø Charles Villa-Vincenzio, Doctor, Executive Director Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, South Africa

Ø Haggith Gor Ziv, Feminist activist and Member ‘New Profile: Movement for the Civil-isation of Israeli Society’

Ø Xu Youyu, Professor, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing

Dissemination and outcomes

The primary outcome of the meeting will be a detailed plan for the operation of the network. In addition to this, a record of speaker presentations will be produced. All speakers will be invited to submit their text for this purpose.

[1] See www.collapsingworld.org.

[2] Organising Committee Members: Victoria Baldwin, Virginia Cable, Cleo Fleming, Paul Komesaroff, Sioban Nelson, Leon Pieterman, Philipa Rothfield, John Wiltshire. Sub-Committee Members include: Frida Komesaroff and Lara Pieterman (Youth Sub-Committee), Robert Irvine (Media Sub-Committee) and Deborah Zion and Jim Hyde (HIV Aids Sub Committee).

Sunday, August 31, 2003

will the mass media ever start to learn?

Denmark Cartoon Wars Feb 2006

Learning: Cartoons abusing the image of the Muslim god are very costly speech even if its with other peoples lives!

It seems to me that if our children are going to survive in a networked world, then all 6 billion of us are going to need to respect diversity, culture. http://exponentials.blogspot.com/
The exponential consequences of not urgently getting connected on this in the way we educate and communicate and our leaders honor other leaders look very grave to any death of distance future historian including the networks that have formed around the book I co-authored on that subject in 1984http://deathofdistance.blogspot.com/
http://clubofbethesda.blogspot.com/
Now we could discuss how to start doing that, but I would suggest the richer (and so hopefully more educated) nations, races, religions other ways we idnetity with beliefs and each other, could begin by taking the greatest care in the way we project stories or images about the one or two most 'sacred' beliefs of each of the different poorest (most geographically, historically or digitally separated peoples). Why not start that code of cultural harmony with the way the North and West respcts Muslims
Ironically, as I have tried to write at http://clubofdenmark.blogspot.com/ such crosscultural carelessness is I believe very atypical of this nation. But this shows how we are all at risk to individual actions (even the lack of common sense of an editor of what I believe was a fairly small piece of media)

Let's try to dedicate most of the rest of this section to where mass media is trying to learn with the public dialogues it stages

Channel 4 tv is one of the newer and smaller commercial channels in the UK with an origin in London. Perhaps because of this it chooses its news processes with qite a lot more care and focus than many bigger channels. One of the interesting ways of looking at this is those topics it chooses to continue an elngated debate with the public on its web site

http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/T/thinktv/atoz.html

Monday, January 31, 2000

extraordinary Insight on Global Futures

eg from Jeff's Iterations:

Perhaps you'll find out who Jeff is, but my goodness from 22 years of studying future genres folowing the book I co-authored in 1984 these system resources on the future are as holistics as one web gets

http://www.iterations.com/private/research/wef/glt_foundation_pieces.html

Rebuilding the Planet as a Work of Art Foundation Pieces Quote Page
Concept	Context	Articles
Complexity and Chaos	Global issues that we face today are systemic by their very nature. These problems cannot be solved using traditional linear processes. As Ross Ashby articulated, complex, non-linear problems can only be solved using complex non-linear methods. quote 1 quote 2 quote 3	Learning for Free What is Chaos? Complexity and Real World Problems
Cycles
Models	At MG Taylor Corporation we refer to a model as a "slice of reality." A vantage point of perception. The Latin derivation, modulus is the diminutive of modus, which means measure, rhythm, harmony. So a model is a little measure, a little rhythm, a little harmony--a slice. Of these three terms, we're perhaps the most familiar with "measure", but the other two are more important to contemplate. We're used to building models to measure things--the effect of air pressure on the surface of a wing, or the profitability of a corporation. We may not be so comfortable with ferreting out models that divine the rhythm and harmony of the world around and in us. Or if we are, we confine those models to the realms of art, philosophy, essay, poetry. But the complexity of the world--even the corporate world--is too deep to be fathomed by measurements alone. Business is art and the Enterprise should call upon the qualities of rhythm and harmony inherent in art for assistance to lead it into the future.	Creating the Problem MG Taylor Axioms: A Model for Releasing Group Genius
Flocking Rules	'Flocking Rules' refer to simple rules which enable complex behavior. They are called 'flocking rules' because they have been used to understand the behavior of flocks of birds. "A collection of many particles all interacting according to simple, local rules can show behavior that is anything but simple or predictable." Collective behavior	Artificial Life: Boids of a Feather Flock Together Rules for "Flocking Behavior" in the Web The Nine Laws of God Calculating Swarms Transitions Still To Be Made A Question of Scale*
Paradigm	"A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline."
Patterns	quote 1 quote 2	A Website Devoted to Rebuilding the Earth The "Life" of a Carpet: An Application of the Alexander Rules
Rebuilding Planet Earth as a Work of Art	Planet Earth - if you like the idea or not - is a human artifact. It will always be a Human artifact because there is no going back - even restoration to a "natural" place is now a Human act. The critical question, then, is what kind of an artifact are we going to have? And, more importantly, how are we going to evolve it? It will be, without question, the sum of all the Human actions taken - or not taken - primarily over the next 25 years. We face one of the greatest opportunities - or disasters - in the history of our species. quote 1	ReBuilding Planet Earth as a Work of Art^ A Website Devoted to Rebuilding the Earth 'Earth System' Analysis and the Second Copernican Revolution* All Is Not Lost* Disextinction, Inc.* Taking Control* Group Urges Southwest Migration Corridors* Monkeys in the Back Garden* The End for Indonesia's Lowland Forests?*
Timescales	Humans living in modern societies typically have very short attention spans. We think in terms of days, months, or maybe a few years. This framing makes it impossible to solve the large systemic problem that we as a planet are now facing. Somehow we have to break-out of the short-term and start focusing on the long-term.	The Long Now Foundation The 10,000 Year Library The Clock Of The Long Now - A Talk With Stewart Brand Nature's Timescales*: Keeping Time Circadian Clocks The Challenge of Conservation Flashes in Femtoseconds Arrhythmias Does the Past Have a Future? Physics at the Plank Time The Speed of Computers Lifespan Extension
State Changes and Tipping Points	The tipping point is where the rules of the game suddenly change. Up until the tipping point is reached, each step, each advance comes slowly and at great cost. Once the tipping point is reached, however, change comes fast and furious. The tipping point is the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point. Metaphorically, the tipping point can be thought of similarly to an inflection point. The notion of the tipping point has been made popular by a recent book by Malcolm Gladwell.	The Big Picture The Tipping Point Exploring the Science of Change Viral Publishing Ebola. Smallpox. Christina Aguilera Transitions Still To Be Made
Trim Tabs	"Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary - the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there's a tiny thing on the edge of the rudder called a trim-tab. It's a miniature rudder. Just moving that little trim-tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trim-tab. Society thinks it's going right by you, that it's left you altogether. But if you're doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go. So I said, "Call me Trimtab." - R. Buckminster Fuller	R. Buckminister Fuller Institute
The Glass Bead Game (das Glasperlenspiel)	The Glass Bead Game offers a new way of reporting out individual and team stories. It assists in the creation of a new language and reminds us how connected, complex, and wonderful the world is. This language is highly visual -- it displays the relationships that are described in the content. It utilizes pattern and form; it employs organization and color; it expresses cognitive and symbolic content.	Herman Hesse and the Glass Bead Game Bodenheimer Gallery Glass Bead Game Biography
Miscellaneous interesting stuff that may be useful ...	May provide some useful context and information ...	World Database of Happiness PRAXIS - Resources for Social and Economic Development
* Subscription to journal/magazine required for access. ^ KnetWeb registration required.

Useful Starting Places for Building the Global Agenda 2010 Knowledge Base
Link	Context
World Resource Institute http://www.wri.org/	Lots of information on a variety of global issues, mostly focused around environmental issues. Climate, sustainability, health, etc.
OneWorld.net http://www.oneworld.net/	Good source of news stories that may be relevant.
Business for Social Responsibility http://www.bsr.org/	A potential source of information ... "Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) is a membership organization for companies seeking to sustain their commercial success in ways that demonstrate respect for ethical values, people, communities, and the environment."
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development http://www.oecd.org/	Looks to be a very good starting point for searches on topics of interest to the GLTs. Don't miss the links page.
OECD Observer http://www.oecdobserver.org/

top of the page

A sampling of articles from the iterations Knowledge Base (not yet categorized)

Added 010824

Agent Title	Agent Author	Agent Source	Keywords
Hidden Health Benefits of Greenhouse Gas Mitigation*	Luis Cifuentes et al.	Science	climate change, greenhouse, economics, health, pollution,

Added 010823

Agent Title	Agent Author	Agent Source	Keywords
Ebola. Smallpox. Christina Aguilera.	Ian Mount	Business 2.0	tipping points, viral marketing, state change, memes,
Exploring the Science of Change	Alex Carter	Focus - News from the Harvard Medical, Dental & Public Health Schools	tipping points, trends, state change, viral, memes,
Finding a Voice	Rachel Pruitt	Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures	story telling, myths, legends,
Global Commons Institute		Global Commons Institute	climate, greenhouse, commons, global,
How We Went Digital Without a Strategy	Ricardo Semler	Harvard Business Review	innovation, strategy, flocking rules, Semco, control,
Integrated Transport Planning in Curitiba, Brazil	M. L. Birk and P. C. Zegras	International Institute for Energy Conservation	architecture, design, building, urban, land use,
Money Versus Wealth	David C. Korten	Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures	money, wealth, economics, capital, commonwealth,
Picopeta Simputers	Alexandra Stikeman	Technology Review	digital divide, affordable computers, innovation,
Sustainable Planet: Will the Dance Go On?	Donald J. Johnston	OECD Observer	sustainable, economics, environment, OECD, vantage point,
The Big Picture	Danny Hillis	WIRED	evolution, state changes, communication, feedback, tipping points, computers,
The Cornucopia of the Commons	David Bollier	Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures	community, commons, commonwealth, open source, gardens, gift economy,
The Social Superorganism and its Global Brain		Principia Cybernetica Web	global brain, communication, organism, cybernetics,
Viral Publishing	Tom Ehrenfeld	The Industry Standard	tipping point, state change, viral, memes,
What’s Your Share?	Jim Merkel	Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures	commons, commonwealth, community

Added 010822

Agent Title	Agent Author	Agent Source	Keywords
A Question of Scale*	Tamas Vicsek	Nature	complexity, complex adaptive systems, collective, flocking rules
All Is Not Lost*	Scott Westerfeld	Nature	‘spoze, information bottleneck, biodiversity,
An Interview with David Brin, regarding "EON” - The Eye of the Needle Foundation	Brenda Cooper	Futurist.com	philanthropy, David Brin, EON,
Artificial Life: Boids of a Feather Flock Together	Shawn Carlson	Scientific American	flocking rules, boids, cyberbirds,
As Others Abandon Plains, Indians and Bison Come Back	Timothy Egan	The New York Times	prairie, environment, land use, development
Atmospheric Physics: Sky-high Asian Imports*	Heike Langenberg	Nature	tragedy of the commons, atmosphere, global, spaghetti plot,
Biodiversity Lovers, Unite	Steve Bunk	The Scientist	biodiversity, ecology, ecosystems, biocomplexity,
Blowing in the Wind*	Cheryl Hogue	C&E News	environment, climate change, global commons, air pollution,
Bright Sky, Dirty City?	Stephen Cole	Scientific American	meteorology, economics, atmospheric chemistry, aerosols, unintended consequences
Calculating Swarms	Ivars Peterson	Science News	AI, flocking rules, complexity, ants, metaphors, robots,
Calling the Tune	Fred Pearce	New Scientist	climate change, Kyoto Protocol, economics, environment, philosophy of science,
Cloned Chickens on the Menu	Andrea Graves	New Scientist	genomics, health, cloning,
Conservation Biology: Group Urges Southwest Migration Corridors*	Jocelyn Kaiser	Science	conservation biology, migration, Planet as a Work of Art, biodiversity,
Conservation: No Easy Answers for Biodiversity in Africa*	Gretchen Vogel	Science	biodiversity, Planet Earth as a Work of Art, conservation,
Disextinction, Inc.*	Kathryn Cramer	Nature	‘Spoze, genetics, biodiversity, extinction, biotechnology, cloning, zoo,
Earth Songs		Science@NASA	Gaia, Earth songs, VLF,
‘Earth System’ Analysis and the Second Copernican Revolution*	H. J. Schellnhuber	Nature	Earth System, Gaia, environment, planet as a work of art,
Ecological Forecasts*	Gretchen C. Daily	Nature	biodiversity, conservation, Planet as a Work of Art, biogeography, ecosystem services,
Environment vs. Genes	Arielle Emmett	The Scientist	genomics, biotechnology, genetics, health,
"EON” - The Eye of the Needle Foundation	David Brin	Futurist.com	philanthropy, EON, Solution Box,
Health Benefits From Greenhouse Gas Curbs	James Randerson	New Scientist	climate change, health, pollution, economics, greenhouse gases,
Human Cloning “Safer” Than Animal Cloning	Andy Coghlan	New Scientist	genomics, cloning, unintended consequences,
Inventory of Life	Ricki Lewis	The Scientist	biodiversity, database, All-Species Inventory,
Is the World Economic Forum a 20th Century Relic?	Frank Vogl	Earth Times	WEF, GLT, global issues,
Mobile Phone Translator Service Unveiled	Duncan Graham-Rowe	New Scientist	wireless, cell phone, translator, language,
Monkeys in the Back Garden*	Alison Jolly	Science	biodiversity, time scales, extinction,
On the Loose - Thousands of Mink Escape From Fur Farm in Spain	Reuters	ABC News	unintended consequences, environment, environmentalists, mink, ecosystem,
Policy Forum: Ecology International Ecosystem Assessment*	Edward Ayensu et al.	Science	environment, ecosystem, biodiversity, economics, assessment,
Speed		The Long Now Foundation	Long Now, time scales,
Storm Experts Make Clouds Vanish	Marina Murphy	New Scientist	climate, geoengineering, Planet as a Work of Art, weather, unintended consequences,
Taking Control*	Gregory Benford	Nature	time scales, engineering, geoengineering, ‘Spoze,
The 10,000 Year Library	Stewart Brand	KurtzweilAI.net	10,000 year library, Long Now, Stewart Brand,
The End for Indonesia’s Lowland Forests?*	Paul Jepson, James K. Jarvie, Kathy MacKinnon, Kathryn A. Monk	Science	biodiversity, rain forests, economics,
The Long Now		The Long Now Foundation	Long Now, time scales,
The Rosetta Project		The Long Now Foundation	linguistics, languages, diversity, archive, databases,
Timescales (A series of short essays)*		Nature	time, scenarios, conservation, biodiversity, past, computers, life extension, climate change, cosmos
Towards an Optimistic Future	Hardin Tibbs	Buckminister Fuller Institute	systemic issues, global context, normative scenarios, strategy, technology, values,
Towards an Optimistic Future: Using Normative Scenarios to Shape Global Strategy	Hardin Tibbs	Buckminister Fuller Institute	systemic issues, global context, normative scenarios,
Transitions Still To Be Made*	Philip Ball	Nature	complexity, self-organizing systems, flocking rules,
WRI Launches Online Market to Bridge Global Digital Divde		World Resources Institute	economics, environment, WRI, digital divide,
* Subscription to journal/magazine required for access.

... is not that the Gaia hypothesis is correct or incorrect. Its point, and Resnick's point, is that what we learn in math class has a powerful effect on which alternative views of the world we are able to listen to and which we cannot even hear. In particular, the old equational maths can make us tone deaf to behaviors that work simultaneously in parallel and to behavior for which history matters.

James Bailey, Afterthought

Ilya Prigogine, the Nobel Prize-winning pioneer of the study of self-organizing systems, has observed that a breakdown of progress is frequently an illusion. Under the shattered fragments new structures and processes ferment. And from these innovations come fresh orders whose wonders appear numberless. The new organisms had vastly increased their capacities as individual information processors. These advanced modules could be linked worldwide, the result would change the nature of the very game of life.

Howard Bloom, Global Brain, page 28, 2000

If science always insists that a new order must be immediately fruitful, or that it has some new predictive power, then creativity will be blocked. New thoughts generally arise with a play of the mind, and the failure to appreciate this is actually one of the major blocks to creativity. Thought is generally considered to be a sober and weighty business. But here it is being suggested that creative play is an essential element in forming new hypotheses and ideas. Indeed, thought which tries to avoid play is in fact playing false with itself. Play, it appears, is the very essence of thought.

David Bohm

In civilizations with long nows, says Brian Eno, "you feel a very strong but flexible structure . . . built to absorb shocks and in fact incorporate them." One can imagine how such a process evolves: All civilizations suffer shocks, yet only those that absorb the shocks survive. This still does not explain the mechanism however.

In recent years a few scientists (such as R.V. O'Neill and C.S. Holling) have been probing a similar issue in ecological systems: How do they manage change, and how do they absorb and incorporate shocks? The answer appears to lie in the relationship between components in a system that have different change rates and different scales of size. Instead of breaking under stress like something brittle these systems yield as if they were malleable. Some parts respond quickly to the shock, allowing slower parts to ignore the shock and maintain their steady duties of system continuity. The combination of fast and slow components makes the system resilient, along with the way the differently paced parts affect each other. Fast learns, slow remembers. Fast proposes, slow disposes. Fast is discontinuous, slow is continuous. Fast and small instructs slow and big by accrued innovation and occasional revolution. Slow and big controls small and fast by constraint and constancy. Fast gets all our attention, slow has all the power.

All durable dynamic systems have this sort of structure; it is what makes them adaptable and robust.

Stewart Brand, The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility, page 34 , 1999

Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big.

Daniel Burnham, Chicago Architect (1864-1912)

In the shift from mechanistic thinking to systems thinking, the relationship between the parts and the whole has been reversed. Cartesian science believed that in any complex system the behavior of the whole could be analyzed in terms of the properties of its parts. Systems science shows that living systems cannot be understood by analysis. The properties of the parts are not intrinsic properties but can be understood only within the context of the larger whole. Thus systems thinking is “contextual” thinking; and since explaining things in terms of their context means explaining them in terms of their environment, we can also say that all systems thinking is environmental thinking.

Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life, page 37

From the systems point of view, the understanding of life begins with the understanding of pattern.

Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life, page 80

I shall argue that the key to a comprehensive theory of living systems lies in the synthesis of those two very different approaches, the study of substance (or structure) and the study of form (or pattern). In the study of structure we measure and weigh things. Patterns, however, cannot be measured or weighed; they must be mapped. To understand a pattern we must map a configuration of relationships. In other words, structure involves quantities, while pattern involves qualities.

The study of pattern is crucial to the understanding of living systems because systemic properties, as we have seen, arise from a configuration of ordered relationships. Systemic properties are properties of a pattern. What is destroyed when a living organism is dissected is its pattern. The components are still there, but the configuration of relationships among them -- the pattern -- is destroyed, and thus the organism dies.

Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life, page 81

Whenever we encounter living systems -- organisms, parts of organisms, or communities of organisms -- we can observe that their components are arranged in network fashion. Whenever we look at life, we look at networks.

Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life, page 82

The Gaia theory, as well as the earlier work by Lynn Margulis in microbiology, have exposed the fallacy of the narrow Darwinian concept of adaptation. Throughout the living world evolution cannot be limited to the adaptation of organisms to their environment, because the environment itself is shaped by a network of living systems capable of adaptation and creativity. So, which adapts to which? Each to the other -- they coevolve. As James Lovelock put it:

So closely coupled is the evolution of living organisms with the evolution of their environment that together they constitute a single evolutionary process.

Thus our focus is shifting from evolution to coevolution -- an ongoing dance that proceeds through a subtle interplay of competition and cooperation, creation and mutual adaptation.

Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life, page 227

The conventional view is that information is somehow -- lying out there --to be picked up by the brain. However, such a piece of information is a quantity, name, or short statement that we have abstracted from a whole network of relationships, a context, in which it is embedded and which gives it meaning. Whenever such a -- fact --is embedded in a stable context that we encounter with great regularity, we can abstract it from that context, associate it with the meaning inherent in the context, and call it information. We are so used to these abstractions that we tend to believe that meaning resides in the pieces of information rather than in the context from which it has been abstracted.

Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life, page 272

The Anomaly of the Industrial Age Weath creation is the driver of all human civilizations; it propels everything else. All civilizations are built and rest on the wealth and wealth-creation paradigm and system of the period. The wealth-creation system is based on the current worldview, and the worldview is based on the latest science of the day. Built on this foundation are all of the social institutions of the period: work, family, spirituality, justice, government, education, commerce. These social institutions must be compatible with the wealth-creation paradigm and system of the era. As the wealth-creation system and paradigm change so too must all of the institutions.

. . . If (a serf) were transported to the year 2020 he would see the civilization of mass-privatization communities as very fitting with his values. Decentralized wealth creation replaces our entire bureaucracy-centered society with a family-centered society. It is a society where individual's needÑlearning, work, trade, social order, emotional growth, recreation, rest, and spiritualityÑare met, controlled, and facilitated locally through the family. It is a return to a more natural system of organization similiar to that of the Agricultural Age and the Hunter-Gatherer Age. For all human history, the family has been the institution through which we meet our needs. Only recently have we evolved to a system where each family member goes off to a different bereaucracy each day to have his or her unique needs met.

As historians 300 to 1,000 years into the future look back over all of human history they will likely see the Industrial Age as a period of abnormality, unlike anything before or after. . .

Barry C. Carter, Infinite Weath: A New World of Collaboration and Abundance in the Knowledge Era, 1999

In the market, language grew. Became boulder, more sophisticated. Leaped and sparked from mind to mind. Incited by curiosity and rapt attention, it took astounding risks that none had ever dared to contemplate, built whole civilizations from the ground up.

Markets are conversations. Trade routes pave the storylines. Across the millennia in between, the human voice is the music we have always listened for, and still best understand.

The Cluetrain Manifesto, 2000

Innovation is the interlocking thread of ideas, people and events woven into a web of knowledge and bingo -- we get today's world of business technology.

Collaborative Economics

We are living in an interminable succession of absurdities imposed by the myopic logic of short term thinking.

Jacques-Yves Cousteau

The new emerging industries, therefore, embody a new economic reality: Knowledge has become the central economic resource. The systematic acquisition of knowledge has replaced experience as the foundation for productive capacity and performance.

Peter Drucker, The Age of Discontinuity, 1968

The task decides, not the name, the age, or the budget of the discipline, or the rank of the individual applying for it. Knowledge, therefore, has to be organized as a team in which the task decides who is in charge, what, for what, and for how long.

Peter Drucker

Invisible College

But beyond formal organizational structures there are "invisible colleges" -- the loose aggregates of individuals scattered throughout the nation and the world who periodically communicate with one another. They are sociologists, architects, lawyers, doctors, teachers, and others whose avocation is "change" and how it might be effected. All are intimately involved in reality -- some participate quite actively in the affairs of an organization; others have removed themselves from decision-making by becoming advisers, consultants, or assistants. Their communications are via the telephone, the Xerox machine, and the jet. They meet, exchange information, ideas, theories, and concepts. Tied neither to time, place, nor position, they operate on many different levels at the same time. They are a link between industry and government, between the public and private sectors, between the federal, state, and city governments, between the governments and neighborhoods, between the money receivers, between the theorists and activists. Their value lies both in their access to information from many sources and their rapid dissemination and utilization of that data. Differing combinations of these agents of change may assemble for many purposes: to explore the possibilities of and to launch a New Town, to discuss a Watts and its implications for planning, or even to weigh the impact of systems technology upon forecasting. The long-range planner must connect informally with one or another level of these "invisible colleges" for the information developed and passed on in them is not of the typical census type, but part and parcel of the day-by-day reality of social systems and the people functioning within them. These planners are not dreamers. They have cultivated what Sir Geoffrey Vickers has called "the art of judgment" -- the process of making decisions in the present that dramatically affect the future. They are experts in combining and reforming data and information, in redefining the problem, and, most importantly, in causing others to feel they must do likewise. They achieve this by presenting additional information relative to the issues at hand in a way that convinces others. They are experienced in working imaginatively with performance standards that are not potentially multi-applicable. They have the ability to "feel" data. They have an appreciation of the implications of decisions and how they might affect a staff as well as tangential activities.

Leonard J. Duhl, General Systems Theory and Psychiatry, 1969, pp. 345

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not as in fiction, to imagine things that are not really there, but just to comprehend those things that are there.

Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law

Few laymen realized how tightly compartmentalized the scientific community had become, a battleship with bulkheads sealed against leaks. Biologists had enough to read without keeping up with the mathematics literature -- for that matter, molecular biologists had enough to read without keeping up with population biology. Physicists had better ways to spend their time than sifting through the meteorology journals. Some mathematicians would have been excited to see Lorenz's discovery; within a decade, physicists, astronomers, and biologists were seeking something just like it, and sometimes rediscovering it for themselves. But Lorenz was a meteorologist, and no one thought to look for chaos on page 130 of volume 20 of the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences.

James Gleick, Chaos, page 31

Each person, as life progresses, develops a set of high-level concepts that they tend to favor, and their perception is continually seeking to cast the world in terms of those concepts. The perceptual process is thus far from neutral or random, but rather it seeks, whenever possible, to employ high-level concepts that one is used to, that one believes in, that one is comfortable with, that are one's pet themes. If the current perception of a situation leads one into a state of cognitive dissonance, then one goes back and searches for a new way to perceive it. Thus the avoidance of mental discomfort -- the avoidance of cognitive dissonance -- constitutes a powerful internal force that helps to channeled the central loop in what amounts to a strongly goal-driven manner.

Douglas Hofstadter, Analogy As the Core of Cognition,
in The Best 2000: American Science Writing, page 137

My point is simple: we are prepared to see, and we see easily, things for which our language and culture hand us ready-made labels. When those labels are lacking, even though the phenomena may be all around us, we may quite easily fail to see them at all. The perceptual attractors [metaphors] that we each possess (some coming from without, some coming from within, some on the scale of mere words, some on a much grander scale) are the filters through which we scan and sort reality, and thereby they determine what we perceive on high and low levels.

Douglas Hofstadter, Analogy as the Core of Cognition,
in The Best 2000: American Science Writing, page 139

The distinguishing characteristic of networks is that they contain no clear center and no clear outside boundaries. Within a network everything is potentially equidistant from everything else. . . . The vital distinction between the self (us) and the nonself (them) -- once exemplified by the fierce loyalty of the organization man in the industrial era -- becomes less meaningful in a network economy. The only "inside" now is whether you are on the network or off. . . . Consultant John Hagel says, 'A web limits risk. It allows companies to make irreversible investments in the face of technological uncertainty. Companies with a web enjoy expanding sourcing and distribution options, while their fixed investment and skill requirements fall.'

Kevin Kelly, New Rules for the New Economy

The key premise is that the principles governing the world of the soft - the world of intangibles, of media, of software, and of services - will soon command the world of the hard. If you want to envision where the future of your industry will be, imagine it as a business built entirely around the soft. To stay ahead, you chiefly need to understand how the soft world works. The evidence everywhere indicates that the hard world is irreversibly softening. Therefore, one can gain a huge advantage simply by riding this conversion.

Kevin Kelly, New Rules for the New Economy

Where do good ideas come from? That's simple ... from differences. Creativity comes from unlikely juxtapositions. The best way to maximize differences is to mix ages, cultures and disciplines.

Nicolas Negroponte, founder of the MIT Media Lab

Western education predisposes us to think of knowledge in terms of factual information, information that can be structured and passed on through books, lectures, and programmed courses. Knowledge is seen as something that can be acquired and accumulated, rather like stocks and bonds. By contrast, within the Indigenous world the act of coming to know something involves a personal transformation. The knower and the known are indissolubly linked and changed in a fundamental way. Indigenous science can never be reduced to a catalogue of facts or a database in a supercomputer, for it is a dynamic and living process, an aspect of the ever-changing, ever-renewing processes of nature.

F. David Peat, Lighting the Seventh Fire

In assembling complexity the bounty of increasing returns is won by multiple tries over time. As various parts reorganize to a new whole, the system escapes to a higher order.

Illya Prigogine

We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.

The (Late) Monsignor Oscar Romero, El Salvador

The pressures for upscale consumption, and the work schedules that go along with it, created millions of exhausted, stressed-out people who started wondering if the cycle of work and spend was really worth it. And some concluded that it wasn't. So they started downshifting, reducing their hours of work and, in the process, earning and spending less money. Downshifters are opting out of excessive consumerism, choosing to have more leisure and balance in their schedules, a slower pace of life, more time with their kids, more meaningful work, and daily lives that line up squarely with their deepest values. These are not just fast-track yuppies leaving $200,000 jobs in Manhattan to settle in Montana, although there are plenty of those. Downshifters can be found at all income levels, from the comfortable suburbanites whose homes are paid for, to those who are counting every penny, resigned to the fact that they'll never own a home. Their jobs were leaving them drained, depressed, or wondering what life is all about. Now they may not have as much money, but they are spending every day answering that all-important question.

Juliet B. Schor, Social critic

12 WAYS TO SAVE THE WORLD

1. Promote the greening of the market system through such programs as "emissions trading."
2. Stop unnecessary and counterproductive subsidies for the water, transport, energy, and agriculture sectors.
3. Manage Earth and its resources as though it were a business.
4. Accelerate the transition to environmentally sound energy.
5. Close the knowledge gap between rich and poor countries and between science and policy makers.
6. Move away from foreign aid and support homegrown economic development.
7. Move to more flexible, incentive-based regulation.
8. Provide more effective trusteeship over the global commons, such as the oceans, the Antarctic, the high atmosphere, and outer space.
9. Prepare for natural disasters and extraterrestrial threats.
10. Rejoice in human diversity and encourage it.
11. Encourage lifestyles of "sophisticated modesty."
12. Learn from the lifestyles and self-reliance of people in enclave groups, such as monastic communities.

Maurice Strong, chairman of the UN's Earth Council

The world that will exist in 100 and 1,000 years will, unavoidably, be of human design, whether deliberate or haphazard.

David Tilman

Eventually the experience makers will form a basic, if not the basic, sector of the economy. We shall become the first culture in history to employ high technology to manufacture that most transient, yet lasting of products -- the human experience. Innovation in commercializing and commoditizing human experience will push faster toward the entire spectrum of what makes us experience who we are physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

Alvin Toffler

In our past exploration, the tradition was to discover something and then to formulate it into answers and solutions that could be widely transferred. But now we are on a journey of mutual and simultaneous exploration. In my view, all we can expect from one another is new and interesting information. We can not expect answers. Solutions, as quantum reality teaches, are a temporary event, specific to a context, developed through the relationship of persons and circumstances. There will be no more patrons, waiting expectantly for our return, just more and more explorers venturing out on their own.

This sounds unnerving -- I havenÕt stopped wanting someone, somewhere to return with the right answers. But I know that my hopes are old, based on a different universe. In this new world, you and I make it up as we go along, not because we lack expertise or planning skills, but because that is the nature of reality. Reality changes shape and meaning because of our activity. And it is constantly new. We are required to be there, as active participants. It canÕt happen without us and nobody can do it for us.

Meg Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science, 1993, page 150

Lewis Thomas explains that he could tell something important was going on in an experimental laboratory by the laughter. Surprised by what nature has revealed, we find that things at first always look startlingly funny. 'When ever you can hear laughter,' Thomas says, and somebody saying, 'But that's preposterous!' -- you can tell that things are going well and that something probably worth looking at has begun to happen in the lab.

Meg Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science, 1993

This is a strange world, and it promises to get stranger. Niels Bohr, who engaged with Heisenberg in those long, nighttime conversations that ended in despair, once said that great innovations, when they appear, seem muddled and strange. They are only half-understood by their discoverer and remain a mystery to everyone else. But if an idea does not appear bizarre, he counseled, there is no hope for it. So we must live with the strange and the bizarre, even as we climb stairs that we want to bring us to a clearer vantage point. Every step requires that we stay comfortable with uncertainty, and confident of confusionÕs role. After all is said and done, we will have to muddle our way through. But in the midst of muddle -- and I hope I remember this -- we can walk with a sure step. For those stairs we climb only take us deeper and deeper into a universe of inherent order.

Meg Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science, 1993

David Bohm, quantum physicist, stated that any theoretical science has four aspects. They are: insight, to perceive the structure of new ideas; imagination, which projects a mental image of the whole idea, not only as a visual image, but a feeling for it; reasoning, to work out the consequences logically; and finally, calculation, to get numbers that make possible precise tests with experiment.

Ultimately, of course, behind the technologies and the economies, we need to forge a culture of stewardship, where the highest calling is restoring the lands, protecting the seas, and informing the earth's stewards. Perhaps no one got it better than Tolkien through the words of Gandolf when he said, "The rule of no realm is mine. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are my care. And for my part, I shall not wholly fail in my task if anything that passes through this night can still grow fairer or bear fruit and flower again in days to come. For I too am a steward. Did you not know?"

Sunday, January 30, 2000

Friday, December 31, 1999

Economics School

AUSTRIAN -core bookmark here

What is Austrian Economics?
(essay in pdf)The Austrian School
The story of the Austrian School begins in the fifteenth century, when the followers of St. Thomas Aquinas, writing and teaching at the University of Salamanca in Spain, sought to explain the full range of human action and social organization.

These Late Scholastics observed the existence of economic law, inexorable forces of cause and effect that operate very much as other natural laws. Over the course of several generations, they discovered and explained the laws of supply and demand, the cause of inflation, the operation of foreign exchange rates, and the subjective nature of economic value--all reasons Joseph Schumpeter celebrated them as the first real economists.

The Late Scholastics were advocates of property rights and the freedom to contract and trade. They celebrated the contribution of business to society, while doggedly opposing taxes, price controls, and regulations that inhibited enterprise. As moral theologians, they urged governments to obey ethical strictures against theft and murder. And they lived up to Ludwig von Mises's rule: the first job of an economist is to tell governments what they cannot do.

The first general treatise on economics, Essay on the Nature of Commerce, was written in 1730 by Richard Cantillon, a man schooled in the scholastic tradition. Born in Ireland, he emigrated to France. He saw economics as an independent area of investigation, and explained the formation of prices using the "thought experiment." He understood the market as an entrepreneurial process, and held to an Austrian theory of money creation: that it enters the economy in a step-by-step fashion, disrupting prices along the way.

Cantillon was followed by Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, the pro-market French aristocrat and finance minister under the ancien regime. His economic writings were few but profound. His paper "Value and Money" spelled out the origins of money, and the nature of economic choice: that it reflects the subjective rankings of an individual's preferences. Turgot solved the famous diamond-water paradox that baffled later classical economists, articulated the law of diminishing returns, and criticized usury laws (a sticking point with the Late Scholastics). He favored a classical liberal approach to economic policy, recommending a repeal of all special privileges granted to government-connected industries.

Turgot was the intellectual father of a long line of great French economists of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, most prominently Jean Baptiste Say and Claude-Frederic Bastiat. Say was the first economist to think deeply about economic method. He realized that economics is not about the amassing of data, but rather about the verbal elucidation of universal facts (for example, wants are unlimited, means are scarce) and their logical implications.

Say discovered the productivity theory of resource pricing, the role of capital in the division of labor, and "Say's Law": there can never be sustained "overproduction" or "underconsumption" on the free market if prices are allowed to adjust. He was a defender of laissez-faire and the industrial revolution, as was Bastiat. As a free-market journalist, Bastiat also argued that nonmaterial services are subject to the same economic laws as material goods. In one of his many economic allegories, Bastiat spelled out the "broken-window fallacy" later popularized by Henry Hazlitt.

Despite the theoretical sophistication of this developing pre-Austrian tradition, the British school of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries won the day, mostly for political reasons. This British tradition (based on the objective-cost and labor-productivity theory of value) ultimately led to the rise of the Marxist doctrine of capitalist exploitation.

The dominant British tradition received its first serious challenge in many years when Carl Menger's Principles of Economics was published in 1871. Menger, the founder of the Austrian School proper, resurrected the Scholastic-French approach to economics, and put it on firmer ground.

Together with the contemporaneous writings of Leon Walras and Stanley Jevons, Menger spelled out the subjective basis of economic value, and fully explained, for the first time, the theory of marginal utility (the greater the number of units of a good that an individual possesses, the less he will value any given unit). In addition, Menger showed how money originates in a free market when the most marketable commodity is desired, not for consumption, but for use in trading for other goods.

Menger's book was a pillar of the "marginalist revolution" in the history of economic science. When Mises said it "made an economist" out of him, he was not only referring to Menger's theory of money and prices, but also his approach to the discipline itself. Like his predecessors in the tradition, Menger was a classical liberal and methodological individualist, viewing economics as the science of individual choice. His Investigations, which came out twelve years later, battled the German Historical School, which rejected theory and saw economics as the accumulation of data in service of the state.

As professor of economics at the University of Vienna, and then tutor to the young but ill-fated Crown Prince Rudolf of the House of Habsburg, Menger restored economics as the science of human action based on deductive logic, and prepared the way for later theorists to counter the influence of socialist thought. Indeed, his student Friederich von Wieser strongly influenced Friedrich von Hayek's later writings. Menger's work remains an excellent introduction to the economic way of thinking. At some level, every Austrian since has seen himself as a student of Menger.

Menger's admirer and follower at the University of Innsbruck, Eugen von Boehm-Bawerk, took Menger's exposition, reformulated it, and applied it to a host of new problems involving value, price, capital, and interest. His History and Critique of Interest Theories, appearing in 1884, is a sweeping account of fallacies in the history of thought and a firm defense of the idea that the interest rate is not an artificial construct but an inherent part of the market. It reflects the universal fact of "time preference," the tendency of people to prefer satisfaction of wants sooner rather than later (a theory later expanded and defended by Frank Fetter).

Boehm-Bawerk's Positive Theory of Capital demonstrated that the normal rate of business profit is the interest rate. Capitalists save money, pay laborers, and wait until the final product is sold to receive profit. In addition, he demonstrated that capital is not homogeneous but an intricate and diverse structure that has a time dimension. A growing economy is not just a consequence of increased capital investment, but also of longer and longer processes of production.

Boehm-Bawerk engaged in a prolonged battle with the Marxists over the exploitation theory of capital, and refuted the socialist doctrine of capital and wages long before the communists came to power in Russia. Boehm-Bawerk also conducted a seminar that would later become the model for Mises's own Vienna seminar.

Boehm-Bawerk favored policies that deferred to the ever-present reality of economic law. He regarded interventionism as an attack on market economic forces that cannot succeed in the long run. In the last years of the Habsburg monarchy, he three times served as finance minister, fighting for balanced budgets, sound money and the gold standard, free trade, and the repeal of export subsidies and other monopoly privileges.

It was his research and writing that solidified the status of the Austrian School as a unified way of looking at economic problems, and set the stage for the School to make huge inroads in the English-speaking world. But one area where Boehm-Bawerk had not elaborated on the analysis of Menger was money, the institutional intersection of the "micro" and "macro" approach. A young Mises, economic advisor to the Austrian Chamber of Commerce, took on the challenge.

The result of Mises's research was The Theory of Money and Credit, published in 1912. He spelled out how the theory of marginal utility applies to money, and laid out his "regression theorem," showing that money not only originates in the market, but must always do so. Drawing on the British Currency School, Knut Wicksell's theory of interest rates, and Boehm-Bawerk's theory of the structure of production, Mises presented the broad outline of the Austrian theory of the business cycle. A year later, Mises was appointed to the faculty of the University of Vienna, and Boehm-Bawerk's seminar spent a full two semesters debating Mises's book.

Mises's career was interrupted for four years by World War I. He spent three of those years as an artillery officer, and one as a staff officer in economic intelligence. At war's end, he published Nation, State, and Economy (1919), arguing on behalf of the economic and cultural freedoms of minorities in the now-shattered empire, and spelling out a theory of the economics of war. Meanwhile, Mises's monetary theory received attention in the U.S. through the work of Benjamin M. Anderson, Jr., an economist at Chase National Bank. (Mises's book was panned by John Maynard Keynes, who later admitted he could not read German.)

In the political chaos after the war, the main theoretician of the now-socialist Austrian government was Marxist Otto Bauer. Knowing Bauer from the Boehm-Bawerk seminar, Mises explained economics to him night after night, eventually convincing him to back away from Bolshevik-style policies. The Austrian socialists never forgave Mises for this, waging war against him in academic politics and successfully preventing him from getting a paid professorship at the university.

Undeterred, Mises turned to the problem of socialism itself, writing a blockbuster essay in 1921, which he turned into the book Socialism over the next two years. Socialism permits no private property or exchange in capital goods, and thus no way for resources to find their most highly valued use. Socialism, Mises predicted, would result in utter chaos and the end of civilization.

Mises challenged the socialists to explain, in economic terms, precisely how their system would work, a task which the socialists had heretofore avoided. The debate between the Austrians and the socialists continued for the next decade and beyond, and, until the collapse of world socialism in 1989, academics had long thought that the debate was resolved in favor of the socialists.

Meanwhile, Mises's arguments on behalf of the free market attracted a group of converts from the socialist cause, including Hayek, Wilhelm Roepke, and Lionel Robbins. Mises began holding a private seminar in his offices at the Chamber of Commerce that was attended by Fritz Machlup, Oskar Morgenstern, Gottfried von Haberler, Alfred Schutz, Richard von Strigl, Eric Voegelin, Paul Rosenstein-Rodan, and many other intellectuals from all over Europe.

Also during the 1920s and 30s, Mises was battling on two other academic fronts. He delivered the decisive blow to the German Historical School with a series of essays in defense of the deductive method in economics, which he would later call praxeology or the logic of action. He also founded the Austrian Institute for Business Cycle Research, and put his student Hayek in charge of it.

During these years, Hayek and Mises authored many studies on the business cycle, warned of the danger of credit expansion, and predicted the coming currency crisis. This work was cited by the Nobel Prize committee in 1974 when Hayek received the award for economics. Working in England and America, Hayek later became a prime opponent of Keynesian economics with books on exchange rates, capital theory, and monetary reform. His popular book Road to Serfdom helped revive the classical liberal movement in America after the New Deal and World War II. And his series Law, Legislation, and Liberty elaborated on the Late Scholastic approach to law, and applied it to criticize egalitarianism and nostrums like social justice.

In the late 1930s, after suffering from the worldwide depression, Austria was threatened by a Nazi takeover. Hayek had already left for London in 1931 at Mises's urging, and in 1934, Mises himself moved to Geneva to teach and write at the International Institute for Graduate Studies, later emigrating to the United States. Knowing Mises as the sworn enemy of national socialism, the Nazis confiscated Mises's papers from his apartment and hid them for the duration of the war. Ironically, it was Mises's ideas, filtered through the work of Roepke and the statesmanship of Ludwig Erhard, that led to Germany's postwar economic reforms and rebuilt the country. Then, in 1992, Austrian archivists discovered Mises's stolen Vienna papers in a reopened archive in Moscow.

While in Geneva, Mises's wrote his masterwork, Nationalokonomie, and, after coming to the United States, revised and expanded it into Human Action, which appeared in 1949. His student Murray N. Rothbard called it "Mises's greatest achievement and one of the finest products of the human mind in our century. It is economics made whole." The appearance of this work was the hinge of the whole history of the Austrian School, and it remains the economic treatise that defines the School. Even so, it was not well received in the economics profession, which had already made a decisive turn towards Keynesian.

Though Mises never held the paid academic post he deserved, he gathered students around him at New York University, just as he had in Vienna. Even before Mises emigrated, journalist Henry Hazlitt had become his most prominent champion, reviewing his books in the New York Times and Newsweek, and popularizing his ideas in such classics as Economics in One Lesson. Yet Hazlitt made his own contributions to the Austrian School. He wrote a line-by-line critique of Keynes's General Theory, defended the writings of Say, and restored him to a central place in Austrian macroeconomic theory. Hazlitt followed Mises's example of intransigent adherence to principle, and as a result was pushed out of four high-profile positions in the journalistic world.

Mises's New York seminar continued until two years before his death in 1973. During those years, Rothbard was his student. Indeed, Rothbard's Man, Economy, and State (1963) was patterned after Human Action, and in some areas--monopoly theory, utility and welfare, and the theory of the state--tightened and strengthened Mises's own views. Rothbard's approach to the Austrian School followed directly in the line of Late Scholastic thought by applying economic science within a framework of a natural-rights theory of property. What resulted was a full-fledged defense of a capitalistic and stateless social order, based on property and freedom of association and contract.

Rothbard followed his economic treatise with an investigation of the great depression, which applied Austrian business cycle theory to show that the stock market crash and economic downturn was attributable to a prior bank credit expansion. Then in a series of studies on government policy, he established the theoretical framework for examining the effects of all types of intervention in the market.

In his later years, Mises saw the beginnings of the revival of the Austrian School that dates from the appearance of Man, Economy, and State and continues to this day. It was Rothbard who firmly established the Austrian School and classical liberal doctrine in the U.S., especially with Conceived in Liberty, his four-volume history of colonial America and the secession from Britain. The reunion of natural-rights theory and the Austrian School came in his philosophical work, The Ethics of Liberty, all while he was writing a series of scholarly economic pieces gathered in the two-volume Logic of Action, published in Edward Elgar's "Economists of the Century" series.

These seminal works serve as the crucial link between the Mises-Hayek generation and the Austrians now working to expand the tradition. Indeed, without Rothbard's willingness to defy the intellectual trends of his time, progress in the Austrian School tradition might have come to a halt. As it was, his wide and deep scholarship, cheerful personality, encyclopedic knowledge, and optimistic outlook inspired countless students to turn their attention to the cause of liberty.

Though Austrians are now in a more prominent position than at any point since the 1930s, Rothbard, like Mises before him, was not well treated by academia. Although he held a chair in his later years at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, he never taught in a capacity that permitted him to direct dissertations. Nonetheless, he managed to recruit a large, active, and interdisciplinary following for the Austrian School.

The founding of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in 1982, with the aid of Margit von Mises as well as Hayek and Hazlitt, provided a range of new opportunities for both Rothbard and the Austrian School. Through a steady stream of academic conferences, instructional seminars, books, monographs, newsletters, studies, and even films, Rothbard and the Mises Institute carried the Austrian School forward into the post-socialist age.

The first issue of the Rothbard-edited Review of Austrian Economics appeared in 1987, became a semiannual in 1991, and becomes a quarterly in 1998, The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics. The Mises Institute's instructional summer school has been held every year since 1984. For many of these years, Rothbard presented his research into the history of economic thought. This culminated in his two-volume An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, which broadens the history of the discipline to encompass centuries of writing.

Through the Mises Institute's student fellowships, study guides, bibliographies, and conferences, the Austrian School has permeated, at some level, virtually every department of economics and the social sciences in America, and in many foreign countries as well. The annual Austrian Scholars Conference at Auburn University attracts scholars from around the world to discuss, debate, and apply the entire Austrian tradition.

The fascinating history of this great body of thought, through all its ebbs and flows, is the story of how great minds can advance science and oppose evil with creativity and courage. Now the Austrian School enters a new millennium as the intellectual standard bearer for the free society. That it does so is thanks to the heroic and brilliant minds that make up the family history of the School, and to those who are carrying that legacy forward with the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

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All subjects covered here are discussed in greater detail in the massive literature of the Austrian School. The Study Guide is a good beginning. The catalog also features a foundational library.

Thursday, December 30, 1999

Economics Schools

Economics of Learning

It seems to us this is the most vital missing map that all 21st Century meings will need to cross-culturally connect. A huge search which we can offer a selection of opening lenses to, but would rather hear of yours because no single lens can be as powerful for opening up the greatest futures humanity is capable of as cultural resolution by and for all of us.

When you google economics of learning you get this

Macraes have taken a deep dip into learnings wave each decade as shown in the table below. The book we most admire at the moment as reflecting the sort of passion for inquiry we'd love to see every child connected through by practising how to evolve up through the grades of internet co-mentoring, as well as traditional real modes summarises today's crisis like this (we've also assumed you've read -or as a goodwilled netizen already intuit - the child's summary of being loosely connected on the web by David Weinberger)

LEARNING Networks & Open Mentors: History's newest revolution:1974-1984-2004-2024Sample Eight main beliefs of one of most inspiring books around in 2004:
1. The world is hurtling through a fundamental turning point in history.
2. We are living through a revolution that is changing the way we live, communicate, think and prosper.
3. This revolution will determine how, and if, we and our children work, earn a living and enjoy life to the fullest.
4. For the first time in history, almost anything is now possible.
5. Probably not more than one person in five knows how to benefit fully from the hurricane of change - even in developed countries.
6. Unless we find answers, an elite 20 percent could end up with 60 percent of each nation's income, the poorest fifth with only 2 percent.1 That is a formula for guaranteed poverty, school failure, crime, drugs, despair, violence and social eruption.
7. We need a parallel revolution in lifelong learning to match the information revolution, and for all to share the fruits of an age of potential plenty.
8. Fortunately, that revolution - a revolution that can help each of us learn anything much faster and better - is also gathering speed.

Norman Macrae- after 25 years of reading readers responses to 1000 leaders written for The Economist, produced the 1976 survey Entrepreneurial Revolution, which celebrates its 30th birthday party of dialogue networks in 2006

After earning his postgraduate diploma in mathematical statistics at the University of Cambridge, works as a development officer in the UK's National Development programe for Computer Assisted Learning. This involves constructing blog-like exercise modules and noting what sequential patterns students of different levels of understanding pass through them in