The Real New Enterprise? Capitalism 2.0!

February 20, 2011 at 10:39 am · Filed under Capitalism 2.0, Emergence, Emergent, Enterprise 2.0, Organizational Design, Peak Oil

Much of our discourse about the New Enterprise seems to use the premise that our traditional business organizations will be transformed.  I am beginning to doubt that. But I think that there is a new Enterprise but that it will look more like that I propose in this post.

All the news about employment remains bad. Will the jobs ever come back? I don’t think so. Business as we know it makes less and less and in reality offers fewer roles and jobs that have any meaning or that can pay todays bills. Business  as we know it has no capacity to offer most people what they need.

I think that the real new economy is going to emerge out of desperation and out of this failure.

Here are some trends that we should watch out for. They are all  linked into the great Trinity of real needs – Food – Shelter and Surplus

Hyper Local Food - If you have no money, food becomes very important. The Food Bank model takes us no where – it relies on charity – offers shit food and does not add any impetus to the lack of work or role. People are doing better than this by making the growing of food the centre piece. Here is an example. We see already in the worst hit cities like Detroit, that people are starting to grow their own food amidst the ruins of the city. And its not just that food is grown but that real community is created. People who grow food together and then share it return to the society of our hunter gatherer past. They become Tribes. With this Trust comes the potential to do more.

Cheap Land and Real Estate – As many areas become blighted, the land and the space becomes very cheap. Offering the opportunity to get the second part of the  trinity. In the old model, people would have to pay others to make shelter or working space. But if enough Trust is created by say starting with co growing and sharing food, then “Barn Building” is possible. The “Tribes can help the members have shelter or work space. The capital that is required is less financial capital but social capital.

Surplus – But we still all need money or some way of exchanging value outside the Tribe. This is where the social web comes in. There can be a surplus of food that can be sold locally. Inner Detroit is a food desert. There are only corner stores. This is true for many urban areas. The food operation can scale and can also network with others offering in the end large scale. 1,000 mini farms in a large city can produce a very large amount of food collectively. Enough to feed most people. A real surplus is possible. Those who start to grow food to feed themselves will make a good living feeding other. With this surplus and with their social capital all sorts of new ventures then becomes possible. For the capital costs of business in this context are very low. Anything will soon be able to be made locally with very little capital. This trend is most visible in the media now. Did you know that True Grit was edited by the Coen brothers on Final Cut Pro,? The technology is here right now that can empower a small hyper local group to go even into manufacturing. Here I see the idea like Fab Labs coming into prominence. For about $25,000 a community can equip itself to make almost anything. As with a network of tiny farms, a network of tiny shops can build on a large scale. This was how in fact Germany kept its war production growing throughout WWII. To avoid bombing, all aircraft production was dispersed into small shops and the parts were assembled at the bases!

Again as with food – the social web connects all of this. Producers to Buyers – Suppliers to producers – Producers to Producers. In a network  the nodes are small, but the network and so the output and the opportunity can be vast. In the old, we all depend on the MAN. In the network we are all the man. No one is going to move your urban farm to Iowa or your Fab Lab to China.

Food is the starting point I think. We all need it and if we go down this road we re-invent society. Food offers us the core of what we need and growing it and sharing it creates a real tribe. For a food model like this brings us all back together where as the old model splits us all up.

So with this wealth model come also wealth distribution. A new better form of capitalism. Capitalism 2.0?

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There’s Only Now

February 1, 2010 at 2:56 pm · Filed under 2.0 Business Model, 2.0 Design Thinking, Change, Emergence

As I began writing this, I started to wonder if an alternate title for this should be, “Stop Looking for ‘Done’”.

These reflections are a direct result of a challenge from renowned-for-his-email-shunning-antics, Luis Suarez (@elsua). But oddly, there was already a lot of reflecting and projecting of this topic. There are fundamental computing principles and possibilities introduced to the industry over 40 years ago that are currently being revisited for relevance (thx @roundtrip and others), and have been the inspiration for some of the best E2.0 solutions. All of which caused me to recently reflect (apologies to Doug for misspelling Engelbart):

We’ve been at this stuff for a long time, and yet while lots of ‘new’ stuff has come and gone, those of us who’ve been around the block for most of this, wonder if we’ve really accomplished all that much as we continue to circle the block over and over again. At least a group of students from BYU have found ways to make going in circles productive, a byproduct of having fun.

Trying to honor Luis’ specific challenge to me “I sense designing a new Web will have direct implications for every business and for every society we are part of”. Adding to that challenge a 20-year horizon, I have to consider the evidence that it’s taken us 40 years to achieve much of what Engelbart described and the 2.0 realm is just beginning to address some of the subtle intentions.

I’m taking a step up on my soap box to insist that we need more designing and less decorating. I am so sick of ‘innovation’ being used as the false god of the deathmarch to profits: increasing sales by creating yet another ‘new’ product that everyone “just has to buy’, even though they already have one.

I’ve been using a particular word processing program for 25 years and was recounting last night that I can hardly use the latest version — key familiar functions are lost-in-action among the unfamiliar. Something as fundamental as word processing has the potential for what sort of negative impact on our overall productivity?

Look, if we were talking about soap (consumables) that would be one thing — I finish a bar of soap, it’s gone, I have to buy a new one to replace it. Software is NOT a consumable (well, unless you consider the flip of the equation — how much it consumes in its path with each new version,  taking up more and more memory and raw storage in its aftermath — but that’s a soap box of another color).

We’re really bad at design because we don’t architect well. If we did, we could leave the infrastructure alone (except as needed), and keep updating the fixtures and decor — but not for purposes of ‘fashion’ (although occasionally relevant), but for ‘function’.

We’re really bad at leveraging existing resources and seem to want to design for 5 years out, when it’s been proven over and over again, that when the 5 years come, what we thought was relevant isn’t any more. We need to design for NOW, and just do that really, really well, as simply as possible.

The problem is that there seems to be some confusion over “as simply as possible”. While insisting that it’s an architectural challenge, I’m beginning to think it’s due to a different set of P’s: power, pride and pomposity. I’ve experienced/witnessed countless situations where a design was going down a meaningful path, it has  been derailed by someone wielding one of these to insert their own individual mark. It’s kinda like the annoying male cat who keeps insisting on marking his territory — only in places where it doesn’t make sense, like, inside your house.

The greatest reality that the 2.0 era has embraced is that there’s no such thing as ‘done’. The only ‘done’ in life is ‘dead’ (and that’s just a phase/state transition). We need to get little things done better and stop chasing more things.

We erroneously think we need to move faster or change tracks. In reality there are so many tracks crossing ours that we should be heeding the well-known adage, learned as a child: stop, look, listen. We think we can’t stop — and then a tsunami comes or a market collapses, and stops it all for us. We chase around ‘outside the box’ and get nowhere relevant or important in the grand scheme of things — we waste all sorts of real human lives and potential in the meantime when we could be using what’s already in the box (like a merry-go-round) to solve world hunger and make a real difference in people’s lives.

The connectedness of 2.0 tools that now allow for continuous ‘now’ conversations landed this relevant thought from Alan Watts (thx @rickladd):

If, then, my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world.

We need to add “no” to our vocabulary. You want a mind-bender for the day? Go consider why it is so significant that toddlers all seem to naturally have a ‘no’ phase that they go through. We’re there.

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Twitter Lists – 1st Insight?

October 31, 2009 at 9:31 am · Filed under Emergence, Event Announcements, Twitter

What might be a outcome of Twitter Lists? I think it may be a step nearer to “Emergence” in some key areas.

This slide shows what happens to children’s language as they approach Emergence in the 3rd picture on the right.

I think our use of Twitter can track this trajectory. At first it was me and a few friends that I knew from my face to face or blogging life prior to Twitter.

Then in the last 3 years, I have added a few more friends from the Twitterverse. These in my case have come mainly from Pub Media and from the Bryant Park Gang that Morphed into the Planet Money Gang.

I exclude myself from the many who merely add thousands of folks indiscriminately. I have added several hundred of these but I find that only 1 or 2 have been people that I have learned to care about or interacted with in a good way. The Dunbar number is not a nice to have but a Rule!

What I have immediately seen from the new lists that are emerging around the two and related areas of my interest – the PM/BPP Gang and Pub Media – is that I have some real gaps. Those that created the lists whom I like care for and admire have people that I don’t know and who don’t know me.

But it is highly probable that we will get on – your friend is my friend!

So we move toward phase 3. When we get a critical mass of Trust – Affection – Attraction then don’t we get close to “Emergence” being possible?

Andy Carvin’s NPR News List would surely make an incredible starting point for more experiment – now add to it his Pub Camp list and you have the 300 Spartans!

This then is power.

A large, talented and also diverse group that has a large bond of trust.

Such a group can surely take on the “Persians” of our time?

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A Children’s Party Plan – What do you do? Emergence

October 28, 2009 at 6:37 am · Filed under Emergence

Here is the brilliant Dave Snowden in less than 5 minutes nailing a better way – as I heard the “Normal” way we plan I had to cringe – did you?

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Emergence Part 2 – What might be the container & rules for humans?

October 2, 2009 at 9:16 am · Filed under Emergence

First of all – if the concept of Emergence is new for you – that extremely complex outcomes such as life itself, flocking by birds or winning the Netflix Prize – are not the product of a God, a Plan, a CEO but emerge from a Container (An optimal environment for that growth) and a simple Set of Rules – then here is a great short video from Nova that in 4 minutes will give you a sound introduction.

In my first post in this series I proposed that if we use the ideas of Emergence we might find the larger opportunity in Social Software – that it may help us solve many of our intractable problems.

That Social Software – if used properly – might have the same explosive impact on human society and our connection to the rest of the planet that the acquisition of complex language did 60,000 years ago.

If you are still with me – let’s remind ourselves of what drives emergence generally and then see if we can find the model for humans and then how Social Media may fit. What would using Social Software “Properly” mean?

To have Emergence you need 3 elements:

• You need some kind of “Container” - An Environment that is optimal for the Emergence in question. This can be physical such as the ideal environment for an Acorn to reach its potential as a tree Or it can be physical and energetic such as the physical and the social environment needed for a baby to be set on her way to reach her potential.

• You need a lot of “Optimal Contact Points“ – Emergence is all about patterns. To have patterns you need many points of connection. Computers are not able to become conscious because they don’t have enough synaptic connections. They have a few hundred – the human brain has billions. A Human with too small a social world cannot reach her potential. 3 birds cannot make a flock. A few breezes don’t make a hurricane. A few stars do not make a galaxy. No flow in water and you cannot have a vortex. When man had no complex language, he could not communicate widely enough to make much technical progress. He could not create patterns. A father might show his son how to carve a hand ax but an emergent breakthrough like a throwing stick or a bow and arrow would be beyond them. For without complex language enabling abstractions and enabling a large circle of participants the creation of patterns – abstract thinking and design cannot happen. For then, if it could not be seen and copied it could not happen

• You need a few rules that both shape the pattern and also keep it coherent. As we learn more about complexity, we are astounded by how few the rules are and how often they are so simple. With computers it is easy to model bird flocking now. But, to get the pattern, we also need the process of iteration and we need a computer to do the math. But to model, we need to know the rules. Nature always has rules. Nature’s rules always have a mathematical base. We now know the rules of Electro Magnetism. There will be rules for Social Energy as well. They will be few. They will be fractal. They will need to be iterated. This is not Kumbya – there will be a science here.

So can we posit what the essence of these 3 requirements may be to offer us a chance of seeing the true workings and the real potential for Social Software? I think we can. In this remaining part of this post, I will point directionally to where I see the answers. In the next post I am going to speculate about the details.

So stripped back to the essentials I think that we can see the Container and the Connections in the following single picture. This model is from BreakOuttheBox

I see this as a “Sun”. I think that the “Container” is the Circle of Concern. Inside the Container is the “Mass” the boiling energy of the interactions of people that are connected around the Circle of Concern or as I think it is better put – The Intent. Not its mission – its Intent – it should move naturally and energetically to the Intent.

So what then is the energy that shines out of the container and grips the hearts and minds of the people?

There is surely a gradient here. Cubs fans are energized by their team. Employees of a well know brand enjoy being connected to it.  But would they die for it?

Many parents will die for their kids. Men in combat will die for their small circle of mates.

So if this is the gradient, is there a sweet spot?

I think that there must be.  I suspect that most of us want more than to work for shareholder value or for the abstraction of a bureaucracy. We long for a real cause. I suspect that many of us are sports fans because we long to belong to a cause that is larger than ourselves but cannot find it in our day to day life.

Does our past and our nature offer us a clue for the rule here?

In tribal times there was no separation between work and life and play. There was no separation between family and work. There was no separation between the people involved and the collective reward.

But today we are so splintered. Only parts of us parent, partner, work, play. Our energy is fragmented.

My bet is that the ideal is to re-align most of us back as a whole. For example, in the really depressed cities in America such as Cleveland or Detroit, all could get together to “Re-invent” their city to provide all with a livelihood and a future.

The answer to the ideal Intent or Circle of Concern is that it will include most of our total needs and our identity. It will help us align our energy more fully.

A great sun has also to have Mass. So what might this be in human and social terms? What is the Circle of Influence?

We can see this in two simple examples. A single mum or a single acorn has a very slim chance. They don’t have enough mass. A Tribal Family and an Oak Forest do have the optimal mass. They offer a very good chance of continuing life and expanding complexity – emergence.

But while the container has to have some scale and mass, in human terms, the scale has to be made up in fractal segments that are still small enough to keep the human connections viable. Healthy cities are really collections of villages or neighborhoods. Prison and large high schools are not healthy because they don’t have human scale subsets. Most traditional organizations are not healthy because they are not made up of tribes and or neighborhoods. Departments are not tribes!

Also there must be diversity. An oak forest is made up of many living things – it is the opposite of a monoculture. In Permaculture, no plant is planted on its own. They are planted in “Guilds” – natural diverse groupings that support each other in complex ways – adding nutrients – keeping predators away etc. Permaculture is an intentional way of replicating the optimal design of nature.

So following this rule, a modern family – 2 parents or less and children is not diverse enough to offer the kids a broad enough world view. School is often a monoculture as are most workplaces. Diversity in not about race or disability etc. We have got distracted by our post modern view of the world. Human diversity is about world view and POV.  Are you out going or shy? Are you a natural Early Adopter or maybe even a Laggard? Are you an ideas person or a pragmatist? Are you a warrior of a nurturer? This is our true diversity. A healthy group contains all of these types.

For Emergence depends on the synthesis of difference. As we all know, connecting a lot of this kind of difference productively is a major major challenge. I will have a lot to say about how we might do this in the next post for this is an area where we need more than good intentions. We need good process.

So the Mass part of the human ideal container needs an ideal scale for humans and it needs the maximum world view diversity.

Bottom line – the ideal Container has an Intent that can fulfill most of what we need to make us whole as a person. The ideal Mass inside the Container is a network of fractal units of people that are very diverse but united by the Intent and are highly connected. Like a brain!

In the last post in this series, I will share with you work that helps us know what the rules are for the ideal human fractal components will be and also how to make connections that work across the barriers of human diversity.

What is the ideal scale of influence? What will naturally help say the warrior, the geek and the nurturer connect productively?

Part 3 – The Rules and the Emerging Science

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